MaishyN

9 hours ago, Doom fan said:

Will it be great to expect something like a sunder wad?

I still haven't decied about the final size of the wad but I rather won't be going for a megawad with maps of current size and level of details as this would require over a decade of hard work. At this point I think about making something like 10 maps at maximum. I have some ideas for two or three more large maps, each with thousands of monsters and taking several hours to complete. I also consider making a few smaller maps.

9 hours ago, Adamast0r said:

Awesome map. Those Sunlust and Sunder influences worked out great.

I'm glad to hear that! That may sound funny but I could say that the name of the map was also somewhat influenced by Sunlust and Sunder as my process of thinking about the name for the map was something like this:

- Sunlust and Sunder both have 'Sun' in them. As we well know, the Sun produces LIGHT.
- I started to think about the name after finishing the first area with a PATH of orange lights leading to a teleporter.

- After a while the name LIGHTPATH came to my mind:)

On 12/19/2020 at 5:49 PM, Doom fan said:

Is there only this 1 level in this wad?

At this stage there is only 1 level in this wad. In the future I plan to expand it with few more levels and I'm slowly working on something that will join Lightpath as another map. Lightpath will also receive a few minor tweaks and fixes. I hope to be able to show some screens of the next map in a few weeks but I don't expect to finish it before next spring. As a small teaser I can say that it will contain a really cool pentagram:)

On 12/19/2020 at 6:10 PM, SilverMiner said:

115 megabytes for a single map? You're monster, man!

Size of the file could be reduced as currently whole OTEX texture pack is included. It could be optimized by including only textures that are used in the map but I decided not to do such optimizations until I'm finally done with the wad.

On 7/30/2020 at 9:14 AM, antares031 said:

 

Hey, thank you for the kind words! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the megawad, and it actually cheered you up in real life.

 

While Struggle was designed for limit-removing compatibility, which is limited to vanilla mapping tricks, every level of AR was designed for boom compatibility, except the first level. Since boom features lots of useful functions and tricks, and the most of classic doom wads are designed with boom nowadays, it is also recommended to take a look and analyze AR as well, after you finished analyzing Struggle. If you want to know how the dehacked was designed, export the DEHACKED lump from the wad, and load the file with WhackEd4 dehacked editor. It's worth mentioning that dehacked is still being used to create custom elements for classic wads nowadays, such as Valiant, Ancient Aliens, and Eviternity.

 

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy Antaresian Reliquary, just like you enjoyed Struggle. :)

Thanks for thorough explanation! I definitely admire tricks used in Struggle as I love vanilla old school Doom. I personally started doing my work in Boom format as it seems to be a great trade-off that gives a lot more flexibility in mapping than vanilla Doom while still keeping the old school feeling.

I also absolutely love voodoo dolls. Voodoo dolls on conveyor belts seem to be somewhat like a Boom programming language. I'm currently exploring ideas for puzzles and tricky dynamic environments :D

On 6/26/2020 at 9:43 AM, Doomkid said:

Mixtape of random antares maps > 80% of the idgames archive. Seriously, this is gorgeous!

It is definitely not 80%. I think it's more like 99.9% :)

Struggle: Antaresian Legacy is one of the best wads ever created. At some point in my life I felt quite depressed and going through every next day was a real struggle. Playing Struggle: Antaresian Legacy actually made these days much easier to get through.

This year I've opened the wad numerous times in Ultimate Doom Builder just to analyze and learn. I don't know if it is a coincidence that my work relies heavily on blue textures.

It's also absolutely amazing what can be done with just DeHacked. It's kinda shame that wads with extensive DeHacked modding are not the most popular ones as Ievel design here is top-notch.

I have yet to play through the Antaresian Reliquary but I have no doubts it will be an amazing experience, just like other work from the author :)

I would definitely recommend such approach for getting better at Dooming (worked for me in the past). One should be quite familiar with Doom before trying this but it should help with getting comfortable playing really difficult maps:

1. Spend a while on controls. As others mentioned before, mouse + keyboard is the only way to go. You should also be familiar with SR40.

2. Find a cool and difficult map that you like. It shouldn't be too difficult though. It is preferable that it is a popular map with many demos and youtube videos available. My first choice was Sunlust 30.

