Bastion of Chaos - Low spec version is up!

[Bridgeburner56]

A soft red fog has been added and why didn't I do this earlier (build updated with fog and some additional light sequences)

[captain caleb]

Right away I was impressed by the music and design. The textures are very nice - golden IoS, red monster faces. No SMMs and few chaingunners was much appreciated. All enemy placement was well thought-out. This experience made me better as a player with changing tactics on the go to stay alive, managing my ammo carefully and enduring longer maps.

Very glad I saw things through. There's an incredible amount of substance to Bastion that provides an otherwordly experience on a very high note. This is a map I'll revisit for sure and it left me wanting to dive into harder retro Doom content.

 

[Bridgeburner56]

Hotfix v0.93 up which fixes 2 softlocks in the RL arena. One related to the sound propagation and one related to having the early secret rocket launcher before you get the RL

[Endless]

Good lord, this maps is a fucking beast. I just tested it in UV just because I'm dumb, and it was totally crazy, I had to restart it again. This map is a work of detail and patience on another level. I will finish it at ITYTD, as far as I could tell, this is not only a test for my skills, but also for the PC, I can already hear something melting lol

Absolute unit, Bridge.

[VanaheimRanger]

4 Part playthrough on ITYTD.  Parts 3 and 4 will be public later today.

 

[Bridgeburner56]

Hotfix v0.93a up which fixes a potential fight skip and a potential softlock

[Arno]

I've continued my playthrough on ITYTD, but eventually met my Waterloo in the circular pit in the southern part of the map.

Spoiler

Staying in the pit is not an option, because once the horde of revenants arrives there, it will rain rockets. With invulnerability and the BFG I managed to punch a hole through the revenants and grab a megasphere. I also collected the soulsphere behind the cyberdemon. But by that time there are projectiles flying everywhere with no place to hide. After about 20 attempts I had to give up.

The huge swarm of cacodemons rising from the pit in that enormous cathedral does look spectacular, though.

I'm still amazed that I got that far. I finished the remainder of the map with IDDQD.

Nevertheless, this map is an absolute blast to play! 

[Bridgeburner56]

@Arno nice work making it as far as you did, the dias fight is the toughest encounter in the whole map imo. Could be worse, there are no invulns on hmp/uv :D

Glad you still had fun

 

Spoiler

With itytd/hntr you pick up the first invuln and use that to clear the dias and then go grab the 2nd invuln at the top of the stairs that has now lowered and use that to deal with the hk/revs from the sides. If you've saved the 1st invuln you see in that area up the side you can even use that to clear the balconies too. This is the same general strat for other difficulties as well, the invulns mean you can kill ~50% of the demons for free if you make sure you can move between ammo caches 

 

[gregest]

I finally created an account just to say how amazed I am by your work 

[Bridgeburner56]

Creative behind the scenes/AMA for Bastion of Chaos. Come pick my brain! Doing a full walk through of the map going through where I got ideas from, combat concepts and the creative flow for the entire map.
https://www.twitch.tv/bridgeburner56

[A.K.]

Just got around to playing it today and am quite impressed that there is more tactics in use to fight off enemies rather than attempt to slaughter enemies one by one.

Pretty impressive music track as well (blackened doom metal?)

[gregest]

I finally finished the map on HMP and I was doing pretty alright up until the last couple fights where I had to use IDDQD. Also, I played the map on a much less optimal GT1030 which is way weaker than a 1050 and it still ran very well, there were a few areas where it dropped down to 40fps but for the good majority of the map it was 50-60, felt it was fairly well optimized so I can imagine the lowspec version running on almost everything.

[Bridgeburner56]

16 minutes ago, gregest said:

I finally finished the map on HMP and I was doing pretty alright up until the last couple fights where I had to use IDDQD. Also, I played the map on a much less optimal GT1030 which is way weaker than a 1050 and it still ran very well, there were a few areas where it dropped down to 40fps but for the good majority of the map it was 50-60, felt it was fairly well optimized so I can imagine the lowspec version running on almost everything.

