Sunder - Map20 Appears, finally.

[Ribo Zurai]

Sorry for the bump, but is there any updates yet?

[pfl]

Second time on these maps. Wow for the updated new ones. Wow in general: TOTAL MASTERPIECE OF EPICNESS. This time, I played it with an AEoD5(1st release) addon, just to twist it a bit -) different gameplay since a huge amount of the monsters kill themselves in a gang but it's still challenging enough. A Nihilant attack in The CAGE is something...

BRAVO

Wondering if you intend to pursue this project further on... for some maps... or is it terminated ?

A last one... Which map was the most complicated/longest to finish ?

Thanks.

[Maes]

Was anyone able to make the Macabre3 mapset work? It looks corrupted and missing important lumps (breaks XWE, Doombuilder, prBoom+ and ZDoom lock up or crash almost immediately when trying to run it).

[Grain of Salt]

[j4rio]

Apparently someone was as there are 3 copypasted maps in chillax from macabre3 working in prb+, although it would be nice if somebody could rebuild nodes (or do smt to make it work in prb) and reupload it as it crashes db for me as well.

[Insane_Gazebo]

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

Here's every version of Macabre I had on my HDD :)

[pfl]

Yes, a minor bug on the Furnace... and yet some other ones in this vein elsewhere; I have an aptitude to reach areas that weren't meant to be reached, so, early in the level, you can easily jump from where the teleporter sent you, take a fast run to get down on the raised block without activating it down first. As a result, you'll end up climbing left and right the pattern with no monsters to fight and, just before the end, you'll get stuck with no exit a some point. Minor but existing...

Some other things like that happened in Pale Monument and elsewhere with no memories of the exact place. I'll get back here when I find out, soon or later. You reach areas with luck or hability and you eventually get stuck for not having activated an earlier switch. I guess this is the only issue of these (maps??!) Masterpieces.

[Marcaek]

The interior of Macabre map04 is pretty neat. There's a lot of rough edges in that WAD, being a set of scraps. Interesting to run through it regardless.

EDIT: I'm up to Precarious now. It would be neat if there were interconnecting platforms and recesses in the castle, like an extended part of the level. Metal Descendants was hilarious and brutal.

[Xaser]

So, I managed to get through the wad, though I may have cheated a bit. :P

It was definitely fun as hell going through it, even though I'm very much not the target audience here (not a slaughterfan). Still, the maps were absolutely beautiful in some of the most mind-boggling ways (the intricacy of Hive Mother is obscene) and the hordes provided a nice testing ground for plenty o' nukes. :P

If I had one complaint, it'd be the difficulty of moving on from one area to the next. j4rio's earlier comment about the maps being "very far from being even remotely close to be called a switch hunt" leads me to believe that he has the patience of a monk. Granted, it's not super-terrible, though Precarious and The Cage really kicked my ass in this regard. I'm also not convinced that the really long lowering-times are necessary with multiple switches, though I say that having blazed through the fights. Guess it's a necessary evil -- there are some very tenacious speedrunners out there. :P

I did notice that the overall progression/flow/etc. started to improve a lot in the newer maps. From Zealous Machine onwards I neither got lost nor felt that I was just being shunted from one arena into the other (not that the latter feeling is against what the wad's trying to achieve ;). MAP12 in particular was a joy to play through for some reason I can't put my finger on. Probably my favorite in the set, though the two following it were top-notch as well.

So yeah, great stuff after all. I still can't fathom how people are able to play it with stock equipment, but that just makes the resulting demos all the more awesome. Can't wait for the next dose. :P

[j4rio]

Welp topic got bumped so I'll just post all things that were bugging me (bugs).

map 2 - HK trap room needs more lines that activate the said trap. You can quite easily skip that trap if you know exact line placement.
Check su02-728 at dsda.

map 5 - Block lines !1!11! Whole last battle room has to be surrounded with block lines - inner as well as outer part of it. It's incredibly likely that monsters during infights fall into lava due to boom, which makes speedrunning in certain categories impossible. It would theoretically block PEs, but it's unlikely that any would be still alive by this point if you weren't cheating.

