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Steve D

Realm Of Intensified Chaos -- Preview -- Map04 Revised HMP and HNTR players welcome!

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I'm probably 2 months away from releasing the public beta of Realm Of Intensified Chaos, so I decided to release a preview map first.

This is the latest revision of Map04 of Realm of Intensified Chaos, which was originally Map22 of the Realm of Chaos megawad by The Macintosh Team.

Realm of Intensified Chaos contains revised versions of my 6 original Realm of Chaos maps. Here's an example of how heavily revised this map is.

1996:
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_205431_zps42009446.png.html?sort=3&o=2
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_205445_zpsfb10da16.png.html?sort=3&o=0
2013:
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_203412_zps09d6b8d9.png.html?sort=3&o=8
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_202838_zps215a8a3d.png.html?sort=3&o=10

Some new stuff which didn't exist before:
The giant swastika room:
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_203548_zpsc2f0fadb.png.html?sort=3&o=13
The Cave of the Wolfies:
http://s1329.photobucket.com/user/steveduff2/media/ROIC2/Screenshot_Doom_20131103_203737_zps140fb399.png.html?sort=3&o=5

The map: http://www.mediafire.com/download/8fwv156rx913wt7/Nova_akz.wad

Edit: Please note that it plays on the Map04 slot this time, plus it has a new MOD file for its music track, which doesn't loop properly, but it repeats in an area that works well for the game. ;D

My thanks to the Doomworld Megawad Club for playing Realm of Chaos and providing invaluable criticism and advice. This map was probably the least well-liked of all my RoC efforts, so major renovation was called for. The original map had 356 sectors, the new version has 1,027, even though it's only about 25% larger. The Easy/Medium/Hard monster count of the original was 177/236/282. The new version is 305/420/501, meaning it now has more monsters on HNTR than the original had on UV! :)

Alright, enough of my yapping. ;D

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Skill 4 FDA: http://www.mediafire.com/?pl54686pa8qa78l

My lack of goodness, that first outdoor section sure changed a lot, as did the final area. Other places seem to have hardly changed at all, though, even in terms of thing placement. I must say, this does give the map a decidedly piecemeal quality, but if Wolf3D setpieces are going to be a big thing in the mapset, I suppose it's already so far out of its mind that this won't matter that much. Definitely do something to the BFG secret area, though, at this point it's so far below par with the general construction standard of everything else (and it was even in the original map, honestly) that it stands out in a negative way. I also remember seeing at least one major HOM (and maybe some other small visual glitches) at one point, it will surely show up in the demo.

Various idle gameplay suggestions:
*The second SSG in the central building of the acropolis is rather superfluous, given the free one at the start of the map. Not sure what I'd replace it with.....maybe the plasma gun (might help speed up the removal of any masterminds that don't die to infighting), and then make the prize where the PG currently sits something else, perhaps a megasphere or even an IV sphere for use against what's behind the blue door....or hell, maybe just make the gun a shell case, instead.
*I would suggest putting one mastermind on each side of the building in the acropolis, rather than having them both at the far end. They tend to die to infighting a lot (at least on the most common complevels), but this way they could provide a little more pressure on the player (e.g. to not hang around at the south end) and perhaps be slightly less likely to be killed off by other monsters. Additionally, I'd suggest making the stuff behind the blue door deaf--provide a nice jump-scare for folks that have never played the map before.
*The skull switch that opens up a little cubby with some rocket cases and some small cells right before the big Wolfenstein exit area could be turned into an (easy) pushwall secret with a slight texture offset in true SteveD style, and it could contain a blur sphere in addition to (or in place of) the ammo, as said artifact would be quite useful for the initial push into that area. Also regarding that area, I think that a bit of arch-vile and PE presence somewhere in the area would spice that last fight up a bit.

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Hello!

It is been a very long time when I played original m22 of RoC, so I remember almost nothing, except for base geometry of that titanic hall with spiders.

Good to see what you don't overwhelm your old creation with modern detailing, so it plays and looks pretty well, like a good-old RoC was. But may be guys who played original recently will feel to much a deja-vu of some boring sort about this... Remakes are quite specific genre.

My sluggish FDA is here. 45 mins overall with 1 death. Last in 31:16 100/66.

Spotted bugs: missing texs on lines 2704 & 2739

PS About new third-reich location: I think it is allright. It's flow pretty well from main hall's titanesee architecture (totalitarian culture and so on). Overall, after watching my demo, I should say what it is really sturdy level. You know what you doing and you doing it right. I even don't wanna say a word of critic or suggestion.

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FDA on UV (one death at what I think was the final battle, after I make a very bad decision on where to run to, no exit; didn't feel like playing it again): http://www.mediafire.com/download/p34x43bo6r6scag/RoC.lmp
(EDIT: Forgot to mention, this is complevel 2)

Pretty much everything that happens before grabbing the yellow key needs to be beefed up a lot, IMO. In particular, the nobles are almost all just bullet sponges, aside from the ones that guard the Soulsphere in the outer lava area- I'd replace them all with two Revenants each (four for Barons), and possibly a few with Viles. The four on those pillars after the red door would probably be better as Mancubi, or maybe Arachnos. The two Mastermind room is boring- when I was playing it, I was wondering "why doesn't he just replace them with a Cyberdemon and an Arch-Vile"; that question was answered when I opened the blue door... but I still think those Spiderbosses should be replaced with something more exciting. Maybe 16 Revenants (or more, if needed, but enough to really fill the area nicely) supported by 2 Arch-Viles (again, more if needed- I could see this needing four Viles)? Or maybe a nice pack of Pain Elementals?

