A whole year of 4800 Hell Knights! This time, it'll be finished!

[Pegleg]

Here's the update to my map. I made a few changes after watching @mArt1And00m3r11339 and @MegaBlast play through the map.

 

• Added walkover triggers to the step pyramid structure so that jumping would still summon the Hell Knights, so jumping wouldn't break the map.
• Removed the invulnerability artifact on UV and NM difficulties.
• Aligned some skin textures toward the end of the map.
• Moved the two Hell Knights in the exit room slightly further from the entrance of the room.

 

Everything else should be the same as the previous revision. @Big Ol Billy, I'm still interested to know your thoughts.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5v841sqlm9at86/hkbones_v2.wad?dl=1

 

I edited my last two posts, on March 31 and May 19, where I posted the original version of the map and first revision of the map, respectively.

 

@94's the best style

Please update the link in the first post with this version.

Edited June 12, 2018 by Pegleg : Edited previous two posts with updated link.

[Degree23]

Why is there not an easy to find link to the latest alpha near the top of the first post?

[94's the best style]

On 6/17/2018 at 9:12 PM, Degree23 said:

Why is there not an easy to find link to the latest alpha near the top of the first post?

Because you were the first one to ask for it, and so it has been done.

[therektafire]

Friendly reminder that I asked for people's screenshots of their maps so I can use them in the hub map

[Dexiaz]

1 hour ago, therektafire said:

Friendly reminder that I asked for people's screenshots of their maps so I can use them in the hub map

 

Mine:

Spoiler

 

[Pegleg]

@DeXiaZ

I have no problem with your map, but the one issue I have with the screenshot is that it has the Boss health meter in the screenshot. That might lead some to believe that your map is the final boss map for the whole mapset. Perhaps that might be useful to catch people off-guard if they think that's it and then they come upon the actual "boss" of the mapset.

 

@94's the best style @therektafire

Granted, we haven't determined what that "final boss" will be.

[Dexiaz]

1 hour ago, Pegleg said:

I have no problem with your map, but the one issue I have with the screenshot is that it has the Boss health meter in the screenshot. That might lead some to believe that your map is the final boss map for the whole mapset. Perhaps that might be useful to catch people off-guard if they think that's it and then they come upon the actual "boss" of the mapset.

 

Wait, do you want to use JUST SCREENSHOTS as Portal-Pictures? I thought you need those screenshots just to create something user-map-themed in your hub.

 

I mean, map with Cyberpunk neons will have some Cyberpunk neons near the Portal Exit in your Hun map. Or Lava Cave will be placed on your HUB map where is the Portal Exit to Lava Cave map.

 

Sorry, I just find this stupid. It's not the "Golden Souls" where is the idea to imitate Mario 64's paintings as Portals to exact maps they show.

[DMPhobos]

1 hour ago, therektafire said:

Friendly reminder that I asked for people's screenshots of their maps so I can use them in the hub map

Here are a couple of screenshots of my terrible map :P
Pick the best one
 

Spoiler

 

[Empyre]

How about this screenshot for my map?

[94's the best style]

7 hours ago, therektafire said:

Friendly reminder that I asked for people's screenshots of their maps so I can use them in the hub map

I hope this is large enough, if not then you can use this, 

Has the wrong sky, but otherwise better image.

 

[Major Arlene]

[Big Ol Billy]

Feedback part 2!

 

@Pegleg (new version)

• main area is interesting and fun to fight in, though it's hard to get a foothold at first
• health seems a little scarce at the beginning, lots of effective insta-kills from snotball storms
• this is another map where I longed for a more-powerful-than-BFG weapon, there's just a lot of HK swarms teleporting in that make things exhausting
• secrets seem essentially mandatory on UV. I don't want to imagine what playing this map with no BFG would be like.
• I like the theme, but the visuals are a little underwhelming for me. There's a lot of orthogonal angles for a flesh-based map here, and not a lot of lighting variation. Admittedly this does give it a certain oldschool flavor. The eyeball switch lifts at the beginning and end are a fun, atmospheric touch, though. 
• The blood insta-teleporter really needs some teleport fog. Even once I figured out what was happening, I still backed into it a couple of times and had a moment of "wtf kind of glitch is this? why did my screen completely change?"

