Vanguard.wad - now on idgames!

[j4rio]

played it, loved it, shame "only" 13 maps :)

[Joshy]

brinks said:

Now I may just be insane, but I'm fairly certain items like ammo and health are generally placed where they will be most beneficial to the gameplay and not where they look the prettiest.

This. If I recall correctly, I never gave a shit of where I really placed my items (at least not when I'm considering the tidiness of it all and the uniformity).. the balance and timing (whether you can plan your usage around it and/or when to use it at a certain time) is what really matters; well at least it does to me.

I've played some of the maps through, it is rare do I have the patience to play through maps lately. I've managed to play this with a degree of focus (usually I'd play half-arsed and quickly turn on godmode and noclip to immerse myself within the aesthetics before getting bored). I've finished Map 1, 2, 5 and 6 on pistol start and I have quite enjoyed it (I will play the other maps but I have to sleep for now). Great gameplay, the layout is fantastic, I can't falter the aesthetics and the music is great (maybe not Map05 but I never liked that music from TNT), it all melds together. Really nice work. :-) Would have loved to see a megawad here but it is hard work indeed (it was for me when I made 17 maps for SoD; very time consuming but probably was worth it).

EDIT: Incidentally when I was considering a follow up to SoD, I was thinking of playing around with orange themes. Really nice looking screenies, am looking forward to playing those maps.

[Phobus]

I'm certainly looking forwards to playing this when I get the time :)

[Vermil]

An excellent mapset so far. Nuff said.

I agree about there being too many Soul Spheres and too much ammo on Map05 though. Also linedef 794 (a stair) on Map03 appears to have the wrong texture offset.

[dannebubinga]

I noticed two bugs in map 11. I could just walk in and snatch the red key without triggering the trap. I opened the map in DB and saw that the lindefs triggering the trap are very close to the key, wich makes it easy to just sneak up and grab the key without crossing the lindefs.

The megasphere in sector 2606 will jump up to the pillar that holds the blue key when you push the switch. This is just for the looks, but maybe you should move the megasphere a bit away from the pillar so it stays on the ground.

[DeathevokatioN]

Ehhh, everyone stop posting spoilers until after I finished my exams. :P

[dannebubinga]

DeathevokatioN said:

Ehhh, everyone stop posting spoilers until after I finished my exams. :P

Exams over Doom? pffffft...

[skillsaw]

Going through this thread and making updates/changes to the wad:

Spoiler

-removed custom shotgun sound and custom floor/ceiling move sound
-MAP01: removed all burial vaults except the one by the start
-MAP03: fixed HOM, fixed some texture alignment
-MAP05: removed some cell packs and soulspheres, gave the spider demon
more room to play
-MAP06: added a chaingun on difficulty 1-3; added a medkit to the former human trap that opens when you grab the red key on all skill levels
-MAP10: made red key fight progress faster and added more enemies
-MAP11: tried to fix red key triggers.. makes the fight a bit different but it works, also fixed an exploit where you could wait to start the yellow key fight, tried to make switches more obvious

Thanks once again for all the feedback, you're all making my life so much easier!

EDIT: Whoops, accidentally hit post, still going through this thread and making updates as needed.

another edit: done working for now, keep the feedback coming :)

[Katamori]

Wow, although it doesn't seem as big as Speed of Doom, these pictures are incredibly good!

I would like to make as good maps as you... :(

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

Just chiming in to say this is amazing.

[skillsaw]

I'm still going through this and fixing small things here and there. I'm aiming for a final, idgames ready version by next weekend.

I'll be releasing a 2nd beta sometime today. Just going to do a quick playthrough with all the updates/changes I've done and make sure nothing has been newly broken.

[ArmouredBlood]

Hey, got some fdas down for this, hope they're useful. I finished 1-11, I think I could've finished 12 with a few more attempts but I just wasn't feeling like spending the 15-20 minutes to get where I died. Anyway, all the maps look pretty awesome and play very well. I especially liked the orange and brown/black gothic maps, they really make me want to snag some cc4 textures and add them to my amalgamation of newgothic stuff, heheh.

