[Heretic] Obsidian fort (1 map)

[Cacowad]

Well then, here we go again, this is a medium-to-big single map for heretic, feedback is appreciated as always:

-run on e1m1, no custum music unfortunately
-custom textures are from the Blasphemer iwad
-no difficulty setting, consider this like UV
-the start is the hardest part
-multiplayer implemented but not tested
-uv-maxable
-tested on zdoom 2.8.1, will not work on vanilla or limit removing due to the blockmap being too big

Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5rMkuUj5h_gVE11VHhpOERBVzQ

screenshots (click to enlarge):

[Fonze]

Oh man that's awesome; <3 Heretic

Unfortunately my phone renders pictures to dark to see more often than not, so I'm denied the satisfaction of looking at those screenies for now, but I look forward to playing this!

[Obsidian]

You called?

[Finakala]

More Heretic is always worth my time. Looks really great from the screens, hopefully I'll play it tomorrow.

[Cacowad]

@Obsidian: i knew you would show up sooner or later :P

[Lore]

Great map, I demand more! You really got the exploration thing right, because I got lost many times in a good way.

[Cacowad]

^I'm glad you have enjoied it!

[Fonze]

Well I'm almost 2 weeks late to the party, heh, but I want to get something up here for you. I haven't finished the map yet; it's a big one and going without saves makes it fairly tense once the opening is finally through. Of course granted I could have been done with this if I had lowered the difficulty, used items more effectively and just more in general, used saves, or plain sucked less, but BPPT really makes Heretic much better. I also wanted to finish the map I was working on and get the idea for the next down before forgetting it, which pushed this back a bit further after my initial run of it and realizing its size. Playing on BPPT, needless to say I had no ammo problems, hehe. Idk if you're into demos or not, (and of course zDoom isn't particularly great about them) but I recorded a handful on zDoom 2.8.1 if you are interested. I could prolly also record one as a video and upload it to YouTube, if that would be better, though I'd have to figure out video recording stuff, so it'd take a day or two. I will eventually finish this map, though, and I will likely upload that to YouTube just for the Hell of it.

I love the way this map looks; the grand architecture looks simple, yet interesting and is textured very well. I also really like the layout and design of the different areas that I've seen so far. On my first few runs, I was very lost. This wasn't helped by the -fast parameter, hehe, but exploring the map has been fun so far. I found the ring on my first run by accident, though I should have realized something was up with the raised tele pad when I saw it. Still, a happy surprise; don't see many of them in maps, hehe.

It's very tough to make a dent in this map; the roamers just come from everywhere and keep coming, heh, but after more than a handful of deaths I'm fairly familiar with the opening ground set and item location. I did just find an early dragonclaw which may help me in future runs; the one on the path to the BK feels like it comes really late in the map. I feel like another weapon should be given in-between the crossbow and the dragonclaw. Then again, you did provide 2 books in the beginning, but it's also tough to choose that right time to use them, which makes this map's opening feel really long and more about infighting than anything, while also running around grabbing the necessary items. I find that the chaos device is extremely important to grab in the beginning, as well as at least 2 time-bombs. I try to save the ring, so that I usually get on the second pass with the other TB's. I also find it important to try to clear the starting crate-area before using the chaos device, if possible (not possible without the crossbow or wasting a book, though). The chaos device is mostly just for the pit beneath the crossbow, but if saved does make for a great "way out," assuming the nitros have been cleared out by the start. Something I've noted about that pit on BPPT; it's a very bad place to be before clearing the fliers, heh. It seems next-to-impossible to escape that pit early in the map without the chaos device. In addition, due to the projectile-Hell, -fast parameter, extra damage on BPPT, and the amount of health pickups, I think an extra silver shield would be a good idea for the beginning; perhaps down in that pit, which would also increase survivability if the player accidentally falls in without a chaos device and before clearing the masses. The enemies down there are fairly pointless, given that there is nothing down there at all and going down there when grabbing the crossbow pretty much means either death or one less chaos device handy. Putting a shield down there would rectify that as well, while also being fairly inaccessible early in the map, making the current silver shield still perfect in its placement. Speaking of, I like that ghost-UW right next to the silver shield, but I'm really not a fan of some other transparent enemies (ghosts and disciples) used in dark areas. The three types in question can deal a lot of damage on BPPT and when you can't see them at all and their projectiles are -fast, that makes things really tough. Though of course that too would be better with another shield in the map to absorb the few cheap shots I've seen. I really like the general enemy placement; I can tell that you thought about each enemy's strengths when you placed these guys down, though I do note that many of the masses in the beginning seem to exist to infight, which works for this for that extra chaos in the beginning. A shadowsphere could also be a good idea for the beginning, to help with the UW's.

The furthest I've made it so far was the BK grab; after that I think I killed a few enemies, got beat up, then went for health and bit the big one during my search; I wasn't looking, hehe.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, though, as I haven't tried some of the other routes yet, like heading towards the YK first.

Loving this map so far; looking forward to finishing it! Also hoping you make more :)

[Cacowad]

Hey, demos are always appreciated, since they tend speak loud enough when something is going wrong.

I must say, you are pushing yourself there with BPPT, maybe an explorative run without those handicap could have been useful :P

Putting a silver shield in the crossbow pit seems like a good idea, since i got stuck in there a couple of times myself, and is almost impossible to get out without the chaos device.

thank you for giving this a try!

