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Insane_Gazebo

Sunder - Map20 Appears, finally.

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4 hours ago, Kyoh1 said:

Another thing I noticed:

 

On the last level of one of the tower, there are 3 different kinds of demons (6 revs, 1 hive mother and a pack of HKs in the left corner).

You can shoot them without having them being wary of your presence as long as you stay on the lift.

Not cheesing the fight much, but it gives you free space and widens your escaping route.

 

Screenshot_Doom_20200423_152257.png.086a46f417c67ee2bf5f1cc8039ad9a4.png

 

If I designed that map myself, I would have just left that alone because players need some kind of a reliable strategy on how to go about getting through the battle without dying.

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Hello, I finally created an account after hovering this topic for years (and performing rituals for its revival). I just want to add my meager contribution and help what I consider the greatest Doom wad to achieve perfection (or close enough). From someone who usually never give thanks: my thanks to Insane_Gazebo for these maps and what they brought to the wad's world.

 

I will try to avoid writing a novel as per usual. Small problems I found (I'm playing with GLBoom+ complevel 9):

- MAP19 City: after the small outdoor fight in a small area with crates and surrounded by wires, you go up a stair and an elevator into a room, and there are arch-viles and revenants spawning behind a bar counter (picture 1, around sector 11509). I got blasted by an arch-vile out of the window, and couldn't get back to the room. I was playing with IDDQD (don't judge me), but I guess it could happen to someone in good shape.

- MAP16 Gnarled King: while replaying it, the area with the bone pyramid felt empty (picture 2, around sector 6979). After finishing the map I came back with IDCLIP (don't judge me), and the last ~100 monsters eventually spawned. It seems I somehow skipped the trigger linedef the first time, I don't know how.

- It has been already said I think, but House Of Corrosion is called Wolfenstein in the minimap, and leaving it says "Entering House Of Corrosion".

- It seems the soft lock I found at the very beginning of The Cage has already been fixed, because I can't throw myself into the ammo closet anymore (there is an invisible wall).

 

If I may add some suggestions to Sunder in general:

- As someone already said: the new green blend well in general, but I think too that Python doesn't look as good as with "greener" greens.

- No Hive Mothers in Hive Mother? I think even adding a lone one at the end could serve as a good introduction to the enemy without having to rework too much fights. But I just saw the sign at the entrance of the hive part of The Singing Void, so maybe there is a kind of backstory about why it doesn't appear sooner?

- Since you finally added one of your planned custom enemy, do you have any plan about the other one (the Hag), or maybe you are keeping the enemy slot for something else in the future?

- Call me maniac: I liked how maps 01 to 10 had a red sky, and 11 and onward had a orange sky (Singing Void doesn't count). I thought maps 21 to 30 would have a green sky, effectively giving Sunder a mirrored sky pattern of Speed Of Doom, a detail I found very cool. However, the first patch resurrecting Sunder changed the orange sky of The Furnace to a red one, crushing sundering my hopes and dreams.

- Speaking of dreams: the biggest I have with Sunder would be one secret per map; even the kind of secret which would give nothing more than a blue potion and a nice view. But I reckon it would be a lot of work, especially given the attention you gave to the one in Babylon, even from a gameplay perspective (I found it because I knew you would allow a UV-Max on the map, reducing my area of research).

- On the topic of accessibility, sometimes evoked: I don't think difficulty settings are a priority, mostly because it is a part of Sunder's identity (and a big part of the menacing aura of the maps). I think a fan project reducing the monster count on a separate wad would be a more natural development (and calling this wad "Crack" or something like that). Since I'm very vulnerable to motion sickness, my only grudge with Sunder would be this god damned switch hunt which can be very tedious in some maps when you don't know where to find them. The gameplay reason is obvious, but I keep wondering if there exist a magic solution to make the switches more visible.

- I guess the problems evoked with the Hive Mother could be partially resolved by giving it a clear "place" in the Doom monster hierarchy. Anyway, I think reducing the amount of projectiles, even reducing the rockets to one, would make the monster more "classy" without losing much in lethality. Given is health stats and damage output, I would see the Hive Mother as a link between the hardest basic monsters, and the two bosses.

 

I will avoid further commenting on gameplay, as Sunder is still far out of my reach difficulty wise. I can only UVMax the first two maps without saves, but The Dreaming Garden is a wall (I should try using saves I guess).

 

And I still wrote a novel. I hope it will at least add to the discussion.

