Arceon - Boom compatible mapset (now on idgames!)

[Not Jabba]

It's not a big deal. The conveyance in that map is so good that I could actually tell where the key was supposed to be even though it was missing, so I didn't even run around confused for very long. I just gave myself the key with the GZ console.

[RetroAkaMe]

On 10/2/2021 at 11:03 AM, Briøche said:

Ohw, hello Beethoven ! You released a mapset ? Seems cool, I'll take a look :)

Oh god... The duel between the masterminds

[RetroAkaMe]

Boom's a nice format. I think the original is rather unorganized.

[Soulless]

Couldnt get 100% kills on map03, a couple of cacos were missing,

all secrets found: https://imgur.com/a/9qyunvl

 

[Silhouette 03]

I think I found a minor bug in Map 05, where the last step on this staircase is set to a -5 pain sector:https://imgur.com/a/T66pHxV

 

Really awesome mapset by the way, Phobos. I especially like how the combat encounters feel very fine tuned and precise in terms of enemy placement and the use of higher tier enemies as turrets in the later maps, as well as the fact that you give the player more than enough space to move in some of the heavier fights(besides your evil use of pain sectors here and there). Good stuff, overall. 

 

[DMPhobos]

2 hours ago, Soulless said:

Couldnt get 100% kills on map03, a couple of cacos were missing,

all secrets found: https://imgur.com/a/9qyunvl

 

 

1 hour ago, Silent Wolf said:

I think I found a minor bug in Map 05, where the last step on this staircase is set to a -5 pain sector:https://imgur.com/a/T66pHxV

 

 

Thanks, i'll be fixing those, hopefully there arent any more issues to address besides those

 

Thanks for playing the set!

 

 

[GarrettChan]

Should've posted map2 max but I forgot, and it's not on this computer, heh.

 

Map3's last fight, it's relatively easy to AVJ out of it. Probably need to do something to prevent it, and it needs a bit of automap cleaning. Also looked at the Caco closet, and it seems it's a (G)ZDoom problem as I'm worried about missing monsters in my max. It seems I tried a few times on Woof and they are fine.

[DMPhobos]

Thanks, i did a small change to prevent the Vile Jump on the last fight in the third map, i haven't been able to replicate the stuck cacos issue on dsda or gzdoom, but just to be sure i've changed the closet implementation to ensure they never get stuck

 

Cheers!

[ReaperAA]

Found a small HOM on Map04

[ReaperAA]

I have completed first 5 maps and I am really enjoying enjoying the set. The maps are well balanced and I enjoyed the mixture of incidental and setpiece combat. My only small quibble is that since the maps are large and have many routes, some of the maps (especially Map 3, 4 and 6) can use a bit more texture variety to make orientation easier and rely less on automap

[Valboom]

I had a lot of fun playing this mapset, congrats! (no problem with Woof 7.0.0).

[DMPhobos]

Hey everyone, just letting everyone know i just updated the release to RC3, fixing most of the bugs people had reported here along with some slight tweaks based on the feedback i've gotten, if there isn't anything else that needs to be fixed/changed, i'll be uploading this as the final version on idgames after some time

[LVENdead]

I just finished up this WAD and it was pretty great. I think you definitely succeeded in creating a very detailed interconnected set of maps. There has been a lot of competition for great use of OTEX recently and this definitely contends with the best of them; but it really stands out on its own thanks to the actual structure of the maps and overall gameplay. The levels flow very well from area to area and arena to arena, and there's a delightful amount of overlap to and transformation of older areas. I like that there's an overall consistent look that still manages to maintain enough variety to give each map its own style.

 

The combat has a lot of good incidental fighting that effectively makes use of the level geometry themselves and item placement to give players plenty of reason to move around areas nonlinearly to kite enemies, recover resources, take shelter, and counterattack. The arenas stack up deadly hordes but give you plenty of decisions to make with the use of hazards and again the placement of resources. This WAD also has some of the most dastardly use of Pain Elementals I've seen in a while and they effectively pissed me off in basically every fight they appeared (the best way to use them, imo). 

