Lair of evil (Short Slaughtermap)

[Csucskos]

Hello everyone, my name is Csucskos, I'm a big Doom fan, but not really as a player, but as a video consumer. I got inspired by Okuplok's map2, which was my first exposure to "smart" slaughter maps, where there is more to it than let's say in Nuts. So that inspired me to create a map, a slaughter map that is. This is my first, so keep the expectations low.

 

Mapinfo: It's a 20 minutes long Slaughter Map with 8 different fights (rooms). (Yes, one map!) Enemies and weapons are completely vanilla.

The difficulty was optimized the following way: Easy should be trivial, Medium should be a fair challange and hard should be... well quite challenging, but still possible. (On easy you can just go in as you please and kill everyone, but on hard you have to have a clear plan and you have to also execute thus the challange.) Btw, I did not change the difficulty names, they are just as in Doom 2.

The ammo is scarce, be aware, but every room is possible just with the resources that can be found in it. There are no secrets.

NoJump, NoFreelook, NoCrouch is active, so it could be called a vanilla map, but was made in Hexen format, was tested only in GZDoom. (With infinite splash height enabled. ~actor height it is called.)

The used IWAD is Doom 2.

 

Story: "You were sent to kill the Evil Mastermind, who is hiding in it's lair. We can't provide you much ammo, so be conservative. There are several evil rooms you have to clear before can go through to it, don't come back without its head! And one more thing; Don't trust anything or anyone! Good luck!"

 

This is my first map, but tried to make every fight worthwhile, my main goal was to prevent circle strafing so I designed every room to make this strategy impossible. I'd love to hear every feedback, but mainly the negative ones, as those the ones I can improve on so please don't hold back yourselves!

 

Edit: I consider this map to be finished, so won't focus on updating it anymore, unless some cheese tactic is found or any missing texture. Have fun!

 

OK, now a few word about each room's main design elements and why they are evil:

Spoiler

The first room: The dead cacos and the descending floor should block the vision of the incoming fireballs. The fence limits your mobility.

 

The second room: The Pinkies will easily corner you, thus you try to stay as close to the edge of the room as you can, but the archies are constant threats.

 

The third room: Obviously the tight corridors limit your mobility and the visibility is limited.

 

Cyberdemon room: The only way to move around is through the middle, but it's elevated, making catching projectiles much easier. The ammo is under the crushers, so you always have to be aware of the position of the crushers.

 

Shootout room: Just a little surprise after the fight. Don't get cornered.

 

Imp room: You have to focus the Pain elementals, otherwise you get overwhelmed. The windows make easier for the Imps to snipe you.

 

Baron room: It's small, so you have to maneuver smartly to get past them.

 

Final room: Sniping Cyberdemons with caco cloud.

 

Update (2021.02.27)

 

Caco skip - Rectified

Frustration - Reduced

Pinky skip - Deleted

Archviles - Added

Lame hitscanners - Replaced

Final timewaster backtrack - ??? (Yeah, got removed)

 

OK, everything looks fine but let me know your thoughts.

 

Update (2021.03.03)

 

Minor updates ~ more ammo and a way to backtrack for missed kills

 

(The next goal is to trick out the visuals. After that the map should be finished. See you then!)

 

Update (2021.03.28)

 

It's finished.

Updated the description and the screenshots.

 

/OK, so some final thoughts. I made this map, because I saw specific designs and wanted to make the perfect map, without the elements I hate but with all the new ideas I had. I felt like I succeeded with the premise. Started making the map and just by playing it, new ideas turned up and unforseen errors or frustrating flaws got revealed. So basically the map designed itself after my initial input. ~ and the reviews helped too, as my lonely crew obviously not a representative sample size :D ~ I wanted to make a map. Singular. But one thing lead to another and it just did not want to end, begging for a sequel. I don't know. As of now, I have no great ideas what else to make, and don't want to just make maps for the sake of saying I made a whole megaWAD... But maybe one day. As I said, I used up all my inspirations but the logical next step would be a regular map. I think it's much easier to design a slaughter map as it is segmented by design, in a traditional map it's all interconnected and the players movement is unpredictable. Not to say designing great slaughtermaps would be childs play, but for me a n average slaughtermap looks much less menacing to make than a normal map. So who knows what will come?... and not to say, I just got reminded of Gazebo's Sunder because of decino and well, all my happiness is gone. Those maps... the extreme verticality and the details... I think I'm going to cry myself to sleep :D/

 

Oh and one more thing: In Suitepee's stream (insanely helpful video I can't praise him enough) some jokingly said "He makes cool music" - probably not the first time someone uses "Running from evil" for their first map's music... Sooo shameless plug not that I think there's that big of an overlap between electronic music nerds and Doom lovers but just because: Check out my Newgrounds, I made some music there :D

 

Be safe guys!

