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Tango

Drought [D4V // 3 maps // RC 2 10/6]

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Beat it on Nightmare (D4V's UV) with pistol starts and got all the secrets; even regardless of D4V alterations this plays like Scythe 2. This was also my first time using D4V, which i honestly don't know what to think about: pinkies and revenants are erraticly fast, arch-vile actually plays some other crazy game rather than doom, and baron of hell is a #1 monster to cheese if possible. On that note i think the mod wouldn't work as well with exploration style maps, so i think it's gameplay mechanics utilised rather good in the set. Visually i dig that there are a few nods to darkening2 style bases, but moreover that map03 huge mass of foliage got me thinking of organic visuals in forests of Tomb Raider 3. Very atmospheric and spectacular map, but a tad easier than two previous ones.

 

Spoiler

Also appreciate the antention to ambiance of the set, that being map04. Gorgeous textures. 

 

Edited by JDR

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OH YEAH!
Thank you very much for making these beautiful maps! I will give a better feedback after I finish it.
 

On 10/5/2019 at 5:11 PM, Tango said:

Should work in any limit removing port - tested in PrBoom+ and GZDoom, might be bugs in other ports still. Truecolor / hardware rendering recommended, if only for the sake of color quality in MAP03


Keep in mind the truecolor software-mode will remove all the brightmaps for enemies\items\etc.
I gave a quick look with the regular render and I couldn't find anything wrong, There is any oddity with it?

Edited by Noiser

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2 hours ago, JDR said:

Beat it on Nightmare (D4V's UV)

 

whoops I forgot about D4V renaming the difficulties - I'll probably patch that out in the next update to reduce confusion. really appreciate all the feedback JDR :D if yall are finding map03 a bit easier then I might go back and amp it up some on the highest difficulty, but I'll think on that one a bit.

 

2 hours ago, JDR said:

pinkies and revenants are erraticly fast, arch-vile actually plays some other crazy game rather than doom, and baron of hell is a #1 monster to cheese if possible

 

once I started mapping I did start finding it really difficult to use monsters in the same way I'm used to, mostly because of the speed adjustments you mention. hell knights, barons, and demons all take space extremely quickly and can corner you in an instant, so I had to be very careful about not using those monsters in the quantities I'm used to. I will happily take the comparison to Scythe 2 gameplay though haha. I tried to be very conscious to not include so many arena setups as I did in Paradise and generally keep gameplay a bit more 'loose', but my struggles with some parts of the bestiary also made it harder to make the kinds of gameplay setups I usually aim for anyway. I'm glad you appreciated map04 :D

 

@Noiser thanks so much :D I'm excited to see what the next update has!! regarding the rendering, I make that recommendation because the software colormap doesn't handle the oranges and reds in map03 spectacularly, so the otherwise vibrant landscape turns pretty brown :( nothing's broken at all though. I didn't even think about the distinction between software/hardware truecolor though, thanks for pointing that out. I've updated the OP to just say "truecolor hardware recommended" instead

 

also, thanks a lot to @Aquila Chrysaetos for pointing out that this is actually boom compat, not limit removing. I've updated the thread title and OP accordingly

 

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I played on UV continuous and tried to find everything. I'm new to D4V mod so there was some learning curve, but I think the mod fits these maps well. 

 

Further map comments in spoilers:

 

Spoiler

 

MAP01

 

The first map shows a very good example of how to maximize gameplay in a limited amount of space. The terrain details that surround the maps make them feel larger than they are, and although the levels have a smaller overall footprint they don't feel too cramped. Monster and item placement seems good, I was never out of ammo and never had too much laying around. When I first came across the exit teleport I didn't see the sign so I stepped on to it not knowing and I still had a large portion of the map to check out. Across all the maps I like the way the secrets are integrated into the levels.

 

MAP02

 

Hectic start which was cool, one time I woke up a bunch of the enemies and proceeded to run directly into the rocky alcove with the armor and Baron, pretty much instant RIP lol. Once I decided to run into the "cavern base" area with the mancubus it seemed easier to get a foothold in the map. I noticed right at the cave entrance there seemed to be monster block lines. I didn't open the map to see if that's the case, but it seemed to make the imps in the first fight and the hell knights that spawn in that area later a little less threatening. I also noticed a similar thing after the door leading into the yellow key room after the manc platform lowers. The inner threshold of the door seems to block monsters and made the imps there a little less threatening as well. Not a big problem though, the yellow key room fight was cool. I managed to hold the little platform from the approaching cacodemons. 

