Advent - 2 maps [on /idgames]

[El Inferno]

Hey, 

now my wad contains 2 maps: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/advent2, which are focused on tricky fights and good visuals (I do my best).

 

Map 1: Advent

 

Spoiler

 

This is a 1-1.5 hour long open map with lots of relatively short tricky fights. On UV there are around 1k monsters and most of them are imps.

Difficulty: early sunlust levels (I think)

Building time: 2 months

Music - Opeth, A Fair Judgement. Map is named after another song by that band.

 

 

Map 2: Circle of the Tyrants

 

Spoiler

 

5-10 minute short slaughtermap. Around 1k monsters in each difficulty. Monster placement in HNTR is completely different from HMP and UV, so I recommend to check out both HNTR and HMP! UV is a bit savescummy, but I think it's ok for such a short map.

 

This map is a sort of a grand finale to the first one I made.

 

Building time: 3 days

Music - Celtic Frost, Circle of the Tyrants

 

 

 

Some other info:

- map is made in boom format and tested in pr-boom+

- I used sunlust textures and sky from SkyTexturesPack.wad

- no crouching, jumping allowed. Free look is not assumed. Monsters should have infinite height, but it is not crucial

- base - DOOM2.wad

 

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

Changes in v2 (initial file also was named v2 but whatever):

-simplified some platforming sections,

-tried to make next-area-hunting a bit easier

-made the beggining a bit fancier  

 

Changes in v3:

-simplified progression in some fights,

-moved RL and added more rockets to the first arena,   

-fixed key progression

-some minor visual improvements

-replaced cyber turret by arachnotron

 

Changes in v4:

-added final fight 

 

Changes in v5:

- added map 2

- arachnotron in map 1 now can be telefraged

- few monster spawn fixes 

 

Changes in vfinal (not final anymore):

- small softlock on map 1 fixed

- windows on map 2 repaired

 

Changes in v6:

- more detail in the intermission

- fight balance in the second half

v61:

- debuff of the final fight

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by El Inferno

[Walter confetti]

This looks pretty cool! I really dig the sky.

[Zolgia108]

Just finished version number 2. way better m8.

2 hours video, 3 am here, going to sleep.

Tomorrow i will upload it, but please know one important thing:

 

it was late, i was stoned from a "party", i already suck when i play normally, imagine now

 

 

SEE YOU

[Zolgia108]

 

[El Inferno]

Thanks for this playthrough!! 

Oh, okay, there is a lot of stuff to fix here. 

The progression in the castle is completely broken now. You basically can skip 3 fights out of 4 there. And there are 2 red keys in the map apparently. 

I will change the progression in hk swarm fight also. 

Platforming seems to be more or less ok. But archie jump seems too easy now

 

Maybe I will put some more rockets to clear off imps in the first section. 

 

And I keep forgeting to fix that medikit 

 

[Zolgia108]

yea i wanted to kill everything but i could go to the exit, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Platforming is okay i was just really bad^^, my worst nightmare is the hk swarm, it's really hard when they split up into the columns so that i can't keep the flow in one direction in order to escape, that's a tough situation for me, but maybe i just play like shit. i like the concept but i also think that maybe the map feels a bit empty (paradoxically) because it's a sort of arena map but in between you have only platforming. You could put some roaming here and there, maybe revenants on the lava section for example, i don't know just an idea.

 

[El Inferno]

well, this emptiness is intended, sort of. I think it adds to the atmophere

[Zolgia108]

it certainly does, if that's what you meant to do then i've got nothing to say:) you are the only one who knows what worked as intended and what not, i will just wait for another map so that i can play and suck

[Degree23]

3 hours ago, el_inf said:

Maybe I will put some more rockets to clear off imps in the first section. 

 

I didn't even realise there was a RL in that area until I ran out of ammo and hunted around a lot and thought the only thing I hadn't gone was go over to the AV. My first instinct is not to charge to an AV, on pillars with no cover, while there are tons of Imps roaming around. The way ammo was revealed in the area was also quite annoying. I think there just needs to straight up be more Bullets/Shells in that first area, or even a SSG. (Or move the RL) I got so frustrated by that section that when I died in the next section, I didn't really want to start again.

[El Inferno]

Thanks for playing!

Ok, I will move RL to the first switch area and probably change the ammo placement so that RL is the main gun for that fight

[El Inferno]

I was editing the map in DB2 and got an error:

 

"Unable to build the nodes The nodebuilder failed to build the expected 
data structures.
The map will be saved without the nodes. "

 

It never happened to me before. I removed some part of what I just build and then it saved normally. 

