Atonement [33 Vanilla DOOM II Maps] [Now on idgames]

[Degree23]

Map 07: Not much to say on this one really!

 

Map 08: I was a bit surprised when the level ended, though in hindsight the exit step was the same as the one in the previous level. I thought it might teleport me to somewhere, and so I didn't have a chance to investigate how to get the Soul Sphere at the start. I suppose I like it when the exit is clearly signposted so you know for sure when you're finishing the level.

 

Map 09: I ran very low on ammo here again in parts of the map, and that was with the AVs resurrecting almost no enemies.

 

Map 10: Again not much to say here.

 

Map 11: I found the BFG secret after the big final fight, so I didn't get much use out of it!

 

Another enjoyable episode. I'll play the next one soon.

[Captain Keen]

Just finished this. Great wad! Held my interest throughout. The later maps are really well done.

 

I only noticed 2 small things...

 

1) In Map 21 right at the beginning, the zombieman on top of the red wall clips on some invisible barrier and disappears even though he is still there as an enemy.

 

2) In Map 30, the new final boss is really cool! Nice Heretic/Hexen vibes. However, the sound effects (especially the shotgun attack) don't always match up with his movements. Also, I don't think he has a death sound? Not a huge deal but I think it could be cool to finesse the SFX with the final boss a bit. Esp since the Death Paladin or whatever has such an awesome death sound effect.

 

Great stuff! Feels very polished overall.

[Moustachio]

8 hours ago, Captain Keen said:

1) In Map 21 right at the beginning, the zombieman on top of the red wall clips on some invisible barrier and disappears even though he is still there as an enemy.

This is most likely due to a new node builder I’m trying out. It can be a little finicky with how it handles certain sector shapes, so maps I began working on with an older node builder can create strange thin sectors that the enemies disappear in, almost like a pocket dimension. If this is the only one you’ve found, then that’s great news.

 

I’m curious if anyone knows what effect this is. I’d like to tweak my node builder settings and try to avoid this sort of thing in the future.

[Captain Keen]

45 minutes ago, Moustachio said:

This is most likely due to a new node builder I’m trying out. It can be a little finicky with how it handles certain sector shapes, so maps I began working on with an older node builder can create strange thin sectors that the enemies disappear in, almost like a pocket dimension. If this is the only one you’ve found, then that’s great news.

Ah, interesting! I wasn’t actively looking for this, so there might be other instances, but it’s the only one I noticed. Certainly it’s not a severe problem or anything. I think map 21 mainly stood out because it happens right at the start and it’s an enemy against a colorful backdrop. Unless I’m blind I don’t think this is a super frequent issue so you’ve done a good job with the switch.

[Firedust]

All done! Took me a few evenings to play through, on and off. Great mapset! I've edited my post on the previous page with all the bugs I managed to find.

 

Overall, this was excellent, especially from episode 3 and onwards. You have great command of classic textures and make everything look neat without going crazy on visual detailing. And you know how to make the most use of every area imaginable - I mean, some of these maps are actually fairly small, but because of the constant onslaught of mobs teleporting in and emerging from closets, the player may be deceived into thinking they are bigger than they actually are. Also, because of how good the opening episode is and how AWESOME eps 3-6 are, episode 2 feels somewhat like a filler, combat-wise and visually. It's not that it's bad, it's just the rest is great!

 

A couple things had me a tad vexed during my playthrough but it wasn't anything major. First of all, you're REALLY mean to pistol starters. If the player doesn't rely on infighting, they'd be running dry in no time. In so many levels, I was in single digits for shells and rockets - and way more often than I found so comfortable. Now there's obviously nothing wrong with this per se but I really wish you were a bit more generous with the supplies, especially for the bigger skirmishes - this mainly applies to the first half of the megawad. For example, there's this big fight outside in the H20 map of the first episode and you can't help but want to blast everything into oblivion - but alas you don't have that many rockets, so you're left with two options: infighting and shotgunning.

Secondly, I feel you are relying too much on archvile ambushes for important switches/key pickups. Ten levels or so in, it became a habit for me to set aside some rockets because I ALWAYS knew when they'd be coming. Now luckily, in the last two episodes you used them more sparingly and got more creative with the rest of the baddie roster.

