Sunder - Map20 Appears, finally.

[Linguica]

For anyone curious about the new map...

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Grain of Salt]

I like the parts of 18 that look like a medieval storehouse.

 

[j4rio]

Seems like the new monster is broken in prb+ 2.5.1.3 and older, but works in 2.5.1.4 for some reason.

[3saster]

3 hours ago, j4rio said:

Seems like the new monster is broken in prb+ 2.5.1.3 and older, but works in 2.5.1.4 for some reason.

I haven't played it yet dude! Spoilers :P

[Arbys550]

1 hour ago, 3saster said:

I haven't played it yet dude! Spoilers :P

Yeah, same. I would have liked to have been surprised.

[j4rio]

Oh just shut up, its written right there in the txt file.

[Arbys550]

3 hours ago, j4rio said:

Oh just shut up, its written right there in the txt file.

Oh i didn't see that. Fair enough.

 

For some reason my laptop is completely conking out on this map and all the previous sunder maps too. I guess I'm due for an upgrade.

[3saster]

3 hours ago, j4rio said:

Oh just shut up, its written right there in the txt file.

The text file also warns about spoilers :P I dont really care tbh, but it would have been a nice surprise for when I get to play the level

[Death Egg]

Can't play the level atm, what's the new monster look like?

[Gez]

6 hours ago, Death Egg said:

Can't play the level atm, what's the new monster look like?

Spoiler

It's a giant demonic wasp centaur with a rocket launcher hand

 

[Krull]

.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Archviler]

18 looks pretty awesome. I only skipped through briefly since I won't have time to play it for awhile.

Spoiler

I really like the new monster's visual effects (no comment on gameplay yet since I just wanted to see what it was). Will it be added to map 14 as well?

 

[SiFi270]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

  Hide contents

It's a giant demonic wasp centaur with a rocket launcher hand

 

Spoiler

Way back when Sunder was seemingly as finished as it would ever be, and map14 was the last map, I remember finding a video of it on Youtube (unfortunately, I can't find it now) with a comment saying D64's Mother Demon would fit that map. I wonder if that was the inspiration for this?

 

[Hard2Poop]

WEW! A new map! Sergeant Mark IV just came out with a mod specifically designed for slaughter maps, too! It's appropriately called "Meatgrinder."

I never got very far in my Sunder playthrough. I only beat levels 1-3 I think, and map 11... like 6 years ago, I randomly discovered Sunder Map 11 on youtube, and that video single-handedly got me interested in playing Doom again, after almost 20 years :). Armed with the knowledge that easy difficulty will double my effective hitpoints and double my ammunition, as well as being armed with a deadly new gameplay mod, I am ready to tackle the Sunder maps!

EDIT: I just wanna mention, it benefits nublets like me that Sunder doesn't have difficulty settings implemented, so that I can put it on easy for all the buffs without affecting the monster count

Edited December 19, 2019 by Hard2Poop : adding something i forgot

[Arbys550]

I was finally able to play maps 15 and 18 after a hardware upgrade. Map15 is awesome and mindblowingly epic! Although I will say, the ending fights were pretty easy in comparison to some of the earlier stuff. Map18 I had a lot of trouble on, especially the final fight in the black TV section. Hoo boy that one was tough. Map18 overall was a tough one for me and probably the new hardest map in my book. The hive area seemed a lot easier than the other two paths.

[Archviler]

I'm plunking away at map 18, don't have a ton of time to devote to it but it's fun. I love the style so far, and there's one point in particular that I feel makes this map stand out. There's an element of choice to it rare in Sunder maps. From the luxury of choosing in what order you do the key paths to options to unleash boxed cybers at your discretion, it helps support the fragmentary feel of the map as well as make it stand out from other maps. It feels distinct from the last several maps, Sunder's very good at each map being a whole, distinct world to explore.

 

I've cleared the first part as well as begun the village-ish section. There doesn't seem to be a BFG in the map (according to the wiki anyway), though casual experimenting in between real tries shows that the run section can be completely neutered by one at the start of it. A nice bonus for continuous players, I suppose. I'm at the battle just beyond that, at what looks to be the actual village. I'm not such a fan of that fight, it feels rough. I may be approaching it wrong, though, or merely on a run of bad luck.

