My own take on E3M8: Dis

Filename: DisV2
Version: Final, unless someone discovers a really bigarse bug.
Compatibility: Plays in Doom 1. Only tested with ZDoom, i think it should work on most ports though.
Description:My own version of E3M8 of Ultimate Doom
Credits: Myself and ID for inspiration
Download: http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload9/disV2.rar

For you that wanted a slightly harder version of Dis instead of the easy one that came with Doom 1. I haven't completed it on a pistol start yet, so yeah, it's kinda hard. I started on it yesterday as a random project, and it turned out pretty good. Thought i might share it with you. :)

Now, this is simple enough to remember.

No screenshots, no download.

It's kinda hard to make screenshots in a map that's a single room and takes less than a minute to beat :P.

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/4571/doom00009sm.png
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/5737/doom00029fs.png
http://img423.imageshack.us/img423/4/doom00047us.png
http://img423.imageshack.us/img423/2340/doom00058mk.png

Note that this map is mostly a big arena, this isn't as überdetailed as i can make it. ^__^

EDIT: Belial: Damnit, i had a bumload of trouble when playtesting this level, i thought it would be hard enough this time. >__<

Anyway, this level was more of a break from a bigger level which i'm doing, now i know that i shall have no less than 900 monsters on my map. :D

Da Spadger said:
EDIT: Belial: Damnit, i had a bumload of trouble when playtesting this level, i thought it would be hard enough this time. >__<

Beta testing with other people that can provide input goes a long way; skill varies greatly and its best to work with people that can kick major monster butt.

Unrelatedly, I see the screenshots display ZDoom's ability to shit on the fireball and energy sprites by washing out their color in a really ugly way (while still making them surreally translucent like Boom did.)

I didn't tried your wad but judging by the screenshots it seems to be extremly easy to cause monsters infight, that's a very "NO NO" if you want to make a hard Spidermastermind battle, specially if the monsters are Barons or other monsters that can cause major damage to the spider, I wouldn't be surprised if you could kill the spider in your map without a single shot and loosing less than 40%

E3M8 if you try it from scratch, try not to cause infight, and you enter the arena straight forward (not turning left at the begining) it's an interesting challange I think that's probably the way id tested the map. Of course your map should also be harder on this way I know.

That bfg9000 makes it way too easy I would remove it if I where you, maybe it will be more fun with an rocket launcher.

And remove all the other monsters from it, like Vegeta said infighting makes it too easy.
Ive seen an spiderboss being melee to death by just two imps.

It's way too easy anyway. It's so simple to get infighting going that you can complete the map in well under a minute without firing a single shot.

I'll continue to work on it then, do anyone have any ideas for preventing monster infights and still keeping some monsters?

Da Spadger said:

I'll continue to work on it then, do anyone have any ideas for preventing monster infights and still keeping some monsters?

Something that cant attack the spider maybe? (requires level design modification).

Ahh, this one should be more of a pain in the back. I made it harder to inflict infightning, the spider is on a higher area, making it unable to run into the middle of the area and get shot. Also, i replaced the Barons with Shotgun zombies and put them in places where the spider couldn't shoot them that easy. This one MUST be hard enough. =)

http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload1/disV2.1.rar

Worse.

In Zdoom at least, the shotgunners on the pillars are too close to the edge and are stuck. The spider is in such a small space that it spends too long jogging around its little enclosure and not firing at you. Plus, it is always in the same part of the map so you always know where it is, you can easily shelter from it and it can never bring the fight to you.

Being surrounded on all sides by hitscan weapons maybe harder, but it's frustrating not fun. Being peppered as soon as you appear by many enemies with almost unavoidable attacks is not good IMO.

However, having said that, I was able to find a relatively protected spot that I could shelter in. I waited until the shotgunners and spider had reduced each-others numbers down to single figures, threw a few rockets towards the handful of remaining shotgunners and then dispatched the spider at my leisure.

Well, I just played it in Doom.exe. :)

It didn't crash, and I exited the map without firing a shot (this was on the initial version), even though I could hardly see what what going on due to all the HOM (HOM-type in appearance at least) and other errors.

