Counterattack - Now on /idgames!

[WH-Wilou84]

Hahaha, won't spoil anything but map 32 is bonkers :)
Here's my FDA. Fun and hectic stuff !

Edit : Think I got very lucky with infighting though.

Edit 2 : And here's map 05.

A particularly dark and bleak take on the classic red Hell theme, which makes for the perfect follow-up to "Maeror". Due to the darkness, I played even more slowly than usual, so I apologize in advance for the poor viewing enjoyment you'll get if you watch the demo till the end.

So we basically have a series of teleporter-connected arenas, and they get more and more grandiose in scale as you progress. Gameplay-wise, I found arena #2 to be the hardest one, as ammo is scarce when you get to the Cacodemon-filled center and anything could happen, from catching a stray Cyber rocket to getting caught in the middle of a Caco swarm. Besides, in the last arena, you get no less than two Invulnerability spheres for your trouble, and that's a bit much for casual play I think ( although they'll definitely speed up the gameplay for UV Max runners ).

The new boss creatures are pretty cool, although I didn't get to see too much of them - thanks to one of the aforementioned Invuln spheres and a full Cell stack, they went down real quick.

All in all, this is a remarkable map and an excellent way to conclude the episode. I also like how you

Spoiler

connected this project with Vela Pax story-wise, it's pretty cool.

[Mechadon]

Awesome, more demos form you is always nice treat! I will be watching all of them as soon as I can.

Hopefully the removal of one of the Invulnerability spheres on UV will make that last fight more enjoyable (while hopefully still being useful for speedrunners). I did go pretty liberal with the cell ammo too, since I wanted that fight to be a big ole BFG spam fest. If its making the final boss encounter way too easy and not fun, I might need to tweak that a bit.

Also it makes me very happy to hear you liked MAP32 :). I don't know if there will be many people who get the reference though, heh. I gotta thank Jimmy for helping me out with the midi on that one; he surprised me with a reconstruction of the track when I asked him for help.

Has anyone found the secret exit on MAP31?

Oh also, should I put some time into making the maps more COOP friendly?

[JCD]

3 FDAs for the beta2

I didn't finish the map31 because i was stuck in a lift (tag 3)... I found the secret exit :p

http://82.66.133.154:85/Autre/mek-counterattack-wip-jc.zip

[baja blast rd.]

40oz said:

Some of the things I think could work in your favor in future mapping endeavors is to work on using a better economy of monsters. The gameplay is a little too chaotic. the player doesn't really have much control over what's going on. Often while I was low on health, i accidentally stumbled into a place with a thousand sniping pistol guys in the dark. It was too risky to shoot at the barrels that were planted next to them and as I retreated to scavenge for health items, I already knew the monsters were diffusing all over the map, into caves, behind crates, camping in corners. If I didn't find health (which I sometimes couldn't) I was sure to embrace certain death.

This surprises me. :D I really liked the monster placement in general. The former human trooper spam in map01 was incredible, especially when paired with barrels, and the chaotic aspect was quite appealing.

I kind of agree that there were a few places that could have used zero monsters as opposed to a small contingent of a few monsters that didn't really have much gameplay value. The set of shotgunners in the library with the rocket launcher in map04, one each behind rows of books, came to mind. It just seemed like they were there just to be there. But I liked almost all of the big groups of monsters.

[Not Jabba]

I agree with rdwpa here on general principle; the fight setups and chaotic nature of the maps being described in this mini-debate sound really cool to me, and although I haven't played the beta of Counterattack, I felt that the monster placement in Formalhaut was excellent. If there's a problem, it sounds like more health would be a much more efficient and useful solution than fewer monsters.

[Mechadon]

JCD thank you very much for the demos! I now have a big backlog of them to watch, heh :P. I'll fix that lift bug you mentioned as well.

It's always interesting to get different perspectives on your mapping. I appreciate it a lot because its helps you see things that you may not ever think about. After doing so much mapping, I find myself getting stuck to certain tropes that may or may not be positive. And sometimes the only way to see that is to see other people playing your maps and/or getting some of their thoughts. So I always appreciate it regardless of whether or not I may agree with it.

rdwpa said:

I kind of agree that there were a few places that could have used zero monsters as opposed to a small contingent of a few monsters that didn't really have much gameplay value. The set of shotgunners in the library with the rocket launcher in map04, one each behind rows of books, came to mind. It just seemed like they were there just to be there. But I liked almost all of the big groups of monsters.

I agree with you here, but believe it or not that particular instance serves more of a dual purpose. It all depends on which direction you approach that particular area. In the instance you brought up they are kind of superfluous. But they also serve as longer range peppering from the red key area (on the other side of the fences they face). The execution is kind of bleh though, I admit.

Its likely that many instances of not-so-great monster placement may be a symptom of the way the layouts are designed. Certain groups of monsters are meant to serve more than one purpose, and it all depends on how you approach the map. Some of them are going to be more fun to fight than others.