It does pick up in the final area a tad :D The dias fight is particularly spicy.
Good to hear it performed well. The low spec version should be up this weekend (just got a couple of bugs to fix) as well as an update to the full version which should be getting close to final.
Someone in my server has been successfully playing the low spec version on 680 which bodes well indeed

[Zolgia108]

uhhhhh why didn't i notice this thread before??? gonna play it today and hopefully upload the video. UV of course, wish me luck ;)

[Bridgeburner56]

King Dime playing Bastion with me in commentary

https://www.twitch.tv/kingdime

[Bridgeburner56]

LOW SPEC EDITION IS OUT
Halved the number of dynamic lights, blocked all windows to reduce sight lines and removed the ceiling sector portal in the final area. FPS is much better. Has been tested successfully on a 670. There are a couple of sight lines that still generate an fps dip but they are non/low combat areas and only from very specific points that you don't spend much time at.

Spoiler

One is early on so if you get past the SSG area you've already gone through the most taxing sight line

Hopefully a few more people can now play this. Remember don't load lights.pk3 when you play.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPfhRGw5VpmWRH5Tz7DS5kCMlzzsvI6V/view?usp=sharing

Map is a bit darker, but not to the point where it affects gameplay and still looks decent








*edit
The loading time will still be the same with the low spec edition so I have been thinking about a version where the map is chopped in 2 and made 2 separate levels which will reduce the loading time drastically. Whether or not I do this will depend on how much demand there is for this. I know where the split will happen but it is still a bit of work and completing the public beta of Mapwich 2 is calling...

Oh did I say that out loud? Surely not. Must have been the wind

Edited August 17, 2020 by Bridgeburner56

[D4NUK1]

Finally can play this without my computer crying and enjoy it the texture and level work done.

Hope can give my review soon ;)

[Arno]

I had a quick look at the low spec version up until the first cyberdemon. Frame rate was 30-50 fps, as opposed to 20-40 fps on the regular version. It certainly feels more smooth and visually it still looks great.

[666shooter]

I guess I can officially chime in now, since I finished it a few days ago. And before you ask, no, I could not go back in and kill the Hell Knight trapped under the staircase, so I did not get 100% kills. I enjoyed the map on the whole, and managed to finish it without cheating (save for one or two times I had to Resurrect from accidentally saving in the middle of a projectile swarm hitting me in the back), and... I'll be honest, I think in the area with the chaingunners/imps and archviles/cyberdemons before the grand finale I did Resurrect once because I screwed myself out of available Health. Most of the fights were overwhelming but doable with some consideration and careful movement, and I owe this map's Dias for teaching me that you can shoot the BFG much faster if you hold that button down, so, thanks I think? (Still hate you for that fight, ha ha).

As I don't know how to create a SPOILER, PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO LEARN [TANGENTIALLY] OF COMBAT ENCOUNTERS DESCRIBED BELOW-

I think my top fights included the BFG fight and the finale was pretty good as well. I also liked the fight before the yellow(?) key where you fight the Cyberdemon and the Hell Knights, and the one with the Revenants around the shallow stairs after you get off the lift was pretty enjoyable (I still died about ten times because my rhythm was really off). I did take some issue with a couple fights, though, because I couldn't find a working strategy or they seemed a little unfair to me:

1) That Pain Elemental fight. Just sucks. I know I'm not the only one who hated this even with Invulnerability. The BFG wasn't cutting it here, but I got through with the plasma gun and a few very careful saves. [I did like the fight at the base of the stairs right after this, though. Good infighting is always a plus for me on Slaughtermaps].

2) This is a weird one, because of how late it occurs, and how small it is compared to the others, but the dual cross door fight (pictured above) killed me almost more than any others. I could not avoid the Revenant missiles no matter what I did, and couldn't start an infight fast enough to save my life, literally.

3) Another strange one perhaps, but the layout just butchered me along with the confined area- that dual Cyberfight on the locked-in staircase with the Cacos and HKs after the blue(?) key. Getting that infighting going was just a pain, and not being able to create a safezone even for a few moments became frustrating after the eighth death or so.

