Slaughterfest 2012 - NEW Final Final Version is up

[j4rio]

Bloodite Krypto said:

Yesss.. If your poor at dodging in close quarters :) Even when playing sloppy when playtesting I still manage to pull through, you have to pay attention to movement, particularly how monsters move as well, once you get the feel it isn't as atrocious as it seems.

I just skimmed through with iddqd/idclip, don't really have time now to try it seriously. And I'm poor at dodging in general. :P

[TimeOfDeath]

Bloodite Krypto said:

While I was able to get it to work successfully, some sectors with the sky were conflicting with my own tags so I decided to go with the eerie space sky texture instead.

That's ok, if your sky sectors have multiple tags, make more lines in your dummy sector and use line action 271 for each sector tag that uses sky. For example, if your map has 100 sector tags in total, it can be annoying trying to figure out which sectors have sky and which don't, so I just make a big dummy sector and add vertices to it so that the sector has 100 lines, make all the lines 271 action with the texture, and give each line a different sector tag.

[DeletedUser]

Thanks for the in depth feedback and FDA Phml :) Many highlights came to forebear.

Phml said:

At first I believed ducking to the left right after entering the second room was too efficient as a chokepoint. Then again, given the length of the map I'm not sure it's a bad thing to have a safe way out of the very first fight, and it still requires some wiggling around to get the monsters previously in here out of commission.

Yes, you can use that chokepoint as a safe spot if desired, however you may get cut off from the ammo and health in the previous area making it an enticing alternative. As you saw, the first door can't be opened from the other side, this was to prevent running away, however you could have any lingering monsters open the door allowing you to grab those extra shells in the starting room

Phml said:

I thought I could have used a little bit more health after the archvile/chaingunner fight, before getting into the next part.

Their used to be a Medkit in each AV/CG alcove, however I wasn't certain whether it was too generous or not.

Phml said:

The lifts in the revenant/caco arena could stand to be more obvious. Perhaps the player is meant to memorize their positions while (I assume) revenants are triggering them?

That was the intention :) I thought it'd be an interesting easy observation puzzle rather then giving them seperate textures.

Also you absolutely aced that part ;) I placed Zombieman by the tele in the event the player was low on health at that time for humour.

Phml said:

Coming back to the second room, the archviles seemed unnecessary and forced, almost padding. They don't pose much of a threat as you can just backpedal to the room you just came from and due to the shape of the architecture they won't follow, yet at the same time their number makes a front attack too dangerous given you don't have a BFG yet and the angle right behind you doesn't give you much leeway with the RL (if you have rockets left at all). Their ressurection eats ammo too, and if I didn't provoke infight between the cybie and the mancs I might have ended up in a stalemate. I would think just two archviles guarding that switch, perhaps with bars closing down on either side, might be better here.

Your right, I thought it may be interesting as if the player is too careless you'll eat up the precious two energy packs your given, however your suggestion of reducing two and adding bars may be a more suitable choice.

Phml said:

In (what I assume is) the final room, those decorations impeding movement were tedious. If I'm not meant to go around the cybie blocks, I would prefer impassable lines/raised sectors, movement often ends up too floaty near decorations.

You can move around the Cyb blocks for cover but it would appear their were too many torchs there, I can remove a few and readjust the others.

I wasn't certain whether to add a 'Security Armor' before the teleport into the final area, I think it'd be more enjoyable rather then taking a few accidental lethal shots.

That wasn't the final fight :)

[DeletedUser]

Last Cup of Sorrow - V2

Changed a few things around for Phml's sake :)

- Added a Medkit somewhere..
- Added a Security Armor somewhere...
- Added another surprise!
- Changed the decorations around in the Pyramid area so they weren't so inhibiting

I was thinking the Manc and Cyb fight isn't particularly dangerous, as their too slow and cumbersome, perhaps swapping them with Arachnotrons or another may provoke more movement rather then just tipping back and forth.

[Phml]

I was thinking the Manc and Cyb fight isn't particularly dangerous, as their too slow and cumbersome, perhaps swapping them with Arachnotrons or another may provoke more movement rather then just tipping back and forth.

