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Insane_Gazebo

Sunder - Map20 Appears, finally.

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17 minutes ago, Krull said:

It might be a hassle to implement (you would need voodoo closets), but maybe keep the cheesable sections cheesable on lower difficulties. As Archviler noted there is something fitting about surviving these weird maps by exploiting their architecture, rather than tackling them as intended (which often feels impossible). And it would make a change to the usual "less monsters, more items" adjustments which would, at this point, be an even bigger hassle (and liable to cause TNT map31 type mistakes) given the amount of things there are.

 

Given I_G mindset about Sunder, which aims to make the player feel cornered (or desperate), I don't think that he wants to leave any cheesable sections behind.

But I agree with your comment as I am no MrZzul skilled player and, even though I love Sunder and its spirit, I sometimes feel frustrated with some sections, like in map 15 and 16.

It would be up to the player freewill to do it the easy or hard way.

 

BTW, I tried playing on GZDoom 420, strict Boom compat, but it was totally unplayable.

Switched to updated version of PrBoom+ and everything works fine now.

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Since I got mentioned and for what it's worth? I'm in favor of fixing most unintended bits of cheese and exploits, as most of them feel like simple errors and detract from the gameplay. However, I do think a few are okay if they do any of the following:

 

- Provides an interesting, alternate way of playing the map that isn't viable otherwise. Examples here are pacifist runs of map 9 and 10.

- Is a viable and interesting way to tackle a particular fight, often for tradeoffs or surrendering a UV-Max run in favor of survival. Speed blitzing the yellow key section in map 16 comes to mind.

- Otherwise fits the map or is worthwhile and fulfilling the player. The end fight escape from map 17's the main one I can think of here.

 

Sunder's great when it makes the player feel cornered and desperate, as the poster above me said. That also enhances the occasional example previously provided, which shine all the brighter when a player discovers them. It's okay to do that once in awhile, especially when it rewards a desperate or challenged player for intelligent gameplay.

 

Just my two cents.

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On 9/11/2019 at 10:53 PM, Bridgeburner56 said:

Thanks, I hate it already 

I love Sunder but goddamn the hive mother and that section with the extremely long difficult revenant battle. All the revenants spread on ledges within the hive. Fuck that part pissed me off.

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52 minutes ago, Hell_Pike said:

I love Sunder but goddamn the hive mother and that section with the extremely long difficult revenant battle. All the revenants spread on ledges within the hive. Fuck that part pissed me off.

Ha, I just hate platforming. Something Mr gazebo is well aware of :D

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I apologise if this has been asked before but can someone tell me where the music from map 12 comes from? The text file just says parallax software...

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12 minutes ago, Foodles said:

I apologise if this has been asked before but can someone tell me where the music from map 12 comes from? The text file just says parallax software...

 

It is from Descent :)

 

 

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After having played the maps myself as well as seeing them played on stream by several other folks, there are a few things that I think I just need to get off my chest, because I simply don't like it when things keep bugging me. ...Not a particularly charming way to start participating in the discussion, I must admit, but I'm not exactly keen on candy coating things.

As expected the maps look neat, they're huge, and it's undeniable that a great deal of effort went into creating each one of them. My overall impression so far has been that it's the "old Sunder", but even more beautiful. Unfortunately, there are still childhood diseases present, which is what simply rubs me the wrong way.

 

 

Let's have a look at map 15 to get warmed up a little:
 

Spoiler

 

When using the find and replace tool to look for key monsters, such as archviles or cyberdemons, this is what I find:
tech_talk.jpg.9143c47bc578f12a1ae22eb4a457e820.jpg

 

The highlighted monsters in this case are the archviles, many of which are part and parcel of some spam-heavy fights, where they do their thing. So far so good, but here's where the problems begin:

All these monsters get activated by a simple sound proliferation based setup, and then move around and about in these closets until eventually they're granted access to the teleport linedefs. So there's no telling whatsoever at which point in time the viles will actually spawn to do their job in each individual fight. And this problem applies to a lot of the closets in this map.

 

I don't think anybody really has issues with a moderate amount of randomness when it comes to these things, but these setups you're running here are entirely uncontrolled. The fact that the same is true for cyberdemons, which add firepower that players need during certain fights, merely serves to underline the issue that is the lack of control you exercise over how these fights are going to develop.

