2 ENEMY COMMUNITY PROJECT [DEVELOPMENT THREAD]

[TheOxingey]

here, fixed it

satisfactory.zip

[memeboi]

16 hours ago, SuperPecanMan said:

 

I played through this map, I'd like to point out a few things design-wise that I think could be improved:
1. In most of the map, it is super easy to walk past the bad guys and pick up the item / hit the switch / etc. I think the red key could really use a choke point that gets cut off by a teleport trap or monster closet after you grab it to prevent you from just running away.

2. Speaking of the red key room, I'll echo the sentiment about repetitive texturing, but I'd also like to point out that the way the maze is set up, there is absolutely no chance the imps will ever get the jump on you.  I'd tone down the sound-blocking linedefs, lower the lights, and add a few more loops so the baddies can actually get the jump on and surprise you. Widening it in a few places will also help make it feel less repetitive too.

3. There isn't a point where you aren't on the same level as the enemies, and I feel like the most interesting mancubus fights I've ever encountered almost always involve them having the high ground on you in an area with limited cover. I think adding something like that would help break the monotony.

4. Given the relative chunkiness of the mancubus, I really wanted a rocket launcher in this map, needing to take them down using only the SSG starts to feel tedious and repetitive (to me at least), fast.

Updated the map with your advice

[TheOxingey]

is anybody still active?

[russin]

5 minutes ago, TheOxingey said:

is anybody still active?

Maybe

[El Jeff]

5 hours ago, TheOxingey said:

is anybody still active?

I'm procrastinating on my map 

[SuperPecanMan]

On 7/12/2022 at 11:05 AM, memeboi said:

Updated the map with your advice

The red key area is definitely improved, although it's still very easy to blast through the wall of imps blocking the path out and then switch over to peekaboo shooting from the entrance to the arena. If a mancubus blocks the path out (instead of imps), then the player is at least forced to stay in the arena and dodge for a bit once the one-shot option is removed. I think more people will find the fight interesting as a result.

 

I also found a grate that wasn't marked as impassible just before the dropdown into the blue key area, seems like that was probably not intentional.

[epicyolomaster420]

@Thatonespymain I'm in. My monster combo will be cyberdemons & icon of sin.

Also since this post is going to get your attention I figured I'd allert you to a few things you missed in the CP's first post (so you might want to fix this by editing it):

1. The lost souls & zombiemen combo appears twice but is not in the list of pairs that are already used twice 

2. IcarusOfDaggers's map01 monster pair and his name next to it is not listed in the Map01 slot

Hope that helped. Peace out.

[El Jeff]

1 hour ago, epicyolomaster420 said:

@Thatonespymain I'm in. My monster combo will be cyberdemons & icon of sin.

Also since this post is going to get your attention I figured I'd allert you to a few things you missed in the CP's first post (so you might want to fix this by editing it):

1. The lost souls & zombiemen combo appears twice but is not in the list of pairs that are already used twice 

2. IcarusOfDaggers's map01 monster pair and his name next to it is not listed in the Map01 slot

Hope that helped. Peace out.

Icarus left the project and thanks for the reminder of the already used combos 

[TheOxingey]

1 hour ago, epicyolomaster420 said:

@Thatonespymain I'm in. My monster combo will be cyberdemons & icon of sin.

Also since this post is going to get your attention I figured I'd allert you to a few things you missed in the CP's first post (so you might want to fix this by editing it):

1. The lost souls & zombiemen combo appears twice but is not in the list of pairs that are already used twice 

2. IcarusOfDaggers's map01 monster pair and his name next to it is not listed in the Map01 slot

Hope that helped. Peace out.

sounds epic, cant wait to see your map!

[memeboi]

20 hours ago, SuperPecanMan said:

The red key area is definitely improved, although it's still very easy to blast through the wall of imps blocking the path out and then switch over to peekaboo shooting from the entrance to the arena. If a mancubus blocks the path out (instead of imps), then the player is at least forced to stay in the arena and dodge for a bit once the one-shot option is removed. I think more people will find the fight interesting as a result.

