HAK3180

I'll always remember this for being released 06-06-06, and I definitely bought it opening day. This year I got Bodies, four albums later. I must be old.

I have found that the sweet difficulty spot for me is when I sense that I am in control, but only barely so. For example, I may save, but I don't feel I have to in order to have a chance. I may die zero times or a dozen times (in the map or a single fight), but if I survive, I was fairly close to death and if I died, I was close to surviving. I'm not sure I have a preference as to how the above is accomplished; I just prefer that it is accomplished. I think that sense of "this wad is right at / slightly above my skill level" can occur in BFG slaughterfests, nuanced setpieces, incidental mayhem, environmental opposition, you name it. So in the end, if I'm honest, I think the difficulty of a wad being a positive or negative is very much a matter of luck. If one of the difficulty levels happens to be at that sweet spot, that wad gets high marks in that category. However, my enjoyment of a wad is based on many other things, like flow, visuals, variety, and even "objective" quality of the encounter design.

@Soulless, many thanks for your thoughts on your full playthrough. Some very helpful stuff. I'm glad you mostly enjoyed. Some comments/responses below:

Nowadays, wads often say how they are designed. If the text file, for example, says "designed for pistol start," then no, I don't feel it's designed to be played through continuously. Now, why would they do that? Mappers often like to have a reasonable expectation of how prepared you will be for a certain situation. That is much easier on a pistol start wad. Thorough continuous testing is simply not practical. It's hard enough to determine the average amount of supplies spent five minutes into a single map. Now you have to figure out the high and low extremes of how a player might enter Map 19 and balance it for both of those simultaneously. The only reliable way around this conundrum is to make every level like Icon of Sin, where you immediately give up everything hitherto obtainable, especially if it's a room you can't get back to. Exploratory maps often become kind of pointless played continuously. Map 13 Downtown, for example, has that classic rocket launcher trap in a totally optional area. Well, that's dumb if you've already had the rocket launcher since 40 seconds into Entryway. Secrets with weapons in them are frequently pointless and/or disappointing. A secret that is a BFG becomes a secret that is two cell charges. That is a monumental difference, both in gameplay balance and in perception of reward. Pistol start megawads often intentionally withhold a weapon from a specific map because it's designed around combat for the other guns. It can be a good way to create variety. Again, the BFG is a significant point of no return in the context of a continuous megawad with no death exits. The backpack can also be similarly game-changing. The originals seem to be some sort of hybrid. There are moments when continuous seems implied (e.g. health near exit) but definitely also moments where pistol start seems obvious. Notice how not one of the original M9s EDIT: M8s has its episode's best weapon in it. It turns out Dis does not actually suck that badly. And when you play Tower of Babel, you are clearly supposed to have a rocket showdown, not blast him with all your hoarded plasma. The "can't decide"/hybrid approach doesn't work very well, in my opinion, especially a 32-map campaign with no forced death exits. Doom 1 gets away with it to some degree since it's only 9 maps and each episode adds a new weapon. It's also crucial to remember that people weren't as good at Doom in 94. I think the idea was wise, just not implemented all that well. I think a much better easier experience is to play on a lower difficulty than to play continuously. I think wads should be designed either continuous only or pistol start only. I think trying to design around both results in compromise.

These days I play On a laptop, 1920x1080 DSDA Doom or GZDoom keyboard only game music off, my own music on no mods pistol start unless it's a continuous only wad saving and cheating within the spirit of the law

@Soulless, again I much appreciate all of your thoughts and I'm glad you're mostly enjoying things. I'll just respond to a few things. Actually, the blue skull is a failsafe. It's possible to move too fast and hit a switch too early, thus breaking the map. You have to be trying to do it to do it, and you have to be very fast. But I did not want to leave in a softlock, so I put in a super obscure extra key that you cannot actually get unless you go through the motions of getting the keycard anyway. I'm glad you found some enjoyment in Map 13. It can be fun, but it's easy to be confusing because of the odd progression. I think the main thing with this one is it's just too long, so that's one of the things I'm looking to change. I do like the concept of Map 14 (quite linear, no keys), but again, I think it is too long and yes, the mountain scenery could be a lot prettier. All three barrels open that door, so you get three chances. The exit door itself stays open. But in any case, I don't like the secret exit setup, so I'll be changing that, even if this map remains mostly intact. When I lost a bunch of Doom content a couple years ago, I had done some upgrades to Map 15, and those were all lost. I haven't touched the map since. There are two of them, and both are possible to get pretty quickly or pretty late. Like you said, this map can change a lot based on which way you go, and I like that a lot. You are the second person who has had high praise for this map, which was the third I ever made, and has not been upgraded much at all. I may have to rethink my negative thoughts on this one. The good thing is that it does not drag on, and I do have some ideas for what I think are the weaker moments. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I'll just mention that Map 22 is still in an Alpha state, if you will. It is not really textured yet, and the gameplay could still change a little bit also.

