Cyberia-Mix

Hello, I saw your post in Jimmy & Josh's thread (incidentally I think I just figured out the filename).
The humble tone of your presentation in obvious contrast with the dazzling craftsmanship on display won me over, lol.
Naturally the map was excellent, though I do question some design choices, and bumped into a couple minor bugs after a while.

 

I don't know much about modern dooming practices, so my views might be largely irrelevant.
To make things worse, I don't like hard maps, and I stick to UV regardless (pain over lies, something like that).
Had this been Doom2 I would have stayed away, but since it was Doom1, I thought it's not like anything too bad could happen.
Eventually I completed the map on skills 4-2-3-4. Yay for non-linearity / replay value.

 

Played mostly on ZDoom, with mouselook. I tried keyboard for a bit but urgh.
On ZDoom the monster count is actually 700/714/718 somehow. Though I tried other ports with the correct count and didn't notice a difference.

 

(Apologies for the wall of text. I blame the map's scale & quality. :D)

 

 

 

Playthrough summary

After the initial batch of deaths, I felt like the safest route was to ignore the 1st RL, get the Chaingun, get the 2nd RL, immediately rush the Berserk then the switch next to the blue door, and start cleaning from there (or any nearby safe spot). Like this, in short.

The southwest battle leaves plenty of ammo to now deal with the 2 Barons at start, get the 1st RL, and proceed to the barrels room.
At this point, this was my first time clearing up to path to the green armor fight, and dying far enough to start saving (just in quiet times). I thought you had to use the PG for this fight. I'm not sure I even noticed the rocket boxes all around.
Next run, up to barrels room, PG time it is. But boy is that fight scary (dem cacowalls man). If only I could pick up that invuln sphere, or some extra health or armor. At least I was saving now.

Got PG & backpack, ignored the yellow door (I do keydoors last), and did both the green & blue armor fights with PG. Saving sure speeds things up.
Suddenly puzzle time.
Amazing to find an entirely peaceful challenge in such a brutal place. I felt like I was having my best time since I started lol. Took me a few minutes to notice the texture connection, and a few more to realize you weren't supposed to raise all 3 platforms to cross gaps.

I grabbed the BFG and directly ran away upstairs.
The Spider battle was far too clever for me and my BFG. I figured the lowering switch allowed you to step onto the Spider's platform, so after a few tries I blasted it and crowdsurfed my way out (ZDoom yaaay~) before cleaning up the place. It certainly didn't feel right, but I thought maybe it was a bonus solution, and I would find the proper one on another time.
Seeing the yellow door from the other side, I realized the entire eastern area was optional. I freaking loved that.
I jumped down the computer deco that borders the nukage pool, from where I saw the 2 earlier Cyber bosses that ran out of zombies, and proceeded to accidentally double kill them from a single random teleporter test. As if fate had brought me here for that moment. ;D
I wonder how much of that was actually planned to happen, but at any rate it was delicious.
Got blue key, all kills, and reached the end. Time to hunt for secrets.
I got the Computer Map, but it didn't seem to be meant to help lol. I got the rest with Doom Builder.

 

Next I quickly replayed the map on skills 2 & 3 with different routes. I got scared at first seeing the monster count was about the same, but the pickups do make a lot of difference.
Then I started fooling around on skill 4 again, now much easier with the secrets and some knowledge. I was hoping to make a full run without saving, but the Spider fight remains way too unreliable for that. I'll be interested in seeing a reliable solution. I think I eventually figured everything out (the videos helped), yet I feel like something is still missing. I loved it anyway. Combat puzzles of this complexity is something new to me.

 

 

Bugs

Minor stuff you might know about.

— During the blue armor fight, you can end up in the nukage pool with all teleporters locked up.

It happens when you walk over the barrier of lights before starting the fight. You're unlikely to want to do that but it can happen if you're hunting down the last cacos far away or below the floor.
It also happens if you open the map's exit section and fall from there prior to opening any teleporter.
Not sure what's the best way to fix this, but considering the punishing nature of the map I don't think it matters much. In fact, I wouldn't find it weird if the pool simply had no way out. Though it's always better if it does.
— Also at the start of the blue armor fight, with some luck/skill you can run around the barrier of lights to hide. Doesn't seem to be a very beneficial move though.

If you're playing the area counterclockwise, you might end up falling through the floor where the pinkies rise from.
— If the lift where the blue key is made accessible is blocked from going back up when standing to the side, the middle sector goes back alone.

I suppose this sector is needed for texture alignment of the switch, but well there are other solutions anyway.
— If you try to block and exit the blue key lift when it goes back up, the lift can't be called again from the lower side.

