Player177

Decided to try completing maps 17,18,19 couple days ago after a long break and probably would take another break again and continue later. Just got exhausted mostly because of practice when you saving only before the battle. I really forgot how hard new sunder maps are but like Alleus said above - the architecture is just incredible. Massive scale, distance, complexity, decor. This are the things that I visually really appreciate. That's kind of what happend to me when I was progressing through map18. After testing encounters on the BSK route I got overdose of negative emotions in the massacre in front of the castle gates at the square with the fountain on the way to the YSK. At some point I felt like a rabbit when I was pinballing in that area. I couldn't pass this part as I wanted without saves and in the last attempt just rushed the switches and left the place. Afterwards I couldn't come back and clear the remaining monsters. Actually couple tries there were encouraging but still the overall impression is that it turned out to be too messy for my taste. This glitch appears on gates columns in the YSK room. Looks pretty cool from the distance.

From there: NoChance (2), Breathless(2). On the other hand the difficulty of the wad can be judged by its hardest map.

That's the exact description of what's going on up there. I forgot to check the hedge maze balance in the 21813 version after the walkthrough. Pretty sure that there must be not enough supplies for camping at the first switch. It would force a player to leave the spot in the middle of the monsters invasion with a sense of foreboding because there's nowhere else to hide, wait out, nowhere to run except the switches which are blocked and you don't remember where they are. I exclude the possibility of clearing the lines jumping around like in a bomberman game. That's suicidal unless a player uses a savegame every 10 seconds since there is no invul in the bushes. No landmarks, no small breaks in the hedge or transparent parts. Just high green fence surrounds you. So, I suppose before pressing the first switch you have to be already familiar with the maze paths and understand that it's important for survival here. But if a player runs in to rip, presses the switch and start saving every moment than I guarantee a ragequit and cheats activation. Adding this: after playing the 21813 hedge maze version I can say that until the cybers (4) appeared everything seemed decent with camping strat. Pushed the 2nd switch and ran to the fountain to start grinding behind the mega back and forth mostly wasting rockets. Cleared all the monsters. After the 3rd switch couple archies arrive. Found where and in a next attempt rushed them immediately. Than the 4th switch - the cybes with the archies. The Cybes are evil in narrow spaces. When they will teleport in there will be no health supplies left (in 21816 I grabbed an added mega at this point) and the safest way is just to escape from the maze, but the archviles would maybe resurrect to much mobs in this case. I bfg'd two cybes, some archies and left the place. Another thing I've tried is to leave the maze asap. Rushed every switch and got out. It's possible.

It took much longer than I expected. On the Harlot's Garden I've spent around 4.5 hours. Blind, didn't use saves much. The exit time is 1:55, all dead, and, btw, the intermission screen shows "House of Corrosion" mapname for the map32. The HoC has "Wolfenstein" name in the 21816 update. Finished playing the set and done it in prboom. Now, the only thought that comes to mind when I try to think about all this is how's it possible that one person can build such maps. That's a mistery to me. There are so many things to take care of in the process. I've read good detailed comments about the map32 in here. I can add that in 21816 version there is nothing I consider really hard or highly annoying in terms of gameplay. Probably, many things were changed. Some often mentioned parts like the hedge maze I played safe, monotonously camping. It's like, it was created for this. Can't say it was easy though. I ate 2 megas and run out the place heavily wounded without rockets and shells. The impression is that the maze isn't huge and very complicated and a player can navigate in it after sometime, so why thoroughly learn routes of this maze with that amount of ammo at the fountain? There was no motivation to that. Besides, the thing is that I don't see how this would help and give an advantage. There is no way I can look just a little bit above the hedge to know where e.g. the cybers and monsters are, or at some signs of progression, or at the maze itself. So, I'd still grind on the spot and make short raid for the ammo. May be there is some good strat but I doubt it. Probably some tactics will change that's all.

I've made it to the end of the Whispers of the Gnarled King and what a great map! Took me precisely 3 hours (the time counter) to beat the map, 8+ hours overall and 200+ attemps. In ~20% of them I fell in a trap pit and from the platforming sections. In 21813 version there was only 1 monster left when I exited. About the gameplay difficulties in the map16. Just finished testing strats for some encounters in the map16 like for the one with the YK and I have to say that this fights seem to be hard and on the edge, but because there is a chance to camp a little in almost every one of them they are, in fact, easy to beat. I mean I died a lot on this map in specific encounters mostly because I was first of all approaching every encounter aggressively. Turns out it's more about thought out strats than about enough ammo/health that's balanced well.