I'm generally of the opinion that using the SS Nazi is kinda tacky, but at the very least, the ones in the halls around the Plasma Rifle should be replaced. I'd say replace them with something more dangerous- either Chaingunners if you want to keep them hitscanners, or possibly with Revenants.

Lose the Chainsaw. You don't need it in a map that has a Berserk pack, and it just makes it harder to switch to the melee weapon that I really want.

Bug- near the Megasphere in the Red Key room, there's some bunch of floor I can't walk over. I can't tell if it's a monster pit that's failing to raise or what, but something isn't right.

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Oh, that thing near the megasphere, I forgot to mention that. The problem's got nothing to do with the floor, it's just infinite-tallness rearing its ugly, flow-breaking head again: there's a gutted corpse decoration hanging high up on the ceiling causing the issue (player can't pass directly beneath a solid object).

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So 2 months to go until I can once again livestream with SteveD commentating on my every actions in the twitch chat eh?

Looking forward to this project!

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Took a whirl through it, though it was far from a detailed play-through. I think you did a good job updating it, though it's somewhat obvious which areas got heavily updated (the outside lava flow area) and which ones are mostly the same (the red area with the blue key). I'm in the "nazis are tacky" camp, but I know that you like doing that, and the area works pretty well so I won't begrudge you that. Still, I would agree that the nazis in the blue key area should be removed, saving them for after the red door.

Gameplay-wise - the start is one of the toughest parts, especially on pistol start, as the hitscanners start spilling in from multiple angles. There is a berserk/green armor nearby though for quick players. The rest of the map is pretty easy until the blue door, and the yellow door area was just asking to be sprinted by (as your noted in your write-up).

Some flaws I noticed:
- The shape of the light emanating from the ceiling lights in the first area isn't consistent - some have light which follows the cross pattern, others have a circular light. Image
- In the starting area, one of the side hallways has nice metal beams to break up the brown brick and the grey walls (Image) but the other one doesn't (Image).
- There's a lot of areas where you have the skull marble texture flowing into the green stone texture, and it kinda clashes. For example, here (only visible when the lift is dropped), and here (megasphere behind the chaingunners behind the blue door).
- One side of the central building needs the wood ceilings changed. Image
- Same with the door into the red area with the blue key
- The bricks on the pillar with the blue key don't align with the rest after the pillar is raised. Image
- A lot of the Wolfenstein blue brick walls aren't aligned properly, mainly where the slime pits open up. Useless image that gives no sense of place at all

Also, I think the grey sky looks fine in most of the map, but looks a bit weird as the ending portal on the floor since it's almost the same color as the surrounding floor.

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Ha, I didn't even see the hanging corpse! Yeah, that would be the cause.

Second attempt was a success. Got a little tense towards the end- friggin' Specters are hard to see on that dark blood floor. Found the BFG secret this time. Final Cyberdemon hilariously fell off the platform somehow (I didn't witness what caused it).

Maybe put four (or more as needed) Viles behind the yellow door, to keep people from just running from the final fight.

Demo here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/7lmbftq17va6vmp/RoC-success.lmp (EDIT: Complevel 2)

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HNTR and HMP players welcome eh? Well here's a HNTR player. Thought I'd make an FDA. Used GLBoom+, HNTR, complevel 9 (because I wasn't sure what format it would be in and boom compatibility usually works). Bear in mind I have never played RoC, so this was completely new for me.

FDA

Now one of the issues with offering advice on how to balance for HNTR is that I think a lot of people have different opinions on what sort of player HNTR should be for. Is it fair to assume that HNTR should be balanced for 100-year-old arthritic grandmas? Or do we assume that modern players tend to be better than this and make the lower difficulties slightly toned down UV? Without knowing what sort of player you want to balance for the best advice I can offer right now is to just watch the demo and have a think about it. How forgiving do you want to be of mistakes, and what sort of mistakes? Dodge fails? Poor weapon use? Bad accuracy? Poor positioning?

I can offer two thoughts on my playthrough though:
1) The opening of the map should probably be toned down.
2) I can't say anything else because I can't get past the start of the map lmao.

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Suitepee said:

So 2 months to go until I can once again livestream with SteveD commentating on my every actions in the twitch chat eh?

Looking forward to this project!


I will certainly be there! With luck I'll be able to sit in if you have a Doom livestream next week. Not for my maps, natch, but whatever you happen to be playing.

When we get to RoIC, I really do hope for a lot of cussing. A LOT of cussing! ;D

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I want to thank everyone for this embarrassment of riches in commentary and FDAs. I've postponed replies a bit while working in some of the suggested fixes.

A few general comments before individual replies. First, I really want to live up to the name Realm of Intensified Chaos. Aside from being a simple and obvious badassing of the name Realm of Chaos, there was a Bay Area punk band back in the day named Intensified Chaos, and since I have vivid memories of the Upper Pleistocene, back when moshing was still called slam-dancing, I was able to call that name up. ;D

My problem, of course, is that while I want these maps to be so hard that players at, and somewhat above my skill level will weep real tears on UV, I am still limited by my own (lack of) playing skill. I can also tell you that Map04, as it stands, is not the toughest map in RoIC. To me, that honor goes to Map01 -- Machine Gun Etiquette -- originally Map09 of RoC. I died about 25 times on the last playthrough, thanks to following some suggestions in the DWMC's RoC thread. Map09 is also in my oldschool wheelhouse of traditional maps that rely on resource management and deadly hitscanner attacks. I added a new area to that one, rather than making it shorter as others suggested, and it's kinda nasty, at least to me.

