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Joshy

Speed of Doom feedback thread

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Inspired by the other thread with interesting discussions within about this megawad.

When SoD was released, what it felt like was I had completed a very big project in school and handed in the assessment task, only to be given a grade without the teacher's comment. I'm aching for the feedback comments, what was good or bad about it, what could've been done better, what were the common mapping mistakes you've recognised in the maps, etc etc. Which map was your most/least favourite and why. If I came across to you as an attention whore, apologies but it'd be nice to know what I can improve on (apart from the differences in taste).

Thanks.

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Well I definitely feel ya, Sometimes when you get a lot of "Great wad!" feedback, it doesn't really give you much insight on whether your wad is really as good as it sounds and kinda hinders you from doing better in the future. I usually get the same responses to a lot of my wads, with the exception of a few that absolutely hate them. (I wish I could find these people and interview them) which kinda makes ya feel like you've reached the 'peak' of your mapping potential when people can't seem to tell if there is anything bad about it. I can imagine Erik Alm hasn't been doing a lot of mapping for the same reason.

I still have to play the wad all the way through to give you a more detailed opinion about it, but I'm reluctant to do so, because ever since I started playing, I've been doing a hell of a lot more dying than progressing.

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I can see what both of you are saying, and since I have played both "Speed of Doom" and "UAC Ultra," I'd like to give my feedback on them.

Joshy's "Speed of Doom": Firstly, I want to say that it's rare that I really, really like megaWADs that go all out and have 30+ maps. But "Speed of Doom" is definitely one of the few that I actually enjoyed pretty much to the max.But It really surprised me not only with it's "Hell Revealed" style game play, but also with its undeniable quality. The levels are intricately designed, laid out, and detailed. There's not a single level in this WAD that looks ugly, and practically all of them are extremely fun, entertaining, and full of surprises. Most megaWADs either have slow starts, which impairs my opinion of them. I was completely immersed in the game play of SoD from the start, constantly finding myself faced with newer challenges that truly tested my Doom skills. There's rarely a dull moment in SoD, and, for a megaWAD, that's extremely impressive.

The game play is complex, involved, and very difficult. But, that's one of the beauties of this WAD: epic, memorable, difficult, ridiculously violent battles. I like WADs with hordes of monsters just aching to kill me, outnumbering me 100 to 1. It's exciting, thrilling, and absolutely insane.

Besides, the graphics are excellent. The levels are quite different than what I'd expect from a Doom WAD. There are a lot of underground caverns with slime waterfalls (What?), rocky walls, and carved out passages. There are some tech-type maps, some with ancient-style structures, but there's a certain unique touch to even these; you really don't feel like you've seen these textures over and over. "Speed of Doom" truly has a fresh look to go with its complex level designs and crazy monster ambushes.

The music is almost all new, save a track or two. Some tracks are eerie, some are somber but beautiful, others are dramatic, and some are geared toward high octane levels. I couldn't really find a new track I didn't like, which is a good thing. Usually, there's at least one new track that I don't like, mostly when it concerns megaWADs of this proportion.

If there's anything I don't like, I could name two flaws. Firstly, there are a couple of levels that I could live without. They aren't quite as engaging as the rest. But there are only, like, 2, and that's a lot less than usual. The second and final flaw is the overuse of Arch-Viles. Maybe it's not over-use and it's just me--I mean, this is a difficult WAD and it's not afraid to show it on Ultra-Violence. But I HATE Arch-Viles. They're completely annoying and I can't stand them--and there are a lot in "Speed of Doom." Thankfully, the rest of the WAD was great so it didn't really affect my opinions of it too much.

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40oz's UAC Ultra: "UAC Ultra" didn't grab me with it's title. I expected some generic "classic style" Doom WAD with boring textures, standard game play, and no new music. However, I was extremely surprised. Like, I was knocked off my feet when I started. The graphics are fantastic: highly-detailed, original, complex, and stunning. The lighting is dark and moody, so you really get that "Doom Gloom" feeling playing this WAD. The game play revolves around getting the three keys (which have a newer, slimmer look), but it's a lot more involved (still fun, though).

The new midi music is usually pretty good, although, there are a couple tracks I could live without (I can't remember which ones). Still, I enjoyed the fact that there was new music for such a high quality, entertaining WAD. I would have been sorely disappointed if this very original classic-type WAD had the same old Doom music. There is one map that uses the "Dead Simple" midi, but I really like that midi, so maybe it didn't really bother me.

