Zalewa

You don't say, bro :D

I have an itch for Egyptian themed levels that needs to be satisfied from time to time and I only wish we had more of them, because this one has scratched it only a little. The landscapes are impressive and the shadowplay is attentive, which make the map an interactive, pretty painting. The one thing is that at times I thought it could use some more color variety (see: https://i.imgur.com/ep0k5Tm.png) -- Egypt had colors -- but I get that it is the visual design preference to keep everything in the color of the sand, and well, okay, let it be like that. Now, apart from the visuals, the level remains unsatisfactory in the terms of gameplay and a variety of issues build up to that. Fights are mostly straight-forward with enemies coming from you from a single direction. There's no need to manage multiple angles during fights. There are large, rectangular rooms with just a few enemies in them. Even the limited ammunition is not a problem because it's so easy to skip the fights. I didn't find the rocket launcher either. Then there's the Skyrim-like layout, in one case literally where the section circles on itself and there's a hidden door opening to the beginning. Looking at the screenshots I expected a journey of exploration, but got a railroad to the level exit. The are some areas that are reused, but only to backtrack. When you wrote that the level is "large" and "outdoors" I expected something else and my expectations were subverted immediately after I booted the level and noticed the monster count. "Large" is not something you expect when you see that there are 100 monsters. It's medium, at most. This level succeeds at visuals, but a wholesome Doom level must succeed in playing Doom too. I see the potential, and succeeding at visuals is not a small feat, but this is just not there yet. Screenshot gallery: https://imgur.com/a/ORwovZp

Not a softlock, it's deliberately possible to exploit that open door. You can skip most of the level this way, although you will be much less prepared for the final fight.  Well I just wound up at the same door and had it close on me permanently because I didn't immediately go through. The first thing I did was to IDCLIP through it, then wondered if prboom-plus broke it (I'm running with complevel 11, tho), then came here to check if the problem was reported already. What I didn't think was that this was intentional. I'm too used to see this kind of things as a mapping error instead of a mapping feature.

Played in PrBoom Plus 2.6.2, didn't notice any serious bugs aside from a few vertical texture misalignments. For a first WAD I would call this a success. It has 11 levels of varying sizes and creating 11 coherent levels is not a small deal. When it comes to detailing I think you definitely nailed the tech-base theme. Other themes look a bit more spartan, but adequate. It's on par with what I would expect when going into a vanilla WAD. I'd prefer not to see so many crates and crate rooms, however. Gameplay is a door-room-door pattern with nearly always upfront enemies that don't pose much threat. Because of this, and because of generous provisions of spheres and armor, the difficulty is low, while the flow is interrupted by the doors being closed all the time. I think the difficulty picks up a bit in the last few maps. The "door-room-door" pattern is something I learned not to do early on, even though here it's not the worst because it's not in a straight-line. There are some off-shoots and some revisiting. Unfortunately, that last part also produces some non-obvious and lengthy backtracking, especially in map 10 as @Kor has mentioned. The vibrant detailing also helps with making the maps appear more interesting. For a seasoned player there are definitely more substantial WADs out there, but for someone who took a break from Doom and is just coming back this is a cute and cozy little adventure. Any tips for future WADS? This kind of backtracking is not cool. Think of layouts where if you wish the player to revisit a location, ensure it's rewarding and interesting, instead of having the player navigate the labirynth in the auto-map mode. The door-room-door pattern could probably be broken easily if you simply removed some of the doors and left open pathways there. It could probably even work in some places without changing anything else. Monster fights could also be made more interesting by making layouts more open. Feel free to steal some ideas on decorating hell from other designers. Anyway, congratulations on your release.

Did GZDoom go back to the Vanilla RNG array in recent versions? Does PRBoom+ use a different RNG method than the Vanilla RNG array? Zandronum, for instance, has a specific Compat_OldRandom compat flag that enables the Vanilla RNG. Otherwise it uses the RNG method that was in GZDoom 1.8.

Then all you need to do is clearly state in the readme file that the intended source port is Boom and you'll be good to go. I would've applied all of the Boom rules if I'd seen such statement.

You can still fall on that ledge regardless if you're using freelook or not. Use the automap if freelook is disabled and you'll still figure out that the ledge is there. Or just drop, see that it's there, reload and drop again. In regards to freelook: you just stated that "freelook is not allowed", but in the original post you said that you tested the WAD in ZDoom and PRBoom. You also disabled jumping through MAPINFO, but not freelook. Furthermore, as I have mentioned before, you have not clearly stated the intended source-port for this WAD. Not only there was no indication whatsoever that freelook should not be used, the fact that you mention ZDoom as the port you tested the WAD in suggests that using or not using freelook is up to the player's preference.