3. Play the whole map on UV with IDDQD to get familiar with it.

4. Now once you know the map it is time to start it on UV again this time to play normally.

5. Before every difficult fight watch demos/youtube videos to see what tactics were used by others. Try to be analytical about their approach.

6. Do as much infight saving as possible. You succedded at killing that archvile without taking too much damage? Save. Three accurate BFG shots without taking damage? Save. You survived for another 15 seconds? Save. Use many save slots as sometimes it may happen that you save in an unfavorable situation and going back a few saves will be necessary. Be prepared to die and reload a lot.

7. You finished the map with just, let say, 100 saves! Great! Next time you will be able to do it with much less infight saving.

8. Find another cool and difficult map or try the same one again. This time try to do a bit less infight saving.

9. After going through several maps you will notice that you're now able to finish them with only a few midfight saves.

10. Once you feel you're ready, try to beat a difficult map with no infight saving at all. You may notice that it will require you a lot of trial and error but with enough patience you will succeed. After finishing it you will feel all the progress you've done.

You should also check out Doom streams on twitch. Watching hardcore players trying to UV-Max a really difficult map will also help you. It's not always possible to find such a stream but a few hardcore players are streaming regularly.

This approach is mainly about going from absolute spam saving madness into less and less infight saving to eventually be able to beat a map without infight saving at all. By going a few steps further one could try saveless UV-Maxing some of these maps but this is where the game gets really grindy. I don't think it will be fun for most of the players.

Good luck!

21 hours ago, Benjogami said:

Oh yeah, something I forgot to say about this part: making the switch stand out more would help, but also the cover that I used, and any other place you can take cover from the viles, should be removed or blocked off somehow. The switch will stand out a lot more if it's the only way to survive. :) But still, I had fun figuring out how to do it without the switch, and sometimes it's nice to have more than one solution to a problem!

I think it is okay that there is an alternative strategy just to kill the viles, reworking the room would require additional simplification of other parts of the map due to linedef limit. I've tested this approach without using the switch several times and I couldn't succeed without infight saving so I assume it is more difficult than properly using the switch as I could survive the fight most of the time this way.

I believe the best option for the switch texture here would be one of the orginal Doom switch textures. While OTEX switches look amazing the orginal ones are just subconsciously saying "press me" to the player :D

On 7/18/2020 at 3:18 AM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I would keep it the same as what it was before since I don't want my demo to desync with the wad file.

Unfotunately at some point it will be inevitable as it is not a completed wad yet. I guess that won't be a problem as I plan to keep all versions available and I don't have any need to delete them (if link will somehow stop working just message me). I will also keep adding some version numbers to wad file names to make it easier to find the appropirate file.

On 7/16/2020 at 9:27 AM, Benjogami said:

Really cool map! I played through on Twitch over the course of 2 nights:

 

Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/680611705

Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/681190210

 

I found a few HoMs, perhaps because I'm playing with software rendering? I've seen some other cases of HoMs that occur in software but not gl. But I don't have much to say that I didn't say during the playthrough :D I had a good time.

I've watched both parts and it was really great to see you go through the whole map.

These HoMs should be fixable as they are most likely a result of untextured walls. After watching the whole stream I'm a bit more concerned that updated map may suffer from some blockmap issues. It seemed that the YK fight didn't work as intended as all chaingunners should die instead of teleporting in after pressing the switch on the right. Some of them have teleported into the battle and that was unintended. I've tested it extensively in the previous version and everything was working properly. It also seem that monsters from one closet in the final fight doesn't teleport in properly. 

I've also started to think about changing the texture of the middle switch in the purple fight. It should be obvious that it is a switch here and that purple skull doesn't seem like the best choice.

It was kinda unfortunate that you looked twice for a secret on a symmetrical ledge (first and last fight) and both times you picked the wrong side and missed two secrets :P

It was a lot of fun for me to watch both streams (especially the final fight :D). Thanks for streaming the map!

On 7/16/2020 at 8:40 AM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

That would be ideal. In your Lightpath map (first map), I spent nearly 40 minutes on the blue platforming section because I kept falling into the sky pit and having to teleport back. It drove me crazy.