The last handful of levels get increasingly tough, allowing the WAD to go out with a bang. The battles are truly memorable and fun, plus they keep you on your toes. There's even a bizarre new boss to fight, which is a combination of a Cyberdemon and a Hell Apprentice. It's....ugly and strange, but it glides around very quickly (almost like it's skating, which is hilarious--in a good way, of course), making it quite a dangerous foe.

There's really nothing about this WAD I don't like. A couple midis could use some replacing, but, other than that, I can't really complain. It's a nice WAD that is pretty much a classic-style setup, but it's got so much originality packed in it that you won't be sitting there going, "Well, geez, I've sure played this level before."

Final notes: I know that's a lot of text for both WAD reviews, but, you both wanted reliable, informative feedback so...there you go :p.

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I've only played through the first few levels of Speed of Doom, so I won't comment on it yet.

I can remember three specific areas that I disliked in UAC Ultra. I don't remember the specific levels but I'll list them in the order that they appeared in the wad (hope that helps). The first is the area where you fight the Cacodemons on the narrow bridge, there wasn't enough room to dodge, or any cover. It wasn't to hard to get past but it interrupted the otherwise smooth gameplay a little. The first Cyberdemon fight was annoying, the room that was way to small, I beat it by running around the corner, firing a rocket or two, and then running back. If the Cyberdemon had space to move freely it would have been much more interesting. The part that really annoyed me was the outdoor area full of damaging sectors, it was full of Barons and Hell Knights, which are to tough and hard to run past. My radiation suit kept expiring, I got stuck at one part because of that. I fell into a lava pit, and a crowd of Revenents and Hell Knights stopped me from climbing out. I just think that levels should be difficult because of the enemies, not because your radiation suit keeps expiring.

Other than that, I loved it. I've heard a few people say that it was to easy- but the difficulty settings (to me) were almost perfect. It was enough difficulty to keep me on my toes without being frustrating.

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I love the speed of doom. The doomguy moves so fast, especially when strafe-running and wallrunning and using sr50. You can really get in the monsters' faces and fight aggressively while dodging their attacks. And playing with -fast or on nightmare makes the monsters even faster and crazier and can force you to play differently. And mapping for doom can be pretty speedy too. ID Software really made the perfect game when they made Doom. Doom's speed can't be beat!

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Well this got slightly off topic in the first few posts ...

Anyway, my opinion of SoD was that some of the later slaughter maps are great, though I still haven't played through every single one. And the bullshit difficulty can be nice when you want a challenge, but some of the earlier maps are not slaughter style and I do not like bullshit moments in a style of map I think is meh. In order keep my thoughts together while I play the whole thing I'll do it in sets of 5 maps. Maybe I'll finish it this time ;)

MAP01; meh, decent map01. the berserk start would be interesting with different enemies, but it's a pain to punch imps, and the former humans aren't much better. The blue key area looked pretty cool, nothing special gameplay though. inside the base was also pretty generic HR-style. End, meh. -2/5

MAP02: nice feel to the place, the first fight is pretty cool. The elevator is a nice idea, but more could be done gameplay-wise than just using it to get to the next level. The fight after the hk's is ok, get some nice infighting off the chaingunner but that's it. Then the trap after that was annoying, having to get around the arachnotrons, but otherwise good. Then the chaingunner spam. bleh. Easy-mode mapping. Token manc doesn't really do much. So overall good map, but the end is meh.-3/5

MAP03; Liked this map, but the pistol start really bugs me. It doesn't make that much of a difference to add a shotty in, though I guess the point of pistol-starting it is to add challenge to speedrunning past the imps to the shotty anyway. Nice trap with the spectres and seargent, and the chaingunners work ok there. The slimefall room is nice, the berserk and plasma gun secrets are pretty cool. The chainsaw becomes a bit superfluous considering that secret, but I wouldn't expect people to grab the berserk first. Filler to the red key, more filler back, revenant at the top of stairs was a bit douchey. Final trap is pretty deathy unless you got the plasma gun. -3/5

