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waverider

New megawad: Curse of Blood (More feedback wanted, please! :) )

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Hello! I'm planning a 32-level megawad, designed to run on advanced Boom engines, like PRBoom Plus.

The project has a couple of new monsters and sprites, though most are the original ones. There are lots of new textures and flats.

UPDATE on July 3rd -14: Maps 1-6 has been finished. Earlier, only maps 1-3 was completed. Those maps has been updated since then, and as mentioned, 4-6 is now also done.

UPDATE on October 1st -15: Maps 1-11 has been finished. New maps added since last update is 07-11. I've also made updates to maps 02 and 03 after last feedback.

 

UPDATE on November 1st -17: Maps 1-11 has been overhauled to hopefully fix the criticisms I got for some of the maps. Here is the link to the updated Episode 1:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/35963e95trhlxyd/CoB_EP1_v2.zip

 

Here is also a .txt describing what fixes I made to EP1. Stuff fixed include the removal of most corner- or doorcamping issues, wall-of-meat effect reduction, ammo balancing and fixing secrets that were deemed too hard to find. Here is the .txt:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/y85flcblupcbqwq/To-do-list-EP1.txt

 

UPDATE on December 20, 2017: Maps 12, 13 and 18 are finished and can be downloaded here:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/wut5l97js33w9b5/12_DesertPalace.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/d289wbl9503j635/13_AzuriTemple.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/0c5jicm2xk3vcmr/18_Blackmire.zip

 

Sorry that I'm not offering these three new maps inside the pack for EP1, but I rather do it this way, because I only want final-final maps inside the whole pack. Let me know if this is too much of a hassle though, and I might change this.

 

 

Maps in Episode 2 that are finished or nearly finished are: 12, 13, 14, 18 and 19. I also have a few Episode 3 maps in good shape. I will keep posting updates of my progress here in this thread.


Here's some pictures of the maps:

Map04: Lakeview

http://www.mediafire.com/view/nayq4kyyn1ie7fl/04_Lakeview.jpg

Map07: Simply Deadly

http://www.mediafire.com/view/6oso56gw5uom62z/07_Simply.png

Map08: Courtyard

http://www.mediafire.com/view/55xj2bk8gbt5ivo/08_Courtyard.jpg

Map09: Security Labs B-18

http://www.mediafire.com/view/bhba75wn9nj23g4/09_Security.png

Map10: Bodum Falls

http://www.mediafire.com/view/oknlm5dfogaau77/10_Bodumfalls.jpg


Let me know what you think please! Feedback is greatly appreciated. But please be constructive! :)


/ Waverider

Edited by waverider : New version is up

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Awesome news!! I remember your style having a lot of potential to do awesome things when I played your Plutonia Revisited map so I'm looking forward to this.

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:o what am I supposed to do in the mastermind room? Shooting between the columns is awkward enough but even if a rocket flies through, most of the time I get massive splash damage because the spider is too close to me.

waverider said:

and can no longer be interrupted in her attacks

I also have tried making a monster like that for my wad in progress but it didn't work as well as I expected. Situations where the monster sees you but can't hit you (i.e. you're above the monster on some ledge) become extremely silly since the monster will never try to find a better firing position.

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So you won't be reusing any of the maps from 'A Taste for Blood' for this? That's what the sanguinary convention in your choice of titles immediately made me think of. Anyhow, apart from the anticlimax in the last map, I enjoyed that mapset (particularly 'Base X Near Lake Therion' or whatever that one was called), and so I'm glad to see you working on more stuff.

I'm also all for a buffed mastermind, in hopes that this will make it easier to place that monster in such a way that a genuinely engaging battle might be had with it.....really interesting mastermind battles are pretty damned rare in most of WAD-dom, after all.

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Memfis said:

:o what am I supposed to do in the mastermind room? Shooting between the columns is awkward enough but even if a rocket flies through, most of the time I get massive splash damage because the spider is too close to me.


Yeah, I couldn't really figure out how to beat this one without cheating either. Just too small. That'd actually be my main criticism of the levels as a whole - too small and cramped. There's a decent sense of style and detail making each area interesting, but at the end of the day there's still a lot of 64-wide corridors and tiny cramped rooms that doesn't make to spectacular gameplay, IMO.

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Magnusblitz said:

too small and cramped. There's a decent sense of style and detail making each area interesting, but at the end of the day there's still a lot of 64-wide corridors and tiny cramped rooms that doesn't make to spectacular gameplay, IMO.