map 8 - stuck cybie ... boo :P

map 9 - I'd say battles in this map need some more strategy. When compared to maps 7 or 8, it seems rather random. Fight with 2 cybs and million pigs teleporting in can be "broken" by entering their teleport line, then running back. They'll slaughter themselves and all you had to do was stand back and watch. That way you'll get an additional unneeded invul. The next fight with bunch of stuff and 2 cybies teleporting in is, well, weird. Stairs in the middle block anything from cornering you, so again, stand back and enjoy the show. Maybe removing those stairs in the middle completely would spice things up. Then following cacos / PEs - line that activates them to teleport is easy to miss if you jump onto their platform diagonally, and if you miss, well, it's restart time. Also the switch lowers for too long. There is also one lift further in map, somewhere before you get BFG, which is set to be usable only once. That's about it, I think.

Map 10 - I think I've covered this before. Caged imps and billion HKs parts could use some tweaking.

Map 13 - 2 PEs in dummy room are stuck.

Map 14 - Honeycomb traps are set to damaging warping sectors. You can basically exit level once you fall into them. I noticed few in the RL area, but there may be more somewhere else, as I haven't checked entire map for them.

[Leo Sosnine]

A great megawad, just finished it. Completely insane slaughter. Continue that way, author!

[gamul312]

Hi - just wanted to say these maps are amazing!! I came across this thread after playing Doom again recently in ChocoDoom, and then wanting to make Q1 maps. But specifically how I came across this thread was from here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/57839-i-challenge-you-to-a-wad-with-these-colours/ which is a thread relegated to the Hell section, so I'm glad you guys don't delete threads like many forums, because there's so many Doom WADs out there I may never have come across Sunder!! (Watching a YouTube video of Map 11 didn't hurt, but that was AFTER I clicked on the old locked thread).

[Leo Sosnine]

The wad currently contains 10 fiercly difficult maps to test the skills of even some of the most hard-core doomers out there.

Megawad isn't that hardcore. Just finished it for a second time and I have to say:

1. There are hardly any monsters there. Add moar!
2. Not many cybies and spiders. Although spiders can be met from time to time, a spider is a rare thing. Add moar!
3. Not difficult enough. Of course, you can't play it on NM, but on UV for a second time it becomes too easy.
4. Too much ammo & powerups. For a second time it's not unusual that your health & armor is always around 200% and your ammo is full. I think that ammo should be reduced to a bit above zero at least in some levels. Other way supershotgun (not saying about chaingun) and provoking monster infighting becomes useless, cause you can BFG everyone.

I request moar monstaz, moar hardcore, moar traps and moar cybies & spiders, moar slaughter!

[SAV88]

Leo Sosnine said:

Of course, you can't play it on NM

Many (if not all) of Sunder's maps are completable on NM with a good strategy and enough persistence, just like most maps of HR and H2. For example, Oku "Okuplok" Plok finished Sunder MAP04 on skill 5.

[tempun]

Leo Sosnine said:

Megawad isn't that hardcore.

Mind making some demos?

[Leo Sosnine]

tempun said:

Mind making some demos?

I guess I'll start playing it on NM, I love this megawad. If only I can plot a nice route on a first level and execute it from start to finish without saving/loading -- it will be a nice result and it will be a demo.

[SAV88]

Good luck, Leo! I suggest posting your runs in the Doom Speed Demos forum, in the Sunder thread.

[Coolster]

Links are dead (at least the one for 1.4.1)

[Gez]

Coolster said:

Links are dead (at least the one for 1.4.1)

All locker services are restricting downloads to the uploader in the wake of Megaupload's takedown.

You can still get it from wadhost.

[DeletedUser]

Insane_Gazebo said:

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

Here's every version of Macabre I had on my HDD :)

Could you re-upload this please?

[Grain of Salt]

[Pedro VC]

Wadhost is down too, any other mirrors?

[Guest]

Dammit! Everytime I see this thread bumped, I secretly hope for the announcement that the full 32 level megawad is now ready for download.

*sigh*

Disappointed again.

Guess I'll just have to go back and play through all the current amazing levels for like the fifth time.