As much as I like it, I think there were a few bugs or possibly unintended sequences, like on one map with the multiple levels of crates it's possible to sr50 from the starting ledge to the crates next to the chaingun. Though I couldn't replicate it without actually restarting the map, hahah. That's really the only memorable one though so maybe I'm just saying double-check the maps.

So to wrap up, awesome mapsets, hope you make some more installments of similar maps.

P.S. last minute 13fda, hehehe

[skillsaw]

Thanks a ton for the FDAs! I've gone through and fixed several issues that came up in your playthrough.

Spoiler

MAP02: I felt bad about how long you ran around in the water so I added another staircase to get up to the second level of the second main room. Noticed the same thing in Phml's FDAs.
MAP03: I made it so you can't hide behind the teleporter in the yellow key room... This is an issue I'm not sure how to approach; since if you attempt that fight without the rocket launcher you pretty much have to play flawlessly.
MAP08: Adjusted the blue key fight to trigger sooner. I noticed it didn't trigger initially when you entered the room and you wasted time looking for where to go next. I don't really mind the the crate issue, that was actually kind of cool to see.
MAP12: You funneled all the imps and revenants up the narrow staircase by the blue key... Don't like how that played out, so I added some monster blocking lines to hopefully force them to stay in the open.

I made custom texture and flat recolors for the orange episode maps. They should all be called E3SAW** in the texture wad but I don't know what the legality for reusing edits of other people's stuff is. As far as I'm concerned you can take them if you want to make maps with a similar theme for NewGothic. Maybe someone else knows for sure though.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked Vanguard. I will almost definitely make more Boom maps in the future, but when is still an open question. It might be a while :P

[Vermil]

I found most of the battles in the north area of map12 were very exploitable; there was too much space to run around in the lava to cause infighting or it was too easy to stand on a ledge above the lava and have the hordes infight each other (as the hordes were all ground based except a few Pain Elementals and hence couldn't get up). The Cyber Demons were also more of a hazard to their own than the player because of the afore mentioned space.

[skillsaw]

I found most of the battles in the north area of map12 were very exploitable; there was too much space to run around in the lava to cause infighting or it was too easy to stand on a ledge above the lava and have the hordes infight each other (as the hordes were all ground based except a few Pain Elementals and hence couldn't get up). The Cyber Demons were also more of a hazard to their own than the player because of the afore mentioned space.

Fair enough, but I'm not really sure how to fix this without redoing the layout. Maybe some if I teleport some monsters in on the ledges after the two switches are triggered? Adding some cacodemons to the room might also help.

[dew]

skillsaw said:

Adding some cacodemons to the room might also help.

that, plus perhaps some viles could teleport to elevated places so they don't get distracted in the massive carnage on the ground level. don't overdo those or it will get too nasty. :)

[Tango]

played up to map10 last night and loved it. map02 and map05 are among my favorites so far. this is like... scythe 1.5.

[Varis Alpha]

Only played the first map and a bit of the second one, but I can already tell that this wad is awesome. With some real tight, but decently balanced battles and visuals reminding me of Scythe 2.
Oh, and Map 02's song is awesome.

[skillsaw]

Glad you're having fun!

Map02's music is from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. The full credits for the music is included in the text file.

[negke]

Nice maps, I really like the themes and layouts.
Played on HMP and got through the first nine maps fine. They were very fun and enjoyable, and the difficulty increased appropriately. MAP10-12, on the other hand, were unfair and frustrating for me - not a fan of slaughermaps. I managed to get through 10 after many attempts and two mild instances of godmoding, but the horde combat in 11 and 12 were too much and I couldn't be arsed for more grind.

If I had been given a BFG in 11 and 12, it might have played a lot better. Or did I miss it somewhere? (in which case it should be placed on a more prominent spot). I made a note about the chaingunners in the YK and BK battles in 11, but ultimately their presence or absence probably wouldn't have changed much for my outcome. Ammo balance seemed right in all maps.

What's kind of notable is that I found every single secret during my first run. I suggest adding more secrets to 10-12, their size allows for it easily and I'm sure the players would be grateful (invulnerability... ;)).