Agree completely

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Memfis said:

:o what am I supposed to do in the mastermind room? Shooting between the columns is awkward enough but even if a rocket flies through, most of the time I get massive splash damage because the spider is too close to me.


Yeah I figured this fight might annoy and confuse people, it's indeed tricky to figure out what to do here. I'll fix up this area as well as other places in this map.

I also have tried making a monster like that for my wad in progress but it didn't work as well as I expected. Situations where the monster sees you but can't hit you (i.e. you're above the monster on some ledge) become extremely silly since the monster will never try to find a better firing position.


Good point again, thanks. I might change her so that she has a low chance of going into pain state, so she changes her position. I'll think about it.

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Demon of the Well said:

So you won't be reusing any of the maps from 'A Taste for Blood' for this? That's what the sanguinary convention in your choice of titles immediately made me think of. Anyhow, apart from the anticlimax in the last map, I enjoyed that mapset (particularly 'Base X Near Lake Therion' or whatever that one was called), and so I'm glad to see you working on more stuff.


Nah, the maps in Curse of Blood will continue after the 'events' of Taste for Blood. So while the first was merely a "taste", the Curse will be the 'big thing', with a big bloodcurse outbreak. :)

Yeah, sorry for the non-epic ending of Taste for Blood, I was a bit stressed back then to have the episode released. But that's no real excuse. =p

I'm also all for a buffed mastermind, in hopes that this will make it easier to place that monster in such a way that a genuinely engaging battle might be had with it.....really interesting mastermind battles are pretty damned rare in most of WAD-dom, after all.


I'll try to make some interesting spider fights, I hope the one in Map19 will recieve more thumbs up than down. =p

Magnusblitz wrote:
Yeah, I couldn't really figure out how to beat this one without cheating either. Just too small. That'd actually be my main criticism of the levels as a whole - too small and cramped. There's a decent sense of style and detail making each area interesting, but at the end of the day there's still a lot of 64-wide corridors and tiny cramped rooms that doesn't make to spectacular gameplay, IMO.


Thanks for your input! I agree that there's many narrow hallways in these maps, I'll try to have more open areas later on.

Deathevokation wrote:
Agree completely


Sorry these maps were a letdown after Map19 in Plutonia Revisited. :) I think other maps will have more open areas. Thanks for your input though!

Alright folks, keep those feedback comments, coming! :)

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Hmmm, that first way looks extremely tedious to me: more than half of the time you're just standing still, waiting for the spider to move farther a little bit. It's basically a camping exercise. Maybe it would be more exciting if there were some crushers near the walls that you'd have to avoid. Or maybe various parts of the floor could become damaging from time to time. This fight just needs something that would make the player move a little more in my opinion.

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waverider said:

Sorry these maps were a letdown after Map19 in Plutonia Revisited. :) I think other maps will have more open areas. Thanks for your input though!

Hehe, no worries... they were decent. If they were a total disappointment I would have faded back into the darkness without commenting. :)

I'm glad you posted the maps in this early stage, I just thought that honest feedback really needed to be given so that later maps can benefit. The gameplay was okay for a for a maps but I can just imagine if it didn't get spiced up it'd get a bit much over the duration of the rest of the megawad. If that makes sense.

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Memfis said:

Hmmm, that first way looks extremely tedious to me: more than half of the time you're just standing still, waiting for the spider to move farther a little bit. It's basically a camping exercise. Maybe it would be more exciting if there were some crushers near the walls that you'd have to avoid. Or maybe various parts of the floor could become damaging from time to time. This fight just needs something that would make the player move a little more in my opinion.


Yeah the fight can be a bit slow. It can also go faster depending on how often the spider goes farther away. You can pump several rockets at a time also.

Personally I'm happy with how this fight is right now, but I don't want others to hate it. =p I'll think about if I'm going to change it to make it easier to figure out and also in that case, to make it a more fast-paced fight.

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Hey, I just wanted to wish you luck on your new megawad. Looks pretty cool so far and I'm sure people will enjoy it. It might help to make those screenshots visible on the first post.

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valkiriforce said:

Hey, I just wanted to wish you luck on your new megawad. Looks pretty cool so far and I'm sure people will enjoy it. It might help to make those screenshots visible on the first post.


Hi, thanks for that mate! :) And good suggestion about making the pictures visible, just made them thumbnails!

By the way, let me know if you got any nice new vanilla maps of yours for me to test, hehe. :)

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As of today (3rd of July), I've finished Maps 1-6 for my planned 32-map megawad. Download as well as new info is at the top.

