Magnusblitz

I'd be adverse to upping the lava damage; I understand wanting to have an environmental hazard that adds another reason to keep running, but I think the lower amount accomplishes that while upping it to 20% just becomes annoying (especially with the RNG aspect of it). I might be going crazy, but I was thinking maybe adding more cacos? There's like what, 15 on the warp-in? A pittance!

Might as well put in my two cents on E4 since I don't think I'll be playing E4M8 anytime soon... (all comments are on RC2) E4M1: Hell Beneath - _Bruce_ E4M2: Perfect Hatred - Steve Duff (SteveD) E4M3: Sever the Wicked - Darryl Steffan (dobu gabu maru) E4M4: Unruly Evil - Tourniquet E4M5: They Will Repent - Matt Powell (Cannonball) E4M6: Against Thee Wickedly - Steve Duff (SteveD) E4M7: And Hell Followed - Peanut - with edits by dobu gabu maru E4M8: Unto the Cruel - Darryl Steffan (dobu gabu maru) E4M9: Fear - TimeOfDeath

Episode 3: E3M1: Hell Keep - JMickle - with edits by Cannonball E3M2: Slough of Despair - Benjogami E3M3: Pandemonium - Darryl Steffan (dobu gabu maru) E3M4: House of Pain - Walter Confalonieri - with edits by dobu gabu maru E3M5: Unholy Cathedral - Corsair - with edits by dobu gabu maru E3M6: Mt. Erebus - Nine Inch Heels E3M9: Warrens - Darryl Steffan (dobu gabu maru) E3M7: Limbo - Matt Powell (Cannonball) E3M8: Dis - Nine Inch Heels Remains to be seen what E4 holds, but E3 definitely is the stand out episode so far, though that maybe should be expected from the hellish themed names instead of all the techbase stuff. Lots of visually stunning maps. I know the difficulty spike in the last three maps will be controversial, but I actually do think 6 and 7 are fine at this point.

Thoughts on Episode 2: E2M1: Deimos Anomaly - PedroVC - with edits by dobu gabu maru E2M2: Containment Area - Riderr3 E2M3: Refinery - DJVCardmaster - with edits by Jawsinspace and Cannonball E2M4: Deimos Lab - Scifista42 - with edits by dobu gabu maru E2M5: Command Center - Cyriak Harris (Mouldy) E2M9: Fortress of Mystery - Dreadopp - with edits by dobu gabu maru E2M6: Halls of the Damned - PedroVC - with edits by dobu gabu maru E2M7: Spawning Vats - General Rainbow Bacon - with edits by dobu gabu maru E2M8: Tower of Babel - Alex Scott (Scotty)

Huh interesting, I knew about the hit detection problem with melee hits but never knew it also affected ranged hitscan and made it difficult for spiders to infight. Learn something new every day... E1M6: Central Processing - Cannonball E1M7: Computer Station - dobu gabu maru E1M8: Phobos Anomaly - Armaetus - with edits by Cannonball Overall E1 is very good, lots of very solid maps with one 'wow' map (E1M7), and even the roughest ones (E1M1, E1M5) are still decent. I think the only thing that really needs fixing still is the end of E1M1.

E1M9: Military Base - Matt Powell (Cannonball) E1M4: Command Control - Stuart Rynn (Stewboy) - with edits by DJVCardmaster, dobu gabu maru and Cannonball E1M5: Phobos Lab - Sincity2100 - with edits by Jawsinspace, dobu gabu maru and Cannonball

Well well well, what have we here... good to see this is finally getting close to release! I'll try to take another spin through every map (or at least, most of them, not sure if I have it in me for the E3M6-8 trek lol). Playing using GZDoom 4.10.0. UV and pistol starts for now, may need to lower it in later maps. E1M1: Hangar by Processingcontrol E1M2: Nuclear Plant by SteveD E1M3: Toxin Refinery by Stewboy (edits by Jaws and Cannonball)