What I'm getting at is this; with Realm of Intensified Chaos, I'm willing to listen to top-flight players, such as those who just playtested this map, to do the kind of thing the esteemed Adam "Capellan" Windsor does, which is to make UV above my skill and patience level as a player. I'll pump up HMP so it's similar to the current UV. Of course, if I followed all of Cynical's suggestions, I'd end up with Realm of Combat Shock 2. ;D Not sure I'm ready for that yet, but I sorta set myself up for it with all those big semi-slaughtery areas. That's what I get for playing Stardate 20x6.

I will not forget the HMP and HNTR players, either, which is why I want them to participate in the testing. So a big thanks to Melon for joining in.

Another special big thanks to Hitherto. It was the demo-pack that you and Heretic did for Realm of Chaos that encouraged me to actually join the Doom community as opposed to just being a lone mapper who never releases anything. ;D And thanks also for playtesting the map purist and I did for the Team Mapping Project. Your FDA suggested more corrections.

And thanks as always to DoTW. My never-ending quest to smoke your ass in one map or another is a constant inspiration for me to do better. And thanks to Magnus for taking the time and trouble to both play the map and record those flaws, it's an immense help.

So now I can start the individual replies. :)

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SteveD said:

What I'm getting at is this; with Realm of Intensified Chaos, I'm willing to listen to top-flight players, such as those who just playtested this map, to do the kind of thing the esteemed Adam "Capellan" Windsor does, which is to make UV above my skill and patience level as a player. I'll pump up HMP so it's similar to the current UV. Of course, if I followed all of Cynical's suggestions, I'd end up with Realm of Combat Shock 2.

It'd be more "Realm of Alien Vendetta". To put it into perspective, AV map 27, "Stench of Evil", is pretty similar to this map in structure, I think it's a bit smaller (it certainly gives you less room to move in most cases), and it has 838 monsters on UV (yes, I just went and looked), most of them higher tier than what's on offer here. And it's not the most intense or chaotic map in AV (although it's certainly up there!).

And thanks as always to DoTW. My never-ending quest to smoke your ass in one map or another is a constant inspiration for me to do better. So now I can start the individual replies. :)

Tell me about it. I couldn't believe that he successfully FDA'd Golachab when I ran it by him for playtesting.

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Demon of the Well said:

My lack of goodness, that first outdoor section sure changed a lot, as did the final area. Other places seem to have hardly changed at all, though, even in terms of thing placement. I must say, this does give the map a decidedly piecemeal quality, but if Wolf3D setpieces are going to be a big thing in the mapset, I suppose it's already so far out of its mind that this won't matter that much.


LOL! Yes, crazy insane is what I'm going for. ;)

I accomplished most of what I wanted in this revision, which was not to replace or even modify everything, but to concentrate on improving the appearance and flow, mainly through a lighting and detail upgrade, and rationalizing the key sequence, and to heavily modify only the sections that didn't work for most players. I also wanted the player to keep running and keep turning, whether they were winning or not. I wanted them to stay busy.

The first outdoor section was universally despised, and rightly so, but thanks to the map contours, it was possible to blow it out in several ways. I'll note here that it's much easier to design a new "modern" map than it is to modernize an old map, because an old map's layout prevents you from doing the kind of things you want to do without resorting to endless wall-tugging. So, yes, the map is piecemeal because the original design is a linear progression through different arenas, and because I left the more successful parts alone for the most part, at least for now. ;)

But when I say "most," one of the things I didn't accomplish is dusting off DoTW, so more work is needed!

I've implemented several of your suggestions already and will test them soon. First, I split the SpiderQueens north and south. I'm sure many players will freak when the first thing they hear after teleporting is SpiderQueen Number One squealing to life. A God Mode test indicated massive infighting, maybe too much, thanks to everything else I added. I didn't add a PE in here, but I did throw in several Lost Souls and Cacos. I also added 2 PEs and 2 Archies to the Swastika Room. I can already hear people screaming "Unfair" over having PEs in such large areas. ;D I guess they'll have to play on HMP -- only 1 PE and Archie there -- or HNTR, where there are none. I also made the Blue Door Badasses deaf and changed the acropolis SSG to a shell box.

I'm also going to deal with that BFG secret area. It really is kinda lame, isn't it? So I'm going to take your advice and construct an area that just occurred to me today, and I can say that, for most players, when they lay eyes on that thing, they'll need to ask themselves the musical question, "Do I really want that BFG?" As for you, I'm aiming to drop you to 15%. ;D

Watching your FDA, entertaining as always, I felt pretty good because I kept you running and turning. Alas, your health wasn't dropping enough. I hurt you more in some of the Abcess maps. I guess I'm still trying to get the hang of the Meat Game as opposed my beloved Hitscanner Game. I also believe I was a little too nice with all those barrels on the ledges. I could make the map 10-15% deadlier by eliminating half or all of the barrels. The major inspiration for all that was Map 10 of BTSX, "A Proud And Booming Industry" -- one of my favorites. I could also replace some of the Imps with Revvies in that first outdoor area, so you get homing rockets from every direction.

I'm willing to get fairly extreme in order to produce a map that will test you, and yet, I still want UV playable for other players, even if I'm not one of them. ;D We'll see how this goes.