Somehow on first try this also made me grab the light goggles through the wall, though I haven't been able to do it again.
— If you're fast enough, you can grab the Yellow Key and make it back to the lift. Likewise, you can run over the falling platform on the way back. Those are rather funny but yeah.
— A caco from the green armor fight once managed to drift all the way back to unlock the cyberdemons. I was ending the blue armor fight when I got the news from my death message. :'D

 

 

Remarks

— The map is absolutely beautiful. The lighting is perfect, the level of detail on the computer panels is amazing.
I thought the various wood textures were out of place, however. Like leftovers from a previous texturing attempt.
— Congrats also for the huge effort on the architecture. I love the curviness and sweet touches like rounded edges, along with the gratuitous decorations like the ceiling structures and the out of reach little rooms.
— The layout is very impressive, with geometry sprawling in funky directions, excellent freedom, and basically no unused space (much respect to that in particular).
On the freedom part though, I didn't get why some paths were unavailable or one way only, as it doesn't look like removing obstacles / allowing the moves would break anything (could be wrong), only adding more possibilities.
Specifically, I mean:
  > the red floor bars at the 2nd RL (to go up),
  > the lift near the Computer Map (to go down),
  > the windows around the YK room (to enter it),
  > the RK requiring the YK (that one saddens me the most, I don't think the RK switch positionning was worth disallowing getting keys in either order).
— It took me forever to try opening up the first RL with the barons alive, as I only expected to be cornered and die.
In retrospect there's enough space to avoid that (duh), but either way it never occured to me that the barons might teleport out, thus clearing the path to pick up the RL.

It's an important piece of information as the RL enables immediate access to the barrels room, greatly changing the perception of available routes in the map.
(One I like is rushing the BFG to cheese the entire western section, eventually completing the map wtihout using the PG at all.)
A walk line instead of the switch would ensure the player knows early on.
(Also I don't get why the textures are aligned to have the switch touch the floor.)
— I love the cacos' between-rooms ceiling vents. First time I see that.
— I was initially a bit confused that the BFG puzzle didn't require you to raise all 3 platforms to cross gaps, but later on I found it nice that it allows different solutions.
— Didn't mind the anticlimatic end, that's cool in a way. In fact I liked that the blue key / end area remained mostly empty the whole time, like it was not involved in the challenge.

Also I loved the end sign with your name built from the regular texture. Clever!
— The music is excellent, of course. I got Megaman X vibes from it.
I think it fits well with the fast action and the environment, esp. in the larger areas, though from the music alone I picture something more shiny and aerial.
If you were to make another map but from the music this time, I'd love to see what you'd come up with.

 

 

Finally, the secrets.

I didn't try searching very hard, thinking it was hopeless in a map this large and detailed. I was also assuming they would be fairly obvious, in order to help players struggling with fights.

And so, I just kept advancing, expecting secrets or hints to eventually show up like the backpack did, but nope, 2/6.

When I looked up the rest in Doom Builder, my first reaction was that it seemed very unlikely that a player could pay attention to them until they're done clearing around, at which point they're not nearly as needed anymore. (Though it still made sense if they were intended for subsequent playthroughs, especially if trying higher skill levels.)

 

I started drafting a reply about this, but it gradually dawned on me that the problem might just be me making this look harder than it was and having wrong expectations.
I remembered reading Demon of the Well had found all secrets in his run, so I watched how it went... and my jaw dropped.
It's both hilarious and sickening how easily DotW inadvertently (?) defuses some of the map's challenges (special mention for the crazy combo of immediate opening of the southwest teleporter & convenient retreat into the previously early opened RK secret, straight Inspector Gadget material :'D), how easily he finds the secrets (sometimes going straight for them / spotting them right away across the room), and generally how he's never endangered (save for the close call PG fight near start).

Like, man, how could this be a first attempt. If anything it looks like a guide. :'D
At times it really looked like he had foreknowledge (like the spider fight), then again it may just be the true power of a Doom veteran...
Anyway this surely changed my view on how people view secrets' difficulty and how to hunt them better. Real git gud moment there.

 

I still find it awkward to shoot a switch from far away when you can just touch it, but if it's purposely silly then alright. :þ

Still wondering also if the Computer Map is of any use secrets-wise lol.

 

 

Well, that was quite the journey. Saw amazing sceneries, had tons of fun, and learned lots. Thank you very much!

 

(Again sorry for the stupid wall of text. My draft & notes were actually thrice as big. That review was secretly the hardest battle of this map. :'D)

The latest version is pretty much complete save for minor updates in a few maps. I can reup it if needed.

All maps work fine (for me at least), though it would be nice to have more reviewers for the newer maps.

There's one thing I noticed just now too in Map 32: pic

Also allows to walk through the gap.

 

@FractalXX: Xabika started a post higher on this page for errors he spotted. You might want to fix what he found in your map. ;)

On 31/07/2017 at 1:26 AM, BeeWen said:

Ready map20-new.

Downloads: https://yadi.sk/d/EX89sgDX3LZV2x

I played it. It's good but it's harder than maps 21-24. ._.

I also thought it looked really similar to Exit Wound. Small corridors, then bigger rooms, Spider boss, and Cyber boss at end.

How do you get the invulnerability on the scrolling floor?

 

On 31/07/2017 at 1:26 AM, BeeWen said:

Question: why in MapInfo removed the ban on nojump and nocrouch?

They were in the MAPINFO before? I can't find them in older versions. O_o

They can be added as global settings at the beginning of the MAPINFO anyway.

 

 

@FractalXX: there's also some vertex fixing to do on 64 Ways to Die. See my last post on p.21. Doesn't look like Saint_Guy is around.

 

 

@mArt1And00m3r11339: did you use the latest version of the project? The missing sky was fixed in v31 (it's working for me).