The YK fight in MAP03 had me stumped for a while, but after several tries I managed to figure out the right way, just before it started to get annoying. Without quicksave, I wouldn't have kept trying.
There may be a few of such areas. In MAP10, for instance, I made the (apparent) mistake of hiding in the start area and only made a run for it when I was severely injured. Guess it would have been easier to run for the caves or upper corridors right away... Btw. one of the bullet boxes got stuck in the blue conveyor tunnel (Zdoom), not sure if this was just a one-time hiccup.

There was a minor confusion in the MAP05 exit. I entered with 150 health and maybe 50 armor and it took a while until the endmap action triggered after I had died, so at first I thought it was a trap and I was supposed to run towards the arrow. The other deathexits worked more or less smoothly, though I assume there's still a risk for similar events.

Punch-out ftw.

[skillsaw]

neg!ke said:

Nice maps, I really like the themes and layouts.
Played on HMP and got through the first nine maps fine. They were very fun and enjoyable, and the difficulty increased appropriately. MAP10-12, on the other hand, were unfair and frustrating for me - not a fan of slaughermaps. I managed to get through 10 after many attempts and two mild instances of godmoding, but the horde combat in 11 and 12 were too much and I couldn't be arsed for more grind.

If I had been given a BFG in 11 and 12, it might have played a lot better. Or did I miss it somewhere? (in which case it should be placed on a more prominent spot). I made a note about the chaingunners in the YK and BK battles in 11, but ultimately their presence or absence probably wouldn't have changed much for my outcome.

What's kind of notable is that I found every single secret during my first run. I suggest adding more secrets to 10-12, their size allows for it easily and I'm sure the players would be grateful (invulnerability... ;)).

The YK fight in MAP03 had me stumped for a while, but after several tries I managed to figure out the right way, just before it started to get annoying. Without quicksave, I wouldn't have kept trying.
There may be a few of such areas. In MAP10, for instance, I made the (apparent) mistake of hiding in the start area and only made a run for it when I was severely injured. Guess it would have been easier to run for the caves or upper corridors right away... Btw. one of the bullet boxes got stuck in the blue conveyor tunnel (Zdoom), not sure if this was just a one-time hiccup.

There was a minor confusion in the MAP05 exit. I entered with 150 health and maybe 50 armor and it took a while until the endmap action triggered after I had died, so at first I thought it was a trap and I was supposed to run towards the arrow. The other deathexits worked more or less smoothly, though I assume there's still a risk for similar events.

Punch-out ftw.

Slaughtermaps aren't for everyone; perhaps in the future it would be wiser to make no slaughtermaps (...or entirely slaughtermaps). But anyway, Vanguard will have to remain mixed.

There is a BFG in MAP12, and I added a second one in my working build yesterday after realizing how easy it was to miss. I've also added changes that make the cavern room of that map considerably more difficult; but considering how mixed the feedback has been regarding the last three maps (too easy to exploit or just plain too hard) I'm having difficulty evaluating what I've done.

I've seen that ammo box get stuck a few times. No idea WHY it happens though. Most of the time it teleports with everything else.

Punch-out ftw indeed.

And thanks for the feedback!

[dew]

map11, final battle room: thing 644 (megasphere) should be moved at least 6 units south and 6 units west, thing 708 at least 4 units north and 4 units east. if you don't collect these items before pressing the button, they jump on top of the pillar in vanilla-like ports. this happens because their bounding boxes are caught in the pillar sector and the engine "recalculates" their position when nearby sectors start changing heights.

[skillsaw]

Thanks dew, fixed now.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

These are really sweet maps. Where did you get the new textures?

[skillsaw]

The textures are taken primarily from the Community Chest 4 texture wad. I pulled a few out of Deus Vult II and Stronghold as well. The creators of the textures are credited in the top post.

[DeathevokatioN]

Played and finished this episode, and I can say that this was an awesome experience. Great looking scenery with alot of brutal fights, I died a few times by getting cornered, but I mostly died off shooting my own rockets against the wall like a down syndrome ;). Sooo, I guess I should say thanks for making this mapset.

One bug I noticed on Map03, by the yellow key area, when the floor lowers, is that the candles suddenly lift up into the air and lower with the floor. I think you should move the candles out a bit to fix this.