MAP04: Good start with the manc and stuff after grabbing the green armor, next hallway bits has some good fighting, although I thought the chaingunner placement overlooking the backpack was a bit annoying and could potentially screw a player's first attempt. SSG fight was fun, although the baron behind got a bit annoying. Yellow key bit was nice, though maybe throw in some more bullets cause shooting sergeants with the shotgun and having the chaingun with no ammo is bad. Box of rockets and shells secret was pretty obvious. The manc and demon fight is pretty good, and the bit with the barrels after was also pretty fun, though annoying to shoot a barrel and nothing dies until you press the switch. Get rid of the see-through bit so people don't waste it. Chaingunners popping up to the right of that bit was annoying, could have used something else if not anything at all. The imp and chaingunners popups were funny though, completely nerfed through infighting. The final trap was ok, nothing special. Overall good map, few problems though.-3/5

MAP05: I did not like this map. At all. The start with the slime-river edge sucks because of its iciness, and the spidermastermind sniper destroys any outdoor fighting unless you're very careful. It was a decent way to get rid of a hell knight from the next room, though I lost at least 20 health from it. The chaingunners in the next room are fing annoying. The it with the revs is ok, but then when you open it cacos teleport in, and then I about run out of ammo. I had to trigger the next bit with hks and sergeants, let them infight while picking a few off with my remaining ammo, then claim the shotguns to use against the hks, and 2 more cacos. Which are pointless being there except to soak up more ammo, not really adding anything beyond annoyance. more hitscanners, then telefragging the bastard SM. The next bit wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so snaggy getting back up, but it's easy to bump a vertex or getting caught on the stalagmite and get hit for half health or more from a rev rocket. PE was superfluous, then the arch off the switch is pretty bad, can only hide from it by going up a bit and hiding just blow the cliff's top or falling in nukage. Then the chaingunner spam after grabbing the yellow key, this time with cover being that same cliff face or dropping to the nukage. Not fun. The bit after that is pretty filler until the red key, with some cacos spawning but not being too effective. The final arch is really negligible, just block the door and blast with the ssg, or even fist it if you want to be silly and take a lot of damage from the imps. Overall this map is not a style I like, feel bad for playing, and hope you feel bad for vaguely recommending me to play it by it being in the wad ;P -1/5, for cohesive looks if nothing else.

And that's my first installment of feedback, which probably seems the same as when I first played the wad as it's just the first 5 maps and I think I at least got up to 13 or so before getting bored and doing something else. Hope it was helpful.

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I agree with you 40oz.

fullmetalvaran33 said:

Firstly, there are a couple of levels that I could live without. They aren't quite as engaging as the rest. But there are only, like, 2, and that's a lot less than usual.

Well, this is what I was talking about. Could you be more specific as to point out to which maps you thought didn't do well?

The second and final flaw is the overuse of Arch-Viles. Maybe it's not over-use and it's just me--I mean, this is a difficult WAD and it's not afraid to show it on Ultra-Violence. But I HATE Arch-Viles. They're completely annoying and I can't stand them--and there are a lot in "Speed of Doom." Thankfully, the rest of the WAD was great so it didn't really affect my opinions of it too much.

That's understandable but I love the fella. :-)

TimeOfDeath said:

I love the speed of doom. The doomguy moves so fast, especially when strafe-running and wallrunning and using sr50. You can really get in the monsters' faces and fight aggressively while dodging their attacks. And playing with -fast or on nightmare makes the monsters even faster and crazier and can force you to play differently. And mapping for doom can be pretty speedy too. ID Software really made the perfect game when they made Doom. Doom's speed can't be beat!

Heh. *looks at ToD's custom title* :P

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ArmouredBlood said:

words

That's good stuff. I appreciate it. :-)

Although, the reasons why you didn't like Map05 was why I liked it. :P Still, your reasons are perfectly understandable. (Will keep it in mind)

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Joshy said:

Well, this is what I was talking about. Could you be more specific as to point out to which maps you thought didn't do well?


I wish I could be more specific, but I don't remember which maps I didn't like :(. I know one was like, a tech base map, but I don't remember much else. Chances are, it doesn't really matter because my opinions tend to differ radically from those of the vast majority of Doomers, so I'd probably be giving you less than helpful advice in the end anyway. There were only two I didn't like, and I wouldn't even say I disliked them a lot...they just weren't up to par with the others. I'd say that's pretty darn close to perfection when concerning 30+ megaWADs. I've never played a 100% perfect megaWAD. Ever. And only three WADs have ever gotten a perfect score from me. I think SoD is as close as most people could ever hope to get to perfection when they make a WAD, and that's pretty darn good. For what it's worth, I gave SoD a 95% A, if that matters.

