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LordShadowZ

My first map that I'd like critiqued

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Hello, I'm fairly new to mapping and this forum as well. I've worked on and completed a couple maps and I have one I'm fairly happy with so far that I'd like to have critiqued and analyzed so I can further improve my mapping. This map is designed to be a vanilla-like Hell level that is intended to be a Map20 something in a potential megawad. It has only been tested in GZDoom and has no obvious bugs I am aware of. I know I still need to do a lot of detail work and improve lighting in areas, but this is just an alpha version.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/17uom6jj9osq1j6/Lavalevel.wad?dl=0

Recommended: TNT IWAD + cc4falls.wad otherwise the map will have two missing textures, but won't affect the gameplay.

Screenshots:

The volcano

Spoiler

Cave system
Spoiler

Lava maze
Spoiler

Be brutally honest. Is it too easy/hard? Ammo or health too plentiful/scarce? Boring, uninteresting, or unbalanced rooms? Any criticisms or compliments, please let me know. Any tips for improving architecture, how to detail, improve lighting? Anything that will help me improve my overall mapping for the future.

Thanks

Update: Lower difficulties added, minor ammo balance tweaks.
Update 2: More ammo balancing, on lower difficulties it is slightly less scarce. Added ammo stash secret. Link above is up to date.

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Thanks for the response, I've implemented that into my build of the map now. I still could use more feedback so I can learn what isn't working as well as I think and continue doing tweaks and refinement before I move on to heavier detail work.

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Well, I'll start with criticizing your post. Always add screenshots or a short video to give people some sort of point of reference.

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Where are the monsters?

And also, the metal grate/railing in front of the red skull door is not impassible.

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Again, I'm new here. I'll be sure to post screenshots of maps in the future, and I'll add one to the OP shortly.

Monsters are currently only on UV, I haven't worked on the lower difficulties yet since this is an alpha version of the map. And I swear I made sure nothing could get through those railings... I'll go fix that.

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Voros said:

And also, the metal grate/railing in front of the red skull door is not impassible.


Actually, none of the MIDBARS3 windows are tagged impassable. I fell through a couple of them.

Also, linedef tags 35 and 36, the teleport linedefs to and from the secret BFG, have unnecessary textures on their back sides which are causing HOMs. At least in ZDoom.

There were a couple of times it seemed I had a lot of ammo on hand, but then something like a Caco swarm, or the AV room or the Lava maze took most of it away.

Overall, I thought it was very enjoyable. Except for the lava maze. Man, that's brutal. You kinda have to run through it using the automap to get to the switch quickly, but then change views fast because there's monsters in the way. I don't remember the last time I had to do that.

Edit: Forgot. You have a BRICKLIT texture as a door hiding a secret. but the wall is 336 units high. It's a bit odd having a tiled wall lamp going up into the ceiling like that. Most times, a secret door like that is recessed. I know you did that for another secret. Was it intentional here?

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I didn't want the MIDBARS3 themselves to be impassible because I'm pretty sure that stops projectiles going through. I thought I had it so that the linedefs in front of and behind the bars would block monsters/players so you nothing would accidentally go through them, but still able to be shot through. I double checked and fixed the linedefs where this wasn't the case, so this shouldn't be a problem anymore. I also removed the unnecessary textures from the linedef tags 35/36.

I tried to balance ammo so that it was scarce but that you wouldn't run out, I'll start tweaking my ammo placements so that it's more evenly distributed.

The whole idea of the lava maze was to be as brutal as possible, especially since this is planned to be a Map25 or somewhere else in the late game of a megawad. Be glad I haven't gone through with hiding all the maze linedefs from the auto map yet. I don't think I want to be quite that cruel.

That BRICKLIT secret was added very early on in the build and I haven't gone back and made it far less obvious yet. I'll get that changed soon

The download link for the wad file should be up to date if anyone wants to have another go at the map. All reported bugs so far should be fixed.