 

 

Lair of Evil.zip

Edited January 4, 2023 by Csucskos : Little rebalancing, fixed a softlock and made the last room more evil

[Voxelvoid]

This is just ridiculous. I tried to beat it but I give up. This map is absurdly hard to the point that it is unplayable, at least for me.

[El Inferno]

Excited to check this out asap! I'll write my thoughts after I play the map. 

Difficult maps usually do not receive much feedback here so it may be worthwhile to ask somebody from this list https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118850-who-can-test-your-maps-list-of-active-playtesters/ for advice. 

 

 

You can also check my maps out btw, which are mostly fight-oriented. 

 

[Csucskos]

2 hours ago, Voxelvoid said:

This is just ridiculous. I tried to beat it but I give up. This map is absurdly hard to the point that it is unplayable, at least for me.

 

 

I'm so happy! Thank you for playing the map! Try easier difficulties if you are stuck. But anyways, you did your part already, maybe I should adjust the difficulty, will wait for more feedback though.

[Voxelvoid]

I tried to beat it the second time and I got a bit further (I've defeated the IMPs and the pain elementals in that room on the left). I will try to beat it till the end, but man, this is some incredibly hard shyte.
 

[Csucskos]

Confession time: I only beat my map on UV with saves, because catching a Cyberdemon rocket after 10 minutes is not very funny. But other than that, on other difficulties (no nightmare, because with fast monsters I'm pretty sure the pinky room is impossible) single segment is possible. OK, I know what to expect, but still. Just did not want to make it too easy :(

[Voxelvoid]

Well yes, this map would be impossible to beat without saves. I hope somebody else will pick up the challenge.

[Csucskos]

Nah, it's not impossible, just grindy, and after changing certain settings an all I could not bother to beat it again and again... But as I said, depending on further feedback, I may change the map (also may change the visuals) so feel free to check back!

[El Inferno]

Recorded a video with commentary for this map. Pretty good for a first map and some fights were quite tense (cybers + arachnotrons is the most fun one for me). Difficulty was alright for me. Max is doable but not gonna bother with it though)

 

[PeceMan]

I enjoyed that very much!

Spoiler

It was hard, especially the arachnotron part. But from time to time, I do enjoy myself some save-by-save hard wads.

 

My strategy was to skip the first cacodemon-mancubus section, then hide in the corner and fight the pinkies with rockets.

 

The map isn't exactly aesthetically pleasant, but that's not really the focus of the wad anyway.

 

I have one issue, though. I got to the blood mastermind section, and decided to grab the soulsphere to refill on health, but to leave the megasphere for later. But then, after i had saved, i realized that in order to advance, i would have to grab the megasphere, completely wasting it. So I think that, instead of having the megasphere start the fight, you could have the lines on the small square the megasphere is on start the fight. That would've saved me some minor frustration.

 

I give it an 8.5/10. Could look better, but was fun, and in the end, that's the only thing that matters.

[Arbys550]

Not bad, I think my favorite fight was the cyberdemon + arachnotron one. I think the mancubi at the beginning were kinda annoying, same with the chaingunner part. I also think some of the timed doors were a little too slow, especially the one in the chaingunner maze

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Tried on LZDOOM and had a bug with the software render, but it was ok in openGl

 

Not bad, some hard parts, but rather fun. I would give it a 7/10 taking in consideration it's your first map

[Csucskos]

I'm back! Yesterday got blocked beacuse was too chatty on my frist day, but do not think I missed your comments!

 

The Caco skip is noted, will be tackled. I'm sad about the pinky room, it used to have a rectangular entrance corridor, but it was really easy to just sit in the corner and berserk everyone. I assume that's where you were hiding. Will brew up some solution for it.

 

I thought about the megasphere problem and that was the reason I put it on a small podium. I did not think about the linedef solution. (I mean it's much easier this way from the scripting side. But I see why that can cause a problem.)

 

The slow doors are unfortunatelly will stay, don't want anyone to just run away from the chaingunner room or the other hitscanner one.

 

The annoying mancubi at the beginning was the whole idea behind that room, the combination of the descending floor and the dead cacos blocking the view. Won't get changed.

 

Thanks for the input about the different versions. I think it is bugged, because I have some textures missing there but those are necessary if I want to have the sky textures on the walls. (At least I found no other solution.)