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Well, whatever else you try, you should definitely leave in the barrels and ledges full of little guys who exist mainly to be killed horribly in brutally efficient chain-explosions; mindless bloodshed like this, which is set up to be a spectacle more than a pressing threat per se, is generally a very healthy addition to a map. Stuffing the ledges full of meat, as you say, might serve to make the map a little harder, but will also make clearing it out take a lot longer, to the point where players who aren't kill-completionists (like I tend to be) will probably just ignore them.

Also bear in mind that I had a lot of advantages going into this map: foreknowledge is the most powerful weapon of all, and of course I remember the layout of many of the important areas, the basic encounter designs (even if they've been beefed up significantly in this iteration), and just the general mapflow from having played RoC for the MegaWAD club rather recently--a benefit I did not enjoy for all but one of the Abcess maps. True, the final area is something completely new, but its massive size (and your flavor text introducing the level) does telegraph its general intent rather clearly, after all.

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Hitherto said:

Hello!

It is been a very long time when I played original m22 of RoC, so I remember almost nothing, except for base geometry of that titanic hall with spiders.


Allow me to say it's a distinct honor to have you playtest two of my maps, this one and purist's Cyberdemon steeple-chase map, where I came in to pinch-hit after his original partner dropped out. Believe it or not, your RoC demo-pack was the first time I witnessed strategic playing. I was stunned to watch you and Heretic, and later, SAV88 on his own, destroy my maps like they were nothing. I am not a strategic player, I am very simple. My rules are, "I see a monster, and I must attack it, and I must attack it now." ;D I'm also not a route-planner, and I play keyboard-only, too, so record-setting UV-Max demos are something I'll never do.

I really enjoyed watching your FDA, and thanks for catching the HOM that DoTW had mentioned. That's fixed. I was also thrilled to watch you die in the Wolfie cave. No offense intended, but killing players in my maps is a great joy to me, and to kill a player of your caliber is a special treat, like hunting a lion or something. ;)

Thanks for your kind words, and even though you offered no suggestions, watching your FDA gave me ideas. I hope to see you again soon.

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Cynical said:

Pretty much everything that happens before grabbing the yellow key needs to be beefed up a lot, IMO. In particular, the nobles are almost all just bullet sponges, aside from the ones that guard the Soulsphere in the outer lava area- I'd replace them all with two Revenants each (four for Barons), and possibly a few with Viles.


Hey, Cynical, thanks very much for your 2 FDAs plus all the comments. I love how you speak your mind!

Maybe I get your FDAs and Hitherto's mixed up, but one of you died in the blood pool trying to escape the main fight and running into the Cyb guarding the yellow door. I know it was you who jumped into the Swastika Blood Pool on your second FDA and killed a whole buncha shit from there.

I haven't implemented all of your suggestions, but I'm incrementally creeping up on them. For example, I didn't put any PEs in the Acropolis section, which is where you teleport to and meet the SpiderQueens, but I put in 14 Cacos and 14 Lost Souls. I didn't throw in 16 Revvies, but I did put 6 new ones on the ground, along with 4 Sergeants and an extra Chaingunner. As I mentioned to DoTW, I put 2 PEs and 2 Archies in the Swastika area.

I took out the chainsaw. That's a holdover from the old days, before I found out that it's way more fun -- and safer -- to grab a Zerk and punch Pinkies than it is to chainsaw them, so nowadays, like you, I get irritated having to switch from chainsaw to fist.

I'm interested in your idea about replacing the pillared HKs with Mancs.

As for the SpiderQueens, I'm experimenting with them, since so many people say it's hard to use them effectively. Not sure if you played Map05 of Abcess, but i had one in there that I think worked pretty well. I personally didn't find the SM area area boring in Map04 here, but that's because I don't mind occasionally hiding behind columns. I was actually killed several times in that area, either on kamikaze runs trying to promote infighting, or paying too much attention to the SMs and then getting hit by 3 Revvie rockets. ;D

ATM, I have 2 Cacos stuffed into the exit room on HMP and UV, though I may eliminate them. Tarnsman made a comment once that stuck with me -- "Doom is about not doing what you don't want to do." So giving players the option -- albeit a tricky and dangerous one -- of escaping a massive fight at the end of a map where they might be low on health, is not a bad idea, methinks. The UV-Maxers will stay and fight the fight because that's what they do, but the player who dodges all that and reaches the end with 1% health from Cyb splash damage will say, "Damn, I barely beat that map!"

You know, I've never played Alien Vendetta, or Hell Revealed, or Scythe, or Plutonia, or Sunder, etc. Like I said to DoTW, I'm mostly into the Hitscanner Game. The Meat Game -- anything that's not a hitscanner is meat to me -- is a different deal and tends to require a lot of ammo laying around, and a lot of dodging. One reason my areas tend to be large is that I'm a keyboard player, so I don't have the directional control of a mouser. Thus, when I run and turn around, I need some distance to get that done. ;D This usually isn't necessary in the Hitscanner game, which may be one reason I prefer it, but as I said, I'm willing to set UV difficulty to what top-tier players like, so we'll keep working on it. ;)

Edit: Forgot to mention that I replaced the Wolfies in the Plasma Gun area one-for-one with Chaingunners, plus added 2 extra Chaingunners on UV, and threw another little surprise in there . . .

