The DWmegawad Club plays: 25 Years on Earth

[Pirx]

MAP17 - “Entrance Made”

 

great beginning. the rests of the crashed space ship, the jump through the exploding arches, ac/dc's thunderstruck playing sets the mood for some action to come. and it came... that was quite obvious from seeing the rocket launcher and ammo in the middle of an arena, and i went through everything until here with relative ease... and killed me. not once, but three times in a row. follwed by a couple minutes of me looking at the map's floor and pondering what was wrong with gzdoom's rng, compared with other ports, because both damn viles attacked me right away every time, obscuring my view with their flames, the barons shielded them perfectly, and iirc once i got killed by damage from that nasty 20 hp lava seeping through the suit. @demon of the well has to be the most survivable fda player i've ever seen. ok, once the viles are down, the fight is a piece of cake, and the following 2 setpieces are also tame in comparison. good use of that water masquerading as an elevator.

 

 

MAP18 - “Meat Grinder”

 

this didn't escalate into slaughter territory as i assumed based on the previous map. still, theres a higher difficulty than up to the crash landing. i admired the design of this demonic factory fusing technological and living elements, and this being done only with iwad resources. a kind of udoom ep.2 in doom2. slightly confusingly interconnecting spaces, until you figure them out. i killed the cow and the spider, only to notice later that i could have used them for a gotcha setup. played the map again, however, because i liked it, and did so. the best thing was realizing that the radsuit lasts much longer than one needs for retrieving the yellow key... smart secret. @phobus: i see where you had the lava boat from. rip ig-11  ;)

 

 

MAP19 - “Fester”

 

dark, brownish, tight little map. with all those tight spaces, even weak enemies can deal substantial damage if you charge headlong. played carefully, it's not very threatening, as the 2 viles that show up can be taken out without much of a risk. perhaps except of running out of ammo due to the second one raising his meat shields. i exited with 4 shells and 44 bullets, exactly enough to kill the surprise mancubus blocking the exit.

 

 

MAP20 - “Reclamation”

 

oh, i see where you got that long elevator from. the map is simple - you climb a series of rising walkways under a barrage of fire coming from the top, most importantly from 2 revenants. the rest are imps and easily dodged and dispatched. of course i'm a mouselook cheater, but that doesn't make the task much easier, since the rocket launcher is found only close to the top, and bullets are limited. the real fight is at the top: a numerous welcome committee, an archvile (luckily i found him alone in his corner when the rest was already dead, and blocked him here), and the surprise siege cow. that one really comes as a surprise, as it's hiding under the exit platform, and is pretty fun to chase around the 2 blocks up here. 

 

 

MAP21 - “Security Station”

 

completed this one too although i intended to go to sleep :)

reminded me of tnt map03 with its courtyard with rounded structures, run around on the outside shooting things, go inside, flip a switch, see what changed and where to go next. admittedly, it can get a bit tiresome when you don't know the map yet, but nevertheless entertaining. some interesting findings: the zombieman pea shooters in the beginning can sum up to significant damage. the chaingunner room is probably the most dangerous trap in the map, but i managed to escape it quite fast by turning left and into the room behind it. on the other hand, i nearly got chewed by pinkies in the red rock room since i had no ssg yet. nice surprise with the viles in the end, i could hear them all the time and expected them. but then a cheeky revenant trying to punch me in the face was the perfect decoy. running away and rocketing them was easy, but still, nice ending. can go wrong quickly if one tries to stand his ground at the exit, probably.

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Pirx : not sleeping enough

[DuckReconMajor]

 

12 hours ago, Phobus said:

@loveless I've never played Rush! The majority saying MAP06 of Doom II are much nearer the mark, although the main reason I did that was because of the slow one-time lowering walkover line action. It made sense to build a view for it.

 

I've actually had the same thought a couple times too. I would definitely recommend it even if it's on skill 1 or otherwise made easier. But mainly that start made me think of the start of Sunder MAP09 if that hasn't been mentioned.