I think E4M6 Against Thee Wickedly is pretty cool. It takes some thought to figure it out, and once you do, it still maintains some replay value.

Thanks for your valuable thoughts. I've always thought you and I had somewhat similar mapping styles, so I'm not surprised that some of your favorites are some of my favorites and some of your criticisms are things I know/agree I need to improve. Map 02 is one of the earliest maps I made, and one of the only ones I have not done major updates on. Map 05 is just...I don't know. I feel like I can do a better "weird" map, but sometimes when I play it I really like it. Fair warning: soon you will come to the unfortunate trio of Maps 13-15, all of which are decent-sized and not very good. Hopefully they won't scare you off. I don't want to just delete them from the wad without replacements, but I'm afraid they will need significant work if not a full redo.

For me, this is one of the most enjoyable parts of working with vanilla or limit-removing. I'm pretty sure the first time I did this was with a WR door open wait close effect, but it's always interesting to come up with "vanilla scripting."

Yes, better to force it with mapinfo since you are targeting (G)ZDoom anyway. And you should be able to do it for defaultmap, in case you are making multiple maps that use the effect. But yes, there is a way to force it in-game with the options. And it's definitely strange that none of the stock compatibilities have that set to yes.

This depends on the port. In Z-ports you will hear the sound, regardless of how far away a joined sector is. I just did this in a map with both a door and a lift. It works as I intend in DSDA, Crispy, Boom, but it's perfectly audible in GZDoom, even under "Doom (Strict)." HOWEVER, if you go to Options > Compatibility Options > Sound Behavior > Sector Sounds Use Center as Source > Yes, then you should be good to go. I'm not sure why that's not the default setting for Doom (Strict) compatibility.

No, but you could make sure that your wad runs perfectly in at least one of them. You can say that your wad is bug free and the source ports are to blame, and that may be true, but it's irrelevant to the consumer. For all intents and purposes, it is your wad that is buggy, not the source ports. It's probably too late now, but I just fear people will not even download upon seeing that list of bugs with not even one port to play it on fully functionally. It's a major turnoff to me personally, and I'm someone who does not care about immersion and plays on different ports and/or comp levels all the time. Let me ask you: If you want to play your own wad Sign of Torment from beginning to end, how do you personally do it?

Glad to see this unique project finishing up. As I read the bugs, it does not appear that you can play this in any single port without dealing with issues you did not intend. Is that accurate? If so, I hate to say, but that could be a significant deterrent.

Those are my intermission percentages. I don't think I killed every monster, but obviously got over 100% with the arch-vileage. 30% was 4.

I finished in 18:05 with 105/76/30. I didn't have too much time, so I didn't go secret hunting at the end at all. There's a ledge with a bunch of medikits right after a super shotgun secret that is damaging and seems it shouldn't be. Very unfortunate to have to die there. In general, I thought the -20 everywhere was a little rough, especially when it was mandatory to cross, but maybe there are suits on medium and easy. It's a clever map. The layout has some Against Thee Wickedly Vibes where you feel like you simultaneously know and don't know where you're going. In the end I wasn't sure which keys I actually needed, but I never found myself puzzled as to what to do next. I think the pretty easy computer map is helpful in that regard, but I still barely used it. I got the rocket launcher pretty late, but I assume this can be played a lot of ways. If I recall, I just got scared off by viles, so I came back for the blue key much later. There's an H shape toward the west side of the map. There's a megasphere in the middle of it. Chainsaw is in this room. There's a missing texture in the southeast corner of it, perhaps only after something lowers. It seems like there was a lot of focus on somewhat choreographed fights, and I mostly enjoyed them. I thought the opening cyber was fun. There was a lava run just to find yourself staring at mancubi in a narrow hall. The arch-situation was interesting. Visually, this map is a great example of not underestimating lighting. Texturally, there's not much going on, and if you play this map with a light visor, it really doesn't look great, but the lighting makes a huge difference.

