Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Junglist

People, what's your thoughts on the WAD 'Sepia'?

Recommended Posts

This won a 2023 Cacoaward.  Who's played through it?

 

I thought the first two episodes were super cool and fun.  But then everything went seriously down hill in the later half.  Episode 3 things started to get annoying, but I tolerated it, hoping things would improve in episode 4... but episode 4 is even worse, and uglier, idk if I'll be able to sit the rest of this WAD through..

 

Thoughts people?

Share this post


Link to post

I played through Sepia. I thought it was brilliant! ...but I will admit I got Megawad fatigue. That was more of a "me" problem than Sepia's problem. In general I usually tap out between level 10 through level 20 as most sets just feel like too much material. Sepia felt the same way. I did play through the back half with some combination of IDDQD IDCLIP. The snow day finale might be the only time I've actually teared up during a doom wad, so I have to give this one top marks. It is oozing with charm and personality. The slaughter bits are great and the whole universe colliding concept is top notch. Two thumps up!

Share this post


Link to post
12 hours ago, Junglist said:

Thoughts people?

I have playtested Sepia when it was still WIP and have also replayed the whole wad recently and I have definitely enjoyed the change of style and pace that e3 introduced (although I can see why it can be divisive) and I think e4 worked really well as a culmination of the wad, too. it combines (quite literally, too) what previous maps have introduced and transforms it into a very unique final episode. This wad ramps up in difficulty quite significantly in the second half though and goes into more gimmicky direction, so maybe lowering the difficulty can make it feel smoother if you started it on UV. Sepia is very experimental and takes a lot of risks and tries a lot of unique ideas and concepts, but that's something that's not possible to enjoy if you get annoyed by the fights.

 

I am genuinely curious though, why do you think episode 4 got uglier? To me it's the most visually impressive one and the most visually interesting with the thematic gimmick going on. It is also just a bonus experience on its own to find out remnants of which maps do you see in e4 and how they got transformed (or corrupted).

cubSmnT.png

 

Share this post


Link to post
Posted (edited)

I do think e1 one and e2 were brilliant! 

Everything takes a different direction in e3 though.  I was going along with e3 at first, but after awhile it started getting obnoxious imo, really veered off into gimmicky territory, like, hard to tell what is even going on or what you are supposed to do, let alone the insanely tough fights.  I think when I got to MAP17 is when I got really fed up, after spending like an entire day trying to figure out what the hell you do to beat it.

I was really hoping e4 would be a bit of a reset and get us out of abstract cube land, ...but the early half of e4 is just more of the exact same stuff as in e3, but honestly worse, and by this time I think that stuff has worn out its welcome...

MAP21 was the first one in the WAD I had to skip.  MAP22 and MAP23 were ass, they were just a pain to get through.  Again; very tough to understand whats going on, and you're falling into all these pitfalls and stuff, ugh.  Currently on MAP24 and just, idk, I hate getting this far into a WAD and then getting stuck.  I was really hoping that by now it would return back to the nice gothic architecture or WW1 stuff from the beginning, which was so cool and fun.

@Ravendesk, I would reallly love it if the WAD got back ASAP to the nice looking stuff like from your screenshot, but what I'm seeing now is stuff like this:
doom263.png
doom273.png
doom272.png

I'd like to still see it through to the end though.  Maybe MAP24 will get another skip if need be, and then maybe things will beginning improve thereafter (I would hope).  Thanks for sharing yalls thoughts though people, would love to hear more

Edited by Junglist

Share this post


Link to post

I, too, playtested each episode while Sepia was being worked on (it released by episode), and also felt taken aback by the abstraction that Episode 3 introduced, so I can empathize with you there. The fights get tougher (and not strictly from a combat perspective, there are a lot of platforming fights in E3 iirc), the atmosphere of E1 and 2 sort of vanishes and as you said, you are thrown into this very abstract cubism episode. I eventually flipped my opinion and began to appreciate what Petya was cooking when I played Episode 4, as I do think it ties the wad together and "tells a story without telling a story" so to speak.

I second what Raven said: If you are struggling on UV, dropping down to HMP may be the play, or even HNTR just so you can cruise through and get the full experience without the difficulty.

Share this post


Link to post

Alright you guys have convinced me to give it another shot, lets see if I can finish this

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, Junglist said:

Alright you guys have convinced me to give it another shot, lets see if I can finish this

Good luck.

Share this post


Link to post

I really liked the first few maps despite how disconcertingly chaotic some of the combat encounters were, but map10: The Ballroom felt like my first major warning that I was in over my head. I continued on regardless after managing to luck my way through that fustercluck of a brawl until getting to map14: The Monolith. That was where I threw in the towel because good god there's just so much going on and I couldn't juggle all of it especially once the archviles showed up and started juggling me.