 

EDIT: Also in this map I stumbled almost instantly onto the exit without knowing, since by then I thought exits would be teleport pads.

 

NOTE: I saw that the area around the yellow key pickup is forest terrain cliffs, and the player can jump to this upper area and possibly get stuck. I can't recall if I jumped from the metal cube platform that the key is sitting on. I just assumed that jumping was allowed because it's in Doom4.

 

 

 

MAP03

 

This one was a challenge because I made it here with 4 HP hahaha. I was determined to get a foothold and managed after a few tries to take out the first revenants and imps/chaingunners that emerge from the cave area. This is a really cool looking map, the cave system feels organic and the texturing fits perfectly across both themes. I thought it was interesting that the player starts between the tekbase and the caves, it adds to the non-linear feel to the map. Again the secrets were well done, especially the one with the berserk. The one secret I missed was on this map.

 

MAP04

 

Perfect, don't change, would play again lol

 

--

 

Overall these are 3 excelllent maps. The texturing and geometry reminded me of the old monolith games like Shogo and SiN. Enemy placement is well done across the board, same with weapons and ammo/pickups. The enemy projectiles that explode a second time after they miss are punishing in narrower spaces, but nowhere is it over-the-top or impossible. The maps are challenging but fair, and the OTEX choices for textures and the way they are used both contrast/compliment the D4V aesthetic quite well.

 

 

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@reflex17 you are an angel, thanks so much for playing and taking the time to share all your thoughts :D

 

15 hours ago, reflex17 said:

I noticed right at the cave entrance there seemed to be monster block lines

 

you're correct here, they are indeed monster blocking lines. the reason I did that was so that the monsters in that cave entrance spot (the manc to start and the hell knights later) can stay there and be turrets. it does have the side-effect of what you mentioned though :(

 

 

15 hours ago, reflex17 said:

The inner threshold of the door seems to block monsters and made the imps there a little less threatening as well.

 

this too was intentional, but you make a good point about the imps (or zombies I am guessing you mean (edit: there are definitely imps there, you're totally right and I am a dumb dumb, sorry D:)), so I'm gonna reconsider this one. I put the blocking line there so that the hell knight blocks the door after grabbing the key to discourage the player from running away after nabbing the key, but maybe I can either just a) ditch the hell knight altogether or b) put him in the manc platform room just beyond the door instead.

 

 

15 hours ago, reflex17 said:

IMPORTANT NOTE: I saw that the area around the yellow key pickup is forest terrain cliffs, and the player can jump to this upper area and possibly get stuck.

 

ah this is my bad, I didn't really make clear what the expectation is for jumping (or crouching). I didn't intend for players to be able to use either mechanic, but I neglected to disable them in the mapinfo, so I'll do that for the next release. thanks for bringing this to my attention :D

 

again, really appreciate all your feedback and kind words reflex!!

 

Edited by Tango

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6 hours ago, Tango said:

you're correct here, they are indeed monster blocking lines. the reason I did that was so that the monsters in that cave entrance spot (the manc to start and the hell knights later) can stay there and be turrets. it does have the side-effect of what you mentioned though :(

 

this too was intentional, but you make a good point about the imps (or zombies I am guessing you mean), so I'm gonna reconsider this one. I put the blocking line there so that the hell knight blocks the door after grabbing the key to discourage the player from running away after nabbing the key, but maybe I can either just a) ditch the hell knight altogether or b) put him in the manc platform room just beyond the door instead.

 

 

 

AH the mancubus that's there in the beginning, of course, that makes perfect sense. And the hell knight by the yellow key actually did seem to fit. I would caution against anything too drastic here then, the encounters felt natural enough and I probably only noticed because of my repeat plays of the area(s).