But why does this error occur?  Is it a DB2 thing?

[Zolgia108]

42 minutes ago, el_inf said:

I was editing the map in DB2 and got an error:

 

"Unable to build the nodes The nodebuilder failed to build the expected 
data structures.
The map will be saved without the nodes. "

 

It never happened to me before. I removed some part of what I just build and then it saved normally. 

But why does this error occur?  Is it a DB2 thing?

it is a DB2 thing from what i know, sometimes it happens because of overlapping lines for example, but sometimes it happens randomly, do a map analysis and check all of that stuff, but before opening the map make sure you have some backups^^

 

also this topic may be useful

 

[El Inferno]

35 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

also this topic may be useful

 

Thanks a lot! It seems that the problem was with the size of the map. I changed nodebuilder from ZenNode to DeepBSP and now it works fine. And even better - nodebuilding now takes like 1 sec to finish instead of like 20 secs with ZenNode!

[El Inferno]

I added the final fight.

So except for some texture detalization and lighting the map is complete. I hope that you will enjoy playing it!

[Arbys550]

I played it and thought it was pretty good! Visuals were a strong point. I'd say my favorite fights were inside the building towards the end definitely. I also liked the ending. The only thing that rubbed me the wrong way was that the progression was slightly cryptic and there was really no good way to kill the first cyber and the sniper arachnotron.

 

Other than that, good job!

[El Inferno]

Thanks for playing my map!

 

Now I released a new very short continuation (map 2), I updated the OP. Please try it! There are difficulty setting there and all of them are fun (imho)!

Feedback on difficulty (in all HNTR, HMP and UV) and etc would be very appreciated!

[Arbys550]

I played the new map and I have a special treat for you: I decided to record it too!

 

 

Overall, I thought it was pretty good, though not as strong as map01 I'd say. It took me a while to figure out a strategy for the beginning, but once I understood what the AV switch did I knew pretty much what to do. The only problem was trying to find out which megaspheres were left over in the middle. Trying to rush back in to grab health led to a lot of deaths.

 

I think the cleanup isn't as fun as the initial fight, but at least there was a good cyber - hell knight ratio that didn't lead to a lot of grind. I think part of what made the cleanup not as fun was the liberal use of damaging floor and the symmetry of the arena. The former you should take with a grain of salt, though, as I'm an almost universal hater of damaging floors. Speaking about the symmetry, it added a ton of confusion to where I was facing and what side I was on, so it wasn't as clear where my leftover megaspheres were. Plus I think less symmetry might spice things up a bit and make it more interesting.

 

Overall a good map, but definitely seems detached from map01, due to its short length and lessened emphasis on visuals and exploration.

[Arbys550]

Don't know what happened, accidental double post

[El Inferno]

Very cool playthrough! Thanks for the recording!

Yeah, I got tired a bit of map 1 and wanted to make something very different. The song also suggested how the map should look like)

The floor is damaging only on UV, to make the ending a bit less dull. 

Symmetry sucks, I know, but this is not really a serious map 

 

Map 1 is definitely stronger, I spent on it way more effort 

[Zolgia108]

here, just for you ^^ i died so freaking much. Noticed two things, maybe because of gzdoom (i can't record with boom i don't know why), cyberdemons cant be seen through the windows, then there is a way to cheese up a bit, if i go at the far end slime doesn't deal damage, so i can wake up the cybers and wait there until everything is much much cleaner. Of course it's not fun that way, but still :)

[El Inferno]

I released a small update to the wad and started working on a new map. This time it will be an otex techbase.

I still kinda suck at techbases and on a consistent use of textures so it is mainly a learning experience. The progress is quite slow so far (I made like 3 rooms or something).

It is really hard to me to make a techbase which is something other than a sequence of random rooms but I'm trying my best

 

[Zolgia108]

screen looks cool m8! let me know when you need playtest!

[painelemental667]

Doom: Advent - advent.v53.wad MAP01 | UV First Playthrough

 

I enjoyed playing. Some good challenge. Gonna play second level today.

[El Inferno]

@painelemental667, thanks a lot for playing my map! Finally I will see an actual blind run of it! 

 

udp. I watched the thing. It's really fun to watch how people with different play styles beat my maps.

Didn't thought that the layout was so confusing. Thanks again for your patience!

I'll try to make progression more clean in future maps. 

Edited July 18, 2020 by el_inf

[painelemental667]

Doom: Advent advent.v53 MAP02 | UV First Playthrough

 

I played second level. Fine slaughter wad. Some good challenge.

