The DWmegawad Club plays: #1 Kill & Number One Kill TNG

[Helm]

Cheers. As I don't participate often, I'll just signal boost good stuff from what has already been posted in the thread.

+++ Solar Struggle   I started this a while ago and it seems super solid
+++ Literalism   I like MFG38 community projects generally, this seems to have been a very spirited one
+++ Auger; Zenith / Liminal Doom / Grime (21 map + 6 maps + 5 maps)  like Azure says. That would be very ambitious.

[Book Lord]

1 hour ago, Helm said:

EDIT: how does the voting work? I just pick around 30 maps in any combo of sets and write them in?

What @Celestinsaid, and also check the list of the previous DWMC events. MegaWADs do not get played twice.

[Biodegradable]

+++Machete

[Doomy__Doom]

MAP15

Wow, there are rockets in this level. Too bad it doesn't help much outside the 1st blood area with mancs/baron, because the principal problem is the teleporter nonsense afterwards. The only strategy that doesn't rely on "pray for no instant zap or distraction hit" for the silly 0-cover into Vile area is to strafe in and out of the portal spewing plasma/SSG in hopes that the Vile is at the front of the pile in front of your destination and dies. Optionally combined with waiting a few minutes on the other side to let all Cacos and hitscanners wander upstairs into the tp.
And don't even get me started on the only healing past that TP being a single medkit until you reach the awkward decorations noble room with 2 more.

MAP31

I'm not buying the theory that there was unconventional design of "ignore the SSG" given all I've seen so far and combined with the fact that only 2 safest/least impactful Viles are on HMP and 1 on HNTR. There are other cute balancing attempt details, like the Cyber facing away from cages below UV - which unfortunately remains an "attempt" because of the ambush flag giving the goat 360 degree vision anyway. An invuln inside cage segment on HNTR. A bunch of chaingunners removed or downgraded to shotgunners. RL ambush being straightforward instead of "rush out" (revs => pinkies/hitscan).

Naw, UV was meant to put player through the grinder, with the usual "no fun allowed" culprit being the overdelayed RL that could make it all flow nicely.

MAP32

I guess we (or, well, I) finally have a true winner - it's a solid set of combat situations, bar the really specific observation clue required to think of returning for the RL as it's easy to miss rocket boxes in corners of BK arena. Maybe a bit of tedium at the start as well - I admit I just started liberally idclipping through those obnoxious switch-only doors after a few times, as well as when I recognized I should probably go back for plasma.
See, when you give big guns before all the big mid-tier placements, it all flows so so much nicer.

 

Vote #1: +++ Auger; Zenith / Liminal Doom / Grime
2 and 3 TBD

[Helm]

Extra map for the weekend! 

MAP31

I can see why everyone was excited for this, as it is an order of magnitude more beefy and challenging than anything we've seen since map01 secret path, and even so, this is full-on violence (especially for the vintage) recalling HR and other such siege combat offerings. I did go for the SSG, by the way and it's perfectly fine to do that, it's just two, three viles (lol). I died a lot on this map and I think a proper single segment will take quite a bit of skill. With saves it's just a routing puzzlebox though there's at least 2 encounters that are quite RNGish so I am looking forward to seeing if anyone wants to demo a 30 minute map with two RNGJesus prayers in it! The red bars baron box in particular can go fuck itself, heh. This is one of the toughest 1997 combat maps I've sampled so far, it even has an interesting cyberdemon placement. If the rest of the wad was like this and built on the intensity of it and had more concepts to apply it in, we'd be talking about it instead of HR today. However it's good that we're talking about it anyway. It's quite interesting to see the trajectory of the mapper as always. f

[Azure_Horror]

7 hours ago, Book Lord said:

The main problem here is not the absence of powerful ammo, but its placement. The boxes of rockets on the blood fountain would carry you smoothly through the map, but who will keep calm and carefully pick them up when in sight of so many hitscanner?

 

I agree with the Cyberdemon encounter, but I dealt with it by entering the room, clearing the terraces, then killing him with the shotgun from relative safety. The boss killed me once, because I was a bit slow to advance and he ambushed me from behind. I could not imagine he would access the stairwell to that point.

 

However, it is a map that you would probably not like on first play and revaluate with knowledge, just like MAP05, MAP09 and MAP012. Not the best in the set, though.

I did grab the 20 rockets in the fountain. There is no 'absense' of powerful ammo. But the ammount of ammo is insufficient. Shells are the only abundant ammo type. You need to ration rockets, plasma and even bullets. Therefore, if you want to save rockets or plasma - you use more SSG (ore single shotty, in weird cases). No other option. Shotguns are clearly the main weapons on this map.

 

As for killing the cyberdemon from above - same diffirence. It is still a SSG grind - just with a different geomtery being exploited. This strat works fine, but it is not an improvent in the fun department.

 

Non-blind playthrough does not change much, IMO. All the crucial fights have pretty rationed resources. Good routing does not improve things much.

 

2 hours ago, Doomy__Doom said:

The only strategy that doesn't rely on "pray for no instant zap or distraction hit" for the silly 0-cover into Vile area is to strafe in and out of the portal spewing plasma/SSG in hopes that the Vile is at the front of the pile in front of your destination and dies. Optionally combined with waiting a few minutes on the other side to let all Cacos and hitscanners wander upstairs into the tp.

In my attempts, the Vile was rather cooperative, and I was able to hide under the stairs to the east. But you are right, if the vile decides to be a pain - there is no  option except than quikly jumping into the teleporter.

[Ralgor]

MAP17 - “Fortress of the Damned”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment
100% kills and secrets

 

This map is hitscanner hell. Normally I don't mind such things, but this map somehow seems to cross a line with me. Maybe it's the combination of a couple difficult fights with all of the hitscanners.

 

You start out in the tiny keep of a castle. You're immediately outfitted with an SSG and some ammo. Hitting the switch collapses the keep (some defense there!) immediately exposing you to fire from the wall, and a couple of defenders in the bailey.

 

The best strategy I came up with was to immediately run to one of the side towers, and try to kill a shotgunner to pick up his single barrel as fast as possible. This is because the walls are filled with hitscanners and you need the speed of the single barrel. Sort of ironic considering you get an SSG right off the bat for once, but it's not the optimal weapon for the walls. Clearing out the walls will make the rest of the castle a breeze to complete. Picking up the shotgun or chaingun at the wrong time here can prove fatal though, so be careful.

 

After hitting a couple of switches, you can escape the castle to the north into some caves. There's a teleporter here which takes you to the courtyard of a different building.

 

This area can be very difficult. You start out on the top of a blood fountain. You're given a rocket launcher and some rockets, but not enough to really depend on. The only escape from the incessant fire is to the west. But this room isn't a lot better. Several hitscanners, and mancubus, and a couple arachnotrons will try to kill you quickly. Fortunately, they have a tendency to get in each other's way. The chaingunners especially will end up just hitting the bigger monsters on the floor more often than not. This gives you some time to kill things without taking too much damage.