[Insane_Gazebo]

KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

Dammit! Everytime I see this thread bumped, I secretly hope for the announcement that the full 32 level megawad is now ready for download.

*sigh*

Disappointed again.

Guess I'll just have to go back and play through all the current amazing levels for like the fifth time.

Hehe, sorry Kyka and all the rest hanging out for this. I've had very little time to map lately, and as a result, not a great deal of will to actually map either.

There also hasn't been a great deal of mapping in recent months which I've found awfully inspiring either, which I also suspect hasn't helped. (With a few exceptions, of course.)

My next map might be for one of the slaughter fests - something fairly simple to get me back into the whole thing.

I'll re-upload the old sunder.rar in a moment.

[Insane_Gazebo]

Right. I can't actually edit the OP any more because I've let it sit for so damn long. Here's the old Sunder.rar anyway, with the partly complete readme and all that.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/92wc8j

[Gez]

Pedro VC said:

Wadhost is down too

"Wadhost has been disabled due to a terms of service violation. Your files will be taken down. I'm really sorry guys, it's out of my hands. :( I have local backups of everything if you need anything specific. I may revive things soon, but I will need to find an affordable host meeting my bandwidth needs."

[Ubik]

I have a confession to make:

I LOVE Sunder's architecture, but I HATE its gameplay.

The layouts are superb, the flow is excellent, the atmosphere and detail are phenomenal. Hive Mother has some of the coolest detailing I've ever seen in a Doom map.

But, since I'm not a super-über-hyper-skilled player, the difficulty leaves me cold. I've beaten HR and HR2, and DV and DVII, entirely legit, but I find some maps in Sunder completely impossible. Maybe it's because I simply don't play as much Doom as I used to, but there are portions where I'm stymied as to how it's even halfway possible to survive. The second-to-last arena in MAP12/The Zealous Machine, for instance, just makes no sense to me: All the Revenants appear already activated, and even rushing to the switch and getting all the Barons/HKs/Cacos/Cybers into the arena still leaves you swamped by the Revenants, no matter how much tiresome BFG circle-strafing you do. And forget about the dozen-plus AVs later on in Hive Mother.

That wouldn't frustrate me so much if every map weren't a hunt-and-peck switch hunt, forcing you to zoom across the map squinting to see some microscopic switch to continue. The number of strangely-located/distant switches in maps like Furnace just makes it a giant chore, and the teeny-tiny-microscopic switch in the last arena of Hive Mother is unforgivable. I literally thought the map was bugged and uncompletable until I started wall-humping everything and happened upon the switch by accident. That's simply bad design, if you ask me.

The infighting isn't even well-implemented. In several maps, groups of monsters are arranged and activated in a way obviously intended to instigate massive infighting, but things play out much differently. I'm again reminded of the part of The Zealous Machine I already mentioned, but also of the Caco/Arachno/Cyber trap in MAP08/Pale Monument. Infighting between those groups is obviously intended, but the Cacos are packed so densely and deeply that 90% of them never get hit by the other monsters and immediately home in on the player. Likewise, many fights in Hag's Finger, Hive Mother and elsewhere result in numerous leftover Cybers, resulting in more endless bouts of BFG circle-strafing. HR, AV, DV and many other "megahard" WADs tend to have better-executed monster infighting and arena fighting.

Some people have argued against implementing difficulty levels, but I think it would go a long way towards giving the maps a larger audience. There's no need to drastically cut monster count, but cutting it by a certain percentage and putting more health powerups down would go a long way towards making the maps more feasible, and more appealing to a larger audience. Not everything has to pander to the super-elite speedrunners - a lot of us just play Doom in our free time when we're not occupied with things like, you know, jobs. I would like to be able to enjoy Insane_Gazebo's obvious talent without having to be a military supercomputer. You can still have the gigantic arena slaughter fights that make up Sunder's focus without having them be unreasonably difficult.

