My third (first public) map

[LSC Lasico]

is spent roughly a week building it.

 

Here's the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tcyyhmkcggd2rh/NONAME.wad?dl=0

 

tested with gzdoom. No advanced features allowed (i tried testing on prboom+, but it kept giving me an error that there was no M_Map lump present, or something, after thoroughly investigating to the point of twisting my own ass backwards, to the point i almost lost my sanity, i gave up)

 

IWAD: Doom II

Compatability: any, tbh

Difficulty: i dunno, i'm not qualified enough to tell, but i died often when playtesting this map.

custom thingies: some textures from the ultimate doom, a custom texture that is grenwall2 but with claw warks of something climbing, and a custom thing: a magic rose (i, i definitely intended them to be magic, that is not failed transparency)

musicc: Dear onion by Lippeth.

special notes: the beginning of this map is supposed to be a sort of "stealth misison", when you see four hell knights and a pain elemental at the beggining, while you have only a pistol: don't panic, you're supposed to leave them alone until you acquire bigger guns.

The map is supposed to tell you this itself through (questionable) game design ( the shotgunner stuck in the wall is not a bug: it's a feature), but the custom things i added (the magic roses ripped from Geometry Dash and put into this wad) block shots and projectiles, even when you are inside them. Seriously, don't shoot rockets while you are inside the roses, worst mistake of my life.

this map is supposed to be a lenient reimagining of entryway.

Edited after i posted because i forgot: this map does not have difficulty support (kinda). I will do this at a later point in time. 
 

now, if i made this post correctly, then after this there are supposed to be screenshots, if i messed it up, sorry, no screenshots :(

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by %some random internet shkila

[Degree23]

Ok I played this a bit last night and got quite frustrated, so I left it until this morning and tried again.

 

It's a quite unforgiving map, and to me it felt a little awkward to play, at least as far as I got. Even if you kill the 2 Chaingunners, there doesn't seem to be enough ammo around to kill all the Imps. The fights aren't that conducive to using the Chainsaw really so I really felt the lack of ammo at the start was a problem. A SG and 20 Shells, or a box of Bullets just after the door by the HKs would help that. The next couple of areas just have not much room to move around and a ton of things to dodge, and I ended up dying after being trapped by the blue bars. This was as far as I got.

 

The vibes of Entryway are definitely there for sure, so that's well done. I hope you get other feedback on this, as this is all just one person's opinion.

[LSC Lasico]

2 hours ago, Degree23 said:

Ok I played this a bit last night and got quite frustrated, so I left it until this morning and tried again.

 

It's a quite unforgiving map, and to me it felt a little awkward to play, at least as far as I got. Even if you kill the 2 Chaingunners, there doesn't seem to be enough ammo around to kill all the Imps. The fights aren't that conducive to using the Chainsaw really so I really felt the lack of ammo at the start was a problem. A SG and 20 Shells, or a box of Bullets just after the door by the HKs would help that. The next couple of areas just have not much room to move around and a ton of things to dodge, and I ended up dying after being trapped by the blue bars. This was as far as I got.

 

The vibes of Entryway are definitely there for sure, so that's well done. I hope you get other feedback on this, as this is all just one person's opinion.

Thanks for the review.

i’ll admit, the ammo is a bit too tight, and i definitely need to nerf the revenants + pinkies + cacodemons ambush.

however, the ammo starvation is supposed to be part of the map’s design, although, yet again, i admit, the map is exponentially harder if you don’t get the first secret (soulsphere + box of shells + ammo at the beginning of the level).

yeah, the gameplay is still flawed. Thanks for the feedback!

here’s a but of a tip about my strategy of how i clear this map: DO NOT SHOOT THE IMPS IN THE TECH ROOM. they can be used to stall mancubi that emerge from the later trap in the map, those mancubi also kill all the imps, sparing you the ammo.

also, in the same ambush, berserk definitely helps killing the specters.

also also: the chainsaw was not supposed to be used in gameplay after the first room with 6 zombiemen, it was supposed to be just a nod to entryway. Another flaw in this map’s design.

