[cl2 short single map] Pressing matters

[Krecikdwamiljony]

Post has been edited thrice after feedback, some changes to the map were made - all the posted versions (15-17) are available. Version 17 is probably final.

 

Tl,dr: play on HMP or even HNTR unless you really want to dance with archviles in close quarters, with a lot of spectators. This is what you'll get on UV (minor spoiler for the final fight):

Spoiler

Btw the highest kill % I got on an exit was 176%, my average is about 150%, but I kinda like to juggle with archviles' resurrections

 

Hi, first post, first (finished) single map - Pressing matters.

 

It is intended to be a gameplay- and action-first, dense and compact (5:30 - 8:30 to UV Max casually) SP map - think JPCP map 04, Thaumasia, for example, but much harder.

 

HMP is the recommended first-time difficulty for a challenge and HNTR for a casual playthrough. UV will immediately overwhelm you if you expect simply running around the arena to work and mistakes will stack up against you quickly (and probably frustratingly too). It has been compared to easier Crumpets maps, for whatever that's worth to you.

 

It uses stock textures/flats only, dehacked only changes the map name. MIDI is custom, by me.

 

I appreciate all sorts of feedback - blind or practiced demos, videos, comments, especially regarding balancing (resources/monsters/timing) and difficulty. I am willing to tweak it further if any fixable, glaring issues are pointed out, but I'm also confident I could call it ready at this point. Obviously just seeing the map played casually is cool too.

Comp level: 2 / limit removing

IWAD: Doom II

Slot: 01

Difficulty settings: HMP generally recommended. All three available, playtested on UV the most. Even includes coop monsters (and coop starts), but I didn't really test that and it is probably plain bs.

Tested with: DSDA-Doom 0.18, crispy-doom 5.9.2 every now and then

Known issues: The (fast) crusher consists of multiple sectors, afaik normally all should move at the same speed, in sync, regardless of crushing, but apparently GZDoom slows it down and desyncs anyway. Added textures to at least get rid of HoMs in that case.

 

Screenshots (spoiler tag for brevity):

Spoiler

 

Download (current version: pressing_matters-v17.wad):

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/59ca9t54g70ksku/AABaLFk5bv2noqNEO5E1H6YBa?dl=0

Files:

pressing_matters-v17.wad - current version

pressing_matters-v16.wad - mostly changes to HNTR and HMP from v15

pressing_matters-v15.wad - initial version

pressing_matters-vXX_own_UV-max.lmp - my own UV Max demos, without picking the secret up until right before the exit (as a proof this is not trolling)

pressing_matters_stats.txt - as a bonus, this is how I take notes from my playtesting (and how this map went from version 16 to 17)

 

Changelog (spoiler tag for brevity):

Spoiler

v16:

HMP and HNTR have been sprinkled with some extra resources.

HMP lost one of the notorious archviles.
RL should be much more visible when it reveals itself.
Added textures to segments of the crusher so that when it splits, at least it doesn't HoM. It is also a bit quieter.
Fixed a few rocks sticking out in the background in an odd way.
Aligned a few textures better (although it probably misaligned a few others).
Cleaned the automap up.

 

 

v17:

UV health and armor:
+4 armor bonuses at the cave
+2 health bonuses +2 armor bonuses at the stairs
+2 health bonuses +2 armor bonuses on the pillars
2 stimpacks lowering in the last fight swapped out for medikits, +5 armor bonuses on each of the four spots for +20 armor total.
All of that for 69 armor bonuses total before the last fight. Nice. I noticed it being 68 anyway, I saw the chance and I took it.
More seriously, that's 34 more hp and 28 more armor, including 30hp and 20 armor in the final fight. Imo it made it much more forgiving and smoother.

 

Noticed it was possible to wallgrab the RL early, so I prevented it (or at least made it harder).

Noticed a pacifist run was almost kind of possible, so I changed two spawns' mechanics and now it should technically be possible. I don't think I'm up for the challenge, though. This should not affect a normal playthrough.

 

I'm not really retexturing the landscape after all because most of it is sort of continuous and I wasn't able to introduce new textures without them either just becoming the new main texture or creating jarring seams that I'd have to resolve with bigger geometry changes. And, to be honest, I think I simply like the uniform texturing.

 

I'm okay with the map (and the MIDI) being redistributed and/or reused and/or modified, CC-BY-NC-SA, i.e. not comercially, given credit, shared alike.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Krecikdwamiljony : Another (final?) version of the map available

[Dubbag]

 

[Voxelvoid]

That is an interesting map.
Action packed? Ok, we can call it that. Music is cool, use of textures is very good. I managed to beat it, but please, for the love of God, decrease the number of ARCHVILES!
I don't know how many of them are in this tiny map - maybe 7 or more? This makes it ridiculously difficult to beat if you want to kill all the monsters (I didn't have the patience to do it).
Cool stuff overall, but work on the balance.
 

[Kan3]

Ok, I tested it in UV.

