The DWmegawad Club plays: Micro-Slaughter Community Project & Haste

[Pseudonaut]

MSCP Map03:
Does anyone else think this is much easier than map02? Obviously, the big fight at the end is intimidating, but it all falls in place when you know that hiding in the archvile cubbies is the key. Just grab the BFG, hold the trigger down, shove yourself into one of the cubbies, kill the viles, then go hunting for resources with the trigger still held down. It's pretty fun, as BFG spam usually is. And I always enjoy rocketing through a crowd of imps like in the second fight. Best map of the wad so far.

 

 

MSCP Map04:
In contrast, this one has a low body count, generally lacks threat, and also lacks the option to spice things up by activating multiple fights at once because it's strictly linear. That is, if you do skip one fight and start another, the enemies of the previous fight(s) have no relevance at all and you may not even be able to backtrack for the kills. I must admit that I died a couple of times during my practice run to the hk/pinky/spectre fight simply because I was blocked by spectres that I couldn't see. I don't regard that as a positive. Anyway, it's not a bad map, but I have to say it's the weakest so far.

 

 

MSCP03-04.zip

[Book Lord]

MAP 03 – Cherry Blossom by @Danlex

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HMP, Pistol start, blind run w/saves

 

Oh, what a poetic name! The most embellished titles usually hide bad surprises in slaughter maps, and Cherry Blossom was not an exception. The funky pink aesthetics, fully covering the new demon fortress to conquer, were just eye-candy to distract the attention from the serious business that took place inside. The most powerful weapons were instantly given in the first appetizer, featuring Revenants on a ledge on the left, and Hell Knights and Mancubi to the right (no Pinkies on HMP). I concentrated on the skeletons first and they startled me by walking down the stairs, so I took more damage than I should but still survived. The next area released a Cyberdemon in a hallway and it was a matter of applying what I learned on MAP02: make him infight with the Hell Knights, then carve my breathing room with rockets through the horde of Imps. I passed also the second test at first attempt, and I was even gloating a bit, then I saw the final arena with the BFG. I knew at first sight that I was about to die a lot.

Spoiler

The first death was necessary to learn what was happening, as the big closets released a rather complete assortment of the Doom bestiary, leaving only Revenants and fodder out of play. The four Arch-Viles could not stay around, or they would have killed me before I could find my bearings, so I concentrated on them and then I tried to conquer one of the northern alcoves. After three attempts, I got into the closest one and was shot dead by the merciless Arachnotrons I could not target from the distance. I died five more times restarting the final fight, but eventually I charged into the far alcove. It was the right choice, and I could handle the situation better from there. The Berserk pack in the final room was weird, but except that detail things went as expected in Cherry Blossom. Intense, fun, challenging, and thankfully short slaughter gameplay.

 

Time: 7:50      Deaths: 8

 

MAP 04 – Floody Hell by @Lord_Z

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HMP, Pistol start, blind run w/saves

 

Like most of these maps, Floody Hell presented vast structures and props outside of the playable floor. The action was set in the flooded ruins of a medieval castle, surrounded by an imposing girdle of walls and towers. It must be one of the shortest and easiest maps in the set, though playing carelessly through the first encounters brought me to the last battle in precarious conditions, so I was promptly punished by a RNG-blessed Revenant rocket.

Spoiler

In my opinion, maps like this are necessary in a Micro Slaughter project: they highlight that not only rocket & BFG spam against hundreds of monsters requires to master the herding of monsters and the promotion of infighting. Lord_Z granted only basic weapons for the first encounters: the first against a circle of Imps, handled with the shotgun, then Demons and Hell Knights in the long but narrow bridge between the two main towers, solved with SSG and infighting, and finally a double wave of Demons and Arachnotrons in a circular pond, where the chaingun was the best weapon to stun the enemies getting in the way, while the spiders swept the area with plasma bolts.

 

Since I missed the Berserk secret, I lost more health than it could be healed with the available supplies. Facing the last showdown with the rocket launcher against Imps and Hell Nobles, followed by a shocking death squad of Revenants, was not easy as expected. I paid the price of my sloppy play in the earlier sections, caught off-guard by the teleporting skeletons and by the unfriendly terrain of the outer courtyard. I survived at second attempt with 2% health. The waterfall was a surprise, even though I did not understand what ended the level, probably a voodoo doll on a conveyor belt. Not a slaughter map according to the widespread notion, Floody Hell could still test a player’s reaction skills against unforeseen trouble.

 

Time: 5:15      Deaths: 1

[Book Lord]

2 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

Does anyone else think this is much easier than map02?

That's not what I think, but I should try the last fight on UV sooner or later, to see if it's just as simple as you describe it.

 

On HMP four AVs are replaced by Barons. While you can argue that the former is a more dangerous foe than the latter, I found the Barons to play a relevant role at the beginning of this fight. While I automatically dispatched the leftmost Viles and hid in their holes, the Barons were effective bodyguards for the last two healers, shielding them from tracers and sometimes trapping me inside the hideout. My numerous deaths happened all in the first seconds of the last fight, except one.

[Arwel]

MSCP map03 - Cherry Blossom by Danlex

UV, 100% kills, no secrets, ~3 attempts to beat each fight individually, ~30 attempts to beat whole level saveless

 

Cute colors, deadly fights. Opening encounter allows more freedom than what we've had in previous maps, there are at least few approaches to beat it consistently, one of which is almost pacifist. I personally decided to stick to strategy of taking out revenants early and shooting the rest from the loft until they're close, then jumping behind and finishing. Second fight I perceive as a combination of infight puzzle and basic wave pusher. It took me a good while to figure out how to pull cyberdemon and hell knights for a somewhat consistent infight before pushing through imps using rocket launcher to take good strategic position to finish the rest of knights and possibly cybie using plasma. The last fight is the biggest one, after some trial and error I decided to leave BFG for later and start by taking out spiders instead and holding nearby corner for as long as possible, then pushing through the thick crowd of pinkies using plasma to the empty room and continue annihilating everything from there using rocketlauncher. Chill a bit, eat megasphere, finally take BFG and shoot the archie straight in the center, immediately run into his place and take the rest of archies from there, then basically do whatever using BFG with the rest of cacos and pain elementals, making sure to resupply with plasma cells fast enough.

 

MSCP map04 - Floody Hell by @Lord_Z

UV, 100% kills, 1 secret

 

Almost Heretic-looking and easier than previous two, this map is likely an intermission. Similarly to the first map, it features small-to-moderate size encounters of increasing complexity until the last one which is only borderline slaughter. Nevertheless, this map turned out not that trivial to beat consistently. I finished UV-saveless almost immediately, but it felt like pure luck, tried again and died, then again and again. Took maybe 5-7 attempts more. Very strong in terms of environment design and just like the first map, most of it serves as a background and is unwalkable. Personally I love Heretic and enjoy aesthetics a lot, also I find the color palette relaxing and replenishing.

[dististik]

Probably going to sleep in "tonight" so decided I'd unwind from a long day at work with some Doom. Technically the 2nd for me so I thought I'd seize the chance to get a head start on the next two maps.

 

MAP03: Cherry Blossom by Danlex

 

At the start of this year I knew literally nothing about Danlex, then I played his lovingly crafted UDMF map Lullaby. Today, I know exactly one thing about Danlex. That said, Lullaby's combat was top contender for stealing the show had the visuals of the level not been out of this world (no pun intended) so I went into Cherry Blossom with decently high expectations. I am happy to report those expectations were met! I'm not sure if this was intentional, although I wouldn't doubt it, but the first two fights being fun to slice through with a fine understanding of target prioritization set up the last extremely well. Got through the first two first try each (rocket the revenants and circle what didn't die to infighting while you were busy in the first, drill through the imps with plasma and rocket any hell knights that aren't preoccupied paralyzing the cyber in the second) but died a great deal in the last since I started doubting myself for no good reason. Almost immediately I latched onto the winning strategy of picking up the BFG and dashing over to the archies to use their hidey holes against them but I died to greedily trying to get the BFG ball to hit the incoming mob and have the tracers kill the viles two too many times then thought "Ah yes the problem isn't that I'm being greedy but that my strategy is wrong!" which lead to me spending way too long trying every other possible approach to the fight before landing back on the first and clearing it that attempt. Oops.

 

Side note, I love the map's visuals. Pink is my absolute favorite color but I all too often find it really grating to look at in Doom. I probably have the shades OTEX manages to take advantage of to thank for that but it looks lovely nonetheless. I also managed to pick up the least helpful to have missing megasphere in the entire arena right before saving to boot, I really need to work on deciding which resources to grab and when...

