mouldy

Cool, here's E2M5 again with that fix udino-E2M5-update22-7.zip

Yeah i wanted to lower that wall so you could shoot stuff over it, but it wasn't intended to be passable. I thought of adding midtexture railings but didnt want them getting in the way of the view, might have another look at that though

Thanks for testing and spotting that texture. The teleporters at the start were a convoluted fix for vanilla compatibility - the starting corridor caused visplane overflow when viewed from the other side of the map, so i had to close that area off with a door, but then co-op players would get stuck in there when they respawned, so i added teleports to get out. None of that is necessary without vanilla limits so I just got rid, but I kept the non-functioning teleport pads as scenery.

Here's the updated E2M5. I decided to tidy up the final fight and make the room it happens in a bit bigger so its more rocket friendly and less claustrophobic. This involved shifting all the other rooms a bit so hopefully i didn't break anything in the process. I've tested it in dsda complevel 3. udino-E2M5-update20-7.zip

I'm making a few minor tweaks to E2M5, so if anyone has any problems with that map let me know. Just fixing a problem with infinite height monsters trapping you on the central walkway. Also making the secret exit a little less wall-humpy and removing some vanilla-limit oddities.

You are missing the point by trying to justify it, because the guy you are explaining this to isnt here. He didn't come to the forum to ask how its done, or even to complain about it. He just closed the wad and did something else. That's the reason i'm giving you the benefit of this reaction, because thats genuinely what I would have done if i wasn't involved in this project. Saying its fine because people can work it out ignores the fact that average players don't work things out under stress, and you aren't feeling that stress because you made the map and you know exactly how it works. Lesser doomers deal with big doom problems by dividing them up into smaller problems, and you've created a problem that can't be divided because its a single technical execution with little to no margin for error. So here's one solution you can at least consider, just so we aren't going round in circles forever. Let the player do the switch once without the cyber there, just so they can see what it does and get an idea of what they are meant to do without the threat of instant death over their shoulder. Then once they've had one go on easymode, spawn the cyber guarding the switch. If you want to teach players to bait the cyber rockets before going for the switch then there are probably ways to do that. You could even have a barrier next to the cyber blocking its rockets, giving players a safe spot that encourages them to wait there and time their dash to the switch. There are ways to fix this, you just have to think about it a bit more, and maybe settle for a map that isn't as hard as it possibly could be. This isn't about nerfing shit to the point where your granny could beat it, its about reducing the difficulty spike to match the surrounding maps.

One of the hard lessons I have to keep learning about mapping is that it doesn't matter how easy or obvious the solution seems to me, because people play how they play and if they don't play your way and constantly fail, they aren't going to take the time to figure out the proper strategy or execution, they will just think "this is a bit shit" and go do something else. Maybe thats their problem, or maybe its your problem. Either point of view is valid. But in a community project its also everyone else's problem, so thats something to keep in mind. If your map fails unless the player dances around a cyberdemon in a particular way then you've kind of painted yourself into a corner i guess.

heh, to be honest this wad on HMP feels like my idea of UV, so maybe the doom community has left me behind a bit. I reckon you should get a few more opinions on the matter

Right, finished episode 4. Very cool set of maps. Think my favourite is unruly evil, i love that idea and the music is perfect. They will repent is quite cool too, once you figure it out (which doesnt take long haha). The finale also merits a mention for its crazy dobu designs, though the gameplay gets close to my tolerance for quirkiness at times. The final fight is interesting to say the least. You have to appreciate the cleverness, even when you aren't having fun. Ah yeah, nearly forgot sever the wicked, epic chainsaw map that i wouldn't have fully appreciated without pistol start. The other maps do the job, though I had problems with Against thee wickedly. It involves a lot of lava walking and not enough health to cover it when you are backtracking and trying to figure out where to go. I didn't get the supercharge, i'm assuming thats secret though so I'd still add a bit more health. All in all its a solid, if somewhat esoteric, megawad. My only issues are with E3M6 and E3M8, which were like hitting a wall compared to everything else. E3M6 is just fundamentally fucked for me with all that platforming, but I think it could still use some difficulty balancing - the only difference I could see between HMP and UV was 3 monsters... E3M8 I would just remove the cyber guarding the switch. Overall the difficulty of the whole megawad seemed a bit high. I was playing on HMP so it might just be that people havent toned it down much from UV. Either that or UV is ungodly hard. To be honest though, this is going to be such an aquired taste I don't suppose it matters. Congrats on getting it over the finishing line.

Lol. No, sorry. Did people honestly playtest this map and say thats fine?

What are you meant to do?

Ok, played episode 3 now and I'm having to adjust the way I look at this wad. The first 2 episodes felt like a typical doom type adventure with a few oddities along the way but now its more like a collection of doom experiments, which is probably how I should have viewed the whole thing from the start. This episode is delving head first into marmite territory. I loved Pandemonium, and house of pain was hilarious with its bullshittery. Then there was Mount Erebus which I had to skip because it has the kind of gameplay I can't stand, and Dis seems to have some kind of puzzle which I couldn't figure out so I skipped that as well. I guess there is something for everyone to love and hate. Given how individualistic these maps are, it does make me wonder how much these are intended to be played from pistol start. I've been playing continuous so maybe I've not been experiencing the full pain of the previous episodes...

Just finished episode 2. As hell approaches the maps are getting a bit more weird and mysterious, with the highlight being the fortress of mystery. Ony problems i found were on e2m4 there's a bit where I thought I got softlocked when I telefraged a baron and couldn't get out of the cubby hole he was in. Apparently I had to turn around and shoot a wall to escape which is kind of wtf. Oh and speaking of wtf there is spawning vats, which seems all-round horrible in a weirdly deliberate way. I guess that is in keeping with the "ino" tradition, heh. Other than that its all good. Oh, in tower of babel the cacos can be hard to see without using mouselook, but its not exactly a problem that would keep me awake at night.

just whizzed through the first episode, great stuff. Highlights for me were Central processing for gameplay and Computer Station for insane levels of dobu. It definitely was the right choice to make this project limit removing

wow finally. I hope there are some crazy controversial masterpieces in this one.