At some point I've considered adding some kind of checkpoint that would work in such a way that once the player would go through a half of the platforming section a new teleport will be accessible so the player wouldn't have to replay the whole section. If there will be enough linedefs left I would consider implementing it in a future update.

On 7/14/2020 at 7:26 PM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I reran your map (under normal circumstances). Kills (15,061/15,000), items (312/317), and secrets (100%) in 4 hours and 11 minutes. I will have a play through of your map at some point in the winter (my favorite season). 

 

0lightpath_120720.zip

Good job on the run! You're definitely a great Doom player! I've watched like half of the run and I really enjoyed it. I hope that in the winter Lightpath will not be a single map but a part of a 2 or 3 level wad :).

On 7/14/2020 at 12:02 PM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I honestly don't know what squares to step on to be able to access the last secret.

Edit: Never mind, it is blocks 1, 9, 5, 3, and 7 (in that order).

The order actually doesn't matter here. Remembering just to press the blocks on the corners and the middle one will do the trick.

Now I'm gathering ideas for some crazy stuff in next levels. I have ideas for a few more maps but the next one would definitely be of a different theme than Lightpath. Looking at the same textures for another few months would be too much for me:). Next map will most likely be something hellish and a bit abstract. I'll definitly come up with more crazy voodoo doll stuff but I'd rather stay with some dynamic areas and simple puzzles instead of hardcore platforming:)

9 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I finally completed the map. I did it with slow motion.

0lightpath_120720_TAS.zip

Great job! I've watched the whole run. It was really a lot of fun for me. I really liked how you took BFG to BK fight. I also like that you've found an easier way to go through purple room, while it may look cheesy it is ok for me that such non-trivial cheesing possibilities exist.

At some point I thought you would like to know about this page. This could help you get the last secret:) (spoilerish)

http://perfectweb.org/ddo/solver/vale_puzzle.html

On 7/12/2020 at 4:14 PM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I think at this point, I would rather TAS this map (slow motion, specifically). I don't think it is worth doing it under normal circumstances. If it is beatable under normal circumstances, that's great. Honestly, I am running out of patience when it comes to trying to beat it under normal circumstances. I think this map is almost like playing Chillax maps. If someone can record a demo of this map without dying non-TAS, then props to that person. I don't think anyone would, though, which is rather sad. If this were my map, I would just eliminate the floaters all together in the cavern, so that the player would only have to focus on the ground enemies. If I wanted to, I might do this map with Doom 4 Vanilla where I can just watch enemies of same species attack each other.

I actually think that the main problem with beating the map in a single run comes from it's length. I don't think these fights are significantly harder than fights in other popular difficult mapsets but the length of the map makes it much more difficult. As I'm a hardcore analytical freak I would explain it in a mathematical way with an abstract example: if a player can beat every difficult fight 3 out of 4 times (75% chance), then if there are 3 such fights in a map the chance of beating them all is 42,19% as it is 0,75 * 0,75 * 0,75 = 0.4219. By average two runs out of five should result in a success. If there are 12 such fights then the chance is only 3,17% (0,75 to the power of 12). So with 12 fights instead of 3 not only the time required to beat the map is 4 times longer but the chance of success is over ten times lower. The amount of effort required to beat a map raises exponentially.

I really liked your run and it is always a great learning experience for me to see others playing my content, thanks! Now it is time to seriously think on what map should join Lightpath as MAP02:)

4 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

As far as the cavern (the one with the yellow alter) is concern, what is your recommended strategy on how to go about surviving when dealing with the floaters and the teleporting enemies?

I've prepared a layout of my strategy. I'll go step by step through it. Every step is marked with a number on the mini map.

I choose chaingunners to die on the altar. Killing all viles as soon as possible is crucial to succeed. Blue arrows represent which viles to kill at each step. 

1. Start by pressing the switch and just before the viles appear on the pillars shoot rockets into the vile far on the opposite side to kill it immediately.

2. Jump down to the ledge in front of 2 viles killing them as fast as possible with RL. It is possible to get zapped here as it is difficult to get cover from the closest vile.

3. Move behind the altar and kill another 2 viles. It is possible to refill lost health/armor with soulsphere/blue armor.