 

MAP21: Security Station

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves

 

OooWeee!

I do agree somewhat with others that the progression in this one could be a bit frustrating, and the inescapable blue key lava pit pillar was kind of mean. But this was a good time.

I love the new sky and nighttime look of this one.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Biodegradable]

MAP22 - Power Trip

So... so many... imps... FUCK! Ahem... yes, quite. All I can say in regards to this one is thank the lord I was totally maxed out plasma rifle ammo (power cells coming out of my ears!) because I never got one until MAP21 and you were very generous with the amount of plasma rife ammo as well in this one, because holy shit did I need it. Good lord, Phobus, I think I died almost 10 bloody times to that area with those spikey cunts, you absolute bastard lmao. Besides doing some crowd-control with the plasma rifle, I found the method of bottlenecking the horde in the entryway and plucking 'em in small rows with my shotgun helped a bit. This one is REALLY slaughter mappy and I'm really not much of a fan of this style, but the more experienced of slaughter map players are probably snickering at my plight from the back of the room, YES I SEE YOU THERE, SHADDAP! Anyways, I can proudly say that I actually only died twice in the big final battle, so I'm going to take that as a personal victory. I really couldn't take the time to appreciate much of the level design since it was balls-to-the-wall combat and an exhausting experience, but nothing felt weird or annoying or made me feel lost or anything, so that's good.

 

My fingers hurt...  

Edited June 22, 2020 by Biodegradable

[loveless]

prboom+, no saves, uv pistol starts  
map 21 

 

if you'd like to see a demo of a man wandering lost for nearly 20 minutes on map with literally 4 places to go, you've come to the right place.

25years-21-loveless.7z

[golbeeze]

Map 22

I wish I had realized sooner what weapon to use! It wasn't a difficult level, but it was still fun. Right around the 1 minute mark, I have a softlock. Either that or I missed a way to activate the initial elevator again. I am not familiar with slaughter maps, but I guess this is what they are like?

 

[Endless]

MAP 21: Security Station. Played in UV with Brutal Doom and LZDoom.

 

Bad progression that ruins a solid-designed map. The monster placement and the simple map design look really good to the eye, except that it really isn't that simple and kinda turns into a maze. After 20 minutes of just pure backtracking and trying to find the goddamn path, I gave up and used noclip. After finding the keys, I still got lost during the archvile round, so it's the kinda map that takes time not because is hard but because is lost af. Breaks the whole smooth ''all guns blazing'' feel that the previous map. Still, decent enough.

 

[Deadwing]

MAP 22

 

Back to shorter and linear maps, even though the opposition is much larger, but it's a red herring because this one is entirely action-focused, which is a nice change of pace from the previous maps. All you have to do is to pick the plasma gun and have fun killing all these Imps haha The finale also have two SMM (if I'm not mistaken), which shouldn't be a problem if you have a BFG or just take cover to take them down with the plasma.

 

Anyway, another pretty solid level!
 

Map preference:

 

18, 21, 17, 11, 14, 3, 20, 19, 22, 13, 6, 12, 8, 16, 5, 15, 9, 10, 2, 4, 1, 7

Edited June 22, 2020 by Deadwing

[ironicmoustache]

Crispy, UV, continuous.

 

MAP22

Nothing much to say about this one. It's short and linear and almost entirely focused on mowing down hordes of lower-tier enemies, with some boss monsters in the final room. Playing continuous made it a bit more efficient since I had the BFG, but the map does give players a plasma rifle and a lot of ammo so the enemies probably wouldn't put up much more resistance for pistol starters (or those who skipped playing the secret levels).

 

I didn’t really pay that much attention to the layout and design, which is something of a compliment I guess; nothing particularly wrong about either element that could have distracted me from the slaughter. I thought the final room was a bit dull aesthetically, but that's not a big deal. The two Masterminds could have been used in more threatening ways: the cover and plasma ammo meant they were pretty handily dispatched. The Cyberdemon and Revenants weren't all that much more difficult either, although I did reload a few times just to polish up my Cyberdemon BFG two-shotting (which is/was, as I found out, quite rusty).