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SteveD said:

Maybe I get your FDAs and Hitherto's mixed up, but one of you died in the blood pool trying to escape the main fight and running into the Cyb guarding the yellow door. I know it was you who jumped into the Swastika Blood Pool on your second FDA and killed a whole buncha shit from there.

My FDA died by running into one of the blood pools that the Cyb overlooks (I figured I'd have more room to move in there than I did); my second attempt succeeded by jumping into the blood pool near the key.

I haven't implemented all of your suggestions, but I'm incrementally creeping up on them. For example, I didn't put any PEs in the Acropolis section, which is where you teleport to and meet the SpiderQueens, but I put in 14 Cacos and 14 Lost Souls. I didn't throw in 16 Revvies, but I did put 6 new ones on the ground, along with 4 Sergeants and an extra Chaingunner. As I mentioned to DoTW, I put 2 PEs and 2 Archies in the Swastika area.

Be careful with the Viles in the Swastika area; depending on where you place them, they could cover a lot of ground, and force come really "lame" tactics. I was thinking "put them behind the exit door", simply to push runaway players back into the room (and four simply because with 2, you can BFG-kill both of them instantly).

I'm interested in your idea about replacing the pillared HKs with Mancs.

Here's the thought- with HKs on those pillars, you can just listen for the sound of them firing, move a bit, and you're guaranteed to be OK, since they always aim at your position. They fail as snipers, since they don't require any attention. With Mancs, since the split fireball has a tendency to "lead" the player, they actually have to give the Mancs some attention. Plus, a lot of players will likely try to run under the fireballs (since that doesn't require actually watching the Mancs), which will trigger the pillar drop at a potentially inconvenient moment. For extra fun- put a square of W1 Monster Only Teleporter lines on the pillars, as close to the center as you can without the Mancs triggering it while the pillars are raised (the teleport won't be triggered until their center passes over the linedef, so they can overlap it a bit, just as long as they can't fully "cross" it), so that when the pillars drop, the Mancs teleport to ground-level on the edges of the room, to make dodging them a bit more taxing.

You know, I've never played Alien Vendetta, or Hell Revealed, or Scythe, or Plutonia, or Sunder, etc. Like I said to DoTW, I'm mostly into the Hitscanner Game. The Meat Game -- anything that's not a hitscanner is meat to me -- is a different deal and tends to require a lot of ammo laying around, and a lot of dodging. One reason my areas tend to be large is that I'm a keyboard player, so I don't have the directional control of a mouser. Thus, when I run and turn around, I need some distance to get that done. ;D This usually isn't necessary in the Hitscanner game, which may be one reason I prefer it, but as I said, I'm willing to set UV difficulty to what top-tier players like, so we'll keep working on it. ;)

Heh, you clearly haven't played Sunder if you're lumping it in with AV or HR. Sunder is an entirely different beast.

I'd definitely recommend looking at Brad Spencer's Ep. 2 maps in AV, as well as maps 27 and 29. There's a lot of commonality there with what you're doing here (although, naturally, AV is orders of magnitude harder than what you've got now).

Also, I am most certainly not a top-tier player. Don't listen to me if you want that perspective :P

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Magnusblitz said:

Some flaws I noticed:
- The shape of the light emanating from the ceiling lights in the first area isn't consistent - some have light which follows the cross pattern, others have a circular light.


Hey, Magnus, I'd have answered sooner except that I've been busy fixing all the problems you noticed. ;) On the lights, I was trying to decide whether I liked the unrealistic square lighting -- light does not propogate in squares -- or the more realistic rounded "halo" lighting. I prefer the halo lighting, but it's more difficult to implement, and since square gradients are largely accepted in the community, I decided to go with that, at least for this project, partly because I'm in a hurry to finish it. The halo lighting also demands a larger lit area, so you have to be careful what ceiling textures you use, because some of them look very bad if given gradient lighting, and you have to be careful about the light levels, too. I tend to like the center light level to be at 256 or 240, and the first gradient to be 208 or 192, but this is too bright for some of the ceiling textures, so I have to experiment and maybe drop the first gradient to 176. All in all, I guess what this amounts to is that I'm not quite ready to go for halo lighting. Maybe in my next project.

Thanks for spotting the dumb door-bottom textures. It turned out that they were borked throughout the map. The "fun" part of revising maps as old as these is that so much of the work is correcting errors -- Floor Rule violations, misalignments, bad lighting, etc. It never seems to end. :D But I fixed all the door problems, all -- I think -- Wolfenstone misalignments, all the GStone-Marble transitions, all the brightly lit areas that had no light source, and so on. I also did some work in the blue key room and added 46 monsters on UV. I haven't done anything with the exit sky floor yet, but I'll probably replace that with a switch.

Thanks again for your help!

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Melon said:

Now one of the issues with offering advice on how to balance for HNTR is that I think a lot of people have different opinions on what sort of player HNTR should be for. Is it fair to assume that HNTR should be balanced for 100-year-old arthritic grandmas? Or do we assume that modern players tend to be better than this and make the lower difficulties slightly toned down UV?


Well, these are the mysteries, aren't they? ;) One could also ask, "What is a UV player?" I consider myself a UV player, but I'm not very skilled, merely very determined, but even so, I can't play all maps on UV. Recently, I stepped all the way back to ITYTD to play Stardate 20x6, because I'd never played slaughter maps before and I wanted as many advantages as possible. In the end, I probably could have managed HMP, but it would have been a stretch for me on some of the maps, with high death counts north of 20 per map.