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Joshy said:

Although, the reasons why you didn't like Map05 was why I liked it. :P Still, your reasons are perfectly understandable. (Will keep it in mind)


So you like icy floors, spidermastermind snipers, and snaggy bits that stop you to get hit with rev rockets ... ;P

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I'll just comment on the maps I recall liking the least for now:

MAP13 - Only two flaws: Occasional overuse of hitscanners and the outside area with the yellow skull had too low maneuverability (detail + monsters + general space) combined with hitscanners and enemies all around you while giving you almost no health at all. It was worse than the initial teleport clusterfuck from the original Poison Ivy (that one at least gave you health). ;)


MAP21 - WAS THIS MAP TESTED ON PRBOOM+? Everyone who enjoys fisting mancs, arachs and hordes of cacos in tiny spaces in prboom+ or any other port that doesn't fix the hitbox glitch raise their hand now. What, no one? THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MAP?

Okay, that might be slightly over-exaggerating, but the point remains: This map sucks ass.


MAP27 - The center area was horrible: Because of the arch-viles you're forced to move right forward to the side areas which, while they do have enough ammo, they have only barely so, while the center area itself has really nice ammo caches that you won't get because it's too dark to see them and you won't be around to clean the room until later. The 48-unit or so wide walks on the sides of the center area were annoying too.


MAP23 - Poison Ivy was great. This, on the other hand, isn't thanks to hiding all the big guns in a place that no sane player would run right into, then giving practically no extra ammo and forcing you to make all the enemies infight while you're running in circles in a pretty tiny space. When you had arch-viles teleport into the ledge with the mancs (yellow skull switch) that was just...I don't know. Bad. The only way to attack them was to run up the stairs, but then there's three mancs right up your face with two arch-viles standing behind them, no cover and no way for you to hurt the arch-viles because of the literal meat wall. I was lucky enough to get the sniper cyber hurt the arch-viles so they wouldn't attack me, but even then it was really tedious and frustrating.


MAP32 - I understand what you were going for, but I still hate the beginning fight. The rest was much better though.


MAP29 - Confusing, limited ammo, needs few rad suits more...not the worst map, but could have used extra polish.

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Continuing ... forgot to mention I'm doing save/reloading, otherwise would take 3x as long, if I didn't get fed up with the maps.

MAP06L great map, opening is a bit meh because of stair ice, but it works. Chaingunners +invisibility is kinda funny. The feeling of emptiness before crap warps in is cool. Would have preferred more bullets to chaingun snipe the revs on pedestals off the main room, but eh, plasma/shotty was enough. I can't remember if you said this was intentionally, but you can still jump over the blocking wooden wall if you go on the right branch. I found the bfg secret, could've gotten a little unbalanced if I didn't spam it and the plasma gun so much. I had also found the cells in the storage room off the beginning so it might be a lot tighter. The fight with the 2 cybs etc. is pretty close, might run out of ammo if not using infighting enough. Back to the branches to the red key, the left one's secret was cool. Fun map -4/5

MAP07: Errrg, chaingunners, close-quarters mancs and arachnos. The cyber in the middle with demons was cool, but the bit leading up to it was pretty rapey. Revs warping in on the castle walls were a bit tough and surprising but not a real problem. But back to the mancs and arachnos ... there's just barely enough room to dodge out of the room, and then the only way I could survive the arachnos was by standing on a teleport thing and rocketing em all. Got a bit frustrating. The end is relatively simple, Not much to say. -3/5

MAP08: Liked and disliked parts of this. Beginning was very open to attacks but was manageable. The platform after that was pretty straightforward, got some nice infighting going after I picked up the RL. Little filler to the key, then a nice not too challenging trap. Come back and archs are reviving stuff, not a big deal. Berserk secret to take out mancs, then release the imps. Get through, then enter the mastermind, which unfortunately I died quite a bit to because I had missed quite a bit of shotty ammo and there's very little cover. Had to get arachnos to infight it. Cleaned up, not very much to say but was nice. -3/5

MAP09:Mostly fun map, like the midi. Berserk start is a lot better than map01's, chaingunners got a little annoying but eh. Nice infighting with revs and barons, gotta run to get it to work though. Found the plasma gun before charging through the former humans, but I still used the chaingun there. Rev trap hurt as intended, though I think I got the soulsphere before that. filler hks, cacos and imps. Door had good pressure in you had to get to it fast but be careful with the monsters beyond. More chaingunner spam/rape/etc. but not too bad. Got a bit overwhelmed by cacos at first, but then played it safe near the door. Infinitely tall characters could've been bad with the demons but surprisingly I didn't get blocked and chomped. Archvile bit was a bit tricky with the hk walls, good thing I had like 100 shells then. finish with a little more filler and a bony surprise. -4/5

