[GZDoom] Exousiastes

[Wo0p]

Hello there forums!

 

Aside from a single message about a broken link, this is my first post on Doomworld. A few years ago I started watching some videos on youtube about Brutal Doom and Project Brutality. It was just after finishing playing the excellent Doom Eternal game and me wanting more Doom (Hence searching on youtube for inspiration as to what to play next). Growing up with Doom 1 and 2 back in the 90s a large part of my love for Doom is probably nostalgic but I soon realised the scope of the doom modding community and it sparked a renewed love for the game. Anyway, long story short(ish), I got interested in making my own doom maps after watching a buttload of youtube wad reviews and gameplay of various mods.

 

After making two absolute trash (And one half-decent) maps I learned enough to make a functional pk3 file and stuffing it full of the first WAD I'm content with releasing into the wild. But now I'm looking for indentured test-... I mean, enthusiastic doomers to playtest my map :D

 

So if you're willing to suffer through an amateur mapper's probably subpar zip compression and indulge me, I would very much appreciate it!

Now, I don't need to tell you how to review a map, but here's a few points I'm particularly interested in having rated (And commented on if you feel like it!):

* Gameplay Pacing

* Level readability

* Enjoyment factor of the player's loadout (Or frustrations with it!)

* Difficulty

* And of course anything else you'd like to comment on!

* Choice of setting (It's not a techbase! :O )

 

I'm basically interested in knowing what the Doom community likes and how they play WADs. I know its highly individualised but perhaps I can get a consensus of sorts on how to construct future maps :) That's really what I'm trying to achieve; becoming a better mapper! I have my preferences for how to make a map and what to focus on, but maybe it's the wrong audience I'm making maps for. And that's fine, knowing my maps are perhaps niche is still helps me with my expectations and such.

 

My overall philosophy on Doom mapping is environmental storytelling like that seen in Half Life, another of my childhood favourite games. I don't want to bog the gameplay down with overwhelming amounts of exposition dumps, but I still want the setting of the map to feel real and Half Life's method provides me with that option. Keep it in mind when playing for the best experience :)

Anyway, thank you very much for your time and patience! Here's some technical stuff. And without further ado, let me know what you think if you play my map:

 

Editor used: Ultimate Doom Builder + Slade3
GZDOOM required (I think?) because slopes, 3d floors and more, oh my!

Mouselook required (No autoaim). Sorry, not alot of accessibility :(

Lighting setting: Doom

Dynamic Lighting On.

Jumping optional (But required to get 100% secrets)

Crouching optional (But required to get 100% secrets)

2 Difficulty modes available: (Skill 1, 2 are the same. Skill 3, 4, 5 are the same)

 

Tested with Doomlauncher and latest GZDoom with Doom 2 as the IWAD

 

Unzip first, before throwing the file into Doomlauncher.

 

Story:

Something something God-Emperor's angel of death (That's you!) descends on a settlement to murderise the death-worshipping cultists and their raised zombies. But twist! There's demons too :O

 

INVENTORY

 

(Slot 1) Anti-Personel Mines: Primary fire lays a mine at your feet. Step back as it arms almost immediately! Secondary fire lets you throw the mine by holding the button and letting the charge bar charge up. Explodes after a maximum of 3 bounces or if an ACTOR of any kind comes within point blank range.

(Slot 2) Automatic Crossbow: Primary fire only. Enters a reload state when the trigger button is released like the Plasma Rifle enters its... cooldown? state. Continuous fire will prevent that.

(Slot 3) Double-Barrel Pump-action Shotgun: Primary fire only. Fires 12 projectiles, 1 of which is always centrered. Deals massive damage within 256 units range (Close range).

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1feecohgr2518wr/Exousiastes.pk3?dl=0

 

Images!

Spoiler

 

 

EDIT: Added a section about the custom weaponry.

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Wo0p : Forgot spoilers!

[rita remton]

hi! if you don't mind me asking, is it possible for you to provide some screenshots of the wad? thanks in advance :)

[Wo0p]

Hello! Absolutely. Images added in a spoiler at the bottom of the post :)

Edited April 20, 2023 by Wo0p

[Delisk]

 

 

[Wo0p]

Hey Delisk! Thanks for playing my map :)

Your playthrough makes me realise I should've made some notes about the custom inventory in the OP. Thanks!