MAP16: Pier Pressure by Noiser 100% kills, 1/2 secrets A series of arena fights, and to be honest I thought the first one alone could make a solid level, albeit a bit on the shorter side. The first section is mostly shells and bullets, you get a flamethrower but with very limited ammo. It's open air with plenty of dangerous snipers (revs, arachnatrons, mancs) on the outskirts, with nowhere to hide - gotta keep running and gunning. The wall of revs that gathers to the south is especially painful, and after trying to avoid them I finally settled for slowly whittling them down. I really liked the Doomcute here, the red/white lighthouse is thematically great, and it was also fun scuttling the ship and watching it sink into the water. The second area is kinda meh, more of the same (clearing out all the snipers surrounding the play area), but at least the battle with the cyberdemons and the forced blur sphere is interesting - with the way the cybers fire multiple shots now, they end up firing in a spread of directions which demands some skill, but doesn't feel unfair. I think this is actually the best use of the new cyberdemon in this WAD so far. The final area wore me out a bit, just so much high-tier monster meat, and so many dangerous projectiles - the cacodemons being upgraded to baron fireballs hadn't been too noticeable before, just dodge em the same way, but here it's really easy to catch a stray and instantly die or come close. Ammo was not a problem, but as I was constantly getting my health shaved down I was wanting for health. Overall, I really liked the first area of the map, the second and third stretched things out a bit too much for me. MAP17: Poster Boy of Mayhem by Aurelius & rd 100% kills*, 3/4 secrets Hoo boy, this was a toughy. It really deviates from the typical Ray Mohawk playstyle - rather than being given a multitude of weapons and ammo and huge hordes to chew through, this one has some tough combat puzzles for the player and required quite a lot of creeping (which actually makes the Super Mario MIDI quite unfitting). Much of it has very stringent ammo limitations, especially early on - I actually ended up using the regular knife quite a few times. Overall I found it quite polarizing - there's bits I liked a lot, and stuff I didn't. I did like the balance for the most part - it felt tough but fair. I also liked the hunt for the Morbid Angel posters (once I figured out there was indeed a hunt - the one in the east with the dead caco finally clued me in, I hadn't even found the blocked-off teleporter yet!), as I'm always a sucker for a "find the five hidden doodads for a secret" design trope. What I didn't like - well, like Capellan, I pretty much had to give up at the yellow door fight. Just tried over and over and couldn't make it work. I see the concept, it's an interesting one, but the cybers just are too dangerous and don't die quickly enough to the flamethrower. (I do note that sometimes they seem to die quicker than others - I wonder if there's some port shenanigans going on. Certainly the lack of autoaim costs me some seconds I see rd used to soften them up before they could shoot back). To those who were able to beat this legit, I salute you. I also wasn't a fan of the slime in the secret area, though I suppose if you're smart enough to clue into using the berserk knife to cut through the AV train you can sprint through it before dying to the sludge. Oh, and I really hated the start - even knowing what was coming, I still got unavoidably thwacked by a revenant about 3/4ths of the time. Overall, an impressive map craftmanship-wise, and had some things I liked but pulled down by some really mean bits.