 

Frankly, I wouldn't even have said much - if anything - if this was the only technical discrepancy in this map, but unfortunately there's even more than just a lack of control. Let's have a look at some of those teleport linedefs, shall we?

tech_talk.jpg.d945911dfa9fae58a7b420d87cf3d97f.jpg

 

All the the teleport linedefs in each of these individual closets share the same tag to designate their targets. One closet is tagged with 99, the next has tag 100, and the last one has tag 101. To make matters worse, each closet has a total of 8 viles in it (though that may have changed in a later version of the map). Not only does it take a long time for these closets to empty themselves entirely due to their size and lack of targets, the fact that slower monsters like HKs are in all of them means that some monsters may teleport into the map with pretty huge delays. This is a potential annoyance during casual play, and it's even worse from the perspective of doing optimized UVmaxes. In a worst case scenario, an HK may end up walking as far as 2000 map units in order to finally reach a teleport linedef. To top that all off, these closets are what's between the players and the exit of the map, meaning that during a full run of the map, this fight and the way it develops remains an "RNG-pinata" until the very end.

 


Map 16:

Spoiler

 

Same issue here as with map 15, slightly less often, but unfortunately also part of the final section. The viles are highlighted and "behind" them in the closet are the cybers:

tech_talk.jpg.7dea1599a604197ad28812b651c0a9bb.jpg

 

Depending on which way the pendulum swings here in terms of infighting, the closet with the viles and cybs could be blocked for long periods of time, for example, and that changes how the fight develops. Never mind that the viles would also spawn in whenever they damn well please. The result is overall inconsistent behaviour, and as far as viles and cybs are considered, the low-roll to high-roll potential is nothing to scoff at.

 

 

I'm not in the mood to go over map 17 as well right now, and I also think the examples I've pulled up here are sufficient for the time being. Needless to say, I feel like some of these setups you're employing in your maps are lacking polish. Look, I'm not one to impose arbitrary standards on anybody who makes maps, in fact, I hate it when people do that. Having said that, my personal stance is that after making players spend such a substantial amount of time on a single map, I think that I would owe them (and myself) a more consistent and carefully crafted setup to send them packing. If it were like 10-20 minute maps we're looking at, then I probably wouldn't mind this as much. On the other hand, these setups are also missed opportunities to create gameplay that is more nuanced and "elevated", for lack of a better term.

 

Sorry if I'm a buzzkill by way of beating the same horse for as long as I have right now. There's cool stuff in these maps, and I've already told you on stream that map 31 happens to be my personal favourite so far. It's just that there's room for some relatively easy, but effective "upgrades", that may be worth considering in the future.

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^

 

I personally didn't mind this to a degree that warrants a wall of text. On one hand, it makes encounters seem mildly unpolished, but on the other, it removes the completely scriped nature and adds randomness. Always having complete control makes encounters predictable and learnable, while this way you simply have to use some additional improvisation on top of what you expect. There are, however, some individual fights where this doesn't work, especially viles in the last fight of map 17 are just stupid, since your whole view is flooded and you're basically left to hope for them to infight. Then you also have a fight like the triple button barons / viles section in 10 that just wouldn't work if you had an idea when are those viles going to teleport in.

 

As for monster closets, given the lenght of map and grinding required to do clean-ups, you're quite unlikely to miss something that teleports in too late. So far in practise, I've only noticed this to be noticable case in map 9, but otherwise no striking instances I can think of. Design of those closets does its job just fine for the most part, imo.

 

 

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4 hours ago, j4rio said:

^

 

I personally didn't mind this to a degree that warrants a wall of text. On one hand, it makes encounters seem mildly unpolished, but on the other, it removes the completely scriped nature and adds randomness. Always having complete control makes encounters predictable and learnable, while this way you simply have to use some additional improvisation on top of what you expect. There are, however, some individual fights where this doesn't work, especially viles in the last fight of map 17 are just stupid, since your whole view is flooded and you're basically left to hope for them to infight. Then you also have a fight like the triple button barons / viles section in 10 that just wouldn't work if you had an idea when are those viles going to teleport in.

 

As for monster closets, given the lenght of map and grinding required to do clean-ups, you're quite unlikely to miss something that teleports in too late. So far in practise, I've only noticed this to be noticable case in map 9, but otherwise no striking instances I can think of. Design of those closets does its job just fine for the most part, imo.

 

 

The only place where I found the randomness extremely problematic was in the original version of MAP06, where the viles/revenants/hks teleport in after grabbing the plasma rifle and climbing the stairs. Whether or not you can beat that fight depends on if you can kill the viles before running out of rockets; if the viles teleport in very late, you are basically screwed. Thankfully I_G added a lot more rockets in the current version to make completing it less dependent on RNG while still keeping when they spawn random.