4. Go to the outer ledge on the other side and kill the last vile on this side.

5. Move back. I switch to plasma here as it's possible to get close to some imps/hks.

6. Get back to the northern ledge. Kill last two viles.

7. I usually stand here with RL and shoot into the swarming pinkies for as long as possible to make next steps easier.

8. Switch to plasma and go for the mega. With plasma it is possible to go through pinkies without taking much damage.

9. Go down the stairs and escape to the cavern ledge. This is a bit longer part where I refill ammo several times and try to kill as many enemies as possible. Shooting rockets up the stairs seem to be pretty effective to kill most of the ground monsters. I also do some dancing with the cacos to kill as many of them here. I go up and down the cavern several times in this step.

10. Once the caco swarm is near go up and go to the secret area. It requires a few precise jumps but this shouldn't be a problem if cacos are not blocking the way.

11. Take the radiation suit and mega and jump down into lava pit. Do it fast to not get hit by a bunch of caco fireballs or other stuff.

12. This is also a bit longer step. I just use all the time on the radiation suit to kill as many cacos while being in the lava. There are also some resources here and there to pick.

13. Once the radiation suit is over I take all other resources I can and teleport back up. The teleport destination is behind the altar so all monsters should be lured far away from here just before teleporting in.

14. I take the second mega and refill ammo. There will be some cacos/hks/barons left but now it should be managable to kill them.

Hope that helps. Choosing to kill viles instead of chaingunners seemed to be less consistent for me but I think it should also be possible to find a good strategy. Cheers!

Hello again!

I've uploaded an updated version of Lightpath. Link is in opening post.

I'd like to thank everyone for playing Lightpath. I really appreciate all the feedback I've got from you. If you haven't played the map already then you're somewhat lucky as you missed a really painful pillar dance experience:). Hope you'll enjoy the new version!

Some fixes and rebalancing on all difficulties have been made. UV monster count was unchanged. There are 10666 monsters on HMP and 6666 on HNTR (I don't remember who but somebody suggested 6666 would be cool - thanks:)).

A quick changelog:

On 7/10/2020 at 2:09 PM, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

If you try playing it with ZDoom-derived source ports, the final fight gets laggy. When testing it with Boom, it runs fine. Where I run into problems is when I pause and minimize the game. It would be stuck on a black screen for minutes and that gets annoying (especially if I recorded my demo of the map since it is probably going to take multiple hours). I don't know if you have managed to beat it without even saving and loading. I prefer to be able to beat it without having to save and load. Let me know when a new version is out (I'm sure you will announce it in this thread).

I'm aware of some performance issues. I wonder if there are any ways to optimize this map without giving it a serious rework. Every fight have been tested to be beatable without infight saving but I haven't tried beating the whole map. I would consider beating the map on UV in a single non-TAS run as an ultimate challenge. I personally hate this map too much to even try it myself:). But I think it should definitely be possible. One of my design goals was to make all the fights challenging but as little dependent on RNG as possible (if it comes out that a fight requires RNG grinding I would rework it). For most of the fights I've found strategies that work quite well when executed properly so it should be a matter of practice and patience. I'd love to see that once you succeed:).

7 hours ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I love the design of it but the red section is the most annoying part of the map. Platforms rapidly moving up and down are what turn me away from the map. My question is did you even test your map? When I design maps, I always test them to ensure that they are beatable. I have a feeling that authors don't put any effort into making their maps and expect the community to test out the map. To me, testing your own map is a must if you want it to be good. I test my maps so why don't others test theirs? One problem that I forgot to mention is that when minimizing the game, if you try to bring it back to foreground, it would be stuck in an infinite loop of black screen and "loading graphics" in Boom.

Hey! I'm glad that you like design of the map. I've actually tested the map extensively up to the point where I've had to take some break from Doom after showing it here. Seriously, at some point I've got sick of that:). I must also say that it is not about authors don't putting any effort into testing a map and expecting community to do this. Every mapper and every player is a different person with different playing style and skills. It is just impossible to know exactly how other players will react to your work. Feedback received from players is a crucial component that will eventually make mapper's work better.