[El Inferno]

Thanks)

It's a shame that windows do not display properly in Zdoom but I'm not sure if I can fix that

[plums]

Hi, I just played these maps. I really loved the first one, A+ map for sure, excellent overall. I find the progression kind of obscure at times but also quite fun to navigate, and it was one of the reasons I liked the map so much. I can see that some people will definitely have a hard time or be put off by it though. I got 3 of the secrets, though I ended up skipping the AV jump to soulsphere one after reloading my game. The one at the start was quite funny, I was expecting to break the map somehow by jumping all that distance but you were on top of things :) The SSG leading to another major fight was fun as well, since by that point you don't need it at all. (Does the blue skull key do anything, or is it just a trophy?)

 

My only complaint is that for some of the platforming, if you fall it takes you a long time to get around to where you can try again. Also for a map with such a high exploration factor, having some inescapable pits that don't affect combat at all seems kind of mean/out of place. These things didn't detract from the map too much for me.

 

You can cheese out the final fight by running back and hitting the switch when you're a few steps away. Doomguy has magical gorilla arms. https://i.imgur.com/zMETGef.png

 

The second map I didn't like as much, but I'm not a huge slaughtermap fan in general so it's not that there was anything wrong with it. It was too hard for me on UV but not too bad on HMP; I'm not sure how you're supposed to survive on UV with the damaging floor...

 

The doors didn't display correctly for me either, in PrBoom+ on either software or GL mode. I could probably help you fix them if you want; is this (GZDoom) how they're supposed to look?

https://imgur.com/a/yENypHj

 

 

[El Inferno]

Hey! thanks for playing these maps! I'm glad that you loved playing the first one)

 

So you didn't the plasma secret in the platforming section? The intended way to get it is to RJ from a pillar there or you can just drop down from BK arena. I'm surprised that someone found the first secret, good job)

SSG placement was inspired by how it was introduced in Eternal) There are 2 blue keys on this map, one in the arena with SSG, another one in the castle. You can skip one of two fights to finish the map. (One door in the castle requires all 3 keys to open so you need at least one)

 

2 hours ago, plums said:

Also for a map with such a high exploration factor, having some inescapable pits that don't affect combat at all seems kind of mean/out of place.

 

Which pits do you mean? I know of one pit in the HK-swarm fight near mancubi nests. And there is a couple of pits at the start but they do not really count, I guess. Other pit are probably unintensional and I can fix them.

 

2 hours ago, plums said:

You can cheese out the final fight by running back and hitting the switch when you're a few steps away.

 

I'll leave it as it is perhaps. BK arena also can be cheased quite easily by AV jumping out or dropping down in the river, I guess. But I think it's not bad to have some possibilities to cheese in latter fights. And I'm hoping to get a sigle segment run of this map one day)

 

I've only beaten the second map on UV with a couple of saves but I should be able to max it with a bit of grinding. There should be enough medikits to survive on the slime and Arbyss550 managed it quite well.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, plums said:

The doors didn't display correctly for me either, in PrBoom+ on either software or GL mode. I could probably help you fix them if you want; is this (GZDoom) how they're supposed to look?

https://imgur.com/a/yENypHj

 

 

 

This is how it looks for me in gl-boom:

Spoiler

 

I did this by simply raising the floor without the texture in front of cybers. How can I make this work in other sourceports? And why it didn't worked for you in gl-mode?

 

[plums]

22 minutes ago, el_inf said:

This is how it looks for me in gl-boom:

 

I did this by simply raising the floor without the texture in front of cybers. How can I make this work in other sourceports? And why it didn't worked for you in gl-mode?

 

Ah, so you want it to be see-through but not for the player to be able to shoot through, right? With Boom format that's really easy: make the sector have a height of 0 (right now it's -32 which is probably not something you should use), set the floor and ceiling texture to something other than F_SKY1, and give that sector a new tag. (All 4 door sectors can have the same tag.) Then pick another linedef who's first sidedef is pointing to how you want the sector to look, like linedef 3378, give it the same tag, and a type of 242.

 

If that's not clear, I'll make a fix and show you in a little bit. I'll reply to the other stuff later too.

 

And no idea why it didn't show properly for me in GLBoom. I'm using version 2.5.1.7um on Linux, maybe something got changed/"fixed".

[El Inferno]

Here it is: max in 6 minutes. It took me about 25 attempts to beat. Most attempts failed in the AV clearing stage: