Ok so, had to register solely because i feel a dire need to give some feedback here.
First off, this looks FANTASTIC, like holy shit, absolutely one of the prettier Doom mods i've ever played, mad props for that!
Secondly, and unfortunately, i've run into a fair number of gripes and/or pet peeves that hampered what could otherwise have been an incredible experience. I'm sure you guys put a shit ton of work into this, but allow me to list down said gripes anyhow. WALL OF TEXT AHOY:
- Most of all, the pacing is off. There's just too much waiting going on. I don't know if it was because i played on HMP, but i found that most waves after the first few were a single digit number of demons, and having to wait for a skull to spawn, then 5+ seconds for the demons to spawn, then another 5+ seconds for another tiny wave of demons to spawn just drags out too much with the amount of waves you have to face. Due to this, the combat music also goes on and off a lot, but that's probably just a pet peeve of mine. Consider shortening the waiting times to remedy this?
- Relating to the above, there's just too many individual waves that are usually too small. The "incoming wave" sound, while fitting in atmosphere, gets astoundingly grating after the 150th time you hear it (maybe use something shorter and less "intrusive"?). I don't know the finer details behind how it works, but you could easily halve the number of waves in the mod without hurting it. I saw a comparison to Doom 4's gore nests earlier in the thread, and while yes, it's the same concept, you're only expected to clear 1 nest occasionally, rather than 10 per room.
- Some of the elevator rides take too long. There was the one earlier in the game which was nearly half a minute of nothing, then a little bit of something at the very end that... Didn't do much, but was appreciated nontheless. Similarly, consider speeding up the elevators in the unholy cathedral, though they're not quite as egregious as the former one. If the idle time isn't important, one should consider reducing it.
- Airlock doors are another unnecessarily long expenditure of time. I counted 10 seconds of not being able to do anything before i was finally allowed to push the "open door" button. Were this a one time occurrence, it really wouldn't have been an issue, but alas, you go through multiple such doors.
- While the escort mission itself worked surprisingly well (props for that, i was expecting an extreme annoyance), the part where your escortees do their thing just takes way too long with nothing actually happening in the mean time, especially considering that it happens 3 times. Either throw some demons at me, or speed it up by a lot.
- Rather minor thing, but you really don't need that delay after picking up a glyph to whisk the player away. It just adds to the pile of waiting frustration when there are so many other delays; i'd say 1-2 seconds tops, ideally near-instant.
- For the love of all that is (un)holy, either get rid of the two switch puzzles on Mars entirely or at least give the player some proper feedback! This was the only part that i straight up hated, and i was not pleasantly surprised to find two of them. Some ideas to make it less painful: Make something go differently if you press the right button versus the wrong one (graphical change or different sound i guess), don't just throw the player into a minor but annoyingly lengthy demonic incursion (and if you do, make the transition times short and snappy). Alternatively, just make it three switches that need flipping in no particular order; if the mini-incursions are super important, just make them happen after each switch.
- The same area as above also had needlessly lengthy transition times between action and peace.
- Those malfunctioning doors. Just... Nix fix them, completely. It's just annoying as hell, i seriously considered using noclip just to bypass them due to the RNG. It makes sense thematically, and i do get the point of making the player risk damage due to the delay, but gameplay-wise it's just a pain, and not a good one. Alternatively, if it's not difficult to code, remove the malfunctioning aspect once you get it open the first time, or at least just make it predictable.
- I have mixed feelings about the "do thing during combat" gig. On one hand, it's pretty cool to have a minor failstate in that situation and that you have to balance threat level versus completion, but on the other, it goes completely against what the mod sets out to make you do, which is to kill the demons. On top of that, the potential for infinite "failures" is not one that pleases me, it's just needless stalling. I'd recommend making a guarantee that the player passes within relatively few tries; failing it once or twice is fine, but it should be more clear that you fucked up rather than just a sudden teleportation to a strange realm and then back when you've done your thing there (i know i didn't initially realize that i wasn't doing it right). Alternatively, have the portal shut down after you've beaten the insides of it, that'd be pretty cool and fitting for Doomguy.
- The 300 second survival is a complete clusterfuck. I can appreciate a well designed clusterfuck, but there was just not enough ammo or health for this clusterfuck, and also arch viles in a rather open and soon-to-be-extremely-crowded area is a no-no. I liked the mass murder aspect of it, even if i spent most of the time just running in a large circle, but the arch viles would invariably get me if i couldn't smash them before they got off an attack. Removing them from the pool of monsters spawned there would be a massive improvement; it's not like the hordes don't get replenished in their absence anyways.
- Balance-wise, i'd say maybe tone down the encounter immediately after the survival event a little, since you didn't get any chance to replenish your supplies/health/armour. The visuals there are spectacular, though.
- I don't know if it was because i was playing with Brutal Doom, but the final area had cyberdemons and spider masterminds getting stuck behind invisible walls and sometimes even getting pulled back into the portal where i had no means of reaching them. I had to use noclip to wipe them out. Similarly, first time i triggered the final event, i got stuck between invisible walls on the raised area where the pillars stand (left one when facing away from the portal).
- Small detail; i know you're probably not native english, but consider having someone going over the text in the mod to iron out typos and grammatical errors. It's probably just me being a persnickety bastard, but i just kinda stopped reading the Exposition Runes(tm) after a while because it wasn't parsing smoothly in my brain.
- Not entirely sure what to think of respawning enemies in the hub areas. One one hand, it breaks up the peace a little, but on the other, hub areas are usually supposed to be peaceful once cleared. Make of this what you will.
Aaand i think that about does it! I know that's a pretty hefty list, but i wouldn't be doing this if i didn't see a lot of potential here (much like Jimmy). Obviously there are strong points too, in my case mostly in how astonishingly pretty it is (Crimson Depths in particular was fucking amazing), but the progression system is also rather satisfying. It's just a damned shame that the strong points have to suffer under these things. I know i rag on the wait times a lot, and indeed, a 5 second wait on its own is nothing worth mentioning, but when there are literally over a hundred of them, it really starts to add up, and i know my patience doesn't get any greater the more often i'm subjected to the same waiting time. Were these things to be fixed, i would absolutely be playing this some more!