 

Spoiler

 

MAP04: Floody Hell by Lord_Z

 

With all due respect... is this slaughter? Don't get me wrong, the map is very pretty and I dig the flooding effect at the end of the level but 73 enemies drip fed to the player in situations where they almost always have the upper hand feels kinda not like slaughter I won't lie. Easily the easiest map since the first, ended up only using berserk for most of the fight with the pink demons and the arachnotrons and almost didn't die but got caught with far too little health in the last fight. My second go I just circled around the arena until the walls to the exit dropped, letting the hell nobles take out their anger on the spooky boys. Didn't end up shooting until I was firmly safe in my hidey hole. On the bright side, this was a very nice breather after MAP02 and MAP03 made me think (Ew using my brain in Doom? Despicable).

 

Jokes aside, looking forward to the rest of the WAD ramping up!

 

Spoiler

 

[NiGHTS108]

MAP03: Cherry Blossom

By Danlex

Kills: 100%

Items: 83%

Secrets: 100%

Time: 4:17

 

This one is similar to MAP02 in at least a few ways, for one it's absolutely dazzling to look at, it's astonishing the environment Danlex paints here using only 4 shades of magenta, even if you could argue that's because of Otex, either way it looks absolutely stunning once more, and for two it's completely linear, is only a handful of fights and focuses on combat puzzles, the first trial isn't super remarkable, just mostly a nice little combat setpiece with Revenants, Imps and Hell Knights, I suggest killing the Revenants first, then comes Imps and a Cyberdemon from one direction and Hell Knights from the other, here I kill the Imps as fast as possible steadily with the rocket launcher and hide in their area to get the Hell Knights, and weirdly enough the Cyberdemon almost instantly died here, which has never happened to me, finally the grandest fight which is also easily the hardest, this one took me over 30 minutes if I remember correctly when I first played it, my strategy? Get the Arch-Viles immediately and use their cells to hide, it's the only way I can beat this fight relatively reliably, it's still really hard however, it's easy for the Arch-Viles to move unpredictably and not in your favour with how cramped with monsters the area gets, but it works eventually for me, this map is also really really good, boosted quite significantly by that last fight and the visuals, another great map!

 

Grade: A

Difficulty: B+

 

 

MAP04: Floody Hell

By Lord_Z

Kills: 94%

Items: 53%

Secrets: 0%

Time: 4:05

 

Surprisingly a pretty chilled out map, "Floody Hell" is an excellent pun on several levels, but I don't feel it's particularly relevant after the last two maps, I guess it's a nice few minutes of relaxing after that Arch-Vile fight in MAP03, it bears almost less than a fifth of Cherry Blossom's enemies and the action takes place with the SSG and rocket launcher, I don't feel the fights are very notable, they're nowhere near as creative as Cherry Blossom or Viridescent Synapse, but I blame the placement of this map for me feeling that way, I feel this should have been MAP01 or 02, the map doesn't do anything wrong necessarily but it feels out of place here, does still look excellent however

 

Grade: B

Difficulty: D+

 

 

[Maribo]

MAP03: Cherry Blossom

Shades of purple and pink are always beautiful. The second fight in this map kind of acts as another (moderate, I'd say, thanks to the cyber threat) step up from the last two, going from shotgun herding imps in Map01, to rocket herding pinkies in Map02, to rocketing your way through packed imps, which is a pretty satisfying skill to learn. The room is also quite fun to puzzle your way through pacifist. Final room caps it off with a BFG-focused fight that tests your ability to target prioritize. Very solid.

Max Demo: mscp03m254.zip

Some speedrun stuff:

Spoiler

Decay's UV-Pacifist run in 1:10 - Decay did a lot of work (and some moderate defending) on his table fills for MSCP. Cool one to see the progression for.

 

MAP04: Floody Hell

Pretty much a break map. It's a laid-back, slow-paced relaxer after three maps in a row that are almost certainly going to give intro-level slaughter players a workout. It serves a good purpose.
Some speedrun stuff:

Spoiler

Luleta's Tyson in 6:09 - for spicing it up a bit.

[dac]

MAP 03 – Cherry Blossom (by Danlex)

Completed 01/04/2022

 

The Doom palette, specifically the purple part, is not doing this map any favours! Let's just say Danlex's works have conditioned me to less garish stuff.

 

So, the theme of this map is less the purple and more what to prioritise in a fight – and how the priority can be anything and depends on the circumstances. The first encounter was cleared by focusing the revenants first: the constant missile barrage would have been too rough otherwise, the mancubi and hell knight combo is farther away and slower, plus those are prone to infighting anyway. Took me two tries, but that was me playing badly, not me having the wrong solution.

 

Second encounter was simpler even with cramped spaces and a cyberdemon: forge a path through the imp horde with rockets, then use the back of that area as protection from the cyber while I thin out the imps and the spawning hell knights. A few scary moments, but nothing too rough once only the cyber was left.

 

Third fight, though.

 

I recall this fight giving me a LOT of trouble on my first run months back. And looking back, I can see why: it's the first fight in this set that throws everything and the kitchen sink at you. Hordes of demons. Hordes of cacodemons. Arachnotrons snipers. Hell knights as meat. A few pain elementals for more chaos. And to top it off, a few arch-viles in a set of alcoves. At least you're given a BFG, but if you don't have a clear strategy in mind, this fight is brutal.

 

Anyway, I completed the encounter in one try on this run.

 

The big priority is getting rid of the arch-viles before anything else – there's not a lot of cover in the arena, and their attacks hurt. Part of that priority is to use the vile's alcoves as cover, at least until they're all gone, then move out and clear the fight in a counterclockwise motion. And besides all that, making sure to not get pincered by the demons and caco hordes, making sure you have a clear path to health and ammo, and removing the pain elementals and other annoyances before a bad surprise happens. I didn't really spend much time in either the demons or cacos enclosures: yes they're big and spacey, but I felt spending too much time in there would just lock me in and kill me.

 

And with that, we are done! If there's a micro-slaughter 2, I hope it comes with an improved palette. But otherwise this map was a lot of fun!

[General Roasterock]

MAP03: Cherry Blossom

mscp03.zip

  Going into any of these maps is like working out: There's hesitation because you know it's going to be painful, it is painful, and the feeling coming away from it can ultimately be found as rewarding. Cherry Blossom was painful to play, pretty much any errant decision or brain fart is an instant death with how slaughter damage gets traded back and forth, especially with so many high brow damage dealers in every single fight. I think I took something like fifteen deaths after I figured out exactly what the strategy was for each room. 

  I've never been thrilled about OTEX's pinks, I feel like they're too limited with what the Doom palette gives them, but this map makes them look phenomenal. The combination of space age floor with the marble walls is otherworldly. It's also another great use of space, as expected from anything of this nature, and even though I struggled as much as I did with it, there was nothing telling me that I should stop, mostly on account of how well its set up. 

  Even so, many of the fights felt a lot looser in terms of possibility than the past two. All it takes is one step forward and one step left for the Cyberdemon in fight #2 to shit a rocket out on your head, something that happened to me twice before I could get an inch into the Imps, and it just takes two Revenant rockets to unwound the whole of fight #1. Fight #3 is above and beyond the easiest, allowing you, and apparently intending for you, to just camp your way to victory amidst a bevy of resources. I was still finding new Megaspheres even by the time I got my demo exit. No matter the struggle, I love what's set up here, and have fingers crossed that every map can achieve what this did.

 

MAP04: Floody Hell

mscp04.zip

  Every map did not achieve what that did.

  Floody Hell clocks in at less than 100 monsters in a slaughter project, and feels surprisingly calm. This is probably the first visual setpiece I was not thrilled about, mostly on account to the entire thing being flatly lit with exception to the indoor areas. I checked the editor to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass, and I wasn't.

Spoiler

 

 

  It's unfortunate because I do like the floodplain locale, and the breaking of the damn by the end of the level is a neat effect (even though I didn't even see it the first time through).

  This level probably has the most dangerous Spectres I've seen outside of face rocket territory, and Fight #1 always ended up catching me between three of them and a Hell Knight and eating shit in the process. It will definitely stand out for that reason, but there's just too much off with it to land with me. It's easy to get the Arachnotrons stuck on the raising stairs in Fight #2, I accidentally bumped the secret Berserk without even opening the wall, and I couldn't read the banner that said "exit" to know that the lift took you to the exit, which is most likely just my fault.