[Mechadon]

Sorry for the bump. My file host seems to be down at the moment, so I uploaded beta 2 to my backup (the link is also in the OP)

http://files.project-retrograde.com/duum-temp/ca/mek-counterattack-beta2.zip

[xAn]

Wow man, this one caught me just like the vela pax beta did.

And the secrets are really hard to come by. I still don't know how to get the soulsphere in map02 (the one with the firewalls behind, at the round stairs).

I just have to dive into it again...

[Mechadon]

Glad you like the maps xAn! I like to think these are more fun to play than the maps in Vela Pax, but maybe I'm being too hard on myself.

I won't spoil that secret, but I will say that its probably simpler to get than you might think ;).

Lemme know if you find any bugs or have any feedback for me!


Anyways, I just wanted to pop in here and say that I spent some time recently adding COOP-friendly changes to all of the maps. I had originally decided against doing this since I wasn't sure how in-demand a feature like that would be. But after looking at how easy it would be to implement for most of the traps, I went ahead and did it. So in beta 3, all of the maps should be COOP-ready. If your interested in testing the maps in COOP, that would help me out a lot!

Beta 3 should be ready to drop sometime next week by the way. Dew is running through the maps for me and giving me some feedback. So as soon as he's done, I'll be making a final round of map updates and then I'll be dropping the last beta for you guys. That will likely be the last beta before I upload the final build. So if anyone has anything else they'd like to comment or report on, please do so soon.

[Mechadon]

Ok guys, here's beta 3, likely the last beta before I finalize this!

Counterattack Beta 3 [8mb] (Mirror)
Big ole changelog

One of the big updates this time is the addition of COOP-friendly teleporters as well as a bit more attention to COOP on the whole. I ran a quick solo-net test to make sure things weren't broken, but other than that I haven't done any balance testing. So if anyone can manage to do COOP runs of these maps before I do the final release, that would be extremely helpful.

There are a bunch more small and big changes as you can tell from the changelog, so I won't go over them. I will say that dew was a huge help with some of the changes in this beta. So thank you dew for helping me out!

From this point the plan is to let beta 3 stew for about a week or so. After that, I'll make any necessary changes from feedback I get, and then I'm pushing this thing out the door.

[Xenaero]

I played through the first couple maps in beta2 kinda guns blazing, without hunting for treasures, and now that I'm replaying map01 I've been combing through trying to locate all the little treats. I still only got 66% of secrets, ones like the automap and yellow skull were resounding victories. Dunno where the others are, but I wanted to share a little bit of a laugh.

Before I figured out one of the souls, I spent a long time trying to get up to this thing, I was sure it triggered the pillar. Whoops! The soul in the background laughs at me. I eventually figured it out and nabbed the joker.

I'm not the best at giving feedback due to my overall time constraints, as I'm sure other players could give way more concise critique, from what I've played so far things seem to be shaping up really nicely. I love being caught off guard with some of the monster closets that still give you a fair shake and keep you off your toes, without going into absolute mayhem like slaughterfests do.

But yeah half the fun of your maps are hunting for the secrets, since there's usually a clue or two for the majority of them. Love it.

I suppose the only complaint I'd have is that I sometimes get a little lost or surprised by enemies in the really dark areas, as I don't play with a lot of gamma jacked up, but I liken that to be intentional, and it's a nice change from the always visible monster encounters in lit areas.

[Firedust]

Beat this once again, didn't feel THAT much harder than the previous beta. Some fights did catch me off guard though (mainly because I was expecting something else). Really cool maps these. I still hope you finish Vela Pax in the next year or so, if that's at all possible. Even though I am probs not gonna play it till all the maps are done, I am 100% sure that those maps aren't worse than the ones in Counterattack. I've played most of your maps, and I am yet to come across something I don't like.

[Mechadon]

Xenaero said:

Before I figured out one of the souls, I spent a long time trying to get up to this thing, I was sure it triggered the pillar. Whoops! The soul in the background laughs at me. I eventually figured it out and nabbed the joker.

Hahahaha! I can see how that dumb antenna detail would look like its connected to that Soulsphere pedestal :P. I was going to try a different way to trigger that secret, but after digging into it I couldn't find a good place to hide a trigger (it confused dew as well). The reason why its on a pedestal like that is so that you can see it from the other side of the rocks, though that seems to confuse some people. Oh well, it probably not that bad honestly.

Thank you very much for playing Xenaero. I appreciate your help and the kind words :D

Firedust said:

Beat this once again, didn't feel THAT much harder than the previous beta. Some fights did catch me off guard though (mainly because I was expecting something else). Really cool maps these. I still hope you finish Vela Pax in the next year or so, if that's at all possible. Even though I am probs not gonna play it till all the maps are done, I am 100% sure that those maps aren't worse than the ones in Counterattack. I've played most of your maps, and I am yet to come across something I don't like.