7 hours ago, BeeWen said:

I'll take this slot, if possible?

Also please try to make it easier than your other maps to fit with the difficulty progression (Maps 17-18 easy, 19-23 medium, 24+ hard).

7 hours ago, FractalXX said:

You mean that MAP09 should have sky1 and MAP08 should have sky2, right?

Yes. They were fine until this update (the screenshots are fine).

 

You're right I totally forgot about the windows in Retrofit lol, somehow it didn't surprise me as much there.

Thanks for all the replies and updates. :)

 

The new titlepic is great. Too bad it has to be 320x200 lol. The intermission version is great too, the b&w/red contrast is neat.

What port did you use for the screenshots? Had a hard time recognizing my map with the colored lighting lol.

 

The MAPINFO looks all good now except for sky textures in Map 08 and 09. Should be the other way round.

 

14 hours ago, FractalXX said:

Updated maps, especially mine.

Nice!

Is it normal that I'm able to shoot through the transparent windows?

On 15/06/2017 at 9:21 AM, Soldier993 said:

Fixed my map's grid. Thanks to Cyberia-Mix for letting me know about my errors.

NP :)

 

While I'm at it:

- Lost Tower https://i.gyazo.com/55795c88381e9b886f5ae2f67df79f50.png

- Careless Infection https://i.gyazo.com/e9ed56d942a4ca0d83d5e58d172b151f.png

- 64 Ways to Die https://i.gyazo.com/0812d1f486f459aab7dcf27420a6c403.png - https://i.gyazo.com/10e666c00637ade0c960db0e6e193825.png (symmetry)

 

On 15/06/2017 at 0:51 AM, FractalXX said:

V3 is out.

Once again you're good at choosing songs. :D

 

 

Some remarks for possible improvements:

 

I'm not sure about the new title screen. It's rather dull and the actual maps aren't that blocky. I liked that the old title screen was straight to the point by showing the grid.

Actually the best thing might just be to write "64" or "Gridlock" or both in the editor in the same style as you did with the logo. (Possibly with extra lines and map things around for decoration.)

 

I also think it's fine to use the same pic for both the title and intermission screens. I see no reason to have two, plus the current intermission pic is unrelated to the project.

 

I like the new HUD, though I think the R and S need to be shaped more. They don't look as such right now.

 

You might want to improve horizontal centering on the CWILV gfx. Some look off in game, mostly THENERDTURTLE on 18 and XABIKA2202 on 31 (not sure about others).

 

 

I also noted various inconsistencies in the MAPINFO lump that may be visible on the intermission screens depending which port you play with:

(I don't know much about this so I may be wrong.)

 

- PrBoom doesn't use the "cluster" data so it shows story screens after map 06, 12 etc. like normal.

GZDoom and ZDoom use this data, and the current result is that there's a single story screen in the whole game after map 13.

Since there's no story in the project I would recommend having a "cluster = 1" line for all maps.

(I have no idea if it's possible to disable story screens in PrBoom.)

 

- Because of the same "cluster" inconsistency, in ZDoom 2.8.1 (PrBoom and GZDoom are unaffected) the second intermission screen that shows the next map's name and author only appears if this line is present.

One more reason to have that "cluster = 1" line for all maps.

(I usually play with ZDoom, else I wouldn't have noticed.)

 

- Some maps have a par time, most don't. I don't know if it was set by the mapper or if it's the result of some bad copy/pasting.

 

- Some maps have a "sucktime". It doesn't hurt but since it's highly unlikely that they last more than 1 hour those lines are pointless.

 

- Other unnecessary lines:

MAP 24 levelnum = 1

MAP 24 secretnext = "MAP31"

MAP 32 levelnum = 1

MAP 32 titlepatch = "DINOSAUR FOOT"

 

 

Also for some reason i see the DEHACKED lump twice in XWE. One of them with outdated level names.

 

 

Finally, a couple questions about the maps themselves:

 

Pinball and Dinosaur Foot used to have custom songs that were cut off for copyright reasons. Don't sudo459 and Martian Doomer want to try picking other custom songs rather than using default ones?

Also what about copyright for resampled songs? Pillar64 and Survive!'s songs are originally from Unreal Tournament, and Nazi-Festung's song from Chrono Trigger, although they all sound noticeably different.

 

I asked this previously but I'm not sure if TheNerdTurtle and Soldier993 chose the sky texture in their maps since they don't have transfer lines and were moved around in the map order.

 

3 hours ago, Soldier993 said:

May I see exactly where I missed having gridlock in my map (Through and Around)?

https://i.gyazo.com/18f387af344b3407de5df8078398dd06.png

22 hours ago, Royal_Sir said:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3zy8tldi6w6b31f/Retrofitv6.wad?dl=0

 

Went through the thread. There was a complaint of a rogue vertex not on the 64 grid.

Ah that's nice. Now as far as I can tell there are only 3 maps left with not so gridlocked vertices: The Lost Tower, Through and Around, and 64 Ways to Die (maybe more).

Would be nice to have all of them in order for the project to live up to its name. :p

Some tool to check vertices coordinates would be handy but I have no idea if it exists or can be made.