[Khaoscythe]

So Map 18 is a real piece of work... and I mean that in a bad way for multiple reasons. The start is pretty damn obnoxious as one wrong step (or getting smacked by a Revenant projectile) sends you plummeting to your death, so you're forced to be fast here. One thing that I do want to point out is that it's possible for the player to fall whilst hugging a column/wall and dropping onto an edge of some sort without hitting the bottom of the pit and taking damage, probably intentional but either way it's a hard restart once you fall and it's annoying. Besides that the starting section as a whole (beginning as well as the dual Cybie fight) can be traversed with ease once you figure out your angles in relation to the Cybie far far away from your position.

 

From the hub area you have a nice selection of challenges to tackle in whatever order you please. I opt to getting the RK area out of the way first because it's the easiest (imo) after you get used to how the fights play out... and speaking of the fights in the RK area the Hive Mother demon is a pain in the ass to deal with (until you realize that the projectiles are very easy to dodge when you know they are coming). The attack where it shoots a barrage of rockets is a problem especially if fired from far away since the rocket color blends in with the Hive Mother sprite so you can't really see them coming and you don't hear the audio cue signifying that particular attack.. it has caught me off guard on more than a few occasions. Up close it is comparable to DVII's Afrit in that you will be completely melted even at 200/200. Pretty sure this thing melts Cyberdemons faster than the Afrit. The Hive Mother also has moments where it gains some sort of speed burst and moves at a rapid pace at random, something else to look out for.

 

Anyway, the new demon is annoying at best.. it's like Doom touhou all over again. The Cybies in one of the encounters don't even get to do much with a swarm of Hive Mothers getting rid of them almost instantly without losing a single one from their ranks. They're not too tanky though so at least there's that. Nevertheless the entire RK section can be trivialized once you figure out what exactly you need to be doing, and said strats can be done very consistently (no bullshit RNG to deal with where you have to replay a section hundreds of times before you figure it out, like many other sections of Sunder). I like the RK area as a whole, a shame that I don't see much more of the Hive Mother outside of this section.

 

The YK area looks really good, and most of the fights have consistent strats to handle them without too much trouble, sans one specific encounter that took me a few days to figure out (the fight in the town after the Arch-Vile RUN section). That portion of the YK area can kiss my ass, and whoever stated for me to stick to the middle during streamed attempts well... screw staying in the middle, never worked out for me. Eventually I found a consistent strat to beating that area that didn't require me to stick to the middle whatsoever, hell it's even possible to do it without letting all of the Cybies out of their boxes...

 

Which brings me to the final fight in the YK area where I dragged a leftover Cybie from the previous town fight into the church area in one of my attempts (at least I would assume that it's a church on the side of town). I had some issues dealing with this next fight (whether I had 3 or 4 Cybies helping with the masses) until one of the Arch-Viles in the cages showed me the way to beating the encounter (literally). There wasn't a clear indicator where I had to use the edges of the church to circle around the mob while they infight so it was very tilting to deal with (thanks Arch-Vile). Overall, screw the YK area despite it having consistent strats to dealing with each section.

 

The BK area was way more tilting to deal with in retrospect to me playing this map (even though it was the second of the three key areas I inevitably completed, the YK town area gave me a very hard time). The first fight required a LOT of trial and error, as I already assumed that one would have to utilize the upper area with the AVs to navigate around the room without getting pinned by the Cyberdemons. Problem here is if you tried to jump off that ledge where the Mega Armor resides you'd find yourself blocked by *actors being infinitely tall* (assuming the player is playing Sunder the INTENDED way and not some nonsense to make it 'easier' or 'change in-game behaviors'). Took me about a day to figure it out, and the strat isn't as consistent as the other areas since you'll have to have some really good reaction time and not get blindsided by rockets until the mobs are positioned to where you can run laps around the area and not be blocked when jumping off the AV/MA ledge.

 

The next couple of sections weren't too difficult to figure out. The AV/Imp ambush takes a lot of careful positioning, while the fight after that has a consistent strat I used which requires bum rushing the ledge AVs and some heavy camping. The final BK fight was very difficult at first, at one point I found myself stuck in the Cyberdemon box with a single Cybie and a ton of demons flooding into the cramped space... lasted for about 5 minutes before I died. Speaking of the Cyberdemon box that is the players ticket to beating that nasty encounter so yeah there's a consistent strat to that room as well. I hated the BK area as a whole at first (especially the first fight) but eventually I've come to terms with the difficulty after figuring out ways to beating each section.

