Archviler

Finished map 20. What a level. Generally it felt easier than 19 and the fights felt like they got easier as the map progressed, particularly once you hit the YSK area. I liked how it allowed some backtracking at times but it wasn't consistent, and with how generous the map was with megaspheres, lead to some head games on if you should take supplies you might want to save for later.

Hardest fights were the last one and...maybe the second fight in the map? Maybe the RSK area until you got a grip on the gimmick with the platforms? It was hard but not oppressively hard like parts of 19 or 16 feel. I think someone else said it felt like the intensity was dialed down a notch after 19 and that's completely on the nose.

A lot of the tricks in the level were a lot of fun, like the 1-2-3 section of the YSK area and how the big fight outside changes once you realize the muck rises up after awhile. 10/10, great map, can't wait for 21 and beyond.

Speaking of, I just found a way to escape one of the fights before it even gets started.

https://imgur.com/a/6eZrwsd

You can go up the side of the raised platform and hit the switch that opens the door out right away.

17 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

Don't know if anyone agrees, but I think the final blue key fight in map18 could use some more rockets. I just got done playing it again and even with letting all the cybers out to infight, I had to plasma gun a giant horde of hell nobles and it took forever. More ammo for the rocket launcher could help. Maybe I just got unlucky and the cybers got stuck on infighting enemies, I don't know.

Never had any problems with ammo in that fight from what I remember, but infighting variance can be large.

Also saw your YT channel, I really dig the Sunder videos.

4 hours ago, Yami said:

- MAP16 Gnarled King: while replaying it, the area with the bone pyramid felt empty (picture 2, around sector 6979). After finishing the map I came back with IDCLIP (don't judge me), and the last ~100 monsters eventually spawned. It seems I somehow skipped the trigger linedef the first time, I don't know how.[/quote]

I stumbled on that recently myself and haven't gotten around to posting about it. One of the wood platforms that leads you to that area has the trigger for the monsters there, but if you juuuuust barely clip the edge and go right to the next platform, you won't trigger it. It lets you skip the entire fight.

Between that and being able to archvile jump out a window and escape the area just before it, you can skip 3 fights in a row if you do it right. 3 of the harder fights in the map, no less.

4 hours ago, NiGHTS4life said:

Tried that, same issue.  It's Russian Overkill.

Pretty much. I've tried Sunder with a few mods that increase things and it usually ends badly on the bigger maps. It's just too much. I can run 19 just fine vanilla.

9 hours ago, TheNoob_Gamer said:

Maybe try switching to something like LZDoom? Because the author said earlier he hitted editor limits, iirc.

What's LZDoom? I usually stick to whatever the current GZDoom is.

39 minutes ago, mArt1And00m3r11339 said:

I tried level 19 and that one was kicking my ass. I don't think closed up rooms with cyberdemons and robotic bees that shoot mancubus fireballs and rockets are my style. Speaking of which, has anyone managed to beat level 19? I like multi-hour maps but not when they are obnoxiously difficult. All of this raging to win is getting very old. I am not a fan of playing lower level difficulty settings. Ultra Violence is my style. I am concerned that someone is going to use this against me and that is unacceptable.

I've beaten 19 and I'm not a big fan of cramped encounters, either. I'd suggest taking breaks and segmenting the map into smaller chunks. It's a long, long map and while I really like it, it's not one that's easy to get through in one sitting.  It's easy to get stuck on one encounter for a bit and worn down, and then into a spiral of worsening play because you get frustrated. The map's an endurance test, don't be afraid to take it at your own pace if things go wrong. Clarity of mind and patience are way more important in this map than finishing it in one go.

If all else fails, I suggest playing continuous and bring in a BFG (or simply cheating one in if you don't want to replay 17 and 18) from the beginning. A lot of the fights in 19 are about time and space, the BFG helps you use that time and space far more efficiently than intended. I faffed around with one after I finished it and the BFG's more firepower than many encounters there are designed to handle.

