Vale do Desespero [P.T.S.D. Edition] - My first map made from scratch, but revised

[[Vitz!]]

I was a bit hesitant to make this post, but finally I found enough courage to start a topic about it.

 

 

____________________________________

 

Download links
MediaFire 

MEGA 

I might consider uploading this to the /idgames in the future if people think it's a good idea, I'll just need some guidance since I'm a fairly new user to this forum.

____________________________________

 

"Doomguy got into this valley of despair by accident after venturing in Naraku and entering the Demonic Raft - a strange structure that resembles a boat-like thing - and going down the River Styx.

It seems a big war has happened in this place and many marines you knew died while fighting for their lives and humanity, but the demons that murdered them seem unscathed.

It's time to bring a true hell of despair to those wicked beings and avenge the comrades that have fallen."

____________________________________

 

A big "hellish city" map with 3 towers in a valley of dripping blood. It mixes military, hell and city textures to give it enough variety and make it more visually interesting. I was inspired by Duke Nukem 3D, Plutonia 2, Sigil, Jenesis, Eviternity and by Map 29 of Doom 2 when making this map. I wanted to give a feel of "end of a wad" map with this one and "The Living End" was a big inspiration in that regard.

Big thanks and shoutout to @Austinado and @Pablo_Doom_Guy for giving feedback and making me consider reworking on the previous version of this map. I changed the map to be harder, with less ammo and health than the previous one (it had too much) and added/changed some geometry and stuff in the wad file to give it some new life and improve gameplay. I also changed how to get a secret or two, added an extra one and also re-positioned a lot of items in the map.

In other words this is just the definitive edition of the thing. I decided to call it "P.T.S.D. Edition" because it would be too boring to just call it "ver. 1.5" or something like that. "P.T.S.D." is intentionally left open for interpretation, but if really you NEED an interpretation of mine, here is a spoiler tagged thing for you: 
 

Spoiler

Prepare To Suffer Dearly

After this map I'll try my hardest to make a much... MUCH smaller map. Working on big maps is way too much work. Especially for somebody who is starting to work on map making recently like myself. Maybe a tech based one? It would be nice.

Anyway I hope you have fun with the map if you happen to download it.
____________________________________

Info
 

• iWAD required: DOOM2.wad (if you're playing on ZDoom based ports you won't need to choose the iwad on startup)
• Number of maps: Just one.
• Size/Duration: Fairly large if you're used to smaller classic maps. It can take between 25 to 40 minutes to finish depending on the difficulty and your skill (if you go for 100% secrets you might get the higher ball). This is no slaughtermap.
• Monster Count: 350+. Probably more than 400 if you set up your sourceport to count Lost Souls.
• Secrets: 11
• Recommended difficulty: Ultra Violence if you like a challenge, Hurt me Plenty if you can't take it. The map was tuned with Ultra Violence in mind.
• Ports Tested and that work (for the most part, check known issues): GZDoom, LZDoom, ZDoom, Zandronum, PrBoom+, Glboom+ and Odamex. This is a Boom compatible map, after all, so this is to be expected.
• Mods: Vanilla preferred. Mouselook is optional, jumping and crouching aren't useful for anything. Playing with mods is optional, but the ones that change monsters will override some DeHackEd code I added to the wad, so I don't recommend it.
• Features: Lost Souls have 50hp and the Spider Mastermind has a smaller collision box.
  If you're playing this map in Pr/GlBoom+ ver. 2.5.1.7 it sends you to map 30 instead of the End Game Cast screen like in the ZDoom ports (that's a nod to one of my inspirations when making this map and a compromise for it not recognizing EndGameC as a valid map). This doesn't work in previous versions of the sourceport and they send you to Underhalls (Map 02 of Doom 2) instead.

 

____________________________________

Credits for custom stuff

 

Spoiler

• Music

Title Loop 1 - Shoji Meguro (from Shin Megamie Tensei III: Nocturne, sequenced by Thomash Lee)
Heartful Cry - Shoji Meguro (from Persona 3 FES, sequenced by Thomash Lee)
Entralink - Shota Kageyama (from Pokémon Black & White, Sequenced by Wobuffet3)

Large Map - Shoji Meguro (from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, sequenced by Thomash Lee)

The Heartful Cry, Title Loop 1 and Large Map midi renditions used in this wad were slightly modified by me to better suit my tastes and the map itself. Entralink wasn't changed at all. I got all midi tracks from Video Game Music Archive.
 

• Textures

Lavafall and Waterfall - from Oblige (I still don't know who exactly made them, but they suited the vanilla feel of the map)

 

• Special Thanks

Ermac2314
GAA1992

Facínora
Austinado
Tyrant120

... and the Doom community!

