ARMCoder

If you plan to play Doom Eternal someday, try to beat Doom 2016 at least in HMP mode. Then you will have an idea of what ITYTD from Eternal feels like. Yes, Eternal is harder to the point you have to shift down one skill level to get a challenge similar to 2016. I managed to beat 2016 in UV and found it VERY HARD (for me of course); in the end I think that I simply won by sheer insistence and a dose of luck. I'm playing Eternal in HMP, and in Map 2(!!!) I'm already struggling to survive... I'm seriously considering to downgrade to ITYTD to keep going.

The day has come and I finally finished the game in UV! Hell, I've learned a lot... but... what can I say about my experience playing in UV? The gameplay was mostly challenging but not oppressing, however the two final levels (Vega Central Processing and Argent D'Nur) were REALLY hard on me! I died a lot, and in the end, I think that sheer stubbornness was more decisive than actual skill. And no, I'm not playing Doom in Nightmare anytime soon. UV made me sweat enough and I think I've found my limits. I will try Eternal next, and of course, I will still keep playing 2016 just to relax.

Nice (and quite a large) review! My impression, after finishing the game in HMP, is that the maps become more and more interesting until "Titan's Realm" with the peak at "Lazarus Labs". Beyond that there's nothing really new or enticing apart from the bosses (the hell guards and the mama spider)... the battles just get harder with more monsters, at this point the two big map themes (tech and hell) begin to feel old and overused.

Just to amend my own post... I gave it a last try few weeks ago, and decided to make a more disciplined approach (HMP skill). That is, to look for and conquer every weapon upgrade, secret, challenge, rune, praetor token, argent cell (did I forget anything?) and make a slower level progression. I replayed all the past levels as needed to get all the rewards, what served as a good training too! In the end I earned 8 of the 12 available runes, from which I stuck to three that I really liked. The last rune trials are REALLY hard to me! There's no doubt that all the upgrades combined made a great change on gameplay, even the boss fights (Mama Spider included) got relatively easy to tackle! Finished at last! I'm not yet sure whether I will try the game in UV, maybe some day... Cheers!

I tried playing pistol-only in HMP, and could beat the first levels until the Foundry... there's one tight room there where a Hell Knight makes it very difficult to win with the pistol only, you have little space to evade and you have to hit the Knight a ton of times without being caught, it's certainly possible by I threw the towel after dying 10s of times in a row haha.

Since I wrote last time, things changed a lot... First, I noticed that although the framerate didn't drop too much, the game pacing began to slow down when the scene was crowded... this really hurted the gameplay, as precision aiming in fast paced combat became almost impossible. I solved it lowering the resolution, then the pacing became consistent even when Hell decided to throw all it had at once. Taking down those pesky Imps from a distance became a no-braner since then. There are several other important things that I learned that helped me a lot... to be completionist. I do really NEED every upgrade available to make up my lack of agility... so every weapon mod, weapon upgrade point, praetor token, Argent cell, mastery, and even rune that I manage to earn, is VERY welcome! So I'm being patient and searching for them all before progressing among the levels. And yes, the rune trials make a nice training sandbox, this is a thing I ended up figuring by myself. Some runes are still very hard, though. And let's say, the Super Shotgun with the Double Trouble unleashed is a hell of a fun, let alone combined with Quad Damage! Thanks!

Is there any world record for the LONGEST gameplay ever? I'm playing the game since 2018 and haven't finished it yet. At least I'm backtracking all the previous maps looking for all the secrets and goodies.

Most likely it's just a coincidence, but I always see a classic Cacodemon spreading its mouth wide open when I meet a gore nest!