Feedback is much appriciated! :D Thanks!


/ Waverider

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Not sure if you want the feedback private or public, but I thought I'd post here anyway.

Played with prboom-plus, UV difficulty, pistol start:
Map01: Good start, I like how most of the areas are optional. Nothing to say here. I like the new lost soul monster, really makes it a more versatile monster to deal with.

Map02: Texturing could do some work. E.g., the grey brick texture should be aligned without cutting off the bricks awkwardly. And maybe some extra variety of texturing or trims to break up the overly bluey-compy areas a little bit? I like the areas that revisit Map01, neat. The part where the monsters come out of the ground outside maybe could rise up a tad earlier; it’s a little awkward when the player is stuck due to infinite-tall monsters and they haven’t appeared yet (this is probably just personal preference).

Map03: Nothing to say here. Some mild fun challenges to be had here.

Map04: I liked this map, it was a cool scythish sandbox map and more fun than the first 3 due to its welcome increase in difficulty.

Map05: Ooh, nice map. Nice mixture of claustrophobic and open-areas challenges; died a few times. Good execution of actual non-linearity/optional paths, this is a very brave design approach; very difficult to balance optional pathways. I am never game enough to do this sort of maps, only ‘non-linear with compulsory areas’ maps if that makes sense, haha.

Map06: Golly this was a really good map; you manage to squeeze out fun fast paced gameplay with very minimal amounts of monsters. Love the use of revenants here; the pain elemental is a 'nightmare plus one' monster with the lost-soul changes. One suggestion; maybe make the archvile with the baron (in the blue key-marked door building) hearing/non-deaf? It was easy to lure the baron out of the room without alerting the archvile, so for added challenge, make it so the player can’t attack the baron without waking up the archvile?

Good stuff so far, I would suggest spicing up Map1-2 a little bit gameplay wise and some more architectural features. They feel a little bit too simplistic at times, particular compared to the later maps.

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Some levels are too incoherent perhaps, like in map05 you're going from a room to a room and almost every time the texturing changes: red bricks, brown bricks, green bricks, white stone, gray stone, green tech, metal, stargr... Plus it's basically a series of random rooms connected by doors and small passages, no system at all, just a patchwork. The same could be said about 01-03 I guess but here it is the most noticeable.

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Joshy said:

Feedback


Thanks for the feedback mate! :D Happy to hear you seemed to like the maps!

Also glad you liked the new Lost Soul! Props to Mechadon for helping me make the LS that versatile.

I'll be looking into the changes you suggested, good stuff. :) I'll be incorporating a couple of them for sure! For instance, I'll be looking into adding more detail to Map01 and 02, as well as improving texture alignment.

Thanks again! :)

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Memfis said:

Some levels are too incoherent perhaps, like in map05 you're going from a room to a room and almost every time the texturing changes: red bricks, brown bricks, green bricks, white stone, gray stone, green tech, metal, stargr...


So you would like a bit more of the same or similar texturing in more rooms?

Plus it's basically a series of random rooms connected by doors and small passages, no system at all, just a patchwork. The same could be said about 01-03 I guess but here it is the most noticeable.


Not sure what you mean by this. Please explain a bit further. :)

By the way, was there something you liked in any of the maps?

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Hard to explain but basically some of your maps, especially map05, look something like this:

(exagerration)

I think perhaps that's not the most interesting layout type in the world, maybe you could try making levels that are less maze-like, that don't feel like a bunch of separate rooms connected, that feel more like one big system or something. Like Plutonia 2 maps 5, 9, 16, etc: in these levels the borders between different areas are a lot less noticeable, everything is coherent and belongs to the same "space". I think that's a good thing to learn from Plutonia 2, I'm not saying that you should go for the same extremely interconnected style of course, but just consider the general idea of making less patchwork-like levels. Well, this is all just an opinion. And yeah, this extends to the texturing as well, which also doesn't seem systematic enough to me.

Of course I liked some stuff in the maps as well, the design is overall pleasantly clean with just the right amount of detail, some interesting little ideas here and there, and I found them fun to explore.

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Memfis said:

Hard to explain but basically some of your maps, especially map05, look something like this:

(exagerration)

I think perhaps that's not the most interesting layout type in the world, maybe you could try making levels that are less maze-like, that don't feel like a bunch of separate rooms connected, that feel more like one big system or something. Like Plutonia 2 maps 5, 9, 16, etc: in these levels the borders between different areas are a lot less noticeable, everything is coherent and belongs to the same "space". I think that's a good thing to learn from Plutonia 2, I'm not saying that you should go for the same extremely interconnected style of course, but just consider the general idea of making less patchwork-like levels. Well, this is all just an opinion. And yeah, this extends to the texturing as well, which also doesn't seem systematic enough to me.