  Fight #3 specifically makes the whole level kinda feel like Fire in your Eyes if that fire dwindled a bit. It's a rectangle with a couple obstructing land masses, which can easily be jumped over using the teleporter pad in the center, drip feeding Imps, nobles, and Revenants that feel tokenized here. Part of me wanted to just wait for all of them to spawn to maximize rocket damage, but the space they take up is too much to allow for that. I didn't feel like I had to create much more strategy than "kill the big ones". I greatly appreciate a laidback stop, but it's not for me.

 

One thing to note now that I'm looking back on my writing, I'm not thrilled about my ability to call the combat "Fight #Whatever" and have it be relatively easily identifiable in these maps. It feels somewhat constricting to creativity with having fights lined up like a subway track. I know I joined "Micro Slaughter" and this is exactly what the genre is, so I don't say that attempting to sway people in any direction. I just enjoy the public space that this WAD now has in the club.

 

Power Rankings:

1. Cherry Blossom
2. Fire In Your Eyes
3. Viridescent Synapse
4. Floody Hell

[finnks13]

MAP03 - Cherry Blossom by Danlex:

DEATHS - 0
This map really reminds me of Sunder's "House of Corrosion", but pink - you start off overlooking a weird building made of one colour in a canyon with liquid of the same colour, and the fights within the building remind me of that map too. I would highly recommend not playing this map (and entire wad, if I'm being honest) in the software renderer as it will look a bit rough - this is mostly the fault of Doom's palette though. Since I was playing with the hardware renderer, the pinks were allowed to shine and it looked great. The first couple of fights are very well designed as "easy, claustrophobic puzzles", they're not uninteresting, and are well suited for this early map in the megawad.

 

The finale is on a much larger scale to anything else so far and it's fun, if not very challenging. There's just so much health and ammo lying around that once you figure out the first step of "should probably kill the archviles immediately", then the rest of the fight is cleanup without any real threat due to all of the health around. The damaging pits do make it more challenging and if you use the BFG poorly, it's definitely possible to get cut off from all the ammo due to the volume of pain elementals present, but since it's Map03, it's probably a good thing that this fight is pretty simple. Very fun little map.

 

MAP04 - Floody Hell by Lord_Z:

DEATHS - 0 (this is probably the last map for a while that I will complete deathless)
This is the first of two maps that feel pretty out of place in this wad, I don't want to get into the "What is a slaughtermap" discussion because it's done to death, but it just doesn't feel very slaughter-y (or combat puzzle-y, for that matter) to me. That being said, I think the visuals are really great here - I love castles and this is a really nice looking castle. The main fight of note is the finale which is a staggered stream of imps, then hell knights and barons and then revenants in a fairly small arena - it's definitely the best bit of the level, but is over a bit too quickly. The little set-piece of the castle walls being breached and flooding is cool though.

 

RANKINGS:

Spoiler

Really Liked:
Liked: MAP01, MAP03
Mixed Opinions: MAP02
Boring: MAP04
Didn't Like: 
 

 

[brick]

Sleeping on it a couple of nights and reading RHhe82's response have convinced me to give this another shot (I'm also a very stubborn person in general, for good and ill). The Club is such a good an opportunity to get out of one's comfort zone, too good to pass up. I'm going to try to take this more lighthearted than I initially did - I'll give each map an honest try (well, many many tries) but I reserve the right to cheat if it gets too frustrating (I'll point out when I do). I'm going to also keep all ranting out of my posts (with one exception).

I'll be using GZDoom in Boom compatibility, ITYTD, continuous with saves, blind. I must say the wad looks gorgeous in Software Truecolor.

 

MSCP MAP01 - "Fire in Your Eyes" by Dreadopp
Pretty gentle opener. The first few fights are almost incidental, until the imp/hellies ambush. Taking them on from inside the building was a bad idea, much more manageable from outside. I like the hellie ambush in the very tight corridor, taught me how to dodge with very limited movement. I'm impressed with the timing of lowering the bars, I genuinely thought it was controlled by a mapinfo specialaction because they'd go down the exact second I'd finish the fight. I groaned when the revenants released, this is what I usually expect from slaughter, but this one wasn't too bad. I did get a couple of rockets in permanent orbit, and learned how to use the pillars to get rid of them. The metal towers with the rocks and lavafalls in the background looks very pretty. After finishing the level I idclip through the locked door at the exit and see a lot of beautiful vistas from the unused section.

The one rant I'll allow myself follows, feel free to skip.

Spoiler

 

Slaughter is often sold as "combat puzzles" and the implication is that luck and reflex are not major determinnants. My problem is that the puzzle part is often trivially easy, and the repeated deaths are precisely because I either don't react fast enough or it's the enemies that don't react in an optimal way. The cyber/HK fight is the perfect illustration. Of course I have to get the cyber to shoot the HKs so they infight. Cyber moves too far into the room before he starts shooting? you're going to eat a rocket while sliding past the HKs. Cyber decides to turn on you and fire a volley in-between shooting HKs? better be fast on your feet. After dying half a dozen times I really thought I had the wrong strategy and started trying others - complete waste of time obviously, I did have the right idea. The successful try (0 damage taken too) was identical to several before it, the enemies just behaved themselves.

Negativity over, I'm going to enjoy myself with this month's wads no matter what.

 

 

MSCP MAP02 - "Viridescent Synapse" by Bauul
I almost gave up on the month after dying over a dozen times to the cyber/HK, even made a post saying so. Got stubborn and thought "just one more try" and of course succeeded on the one try; embarassingly I had to go back and edit my post, thankfully I don't think anyone noticed. I didn't quite get the demon herding right, but the half damage and the SSG carried over allowed me to get out of dying there. Need to practice that skill a bit. I absolutely love the atmosphere in the map, the music track is quite nice, and the neon green on metal looks amazing. I thought the "sky ripple" was stunning and couldn't even begin to imagine how it was done, was very nice reading Bauul's commentary on how it was made. I'm starting to understand why "pretty slaughter" is so popular. I wish more people made "normal" maps with this kind of aesthetic. Surprisingly I finished this in 4:04, well within the par time!

 

MSCP MAP03 - "Cherry Blossom" by Danlex
Pretty in pink. The map looks much better than anything this pink has any right to. The music is soothing and pleasant, not quite fitting the frantic action but it's a nice counterpoint. The first encounter had me pop in and out of the starting alcove to keep everyone at bay without eating too many homing missiles. The second I got rid of the mancubus ASAP, got a little bit of infighting going then finished the HKs, cleaning up the imps with rockets was good fun. The final arena was surprisingly more manageable than I expected. My first attempt was just to see what was what and ended when an archvile dumped me into one of the pits. Second attempt was successful, I went straight for the archviles, rightmost first, and managed to off each when they were within a millisecond of finishing their fire. Ran around cleaning things up with the BFG until the herds were thinned a bit and then cleaned up. I almost got this within the par but wasted some time finding the exit. I think it's possible to completely skip the first fight and most of the second.

[Bauul]

Map 03: Cherry Blossom

Danlex is no stranger to exceedingly pretty maps, and Cherry Blossom continues that strong single-minded aesthetic approach.  One of the benefits of having such small maps is the authors could focus on pretty bold color schemes without them outstaying their welcome, which Danlex does here in spades.  This map's encounters naturally build on the lessons presented in Map02, and the final fight is the first full-blown slaughter encounter in the mapset, so putting this as Map03 felt like a logical position: the player has done the warm-up map, done the tutorial map, and now this is the real thing.

 

The final fight is usually the first that gives players proper pause for thought, and is a good representation of a fight that seems overwhelming at first, but with a few tries a reliable strategy emerges ("kill an AV, hide in its closet, play aggressive peek-a-boo with the remainders and then focus on the rest" seems to be the most popular).  This "puzzle out the strategy" is another hallmark of slaughter fights, so if you can beat Map03 using this approach, you can probably beat everything in the set (with enough practice anyway).