I finally got the guts to install Doom 2016 on Ubuntu 22.04 using the Proton add-on, and I was positively surprised... especially because the computer is a notebook with an Intel Iris GPU, not a super-tower water-cooled gaming PC with the meanest/biggest NVidia/AMD video board. Old games are good in that they don't demand much of a hardware. The only add-ons I have on the notebook are external monitor, mouse and keyboard. Apart from a few rare lockups (yes, they happen on Linux), the game runs, overall, very well. I found no significant drops in framerate or delays in the controls. About the game itself, it's very enticing, almost addictive, but I find that the difficulty is quite irregular... some checkpoints are much harder to reach than others... and most rune trials are HARD. I hope that it's possible to finish the game without having those runes installed... I feel that the players' demands and skills evolved A LOT over the years since Classic Doom, and Doom 2016 does a good job catering to them. Eternal does even a better job, but is off-limits to me. I will consider myself accomplished if I manage to finish 2016!

There's only a catch... you have to know that Proton exists in the first place, and then enable it for all titles in the settings menu. Very easy indeed but not obvious in any way. The Steam app for Linux could at least popup a hint dialogue to address those uninformed like me. Thanks for you help! Edit: I will try at first the Pharaoh (city building) game, as it's quite a smaller download. If I feel confident I may try Doom4 later!

The only non-Linux game I managed to play on Ubuntu was X-wing using DOSBox, because GOG made it usable with no need to look around for additional steps. I think I was more patient with game setup in the past. Geez, I'm really getting old.

AFAIK, Doom 2016 is Windows only and Steam on Linux doesn't offer the option to install it. I'm a full-time Linux (Ubuntu) user... I've lost interest in Doom 2016 because it's too hard to me, but the need to dual-boot to Windows just in order to play it is, maybe, a contributing factor.

I started playing Doom 2016 in 2018 and haven't finished it yet... and most likely I never will. I've made some restarts over the years, and always ended midgame with the same conclusion. This is a too long, too hard and too complex game for my skills, taste and stamina. Not a criticism on the game, it's just me.

I will keep the unfinished map sitting for now, maybe I will get my stamina back and finish it. After all, the already done map bits are just fun stuff, not the next Shakespeare's ou Mozart 's masterpiece hehe. Thanks!

As the title says, is there any space in Doomworld to publish such junk maps, as others can reuse the material for study or even new maps? I've started a map that has some interesting stuff but it's not really playable and I'm not feeling like I will finish it. In such a case, I'd gladly publish the unfinished map under Creative Commons. I think most agree that the WADs and MODs subforum is not the proper place to publish nonworking maps. Thanks!

Nice curious job! Since it's already a limit-removing map, you could theoretically go one step further and use ACS scripting to automatically switch the songs as you navigate through the corresponding maps!

Just finished your map on GZDoom, UV. Man, you designed it in 1996??? No kidding, I felt really moved by what I've seen. Great fun map! The choice of replacing MAP05 instead of MAP01 also made the music score very fitting. THIS is a map I'd like to have designed myself! Congrats!

