[RC5] EVITERNITY II - RC5 Released!

[Heretic926]

7 minutes ago, hawkwind said:

Map21 RC2

 

How does the player get to secret sector 2217, and, if possible, when the Astral Arachnotron teleports to sector 2239, it just "dances around" and is no

threat at all ?

Spoiler

Look around, there's a hidden shootable switch encarved in ice wall. It will lower the wall with the supercharge guarded by imps (on HNTR, so maybe there will be more dangerous monsters on higher difficulties). After you pick it up, astral arachno will teleport to you.

 

[hawkwind]

2 hours ago, Heretic926 said:

  Hide contents

Look around, there's a hidden shootable switch encarved in ice wall. It will lower the wall with the supercharge guarded by imps (on HNTR, so maybe there will be more dangerous monsters on higher difficulties). After you pick it up, astral arachno will teleport to you.

 

Thanks.  :) .

 

=======================

 

Map35 RC2

 

When crossing lines 515, 520 etc. the silent teleport is somewhat lost, i.e. teleport is quite noticeable, due to positioning of sectors.

Edited December 16, 2023 by hawkwind

[SCF]

Finished the megawad. The original Eviternity was the reason I returned to Doom after 25 years. A youtube playthrough of it caught my eye, and I was impressed with how good it looked for such an old engine. I ended up playing it myself, and it turned out be a lot fun as well. Being the first modern megawad I played, I'm of course a little biased towards it, but its best maps are still some of my favorites.

 

Eviternity II is not just another Eviternity. It feels like there was a strong ambition behind it to make it more than the original in every way. Even though I've gotten used to what magic people can pull off with the Doom engine, I was still blown away by the environments in some of the new maps. Even the gratuitous excesses (like all the sector slopes) don't feel out of place here. There's been a lot of OTEX wads since the first Eviternity, and the new batch of textures help make Eviternity II stand out more. I especially liked the look of the Meso-American maps, and setting the first episode in a ruined version of the first WAD's heaven was a great idea.

 

I can't really comment on individual maps, because when you play 36 of them in a row they're always going to blur together to some degree, especially within an episode. I'll have to play it a second time and pay more attention to each one. But I can safely say that it sets a high standard, and I had a great time with most of them.

 

Switching up the typical 32 map structure so every episode has its own secret map makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that the secret exits were clearly signposted. Great for someone like me who doesn't care about finding every last secret, but still wants to play all the maps. Although the first time I saw the portal in map 3, I assumed it was the regular exit, and ended up prematurely ending the map by running through the normal exit thinking the preview of the next map was just... more of the current map.

 

A few more comments that might contain spoilers:

 

Spoiler

On an individual level, I think all the new enemies were good and fit in well. The stealth guys probably being the most interesting new addition. I'm glad the corporals were toned down a bit from their Eviternity 1 version, where they could easily one-shot you if you didn't notice them. However, when I look at the entire roster as a whole, it feels like there was a tendency towards enemies that deal absurd amounts of damage but are extremely vulnerable to circle-strafing. Even the astral mancubus' bouncing shots rarely hit if you keep moving. It makes me wonder why the Annihilator was changed. In the first Eviternity, their secondary attack was hitscan, and it added an interesting dimension where there were brief moments where you had to find cover. I'm also curious, is there no way in MBF21 to prevent them from infighting each other, or was that left in intentionally?

 

Also, with their dark green color scheme, I think the Nightmare Cacos blend into the background of the final episode too much. I've had numerous deaths where I couldn't see one, or they snuck up on me from high above.

 

The new enemy that can revive corpses is definitely the most unique addition, although I found it difficult to understand how it worked exactly. I'm still not sure if the ghosts hurt you on contact or not (besides causing face rockets). The introduction fight having a first phase without corpses makes some sense to get you used to how he moves/attacks, but it was also a little confusing, because you're faced with a miniboss that barely seems to do anything (until the second phase surprise).

 

I also found the last encounter (map29?) a little frustrating. He's standing on top of a stairway in front of the exit, so you can't easily just rush him, and I was pretty low on ammo so I couldn't afford to let him revive strong enemies. I ended up slowly luring all the enemies away to other rooms and killing them there, which wasn't much fun. Maybe there's some specific counterplay that wasn't clear to me because these fights tend to be chaotic.