For the question of HNTR players, I decided to make no assumptions and thus allow HNTR players themselves to let me know. In this map, the beginning, at least inside the building, was completely unchanged from the original 1996 release. HNTR was playtested back then by myself and Rob Berkowitz, and essentially what I did in those days was leave in mostly the same amount of hitscanners but reduce the number of heavy monsters. And in some cases, monster counts were the same in every setting. My basic method now is to try following a "Rule of Threes," for example, if I have 3 Revvies in one location on UV, I reduce that to 2 for HMP and 1 for HNTR. This doesn't always work out, because sometimes I need 4 or 5 of a certain monster for UV -- 6 would be too many -- and I have to adjust based on that. Also, I do not change the items anymore based on difficulty settings, except by accident. Some would say that the best way to optimize the skill settings is to work on both monster and item counts for proper balance. But if I did that, what you'd end up with is 3 different UVs. The difficulty would be the same in each skill setting, the only difference would be the amount of combat. ;D

Bottom line, I personally don't have the time to optimize the skill settings, so I will go with reduced monster counts and the same item count, unless HMP and HNTR players help me out.

As you may recall, I'm a big fan of your Map25 in Hadephobia. How did you optimize HMP and UV in that one? UV gave me all I wanted, I can tell you that. ;)

Watching your FDA, I realized I had too many hitscanners and too much combat at the start. I deleted some Sergeants and Chaingunners, along with some Imps and nobles. I learned the hard way once that if you delete too many hitscanners without a corresponding amount of fireball monsters, the lower skill settings can become harder because there's not enough ammo from dead hitscanners. :D

I'll post a revised version of the map once I finish the new BFG area, I hope you'll give it a whirl. :)

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Demon of the Well said:

Well, whatever else you try, you should definitely leave in the barrels and ledges full of little guys who exist mainly to be killed horribly in brutally efficient chain-explosions; mindless bloodshed like this, which is set up to be a spectacle more than a pressing threat per se, is generally a very healthy addition to a map. Stuffing the ledges full of meat, as you say, might serve to make the map a little harder, but will also make clearing it out take a lot longer, to the point where players who aren't kill-completionists (like I tend to be) will probably just ignore them.


Okay, I left the barrels in, even though I was pretty extreme with them, since every ledge -- but one -- with monsters had barrels on it, and it allows players to blow away a lot of monsters very easily, especially those otherwise lethal Wolfies in the caverns. But you're right, it's the kind of thing that puts a smile on your face. ;)

For UV only, I added ledge Revvies in the lava-outdoor area, about 3 or 4. They're only wounded by the barrels. I also playtested the split-SpiderQueen scenario, and my, what a difference that made! My death count soared north of 20 thanks to the SpiderQueen in the south end, plus all those Cacos and Lost Souls, plus several new floor-level Revvies. Those changes put this map on the outer edge of what I can stand and still have fun. Anything much beyond this is beyond my skill and patience level. It's certainly much harder -- for me -- than all but a couple maps from BTSX E1. Oh, and the PEs made life a bit tough at the end.

I'll be making the new BFG area this weekend and posting the revision when done, in case you'd like to check it out. Otherwise, it'll be in the public beta of the mapset.

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Here's the latest revision of Map04 of Realm of Intensified Chaos: http://www.mediafire.com/download/8fwv156rx913wt7/Nova_akz.wad

The OP has been edited to remove most of the text and provide a link to this revision of the map. Please note that it plays on the Map04 slot this time, plus it has a new MOD file for its music track, which doesn't loop properly, but it repeats in an area that works well for the game. ;D

This revision incorporates suggestions from Demon of The Well and Cynical, as well as Melon for gameplay, and all the above plus Magnusblitz and Hitherto for various issues, mostly graphical errors.

The monster count has been reduced on HNTR, but increased on HMP and UV. HNTR now has 305 monsters, HMP has 420 and UV has 501, up from the previous 435.

The main things I've done include splitting the Spider Masterminds north and south of the acropolis as DoTW suggested, and heavily revising the BFG area. I was originally planning to do a whole new and very nasty section, but the overall map structure made that problematic without resorting to teleports, so I revised the original structure instead. It's not super-hard unless you make a mistake in there. Otherwise it's pretty easy.

At Cynical's suggestion, I added more Revvies, though far fewer than he wanted. Instead, I added a lot of Cacos and Lost Souls in the acropolis areas to prevent camping behind the columns. Not sure how well that works, but I did add several Revvies on the ground. The yellow key area now has a couple surprises. ;)

If Melon returns, he should find the opening more doable.

Over the last few days, I've played this map on every setting. I was killed 4 times apiece on HNTR and UV, and 5 times on HMP. These are kind of weird numbers, but keep in mind that the first time I tried the new UV, my death count was . . . 45, including 25 deaths before I got the blue key. My first try at HMP I died 10 times before getting the Plasma Gun, but I quit because a teleport trap failed to work. For some reason it was irreparable, so I replaced it with a monster closet.

I guess you can say that I learned how to fight the map on UV by playing the lower settings. When I first experienced the new acropolis area, I was completely discombobulated by the huge number of monsters everywhere, and once i started dying repeatedly I kinda had a meltdown. Luck is also a factor in this area. But if played with a cool head, it's not that hard.

