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Mechadon

Claustrophobia 1024 -- Fixed version released!

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@Mechadon: The Poison Ivy version link in my previous post should be the latest version, I'll get the name template changed for the next upload. I played the Subterfuge 1024 map of yours, and I liked it, it would be nice as map1 or map2 in particular. The theme, gameplay and the music (From requriem? I love it) flow nicely together. I couldn't play map7 and the other one without being on my desktop computer (on a lappy atm which is quite hard to play on), but they look very nice though.

@Kingkill: I had a look at the incomplete map of yours, sure it's incomplete but it looks pretty good, it has very good potential for good gameplay. ;)

@Dutch Devil: About the 2 screenshots of your third map, depending on the difficulty, I would put the monsters in the scenery myself, it would seem lifeless without any monsters. Looks very nice though. :)

Any additional thoughts about Poison Ivy? Any issues or improvements? I'll try and be patient now, testing is long and hard work. Thanks. :)

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Mechadon said:

One BIG change that I've made to the guidelines that's probably going to help me keep organized better (since I'm already getting a little messy D: ). I'll post it here as well as the first thread:

Please use this template when naming your .wad file!

name-map name-version
Example:
mek-sub1024-1


This is mainly so I can sort between different versions of maps as well as know who's map belongs to who. I've used this system in past projects of mine and it's helped tremendously, though I've had a hard time enforcing it. So be sure you see this! If you do NOT follow this template for your file name, I will NOT accept the map until you change the name to the correct template layout!. I don't want to have to force people to upload their map for a 2nd time because of a naming issue :/

Well, having just noticed this, I've just had to. :P New URL:
http://disasterlabs.com/thegreenherring/temp/TheGreenHerring-TheWarpFacility-1.zip

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hey dont put any map of mine in. they are not quality enough and i do not possess the time currently to make either of them quality.

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@KingKill33: Thanks, I'll update to those new versions...and thanks for using the naming template, it really does help me out in the long run.

@Pcorf: I, as well as most of everyone else who tested that I can remember, really liked your maps. At the moment I can't think of anything off the top of my head that needed changing, but I will get back to you if I do find something.

@Joshy: Ok good, I should have the up-to-date one then :D. Don't worry about uploading the map again just to change the file name; the rule doesn't affect maps submitted prior to that rule's creation. As for your map, I had a chance to play it last night. Truthfully it felt brutally difficult and I don't know that I would have been able to finish it without god mode on. From the screenshots I was hoping it would play something like "Caco District" from Congestion, which is fairly difficult but not teeth-pulling painfully difficult. I saw that a lot of folks have already given you feedback on that map...I haven't read through all of it, but the only thing I can think of would be to try and tone down the difficulty. I think the problem mainly was that your practically swamped with monsters from every angle in mostly open areas without much cover to be found. One area in particular was the gratuitous amount of Revanants that pop out of the outer corner at one point in the map, making it extremely difficult to...well, do much of anything except die :P. I think I would enjoy the base gameplay alot if it weren't so annoyingly difficult; I thought the layout and theme of the map was very nice and the ending with the Cyberdemon and all of the floors lowering was really cool :). So if it were me, I would probably incorporate a lot more areas for cover and maybe not quite as many monsters.

@TGH: If you didn't already read my reply to Joshy, then let me reiterate: the rule doesn't apply to maps submitted prior to the rule's creation. I renamed all of the maps sent to me prior so you don't have to worry about resending a map just to rename the .wad. But thanks though, I won't waste the link :D

@Butts: You sure man? I think you've got more than enough skill to contribute :(. I personally really liked 'Aura of Evil', it just needs to be finessed a bit in terms of gameplay; it would make for a great later level towards the 25+ map slots. Well, if you happen to find some free time to work on them, I would be really happy to use them!