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Welp, looks like this is it. See you in a decade with another update.

 

Meanwhile, thanks for your revolutionary mapping effort.

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Are you still planning on turning this into a 32-map wad? Stunning work, by the way. I remember seeing a playthrough of Hag's Finger years ago and being impressed with the crazy fights.

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What is your recommended strategy on dealing with the fight with the teleporting flying enemies in level 16? It is the area in the screenshot below. I wonder if you are supposed to kill the cyberdemon and then the flying enemies or are you supposed to let the cyberdemon infight with the flying enemies.


 

Sunder level 16.png

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1 hour ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

What is your recommended strategy on dealing with the fight with the teleporting flying enemies in level 16? It is the area in the screenshot below. I wonder if you are supposed to kill the cyberdemon and then the flying enemies or are you supposed to let the cyberdemon infight with the flying enemies.

Yeah that fight is really, really hard. I usually use 3 or 4 saves during it. I usually keep to the left side because sticking to the right side of the building makes the PE teleport back up due to monster block lines next to their spawn. Also I try to use up the hard to reach ammo in the middle pit first, because you wont be able to get to it once the fight gets going. As for the cyber, I leave him alive, but he doesn't last long. you'll need all the ammo you can get.

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On 11/22/2019 at 1:47 PM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

What is your recommended strategy on dealing with the fight with the teleporting flying enemies in level 16? It is the area in the screenshot below. I wonder if you are supposed to kill the cyberdemon and then the flying enemies or are you supposed to let the cyberdemon infight with the flying enemies.

 

So the first thing you need to be mindful of is how to manipulate the massive cloud of floaters during the entirety of this fight.

 

With that said you can choose to kill that one Cybie in the left side building hiding behind the boxes, or leave it to infight later. Personally I two-shot it so I don't have to worry later when I'm clearing the Cacos from their box prisons, more Cybies will teleport in to 'help' infight in a few regardless.

 

My strat revolves around camping the right side of the building next to the right side of the right-most lava pit spawn and spamming rockets at the nearby Rev/HK spawn until the Cacos get a bit too overwhelming, where I'll switch to the BFG and spam all my cells to kill as much as possible until I'm close to running out. Dash to the nearby ammo stock and then make a mad dash outside through the back exit and beeline towards the initial ammo pit on the far left (yes, this will require you to hop across gaps and BFG any floaters that will be in the way without falling off any edges). Also notice that the mass cloud of floaters should be 'mostly' against the building you were camping. Expect them to come to you now (and, in the process getting themselves into infights with the Cybies that are in the middle area). If you're fast enough you can kill the caged Cacos before the cloud makes it's way into your area. If you position yourself along that left side properly the Cybie guarding the switch up in the far tower should have you in it's line of sight, but it's rockets will hit the cloud of enemies. You have enough ammo on the left side to clear the majority of the enemies that creep up to you, but if need be you can either retreat through the building for more cover, or mad dash to the middle ammo pit and pray you don't eat any stray projectiles on the way out or get blocked in there.

 

There will be instances where the Cybies won't infight with the floaters (or partially) and make their way to the left side where you're holding your ground. In this instance you'll need to two-shot them as fast as possible, since the floaters will probably be swarming towards you at this point. You don't necessarily need the Cybies to infight/kill off everything else so I'd kill them off as soon as possible since they'll only prevent you from effectively camping out the rest of the demons on the left side.

 

You never want to get yourself into any of the dead end areas as you run the risk of being cornered by floaters with no way out (camping the Cybie switch platform is an option only if you've dwindled down the amount of enemies outside first, going here too early will result in you getting swarmed). The key here is to keep moving and allow yourself enough space to escape to another part of the room when needed. This strat works most of the time whenever I get to this portion of the map, but again it relies heavily on cloud positioning as well as how fast you can deal with the Cybies before things get too hectic. You also have to stay at the initial spot (the right-side pit area) for a good amount of time, otherwise the cloud will not have moved away from the gaps far enough for you to cross.

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27 minutes ago, Khaoscythe said:

 

So the first thing you need to be mindful of is how to manipulate the massive cloud of floaters during the entirety of this fight.

 

With that said you can choose to kill that one Cybie in the left side building hiding behind the boxes, or leave it to infight later. Personally I two-shot it so I don't have to worry later when I'm clearing the Cacos from their box prisons, more Cybies will teleport in to 'help' infight in a few regardless.