It's probably a lack of experience on my part with this type of slaughtermap, combined with being too stubborn to play on the easier difficulties, but I would probably play more from you. Things feel *mostly* balanced for health and ammo, even as I cursed the map for not giving me an Invulnerability when I really wanted one. 8/10 for combat, I suppose.

[Zolgia108]

13 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

LOW SPEC EDITION IS OUT
Halved the number of dynamic lights, blocked all windows to reduce sight lines and removed the ceiling sector portal in the final area. FPS is much better. Has been tested successfully on a 670. There are a couple of sight lines that still generate an fps dip but they are non/low combat areas and only from very specific points that you don't spend much time at.

  Reveal hidden contents

One is early on so if you get past the SSG area you've already gone through the most taxing sight line

Hopefully a few more people can now play this. Remember don't load lights.pk3 when you play.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPfhRGw5VpmWRH5Tz7DS5kCMlzzsvI6V/view?usp=sharing

Map is a bit darker, but not to the point where it affects gameplay and still looks decent








*edit
The loading time will still be the same with the low spec edition so I have been thinking about a version where the map is chopped in 2 and made 2 separate levels which will reduce the loading time drastically. Whether or not I do this will depend on how much demand there is for this. I know where the split will happen but it is still a bit of work and completing the public beta of Mapwich 2 is calling...

Oh did I say that out loud? Surely not. Must have been the wind

I am glad that you did this m8, cause i tried so hard to play and record the map but my computer (which is not a bad one at all) couldn't make it, if it was an easy map i would have done it anyway but,... you know... ^^

Now i can try again, will tell you once it's done!

[Kachakeño]

15 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

LOW SPEC EDITION IS OUT
Halved the number of dynamic lights, blocked all windows to reduce sight lines and removed the ceiling sector portal in the final area. FPS is much better. Has been tested successfully on a 670. There are a couple of sight lines that still generate an fps dip but they are non/low combat areas and only from very specific points that you don't spend much time at.

  Reveal hidden contents

One is early on so if you get past the SSG area you've already gone through the most taxing sight line

Hopefully a few more people can now play this. Remember don't load lights.pk3 when you play.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPfhRGw5VpmWRH5Tz7DS5kCMlzzsvI6V/view?usp=sharing

Map is a bit darker, but not to the point where it affects gameplay and still looks decent








*edit
The loading time will still be the same with the low spec edition so I have been thinking about a version where the map is chopped in 2 and made 2 separate levels which will reduce the loading time drastically. Whether or not I do this will depend on how much demand there is for this. I know where the split will happen but it is still a bit of work and completing the public beta of Mapwich 2 is calling...

Oh did I say that out loud? Surely not. Must have been the wind

I've tested with LZDoom 3.86a. Still dropping fps on certain areas, but at least it runs better than before. Turning off the light and fog effects help, but just a little bit.

BTW: when you said a version of the map chopped in 2, that means you're thinking about adding a hub-level resource, am I right?

[Bridgeburner56]

Good luck @Zolgia108 !

@Kachakeño technically yes map will be split into 2 and turned into a hub although it's not like it'll play like a heretic/hexen hub style episode

[Kachakeño]

9 minutes ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Good luck @Zolgia108 !

@Kachakeño technically yes map will be split into 2 and turned into a hub although it's not like it'll play like a heretic/hexen hub style episode

Like Strife and Abysm, right? That would be a good idea considering I would like to see a Metroidvania inspired Doom TC with hub maps.

[Zolgia108]

i can't really record this one:

1) it lags too much while recording

2) i need to record window mode with obs or else it won't catch the screen (don't know why), and i can't really play like shit in this map

 

 

Played on UV

 

1st hour of playthrough:

Texture usage is amazing and i love it, i admired the architecture so many times i can't even count them.

I just now finished the whole yellow key area, i really enjyed the rocket launcher fight, especially after i noticed that a quick run into the teleporter telefrags one of the cyberdemons making my life easier. Second wave with imps revenants etc was a bit overwhelming but yea, this is slaughter after all.

i really think this map needs an early backpack^^

 

Gameplay is quite good until now, revenants are what make (as usual) your life miserable, especially because of the curved staircases. The only thing that i am not enjoying is the loading screen, since i die so many fucking times it gets frustrating to wait that much.