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Mechadon said:

@TGH: If you didn't already read my reply to Joshy, then let me reiterate: the rule doesn't apply to maps submitted prior to the rule's creation. I renamed all of the maps sent to me prior so you don't have to worry about resending a map just to rename the .wad. But thanks though, I won't waste the link :D

The .zip contains an updated wad, anyhow, fixing some very minor things that were bugging me after I uploaded the original. :P

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Mechadon said:

Truthfully it felt brutally difficult and I don't know that I would have been able to finish it without god mode on... One area in particular was the gratuitous amount of Revanants that pop out of the outer corner at one point in the map, making it extremely difficult to...well, do much of anything except die :P. I think I would enjoy the base gameplay alot if it weren't so annoyingly difficult.


Thanks for the feedback :)


I must ask, were you playing on UltraViolent or Hurt Me Plenty? If you were playing on UV, could you check out the difficulty of Hurt Me Plenty and let me know how difficult you thought it was? Just so I know just how many monsters need removing for either all difficulties or only Ultraviolent difficulty. I loved caco district, one of the traps was inspired by that map :).

By the way, about that corner Revenant Section, you are meant to grab the rocket launcher and run back to the brick building for cover and kill the spawning zombies and kill the revenants rocket by rocket from the building, try that out ;)

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@Poison Ivy difficult: Personally I think that UV is fine enough as is. I know I'm probably going to hurt some people's feelings with this, but just that you can't beat the map on the hardest difficulty doesn't mean that it's necessarily too hard. I know that I can beat it on UV most of the time (dying every now and then is fine since it means that it's no cakewalk). Should people better than you who also like a challenge be punished by making the map be fine for everyone on UV? I think not.

I'm far from the best players out there and I think that Poison Ivy is just fine on UV. Joshy thinks that it's fine on HMP. If you can't beat it on HNTR then sure it could be made easier on that difficulty, but remember that's it's supposed to be a hard map. The difficulty levels are there for a reason.



(btw, for the record I think it would be good if people made a habit of always mentioning which difficulty level they played when commenting on difficulty)

edit: And there's plenty of cover in Poison Ivy...trust me. Just keep looking around.

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It's fine to have hard maps, and of course higher difficulty levels should be harder than lower ones, but this is a megawad intended to be played from start to finish. There should be some level of difficulty balance between maps, of course with the difficulty ascending in the later maps, but if a number of different people who have no problem playing the other submitted maps say that a certain map is way too hard, it's probably not going to fit very well with the megawad's difficulty balance.

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Still, since the maps are supposed to be played from pistol start I don't really see what's wrong with that worse players who just have to start on UV end up eventually playing a map they can't beat on the said difficulty level. All they need to do is start on a lower difficulty and IDCLEV to the map they couldn't beat and try again. Really, you can't just expect for everyone to make all maps playable for everyone on UV. If that was so, then what's the point of difficulty levels in the first place?

And I repeat that Poison Ivy is submitted as a hard map. I guess it would be around map27-map29...is it really that bad to have a really hard map or two that far down in the list?

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Excuse me but what the feck happened to my Twlight of the Demons and Dismalady? They're not on the maplist :V

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I just fixed all the open sectors on EotL and moved some of the trees and stalagmites around. I also added a box of shells and bullets right outside the exit bars, so now the very last battle should go a bit smoother.

The idea for the map that I'm working on now is that the control building operates all of the colored doors on the map. It also acts as a safe area, until several events make only the control room itself the only safe place. It should be interesting at the very least.

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Here's the very beginning of a new 1024 map I've started working on, Tower of Desolation. It's very incomplete, only part of one area has been done, but there's a problem with the voodoo scripting that I can't identify. The three skull switches in the area behind the first door are supposed to lower slowly when pressed and summon a bunch of monsters, and when all three are pressed the walls at the side of the area should lower. As it is now, the switches don't summon any monsters or lower, but the walls do lower after all three have been pressed. What makes it all the more strange is that it worked just fine with the exact same setup, but the walls in front of the voodoo doll in the long tunnel (you'll know what I man if you open the map in an editor) were too low and it could jump over them while the first one was lowering, negating the need for pressing all three switches, so I made them taller. Since then, the scripting doesn't work no matter what I try. Please help me.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dpwf2j

EDIT: Oh, great. Now I tried again and nothing is working at all.

