Khaoscythe

"The Infinite Sky" from Slaughterfest 2012 Map 25: Fourtress.

We in there!

Map 20 is actually bearable for the most part (most of the fights were entertaining to figure out and also not terribly difficult when compared to some of the fights in Map 19) though I do have a slight issue with the final fight: why are there no shell ammo pickups right before you begin the platforming to the final arena. Besides that this will probably be another map that I won't finish (similar to Map 17) due to dying too much at the last fight and just shutting the game off, leaving the mapset be due to extreme repetition and boredom. Not that the final fight is 'too' difficult, just doing the same strat over and over again gets tiring (streamed my attempt yesterday for about idk 8 hours?... and no I don't record said attempts nor save them for that matter). Good map overall.. just add more shells before the end! Edit: Maps revolving around heavy voodoo doll usage are best beaten with extremely precise kiting strats. Because of this most of the timed fights can be lamed out and therefore become trivial to deal with. A few alterations to map design may be necessary to combat this to an extent. One example (though not one really based on voodoo dolls) is the second 1/2/3 fight sequence: at the second-tier fight the player can just activate the switch (for me it was Barons), blitz the Arch-Viles immediately after and then just sit in that corner while the Cybie infights nearby.. meanwhile the (Barons) cannot reach you due to there being no way to pinch you from the side. My recommendation is to make a small set of stairs for the (Barons) to cross over to where the Arch-Viles would be to prevent camping if the player chooses to do so. Another instance is the outdoor central hub fight: if the player knows the fight they can just camp by the side of the Mastermind platform and wait out the Revs, slowly circling around the entire area until the moat lifts giving you more room to maneuver. Shout-outs to Nazi Zombies btw.

Hmm.. Erik Alm, Espi & Huy Pham tbh.

This isn't "classic Doom" though... and having more spectre variants (or even demons with other abilities) would actually open up possibilities in fights throughout the game. It's already being done with the Spirit mechanic as well as buffs via Totem/AV. ...and besides I'm pretty sure that, just like the Whiplash, the Dread Knight is fed up with being deleted by Lock-On rockets and the sort.

...just give me my Spectre Dread Knights already.

"Wanna get better at choreographing Doom monster fights? Play Chess, play lots of Chess..."

So I'm just gonna leave this potential softlock here for Map 19: When standing outside of the building housing the arena consisting of the shootable switch that activates the fight (teleporting HK's/Barons and H-Mothers on the right-hand side) and the 4 switches that release Cybies and H-Mothers, it IS possible to shoot your SSG from outside the building towards where the shootable switch is and actually activate said switch, locking you out the building as the wall raises up in front of you and putting a stop to your progression.

My strat(s) went something like this: First part of the fight: Second part of the fight: Third part of the fight: Fourth part of the fight HOO BOY:

Ugh I work in a while... won't be able to deal with this until after midnight. Definitely gonna stream some attempts in though when I get the time. Edit: Map 19 is pretty boring to say the least, probably won't bother finishing this one.

Every sound made by the Destroyer Blade mod of the Ballista.

Dropped today along with Doom Eternal, and I must say it is well worth the listen.

Depends on the layout. It's only a dick move if you get thrown into a small room with multiple Cybies through a forced Blur Artifact with absolutely zero cover (add more dick move points if there are other bs variables such as AV's/Revs being present). If there's any sort of cover (pillars and the sort) then I wouldn't think so unless the fight is purposely planned out by the mapper so that it's entirely RNG and not skill-based (and in that case, screw you and your troll ass placements map maker).

By the looks of things when I played through that section some/most of the AVs were removed, as I recall only running into 2 or 3 in that section not counting the 2 stashed away with the Cyberdemon by the corner switch room. What I also noticed was the Cyberdemon within the vicinity of the switch that initiates the teleport party that wasn't there before.

Any mechanic that results in decreasing the players base movement speed, in any game, gets a hell no from me.. especially for a game like Doom.

... ... Devil Springs vodka.

...my first exposure would be randomly watching my dad play The Ultimate Doom (back when Episode 4 was first released) when I was much younger. First time actually touching/playing a Doom game was Final Doom (PC) for a few minutes at a CompUSA in the downtown district of my neighborhood a year or so after. ...surprised I even remember that stuff.

Oof, guess I'll avoid this mapset then. Was never a fan of speed limitations in any game I play. ^^

Is this a feature if so?

...why is it that whenever I play a map in this wad does my run/walk speed suddenly slow down to a crawl at random (without me hitting run/walk toggle or switching any kind of options which affects such)...?