@DMPhobos

• Pretty excellent map. The scripted "prison cells explode open" conceit works really well--it's clear what's going on, where threats are gonna come from, and keeps ratcheting up the intensity. The modest length is a breath of fresh air for the set as a whole.
• The grenade launcher is actually fairly useful here, but can still be annoying when you're trying to kill HKs still in a prison cell--the low angle of the projectiles and the small step up to the cell makes it pretty easy to insta-kill yourself with two rockets. This is a problem with the weapon itself imho, though.
• Some texture and flat alignment problems in the current version (I know there have been some issues in compiling):

Spoiler

 

 

 

@Myst.Haruko

• cool and memorable, fun theme executed well

• FWIW, I could stand to see more of the regular grid patterns, less of the grid with extra criss-crossing diagonal lines

• the platforming room is pretty annoying. I would maybe make hitting the floor itself teleport the player to make falling down less tedious, maybe also ease up on the repopulation

• Upscaled boss barons look weird. Similar to dexiaz's upscaled cyber, it's kind of hard to tell exactly where they are, since upscaling makes them look like they should be closer than they actually are.

@Plusw

• Another personal favorite, I dig it. It keeps you moving and having to strategize, but doesn't feel too grindy or unfair.
• Grenades are actually useful here.
• You can walk out of the shuttle in the final cockpit area into the vacuum OF SPAAAAAACCCEEEEEE

@DeXiaZ

• Impressive technical stuff, also provides something unique to the set.
• That said, tbh I feel like the cyber boss doesn't work on a couple of fundamental levels. For one, it's really confusing to tell where it's supposed to be since it's upscaled--the way you're used to using resolution to gauge distance in Doom just breaks down, and it kind of fucks with my head. Also the boss doesn't feel very threatening, since you have so much room to move and need to get supplies anyway. The big cyb also seems to spend most of its time fighting the HK horde, hard to even keep it's attention. It also took me a while to figure out what was even happening when it fired vertically, because I was never remotely in the same area by the time the rockets landed (for most of the fight, you can barely even get killed by the vertically fired rockets if you want to—if you stay in one place the HK balls will kill you much more quickly).
• Since the cyber boss is the real focus of the map, it feels weird that it doesn't end when he dies. Clean-up afterwards feels pretty anticlimactic.

@Voltcom9

• Fun theme! You really make putting the 3D into Wolf3D work.
• Ammo and health generosity are good and much appreciated. But glad I have to move and work for the RL / BFG, I think that helps strike a nice balance between giving you stuff and making you work for other stuff.
• Switches could be a little more user friendly. I wouldn't mind "x switches to go" messages, but at least it would be good for switches to be 1-use, so you can tell readily that you definitely didn't hit that switch over there earlier.

@Empyre

• Nice to have a brief map with a strong visual idea. This is also maybe the purest version of the original prompt for the set.
• Combat isn't very interesting, mostly just involves circle strafing. But given the map's brevity this doesn't seem like a huge dealbreaker; this map is another one that feels nice to have in the mix for variety's sake.

@DerFurer'sFace

• Really unique and memorable theme that must have been a lot of work to pull off.
• A lot of the combat is really frustrating to me. There's a lot of detail that's easy to get caught on, spaces too narrow to dodge HK projectiles, constant HK projectile hell in every outdoor area. Comp. demands seem pretty steep, it was even lagging pretty significantly for Mega--which makes getting stuck on detail even more prevalent and annoying. My experience was pretty similar to his playthrough, really.
• All that said, the HKs on planes are just epically hilarious.

Overall:

 

I think the biggest issue the set as a whole has is slogginess (my map is as big an offender as any). The shorter maps are definitely the ones shining through on the whole, with a few exceptions. The custom weapons don't do any favors to the set as well, unfortunately. It would really be nice to have a weapon more powerful than the BFG that could really cut through nobles. As it stands, fighting a large group of HKs with the railgun or PR feels about equivalent to fighting a horde of imps with the pistol, and even the RL/grenades don't feel much better. Both of the custom weapons have kind of annoying features imho. You can't hold down fire on the grenade launcher and the angle is weirdly low; the railgun has strange reloading (after every three shots?), plus feels underpowered to me.

 

Another issue that carries across multiple maps is snotball hell—HK projectiles coming from a bunch of different directions or with no real cover, where effective dodging feels very RNG-based. This can get especially annoying when there isn't armor available, meaning that 2 or 3 hits will kill you. Here it's easy to start feeling like the level is just making you save-scum through the encounter.

 

Playing through the whole set was pretty exhausting, although I think some of that will be alleviated by a hub structure, which will allow players to peek at all maps readily but not feel as obligated to complete a certain one before moving on to others. I also don't think we should be too down on ourselves, since this is supposed to be a ridiculous and freewheeling kind of project. But as I've said before, the more we can (reasonably) do to bring the fun forward, the better.