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More on Poison Ivy difficulty (I guess since I like the map so I want to do my best to get it in :P):

I played the map on HNTR and I think it could actually be made easier on that setting. In some places there wasn't that much difference to UV. Namely the trap after picking the ssg (imps, revenants and demons) and the archvile fight. For the ssg trap, either remove one revenant and both demons or both revenants (and keep demons). I can honestly tell that that fight is the most frustrating one in the whole level. Actually, I'd go as far as saying that it could be even made easier on UV (just remove one or two imps on UV, keep revenants and demons). Adjust HMP accordingly.

For the archvile fight remove one or two cacos and revenants both, I don't know about HMP, if you think it's fine on HMP then that's cool.

Also, I guess the map might be a little too tough especially on the easier difficulties if you don't use the berserk and blue armor secret. In fact that's really a game breaking secret (IMO you should never have a secret in your map that you must take to finish the map. Secrets should always be small goodies). There are few options...one is to add a green or blue (depending on difficulty? blue on easy and green on hard?) armor at the red key or to the next fight. That would decrease the huge impact the armor in the secret has, so that could be kept in. And for the berserk, it could be replaced with two medikits and you could then add a little extra health to the map (more for easier difficulties, obviously).

It's possible (though unlikely) that the changes to the secret would make it "too" easy for hard difficulties, in which case, well, it just has to be tested more. :) But right now the secret is just too good, but at the same time it's nothing that a little extra work won't fix. Go for perfection!

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Heya Mek.

Just a little thing I noticed while playing your 1024_1 map (the first one in the .zip download). After you have all three keys, if you happen to run into the green goo (over these barricades) and take the little lift between the two green goo areas, before you hit the switch that lowers the bars, you can still trigger the switch which has lowered into the ground, in order to get out of that area. Hopefully this screenie explains what I mean.

[EDIT] oh yeah... And linedefs 1422, 487 and 496 need aligning.

Possibly you could make this ledge impassable or block monster or something. Incidentally, what does CUA stand for? Corporation Union Aerospace obviously.

Great map btw. I remember seeing screenies on the original Claus thread and thinking what a cool map this looks like. And indeed it is. :)

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Ok, I guess I'll make uv demos for anyone who wants one. If you want one just let me know (maybe you don't want your map to have a demo 'spoiler' or something). I use complevel 9 which should be boom. To play them, just drag/drop the wad/lmp/texturePack all into prboomplus.

Well I did joshy's map anyway since there was discussion on the difficulty. I like the difficulty (actually, I'd prefer if all the maps were this difficult or more and don't see the point for a megawad to conventionally gradually increase difficulty from map to map since that makes the first maps rather challengeless, and most people play maps individually from pistol start probably, at least I do- but not everyone has my mindset). And indeed difficulty levels are implemented, so less skilled players could just choose a lower one.

Since many maps have multiple updated versions, I'll just upload the map version I used in the demo along with the lmp so you don't have to search for the right version.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2f01q6
I used texture pack v06point1.

subjective comments: overall a great original map. The version I played seemed to have some bugs (a mancubus is stuck in place, as well as some hell knights as seen in demo). The secret berzerk seems to appear without shooting the switch sometimes (perhaps a chaingunner shot it or something EDIT: no, I did in fact shoot it, just from the bottom, so perhaps position it so it can only be shot from the top). Most important is the exit switch makes quite a few sectors lower that I assume aren't supposed to as seen, causing inescapable pits.
As for less impportant notes, the chainsaw is generally a thing I want to avoid and have no use for (all it does is have a brief 'time out' as you pick it up and have to cycle back to your previous weapon). At the part when I went up/down the stairs to rocket the reverents at the top, you can snag on the right of the doorway (block line on that tiny 'sidewalk' might fix it). Right after you get the rocket launcher, the hitscanners that appear below can block your entry back down (as seen) so might be better if they appear outside that little room area. Right after I hit the switch and run past the hell knights to the shelter of that room, it might be better if the hell knights could enter that room so you can't just kill them from safety. I think you can arch blast jump up higher, but that's a good thing imo. I died on the cyber but I wanted to leave that upper area because of the inescapable sector pits bug.

