Less annoying E3M7

[Nevander]

Download:

https://www.doomworld.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=84499

 

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Let me preface by saying this is only my opinion, but E3M7 sucks. It's confusing, frustrating, and the constant damage sector crossing is irritating (there are lots of suits but it's still annoying).

 

I took some time to make my own modified version of E3M7 to provide clues to which portals should be taken depending on the needed keys, fixed some inescapable pits, added raising floors so you only have to cross the blood for each portal once, and improved texture usage across the whole map. Format is still vanilla, about to test in Choco Doom.

 

My question now is, am I allowed to post my modifed E3M7? Not completely sure what is allowed or disallowed in the modding IWAD maps department. I would like to see if anyone else would enjoy my less annoying version.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Nevander

[VanaheimRanger]

I would assume you can post it to Dropbox or moddb or somewhere then link it here.  But it whouldn't be allowed on idgames archive.  Maps of Chaos be that way.  Also your Retribution TC.

[amackert]

E3M7 is great. Just need to know the route.

[Doomkid]

Finding and mastering the correct path is what makes that map fun though :(

[Avoozl]

Honestly E3M7 is one of my most favorite maps from E3.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Avoozl

[Jon]

Once i'd related the teleports to the final room things made a lot more sense for me. Before that it felt like random teleport salad. But I think it's probably a good early example of why teleport puzzles in general are a bad idea. I give it a pass because it was one of the first, they were exploring ideas and it's only hindsight that  we know to avoid these puzzles. 

 

E3 remains my favorite episode and I enjoy speed running it. My private record (nothing world beating) is full episode (Inc e3m9)  in 7 mins, skill 3.

[printz]

5 hours ago, Jon said:

But I think it's probably a good early example of why teleport puzzles in general are a bad idea.

You know you can add marks in the automap to keep track of teleportation routes? Open the automap and hit M to place a mark in your current location. It's not a bad design if you have ways to manage it.

[Loud Silence]

I like this map. It's not that hard to save game, check automap and go to portals.

[Jon]

1 hour ago, printz said:

You know you can add marks in the automap to keep track of teleportation routes? Open the automap and hit M to place a mark in your current location. It's not a bad design if you have ways to manage it.

 

That feature doesn't address the problems with this map at all. Not least because you run out of numbers and the markers wrap before you've hit all the teleports. There's also no relationship between the source and destination teleports geometrically: for example the South-east most source teleporter doesn't lead to the south-eastmost destination pad. Also the teleport columns are oriented such that you can't see their openings until you walk all around them so they're easy to overlook. You can teleport to the south-east most teleport by jumping the gap from the platform in the end-room where you raise steps up from the blood to where the zombiemen are - and then if you fall in the moat around that teleport and you haven't visited that area already, you get stuck and die. I mean this level is like shooting fish in a barrel. There's a slime maze. There's an exit teleporter that you have to put some effort into not stepping on before you've got the key which is hidden away behind it.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Jon

[riderr3]

Wow. Reading the title I thought that this is another similar topic by hardcore_gamer.

On topic: in this map you need to watch carefully and remember stuff.

[SiFi270]

I wish when id had introduced -altdeath they'd made it so that radiation suits respawn in any mode as well.

[leodoom85]

Quote

op title

What?

Since all people above said about memorizing the map and the path to reach the exit, another tip is to get some of the secrets and the bfg if you can to not lose chances of survival and to one shot the mom spider and finish the episode for good. I found it more tedious in the first gameplays that I did and yea ..trick is to get used of the map quickly and use the radsuits well. It's one interesting map and better than some other maps of the same episode, like Unholy Cathedral...

[OliveTree]

If the maps of chaos can be released publicly without any second glances, I see no reason why this couldnt be

[NuMetalManiak]

Have you tried looking at the Classicdoom.com website and finding the map of E3M7 with teleporters marked?

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

Making the teleporter puzzle slightly more intuitive is a pretty legitimate change IMO.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Marn

[Loud Silence]

If we are going to criticize original Doom: enhanced E2M9 map really would be cool. Now it's just a box with all keys is one spot lol. E1M8, E2M8 are ridiculous as final levels too.

[jazzmaster9]

1 hour ago, Rimantas said:

 E1M8, E2M8 are ridiculous as final levels too.

I thought E2M8 was a pretty good Boss Map.

Its just You the Cyberdemons and his minion of Lost Souls with only a Rocket Launcher and wits to keep you alive. Pretty epic.

[printz]

3 hours ago, Marn said:

Making the teleporter puzzle slightly more intuitive is a pretty legitimate change IMO.

Why? Can't you afford some exploration of each new teleport box and mentally keep track where they lead? You also get plenty of radiation suits.

[Loud Silence]

@jazzmaster9 Well, it's not bad level, but i would like more. Lost souls and Cyberdemon are pretty easy to kill. Simple map layout makes it even more easier. E3M8 had simple map too, but gave slightly more challenge. E4M8 gives pretty fun action if you go for 100% kills.

[jazzmaster9]

Just now, Rimantas said:

@jazzmaster9 Well, it's not bad level, but i would like more.

Like i said its a boss level. Anymore and it would feel too bloated. The focus is more on the Cyberdemon here.