1..png

2..png

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4 hours ago, Yami said:

- MAP16 Gnarled King: while replaying it, the area with the bone pyramid felt empty (picture 2, around sector 6979). After finishing the map I came back with IDCLIP (don't judge me), and the last ~100 monsters eventually spawned. It seems I somehow skipped the trigger linedef the first time, I don't know how.[/quote]

 

I stumbled on that recently myself and haven't gotten around to posting about it. One of the wood platforms that leads you to that area has the trigger for the monsters there, but if you juuuuust barely clip the edge and go right to the next platform, you won't trigger it. It lets you skip the entire fight.

 

Between that and being able to archvile jump out a window and escape the area just before it, you can skip 3 fights in a row if you do it right. 3 of the harder fights in the map, no less.

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On 8/16/2019 at 12:04 PM, Arbys550 said:

Just finished map17 yesterday and i gotta say this is the most fun i had in a sunder map in a long time! The other new maps had some really frustrating parts that got me stressed, but this one was just an all out fun experience.

 

One concern i have is that some of the early fights it seems there is just way too much ammo, especially the first fight indoors. i had tons and tons of cells and rockets left over.

 

Also I have no idea what the intended strat is for the crusher section but i ran out of ammo real quick. I had to camp for about 20 mins waiting for upwards of 80 monsters to get crushed on a crusher that you may have forgot to put block lines on, im not sure. (crusher is sector 12034, i camped in the room with sector 13472)

 

And then for the last fight, i cant really say much cause i didnt do it as intended. After ten or so tries, i was convinced it was impossible until i noticed the outside. I crept around the outside and was able to straferun back into the massive cacodemon arena from earlier.

 

From there i was able to camp safely until most monsters killed themselves. It wasnt until i re-entered the arena that i noticed the teleporters in the back so maybe now i can give it a proper try.

 

All in all i enjoyed it a lot and visuals were outstanding as always.

 

I think the intended strategy for the crusher part in level 17 is stay in the room with the megasphere where the barons are and just wait until the crushers take out the enemies (you would still have to kill the enemies that enter your territory). If you tried to do any other method, you will run out of ammunition very quickly and die. Therefore, I would suggest to Insane_Gazebo that the crushers that do not have the block monsters set be left alone. You will need the resources so that you can go back and gather them when you need them for the final fight. To me and other players, it is important to have reliable strategies in place so that the players do not get frustrated when it comes to playing the maps. I'm all about challenge but I'm also about balance. If the newer versions of this wad get released, I would suggest that level 17 be left alone because there are strategies that I've learned as I played through and recorded a demo of it and that I have spent almost a week trying to record a successful demo (beat the map without dying or saving under normal cases). I honestly despise it whenever I upload a play through on my channel on YouTube and the map gets changed afterwards to where you can't use the strategies that I used in my video. I've played the map enough times and I don't want to have to redo the whole thing when I have already spent days trying to beat it.

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Just finished MAP18 (none of the others yet), and it was really fun, but I managed to get stuck. After clearing the hive area, I went back to get the megasphere that I left in the first arena (with the four hive mothers), and I couldn't get back out, as the way forward was blocked. I had to reload an earlier save.

 

I really liked the different aesthetics for the three key areas. My favorite was probably the TV one, because it felt like an area from a horror map. I also like the new style of window that you're putting in the newer maps. In this map especially, it felt like something has melted holes in the metal walls not long before I arrived and the edges are still red hot.

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On 4/10/2020 at 1:07 PM, Krull said:

Got stuck on the staircase fight near the beginning, playing with the latest GLBoom - the wall(s) won't lower, and there doesn't seem to be a switch anywhere. I didn't want to open it up in DoomBuilder and spoil the map, but I assume this is a complevel issue with voodoo dolls? What is the compatibility level for this, anyway?

 

I don't know if this is the same issue but I believe I got softlocked in the same place.

I couldn't hack the fight on the staircase so I ran out before the upper wall raised, I think this locked me out.

 

Here is an FDA, skill 1 with saves that ends in what I believe is the softlock,

Using Sunder 2308.zip I downloaded from the OP yesterday.

No complevel specified, I recorded with glboom-plus 2.5.1.7um but I made sure it also runs in glboom-plus 2.5.1.4

 

duckSunderMap19softLock.zip

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3 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

If you tried to do any other method, you will run out of ammunition very quickly and die.

Yes, this is true for the old version but for the newest version all of my nitpicks that you quoted are pretty much obsolete, as the crusher area is way easier now.

 

Also this is just me but If you dont like it when maps get changed after a playthrough then it would probably be best to wait until the final release to do a max.