 

After that comes the very boring part of the level. You need to clean out those battlements from earlier, and because of the teleporting nature of those battlements, this tends to take a while. You really want to make this area safe, but there are a few dozen monsters to take out here carefully. Some of the teleporters are hidden behind fake walls which makes this area dangerous to navigate until you've cleared it out sufficiently. At least you get plenty of shotgun ammo for your trouble, and you can take out some monsters from future fights. Specifically, you can kill the pain elemental in the southeast early, making him helpless. You can also clean out the corridor in the northeast, which makes the trap up there easier to deal with.

 

Once you have the yellow key, you can enter the eastern room and kill a cyberdemon. There's a couple ways to do this. One is you can just camp the door. This is probably the easiest. Another is to get him to fight the mancubus, and in the confusion slip past and clear the hitscanners out of the room. Then you can engage the cyberdemon afterwards.

 

The latter strategy worked pretty well when I was doing this with saves, but when I was trying to record my demo it kept getting me killed. I'm not sure if I was just getting tired or what.

 

The big fight in the northeast is next, and starts as soon as you open the door. Trying to fight this horde from outside the room is a bad idea. Monsters will get crushed and resurrected as ghosts if you try that. The monsters also can't open the door themselves. So you can try to lead a few out at a time, but sometimes one will still die in the door. The best way I found was to charge straight in and head to the southwest once you're in the room. There will be a single pinky left-over since you killed everything else from the battlements. From here you can take out your rocket launcher and hold down the trigger until everything is dead. You should have enough room to dodge the revenant rockets, but it is a bit tricky.

 

There is a fight when you use the blue-key to drop the southern wall, but it isn't too big of a deal if you don't try to fight everything in the open. The main threat is an arch-vile, and the open area with arachnotron cover fire makes this difficult. Hopefully you're not completely out of plasma and rockets by this point.

 

There are two secrets near the blue key, and the area around the exit switch is actually a teleporter into the pond below. The last secret was an obviously marked wall when you first get to the battlements. The latter secret is pretty important to get health, but the other two mostly come too late to help much.

 

Overall, I'm pretty ambivalent about this level. I'm not a huge fan of maps split into two with one-way teleporters, and this map constantly hits you with hitscanner crossfire. It also doesn't really have enough health or armor to consistently deal with it. Sometimes the hitscanners just get lucky.

 

My attempts to get this in a single segment were pretty unlucky. Most of this level isn't that hard, just annoying. But I died twice to mancubus fireballs going through the wall, a few more times to hitscanners getting lucky shots. By the time I started consistently getting to the cyberdemon (at this point I'd been playing for a while, so I needed a break), I kept screwing up dodging his rockets. I was very happy to finally finish the level.

 

Unfortunately, there is one technical issue here. The imp in the southern tower is completely inaccessible and cannot be killed. So 100% kills on this map seems to be 190/191. If someone finds some way to kill it let me know, but so far I haven't found a way.

 

Grade: C

 

MAP17 - 17:21.57 (17:21)  K: 190/191  I: 25/25  S: 4/4

ralgor_#1killtng17.zip

[Veeda Vidlak]

Here's a couple. I should be able to fully catch up between today and Sunday.

 

Map14 “Pain”

 

Great name

 

Pain is a wicked hell encampment built upon a lake of lava, bustling with chaingunners and overflowing with ways to take damage. Most notable is the health toll it exacts via the many bodies of lava you must traverse. Special mention must go to the murderous white hallway lined with barrels that connects the critical areas of the level. The safe spots are hard to nukage rhythm and there’s a platoon of enemies patrolling it that eat up the time of your initial radsuit. For the most part you won’t have any protection the other three or so times you need to go through here, so it going to wear at your armor. You will also take some arbitrary amount of damage from suit leaks here and along a lava river later in the level.

 

The combat isn’t to be taken lightly. Right from the start you can be slain trying to berserk hitscanners and there are plenty more peppering you throughout your stay here (I read 95 shotgun/chaingun dudes on UV). The lift taken early in the level leading to the barrel hallway plummets you into a mess of monsters that ate of much of my health and megaarmor my blind run, though the chaingun handled it well the second time around. Heading back up after acquiring the yellow key was just as brutal, as an archvile had spawned up top that made getting back quite the ordeal. The good news is that the toughest combat is behind us after this, though certainly not enough to relax.

 

The blue key part isn't too bad (and the secret on the way replenishes your armor) but then we have the final leg of the map, which takes you through an Inmost Dens like lava crater to get the red key. Patience will prevail with the initial enemies, but navigation can lead to cheap deaths. Several times you have to inch forward over what I presume to be inescapable lava so a step or bridge will rise. There is also some switch oddness... One can only be hit with the SSG and another I think can softlock you if its hit too much (I almost did this playing blind but noticed the bridge kept rising). Afterwards, there is a section with an archvile and a bunch of gunmen sniping through barred windows that is tough to handle… Unless you find the random stone wall that opens to let you wipe them out with ease. With the red key you enter the finishing area and finally get the BFG. The teleport wave of monsters is nice BFG fodder but its done super clumsily and you can cheese them by door camping.

 

I… like this level. Putting hurt floors into play without being mazy is the way I like to see them used and I think Angelo does it well here. You have enough radsuits to cover initial routes and are given the resources to recover from all your forays. I’m not a fan of the monster mash lift drop but otherwise appreciate the harsh combat. It’s mean but… The level’s called Pain, what did you expect? The red key area and the ending had some wonkiness I could do without (filed under more technical issues imo) but otherwise I’d say this one is well done.

 

Side note: The Dave D Taylor Blues is a terrible choice of midi for this map.

 

 

Map15 “Lair of the Baron”

 

Wow this map is good, and blows the atrocious Baron’s Den out of the water. I’ll start with the visuals, which are outstanding and make the map feel like a continuation of Pain. There isn’t any lava, but the cavernous blood section and the various stone passageways play like you’ve moved further into the complex, the lair of the baron it would seem. There are actually a good number of barons here, enough to justify the level’s name (unlike most maps with baron in them). Even better, they don’t bog down fights, as they’re either used threateningly enough to keep the blood pumping or you’re given enough heavy artillery to drop them quickly.

 

Then we have the combat, which is the real highlight of this map. Like Pain, the encounters are mean, getting the most out of the average - above average number of monsters used. Resources, especially early, are tight and the map has superb flow to its fights. I always felt like I had enough to win with wiggle room for either bad rng or mistakes, but not both. There are a number of standout encounters and I’ll go over three of them.

 

1.     The enemies released upon running across the pillars towards the yellow key is a good example of a properly designed early map fight. The mancubus blocks a critical SSG but it’s risky to wait for him to move due to the chaingunners and cacos coming behind you. Fleeing is also risky, as the pain elemental could start infighting and you have little ammo to spare. Moving to the lower floor requires carefully watching what’s happening, as the fliers can lock you down with their infinite height. It’s a clever skirmish that I like to approach with infighting, moving behind the mancubus and avoiding his attacks until something hits him, letting me get the SSG.