16 hours ago, Xabika2202 said:

Yes, the green secrets are on purpose :)

Neat idea to make that continuity then. :D

 

Players are more likely to step on the pressure plates if you put some item on them that they can always pick up, like backpacks. Light effects also help.

 

Quote

+ varied a little bit on the green area between the blue and yellow areas.

It does seem a bit better but either way I don't think there's much you can do with the 64u rule in such a small space to make it clear that players don't need to come to the middle from both sides. A switch would be best for that I guess, activated through grates or by shooting, but you would need a larger room first. Not a big issue anyway.

 

Quote

About the hidden secret area, I think the 2 walls that needs to be lowered first are easy to find (since automap doesn't hide them and they're directly activated) so they offer no reward, but there should be some difficulty finding the secret exit, which I think one can put the pieces together only when seeing the exits (the white and green telepads), so they may want to backtrack.

Yeah I agree with your thinking. It's just the final part that I find unreasonable, that players have no hint to find what they unlocked, and nothing catches attention to that place. There's no particular reason to think it lies in the BFG room that you may or may not have visited previously, or even to expect that you're looking for a hidden room and not something that opened recently. You could revisit the whole map and miss it.

Thankfully the map isn't that big and the switch not that badly hidden. Not finding the BFG before is actually helpful lol.

But even then, my stance is secrets need to be easy simply because players are accustomed to badly designed secrets in custom maps and expect BS by default, so they have no patience. It takes a damn good map to gain their trust and make them willing to be in your care. And I do think easy secrets help achieving that anyway.

Still, it's just my own view on the matter.

 

 

Ah it's nice to finally be able to end Phantasm lol.

 

Couple things I found weird in the new area:

- the grates from Heretic look out of place IMO - regular Doom2 grates would be just fine,

- the platform with the yellow keycard starts much higher than the sky's height, which is all the more noticeable with how long it takes for it to lower,

- the button to activate the platform was also a bit hard to find (good thing the area isn't too big). Some blinking light there too might help, I dunno.

Come to think of it, giving the key so close to the switch you use it on makes you wonder if the yellow switch or yellow key were necessary at all. :p

 

 

Other things I noticed in the WAD:

- Overgrowth's version is wrong. Link is on p.10. Also the sky texture never displayed correctly for me in that map with ZDoom.

- map 15 is missing a mapinfo secretnext = MAP31

- map 32 leads to map 02 instead of map 16

- map 11's mapinfo should be sky1 = "sky1" (currently sky2)

 

Also I'm not sure what should be the correct sky color for Crimson Castle. In the original wad it's cloudy/white, in the project wad it's night/blue, but given the map's name shouldn't it be hellish/red?

 

If you're willing to modify the map order a last time, 64 ways to die (27) is one of the easier hellish maps. It would fit better if it was moved up, I guess either just before or just after Blood Lake Penitentiary (I can't really tell which of the 2 is harder).

 

BladeRunner is actually fine at its current slot. It's slightly harder than Exit Wound and easier than Tower of Hope. Good job if it was done on purpose lol.

 

Additionally you might want to swap these too (I have no preference, just offering perspectives):

 

- Pillar64 (02) and Stiff (04)

PROS:

Stiff is much smaller and arguably easier

CONS:

Pillar64 is a higher quality map, having it earlier might be more motivating for players.

Stiff's song being Doom's E1M4, it's a cool nod to have it at 04.

 

- Trials of Iniquity (22) and Blood Cathedral (23)

PROS:

ToI is much larger

The following maps all happen to be long and hard, which would sort of split the hell levels in 2 sub parts—regular levels for warm up, followed by massive mazes of spam and frustration, with ToI between the turning point/gateway.

CONS:

Though much shorter, Blood Cathedral's huge difficulty spike at the end makes it arguably harder than ToI.

 

 

 

Latest maps reviews:

 

 

- 64 ways to die -

 

Only bad point IMO was the end part could have done without the cyberdemons. The fight was tedious and the area a little cramped to dodge, though I guess being trapped in corridors was the point. The spiderdemon didn't have much use either.

Rest was great. I really liked how consistent it was all around—medium size and difficulty, variety in the areas in looks and gameplay while each retaining the same size, diffculty and detail level (though the final part looked a bit poorer). I also liked how the hell theme was used in a clean and stylish kind of way rather than chaotic/horror.

 

I noticed a couple vertex mistakes:

- https://i.gyazo.com/10e666c00637ade0c960db0e6e193825.png not symmetrical with the others

- https://i.gyazo.com/0812d1f486f459aab7dcf27420a6c403.png not on the grid :(

 

 

- Bladerunner -

 

Got a mixed opinion on that one, because it's so long and so different as you progress.

Simply speaking the gameplay is divided in 2 parts:

- The beginning is following a single direction, mostly 64px corridors with hard monsters and barely any items.

Any time you find ammo you use all in the next fight and have to berserk a lot.

Like Exit Wound lots of areas felt downright cruel, overwhelming you with monsters and forcing you to retreat to try taking them 1 by 1.

No freedom + no ammo. It was exhausting to the point that for my 2nd playthrough I immediately went IDDQD.

- And then, at around 1/3rd of the map, you get to the large room with the 3 keys (which aren't used, weird) and the gameplay changes drastically, for the better.