Finally, and this is just a minor personal nitpick, I really wish there was no IoS in the final map and you could just decimate the remaining mobs after killing the true final boss, and proceed to the exit. I just don't feel it's necessary, really.

 

Also, I didn't realise you led the two Interception projects! I loved both of those megawads. Shame that one buggy map in the first installment never got fixed. So... Interception III when? :p

 

And thank you for finally completing and releasing this cool project!

Edited October 24, 2022 by Firedust

[Degree23]

Map 12: It's possible to hit this switch from outside here.

 

Map 13: Not much to say here, played well!

 

Map 14: It was interesting to have the Invulnerability after the Cyberdemon fight, but well placed as that fight has a lot less space to manoeuvre.

 

Map 15: Monsters teleporting directly behind me is starting to feel a little bit old hat here, especially when your health is whittled down by tons of distance hitscan in large open areas. I spent an extremely long time running around this map trying to find the blue key, and when I did find it, I recalled that I had seen it earlier. But the fight there has an AV which drew all my attention, and because the map was so big and the way to go was very unclear for a lot of it, I spent a lot of time just running around not knowing what I was doing. I didn't bother to look for the red key, I'm just glad to be out of this map. I'm also not sure why you gave a MegaSphere right before a death exit. (I appreciate it may be for the secret exit, but it feels like a bit of a troll) Easily the least enjoyable of the WAD so far for me.

 

Although not as bad as in the earlier maps, I have been running low on ammo at points in the map, which makes me again wonder how Pistol starters will be getting on. I feel like an extra box of Bullets every 2 maps would definitely alleviate that.

[Captain Keen]

1 hour ago, Firedust said:

Finally, and this is just a minor personal nitpick, I really wish there was no IoS in the final map and you could just decimate the remaining mobs after killing the true final boss, and proceed to the exit. I just don't feel it's necessary, really.

I agree with this!

[Moustachio]

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

All done! Took me a few evenings to play through, on and off. Great mapset!

 

Really glad to hear you enjoyed it!

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

First of all, you're REALLY mean to pistol starters. If the player doesn't rely on infighting, they'd be running dry in no time.

 

2 hours ago, Degree23 said:

Although not as bad as in the earlier maps, I have been running low on ammo at points in the map, which makes me again wonder how Pistol starters will be getting on. I feel like an extra box of Bullets every 2 maps would definitely alleviate that.

 

This seems to be a common complaint, I may have to ask for a little help from you guys in terms of what the best way to alleviate this would be. I see that @Degree23 has suggested that having some more bullets to fall back on would be nice, but I would also like to avoid a situation where a player is sitting at 400 unused bullets for the majority of the playtime.

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

Secondly, I feel you are relying too much on archvile ambushes for important switches/key pickups.

 

I really should just make a whole AV centered megawad and get it out of my system!

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

Finally, and this is just a minor personal nitpick, I really wish there was no IoS in the final map and you could just decimate the remaining mobs after killing the true final boss, and proceed to the exit. I just don't feel it's necessary, really.

 

2 hours ago, Captain Keen said:

I agree with this!

 

Aw, man! I thought of it as a cool twist and a fun time killer if you want to see how long you could last.

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

Also, I didn't realise you led the two Interception projects! I loved both of those megawads. Shame that one buggy map in the first installment never got fixed.

 

I did go back and fix it at one point! Go ahead and download the current idgames version and both the red and blue key doors in MAP19 open now.

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

And thank you for finally completing and releasing this cool project!

 

And thank you for playing it and letting me know how much you enjoyed it!

 

2 hours ago, Degree23 said:

Map 15:

 

It's a beast of a map, I'm glad you got through it! Hopefully it's enticing to hear that that's as expansive as things get, I ended up making much shorter maps on average for the second half of the wad.

[Captain Keen]

9 minutes ago, Moustachio said:

Aw, man! I thought of it as a cool twist and a fun time killer if you want to see how long you could last.

Maybe you could make the Icon version a super secret level a la E3M9 in the original Doom and have level 30 be without the Icon. Though I guess that wouldn’t really work since Level 30 is the very last level. Hmm…

[Firedust]

14 minutes ago, Moustachio said:

This seems to be a common complaint, I may have to ask for a little help from you guys in terms of what the best way to alleviate this would be. I see that @Degree23 has suggested that having some more bullets to fall back on would be nice, but I would also like to avoid a situation where a player is sitting at 400 unused bullets for the majority of the playtime.