 

The aesthetics may get changed to something like the final rooms, but I could not bother before the maplayout is finalized.

[El Inferno]

This is a.zip the correct way of making sky on the wall.

[Csucskos]

8 minutes ago, El Inferno said:

This is a.zip the correct way of making sky on the wall.

Am I stupid, or are the sidedefs missing? Because that's exactly the way I did it in my map. (Opened it in Doom 2 as Zdoom/Hexen format was unavailable)

[El Inferno]

2 hours ago, Csucskos said:

Am I stupid, or are the sidedefs missing? Because that's exactly the way I did it in my map. (Opened it in Doom 2 as Zdoom/Hexen format was unavailable)

 

Check the editor. There's an additional sector on the boundary which has height 0 and ceiling texture set to F_SKY. It makes the upper sidedefs of that sector also display as sky. This way it will be displayed correctly in any sourceport. Doom II map 1 features this trick iirc so you can look it up there    

[Voxelvoid]

I beat it! That was a rush.
 

[Csucskos]

OK, I see... interesting! I'll try it and hopefully it'll work.

 

Nice Voxel, unfortunatelly I can't open your screenshot, but I'm so happy. Now I'll make it harder :D

[SCF]

This was pretty fun! It's not very refined, but for a first map it's got good challenges. Some comments on indivual sections:

 

First room: You said it was intentional, but getting killed by mancubus fireballs coming out of nowhere because of the floor/corpses was pretty annoying, so I don't think it worked very well. I think I died there more than in any of the other rooms. The beginning where I was just trying to deal with the cacos before they get in and swarm you was fine though.

 

Revenant/Pinky room: I didn't know how to tackle the pinkies without getting cornered, but then I noticed that you can sit in the entrance corridor and fire rockets until they're dead, so that trivialized the whole fight. I gave it another go later and tried to do it the 'normal' way, and unless I missed something obvious it feels like the hardest fight in the map to me. Very easy to get your escape route blocked off at the beginning and having just the rocket launcher makes that even more dangerous. I think the fight's tough enough that it doesn't need the teleporters, it's just annoying when you step on one and die.

 

Chaingunner maze: Not much to say about this one. Most of the chaingunners will just kill each other, and you're safe when you hug the wall.

 

Imp/Pain elemental room: I liked this one. You have to prioritize your targets while dodging the imp projectiles coming from all sides. However, I don't really see the point of making this the chaingun room, because it feels like a terrible weapon for it -too slow to kill the chaingunners and pain elementals before they overwhelm you. I just used my leftover rockets and the plasma I got from the other side. The key trap was very nasty, you have almost no time to react if you don't know what's coming.

 

Cyber/Arachnotron room: Pretty tricky, but you can get the cyberdemons busy infighting quite consistently. Dodging the arachnotron bolts at the same time was the hard part. Not a fan of the crushers (at least, the part where they crush me when I'm backing up). The key trap here was... weird? I'm not sure why the other side sandwiches you between 4 barons, and this one just has a few zombiemen.

 

Final fight: Didn't really like this one. The cacodemons quickly fill the arena and it's very easy to get blocked by one of them flying high above you and catch a cyberdemon rocket. I just left as soon as the spider demon died and waited until most enemies were dead.

 

Having to backtrack all the way to the beginning after getting the yellow key felt kind of unnecessary. It's not very long, but most maps will give you a teleporter to save you time.

 

 

 

 

[Csucskos]

Thank you SCF!

 

It's really hard to change my idea on the first room, the whole idea was to be annoying and I don't want to change it even if it puts some people off right at the beginning. I know it's unfair, but I wanted that challenge to have quick reaction time. Will think about something to make it less punishing, but the overall layout will stay, I've grown to love my idea a lot :/

 

The pinky room is carefully sized so you can barely slip by to make it challenging. BUT it'll most certainly get changed, because the challenge does not last, only when every pinky is alive. (The corrider is now wider, letting more pinky in to prevent camping.)

 

Chaingunner room: Well, that's something I did not think about, I was always running around like crazy and thus had to kill the chaingunners. I have no idea how to force you to move.

 

Pain elemental room: I know it's terrible, and I want people to fight with that, hence the imps and not stronger enemies, because that way it'd truly be a slugfest. I just could not think of a different fight where you'd use the chaingun, except sniping hitscanners. And let's be real, that's not really interesting.