The only reason E3M8 is hard is beacause the SpiderDemon is hitscan and cannot be dodged.

The level itself is pretty much the same concept as E2M8.

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

32 minutes ago, printz said:

Why? Can't you afford some exploration of each new teleport box and mentally keep track where they lead? You also get plenty of radiation suits.

 

Meh, I just remember running through the map on my first playthrough and constantly running around in circles near the exit area.

[Loud Silence]

1 hour ago, jazzmaster9 said:

The level itself is pretty much the same concept as E2M8.

Yep. I said it gives only slightly more challenge.

[Nevander]

5 hours ago, EtherBot said:

If the maps of chaos can be released publicly without any second glances, I see no reason why this couldnt be

The main issue though is that maps of chaos are heavily modified. This one however is very minor touch ups and changes, it's essentially still the original E3M7.

 

5 hours ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Have you tried looking at the Classicdoom.com website and finding the map of E3M7 with teleporters marked?

The point of my modifications though is to make the map or any other guides obsolete. The concept is to relate teleporters to destinations without needing to constantly remember which goes where and what order to take them in. I always forget the right path every time I play through Doom. To be honest, playing my version is ironically making the original easier to navigate.

 

5 hours ago, Marn said:

Making the teleporter puzzle slightly more intuitive is a pretty legitimate change IMO.

Exactly. That is what I am getting at.

[Pegleg]

16 hours ago, Nevander said:

Let me preface by saying this is only my opinion, but E3M7 sucks. It's confusing, frustrating, and the constant damage sector crossing is irritating (there are lots of suits but it's still annoying).

 

E3M7 is interesting to me from the vastness of some of its areas. Now, I think an area that large would probably ending up full of monsters, but in the original E3M7, it's more on the "exploration" side. That being said, having to cross the blood sectors can be irritating and somewhat stressful, especially if you've run out of rad suits and haven't been keeping track of what went where.

 

4 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

It's one interesting map and better than some other maps of the same episode, like Unholy Cathedral...

 

 

Unholy Cathedral was interesting in that it let you skip half the map if you wanted to.

 

3 hours ago, Rimantas said:

If we are going to criticize original Doom: enhanced E2M9 map really would be cool. Now it's just a box with all keys is one spot lol.

 

E2M9 falls into the class of gimmicky secret levels. By that, I mean, it's about infighting and finding mandatory secret keys. While I like the automap shape, I think the map itself could be improved on.

 

3 hours ago, Rimantas said:

E1M8, E2M8 are ridiculous as final levels too.

 

E1M8 and E2M8 were great at building anticipation for what was coming, particularly if you didn't know what that was (which I didn't when I first played them way back in 1994). I thought they worked rather well as boss levels. Could they have been longer? Sure, particularly E2M8. But that wasn't really the point.

[printz]

21 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

E2M9 falls into the class of gimmicky secret levels. By that, I mean, it's about infighting and finding mandatory secret keys. While I like the automap shape, I think the map itself could be improved on.

I disagree, E2M9 falls in the class of shock secret levels, where you're suddenly ambushed by too many barons of hell in a small dump of a cave, and if you try to run, you're greeted by a lot more cacodemons than you ever saw to that point. Then you see the strange combo of lava and water and the never-before-seen hanging barons.

 

Pretty sure I did see infighting in E2M9 when I was a newbie, but that didn't mean I would survive all the other cacodemons who'd still target me, especially at that low frame rate of that time.

 

Mandatory secret key woe? Come on, after surviving 4 barons and 20 cacodemons (or how many), is that part still a problem? It was pretty obvious from Wolfenstein that if you can't see an exit, the secret is straight ahead, marked by some decorations.

 

Oh, and the reason all keys are so close together, one after another? It's quite a clever one actually. In nightmare mode you may be tempted to dash for the exit. Well, you'll probably die trying, because for each door which opens so slowly, cacodemons will get plenty of time to shoot you fatally until you manage to exit.

Edited December 19, 2018 by printz

[Jon]

Unholy cathedral and e2m1 are more annoying IMHO. I can't fault e{1,2,3}m9

[Dark Pulse]

19 hours ago, Nevander said:

My question now is, am I allowed to post my modifed E3M7? Not completely sure what is allowed or disallowed in the modding IWAD maps department. I would like to see if anyone else would enjoy my less annoying version.

Pretty sure that as long as it's a modified map and you don't do anything silly like include sprites or texture data, you'd be in the clear, since then you can't illegally play the map without a legal IWAD (or Freedoom).

 

Not like there wasn't tons of vanilla map hacks back in the day, after all.

[Diabolución]

According to the licence of Doom Collector’s Edition (point 2), you are allowed to share it. Uploading it to /idgames is another entirely different story...

 

https://pastebin.com/TUefk2FD

 

Mandatory disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer.

[amackert]

13 hours ago, riderr3 said:

On topic: in this map you need to watch carefully and remember stuff.

 

I know, right? An oldschool game with memorization being required? What a concept! That's surely never happened before.

[Juza]

I don't like E3M7 either. It's just a confusing switch hunt with a bunch of Pinkies all around the map.