 

____________________________________

Known issues (that I can't simply 'fix'): 

 

Spoiler

• Demos in PrBoom+ and GlBoom+ version 2.5.1.7 bug a lot and they don't register movement properly. So while the WAD does provide demos of the map, they don't work like they should.
• Graphical issues appear if you're playing on software mode in general, but they don't render the maps unplayable. Give preference to OpenGL if you can't stand seeing textures not appearing properly and other stuff like that.
• Pr/GlBoom+ version 2.5.1.5 and earlier have problems with the demos as well, but instead of playing them wrongly they just make the program crash instead as soon as it tries to play them. It says they don't recognize the demo format.

 

Feel free to report more issues if you find them and I'll try to fix them, though I'm kinda burned out from working on this map now so it might take a while.

____________________________________

Bonus Content
 

Spoiler

• Yoma Facility.wad - An Oblige generated map that I enhanced for better fluidity and gameplay. It's the first map I've ever worked on. It has that music from E3L3 from Duke Nukem 3D: "Taking Names" by Bobby Prince.
• Naraku Middle Strata.wad - Another Oblige generated map that I modified. Took a lot more liberties with this one, added a new area and gave it some cool stuff like floor cracks. This features the "Large Map" theme mentioned earlier in the intermission screen and the map music is the "Ginza" theme from Shin Megami Tensei (sequenced by Stockman).
• Vale do Desespero.wad - The vanilla version of the map in this topic. A bit rough around the edges in some places, but still a fun map to play in my opinion. Good for people who like to make comparisons, I guess? You can't convince me this is the better one though. Not in a million years.
• Weirdly Rebalanced Doom.deh - A DeHackEd mod experiment I've done recently. Some weaker weapons are faster, some monsters are more aggressive... It's weird, but I'm probably going to use some of these changes in a future map and I guess it's interesting enough to grant a download. (not enough to grant its own topic, though...)
• Acerola Doom - A Doom mod I finished recently that rebalances Doom entirely. Please give it some love.

 

All wads work with Doom 2, but the first one used Plutonia.wad as a resource pack.

____________________________________

Changelog
 

Spoiler

12/12/2019

• Changed the direction an archvile was facing so he can properly see the player
• Added some impassable linedefs to avoid the player to get on unwanted places while also changing the position of some things for the same effect

12/14/2019

• Fixed a misaligned texture in the third building.
• There is a candle indicating where you should interact with a wall in the final room.
• The wall that lowers when you first enter the final room is now slower.

12/22/2019

• Changed how the teleporting pinkies behave in the first building. They now teleport in the demonic chapel too.
• Changed lighting effects in various areas of the map to help with the atmosphere. Biggest change is in the outer area.

 

____________________________________

100% Walkthrough
 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by [Vitz!]

[baja blast rd.]

For the sake of a tidy OP, I'd suggest using the spoiler function and hiding the content under 'Credits for custom stuff', 'Known issues', and 'Bonus content' in three spoilers. It would be a good idea to move the download link much closer to the screenshot or italicized story text. 

 

Here is a great example of an info-packed OP that works.

 

People will read what they want to anyway; but you'll make the OP look more streamlined and manageable and emphasize the most important info. 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by rdwpa

[[Vitz!]]

12 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

For the sake of a tidy OP, I'd suggest using the spoiler function and hiding the content under 'Credits for custom stuff', 'Known issues', and 'Bonus content' in three spoilers. It would be a good idea to move the download link much closer to the screenshot or italicized story text. 

 

Here is a great example of an info-packed OP that works.

 

People will read what they want to anyway; but you'll make the OP look more streamlined and manageable and emphasize the most important info. 

 

Thank you for the feedback. I properly edited it like you suggested.

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

Hey cool to see that you re worked your map =) , i'll download it and test it right now . 

 

Looking forward to play your smallers maps aswell 

[Redfive11]

that was very gut

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

I spend more time on the map this time , since i wanted to find more secrets than in my previous run , but while killing monsters . there's a blue armor nearly at the end of the map that was reachable on the last version of the map by sr-50 , and now it seems unreachable , but i didn't need it . 

 

 

i've also found 2 homs , 1 was fixed and i didn't check on the 2nd one  , i guess i will be able to fix it , and will post a picture of where i found them (didn't take a screenshot =S but i remember where they were) 

 

Final conclusion about this map : It's really an improved version , i really like the changes you made , challenging while not being super difficult. The final room now is real challenge .