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4 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

 I honestly despise it whenever I upload a play through on my channel on YouTube and the map gets changed afterwards to where you can't use the strategies that I used in my video. I've played the map enough times and I don't want to have to redo the whole thing when I have already spent days trying to beat it.

Spending that much time recording UV Max demos on maps that are susceptible to be modified is not a good idea.

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20 minutes ago, WH-Wilou84 said:

Spending that much time recording UV Max demos on maps that are susceptible to be modified is not a good idea.

@Arbys550 Here's a demo for level 17 if you want to check it out. I used version 2308 (current version). I don't think the author is going to be able to do much more on it because of the linedef count on the map (if he added more, the map would glitch out like crazy). The player isn't going to be able to survive the crushers if he or she did anything other than what I did in the demo (at least based on the layout of the spawning enemies and the amount). Even if the map does get modified after my recording, I am still keeping the version that I recorded. I still think there should be safe strategies to get through specific battles in the map, instead of dangerous ones. My only beef with this whole WAD is that the author doesn't come here often (I understand that he has stuff going on outside of this project).

0Sunder_17.zip

Edited by mArt1And00m3r11339

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On paper, mod compatibility shouldn't be an issue even now because other than one custom monster (Hive Mother) there are no modifications from base Doom gameplay, so unless the mod you want to use makes extreme changes involving different damage mechanics or rescaled HP/damage curves, Hive Mothers themselves shouldn't stick out too much. The bigger problem is the fact that ZDoom (what vast majority of gameplay mods are made for) can't deal with the new Sunder maps (MAP15 onward) too well due to their enormous size, so have fun playing on 5fps. Maps 01-14 and 31 should be fine, though.

 

As for lite version, I've talked with I_G about this before and from what I understood he'd rather just focus on making new maps and stick to just one difficulty for sake of quality and purity (and more importantly a timely release - he already spends a ton of time crafting these gargantuan levels). However, as written in the readme:

Quote

Authors MAY use this level as a base to build additional levels. Seriously, go have some fun! It's not like I'm getting paid for this.

 

Unless he changes his mind before the final release, anyone will be allowed to create and share such a lite version suited for their particular tastes and skill level. I myself have spent over a year dissecting these maps and have been experimenting with both conservative implementation of lower difficulties with limited changes to the fights' structure, as well as an alternative version with more radical restructuring of whole combat scenarios and sometimes even certain map mechanics. Perhaps I will finish and release at least the former very soon after the final release, but it definitely won't be officially endorsed and I possibly won't even be the only one working on it.

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The "lite" version would completely break intended strategies, but there's an obvious solution of just increasing amount of spheres for lower difficulties. It takes very little work and greatly expands potential audience.

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3 hours ago, tchkb said:

The bigger problem is the fact that ZDoom (what vast majority of gameplay mods are made for) can't deal with the new Sunder maps (MAP15 onward) too well due to their enormous size, so have fun playing on 5fps. Maps 01-14 and 31 should be fine, though.

Mostly true, but if you have a decent rig and use GZDoom in hardware mode, you can actually play it alright (I got away with 60 FPS at worst on all maps). That was by itself though; once you introduce big mods in, the performance is going to start to tank much more, so major mods will still not be feasible to most users on the later maps.

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Another potential solution to the difficulty issue is have other well known and respected map authors take the maps completely empty of the current monster/weapon/ammo placement and build something new from the ground up. Most people are trying to think of a solution that involves just barely modifying what is meant to be an absolute complete slugfest in it's current form. I'd like to see at least one take on the Sunder maps that has difficulty more aligned with Vela Pax. (Mechadon would be a great candidate for doing one of the difficulty settings tbh, but he's busy with Vela Pax and Supplice)

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Haven't gotten to MAP19 yet, but that being said, a rebalancing of sorts is something I would be interested in seeing as well. Starting from MAP17, I think things are just getting way out of hand at this point.

 

Things will eventually get pretty darn extreme if it keeps going like this - like, how would a potential MAP25 look like if it gets only more and more painful?

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I imagine we may be looking at a monster count near 10,000.  Although thinking back to 100,000 Revenants, I imagine that some of the grand architectural masterpieces in Sunder might be just about big enough to house 100,000 Revenants.

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Another possibility is changing every monster for lower difficulties into cyberdemons so you'll have to play uv only.

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I watched Timothy Brown's demo for map17 and there were two bugs/cheeses:

 

1. The second indoor fight can be cheesed by slowly creeping over the edge of the pillar that drops you into the arena. I think someone might have already reported this, but I wanted to say it anyway to make sure.