So Map 18 is a real piece of work... and I mean that in a bad way for multiple reasons. The start is pretty damn obnoxious as one wrong step (or getting smacked by a Revenant projectile) sends you plummeting to your death, so you're forced to be fast here. One thing that I do want to point out is that it's possible for the player to fall whilst hugging a column/wall and dropping onto an edge of some sort without hitting the bottom of the pit and taking damage, probably intentional but either way it's a hard restart once you fall and it's annoying. Besides that the starting section as a whole (beginning as well as the dual Cybie fight) can be traversed with ease once you figure out your angles in relation to the Cybie far far away from your position. From the hub area you have a nice selection of challenges to tackle in whatever order you please. I opt to getting the RK area out of the way first because it's the easiest (imo) after you get used to how the fights play out... and speaking of the fights in the RK area the Hive Mother demon is a pain in the ass to deal with (until you realize that the projectiles are very easy to dodge when you know they are coming). The attack where it shoots a barrage of rockets is a problem especially if fired from far away since the rocket color blends in with the Hive Mother sprite so you can't really see them coming and you don't hear the audio cue signifying that particular attack.. it has caught me off guard on more than a few occasions. Up close it is comparable to DVII's Afrit in that you will be completely melted even at 200/200. Pretty sure this thing melts Cyberdemons faster than the Afrit. The Hive Mother also has moments where it gains some sort of speed burst and moves at a rapid pace at random, something else to look out for. Anyway, the new demon is annoying at best.. it's like Doom touhou all over again. The Cybies in one of the encounters don't even get to do much with a swarm of Hive Mothers getting rid of them almost instantly without losing a single one from their ranks. They're not too tanky though so at least there's that. Nevertheless the entire RK section can be trivialized once you figure out what exactly you need to be doing, and said strats can be done very consistently (no bullshit RNG to deal with where you have to replay a section hundreds of times before you figure it out, like many other sections of Sunder). I like the RK area as a whole, a shame that I don't see much more of the Hive Mother outside of this section. The YK area looks really good, and most of the fights have consistent strats to handle them without too much trouble, sans one specific encounter that took me a few days to figure out (the fight in the town after the Arch-Vile RUN section). That portion of the YK area can kiss my ass, and whoever stated for me to stick to the middle during streamed attempts well... screw staying in the middle, never worked out for me. Eventually I found a consistent strat to beating that area that didn't require me to stick to the middle whatsoever, hell it's even possible to do it without letting all of the Cybies out of their boxes... Which brings me to the final fight in the YK area where I dragged a leftover Cybie from the previous town fight into the church area in one of my attempts (at least I would assume that it's a church on the side of town). I had some issues dealing with this next fight (whether I had 3 or 4 Cybies helping with the masses) until one of the Arch-Viles in the cages showed me the way to beating the encounter (literally). There wasn't a clear indicator where I had to use the edges of the church to circle around the mob while they infight so it was very tilting to deal with (thanks Arch-Vile). Overall, screw the YK area despite it having consistent strats to dealing with each section. The BK area was way more tilting to deal with in retrospect to me playing this map (even though it was the second of the three key areas I inevitably completed, the YK town area gave me a very hard time). The first fight required a LOT of trial and error, as I already assumed that one would have to utilize the upper area with the AVs to navigate around the room without getting pinned by the Cyberdemons. Problem here is if you tried to jump off that ledge where the Mega Armor resides you'd find yourself blocked by *actors being infinitely tall* (assuming the player is playing Sunder the INTENDED way and not some nonsense to make it 'easier' or 'change in-game behaviors'). Took me about a day to figure it out, and the strat isn't as consistent as the other areas since you'll have to have some really good reaction time and not get blindsided by rockets until the mobs are positioned to where you can run laps around the area and not be blocked when jumping off the AV/MA ledge. The next couple of sections weren't too difficult to figure out. The AV/Imp ambush takes a lot of careful positioning, while the fight after that has a consistent strat I used which requires bum rushing the ledge AVs and some heavy camping. The final BK fight was very difficult at first, at one point I found myself stuck in the Cyberdemon box with a single Cybie and a ton of demons flooding into the cramped space... lasted for about 5 minutes before I died. Speaking of the Cyberdemon box that is the players ticket to beating that nasty encounter so yeah there's a consistent strat to that room as well. I hated the BK area as a whole at first (especially the first fight) but eventually I've come to terms with the difficulty after figuring out ways to beating each section. Overall I said that I hate this map and have stated that, like Map 05, I would never touch it again after beating it... that was a lie. The RK area is too fun to just pass up like that, though I'm just not a fan of the platforming in general. The entire aesthetic of the map is quite interesting to say the least and I would like to see more of it in future maps (without the god awful russian roulette platforming). The one thing that plagues some of the other Sunder maps doesn't seem to be present here (by that I speak of the extremely randomized demon spawns in regards to how monster closets are designed and demons free-roaming within them, jumbling up the 'order' in which they're supposed to spawn... looking at you Map 17) so that's a plus, we need less of that nonsense as this game is already enough of an RNG-fiesta. Now I'm just going to sit here and wait until someone does a TAS UV-Max of this map... shouldn't be too difficult. 7/10

Played the daylights out of the following, some mentioned in this thread.. others not. I'm legit surprised some of these weren't mentioned: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse The Legend of Zelda Contra/Super C The Lone Ranger Blaster Master Batman Strider Dragon Warrior Gargoyle's Quest II Robowarrior Super Mario Bros. 3 Adventure Island II/III The Guardian Legend Jackal Mendel Palace Double Dragon II Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode Rygar Karnov Ninja Gaiden series Startropics I/II TMNT III: The Manhattan Project Zen: Intergalactic Ninja