 

One thing I forgot to mention in my first post - Much of the discussion surrounding visuals in Doom maps has to do with detail level, and these maps display a detailing 'sweet spot' where the extra visual elements are not distracting, but most importantly there is no barrier to the fast gameplay required for D4V. There's nothing to get stuck on and the visuals serve to reinforce consistency across 3 rather different map layouts. The use of 3d space is very well done, even though the first 2 maps are a bit smaller I still found myself getting lost at times lol which is good, imo, because I enjoy exploration and non-linearity. The way the maps opened up as you went along was interesting and fun to play through.

 

This one one of the recent maps that gave me the old 1994 feeling of "how did they make that?" and wanting to open the map in the editor. Simple things like the linedef grating on map03 that's made to look like it has actual depth.

 

I would encourage anyone who likes D4V or tough maps in general to give this set a try.

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This is a really cool minisode. The Summoner in MAP01 was brutal on Hurt Me Plenty (Skill 2), as was the Baron of Hell. The later two maps were more of an even difficulty, although I didn't see how to get the red card in MAP02 or where to use it, so missed out on half of the map and didn't get a rocket launcher until later in MAP03. The good news is that the chaingun is very powerful and the shotgun is pretty quick. It seems like D4V is full of highly dangerous enemies, but Tango managed to map with the resources in such a fashion that it wasn't outrageously difficult. The levels looked very nice - particularly 03 and the ending 04. All in all, I'm glad I gave it a play!

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many thanks to everyone that's played and provided feedback so far - you're all stars :D I just updated the OP with RC2, which has roughly the following changes:

  • adjusted the MAPINFO lump to disable jumping and crouching
  • more trees and rocky landscape outside the playing area on map01
  • toned down map01 slightly on easy
  • toned down map03 slightly on easy
  • fixed some apparently non-teleporting monsters in map02 by replacing 3 hell knights with chaingunners. I don't know why, but for some reason my hell knight monster closets no longer work, so I just swapped out the monsters
  • removed the D4V difficulty selection graphics, so you'll now see all the default ones

 

9 hours ago, reflex17 said:

Much of the discussion surrounding visuals in Doom maps has to do with detail level, and these maps display a detailing 'sweet spot' where the extra visual elements are not distracting

 

thanks :D I actually tried pretty hard to emulate Afterglow's style when detailing these maps, as I think he's a master at what you call that sweet spot. he makes really nice open layouts that make excellent usage of large geometry and clever texturing to make areas feel really visually complete, without needing a ton of sectors. I don't consider these maps anywhere near as clean and elegant as what he does, but I do think I learned a lot with what little emulation I was able to accomplish.

 

 

6 hours ago, Phobus said:

The Summoner in MAP01 was brutal on Hurt Me Plenty (Skill 2), as was the Baron of Hell

 

thanks so much for playing Phobus :D in RC2 I toned down that baron encounter in map01 slightly, so hopefully it's a bit better now

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The loading order of "d4v.wad + t-drought_rc2.wad + otex_1.0.wad + d4v.deh" doesn't work properly (HOM on Map03, as seen in the video).

The loading order of "otex_1.0.wad + d4v.wad + t-drought_rc2.wad + d4v.deh" does work.

 

I don't know why... but it seems GLBoom+ will put any *.deh to the last place even though I click it after d4v.wad. Maybe next time when the WAD requires multiple other WADs, a loading order should be said in the OP. That's just my thought.

Edited by GarrettChan

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Played on Hurt Me Plenty on RC2. The first thing I want to bring up is the visuals. Each map, especially map03, felt right in season. There aren't enough fall themed doom maps, and this satiated my appetite for that very thing. Across the board OTEX is applied brilliantly, again, map03 uses it to its greatest effect. Gameplay was pretty fun, not much to complain about. This is actually my first experience with D4V and it was fairly positive, though I thought the baron was pretty difficult to deal with. Great stuff, but that's to be expected with a Tango project.

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1 hour ago, GarrettChan said:

Maybe next time when the WAD requires multiple other WADs, a loading order should be said in the OP. That's just my thought.