I've tested the map only in PrBoom+/GlBoom+/GZDoom and I didn't experienced any serious issues but I'm aware that it may not work properly on other source ports due to its size and that may be your case.

I'm aware that the red section is improperly balanced and the main cause is probably that I've spent too much time testing this room and I've become pretty good at jumping the platforms. That may sound silly and ironic but I've problably designed the moving platforms in February and jumping over these platforms for several months made me very familiar in navigating them and I didn't realize that it might be too hard for a player seeing them for a first time.

Two fights that seem to require more serious fixes and rebalancing are the red room fight and the final fight.

For the red room the plan is following, effects on different difficulties would be acheived by voodoo dolls with difficulty setup:

On UV/HMP:

Change the platform pattern, so there will be like 4 or 5 platforms up at the same time instead of 2, now it requires perfect timing and such change would give the player more space for error

On HNTR:
Move all platforms up, and lower a few teleports down the pit to make going back up possible. The platforms would be stationary.

On all difficulties enemies will be significanly nerfed and one switch be removed. The pain sector on the bottom will be changed from -20% to -5%. I've also thought of adding some teleports to make the navigation easier.

In the final fight I'd like to put a few more resources, a few more invulns and probably a few more cyberdemons to make the fight go faster. I'm pretty sure it is beatable now once the player knows the location of all invulns but I'd like to nerf it after receiving some feedback. More cybies should also help because now the fight usually results in a large group of hks/barons left that have to be killed manually. Actually I've came up to the conclusion that it would probably be better if the final fight wasn't that hard at all.

I'm pretty satisfied with other fights on UV. My personal favourite is the YK fight, making the lavafall was so damn fun:).

Some more nerfing would be required on HNTR as I'd like to make all puzzle elements completely optional. Purple room currently requires the player to make proper usage of the switch and that shouldn't be the case on HNTR.

I've done very little mapping in last month but I've spent quite a lot of time analyzing everything concerning this map. I plan to publish a fixed version soon. I hope you'll enjoy the fixed version where the red room will not be so brutal:). I've also gathered quite a bit of new ideas and I plan to start a new map later, it will probably be hell-themed but I'm still not sure.

Thanks for your warm comments, feedback and suggestions! I'm really happy that you liked the map and had a bit of fun with it. It really makes me motivated to do more in the future.

@Steve D I believe that while later fights may seem a bit difficult on HNTR they just require the player to spam bfg into a swarm of monsters while being on invuln and be careful to not be inside this swarm while invuln ends. For most part of the map my idea for HNTR would be to make most encounters doable by providing a few invulns. I'm aware that platforming sections may be a bit of pain as it is not so trivial to balance in different difficulties. I've actually had an idea at some point to just enterily skip the blue platforming section on HNTR by adding another teleport destination in the next part. Red area is another story and now I'm pretty sure it is not properly balanced at the moment.

@Arbys550 The line limit is a real pain. I've started drawing the exit part once there was like 200 linedefs left so I tried to be as efficient as possible :). I could think about some rework about it. I suspect that I've made one mistake while balancing the red room. Last tweaks were made a few moments before showing it and the platform section was made like three months ago, I've jumped many, many times over them and I've become quite familiar with dancing on them. Every person playing this map will see them for a first time and it would take a while to get proficient at jumpig. I haven't realized that before. I really like your idea of a large platforming section without any monsters. In such case I would design the area differently and make it more detailed. At the moment it would be quite a bit of rework so I'll probably just make the difficulty of the fight much lower. I will definitely consider making a dynamic large platforming section without any monsters in future maps. In the last part the invulns and knowledge of their placement were intended to be the key. Thanks for pointing out a way to cheese. I think that this is a quite trivial way to cheese so I will get it fixed.

@Doom-X-Machina The part that looks like lego the most is not on the screenshots :). Unfortunately I wasn't able to make a cool looking screenshot of it.

After receiving some initial feedback I've though of implementing such changes:
1. In all red themed areas with moving platforms reduce damage of the pain sectors, from 20% to 10% or even 5%.

2. In big red room make two teleporters between the cross shaped platforms. That should make the fight easier.

3. Scale down the difficulty in red key fight, chaingunners will probably be changed to zombiemen on higher difficulties and into imps on HNTR.