I'll have you know I successfully used it in Map 22. See if you can spot it. I'm not against it as much as I don't plan enough for it. I often don't know if the stairs will all be uniformly 8 or 16. And if some of the stair sectors will be shared with differentiated ceiling detail or lighting or something, then there's more issues, I think. Dummy sector floor raise to lowest ceiling gives me more control and more ability to procrastinate solidifying final design. Maybe.

I think I was 7 when I first played Doom. I remember encountering the cyberdemon and thinking it was a baron of hell. (Now, now, remember how crappy the game looked back in the day.) I thought, "Psh, this is easy. I'll just blast him with my BFG like I always do." Because I was a chronic IDKFAer, which was the only cheat I knew. I soon realized it wasn't in my head; that alert sound was a bit deeper, and I had to figure out how to kill this jacked baron that can kill me in just 3 or 4 hits (I'm Too Young to Die, of course).

@Clippy, very cool. Some stuff below:

I was wondering this morning what you do way up there in the land of ice and snow. Wikipedia says early October, eh? Anyway, Paradise was among my favorites.

@Clippy, haha, that’s definitely not the stair effect but is indeed floor raise to next with a bunch of dummy sectors. I never intended it or thought of it as a Christmas map or the white liquid as snow, just as some indeterminate liquid. This is the second “dream map,” so if Christmas is your take, that’s fine. Oddly enough, Map 17 is fairly heavy on reds and greens and is also not a Christmas map. It’s good to get your footage. Your playstyle is so different from mine in a lot of ways. You came very close to one of the other secrets, intentionally I might add. The final one just never occurred to you, and it’s hard to get by accident. The berserk secret does have a slight indicator (the door starts out barely cracked), but if you’re just guess humping, that will be easy to miss. Ah, good memories of the 12 Days of Doommas from last year.

So are you trying to make a jokewad that is actually bad but people are supposed to wink at it and laugh with you because they know it's intentional, just trolling "bad level design"? Or are you trying to take design ideas that are frequently denigrated and vindicate them with maps that utilize them in good and fun ways? I think the latter is a much better idea.

2.5 new maps are up (05, 17, 22), bringing the total to 23.5. Download the .zip here. New map info below. Wad info in the OP. Limit-removing, mostly tested in Crispy and DSDA.

Enjoyable little map of nonstop action. I even found it more visually charming than your usual offering. Overall it felt kind of like an E2M9 replacement at first. I did think it felt a bit disjointed, almost like two distinct levels in one mapslot, but the continuous action itself does defend it from that charge somewhat. I thought the final cyberdemon was unnecessary, but maybe it just kinda got stuck. I fought it right at the end with the exit easily accessible. I thought the difficulty was pretty good with good ammo management until excessive cells right toward the end. I died once at the very beginning and did eat a surprise rocket, but I had 200/200 at that point.

The reason my love of TNT crept up on me over the years is because my enjoyment of it is way more consistent than Doom 2 or Plutonia. Of those 96 levels, there may not be a single TNT in my top 10, but there also may not be more than a couple in my bottom 20. So I've always found it hard to pick a favorite. I really like Map 09 Stronghold Map 11 Storage Facility Map 15 Dead Zone Map 18 Mill Map 20 Central Processing Map 27 Mt. Pain But I don't want to be that guy, so my pick for favorite TNT map, at least today, is Map 18 Mill. I love how smart the design is, allowing you to tackle it different ways but also having an optimal path for efficiency. It has a certain mystique to it that just demands exploration and secret hunting. The gameplay itself has aged pretty well, with its somewhat atmospheric focus and just a few touches of gimmickry. I even like the visual design: the metal is the big unifier but it has distinct areas tastefully done. And the length is probably in my personal sweet spot.

I know that. I was alluding to them. And like I said, attributes can be changed. I think the point of the question is "which monsters (theoretical or already created but not in the vanilla bestiary) would best round out the original lineup?"