 

I'll start with the aesthetic:
You did a nice job modeling your sectors, they give a proper rock/dirt-like feeling, but you basically used only 2 textures... That looks a bit lazy, you could have added some more, with some more detail in some rock formation, it's a small map, you it doesn't take much.
You instead did a good job for the upper outside of the map "landscape"; just those few rocky formations with trees on top, gives a nice touch and fits perfectly with the sky too.

 

General stuff:

The map is quite cramped.

With the amount of monsters you've put in, the players needs more breathing space and not to be getting stuck every 2 steps. 

For the crusher: it's a bit buggy cause of the different sectors it's composed of, so it will start moving asynchronically pretty soon after the first monster crushed and you didn't put any texture in the inside faces that become visible.
You forgot to hide the limit lines of the map (kinds weird to see a giant rectangle outside map's limits).

 

Gameplay: 

That's a bit of a punch in the face actually.

The start is ok, it's rough and hard, but if you make good use of the crusher you can survive without much trouble and to me it felt fun, but then...
You cannot put so many archviles in a map this small with that amount of monsters, it's madness, unless you have the right equipment, but you don't provide it.

There's no armor, only some helmet here and there and a green in the latest part of the map; it looks like you wanted the player to die multiple times, cause at a certain point the map becomes a bullet hell.

You provide a rocket launcher in the late game but it's almost unusable due to the map layout and the amount of monsters in close quarter; it doesn't makes much sense, give a plasma rifle instead or the rocket launcher before.

While you can survive with your skills in the first half, later you will survive only if you're lucky, if the archviles start to infight or if they don't resurrect too many foes, otherwise it's just isnta-death.

It almost felt like you wanted your map to be really hard but choose the cheap way, by putting too many archviles and many chaingunners and revenants.

I've been probably harsh, but it's to point out that you got the potential of making a fun and good looking map, you did it at the start, but you lost it in your search of making a hard map for the sake of it to be hard. There's a slim line between challenging hard and frustrating hard.

[Biodegradable]

Too many fucking Archviles on UV, fam. Absolute piss-take, that is. HMP is better balanced at least.

 

 

 

[Degree23]

There needs to be probably another 4-8 Shells at the start of the map. The RL comes way too late in the map. The crusher isn't easy to use. Ammo becomes a problem due to how many resurrections the AVs do. A PG would be most welcome. You could do with about 15% more space to run around in, and armour earlier.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

Regarding difficulty and archviles: yes, there are 10 archviles on UV, albeit 4 are stationary. I balanced the map around being able to beat it saveless not less than around once every four attempts, because overall I'm a pretty bad player and die to other people's maps easily. I suppose I heavily overpracticed my own. I was a bit worried it will end up like this and that's why I included the demo of me UV maxing it as a proof it is doable saveless, without the secret, to prove that it is not something I just lazily put together and wasn't willing to get through myself.

 

I will drop the second archvile in the second switch fight, remove/delay some fodder, add a few more armor bonuses (these really help more than you'd expect) and delay the archvile trio in the last fight so you can clear more space for rocketing before it appears. For the time being I'll edit the OG post to more clearly advise people to play on HMP or HNTR.

 

I'm low key sorry you experienced it like this.

 

Regarding desynching crusher: I think it might be a GZDoom thing, I never had that despite using it (the crusher) a lot. I'm not sure whether anything can be done about it. The crusher consists of multiple sectors for the fake shadow, so either that would have to go, or the crusher will split in GZDoom and possibly some other sourceports. I will add textures to address the HoM at least.

 

Regarding texturing: The idea was to have the texture be based first and foremost on the function - yellow, bright textures and flats are where you can move, desaturated brown/grey where you can't and that's it. There are few exceptions - the crusher, viewport for the first archvile to spawn and the indoors archvile room are red for good visibility, lava is damaging floor, the bars that can lower have a slightly different texture as well, and the brown water is the only "decoration". I kind of had this idea since the Tomb Raider reboot that had those outrageously white-painted ledges and walls you could interact with - I thought it was one of the few nice things in that game, even if done a bit obnoxiously. Perhaps I could add more ASHWALL, ROCK, STONE and TANROCK to the brown/'inactive' mix without losing the effect. I'm not sure which other textures would work for the 'yellow' group, though.

 

PS Thanks for appreciating the pun Dubbag

[Pseudonaut]

I died a few times on my blind run, but once I started recording, I got it on the first attempt. A bit slow, over the par time, but I'm satisfied for now. I see no reason that it can't be done consistently.

 

 

I liked that the crusher could be used as an ammo-saving tactic from the beginning. The tradeoff is that you're basically fucked if an archvile gets too close to the pile of crushed corpses and resurrects a bunch of ghost monsters, so I tried to lead the viles away from there whenever I could. In the last fight, the same crusher can be used to deal with some of the encroaching fodder while the player kills the more threatening monsters in the windows. I liked the map, and I don't think you should modify UV just because some find it too hard.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

Gg wp! It was a pleasure to watch (except for that one 70 damage rev missile to the face).