 

there is a note about this in the OP, but it's hidden away in the "How to play" section D: that's my bad, I'll call it out more clearly in the visible text at the top. you don't need to load any additional files though - just t-drought_rcX.wad is enough! D4V (including its deh file) and OTEX are already bundled with the wad file

 

edit: video was still processing when I made this post, so I didn't realize that was a full playthrough oops. thanks so much for playing :D gonna check the video out later and go through it all

 

@Egg Boy thank you so much :D I reckon there aren't many autumn-themed doom maps because the iwad textures don't really provide any potential for that, and I can't think of anything really fall-themed in any other major/common resource pack. hopefully we see more folks using OTEX to make more fall doom though!

Edited by Tango

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41 minutes ago, Tango said:

you don't need to load any additional files though - just t-drought_rcX.wad is enough! D4V (including its deh file) and OTEX are already bundled with the wad file

Totally whoosh... totally my bad... I actually didn't read that.

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I'm in awe of these levels; that my textures (and, I suppose, some darkening E2 influence) helped propel them into existence is deeply gratifying. Superbly tasteful texture use and @Jan van der Veken level sense of scale and flow. Bravo!

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So far I will share my first impressions. Great design, and I'm talking about both the architecture of the map and the gameplay. Tango manages to combine these two concepts, like no other. He creates his own atmosphere - and this is exactly what distinguishes a good map from a mediocre one. Great job!

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4 hours ago, WH-Wilou84 said:

Here's a pack of FDAs recorded on RC2.

 

fantastic, thanks so much Wilhou :D I'll give these a look this week when I have time - excited to watch your demos.

 

many thanks again to everyone that's played and/or commented, your comments are all immensely appreciated!

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I tried to play this in Doom Retro (boom compatible port) and it crashed without even star :/

anyway to fix it?

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Can't run the wad on glboom+ because of signal 11. Prboom+ doesn't have this problem

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@P41R47 @dmslr those are both very unexpected :( gimmie some time to look into it this weekend, I'll ping you both if I figure anything out. might also get around to integrating the new D4V version in here as well. and finally watch @WH-Wilou84's demos lol

 

edit: as far as Doom Retro goes, it seems like the TEXTURE2/PNAMES lumps are responsible. not sure what it is about them, though, considering Eviternity and its TEXTURE2 lump works just fine in Doom Retro. will keep poking around this, but might eventually have to ask Brad Harding for some debugging help or something? not sure...

 

as for glboom+, @dmslr I seem to be able to run the wad ok on glboom+ 2.5.1.4. if I try to load a random Doom 2 map that's not replaced by a drought map, like map06, then I do get signal 11 because the iwad maps are trying to load textures that no longer exist. but otherwise if you stay in the confines of what drought, it's looking ok for me. do you get a signal 11 even on map01 - map04?

Edited by Tango

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My bad, I didn't use the latest version. The error appears only in 2.5.1.3 version. 2.5.1.4 works without a problem.

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6 hours ago, dmslr said:

My bad, I didn't use the latest version. The error appears only in 2.5.1.3 version. 2.5.1.4 works without a problem.

 

no worries! I wouldn't have expected that the latest version would really have been necessary anyway, and I'm still really not sure what would be causing the issue in 2.5.1.3. could be the same issue as with Doom Retro, but the complete details of that are still a mystery. in any case, glad it works in the latest version at least :D

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Hey, nice wad @Tango! The one thing that felt anti-climatic was grabbing the BFG last in map03. I did the other side of the map first with the RL, so by the time I lowered the BFG - all the fights were over. Perhaps having a D4V Cyber/Mastermind spawn in would give a more satisfying conclusion.

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you make a great point @Spectre01, I think something like a mastermind after the BFG (with still ample BFG ammo to help in the YK fight) could work really well. thanks so much :D

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Neat maps, first two are fun, but I didn't really enjoy map03, wasn't very pleasant to play not only because of how difficult it was, but mostly because it was hard to see things with so many dark places and vines made it only worse. Also one of the secrets had pretty long and boring lift, a teleport out would be much faster.

 

Couldn't record FDAs on glboom+ 2.5.1.4 (game was crashing if tried to record demos), not going to switch to newer version as it has worse mouse controls. Just assume that I did first two maps deathless and died like 10 times on map03. :)

 

Spoiler

 

Very useful at this point indeed :P

740956990_.png.03fed48e11875f208a6b4fef71355458.png

 

 

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