For what it's worth, I feel 16's harder than 19. Not by much, but I don't think 19 is the hardest Sunder map on reflection. If nothing else, a lot of 19's encounters are more bite sized and there's less time investment in each attempt than 16's bigger battles.

1 hour ago, Grain of Salt said:

If your maps get much bigger (maybe 10% bigger than map19?) they'll probably start hitting the size limit (the one which makes something similar to the allghosts bug happen at the start).

I was wondering if Sunder was getting close to engine limitations. Map 19 really feels like it pushes it.

Also seconding the cacodemon swarm being a great moment.

Hi, I found an exploit in map 16. In the first battle after the first building, you fight a bunch of imps and barons after you hit the switch seen below.

If you run from about where the image shows and angle it just right, you can get to the switch without hitting the linedef to block the way you came. It takes a bit of practice, you have to get on the platform as late as possible and with good running speed or you'll trip the linedef. Should you do so, hit the switch, go past it once it lowers and back around. The way back won't be barred, so you can return to the previous room and trivialize the encounter with almost no risk of falling or damage. It turns the encounter into a skeet shoot, since all the monsters will chase you and line up on the archvile platform past the door in, so you can rocket them at your leisure.

No problem, glad to help.

Quick follow up question about map 18: When you reach the room with the YSK, are you supposed to be able to take the lift in the corner up, run along the perimeter of the room, hit the switch to kick off the fight and then drop down the side? Doing so avoids the trigger to lower the bars that traps you in the throne room, so you can retreat back outside and fight at a distance.

Hi, I don't know is this has been reported yet but I found a way to escape the first fight in map 16.

Get on that low step and you can run across the fencing to get back behind the barrier. This lets you finish off the battle at your leisure, once all the infighting is done. Once it's done?

Get on the first step use that to hop onto the fencing, and then run straight to the fenced in torch. Creep carefully around the edge and go around, then drop back in past the barrier.

I finally had time to finish map 18 and it was pretty good. Besides my comments on the town square fight above, I enjoyed everything else. The main standouts were the new monster and the last fight at the end of each section. I felt each of these fights were easier than the previous ones in the area, as well as with interesting design and ways to approach the battles.

My only other complaint about the map is the second to last fight in the BK area. Mixing in a few real pits with all the pits you walk atop of felt like a cheap trick. It wasn't a huge deal past the first time, but that first time felt like a legitimately cheap death. The entire section conditions you that pits are solid ground, then a few in that fight change that. 

Anyway, the map's good overall. A few parts could use some adjustments and polish, like the second to last YK fight, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. It's solid 9/10 for me with 10/10 visuals and a fitting music track.

Possible bug report. In the map 18 yellow key arena, if you go back to look out the bars after you go up to the thrones but before you hit the switch, you can see black sky bars.

On 12/27/2019 at 5:14 AM, Khaoscythe said:

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...

Yeah, I'd second your comments on that fight. The area looks great but it's really a miserable place to fight in. With everything going on, that fight crosses over from  good hard to annoying hard. I tried staying in the middle as well and it's never come remotely close to a successful run. It's so tight that whenever you have to move positions, I feel like it crosses the line from feeling like 'hard but skill based' to 'hard but luck based', and more importantly, simply isn't an enjoyable fight because of it. There's just too many narrow passages and clutter, it felt frustrating rather than challenging.

I'm plunking away at map 18, don't have a ton of time to devote to it but it's fun. I love the style so far, and there's one point in particular that I feel makes this map stand out. There's an element of choice to it rare in Sunder maps. From the luxury of choosing in what order you do the key paths to options to unleash boxed cybers at your discretion, it helps support the fragmentary feel of the map as well as make it stand out from other maps. It feels distinct from the last several maps, Sunder's very good at each map being a whole, distinct world to explore.

I've cleared the first part as well as begun the village-ish section. There doesn't seem to be a BFG in the map (according to the wiki anyway), though casual experimenting in between real tries shows that the run section can be completely neutered by one at the start of it. A nice bonus for continuous players, I suppose. I'm at the battle just beyond that, at what looks to be the actual village. I'm not such a fan of that fight, it feels rough. I may be approaching it wrong, though, or merely on a run of bad luck.