4. Skip the blue pillar platforming area enterily on HNTR by making another teleport destination in the next area.

5. Make a HNTR voodoo doll that will just raise all the platforms in red themed areas and lower a few teleports to make returning up possible. The voodoo doll controlling the platforms would only be present on HMP/UV.

6. Remove potential softlock in first blue room fight in the pit before the bridge is raised.

7. Fix potential cheese in teleport room during final fight.

8. If there would be enough linedefs, make some linedef-efficient detailing in the exit area.

Overall the mapset looks like a great work! I've played through maps 06, 12 on violent eternity and I'd like to give a few comments, point out potential issues and maybe do some nitpicking:

In both maps I loved color themes. They look great and match perfectly with ambient music. The level design is pretty cool with a few interesting encounters. I've had a lot of fun playing these maps.

Some comments/issues/nitpicks (played on UV):

Map 06:
From the middle island the player can go down by jumping on some floating blocks. This path leads to a switch. Not only I couldn't figure out what it does there is a quite strange behavior of the platform next to the switch. It is marked as secret but it doesn't trigger when jumped onto however it may be discovered by falling below the platform and moving slightly under it before being teleported. I suspect that intended behavior of this switch and platform might be different:).

I also think it would be cool if there was a way to go back to the first area of the map from the later parts. The teleport to later parts does not give any hints that it is one way only and some players that like to look for secrets may be disappointed.

Map 12:
Really cool elevator fight! A few comments/issues regarding it:
After I've done the fight I didn't immediately went for the switch and spend a bit of time on pickups and looking around. The platform eventually went down and after pressing the switch to move it up some monsters teleported into the elevator again. For me this behavior is pretty odd. I didn't expect the platform to start falling but I even less expected that I will have to fight some monsters again. Also the monsters that are located in niches teleport onto the elevator in a way that looks a bit strange.

I also pretty liked the encounter on a platform with pillars with several waves of monsters coming in. I'd just like to point out that I've found the last wave definitely easier compared to previous one with archviles.

The yellow switch teleport could be repeatable. First time I got teleported next to the room with archvile it started going the other way and I ended teleporting to the starting area again and I had to go back through a part of a map.

I try to be as critical as possible while giving reviews. Overall the mapset is pretty cool. Keep up the good work!

You should also definitely consider renaming difficulty names as suggested by @Gez . I'm Too Young To Dye is the such a great pun:).

From my point of view things that most contribute to being a good mapper are:

(order is random)

1. General skill in level design - this would apply to many games across many different genres. While there are a lot of theories about good game and level design like e.g. interest curves that are definitely worth to read I believe that it requires a lot of analyzing and experimenting to get good at it. One can definitely develop a good level design skill just by making and analyzing doom maps.

2. Experience with doom mechanics - there are quite a few things a doom mapper should be aware of like:
- weapon mechanics - It should be suited well for challanges the player will be facing. e.g. it is rarely a good idea to just give the player a shotgun to fight with something more powerful than a group of weak monsters. Weapons that are cool in most situations are: SSG, Rocket Launcher (not that cool if space is limited), BFG and plasma rifle if you don't have BFG. Shotgun and chaingun are much more situational and limiting the player's arsenal to these may result in grindy experience.
- ammo and health placement - I personally don't like maps where ammo is very scarce but too much ammo may also feel odd. I prefer the ammo supply to not let the player constantly use one weapon. Health and armor supply must also be balanced.
- monster composition - this is a broad topic. It's very dependent on a particular encounter. Fight with 2 archviles may be impossible on an large open area while fight with a cyberdemon in same area may be trivial and it may be totally the oposite in a cramped area. There are a quite a few quirks like e.g. involving infighting - sometimes placing a cyberdemon in a group of monsters may make the fight much easier. Every challgenge should be tested and adjusted properly to give a fair and interesting challenge to the player. I think mapper should be a bit more cautious about placement of hitscanners, as they can get really awful.