 

I also think the final boss was a little underwhelming. I beat map 30 on the first try by just running in circles, which seems to avoid most attacks besides the heavily telegraphed archvile blast. I still used up all the megaspheres, but there's a lot of them so the margin for error is extremely high. It was still more fun than the Archangelus fight though, because you can actually engage him instead of having to use peekaboo shooting. But it's also quite long.

 

 

As for the gimmick maps/rooms, I appreciate all the craftsmanship that went into them, but I wasn't really interested in playing them. Map33 is cool and I'm surprised I've never seen something lik that before in Doom, but after the first two rooms I was like "okay, I get it, but this is not what I'm here for" and turned on iddqd to enjoy the show. And the secrets in map14 were more of a struggle with the first person perspective than the puzzles themselves. I'm glad they're all easily skippable without missing out on 'conventional' content, so it's no big deal.

 

If you count the switchable electric floor in map 32 as a gimmick, I liked that one a lot. Turning a fight into a series of "survive until you can hit the switch" events was very neat.

 

 

I like how Antares' map is clearly a reprisal of Eviternity map 14, with the same frantic start, but even grander.

 

 

Oh, and the Perforator is a neat weapon. Wish I'd gotten more time to play with it in pistol start, especially since some of its few locations are easily missable secrets. It's obviously really strong, but the long cooldown gives it a serious drawback as well. At least you get a big fight designed around it in map 36.

 

[BohdanZPM]

Dragonfly, why didn't you tell anyone you were making this wad? That is a lot of new content to process, we could have prepared for this :D I understand the purpose of surprise for everybody, but imagine how much anticipation there could have been in the community if people knew there was new Eviternity coming up. Now I don't know what to expect. I guess I should just go and play it and see for myself, that's the only way!

[ukiro]

The pressure was already overwhelming—developing this publicly would have applied truly crushing expectations. We did debate launch tactics a lot, but I’m personally happy we decided to keep it a secret. 

[faceplant641]

Is Map 14 the biggest mapping trick flex ever or what?  I couldn't believe what I was seeing with those key secrets.

[Aurelius]

Dedicated to all fellow MAP33 enjoyers. Best experienced by playing yourself first, so obviously if you haven't played it yet, don't click the spoiler (and go play it!)

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Dragonfly]

1 hour ago, BohdanZPM said:

Dragonfly, why didn't you tell anyone you were making this wad?

 

Because of the reaction it could cause - we anticipated a lot of "woah, what the hell?" kind of responses and the prospect of this was extremely exciting. Better yet, the reaction we actually got far surpassed expectations and was worth every bit of pain and difficulty endured to keep this a secret!

 

 

26 minutes ago, Aurelius said:

Dedicated to all fellow MAP33 enjoyers

 

CRAZY run, holy shit!

 

 

4 hours ago, SCF said:

Finished the megawad.

 

GG, WP, thanks for taking the time to check it out and explaining your feelings afterwards. :D

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Congrats and to everyone else that was involved!

 

9 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Yeah, one of the best megawads I've played - no outliers, no dislikes, no favorites either cause all maps would compete in that category from my experience. Thank you for making this, a lot! 

 

Thank you!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EDIT]

 

STARTING RIGHT NOW is the premier for the first official piece of OST releases, see here:

 

 

[Tristan]

10 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

STARTING RIGHT NOW is the premier for the first official piece of OST releases, see here:

 

 

 

In addition to this, I've also started a playlist for the OST. Obviously still in progress right now but will be added to as we get around to uploading more of the music!

[Zirtonic]

Can you consider adding a lift/teleporter to get out of the 

Spoiler

secret fight in the basement

in Map15 before starting it? Unless I'm totally missing how the fight works it seems nigh on impossible if you find that area soon after you start the level. I'm at 200/100 and full rockets and don't have a chance in hell of being able to create space without blowing myself up.

 

I also don't know if it's intentional to be able to jump 

Spoiler

from the spiral staircase to the rocket launcher ledge

so maybe I got there too soon and am underequipped.