Share this post


Link to post

OK so thankfully I was able to close out the last couple levels of this WAD.  Although, in order to see the end of the WAD, I did decide to skip MAP24 and then also was forced to skip MAP25, because they didn't make sense to me and were pissing me off, and this is where I had been stuck and nearly given up before.  But I did get back moving along thereafter.  I am kinda surprised I made it through the final three "true" levels (MAP26-MAP28), because they were hard as fuck.  Huge 1000+ monster slaughter maps, essentially.  At least I was able to know what to do to make it through them though!  As far as the suggestion for dropping the difficulty to HMP, idk, I've never had to do that before and I'm too stubborn to do that.  Besides, I'm inclined to feel that UV/pistol-starts is the definitive way to experience and assess a WAD, unless otherwise specified in the readme.

To reiterate, I did love e1 and e2, really great stuff!  I even went back today to replay a couple maps from them.  I'd have to mention MAP10 "4X Cave" was possibly my fav/most memorable from the WAD; the idea for using the TNT detonators to blow down the walls, continually expanding the cave to reveal more and more of the level was absolutely awesome, great level and I played it a second time today!

I thought e3 was cool in the beginning, I welcomed the first several puzzley levels that it provided, but after a point it started to lose me. (officially it was MAP17 that started to sour me.. I think this level was a near-miss; conceptually it was amazing and one-of-a-kind, but in execution there were problems, I kept getting stuck, had to look up videos on YouTube to figure out what the next move was a few times, and then the final fight with the crushers was just ughh!)

I thought it would be perfect if the beginning of e4 brought a reprieve and took things in a refreshing new direction, and that's what I was honestly expecting and hoping for, but instead e4 seemed to be a continuation of e3 except now with large-scale slaughter mixed in and even higher difficulty, which is the last thing I would want at that point.  tbh I found e4 to be the least fun episode of the whole WAD : (

But e1 and e2 was the good fun stuff, and that part of the WAD I would definitely come back to and replay : )

I also beat three of the five bonus levels.  MAP32 looked like torture and I don't want to waste my time on it.  However MAP34 looks very intriguing, and I plan to come back to complete this level very soon!

doom286.png
doom287.png

Share this post


Link to post
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Junglist said:

I also beat three of the five bonus levels.  MAP32 looked like torture and I don't want to waste my time on it.  However MAP34 looks very intriguing, and I plan to come back to complete this level very soon!

 

Can't blame you for skipping 32; Since it is a single-fight map, it asks a lot of the player, and I don't think you are missing much by not completing it.

Can't blame you at all for skipping 33.

(Please for the love of God, play 34 though, it is probably my favorite map in the wad)

Share this post


Link to post
12 hours ago, Junglist said:

I am kinda surprised I made it through the final three "true" levels (MAP26-MAP28), because they were hard as fuck.  Huge 1000+ monster slaughter maps, essentially.  At least I was able to know what to do to make it through them though!  As far as the suggestion for dropping the difficulty to HMP, idk, I've never had to do that before and I'm too stubborn to do that.  Besides, I'm inclined to feel that UV/pistol-starts is the definitive way to experience and assess a WAD, unless otherwise specified in the readme.

smh my head

rather abandoning the wad than changing the uv/pistol start mentality continues to confound me. when a wad is designed with all difficulties, it is the artists' intention to use them to improve the experience for yourself. seeing and enjoying all the maps should be more important than playing the uv/pistol-start meta, shouldn't it? likely, you'd have a lot more fun with e3 and e4 on hmp.

Share this post


Link to post
20 hours ago, Junglist said:

Besides, I'm inclined to feel that UV/pistol-starts is the definitive way to experience and assess a WAD, unless otherwise specified in the readme.

In this particular case (since i made the thing), i would say that i disagree. I obviously can't really say that in regard of any other WAD, but if it's not specified as UV/Pistol-start and the WAD has difficulties implemented, then the definitive way to expierence the WAD depends on player preferences. Since i tested it on every difficulty (except ITYTD and NM), and even had a dedicated HNTR playtester, i tried my best to make it accessable for pretty much every player. And on top of that i did a continious final playthrough to see how much easier/harder it would be to play it in that playstyle.

 

Both E3 and E4 are pretty hard and require a lot of specifc doom skills, so i can absolutely see how much of an issue they can be to play through. Glad to see you made it to the end though, so thanks for playing!

Share this post


Link to post

Ngl that does make me want to give the wad another shot on HNTR, because I loved the atmosphere but the combat was a lot more intense than I expected (iirc I retried The Monolith on HMP but was still a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff happening at once), though I'm not sure why I would expect atmospheric wads not to be primed to spank my ass at this point.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×