3. General sense of aestethics - another broad topic - just look at something and analyze if it looks cool or not and why:). I'd like to distinguish here parts like:
- shapes, geometry and architecture
- textures and color composition (check for color wheel and complementary colors - it is usually a good way to find a well matching color composition)
- lightning (this is often overlooked but actually very important, great visual effects can be obtained just by creative use of lightning)

Doom Builder and other editor tool skills are imo secondary to these as it is just about learning how to use a tool properly. GZDB/UDB is actually quite user friendly tool and after making a few maps one should get pretty familiar with it.

Another set of things that contribute to being a good mapper are definitely: creativity, persistence and self-criticism (ouch, it is sometimes hard to admit that what I've done is just bad and the best solution is quick removal of a particual room:) ). It may not be so trivial to improve in these fields but it is definitely possible.

While I'm fairly new to Doom mapping I've spent a lot of time analyzing level design. I must say that for me the process of improving myself is mostly done by constantly analyzing everything I play. If I go through a new map I not only focus on killing everything and finding a way to exit but I think a lot of such things like: "this fight is cool, but I'd prefer to have a bit more ammo", "this room's layout is interesting, but I would make the ceiling differently". In a quite similar way I analyze other games I play. I also very often analyze visually what I'm seeing in everyday life - e.g. if I see a cool building or a floor pattern I analyze it - this is imo also a great way to get ideas for new maps. When I find a cool map I also open it in UDB just to take a closer look - this way I've learned a lot at the beginning of my mapping experience.

Thanks for insightful comments on the stream @Jimmy and @Dragonfly. I've made a few slight modifications to my map as suggested:
- Added teleports from the pit near the exit so it is escapable.
- Made teleporting back to the cavern possible with a teleport behind lowering wall.

- Fixed that odd looking wall near the teleport in the cavern that you were suspecting to be a secret:) Now there are just some pillars. 

facility_lockdown_v2.rar

@Gez The caco sprites looks pretty cool. I really like the idea. However, my opinion is that editing caco sprites in the whole wad may have unexpectedly high impact on the overall feel of the mapset (can't say if good or bad - it may be good if done perfectly but improving shape of such a masterpiece as caco is not an easy task).

It would also be preferable if mappers would know about reskinned monster before doing their mapping as it may affect look of some areas (i.e. a red themed area would look different with a ton of green caco meat on the ground than the orginal).

It may look like I'm doing some nitpicking but as a mapper I strongly believe that color composition of what the player is seeing is pretty important.

@Jimmy That's great for me. It was quite a surprise to see another name with two same words submitted a bit later:). If I saw another map with similar name posted earlier, I'd think about something else.

Hey everyone! This is my submission:

Name: Subterranean Facility Lockdown
Music: Transducer by James Paddock

Build time: about 6 or 7 hours
No difficulty settings

Wad file contains only map and music, resources are to be loaded separately.

subterranean_facility_lockdown.rar

Just played through your map. A few points to add from me:
 

1. The elevator in first big room works quite oddly. If you press the switch to move it up it won't lower again so if you fall you won't go any further.

2. There are a few quite interesting fights (like the outside space mentioned above by Magicana) but some others are like a joke (like a single arch-vile after BFG pick up). There is a huge room for improvement.

3. Most areas would greatly benefit from more details.

Overall a good first map!

2 hours ago, WolfBlue said:

Ah thanks for the feedback! will keep in mind for my next wad!.

 

Still figuring out whats good level design and what makes a fun level

While I'm not an experienced mapper I'd say that for a good level design you need a proper mix of encounters of increasing difficulty with relaxing periods between them and ideally a climax at the end. In game design field it is called Interest Curve (https://game-studies.fandom.com/wiki/Interest_Curve).

To make encounters interesting I'd suggest to think about things like:

- monsters to fight, their amount, composition, placement, order in which they will appear

- resources to fight them, ammo, weapons, health, armor, pickups, crusher switches etc. (take into account the possibility of causing monster infighting)

- Architecture of the area, amount of free space, elevation, places to cover, pits, danger zones etc.

Obviously more monsters, less resources and less space make the fight harder. Try to experiment with these to find balance. Usually variety between encounters is a good thing.

Parts of the level between these encounters may be some easier fights, platforming areas, puzzles etc.

Of course everything should be well polished and visually consistent.

Hope it helps a bit! Good luck with your future maps!