 

Map 04: Floody Hell

This map, by Dreadopp's long term mapping partner Lord_Z, was a bit tricky to place in the mapset.  It's probably the easiest map, and isn't really slaughter by most people's definitions, but it was too nice a little contribution not to include at all.  I ummed-and-awwed about where to position it, as rightly a few people have observed it feels out of place.  In the end, my thought process went like this:

• If I put it in slot 1, it will give an incorrect impression of what the mapset is about.  Fire In Your Eyes has more actual slaughter encounters while being nearly as accessible, so is a better first taste of the combat style.
• If I put it in slot 2 after Fire In Your Eyes, it will still give an incorrect impression of the what the mapset is about, as it's a de-escalation from the prior map rather than an escalation.
• If I put it in slot 3 after Fire In Your Eyes and Viridescent Synapse, it will make the latter feel like an outcast in the set rather Floody Hell (which again gives the wrong impression of the project as a whole), and Cherry Blossom works so nicely as a "ok, the training wheels are off" for the slot 3 position it felt wrong to put that map anywhere else.

Which left slot 4.  In practice I see it as something as a breather after the intense final fight of Cherry Blossom, a bit of downtime before the challenge starts ramping back up.  

[tonytheparrot]

(played on UV with pistol starts on Prboom+)

Map 3:Cherry Blossom by Danlex

100% kills, 50% items, 100% secrets

Time: 4:40

 

This map reminds me that I should really play Lullaby soon. Cherry Blossom is MSCP's first true slaughter map and the first one that actually killed me, but it is also a complete joyride. As for the previous map, the visuals are on point, OTEX's pink textures look awesome, and it's nice to see a color not often used in doom (outside of stardate of course). The map is also complemented by Stewboy's awesome inerception midi which is a perfect fit for it's action, visuals and atmosphere. From what I have seen, Danlex really seems to have mastered all of these 3 aspects of Doom's level design. Combat-wise, this map has the first tricky fights in the wad, the opening wth the revenant, pinkies, hell knights and mancubi ain't too bad, but the second fight can be a bit tricky due to the cyberdemon and high amount of HKs and imps, but as long as you manage to get through the imp horde and don't let the HKs come too close you will be fine (also, watch out for the damaging floor). However, the final fight can be pretty difficult, but looks more overwhelming than it actually is. Fortunately, it doesn't make it less entertaining thanks to the appearance of the Big Freaking Gun. Danlex throws a lot of arch-viles and obstructive enemies like cacos and Pain elementals along with 4 arachnotrons which have an eye on the entire arena. My strategy is to get in one of the archie alcoves, kill the martians, then take care of the arachnos, and finally hide in one of the big monster closets to finish off the rest. It is the most entertaining room in the wad so far and caps up a phenomenal map.

 

Map 4:Floody Hell by Lord Z

100% kills items and secrets

Time: 3:55

This map is obviously a breather compared to the last one, its shorter, way less populated and easier. The level still looks awesome as the blue and black marry themsleves very well. However, its definetely the weakest map so far in the combat department, after the imp shotgunning, and the first light ambush with both pinky types and a few hell knights, the first noteworthy fight drops you in a pit and teleports a few arachnos and pigs, which is a clever combination as the pinkies take up space, but also serve as cover against the spiders and since it takes place in a coverless arena, leaving enough of them alive is essential. The final fight teleports imps and hell nobles, then revenants show up and finally, the exit opens up with 2 HKs and a few imps. For some reason, I really screwed up the revenant attack, I had trouble avoiding homing missiles in this terrain, but that may be due to my weak doom skills. Also, I don't know if the map is stingy or if I didn't manage my ammo well, but I ran out of ammo at the end, forunately, 2 HKs are no match aganst a secret berserk. Finally, the map is capped off by an awesome sequence of the water levels raising up to flood it. Overall, I have no big problem with this map, it's fine, but doesn't stand out much.

Rankings:

 

Spoiler

Love:

Map 3

Map 2

Really like:

Map 1

Like:

Map 4

 

 

[Thelokk]

1 hour ago, Bauul said:

it was too nice a little contribution not to include at all.

 

Absolutely agree. Unpopular opinion I assume, but to me it's visually the strongest one of the first four. No disco lights (with all due respect, Stardate-ish ligth tricks are not really my thing), no overbearing colour schemes - just a restrained texture usage, some solid geometry and a nice ending trick. 

[Worriedidiot]

Ooohh, this will be interesting. I completely suck at slaughter and Doom in general but it'll be fine, right?... right?

Against my better judgement, I'm playing on UV. God save me.

 

MAP01 - “Fire in Your Eyes” by Dreadopp

Gorgeous. A really good looking map and probably one my visually favorite opening maps ever.

The crag, the flowing lava, the fortress- everything together just gives such a nice atmosphere.

In terms of gameplay, it's fine for the most part. Sadly, each arena/wave only had one type of monster (except one) which was a bit of a disappointment. Though, that mancubus wave spooked the crap out of me due to how instantly they all teleported in.

Overall, good stuff.

 

MAP02 - “Viridescent Synapse” by Bauul

Damn, that very, very high ceiling looks amazing even if it did slow my FPS to a crawl even on DSDA Doom.

The two arenas here wildly differ in concept. The first one is a really easy infighting puzzle while the other one is claustrophobic and surprisingly difficult. I had a really rough time trying to beat that last fight but I just couldn't do it... without a cheese. Somehow I figured out that if you run around the demons and snuggle in next to the switch they can barely attack you due to how many of them are there.

I'm really not all that sure about this one. Visually it's great just like before and the first fight is good though I wouldn't say I had fun beating the last fight. Maybe I just suck at the game.

 

MAP03 - “Cherry Blossom” by Danlex

Probably my favorite map so far. This is the first map that really gave me slaughter vibes with the monster density and crazy fights. That last one especially was really good. Probably one of the most exhilarating fights I've played in recent times. Now onto the negatives:

I didn't really like the visuals. It's just something about the eye-burningly bright pink that feels strangely off to me. Though, I guess, this as good as those pink textures can get so it's not that bad.

Other than that, the map is really good.

 

MAP04 - “Floody Hell” by Lord_Z

Why is this even in the MAP04 slot? It's really easy and quite uninteresting. To be completely honest, this doesn't even feel like slaughter. Visually it's fine, though after the last 3 maps, my expectations are much, much higher. There's not really much I can say about it. That ending was pretty cool though and it was the only real thing about it that stood out to me.

 

Order of preference

Spoiler

• MAP03
• MAP01
• MAP02
• MAP04

 

[dac]

MAP 04 – Floody Hell (by Lord_Z)

Completed 02/04/2022

 

It would be easy to wail on the map's aesthetics for an entire paragraph or two and leave it at that. But honestly? I prefer these more down to earth environments in slaughtermaps! I liked Dreadopp's first map of this set; I prefer when Ribbiks makes wonderful landscapes in which he puts hordes to slaughter than the nightmarish (not derogative) constructions you'd see in maps like God Machine; fuck, not to be too vain but my favourite aesthetics of Insane_Gazebo were the massive beach and caves he made for our map in Mapwich 2! Give me more of these and less abstractions!

 

But I have to pinpoint out the problem with this map: it's too drab. And as Roasterock pointed out, lighting is a gigantic issue. It's a fine balance to strike between everything looking too plain and a disco inferno – this is a balance Dreadopp handled well on MAP01 – but Lord_Z ends up too conservative on this front, and it hurts the map as a whole. It's hard to feel anything as you flip the final switch and see the water flooding in when everything looks so muddled.

 

That's for the aesthetics. I'm a bit more positive on the overall play.

 

This map could have been a lot harsher, but after MAP03 it's good for pacing to have a small breather. The first imp encounter is a nice practice: go in, one shot, go out, repeat until nothing remains. The rampart fight with the demons and hell knights can get a bit nasty, but once again, one shot practice – this time with a super shotgun. The demons and arachnotron fight was the more interesting part of this map: my strategy was keep just enough demons alive to act as meat shields for the spiders while giving myself enough space to move around, and keep the spider count low enough to not get swarmed by plasma. The final encounter in comparison was not really up to standards – movement was easy, and monsters spawned in too slowly to be threatening in a way that wasn't a revenant suddenly teleporting in in front of my incoming rocket attack.

 

This will be the last I feel comfort – MAP05 onward is uncharted territory. This is gonna be fun!

[Gibbon]

GZDoom (GLES Renderer) w/no saves and blind run

 

Cherry Blossom - MSCP - MAP03

 

Well it is beautiful.  I love the strategy here and the placement of items, overall it is very nicely balanced and laid out..  though I was an idiot at the end and ran away from the megasphere and blocked myself in.  Was a blast!