I've only now managed to complete the WAD with some rather lengthy breaks, which unfortunately means that my thoughts on MAP08 and MAP09 are not as fresh as I'd want them to be. I'll try to summarize and rate the WAD as a whole regardless. First, some thoughts as usual: MAP09 - the crusher in the crusher arena at XY = (-5600,7000) got stuck after 3rd wave in a position where it was impossible to get out from the safe area This chandelier is oddly placed in a walkway. It doesn't block walking. I don't remember which map it is. MAP09 - you can skip some portion of the map by jumping off the ledge at XY = (2131, 5627). There's a fake floor hole with a Mancubus and two shotgunners that doesn't rise up when you do that. This area is normally accessible with the blue skull key. 90 minutes were needed to beat MAP09, but this time doesn't count the reloads, so I'd imagine the real time is more close to 2 hours. Actual spoiler here: Typo in post-MAP11 text repeated twice "invation" -> "invasion" Protip: If you mark the voodoo doll and monster compartments linedefs as always hidden on the automap, they won't appear on the automap when player picks up the computer area map power up. Some nice pics: So, MAP09 is the pinnacle of this WAD. With 1400 monsters that are evenly spread it's an adventure on its own and it's a good idea to leave this map for a separate session. The layout design shines through especially here, as even though the map is huge and the pathways wrap around, the player always ends up in the spot they need to be. There's not much running around cluelessly - there's just moving forward almost the whole time. I expected MAP10 to be a bit of respite after MAP09 - a "breather level" of sorts. While it is much smaller than MAP09, it's still demanding. I liked the theme of collecting the keys here and then gradually climbing that pyramid. Also, those ships that you see in the distance are a nice visual treat. MAP11 is an Icon of Sin cube arena and it's meh. While still up-to-the-par visually, the gameplay premise doesn't hold up. IoS cube maps are usually time limited - when horde amasses too much, you cannot beat them anymore. Here, however, there's enough playfield to render the horde completely irrelevant. Even though all those cube shooters managed to spawn over 600 enemies, none of those except for Arch-Viles were any threat, and even the Arch-Viles were just little ticklers given all those megaspheres lying around. I also am not sure whether that's for the best or for the worse, because I dislike the time limitation imposed by the IoS maps as this usually forces the player to beat the map through reloading. So, to sum the WAD up as a whole I'd vote MAP06: Mount of Steel to be the most memorable level here. This map is distinct from all other maps in this WAD. Through its visual design and the animations it brings refreshment after the jungle/pyramid design. The player may become fed up until this point with the repeating theme and this map is placed just at the right spot. The subsequent maps return to the previous theme and stick to it until the player becomes fed up again. This is somewhat of a gripe of mine. The WAD sticks to a single theme and by this I mean a single theme that goes on for hours. If we go back in time and look at the Ultimate Doom we can see the same thing in E1 and E4. Nowadays whole games can use the same approach to theming. I'm thus not saying that it's invalid, but it can be expected that the player will become tired of the repetition. If you took all 12 maps in Avactor and glued them together into a single map there would be nothing jarring here - it would feel like a big but coherent level. Fortunately, the gameplay doesn't suffer from the same repetition and the maps are basically made distinct not by their visual themes, but by gameplay gimmicks or layout. I think it's possible to mention pivotal points for each map. Some examples: the rocket launcher secret in MAP01, the red skull fight in MAP03, the not-so-small village in MAP04 with huge pyramid at the side, the central arena of MAP05. MAP08 has probably the most hallmarks, with the lava pit, the column room (with soulsphere), and the chains room as presented on one of the screenshots above. I'd still like some more diversity in visuals. Now, for the gameplay - as mentioned above by others there are some silly things here like the pinky berserk punch-out, but in overall the WAD holds up to the best of them. It never gets slaughtery, but it doesn't mean that there aren't hectic and populated figths here. There are some arena fights here with lots of enemies, but they are spread evenly with long moments of progressive/procedural gameplay in-between. I like the exploration and freedom of movement. Even though there are defined paths throughout the levels, I didn't feel railroaded. In terms of difficulty Avactor doesn't take baby steps. It immediately demands the player to focus on the game or die. It also does get harder in later levels, but it's still within the limits of being beatable without too much reloads. Generally. At times there are some traps that will fuck the player up if they don't expect them. In the later maps the player should have their BFG equipped whenever walking down a corridor, approaching a switch or collecting a really nice item (or just at all times, really). Even then, there are several instances where a Revenant will pop up just in front of you and immediately sell you a punch with a ticket to the other side. In the past I've downrated many WADs that used such tricks. When I see something like this I think that the mapper did one of the two things: Expected that the player will reload a previous save and reapproach the trap with beforehand knowledge. The mapper has 100% beforehand knowledge of the map and didn't realize how the trap will be seen by someone who has none. Both of those are mapper failures. But downrating WADs on this basis made the forum regulars explain to me that I'm mentally incapable of understanding the game, the grandoise design of such maps and the life in relation to other sapient beings in general. In Avactor, when I noticed that such traps started to happen and happen often I also started to quicksave a lot which throwed me off the rythm and reduced the fun. Stars: Visuals - 5 / 5 Sprites - 4 / 5 - the Arch-Vile and mechanical enemies still don't sit well with me Music - 3.5 / 5 - there are distinctively repetitive themes in each track and given the length of levels there's a strong desire to just turn the music off after a while. Gameplay - 4 / 5 Overall - 5 / 5