The map crashes Prboom-plus, Eternity and Chocolate Doom. I'd guess that's due to texture-related problems, but I'm not going to spend time investigating it. Might be an interesting map for fraggle to look at, given that Chocolate Doom fails to emulate Doom.exe's behaviour here.

BTW, the new version has some invalid tag errors.

Da Spadger said:

Ahh, this one should be more of a pain in the back. I made it harder to inflict infightning, the spider is on a higher area, making it unable to run into the middle of the area and get shot. Also, i replaced the Barons with Shotgun zombies and put them in places where the spider couldn't shoot them that easy. This one MUST be hard enough. =)

http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload1/disV2.1.rar

Sorry for this, but it's very true

Kristus said:

Now, this is simple enough to remember.
No screenshots, no download.

A signle screenshot should suffice I think.
And don't make this an obssession, chances to make a spidermastermind hard but fun and playable are VERY reduced (the maps were I saw this could be counted with the fingers of a single hands and still remaining fingers).

I like to see screenshots too, but i'll not refuse to DL a file just because there is no screeny immediately apparent. A screenshot of this level would be bigger than the rar anyway.

I'll make one last shot at making this playable. I do know that i don't want the lesser monsters to run down to me so the spider can mow them down. That's solved by the level design. Hitscan monsters were a no-no. Maybe i could put a lot of imps up there and a few behind the possible shelters? That shouldn't be frustratingly hard, but if an imp gets hurted by the spider, the fight would be over in a second.

EDIT: I should have made my own version of E2M8 instead, cyberdemons are much meaner than spiderdemons. -_-

Da Spadger: I should have made my own version of E2M8 instead, cyberdemons are much meaner than spiderdemons. -_-

Bullshit, Spider demons are hitscan monsters, if you are fairly good at avoiding projectiles while staying away from a wall, The cyberdemon becomes Easy.

i havent tested this though, And probably won't.

- sausage -

I prefer to use cybers as an end boss over an spider mastermind.
Spiders masterminds are very easy to hit cause of their size, and need more space to move arround.

Actually I never made an map with spider masterminds before, maybe I should't try to remake E3M8 :)

dutch devil said:

Actually I never made an map with spider masterminds before, maybe I should't try to remake E3M8 :)

Holy crap! I'm a pioneer! :D

Anyway, i made some changes, and i think this is as faultless as i can make it. Things to note is that there's imps at the edges of the map, making sure you don't set up a tent or something. No monsters on the pillars, but you can lower them to get access to two rapidfire weapons, and giving up valuable shelters in the process. I was thinking of adding a linedef that would stop the spiderdemon from walking into the middle and get shot, starting any infights, but i want to keep working on my other map. This one was just a temporary map which turned out better than i expected.

Download: http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload0/disv2.2.rar

Screens for you that likes to click on stuff:

http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=doom00005xf.png
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/3582/doom00014qo.png
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/808/doom00024sx.png <-- :(

I have to say that the screens are much better than the first ones, But this just doesnt tempt me that much....

- sausage -

Well, it plays much better but there are problems.

It crashed prboom and edge. Vanilla Doom didn't crash but the whole level was a strange HOM-y mess.

Zdoom and GZdoom played it, but the pillars to give access to the weapons wouldn't lower.

Well ding dong in my funny hat, i forgot to set a tag for the sectors. It didn't take long to fix though. I also set the lower unpegged flag for a few textures, nothing screenshotworthy though, looks a bit nicer though if you have a sharp eye. ^_^

Download: http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload1/disv2.2.zip

Note that the above link for DisV2.2 doesn't work now.

Unfortunately, i have no idea on how to make it work with PrBoom and Edge, i mainly use Zdoom and the source ports based on them. Maybe it was because i couldn't export the map, due to the none of the nodebuilders working except for ZDBSP fast build and ZenNode fast build.

Heh, well you half fixed the lowering pillars. You gave the lines around one pillar tag #2 and the lines around the other tag #3 but tagged both sectors with tag #2.

I suspect your node building method does explain why it doesn't run in those other ports but I haven't had a chance to check.

Yes. Rebuilding (I used glbsp, but presumably any would do) makes it work OK.