 

2.     The red key area is daunting in a number of ways, both the actual room and the approach. Armed with only the SSG and chaingun (probably), you must watch your ammo, your footing, and a multitude of nastily placed defenders upon heading up the one-way stairs from the blood caverns. Once you reach the key room, grabbing the key itself opens up the inner wall, which has a number of enemies, including a vile, that guard a critical RL (and not-secret mega). Retreating down the lift adds two cacos and two PEs that harry you, complicating any strategy involving killing the vile from outside the red key room. I’d argue this is one of the strongest sections of the megawad with how it challenges the player on multiple fronts. The enemy usage along with the placement of lifts, traps, and terrain are straight up brilliant for 1997.

 

3.     Towards the end of the level there is a darkened room with a plasma followed by a gnarly looking white and red blood lake area with some mancubi and barons. Stepping on the little metal arrow by the wall teleports us to the other side of the blood lake, where the baron lords' praetorian guard lies in wait. A platoon of spiders, a flotilla of cacodemons, an army of hitscanners on the steps leading up to what looks like a command tower, and an archvile leading the death squad. My blind run ended here, which hurt because I’d had two close shaves earlier and really wanted this one. There might be a better strategy, but I’ve gotten two wins by running to one of the corners and firing at the spiders and approaching vile with the RL until archie is down, then switching to plasma. You can also cheese this fight… warping in and immediately going back leads to the non-spider enemies gradually making their way up through the teleporter, letting you gun them down with maximum disrespect.

 

There's much to like in this one but as always, we have our issues. The teleporters sending you around the complex feel like they need recalibrating and my second playthrough I discovered they can send you into the small room with the baron, vile, and hitscanners before you get the red key, which was a bad time. There is a stupid not secret soulsphere in the blood caverns obtained by randomly lowering a huge slab of rock, required for 100% kills because it has a vile, mancubus, and two humans (only lowerable once, get in there and have fun with that vile!). You don’t actually need the red key to open the red door leading to the plasma… which means you can skip a huge chunk of the level if you take the early teleporter route there. Honestly, we’ve reached the point where one of my motivators to playing the next map is to see the next crop of wtf moments, because I'm practically guaranteed to see some.

 

An excellent adventure and probably the peak of Angelo’s combat design thus far. One of my favorite maps of the wad.

[Roofi]

My votes for March :

 

 

+++ Fragport

+++ Doom II : In spain only

+++ Atonement

 

 

 

Number One Kill The Next Generation - Map 32 "Arsenal"

 

 

It's been a while I understood than Angelo's Kill maps doesn't joke with difficult but than one slapped me for good. Even on continuous play the two majors traps, the blue key and the red one, can devastate you. It's of course even worse , considering you have only one green and one blue armor in this map and ammo is pretty tight as usual. I tend to consider that the menacing soundtrack from Doom 2's map 28 doesn't fit with the reposing blue sky but its use was totally justified by the high difficulty and the futuristic theme. 

 

First of all, my strategy consisted to keep the two armors for the two hardest fights. Surviving the smaller traps without a complete armor is maybe inconfortable but I guarantee you it's way worse to fight against an army of revenants accompanied by few arch-viles with a worn out armor. Anyway, Angelo proves you that depriving player of armor considerably increases the difficulty of the map and its scarcity encourages you to strategise instead of picking up all the items in your sight. 

 

About the blue key's trap, which acts as a pool full of pinkies, is a really nasty one. I died at least 10 times before finding a solid strategy without accounting on the RNG. Killing the single arch-vile doesn't represent the hardest task but rather eliminating all the pinkies without being bitten to death. Moreover, Angelo's removed the right-angled corners in the small rooms so you always forced to fight against 2 pinkies at once. However, it's very gratifying to find THE strategy which allows to survive this combat by only relying on your skill.

 

About the red key's trap, wow that one scared me so much after 25 minutes of playthrough, that I eventually decided to cowardly flee to the exit. Despite how massive and impressive this circular room is, the revenants as well as their homing rockets quickly nibble your vital space and the stealthy arch-viles. manage to infiltrate the group of monsters while keeping an eye on you. You have ton of red pillars to take cover but, as me, you will probably don't know where the attack came from.

 

At the end, I think "Arsenal" is one of the most accomplished Jefferson's levels. it kept me under stress during the whole video. I rarely had this sensation when playing Doom maps, maybe when I challenged myself to beat Death-Destiny's and TimeOfDeath's levels without saves. As the previous map, Jefferson's works definitely belongs in the avant-garde category. Despite the bruises inflicted by this map, I can't say anything else than "Arsenal" is the work of a genius. If you like mappers like Ribbiks or Death-Destiny, you should taste Angelo Jefferson's maps.

 

Grade : A

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 17: Fortress of the Damned

 

In addition to pilfering map titles, it seems Angelo can no longer be bothered to replace music (nevermind that the next map disproves this). But that's not at all an indication of this map's quality! Starting off in a Caughtyard-style fort, it only manages to be harder because so much of the damage we take comes from hitscanners. Needless to say, staying in the caughtyard will be suicide. At a certain point, we push a switch which takes us to the next area: another fortress of sorts. Small rooms here indicate something approaching habitation and if you thought the hitscannage was bad before, boy look out! Eventually, we get some health, get inside the fortress and end up taking a silly teleport system for the purposes of finding the yellow key. The resulting trappage is expected but ranks among Angelo's best so far. At a certain point, we'll be confronted by a Cyberdemon with 2 Mancubi. The former would go down in four BFG shots like in vanilla so I feel like I was on a roll! There is another annoying teleport room that seemingly makes no sense, although at least we can see where they're coming from this time. Once we have the blue key, we press the switch in a most unusual fashion that involves pressing the sides before the front? No matter, the clusterfuck that greets us may be the most deserving of the BFG. Half a dozen Arachnotrons, two Pain Elementals, some pinkies, an Arch-vile, and behind them on a structure or shrine are Hell Knights and Barons of Hell! At a certain point when it became clear I could've been more sparing with the BFG and there were at least two Arachnotrons and one Pain Elemental left alive in addition to the back turrets, I just said "fuck it" and exited. I can't possibly pretend that this isn't one of the best maps so far in terms of aesthetics and combat, only exceeded by the secret maps. The gimmicks work a fair bit better here and if you're read the description on /idgames, you'll know why they were used!

[brick]

GZDoom, Doom compat, software, HNTR, blind, continuous with saves.

 

TNG MAP17 - “Fortress of the Damned”
Remember that Megasphere I was so happy to get at the end of the last map? It melted away depressingly fast. I felt a bit of fatigue while playing this one, probably made worse by me having to rush through many maps in a row earlier this month to catch up. The bulk of this map involves conquering two fortresses one after the other. Both suffer from the same problems: little cover and too many hitscans, most on the battlements where you can't hit them, some inside towers hiding behind cage midtextures that make it hard to see them. I enjoyed the fights in the areas off from the second fortress more, as they felt more fair. Running around the battlements going through the series of hidden teleporters while taking hitscan attacks was a low point though. The switch that destroys the walls and lets you out towards the exit is very cool, I'm always impressed with how creative Angelo gets with the sector tagging to achieve these kinds of effects. I also liked the secrets here, once again they're not all immediately obvious but there are hints if you look for them. Except maybe that last one which took me completely by surprise, I stumbled into while trying to kill the baron, though it did make me smile.