I found it OK and liked it as is, personally. Standing on a ledge, it only takes one misstep to fall down and/or take infinitelytall damage from rockets. Perhaps I was overthinking it when I play but I know I did a lot more than simply moving back and forth, even though it's not necessarily obvious looking at it. :)

[cannonball]

Thanks for the feedback danne, here are some changes
Shotgun guys removed from green floor room, replaced by a few pinkies just to make you think about firing rockets. Imps replaced by revanents on HMP and UV.
Few extra surprises whilst on the quest for the yellow key.
Final room completely retextures and now has a similar theme to the rest of the map (tech with a little hell)
Invulnerability replaced by megasphere of UV (sense of deja vu there) in the now only secret. First secret removed and it's contents placed at the start.
Difficulty settings added. Along with more detail in some blander areas.
http://www.mediafire.com/?i70u98tufno4lxh

Whilst I was at it, I did some changes to Exodus
Difficulty settings added
A couple of little areas added, based on PHML's advice, give a more sinister feeling as you progress through the level (maybe).
http://www.mediafire.com/?dghkvks57miok07

[wacked666]

so are you guys still looking for maps? ive got one drawn out on paper then realized this post is from january :|

[elic]

Go ahead and make it, you might fill megawad #1!

[Rayziik]

This one isn't either.

[ArmouredBlood]

I remember that map. I don't remember it breaking in complevel 9 though. In the blue key bit with the pillars leading to the yellow key, when I teleported into the box on the right side from the entrance, I couldn't get the wall to open - perhaps put a pass thru line on the w1 lines? Not really sure what was up with that. Demo here for that, in case I didn't get close enough to the wall or something.

[Rayziik]

ArmouredBlood said:

I remember that map. I don't remember it breaking in complevel 9 though. In the blue key bit with the pillars leading to the yellow key, when I teleported into the box on the right side from the entrance, I couldn't get the wall to open - perhaps put a pass thru line on the w1 lines? Not really sure what was up with that. Demo here for that, in case I didn't get close enough to the wall or something.

What an issue to over see. Because I made the map I knew which pillars weren't trapped, and thus never ended up in one of the closets. So I fixed the issue by making the closets longer to allow space for the walk-over linedef. I updated the link in my previous post.

[Walter confetti]

Finally i finished a layout of this map i was working (on and off, mostly off LOL) from the previous slaughterfest, but after some block about this level, added few monsters just for fun:

Judgement desu no!

Fell free to change the gameplay and add more detail etc.

Told me what do you think...

EDIT for great justice: This map uses SF-2011 texture pack... also wondering if somebody take a look at this...

[Rayziik]

This map is being reworked atm.

[wacked666]

Here is my level I've called the side winder.

You start in a little cave. do you exit to take on the monsters head on or do you take a different route and play it safe? Your just outside a black church. Where blood pours from the innocent. Sacraficed so much they need drains for all the blood!

"Now It's Time to Kick Their Ass!!!"

I've added teleporters, some nasty traps (heheh) and there are no areas where you should get trapped.I've also play tested this. Excellent for coop but for sp its a bit rough. Hope you enjoy it, It's taken a lot of hours to make this one!

Download the wad file at:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yxl9hz4d6rn5ntn

I've used all the SLAUGHTERFEST 2012 choice texture packs to make my wad so you will need them to run my level. There are no other custom textures or material added by myself, I just did the map. It's a pretty kick ass map though check it out.

-Wacked666

The list:
SF2012-tex.zip (includes Infinite BFG dehacked)
cc4-tex
gothictx
nb_recol
q1tex

[lzvk25]

wacked666 said:

Here is my level I've called the side winder. Ive made three enterances to the main building with lots of 3d effect and fine tuning. i've also play tested this. ULTRA-VIOLENCE is super hard! Excellent for coop but for sp its a bit rough. Feel free to change anything, Ive used the wads supplied, no new textures or material. Hope you enjoy it, It's taken a lot of hours to make this one!
-Wacked666

http://www.mediafire.com/?yxl9hz4d6rn5ntn

No new textures ? To play this wad, you will need :

cc4-tex.wad
GOTHICTX.WAD
q1tex.wad
SF2011-tex.wad

Great, it is the first wad that uses the full collection of textures.