 

Spoiler

 

 

[cannonball]

MAP01 - “Fire in Your Eyes” by Dreadopp

Well this does give a good visual impression, especially those outside of the starting series of rooms. The revenant ambush is by far the toughest moment in this map, which is then followed by the low point. The Mancubi just felt like a slog where I suspect even a pair of archviles would have offered a more dynamic way of finishing the map. Still a decent opener to break the player in. Died three times, all of these in the revenant trap (Unbelievably two of these two just two revenant rockets from 100% health/85% armour, talk about crap damage rolls).

 

MAP02 - “Viridescent Synapse” by Bauul

Ok this map is essentially two fights clearly designed to be a tutorial, the first one is relatively straightforward, lure both cyberdemons into the area where you start and make sure they get fully embedded into the hellknight crowd. The cybers get slain and you finish off the remaining HKs from the rocket launcher platform. This took three attempts, the first two I ended up with one cyber remaining in the rocket launcher area and things got a little too claustrophobic. The second fight... I wasn't keen on, as much as it is a good exercise in crowd control, pinkies + Rocket launcher in an arena like this can throw up some unfortunate situations where you can literally beat this in one go or suffer a series of deaths where you could do nothing to avoid. The chance of death from a single rocket for a demon isn't really high enough and a couple of those will result in rocket splash damage for yourself or worse ending up having to stop and get eaten alive. In the end... I don't know but I thing a different set of monsters might have been better here.

By the way, nice looking map, even if it made my potato stutter a little bit :P

 

MAP03 - “Cherry Blossom” by Danlex

Probably my favourite map so far, again it is merely a series of a few encounters, but I tended to prefer how these were served up. i appreciate that for an early slot you are well supplied for each fight (I would argue that there is too much ammo for fights 2 and 3), the first two are fairly straightforward, though the second fight seemed to take the cyberdemon out of the equation as I simply ploughed through the imps with rockets and had essentially a 1 on 1 fight with the cyber once I left that area. The final fight isn't too bad if you can get yourself into one of the cubbyholes that the archviles are placed, there is enough BFG to removes these and clear a path for further supplies. 

Overall I enjoyed this far more than map02, whilst being more adrenaline inducing than the opener, I also like the unusual colour choice and the midi.

 

MAP04 - “Floody Hell” by Lord_Z

Like others so far, this is in my opinion the easiest map in the set, only one death in the final room. It looks fairly neat and the exit sequence is quite cinematic. A solid map but feels out of place within the confines of this mapset.

[RHhe82]

Ok, it's the third day already in my timezone, so here goes. But before that, one more thing on MAP04 others have mentioned and I failed to notice on my playthrough: I *LOVE* the level end "cinematic", wow!

 

MAP05: Marble in the Blood. HNTR, PS, midfight saves, 337/337 kills, 0/0 secrets and 4/4 items. Comp. time 7:12. Played on the 2nd of April, 2022.

 

Session 1, Saturday morning on HMP: Ok, I had slept poorly, maybe that explains it, but I started this map by having miserable time. The first arena alone turned out a bit frustrating, and I had to use midfight saves. Somehow the cramped quarters just had me constantly bumping into enemy projectiles. I tried getting revenants and hell knights to infight, but it was hard to accomplish just that. I would run out of health (no armor is available anywhere?), picking up the medikits would almost always be a bad decision because enemies would corner me there. Besides, the floor was hurting.

 

The next arena was far less cramped, but I had even more miserable time there, and in my first play session, I didn’t even finish it. Once the revenants are released, I’m drained of health already, I don’t see much infighting going on. When the pinkies arrive, I have to run for the BFG (wasting health on damaging floor), then run for soulsphere (because I’m already at 28% health on my midfight save), mancubi are shooting from a distance, and I have to lose health to get to them and then some more health to get out there before being surrounded by either pinkies or revenant missiles, most of the by both.

 

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad, but I hate having to be really careful with the floor turning to hurting blood which makes this second arena very annoying.

One time I escape the arena only to meet a cyberdemon in the hub arena, and it won’t go down with what must have been at least 5 or 6 BFG shots. Fuck you. I guess I’ll do this another time.

 

Session 2, Saturday afternoon: I felt less tired, so I tried the map again. I figured I’d try the first arena too. At first I seemed to get farther without midfight saves there, but by the time second revenant horde is released, I run out of luck. Even with midfight saves I seem unable to do it with any consistency (or at all), I find myself bashing my expensive keyboard and mouse in a fit of rage. I guess I should call it quits for today. And this is only HMP I’m playing. I can’t figure what this map is teaching me, that revenant missiles home surprisingly often and can maneuver around hell knights with surprisingly sharp angles? I don’t know, fuck this.

 

Session 3, late Saturday evening: Fugg it, I switch to HNTR. The first arena feels a bit more doable, although I still need midfight saves. I don’t they’d be necessary, especially since there is now an extra (or it comes earlier… or am I imagining things?) soulsphere, and now I ”almost consistently” get to the part where the cyberdemons are revealed along with the imp horde. I’d just always catch stray rockets before I could get behind the imp crowd, which I learned I should just leave alive and come back later with a BFG.

 

The second arena seems a bit more doable now, I’m not sure why — one reason is megaspheres and more importantly: armor. The damaging floor doesn’t hurt so much. I’ve been under the impression that the damaging floor is not a thing in slaughter maps; quite often I see in videos that liquids serve a more decorative purpose than a traditional environmental hazard, but I could be wrong, I’m not an expert. In any case, this time I can somehow circlestrafe without getting too much damage, and I guess there are little less revenants? I don’t know.

On the way back there’s no surprise cyberdemon in the hub area, and when I go back to take care of the imps and three cybers, I find out that the cybers have been lowered away. At first I thought they had been nudged off thanks to Boom-mechanics, but I guess they are just lowered to safety so that the player can telefrag them instead doing the chore of killing them off. I like it when maps do that.

 

But I don’t know. Now I have very little desire to try this one on HMP or UV, and I don’t know what to do with the rest of the maps. Maybe I should switch to HNTR for good? I’m assuming ascending difficulty curve with MAP04 being the only exception.

 

At this point I finally watch Decino’s playthrough. Damn how he makes everything look so easy. Anyhow, I guess I had the right idea for the first arena, ie. shoot the revenants first as much as possible, I’m just far less efficient in it. The imp-phase he hides in the little niches, I tried to incite infighting and thus exposing myself to cyberdemon rockets. The second arena I was clearly wrong in relying in infight. I guess I should have figured as much, because I could see so little infighting going on anyway. I had constant trouble with the arena being flooded with enemies, and me having to avoid pinkies, revenant missiles AND damaging floor simultaneously, where as Decino basically dealt with one problem at a time, leaving the arena empty before the next wave starts. So, in hindsight, I guess this map is an exercise in efficiency: be quick before timer shenanigans make your life miserable? Okay, cool. With this in mind, I might try this level again on HMP, after all… but not today.

Edited April 2, 2022 by RHhe82

[Alaxzandarz]

Played with pistol-starts on UV on DSDA-Doom

 

Map 03 Cherry Blossom:

 

This map has by far my favourite use of OTEX I have ever seen. Lookswise it is probably my favourite in the entire wad. Combat is also good, especially the final fight. I think it is the easiest fight in the map, but its just a really fun and I like that it promotes a very agressive playstyle. I also think it is a good introduction to BFG usage. I really like this map.

 

Map 04 Floody Hell:

 

The map looks pretty nice. The combat feels way too easy and calm after the ending fight of map 03. The rocket launcher fight is pretty good tho. Ending sequence is really great. I didn't enjoy this one that much.

 

My ranking of the maps:

Spoiler

1: Cherry Blossom

2: Viridescent Synapse

3: Fire In Your Eyes

4: Floody Hell

 

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

Oh yes, I'm super excited here. This is actually the first DWMegawad Club selection since I joined that I have familiarity with, having beaten the first 8 maps of MSCP saveless before getting stuck on the 9th for quite a while and leaving it behind, and there is some very high quality stuff here. Let's boogie.

 

MAP01: "Fire in your Eyes" by Dreadopp

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/1 secrets 

 

This wad looks amazing, and this map is a solid introduction to that. You're in a large metallic fortress surrounded by lava, with some very nicely architected caves and rock formations. The Tristan midi is a fast-paced and technical metal track with some very nice drumming. The combat is a very lowkey sort of slaughter, starting with mostly hordes of imps with some hell nobles to mow down, before bringing out the skeletons and mancubi in the final stretch. The map is not too much trouble, although ammo can be very tight. I always scrape through by the skin of my teeth with my ammo in this one. It's a somewhat chill map and a good introduction.