Edit: i've seen your demos, and i must say you are a pretty good player, i don't know if i could get that far under those conditions. I also see i could add around 3\4 vials around the area to smooth out the transition and probably give the claw a little bit earlier, or at least replace some ghosts with their non ghost conterparts. If you are interested in playing more, please feel free to record more!

PS: the weird switch texture you encountered is an error by my part, when deleting unused patches i accidentally deleted that one, will be fixed in the v2.

[Fonze]

Heh, I may be pushing it a bit with BPPT here, but that would ruin the fun of exploring under these conditions! ;p After my last run, I did one more throwaway run before bed and looked into the YK and GK paths and I feel fairly excited to give those a shot. Granted, I know that the BK path was certainly doable given that I succeeded in passing it, though my item and health pick-up situations were in bad shape afterward, lol.

I'm glad you enjoyed watching whichever ones you wound up watching; I tend to really enjoy watching demos of maps I build, so I figure that others will too. Every attempt gets recorded just in case I accidentally beat the map, but don't feel the need to watch any just because I recorded them; demos serve a dual purpose as something for me to watch as I pass out in bed and need something mindless to watch so I partly do it for myself, too. I'll prolly wind up sending a few later on as I play through the other two ways for the Hell of it, though.

Ah yes, I'm glad you caught that switch texture; I took a screenie and totally forgot to mention it, lol. I blame the booze as it's the easiest scapegoat. Also the wind shifted and I was tripped by that other guy with two arms and two legs.

As for changing ghosts to their counterparts, idk; if the worst is what I saw, then leave it. Truthfully the ghost nitros and UW on the right as the player approaches the dragonclaw on the BK path worked really well together there, as the UW was behind the nitros and his axes went right on through. I suppose the UW could be changed to non-ghost with no real detriment to that effect, but certainly keep those nitros ghosts. I'd hate for a comment I made to destroy what is a good monster combination and placement.

[Fonze]

Sorry for the delay on getting this up (I actually finished this a week ago); I had a lot of things to do this past weekend which wound up carrying over into the week. My stupid b/s aside, I want to reiterate how fun I found this map to be. I managed to beat it, though I missed 4 monsters somewhere. Ironically I didn't use too many items on my finishing run, but my most recent experiences with this map have me questioning what I thought earlier. I was approaching the beginning all wrong by going for the crossbow first and moving to the east, avoiding the western area. Apparently the western area is the place to be, with only quick trips to the east here and there to control the mobs. Of course the projectile-Hell is something else in the west and south, but it doesn't take too long to get things infighting so you can take out the turrets/snipers. Grabbing that dragon claw in the beginning proved to be a major challenge, though I found the key to hitting that switch fairly quickly (hit it on the right, move to left and then back up quickly), when the slightest mistake meant death or extreme damage, hehe. Upon clearing the western and southern areas, the rest became mop-up.

After clearing the beginning, each of the three key paths felt balanced, though the GK path was of course very short and probably was also the easiest of the three. I liked the locations of each path and the ways to access them, btw.

The YK path turned out to be the longest of the three, but the phoenix rod made it a really great place to start. The area with the phoenix rod was a bit cramped, but not too bad.

I liked the general use of nitro-snipers; perhaps the revenant of Heretic. I always thought that it is a shame their shots don't have the turn radius of a rev's missile, but I love nitros none-the-less. Ghost nitros in front and UWs in the back are always a great combo in my book and I was happy to see some setups like this. Same applies to ghost UWs in front of others, like the ones on the bridge: ghosts up top and non-ghosts on the slightly lowered sections is perfect.

The exit was really sudden in the sense that for some reason I thought it was a regular teleporter (and I had missed those 4 enemies). I was totally expecting at least one monster to show up somewhere between me hitting the three switches and me exiting the level. Seemed a bit strange that the exit was given freely (after the player has each key). I was thinking 4 iron liches, or some maulotaurs with a couple trash, or d'sparil with some trash mobs was going to be the grand finale in either an arena or teleporting in after the gate lowered, but there wasn't one monster to bid me farewell.

I think that part of the problem I had with this level before was that health and armor aren't located in the best positions. There's so much health at the start of the level, and in retrospect there is a lot of armor at the start already that I hadn't found before, that is absent in the necessary quantities later on. I think it'd be better to just die in the beginning from bad playing than to live, but not have enough health pick-ups left over in the level to reasonably finish it. I don't quite want to say at this point to add more health or armor; my previous comment was incorrect on that. I think it's just the placement of it. Idk, with the number of deaths I had on this map maybe that last time should have been fairly easy, but it definitely got to the point that I had to backtrack several times to gather health and armor. My demo marked as number "5" wound up in a death that, iirc (my memory is fuzzy a week later, heh), was due to attrition more than anything.

Here's the folder of runs I kept; the only one worth watching maybe would be the completed run, which is marked "ObsFortBPPTFonze" (no numbers). Somewhere around mid-to-upper 50's in terms of minutes, but no saves or deaths :) Missed 4 mobs, once again, which kinda sucked and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some items, too. I believe I did find all of the secrets, though.

That said, I really, really enjoyed this map. I hope you continue to make Heretic maps man; great job on this once again!

[Cacowad]

Nice, i'm very happy to read you have enjoied it. I'll watch the demos somewhere later this evening, and thank you again for playing it to the end!