 

TNG MAP18 - “Outer Mines”
Another map that went smoothly but that I didn't find very memorable, though the lighting is subtle and looks quite good. Combat-wise it's the usual cocktail of hitscans and ambushes, I feel like I'm getting too used to Angelo's style. The BSK area does a good job upping the pace as you go through, culminating in a pretty good all-out with imps, arachnotrons and archviles. Angelo is still too fond of inescapable pits, the slime river past the blue door was annoying, especially when it turns out the solution is to just jump across. The YSK was a fight I mostly liked, lots of hitscans wtih good cover, the only flaw is that enemies that don't teleport are behind midtextures and liberally shoot at you without you knowing where they are.

 

My votes:

+++ Auger; Zenith / Liminal Doom / Grime

+++ Hexen: Beyond Heretic

+++ 3 Heures d'Agonie

[Roofi]

After playing most of Jefferson's levels, it's impossible to not notice his logo represented by a triangle with a slight arrow shape. It would have been interesting if Angelo was behind @Arrowhead's account because of his profile picture, but that's just a funny coincidence. 

 

Number One Kill The Next Generation - Map 16 "Fortress of Fire"

 

 

Despite being named as "Fortress of Fire", more blood than fire inondates that fortress. Keeping in mind its short length and moderate difficult contrary to the previous maps, especially level 32 "Arsenal, I easily consider this map as a kind of a breather. Of course, the start is pretty rough because you start with a simple shotgun and not a lot of shells, but once you unlocked the SSG hidden in one of the chaingunner's closets, the adventure becomes way more smooth.

 

The YK's trap where lights turn off is very classy in its staging but you can escape it without difficulty and camp from the outside. The other areas can be solved with a steady approach. There are some viles but they don't increase the difficulty that much, especially if you find the not-so-hidden secrets.

 

Fortress of Fire turned out to be rather unmemorable at the end, but it's an enjoyable level which allow to take a small break.

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

 

 

 

Number One Kill The Next Generation - Map 17 "Fortress of the Damned"

 

 

Who doesn't like castles? Everyboy love castles of course ! Kill TNG's is divided into two distinct castles which the first one looks like a direct homage to Plutonia's map 07 "Caughtyard". The second one reminds me a lot of Kama Sutra's "Leeds Castle" with its fountain at the centre and detailed remparts. The last castle is more ambitious and most of the action happens here.

 

About Jefferson's map, I can also do the link with the secret map from his Ultimate Doom episode but things get a lot of more spicier in this map. The hardest and also the most frustrating part in this map resides in getting rid of the many hitscanners located in the tower and the remparts. While the challenge remains pretty easy in the first castle thanks to the many lifts granting you the access to the remparts, the second courtyard has a lot less opportunities to camp and the only viable choice was hiding near the door leading to a room protected by too many monsters. Moreover, the second castle has ton of teleporters which not only make the progression more confusing, but make the hitscanners more effective because it's more difficult to spot them. Also, the spawnpoint is located on the top of the fountain in the second part , and you're very likely to miss the rocket boxes if you land too far. It's another reason why I advice you to play this wad on continuous first.

 

The other traps were a walk in the park. Killing the cyberdemon was more time consuming than else. I have a lukewarm opinion about the combat design in this map, but I have a soft spot for themed maps like that one. The numerous details generate a lot of HOMS on DOSBOX and I feared getting a VPO in the second section but that was fortunately not the case !

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

[Book Lord]

MAP 18 – Outer Mines

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves

 

Now that we are closing in on the end of The Next Generation, Angelo dusted off the mines setting again. While MAP02 was arguably one of his earlier efforts with Doom II resources, Outer Mines was a mature creation displaying good mastery of Plutonia tropes: curvy hallways, ample courtyards, encounters based on set pieces, and varied types of ambushes. The predominant brown bricks did not give the impression of being in a real mine, but the architecture was pleasing, functional to the intended gameplay, and in line with the IWAD quality the author purported to achieve.

Spoiler

The first round chamber with Mancubi and Chaingunners proved a bit tricky on pistol start, because I was forced to advance, collect the SSG, and find ammo before too many fireballs made movement impossible. The hitscanner guard post at the “mine entrance” was a tough bottleneck to overcome, due to the double windowed rooms at the sides with former humans teleporting between them. From this point, the map felt more laid back, putting frontal opposition on the way to the RSK, then doing the same in the northern area where the BSK was collected. The three Arch-Viles and four caged Arachnotrons activated after picking up the key could not cause much harm. A lot of resources were given if compared to the threat, including four secrets that I discovered with a quick look at the automap.

Spoiler

The segment beyond the yellow door continued in the same fashion: the plasma rifle was protected by a closet trap that caused me a mild jump scare, then the mines made way for a courtyard populated by Mancubi and caged Imps, naturally falling to friendly fire. The caged bridge section with more Mancubi on platforms was a waste of good ammo for maxers; they should expend shells and save the big guns for the upcoming YSK battle.

Spoiler

Approaching the item on the Star Trek arrow sealed the player inside the room and allowed many enemies to warp in from behind the fire walls. If I had doubts about Jefferson’s ability to design teleport ambushes, this encounter wiped them out. The layout, the monster assortment, and the fluid way they entered the arena were finely tuned, finally putting up a real challenge. Outer Mines was not the most exciting entry in The Next Generation, but it still served a purpose in allowing the player to catch breath between greater trials, while showing improvements under every technical aspect.

[Helm]

MAP 18

Oh boy, what a start. Establishing oneself in this one takes a bit of doing. After getting a few weapons and ammo it feels easier than what we've gone through before on other maps. Even the first archvile pack that shows up isn't really that dangerous. I was making save notes saying 'this is easier than the rest huh' and then, that final archvile ambush with the lock in revealed itself... I suspect if you got all the secrets there's probably a nice mega somewhere to pick up immediately before going to trigger that fight that will make it semi-consistent to get out of that room. Seems like quite hellish an experience in any case, though. Basically you get locked in with a timer in a space where hitscan, revenants and an archvile immediately swarm the centre of the arena. There is no cover from hitscan that isn't disrupted by a very fast, angry vile. So prioritizing the vile with your RL means eating all the hitscan damage. You will be peppered to a stump in seconds. I had to somehow kill the vile with rockets immediately and then get the fuck out of dodge, ymmv if you have 200 200 here.

That aside, this map is a fairly conservative Plutonia-feeling, fairly fast and fun map. I think the taste that will stay from Angelo's stuff is the archvile traps where you have to gtfo of the arena, lol. footage

[Celestin]

MAP18: Outer Mines

 

Outer Mines looks and plays like something made by the Casali bros and I like it. Open the door to a pair of chaingunners and behind them is a circular room with four mancubi, guarding the sole armour in the entire level and a super shotgun. I'd say ignore them for now, instead proceed forward, clearing a corridor to the west. This way you'll collect the red key, rocket launcher, shotgun and enough shells to kill the mancubi. 