 

I also found a grate that wasn't marked as impassible just before the dropdown into the blue key area, seems like that was probably not intentional.

Fixed it

[ONETAPPYBOI]

On 7/12/2022 at 1:26 PM, TheOxingey said:

here, fixed it

satisfactory.zip

 

Oh boy, a lot to talk about here.

 

So first of all, i have relatively few things to say about gameplay:

1) The map is a relaxing slaughterfest where you hold down Mouse1 and turn off your brain;

2) For whatever reason the zombiemen trap in the pinky hallway didn't activate, luckily i was still able to kill them by shooting hitscans and BFG at the wall;

3) I dislike the inescapable pit at the end;

4) There is a single zombieman behind the yellow door that can open it for you, meaning that you can literally skip almost the entire map;

 

Alright, now onto the elephant in the room: the graphics:

1) There are missing textures. A LOT of missing textures. So many, that you literally can't put them all of them on a single UDB analysis screen (F4 in 2D mode); you need three. Here is an archive including all of the screenshots, since there were so many that including them in the post would've made it too big: HOM.rar

2) There are also some out-of-place textures: OOP.rar

3) And finally, the sky in some places is too low, making the walls only appear on one side of a line. IDK how to describe it, you'll see what i mean: SKY.rar

[ONETAPPYBOI]

Alright everyone, as one of the main playtesters of this project, i now have a dilemma to solve regarding future playtesting; i have two options:
1) I continue playing through the maps as they get posted, publishing my reviews and FDAs on DW;

2) I wait until all the maps have been finished and then submissions closed, then i create a discord server and, at a certain time, invite everyone and stream a blind run while commentating in VC.

I honestly don't know what should i do, so i am asking everyone here.

[SuperPecanMan]

39 minutes ago, ONETAPPYBOI said:

Alright everyone, as one of the main playtesters of this project, i now have a dilemma to solve regarding future playtesting; i have two options:
1) I continue playing through the maps as they get posted, publishing my reviews and FDAs on DW;

2) I wait until all the maps have been finished and then submissions closed, then i create a discord server and, at a certain time, invite everyone and stream a blind run while commentating in VC.

I honestly don't know what should i do, so i am asking everyone here.

 

I'm personally in favor of option 1 just because I think it's better to get feedback sooner. Most maps will usually need some kind of change and doing it all at the end means you're going to be doing a lot of testing in a short window (I would imagine you average out to doing every map twice) and it would probably get tiring or boring.

 

 

If you want to preserve the blind playthrough aspect (which I think can be very useful), it would make a huge difference if you could post VODs afterwards. I've had instances where my maps were playtested on a stream which I missed, and the video wasn't saved so the feedback I got wasn't very useful without context.

 

[ONETAPPYBOI]

2 minutes ago, SuperPecanMan said:

 

I'm personally in favor of option 1 just because I think it's better to get feedback sooner. Most maps will usually need some kind of change and doing it all at the end means you're going to be doing a lot of testing in a short window (I would imagine you average out to doing every map twice) and it would probably get tiring or boring.

 

 

If you want to preserve the blind playthrough aspect (which I think can be very useful), it would make a huge difference if you could post VODs afterwards. I've had instances where my maps were playtested on a stream which I missed, and the video wasn't saved so the feedback I got wasn't very useful without context.

 

I don't screenrecord my playthroughs but i do record demos; i try to post them on every review

[TheOxingey]

On 7/15/2022 at 2:23 PM, ONETAPPYBOI said:

 

Oh boy, a lot to talk about here.

 

So first of all, i have relatively few things to say about gameplay:

1) The map is a relaxing slaughterfest where you hold down Mouse1 and turn off your brain;

2) For whatever reason the zombiemen trap in the pinky hallway didn't activate, luckily i was still able to kill them by shooting hitscans and BFG at the wall;

3) I dislike the inescapable pit at the end;

4) There is a single zombieman behind the yellow door that can open it for you, meaning that you can literally skip almost the entire map;

 

Alright, now onto the elephant in the room: the graphics:

1) There are missing textures. A LOT of missing textures. So many, that you literally can't put them all of them on a single UDB analysis screen (F4 in 2D mode); you need three. Here is an archive including all of the screenshots, since there were so many that including them in the post would've made it too big: HOM.rar

2) There are also some out-of-place textures: OOP.rar

3) And finally, the sky in some places is too low, making the walls only appear on one side of a line. IDK how to describe it, you'll see what i mean: SKY.rar

sorry, i have been busy, so now i am gonna fix all of this, thanks for your opinion, i am thinking about changing bfg at the end to plasma, so player wont have much advantage at the start of next map

[TheOxingey]

On 7/15/2022 at 3:29 PM, ONETAPPYBOI said:

Alright everyone, as one of the main playtesters of this project, i now have a dilemma to solve regarding future playtesting; i have two options:
1) I continue playing through the maps as they get posted, publishing my reviews and FDAs on DW;

2) I wait until all the maps have been finished and then submissions closed, then i create a discord server and, at a certain time, invite everyone and stream a blind run while commentating in VC.

I honestly don't know what should i do, so i am asking everyone here.

i think first option is way better, because if all maps will be finished just before the deadline, there wouldn't be any time to change anything

[russin]

So.. yeah

Name:Imp extravaganza

Monsters:Imps and Cyberdemons

Midi:Eastern Wind from Touhou 2: Story of Eastern Wonderland

Tested with: DSDA doom, doom retro, GZDoom

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kGORd78Y5lcjQ_-9j8mmN5s_JRjodmrj/view?usp=sharing

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Rabbid]

Finished my map
Name: Chaingunner Knight City, or Chainknights for short
Monsters: Chaingunners and Hell Knights
Tested with: PRboom+ and GZdoom
Midi: None...rip...

Chaingunner Knight City.zip

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[raddicted]

@Thatonespymain lmao sure
map 60: cyberdemons and revenants
ill do a custom midi, and no custom textures
good ol cya later

[SuperPecanMan]

On 6/15/2022 at 2:07 PM, Thatonespymain said:

The dehacked file to test this with is 2ENEMYCOMMUNITYPROJECT.zip, it has a few small changes like adding Bossdeath to all enemies and making archviles able to resurrect other archviles.

 

I've tried looking it up but haven't found a satisfactory answer anywhere... What does the Bossdeath trigger do for levels where it isn't hard-coded? I know map07 has the floor raise/lower triggers, what about the others though?

[ONETAPPYBOI]

On 7/21/2022 at 11:48 PM, SuperPecanMan said:

 

I've tried looking it up but haven't found a satisfactory answer anywhere... What does the Bossdeath trigger do for levels where it isn't hard-coded? I know map07 has the floor raise/lower triggers, what about the others though?

It's for mappers so they can create a custom bossaction in UMAPINFO.

[Doomy__Doom]

On 7/21/2022 at 11:48 PM, SuperPecanMan said:

 

I've tried looking it up but haven't found a satisfactory answer anywhere... What does the Bossdeath trigger do for levels where it isn't hard-coded? I know map07 has the floor raise/lower triggers, what about the others though? 

You're thinking backwards. Map 07 is the "hardcoded" death trigger. UMAPINFO provides a generic one which works anywhere.

 

Maybe this will illustrate better.

What original says: If Map is [07] and every [Mancubus] is dead - [lower] sector tagged [666].

What UMAPINFO says: If Map is [X] and every [Y] is dead - [do stuff with] sector tagged [Z].

 

 

[ONETAPPYBOI]

Wow, i almost forgot that i have my own submission for this project.

I have updatedit with some general improvements: painrchvilenowait.rar

Full changelog here:

Spoiler

• Added 2 crosses to the cross-shaped room area for extra detail;
• Added 8 stimpacks to the final fight;
• Replaced arch-viles with pain elementals in Rocket Launcher trap;
• Fixed a bug where pain elementals would spawn too early in the Plasma Gun trap;
• Replaced 2 pain elementals with arch-viles in the Plasma Gun trap;
• Fixed a possible softlock in the final fight; the teleporter ou will now open automatically after 60 seconds;
• Aligned textures on some gravestones properly.