More bullets doesn't sound like a good solution, I feel. Chaingunning chonky enemies to death isn't that fun anyway, especially if you have to do it all the time. Ftr the problem becomes a lot worse with archvile encounters because if they start resurrecting stuff, chances are you are screwed. I'd probably add a couple rocket/shell boxes here and there. If there are big fights (like outside in that crater level, for example), add rockets for their splash damage. If the player is mainly traveling across more claustrophobic areas in which they don't have to take out large groups of high-tier enemies, then place more shells. In fact, even in the second level iirc I was running VERY low on shells so I had to chaingun revs and whatever else there was once you take the lift toward the final arena. Also, this is obviously just my opinion, but I don't think forcing the player to rely on constant infighting is good practice, because it takes away the fun of shooting things. Now, don't get me wrong, there are countless variations of encounters when instigating infighting is fun as hell, but if it's something that happens extremely often, I feel the mapper's playbook may start coming across as one-dimensional (NOT the case with Atonement btw, as seen in later levels).

 

14 minutes ago, Moustachio said:

I did go back and fix it at one point! Go ahead and download the current idgames version and both the red and blue key doors in MAP19 open now.

I was not aware of that! Just downloaded the new version.

[Degree23]

18 hours ago, Firedust said:

More bullets doesn't sound like a good solution, I feel.

 

I really wanted to CG a lot of lesser enemies in many places, but I was having to use much more powerful weapons, and felt like I was wasting them. In many maps there are lesser monsters at a distance where the SSG would be less effective, and had I been able to CG them I'd have had a much better ammo balance for other fights. I feel the balance of RL/PG/BFG ammo is not too bad, and especially you don't want too many Cells lying around as once you have the BFG it can really warp how some maps play.

 

Map 16: I would swap the positions of the Soulsphere and Megasphere here. The last AV placement on the column just felt really weird as well.

 

Map 17: It is definitely feeling a bit repetitive now to have hitscanners teleport right behind you when opening a door.

 

Map 18: For the first time in a while it feels like there's actually an abundance of ammo. I'm exiting here with 207/11/26/258, and that was also with only finding one secret. I'm not sure there needs to be two Megasphere secrets here, one of them can perhaps be just a Soulsphere and maybe the other a Megaarmor.

 

Map 19: Wow, that was a change of pace!

 

Map 20: You have some Cells in the very final part with the death exit, which given there are barely any enemies by the time you get there, seem pretty unnecessary as you're about to lose all ammo anyway.

 

I don't really recall thinking ammo was much of a problem anywhere in this episode.

[Firedust]

27 minutes ago, Degree23 said:

 

I really wanted to CG a lot of lesser enemies in many places, but I was having to use much more powerful weapons, and felt like I was wasting them. In many maps there are lesser monsters at a distance where the SSG would be less effective, and had I been able to CG them I'd have had a much better ammo balance for other fights. I feel the balance of RL/PG/BFG ammo is not too bad, and especially you don't want too many Cells lying around as once you have the BFG it can really warp how some maps play.

Don't forget that you're playing continuous and I was pistol starting. The way some of the maps are tackled changes completely due to weapon availability - especially the location of the ssg plays a huge role. Starting with or without one has a direct effect on how many rockets/shells you will use for different encounters.

[Degree23]

On 10/25/2022 at 9:28 PM, Firedust said:

Don't forget that you're playing continuous and I was pistol starting.

 

True, but you actually get the CG in a number of maps, some of them early on. The SSG occurs later on in a few of these maps. I found that I was having to waste stronger weapons on weaker enemies, which is why I wanted some more Bullets to deal with the fodder, though perhaps a few more Shells would help too.

 

Map 21: Nothing much to say here. Fairly short and definitely a "you're into the last third of the WAD" kind of vibe.

 

Map 22: If you're quick enough you can grab the Chainsaw before it rises up, although it's easy enough to get seconds later so I'm not sure if it's worth doing anything about. Some ammo problems on this map I feel. A box of RL ammo soon after you pick up the weapon would be helpful. The mini-boss was a bit underwhelming. The space it's in is quite cramped, and not knowing what weapons it had, I wanted more room to run around, so I went back out to the hallway, but it couldn't follow through the small gaps and I just sniped it down.