 

My strat revolves around camping the right side of the building next to the right side of the right-most lava pit spawn and spamming rockets at the nearby Rev/HK spawn until the Cacos get a bit too overwhelming, where I'll switch to the BFG and spam all my cells to kill as much as possible until I'm close to running out. Dash to the nearby ammo stock and then make a mad dash outside through the back exit and beeline towards the initial ammo pit on the far left (yes, this will require you to hop across gaps and BFG any floaters that will be in the way without falling off any edges). Also notice that the mass cloud of floaters should be 'mostly' against the building you were camping. Expect them to come to you now (and, in the process getting themselves into infights with the Cybies that are in the middle area). If you're fast enough you can kill the caged Cacos before the cloud makes it's way into your area. If you position yourself along that left side properly the Cybie guarding the switch up in the far tower should have you in it's line of sight, but it's rockets will hit the cloud of enemies. You have enough ammo on the left side to clear the majority of the enemies that creep up to you, but if need be you can either retreat through the building for more cover, or mad dash to the middle ammo pit and pray you don't eat any stray projectiles on the way out or get blocked in there.

 

There will be instances where the Cybies won't infight with the floaters (or partially) and make their way to the left side where you're holding your ground. In this instance you'll need to two-shot them as fast as possible, since the floaters will probably be swarming towards you at this point. You don't necessarily need the Cybies to infight/kill off everything else so I'd kill them off as soon as possible since they'll only prevent you from effectively camping out the rest of the demons on the left side.

 

You never want to get yourself into any of the dead end areas as you run the risk of being cornered by floaters with no way out (camping the Cybie switch platform is an option only if you've dwindled down the amount of enemies outside first, going here too early will result in you getting swarmed). The key here is to keep moving and allow yourself enough space to escape to another part of the room when needed. This strat works most of the time whenever I get to this portion of the map, but again it relies heavily on cloud positioning as well as how fast you can deal with the Cybies before things get too hectic. You also have to stay at the initial spot (the right-side pit area) for a good amount of time, otherwise the cloud will not have moved away from the gaps far enough for you to cross.

Thanks for the information.

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Alternate, variant strategy that I found to be useful: Rush the yellow key and BFG through the mob to the key door. Escape out but don't go too far. as there's a line that'll shut the door behind you for good. Without triggering that line, make a stand there with rockets and BFG as needed. I had a surprising amount of luck with that strategy, use up your rockets then BFG through the gathered mass and back inside. That usually took the worst of it off and got me past the opening mess into something more manageable.

 

Side note: That was before any map corrections or revisions, so I don't know if the latest version might've impacted that strategy.

 

I'd say that's the hardest battle in the map, at least in my opinion. It's the one that took me the longest, even more than the last battle (which I did enough to get semi consistent at it). It's too easy to fall off, get blocked, eat a random enemy shot, get cornered or die because a good chunk of the ammo is on damage floors. Khaoscythe is right - always have a way to escape, don't fall for any of the dead ends and keep a keen eye on your ammo and what ammo pickups remain.

 

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6 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

Here is a run of level 16. I don't like the map.

Did you ever play it without that mod?

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40 minutes ago, Arbys550 said:

Did you ever play it without that mod?

I did and it was beating me up. It is almost like playing Chillax so I decided to play the map with the mod. Good question, though.

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found some missing textures in MAP 15, right before the platforming part to the redkey :)

with that said, I really liked map 15, can't wait to play the others :)

SunderMap15.PNG

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On 12/5/2019 at 8:08 AM, TheLoneliness said:

found some missing textures in MAP 15, right before the platforming part to the redkey :)
 

 

Ah, thanks! I could have sworn that one was fixed a long time ago, but I must have forgotten.

 

And thanks to everyone else who has given me feedback, demos and so on that I haven't replied to. I really appreciate it.

I've recently submitted my guest map to another unnamed project (the mapping vod is on my crappy twitch channel) which is awaiting balancing/fixing by me. (The project lead still has a lot to do.) 

 

I also began my guest map for BridgeBurner's Age of Hell (my first UDMF map), as well as a bit of Sunder Map 19.

 

This bump is brought to you by a new map. Big apologies about the wait. I also hope I haven't forgotten any credits, as there were quite a few this time. It's a tough one :)

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Did an IDCLEV to quickly check it out - It looks absolute amazing. I'm still on Map07 though, yet to develop the skills for this one!

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I use Sunder for mapping inspiration. I've barely played it. I'm far too crap for these levels. 

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