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LVENdead

Malleable Intent (a large DOOM 2 single-level WAD) - *UPDATED*

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14 minutes ago, BluePineapple72 said:

Damn, if Henry is saying that then I gotta check this out!

 

Give it a try! I put a lot of work into it and I think you'll like it.

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  • First of all it’s very good-looking, with lots of detail.
  • If your map is not designed to require freelook, then what’s the harm in allowing freelook? Why force it off? I don’t think there are any shootable switches which require the player to be at a certain height. My maps are designed to not require freelook, but I still play with it because that’s my preference. (Obviously, jumping and crouching can affect level design a lot more and restricting them makes sense.)
  • Why does the door to that grey computer room with the rocket launcher up high close so rapidly? I’m not sure there’s a need for that. I suppose it’s to trap players in, but I don’t think it’ll be that effective, just a little annoying.
  • I couldn’t find out how to get the rocket launcher. None of the computers I pressed did anything, I can’t go out the windows. It bothered me a bit.
  • The Green stone bricks in the computer room monster closet don't fit the level's aesthetics.
  • You can get the SSG without triggering the trap. It’s an obvious trap, but you are required to trigger it, even though you can get the gun and back out of the cage. The spectres are useless in that fight because you’re in a cage.
  • The map seems to be overly switch-hunt based. Most notably are so many switches very close to the doors they open.
  • - In the Stargrey computer room, you need to hit a switch to raise some barriers to hit another switch. I'm not sure the barriers need to be there.
  • - In particular is one where you pass by a window with shotgunners, then go up some stairs to a locked door, then pass by the door to go down a lift to hit the switch to open the door you just passed. Why not just let players open the doors normally? One way to reduce the number of switches is to place walk-over triggers in front of areas which the player must pass through to complete the level.
  • - There's another switch in the area which lets you escape from some slime, you hit it and lower a shelf with some goodies. Why not just have the shelf without the switch? Too many switches.
  •  This is maybe a personal preference, but I noticed in some places where you use switches recessed into the wall (like the lift to get out of the blue key area), the floor of the switch matches the floor of the room. I prefer to make that some simple border texture like silver or grey or something. The FLOOR4_8 texture doesn't look right there.
  • The gap between how early you can get the blue key and when you get to use it seems excessive. Also, the blue switch seemed to open another switch right behind it, which THEN opened the blue door. Come on, man, that’s too many switches. Just let the key open the door.
  • I feel like there should be a yellow key rewarded at about the time the first Arch-Vile comes out to play, which opens, say, the door to the bridge switch. It’s a long trek with a tough fight, and then there’s a switch and you need to backtrack. A key feels better than the switch and backtracking, and you’re not using the yellow key elsewhere.
  • The fight at the switch to raise the bridge across isn’t that challenging because you can use the door for cover. The trap by the blue key switch was also solved by running back across the bridge. It’s fine, not every room has to trap you in... but it did reduce the potency of the trap.
  • The ammo and health balance seemed all right on UV, although I did find two Soul Spheres which did a lot. I was definitely feeling the lack of a backpack around the first Arch-Vile room.
  • Missing texture on one part of the “door” which raises to reveal the giant fleshy area.
  • The final Arch-Vile is no threat, he can’t see you if you hide at the bottom of his platform. And there’s a door to duck back into.
  • My time was almost 40 minutes. I would play more maps in this style.
  • I only found 3 secrets, and looking at the automap and iddt, I didn’t see any hidden rooms I missed. There was no automap powerup I found, but maybe tag your monster teleport closets with “never appears on automap” lines.
  • If it’s a MAP 01, the map is a touch long with a touch too many enemies, although that’s hypocritical of me to say, because the current MAP 01 in my wad is longer and has even more… but I am going to remake it to make it smaller and shorter, and I’m deliberately limiting weapon availability and enemy type. I think all the switches make it feel longer than it is.

 

- I don't know how you expect people to get that soul sphere by the slime river. The jump from the bridge switch is too difficult to reasonably make, especially with those blocking light posts there. At the very least get rid of those.

Edited by Stabbey

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8 hours ago, Stabbey said:

The map seems to be overly switch-hunt based. Most notably are so many switches very close to the doors they open.

 

Oof, then you're gonna hate my next map, 1001 Doomian Switches. 

 

All joking aside, you're definitely right that I relied on switches pretty aggressively. I think a big reason for this is when I made this map, I didn't really understand how to keep the player locked into a fight, or force them to do certain things. I probably approached my map idea with too much of a "modern shooter" mindset where levels are often just a series of interesting looking arenas, with a switch or a trigger at the end to release the player and let them proceed. I think now I've begun to understand the other ways you can design the environment to facilitate this.