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Two lil things I saw early in the map.

Spoiler

light looks weird here in the middle, I know what you were going for but it just looks weird.

monster block lines suck.

And then I died and I dont really have time to play a long ammo-sparse map right now so that's it for now hehe.

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Update: Lower difficulties have been added, probably need a little tweaking but they feel pretty good to me, still challenging. Also added a little extra shotgun ammo at the start. Download link in OP should be up to date.

Thank you to everyone for your feedback so far, it's been very helpful :)

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Played through on UV in Zandronum. My thoughts:

- Ammo was very sparse, too much so in my opinion. I frequently was out of SG, and then SSG ammo, throughout most of the map.
- The lava maze on only one radiation suit is difficult unless you know exactly where you're going. I was low on ammo to clear out the Spectres as it was so I couldn't rush through and the suit had run out. I did find the Soul Sphere and MegaArmor, but the lava should probably only be doing 5 damage rather than 10.
- I killed the Cyberdemon with only 23 bullets to spare. A 100 Cell pack is definitely needed in there because it's very possible to end up with not enough ammo to kill it.
- Some of the later traps seem very weak as they contain only Former Humans and Imps, whereas you have already run into a Hell Knight in the starting area!

I didn't find any of the secrets, which I'm sure would have helped with health/ammo. However, if this is your first map (or first good map) then it's quite impressive. The design of the level was very playable, just a little short on ammo!

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I'm no expert or mapping vet but here's some feedback.

HMP: 82% Kills, 20% secrets (found the BFG)

Played on GZDoom. Ammo was tight! Especially early on, but that is perhaps normal in an unknown map cause i didn't know where everything was. I never outright ran out though. I personally think that if you go for a tight ammo balance, an 'accessible' chainsaw or beserk is a must, just in case. Exited with 160 bullets in the end, the Cyb ate everything else. I got lucky in the lava maze i think - an extra rad suit would be fair, it would encourage exploration too. I thought the architecture was nice and varied (good job), progression was solid, although i think the texturing felt slightly disjointed between some areas.

Keep mapping!

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I went into designing this map with the intention of having ammo be really tight, and even for me when I know where everything is it's a struggle (but I'm also not too great at Doom.) I'll move the berserk pack to a more obvious spot and add another cell pack and rad suit into the lava maze. I'll find a good place for a chainsaw as well. I'll work on adding an ammo stash somewhere into the level as well as some additional ammo pickups on the lower difficulties.

The two traps that had the imps and former humans were meant more as troll traps than anything. They made sense to me at the time, but I think I can definitely remove the one at the end of the lava maze. I feel the one near the red skull key is still good for keeping the player on guard without eating much ammo.

The texturing might feel disjointed because my initial concept for the level was more of an underground base in a volcano theme and then later it turned into a hell level. I should probably retexture some of those first areas to better fit the new theme.

This isn't my first map, it's about the sixth one I've completed to date (first one shared) and a culmination of everything I've learned thus far. I'm really happy people are enjoying it!

Thank you for the feedback :)

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Finally got to play through the entire level. Didnt die until the cybo (I didnt spot the sphere so got instagibbed by his rockets.) but I got under 10 health twice so no cakewalk to be sure. Played it on HMP.

Spotted a few more visual things you might wanna fix.

Spoiler






Last and also least, a tiny error with the light level here. Was sure it was meant to indicate a secret but nope. =P

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Those texture issues are a problem caused when using the TNT.wad but not the cc4falls.wad. Those textures are supposed to be lavafalls (BLODGR1). I'll go fix that light level issue. Thanks

Edit: That light level issue isn't present on my build. Hmm... I'll make sure the download link is up to date.

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LordShadowZ said:

Those texture issues are a problem caused when using the TNT.wad but not the cc4falls.wad. Those textures are supposed to be lavafalls (BLODGR1).

Ah, that would explain the love of the tech-skull texture I percieved you to have =P

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