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Here's a demo of my map (map included)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/laosz1
I used texture pack v06point1

There seems to be a problem with that texture pack though. I originally used version 3. But in the new version GOTH_V98 (or possibly TTALL1_2) doesn't seem to work, so I have 'hall of mirrors' on poles near the blue key in my map now.

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:)

Thanks for the feedback and demo, gggmork, it's the first time I've seen someone do a demo on my map, it's quite refreshing and exciting. I don't know how the floors didn't move, it did work for me, but I'll find a way though; might need to create a double voodoo trigger action or something. Will make sure those monsters will be unstuck too. I think I'll move the chainsaw onto the corner where the imp stands at the start, that should be good? Good suggestions of change of placement for the monsters, will change them. I'm not sure what you mean by arch blast jump, do you mean the archvile attack jump? Well in that case, that is cheating if you jump over the next ledge, a crusher will kill the player/dummy, but when the red key switch is activated, the dummy gets away from the crushing sector disabling the 'cheat-proof ledge'.

Thanks for the additional feedback Jodwin, I will certainly intend to go for perfection, I'll do those changes (the difficulty and secret), better fun than annoying, heh.

I've got maths final exam tomorrow, so I'll do all these changes after as a break. For now it's studying time! :p


EDIT: I tested the map using zdoom and prboom2.4.7 and they both worked, I downloaded Prboom+ and changed that cfg thingy you mentioned, and it did the same as it did in your demo... strange.

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You might want to open your prboomplus CFG file in notepad, then change 'default compatibility level' to 9 (if that's not what it already is). Then if you use doombuilder, edit the preferences or whatever so you test the map with prboomplus (if you test with zdoom or something there might be different behavior).

Also if prboomplus doesn't seem smooth to you you might want to change menu/options/general/upcapped framerate: to 'yes'

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@Joshy: I played the map on both UV and HMP. Of course I didn't expect to get very far on UV, but it was still pretty damn hard on HMP. I took into account that this map was a hard map (probably upper-20's for sure) and I still thought it was a bit crazy. I'm basing my thoughts on Congestion, which I was able to beat on UV; if this were a map in Congestion, I probably would be stuck for quite a while. And while I know there is cover, the problem arises when I'm not able to get to it because I've got a horde of demons bearing down on me blocking my path. I think something to duck behind along the outside edge of the map where your running back on forth in a couple of areas wouldn't hurt at all. I would also cut down the number of Revanants a bit (or replace them). I also agree with Jodwin's suggestions about the first major fight after the floor lowers. Another thing you may want to try and do is control how the monsters are spawned in...not sure how to put this, but Caco District does this well. The monsters spawn into the map in such a way that you've got a few "oh shit" battles throughout the whole map instead of just one huge slaughter. Of course this may be too much of a gameplay change...and I'm not sure why I keep referring to Caco District in relation to your map...I guess the theme seems sorta similar to me :P. I'll keep playtesting it and see if I can't figure out a way to beat it.

@alterworldruler: I've been too busy to completely update the map listings :/. I've been slugging my way through so many maps lately that I don't recall much about your maps...so please be patient, I shall have them (and the rest) up sometime soon.

@KingKill33: I'm looking forward to that newest map of yours. That concept sounds pretty interesting.