Edited March 27, 2022 by %some random internet shkila

[Degree23]

4 hours ago, %some random internet shkila said:

i’ll admit, the ammo is a bit too tight, and i definitely need to nerf the revenants + pinkies + cacodemons ambush.

 

You appear straight into Demons, which you can't use the RL on because they're too close, and you have an awkward pit right in front of you. The red key "meeting room" is another room where movement is a bit restricted. It just feels very clunky and not easy to move around in.

 

I finally found how to access the opening secret. The ammo from that needs to be just available on the ground for everyone and leave only the Soul Sphere up there if someone finds it.

[LSC Lasico]

13 minutes ago, Degree23 said:

 

You appear straight into Demons, which you can't use the RL on because they're too close, and you have an awkward pit right in front of you. The red key "meeting room" is another room where movement is a bit restricted. It just feels very clunky and not easy to move around in.

 

I finally found how to access the opening secret. The ammo from that needs to be just available on the ground for everyone and leave only the Soul Sphere up there if someone finds it.

I nerfed the pit encounter by lowering the ammount of revenants and adding two medikits into that room. Also, you can squeeze past the pinkoes or use the super shotgun on them, the shells are abundant.

also, the “meeting room” you were not supposed to move much: you were supposed to hide behind cover and peekaboo shoot everyone, i dunno if i will tweak that encounter, i generally don’t care for that room, it is the ultimate statement of my occasional creative impotency that made my second map fail (in short, i tried to make my second map a grand oddysey that could rival the mucus flow, but, of course, i failed, got tired with it, and the damage my second map has done to me was enough for me to quit doom creation for a month before i came back to it with a clear head)

also, yeah, moving the secret ammo into a non-secret area seems like a good idea.

[Large Cat]

Played through on UV in GZDoom with the help of some saves. About the source port issue, it looks like you designed this map in UDMF, which means you can only play it in GZDoom (and maybe Eternity?); you'd have to change the map format for Boom-derived ports to work, which could be a major headache, though it's doable, given that the map doesn't do anything crazy with UDMF. A couple elements make it seemed like the map was designed with GZDoom's default compatibility in mind, so I'd suggest recommending people play on default compat.

 

Visually, I like what you've done with the vanilla textures. The Entryway reference is abstract, but it's there. I think the roses look out of place, being big, blocky, and full-bright.

 

Gameplay-wise, the map seems like it has an intended route, but it certainly allows a much inferior route, which is the way I played. I entered the brutal lock-in in the room right before the exit without opening the red key cache, resulting in a painful fight where I was scraping by with the ammo I had, even after I had punched out all of the previous hell knights to save shells and bullets. The outdoor courtyard turned into peek-a-boo shooting (which was annoying due to how slowly the lift moved combined with how soon it rose), and I got lucky with just enough rockets to kill the archviles in the blue key alley before they created an impenetrable wall of imps. I think all of these problems would have been mitigated had I found the ammo cache and SSG early on; almost all of the map's health pickups were here as well, making the rest even more challenging. It might be worth making the path to the SSG more obvious or direct. You might even be able to remove the red key entirely, as you don't seem happy with the encounter there anyway (though I had no issue with it), and replace the red switch with a yellow switch.

 

Regarding secrets, I found the initial soulsphere and bulk cells, as well as the armor bonuses. I think you could telegraph the health bonus secret, as it's currently totally unmarked. The soulsphere/megaarmor secret is hard to activate on Doom compatibility, as the trigger is behind the teleport line, so that's a reason to use default compatibility. I'm not sure why you include the cells, as there seems to be no way to use them in the map.

 

I may have found a bug, as it seems possible to progress to the chaingunner/revenant courtyard without the blue key, leaving the player stuck outside, as one exit requires the blue card and the way back inside requires the blue skull, which may not be intentional, given the lack of blue skull in the map.

 

You have some interesting stuff going on here! If you push people toward what seems to be the intended path (getting the ammo cache earlier), it could turn into a more positive experience than what I had.

[LSC Lasico]

6 hours ago, Large Cat said:

Played through on UV in GZDoom with the help of some saves. About the source port issue, it looks like you designed this map in UDMF, which means you can only play it in GZDoom (and maybe Eternity?); you'd have to change the map format for Boom-derived ports to work, which could be a major headache, though it's doable, given that the map doesn't do anything crazy with UDMF. A couple elements make it seemed like the map was designed with GZDoom's default compatibility in mind, so I'd suggest recommending people play on default compat.