Things start to open up (literally!), you can start choosing where to go, most fights get easier, and you start collecting ammo. The secrets are also interesting to hunt.

Personally I would have started the map there and removed everything before. :/ I'm not asking for this though lol.

 

And there's an entire optional last 3rd of the map, which is like a separate map (notably with its different theme) and was my favorite part. Lots of freedom!

I'm not sure why it was there but it was really cool.

 

Finally, because you have a lot of decoration with faces, I found it difficult to know what was a switch and what wasn't. Like here it really looks like decoration, and when you walk around the area it's not obvious that it's the objective.

Same here. It's not so bad since it's a secret but the map has multiple red blocks with faces like this and only this one reacts, so finding this one is hard.

 

 

- Monochrome Mood -

 

I like the greyness (but I'm a sucker for tech anyway), and the angular architecture (same thing). :)

The concept is simple but I guess it's fitting for a secret/bonus map.

I also find it funny that the green areas are all linked to the secret exit and that level happens to be all green. Was it on purpose? :D

 

The difficulty was okay, though the majority of monsters kill each other before you even see them, making the placement a bit weird.

I see no point in closing the 3 gates since there's no way you can survive inside the rooms before clearing them.

I liked the blocked archvile that greets you at the entrance of the blue area. Had several reloads there before I could escape fast enough.

The yellow area had the most interesting fight, forcing you to move around to avoid getting cornered. However I had trouble finding what to do to exit it. At first I IDCLIP'd out thinking I had to play blue and red first for yellow's exit to be open, but on the second try I saw I didn't complete the sequence of walking on the 3 squares. The last one is obvious but the first 2 not so much if you don't notice the first opens the second.

 

The secrets are fun but understanding what they do is confusing. First I don't think you need to hide the switch room from the automap. Showing the switch but placing it out of reach at first might help the players to understand this is what they're after.

 

There's a misaligned vertex here. Only saw it because of the visual glitch it causes in game.

On 11/03/2017 at 7:56 AM, Pinchy said:

V0.97

Secret exit added in the middle east secret area.

Great news! Interestingly, putting it in the open has made this secret area easier to notice now.

 

Unless it's intentional, you might be interested in fixing the texture floor here also (just need to flip the trigger line).

 

Sorry for talking so much about this map, it's my favorite from the project.

Really had a lot of fun trying in every way. It looks good, it gives a lot of freedom, it's hard yet cleverly balanced, and the song gets stuck in my head. :P

Hello. :)

FractalXX said:

Also, someone will have to make a secret exit on their map.

I previously suggested an area in Pinchy's Sheev Wheev for that:

Cyberia-Mix said:

I think the large secret area near the beginning that opens when getting the plasma rifle would be a pretty good candidate for the secret exit to Map31.
Players can guess the area must have some purpose but they don't know how to open it. And by the time it's open they may have forgotten about it and miss it, since the entrance is not really in view.
All of that makes a great combo for a secret exit.

Pinchy said:

I'll leave this update here for now until the secret exit is decided.

V0.97

Dunno if he's still up for it though.

FractalXX said:

A new update is out.
I rearranged the maps, the list was originally created by Cyberia-mix, a minor change I made was to make Retrofit the first instead of Stiff.

Wow, thanks. Didn't think you would change the order so soon.
I mean, there are still 2 maps missing and no guarantee they'll fit well as maps 26-27.
And the listings I did were for discussions as I thought people would come up with other difficulty orders than mine.

Also Stiff was 1st of the listing as in "easiest tech map", not as actual suggestion for Map01. I agree with choosing Retrofit. The difficulties are not too far apart (besides other reasons mentionned in earlier posts).

However I think Stiff was then best as Map02 rather than swapped to 04.
In my listing, "Stiff > Pillar64 > Overgrowth > Retrofit" was a raw difficulty order. But since the difficulties are close, I would also sort by map scale, as I think it's natural to go from fast/short to longer/larger maps.
Pillar64 is significantly larger than the other 3 and would go after them IMO (possibly after Europa Facilty as well if people find it easier than I do).
Consequently, "Retrofit > Stiff > Overgrowth > Pillar64" would have been my final choice. No big deal anyway.
Sorry for not mentionning that in the previous post (then again I wasn't expecting the listing to be immediately applied lol).

Similarly, I might swap Trials of Iniquity and Blood Cathedral, because even though I think ToI is slightly easier, it's also much more massive, and transitions better with the following maps which are also large.

Other than that, I put Survive! in Tech (main theme, catchy song, transition with the "Stone" levels) but other people might find it more suited in Hellish.
And Careless Infection looks even more weird late in the wad now lol. I think it's at the right place if it has to be in, but since Gustavo6046 said he doesn't mind I'm still in favor of removing it.



Things I found in the wad:
- after downloading Overgrowth separately I saw its latest version was actually never in the wad
- Sheev Wheej also isn't the latest version
- still wrong sky in Old Town :p (sky1 please)

Tactical Stiffy said:

Ok I went back and worked on "stiff" for a bit and I believe I fixed all the vertices that weren't on the 64 grid, but who knows, I might have missed them. I also added another secret and made the ending a little less bland by adding more to it. Now it has a little more guts to it.