 

MAP02: "Viridescent Synapse" by Bauul

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 0/0 secrets

 

An abstract green metallic level, with one of the coolest backdrops in all of Doomdom, a complex of cubes being sequentially lit up by some voodoo doll trickery. Always thought the Jimmy midi in this map was a very cool one too, and it fits the vibe of this map perfectly. I've seen a lot of people call this one an easy one before but I think this one seems to consistently cause me some of the most trouble out of the first 8 maps. It's only two fights, both with clearly defined goals, but I suck at the starting infight puzzle and the hording exercise at the end usually snuffs out my successful first fights. So I often tend to reflect on this one with frustration, but hey it's a well crafted map and I can't deny the music and visuals. Amazing stuff.

 

MAP03: "Cherry Blossom" by Danlex

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 0/0 secrets

 

A demonic fortress with a bright pink coat of paint to give it a more unique visual flair. Basically everything here is pink or black, and there's also damaging pink liquid splashed about that you'll have to be pretty careful about. Solid stewboy midi here too, still need to check out the first Interception. This one centers around 3 fights. The first one is pretty simple, you have a staircase leading up to a ledge full of revenants on one side, while pinkies, hell knights, and mancubi are on the other side. I just rocket all the revenants and use a few cells since the cells they guard will top off your cell count, and then rocket the rest. Fight #2 has a cyberdemon in a small cubby, with imps and hell knights on either side of a corridor. I just use plasma my way through the imps to the end of their area and take care of the rest as they come with plasma, rockets, and infighting.

 

The final fight features a huge amount of monsters in a spacious room with some death pits. My first time completing this one I had mapped out some overly convoluted route where I just hold down plasma and take a certain path around the room, grabbing cells and megaspheres at appropriate times, and then get the BFG and do the rest at the end. Then I saw decino's video and you can pretty much just get the BFG and charge into one of the archvile cubbies right away, and then the rest of the fight is honestly quite simple. Once you know that, this map isn't so hard, but it is still very fun.

 

MAP04: "Floody Hell" by Lord_Z

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/1 secrets

 

This one takes place in a small castle with a large moat surrounding it. The ending is very cool, resulting in you lowering a dam protecting the castle and unleashing a torrent of water to come billowing at you before the level ends. The "slaughter" status of this one is pretty questionable, and it is likely the easiest map in the set (from what I have played). Of course, in saying that, I charged into this one with my head held high and almost died to the teleporting arachnotron + pinky encounter, which is still somewhat threatening. The last fight is pretty fun too, more teleporting monsters scattered around an area with small cliffs that you must use for cover, the large amount of rockets simplify things greatly though. An easy map, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Edited April 3, 2022 by DisgruntledPorcupine

[PeceMan]

Level 1, Fire in your Eyes

    This level is a great introduction to what the Wad intends to do. Great and majestic visuals, great use of Otex. Short levels, where the

    combat is condensed into 2 or 3 big encounters, most of which can be very lethal if you're not mentally prepared.

 

    While this might not be the most memorable map ever, it is a perfect map01.

 

 

Level 2, Viridescent Synapse

 

    I first tried playing the wad in UV, but map 02 was horrible. It's very important to remember that there are a lot of different definitions

    of Slaughter. And what I like about slaughter simply isn't present in UV. 

 

    But after finally coming to terms with my own humanity, I've decided to play the wad in HNTR. And you know what? This is a lot of fun.

   

    And Aesthetically, this is one of the most impressive maps I've played in a while.

 

    Having said all that, in UV, that Pinky onslaught can die in a pit.

 

 

Level 3, Cherry Blossom

 

    Great use of Otex. The level was extremely visually appealing. Not really sure about the music though.

 

    Since I'll be playing in HNTR instead of UV, I don't think I can accurately speak about the gameplay. 

 

    What I can say about the gameplay is that I had fun. A lot of fun, in fact.

 

 

Level 4, Floody Hell

    So you know how Community Chest was built by what were considered at the time to be "good mappers"? And how a lot of levels were

    terrible because standards were lower back then?

 

    Well these level were made by the standards of 2020.

 

    They are all visually appealing and majestic.

 

    The ambition is evident in the scale of the maps, and yet the progression is always self-contained.

 

    Not only did the mappers know they were meant to make "good" levels, but they also knew that they had to build "short" levels.

    And so far, they've delivered on both of those fronts.

 

 

 

Ratings:

Spoiler

Maps I loved:
        Map01, Fire in your Eyes;    Map03, Cherry Blossom

 

Maps I liked:

        Map02, Viridescent Synapse; Map04, Floody Hell

 

Maps I found Ok:

        -

Maps I didn't like:

        -

Maps I hated:

        -

 

[Lord_Z]

I appreciate everyone playing through my map. And, yeah, I agree that it isn't really slaughter. I'm not the best Doom player so in trying to make something that was at least tricky for myself but also within the time limit, I didn't quite achieve what the map set was going for. Originally I did have a much larger map with a lot more monsters but it took a couple minutes just to walk through it without fighting. There was no real way to slim that down effectively so I ended up scrapping it and starting over again. Perhaps one more revisit would have been appropriate.

 

Anyway, it's always great to see feedback and I hope that Bauul will announce a sequel project so that I can take another swing at it!

[Solmyr]

MSCP MAP 03 "Cherry Blossom" by Danlex.
HMP /Pistol Start /Saveless Run.

Kills: 100%

Items: 100%
Secrets: 100% 
Time: 41:33 

 

I don't get why is it called cherry blossom when it has all that purple and no pink. What's with the grape juice raining all over the place? And the grape juice hurt floors?

 
At the start you get a view of a rusty metal fortress with some purple here and there, the sky is raining purple energy beams, maybe the mapper Danlex, was inspired by "Purple Rain" by Prince when he came up with this.

The first challenge this fortress has to offer comes in a large room, to the left there's an "upside down" L shaped balcony with a stairway besides it, the balcony itself has a bunch of dormant Revenants, to the player's left there's a large group of Hell Knights and two Mancubi also dormant, but standing up close to the walls, there's also a Soulsphere on a grape juice hurt floor in the middle of two small metal pillars with purple lights on them.  In the middle of this room there are several weapons and ammo; a plasma rifle, rocket launcher, super shotgun, and more than enough ammo to deal with this challenge and the next one. This is a tricky fight and died many times to it.
The best approach i found was to spam rockets at the Revenants at mid distance, specially those who are to the right part of the L shaped balcony, if i went farther away, the homing rockets would get me because of the room's size and the zig zag pattern of the room's entryway. The two Mancubi and Hell Knights were much less of a threat so it wasn't an issue to have my back turned to them while focusing on the Revenants, the Mancubi helped to keep most Hell Knights from getting too close before reaching for the stairway to the L shaped balcony, once on there i finished most of them with rockets and plasma and took care of the stragglers after getting this room's soulsphere. I forgot to mention this map gives the player a blue armor and backpack at the start, without those, it would have been much more hellish, 50% damage reduction makes tanking 5 Revenant fireballs much more tolerable, but still deadly.

The follwing room has a Megasphere on a hallway, there's a dormant Cyberdemon caged in a tiny alcove, and a switch right beside it, when activated, it reveals another alcove to the right with a small group of Hell Knights and to the left, a large hallway with a legion of Imps all of them unaware of the player. Now, i tried thinking a bit outside the box, and lured a row of Hell Knights without waking up the rest of the monsters to draw them close to the Cyberdemon, then darted away before i got sandwiched between them and Cybie, afther that i switched to the rocket launcher and started splattering the Imps up, while Cybie was busy infighting with the five Hell Knights that got on his line of fire. After 5 or 6 shots i had to change to the plasma rifle and push through before the rest of the Hell Knights dealt way too much damage, i found the hurt floor in this secition annyoing rather than adding to the tension, pushing thorugh the Imps themselves and getting pelted by the remaining Hell Knights was more than enough, so no need for a damaging floor.

 
I pressed the switch on the end of the hallway and then finished off the straglers; including the Cyberdemon, with the plasma rifle. 
The final room was ominous and obviously it will go full slaugther wad after pressing something or crossing a linedef, i saw a BFG9000 on a rised platform besides some cell packs and a Megasphere, when i saw the platform' switch i realized this map was using OTEX textures. After pressing the skull switch, the platform lowered and also huge sectors right in front lowered revealing two hordes of pinkies, the rest of this room was full on slaughter and mostly BFG spam against the hordes of Hell Knights, Barons of Hell, Piknies, Cacodemons, Pain Elementals, several Arch-Viles which sent my corpse flying through the air one too many times, it was horribly brutal and how i expected this mapset to be from the get go.

 

Bottom line: Too much purple, good puzzle slaughter combat until the last fight which was pretty much "Sl0ter gUd BeeF Gee goes boom, tracers goes brrr". 

 

Spoiler

 

MSCP MAP 04 "Floody Hell" by Lord_Z

HMP/Pistol Start/Saveless Run.

Kills: 93%
Items: 93%
Secrets: 100%
Time: 4:52

After i got my ass kicked for all time by the previous map, i expected the next one to be even more hellish, thankfully it wasn't, in fact it was quite merciful and kinda out of place too. This one seems to be the breather map of the mapset so far.

 
I like this ominous castle design with large golden banners on the parapets, but i can't help but notice a dark dick shape on them.
This map has nice progression and gimmick; the player engages what seeems to be minor oposition at first, but newer monsters start teleporting in, not enough to overwhelm the player but just enough to put pressure and push it to finish the fights quickly. A fight that i liked the most was the one where the player gets into a flooded pit with a bunch of Pinkies while Arachnotrons teleport one at a time, you have enough room to circle strafe to avoid plasma balls and enough ammo to avoid getting surrounded by Pinkies, also the Arachnotron infighting with them helps to keep them away from you, it gets a bit tricky when two Arachnotrons teleports in, but at this time the remaining Pnkies provide a good meat shield while the player finish both of them off.

After the last fight which had it's moments, i was surpised to see that the exit was on a lift close by. "It can't be that short! This must be a tease!" I thought after i pressed the last switch on top of that tower, and i expected a masive horde of Cacos or something, but the map ended with several water textured sectors rising in the distance simulating a massive flood, it was neat effect though but a pity the map didn't last a couple of fights longer.

Bottom line: Deceptively tougher looking, but a welcome breather map.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Solmyr

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Wad Name: Micro Slaughter Community Project
Port: Nugget Doom v.1.8.0
Skill: ITYDT
Continuous with saves

 

Map 03: Not a whole lot to say except I loved it. The color usage, the music, the combat. The detail in the arenas where we fight, really, this map was pretty good.

We get the honour of using the bfg and we get a lot of cell ammo on Skill 1. I ended up spaming the Big Freaking Gun and exited whit a considerable amount of ammo. The only thing I didn't like were the inescapable pits (Maybe there's escape from them, but I didn't find it the first time I played and noclipped to not die)

 

Map 04: Another one that I enjoy. The concept of a Heretic-Like castle is always welcome to me. The visuals on this map, IMO, are good. The combat is not that slaughtery, and, while this may dissapoint to some people (Considering this is a Slaughter wad), this is the kind of map that I would play without any issues. It's the calm before the storm in the next map....

 

Scores so far:

Spoiler

Map 01: 9/10

Map 02: 8/10

Map 03: 9/10

Map 04: 8/10

 

[General Roasterock]

MAP05: Marble In The Blood

MSCP05.zip

  This is what I expected more of the early maps to be like: specific and esoteric. The whole thing is a straight line, despite starting in a three spoke hub, and only provides what it absolutely necessary to finish the level. The atmosphere is nice, the reds and grays in mostly dark caverns are intimidating, and the whole level is inundated in damaging blood as the title would suggest. There isn't a whole lot of map to observe, but was is there is sold well.

  Fight #1 is undoubtedly harder than the second, and having nothing but 200 health means that two Revenant rockets is essentially death for the first wave. Red screen is the cause of a plurality of my failures when it comes to the demo, something I successfully predicted from the practice. It's very unfortunate that the meticulous timings from the past maps are gone, and I end up sitting and waiting for the Arch-Viles to join for a good bit of time. Same goes for most of the other waves in both arenas, thought I can admit this allows for people playing less aggressively to stay on top of the situation, so it's ultimately a good choice. 

  Fight #2 was weird. I ended up carrying over enough rockets in one of my runs to allow me to never use the Plasma Rifle, and the two turret Cyberdemons behind the massive Pinky wave ended up being less threatening than the floor. While I can understand why people would think the timed floor section is aggravating with what they have to manage, but I think it does a much better job of encouraging spatial awareness in relation to the monsters than "here's an airtight room with two Barons", and I love the power of cl9 creativity to make something unique I can learn in this sense. The arena would've been boring without it, and the hurt floor shuffling fixes that. 

  It's a shame that the map had to end on a single Cyberdemon two shot, and three telefrags where the player is facing a brick wall in a map with this much personality, but I feel that's the consequence of wanting the hub style, which honestly doesn't add much to the map outside of existing. I feel that both of the fights even this one out to a "pretty solid".

 

Power Rankings:

1. Cherry Blossom
2. Fire In Your Eyes
3. Marble In The Blood
4. Viridescent Synapse
5. Floody Hell

 

5 hours ago, PeceMan said:

Since I'll be playing in HNTR instead of UV, I don't think I can accurately speak about the gameplay. 

  Absolutely not true, you can accurately speak about the HNTR gameplay, the same as several other members are doing. I'm very glad that authors can be recognized for their difficulty balancing.

 

3 hours ago, Lord_Z said:

Anyway, it's always great to see feedback and I hope that Bauul will announce a sequel project so that I can take another swing at it!

Thanks for making it. I do enjoy watching the development of ideas over time, and hope to see more in the future.

[erzboesewicht]

I decided to give the first maps of MSCP a try, as it's on my list for some time now, while at the same time finishing slowly my Community Chest playthrough from March. Until now, my feelings are mixed (see below).

 

UV, pistol-start, saves between fights if necessary.

 

MAP01: Fire in your Eyes by Dreadopp

 

Nice architecture and visuals, but gameplay is veeeery basic. It feels like a tutorial level, although I acknowledge that making the introductory map to such a set may not be easy. The only fight I enjoyed a bit is the one with imps and barons as it is cramped enough to make cornering suitable and thus requires some footwork; the final fight was too easy and too simple - rocket revenants and mancubi while circlestrafing. I didn't find the secret without hints, the texture set seems good to hide things.

 

Difficulty: 1/10
Rating: 5/10 (3 bonus points for the architecture, combat-wise it's the weakest map I played for a long time, at most 2/10)

 

Difficulty scale: 1 - Doom2 MAP16; 3 - Plutonia MAP32/Speed of Doom MAP28 - 5 Alien Vendetta MAP26 - 7 Sunlust MAP30 - 10 Okuplok

 

 

MAP02: Viridescent Synapse by Ben Mansell (Bauul)

 

A combat puzzle map with only rockets as weapons, featuring two simple, but not too easy puzzles. The first is infighting-themed, it puts you between two cybers and a horde of hell knights, pacifist "rocket-luring" in the right angles seems the only viable strategy as otherwise you'll be cornered very fast. The second one features about 70 pinkies and a small group of barons on an interconnected circular arena of walkways. Again, don't get cornered: you've to try to decimate the highest possible number of pinkies at the start before the horde reaches the other side of the arena, and then rocket the remainding from afar. Not bad, I like this kind of puzzles. This was already much harder than MAP01, but in each fight it will become clear in about half a minute if you win or not. (Unfortunately, my computer lagged here, which lowered my enjoyment a bit.)

 

Difficulty: 4/10
Rating: 7/10

 

MAP03: Cherry Blossom by Danlex

 

Again, a combat-puzzle-focused map, but with more monster variety. I felt the difficulty was a bit lower than in MAP02. The starting fight is a typical slaughter midtier+pinky mix with lower-than-slaughter numbers, the threat comes here from the fact that all the revenants can see you at once from an elevated position which enables them to combine their firepower, and you must first get the first circlestrafing lap done (which isn't that trivial) to make them infight with the nobles, and the pinkies act as "slaughterguy's meanest foe" by blocking him in the most unconvenient times. Still relatively easy. The second one, with a cyberdemon, imps and hell-knights, is more tricky: here I first tried again a pacifist strategy, but simply rocketing the imps finally seemed more viable. Then the last big fight. You have the option to unleash everything at once or tackle the pinkies and nobles first and the archies later if you restrict yourself first to the plasma rifle and rockets, the second method seemed easier (although I didn't try out the "hide in the archie's cubbyholes" strategy). Best map so far, it's the most flexible one til now and gives you options to try your own strategy.