Of course I liked some stuff in the maps as well, the design is overall pleasantly clean with just the right amount of detail, some interesting little ideas here and there, and I found them fun to explore.


Ah ok, I get what you mean. I'll try to make more areas in my maps that feels more like one coherent system.

Map07 and forward will also in general be more open than 01-06 is.

Glad to hear you liked some parts of my design and detailing, and also that the maps were fun to explore. :)

Thanks for your input!

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demos? demos! https://www.mediafire.com/?8cl8pdqa7z1zdut

pro:
- love the lost soul variant. intimidating looking, cute cat ears, or whatever. The increased speed actually makes me pretty nervous around them.
- lots of interconnectivity, good stuff.
- I like how the exit isn't necessarily at the "end" of each map, giving the player freedom to explore remaining areas at their leisure.

con:
- lots of corridor fighting. it's hard to coax interesting gameplay out of tight hallways. That's not to say cramped fighting can't be fun, but it's a lot more entertaining if you can find ways to attack the player from multiple angles, from multiple heights, etc.
- on a similar note, I think I agree with memfis' comments on the layout, the number of tight hallways connecting various things together made some maps feel like rat mazes.
- holy shit there's so much ammo. you could probably nix nearly half of it and be fine. Though if the idea was to never have the player worrying about running out, then it might be fine as is.

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Ribbiks said:

demos? demos! https://www.mediafire.com/?8cl8pdqa7z1zdut

pro:
- love the lost soul variant. intimidating looking, cute cat ears, or whatever. The increased speed actually makes me pretty nervous around them.
- lots of interconnectivity, good stuff.
- I like how the exit isn't necessarily at the "end" of each map, giving the player freedom to explore remaining areas at their leisure.

con:
- lots of corridor fighting. it's hard to coax interesting gameplay out of tight hallways. That's not to say cramped fighting can't be fun, but it's a lot more entertaining if you can find ways to attack the player from multiple angles, from multiple heights, etc.
- on a similar note, I think I agree with memfis' comments on the layout, the number of tight hallways connecting various things together made some maps feel like rat mazes.
- holy shit there's so much ammo. you could probably nix nearly half of it and be fine. Though if the idea was to never have the player worrying about running out, then it might be fine as is.


Thanks for the feedback, and also for the demo! That's always a welcome extra. I enjoyed watching it!

Happy to hear you liked the new Lost Soul (or Forgotten One from Doom 3). It's definitely a more scary looking LS imo. The speed was increased, and also as you've noticed, it's more aggressive now. I wanted at least one monster with Nightmare-difficulty properties, (quickness/aggressiveness, but without having to resort to imo kinda frustrating respawning monsters.)

Also cool that you like the interconnectivity of my maps. That's definitely something I enjoy doing, and also to try and come up with non-linear layouts, as well as making optional rooms.

I'll definitely take to heart to improve the tight corridors, and have less mazes. I did expand on a few areas in Map02 and 03 for this release, but it's clear I have to expand way further. I may do some further expanding on maps 1-6, but most likely I'll start making larger rooms with more interesting fights, at map 7 and forward.

I'll think about the ammo issue as well. But here I think I'll want easier maps to have a bit excess ammo for the sake of low difficulty.


Thanks again!

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As of today, October 01, I've finished Episode 1 (Maps 01-11) of this hopefully to be 32-map megawad. Maps 07-11 are new, but I've also taken earlier feedback to heart, and have changed stuff a bit, especially at Map02 and 03.

Download is at the top. Additional feedback is very welcome. But please be constructive, cheers! :)

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It's nice to see that you're still working on this, I was starting to get worried. :) Here are my FDAs for Maps 07-09. 09 frustrated me a bit so I'll stop playing for now. Some miscellaneous thoughts:

- It's a bit weird to see such radical difficulty shifts, like Map07 begins with a challenging arena with arch-viles, etc, then you survive it and proceed to explore the surrounding buildings where you have to fight some harmless easy-to-camp hell knights and stuff. Kind of makes it feel like only the first fight was "important" and the rest is just filler in comparison. I don't know, maybe it's not necessarily bad, different people have different opinions on difficulty spikes, I guess I prefer having more even\constant difficulty.