MAP10: Very trappy, first time through is pretty bad but I just played it and got through without having to save/reload once. Course I knew at least 2 secrets, the soulsphere and last plasma cell one, so it's not saying much. The bit where you're taking 2 imps' alcove for cover from the archvile and arachno is cool, got some infighting off there, and leaving the other arachno for later with the demons helped a lot.RL trap could use less PEs, more annoying and ammo-depleting than anything. Some nice arch fights, then a group of stuff with a PE again, living up to its annoying standard. Same with the plasma gun ones, and again with the demon ones. Beyond spawning lost souls to consume ammo they weren't really used in interesting ways. More filler until the last fight, gets pretty tight unless you save some cells for the last few archs. If you get through this map once, you don't need to get through it again. -3/5

Welp, that's about all I'm doing tonight. Might get some in tomorrow, but I've got class most of the day and some gaming with friends scheduled after, so not likely.

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ArmouredBlood said:

Welp, that's about all I'm doing tonight. Might get some in tomorrow, but I've got class most of the day and some gaming with friends scheduled after, so not likely.

Don't forget me. :P

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Heheh, sorry, been minecrafting a ton and barely done any doom beyond some random stuff and SoD. But I have gotten about 30 minutes in, yellow key at least, and I have an fda that lasts at least 20 minutes on a life twice I think. Will get you some feedback friday I think, beyond sending the fda.

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Overall I thought Speed of Doom was a really good megawad, with many qualities. By the way, for those who haven't finished the megawad yet and don't want spoilers, you may not want to read ahead.

To begin with, most maps were really nicely designed with good layouts and often very high detail. There's definitely some real eye-candy to see, some really memorable stuff is, for instance, the end of Map11. (the green ocean and green sky, very nice.) Other maps (or parts of maps) I remember in that aspect is Map27, extremely nice design, I love the unusual idea of lava floating upwards, this whole map has top-notch design (and is one of my favorite maps overall in every way). There are more very beautiful maps, some of my other favorites in regards to the visuals includes for instance Map25, 04, 26. Overall a very nice job with the visuals. Can't think of anything bad about the visuals at all right now.

I didn't find many bugs in the megawad, it feels very very polished and well made.
It really shows that a lot of work has gone into making this megawad, it feels like a good effort in so many ways.

The music is overall very good too, there were only a handful of tunes I thought didn't make much of an impression, but can't think of any outright bad ones, except maybe the ones for Map03 and Map11, which maybe felt a bit repetitive after a while imo. Best song in the .wad would have to be the one for Map14, such an awesome song! Other especially memorable songs are for instance the ones for 06, 09, 17, 21, 25, 27.

To the gameplay then. The megawad is challenging from the very start to the very end. There's only a handful of maps that I would consider "quite easy", there's no really easy one, imo. The difficulty balance is overall on the good side, with many challenging and fun fights, that are mostly well done. However I have a few remarks in this regard. First, I think that a couple too many of Joshy's maps have too much trial-and-error styled gameplay, many of those maps are impossible at least for me if you don't know the exact tactics. This can be a bit frustrating sometimes. Map32 for instance is just way too frustrating in the beginning, the fighting feels luck-based and seemed to require perfect tactics and precision, and I almost started to hate that map at some point, hehe. After learning the beginning better though, I did come out liking the map though, because the rest of the map were a lot of fun and still challenging but no longer in a frustrating kind of way.

Darkwave's maps generally don't have much trial-and-error and could often be defeated in the earlier attempts if the player does well enough, not so many traps, and they generally don't feel as frustrating as some (though far from all) of Joshy's maps can feel at times. I'd still say Joshy's maps are more challenging and intense, and possibly more fun though despite all of this. I do really like Darkwave's maps too though.

Though most of Joshy's maps have many nice fights as well and are overall great and fun to play, I just wish they had little less trial-and-error with less absolutely "set in stone"-tactics. A couple of maps of that style in a megawad is fun and exciting, but just a little bit less would've made the gameplay even more fun, imo.

Also, some of the maps such as the aforementioned Map32 is just too hard on lower skill levels. Two cybers on skill 1/2 in such an extremely difficult setup will keep away casual doomers. Some other maps could probably have been a bit kinder on lower skill levels too.