 

Well Done ! . I would play any other big map of yours 

 

PS: 110% kills i hate arch-viles !!! grrr xD 

[[Vitz!]]

I'm glad you enjoyed your time playing my map!

And I'm also glad to know you had a bit more trouble with the challenge without being too unfair. That was my aim during the rebalancing and restructuring. 

 

22 minutes ago, Pablo_Doom_Guy said:

i've also found 2 homs , 1 was fixed and i didn't check on the 2nd one  , i guess i will be able to fix it , and will post a picture of where i found them (didn't take a screenshot =S but i remember where they were) 

Please show me those. I know there is a HOM in the acid pool area and that's not a missing texture! (I worked really hard on the textures to avoid this kind of problem)

I heard it's a problem with maps that have designs that are "too complex" for software rendering/classic rendering to handle. You won't see any HOMs if you play on an OpenGL sourceport! (I hope).

But yeah this pretty much confirms the presence of graphical issues in vanilla/software rendering ports.

 

Quote

There's a blue armor nearly at the end of the map that was reachable on the last version of the map by sr-50 , and now it seems unreachable , but i didn't need it . 

That blue armor should not be reachable in vanilla by any means and I wanted to correct that during the revision. The way to reach it should be a secret hence the secret tag. Otherwise it would be pointless to put such a tag on the thing. Heck, I've made the thing as far away as possible from the stairs to avoid people using mods to reach it! (though some mods will let them reach the thing regardless because possibilities are endless with those...)

I plan on posting a walkthrough of this map being 100%ed in the future if you're just curious to see where I hid some of those secrets. 

Edited December 9, 2019 by [Vitz!]
ended up misclicking and posting an unfinished version of the post... sorry!

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

Harder than the original version, i had to appeal a bit to some mods insgtead of the usual Smooth Doom, but definitely beatable and fun.

 

The overcharging of health and ammo thing was solved and now the map gets me spending ammo with caution.

 

Discovering the portal tricks saved my ass countless times.

[[Vitz!]]

41 minutes ago, GAA1992 said:

Discovering the portal tricks saved my ass countless times.

The portal tricks can be really useful, but I rarely used them at all in playtests, which is interesting to say the least. lol

Feel free to check out the other maps if you want (on they are on Bonus Content).

Edited December 10, 2019 by [Vitz!]

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

Yes that final room was not as easy as before , i really enjoyed the challenge there =) . For the rest of the map i tried to use infight as much as possible . The ammo balance was great also . 

 

Here are the 2 homs i've found

 

this one is fixed 

 

this one is not fixed , even by removing the front/back textures and it's still glitching 

 

 

Those are the 2 homs i've found . Nothing to worry about really . And thats probably because i'm running the map on dosbox . 

 

I'll check your other maps later today

 

PS: I've found the way to reach to that last blue armor (not going to lie , i just found the secret using slade xD , won't do this for the other secrets i'm missing) . But i still think that it's not needed , since you already have a megasphere on the previous section , and a megasphere inside the room after the stairs . 

 

[[Vitz!]]

Thanks for the feeback, @Pablo_Doom_Guy! Those halls of mirrors are things you'll only see in vanilla/software rendering (the stuff dosbox does). As I stated before OpenGL and stuff just don't show those graphical glitches at all.

How exactly did you fix the first one? I'm curious.

I'm uploading a walkthrough of this map. I had some sound problems, but I think it still serves its purpose so I'll upload that version anyway.

[[Vitz!]]

A little update for those who are interested in seeing myself playing the map or in a walkthrough showing where all the secrets are. 

I'm not putting this on a spoiler because the video won't play automatically anyway.
 

 

As stated before the video has some sound problems I couldn't fix, but I guess it still works.

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

13 hours ago, [Vitz!] said:

Thanks for the feeback, @Pablo_Doom_Guy! Those halls of mirrors are things you'll only see in vanilla/software rendering (the stuff dosbox does). As I stated before OpenGL and stuff just don't show those graphical glitches at all.

How exactly did you fix the first one? I'm curious.

I'm uploading a walkthrough of this map. I had some sound problems, but I think it still serves its purpose so I'll upload that version anyway.

 

No problem man, i've deleted "startan2" texture , that fixes that hom and automatically causes hom nro 2 on the window with the dropping lava =/ . I prefer having the window hom . I've tested the map on Gzdoom and there are no homs . 

[[Vitz!]]

32 minutes ago, Pablo_Doom_Guy said:

 

No problem man, i've deleted "startan2" texture , that fixes that hom and automatically causes hom nro 2 on the window with the dropping lava =/ . I prefer having the window hom . I've tested the map on Gzdoom and there are no homs . 

