Weeks In A Wad

[Julian]

Weeks after weeks, Metabolist has built a wad with the best entries submitted to his One Week Map Contest: 10 themes and 11 levels for your gaming pleasure. Go and get it.

[Opulent]

3dgamers/incoming is always too busy. =(
frustrating, since I just wanted to see if this was in there....
plus, /incoming is not visible in hypertext.

come on, people, some comments on this wad, please...

[Opulent]

Map11 is just insane.... but beautiful.
the Spirit World area is just one of the many HUGE parts of this map that look great.
perhaps too many archviles to make a recording viable... then there is the walkway room. =/
Christ, Erik, I'm too young to die... :D

[Erik]

This route is possible (but very hard):
Red key, flick the switch in the last area.
Blast most of the walkway room. The cyber will take out most of the mancubi.
Then yellow key, use the invul in the red key area to blast through the archviles. Getting out of the yellow key area is quite tough though, maybe let an archvile give you a lift to the secret and use that invul.
Blue key area is easy if you have used the switch in the red key area. I actually got to the last area in one try but there I died promply due to lack of cells.

[boris]

There are some really nice maps in there, but also some crappy ones. It looked cool when the Cacodemons descended in map04 :)
I didn't yet dare to play map11, though ;)

[Erik]

I just played your map Opulent, a bit more compact than my map11 but it sure as hell is nice and TOUGH. I just let loose waay too many monsters before I tried killing anything. I will make a few more tries later. Great, fun, violent map anyway

[Zeku]

Haven't looked at map11 yet, but Ive found map2 on UV to be stupidly hard. I find a way to -survive- the crate area, then I worm my way through the hell area behind the red door, (which is cool) only to find the crate area re-populated with more wonderful shotgun guys. Hard. Neat maps tho.

[Erik]

if a map is too hard on uv, play a lower difficulty. If you find map02 hard, wait until Opulent's map09 and my map11...
A tip on map02: take the second teleporter from the right from the hell area, grab the plasma and blast away while you pick up the medikits which are scattared all over the crate area.

[Zeku]

I spoke too soon.

Almost all of these maps kick my ass on UV.

This is why I don't like difficulty settings. I like to complete a level without having to save. When the creator decides to make the higher settings stupidly hard, it's almost impossible to get satisfaction out of it. Sure, you can beat it, but so what? When you're facing a pack of shotgun guys with little cover, or a pack of big uglies without much open space, luck becomes a significant factor.

You're also left with the question, what is the intended difficulty setting, and which is just for the people who like to try their luck against 50 revenants at once?

I dont care about settings at all, since if I have no chance of beating UV on one go, I won't play the level. But I would definitely play the other settings if they were simply a complete revamp of the item placements, without the intention of making it easier or harder.

[Erik]

I balance all my maps individually for all difficulty settings, I make skill 1 and 2 for the less skilled players and for those who just want to shoot away without being in much danger. Skill 3 for average/pretty decent doomers (like myself) and skill 4 for very skilled doomers and DoomGods.

And that's what the difficulty settings are there for. If everyone was equally good, then only one difficulty setting would be needed.

If you think something sucks because you can't finish it on uv in one try then maybe you should try skill 3. I just made a uv demo of map02, I can send it to you if you feel like it.

[Opulent]

Forget Zeku, send me the demo ;)
Zeku -- I agree that hard maps are not fun to play for most people. I designed my map to be balanced if you played it smartly -- that is, I tried to made a map that Metabolist would find a challenge, but could finish.
Map11 is Virgil-hard. :)
I mean, it is so long... as well as being tough right out of the gate, that geez...
I don't know about a UV demo; so many tricks, so many possibilities to die instantly. I think I'll try a skill 2 demo first. :)
Lastly, I am really impressed with Alm's maps. very detailed and stylish for one-week maps. I understand why Sam rejected my other entry.

[Use]

i loved trying to play map07 Hell Simple with original doom2. now i know what a stroke looks like.
great level btw

[Metabolist]

That's a map for Mike Toliver all right. :)