[Big Ol Billy]

also here's my pic for the hub map:

 

Spoiler

 

[Worm318]

21 hours ago, therektafire said:

Friendly reminder that I asked for people's screenshots of their maps so I can use them in the hub map

 

Here
 

Spoiler

 

[Misty]

4 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

• cool and memorable, fun theme executed well

• FWIW, I could stand to see more of the regular grid patterns, less of the grid with extra criss-crossing diagonal lines

• the platforming room is pretty annoying. I would maybe make hitting the floor itself teleport the player to make falling down less tedious, maybe also ease up on the repopulation

• Upscaled boss barons look weird. Similar to dexiaz's upscaled cyber, it's kind of hard to tell exactly where they are, since upscaling makes them look like they should be closer than they actually are.

Where background noise is worst? I could try to reduce it.

I won't remove platforming, I love platforming, I guess I could add some kind of liquid below to make less static or even animate that green small square area.

Upscaled, mean barons were mean as a last boss, I'm still unexperienced to make cutscene and finish this properly.

P.S screenshot of my map:

[Big Ol Billy]

Heh, I know platforming tastes very greatly in the community, and I definitely support people following their muse. But to clarify—it’s not so much the platforming itself that bugged me, but the turret enemies in the room that you had to deal with while platforming. Also fwiw I might be more sensitive about upscale monsters than others, I think something about them just irrationally rubs me the wrong way.

 

Let me look through the map and see where the worst offenders are as far as the more complex grid patterns. I really like the simplicity of the colored grids and arrows, just wanted to help that shine through more.

[Misty]

56 minutes ago, Big Ol Billy said:

Heh, I know platforming tastes very greatly in the community, and I definitely support people following their muse. But to clarify—it’s not so much the platforming itself that bugged me, but the turret enemies in the room that you had to deal with while platforming. Also fwiw I might be more sensitive about upscale monsters than others, I think something about them just irrationally rubs me the wrong way.

 

Let me look through the map and see where the worst offenders are as far as the more complex grid patterns. I really like the simplicity of the colored grids and arrows, just wanted to help that shine through more.

I'll wait. If you have more suggestions, besides these pointed things, let me know ;)

[Pegleg]

17 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

 

@Pegleg (new version)

• main area is interesting and fun to fight in, though it's hard to get a foothold at first
• health seems a little scarce at the beginning, lots of effective insta-kills from snotball storms
• this is another map where I longed for a more-powerful-than-BFG weapon, there's just a lot of HK swarms teleporting in that make things exhausting
• secrets seem essentially mandatory on UV. I don't want to imagine what playing this map with no BFG would be like.
• I like the theme, but the visuals are a little underwhelming for me. There's a lot of orthogonal angles for a flesh-based map here, and not a lot of lighting variation. Admittedly this does give it a certain oldschool flavor. The eyeball switch lifts at the beginning and end are a fun, atmospheric touch, though. 
• The blood insta-teleporter really needs some teleport fog. Even once I figured out what was happening, I still backed into it a couple of times and had a moment of "wtf kind of glitch is this? why did my screen completely change?"

Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate them.

 

I'm glad you found the main area interesting. I can appreciate that it can be hard to get in at first, but after you get through the door (which ended up being more of an issue than I anticipated), I figured people would essentially run out and keep running.

 

I added more health at lower skill levels, but I wasn't sure if I left them in whether more skilled players (as I said, I'm not included in that group) would find the map too easy if I had more health than there ultimately was. That's also why I took the invulnerability out of the last big area--because it essentially makes the end of the map trivial. From what I've seen of Megablast and Martiandoomer playing it, getting through the main area is the bulk of the trouble--the two sides areas are comparatively easy.

 

When I was testing my map I kept dying. That was not a shock to me--this map is way above my skill as a player. However, I figured there would be people who would be able to handle it. I tested the ammo balance by putting on god mode and playing. There is enough ammo to get through without the BFG. It took me about 40 minutes to kill all the HKs in the level without getting the BFG. So, it's possible, but I can see how it could be on the exhausting side. I'm not sure how to avoid that without taking the teeth out of the "swarms." I think there's actually only a few areas where you actually have to fight the HKs, other than just to clear space for yourself.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "teleport fog." My map was Boom format, so if fog is a UDMF thing, then I couldn't do it. I also thought about marking it in some way, but that seemed to defeat the purpose of it being a "secret" or at least leading to the secret. That being said, I didn't want to make the BFG secret too hard to find because I figured players would want the BFG.