Please specify this !

[Phml]

I think that's what he meant when he said he used the wads supplied, those are all linked in the first post.

[wacked666]

Ok i edited my original description. Thanks! :)

[Walter confetti]

Edited my wad post too...

[DeletedUser]

Last Cup of Sorrow - V3

-Added both Coop monsters and starts
-Added HMP difficulty, includes removed and swapped monsters and items

[wacked666]

walter confalonieri said:

Edited my wad post too...

I tried your level but the textures didnt seem to work. I tried in both skulltag and zdoom same thing.

[Phml]

Crimson

For the last few months I've been wasting my time getting nowhere on a map for the DW compilation project; having put so much effort into it already I was unable to step back and see it simply wasn't much fun to play. Trying for an intricate layout it just ended up being a shallow mess with no flow whatsoever.

To relieve frustration, I picked a good MIDI tune and started a map just for myself last week, an extremely linear affair with no attention to detail I'd design fight per fight, one per day, so I could playtest and fine-tune until I liked each part before moving to the next one.

It has worked well enough so far. I got into it and thought the map was worth sharing, so I cleaned up the visuals a little (mainly for consistency) and made certain fights (hopefully) less punishing, fought with Slade 3 and the infamous q1tex to stick textures into the wad (by far the hardest part of the entire process), and now, hopefully, here's a playable version.

Only UV is implemented for now, and the final fight wasn't tested much. FDAs and feedback of any kind are welcome.

[j4rio]

fda

80+ minutes, doesn't complete

[Rayziik]

Crimson FDA

Multiple attempts, didn't finish.

Beautiful map. The fights were god challenges but after doing the blue key ambush a few times, all those shotgun guys got really annoying, really quick. (But it's not a bad fight, at all.) I was quite entertained through the first fight and throughout the red key ambush, but in that specific ambush, it was somewhat easy. I managed to just stand in one of the hallways and anchor mouse 1 and only have to dodge a missile every now and then. Maybe you can open the area up a little to make it easier for enemies to move in?

All in all, great map, at least from what I played. I could probably finish it with a bit more grinding.

[Phml]

You make me feel evil, j4rio.

Lots of good information in there though!

- somehow I never thought of skipping by the cgs and demons and then turn back to have the chaingunners shoot them and be out of AV range at the same time. I either just skipped the entire fight or went through it normally, heh. Nice one.

- you don't like my rune switches. On the other hand that decoration head guy got his face pressed so many times. I'll give you the poor SOB could be that Doom's switch cousin.

- the way revs gang up on you at the red key is too brutal on first playthrough, I'll probably remove the first two rows. Beyond that, you trivialize the fight, and you're not alone in that, so I'll probably

open the area up a little to make it easier for enemies to move in

:)

I'll hide the rocket/cell ammo until the red key trap is triggered, as well. That was the original plan but I didn't feel it was necessary at the time.

- cybie infight with mancs too easily. I'll deepen its tiny lair so you have to really run through to wake it up; or perhaps get monster block lines to have mancs stick in that pool of blood instead of gathering in the middle. Just skipping them the first time seems awfully efficient right now. Originally, the AV platforms lowered and they resurrected a bunch of stuff if you didn't kill them, but with the 64px wide corridor it made for a boring hide-and-seek rocket spam.

Now to watch Rayzik's FDA. Thanks!

[j4rio]

Just some thoughts I had while playing

- at the beginning, you could put normal shotgun near archvile, so you won't end up punching demons and it'll also negate the possibility of taking one from those imprisoned shotgunners - guaranteed it'd happen in the least desired time and probably end up getting scratched by some wandering imps while realising the forced weapon switch.

