blind wound single map

[Hell Interface]

edit:  Fixed it all I think (tested with prboom too).  lowered the mancubi pillars to make it way faster.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/bx6rurajg1mvhhr/blindwound.wad/file

 

 

First map shared
I made an unfinished map in 2013 or so and never mapped again until now. 
Meant to be vanilla gameplay?
Tested with Zandronum 
Looks better with Gzdoom/Zandronum
This was a learning experience as i'm new to mapping.

it was made up as it went along 

It took maybe 2 weeks. 
I think I wasted way too much time on weird little details instead of making architecture/lighting that makes sense. 

 

 

 

Name: blind wound
Difficulty: uv     
Jumping: no
Crouching: no
Freelook:  doesn't matter
Monsters: 69
resources: doom2.wad and a james paddock song
Format: doom2           
Secrets: 5

Tested with: zandronum

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Hell Interface

[El Inferno]

I played the map. I like the overall architecture and combat but there are some issues with the map:

-All locked doors are broken, I supose you made these doors rising the floor instead of lowering the ceiling. (or maybe you forgot to give tags to doors, otherwise they will not work in prboom)

-Is it intended that you spawn inside PE at the start? Quite an interesting beginning

-It seems that BFG is unattainable because of a torch below the passage to it

-Those moving platforms are too slow

 

Also I didn''t have enough ammo to kill archies at the end

 

Link to the playthough: 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[DynamiteKaitorn]

So I tried to give this wad a try but there's 1 MAJOR design flaw with this map:

You NEED to know there's a secret in order to continue playing this map.

Seriously, why was this map designed this way? It really kills off the great architectural design of the opening rooms.

[Degree23]

I played on UV and almost completed it. Some good ideas here for sure. A few thoughts:

 

- As indicated above, the progression of the map is extremely abstract. You shouldn't be required to find secrets in order to progress.

- You have damaging floors in quite a lot of areas of this map for reasons which really escape me.

- The rising pillars section with the Mancubii is incredibly tedious due to how slow they move. They aren't particularly dangerous, and they absorbed a lot of my RL ammo, which I later realised I could have done with saving, because...

- ... there doesn't appear to be enough ammunition to deal with the final 3 AVs. I arrived with only 40 Shells (despite having found the BFG and most of the Rockets) and I wasn't about to spend time trying to snipe them so I just quit.

[Aurelius]

Aesthetically this looked pretty neat, and I liked the little freedom you had choosing your route. Fights were fun, but could be more fleshed out and expanded. Good for a first map.

 

Some commentary:

• When it comes to the format, it does seem completely vanilla compatible in theory. There were a few things that caused problems:
  • The lines with the action 87 you're using on the latter two slow moving platforms are not tagged (or tagged 0.) This means that in some source ports (tested Crispy Doom and PrBoom+ complevel 2) it makes all sectors in the map with tag 0 slow moving platforms, which was both hilarious and unsettling, of course rendering the map unplayable. You already have the actions earlier setting up the platforms, so I don't think you need them on all of these platforms. Tagging them all appropriately should be enough to fix this issue, though.
  • Some of the decorations block progression. You should remember that in vanilla, Things have infinite height, which is not on by default in source ports like GZDoom or Zandronum. This can easily be remedied by moving the decorations out of the way.
  • The Pain Elemental at the beginning does not get automatically telefragged in every source port. It is possible to deal with it, and it is actually quite interesting and fun, but if you want it to be a telefragging, put a separate sector first where the player then teleports onto the PE, instead of spawning in the same space on map start.
• Don't be alarmed by people put off by mandatory secrets, it's a common pet peeve for many. I didn't mind, it fit the map pretty well and they were relatively easy to find, and were signposted. And the one with the chaingunner couldn't even be called a secret. What you could do is just remove the "secret" property from any progression-wise mandatory places ones so people won't lose their sleep over it, and leave it for the optional ones.
• The slow platforms are definitely slow, but considering the length of the map I don't think it's a big issue.
• Ammo was scarcer than average, but with some smart (and truth be told, minor) resource optimization you had enough to deal with all enemies quite nicely. I had roughly 15 rockets at the end with three AVs left, with lot's of backup shells so I wouldn't do anything to increase the amount on UV. Maybe more ammo for lower difficulties.
• Door tracks should have the "lower unpegged" property set so they don't rise along with the door.
• Some texture misalignments here and there (for example the exit switch wasn't aligned with the side textures).

Good stuff, keep 'em coming.

 

[Biodegradable]

Lots of promise and imagination on display here, man. I really liked this map and would love to see more. The layout was neat and while there's a slight issue with how to initiate progression, it's otherwise pretty straight-forward and I never really felt lost. I left some other notes for you in my playthrough which you can check out in my gameplay footage of the map below.

 

My playthrough:
HMP | Running on GZDoom + Hellrider

Spoiler

 

 

[Degree23]

2 hours ago, Aurelius said:

• Don't be alarmed by people put off by mandatory secrets

 

Not in the strict English definitions of those two words, but don't you find that to be slightly contradictory? If something is a secret, then it means that not everyone knows about it and could miss it. If it is compulsory for completion of the map, everyone who completes the map will find it, and therefore it won't actually be secret?