 

last thing before i continue: where the fuck is my backpack?

 

 

 

[Bridgeburner56]

@Zolgia108 heh, the map does suffer a bit from an over use of revs, particularly at the but you're up to now. There's 3 fairly rev centric fights in a row in this section. In hindsight I would have spaced the fight ideas out with some other concepts but it's not worth the energy this late in the piece. And what can I say, Iove a good boner swarm of boners. This is also a common criticism levelled at slaughter maps. Revs are probably the most versatile enemy in the doom roster so they appear in a lot of fight set ups.

 

The RL arena is still probably my favorite part of the map. I love the way it looks, it was really fun and creatively easy to make and the fight is a blast imo. There's a few ways to handle it as well and that quick telefrag is one of the ways. You do have one less cyber to use to infight though as a payoff 

 

The loading screen wait is what will be fixed by splitting the map in 2 (if I do it). Afaik it is due to gzdoom rebuilding the nodes everytime you reload and I have no idea why it is necessary. 

 

One of the things that makes HMP and lower easier is an earlier backpack. I deliberately kept it late on UV. There is a secret early backpack though on UV. 

Spoiler

It's in the room with the big revanat fight on the curving stairs after the RL arena

 

[Zolgia108]

34 minutes ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

@Zolgia108 heh, the map does suffer a bit from an over use of revs, particularly at the but you're up to now. There's 3 fairly rev centric fights in a row in this section. In hindsight I would have spaced the fight ideas out with some other concepts but it's not worth the energy this late in the piece. And what can I say, Iove a good boner swarm of boners. This is also a common criticism levelled at slaughter maps. Revs are probably the most versatile enemy in the doom roster so they appear in a lot of fight set ups.

 

The RL arena is still probably my favorite part of the map. I love the way it looks, it was really fun and creatively easy to make and the fight is a blast imo. There's a few ways to handle it as well and that quick telefrag is one of the ways. You do have one less cyber to use to infight though as a payoff 

 

The loading screen wait is what will be fixed by splitting the map in 2 (if I do it). Afaik it is due to gzdoom rebuilding the nodes everytime you reload and I have no idea why it is necessary. 

 

One of the things that makes HMP and lower easier is an earlier backpack. I deliberately kept it late on UV. There is a secret early backpack though on UV. 

  Reveal hidden contents

It's in the room with the big revanat fight on the curving stairs after the RL arena

 

ok then it will be next! Anyways, i m not criticizing revenants at all, they are probably, like you said, the most versatile monster in doom. I m just saying that they are so unpredictable in certain enviroinments that rng can fuck you up and make you mad lots of times, i mean maybe you come up with a cool strategy and you are very sure of what you are doing and then they ruin everything with a homing missile that you didn't see at all :)

Ok now it's time to give another shot and play another hour! thanks for the reply

[Zolgia108]

 

 

So... what to say...

 

i had to cheat! ahhaha (just a couple of times)

 

first of all i wanted to express my gratitude for such a grand work, it felt like going through an oblivion gate at first and then living probably the best (hell infested) gothic cathedral of my beautiful europe. I don't know where you come from but i live in a small town in italy which holds the second most important italian cathedral. Well it was like being there fighting demons (altough i would have liked more to be on the other side to be honest).

 

Architecture was amazing and i think that playing this no monster will be my next step, just to better admire what you conceived.

Otex really help a lot with this i must say.

 

Combat wise (it's slaughter so i will try to be as objective as possible):

i think that the first half (and i mean until you get all the 3 keys) had some really clever moments, especially the rl fight and especially the one right after the backpack (i think it was before the blue key but correct me if i am wrong). The rest was a bit too much of everything thrown in. All species all together, that fit in pretty well with the name of the map (CHAOS, or should i say KAOS) but at the same time was overwhelming considering the pace in which you had to do them. Yes, the pace was the biggest problem here, i didn't have time to admire the surroundings and yet another revenant+caco+pe+hk+barons+random hitscanners+archvile+ whatever i forgot came in to ruin my day. That's why i needed to cheat a couple of times, i probably had to finish this in 3 days and not just 2, but i wanted to press on :)

 

Besides that, i think that you honestly deserve a cacoward for what you did.