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP22: Power Trip

 

This map delivers a deliberate contrast to the preceding level's sometimes convoluted progression, serving up instead platter after putrid, writhing platter of meat for you to blast your way through.  The plasma gun you're handed is your obvious tool of choice for this task, though I did switch over to the shotgun for a while after retreating from the mid-map "Impocalypse" to the forked staircase just prior for that - the balance of the shotgun's damage versus an imp's health makes it an enormously satisfying way to take them down as they press their way through a chokepoint, a regular rhythm of "BOOM-ka-CHUNK" as imps drop with near-surgical precision and mechanical regularity with each shot.  Outside of that, I don't have a whole lot to say about this one - it's a series of staged battles in a set order.

[gaspe]

MAP22: Fitting title. A linear shooting gallery where at the start you are given the plasmarifle and plenty of ammo so you just have to go nuts while burning groups os low tier monsters. At the imps the map opens with 2 side branches so it gets a little more interesting. The final area was lacking something to make it work better imo, maybe a bigger scale.

[Capellan]

MAP22

Not at all my kind of thing.

 

[FrancisT218]

22 - I can agree the ending areas (with bosses) could use more of a chance to deliver some punch, but otherwise this was a fine quick monster blast-a-thon. I liked red brick/lava contrasting with the blue sky.

[Summer Deep]

MAP22

 

Not bad, 15 minutes of moderately engaging, not too difficult fun. The first group of enemies looked as if they were in some sort of 'Nuts For Beginners' level.

 

You can indeed get softlocked into the opening room, if you go back up the lift. There's a secret way out, but it's a 'once only' type, and if you return to the starting room after, say, collecting the blue armour, it's game over.

[Alper002]

I immediately started off MAP22:Power trip by seemingly softlocking myself. I actually didn't and there WAS a secret way to get down, I just didn't find it when I initially locked myself out. I'm not a very patient person sometimes.

Anyhow, the rest of the map is essentially a plasma spamfest befitting of the map's name. Hordes upon hordes of low-health monsters which are easily killed, but not in a particularly satisfying fashion. If I had a BFG with me to this map I'd probably have enjoyed it a whole lot more because it is simply much more fun to fight through hordes with that than a plasma projectile beam. The hellish area with the imp hordes and circular rooms aren't worth it to fight aggressively on, and I ended up doorcamping. This and the previous encounters contributed to an overall sense of the map feeling kind of dull to play in my opinion. Finale was decently easy to work around, and I didn't even need to bother with one of the masterminds thanks to how easily distracted they are.

 

Map ratings:

Spoiler

Maps get rated on different lists (which I'll add as I deem necessary) depending on which part of the map I liked most, and the placement on said list is dependent on what I think of the map as a whole.

Maps I liked for their simplicity:
MAP08:Constriction
MAP01:Drop Pod Excursion
MAP22:Power trip
MAP07:Rat Run

 

Maps I liked for their aesthetics(visuals & music combined):
MAP19:Fester
MAP13:Caldera
MAP17:Entrance Made
MAP02:Bunker Buster

 

Maps I liked for their sense of place:
MAP31:Holiday
MAP15:Spaceport
MAP16:Unruly Cargo
MAP03:Urban Renewal

 

Maps I liked for their creativity:
MAP18:Meat Grinder
MAP06:Destination Defenestration
MAP04:Wasted Luxury

 

Maps I liked for their gameplay:
MAP11:Bloody Denial
MAP32:Waiting Room
MAP21:Security Station
MAP05:Skyline
MAP14:Water Treatment
MAP20:Reclamation
MAP12:Emerald Fluid
MAP10:Haste Keep
MAP09:Skulking Death

 

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP22:Power trip

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves

 

29 minutes ago, Alper002 said:

I immediately started off MAP22:Power trip by seemingly softlocking myself. I actually didn't and there WAS a secret way to get down, I just didn't find it when I initially locked myself out. I'm not a very patient person sometimes.

lol Alper002 has taken the words out of my mouth. I started almost panicking like wtf i softlocked it already? then i luckily found the secret, providing a much needed blue armor boost.

