Insanely hard maps.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Hey guys.

I actually made this for the speedmap session for Doom's 17th birthday, but I thought I'd make a thread for insanely hard maps. Feel free to link any maps you have made that are "insanely hard". Here's mine:

I'll put up another later this week and I may add difficulty levels to this one.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Hey, I just realized there was a bug in one of the areas. Here's a new version.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/616l1sf6fcq0xnd/Trialofthegods.wad

I think it's possible. I can get only get to the room with the lost souls myself. Would love to see demos!

[Creaphis]

DoomHero85 said:

I think it's possible. I can get only get to the room with the lost souls myself.

Sorry, but you really shouldn't be making maps that you can't beat. All of the best maps in the Doom universe were made by people who can enjoy their own creations, and that isn't just a coincidence. If you can't enjoy your own level because it always kills you half way through, then how do you know that it can be enjoyed by others? Also, keep in mind that most people interested in playing slaughter maps have already played every slaughter wad under the sun, and without having a similar level of experience you won't be able to design slaughters that are unique and interesting. I strongly recommend that you design maps that match your skill level - not so easy that you find them boring, not so hard that you find them impossible, but a reasonable challenge. This will give you access to the best way to measure the quality of your own maps: if you enjoy them, then they're good. If you change one of your maps so you enjoy it more, then it's even better than it was before. Don't think that you have to be designing ultra-hard wads to be taken seriously. Most people in the Doom community aren't slaughter-skilled like gggmork and TimeOfDeath, and are always happy to play new maps that suit their skills.

[40oz]

I disagree with that. I didn't beat the really hard speedmap I made before i released it (It was a speedmap, I wasn't gonna test my patience trying to beat it)

I did eventually beat it. Unfortunately it got progressively easier than I expected. The purpose of the really really hard speedmapping session was so that mappers and players could some kinda symbiotic relationship where the mappers make maps purely with the intention of besting the players, while the players make entertaining FDAs and UV Max's in exchange. I think it went over pretty well.

[Cre47]

I'm currently building a 32-map wad which basically goes in with the HR/Speed of Doom style with some Plutonia ideas as well. I prefer to not say more right now (No pictures/shots for now) as it is still under development (layout and population mostly done with still some details to add and to adujst monsters with the lower skills) and testing and bug/texture fixing but the one clue I could give is that it is going to be a tough one, not impossible but very tough.

[Lila Feuer]

Sounds promising.

[DeathevokatioN]

On topic, agreeing with what 40oz said.

Cre47 said:

I'm currently building a 32-map wad which basically goes in with the HR/Speed of Doom style with some Plutonia ideas as well. I prefer to not say more right now (No pictures/shots for now) as it is still under development (layout and population mostly done with still some details to add and to adujst monsters with the lower skills) and testing and bug/texture fixing but the one clue I could give is that it is going to be a tough one, not impossible but very tough.

Hey Cre47, if you haven't already, also play some Alien Vendetta for inspiration. It's a lot like Speed of DooM, if you enjoy SoD then you'll love Alien Vendetta! :)

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11790

[Jimmy]

I'm going to echo what Creaphis said. I cannot find slaughtermaps fun because I'm nowhere near skilled enough to deal with massive hordes. I can only just about enjoy the later levels of Hell Revealed (I/II). I just completely lose patience when playing WADs like Drown in Blood, Sunder and Newgothic after the first couple of maps, because, while they might look nice, aren't fun for me to play at all. That's why I make maps that are ridiculously easy (and often overstocked in ammo and health)... and even then I often get my ass kicked back and forth by them on UV. ¬_¬

(This is something that worries me - the fact that my own maps, which I know to be bloody easy, constantly get the better of me, means there must be something wrong with the way I play - and I do worry that my playing style isn't sufficient enough to judge the difficulty and item balance of my maps. However, despite my amazing talent for sucking as a player, I do enjoy my maps, so at least that's something. :S)

[Cre47]

DeathevokatioN said:

On topic, agreeing with what 40oz said.



Hey Cre47, if you haven't already, also play some Alien Vendetta for inspiration. It's a lot like Speed of DooM, if you enjoy SoD then you'll love Alien Vendetta! :)

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=11790

I was doing AV for some time and was at map 15 (consecutive mode) on UV before I stopped (I guess Doom fatigue). I had a really hard time with map 14. Actually all of Brad's maps on AV are quite tough. Although I'm not using any other texture then the Doom 2/TNT/Plutonia ones. No Hexen or Duke Nukem textures. I would say it's the game play that will look like a mix of AV/HR among others, etc. Architecture will be in the good old Doom 2 style.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

I actually found AV much easier than HR/HR2. I made it to the Pain Elemental room in map 27 on UV before I ran out of steam.

[Sigvatr]

I am getting tired of maps that are difficult because they use an insane amount of enemies. These actually become really easy after a while, especially if you can just spam everything with a BFG or if the spaces are really big and open.

I want to start seeing difficult maps that use very few enemies.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

play my berserkersonly.wad in the hard speedmaps thread.