 

[ONETAPPYBOI]

On 7/20/2022 at 2:22 PM, russin22 said:

So.. yeah

Name:Imp extravaganza

Monsters:Imps and Cyberdemons

Midi:Eastern Wind from Touhou 2: Story of Eastern Wonderland

Tested with: DSDA doom, doom retro, GZDoom

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kGORd78Y5lcjQ_-9j8mmN5s_JRjodmrj/view?usp=sharing

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

So i played through your map, and liked it. The detailing was extremely well made and the gameplay had well balanced difficulty. I only have minor complaints:

• The usage of switch textures as static decorations can be ambiguous, but the player quickly learns that they aren't switches, and so it's only a small issue;
• I am honestly tired of telling mappers this, but i will say it again: DON'T FORGET TO MARK WALLS AS 1-SIDED ON AN AUTOMAP. In this level, there are a bunch of decorations that are shown as 2-sided with both the floor and the ceiling at the same height. A minor issue, but an issue nonetheless;
• I dislike the SW2 switch in the starting area. In this context, it's probably fine, since the player just loaded the map and couldn't have interacted with anything, but with larger maps it can get confusing.

Despite these problems, i still enjoyed it. I am just slightly dissapointed that the final monster wasn't a cyber.

 

FDA attached: fda-2enemy47.rar

[ONETAPPYBOI]

On 7/21/2022 at 4:00 PM, Rabbid said:

Finished my map
Name: Chaingunner Knight City, or Chainknights for short
Monsters: Chaingunners and Hell Knights
Tested with: PRboom+ and GZdoom
Midi: None...rip...

Chaingunner Knight City.zip

Screenshots:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Even before i started the map, i could tell you were new to mapping - you included the DBS file for the map, which is useless for anyone who doesn't edit the map. (For context, it stores the UDB configuration for that specific map).

So, the general overview of the map: The first area feels very 90's, the second area feels like Doom 2 MAP13 and i somewhat like it, although it would've been nice for you to be able to enter some buildings. The final area is generic slaughter. So, onto the problems (Screenshots included).
 

Spoiler

1. Some linedefs only had their middle texture on 1 side, so it would be totally see-through on the other side. Examples include: and ;  and
2. Some of the middle textured linedefs weren't marked as impassable; for example, the ones on the last screenshot;
3. These stairs you can go up, but not down. DoomWiki explained it better than i ever could:https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Stairs_that_can_be_ascended,_but_not_descended
4. This linedeffor whatever reason has a middle texture. Not sure why;
5. This door is too wide (generally doors should be 16 units), it's doortrak isn't lower unpegged, and it's upper texture is the same as the ceiling texture of surrounding sectors, thus making it blend in (generally should be FLAT20 for tech doors). This applies for all other doors too;
6. Over in this areathe sky is too low, thus concealing things behind it. Make it sa high as the sky of the surrounding area to avoid any bugs such as this;
7. I talked about doors being too wide, but this dooris too narrow. Generally doors should be either 8 or 16 units wide; Also this door is magically opening into the sky, i would suggest raising the sky ceiling;
8. These hell knights are stuck inside each other;
9. This one is pretty weird - Wood planks magically going into the sky.
10. Some more sky weirdness here.
11. #5 and #7 also apply to these two doors:
12. These computer panels have their ceiling texture the same as the surrounding texture, which i dislike. I suggest changing it to CEIL5_2;
13. The door tracks of this door aren't lower unpegged, but for whatever reason also have a wooden texture instead of the DOORTRAK one;
14. This door has issues #5 and #13;
15. In this courtyardthe grass is on the same level as the paths, when it shouldn't be. A good rule of thumb to follow is that when floor/ceiling texture changes, the floor/ceiling level should too, and vice versa.
16. Finally, there are a lot of textures that aren't upper/lower unpegged when they should be. Here are all that i could find, although there are most likely more:

 

 

[SuperPecanMan]

On 7/21/2022 at 9:00 AM, Rabbid said:

Finished my map
Name: Chaingunner Knight City, or Chainknights for short
Monsters: Chaingunners and Hell Knights
Tested with: PRboom+ and GZdoom
Midi: None...rip...