 

I love the shooting gallery quality of this map, I feel this kind of thing isn't done enough, though I know everyone won't agree.

At the end it took a while to learn that I couldn't get the megasphere, as I had made a choice earlier to get the invuln instead. When I saw both squares tagged as secret in the map I started to understand and a peek in Doombuilder confirmed it.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Snikle]

MAP22: Power Trip

Well this is something new entirely for this WAD. While the previous levels have usually avoided room-packing slaughter, this map revels in it. Sure, it’s mostly imps and zombies, and you get an invuln sphere, but it’s still a type of level we haven’t seen yet in this WAD. Closest there was so far was probably map 32. Luckily I love slaughtering these weak little shits with impunity. Since I’m doing pistol starts, I didn’t have a rocket launcher or SSG, which probably would have helped me out a little, but this was clearly designed with plasma in mind. Maybe a secret BFG too, I don’t know. If there was one I didn’t find it. Is it possible to get 100% secrets in this? As far as I could tell, you could only get one or the other in the mastermind room (Also I couldn’t find a way back up to the starting areas after falling down into the lava room), unless both the invuln and megasphere platforms are the same sector. Either way, I went with the invuln. The revenant flood that came next was fun too, but it was the main part where I wish I had a rocket launcher.

[Summer Deep]

Hmmmm.....seems that there are actually TWO other ways out of the starting room if the lift is locked, so it's pretty much a non-issue. I was wrong about the secret passageway as well, as it can always be accessed from the other end , so it's not a 'once only' thing. I couldn't find any way of getting either the Megasphere or the Invuln artefact in the Mastermind room, by the way.

[Andromeda]

MAP21: Security Station (25 Years on Earth)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

This level reminds me a lot of TNT MAP15, which is one of my least favourites of that wad. This one's better, in no small part due to the much higher enemy density. The total area being a lot smaller also helps with navigation, but Phobus did a good job at clearly differentiating each section so that it's even harder to get lost. The start can be quite tricky, with plenty of hitscanners shooting you from every direction while several demons will try to sneakily corner you.

 

I tend to kill most of the hitscanners and then unlock the SSG and the RL, which will help in killing the demons a lot faster. After the action packed start you can start exploring the indoor sections at your leisure, there's a few problematic moments but nothing that the SSG/RL can't solve :) The plasma gun given at the tail end of the level will be useful to dispatch the pair of arch-viles that appear afterwards, they will do their best to undo the carnage you've inflicted. Before the end there's just a couple of mancubi and a revenant to unload the rest of the cells. Bit of a hot & cold level, starts great but gradually loses steam before picking up the action again before the end. Still enjoyed it though!

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP32: The Waiting Room

MAP09: Skulking Death

MAP17: Entrance Made

MAP06: Destination Defenestration

MAP14: Water Treatment

MAP19: Fester

MAP08: Constriction

MAP13: Caldera

MAP12: Emerald Fluid

MAP11: Bloody Denial

MAP18: Meat Grinder

MAP04: Wasted Luxury

MAP20: Reclamation

MAP07: Rat Run

MAP05: Skyline

MAP31: Holiday

MAP02: Bunker Buster

MAP15: Spaceport

MAP01: Drop Pod Excursion

MAP21: Security Station

MAP03: Urban Renewal

MAP10: Haste Keep

MAP16: Unruly Cargo

 

MAP22: Power Trip (25 Years on Earth)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

Now this was action from beginning to end! The first 30 enemies can be crushed, nice usage of a crushing floor that made me laugh out loud! Afterwards it's the plasma gun's time to shine, good thing it doesn't overheat because you won't be releasing the trigger much for a few minutes at least. The imp room is naturally the most memorable area of the level, with well over a hundred of these not-so innocent creatures crammed like sardines in the rather narrow circular rooms over lava - good thing there's a megasphere! Before the end we can make two Spiderdemons infight, you can also unleash a Cyberdemon for extra fun. Have to say though, it's REALLY difficult to get both items on the secret here, could be worth taking a look to see if it's possible to make it more lenient. An all-around good level, both in terms of looks and gameplay.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP32: The Waiting Room