 

Map 23: The feeling of enemies teleporting in right behind me now has reached the point where it's becoming more irritating than anything else. This was a shame because I didn't enjoy the final sections as much as they deserved, mostly because I was frustrated at constantly losing health to the "right-behind-player enemy teleports".

 

Map 24: I really liked the use of the custom enemy in this map, much better than its introduction. In general the monster placements worked particularly well here.

 

Map 25: The gauntlet style section was amazing. After the first Cyberdemon I wasn't expecting a second one for some reason!

 

Will play the last episode soon!

[galileo31dos01]

Hello, congrats on getting the full package of this, I've been looking forward to play this anytime and now that I could I can say thank you for making it! It was a lot of joy from to start to end!

 

You asked for bug reports, so hopefully this list helps. All UV/PS in crispy-doom:

 

Spoiler

- In m08, it is possible to softlock yourself in this room: if you go to the secret armor place, and the door in the little room wasn't unlocked before, there is no way out.

 

- In m12, not a technical thing but equally important: it is possible to get hanged on these torches while moving around, especially during the little fight in that place. While it didn't happen to me, because I tried to stay away from them, I would still advice being a bit more careful when placing decorations. Sometimes minimal is better.

 

- In m14, the green armor -thing 492- could be moved out of the way so that you don't inevitably grab it if not needed, or like in my case, forced switch from blue to green (I had 90 something).

 

- In m15, all these stuff was unable to teleport out because there are no sectors with tag 66.

- I might ask what was the thing with this lift? other than granting access to dropped weapons, unless that's the purpose, which would be alright!

 

- In m20, these monsters can't teleport out. This is because the sector with tag 15 breaks in vanilla, the engine will make those floating teleport lines divide the big sector into smaller ones, unlike boom where that wouldn't happen. So actions like "lower to 8u above" are best avoided for a case like this, so you may want to try a "lower to lowest" instead.

 

- In m27, this pain elemental won't wake up without sound propagation. 

 

- In m29, both sectors 639 and 901 are flagged secret, not sure if intentional.

- Also, there are two computer maps in different places, and doomguy can only pick up one per map, so I don't know if that's something you wanna keep or not.

 

- In m33, an arachnotron spawned on this platform but was unable to move.

 

[Moustachio]

Thank you @galileo31dos01, @Firedust, @Degree23, and @Captain Keen for the feedback! I think since it's getting a bit too close to Halloween, I'd like to change course just a tad. There have been a pretty decent number of little bugs, issues, annoyances, & general gameplay gripes reported, so I'll probably release an RC2 in a few days.

 

I'll mostly focus on tightening up the ammo balance early on and reworking some of the "enemy teleports right behind you" kinda moments. Once that's released, the gameplay will be final. Done and done. During RC2, I'll only be looking for visual bugs, possible soft-locks, VPOs, and any other game-breakers.

 

With that all being said and done, the end of November seems like a very doable time for a final release.

 

P.S.

@dial-up just released the midis for Maps 25-30 on Bandcamp, so go check it out! It was really kind of him to come back and finish out the soundtrack. Helped me keep the feel of the wad consistent.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Moustachio

[Moustachio]

Download RC2

 

This is to catch any last minute game-breaking bugs, etc. I added extra ammo in every map as a buffer. I changed a couple gameplay segments here and there. The final boss has sound effects now! Still does the icon of sin thing when he dies. Guess you can't win everyone over. I'll upload it to idgames next Friday the 18th with any needed bugfixes.

 

Things worth reporting:

• Softlocks
• Unreachable enemies/items/secrets
• Visplane overflows & other crashes
  • Excluding the vanilla savegame crash

[Captain Keen]

Awesome! Congrats on the almost final release!

[Vile]

I had played the first two episodes a while back, but I played the whole thing this week (RC1) and had a great time with it!  Fortunately, after taking a look around, it looks like the issues I had noticed were fixed in RC2 (softlock on 08, broken monster closet on 15, etc.)

 

Spoiler

Was the ending text after MAP25 supposed to be "the end"?  It puzzled me, knowing that there was a 6th episode.

 

[Moustachio]

On 11/12/2022 at 5:34 PM, Vile said:

Was the ending text after MAP25 supposed to be "the end"?  It puzzled me, knowing that there was a 6th episode.