I also finally came up with a name how about "Knee Deep in 64"? Since I based the map off of the Knee Deep in the Dead episode.

I think the map was nice as is already but more doesn't hurt. :)
The name is nice too. I like that you only used monsters from E1. Wish you did with textures too. ;)

FractalXX said:

Nevander's suggestion made me rethink the map order since the difficulty is not in a perfect order.
I'll come up with one later on but feel free to suggest one if you have time.

I tried making my own listing ordered by difficulty after replaying everything: http://pastebin.com/mbD39jHg
Not suggesting to apply it as I'm not so fond of this order, but maybe it can be used for reflexion.
It's ordered by average difficulty rather than peak difficulty.
Close maps have close difficulties so it's okay to swap them around a little if it makes the reflexion easier.

Maybe I'm just used to it but overall I think the current order is mostly fine.
Only 2 maps felt really off to me when replaying:
- Crimson Castle (27), as previously mentionned, too short and easy that late in the game,
- Through & Around (10), a lot harder than the surrounding maps but also arguably the most hellish of the entire wad to me. That bit felt particularly wrong and that's why I'm not advocating ordering by difficulty alone, because even if the map was at the right position difficulty wise, the theme still wants to push it later to feel right IMO.

It's also interesting to note that most mappers seem to have set the difficulty of their map according to their slot number and theme. There's somewhat of an easy/tech block and a medium/hellish block visible in my listing.
There are some quirks, but I do think a hard map between easier ones (or vice versa) feels less out of place than a hellish map between tech ones of similar difficulty. Hell Keep is easy but has no other easy hellish map to go with, so I wouldn't place it at the beginning. Being huge also calls for having it later IMO.

Also, the hardest maps have no common theme.

Having said that I see 2 possible suggestions, that both aren't too different from now:

- a single progression that tries to blend easy to hard and tech to hellish together, making a lot of smooth transitions. So, a difficulty curve with ups and downs but growing overall.
http://pastebin.com/ibxswfTz
There are no big difficulty gaps, but as a result there's some Hell stuff before Tech is over, so I'm not a big fan of this method either.

- a 3 parts split with 1 theme each (episode style somewhat), going from the easiest to the hardest map in that theme. So 3 smooth growing sections, with a big drop at the end of each one.
1st theme being Tech, 3rd theme Hellish, and 2nd Misc (mostly Stone) with the rest.
http://pastebin.com/Jkffge0T
My favorite option. Also the closest from the current map order.

Also I like that players take the boat at the end of Sheev Wheej to go to Castle of Atlantis. :P

I find it wrong that your 3rd map in the wad can turn out to be the weakest of the 3 and replace another that has more merit, even if its maker agreed.

From there the options are to shrug and get over it like people tend to do, or to engage into an argument knowing it probably won't change a thing. I tried my luck.

I would oppose the map but I can't. Quoting the rules, "any map will be accepted", so as soon as you posted it it was over.
I wasn't expecting tweaks either after you did none on Temple of Despair.
At most I thought you might admit some parts like the secret exit can't exactly be called hard work.

If none of that matters I'm warned now.

Pinchy said:

I'll leave this update here for now until the secret exit is decided.

V0.97

It's great!

mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I looked at my Castle of Darkness level and I don't see any issues.

It's a single string of bare corridors. No choices to make for the player, and close to no decoration, architecture or lighting.

That could be a lack of skills, but I think your other maps (saw a bit on youtube as well) show that you have them.

It seems obvious to me (but I could be wrong) that your works focus on gameplay and not so much on looks (though there's some good stuff here and there), and as long as there's at least one of the two that's fine.

However I would argue that Castle of Darkness has neither. It's tamer than your other works (and I thank you for that, I think the wad has plenty of hard & slaughter maps at this point), but it's not prettier to compensate the lack of challenge and freedom.

There's a degree of subjectivity in what looks/plays good, but still a safe margin from there when saying following a single route in a basic environment is not fun.
It confuses me that you would contest that.


And now onto more specific points:

- Climbing walls with the Archvile was a neat idea.
However if the player mistakenly kills it they need to restart, possibly from the beginning of the map.
Maybe that's good in your book if you only target hardcore players, but others will be put off by this.
I would avoid it by placing this phase very early in the map.

- The door in lava without suit or health nearby is also a source of forced restarts.
I don't see any good outcome from this.

- A switch unlocks a teleporter at the other end of the map. And there's nothing else to do than backtracking all the way to there.
I mentionned that stuff about Temple of Despair already.
Why would you deliberately do this? Where's the player's enjoyment here?

- Given the rest of the map, the joke about the secret exit falls flat.

Pinchy said:

Thanks for pointing these out, I was exhausted building this map and some things went unnoticed.

I also made it so you can view the bridge at the exit and added a boat there as someone mentioned that.

Sheev Wheej V0.96

Well, the fixes still have issues:

- In the North part, monsters are stuck in the supports of the new platforms (but somehow not all the time).
Suggestion: don't you think it'd look/play better if you left the platforms 128 wide and just removed the corner supports?
- Found 2 more unaligned vertices in the green armor room nearby.
- In the West part, the new pillar didn't solve anything lol. You could turn it into a wall with a single horizontal opening rather than vertical ones.