[MoiraHeart]

The Innkeeper is one of the most captivating MIDIs I've ever heard. Usually, the intermission theme is hard-hitting and exciting, a moment of celebration of overcoming another challenge. The Innkeeper instead starts somber, feeling more like a requiem for the level. But it is also relaxing and in a way mysterious, playing into the sense of wonder and discovery the WAD brings.

 

So... May I get some insight into why it was written/chosen as the intermission theme?

Edited December 16, 2023 by MoiraHeart

[CacoKnight]

1 hour ago, Dragonfly said:

STARTING RIGHT NOW is the premier for the first official piece of OST releases, see here:

Holy baby cacodemon, just last night I thought about asking you to please release at least this ONE SONG ..I was like ok, I need to download SLADE and get that midi so I can play it in loop all day! It's my absolute favorite in Eviternity II, @Tristan did some magic there. Thank you!

[Dimon12321]

First episode finished! The best thing that surprised me is that "hole" in the sky on Map 5, which reveals its actual color. Hah, maybe I didn't pay much attention, but it seems like the first time I've seen this kind of mapping trick.

 

Also, I didn't manage to find ANY of the secrets, besides the one shown in the demo

[Azure_Horror]

I have reached the end of Eviternity 2. (Still need to complete some secret maps though... Map 36 is HUUUUUGE D: )

 

What can I say? It was a great journey! My favorite parts:

- Maps 01 and 02 ( If I understand correctly, @Tristan finally completed his initial concept of Evit1 map29 )

- Map 32, (Lost Civilization + Anagnorisis in a same map! Sometimes, the dreams do come true!)

- Map 34, (The coziest Doom setting I can remember. Like Tetanus with a touch of Eviternity 1 E6)

- Map 11, (More Tetanus)

- That One Fully Grown Up Warship from Struggle

- Astral Cacos Everywhere (I Always loved fighting those buggers. Eviternity 1 has too few of them, IMO)

- The Fact that Episode 4 returns to the theme of Eviternity 1 Episode 1, and brings some grand-scale maps for that theme.

- The Blue Techbases from Episode 5 (surprisingly underused setting. Why is this?)

- The Music and overall vibes from map 33

- The Music in general.

- Those purple teleporting buggers.

- The miniboss SuperCacos of all shapes and forms.

- Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention the special weapons... Be it floors, ships, or that one recurring secret thing...

 

Now, I want to talk about custom enemies for a bit

Spoiler

- I am glad that the HardHat zombies were added, but I still miss the Former Captains. They are deadly, but neat. Like the Archviles, or the VileImps are... Episodes 3, 5 and 6, and map 31 could have really used some former capitains... But it's not a big deal.

- The fact that Annihilators have lost their hitscan attack feels weird. The energy bullets can be easily dodged, and this feels very wrong...

- The Nightmare Cacos (the teal ones) feel extremely sneaky for their threat level. They deserve a global wake up and death sounds like cybers have, IMO. And a more distinct attack sound could be useful too...

- Hell Dukes - are they supposed to infight with other Hell Nobles? Feels a bit strange, given the MBF-21 toolset.

- The Necromancers felt somewhat pointless. It is hard to understand, how exactly ghosts work, and the Necro attacks are very boring (just a super-speed projectile). How those miniboss monsters are supposed to work?

- Still, it is a very sad that Episode 6 uses so few Necromancers. The demon has a whole map dedicated to it, but barely appears after that...

And some thoughts about the final boss

Spoiler

First things first:

The Eviternity 2 boss forgoes any additional monsters during its active fight phases.

If I understand correctly, this is the second ever demo-compatible megawad final boss with a fight like that! The first such boss was Inquisitor from Sturggle. But The Origin is much less erratic and chaotically-evil than the Struggle final boss. This is a real historical achievement!

 

Now for the battle itself:

- The fight felt too much like a forgone conclusion, sadly. The arena is so big, so safe, and the boss conveniently stays in place during its attacks... The fight is by no means trivial, but it feels off before the phase 3 kicks in... I think, some adjustments could be useful.

- That said, the final phase is a really good boss battle. The turret call and that innocuously looking BFG attack alone make a big difference, to say nothing about the teleportation! However, it would be cool, if the boss would use Turret Call more consitnetly. Maybe even chain it with other attacks, like the Archangelus does in its boss fight.