 

Ahh, that's probably something I did wrong formatting UMAPINFO. I'll get it fixed for Friday's release.

[Salt-Man Z]

Started replaying this sometime last week, loving it as usual. I did just get into an odd softlock on MAP15. I see there's an updated version, so I'll check that out, but just in case:

 

 

I initially left the train headed west, but the ambush at the yellow key sent me running east. I went outside, then did the loop back south and west to approach the starting train from the other direction. Having cleared out all the opposition, I dropped back down to the starting train, and noticed a teleporter, which I took. I was taken to a small room (screenshot) where 3 mancs had their backs to me. I killed them, hit the yellow switch (not the blue, as I didn't have that key yet) and... that was all I could do. I couldn't teleport back out, and I couldn't open the main door from the inside. I was stuck.

Even after getting the blue key and finding the second teleporter into this room, it appears that neither of the teleporters out of the room work at all.

 

I also left with a very large monster closet chock full of baddies, which I hope/assume was also fixed in RC2. (The level was sorely missing the big outdoor fight it's named for!)

Edited November 15, 2022 by Salt-Man Z

[Caleb13]

I played only new episodes, as I played older maps earlier. It's great work as before, although I was disappointed that you succumbed to the custom monster cancer, too. Oh well, at least you didn't go overboard with them. I noticed one problem in MAP29: if you walk onto red pillar thing, you can jump into sector 552, with no way out.

[TJG1289]

In Map 20, the switch behind the blue key didn't work for me. I'm assuming it re-lowers the bars allowing you to exit the area. I'm playing RC2 with GZDoom 4.8.2. Only issue I've had so far. Been really fun! Surprisingly tough.

[Moustachio]

@TJG1289 Luckily fixed that in the idgames release!

 

Speaking of which, here's the idgames release: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/atone

[Firedust]

Grats! Hopefully, new Interception project soon ;)

[NightFright]

Widescreen statusbar:

 

atone_wide.zip

[Salt-Man Z]

Congrats on the release!

[Salt-Man Z]

Hey, congrats on the writeup in this year's Cacowards! I'm currently on the new maps (low 20s) and enjoying them quite a bit.

[Moustachio]

It was quite an honor to be featured this year!

 

[Roofi]

I wanted to record my discovery of this wad on HMP and continuous, with DOSBOX. Here is a first video of my playthrough, I'm currently on map 12.

 

 

Most of the maps don't have a memorable level design due to the jumbled up themes and the classic-oriented layouts but I really enjoy it for its simplicity and midi atmosphere. I want to mention the refreshing use of orange textures , notably through the rocks and the sky. I like the use of custom textures in general even if it tends to lack of consistency.

 

I expected to play a lot of long and mazy levels but most of them have a clear progression and some short ones help preventing the "megawad fatigue" disease.

 

My first video ended with a save overbuff on map 05 but this one figures as one my favourite thanks to its slaughter-lite gameplay and wide outdoors areas. :p I appreciate the idea of splitting the megawad into small episodes like Scythe 2 or Eviternity, even if being overstuff doesn't bother me.

 

The other videos will be uploaded soon. I don't think they are very interesting to watch due to the lack of live commentary but whatever.

 

Edit :  

 

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Roofi

[Roofi]

And the adventure continues !

 

 

 

I unfortunately forgot to record map 12 but it's a short introduction map anyway. I had to pistol-start map 15 because my game completly crashed while saving (map 13 as well).

 

I feel this megawad gets better and better as long as I progress but also a lot more harder and slaughterish than I expected. I was sometimes wondering if I chosed the right skill level haha. 

 

I really enjoyed the city maps , especially map 15 which figures as the crown jewel of this megawad. The Eviternity's moody fits even better in this city-themed map taking place at night. The introduction in the destroyed subway was one of the most memorable moment and I was pleasantly surprised to walk around in large areas despite the vanilla limits. Also, I see the texture usage gets more consistent, which improve the overall visuals.

 

I found the secrets maps after long time of searching and the secret maps were quite ordinary despite the new enemy. I suppose map 32 is more interesting to play on UV but some encounters remain nasty though !

 

About the next episode, I think map 19 "Fortress Island" deserves the second place among my favourite maps in this set for now. I had a good shot of dopamine after killing all the spawning ennemies with my mighty BFG.