MAP09: Skulking Death

MAP17: Entrance Made

MAP06: Destination Defenestration

MAP14: Water Treatment

MAP19: Fester

MAP08: Constriction

MAP13: Caldera

MAP12: Emerald Fluid

MAP22: Power Trip

MAP11: Bloody Denial

MAP18: Meat Grinder

MAP04: Wasted Luxury

MAP20: Reclamation

MAP07: Rat Run

MAP05: Skyline

MAP31: Holiday

MAP02: Bunker Buster

MAP15: Spaceport

MAP01: Drop Pod Excursion

MAP21: Security Station

MAP03: Urban Renewal

MAP10: Haste Keep

MAP16: Unruly Cargo

 

Oh, and I found a missing texture on MAP22:

Spoiler

 

[loveless]

prboom+, no saves, uv pistol starts  
map 22

 

speed metal, a portent of action to come!  if i'd known i could step forward and back to let the zombiemen be crushed, i would have.  thankfully, i did not suffer that very fate.  i had worried about running out of ammo while wading in the imp sea but recalling full shells and a bit of chaingun eased my worries.  i'm not entirely sure how i stumbled upon this secret and tbh, it almost irritated me.  for a brief moment, i was sure i had softlocked myself into the spawn.  i wish i had played this ending a bit faster but not nabbing the invul and megasphere forced a sense of caution.

25years-22-loveless.7z

[golbeeze]

Without spoilers, I know which map is my favorite because I couldn't help myself and finished the wad. Good times, @Phobos

 

Map 23

This was a fun small map that you go around in circles. This one ranks high on my list (which I am clearly not keeping track of). The various timings of when you fight the groups of enemies felt good. Also, I found another weapon upgrade for my Argent set. Yay stun bomb!

Edited June 23, 2020 by golbeeze

[Endless]

MAP22: Power Trip. Played in UV with Brutal Doom and LZDoom.

 

My god the music. Were have it heard it before ? @Phobus nice taste bud. Anyway, OH YES, this one is my favorite so far. It's so simple, so effective and sooooo fun. The whole map was just one big cathartic experience for me. The placement of demons and the abundance of ammunition made this map a total massacre. The imps became my new favorite demon lol. The choke points are as exquisite as they are satisfying. It works as a complete redemption of the previous map, which I did not enjoy even a little bit like this one. The simple straight line design with switches on each side gives it enough movement to feel substantially dynamic in its progress, as well as the excessive use of Imps in precise points make it a somewhat slaughter-ish map. The end was much more brutal and rewarded with a satisfying victory over two spidermastermind and a cyberdemon. This is the kind of map where using gore mods makes your pc hot.

PS: One note tho, I used the elevator in the first room, and stood there shooting the soldiers, but after a few seconds it takes you back up and theres no way down anymore, at least not that I know of.

[Biodegradable]

MAP23 - Corporate Hell

Another fun one that twists in on itself that gets you to the exit reasonably fast, but dares you go for a second lap around to collect anything you missed with demons waiting for you. Simple and elegant. 

[Capellan]

MAP23

Hmm, I feel like I have seen this gimmick of dumping you back at the start of the map somewhere before :)

 

Overall this was pretty good fun, I thought, though I did get trolled by a chaingunner who was invisible behind a caco corpse.

 

[Deadwing]

MAP 23

 

Another cute little level, although it's larger than expected due to the second lap + welcoming extra new monsters. Not much to say here, it works well as a transition level.