 

A round arena behind the red door offer little resistance besides your average incidental enemies. Picking up the blue key releases a trio of archviles, but they are harmless - you can easily break their lines of sight and should have enough rockets to dispose of them with no issues. With a blue key, you can grab a plasma rifle guarded by a revenant trap and assault the building behind a slime canal. The part with mancubi on columns is a waste of time and easily the worst part of the map. Save your rockets and cells, you'll need them for the hardest fight in MAP18, the yellow key room. It's another circle of death, at first with two barons, an archvile and their pals, but grab the key and round two begins, with hitscanners, revenants and another archvile, that has to be killed ASAP. It took ma a few tries, the winning attempt brought my health from 100% to mere 5.

 

While the map isn't generous with health, there isn't really much left and backtracking helped. I found a room with health vials and a pinky that was harder to track down than the actual secrets. Overall, an great map with strong Plutonia feeling.

 

Also, does anyone know the midi? 

[Doomy__Doom]

MAP16

 

Definitely a "let's amke Plutonia on steroids" kind of level. Merciless zoning/sniping, a lot of doorcamping, ambushes upon touching anything remotely important, liberally throwing Viles to raise whatever you've already killed. Finally, we have  a rocket launcher and a good ammo chunk which you're left deciding where and how to spend without any form of input from the mapmaker.

 

I ended up with 2 ghost Cacos ~4 minutes after I've left RK door where they were splashed (or at least I think that's where they came from) due to deciding that the best approach to YSK ambush is to just leave.

MAP 17

 

Great terrain design, but woefully inadequate recovery before the entrance to the 2nd fortress. One medkit for a teleporter that leads you straight into being shot at from all sides by elevated hitscan? Sure, that's "difficulty" alright. Iddqdifficulty, to be specific, because 40/0 is not exactly a survivable proposition. Oh and have fun collecting rockets from the fountain - you have one chance to do so while being pelted by everything on the walls and 2 Cacos incoming. Didn't see them because that's how Doom camera works? Bolted for cover because of course you'd try to? Too bad so sad.

 

And then there's the silliest part - the switch that opens the exit isn't hidden from interaction (just plain mash it, not a zero press or anything advanced), so you can just skip the entire second structure, provided of course you don't get shot down in flames (literally and figuratively). Which means I get to join @Andromeda in on filling the table on DSDA archive.

1k17-055.zip

[Book Lord]

1 hour ago, Celestin said:

Also, does anyone know the midi? 

 

It's the underused midi from TNT MAP14, called "Cold Subtleness".

[Helm]

Extra map for the weekend! 

MAP32

Another lethal one! Good fun, as many have mentioned over time some Plutonia essence has permeated the more difficult parts of the wad. This one's pretty good, too. Almost 300 monsters and no - marked - secrets. 

Once again, heavy symmetry, all these fallopian tube-shaped layouts the mapper keeps reusing. Center arena branches of to two sides, gated by keys, the usual. Outside areas populated with arachnotrons and mancubi. After some infighting, we breach inside on a silver cross-shaped lift propping the blue key. That area looks suspiciously mancubus infested so I go look around for more shit before dealing with it. I don't think I ever found the plasma gun on this map, actually.

I did find a convoluted secret RL that was unmarked, however, and it's very good that I did because the rest of the map would be fucked without it. I suspect the plasma gun is in the other side of that RL get but I couldn't figure out how to access. Also some weird stuff with some health potions that I couldn't bump or get to either.

Back at the shawn textured blue key cross, now with rocket launcher, we drop down and clean up the mancs. But then, the archvile trap! I don't know if I did this optimally (I rocketed one of the opening up pinky closets and then got in there and rocketed everything outside trying to follow me) and I had to try it many many times until it worked. But if that's how you're intended to live in that fight, that's a tight survival strat I did not expect a mapper to enforce in a 1997 wad. I'll watch any demos or videos from other runners to see if that's generally how it went.

Showing a degree of intentional cruelty, in the pinky swarm are a few spectres, you'll have fun trying to rocket revs and stuff on the perimeter with those spectres around for sure.

Definitely one of the two sticking points of the map, that fight. At least thinking in single segment terms, I can't see how that'll be a 100% consistent fight for most people. 

Also getting out of the shawncrux room you have to raise that cross at 32 unit increments with one switch and then lower the lift by hitting only on some linedef sides of the whole cross. Bad, janky busted doom machinery, one last (?) time from Angelo.

Blue key takes us through some parapets onto a minor archvile encounter with two mancubus turrets framing. After dispatching this early group, flipping the switch the archie was protecting collapses back walls to reveal YK and a more beefy archvile encounter with a lot of nobility supporting. Thankfully we have a RL and we have some lifts to abuse to funnel the goats & boss in easy to rocket portions. 

The final YK fight I tried to be methodical and safe, but in the end I escape the map with a lot of shit still alive chasing me out. Had I encountered a plasma rifle and not just ammo for it it would have been a comfortable 100% kills, I think. 

Anyway, this is the second fight where a single segment run will have to gamble a little, as we have a circular room housing a mastermind and some spider babies, and when cleared out we get a refresh of the arena with AV and revenants and mancubi and everything else. I ran out of ammo so I did what a good marine should do went for the exit. Not before getting zapped by a 5 rocket exit vile, though! Battered and bruised, I escaped the secret - and potentially best - part of this mapset. footage
 

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map31 “On Earthen Soil”

 

What. A. Map.

 

With the beautiful Legion of the Lost pervading the air, On Earthen Soil presents probably the most soulful experience of the megawad. If there’s a masterpiece in TNG, this beautiful blue fragment of doom surrealism is it.

 

Our adventure begins with potentially the hardest start in the entire wad. No, not the pitiful band in front of your spawn… I mean the horrorshow guarding the nearby SSG (don’t go through the door without it). Between the elemental, pinky swarm, and twin archviles(!), this fight took me out a few times before it became clear I had to be really patient here. Ammo is too tight to fight attrition battles against revived pinkies and with no health even one vile hit probably means I’m a goner. Lure the fliers out one by one and either isolate the viles or try to pick them off from the corner of the ambush shelter.

 

By the way, that hanging corpse in the tunnel is pure BM.

 

After surviving the opener, grab the plasma, hose down the vile behind the door (the reason not to go here first), and stabilize with the megasphere. Then head down the passageway and… wow. The deep blue wall texture with the white specks is so… vibrant. Just walking through the areas with it feels kind of melancholic. The midi is doing most of the work here but I promise this place wouldn’t have this effect if it was basic gray stone or something. Anyway, after some crushers we come to a room with a switch allowing access to a courtyard with the red key. There are a bunch of ammo soaking mancubi there followed by an ambush you can largely ignore if you wish.