- RK archviles are evil. Very evil. Unlikely not to end up dead without preknowledge of their position. Maybe placing them behind the lowerable wall would work better, and putting something less fatal on the ledge. Not really sure - it'd at least leave a chance of retort even though the whole place would be free to roam during demon/rev battle.

- that cyb after RK seems sort of useless to me. If you come out of RK room, you'll be most likely going forward, then you notice cyber, then BFG which is lowered, then you go for it... and basically you needn't go back to get him for the rest of map. It's usage now is like ammo sink in case of maxes and additional unnecessary threat and that's about it. But you'll come to this realisation only when you already find out how the rest of map works at which point you might have wasted ammo at him... or died while trying to take him out because it's extremely dangerous to go at him with acquired BFG! I'd probably move him to appear in lower room near BFG, it would work as a little 2-BFG-shot breeze possibility, or more if you are not daring - that's always a nice and fun addition to maps of this kind.

- what I assume was final fight, it felt a little bit overkill to me. But you said it's not tweaked so far so whatevs.

Oh, and really awesome map by the way. Glad you didn't keep the word about not making more maps. :)

[Phml]

- at the beginning, you could put normal shotgun near archvile, so you won't end up punching demons and it'll also negate the possibility of taking one from those imprisoned shotgunners - guaranteed it'd happen in the least desired time and probably end up getting scratched by some wandering imps while realising the forced weapon switch.

My original assumption was that lacking a berserk pack was incentive enough not to punch demons, but I forgot to account for elite mancubus fisters. :)

Throwing a SG in would remove much of the point of the fight, IMHO. I like it as a purely RL affair as you have to line up your shots and manage space to take out as many of them as possible, then rush in to grab a cg and finish the survivors. Unless you're a sneaky doomguy and slip behind their backs. ;)

I also like the SG weapon switch, and it was definitely intended to have it in that spot as to make hugging walls slightly more dangerous. I know this is often considered gimmicky, but I'm not inclined to change it... For now.

- RK archviles are evil. Very evil. Unlikely not to end up dead without preknowledge of their position. Maybe placing them behind the lowerable wall would work better, and putting something less fatal on the ledge. Not really sure - it'd at least leave a chance of retort even though the whole place would be free to roam during demon/rev battle.

Problem is, as you point out, all that space. Having the arch-viles blocking out north is to me one of the important points of that encounter. I guess I could put them behind the ledge, in front of you, as you arrive from the starting position - and right as you open the blue door they'll wake up, cross a W1 monster line and teleport, so you know they're around and an attentive player would notice how close they are listening to their roaming sound.

- that cyb after RK seems sort of useless to me. If you come out of RK room, you'll be most likely going forward, then you notice cyber, then BFG which is lowered, then you go for it... and basically you needn't go back to get him for the rest of map. It's usage now is like ammo sink in case of maxes and additional unnecessary threat and that's about it. But you'll come to this realisation only when you already find out how the rest of map works at which point you might have wasted ammo at him... or died while trying to take him out because it's extremely dangerous to go at him with acquired BFG! I'd probably move him to appear in lower room near BFG, it would work as a little 2-BFG-shot breeze possibility, or more if you are not daring - that's always a nice and fun addition to maps of this kind.

I'm all about optional encounters. Love 'em!

I put the cybie there to eventually distract the player from noticing right away the BFG is lowered. There's the "choice" of then going for the BFG; but as you saw yourself, it's more of a trap because you don't have a clear shot and have to go back through dangerous 64px stairs. I think it's faster and safer to take him out with the plasma gun.

Perhaps I will put another cybie down where you suggest right when the BFG is picked up, though. Definitely a good idea. There's that unused wall right there that is just begging for some trap. :)

Not too inclined to remove the top cybie for now. I can see how going for the BFG too early and being essentially punished for it could feel frustrating rather than a fair trick (still, the player has been through that exact area twice by this point, so should ideally remember what the layout looks like in here), so I'll think about mixing things up. Perhaps putting some blocking bars so you're stuck in the top area... But then there's the risk the player backs up in the start corridor, and it would make for an equally tedious situation. Maybe I should just widen that corridor.