 

Map preference:

 

18, 21, 17, 11, 14, 3, 20, 19, 22, 13, 6, 12, 8, 23, 16, 5, 15, 9, 10, 2, 4, 1, 7

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP23: Corporate Hell

 

Short and spicy, though I feel the stop-start nature of the gameplay can lend this map an aura of being larger and longer than it is - whether that's a good thing or not depends upon the player's tastes and whether or not they like the encounters and scenarios that are being served up, personally I'm more fond of that sort of thing in a lon-linear map than in one that's basically a big loop.  There's a nicely understated sense that the whole level takes place within the lobby and lower floors of a skyscraper, with a big decorate window ahead of you at the start of the level and a row of smaller windows marking the other side of the structure, a little layer and one level higher as you pass along the southern corridor.  Maybe that degree of understatement was what left me with a sense of constantly waiting for the level to "get going" when instead it felt like it concluded before it got to anything especially dramatic and engaging.

[Phobus]

I rather lost yesterday to some real life stuff, but I think I'm all caught up now!

 

@Andromeda Good find on that HOM! I'll have to double check all of the lift lines in that bit, as GZDoomBuilder-bugfix sometimes tries to help you out by redrawing lines and removing any "unnecessary" lower/upper textures on occasion. Of course, a bad workman always blames his tools, so it could've just been my negligence! Anyway, a note has been taken.

 

@golbeeze Probably a bit late to say now, as you've already finished the map set, but you'd get a lot more damage per shot on that BFG if you either shot it over enemies' heads, or into big open spaces like you do near the end of MAP22. The main projectile is pretty powerful, but those damage streams are definitely where most of the killing is being achieved.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Phobus

[golbeeze]

I will have to do that the next time I play with Argent. I rarely use the bfg (in general) so I didn't notice in-the-moment. 

[Phobus]

A good test would be cheat for it somewhere like Doom II MAP13 (or MAP05 of this map set), fly, turn off autoaim and fire it along the length or width of the level. I don't know what the range is on the tracers, but in Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal it's pretty generous. You'll probably be able to kill at least a quarter of the enemies in a more open level if the line of sight is good enough! I'm interested to see what your favourite level is - I have to assume it's still coming up.

 

MAP21: Security Station

As a few people may have noticed, I built this level primarily using the ellipse tool. I'm not much of a tool user in GZDoomBuilder, often drawing everything manually (sometimes even when copy/paste would be an obvious choice), so this map was a big experiment for me. Of course, for progression it's an old-fashioned switch-hunt, which I like, but appreciate isn't to everybody's taste! Most switches have a line of sight to what they've done (aside from the first one in the progression chain and, to an extent, the lift switch behind the blue key door). Sure, you'll need to turn and look out of (or into) a window to see it, but it's there!

 

My intention is that the players runs around the outside early on killing all of the riff-raff (which you all seem to have done) and takes in their surroundings, remembering where the key doors are for later (hmm...) and spotting objectives like the weapons that are out of reach (I think everybody did this too). With the exploration phase done, you then go to the middle and try your luck on the inner doors of the circular buildings. There's one that's a total dead-end trap, two that aren't trapped and instead allow you to lower the weapons through the little side doors and one that's got a nasty trap but also has the switch that starts the progression chain. After that, you work your way round the outside, collecting keys before taking both red key parts (one to raise the lift to the exit and the other to get the plasma rifle) and then you get flambeed!

 

Of course, as you're not the mapper, you don't know all that, but I thought it was pretty clear at the time. There's no secrets, because I was filling in the shapes I'd made to the maximum with progression and traps, and the map makes a lot of use of the various switch door types and some floor moving types too - all very useful for my objective!

 

I found, coming in continuous, that the "easy" part of the map at the start isn't really improved much by having lots of firepower to stand your ground with. I suppose if I'd fired off the BFG straight away, that would've been a huge advantage, but using the chaingun like this was MAP16 still took a while and still meant I took a lot of damage. Having the SSG for the demons early was very handy, though! Incidentally, the SSG, when fired from the start, is liable to hit the repeatable eye door switch on the central fountain, which can have an interesting effect on your starting experience.

