Particularly hard/fun obhack (oblige) map(s) w/ demo attempt(s)

[gggmork]

One of my favorite obhack generated maps so far with a failed demo attempt (I've yet to beat it after many attempts). Very hard with limited ammo, so some infighting is pretty much required.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ed5rdg

[gggmork]

Finally did a 35:00 ish failed run that was way overly cautiously infightingly boring (and I still died in a really lame way, attached in first link- a pretty crap and certainly slow demo probably despite all the effort, but I still havn't rewatched it), but at least I beat that whole first part which is what I wanted to do.
A lot of obhack maps have excellent gameplay at the start with overwhelming and unique monster placement from every direction, but then drag on as much easier in later parts since everything behind you is clear and you only have to worry about easily infightable frontal assaults. Pisses me off that I died. The main hard part is the start so that was the first time I even played the rest on a normal run without iddqd. I'm done trying probably (I've played 3 months worth of doom in 3 days).

[andrewj]

gggmork said:

A lot of obhack maps have excellent gameplay at the start with overwhelming and unique monster placement from every direction, but then drag on as much easier in later parts since everything behind you is clear and you only have to worry about easily infightable frontal assaults.

Any ideas on how to improve that?
Perhaps rooms that lock you in and you can't get out until you hit the switch behind a bunch of monsters?

[esselfortium]

Some of those could work if used sparingly, as well as the occasional use of monsters either teleporting or appearing from a monster-closet that opens up somewhere behind you. Not necessarily instantly-kill-you chaingunner-in-the-back traps, but enough to keep the player on his toes and having to pay attention to monsters in other directions around them.

[gggmork]

I really like obhack gameplay (with challenging parameters) better than the majority of non-generated maps, so I don't want to suggest any ideas that make it worse :). Its kinda hard to guess what could improve it without testing, but I'd suspect traps/surprises would mostly be for the worse (in my opinion). The trap you mentioned would probably have an exploit (trigger the trap door to close on an enemies head so it reopens, or clear the room from far away before triggering it.. or it might be too hard anyway as being trapped with a mancubus + reverents or something could easily kill you, plus traps are more about memorization than skill).
I'd guess gameplay tends to be more fun/challenging when rooms are more interconnected (dealing w/ enemies from multiple directions) instead of linear. But variety is also nice. Maybe have even harder parameters available (if you include cybers you might want to put a bunch of extra enemies in the cyber room because he'll just infight everone, but hard to know a good way to implement cybers without testing- maybe just have them random like everything else so each encounter will be unique). Maybe an option to start with a berzerk would be cool. Probably just ignore that previous comment I made as it was due to me playing overly cautious.
I like how, in outdoor maps, non-deaf floating enemies from all over the map can often cross barriers to overwhelm you as a gang. And demons are fun as moving walls, often killing me indirectly.
One note is that, for some stairs that have thin stepping surfaces, they block some ground enemies depending on enemy size. Not sure if making stairs less enemy-blocking would be for the better or worse.
It could be fun to choose to have lots of viles or few viles etc, same for other monsters.

[Jodwin]

One thing I often do when going on a short trip is generate a new obhack megawad with challenging options (hordes of monsters, little ammo, huge maps, pistol start...) and take that with me, those are always a blast to play. However most of the time the very beginning is ridiculously hard while the rest of the map...not so much. It's not really because of starting only with the pistol and having little ammo, but because if you start outside you'll suddenly be swarmed with cacos, pes and lost souls from half a way across the whole map. :P And once you get enough weaponry to take them out you already know that you've managed to kill monsters that you "should" have met like 20 minutes later, and those parts won't be as hard.

So...I'm not saying that having some cacos coming is bad, without any of them it might be too easy, but I guess the generator could use at least some sound blocking lines more.