[dannebubinga]

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

Not insane, but at least very hard :)

[Solarn]

Sigvatr said:

I am getting tired of maps that are difficult because they use an insane amount of enemies. These actually become really easy after a while, especially if you can just spam everything with a BFG or if the spaces are really big and open.

I want to start seeing difficult maps that use very few enemies.

Just for you.
http://www.zshare.net/download/844995198ae10c1e/
It's not exactly a few enemies, but it's not by any stretch of imagination a slaughter map. It's Boom compatible.

[RjY]

dannebubinga said:

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

Not insane, but at least very hard :)

Every engine I've tried to run this with has spewed out texture errors by the hundred and in most cases crashed or outright refused to run. Could you say which game engine and IWAD combination it is meant to be run with?

Solarn said:

Just for you.
http://www.zshare.net/download/844995198ae10c1e/
It's not exactly a few enemies, but it's not by any stretch of imagination a slaughter map. It's Boom compatible.

Nice, I barely managed to kill 4 hellknights, and was left with 8% health/armour. Then I pressed a button, and died instantly for no obvious reason. I guess I pressed a trap switch that crushes a voodoo doll. So presumably three of the switches are fatal, but they are all identical and I didn't have the patience to try again and get the right one by trial and error.

[dannebubinga]

RjY said:

Every engine I've tried to run this with has spewed out texture errors by the hundred and in most cases crashed or outright refused to run. Could you say which game engine and IWAD combination it is meant to be run with?

oops sorry... the Iwad is plutonia. I can't get the map to run in prboom but (g)zdoom and skulltag should be no problem.

[Solarn]

RjY said:

Nice, I barely managed to kill 4 hellknights, and was left with 8% health/armour. Then I pressed a button, and died instantly for no obvious reason. I guess I pressed a trap switch that crushes a voodoo doll. So presumably three of the switches are fatal, but they are all identical and I didn't have the patience to try again and get the right one by trial and error.

Yeah, sorry about that. The thread this one spun off of (40oz's speedmap thread for Doom's 17th birthday) was all about utterly unfair, but completable maps, so I made one in the spirit of that. Now that I think of it, that was a stupid idea (by the way, "only" two of the switches were trapped).

Here's a version without any stupid voodoo doll traps.
http://www.zshare.net/download/8450612165a22225/

[RjY]

dannebubinga said:

oops sorry... the Iwad is plutonia. I can't get the map to run in prboom but (g)zdoom and skulltag should be no problem.

Thanks. Using Plutonia removed nearly all the texture errors. I should have kept trying different IWADs I suppose :)

If you care to do so:

• convert the four DO[NSEW]HELL sky patches, and the CWILV00 intermission screen title from PNGs to Doom graphic format;
• delete the texture named RUSS, it's unused and refers to a patch named RUSSDOOM that doesn't exist.

If you make those changes it will run with other engines (PrBoom and PrBoom+, at least that I tried)

Anyway, seems like a decent map, once I got it to run. I got trapped by a bunch of revenants and beaten to death when I discovered the thin corridor down which I was retreating had closed off. Oh well.

Solarn said:

Here's a version without any stupid voodoo doll traps.
http://www.zshare.net/download/8450612165a22225/

Thanks, now at least I feel like I'm being killed due to lack of skill than because of dumb luck :-)

I got a bit further and found another bug. The six switches around the edge of the map - linedefs 124, 129 etc. - that lower the bars in sector 51, these don't work as they're walk triggers, not switches. I think they need to be type 24770 not 24768.

[Solarn]

RjY said:

I got a bit further and found another bug. The six switches around the edge of the map - linedefs 124, 129 etc. - that lower the bars in sector 51, these don't work as they're walk triggers, not switches. I think they need to be type 24770 not 24768.

Oh, god damnit. I swear Doom Builder is messing with me, I double-checked that I set those to switchable. Fixed now.
http://www.zshare.net/download/845097741e9105b8/

Also,

dannebubinga said:

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

Not insane, but at least very hard :)

that was a very fun map. Please make more.

[dannebubinga]

RjY said:

Thanks. Using Plutonia removed nearly all the texture errors. I should have kept trying different IWADs I suppose :)

If you care to do so:

• convert the four DO[NSEW]HELL sky patches, and the CWILV00 intermission screen title from PNGs to Doom graphic format;
• delete the texture named RUSS, it's unused and refers to a patch named RUSSDOOM that doesn't exist.

If you make those changes it will run with other engines (PrBoom and PrBoom+, at least that I tried)

Anyway, seems like a decent map, once I got it to run. I got trapped by a bunch of revenants and beaten to death when I discovered the thin corridor down which I was retreating had closed off. Oh well.

thanks for sorting that out! I'm very new to SlumpEd and everything I do in that program seems to go wrong.

Maybe The revenant/chaingun trap is a bit evil with that door being closed after you. But it would get to easy if you could just run out of there and take them 1 by 1 I think.