 

Visually, I like what you've done with the vanilla textures. The Entryway reference is abstract, but it's there. I think the roses look out of place, being big, blocky, and full-bright.

 

Gameplay-wise, the map seems like it has an intended route, but it certainly allows a much inferior route, which is the way I played. I entered the brutal lock-in in the room right before the exit without opening the red key cache, resulting in a painful fight where I was scraping by with the ammo I had, even after I had punched out all of the previous hell knights to save shells and bullets. The outdoor courtyard turned into peek-a-boo shooting (which was annoying due to how slowly the lift moved combined with how soon it rose), and I got lucky with just enough rockets to kill the archviles in the blue key alley before they created an impenetrable wall of imps. I think all of these problems would have been mitigated had I found the ammo cache and SSG early on; almost all of the map's health pickups were here as well, making the rest even more challenging. It might be worth making the path to the SSG more obvious or direct. You might even be able to remove the red key entirely, as you don't seem happy with the encounter there anyway (though I had no issue with it), and replace the red switch with a yellow switch.

 

Regarding secrets, I found the initial soulsphere and bulk cells, as well as the armor bonuses. I think you could telegraph the health bonus secret, as it's currently totally unmarked. The soulsphere/megaarmor secret is hard to activate on Doom compatibility, as the trigger is behind the teleport line, so that's a reason to use default compatibility. I'm not sure why you include the cells, as there seems to be no way to use them in the map.

 

I may have found a bug, as it seems possible to progress to the chaingunner/revenant courtyard without the blue key, leaving the player stuck outside, as one exit requires the blue card and the way back inside requires the blue skull, which may not be intentional, given the lack of blue skull in the map.

 

You have some interesting stuff going on here! If you push people toward what seems to be the intended path (getting the ammo cache earlier), it could turn into a more positive experience than what I had.

Damn, thar’s a detailed review! Thanks a lot!

 

the bulk cells is an interesting topic, since this map is supposed to be a part of a megawad that aims to build levels based on each soundtrack from MID the way ID did album, since this is a megwad, those bulk cells are there for single segment players.

 

thanks for reporting the bug. Will fix ASAP

 

Could you please give me some advice on how to telegraph the ammo cache? Because i thought i did it pretty well (the first door you see is yellow keyed, you get the yellow key and also see the red door in the same room, you get the red key behind the yellow door).

 

Also, the health bonus secret, if you look hard enough, is a tribute to the secret in og entryway placed in the same relative room, i believe that one was completely unmarked, but i’m not sure. Another reason why i did that is because trolling (a completely unmarked secret leading to a disappointing single health bonus, only to realize it is actually 64 health bonuses (will probably make it 69 in the future, to emphasize the trolling part)). Trolling is also the reason for the double arch-vile ambush ( a disappointing single imp ambush that makes you go “HAH is that all you’ve got?” Only to get scared shitless by the sudden appearance of two arch-viles.

Edited March 29, 2022 by %some random internet shkila

[Large Cat]

6 hours ago, %some random internet shkila said:

Could you please give me some advice on how to telegraph the ammo cache?

It's surprising how easy it is to forget about what keys you have found switches and doors for when playing a map. The amount of running back and forth to get the ammo makes for a lot of opportunities for the player to decide to try blasting past the hell knights, or waking them up and running around them. Considering how many rockets the player receives I think you could put even more resistance along that path to clearly signal that you aren't supposed to go that way until you've explored everything previous; four HK's isn't actually that much of a threat if you have berserk.

 

I suppose I see the correspondence of the health bonus secret and the original entryway secret, though I almost always found that one by letting the imps in the secret run out to me; you could consider making the same thing happen in your map. I fully support providing 69 health bonuses.

[LSC Lasico]

17 minutes ago, Large Cat said:

It's surprising how easy it is to forget about what keys you have found switches and doors for when playing a map. The amount of running back and forth to get the ammo makes for a lot of opportunities for the player to decide to try blasting past the hell knights, or waking them up and running around them. Considering how many rockets the player receives I think you could put even more resistance along that path to clearly signal that you aren't supposed to go that way until you've explored everything previous; four HK's isn't actually that much of a threat if you have berserk.

