aloha4u2.wad... too hard?

[alamainaloha]

A reviewer in Doomworld said: "... Good design, but I doubt anyone can finish this map. 2/5. -dbsw57"

He's wrong. Right?


A

[betabox]

I don't know. Do you think perhaps the overall score its got right now might be any indication of his rightness/wrongness?

[NaturalTvventy]

nah, it's not too tough at all. the start's a bit tough, so i figure people must judge a wad in by the first two minutes. as I've said, it mellows out pretty quick.

[Memfis]

This map seems to be impossible to finish in doom2.exe-compatible ports. Sector #282 doesn't move because 3 monsters are stuck in it. However, aloha4u2.txt doesn't indicate that some advanced port is required.

You should at least tell people what port did you use to test your map.

[hex11]

Is this a HR-style slaughtermap? I remember playing one of the Aloha series that was completely empty at first, and then found myself ambushed by lots of imps, pinkys, revenants, etc. all of a sudden. I didn't survive very long. ;)

If you haven't already, maybe it's a good idea to omit monsters on the lower difficulty settings. I was playing on HMP, and perhaps should have tried the map on ITYTD. You can tag some monsters as only appearing on skills 4, 3, and 2 (or higher). Skills 5 and 1 don't need special tags because the engine already adjusts difficulty in other ways.

[Grimm]

What a pleasant surprise, to see an old school Doomer from '94 coming back to make levels again. Looks like you got back into it right around the same time that I stepped out.

I reviewed two of your older ones on my/GreyGhost's site, Classic Dooming. Didn't like Aloha911 much but I enjoyed Aloha999 quite a bit. (Someone else around here enjoyed it too, not sure who at the moment.) You can see the reviews at http://www.classicdooming.com/doom/a.html. Sorry for the slight harshness on Aloha911. :P

Unfortunately, most of the folks around here are pretty bells and whistles, source-port obsessed, so I'm not sure what sort of reception you'll be getting. Feel free to get in contact with me if you'd like to talk about the old-school at all.

P.S. you wouldn't happen to have some of the WADs you downloaded from back in the day sitting around on a hard drive somewhere, would you?

[Megamur]

Wow, I played Aloha2x ages ago. Amazing to see that you're still working on this series.

[alamainaloha]

To Buttspit: My disagreement was with his statement that said he doubted anyone could finish this map. He was wrong. Other players have finished the map.

To Natural Tvventy: Thanks for your comments.

To Memfis: Sector 282... Does the same malfuction happen every single time? I rechecked in DoomBuilder and I know the design is ok. Anybody else have this problem? Sometimes the Doom Engine just glitches that one time and the sector is ok when restarting the game. I can't explain it. Regarding your question of "porting"... I'm not familiar with what happens with the various porting options. I build wads with DoomBuilder and test through ZDoom. Kinda simple. I've been assuming that if it runs ok on my system, it will be ok everywhere. So... next wad, I'll look into it.

To Hex11: No, this is not an HR-style slaughtermap. I actually don't know what that is. Regarding difficulty settings... I've thought about it and decided that Doom, above all, is a kill-fest, and a survival game. When you play Doom you want to be tested and I just can't see the game being interesting if you're playing with a minimal number of monsters. What's the point? Begs the question... How do players play new wads? Start with UV and work down? Start easy and work up? Quit if it's too hard? Try and try and try again learing the traps and the secrets, the tactics and the strategies that will allow you to finish the wad on UV? How do you play new wads?

To Grimm: Thanks for your comments. Haven't played 911 or 999 in a long time. I read your reviews and they seem spot on, especially on 911, since it was my first wad and I didn't have a clue. I saw, on YouTube, 999 in a SpeedDemo by Andy Olivera. That was interesting. Regarding the pretty bells and whistles and source-port obsessed junkies... we'll just see what the future holds. Sorry, no old wads on hand. They were stored on floppies that have long since disappeared.

To Megamur: The time-line is long, isn't it. Building wads is so cool... it is a 3-way combo: a game, a hobby and a toy. And the fun factor will always be there. It is amazing to have a way to actually give form to what only exist in your imagination, and to make that form immediately availabe and accessable.


a

[hex11]

alamainaloha said:

To Hex11: No, this is not an HR-style slaughtermap. I actually don't know what that is. Regarding difficulty settings... I've thought about it and decided that Doom, above all, is a kill-fest, and a survival game. When you play Doom you want to be tested and I just can't see the game being interesting if you're playing with a minimal number of monsters. What's the point? Begs the question... How do players play new wads? Start with UV and work down? Start easy and work up? Quit if it's too hard? Try and try and try again learing the traps and the secrets, the tactics and the strategies that will allow you to finish the wad on UV? How do you play new wads?

HR = Hell Revealed, an old Doom II megawad with very high monster count and where you fight lots of them at the same time. It pretty much defined the term "slaughtermap".

But there are maps that also manage to be challenging without relying on huge monster hordes (example: sudtic.wad, class_ep.wad). In fact, you can make life very difficult for the player by using tactical monster choice and placement, along with a shortage of health and ammo, hiding stronger weapons and powerups in secrets, along with using environmental hazards like nukage and traps. I personally prefer the approach that Slaughter Until Death and Classic Episode take. Others prefer the Hell Revealed style. Some enjoy both.

Difficulty settings are important because not everybody has the same skill. Some people are skilled enough to beat Hell Revealed on highest difficulty setting, but I have lots of trouble even on medium/HMP (which is the skill I normally use). On maps like that, I typically have to drop down to lowest skill in order to even have a chance. If I still can't beat a map on ITYTD, then I just give up and accept it (had to do that with Alien Vendetta on MAP26).