@Kyka: Thanks for the feedback! I see what you mean about that lift switch, though it's probably a good thing you can still trigger that switch, otherwise you'd be stuck. I think what I'll probably do is just remove that switch and place the new switch on the walls of the lift (which is what I should have done in the first place). As for the CUA thing...I dunno ;). I'll make some updates to that map soon, thanks again!

@Solarn: I'll give this and download and see what's going on. Hopefully someone else will help you out too because I'm not always sure when I'll be too busy with school to get on here and give feedback.

@gggmork: Cool, thanks for volunteering that demo! It'll be interesting to see someone beat that map on UV :D. Would you like to do some of the demos for the final release? And about the texture pack, it could be one of two things: either I messed up somewhere or the texture in question was the set of unpatched Doom II patches that I removed from the TEXTURE1 lump. There may be a few maps that will have missing textures because of this; leaving the patches in the TEXTURE1 lump without assembling them into the stock Doom II textures interfered with said textures and I couldn't have that. Though now that some people used those patches as textures, there are probably missing textures throughout some maps. I've got to work with essel to resolve the issue, but for the time being just use the correct Doom II texture (if that's the problem).

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@Mech: I should probably note that, while it does make a mess of the texture wad's organization, making the individual patches of textures also available in addition to their full combined/arranged versions isn't going to break anything.

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esselfortium said:

@Mech: I should probably note that, while it does make a mess of the texture wad's organization, making the individual patches of textures also available in addition to their full combined/arranged versions isn't going to break anything.

OH...I didn't know that. Good! I'll add them in as new textures so people won't have to worry about editing their maps.

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Don't worry, the new version of Poison Ivy will be somewhat easier than the old one. The way monsters spawn won't be necessary after ridding particular monsters, it'll be less annoying and still challenging. ;) I'll get it up within 24 hours.

I might make another 1024 map after Poison Ivy, either easy or medium this time, I've been making too many hard maps lately, heh. Hmm, I'll design an easy map intended for map slot 2-4. Untitled for now and at conceptualising stage, should be a mixture of techy and something without marble and vines. ;)

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@Mech or anyone else with more Boom knowledge than me: An other thing that came to me while thinking about Poison Ivy, are the maps expected to be played with "infinitely tall actors" on? I agree this setting could cause some problems in Poison Ivy, particularly with the spectres spawning in the starting area since they are hard to see and with that setting you can't run past them. If these maps are to be designed for infinitely tall actors, then I guess those spectres could be replaced with demons or completely removed (in which case you could maybe add a few lost souls or a caco or two to that fight).

@gggmork: If you don't mind I'd like to see a UV demo of my map. Also if possible I'd like to hear about its difficulty in general. I'm thinking it might be a little too easy for what I had in mind, but then again as we've seen there's a lot of different kinds of players working on these maps and, additionally, I'm the one who knows the map inside out so I really can't tell how everyone else is finding the difficulty level to be. And, if someone else too wants to comment on the difficulty or analyze the map (which I'd greatly appreciate :) ), please remember to mention the difficulty level.

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Ok, here's a demo of jodwin's map.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2cfuou
texture pack: v06point1, prboom complevel 9

subjective comments: Quite a fun map with visual symmetry. After playing more thoroughly it has 'door cheat' potential (opening and closing a door a crack to either cause infighting or to shoot using the door as shelter) but really that's sorta a 'problem' with the doom engine rather than the map. I usually don't use doors for that reason (I think key doors in particular can't be opened by monsters but I could be wrong).
For the 2x archies, if the archies don't happen to come out first, the hell knights can block them a bit because the hell knights can't fit in the doorway (probably that monster is too wide). But I mostly door cheated just to show the exploit is there if interested (most people probably won't even know about that or do that though).
On a few attempts I had no ammo at one point because the lost souls drain it, so ammo kinda depends on how efficient you kill lost souls. Only other thing I can think of is the backpack might be better if slightly in front of the other items (because say if you have 49 shells, then pick up the box of shells before the backpack, you'd waste 19 shells).
As far as difficulty, its hard to say because the door cheats make it a lot easier. It makes sense to playtest for bugs, but in my opinion, difficulty and design should be up to the mapper.
Feel free to ignore any or all of my comments of course.