At last the Simple Vanilla Map #2 made it to /idgames. It's the same v1.2 RC, that was tested and seems to work properly, so it was changed to v1.2 Final. Final download link: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/simple2 New version 1.2 RC is out! Last minute update: I just reuploaded the 1.2 RC file some minutes after uploading it the first time, I found a texture fault causing the 'tutti-frutti' effect on Chocolate. As this was a so quick and minor fix, I think it's not worth the hassle of generating a whole new version! Changelog: Corrected the "secret" flag in the linedefs that delimit secret doors. Added 2 more secret areas. One Megasphere stored in a secret area was underused so I decided to replace it for a more fun item. Few lighting/decorations tinkering. Backtracking from the final arena to the previous areas is now possible, you just have to find the hidden way. Useful for those who want to do UV-MAX. This is a RELEASE CANDIDATE to /idgames, no further changes are planned unless technical issues arise. Download link for v1.2-RC: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xt8AWjPyKG7q6S0vLvoabudFTYTledh0/view?usp=share_link New version 1.1 is out! Changelog: Rebuilt the map nodes with GLBSP (looks like BSP has some issues, generally it works, but in this map I had a minor nodes problem). New enemies added. Solved a visplane overflow in the Lava Room (hard to occur, but possible). Some detailing added into the Lava Room. 2 new Radsuits added into the map. Download link for v1.1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12e8tURQ83ZD0wrosWkhQjGeQZcd0xCNe/view?usp=share_link New map: Simple Map 2! This is a simple, vanilla map for those who enjoy the old classic look and feel. The playtime is short, of about 10 minutes. No keys, three secrets (not required to win), the available weapons are P-SG-SSG-MG-RL-PR. Some switch hunting is required but it's kept well within any reasonable limits. Difficulty levels are implemented, but IMO I wouldn't try this map in UV at first, there are lots of damaging areas that are better to be mastered first (the map is generous on resources, though). The final room can be very punishing in UV, but the very last encounter can be somewhat skipped if the player opts to run as to the exit switch instead of fighting back. You be the judge. Note that this is a WIP, so any input from the fellow doomers is very welcome. The map was tested in all the skill levels and is fully functional, but I'm quite sure there's room for improvement. Technical facts: Format: Doom Source Port required: None (vanilla) Tested on: Chocolate Doom 3.0.1 and GZDoom 4.10.0 Built with: Slade 3.2.1 Multiplayer support: no Skill levels: Easy - Medium - Hard Jump and crouch: not supposed to be used and can potentially break the gameplay (I disable them in MAPINFO, I'm not sure whether this works on all source ports) Freelook (ok, not needed though) - most testing was done on Chocolate Platform for development and test: Ubuntu 20.04.01 LTS Download link for v1.0: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HLo7VglMfDt7NMtRSlZjjU3-B6RZggQ1/view?usp=share_link Some screenshots follow below. Have fun!

FINAL VERSION! At last the Simple Vanilla Map #2 made it to /idgames. It's the same v1.2 RC, that was tested and seems to work properly, so it was changed to v1.2 Final. Final download link: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/simple2 Have fun! Until the next map (whenever I feel inspired again hehe)!

Tough map in UV. You have to run around a lot in the nukage area to evade the enemy fire, pick up the keys and get out alive. The radsuits are scarce and somewhat hidden, and this is a thing that makes the room even more difficult (the original Nirvana was generous on Radsuits). I found out that killing the lesser monsters (hitscanners, imps, spectres and knights) make the area semi-safe to navigate, the barons and revs are just ammunition sinks that aren't worth killing unless you're aiming for 100% kills. The lost souls are fine but don't seem to make a large difference in gameplay. The platform that holds the Megasphere and is lowered by the remote switch barely gives the player time to pick up the sphere. I know this is intentional to push the limit of the player's reflexes, but IMO this feels old by now. In general I think this map is a fair homage to the OG's Nirvana, it's fun and is well designed. A thing that I missed but that's probably not a map's fault is the chance to use rockets liberally (Nirvana is the 21st map of the campaign and at that point I usually have amassed a ton of rockets. IIRC I never tried to pistol-start the original Nirvana).

17? You have many, many, many years lying ahead, kiddo. About doing megawads, I can say I started one that would be called "Embers of Hell", but this proved to be MUCH harder than I expected, and I finished it much shorter, with about 10~12 maps). The quality of those maps were somewhat inconsistent so I aborted the megawad idea. Do one map at a time, and try to make it a great map.

One more basic questions to the more experienced doomers... I know that Cybers are immune to splash damage, and they don't infight among themselves, but when in gangs they can casually hit each other with rockets and seem not to take damage at all. Are they hardcoded to not take damage in such a case? Thanks!

This was quite a technical explanation, thanks! BTW, I'm almost sure I've seen Lost Souls infighting, looks like their mechanics is a special case!

They cannot simply shutdown the Metaverse and admit defeat, Meta's stock price has already plunged and by killing Metaverse could have even more dramatic effects. So it's best to keep going on borrowed time and maintain the delusion alive.

My gameplay! AFAIK It's not usual the map's creator to record a gameplay, but I felt like doing so... So here's it. The video is divided in chapters for each gameplay phase. Basically the gameplay showcases how I imagined the map to be beaten while designing it, although I'm glad to see the map being played by the fellow doomers in ways I didn't figure out in the first time!