My worry is that some players may hit this map on UV and have problems, and instead of trying again on HMP, they'll just rage-quit and say it sucks. ;D

Anyway, I think I've raised all the areas left more or less unmolested before to a higher level of lighting and detail. So y'all can give it another go or wait until the public beta of the whole mapset. ;)

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Here's a complevel 2 FDA. Two deaths, no exits, although the second run comes damn close (died to the Yellow Key fight; I've got a tactic that I think would deal with it reasonably safely, but I didn't realize that the Swastika pool was so dangerously modified until my health was basically all gone).

http://www.mediafire.com/download/cnf1stb1kf7cg1f/nova_akz.lmp

Holy crap, that music is loud. That big pause you see during the first attempt is me turning the music volume down. Make it quieter!

The other death was to the other exterior area, which I really like the changes to. Right now, it's probably the second most dangerous area of the level (second only to the YK fight), and everything else needs to be raised to at least this level of ferocity IMO.

In general, it just needs "more". The start area is mostly OK, although I'd still recommend swapping out the Nobles in the RL area with Revs and a Vile. Maybe make the door "Door Open Stay", put Revs in the room, raise the pillar up to ceiling height, and open a closet behind where the player would be containing the Vile, to force him forward into the room to deal with the Revs in close quarters? Also, I'd add an Arachnotron to each end of the jail-hall, and spring some trap behind the player to force him out into that hallway and into the crossfire.

Those block sound lines at the door to the bathroom are exploitable. It doesn't really matter, but it's a bit damaging to believability.

The Acropolis is much too easy still - I should not be able to tackle a fight like this on my first attempt, especially with how many stupid mistakes I made. I still think that PEs would be appropriate here, even with the new setup.

The blue key wing is also too easy. On the "balance beam" section, double the number of Cacos (at least), and replace the Imps with Revenants, IMO. Or, potentially, warp them in all over the balance beam, get rid of the Berserk island, and don't provide a Rad suit (might not work with the Caco encounter, though). The plasma area... I don't know what to do with this. Maybe keep it as is, if the balance beam bit is made much harder, so that the player's low health keeps it tense? Also, the BFG area wasn't what I'd expected, given the promise of "most players needing to decide whether they really want that BFG"; for me, I certainly didn't have a hard time making up my mind, I definitely wanted it. There's also a big HOM here, at least in prboom-plus; I stop to look at it for several seconds in the demo, so it should be easy to find. Looks like a nodebuilder error; jiggle those vertices around by a unit or two, and it should be easy to fix.

Still love the Viles/Cybies behind the blue door. It almost killed me this time; if I hadn't been at nearly 200/200 when I got there, it would have killed me.

The first fight after the red door needs an anti-"retreat-and-chokepoint-the-whole-thing" measure of some sort, to prevent players from doing what I did. I'd also recommend getting rid of the cover there.

EDIT: BTW, check your Private Messages.

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Thank you, Cynical. That was crazy fast! ;D

The music: It's a MOD file, so I'm not sure I can lower the volume. I'll look into it with Milky Tracker or something. Every MOD file I've ever looked at had Global Volume set to 256 -- whatever that means -- but even so, some are still louder than others. I may have to settle with warning people to set their music volume to 50 or 60% since it comes on so strong. I was happy to note that the music loops perfectly on both PRBoom and Risen3D, it's only on ZDoom/GZDoom (so far) that it gets stuck looping the end section.

As per your suggestion, I've already replaced all the nobles in RL room with Revvies. There's also plenty of room there for a monster closet trap, and I can also have one or more Revvies teleport behind the player as a nice dick move. I really should have done all this the first time you suggested it.

In the acropolis area, I replaced one of the Cacos with a PE on UV only. I added 2 more deaf Revvies on the ground, and replaced 1 Spider Mastermind with a Cyberdemon. The big problem with the SMs is that they can't go from one area to the other, so the player can do corner abuse to tediously kill them. Not so easy with a Cyb when all you have at this point is the SSG and RL for heavy weapons. The danger with using Cybs at this point is that players will expect a plasma weapon to deal with them, and I don't want to hand one out yet.

There is, of course, another way to go. The best way to make the SMs more effective is to eliminate the other ground-level monsters to minimize infighting. Then, any time you peek from behind those columns and try to run for it, your ass gets ventilated. The way things are now, the SMs basically drive the player to run, maybe chip at your health, and the death-dealing is left mostly to Revvies, Mancs and Chaingunners.

I personally found 3 decent strategies to beat the acropolis area. First, you can run to the north and try to reach the blue key room so you can get the PG and BFG and then come back to kill whatever survived around the acropolis. You can also run inside the acropolis and play ring-around-the-rosie to get all the high Revvies and Mancs to fight with the shitload of Cacos that come in there. That's the easiest one for me. Finally, you can run around the south end as you did, and I did on the last play, to get the infights going and hope something gets inside the SM's hitbox to freeze it, then let the little guys kill it and come out to mop-up the survivors. That approach is quite dangerous for me owing to my limited skill. Caco crowd control is important in these latter two approaches. You had kind of shitty luck on your FDA on that score, maybe because almost all of them poured out from that Manc platform. It's much easier to herd them if they come through the door, but it was cool to watch how they did it on your playthrough.

The blue key room -- well, here we can talk mapping theory. Does every encounter have to be a matter of life or death? What about pacing? You put people through hell at the acropolis, and then give them a little breather of a fight or two so you can go for the peaks-and-valleys effect, or, as Capellan would say, to avoid having your map be all-out wide-open-throttle or dead calm. OTOH, where the acropolis area is so huge that it's difficult to control the player, the balance beam introduces limited movement and therefore inherent vulnerability for the player. I'll have to think on this one.