 

I'm happy with the key trap. As I watched El Inferno, I noticed he always rushed into the room, but only the key is trapped so you could heal up and grab some shells before the fight. Will indicate it somehow. (I think it's obvious that it's a trap.)

 

Cyber room: Yeah, I'm not really sold on the crusher damage amount, may reabalance it, but they are staying for sure. I wanted to make the keytrap doable, and since there is no armor you could grab, I did not want to make it impossible. On the other hand, I did not want to give you too much shells or even the chaingun (those enemies would have made it much harder). Now I'm experimenting with non hitscanners, that way you can dodge, so I can place more enemies while keeping it possible.

 

Final room: I don't think so, the cacos quickly go into the middle and you can just run around. Which is not good, as I said, I wanted to prevent circle strafing, but for me there is not enough enemies to make a roadblock. So it'll be changed, but I don't know yet how. I wanted to replace a few cacos with pain elementals, but it was too unpredictable, focusing them was impossible and they filled the room quite quickly. I'll change the room geometry and than think about the enemy amount.

 

The final backtrack was just a safety feature, if there was any way to skip a fight I wanted to make you go through both ways thus making sure you killed everyone. And it makes sense from the story's view, but the map will probably end in the final room.

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/Gsiur1TMl0k

 

My playthrough starts at 2:10:10. Some decent ideas for slaughter encounters found within, and I was thankful for being able to dash through the opening fight. (which seemed the most difficult)

[Csucskos]

Thank you man! I was laughing so hard on the comments, like "All speed went to the crushers and the door got nothing" :D

 

So to sum up what you did: First room skipped, second room cheesed, 3rd room waited out, the rest was properly fought. I'm a little bit sad I haven't been able to publish the second version yet, and now you probably won't play it, but I sure had a lot of fun watching you suffer from the backtrack :D (Will be scrapped though, as now the first fight is unskippable ~hopefully~, so why would I force people to waste time.) And even though I was aware of the problems it was still nice to see what ways people brain go.

[thelazyqdude]

Will play tomorrow.

[Csucskos]

Nonono dude, wait for the patch pls! (Or you can share your ideas how to fix certain parts.)

 

Should I upload the half fixed version I'm currently working on? Fixed the skip and the cheese... I think, but it's not properly balanced yet.

[Csucskos]

OK, new patch is up, let's go people!

[Csucskos]

The map is considered to be finished. Many fights got rewamped, so even if you played the first version you may want to give it another spin. And if you got put out by the visuals the first time... now they are upgraded. Go in and slay them all!

[smeghammer]

Tried this on HMP. Got as far as the imp/chaingunner arena. I saved in the atrium to this bit and tried the cyberdemon arena on the other side too - even managed to get two of them! It's certainly a nicely designed map, but its HAAAARRRRD! I'm not really a slaughter player, but I did have fun before I got my arse handed to me.

[Csucskos]

The more I play this map, the more I realize how hard really it is. I mean, it's OK for me as I know what to expect, but as a first timer... I don't know.

 

I'm happy you tried something outside of your comfort zone! You know there are more difficulty levels, but I only hope this did not end your slaughtermap playing carreer prematurely.

 

Thanks for playing and for the nice words. This being my first map, I'm happy to hear I managed to make something appealing. (Even if only visually :D)

[Sena]

In general, I think HNTR is the 'right' difficulty for this map, died probably ten times in a row on the first room in HMP, then once I moved down I managed to beat the first 3 in a row without saving, died to the cyberdemons, but that's just because in a room without proper cover, I know I cannot plasma 4 of them at once

Not bad or anything, but if there is one criticism, the room with the hell knights is way too easy in comparison to the rest of the WAD (also on HMP, went back to check), even with the slow ROF of the SSG, you can kill all the imps and shotgunners without any trouble, and the hell knights/barons/one revenant who didn't seem to want to shoot me some reason are positioned in such a way they aren't a threat at all, when I pressed the switch I was expecting their platforms to lower and they'd come after me, but the map just let me run completely past them

[Csucskos]

Hmmm... what? You played on Hey, not too rough and found it too easy? I know the 4 baron room is pretty quick in comparison with the rest, but I don't find amusing to SSG too many of them.

In the dark room, you should be trapped by the imps, forcing you to kill the snipers and the people on the pedastals. I've realized that revenants don't shoot too often, as they mostly see you when you are in the "dead" zone (too far to punch but too close to rocket), maybe this is a flaw, but I think it suits the easier difficulty.

You should not focus on the Cyberdemons, the hellknights will eventually whittle them down. (You should be running around like crazy :D)

 

And thank you for your review!