 

Overall I said that I hate this map and have stated that, like Map 05, I would never touch it again after beating it... that was a lie. The RK area is too fun to just pass up like that, though I'm just not a fan of the platforming in general. The entire aesthetic of the map is quite interesting to say the least and I would like to see more of it in future maps (without the god awful russian roulette platforming). The one thing that plagues some of the other Sunder maps doesn't seem to be present here (by that I speak of the extremely randomized demon spawns in regards to how monster closets are designed and demons free-roaming within them, jumbling up the 'order' in which they're supposed to spawn... looking at you Map 17) so that's a plus, we need less of that nonsense as this game is already enough of an RNG-fiesta.

 

Now I'm just going to sit here and wait until someone does a TAS UV-Max of this map... shouldn't be too difficult. 7/10

[NuMetalManiak]

Up to MAP31 now. I could have sworn however after I exited the secret exit on MAP15, it said that I was entering The Harlot's Garden (which is supposed to be MAP32). That should be fixed so it says I enter House of Corrosion.

 

Was actually able to play MAP15 in GZDoom using software rendering and window mode for some reason. I don't know if it is even playable in hardware mode last I checked.

 

NEW BUG: Exited MAP31, said I finished The Harlot's Garden, and it took me straight to MAP30 instead of where it was supposed to go (MAP32).

Edited December 29, 2019 by NuMetalManiak : just got past MAP31

[Insane_Gazebo]

16 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

NEW BUG: Exited MAP31, said I finished The Harlot's Garden, and it took me straight to MAP30 instead of where it was supposed to go (MAP32).

 

Looks like there were some typos in my MapInfo that I overlooked. I'll make sure that's fixed. Thanks.

 

I've made some progress on Map19 as well:

 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP17: it's possible to fall in sector 3883 (an undamaging inescapable sector)

[Tango]

new shots look fantastic, love those autumn leaves textures! haven't gotten to fully playing map18 yet but from a quick glance in-game, it looks cool as hell

[Insane_Gazebo]

5 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

MAP17: it's possible to fall in sector 3883 (an undamaging inescapable sector)

 

Yeah, that one got reported to me in PMs. That and all its neighbours have been fixed. Thanks, though.

[Archviler]

On 12/27/2019 at 5:14 AM, Khaoscythe said:

The YK area looks really good, and most of the fights have consistent strats to handle them without too much trouble, sans one specific encounter that took me a few days to figure out (the fight in the town after the Arch-Vile RUN section). That portion of the YK area can kiss my ass, and whoever stated for me to stick to the middle during streamed attempts well... screw staying in the middle, never worked out for me. Eventually I found a consistent strat to beating that area that didn't require me to stick to the middle whatsoever, hell it's even possible to do it without letting all of the Cybies out of their boxes...

 

Yeah, I'd second your comments on that fight. The area looks great but it's really a miserable place to fight in. With everything going on, that fight crosses over from  good hard to annoying hard. I tried staying in the middle as well and it's never come remotely close to a successful run. It's so tight that whenever you have to move positions, I feel like it crosses the line from feeling like 'hard but skill based' to 'hard but luck based', and more importantly, simply isn't an enjoyable fight because of it. There's just too many narrow passages and clutter, it felt frustrating rather than challenging.

 

Spoiler

When I won, it's because I bum rushed the switches, got lucky and was able to escape before it became a complete death trap. I used some of the space in the next area and things worked out. I'm not sure if that's intended or if I just had a really lucky run, though. I haven't felt like redoing that fight.  I do wonder if it is, since there's extra rockets atop the walls.

 

[Arbys550]

I was able to figure out a good strategy for the fight everyone's been talking about. I don't really remember but I think I started up towards the final area, killed that archvile, then headed down i think the north side to the cacos, then down to the area where i think imps teleport in. I stood there camping for a while, then, just as I was about to get cornered, I escaped using the fenced in areas. By then everyone had teleported out and it was a circle strafe until everyone was dead. I don't think I let out any cybers before hand.

[Archviler]

Possible bug report. In the map 18 yellow key arena, if you go back to look out the bars after you go up to the thrones but before you hit the switch, you can see black sky bars.

 

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

Level 15 is now up.

 

[Arbys550]

I just finished playing map13 and there are some bugs. In the penultimate pair of fights there are linedefs that are supposed to close doors behind you. They can easily be skipped. I accidentally did it twice, once on both sides. The switches that open the doors are repeatable, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal, except on the west fight, I was fast enough to escape back into the hub room before the door could close and lock me in. So I was essentially stuck outside the fight and the door leading to the final fight was barred as well, so I was softlocked.