 

Yes, the crusher is meant to be the main feature of the map, even the title tries to hint at it (in addition to being an eye-rolling pun, hopefully). It didn't split for you either, what sourceport are you using, prboom+? Any ideas why would it split for others and how to reliably prevent it?

 

All the archviles are spawned either the farthest away from the crusher or when you're on the opposite side so that resurrecting ghosts is not a thing. Except maybe with the third, delayed AV, you could run to the crusher in the meantime, but if you fight the second one around the pillars or on the staircase, the third one will have no business going inside. I quickly discovered that resurrected ghosts aren't fun in this map and a few other AV ideas were a no-no because of that.

 

You don't have to kill the archvile and hell nobles in those windows at the end, they get crushed - that's what that otherwise useless hell knight right next to the exit is for - to show you that the switch activates crushers. I don't know if there's any way to make it more obvious. I also don't consider them super dangerous, the indoors AV field of view is actually quite poor and you can hide easily, either in corners or behind the pillars, which even cast shadows for reference, and even if you screw up anyway, the crusher will often block the line of sight for you.

 

To what would you compare it difficulty-wise, so that other people have a better idea of what they're getting into?

[Pseudonaut]

2 minutes ago, Krecikdwamiljony said:

Yes, the crusher is meant to be the main feature of the map, even the title tries to hint at it (in addition to being an eye-rolling pun, hopefully). It didn't split for you either, what sourceport are you using, prboom+? Any ideas why would it split for others and how to reliably prevent it?

 I recorded the demo in DSDA-Doom 0.21.0 and -complevel 2, but viddumped with prboom+ because I still haven't bothered to update my setup for that. Unfortunately, I know pretty much nothing about making maps, so I have no idea about the split crusher.

 

7 minutes ago, Krecikdwamiljony said:

All the archviles are spawned either the farthest away from the crusher or when you're on the opposite side so that resurrecting ghosts is not a thing.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that poor planning from the player could lead to a serious ghost problem. It happened to me when playing blind because I tried to lure the first archvile into the crusher and realized my mistake afterwards.

 

11 minutes ago, Krecikdwamiljony said:

You don't have to kill the archvile and hell nobles in those windows at the end, they get crushed - that's what that otherwise useless hell knight right next to the exit is for - to show you that the switch activates crushers. I don't know if there's any way to make it more obvious. I also don't consider them super dangerous, the indoors AV field of view is actually quite poor and you can hide easily, either in corners or behind the pillars, which even cast shadows for reference, and even if you screw up anyway, the crusher will often block the line of sight for you.

Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I felt more comfortable in that fight if the window enemies were dead, so I made killing them a priority. That way, when the archvile invasion starts, I can focus on that completely without worrying that I'll be hit in the back. I figure the crusher blocks most of it, but I'm pretty sure I took a high damage roll from that during my blind run so I went with this strat.

 

29 minutes ago, Krecikdwamiljony said:

To what would you compare it difficulty-wise, so that other people have a better idea of what they're getting into?

Maybe one of the easier maps from Crumpets? Not nearly as hard as some more infamous Ribbiks material, but mentioning his name might be enough to inspire an "oh shit, I'd better play this on HMP" reaction in some.

[Nefelibeta]

@Plats I will genuinely invite someone who likes arch-viles, definitely not trolling or something.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

New version of the map ready, edited the OP. As per Pseudonaut's suggestion I didn't make UV easier, but instead tested HMP and HNTR a bit more, made sure I'm able to HMP max it almost every time and emphasised it being the recommended difficulty.

 

I still consider adding an extra medikit or two on UV to make mistakes less punishing.

 

18 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool that poor planning from the player could lead to a serious ghost problem. It happened to me when playing blind because I tried to lure the first archvile into the crusher and realized my mistake afterwards.

Personally I don't really like it when corpse planning with foreknowledge of future archviles is required, but if you specifically led the archvile to the crusher yourself, I don't feel bad for you dying :D

 

21 hours ago, Degree23 said:

A PG would be most welcome. You could do with about 15% more space to run around in, and armour earlier. 

Fun (?) fact: Actually the very first few versions of the map had a PG where the berserk is now, but it didn't feel fun, just hosing helpless monsters down. As it is right now you have to carve your space for the RL first.

 

Another fun (?) fact: I got a weird AV blast bug in my demo for v16 at 01:50 where I screwed up and didn't cover enough, took the hit, but not the blast damage for some reason, just 20.

Spoiler

I should've died that run, but I'll take it.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

The (probably) final version of the map available, details in the OP.

 

At this point, after rebalancing resources slightly and even more playtesting, I'm quite confident it can be consistently beaten with skill (or even sometimes lacking it, like the dumb facerocket in my demo), with bad luck only making it harder in the majority of cases. But HMP and HNTR are also there, just as solid, if you don't want to tryhard so much.

[Maribo]

Just replying to say that v17's wad file isn't in the dropbox folder, the only thing I'm seeing is older versions + a demo for v17.

[Krecikdwamiljony]

Whoops, thanks a lot for pointing it out. Fixed.