Chaingunner Knight City.zip

Screenshots:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I have a few suggestions as well, first lets start with the stuff that I think most people would agree on as necessary changes:
 

Spoiler

 

1.This door is too tall. I'd recommend adding a small setback sector that's only 128 units tall so it doesn't have to repeat

 

 

2. Your red door is unmarked, you really should either extend the walls around it to add the doorred texture or add columns in front/next to it, some kind of indicator would be good.

 

3. Your exit is unmarked, you should really add an exitsign or exitston texture near it.

 

 

 

 

I also have some design criticisms/suggestions.  I think, depending on the project standards these may not need to be changed, but depending on your goals with this map, I'm providing them so you have some feedback on what players may / may not like.

Spoiler

 

1. The first big fight with the hell knights in the open area and the chaingunners on either side is, in my opinion, extremely grindy and therefore not particularly fun.  As far as I can tell, the only way to approach this fight is to wait in the hallway until the hell knights enter your field of view, shoot them, then scurry down the hallways out of their range of fire when the shoot at you. Because the hallways are 64 units wide, you really can't chance turning here, which vastly limits the ability for players to improvise. This takes quite some time with your choices of shotgun or chaingun (especially if their AI  doesn't cooperate), and there's absolutely nothing you can do to speed it up. I think this fight has the potential to work better if the hell knights can enter the hallway you're in (and even moreso if a monster closet with chaingunners opens up inside the beginning area so they can get you from behind), because now your safe space is compromised and you're forced to react to the enemy movement in varying ways.

 

2. The large open area where you acquire the rocket launcher, it's a little too big with too many escape routes. You can easily move around the army of hell knights and they never pose any threat, the only real trouble is the few chaingunners inside the buildings, but they're a little too easy to avoid because there are so many alleyways you can camp in and be safe.

 

3. The monster blocking linedefs severely handicaps the ambush of hell knights at the end. As long as you don't stand still, they never pose any threat because it's impossible for them to corner you.

 

4. The way you've placed ammo leads to repetitive gameplay.  Because there's always that one place you can retreat to to refill, the player never really needs to think about supplies. If the caches were spread out among several places, it would make the combat more dynamic as you have to remember which caches are already used up when you go searching for ammo.

 

5. The combat is one-dimensional (i.e. the enemies are only attacking from one direction). This means the player never has to think about where the danger is coming from because the enemies are always in front of them.  If you could change the fights up a little bit using monster closets or teleport ambushes, it will make it more interesting are players are forced to keep track of what's behind or next to them.

 

6. You cannot return to the beginning area after going through the red door. Many players (myself included) like to go back and get 100% kills, so if you opened up the way back (perhaps by crossing a linedef in the final room), it would be appreciated.

 

7. I feel like you placed exactly 500 enemies because that was the limit, but a lot of them just feel completely unnecessary. You might want to pare them down a little bit so the fights don't drag on past the point where there's no challenge anymore.

 

8. I think a really big missed opportunity is that there's no usage of the partial invisibility in this map. I'm imagining an open area where there are a whole host of chaingunners that you have no cover from and a few hell knights as well. You're forced to use the blur sphere so that you don't just die to the chaingunners, and now you need to watch the hell knight projectiles instead of just mindlessly strafing to avoid them automatically. Something I'd personally love to see.

 

 

I'd like to re-iterate that these suggestions are my opinion and not gospel, but if you're looking for ideas, then feel free to use them.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Finally got a start on my Mastermind and Revenant map.  I'll keep you guys posted on how it's going.

[ONETAPPYBOI]

@Thatonespymain Even though it's prohibited, i ask you to reserve the slot 01 for me since the guy making it left and we REALLY need a MAP01. Shotgunners and imps (don't forget to mark as a pair already used twice)

[Death Bear]

@Thatonespymain About to submit mine for testing. Are we supposed to be doing difficulties?

[TheOxingey]

ok, i think i finally finished my map, i fixed errors that you told me about, updated some visuals and rebalanced the combat a little bit so its still a power fantasy, but without bfg spam bullsh*t. tell me if i missed some homs and errors

satisfactory.zip