 

I love how things ramped up toward the end, and I think the last couple of levels were my favorites (although Map 05 did feel like a slog at times taking out all the perched/sniper enemies). The final "actual" map is grandiose in scale, punishing in difficulty, and dense enough with gameplay to feel like an actual final struggle. I love the last map too...of course it kind of reminds me of the endings of BTSX1 and 2, but it's a great vignette to just kind of reflect for a moment at the conclusion of the set after everything you put the player through.

 

Bravo, fantastic work with this one. 

[GarrettChan]

casual map2 max.zip

casual map3 max.zip

(For RC2 though...)

 

Will update to RC3.

[Soulless]

Completed the mapset, I couldnt kill all monsters in the last map, but I only found 3 out of 8 secrets,

so probably those were tied. Excellent work, what a time to be a doom enthusiast!

[DMPhobos]

A quick update, Arceon's final version is now on idgames!, There aren't any major changes between RC3 and the final version besides a few demos and some slight tweaks on map05. Once again thanks to everyone who gave feedback and reported bugs on the previous versions

 

As always any feedback and opinions about the set are welcome!

[Shepardus]

I missed that this had made its way to /idgames! I played the first half of one of the release candidates and really loved the interconnected map layouts - I always felt like I had multiple viable paths to choose from, and running around the maps felt very good. Looking forward to playing the rest!

[GarrettChan]

Congrats getting Cacowards!

 

Map06:

If you triggered Linedef 1752 and quickly get back behind the bars, then it seems it's a softlock.

 

UV pistol starts and then casual UV Maxes

Port: DSDA-Doom v0.19.7 -complevel 9 + Woof! 7.0.0 -complevel Boom

Total IGT: 1:41:19 (Casual Maxes: 9:33 + 14:13 + 17:41 + 17:29 + 19:48 + 22:35)

Personal Difficulty Evaluation: 1.9 (2 = Ancient Aliens)

Personal Rating: 7.4 (out of 10)

Comments:

Pretty nice map design and it will never go wrong with classical (pun intended) techbase map design, with a nice blend of otex. The maps are fairly long as well. Although I'm not going hardcore on speedrun, but I did play relatively quick. The maps still took quite a bit of time to beat, so yeah, pretty adventure feeling of them.

 

Gameplay wise, I am personally not a fan of lots of adventure and incidental fights, but it's not fair to say it's not good. It has its charm for sure. There are definitely some memorable fights, such as the end fight of Map03, end fight of Map05, blue key fight of Map06, end fight of Map06. Personally I would say end fight of Map05 is probably the hardest (but probably I'm using Woof! which is not a port that I'm used to as well...)

 

The only thing that I don't like, is the ammo distribution seems a bit of... wrong. The maps don't really offer you enough shotgun shells, so you'll end up switching weapons really often, and this hurts the pacing of the maps IMO. I'm not saying the maps need a lot of ammo that the player can swim in, but having enough shells can make the feeling more fluent. Therefore, making the shells more frontloaded (no need to add more because the ammo is about right on every map) would definitely increase my interest to a higher level for sure.

[DMPhobos]

Thanks, i def didn't expected to see Arceon at the cacos

 

22 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Map06:

If you triggered Linedef 1752 and quickly get back behind the bars, then it seems it's a softlock.

I could have sworn that i did had that softlock adressed since i remember having edited that so that coop players wouldn't get softlocked, guess i didn't saved it. Sucks that it slipped onto idgames, but i guess not many people will encounter it

 

Also thanks for the review on the wad, im aware that there are things in the set that are not everyone's cup of tea and that the wad has a bit of a mix of everything (incidental combat mixed with combat setpieces), but in the end i hope most people find something to enjoy of the set at the very least, and im glad to hear you liked the set despite those things you mentioned about the pacing and ammo balancing

 

[GarrettChan]

8 minutes ago, DMPhobos said:

I could have sworn that i did had that softlock adressed

Hmm, I can't tell whether I updated when I did that. It seems the size is the same as idgames, but I'm not sure as I don't have a good memory :P

Also, I think you can push updates to idgames as well.

 

Heh, I tried to judge things as objective as possible. I do have very specific acquired taste, but I still appreciate things with efforts despite maybe not being my taste. Hopefully you'll get more maps in the future. Cheers.

[lunchlunch]

.