Awesome, thanks for playing through the beta for a second time! The maps haven't underwent huge changes since the first and second beta, even though my changelogs are really long. But I think I've made some good quality of life changes on the whole.

I can't really give you a good answer to whether or not Vela Pax will be finished this year. Most likely not since I'm going to be focused on Supplice this coming year. But I would at least like to finish MAP04 this year if I can...it really just all depends on how my free time and motivation goes. I'm glad you enjoyed this and Vela Pax though :D

[RipandTear667]

Love the map, I'll be trying it out soon.

[Mechadon]

Alright, I'm finally ready to release the final version. Grab it below!

Counterattack [8mb] (Mirror)
Final Changelog

As a bonus, I packaged up the statusbar graphics for anyone who would like to use them for their own projects.

Counterattack Statusbar GFX [13kb] (Mirror)

The sky textures were recently released HERE, so grab them from there if you want to check them out (along with a few color variants).

I haven't uploaded the wad to /idgames just yet, but that will come soon. If anyone finds any terrible issues with the final release, I'll make a quick update (hopefully before the /idgames version goes up).

Thank you to everyone who helped me out with this in any way! I had a lot of fun working on this little project and I think it has helped me learn some new things :)

[dew]

Nice, congrats to the release! I like how the project balooned from a quick contest entry into a hefty mapset with cool separately released asset packs, heh.

[Fonze]

Huge congrats on the release Mech! I haven't made the time to play the rest of these as I should've by now; half due to sheer size, half due to laziness, and half due to the wind, but the three maps I played were all simply astounding, beautiful, and engaging and the assets you've made along the way are to die for. I heavily look forward to not only cracking these open soon, but also to your next project *crosses fingers for Supplice*

Also, what dew said, hehe.

[Mechadon]

dew said:

I like how the project balooned from a quick contest entry into a hefty mapset with cool separately released asset packs, heh.

This is a disturbingly accurate approximation of just about all of my projects at the moment :P

Fonze said:

I heavily look forward to not only cracking these open soon, but also to your next project *crosses fingers for Supplice*

Supplice is going to be my main focus for the rest of the year in all likelihood (Cage might kill me if I don't focus more on it, heh). So you guys will almost certainly be seeing more of it.

Thanks guys :)

[Jimmy]

Congrats Mek. \o/ Best thing to come out of 2017 so far.

[Darch]

Here's an unsucessful FDA for MAP01:
http://confrariadacosta.com.br/doom/cadarch.lmp

I get 6% health, backtrack, get out of ammo, get lost, and die. This demo is quite long, watch it only if you're having sleeping troubles, it might help.

I liked the map, by the way. I always get lost and die, any map.

[joe-ilya]

Holy fuck, mek! At this rate, you'll reach a second cacoward in no time.

[Mechadon]

Thanks for the demo Darch! I will check it out soon.

Currently this is sitting in /incoming, so an /idgames link should be available pretty soon. I'll bump this thread once its on the archive.

Thanks again for the kind words guys. If anyone else records demos, toss a link in here, I would love to watch it :D

[Ed_Deth]

Great maps man. Played though and kept getting lost but figured it out. Missed a lot of secrets, oh well just an excuse to play again. Thanks for the ride.

[Mechadon]

Thanks for playing Ed_Deth!

Counterattack is on /idgames now, so the release is officially official :). Thanks again to everyone who helped out and gave comments and feedback!

[joe-ilya]

Streaming this : twitch.tv/joe_ilya

[floatRand]

Spoiler

Not sure if this has been found, but in current version ( the file I pulled from /idgames little over 40 minutes ago ), there is a pit in map01.

Otherwise, from what I've played and seen so far, a stellar job. The lighting in first map is bit too dark for my tastes, occasionally, but it is probably due to sourceport I am using.
Congratulations on the release.

[joe-ilya]

Your signature on MAP01's automap doesn't show up unless the IDDT cheat is activated, not sure if intentional.

[Mechadon]

floatRand said:

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/rNJ8jkK.png

Not sure if this has been found, but in current version ( the file I pulled from /idgames little over 40 minutes ago ), there is a pit in map01.

I was expecting something like this to happen :P. No matter how much you test, bugs like this always slip through the cracks. Thank you for reporting it, I'm going to see what I can do about getting a fix up on /idgames.

joe-ilya said:

Your signature on MAP01's automap doesn't show up unless the IDDT cheat is activated, not sure if intentional.

Yea that is intentional. I always hide that on the automap; its mostly just there for anyone who opens up the map in DB.

[Mechadon]

Sorry for the double-post. I just wanted to say that I've fixed the issue on MAP01 and I've uploaded a fixed version to both of my mirrors (HERE and HERE). I'm in the process of seeing if I can get the archived version updated.

Hopefully there won't be any other issues like that. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks again floatRand for spotting and reporting that bug.

*edit*

The fixed version of this is now sitting in /incoming, and hopefully the /idgames version will be updated soon!

[NinjaLiquidator]

Cool maps, they could be easily on Vela Pax!