Sorry if these last bits came out too negative, I had some detailed descriptions that I've thought about while playing it through. Overall when it comes to difficulty and gameplay, I liked what I saw and played. And it could of course just be me who's not skilled enough to play on UV on this megawad as well. =) The difficulty balance remark is the only thing that I think could have been a bit better. Otherwise, I have nothing to bitch about. =)

By the way, my definite favorite maps in all aspects in this megawad would have to be Map04 / 14 / 17 / 25 / 27 and 29. I think the very best map is 27, followed by 14.

So all in all, I think this is a very good megawad with great visuals, nice music and truly challenging gameplay. "Overall score" would be 8/10. =)

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Jodwin said:

MAP21 - HURRRR DURRR BURRR RRAAAAAR WHAT THE FUCK WAAAAAAH I AM UTRA VIOLANCE VETERAN AND THSI MAP IS KILLING ME!!1!! UR MAPS SUCK AND I HATE YOU'RE FAT MOM!

here's a walkthrough.
granted, this was hard. on the other hand - the only really unpredictable challenge comes from the archies. i am a horrible, horrible max player and even worse at tysoning, yet i managed to record a demo with all monsters killed (ermm...) in like two hours.

i was playtesting sod speedruns, but even then i went through all the maps 'properly' in prboom+. this map was a tough challenge and yes, i kept running out of ammo, dying often and generally suffering, but i never went crazy in the head to tyson spiders and mancos. i ran past them with strong belief in mapping justice and lo&behold, i was awarded with sargeants or 1 bullet clip or something similarly precious to kill the fat monsters with. i like how sometimes people complain the old wads have dated badly, gone soft, the player skill rose in the new century... and then they get scared by an archie and waste all their ammo on him. that isn't aimed at you specifically, i know you are quite able as a player. still, sod map21 is an awesome survival test and you have been judged too weak.

pr0 tip: if the walkthrough seems too hard for you, start the game with sod loaded, wait for demo3 and learn how to get ssg early. if you are not a retard like me, you can even exploit the super-rich ammo cache in the exit room and totally annihilate the map's balance with an extra shell box and a bullet box. :)

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dew said:

this map was a tough challenge and yes, i kept running out of ammo, dying often and generally suffering, but i never went crazy in the head to tyson spiders and mancos. i ran past them with strong belief in mapping justice and lo&behold, i was awarded with sargeants or 1 bullet clip or something similarly precious to kill the fat monsters with.

First and foremost, I don't care how easy or difficult a map is as long as it's well design for its intended port. Map21 wasn't. For one, it's mostly in quite small spaces. Tysoning requires more space than normal playing does for hopefully obvious reasons. The map is almost borderlining what's good for a normal map. The small space means that you will get hit more...in addition to which the map is very low on health. But that's not enough, oh no: There are plenty of bullshit fights. The arach #183 is barely acceptable since there's monsters to infight it. Still, when you get to it you're likely to be very low on health and the infightees are a revenant and a chaingunner, which makes the fight extra luck-based (compare to having a hell knight or two to infight the arach). Then there's arach #184 right in the next room - and still no extra ammo! When you're playing the map you don't know if you need to go that room, and there's no space to run past the arach, you still don't have more health so good fucking luck. Just hope that the mapper isn't a total dick and move the other direction.

...the other direction, which leads to a room with hitscanners. If you weren't badly hurt before the arach fight, you sure are after it, and at most you probably have the ten bullets from the chaingun the chaingunner dropped. Awesome. But you know what's my absolute favourite? The manc #204. Yeah, there's two shotgunners behind it. That's eight shells for the shotgun, which is NOT enough to kill it. It's also stuck in a very tight space, with a switch right next to it that you need to flip to go on. Unless you're really, really lucky the manc will blast your ass at point blank range. And even if you were lucky enough to survive it, doing something like that is really bad design.

The next room after that? Yeah, you're going to take a lift up right into the arms of a hell knight waiting to fuck you up. With no new resources after having been blasted by the manc at point blank. And once you're done with this room you'll get swarmed by cacos that you might not be able to hit at all because they're too high in these tiny tiny rooms.

Say what you want, but that doesn't change the fact that this map is nothing short of a train wreck. Even if it was kept as a low-health map it would need at least either much more ammo or a new, more spacious layout. Of course even then the huge ass monsters would be virtually impossible to tyson in the intended port, but at least you wouldn't be cluster fucked.