 

I suppose I see the correspondence of the health bonus secret and the original entryway secret, though I almost always found that one by letting the imps in the secret run out to me; you could consider making the same thing happen in your map. I fully support providing 69 health bonuses.

I added one baron of hell into that corridor.

also fixed the softlock bug by making the door no longer being openable by momsters.

i will provide the link to the updated level once i will finish my second one.

perhaps i will also provide a video of how i clear this map and what are my tactics, if i learn how to record videos/demos properly.

forgot to add: the lack of blue skull is also trolling, this one was meant as a measure against the player abusing the door to cheese that encounter, i already did that by making the door close in one second, but i’m way too paranoid of my encounters getting cheesesed

Edited March 29, 2022 by %some random internet shkila

[DarkIceCyclone]

Sadly, this map was too difficult for me. however, here is the gameplay video of the portion i did complete. Keep improving!

 

Reading these replies now, properly, it turns out, I may have cheesed the hell knights and the pain elemental :D

 

 

Edit: Oh damn, seems winraring while recording has seriously messed up the video quality

Edited March 29, 2022 by DarkIceCyclone

[LSC Lasico]

1 minute ago, DarkIceCyclone said:

Sadly, this map was too difficult for me. however, here is the gameplay video of the portion i did complete. Keep improving!

 

Reading these replies now, properly, it turns out, I may have cheesed the hell knights and the pain elemental :D

 

 

 

Damn, commentary. I already like this, regardless of if you finished or not.

Really, i’m glad that people somewhat enjoy this map. It also alleviates some of my insecurities, because there was a strange moment when i suddenly felt that TNT evilution’s habitat was a better looking map than this.

[DarkIceCyclone]

6 minutes ago, %some random internet shkila said:

Damn, commentary. I already like this, regardless of if you finished or not.

Really, i’m glad that people somewhat enjoy this map. It also alleviates some of my insecurities, because there was a strange moment when i suddenly felt that TNT evilution’s habitat was a better looking map than this.

Errrm.... There are even "better looking maps" out there in the IWADs :D

 

Also, I usually play on HMP, not that good with UV.  As for insecurities, i definetly know the issue of that. I've did some dumb shit because of that and I'm still mad the way a mod responded to it. So yhea, you're doing fine.

I will give the second version another try. Maybe I'm just too dumb :D

[LSC Lasico]

19 minutes ago, DarkIceCyclone said:

Sadly, this map was too difficult for me. however, here is the gameplay video of the portion i did complete. Keep improving!

 

Reading these replies now, properly, it turns out, I may have cheesed the hell knights and the pain elemental :D

 

 

Edit: Oh damn, seems winraring while recording has seriously messed up the video quality

What video recording tool you use?

 

[DarkIceCyclone]

I'm using OBS Studio. @Dub Bag has used it for quite some time, he can help you with setting it up. 
Sorry for tagging you, Dub, but thought he should know. 

[SuperPecanMan]

 

First off: this level is very tough, I mentioned in the video that it seems like there's really only route that's possible, or I'm just not good enough to beat it the hard way. Even following the intended route, you can see how many times I died in the pit room. I did have to cheat to finish the map, that's due to an issue with the compatibility level (see my first recommended change).

 

A few items that I'd highly recommend changing:

1. The eye switch in the pit room cannot be pressed on Doom (Strict) compatibility because it's too close to the teleporter linedef. Either removing the action from that side of the teleporter (I think it's impossible to walk over anyways) or moving the switch so it's at least 17 map units away should fix that, or you could just update the post to say this compatibility level isn't supported.
2. You should lock the lift to reach the outside revenant/chaingunner area from the pit room with a blue keycard, that way the player can't get soft-locked. Additionally, I think instead of using the blue skullkey message on the other side I would just remove the action so the player doesn't go looking for a key that isn't there.

3. The boxes around the flowers up against the buildings create some weird geometry as well as missing textures, you should be able to just draw lines and update the ceilings/walls according so they match the original structure