[DMPhobos]

Here's the last version of the map fixing those textures issues

Thanks a lot for the feedback @Big Ol Billy :)

prison3.7z

[Dexiaz]

On 6/20/2018 at 12:43 AM, Big Ol Billy said:

• That said, tbh I feel like the cyber boss doesn't work on a couple of fundamental levels. For one, it's really confusing to tell where it's supposed to be since it's upscaled--the way you're used to using resolution to gauge distance in Doom just breaks down, and it kind of fucks with my head. Also the boss doesn't feel very threatening, since you have so much room to move and need to get supplies anyway. The big cyb also seems to spend most of its time fighting the HK horde, hard to even keep it's attention. It also took me a while to figure out what was even happening when it fired vertically, because I was never remotely in the same area by the time the rockets landed (for most of the fight, you can barely even get killed by the vertically fired rockets if you want to—if you stay in one place the HK balls will kill you much more quickly).
• Since the cyber boss is the real focus of the map, it feels weird that it doesn't end when he dies. Clean-up afterwards feels pretty anticlimactic.

 

The giant Cyberdemon, as previously mentioned, is not the real final boss. IT's a Tool for massive infighting on big square area.

 

The main idea is Cyberdemon is bad ally for HKs. Like cat can't be the helper to army of rats. You will thought at first time this battle is though, but you'll understand that you just need to run away from projectiles until Cybbie/HKs dies.

 

The airstrike attack is not so dangerous due to on first beta tests most players were die due to this airstrike and only airstrike. I've reduced some parameters to make it easier to avoid.

 

Due to this map doesn't have exit switch in classic meaning your goal is to kill every monster. Because the main monsters are HK. But if you'll kill them, you can't just leave the Cyberdemon. So you had to kill both types of monsters.

[DFF]

Going forward, I'd love to re-haul my map and I eventually will, but other than a few bugfixes and difficulty tweaks (was designed to sanely play in HMP, but will tone down UV) I really am not sure how to proceed with my map. Personally i found the space limiting but manageable for HKs with a SS, but i do agree some of the outdoor areas are a bit hectic (which is why somewhere i should have crouching allowed as i used that a lot in testing, idk if that's bad or not).

 

But my biggest issue (once again) is the frame rate issues, which other than removing large sections of detail which would ultimately ruin aspects of the map in general, im not sure what other steps i could take. The only major step i can think of right now is to remove the outside stairwell on the first big gondola but that removes maybe 10 3D sectors. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Pegleg]

@therektafire @94's the best style

Perhaps one of these would work for my map. I wasn't really sure how big you would want the screenshots. If you want bigger for the hub, let me know.

 

If you would rather have monsters in the screenshots, let me know. Or if you would rather have different screen shots, let me know that, too.

 

 

 

[Big Ol Billy]

On 6/21/2018 at 2:35 PM, Pegleg said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "teleport fog." My map was Boom format, so if fog is a UDMF thing, then I couldn't do it.

 

In my playthrough (this also happened to Mega) when you step into the blood teleporter, your screen instantly changes to the teleport location, no green flash or teleport sound. Like the silent teleport to line action, though I don’t have the map available to see how exactly it’s done. Not having the usual teleport sound/green flash just makes it unnecessarily jarring imho

[Pegleg]

On 6/23/2018 at 10:22 AM, Big Ol Billy said:

 

In my playthrough (this also happened to Mega) when you step into the blood teleporter, your screen instantly changes to the teleport location, no green flash or teleport sound. Like the silent teleport to line action, though I don’t have the map available to see how exactly it’s done. Not having the usual teleport sound/green flash just makes it unnecessarily jarring imho

 

It was Type 208, which is one of the BOOM silent teleports. I hadn't taken into account that it would catch people by surprise like that. I figured everyone would just think, Oh, I just teleported somewhere. I've changed it to the standard Type 97 repeatable teleport, so it is now evident what happened.

 

In addition to that change, I took the opportunity to make a few other changes. So, to summarize the changes (none of these would affect the appearance of the screenshots):

Spoiler

 

• Blood teleporter changed to standard WR teleport.
• The oscillating lights in the cadaver insets (for lack of a better term) that were in the main room on either of the walls on the end of the blood pool were removed. I didn't like how they ended up, so I just took out the sector action.
• I added a slight lip in the inset with the blood pouring from it, so that it actually looks like the blood is pooling and I added small channels leading away so it looks like the blood is going somewhere.
• I removed the SK_LEFT and SK_RIGHT textures where I used them because I didn't realize until now that there were visible seams with the SLOPPY1 and SLOPPY2 textures (although it may be that no one but me would notice).
• I made some of the dripping and pouring blood textures invisible.