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i obviously disagree with all your points. you should probably lower the difficulty (less archviles means more ammo for you) or play easier wads. the map is carefully balanced to be tight on ammo and health, calling the design a train wreck because of your gamestyle shortcomings makes you a bad reviewer. i do agree with waverider's comment that joshy's maps are rather trial&error based, but if you believe map21 was designed to tyson spiders and mancos, you are doing something wrong.

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dew said:

but if you believe map21 was designed to tyson spiders and mancos, you are doing something wrong.

The map makes you face spiders and mancs in places where there's either no ammo at all or definitely not enough ammo to kill them, yet they are blocking your way to proceed (see manc #204). If the map was not designed for tysoning spiders and mancs, then those situations would not exist.

It's as simple as that.

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Jodwin said:

The map makes you face spiders and mancs in places where there's either no ammo at all or definitely not enough ammo to kill them, yet they are blocking your way to proceed (see manc #204). If the map was not designed for tysoning spiders and mancs, then those situations would not exist.

It's as simple as that.

you are describing scripted gameplay, i am not a fan of that. here's monsters, here's ammo, now add 1+1. in the fashionable starcraft terms - this promotes interesting micro, but destroys macro. i like having to plan ammo consumption and joshy's map makes me replay it with a better strategy. i'm sorry if i sound aggressive, but you claim a right to decide what is a good map design based just on your player preferences and weak gaming skills. that is so arrogant i have to speak up, you are utterly wrong. the map is excellent.

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The following post may be unfair and biased because im posting out of rage.

This wad is making me headdesk like crazy. I feel like I'm simply unable to enjoy it. Usually when I make my maps, I like to make traps in such as fashion that they can be survived. Not to say that these traps are impossible to survive, because they can, but unlike these maps, I try to keep the gameplay contained in the area the player is in. In many of the situations that happen here, such as when you are in a long hallway and monsters start teleporting in from both ends of the hallway, it's simply impossible to stay alive if you remain in the crossfire. In every single one of these traps, I had to use fleeing tactics and just run past the monsters as quickly as possible to get to an area that isn't already crowded.

This works, but it's not fun to me. I feel like I'm not handling these situations the way they are intended. It's kinda like getting the blue keycard in E1M3, and running away before the imp closet opens up. Its just skipping past the critical situations that are supposed to put the player in danger and create a more cinematic experience. However, this wad just kinda throws this kind of experience out the window. These critical situations are designed in which they ARE impossible to handle single handedly, and doing and Indiana Jones approach and fleeing away as fast as humanly possible is the only way to survive it.

Is this the only way these encounters are supposed to be handled? Is that how you play them? Because I can dodge revenant missiles left and right to an extent, but it just gets too masochistic when pinkies start coming up from behind and interfering with my movement. Or when arachnatrons are sniping me through windows from across the map when im trying to take out the mancubus brigade right in front of me, or archviles placed in areas with crushing ceilings. This type of wad doesn't really have any planning in mind with the monster placement other than "this trap will definitely fuck the player up" and then when it's played, the player must do everything in his power to evade the scenario that the mapper intended to position him in so that he can have control over what is happening.

I just can't enjoy a type of wad that is made to exploit doom's capabilities than enhance them.

That said, I should probably mention that I didn't enjoy Hell Revealed 2 much at all with the exception of a few levels. I only liked the first 10 or so levels of Alien Vendetta, I like Plutonia 2 a lot and I loved Scythe 2.

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40oz said:

The following post may be unfair and biased because im posting out of rage.


What you are touching on is the fact that you can't play through some of the levels in SoD without a priori knowledge of them. Indeed, on some maps you are dead within 10 seconds if you can't figure out a route to go. This gameplay is reflected in some levels of HR and the other wads you mentioned.
UAC Ultra, the other major (and brilliant) megawad of the year, has a different "philosophy" pertaining to its gameplay, namely that it should always be possible to survive the next room without having previous knowledge of what it contains. Indeed, the only really hectic part of UAC Ultra was the part where you run around outside having to refresh your radsuits while fending off a ton of cacodemons and barons etc. (which was epic as hell btw)
Personally I like both kinds of gameplay, and loved both the wads. However, when I do a crazy slaughtermap of which there are many in SoD, I do an IDDQD run first to get familiar with the level, monster placement, powerups etc, while planning a route or strategy to beat the level. If I don't do that first, I don't stand a chance beating the map.