The boat looks cool. I think it would help if you made it point the other way so players see the front from the secret area. From the back I had trouble figuring out what it was. :þ

I think the large secret area near the beginning that opens when getting the plasma rifle would be a pretty good candidate for the secret exit to Map31.
Players can guess the area must have some purpose but they don't know how to open it. And by the time it's open they may have forgotten about it and miss it, since the entrance is not really in view.
All of that makes a great combo for a secret exit.

mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

Castle of Darkness: http://www.mediafire.com/file/wmik8kwyt33ah3s/Castle_of_Darkness.wad

This map has the same issues as ToD, among others. Overall it's clearly rushed.
You could do much better but don't seem to want to.
Maybe that's just me but I don't find it very nice to claim a project slot with this mindset.

Ninehills42 said:

I agree, but the volume should be a little bit lower than its in your video :)

I thought the song volume was fine.
I can see I'm not saving enough BFG ammo. Well, no way I'm using SSG in a map that long, so I guess I'll leave it at that. Good work to both on the map and the playthrough though.

I tried looking through all maps for unaligned vertices, and found some:

05 / Stiff - stairs, rays of light
09 / The Lost Tower - cliffs
10 / Through & Around - cliffs, broken objects
11 / Retrofit - grass in NW corner (single one lol, also some sectors there could be merged)
21 / Sheev Wheej - map's circle boundary, columns in North & West areas, rogue linedef near SSG (these all look like they're intentional)
28 / Temple of Despair - see post on previous page
32 / Dinosaur foot - South peak lol

May have missed more.
Anyway what to do about them? Fix or let go?


About maps order, Map 27 (Crimson Castle) kind of stands out being so short with long maps around. If it's okay I would suggest swapping it with Map 20, as Maps 16-19 are all somewhat short.

About Map 01 I agree that Middleway might be too hard (though I would naturally put it there too), and so is GothRock.
I liked Retrofit as starting map too, and its catchy song for introduction. :)
Overgrowth was also suggested for Map 01 for showcasing the project/concept.


Which brings me to Map 32 (Dinosaur Foot). That's a bonus map alright, but the minimalist geometry leaves me wondering if the rules were meant to be taken this literally.


@Ninehills42: I beat Castle of Atlantis and Tower of Hope, but I can't make it past the blue area in The Show Must Go On (cheated to end). Are you able to complete it without saving? (Not like I would try to but I'm curious lol.)
Slaughter maps aren't my thing, but I really like the massive scale in TSMGO, and the meticulous work in contrast to the brutal gameplay. The song fits great too.

↑ ty :þ

@FractalXX: thanks for placing Old Town in an early slot, and keeping the song. :D
2 fixes needed for the Mapinfo of the map:
next = MAP14
sky1 = "sky1" (white sky, sorry for not asking earlier ;))

Sky is still missing in map 3 also.

How is map 6 going? The last part looks unfinished but still no updates lol.
Plus it's pretty good (and tech!), wouldn't mind replaying it. :þ

BeeWen said:

How's the secrets on this map?

Complicated answer.
IMO player willingness and attention span to look for secrets depend on the "workload" of the task. Small map, okay. Large map, urgh.
I found 2/5 I think (plasma rifle & backpacks), rest with IDDT.
Now that I know where to look they seem fine, but because the map is large I think they're easier to miss.
Actually if your map had been 3 maps (it kinda is), then I might have found them all lol.
One way to deal with this is to use puzzles, so that players question how to reach the secrets rather than where they are.

Pinchy said:

Map

Sheev Wheej

Really enjoyed the various paths you can take in this one. Dying a lot was a real plus there to make use of that lol. (For some reason, what turned out to be the easiest path was the one I tried last.)
Overall the western area was a lot harder than the rest, flooded from everywhere and running around enemies to find ammo.
The outdoor parts looked absolutely great (huge round border included), however I found the white brick cramped corridors too plain/dull (especially as the white bricks covered area is so large; could have used more texture variations IMO).
Bit sad that the stairway at the very end can't be seen without IDCLIP.
Last thing that struck me was how well the spawning (teleporting) monsters were positionned. It felt a lot more reasoned and well thought out than usual. (Sadly I hate spawning monsters but kudos still. :þ)

mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

My level is finished. Video of it will be up soon.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/9abkyjtqrjr38c9/Temple_of_Despair.wad

Loved the beginning, but then less and less.
The atmosphere is nice and consistent throughout (loved the song too), the fights were alright, but the progression was confusing, and lacked sense to me at times.
The beginning looked and played great. I liked that it was spammy but quick since monsters had low health.

Troubles start outside. The layout is simple enough not to get lost, there aren't many places to go to, but there's nothing to guide the player, and potentially a lot of backtracking if they keep making wrong choices or miss something.

First the Cacodemon area (nice looking btw). The teleporter texture is confusing because it's monster only, even though monsters in this level are shown to teleport on other floors. It's not a player exit teleporter for later either. In the end it's the only time this area will be used.