I know this is a lot of bitching, but it's frustrating to see design this excellent marred by what I see as ridiculously unfair difficulty. I'm sick in general of the "difficulty inflation" I keep seeing in game modders and indie designers, from ROMhacks to Doom WADs to other small projects. I believe it takes a lot more skill to make a genuinely well-balanced and enjoyable gaming experience than something stupidly difficult for the sake of being stupidly difficult.

[Leo Sosnine]

Ubik said:

But, since I'm not a super-über-hyper-skilled player, the difficulty leaves me cold.

What about playing it on lower difficulty levels? Or playing it first without monsters at all, just to get it familiar with a map. That way you won't need looking for a switch with a dozen cybies on pursuit.

And I have to admit, that sunder is a rare case of a really difficult megawads. It is so many easy wads to play and not much ones like sunder.

Above I even complained about sunder not difficult enough and requested more difficulty.

And I received an obvious suggestion to play it on NM. So I started playing it on NM.

[Phml]

I'm no elite speedrunner and I do have a job - as far as I know, you can't get a paycheck for playing Doom, but if anyone has any insight on that front, I'm all ears - yet I can beat Sunder. So the idea one needs to have godlike skill and endless amounts of free time to beat this wad is hard to buy, knowing there are so many people out there who can humble me when it comes to gaming.

Mindless BFG circlestrafing does tend to make many Sunder maps much harder than they actually are if you just think it through. That Map12 fight you mentioned, for example; with a slight adjustement in tactics, still running in circles around the revenants but carefully balancing position and movement as to optimize each shot and minimize splash damage (once you're out of cells and have to use the RL) is enough to make winning this part a near guarantee.

Going for the switch right away is in my opinion a death wish if you're already having trouble dealing with revenants, basically turning an entirely predictable and manageable fight into a chaotic infighting situation, high-risk due to cybie rockets and likely to get swamped between the limited space and every monster being high tier.

However, it is certainly more fun than spending 2 minutes circling around revenants, and that's where the interesting part is to me. Rather than a tedious process where I just have to shoot things until they're dead, it becomes a balancing act, with me having to gauge how confident do I feel in my abilities, whether I have already killed enough revenants to go for the switch, and once the entire horde is out, managing cybie rockets, BFG shots and my own movement to maximize infighting while leaving enough open room to be able to sneak through in the temporary holes that form here and there as monsters are consistently moving or getting killed, without getting overwhelmed or plain killed myself. This is the part where someone looking over my shoulder might just see "mindless BFG circlestrafing", whereas there's several different priorities in my head, all juggling together and each of these adjusting on the fly.

This is the kind of gaming experience I just can't find in most wads. That isn't to say these aren't enjoyable. Doom gets the weapons, the player movement and the monster behavior well enough that even maps made as buildings or places first, with monsters placed as an afterthought out of concept or of some sort of inadequate ammo/health/foe equation can still have good entertainment value. At the same time, it is nice sometimes to have a little more meat to the game, and to have the option to do so with wads like Sunder - or Scythe 2, or Vanguard, or... I would like to say "the list goes on", but it's painfully short in my opinion ; to have that option, of a well-balanced experience on a higher level, rather than awkwardly tacked on difficulty like NM, changing so much and in such a blunt and global way it might as well be a different game.

I'm all for easier difficulties. I think I argued for it earlier. I don't think Sunder is a flawless masterpiece of game design, either ; but I don't believe you can dismiss specific fights if you don't even fully understand the dynamics involved, nor imply the whole wad is difficulty for the sake of difficulty when the fights work so well for some of us. Personally, I strongly dislike hard stuff. Enjoyable gaming, to me, is about the illusion of challenge and overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, and Sunder fits that bill very well most of the time, just like Doom 1 did once upon a time.

Ultimately, I don't think anyone is stopping you from playing on ITYTD ; and/or cracking open an editor and making quick edits yourself. If it's a simple matter of throwing a few more powerups or removing some monsters to make this enjoyable for yourself, why not do just that? If I recall correctly, Insane_Gazebo's stance on lower difficulties was that he wouldn't mind, but with his very limited free time he'd rather make new maps than do that.

[Death Egg]

I'm honestly kind of surprised nobody has attempted to make an easier version of Sunder yet, since the text file allows anyone to edit it...