- The use of color could be more consistent and restrained perhaps. For instance, for me it's strange to encounter a lone purple lamp in a level and then not see purple anywhere else. Makes that lamp look too alien, as it's not supposed to be there. If purple was used across the whole level as a "theme", that would work better. Also you tend to mix many colors together, like in the first room on Map08 there are purple lamps, yellow lamps, orange lamps, bright red "carpet", blue TEKGREN and SILVER, etc... Maybe that's a bit too much? Again, it's my personal preference I suppose, some people prefer decorating their rooms like Christmas trees and that's fine. Just something to think about if you want.

- The large horde that appears on the street on Map08... It is sooo tempting to simply run away from the bastards instead of trying to fight while being attacked by faraway chaingunners, etc. I tried to "play fair", returned to that area later and got killed as a result - not a pleasant experience heh. That's something to keep in mind when designing dangerous battles: if it's too easy to escape, the player might just do it. :)

I guess that's all for now. I'll try the following maps later and maybe replay the old ones to see what has changed. Again I concentrated on the negatives for some reason, maybe it's just easier to criticize... But I actually think this is some good stuff here and am looking forward to seeing more. :)

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I almost missed this release, it came out of the leftfield, heh. Good to see you progressing with it, I'll take a look soon!

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Memfis said:

It's nice to see that you're still working on this, I was starting to get worried. :) Here are my FDAs for Maps 07-09. 09 frustrated me a bit so I'll stop playing for now. Some miscellaneous thoughts:

- It's a bit weird to see such radical difficulty shifts, like Map07 begins with a challenging arena with arch-viles, etc, then you survive it and proceed to explore the surrounding buildings where you have to fight some harmless easy-to-camp hell knights and stuff. Kind of makes it feel like only the first fight was "important" and the rest is just filler in comparison. I don't know, maybe it's not necessarily bad, different people have different opinions on difficulty spikes, I guess I prefer having more even\constant difficulty.


Hey!

I'm glad to hear you were worried that CoB has ceased "production", heh. :) Just came back from watching your last demo for map09. Thanks for those! It's always great fun to see FDA's, to see how people react when they play the map for the very first time. I figured you would die a bit on Map07, at least the first tries can be tricky until you figure it all out. I agree that 07 is challenging in the start but much easier after that, but I think it's kind of my style to have difficulty spikes, from level to level but also in one and the same level. But I'll think it over and see if it also suits me to have a more coherent difficulty curve at least in the same map. Without going too much into detail, I also liked your demos for map08 and 09. I can understand that Map09 can feel frustrating. I highly recommend savegames until you've learned that map, as it has very much trial-and-error based gameplay.

- The use of color could be more consistent and restrained perhaps. For instance, for me it's strange to encounter a lone purple lamp in a level and then not see purple anywhere else. Makes that lamp look too alien, as it's not supposed to be there. If purple was used across the whole level as a "theme", that would work better. Also you tend to mix many colors together, like in the first room on Map08 there are purple lamps, yellow lamps, orange lamps, bright red "carpet", blue TEKGREN and SILVER, etc... Maybe that's a bit too much? Again, it's my personal preference I suppose, some people prefer decorating their rooms like Christmas trees and that's fine. Just something to think about if you want.


I think that different colors (and also patterns in textures) mixed is definitely my kind of style, so I think it would be hard to change this while still keeping what's "me" in my design. I'll think it over and try it out though to see it works for me. Come to think of it, Map12 is probably more color and style coherent. But generally, I think that the hefty mix of colors and patterns will continue.

- The large horde that appears on the street on Map08... It is sooo tempting to simply run away from the bastards instead of trying to fight while being attacked by faraway chaingunners, etc. I tried to "play fair", returned to that area later and got killed as a result - not a pleasant experience heh. That's something to keep in mind when designing dangerous battles: if it's too easy to escape, the player might just do it. :)


This map wasn't meant to be very challenging, but I totally get what you mean. I might get back to the map and try to add a few monsters at the cave and also up on the staircase on the upper part of the area so it's harder to escape. I've also uploaded the entire episode 1 to idgames, I'll guess I'll wait and see what others think, thing is, I really want to be finished with episode 1 now, so I'm probably not going to update anything on any maps of episode 1, unless anyone finds any gamebreaking bugs or if I get several bad reviews. I hope you understand. I do take notice of your remarks though and will try to incorporate what I can into further maps from level 12 and forwards.