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I think the divisions of fondness for SoD is rather telling - you have some players who love a good challenge, who aren't too bothered at dying and having to hit that load button. (I know I really enjoy maps where I'm hitting it as much as possible.)

On the other end, you get some players who don't like the idea of maps they can't beat on their first shot. But the tenacity and skill of players is something that will always differ, so it's certainly something to keep in mind. Some players like it hard, some don't.
Me? I found UACUltra pretty damn dull. It was far too easy for my tastes. But, as other posts have shown, other players enjoyed it even more than SoD because of this.

As for feedback, I'm not sure what else to add. I felt as the maps went on, the polish slowly grew better, the architecture stronger. The highlight for me was Map27 - those upsidedown lava falls looked great, as did most of the map. (Though the central room was a touch too dark, making it hard to see just how awesome the room looked.)

Some of the maps were perhaps a tad too small.

In fact, I think the only place where there was any major room for improvement was with regards in how good they looked. I don't recall any particulary ugly maps, but I didn't see any maps (except Map27) which I thought looked really, really great. Just lots of maps that looked, well, pretty good.

So I guess, once you get around to making your next set of maps, ask yourself as your map nears completion, does it look pretty good, or great? Because I'd aim for great; I'd aim for creating maps that make players say 'wow!'.

Hope this is of some help :)

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I've just started playing it and I have to say that it blows my mind, probably the best WAD I've ever played.

(Also I died on MAP03...On I'm too Young to Die )

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Insane_Gazebo said:

Some players like it hard, some don't.
Me? I found UACUltra pretty damn dull. It was far too easy for my tastes. But, as other posts have shown, other players enjoyed it even more than SoD because of this.


What would you suggest then? I'm not trying call you out, just interested in knowing your preferences. Typically playtesting my own maps is tedious if they are painstakingly difficult, especially if the maps are long. UAC Ultra did feature a number of deadly traps, such as the two revenant + chaingun guy combo in MAP05, (Almost all of that credit goes to Super Jamie. If it weren't for him, UAC Ultra probably would have been much easier.)

Did it need more traps? More shit to catch you off guard and place you in near inescapable positions? More circle strafing?

I'm thinking maybe making future wads have Hurt Me Plenty be tuned to what I enjoy, while have Ultra Violence more geared to people like you that like the kind of brutal gameplay that Speed of Doom provides. I honestly don't think that either gameplay style is right or wrong given the responses to both wads, but I am however, very interested in creating a medium that both types of people will enjoy.

I should also mention that I played Sunder, I loved MAP01 but the further levels started to get increasingly painful as I moved on. MAP01 felt 'just right' to me though.

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I'm no great mapper, but I am good at the game. I found SoD to be the best wad out there, along with scythe2. SoD was challenging and very appealing to my eye, and err.. would love to see a second one? :D :D

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40oz said:

What would you suggest then? I'm not trying call you out, just interested in knowing your preferences. Typically playtesting my own maps is tedious if they are painstakingly difficult, especially if the maps are long. UAC Ultra did feature a number of deadly traps, such as the two revenant + chaingun guy combo in MAP05, (Almost all of that credit goes to Super Jamie. If it weren't for him, UAC Ultra probably would have been much easier.)

Did it need more traps? More shit to catch you off guard and place you in near inescapable positions? More circle strafing?

I'm thinking maybe making future wads have Hurt Me Plenty be tuned to what I enjoy, while have Ultra Violence more geared to people like you that like the kind of brutal gameplay that Speed of Doom provides. I honestly don't think that either gameplay style is right or wrong given the responses to both wads, but I am however, very interested in creating a medium that both types of people will enjoy.

I should also mention that I played Sunder, I loved MAP01 but the further levels started to get increasingly painful as I moved on. MAP01 felt 'just right' to me though.


For me, all I'd like to see are more people make challenging maps. There's quite a number of ways to make fights challenging - and as for Sunder, I've made things fairly simple in this regard, large hordes and so on.

Death Destiny had some great ideas, (come back you beautiful bastard!) so I guess you could have a quick look at some of his stuff?

For me, the ultimate map isn't something being made (well, hopefully by me if all things work out :D) - and it's something that I find brutally difficult, and that looks great as well.

Still, if you want to see yourself making harder maps - I can only suggest playing a lot of harder ones to improve your own skill as a player. Of course, if you're happy with what you're making now, and what you play, enjoying yourself and all that - then feel free to ignore me. It's not my place to tell you how to have fun :)

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