 

After a trippy FIREBLU hallway, we come to a massive chamber followed by some very well designed whitish gray caverns. There’s a megasphere here but the obvious ambush will probably eat some of your gains. I love the view from the walkways, the blue sky and sense of scale work wonderfully here. Grab the RL and make your way down a lift to a teleporter that… YEOW. Talk about an unfriendly teleport destination! You’re above the cross from the massive chamber, in a bloodsoaked deathtrap surrounded by cacos and an archvile. To the east are some enemies and a soulsphere, along with the yellow key switch (and a cyber behind it that can sometimes fire at you). I came in at like 180/180 and almost died (would have without the soulsphere) and my second run I came in about as healthy and almost died again. I didn’t test the fight but clearly I’m doing something wrong… maybe just hitting the switch (twice) immediately to head down is the right move.

 

The yellow key has opened up in a little closet down below, so grab it and ride back up to hit the switch. Go right (south) and out in the open to kill cybie, he's a pain sniping into the walkway. Head over to the northern door and trigger the obvious ambush, which can be escaped quickly if you run back out without firing. Hit the switch to raise the stairs to the ziggurat-like structure where you must contend with the bullshit encounter of the map.

 

Heading up the stairs teleports you inside the stone pillar in the center, which gets you the blue key. Upon hitting the switch we find ourselves in a barred cage while four barons come out to play. Um… excuse me? I do not consent to this. The bars help block fireballs (thank god) but also prevent you from really fighting back so you’re basically their toy until the 30 seconds are up. If you don’t want to play baron BDSM simulator here’s what you do. After you first teleport move around in the box until you hear the bars lowering. When you hear them raise again, hit the switch then run off and kill the barons with whatever. There, cheesed the worst part of the level and I don’t feel remotely bad about it. Also, careful about running back up the stairs, you’ll get ported back to the center with the bars down to wait 30 more seconds. With the blue key go back to the start and fight through an interesting flesh cube maze that shouldn’t cause too much trouble. Hit two switches and jump through the ominous blood curtain to exit.

 

On Earthen Soil is… really fucking good. The atmosphere is masterful, the combat superb (sans baron cage), and the mechanical issues practically nonexistent. The prominent visuals mixed with exciting fights elevate this level to the top of TNG. Easily my favorite map right now.

[FrancisT218]

+++Fragport

+++Plutonia Revisited 2

+++Intergalactic Xenology & Syringe & KDIKDIZD

Edited February 26, 2023 by FrancisT218

[Azure_Horror]

#1 kill Next Gen

UV, Pistol Start, DSDA-Doom, Saves

 

Map 18 Outer Mines

This map feels like a relatively non-descript level from Plutonia Experiment. Some kind of Kongo/Abbatoire/Crypt/Impossible Mission hybrid.

 

On one hand, this is a pretty good ammount of good action. On the other hand - nothing super-unique, and a lot of rather deadly amdushes with little for-warning. The YK battle is the most extreme, because it involves the complete Plutonia Trio of Chaingunners, Revs and Archviles without major cover, strong healing or a fresh suit of armor. All in all my enjoyment of this level largely depends on my mood. When I am in a mood for some deadly Plutonia jumpscares, I enjoy this level. If I want something with less degree of "hesitation means Scratch, Blam, Boom and you died" - I find this level annoying.

 

In total, it is a cruel, but high-quality map. For 2023 - nice, but not very special. For 1997 - pretty great.

 

 

Edit:

19 minutes ago, FrancisT218 said:

vote: Intergalactic Xenology & Liminal DooM & Grime

This will be 15+6+5= only 26 maps for 31 days in March.

Maybe you meant to write Auger; Zenith instead of Intergalactic Xenology?

 

Or maybe you had in mind a trio of Intergalactic Xenology & KneeDeep in KDiZD & Syringe?

Both those combinations appeared earlier in the thread.

 

I am sorry for nitpicking.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Monsieur E]

Map18: "Outer Mines"
177/177 kills, 4/4 secrets, 14:17 

Most of this map is fine and pretty standard, the big red key area was probably my favorite but the rest didn't leave much of an impression me nor did it get on my nerves in any way. Until the final stretch, the yellow skull key fight is neat in concept but falls apart because it places hitscanners behind firewalls making it hard to see them while they shred you apart, cover isn't sufficient on account of the other enemies in the arena including a pack of revenants and an archvile. This could have been remedied and would have been a great fight if these hitscanners behind firewalls where replaced by literally any other projectile flinging monster. Otherwise, it's an alright map.

---

Coincidentally, I had come up with the exact same combo of Intergalactic Xenology paired with syringe and kdikdizd but wrote it off because it seemed a bit random :p

+++Intergalactic Xenology Trilogy + syringe + KDIKDIZD (I think syringe would be a good break wad in the middle as the shortest of the three as opposed to being the third wad of the month)
+++Plutonia Revisted Community Project 2
+++Fragport

[FrancisT218]

Fixed my vote.

 

I had thought Liminal was like 10 maps.

[Ralgor]

MAP18 - “Outer Mines”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment
100% kills and secrets

 

While this map doesn't quite have a hot start, it is quite difficult with a pistol-start. You have to pull your first real weapon off of a dead chaingunner, of which there are two behind the first door. I usually amuse myself here with shooting the rear chaingunner and goading him into shooting the front one. Then I can attack the front one while he's killing the rear one. Make this part a lot easier.

 

The next room has three mancubi, and you don't have nearly enough ammo to deal with them. Your best bet is to hang to the left, pick up the SSG, and then exit the room a little farther clockwise. Use the pillar for cover, and then clear out the nest of hitscanners here. This is easier than it looks too. Just head to the left and use your SSG against the chaingunner, then use the chaingun to snipe the other chaingunner on the other side. There's a secret here in to the hitscanner cages, so you can pull out your chaingun and wipe them all out. You also get a nice little spot to kill the ones up on the ledge. Once you grab the rocket launcher, you can take out the mancubi in the previous room and grab the ammo.

 

After that the level becomes much easier for a while, until you collect the BSK. That releases three arch-viles into the room. This isn't that bad since you can use the rocket launcher to wipe them out.

 

You might want to save the soulsphere for later, until right before the last big fight. If you can, save the green armor for as late as possible. Don't collect it until you're almost out of medkits, or you're ready for the fight. It does make the rest of the level far more dangerous.

 

There is a trap around the plasma rifle. But retreating a little make this not too difficult.

 

Then we get to the last big fight. Grabbing the YSK unleashes a bunch of hitscanners, some revenants, and arch-vile into the arena. Some of the monsters can shoot at you behind the fire-wall before they teleport as well, so the heat gets turned up very quickly. You really need plenty of health for this to be able to complete it consistently, which is why I waited so long to grab the soulsphere and security armor.

 

The strategy I used was to rush the arch-vile teleport spot and take him down with the plasma rifle quickly. Then continue using the plasma to try to eliminate as many hitscanners as possible. After that things should be calm enough to tackle whatever is left at your leisure.

 

I didn't really enjoy this level a whole lot to be honest. The start is very RNG-heavy with all of the hitscanners and mancubi, and it's quite possible to die here a lot. I restarted any time the initial two chaingunners did enough damage that the medikit wouldn't bring me to full health, because I really needed that heath for the next room or two. Sometimes the mancubi would just immediately tear me up when trying to rush through the room. There are other spots where monsters just wouldn't cooperate and would chip away at my health. While there is plenty of health, that last fight almost requires that you wait until the last moment to grab the soulsphere and armor, so everything in this level is just that much more dangerous.