 

Also I would recommend adding some ammo in the first fight after you leave the first hub because right now there is literally no ammo there at all. If you don't want to add ammo, then you could at least move some there from other parts of the map.

[Magicana]

15 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

I just finished playing map13 and there are some bugs. In the penultimate pair of fights there are linedefs that are supposed to close doors behind you. They can easily be skipped. I accidentally did it twice, once on both sides. The switches that open the doors are repeatable, so it wouldn't be that big of a deal, except on the west fight, I was fast enough to escape back into the hub room before the door could close and lock me in. So I was essentially stuck outside the fight and the door leading to the final fight was barred as well, so I was softlocked.

 

Also I would recommend adding some ammo in the first fight after you leave the first hub because right now there is literally no ammo there at all. If you don't want to add ammo, then you could at least move some there from other parts of the map.

 

I've just finished map13, and I have the same complaints. I managed to skip BOTH SIDES, but luckily didn't softlock myself at all. I eventually used IDCLIP to get through and reopen them with the switch, but it was pretty frustrating.

 

 

These bars that lock the final fight do not descend quickly enough - I was able to trigger them and get back behind them. There is no reason to do so - I don't think it will trigger the AV's/Cybers, and there is no way back into the room, but it is possible.

 

 

With this section (Pain elementals spawning from the lava circles, plus revenants) I was able to skip (Somehow) the linedef which dropped the bars. Aside from making the fight a lot easier, it also meant that when I went to eventually hit the switches in that room, I locked myself IN to the room. In desperation, I dropped into the lava pits hoping to end it all. And they weren't damaging.

 

I feel shitty for pointing these things out, I've really been enjoying the maps - But map13 really bugged me.

 

While I'm doing bug reports... In map14 I got blasted out a window by an AV.

 

 

 

This is the room with the megasphere and soulsphere that locks you in, spawning cacodemons, revenants and then finally Arch-Viles. I got blown out the window, then was able to drop down into the lava, take a teleport, and get back to the entrance. However, it's permanently locked. Would probably make sense (Seeing as there is no reason to get through those windows) to put an impassable line on them.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Magicana

[Arbys550]

There are a couple bugs I found in map32.

 

In the fight directly after the first huge outdoor area with a zillion cybers, You can run off the platform with the starting switch and get stuck between 3 bricks, leading to a softlock:

 

The other bug was in the start of the third or so fight, with the room before the huge fight, the one with the cyber in the stump. If you slowly creep around the right side of the ledge you drop from, you can avoid the linedef that starts the fight, and no monsters come in.

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by Arbys550

[Archviler]

I finally had time to finish map 18 and it was pretty good. Besides my comments on the town square fight above, I enjoyed everything else. The main standouts were the new monster and the last fight at the end of each section. I felt each of these fights were easier than the previous ones in the area, as well as with interesting design and ways to approach the battles.

 

Spoiler

I'm glad the YK fight was the easiest in the map, as the fight before it was an absolute killer. I went back and redid it a few times, got nowhere near consistent and firmed up my opinion that it's an ugly, ugly fight. I'd honestly suggest doing something to loosen it up. Anyway, the YK fight has a downright UnSunder-ish ability to get to cover and mostly let the fight resolve itself. The cacodemons are a minor threat, but running along the outer ring of the arena as needed sorts them out.  It was a nice change of pace in any event.

 

The RK fight was similar and employed the same basic tactic. Once you figure out that the Hive Mothers are going to mince all the other monsters, it's all about letting them sort it and then mop up. If you paid attention to how to face them earlier, this makes a lot of sense. The previous encounter with the cybers and mothers neatly illustrates this, and you can apply this point to make the fight way more manageable.

 

Meanwhile, the BK fight was my favorite of the map. Between the neat gimmick of the cyber room teleporting the cybers out and monsters in, a tactical invulnerability to use and just the right splash of archviles, I thought it was great. I also got it in about three or four tries, so that's probably influencing my opinion.  It was also the only fight (besides the town square one) where I missed a BFG.

 

My only other complaint about the map is the second to last fight in the BK area. Mixing in a few real pits with all the pits you walk atop of felt like a cheap trick. It wasn't a huge deal past the first time, but that first time felt like a legitimately cheap death. The entire section conditions you that pits are solid ground, then a few in that fight change that. 

 

Anyway, the map's good overall. A few parts could use some adjustments and polish, like the second to last YK fight, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. It's solid 9/10 for me with 10/10 visuals and a fitting music track.