Weird. Doom builder check complains if I remove that texture because it expects that place to have one.

Man I gotta say, those classic ports sure are finicky...

Edited December 10, 2019 by [Vitz!]

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

7 hours ago, [Vitz!] said:

Weird. Doom builder check complains if I remove that texture because it expects that place to have one.

Man I gotta say, those classic ports sure are finicky...

 

also replacing startan2 with panel9 fixes the hom , but still creates the "window lava hom" . Considering it's working on dosbox i'm more than happy with this semi-fix . I can now see that custom ending screen you did, i've set the map as map30 , and use -warp 30 . 

 

[[Vitz!]]

Thanks to @Austinado now we have our first minor change to the wad!

I fixed some unwanted behavior and some linedefs that didn't block the player. More details in the newly added changelog!

The download links were properly updated of course!

Also thanks for the feedback @Pablo_Doom_Guy! I'll be waiting to see what you have to say about my earlier oblige modified maps.

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

Hey @[Vitz!] i've just finished playing your other 2 maps , they are great , easy compared to Vale do desespero , but they are a nice challenge , i think that Naraku Middle Strata is more complicated than Yoma Facility , or maybe i did better at infighting in yoma facility . Here you have my ending screens of both maps 

 

Yoma Facility 

 

 

Naraku Middle Strata (the last 2 rooms were a real challenge , maybe this one was harder because i fail to find the secrets (that invincibility save me at the end haha and was the only secret i found , ended up with almost no ammo ) 

 

 

I want to play more maps like this ,you definitely should do more maps like this in the future , this 3 maps have earned a spot on my dosbox menu now (guess i'll have to create a "Big maps" sub-menu maybe)  

 

 

I was not really a fan of big maps with a lot of monsters before playing vale do desespero , and after playing your other 2 maps i now want to take the challenge , step by step . 

 

Each map was finished in about 30-40 minutes 

 

PS: I'll have to replay vale do desespero then 

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

After a little break (i played some Doom64 for Doom2 xD with the doom graphics mod) i finally beat the latest version of vale do desespero 

 

 

 

Man now it was really a challenge , harder than the previous version , health management was a must , those megasphere's and soulsphere's were a life safer xD . 

 

I found a super safe pinky place , don't know if it was intended to be this way or not , but after you get the blue key , when you take back the elevator to the 2nd room that is now infested with pinky's , if you stay on the elevator or move to any of the sides , they wont be able to reach you and you punch them in the face 

 

 

Other than that , and considering that as a bug , i haven't faced any other bug . I'm still missing some secrets xD but i guess that i don't need the hidden extra goodies to finish the map after all. 

 

PS: I'm still hating arch-viles , specially the ones at the last room , but somehow i managed to survive to 4 cyber's (the last 2 ones with almost no health at all ) 

[[Vitz!]]

That's not a bug, @Pablo_Doom_Guy. Due to the way the map is made the area of the elevator is no accessible by monsters (the room itself is, but the elevator no). I thought it would be extremely bothersome to have enemies going up and down in the elevators easily and the players using that to cheap on the rooms I've built would make the difficulty of the map too trivial.

You can use that safe area to cheap this part out, but it will be extremely disorienting considering you're dealing with a turbo elevator trying to go up everytime. 
 

Spoiler

This part is more of a noob trap. Noob players will waste their ammo in those 15 pinkies that you get in ultra violence and have their ammo depleted when they get to the next area while more seasoned players will be smarter and use the berserk given to them earlier in the map.

Anyway, as I've stated before I plan on putting this wad on /idgames if there is enough demand for it. So, people, don't be shy and respond!

Edited December 12, 2019 by [Vitz!]

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

On 12/12/2019 at 2:09 PM, [Vitz!] said:

That's not a bug, @Pablo_Doom_Guy. Due to the way the map is made the area of the elevator is no accessible by monsters (the room itself is, but the elevator no). I thought it would be extremely bothersome to have enemies going up and down in the elevators easily and the players using that to cheap on the rooms I've built would make the difficulty of the map too trivial.

You can use that safe area to cheap this part out, but it will be extremely disorienting considering you're dealing with a turbo elevator trying to go up everytime. 
 

  Hide contents

This part is more of a noob trap. Noob players will waste their ammo in those 15 pinkies that you get in ultra violence and have their ammo depleted when they get to the next area while more seasoned players will be smarter and use the berserk given to them earlier in the map.

Anyway, as I've stated before I plan on putting this wad on /idgames if there is enough demand for it. So, people, don't be shy and respond!