I'm really looking forward to more maps done by you, maybe even at one point you could pick this project up again and finish more maps for it. ;)

Would also be really cool if you built a few maps for this project, as I think your style would probably fit in perfectly: http://www.wadsinprogress.info/?a=listwads&wad=1112 :) Just recently Joshy and Darkwave from Speed of DooM joined it as well, so I'm pretty sure that you'd complete the lineup. :p

[skillsaw]

Thanks Death.

Although this project won't be getting any more maps, don't be surprised to see another Boom episode from me at some point :P

Edit: sent you a pm.

[fullmetalvaran33]

I just finished this map set and I have to say it was quite a bit of fun. It had a somewhat slow start, but it really picked up, especially at the end. This kind of kept things from getting old, as the intensity level was always going up per map. I liked all of the music--very awesome variety of action, fantasy, suspense, and tech-y tracks. The three parts were very clear, although maybe a bit too clear; I felt that the transition from jungle temple to tech to hell temples and caverns was a bit abrupt, but this may be because this was meant to be a much longer WAD.

The fights were hard as hell, but that's the way I prefer it. The slaughter maps thrown in feel a little random, but they still work out just fine, and make sure you're really paying attention. I like how you used orange rock in the hellish final maps, as normally we see the red rocks; the orange is a nice change of pace, and it actually looks better anyway.

Great use of shadow and light; some maps definitely had some dark, eerie spots, not to mention expert use of shadows. Definitely a 100% in that department, and for the graphics as well.

Yeah, I know, "long review is long," but I wanted to give a good critique.

One thing, though, that I...didn't like, was there was a lot of dejavu from other Doom WADs: Deus Vult II, Scythe II, Stronghold, ZPack, Doom II, Suspended in Dusk, Alien Vendetta, etc. I know you were inspired by Speed of Doom and Scythe 2, and that's fine, and I can see a similiar style in Vanguard that I've seen in your other maps. However, I think there's not enough "you" in this WAD. I sense a lot of dejavu, but I think there could be a bit more of your own creativity. I think you should push yourself more with your next maps, as you clearly have a lot of talent. Of course, this could be just me and my opinion, so it's up to you whether or not you agree or disagree. I just personally think you can go a lot farther from this and make a WAD that's as original and memorable as Scythe 2 or Speed of Doom or Alien Vendetta.

But this is all just my opinion, so take no offense. You do have lots of quality mapping skills and Vanguard was a lot of fun to play :).

[jerrysheppy]

Played through it and really, really enjoyed it. My fears that it the architecture of the first ten maps would be bland and Plutonia-like turned out to be unfounded, as between better sectorwork and some neat touches (like the recurring bloody wooden altar/dais motif) it managed to stay very visually appealing.

Visually the Hell maps were great, I didn't care so much for the slaughter style but the visuals were, as I said, worth the price of admission. As others have remarked, the orange theme is striking, but the textures are good enough and used in the right mix that it always seems natural and not 'I'm going to make a map that's an overload of one color because gimmicks are cool!' the way I've seen in some other works.

[skillsaw]

@fullmetalvaran33: Glad you liked it, and the long review is very much appreciated. The transitions were meant to be abrupt, as each visual setting was meant to last 5 levels and be very distinct from the rest. This was inspired by Scythe II's episodes; 5 levels in each distinct setting.

I don't really see the Suspended in Dusk influence (other than the number of Espi textures I used) but all the rest were very much influences. It's interesting that you note that you don't see much of me in this wad, because to some extent that's true. As I was mapping, I was very consciously attempting to break some bad habits of mine that are quite clear in some of my previous wads. Every time I made a level, I reminded myself of some goals I was striving for: better connectivity, better height variation, and less linear design (Some levels failed on all counts). I think that's one reason the wad might not feel like it's the same style as others that I've done.

@jerrysheppy: Glad you liked it. Sorry about the slaughtermaps; I don't think I'll try to mix map styles together like that again.

Anyway, the wad is officially done now; it's somewhere in the process of being accepted on idgames. I'll post a link as soon as it becomes available.

Thanks everyone for the insightful feedback. It's been so helpful.