 

The weird hallway with the mancubi in towers was sort of pointless. They are only dangerous if you get in a hurry, and otherwise just cost time.

 

The last fight too is somewhat RNG heavy in my experience. It IS possible to cheese the fight by triggering the door-blocking lines, waiting 30 seconds, and then grabbing the key. This can still be dangerous since the revenants may block your path when exiting the arena. With 200 health and 100 armor you'll generally be able to survive it, but if you come here with 100/50 you're going to have a bad time. In that case no strategy I tried would succeed more than half of the time.

 

At least there's not a lot of backtracking required, and I think the map looked pretty good considering the texture selection.

 

Grade: D

 

MAP18 - 16:20.49 (16:20)  K: 177/177  I: 9/9  S: 4/4

ralgor_#1killtng18.zip

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 18: Outer Mines

 

"Cold Sublety" is a midi that I was admittedly bored to hell the first time I'd heard it at 11. But after having heard it with a mrthejoshmon's "It was a Dark and Stormy Night...." it actually became clear that it could be useful. Not as if I really care right now.

 

Anyways, it soon becomes clear why this map actually has a demo or two on DSDA. Other than the nasty bit with the Super Shotgun, the three Mancubi and the two chaingunners in the second building, and a couple of other bits to a lesser extent. Although visually, this map is an aesthetic step backwards, thanks to all the damn tan almost literally everywhere, to say nothing of the misalignments guaranteed to show up whenever there are sharp turns in the small hallways here.

 

But we're here for the gameplay and be glad to know it flows nearly as well as the last maps, even if you feel it's going easy on you! Continously, we were actually comfortable enough with our rocket supply that we actually lobbed around 4 into various closets of trash enemies near the beginning. Despite the presence of rockets in some of these closets, perhaps we were being a little too free for them. See, head into a certain circular arena outdoors with some cages/storage sheds surrounding what I can only assume is a filtration system for the gunk that's extracted from all the ore here after revealing the blue key will reveal THREE Arch-viles that we....didn't quite have the BFG ammo for so I'm actually a little unsure why I mentioned the rocket surplus. I do recall being a little annoyed at the fact though. Keep in mind that it's easy for more than 1 Arch-vile to chase you down and you might start to see a problem.

 

No, it was actually this twisty path traversing another pool of ore chemical with lots of Mancubi where we really felt the pain of wasting rockets. Although ironically enough, we'd picked up enough cells at this point that clearing this area out wasn't actually all that much trouble. 

 

Everything was good though by the time we'd reached a, wait for it, caged circular room with fire surrounding it and yet another little neat piece of sector art arranged to look like the Starfleet logo. I haven't really taken large note of this, but we have been starting to notice that this is a sort of "climatic encounter" marking. And indeed that's what happens when we pick up the yellow key: 4 chaingunners, probably the same number of Revenants, and an Arch-vile all teleport in, along with Imps and shotgunners afterwards in a sort of dripfeed ambush style. We had to reload the game twice because of things going wrong. That's to say nothing of the softlock that occurs when lurking in this room for too long (and unfortunately around the time a sergeant finally decided to show up(:  )

 

Not sure what to say about this map. It sort of departs from the overall tone, but not in the stupidly experimental way of a Strage Universe. 

 

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map32 “Arsenal”

 

I used saves for my blind run on this one. I knew Arsenal would be tough given they’re leading the Premier League.

 

If On Earthen Soil is the pinnacle of Angelo’s ability to provide atmosphere, Arsenal is the acme of his ability to concoct terrifying gameplay. This level is one of the best hardcore designs I've seen of 20th century mapmaking, delivering incredible arena fights that look quite modern if you ask me.

 

Right as we spawn, we’re under fire from hitscanners with only a handful of resources nearby to help. This area is too exposed to stay out here, so get your equipment and get inside ASAP. I’d recommend heading to one of the far doors, from there you can take out the initial enemies safely. Critical to beating Arsenal is knowing its difficulty is centered around its key fights, with the rest of the enemies serving as intermittent wear and tear. You want to save your more powerful resources, especially armor, for the deadly arenas to better your chances.

 

Head east and work your way through an outdoor area with guard towers. There are a bunch of hitscanners wandering around that drain your health but otherwise the monsters are just grindy given you only have the single shotgun. Worth mentioning is an easily missable passage behind a tower that leads to a berserk, which you need to find to get max kills. A switch lets you enter the big metal building, which houses the first big fight but before you drop into the pit head back to the hub and grab the RL from the newly opened side area. I’m not sure what trigger grants access to it, but it becomes available prior to the first key fight and is absolutely required to have a ghost of a chance.

 

Grabbing the blue key unleashes actual hell, six compartments of pinkies and an archvile that will swarm your defenseless ass in seconds. Joining this army are two PEs, four cacos, and six revenants that snipe at you from the upper walkway. This is… a brilliant setup, and one I put a fair number of practice attempts into to try and find a consistent strategy. Between the two brutal fights of the map (this and the red key), this is the one I feel I have a better handle on. Clearing the northwest cubbyhole with the RL, running in, and spinning around to continue firing keeps the pinkies at bay and usually takes out some fliers, and if I’m lucky, the vile. Archie’s behavior can seriously complicate this approach, but if I have a good amount of armor a lack of cooperation shouldn’t doom the attempt.

 

After this there’s some scattered opposition to kill before reaching a switch in the middle of a circular walkway (don't forget to grab the plasma back in the hub, same thing as the RL). Hitting it lowers the walls housing the yellow key and its guardians, a bunch of hell nobles and a vile. This fight looks daunting but it seems that running through the nearby western door, going left, and turning to open the door on the other side lets you unload on the vile while he’s away from his support. I’m not sure if this is consistent but it’s happened every time I’ve been here and that’s good enough for me.

 

With the yellow key we enter our final arena, a rad looking circular techbase chamber. The initial occupants are little threat. Same with the spider troupe revealed upon opening the center of the room. But when you grab that soulsphere and red key, ho boy. Two closets full of revenants, led by two viles, open up and flood the arena. I cannot express enough how unpredictable this finale is, the revenants teleport around to add confusion and the viles will raise random enemies while immolating you from across the room.

 

This is the fight that gives me the most trouble, ending my run twice when I was trying to win single segment. I have a strategy, but the fight is just so chaotic, and I can’t always execute it well enough. Basically upon taking the key I run to the northwest corner, fire to alert everything, then get up there and wait a moment behind the silver wall. I then take the teleporter, open that wall, and beeline to one of the (hopefully mostly empty) monster closets. Holding down the fire button with the rocket launcher mostly keeps the horde at bay, though I always take heavy damage from my own rockets (blue armor is a requirement for this to work). If all goes well the viles perish from the fusillade and the swarm wears down before I do.

 

Arsenal made me feel like I was playing a level designed by a modern difficulty-smith, like Ribbiks or William Huber. The key arenas are brutal combat puzzles and it was rewarding to figure out how to approach them. It’s hard to believe this map is from 1997, Alien Vendetta is years away and goddamned Requiem came out mere months earlier. It makes me wish Angelo had stuck around longer, his creativity at doom combat is remarkable considering the time period.