18 looks pretty awesome. I only skipped through briefly since I won't have time to play it for awhile.

Alternate, variant strategy that I found to be useful: Rush the yellow key and BFG through the mob to the key door. Escape out but don't go too far. as there's a line that'll shut the door behind you for good. Without triggering that line, make a stand there with rockets and BFG as needed. I had a surprising amount of luck with that strategy, use up your rockets then BFG through the gathered mass and back inside. That usually took the worst of it off and got me past the opening mess into something more manageable.

Side note: That was before any map corrections or revisions, so I don't know if the latest version might've impacted that strategy.

I'd say that's the hardest battle in the map, at least in my opinion. It's the one that took me the longest, even more than the last battle (which I did enough to get semi consistent at it). It's too easy to fall off, get blocked, eat a random enemy shot, get cornered or die because a good chunk of the ammo is on damage floors. Khaoscythe is right - always have a way to escape, don't fall for any of the dead ends and keep a keen eye on your ammo and what ammo pickups remain.

Since I got mentioned and for what it's worth? I'm in favor of fixing most unintended bits of cheese and exploits, as most of them feel like simple errors and detract from the gameplay. However, I do think a few are okay if they do any of the following:

- Provides an interesting, alternate way of playing the map that isn't viable otherwise. Examples here are pacifist runs of map 9 and 10.

- Is a viable and interesting way to tackle a particular fight, often for tradeoffs or surrendering a UV-Max run in favor of survival. Speed blitzing the yellow key section in map 16 comes to mind.

- Otherwise fits the map or is worthwhile and fulfilling the player. The end fight escape from map 17's the main one I can think of here.

Sunder's great when it makes the player feel cornered and desperate, as the poster above me said. That also enhances the occasional example previously provided, which shine all the brighter when a player discovers them. It's okay to do that once in awhile, especially when it rewards a desperate or challenged player for intelligent gameplay.

Just my two cents.

Yeah, I noticed that same trick with the SHHH fight. The door stays open several seconds longer than you need to hit the switch and fall back, to the point I wondered if that was the intended strategy or not.

Speaking of cheese, I was able to trigger the second big fight inside the library - the one with the barons, cybers and imps, and the mancubi on a few platforms above the player. If you stick out just so you can trigger the fight to begin without going down there. It was on GZdoom, in case it's that rather than any flaw in the map.

Finally, I found the way to get out of the last fight via a straferun back to the big caco arena. If I'm being honest, I liked doing that more than the intended way. Not out of a matter of challenge, but with how the level played and how you were going back and forth a lot, it felt like something that fit the level's design. It was one of those skips that yeah, was probably cheese but also one that felt really rewarding to find. On a related note, going back to the start where the BFG is results in all the cacos in that last fight coming through the big window. Gave me a chance to use the ammo I left there.

Great level overall. It's a different kind of feel and slaughter than map 16 or even 32.

Hi, found a small bug in Map 16.

In the latter half of the level there's a circular arena full of blood, where you fight a few dozen Barons of Hell at once. On one of the small platforms leading to it, there's a little square of damaging floor, pictured. It's a pain floor as well, not just the muddy water texture.

I'm most of the way through Map 16 now (the next big building set piece after the big building with the BFG, the one with the clumps of cells in the pits) and the map's both grown on me and worn at me. I haven't had time to play in more than little snatches here and there, so it's been a fragmentary playthrough. A fight here, an encounter there, whittle it down as time permits.  This is absolutely one of those maps where the terrain is as much an enemy as the demons, as you're almost always close to falling off to your doom.

More and more I find myself appreciating the sheer scope of the map as well as how consistently it presents the same basic problems in different ways. Thematically, while I don't care for all the browns in the map, it's absolutely sold me on the overall theme and feel. The BFG room and the escape from it in particular stuck with me as impressive.