Falling behind again, what else is new? MAP13: Terraced Estate of Terror by Gokuma 100% kills, 1/2 secrets A nice and sedate map to get back into the swing of things (and if was playing these without a break, nice after the gimmick flamethrower map and slaughterfest of last map) - basically a linear stroll through the titular terraced estate. You'll quickly gather all the weapons in your climb (unless you miss the flamethrower like me), culminating in the BFG at the top where you'll need to tussle with three cyberdemons for the red key. It actually took me quite a few attempts here - the new BFG definitely does more damage, but it still possesses the same charge-up pattern which makes it really tricky to use against the new cyberdemons and their super-fast projectiles. MAP14: Lose Yourself to Dance by sluggard 100% kills, 1/2 secrets Ye olde hub map, with one path for each key; all three needed to exit. I did most of the red path first, doubled back to get the blue key, finished red, then yellow (which I honestly didn't even realize was a path until I got to the end and found I needed three and not two keys). The red path gives you the flamethrower and BFG, and the blue gives you the rocket launcher, so doing those first helps make the yellow pretty easy. Again, the BFG is presented here to fight the cybers with, which actually is kinda a tough fight. The platforming was a bit annoying, but I liked the rest. One drawback was there seemed to be some weird unnecessary copy-pasting - all three of the hotel rooms are exactly the same, as are the two revenant rooms at the start. Can't move some furniture or boxes around or add some details to break it up? MAP15: Crowded House by NeedHealth 100% kills, 0/1 secret Crowded indeed, with 800 monsters stuffed into some tight corridors, but it's almost all small fry, so you can blast through it pretty quickly (22:30 finish time for me, plus reloads). The action is pretty constant throughout, with a steady stream of enemies laid out across the map, punctuated here and there with the odd ambush. Even the cyber fight isn't too threatening as long as you're quick enough to run back outside. Resources are also delivered pretty steadily, which is nice. Most of the map is shotgun/blaster, which is fine, since the blaster is so overpowered anyways. There's a cell launcher halfway through and a flamethrower near the end, but neither got much use from me. Architecture is pretty nice - it's a bit different from most of Ray Mohawk in that it has that modern approach of nicely detailed, but abstract, architecture instead of trying for lots of recognizable Doomcute. There's a lot of archways that drew my attention to the sky, which is pretty nice (this is actually the second map to use it, but the last map didn't make me stop and consider it the same way). The overall lack of a clearly defined visual theme might make it a bit forgettable in a way, but playing it felt pretty fun and it feels like one of the more impressive maps in the set.

MAP11: Vacation Gone Wrong by Hitboi 100% kills, 3/5 secrets This one is pretty meh, as it's basically a series of small rooms (often filled to the brim with enemies, creating a fish-in-a-barrel effect) one after another connected by doors or teleports. It's pretty much a standard Doom base too, lacking any of the tropical theme. Weaponry is pretty much limited to the pistol and shotgun, which feels like a bit of a step backwards after just having been introduced to the flamethrower last map. All in all a pretty forgettable map. MAP12: Beautiful Clean Coal by Doomkid 100% kills, 4/5 secrets I gotta point out, I really love the effect of seeing the title card "beautiful clean coal" followed by the opening shot of an orange apocalyptic sky over heavy industry. Ecological terror is an under-explored Doom theme! I had this one pegged as a Doomkid map fairly early, though not quite sure why - maybe it's the ease at which indoor and outdoor spaces are combined here. It becomes very obvious later one with all the monster teleport shenanigans. Either way, after a sedate start it's a pretty steady stream of enemies as first you'll quest down one path for the red key, then down another one for the blue. Another thing Doomkid seems to like is using a large variety of monsters together, but I think here it kinda contributes to the combat feeling a bit same-y throughout without many of the encounters sticking out. What did kinda strike me is the amount of enemies that get teleported, often to the starting area by the fountain. Not really sure this was successful, as more often it just felt like clean-up duty later on. It's also not great placement for them, as a lot of them get stuck in longer, easily abusable corridors such as behind the red key door on the way back, or in the thin building hallways near the start. This map also introduces the BFG but I barely used it - not sure how strong it is compared to the regular one, whereas the strength of the rest of the new weaponry is much more apparent. Overall I liked the looks but the combat itself didn't do much for me.