[LadyMistDragon]

This wasn't too bad! Was quite frustrated before I realized movement speed was tied to health. Honestly, I was still a little annoyed :P

 

 

 

 

[Wo0p]

Thank you so much for playing LadyMistDragon! And for sticking with it despite your frustrations. Yeah movement speed is hampered when you get down to 25 health points. Which in hindsight with the already decreased normal movement speed might be too much. I learned a lot from watching your playthrough overall though :)

[Caleb13]

I'm just popping in to report that GZdom 4.10.0 generates these warnings during startup:

 

Script warning, "Exousiastes.pk3:decorate/fires.txt" line 23:
Numeric type expected, got "SoundSlot7"
Script warning, "Exousiastes.pk3:decorate/fires.txt" line 50:
Numeric type expected, got "SoundSlot7"
Script warning, "Exousiastes.pk3:decorate/tracer.txt" line 157:
Unknown class name '0' of type 'Actor'
Script warning, "Exousiastes.pk3:decorate/explosions.txt" line 23:
Unknown class name '0' of type 'Actor'

 

R_InstallSpriteLump: Bad frame characters in lump XDB5O0 (

[Wo0p]

Cheers, Caleb! I missed those. Could you still play the map though or?

[Captain Toenail]

Great map and a unique theme - it felt quite Mediterranean.

I've also never seen liquid effects like that in a GZDoom map that was very cool.

I finished the map with 1/3 secrets.

 

Some things I noticed

 

• There's an f_sky wall at the yellow door
• If you jump up the cliff you can get behind the blocking lines at the plane crash
• The polyobjects are all silent - would have loved to hear a wooden creaking noise on that swinging door
• There are missing textures on the moving pump cylinder things near the start
• The mines are very easy to blow yourself up with
• The slow movement at low health is quite frustrating

 

Otherwise nice work and very cool map

[Caleb13]

Yes, I could finish it without problems. I normally don't play mods with so much custom stuff, but the land mines you took from Star Wars Dark Forces were amusing. Overally, the map was surprisingly difficult, because there was little health on UV.

[Wo0p]

Thanks, Captain Toenail ^_^ I'm glad it felt mediterranean because that's what I was going for haha. With some tech speckled in of course since this IS Doom. 
Dang I thought I had covered the plane >_< but your points are all taken into account and much appreciated! The next polyobjects I make will have sound when I figure it out.

 

Glad you could make it through Caleb :) and yeah I also found it surprisingly difficult when playtesting but I thought I was just getting old haha. And yeah the landmines were a bit janky but I found them so much fun I couldn't help but include them :P

[baja blast rd.]

 

This was fun and very creative. It took me a bit to get the hang of it and I was disappointed by how little I did (first playthrough did not use mines for example) so I just replayed the map again.

 

Some thoughts: 

 

- It is neat how the bow functions as a ranged melee weapon because you can pick up the ammo again. So you end up using it to blow up those vases and such without much worry. 

- Mines felt weak to me, because their radius is small, but then I used them against the 'mini-boss' enemy in this and they felt fine, so I don't know what to think about those. The very first skirmish, those enemies behind the gate, is a terrible spot to use them because you have to expose yourself to fire, but "enemies grouped up" seems like the map wants me to use them there, so I got conflicting signals. 

- The integration of Doom and this setting is fine, but the stock CRATE assets are maybe the one thing that stands out as weird. Maybe also STEPTOP. Those don't seem to go well with OTEX here. 

- Fighting the (would-be) hitscanners in this feels like a cover shooter because while they are dodgeable, they are also sturdier and aim better if you don't dodge their attacks (the stock hitscanners have horrid aim even if they are impossible to dodge) and you're slower so it's harder to dodge fast "projectile" attacks at close range. The big fight behind the gate "teaches you" that you're going to want to be patient with them (such as by camping for a while until they come to the doorway), but that may or may not be the intended lesson. 

- Still it was enjoyable trying to track headshot long-range ones with the crossbow. 

- I enjoyed most of the gameplay. It is an easy map once I got the hang of it (all initial tough spots were simply related to not understanding the mod yet and trying very ill-advised actions).

- Maybe the biggest sticking point is how slow you get on low health, but it's not a big deal. 

- The design is really good. Loved the crashed airplane.

- Aesthetically, the uniform brightness of the outdoors is maybe the biggest negative. 

- The bows are tiny -- both their hitboxes (as far as projectiles go) and the pickup sprites -- which makes aiming accurately more important than it usually is for this type of weapon. This is more of a neutral observation since I didn't not find it unpleasant. 

- Kind of odd/amusing that that door at the midpoint, which is a swinging door, threatens to bonk you against the wall. - Chainsaw zombies felt underpowered (too slow). It is an enemy I've played a few wads with and it's usually more of a mid-speed (sometimes even high-speed) monster. 

[Wo0p]

Thank you so much for playing my map, and for the kind words :)

 

Also some very good points. Especially about the "intent" of the equipment combined with the layout of the map. I'll take that into consideration in the future.