Next is walking through cliffs and caves (nice wide space there).
And then the revenants/lava room. I tried to make sense of the weird design by hiding behind a switch pillar to fight them (eventually made it after countless reloads). The thing is, if you intended players to run back before hitting the switches and hide at the entrance like your playthrough shows, then the switches and the walkways to them weren't actually needed in the first place. If they're traps, the main walkway to the end door does just as good.
I would also say that visually this area looked clearly inferior to the rest of the map.
Then when exiting the area with the teleporter, I missed the switch next to it. Sure it was big enough to be seen, but a line on the floor would have been failproof for this job (actually the one used to release the revenants could have done it since they do the same thing).
Teleported back to start and not yet knowing I missed a switch, I went through the map again to find what was new. Won't count that if you fix it so it can't happen to other players.

Found switch, teleported back to start again. Finally that stone circle overlook is now open. (Middle point between the mancubi could have used some item. Weird it didn't.
Btw the other circle next to it, with the mancubus and the 4 revenants around him on pillars, this place also looked like it would have use for later, like some boss monster teleporting on it.)

At this point I would also mention that pushing the switch at start each time the player goes outside is overkill.
The wall could simply stay open (and the switch one use only). Players have no reason to be blocked outside since there's barely any monster there anyway.
I can't believe you spent like 3 minutes backtracking in your playthrough to telefrag the mancubi one by one. With the wall open it would have been at least twice as fast.

Got yellow key, got to yellow door. And now is the truly bad part.
The door opens to a wall, that the player has to push, but doesn't react since it's not a switch texture.
Just this is enough to make the player wonder if this wasn't a fake yellow door with a true one elsewhere.
Then they have to backtrack to the other side of the level to find a lift has raised, without any clue about it.

Instead of doing that, it would have been much more helpful to the player to teleport them directly there. At the rocket launcher, a safe spot directly in front of the new lift.
If you really want the player to walk, then spawn monsters on the way to show there's something new in that direction.

And finally the last area with lava and chaingunners. It was straightforward but didn't seem really connected with the rest of the level.
The chaingunner challenge was pretty nice, well balanced, and there the teleporters were justified. The weird part was that building in the middle that simply had no use. Might as well have been a stone cliff or lava geyser for the same gameplay.
The end room looked out of place too.


tl;dr a good looking, enjoyable map, degraded by a few really puzzling design choices. Easily fixable though.



But more importantly there are plenty of vertices not aligned throughout the map on the rocky cliffs, stairs, walls. :þ

sudo459 said:

I'm guessing this project is about to be at the final stages? If there is anything technically wrong with my map, anyone here can feel free to fix it. I won't be online for the next couple of months, so I can't do it myself. I think my map is fine though.

Found no bugs on both playthroughs, but had trouble finding how to make the last monsters spawn:
I didn't jump from the ledge where the blue keycard is, because there's no reason to. Placing items right below would help.
Also was puzzled that there weren't any monsters in the south lake, just secrets.
Overall I think it's one of the maps of this project that feels the most like an actual level, as in the whole thing being a single elaborate structure.
The best thing was the spiderdemon teleporting to the main area only in the 2nd playthrough. Total surprise. :D

Ninehills42 said:

I think map31 is out of place, so we could use a new map for the map31 slot too.

Agree with that.
Since it was brought up before, it could replace map 4 lol.

BeeWen said:

Slot at this level may be different, not necessarily 20.

I liked it, especially the variety.
A few areas felt overly cruel though:

Might want to add some more ammo too. I finished pretty much empty handed even with the use of berserk in some parts.

Nice it's all better now, thanks for the update!

For castle windows I was more thinking the vertical, arrow slit type, but that's just me. :D

If you're making another version, you could make the lifts go down when the player steps on them. I know it's a bit silly with such speed though lol.

I don't mind the low difficulty also.

↑ Glad you like it. :D

@Empyre, I tried your map:

The outdoor parts are great. The invisibility at start causes projectiles to scatter, making the area look like a battlefield. Nice touch!
I miss some Arachnotrons in the outer ring to amplify this effect though. :)
Some big trees could look nice too.

If you take the wrong way and start with the left cave, you will need to walk all the way to the other side and then come back. It would be nice if the white tele could lead somewhere on the right side to reduce the distance.
Another option would be to build the bridge in more than 1 part.

Having some monsters spawn outside each time you visit a cave could be nice too to keep the place lively.

I liked visiting the ramparts, they look cool too. The lifts at ceiling level were a bit annoying though, don't see why you did that.
I wished you gave the other weapons earlier than there. That's halfway through the level and until then the player only uses the plasma rifle despite the various ammo lying around.
I also felt like some towers had to have switches to unlock the red key instead of simply items. Was a bit sad that these cool areas are not mandatory to finish the map.

The center room with the grates and hallway all around was great, but the side rooms felt unneeded to me, same with their secret parts. I think they would fit better if you added windows or even balconies to them. :)

And finally the end portal was quite cool. :P

Not much to say about the difficulty. There's so much space I did a second playthrough without shooting lol.

Old Town is complete: https://www.sendspace.com/file/e8kggf

I ended up redoing a lot more than I intended, but some parts were really lame lol.

Tried making the ammo high enough so that Plasma rifle and melee are optional, while low enough to not hit full bullets/shells (I hate being full).

Since this is a classic Doom2 map, please keep the music the same if possible. :p

May add a ReadMe later if everything is ok.