[Ralgor]

+++ Fragport (2011 Update w/ midi pack)
+++ Literalism / Liminal Doom
+++ Atonement

 

On 2/25/2023 at 2:42 AM, Book Lord said:

Hexen: Beyond Heretic

 

Honestly, I'm not sure how this would work. There are 31 maps, but 5 hubs. Each hub is really the minimal unit of play. It doesn't make sense to talk about something like Guardian of Steel without also talking about how it interacts with the other maps in the first hub.

 

Also, a couple people nominated Grime, and claimed it was 5 maps. Are we talking about grime.wad by Death-Destiny? The txt file claims it's a single map.

[brick]

1 hour ago, Ralgor said:

Also, a couple people nominated Grime, and claimed it was 5 maps. Are we talking about grime.wad by Death-Destiny? The txt file claims it's a single map.

I understood it to mean this one.

As one of those who voted Hexen, I'm not sure how it'll work, I just love the game, I love replaying it, and I think it'd be cool to replay it once more with the Club. I'm not holding my breath expecting it to win any time soon though :P

[Book Lord]

1 hour ago, Ralgor said:

Honestly, I'm not sure how this would work. There are 31 maps, but 5 hubs. Each hub is really the minimal unit of play. It doesn't make sense to talk about something like Guardian of Steel without also talking about how it interacts with the other maps in the first hub.

 

I do not think Hexen will ever win, there are major compatibility problems with the DWMC (hub structure, licensed IWAD less diffused than the Doom ones, character choices that really change the gameplay) and people will vote for Doom PWADs anyway. 

 

Still, I think an in-depth analysis of this game, following the general scheme of the DWMC, would be quite interesting. Hexen is the father of scripted events in the Doom engine and many special Boom effects were native features in this game. So, it might happen that I do a one-time mutiny and propose an alternative special event to play Hexen, e.g. instead of a series of slaughter maps chosen by the DWMC.

[dististik]

MAP14 - Pain

 

Despite the title (well, I did have the passing thought that it referred to the hurt floors but), I actually thought this one was pretty nice. Relatively short, at least compared the previous map, and filled with a few elements that dare I say I thought were pretty clever. I genuinely like the use of hurt floors and how the explosive barrels along the first major section of them make you take special care not to get caught on the non-damaging sides for too long while fighting. The archvile ambush on your way back after grabbing the yellow key was something I could see coming from a trillion miles away but still was rather nice. I just ran back to the initial entrance of the room and waited for the vile to come join me so I could safely get him stuck resurrecting enemies from my first pass and take him out no problem. That strategy also doubled as a nice way to limit the number of lost souls that joined the party since I more or less remained out of sight of the pain elemental until he was close enough that I could easily take him out.

 

The blue key fight can be simplified a little by peaking through your hint window and killing the enemies on that side of the following ambush early. After that, the area where you were intended to grab the red key was a little interesting to me. After pushing the necessary switches and grabbing the non-secret secret energy pack, I made my way back to assumed progress to find that I couldn't shoot the switch to presumably open the next bridge. Slowly inching forward like the bridge before it didn't work either so I just noclipped up to the button and shot it so I could move on. After that I believe I accidentally sequence broke by noticing an unmarked door and strafe jumping to the building with the red key without going what I later assumed was the intended path. Not 100% sure why that door was there then though, maybe my approach was anticipated somehow? Ah well, grab the red key, have some nice mindless fun with the BFG, and on to MAP15.

 

 

 

MAP15 - Lair of the Baron

 

Boy was this one... Something. Objectively speaking. Start off with a clear view of the yellow key right in front of you and as I'm known to make poor or unneccessary decisions I think "Wouldn't it be funny if I could grab that?", SR50'd into the wall and did just that. Oh. Huh. After that though, I had an insanely hard time getting a foothold on the level. Eventually I scrounge up what could generously be called a start but don't quite have the arms or health to deal with the hitscanners or the revenants I was supposedly supposed to fight to get the yellow key properly. So I move on, get some mega armor, and walk up some steps that I somehow can't walk back down? Wonder if this was intentional before moving on and triggering the archvile + hitscanner extravaganza. I have close to no ammo at this point and that same trigger also added a few cacos and pain elementals to the crew so I raised an eyebrow and thought y'know what? I was probably supposed to grab a rocket launcher earlier. Boy am I silly for SR50 grabbing that key. So, I idclip through the barely too tall ceiling to backtrack and... huh? Wait how am I actually supposed to get up to the key?

 

At this point I'm a little bewildered so I open UDB and there's apparently some random lines on the floor meant to drop the lift down for me to move on. Despite opening the editor I didn't see that I was probably supposed to hit the mancubus guarded switch a few more times so I just use that miscellaneous part of the air to move on and... no rocket launcher? Well, I have UDB open and I'm already pretty blatantly cheating, so I look for where the rocket launcher is and it's back with all the hitscanners. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this level was pretty strongly made for continous playthroughs. Well, either that or I'm bad which is honestly probably more likely. With all the ammo I'm given for a weapon I couldn't possibly reach if I tried, I cannot see this as any other case except that Angelo expected me to have the rocket launcher from previous maps, at least on UV.

 

So, I go on back, notice that I hear two sets of archvile noises, lovely, and do the extremely fun task of baiting the hitscanners into hurting the vile. This takes a bit, as you can imagine, but eventually, the alien dies and there's just few enough hitscanners left that I can pick them off just two shells. After that I carefully bait the pain elementals up the lift one at a time and punch them to death, saving my remaining 8 shells for the cacos. I expectedly could only kill one caco, but I just needed to slip by the other to get an instant full refill on both shells and bullets from the ahem 51 hitscanners the archvile resurrected and killed over and over while I waited for it to die.

 

After that I grabbed the non-secret megasphere, before moving on to the red door backtracked and did the non-secret soulsphere fight with the non-secret archvile there, pushed forward and... Why is that wall purple? Originally I took a short video of it and sent it to my partner like look at this zany graphical bug in this silly 90's wad haha but then remembered I still had UDB open and uh sorry this is supposed to look like this? Huh? I had not even considered that Angelo may have used custom graphics since they all fit the vanilla aesthetic (and after checking the wad in Slade noticed he was pretty conservative with his choices sans his WOLF6 and WOLF9 replacements). The next fight looks brutal at a glance, especially at my 29% health at the time, but I just backed up into the teleporter immediately, took out the cacos and shotgunners who wanted to follow me, and after a short wait teleported back through and hit behind a bend in the stairs while I rocketed the freshly formed clump of enemies, making short work of them despite the vile.

 

The fakeout exit was interesting and luckily I noticed the secret exit opening up while I was fighting the final vile of the day and exited with a whopping 58 archvile revives. I can't say I especially enjoyed the level while I was playing it but the series of events played out almost like a sitcom to me so in retrospect I guess it's a bit of a goofy level that I can't help but enjoy the thought of in hindsight. Not sure I'd ever want to play it again though...

 

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