I guess that's all for now. I'll try the following maps later and maybe replay the old ones to see what has changed. Again I concentrated on the negatives for some reason, maybe it's just easier to criticize... But I actually think this is some good stuff here and am looking forward to seeing more. :)


Have you had a chance to look at map 10 and 11 yet? Or replayed any earlier maps? I've listened to your criticism of that some of the earlier maps had much corridor fighting and also to that the maps weren't connected as a whole, and I hope Map02 and 03 will now deliver more of what you asked for. They have more interconnecting areas and most of all, I've expanded many areas in those maps to have bigger hallways than just 64 in width. I hope I've delivered on that front because thing is, it really is my style to have my maps coherent in that a map feels like one whole piece in terms of the layout - to not just have rectangular, not-coherent rooms. I thank you for those advices, I think I really like what my style is starting to develop into.

I'm also glad that, despite that you have a few remarks about some of the maps, that you still think they're good! :)

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dew said:

I almost missed this release, it came out of the leftfield, heh. Good to see you progressing with it, I'll take a look soon!


Yo,

Glad to hear you're gonna look into the maps. I think there's a couple in there that you haven't played yet, at least Map08, 10 and 11. You have probably played the rest, though. If you'd like to give me feedback, that's fine, and if not, that's fine too. :)

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Played Map10 and I think some monster placement is kinda poor. I don't understand the purpose of 2 arch-viles in the first room to the left from the start and 4 arch-viles in the following room. Seems like just a boring camping exercise to me. Stand still, wait for the vile to start attacking you so that you can aim at him properly, shoot 2 rockets, hide, repeat. Just don't find that fun or challenging or anything. Arch-viles work well when they cooperate with other monsters to put more pressure on the player, but if you can always just hide behind a wall then what's the point? Similarly, in the outdoor area with many monsters you can cause some infightings and then very easily escape and listen to them kill each other, just like in Map08. Or near the end there is a cyberdemon with some mancubi and you can just walk past them - whaaat? I don't know, maybe I'm playing the whole level "incorrectly", maybe the player is supposed to be more aggressive by choice but somehow I don't feel like doing that when there are much easier and safer alternatives. Health seemed kinda low in the later parts of the level (once I went down to like 30% I encountered only 1 or 2 medikits) but I admit I didn't fight very carefully sometimes. A bit weird map.

I wonder what other people think about the things I'm complaining about. This thread could use more activity.

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Memfis said:

Played Map10 and I think some monster placement is kinda poor. I don't understand the purpose of 2 arch-viles in the first room to the left from the start and 4 arch-viles in the following room. Seems like just a boring camping exercise to me. Stand still, wait for the vile to start attacking you so that you can aim at him properly, shoot 2 rockets, hide, repeat. Just don't find that fun or challenging or anything. Arch-viles work well when they cooperate with other monsters to put more pressure on the player, but if you can always just hide behind a wall then what's the point? Similarly, in the outdoor area with many monsters you can cause some infightings and then very easily escape and listen to them kill each other, just like in Map08. Or near the end there is a cyberdemon with some mancubi and you can just walk past them - whaaat? I don't know, maybe I'm playing the whole level "incorrectly", maybe the player is supposed to be more aggressive by choice but somehow I don't feel like doing that when there are much easier and safer alternatives. Health seemed kinda low in the later parts of the level (once I went down to like 30% I encountered only 1 or 2 medikits) but I admit I didn't fight very carefully sometimes. A bit weird map.

I wonder what other people think about the things I'm complaining about. This thread could use more activity.



Hey,

Yeah your points are valid. You're right to assume I did those monster placements to give the player the option to either do it the tough way or (the much easier?) way. The two Arch-viles in the beginning will definitely be tougher if you run into the center area and shoot at one while being at a bit of a risk with the other. Or you can just snipe them away before going into the center area. I did think the 4 arch-viles at the nearby bigger cave were kinda dangerous if you're not careful. Or they might not be tough at all, I dunno. I'll think it over if I'm changing things here. Don't want tedious maps. :)

Then in the watery outdoor area, same thing here, can do it the hard or easy way. Also, same with the cyber/mancubis at the end.

I'll consider adding more health packs at the 2nd half.

Was there anything you liked with the map by the way? Or was it more bad than good overall?

I've also uploaded EP1 to idgames, I'll wait on the review and following comments before I change anything I think. Your points are valid, it's just that I really want to be finished with EP1 now after several years! on and off building on those maps. (Yeah I map slow as hell, hehe). I'm gonna try and build way faster from now on though. By the way, have you tested Map09 and 11 yet?

Cheers for feedback.

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