 

Difficulty: 3/10
Rating: 8,5/10

MAP04: Floody Hell by Lord_Z

 

If MAP03 was micro-slaughter, this one may be "nano-slaughter". It consists of a series of easy encounters (not even "Plutonia difficulty") with low monster counts, being the last one the only slightly threatening one due to limited space. In my opinion this would have been a better MAP01, and MAP01 could have switched slot with MAP04 and been filled then with more interesting fights.

 

Difficulty: 2/10
Rating: 6,5/10

 

 

(First thoughts: Until now I'm a little bit disappointed given the appreciation the mapset seems to have in the community; with the exception of MAP03 I feel the fights in the first maps were very basic and give you only very limited options, maybe this is simply the goal of this wad, but then it's probably not my cup of tea. I'll give it a couple more opportunities to see if I continue this month in the club; but for now I must admit that I enjoyed good ol' Community Chest more.)

[dac]

MAP 05 – Marble in the Blood (by Liberation)

Completed 02/04/2022

 

Please Mr Lib just a crumb of armour I beg you

 

I had to slightly violate my 'don't save in the middle of a fight' rule here. Not really because these fights are so difficult, because I can do them fine, my strategies works correctly on this map; it's tempting to try and get some infighting in, but apart from the imps and cyberdemons this is a horrible idea, and you have enough ammo to not rely on this strategy.

 

Both fights are marathon fights with plenty of monster-less lull in them to save and compartment them. That's an excuse, a good one. But the real reason is rather simple.

 

I can clear these long fights.

 

I can't clear these long fights consistently.

 

Sure I need to get better at revenant missile wrangling overall, but a major reason is these fights are massively unforgiving; and they are unforgiving because there's no armour anywhere. This is something a fair few playtesters beat into me over the years, because the same mistake was present in a ton of my maps: a single mistake with no armour means a probable restart, because a single mistake can mean most of your health clean off, with a downward spiral into more hits, resulting in death. And because these fights are so long, there's more opportunities for a mistake!

 

(Let's just say I now have a bigger appreciation of speedrunners who can D2All stuff like Stardate 20x7.)

 

But let's get back to the meat of the fights. As I mentioned, infighting is not a good strategy; in the first fight, the revenants pose too much of a threat to let live too long, plus them and the hell knights are too numerous to comfortably navigate the arena – the strategy is to focus fire the revenants, then deal with the hell knights before the first arch-viles arrive. Repeat for the second wave. The final wave with imps and cyberdemons turrets looks daunting, but you are given a lot of space to dodge rockets even with the alcoves becoming harm spaces. I went for the exit as soon as I had a clear shot at it though – no need to spend too much time in there when a stray rocket could have easily downed me from almost full!

 

Second arena was not as tricky, even if the constantly collapsing floor into damaging blood got a bit aggravating – would have been a lot better if all the collapsing floors had the same flats, but eh. Once again the revenants of the second wave are the biggest danger, not helped by missteps into blood being an ever present menace to our health. The ending pinky rush is a breather; at least it is if you notice the BFG that just warped in!

 

Which I didn’t the first time.

 

A final cyberdemon to practice a BFG two shot, a final warp into a few telefrags, and the map is over! I said a fair bit about armour and the lack of it, but I have to admit these timed arenas aren’t my cup of tea either. Especially when the tells are unclear and a bit slow, as is the case here. A shame, since the first arena was a lot of fun with a restricted concept.

[brick]

MSCP MAP04 - "Floody Hell" by Lord_Z

I won't go as far as others in saying this was easy, but it's certainly a nice breather after the previous two. It's actually quite relaxed until the last arena, which did get frantic when the the next wave of HK/imps started coming in before I had finished with the revenants. I could've made it easier on myself if I had used the BFG, but I forgot I was playing continuous. I guess I should be happy that I beat the map as if pistol-starting, and without dying too. I was a few seconds past the par time, but that's because I took my time admiring the beautiful vistas. The blue sky and lake, the giant yellow banners over the grey stones create very soothing views, enhanced by a very fitting soundtrack. Slaughter fans may scoff at the map's difficulty (or lack of) but I enjoyed the change of pace, and the much more grounded visuals make a nice contrast with the more abstract aesthetics of the previous maps (not that I prefer one or the other, I think they all look great). The finale is a fantastic little surprise, I never cease to be amazed by all the fun things people manage to make with this engine. I can see why Bauul said he didn't want to leave the map out, and I'm glad he found a way to include it.

 

MSCP MAP05 - "Marble in the Blood" by Liberation

The first arena gave me a lot of trouble. I got lucky the first try and made it quite far. I got surprised by the first archviles who raised half the arena before I realized what was going on, at which point dispatching them was an uphill battle since they kept raising more enemies to hide behind, and I eventually died to the second wave when fresh revenants, HKs and archviles added to what was left over. I then had to go through many tries where I'd get either boxed in by the HKs or get too many homing missiles and would die very quickly. I finally managed another good try, where I used my carryover BFG to kill the AVs ASAP, and then insta-died to the cybers carpet-bombing the entire arena before I even saw them. It took another few tries before I made it this far again, and died again within a second or two to the cybers. The next try went pretty much the same and I almost admitted defeat and cheated. But I gave it one last shot, and this time killed the last archvile fast enough that I could SEE the cybers as they appeared. I couldn't really think of any strategy other than darting in and out of the side cubicles while their rockets and mine thinned out the imps until I had a clear shot at the teleporter. Maybe there's a cleaner way to do this, but I'd died enough times and didn't feel like spending more time on this fight.

The next arena was much more manageable, the constantly shifting damaging floor is annoying but there's a lot more space to maneuver. The first wave is the hardest, the rest of the arena is very straightforward by comparison, at least on easy skill (no cybers at the end, only mancubi). Taking down that horde of demons with the now-legitimate BFG is very satisfying.

I got so overwhelmed with keeping track of the enemies that I couldn't spare any attention to the aesthetics, sadly.

[Thelokk]

NOTE: I'm a massive muppet and didn't realize I was supposed to play only map05 today. Will be sitting it out tomorrow...

 

 

MSCP map05 - Marble in the Blood by Liberation

Uv, then HMP / 100% monsters / no secrets

 

Has anyone noticed how little popularity the 'techbase' aesthetic seems to have with slaughter mappers, and conversely how popular it is with more casual, adventure maps? Strange. 

Anyway, I must admit Marble in the Blood is the first map from the pack I didn't really feel. Aesthetically... it's ok. Another stone castle, though I think MAP04's topples it in force of its almost doomcute, Heretic-like looks and feel. Structurally, the map is basically two big arenas, which already knocks it a few points below for me - I get that 'a series of self contained arenas' is pretty much the standard in slaughter mapping, but do we really need to make it this blatant? Diff' strokes I guess. The first arena is by far the hardest one, requiring good use of the 'ol horseshoe maneuver, and keen awareness of where those pesky archvies are going to pop up from. Also yes, rely on infighting, but I suggest an early start in thinning the herd, or you might we oberwhelmed.

The second arena... really puzzles me. Sure, there's shifting damage floor, but first: you get the Plasma Rifle, which is Doom's true Iwin button (if you thought that was the BFG, think again) and makes the numerous but slow moving resistance you'll meet utter meaningless. The arena is HUGE, and you move so fast that, by simple circle strafing, floor damage becomes a trifle. The final fight with the pinky horde is a throwaway - not sure how it made the cut, it's comically easy.

Not a bad effort, but it comes after some very strong offerings, and suffers from it.

 

MSCP map06 - Slaughter Factory by Guardsoul

HMP / 100% monsters / 1 secret

 

... well, guess this is the exception that makes the rule. A techbase! And a huuuuuge step up compared to the previous map. Sure, you could say it's just one big arena, but the sheer level of detail, the creativity of the encounters and the overall atmosphere (nice skybox by the way) earn it a smorgasbord of extra points. You're almost immediately greeted by another slaughter evergreen - the caco cloud. Keep it herded to the middle platform, where the archviles are, and your rockets will win you two birds with one stone. Next is skelly time, but you got a plasma rifle, so no excuses for dying. If you're really feeling crafty you might also do some switch hunting and get yourself a nice fat BFG, for which you'll have ammo to spare - just be careful because, when you'll think a bunch of poor lost souls is all you have to worry about, a bigger cloud will be brewing on the opposite side of the map...

So pretty, I actually stayed a few minutes after the end just to take in (and steal for my next map) the architecture. Just beautiful

 

Ranking so far:

-map06

-map04

-map01

-map02

-map03

-map05

Edited April 3, 2022 by Thelokk