 

Another reason is that while I understood that "keeping the environment interactive" is generally an element of good level design, I didn't have a lot of ideas about how to express that. In general, I thought of the map as a sequence of steps/tasks, and you can clearly see the map layout is basically as a sequence of steps, even if there are a couple of branches in it. The map has a pretty long list of "steps" to complete the quest, and in retrospect, I see there's a lot of skill in making maps that feel or are big without making them have a whole bunch of steps to finish. 

 

8 hours ago, Stabbey said:

You can get the SSG without triggering the trap. It’s an obvious trap, but you are required to trigger it, even though you can get the gun and back out of the cage. The spectres are useless in that fight because you’re in a cage.

 

Oh yeah that trap is rigged up pretty badly! When I made it I had absolutely no idea how to set it up properly. I actually started playing Valiant right after I published this map and discovered skillsaw had set up a similar trap (the trigger closes a door to lock you in AND opens monsters closets) in MAP09, except, you know, competently made :P I ended up opening the wad and studying how those triggers work, and discovered voodoo dolls for the first time.

 

The spectres are just there to cause problems if you try to leave the cage. 

 

8 hours ago, Stabbey said:

The gap between how early you can get the blue key and when you get to use it seems excessive. Also, the blue switch seemed to open another switch right behind it, which THEN opened the blue door. Come on, man, that’s too many switches. Just let the key open the door.

 

You can actually get the blue key AFTER you get the SSG and face the whole "pinky spam" battle, in which case you'd just go and open the blue door right after. It was my crack at a multi-stage objective (being find the blue key and raise the bridge). 

 

8 hours ago, Stabbey said:

The final Arch-Vile is no threat, he can’t see you if you hide at the bottom of his platform. And there’s a door to duck back into.

 

Yeah that whole room is trash. I think coming out of a long flesh elevator should have more of a climactic feel than that and I know that Archie is very close to useless there. I was pretty tired of working on the map at that point. Deserves another pass when I feel up for returning to the map.

 

8 hours ago, Stabbey said:

If it’s a MAP 01, the map is a touch long with a touch too many enemies

 

For sure. I actually decided to push this one back in the roster and insert at least one or two shorter maps. I am very bad at being creatively concise.

 

At some point I'm gonna put some serious revision work into this map and clean it up when it's ready to go into a larger collection. I think when I come back with some fresher eyes and a little more experience in making other maps, I can tune-up a lot of these more irritating qualities and give it a better shine.

 

 

9 hours ago, Stabbey said:

stuff about the secrets

 

Spoiler

The RL: pressing the silver computer texture that's in the stripe of shadow across the room lowers a thin platform around the row of screens next to the stairs up. This reveals a shootable switch behind the screens which lowers the platform to the RL. (of course, I've since realized that you can totally bypass the first part by just shooting across the switch linedef from the above walkway. Oops!)

 

For that soul sphere outside, you gotta strafe jump. It's stupidly tricky, but it's not impossible.

 

Thanks for your feedback. It was pretty detailed and thoroughly considered. If you ever feel like checking out my other map, I'd be interested to see your critique of it as well.

 

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Hey so I haven't completed the map yet but I wanted to weigh in with preliminary thoughts so far.

 

-How is the encounter design?

I have mostly enjoyed them so far. The traps have all been fun thus far, especially the SSG trap.

 

-How does the level design lend to navigation? Good, though there are a few areas I'm surprised weren't marked as secrets, such as the armor at the beginning or the nukage tunnel below the balcony at the start. I also think you did a good job with secrets. None of them so far have been super obvious, but they're also findable without having to do a ridiculous amount of hunting.

 

-Did anything outright break?

Yes but it was my own fault for not resetting compatibility after doing my DWironman run lol.

 

-MOST IMPORTANTLY: Did you have fun?? Would you play the next map in a theoretical WAD collection?

Yes and yes.

 

I'm gonna be finishing the map but I wanted to get in and give my thoughts. I streamed a little earlier if you want to watch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/730681696?t=01h49m15s

 

the compatibility caused issue happens pretty early, the switches don't work so i was very lost and a bit grumpy at the beginning, i'm sorry if anything I grumbled was a bit grating, the error was totally mine

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On 9/4/2020 at 5:20 AM, ragerat said:

Hey so I haven't completed the map yet but I wanted to weigh in with preliminary thoughts so far.

 

Glad you gave it a try! It was neat watching a no-save playthrough of the map. I like watching people try and dissect what's going on in it. Eager to see what your final thoughts are when you finish it.

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