So the first thing you need to be mindful of is how to manipulate the massive cloud of floaters during the entirety of this fight. With that said you can choose to kill that one Cybie in the left side building hiding behind the boxes, or leave it to infight later. Personally I two-shot it so I don't have to worry later when I'm clearing the Cacos from their box prisons, more Cybies will teleport in to 'help' infight in a few regardless. My strat revolves around camping the right side of the building next to the right side of the right-most lava pit spawn and spamming rockets at the nearby Rev/HK spawn until the Cacos get a bit too overwhelming, where I'll switch to the BFG and spam all my cells to kill as much as possible until I'm close to running out. Dash to the nearby ammo stock and then make a mad dash outside through the back exit and beeline towards the initial ammo pit on the far left (yes, this will require you to hop across gaps and BFG any floaters that will be in the way without falling off any edges). Also notice that the mass cloud of floaters should be 'mostly' against the building you were camping. Expect them to come to you now (and, in the process getting themselves into infights with the Cybies that are in the middle area). If you're fast enough you can kill the caged Cacos before the cloud makes it's way into your area. If you position yourself along that left side properly the Cybie guarding the switch up in the far tower should have you in it's line of sight, but it's rockets will hit the cloud of enemies. You have enough ammo on the left side to clear the majority of the enemies that creep up to you, but if need be you can either retreat through the building for more cover, or mad dash to the middle ammo pit and pray you don't eat any stray projectiles on the way out or get blocked in there. There will be instances where the Cybies won't infight with the floaters (or partially) and make their way to the left side where you're holding your ground. In this instance you'll need to two-shot them as fast as possible, since the floaters will probably be swarming towards you at this point. You don't necessarily need the Cybies to infight/kill off everything else so I'd kill them off as soon as possible since they'll only prevent you from effectively camping out the rest of the demons on the left side. You never want to get yourself into any of the dead end areas as you run the risk of being cornered by floaters with no way out (camping the Cybie switch platform is an option only if you've dwindled down the amount of enemies outside first, going here too early will result in you getting swarmed). The key here is to keep moving and allow yourself enough space to escape to another part of the room when needed. This strat works most of the time whenever I get to this portion of the map, but again it relies heavily on cloud positioning as well as how fast you can deal with the Cybies before things get too hectic. You also have to stay at the initial spot (the right-side pit area) for a good amount of time, otherwise the cloud will not have moved away from the gaps far enough for you to cross.

Also want to add that 3 of the switches in the first fight area can be hit from the sides at an angle under them, thus allowing the player to bypass that fight completely as long as they don't go for the Plasma Gun and trip the teleport party to begin.

Adding to this, regarding the very first fight in the map I noticed some flaws with the inevitable release of the THREE (??!!) Arch-Viles after hitting the wall switch. For starters: if the player is well aware of their surroundings when playing the map for their first time they will realize that there are AV's behind that wall and that whatever demons enter the area must be killed as far away from that wall as possible. Three AV's is not enough for the potential combat possibilities they can present, therefore I suggest adding more AV's in that small area before they're released (I was thinking ~10) that way: -The player cannot just use the tactic of waiting around the corner for them to come around it one by one (the left side being more risky since a Vile can just toss you off the cliffside, while the right side is the safer option considering you have a pillar of sorts obstructing their view.. I would personally get rid of that obstruction btw due to my next point). -By having the player not rely on the above strat, it promotes the Viles to advance upon the player further into the arena thus forcing the player to back away much further than expected. Of course the player could just use the monster teleport exit nearby and hide behind its columns but that will only be effective when three Viles approach you as opposed to ~10. I can see that the Viles are supposed to act as a sort of tidal wave forcing the player back but the current amount does not suffice for the effect the mapper is probably trying to implement. -Another idea would be to not have the Viles behind that wall and, instead, place a bunch of them in a monster closet and have the switch that lowers the wall also open said monster pen and allow the AV's to flood in from there. Doing this would at least not give away the fact that there are Viles waiting behind the wall, and having the player resort to kiting everything to the opposite end of the arena. Regarding the first indoor fight I do agree that there's way more ammo than necessary. Tbh I was expecting a ton of demons to teleport to the point where the BFG and ammo are located, and not just having them spawn where they currently do (which is fine btw nothing wrong with their current locations). Not sure what to have teleport there but it would apply pressure to the player if they decided to head to the BFG area to pick off most of the monsters (which was one of my go-to strats going into this fight, that or bum rushing the HK's). Also yeah I was going to bring up the fact that some of the crushers in that dreaded room have monster block lines, and therefore defeat their purpose of being there in regards to helping at killing the opposition, unless it was the initial intent to have the crushers work against you and not the demons (though this does tie in with the fact that there isn't enough ammo to kill everything multiple times over). Like I've stated earlier that area feels very imbalanced and needs something to be done with it.