 

Comparison with Eviternity 1 Archangelus Fight:

- I deliberately replayed Eviternity 1 map 30. And both final phases of Eviternity 1 and Eviternity 2 boss battles felt comparable in difficulty. With Eviternity 2 Final Phase also feeling much more fair. The Final phase of Eviternity 2 wins for sure!

- However, the earlier stages of Eviternity 2 boss battle felt less engaging and less threatening than the first half of Archangelus battle. Archangelus has quick attacks, and also loves to chain his damaging moves together. In additional, the Eviternity 1 Arena is smaller, while the Boss chases the player very aggressively. Even discounting monsters, this makes the phase 1 of the fight more difficult.

- The Origin not only stops during its attacks, but also has very few means to force the player out of cover. The first two phases work like that: Origin Attacks - The Player hides - and this on repeat.

- In addition, Origin Vile Flame attack is a much more telegraphed one. The Eviternity 1 Boss shoots fireballs, then immediately sets the player on fire, and then launches a salvo of energy bullets to top things off! The Origin simply channels like your garden variety archvile, and only adds two measly projectiles after that. Those shots do curve, but their damage is still tame... Something more drastic is required, IMO. Maybe a triple explosion, Like the Valiant Super Vile does? Or a guaranteed transition into something scary and spectacular, like a Turret Call attack?

- The Secondary monsters add very little to the Origin Fight. The arena is too big for them... But those piles of corpses really beg for appearance of some Necromancers. Or for a tiny bit of necromancy from the Origin itself?

- The phase transitions in Eviternity 2 are extremely calm. This also somewhat diminishes the whole final fight experience, IMO.

 

Sorry for the wall of text! The Origin is a really good Doom boss, and the fact that the boss does fight alone is a real breakthrough*. But the battle did felt somehow disappointing after the WAD that precedes it - and I tried to analyze why it felt this way to me.

*Tecnically The Inqusitor from 2018 also fights alone... But The Inquisitor is... Inquisitor, with all its divisive tools and abilities.

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Dragonfly]

36 minutes ago, MoiraHeart said:

So... May I get some insight into why it was written/chosen as the intermission theme?

 

Interesting question! I find that it's easier to explain retrospectively - had you asked this question shortly after I'd written that track I wouldn't have had a particularly good answer outside of "lol i made song" or something equally dismissive.

 

As with most MIDIs I write, I started it with no purpose, no goals... Just noodling about with Sekaiju and seeing what happens. As part of that process, naturally, my emotional state impacts what I'm doing and this MIDI is definitely one of the pieces where that had some amount of impact.

 

At the time I was in a "state of recovery" for want of a better way to word it - I'd lost my step-grandfather earlier in the year, and then only a couple of months prior to writing this piece I also lost my last remaining grandfather - both in a single year. I was definitely still feeling the grief of that loss, so naturally the somber tone was reflected within the music in this case.

 

I started off with the intent of writing something ambient or drone-like, using different instruments pulsing the same chords one after another over and over and over and... you get the point. I felt that despite it being a cool "minimalism" experiment, it was lacking any real reason to listen to it, so I toyed around with giving it a chord progression, and eventually settled on which instruments I liked coupled together (95-Sweep Pad, 102-Echo Drops, 53-Voice Oohs and 88-Fantasia in the end).

After that I started experimenting with a melody, and before I knew it there's a finished piece in the end. So, despite how The Innkeeper (originally titled "Minimalism", heh) started out as a piece intended to be a minimalistic, monotonous and relatively dreary track, it grew into something more whimsical and uplifting as the track progressed. That's generally how most of my compositions grow; they might have some underlying concept, emotion or idea, but if the piece evolves in a different direction than what I initially expected, I don't fight against that and instead try to see where those ideas take me.

 

After I initially composed this track I posted a video of it up on my Discord server, where Tristan then suggested that maybe this piece should be used as the intermission music in Eviternity II. Honestly I'm so glad he had suggested this, as it feels like an absolutely perfect fit to me!

[JackDBS]

Thank you very much for this amazing WAD!