 

Have a nice day!

[Bridgeburner56]

@666shooter Thanks for playing :D
I'm assuming you mean the staircase in the RL arean? There's something weird happening where mobs occasionally fall through the floor somehow. I've never beedn able to recreate it and there is no obvious cause. It's most likely a nodebuilder issue though so there's a couple of things I can try to fix it. Hard to test if I'm successful though.
The dias fight is immensely rude. I'm surprised there haven't been more complaints around that one. Although King Dime one shot it so maybe I should make it harder

To address your specific comments:
1) Interesting thing about this fight is that i completely forgot to lower the PE numbers for lower difficulties when I gave it to my testers and the response was ... leave them in. The bfg is more than enough to mow them down and there are a lot more cells in that area on HNTR than UV (over 1800 plus 400 in a secret) so as long as you are moderately aggressive with the PEs they are no real threat. On UV you have to be much more discerning with your bfg usage which makes them much more of  a problem.
2) That fight is a curious one because some people find it easy and some people get smacked around by it good and proper. And this is on all difficulties so it's not like it's overtuned on any specific difficulty. There are a couple of consistent strats to deal with it although they all revolve around keeping your distance from the archviles at the back (U strafe patterns are your friend). The pits are also designed to be used as cover, especially from the archviles which not everyone uses. 
3) This is another one that some people seem to struggle with and again, this isn't difficulty specific. Space is definitely at a premium here so careful manipulation of the HKs is needed and getting the cybers to infight with them. There's 3 kind of 'safe zones' that you need to move between and if you stay in one spot too long you can get overwhelmed/boxed in quickly. 
I'm very happy with the overall balance on all difficulties. Resources are more than plentiful on lower difficulties, especially compared to UV which is tightly balanced on ammo. 

Glad you enjoyed it, there will definitely be more from me in the future.
 

@Zolgia108 Sounds like you enjoyed yourself :D Keeping the combat as a full on slaughter (especially the second half) on all difficulties was very deliberate as I wanted to make sure the map 'felt' the same on all difficulties. I can definitely see how this would be overhwelming if you are not used to this style of gameplay. 
I'm not sure if you are aware (sounds like you might be) but the final 'church' is based on Hagia Sofia in Istanbul (6th century Byzantine church). I love using actual architecture as level design inspiration and there's nothing quite like old epic structures for making Doom maps out of. 

Thanks for playing!

[Turin Turambar]

About performance, I find some of your comments about the gpu requisites, needed "a good rig" or turning off lights a little surprising.

It's my previous experience that Doom sourceports are cpu-bound because they don't use well multi thread, which makes both cpu AND gpu to barely be used effectively. So with any modern gpu (I have a gtx 1080) it doesn't matter if I turn on and off the dynamic lights, the antialiasing, the hq textures, etc all the settings that in other games would affect the framerate, here the engine struggle with maps with a big scale and complexity, and that's it, there is no fix for that. I have a amd 3700x cpu, by the way, and I'm using Vulkan with latest GZDoom.

 

And this is the performance I get, in the normal version:

 

vs Low Spec version

 

I think I have better performance in Horizon Zero Dawn and people on Internet are complaining about the optimization of that title lol. They don't know Doom!

[Bridgeburner56]

@Turin Turambar while map geometry is one of the main factors on fps for doom, gpu draining elements like dynamic lights and static portals definitely affect fps. Removal of half the dynamic lights had a large impact on fps and if you run the map with lights.pk3 (which attaches lights to all projectiles) then the big fight at the end will have around a 50% fps drop. Turning dyn lights off at this point will cause the fps to bounce back. Your screenshots show a 37.5% increase in fps from the full to low spec version and the only thing different in that area is the dynamic light count.
And if gpu didn't matter then I wouldn't of had an fps jump when I upgraded my graphics card.