At the same time, the constant feel of being close to falling off along with tight, painful fights wears on me. The map's good, don't get me wrong, but it's also stressful because of that. I think it was called an endurance run or something like that in the readme, and that is 100% accurate. It's the first Doom map that I've both adored and felt drained to play.

As far as the fights? Most of them are solid if not spectacular. The main standout is the BFG fight, which I feel is both a good fight and comes together excellently. It took me a bit, from the first few flailing attempts, to one in three runs being lost due to falling or getting knocked into the muck to experimenting with and mostly rejecting opening the exit and trying to whittle them down in there. It felt fair, with several close efforts until I got a win, and I feel like the fight was manageable the entire time. Also, I somehow didn't notice there were two megaspheres until I was cleaning up after my winning run, which...yeah, not going to lie, I would've cleared it way earlier if I hadn't somehow missed that.

Fun stuff all in all, but after map 16, I hope 17 lays off the falling hazards plus is a bit looser with backtracking. I feel like a palate cleanser would be advised, something more like map 8 or 11.

So I went back and finished Map 32, from the hedge maze on. The hedge maze has been commented on by others and since edited, so I won't go into it beyond noting that I agree with those critiques and I hope the changes make it better. 

The fights before the red key aren't bad, though nothing too challenging here. I imagine that if you somehow come out of the hedge maze in good shape that this margin of error makes it even smoother. You have an unusual amount of space to work with compared to a typical Sunder map, which really lets you take a defensive stance if you need to.

The fight for the red key's really a lot of fun. It feels like there's a few workable approaches here, I chose to blitz the switches and escape, which worked out well for me after a handful of false starts with the viles. The battle fairly trivial from there, all you have to do is mill down the cacos, which isn't hard if you have ammo reserves from the big battle out there, and then optionally gun down the revenants through the gate. I assume using the tunnels and fighting in the midst of it could work as well, though that strategy didn't appeal to me. Likewise, I thought about blasting through the viles and retreating back the way I came, but escaping seemed better. Fun fight either way, I enjoyed gauging the different approaches to it.

One note on entering the manor: If you run up the stairs first thing before the entrance finishes rising, the entrance won't close shut. Combine this with jumping down the side of the stairs, rather than going down them, and you can go back outside once to collect ammo and anything else you left behind. Is that intentional or is it a small bug, I wonder?

The manor itself is fun and mixes it up as you go. I liked it and the style, especially the library (a good sign for map 17 in the future, I hope), though nothing truly stood out. There was a distinct feeling of a lull a few times in the manor, where it felt unusually free of fights as you wandered for the next one. Mix that in with some small stakes battles in between the few set piece battles there and I found it a good change of pace from the earlier antics in the map.

Finally, the last fight is...well, I think it's harder than the hedge maze, but also a lot less annoying. As frantic and somewhat luck based as it is, it also felt a lot more manageable. Sure, I had a lot of deaths from rockets, baron fireballs, pits (I really liked how most of the ledges above the pits were jumpable, but every so often there's one that isn't but just a little, and can easily bait you when you're frantically dodging, by the way) and so on, but I liked it. At first I was surprised there wasn't an invulnerability sphere, but in retrospect I think that was the right choice. An invuln would trivialize a good chunk of this fight. As it is, I felt it was a delicate dance of eliminating enough annoyances (fliers in particular) to have room to dodge and whittle down the horde. Great stuff.

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I glanced at the map 31 changes outside, good stuff. I really like the theme now and I hope the inside continues that feeling of everything slowly corroding away to the acid. The way there's points in the building where the acid's leaking out is really inspired.

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I've started map 16. I'm immediately reminded of The Cage, which is my favorite map in Sunder. Paradoxically I haven't gotten into it at all. I'm not far into it yet (just past the first room, to the fight with the barons and imps), but both the fights aren't doing it for me so far and the thematics of it feel a lot different from map 9. Map 9's always had a strong sense of purpose and unity to me, one great cube of metal in a valley full of blood. Everything feels part of one greater whole that you transverse, you know?