 

The ending warp-in used to be even harder, swapping the Revenant for another Arch-Vile and I think there was an eighth (assuming there's six on UV now) Arch-Vile warping in near the beginning of the map when you hit that third-to-last progression switch by the exit door. I think, whilst nerfing the Triacontathlon maps, I re-evaluated how nasty this was and dialled it back a little too. I think it strikes a good balance now, as it's a big panic moment, but if you run for it (either to the next switch, as @Capellan pointed out is possible) or round up one of the flights of stairs, it's manageable, even if a lot of resurrecting starts happening. The one by the blue key door isn't much use, as it just goes in there and brings back a lot of enemies, but the other five (or so) all get out and about and pose risks.

 

It took me a surprisingly long time to realise, during development, that you could softlock yourself in the dark Revenant lift ambush bit behind the blue key door. There's a switch in there now, though, which I've seen a few of you have use of. I can't say I understand why people are jumping in the pit of lava, in the middle of a room of lava and then wondering why they can't get out, though. Functionally, it's using the donut special, so needs to be a simple outer shape to work fine in cl2, I believe (I could be wrong - I think esselfortium did a highly complex donut implementation in a BTSX map).

 

I don't begrudge an observant player realising that the switch that triggers the Arch-Viles also opens the door to the second-to-last (counting the exit itself) progression switch and making a run for it - the Arch-Viles will be doing their thing either way and I don't want to control game play too tightly in most of my maps, as I think you butt up against players worst instincts... like backing up from doors and lifts that you've just opened! >:(

Edited June 23, 2020 by Phobus

[golbeeze]

"remembering where the key doors are..." 

:grimace: whoops

 

"...jumping in the middle of the lava pit..."

I don't recall exactly what my thought process was there. Probably just wanted to see if anything would happen... Might've been missing something obvious at the time.

 

Looking back at this one, I think I would enjoy it more having played through it. Now I know I wouldn't be stuck going in circles missing obvious progression paths, so I can focus on keeping the action moving. 

[Phobus]

MAP22: Power Trip

With Chimaira providing "Power Trip" (via MIDI cover) and me providing a lot of plasma early on, I'm trying to engender a bit of reckless abandon here, where blasting your way through the hordes of weaklings with your mighty death spam gun is the most obvious solution. Imagine my surprise to see that you're all backing off at the first mass of Zombiemen, and then picking off the imps from boring safety at the threshold to their area!

 

Still, all of you were definitely not soft-locked in the first room (although at least with golbeeze's light settings, I can see why the blinking lights don't clue him in to one of the hidden ways out), there's two other ways out, one of which doesn't even count as a secret. Likewise, 100% secrets is possible (albeit also possible to miss, as you need to at least get one of the two powerups that lower on the joined lifts to trigger the secret). Personally, I opt for the invulnerability and then run around the (inevitably infighting) Spider Masterminds to trigger the door switches and then take on the Cyberdemon and Revenants. I managed to miss 100% kills because two zombiemen stepped off of the crushing floor as I carved a path through the middle with my plasma rifle, triggering the floor as I went, and I'd already closed the lift to myself and couldn't get round to kill them - oh well!

 

Despite coming in with the BFG, I still stuck to the plasma rifle exclusively, because that's what this map is about. Aggressively confronting the Shotgun Guys is risky, as a couple tend to come round, and they can shoot through each other to chip away at you. Still, there's a lot of medkits and some armour bonuses to top you up, before you go and grab the powerup of your difficulty (Soulsphere on UV, Invulnerability on HMP and Megasphere on HNTR) and take on the imps. There's less of them on lower difficulties, so with HNTR I think camping back probably is very possible, but on UV, if you go in guns blazing like I want you to, you need to keep moving in order to unblock a route to the medkits and cell charge packs in the red stone circles over lava (another heavy ellipse tool area). On a pistol start you'll have nothing better than a chaingun or shotgun to defend yourself if the plasma dries up, and there's probably a lot of imps still coming for you.

 

I used both one-time 16-unit stair specials here and some one-time lift actions, so at least now you know you're not likely to see too many more of these!