Just completed MAP07. I'd say this is the one that ramps up in difficulty. Many times you find yourself swarmed with monsters trying to find cover, or fighting with time itself as the horde surrounds you on lava when your radpajama is about to expire. I used all of the 200/200 powerups very quickly and spent most of the time running on 50/0. Death count has risen up too and the reloading slowly started to become annoying. The arch-vile water section also gave me some trouble. Even though that section is not particularly difficult by itself, I was very low on ammo and had to take some risky shots that resulted in failure and death. The map took me about an hour to beat. As for MAP05 and MAP06, here are some more thoughts: I was positively surprised to see new monsters appear in MAP05. WADs usually like to push out everything at once. In Avactor, given the map lenghts, MAP05 is already fairly late into the WAD. As for the monsters themselves: the BFG brain was kind enough to kill all the pale demons for me. I regret killing it afterwards as it would've helped with other swarms that appeared later. The pale demon seems to have a quicker attack and more HP than the skull-masked one, but in overall the biggest difference is the appearance. It also seems that the pale demon is a more capable infighter as it actually managed to eat a cacodemon. The central arena in MAP05 is very spatious and you can run away and hide in houses with fast doors that enemies cannot open. The fights there didn't give me much trouble. Given that MAP06 presents an armory of sorts and there are the exactly same shields in that armory as the ones that the arch-viles wear on their faces, it furthers the point that the arch-viles are village idiots in this WAD. Good. Screw the arch-viles. @Cynical was right about putting +25 HP medikits (or other items) at narrow walkways where you can't avoid picking them up. I have 99 HP and I must pick it up to progress the map. This may be a non-real issue as Avactor is generous enough with resources for it to not matter in the long run, but consider that by placing items in such way you're taking away from the player the decision on what items to pick up and when. That lava drop in MAP06 was a real life drainer. Went from 200/200 to 22/6, but survived the first attempt. There are really nice weapon and armor forging animations in MAP06. I'm however not sure how a crusher can press lava into shoulder pads, but I'll just assume that dark magics are at work here :) I have used all of the radpajamas in the "need radsuit" section in MAP06. The game says that MAP06 took me 65 minutes to beat, but I had to reload a few times. The difficulty ramps up here, but it's still very manageable. The final elevator fight drains your resources and then you must face the spiderdemon grouped with lesser enemies. It's preferable to one-shot the spiderdemon with BFG or it will do a number on you.

Zandronum has a feature where it will spawn players on any available player spawn spot if there's no dedicated spot for that player. So, as long as the WAD doesn't require any of the post GZDoom-1.8.6 features, I can play it in multiplayer. It's understandable that you don't want to design your WAD for multiplayer and you simply do not care about multiplayer issues. Many mappers do that and that's their choice. It's also understandable that players may have issue with this. Nevertheless, I don't know why people would ever not want their WAD to work in multiplayer. There's no reason to block multiplayer explicitly. There's also no reason to design the map in a way that breaks in multiplayer. Boom WADs don't have any scripting so you don't need to specially cater for players dying and respawning, players leaving the game or new players joining mid-game. All that's needed to support multiplayer is to put the remaining player spawn spots and ensure that no map section gets permanently cut-off when someone enters it. There are no explicit issues with Zandronum and Boom WADs. I'm not sure why you feel I implied there are any?