- what I assume was final fight, it felt a little bit overkill to me. But you said it's not tweaked so far so whatevs.

Main concern up to now was this fight being too easy to manipulate! You can actually exit the big room you were in and fight the revenants at a much more relaxed pace as they spill out (although you also have to deal with shotgunners and cacos coming from the windows).

I might just close the room and make the opposition less threatening. Ultimately, I've had time to play this part only half a dozen times so far, and each time I make new tweaks, so, yep. Things are probably going to change.



Anyway! All of this gets me thinking. Thanks. :)

The fights were god challenges but after doing the blue key ambush a few times, all those shotgun guys got really annoying, really quick.

Yeah, I can see that. I like it myself because it gives an extra dimension to the fight, right from the start aiming your rockets so the splash damage not only take out the imps but also the shotgunners you can't even see.

That only works for the first part though and no matter how fast you are imps are likely to be gone from the south side. Perhaps I should forgo the symmetry there and build something different. Hmm... Starting to have an idea regarding that.

[45th Parrallel]

Are you still accepting mappers for this?

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Yes, until Jan 1st 2013 ANYONE can make a map.

[darkreaver]

I just replayed the map I submitted here, and I don`t like it, so I`d like to withdraw it.

edit: same goes for "Damnation"

[Phml]

Crimson 05/07 B

Player start is at final fight (reasons all the way down below).

I watched Rayzik's FDA, again very helpful.

Made some tweaks:

- added shotgun at start. Objectively I can see my insistance to have the forced switch is silly and overly gamey, and it's not like 8 shells are going to make or break the first fight.

- pushed column revenants forward (shrunk their spot) so they aren't as annoying to take down

- added PEs to imp fight. This was something I originally wanted to do since the health balance was changed (that was all before first upload).
- changed the south part of this fight to something else. The barons/archvile were intended as some added pressure on a center point with ammo you could use after you cleared them, but with that particular spot being so cramped it just didn't work and made for slow peek-a-boo camping.

- made the AV/mancubus fight while heading to the blue door more open, which hopefully should make it more interesting

- put AVs standing still with their back turned on you when you open the blue door. 2 less AVs; 2 will teleport to the left platform, 2 to the right one, and 2 will end up later at the same spot the very first AV was (to prevent this fight being too easy to skip to the point doing so, grabbing the BFG and coming back would always be the optimal strategy)
- added some hitscanners on platforms at the same height as AVs so they can add some pressure and be ressurected to restrict the north side a bit
- blocked ammo behind lowering bars (original plan) so you can't just stock up and be done with it, the incentive being to make the player move around
- shrunk down the side corridors inside the structure and made them open while the player first enters, so he can see the walls lowering and fight 2 revs + 2 demons, hopefully hinting at what is next to come
- changed the lowering bars in front of the key to a middle texture. It was just like that originally but revenants got stuck walking back and forth in their corridors due to the depth of these. Clearly the lowering bars weren't working either as you both expected (and rightfully so, the logic is sound) these to lower as fast as it looked they should whereas they were at 512 height despite the 128 ceiling to prevent the doomguy making too quick of an exit.
- carved side corridors and teleports for better monster movement
- threw in revenants alongside demons, so everything is bunched up together and comes from one direction with enough time to react

- added cybies behind the AV lift to make coming back with stuff still alive possibly trickier as well as add potential infighting options. Monster block lines keep them in their little alcove so they shouldn't be *too* threatening.
- removed cybie coming back to the start position, threw in spectres instead and an optional red key door leading to cell ammo and to the previous cybies from behind

- added "trap" after picking up the BFG. Really an alternate route to get back to the top part and eventually clear stragglers with BFG should the player wish to do so.

Now, all of these things weren't tested. At all! I also tweaked the final fight significantly, and with all of that ran out of time to do anything but test that specific part.

Feedback regarding this encounter would be very helpful. It works near perfectly for me personally so far but as always, I'd like to make sure it's not majorly breakable or overly tedious given a certain playstyle.