Man, map16 is tremendous! Couldn't finish it. Quit at the bfg spot. Made some screens in prboom, small bugs: That's sector 1347 That's a switch

Thanks for the answers! It pushed me to find a solution in the laggy environment. They have increased. I felt that it was surprisingly hard. After, maybe, the first big encounter under the vaults with a pillar in the middle there was nothing even close to this. And right after the RSK room which was an easy ride I thought "Wtf, this can't be so unforgiving for a kind of oval track racing!". The number of my failed attempts here grew significantly until I decided to trigger the teleporters and escape through the lava than sit in the RSK room. As far as I can tell the running circles method here is just too risky. At least saveless. The problem is that I haven't found the key to this encounter with the vile boxes and thought it's similar to the Hag's Finger last battle in a closed room. Turns out it's not that similar. After I've read two opinions that look opposite I've decided to try it again instead of starting the map16. I don't know how you guys circling, but... probably the thing is that this area isn't cut off. If it was than I'd be forced to learn the moves through the unbearable butthurt. The good thing is that I found a way that makes this encounter one of the easiest in the map. The most effective and fast strategy is to hide down the stairs for couple minutes and then let the cybers destroy the trapped horde. At some point I start running from one corner with the cells to another with the rl boxes . From the beginning of telepoting everything cooked after 5 minutes by itself. In the last battle I used U-circling and swung like a pendulum for some time. The amount of attempts here were much less and I felt progress unlike with the encounter on the water.

It's a delayed post. Can't say that I've spent many time playing the map15, but at least I've beat it once saving only before the encounters. This one on the pic among others got my attention cause it was quite tough if a player chose to accept the intended way of doing it. Just a little info: 600+ monsters erupting from the teleporters in the center of the area like from the volcano, there are 7 cybers, 30+ archies. Any thoughts on this from those who passed this part? It does look hard considering the other encounters of the map15. I've uploaded the savegame made in prb2515 for "Sunder 21813.wad" just in case if somebody didn't play that. Btw, it's laggy. prboom-plus-savegame0.zip

6/10/19 An historic day! Huge respect for all the work you've made! How will the next maps be released? One at a time or in other way? I'm just interested in the MAP17 like Belle from @DuckReconMajor post

Check the Saturnine Chapel

When I tried to beat the map I spent not more than hour and a half approx everyday on it. I cannot imagine someone plaing it nonstop in one sitting. Although it's possible to beat it believe me :) Pan's work didn't pass my advanced censorship. I figured some things probably wouldn't be warmly greeted once again on DW. Besides, I've annihilated NPC meme in NILUM so I had a perfect excuse to get rid of it here. Btw did you watch Avengers? If so, than you must beat Goliath :) You can also find some love signs on automap. Anyway, I feel like this map doesn't need any symbols so that they wouldn't appear inappropriate or it does need them but in greater numbers for fun. Ok, it's a huge map but I wanna to compare for clarity. I've made a collage for illustrative purposes. There is no map-size chart but from threads like "Huge epic maps" and recent ones my rough compilation would be like: Clockwise from the left side: Planisphere 2, Oreo Cake Massacre, Holy Hell, World Orifice, Jade Earth, Memorial, Okuplok and Goliath

"You must escape from a giant cyber prison. This is the biggest and most complex map ever created for Doom 2" About a week ago Pan ("Blighted moonbase" "NILUM") released final reworked version of Exspiravit. I kindly agreed to post it here for community reviews and feedback.This last update is properly balanced in favor of the player to make the map more enjoyable. Major bugs are fixed. I tested it with saves in a couple of days and manage to exit under 9 hours with all monsters killed. Eventually what we have is a basically linear huge enclosed maze divided into several big sections which are intended to differ from each other visually and gameplay wise. Simply put we are getting into thousands of custom monsters, plenty of ammunition and health, continuous switch hunting within sections and lots of neighboring rooms clearing. For those who like long survival maps. Give it a try, share you impressions about the map, about how far you managed to survive and for how long, about hard parts in other words pour all your love/hate down upon the map here. I played this map with GZDoom 3.5.1 This version of Goliath was edited for DW. The soundtrack mp3 file was resized and some symbolic images were replaced Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/835oxqr9wf4g2l2/GoliathDW.zip/file Screenshots from Moddb Goliath post from Pan: *players wishing to compete in the competition should use the moddb version to avoid desync issues

Seems too easy for you, but I got weary maxing it, mb because the routes are different. And your time is faster than my. I have a termless request for you - make a new max run for this map. I think it will lead to the appearance of an impressive max. :) I definitively need to play this megawad sometime I understood that, but imagined the situation where the first who managed to make a max remains the one&only on the DSDA and some other things :)

Moonblood table misses the map18 UV-max which is in Moonblood demos thread or just here