I'm during my second attempt at this WAD. The first attempt was in multiplayer and I didn't like it then. We quit after MAP03. Now I'm playing this in single player and just completed MAP04. So far I'm liking it very much and I think that the Cacoward was well deserved. I think that the WAD difficulty is very fair and there's a constant flow. I rarely need to camp or get stuck. However, there are spots that surprise you suddenly and don't forgive mistakes. You make a single mistake there and you die. In single player you just F3 and repeat, in multiplayer the consequences can be more dire (depending on your game settings, of course), hence the dissonance between how the MP and SP feel. Personal notes: Excellent visual design. While it's true that many mappers nowaday are capable of doing it, it's still up to the highest standard. The rocket launcher secret puzzle at the very start - some people here said that they liked it. I didn't. The crusher puzzle is something you want to avoid altogether as a player in a multiplayer survival game unless you have beforehand knowledge on how to complete it. I thought it was counter-intuitive that the floor with blood is the safe one. I also couldn't find any clues on where to step next beyond the general movement direction as shown by other objects lying on other pillars. However, when the walls lowered and the imps came out I decided that this secret is not worth it and noclipped out of there, leaving the rocket launcher alone. It's not even that useful considering that you get another one in the same level later on. Monster sprite replacements are mostly good, but this is up to a personal preference. I like the Baron of Hell very much. I don't like the Arch-Vile though - it looks like a village idiot who glued a shield to its face and now runs around cluelessly unable to take it off. The turret enemies stand out, perhaps because these are not Doom edits. I also don't like that the stationary turret's corpse is just as high as when it was alive. Boom bridges. They are pretty and expand connectivity possibilities, so people use them. I'm not a big fan of them. They consistently fuck up multiplayer in all WADs where I've seen them. They also fuck up single player when monsters get involved near them. In Avactor, in addition, they are super loud too. What a nuisance. It somehow makes more sense for Revenants to shoot ghosts than fireballs. In MAP04 the setting seems to change from a mesoamerican to a mix between this and medieval, to the point where medieval textures from Hexen and Hexen 2 are used. No good secret goes unpunished. This gets infuriating after a while. I was also surprised that the BFG secret in MAP04 didn't leave me surrounded with monsters. The repeated motif in the MAP04 music track gets old quickly. I got lost and stuck in MAP04 after the XY = -4182, -121 staircase. It took me a while to figure out there's also a bridge-raising switch at XY = -1975, -134 Technical issues: I couldn't find any mentioning of the intended source-port. This is important as it allows to decide on the ruleset with which to play. It doesn't cut it when you say you tested the WAD in some source-port as this doesn't explicitly specify the ruleset, especially when you mention both ZDoom and PrBoom. I launched the WAD in Zandronum with all flags set to 0 which allows me to freelook, use obstacles as projectile shields, use ZDoom's random number generator, walk under cacodemons, etc. I don't know if the WAD was intended to be played with such rules or does it simply leave the rules up to the player's preference. Player sprites are broken. A player who stands still will appear as a corpse. In MAP03 the pyramid at XY = 2700, 250 can close twice, presumably leaving you stuck forever the second time it closes. Got stuck in MAP03 after falling between bushes at XY = 4174, 585. I think this is something that "infinitely tall actors" flag would prevent. Cyberdemon fight in MAP03 triggered by picking up the blue skull key can be avoided if you pick up the key gently.

Hereby I release Only for the Beasts - a ZDoom WAD for Doom 2 containing 4 maps that are supposed to challenge even the best of the best. I mean it, the beast of the beasts! You won't survive. I also apologize for using ZDoom but it would not be possible to attain the needed difficulty level with Boomisms. ([1]) (here should go a custom-made titlepic that I haven't made due to lacking in artistic skills) Features: Imps that shoot green plasma Forced fast imps Enemies with 100000 HP Rubber Chicken ZDoomisms! Juvenile comments in the DECORATE lump Screenshots Come, download, play, be challenged, get a challenge and become challenged (just don't get offended :))! Downloads: onlybeast.zip - forum attachment https://mega.nz/#!VJ9AHKoR!fX4FF5GFUHksih-rBlp54jyNY8xC3wDyXPnVQ_0IFWQ Credits Readme ([1] I may have made this apparent already, but let's just state that all of this is total bullshit.)

This thread doesn't look much different from a heated political debate. I don't think anyone will end up convinced here as the view on the topic depends on a personal taste. There have been some borderline insults here too (unsurprisingly). Personally I think Avactor is not a good map set. Aside from other problems, the fast projectiles don't work there very well not because they're fast but because of the level design.