From what I've seen of map 16, it feels a lot more...ramshackle, I'd say? Like a city that grew organically atop all this old wood, linked together haphazardly, and that being able to travel from one section to another is as much good fortune than it is this city working as designed. This is a good thing, there's certainly a strong theme to the map from what I've seen (both playing and on some glimpses of the map on twitch), it just isn't doing it for me as a matter of taste. Still, I do like and approve of the sheer sense of place map 16 has, something that every map in Sunder does so well.

Played through map 15. I managed it on GZdoom but not by much, the frame rate was bad but never hit slideshow levels or anything prohibitive. It's an interesting map and an absolute spectacle to be sure. On that front it's incredible and deserves every bit of praise it's gotten.

I don't consider it done yet since I haven't figured out the normal way to get to the secret exit. It's something outside the final arena I think since the way to that opens back up but the elevator back up doesn't work, but I can't find anything at all. Gave it over an hour, I'll come back to it in a day or two and try and find out what you're supposed to do.

Edit: Finally found it.

This is one of the few Doom levels that's ever blown me away. I'm not sure how I feel about in depth. It's a 10/10 even if it has some issues.

Hi, I've been playing through map 32 and thought I'd add a bit of my own feedback. I've made it up to the hedge maze fight.

I think the map's too restrictive on backtracking. It seems to be one of those maps where you get cut off from going backwards every few sections, which is really too bad. Maybe this changes later, but comments I've read suggests it doesn't.

I really like the second battle in the map (the one for the BFG) because I feel there's two distinct ways to approach it. You can grab the BFG and get stuck in the area to clean it out aggressively, or fall back immediately and try to handle it with distance, infighting and what ammo you do have. Both approaches were enjoyable for me and I appreciated the choice getting the BFG poses, and the question of when you should grab it.

The giant battle in front of the manor's great. There's tons of space and angles to work with it, as well as plenty of different approaches to deal with the horde of demons. I had a blast playing with ways to manage that. That being said, I think it is short on health. Personally, I'd suggest adding a few medikits or a soulsphere by the third switch in the sequence (the one by the gate that you can see the red key through). This would also make going after the cybers atop the hill a little more viable for someone who didn't save an invulnerability or two for it.

Speaking of, I'm not sure if I had bad luck or not, but I didn't have a single cyber on that hill die from infighting. That made dealing with the cybers at the end tricky to say the least. I used them plenty to thin down the horde, so it wasn't for a lack of trying.

The hedge maze itself looks absolutely helllish. I haven't played it beyond a few half hearted attempts so far, but unless you can get vile jumped out of it altogether, it looks like a godawful slog of a fight. It's narrow, cramped, hard and frankly very easy to get cut off from supplies at the wrong time and die. It feels like you have to have an absolute grasp of it unless I'm missing a strategy or a trick. It's also the only part of the map I don't like from a gameplay viewpoint, as while I appreciate a change of pace, it feels too out of sync with the rest of the map thus far.

All of that's one thing and if it was fun, I'd still say it's fine. The problem is that it all comes together to be really unpleasant and unfun to play. I'd enjoyed the map greatly until then, thinking it was a 10/10 for sure, but that hedge maze is bad. God help whomever tries to UV-max that. I'll pick it up tonight and try to find a way through, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Relatedly, the little cacodemon/arachnotron/demon fight before the hedge maze was a nice and fairly easy change of pace after the giant battle before it. It felt too easy, but after the last fight, I think a cool down is fitting.

Edit because I forgot to mention it: Also, I haven't done much in the other maps, but 15/16 are occasionally getting crashes for me when I check the automap on them, especially if I gave myself a computer area map item. I'm on gzdoom 4.0, which on checking isn't current, so updating may fix that anyway. Mentioning it anyway, just in case it's helpful.

Any news of an update? It's been a few months, wondering if anything's happening here. Hope so, it's an awesome wad.