Yeah, as I mentioned, the BFG area did not come out as super difficult, because my original plan for a completely new area conducive to all kinds of dick-trapping was defeated by the map structure itself. To create that area, I'd have to go with super-long hallways to take you past neighboring areas before the new structure could be reached, or use teleporters to get you there. I didn't like the options, but the organic shape of the original area lent itself to a sort of flowy design by simply playing around with sector heights and throwing in stairs. Because I know where the stairs are, I play this area quite differently, basically killing the Arachnotron, Cacos and Chaingunners, and then running past everything to the Manc platform. There, I draw the fire of the Revvies to the Mancs, let them beat the shit out of each other, and plasma the PE that comes looking for you. It's kinda fun that way, but watching you play, you must have been surprised when that PE popped seemingly out of nowhere. ;D

I've been thinking of what to do with that area, and 3 Archies keep coming up in my mind, for UV-only, and as a nuclear option, maybe also teleport a Cyb in to guard the BFG. After all, you have plenty of cells at this point.

One option I didn't consider until just now is to build a trap-conducive structure at the extreme west end of the PG area and put the BFG in there. Duh! :D No need for long hallways if it just opens off an existing hallway (smacks forehead with palm).

I'll have to watch your FDA again, because I missed the HOM.

The fight just past the red door is a remnant of the original design, which had a different progression. DoTW, IIRC, actually suggested that I eliminate it back in the RoC playthrough. That's because the key progression is different now. Before, you had to get past those monsters to get the blue key and the BFG, and then come back through them to face the Cyb/Archie combo. They did not guard a red key before. Instead, the place where you now get a megasphere was the original (alas, unmarked) exit. ;D Because the progression has been changed, there's really no need to fight those monsters immediately behind the red door. On the playthrough where I got killed 45 times, I just ran past them. All things considered, it might be better to make that a pause/mood area, and instead of Imps guarding the upper portal, use Revvies.

At least no one -- so far -- is calling for more violence at the yellow key area, although I find it kind of easy at this point. The key is to stay on the upper level and do ring-around-the-rosie until you at least kill the viles. Then you can go into the caverns, which can be very hectic.

I may have a new revision up by this weekend. Thanks again for your valuable input, Cynical. :)

Edit: I'm going to completely re-design the room beyond the red door as a locked-room combat zone. It will look a lot better, too. Sometimes, all it takes is someone saying it needs to be better before I can even think about how it can be better. ;)

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SteveD said:

The danger with using Cybs at this point is that players will expect a plasma weapon to deal with them, and I don't want to hand one out yet.

Maybe only add the Cyb to UV, then. I personally don't expect anything more than an SSG to take down a Cyb, and can name plenty of classic levels that pit you in that situation, but if you think it'll be a sticking point for other players, you could keep it as two Masterminds on HMP and HNTR and not be out of line at all, IMO.

There is, of course, another way to go. The best way to make the SMs more effective is to eliminate the other ground-level monsters to minimize infighting. Then, any time you peek from behind those columns and try to run for it, your ass gets ventilated.

I think the area is too large for this to work well. Masterminds have abysmal accuracy at long range, so as long as you stay a healthy distance while you run, you shouldn't take too much damage.

I personally found 3 decent strategies to beat the acropolis area. First, you can run to the north and try to reach the blue key room so you can get the PG and BFG and then come back to kill whatever survived around the acropolis. You can also run inside the acropolis and play ring-around-the-rosie to get all the high Revvies and Mancs to fight with the shitload of Cacos that come in there. That's the easiest one for me. Finally, you can run around the south end as you did, and I did on the last play, to get the infights going and hope something gets inside the SM's hitbox to freeze it, then let the little guys kill it and come out to mop-up the survivors. That approach is quite dangerous for me owing to my limited skill. Caco crowd control is important in these latter two approaches. You had kind of shitty luck on your FDA on that score, maybe because almost all of them poured out from that Manc platform. It's much easier to herd them if they come through the door, but it was cool to watch how they did it on your playthrough.

Honestly, I think the Arachnos are the biggest threat here. Managing the Cacos isn't a problem at all (at least for me), but it's surprisingly easy for an Arachno to get a surprise firing angle and blast 40 or more health off before you realize it.

The blue key room -- well, here we can talk mapping theory. Does every encounter have to be a matter of life or death? What about pacing? You put people through hell at the acropolis, and then give them a little breather of a fight or two so you can go for the peaks-and-valleys effect, or, as Capellan would say, to avoid having your map be all-out wide-open-throttle or dead calm. OTOH, where the acropolis area is so huge that it's difficult to control the player, the balance beam introduces limited movement and therefore inherent vulnerability for the player. I'll have to think on this one.

I think the Acropolis provides both a peak and a valley. The fight starts out very intense, but as stuff begins to die, it becomes gradually less and less intense. You can see the same thing at work in Ribbiks's levels or in stuff like Combat Shock 2.

Thus, I'd rather see the Plasma Rifle area be the breather. Besides, that balance beam area is soooo inviting for a terrifying moment or two.

Of course, I also don't mind levels that are wide-open-throttle the whole way, either. Like Scythe map 29. Love that level.

Sometimes, all it takes is someone saying it needs to be better before I can even think about how it can be better. ;)

You and me both.

Me: "This isn't perfect, but changing it would potentially break other things. I'll leave it as is".
Playtesters: "This is a problem. Fix it."
Me: "Ok, time to get to work I guess."

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