MAP09: Temple del Sol by Moustachio 100% kills, 7/10 secrets Now this is an adventure map! Lots of areas to explore, without feeling at all too linear. Tons of secrets too, which I'm a big fan of. The areas all feel distinct too - first there's the rocky coves, large outdoor area, the temple, all culminating in the wonderfully bizarre ending of emerging from the back door of an unassuming shoreside bookstore. I never felt lost, and thankfully there's ways to open up connections to the earlier part of the level to make backtracking easy. Combat is actually a bit on the easier side, similar to the first few maps - there's a lot of enemies but also a lot of ammo (after a somewhat tight start). If anything I think the map maybe provided a bit too much rocket ammo - as this is a common theme I almost wonder if there was a change to the ammo pickup size in development? That plus the invuln spheres (a nice gold, cool) make the large battles no problem. A great map all-around. MAP10 - “Kalua Atoll” by DFF 100% kills, 1/2 secrets And here we have a map entirely dedicated to showing off the flamethrower - funny enough I had just been wondering when it was gonna show up, so well timed. Most of the fights are pretty good, though being limited to one weapon there's not much too much variety, mainly "go burn this big swarm of enemies." The big weakness for me is something that seems to have annoyed a lot of people, the invisible lines. They often have buoys there, which seems like where the actual invisible lines should be, but often the actual block line is far closer, which feels bad and becomes downright aggravating in certain fights such as the cyberdemon battle. I understand needing to limit the player from having unlimited circlestrafing room but the visual indicator needs to be fair. Overall, it's basically a one-off gimmick (nothing but flamethrower) that succeeds or fails depending on how much the player enjoys that weapon.

Definitely allowed, always interesting to hear the author's perspective! MAP07: WARehouse by Walter Confetti 100% kills, 1/1 secret Out of the tropical locales and into the industrial browns, at least for the moment. This is basically a 'city' map with a bunch of free-standing structures to be traversed. Combat is pretty dull and simple for the most part; even the surprise released AVs down in the drink are simple to take care of. Honestly the largest threat was figuring out where to go, I spent far too long trying to figure out which teleporter to take the exit before remembering that the red key release switch was actually on the exit building. MAP08: Chocolate Island by Egg Boy 100% kills, 2/2 secrets A small citadel at just under 100 enemies, this one is nonetheless the toughest map so far - certainly the first one were I felt the monsters had the advantage, rather than the player with his new overpowered arsenal. Ammo is sparse and the good weapons are all booby-trapped - the blaster reveals several Arch-Viles up close, the cell launcher has a revenant trap bordering on unfair (at least with no foreknowledge) and the autoshotgun is part of a trap-in fight. So, took me quite a few tries to run around and figure out which way to approach things. Looks-wise I didn't find it too memorable, but the combat here definitely carries the day.

MAP06: Hidden Ship in Pirate’s Cove by UberGewei 100% kills, 3/3 secrets Everything else so far has generally been either standard medium-sized maps or arenas with plenty of monsters to fight at once, but this one is the first real 'journey' map in presenting a long, fairly linear map to traverse with the enemies slow-dripped throughout. There some nice aesthetic architecture with the temples, caves, coves and ship (everything it says on the tin!) but I agree with the rest of you that gameplay-wise it's pretty bland and starts to lose steam as it goes on. The new cyberdemons really do show off how ridiculously overpowered the arsenal is as you can stunlock them with almost any number of weapons. I actually kinda wish there were more bullets/shells and I found myself relying on the cell launcher more than I'd like (as powerful as it is, it doesn't stunlock as easily, and you can still blow yourself up with it).

MAP05: 11 Holidays by SilverMiner 100% kills, 1/1 secret A really short level that basically serves as an introduction to the auto-shotgun. The fight for the blue armor is actually kinda a good teachable moment, as the pinkies there routinely would sneak around and hit me from behind while I was concentrating on aiming so I wouldn't need to let go of the trigger and reload. Aside from that, it's pretty quick; the two different paths are kinda pointless and actually add a bit of anti-climatic map clearing for those aiming to max kills.

MAP04 - “Surf’s up in Nuketown” by Cheesewheel 99% kills, 2/2 secrets A decently sized sandbox map, with a lot of open area to run around before eventually finding the keys in order to unlock the exit. The real first mission is finding the cell launcher. The second mission is realizing you have plenty of ammo for it and it's basically all you need to use to destroy the entire level. As @cannonball says this map hits the design aims of Ray Mohawk well - goofy MIDI, cheesy design (what's better than hula imps? Hula imps on surfboards!) and hordes to just blast through. Took me a bit longer than I'd like to realize the switch in the yellow key building lowered the blue key, but this is an exceedingly minor complaint. Also, one AV failed to teleport in for me.