 

I was on MAP09 and went to the normal exit and got stuck before I hit the exit switch (I wanted to go look for the secret exit). So, I had to noclip out and then find MAP32's exit. Could in a later version, the bars in the normal exit lower after you hit the switch?

[Tristan]

16 minutes ago, Dragonfly said:

After I initially composed this track I posted a video of it up on my Discord server, where Tristan then suggested that maybe this piece should be used as the intermission music in Eviternity II. Honestly I'm so glad he had suggested this, as it feels like an absolutely perfect fit to me!

 

For almost the entire dev cycle, I had always thought we should keep the intermission/text music the same as in the first Eviternity, which was "Death's Toll," one of stewboy's Plutonia MIDI Pack submissions. When you posted this, it evoked the exact same feeling as that track and my mind was made up within the first 20 seconds, as it should be, given that the most important part of an intermission track is the start of it.

20 minutes ago, Azure_Horror said:

If I understand correctly, @Tristan finally completed his initial concept of Evit1 map29

Lol, well remembered! OG Elysium was obviously always going to look like it did in the final release, but my idea for its gameplay was probably more like halfway between how it actually ended up and Evi2 MAP01.

[Pechudin]

I just want to fucking gush about the absolute next-level architecture. About halfway into the MAP13 I realized it was basically a Behemoth Cathedral of Concrete. So good. So fucking good.

[JackDBS]

This Annihilator seems to be stuck here for a time on MAP11.

[nobleflame]

Not sure if this is an acceptable suggestion, but in Map 06 I'm finding the flashing lights quite overwhelming. I wonder if it would be possible to tune them down a little?

[CacoKnight]

9 minutes ago, nobleflame said:

I wonder if it would be possible to tune them down a little?

GZDoom? Again, I'm not an expert or anything but try my settings/or play with them here, direct link here.

[nobleflame]

7 minutes ago, CacoKnight said:

GZDoom? Again, I'm not an expert or anything but try my settings/or play with them here, direct link here.

 

Sorry, I should have said this was through DSDA DOOM. I've checked a couple of playthroughs on youtube and I'm seeing the same flashing lights.

Check out Vytaan's playthrough here:

 

[Bauul]

45 minutes ago, nobleflame said:

Not sure if this is an acceptable suggestion, but in Map 06 I'm finding the flashing lights quite overwhelming. I wonder if it would be possible to tune them down a little?

 

You're not the first to comment on the strobing lights. We're looking at how to reduce their intensity (or even remove them altogether) for RC3 

[mancubian_candidate]

After what must be 100 attempts, I finally nailed Map 33 - what an absolute rush! I didn't get sick of it for 1 seconds, really well done here :)

[Noiser]

6 minutes ago, Bauul said:

 

You're not the first to comment on the strobing lights. We're looking at how to reduce their intensity (or even remove them altogether) for RC3 

I think "17 Light Flickers (randomly)" can look better for torch lighting. Not sure how intense would be though.

[Dragonfly]

37 minutes ago, Noiser said:

I think "17 Light Flickers (randomly)" can look better for torch lighting. Not sure how intense would be though.

 

Outside of the intensity discussion, it's a bit crap that each sector will flicker separately from eachother, ruining the impression of it being the same light source that causes the flickering. 😅

 

We will look to handle this issue though, it's clearly quite a serious concern since it's been voiced so many times.

[nobleflame]

Honestly, this is the best wad I've ever played and this is an incredibly minor complaint. Thanks for all of your work folks, excellent stuff!

 

I wouldn't suggest removing them all together as I like the idea of the flickering candle lights - maybe just slow them down a bit or something like that?

 

[Bridgeburner56]

On 12/16/2023 at 8:40 AM, boris said:

 

For GZDoom specifically you could use the RenderRadius property.

 

Otherwise you could try to have two actor per tree, one with a big radius for visuals, one smaller invisible one for collision. But that'd double the number of actors per tree, of course. Retroactively adding an additional actor at each tree's position could be done through scripts.

Render radius is one of the biggest frame rate destroyers going (exponential increase in the amount of checks an actor does for collision, dynamic lights etc). It's not a good solution for actors that are used extensively.

[Delkanty]

Spoiler

Would it not be cool if the sword was a usable melee weapon?

 

[Cartel]

Stupid question, but what does RC mean?