Nirvana

Yeah I'm aware of this. I believe it happened in testing a few times and I just left it in after seeing Vile and a few others do it on stream as well. Cheese away :)

Posted up part 2 of my video on monster roles in Doom, covering the second half of the Doom bestiary:

I actually just started making these kinds of videos. Maybe this will be helpful in some way:

Made another Doom editing video, this time centred on the concept of monster roles. Trying to get some regular content going:

Made a video about encounter design and thing placement for Doom maps, as I see a lot of new mappers struggling with it. Video is long, and a bit messy in places, but hopefully people can take something useful from it:

Cheers Austin, I'll have to catch the VODs if you streamed it! Been out of the Doom loop lately.

Fairly unlikely to make edits at this point as it's on idgames already. Sorry byte!

Oh nice this got released. I see the LUA memery got put to use for something cool in the end :D

Unfortunate that you had a bad time. If you found the maps too challenging, HMP and HNTR have had a lot of work put into balancing them to make them enjoyable, and not just dumbed down. Maybe trying taking the difficulty down if you w ere playing on UV. Maybe the wad just isn't for you though :)

I'm assuming you're referring to the megasphere? It's an sr50 on UV or a vile jump depending on your inclination.

One of the big mistakes I see from a lot of people who have the complaint that they don't enjoy monster placement is that they are building their entire map without considering monster placement at all. This isn't to say that you should sketch out every encounter on paper and have the entire map pre-planned from the outset, but rather that each space should be built with some form of player interaction in mind; be it a brief platforming section, a lock-in scenario, incidental combat or what have you. Note that rooms with no monsters and no gameplay are totally fine as well, as long as they offer something unique aesthetically or otherwise. If I don't have a strict idea for an encounter in mind, I usually try to build out a room with shapes that can be used for monster closets, platforms, or to make traversal/combat interesting. Think about which enemies function well in which spaces (rooms with multiple pillars often facilitate good Arch-Vile encounters, rooms with lots of large pits may require flyers etc.) then start placing monsters into the space before it is completed and just let them move around the area. Does a Manc feel too big for the space? Do the monsters get stuck in certain parts? Is there apparent threat for the player from only one angle allowing camping in a safe zone? Is hitscan too devastating due to lack of cover? Many of these thoughts come from having played the game a long time and understanding Doom's sandbox, but a lot of it can be figured out by simply putting monsters into a space and watching how they interact with it. Much of the time I will start with the hardest iteration of an encounter and work backwards, nerfing until it feels right, but this is more useful for 'challenge' encounter design than incidental stuff. For incidental placement the process is similar, but interconnecting areas are more prevalent and so you need to consider things like sound propagation (can these monsters hear me from miles away and start clumping up in areas that will hurt gameplay?) and sightlines. Having ambushing monsters can help introduce moments of threat without needing full lock-ins. Also think about how a player will move in reaction to the monsters in a given space. If a Vile is in front of the player, they are likely to move backwards and seek cover, therefore you can pincer them with other enemies to make that cover less accessible and make the encounter more dynamic. Learning how to push and pull the player around and considering how people playing your maps will drag monsters about the space is incredibly valuable for designing encounters. Anyway this has been some meandering advice that got a bit out of hand. Hopefully it was helpful in some way :D

A great demo @Benjogami that took some time to beat, but I've put the work in and come out on top. SU-3.zip

Here is my own spin on "Skulls Unlimited." How many thousands can we expect per map? Also I signed our work for copyright reasons, obviously; wouldn't want somebody else coming in and snatching up an idea like Skulls Unlimited from under our noses! Skulls Unlimited dot wad

Thanks for the awards for Fractured Worlds and Haste, big shoutout to Scotty and Gazebo for FW and all the contributors to Haste, was a fun year of Doom. Also thanks to Demon of the Well for the fantastic write-ups, always a pleasure to read his words! Also Down the Drain was easily my number one pick this year so I certainly wished it had won, but we can't have it all I guess.

I nearly responded to this comment in the exact same way. I can think part of the generalisation here comes from what specific players consider 'punishing' as well. Blight Town in Dark Souls punishes you for exploring the area by being a generally oppressive environment that kills you as you explore it, but it rewards you with in a video game. (spoiler tags really bork formatting huh)