Edited June 30, 2020 by Degree23

[Aurelius]

4 hours ago, Degree23 said:

Not in the strict English definitions of those two words, but don't you find that to be slightly contradictory? If something is a secret, then it means that not everyone knows about it and could miss it. If it is compulsory for completion of the map, everyone who completes the map will find it, and therefore it won't actually be secret?

Well to be fair, I just thought it'd be the simplest way of describing a situation where areas that I had to walk through in order to progress made a "A secret is revealed." pop up onto my screen. And based on that, I would say we can call a secret anything that the mapper marks as a secret. They might not be too secret, but they are still secrets.

 

Considering the word secret depends a lot on the context, I think here it's proper to refer to the DoomWiki:

Quote

Most levels contain secret areas. At the end of each level, the percentage of secrets found is displayed on the intermission screen.

 

Secret areas are usually hidden to some extent. In many cases, there is some clue to indicate a secret area, such as an off-color wall that is actually a door. By convention, most stock levels are designed so that it is not necessary to find any of the secret areas to reach the exit. Traditionally, however, secret areas are quite helpful to the player, often containing weapons and large powerups.

 

A special sector type (type 9) is used to calculate the secrets percentage. The number of type 9 sectors in the level is the total number of secrets.

The bolded parts are what interest us. The first one asserts that they can be hidden and contain a clue as to their whereabouts. Both fit this map, as one of the "mandatory secrets" was in fact hidden and signposted, while the other was not hidden at all, unless you consider the platform a "secret" platform. It also stated that by convention, stock levels aren't designed with "mandatory secrets" in mind, which just states a preference to the IWAD mappers (that is often broken in Doom PWADs, either by accident or intentionally.) Lastly and probably most importantly, the number of type 9 sectors in the level is the total number of secrets, meaning that any sector with the type 9 is in the context of Doom gameplay considered a "secret", no matter how badly it is hidden or how mandatory it is to locate.

 

Moreover, even if a secret is found, players still refer to them as such since they are considered a property of a sector rather than an adjective that describes the state of that area with regards to how easy it is to locate.

 

So uh, yeah. Hope that answers your question :)

[Horus]

The gist I get from your post, Aurelius (correct me if I'm wrong), is that mandatory secrets might be unconventional, but if that is the mapper's preference, then why not go for it

 

6 hours ago, Aurelius said:

• Door tracks should have the "lower unpegged" property set so they don't rise along with the door

 

By extension, one could apply the same logic to this statement. What if the mapper likes the way the door tracks rise along with the door? (and I have seen examples of new mappers stating this preference).

[Aurelius]

58 minutes ago, Horus said:

By extension, one could apply the same logic to this statement. What if the mapper likes the way the door tracks rise along with the door? (and I have seen examples of new mappers stating this preference).

To reiterate, I did not think too deeply on each and every word I typed, but rather tried to carry the overall gist of it. All mappers are free to take my feedback and do as they wish with it, whether it's about secrets or texture unpegging.

 

So sure, you could break convention here too. Though more often than not unpegged door tracks look better to me, unless they're specifically combined with parts that also move with the door, simulating some form of mechanics that the door uses to rise. However, I usually consider that there is some mechanism in the door itself that moves it along the door "track" to raise it higher. Hence why it was called a "track".

 

I feel the "mandatory secrets" conveyed more clearly a sense of intention, while the door tracks seemed more like an oversight or simple ignorance.

[Hell Interface]

On 6/30/2020 at 4:37 AM, el_inf said:

.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

On 6/30/2020 at 6:21 AM, DynamiteKaitorn said:

.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 7:26 AM, Degree23 said:

.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 1:46 PM, Aurelius said:

.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 1:57 PM, Horus said:

.

WOW thanks for the critiques guys, the vids and for playing it.

 

 OH NO. The PE didn't explode on some ports I noticed from el_inf's video.  Sorry about that I only tested this with zand and zdoom/gzdoom and it explodes on spawn in those ports... This was pretty much my first map so I'm not surprised I made the doors wrong.  I will fix them in the future. Yes you are meant to spawn inside the PE. It's supposed to feel like you tele'd into the area and the PE explodes like some weird teleport canal afterbirth or something.. 

 

I also noticed el_inf couldn't get to the BFG secret. You should just be able to walk and drop on it without even running.  Maybe I need to fix that?

 

Mapping is fun, satisfying and almost a little addicting once you get those doombuilder hotkeys down. The mandatory secrets were a bit of an oversight and pretty dumb on my part. Secrets should probably not be mandatory.

 I'll pretend to justify them by saying you are not supposed to be in this hellish area and it's designed to keep doomguys like you out so just to be able to merely traverse through these dungeons you need to find secrets that only the demon architects know about? I will not do that in the future.

 

 Yeah mancubi part was weird and definitely slows down the pace I agree.  I would speed up the mancubi pillars if I knew how. I did this in doom format and I should probably use udmf next time. You're meant to just blast through them by spamming rockets and or use your one BFG charge if you need to(or save it for other fights). 

The 3 archviles in the final room are made so you can run passed them and just hit the switch to exit. The one in the middle MIGHT block you for a second causing them to kill you. Meant to be RNG/skillful to run passed but ended up probably not conveyed well. Probably BS for some1's first playthrough of it too. There is actually enough ammo to kill everything on the map. I've done it but then again I know this inside n out.  I need to rewatch your vids I think I might have missed some of your comments. Again thanks for the critiques and for actually playing it guys!! 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Hell Interface

[Clippy]