 

 

@94's the best style @therektafire

Here is the new version (version 3).

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i1ci6edzxecqyss/hkbones_v3.wad?dl=1

 

Please update the OP and include this version in the next release (which will be the one with the hub, I guess).

[Rolpa]

I'll hopefully have a revamped version of my map up over the weekend. 

[Bushpig2dope]

On 6/28/2018 at 1:31 PM, Pegleg said:

 

It was Type 208, which is one of the BOOM silent teleports. I hadn't taken into account that it would catch people by surprise like that. I figured everyone would just think, Oh, I just teleported somewhere. I've changed it to the standard Type 97 repeatable teleport, so it is now evident what happened.

 

In addition to that change, I took the opportunity to make a few other changes. So, to summarize the changes (none of these would affect the appearance of the screenshots):

  Reveal hidden contents

 

• Blood teleporter changed to standard WR teleport.
• The oscillating lights in the cadaver insets (for lack of a better term) that were in the main room on either of the walls on the end of the blood pool were removed. I didn't like how they ended up, so I just took out the sector action.
• I added a slight lip in the inset with the blood pouring from it, so that it actually looks like the blood is pooling and I added small channels leading away so it looks like the blood is going somewhere.
• I removed the SK_LEFT and SK_RIGHT textures where I used them because I didn't realize until now that there were visible seams with the SLOPPY1 and SLOPPY2 textures (although it may be that no one but me would notice).
• I made some of the dripping and pouring blood textures invisible.

 

 

@94's the best style @therektafire

Here is the new version (version 3).

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i1ci6edzxecqyss/hkbones_v3.wad?dl=1

 

Please update the OP and include this version in the next release (which will be the one with the hub, I guess).

Was a sick map, played well

[Pegleg]

@94's the best style @therektafire

I know that it's summer, but there is still a lot of activity here (not on this particular thread, but on these forums, in general), which leads me to a series of questions regarding the development of this mapset.

• Did we ever settle on a name?
  • The last time I remember us discussing it (back in mid-May), we seemed to coalesce around some variation of Hell Knightmare, but we never finalized it. So, we're stuck with 4800 Hell Knights, which creates some amount of confusion (watch Megablast's stream where he plays the mapset).

• What about the hub map?
  • Are we going to have a hub map?
  • Or are we just going to figure out an order for the maps so there is a general progression and release a continuous mapset without a hub?

• Are going to have a final "boss" map?
  • Granted, we never agreed on what that final boss would be, but there is currently some assumption that @DeXiaZ's map is the boss map on account of the giant cyberdemon. I don't think that was the intent, especially since it's not the last map.

[Dexiaz]

47 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

What about the hub map?

@therektafire is working on HUB map.

 

48 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

Are going to have a final "boss" map?

Nobody have created the real final boss map yet...

 

I also suppose that the final boss map must be the HUB map with blocked exists and 150 hellknights (as always) with the some extra Goat enemy.

[Pegleg]

10 hours ago, DeXiaZ said:

@therektafire is working on HUB map.

 

I know @therektafire is working on the hub map, but that work has been going on for a long time. The last update was 5 weeks ago. I appreciate that he is undoubtedly busy. In that case, may I suggest that the hub map be handled as a round robin of sorts, where therekta hand off whatever he's done to someone else who could finish it.

 

Quote

Nobody have created the real final boss map yet...

 

I also suppose that the final boss map must be the HUB map with blocked exists and 150 hellknights (as always) with the some extra Goat enemy.

 

I agree that a reasonable approach would be to have a final entrance be revealed only after the other levels are finished. That sort of thing could be added to the hub (if it's not already there) as part of the round robin approach I mentioned earlier.

 

I also agree that the final boss should probably be related to the Hell Knight in some way. I think it needs to be more than just a giant sized Hell Knight, but I don't know if any such monster has already been made sometime by anyone.

 

 

It occurred to me that we also need to incorporate the HUD that shows hell knight deaths into the next build, too.

Edited July 14, 2018 by Pegleg : HUD

[Dexiaz]

7 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I also agree that the final boss should probably be related to the Hell Knight in some way. I think it needs to be more than just a giant sized Hell Knight, but I don't know if any such monster has already been made sometime by anyone.

 

There are no more custom Hellknight sprites even in ZDoom Spriting Carnival thread.

Well, only 2 guys can handle this problem: @Cage and @CWolf, because they're cool sprite makers. But they're both not related to this project. Even more, I don't think that they will help due to personal reasons.