 

2. The first fight in the west wing can be cheesed by running over the gap to the switch from the north.

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So I'm just gonna leave this potential softlock here for Map 19:

 

When standing outside of the building housing the arena consisting of the shootable switch that activates the fight (teleporting HK's/Barons and H-Mothers on the right-hand side) and the 4 switches that release Cybies and H-Mothers, it IS possible to shoot your SSG from outside the building towards where the shootable switch is and actually activate said switch, locking you out the building as the wall raises up in front of you and putting a stop to your progression.

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I decided to play map18 again for some reason. I don't know why I said map19 was the hardest, cause this one is definitely harder. Anyway, I found two bugs:

 

In the final fight inside the castle thing on the yellow key path, you can hit the switch and run up a lift on the east side and hide behind sector 4446. I thought for sure someone reported this, but after looking through the thread I couldn't find it mentioned.

 

In the second big arena of the blue key path, I think the pits need block monster lines. I had a cyber get stuck in a pit and as we all know, cybers don't take damage from splash, so I missed a kill. I realize this fix would hinder the pain elementals from moving across the arena somewhat, but I think it's a fair trade-off personally. Also I think maybe the borders around the pits could be bolder or brighter to better communicate that they're inescapable.

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I played this wad a lot but never did an account to thanks for all your work. Just finished map 19 yesterday too and it was very funny except for some of the close encounters that were pointed above.

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I just want to say that map 19 is a masterpiece with the final fight against that cacodemon constelation. 

Apart from that, I've always wanted to say thanks to the creator of this huge wad because I've never seen an architecture of this magnitude, not even in Sunlust(which was my favorite). The architecture of map 15 , 16 , 32 ,17 ,18 and 19 are just incredible. Sometimes I just like to take a good look with all the demons from a high sight. If we've reached almost 7k monsters on the last map, I just cant imagine what kind of nightmare you are going to make us go through on the next maps since maps from 20-30 tend to be the most difficult.

 

Thanks Insane_Gazebo.

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Decided to try completing maps 17,18,19 couple days ago after a long break and probably would take another break again and continue later. Just got exhausted mostly because of practice when you saving only before the battle. I really forgot how hard new sunder maps are but like Alleus said above - the architecture is just incredible. Massive scale, distance, complexity, decor. This are the things that I visually really appreciate.

 

On 4/12/2020 at 5:01 PM, Archviler said:

I've beaten 19 and I'm not a big fan of cramped encounters, either. I'd suggest taking breaks and segmenting the map into smaller chunks. It's a long, long map and while I really like it, it's not one that's easy to get through in one sitting.  It's easy to get stuck on one encounter for a bit and worn down, and then into a spiral of worsening play because you get frustrated. The map's an endurance test, don't be afraid to take it at your own pace if things go wrong. Clarity of mind and patience are way more important in this map than finishing it in one go.

 

That's kind of what happend to me when I was progressing through map18. After testing encounters on the BSK route I got overdose of negative emotions in the massacre in front of the castle gates at the square with the fountain on the way to the YSK. At some point I felt like a rabbit when I was pinballing in that area. I couldn't pass this part as I wanted without saves and in the last attempt just rushed the switches and left the place. Afterwards I couldn't come back and clear the remaining monsters. Actually couple tries there were encouraging but still the overall impression is that it turned out to be too messy for my taste. 

 

This glitch appears on gates columns in the YSK room. Looks pretty cool from the distance.

doom24.png.cf026d54d02461119105bde6c21e6992.png

Edited by Player177 : glitch

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Alright I gotta say something. Map16 needs more ammo. Seriously. I'm playing through it for like the 5th time today and I'm getting fed up with running out of ammo every single time. It doesn't matter what I do, how many strategies I try, I run out every time. I'm really sick of it and it pretty much ruins the entire map for me. This happens to me every playthrough. Am I the only one?

 

Edit: I mean the big fight in the building after you emerge from the main building. The one with a bunch of cacos and pain elementals.

Edited by Arbys550 : forgot to say which fight

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It gets tight in the large fight just after the bfg fight. Had to make sure I wasn’t wasting any bfg/rockets there (was killing the initial cyb in that area so that thing could probably save a lot if you positioned em well at the start of the fight).

 

i remember ammo getting a tad tight in that looong breather section leading up to the bfg. Just needed to use more ssg in a couple areas.

 

That is all which comes to mind from my play throughs.

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