This is supposed to be a boom megawad right? So I'm correct with complevel 9 I guess? I'm pretty sure complevel 9 does allow you to walk under hanging stuff since that's what I used.

'do you wanna make demos for the final' - maybe, I might be demo'd out though.

'arch blast jump/cheat kills with voodoo doll' - heh heh, nice idea. Punish cheaters like typing iddqd in heretic.

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KingKill33 said:

Another fun map gameplay was easier than your other map "End Of The Line", an good map for one of the lower slots.This map also suffers from unclosed sectors.

I also noticed this error while playing the map, an spawn spot is too close to the wall.As soon as that hell knight spawns in it gets stuck in the wall.

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gggmork said:

the hell knights can block them a bit because the hell knights can't fit in the doorway (probably that monster is too wide).

First, thanks for the demo. I'll check it out once I get a chance. On the hell knights though, I noticed that started happening once I raised the doors 8 units up from normal floor level. I'm not sure what exactly to do with that...for gameplay reasons it would be much better to drop the doors to floor level but that would screw up floor textures. Choices choices...

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KingKill33 said:

This map is impossible to beat for me, its very hard and you are dead in no time.There is not enough ammo to kill everything, you are forced to fight the monsters on stepping stones cause of the surrounding lava that hurts you.Not an fun map to play in its current state.

Also I was able to beat this map in 5 seconds by pressing the switch that lowers the platforms, and use the switch to jump on the exit teleporter.

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@Solarn.

Hey there. I have PM'd you that link to the level I tinkered around with. Hope you like. :)


@Joshy.

Finally got around to playing that map of yours. I liked it a lot. Yeah it was tough. But I enjoyed it anyway. IMO its not too tough for UV on a, say 23+ mapslot.

The only suggestion I would make in regards to gameplay is this: There are two pillars, one pictured here. My thought was to make the face of these pillars flat against the wall rather than curving outwards, jutting into the little area at the bottom of the lifts. I found I kept getting stuck on them when doing that first fight against the 2 revenants and the imps which teleport in. Once the walls around the pillars drop, its no problem, they make good cover, but before the walls drop, they totally get in the way. There is so little space in there for that fight already.

As for the rest, I enjoyed it. That was the only place that I thought was really annoying. The rest was hard, sure, but it wasn't frustrating, to me at least. (As long as I remembered to save often.!)

The only other thing I would mention is that there are two hell knights that teleport in, and then get stuck exactly where they teleport in. They walk on the spot, but don't attack and can't seem to move. Screenie here

Anyway, great work, just minor things in what was a well designed level with plenty of good fighting to be had. :) I would offer to record a UV-max demo in this level, but I might have to leave that for someone else, on account of it would take me waaaaaaaay too many tries to do this one without dying. :(


@Kingkill.

Just finished UV on "Into Hell" ...Oh yes! This level was Awesome. MOAR!!! Ok, Ok, it was on the tough side of tough, and it will possibly be nerfed, because it is pretty hard for a level 7 map. But the visuals were great. The gameplay was intense. I kept running out of ammo, but it seems as if I would always trip over more ammo just in time. Health was sufficient. Any less would be crazy. In some ways, more health would be wasted coz if you take a blast or two from a manc, you will probably still die anyway.
All it needs now is about a dozen chaingunners to teleport in. And some revenants. And a cyberdemon. Definitely a cyberdemon.... ;)

In truth I couldn't fault it, except it may be a little hard for what it is intended for.. So I don't have any helpful suggestions. If it stays at this diff setting, you could possibly remove couple of imps from the start maybe. If it does get nerfed, glad I got to play the suicidal pre-release version!

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