Edited October 18, 2022 by lunchlunch

[DMPhobos]

Thank you for the FDAs, im glad you're liking the mapset so far, and i hope you enjoy the rest of the maps as well. I would encorage you to use saves on the later maps since the last few are a bit lengthier than the rest of the set and spice difficulty up a bit (but nothing extreme)

 

8 hours ago, lunchlunch said:

Even when I got back here and knew what was going on, I couldn't really tell which direction the "trail" was going, like which honeycombs were about to sink, and which would stay solid.

That's fair, the damaging floor pattern is moving in circles around the center hexagon, but it's a bit hard to telegraph that to the player without stopping things on it's track, i tried to give a few seconds for players to see that the floors would move around and before starting the fight and generally this worked well for most players, but not for everyone, but im glad even with that fight towards the end you enjoyed the rest of the map

[elic]

Played this over the weekend - awesome stuff! The more exploratory portions of the maps really distill what I enjoy most about Doom's gameplay - running through open layouts, weaving in and out of small-scale fights, gradually clearing the place out. I can't think of a mapset that's been so fun for me to just run around in. Definitely going to be looking out for similar stuff!

 

There was a strong sense of gameplay consistency in these maps which I found interesting. Basically there's 2 modes of gameplay here - open exploration (aka the "incidential combat" everyone's mentioning in this thread) and choreographed arena fights - with not much in between. The levels kinda follow a strict formula, with usually 2 main objectives open at once, each composed starting out with an exploration portion and ending an arena or 2. Normally formulaicness is something I dislike, but here it worked for me, I think mostly because this methodical approach to gameplay feel is uncommon in the maps I've played, and because the formula itself is pretty good, as the arenas were a perfect complement to the exploratory portions.

 

I also noticed that the arena fights were usually much harder than the surrounding incidental combat. I probably had like ~25 deaths total in the arenas vs 1-2 outside of them. Personally I would have preferred a more consistent difficulty between these 2 types of gameplay, but I understand the appeal of the exploration portions being breathers between the arenas. The yellow key fight in map06 (the one mostly over lowered lava in a valley between the buildings) was by far the hardest fight in the wad for me, possibly because the plasma gun was intended to be used (judging by the cell supply before the fight)... ...which I didn't manage to find before I got locked into the fight sequence. I mostly enjoyed the arenas though, and it was fun seeing all the creative uses of boom conveyor scripting. The raising and sinking hex platforms at the end of map03 maybe could have been telegraphed batter, but the concept itself is one of the coolest twists I've seen in a doom fight.

 

While the maps looked really nice, they also lacked a bit of character - all the details looked great on their own, but not many of them stuck as as particularly memorable. Overall this was fine, but I think it'd be cool to see more concrete/original themes or concepts holding the individual levels together. The best of the techbase levels for me was map05, as the giant nukage pit in the center of the map tied the whole layout together in a way missing from the other levels. Still though I liked the subtle themes shifts between the maps, with the clean high-tech of map02 contrasting with the more industrial map04 for example. Also the sudden shift to hell in the last map was an excellent way to twist things up right before the wad ended.

 

 

[DreadWanderer]

Hi everyone, here's my UV max single segment playthrough of Arceon:
 

 
It's a really fantastic set that reminded me of BTSX. My only minor complaint is that there's no BFG on UV for the final maps, but I managed. My compliments to @DMPhobos for creating it, too bad it didn't win a Cacoward.

[DMPhobos]

23 hours ago, DreadWanderer said:

Hi everyone, here's my UV max single segment playthrough of Arceon:

 

Thanks for your playthrough i'm glad to hear you enjoyed the set. Looking back i might had been a bit stingy on ammo and relied too much on rockets over shells and cells on some maps (blame it on me balancing things based on my gameplay style), and i also would agree that a BFG would had worked well on the last map considering it's length. I have a few mixed feelings about the last map, but i think it's still a decent map.

 

23 hours ago, DreadWanderer said:

too bad it didn't win a Cacoward.

 

To be honest i'm still suprised it even got a mention as a runner up, since 2021 saw many much better releases than mine. Either way i'm still proud of this set

[Rex705]

Very nice looking maps fun gameplay.