Diabolución

An inescapable sector (the exit platform / room, for example) should be tagged as secret for these maps without “official” secrets, such as MAP02. Or the MAP02's SSG platform as a proper secret sector.

So that any source port will report 100% for secrets. According to Vanilla and Chocolate Doom 0 secrets found of 0 secrets is 0% for secrets, while other ports report 100% so the player knows he didn't miss anything.

Excellent. MAP12 and MAP28 suddenly crash, due to exhausted memory, Gameception, which can handle (as reference) finely the splitted levels of Deus Vult—MAP01–04—but not the entire thing—MAP05—.

By the way, do you (plural) plan to discard any maps, either because they cannot be vanillified or they are obvious clones / homages (MAP 18 and MAP26, for example) of Doom levels, in the short term? If so, I would like which ones in order to skip them in the playtesting. I wouldn't like to invest some time to test a complex map, MAP15 comes to mind, just to find this given map will be replaced anyway.

Both Vanilla / Chocolate Doom haven't hardcoded par times for Episode 4. These times were a mystery, until the BFG Edition was released, just because Nerve bothered to add them once and for all. PrBoom-Plus added these ones extracted from the BFG Edition. Unfortunately, won't allow a BEX patch change them, if I am understanding right.

For episodes 1-3: par <episode> <level> <time in seconds>

https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM/blob/77735c3ff0772609e9c8d29e3ce2ab42ff54d20b/linuxdoom-1.10/g_game.c#L977-L984

https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG/blob/1caba1979589971b5ed44e315d9ead30b278d8b4/doomclassic/doom/g_game.cpp#L1120-L1129

https://github.com/andrey-budko/prboom-plus/blob/cd017076663c2cd34a91bdf14db72fbfc7f4b8be/src/g_game.c#L1514-L1515

https://github.com/andrey-budko/prboom-plus/blob/cd017076663c2cd34a91bdf14db72fbfc7f4b8be/src/d_deh.c#L2385-L2389

I am currently testing Freedoom Phase 2 MAP11 (Extreme Carnage, pistol starting and no saves) and I find the ammo somewhat scarce. There are too many Pain Lords and Pain Bringers in the path to get that yellow card, and that new crusher can be exploited just to kill the first Pain Bringers which teleport into that zone.

Maybe, a berserk pack obtainable after getting the yellow key could be useful to enhance the balance, so that a player can recover from damage and save some ammo by punching some monsters.

Possible spoiler regarding secrets of MAP06:

Catoptromancy said:

Not sure if they are worth removing for an engine bug.

Of course, remodeling a map just for this render bug of this very particular and buggy port would be foolish, and somewhat overkill.

Jayextee said:

I'm calling shitty port there.

Just as a curiosity, there is another render bug which affects certain stock maps. These flickering and corrupted lower textures, as seen in Doom 2 MAP31 (the only example I have found so far). Fortunately, no Freedoom map I have checked so far seems affected by this particular render bug.

Backing to topic and speaking of sprites, I have thought that would be a good idea to design the STKEYS6, STKEYS7 and STKEYS8 sprites with Freedoom in mind, for these ports which can show simultaneously both types of keys. Currently, these graphics are provided by the source ports themselves and they are designed with Doom in mind, not Freedoom. Unfortunately, certain source ports load their resources wad after the IWAD, so perhaps these ports would need these graphics in a PWAD to overwrite properly the generic STKEYS6/7/8 graphics.

By the way, a time ago when playtesting C2M1 I noticed the W106_1 and W107_1 patches contain one certain bright orange pixel. True story, at first I thought that was tutti frutti, until I realized I was wrong. Fixed by recoloring that single pixel, something trivial.

Gameception, an unofficial commercial source port which allows custom IWADs / PWADs for iOS based on the Doom Classic code, likewise based on some version of GlBoom / PrBoom code. Render uses OpenGLES and I have entered several times the TNTCOMP code until I have got the Ultimate Doom compatibility level, just to be sure.

Freedoom Phase 1, C1M2. Perhaps, these artifacts are related to the redesign of that blue corridor, which had in the past a blue Boom colormap.

On this port, every walkover exit with sky on the bottom (like the ones from Freedoom Phase 1 C3M6 and Freedoom Phase 2 MAP10) produces an awful HOM. Even the latest official Doom Classic port suffers from the same issue. Perhaps, this was left unfixed because only two maps (E4M4 and E4M8) of that port are affected, so no one cared for this bug.

Catoptromancy said:

[...]

I would like to report two possible glitches I have found when playtesting, on Extreme Carnage and always from pistol start without saves, the new release. Source port is PrBoom 2.5.0, OpenGL render mode. Yes, I also have PrBoom-Plus 2.5.1.4, just testing an older port with the hardware renderer. Literally: “We need testers to just play in their favorite port, or experiment with something more obscure.”

Freedoom Phase 2, MAP06. HOM on these steps.

Freedoom Phase 2, MAP09. HOM between the lift and the slime. According to the IDMYPOS code, there are two mismatching height levels on the slime channel: -280 and -288.