 

Ahh i see , it makes sense , both sides (outside of the elevator) are safe too . If you give me a berserk pack i must punch pinkiess and imps in the face xD (well almost everything , except from cyber demon and spider mastermind of course). 

 

You should submit your map to Decino , he has beaten okuplok , so expect him to beat any slaughtermap . He has a great amount of subscribers and a well decent amount of viewers on his live streams. This could make your map get the popularity it deserves

  

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by Pablo_Doom_Guy

[[Vitz!]]

15 minutes ago, Pablo_Doom_Guy said:

You should submit your map to Decino , he has beaten okuplok , so expect him to beat any slaughtermap . He has a great amount of subscribers and a well decent amount of viewers on his live streams. This could make your map get the popularity it deserves.

I will send that map to him. I already follow his channel and I made this map with (also) him in mind.

[[Vitz!]]

Made more minor changes to the map thanks to @HAK3180's feedback (details on the changelog section of the OP) and added a little dehacked experiment I've done these days in the bonus content.

Nothing too major. I don't want to rerecord that walkthrough...

[baja blast rd.]

On 12/13/2019 at 12:10 AM, Pablo_Doom_Guy said:

You should submit your map to Decino , he has beaten okuplok , so expect him to beat any slaughtermap . He has a great amount of subscribers and a well decent amount of viewers on his live streams. This could make your map get the popularity it deserves

 

 

Yeah, I'm whipping out 'blunt' mode here.  

 

*Excessively savescummed his way through Okuplok using poor strategies (both defaults and 'learned' ones), and nonexistent slaughter specialist mechanics (e.g. not even two-shotting a cyb). He is a solid player and fun to watch, but that stream spectacle doesn't mean anything -- any decent slaughter specialist or even speedrunner in general would do a lot better. I wouldn't expect feedback taken from that approach to be useful for hard slaughtermaps (especially much shorter ones but with harder individual encounters). Fortunately, this one [edit: Vale Do Desespero] is not that, or even remotely that.  

Edited December 18, 2019 by rdwpa

[[Vitz!]]

2 hours ago, rdwpa said:

 

Yeah, I'm whipping out 'blunt' mode here.  

 

*Excessively savescummed his way through Okuplok using poor strategies (both defaults and 'learned' ones), and nonexistent slaughter specialist mechanics (e.g. not even two-shotting a cyb). He is a solid player and fun to watch, but that stream spectacle doesn't mean anything -- any decent slaughter specialist or even speedrunner in general would do a lot better. I wouldn't expect feedback taken from that approach to be useful for hard slaughtermaps (especially much shorter ones but with harder individual encounters). Fortunately, this one is not that, or even remotely that.  

Yeah now that you've edited and elaborated your point I can see where you come from. 

I consider that stream of his more of a joke stream than anything, since that map is so obviously not his thing and he only did it because of the subscriber milestone he achieved... and he only did it twice because he used idclip at some point in the first one and felt bad about it (also the obvious fact that those streams attracted A LOT more people and money than he probably expected).

And yeah, that map is not a slaughtermap in any sense of the word and was never meant to be in the first place. I don't even like playing these types of maps, it would be too much of a chore to playtest something I fundamentally don't like.

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

On 12/14/2019 at 2:23 PM, rdwpa said:

 

Yeah, I'm whipping out 'blunt' mode here.  

 

*Excessively savescummed his way through Okuplok using poor strategies (both defaults and 'learned' ones), and nonexistent slaughter specialist mechanics (e.g. not even two-shotting a cyb). He is a solid player and fun to watch, but that stream spectacle doesn't mean anything -- any decent slaughter specialist or even speedrunner in general would do a lot better. I wouldn't expect feedback taken from that approach to be useful for hard slaughtermaps (especially much shorter ones but with harder individual encounters). Fortunately, this one is not that, or even remotely that.  

 

well he is not a slaughter map specialist and he managed to beat the map , killing almos 30k of monsters is not a easy task , yes he did use idclip on his first run and probably due to the high amount of expectators during his first live stream he decided to play that map for a 2nd time without using cheats and he beat it. But it was all about killing almost 30k of monsters (to celebrate his 30k subscribers) . 

 

I don't like or play slaughtermaps so i really don't know the proper strategies for those maps . And still i would like to see what he has to say about this map

 

PS:

 

Okuplok said that it was a slaughter map back in the day , so i guess it's still is

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Pablo_Doom_Guy

[Pablo_Doom_Guy]

Well i've just finished it again (latest version) and i finally found all secrets =) Yay (the last one i've found was one of the very first secrets with a radiation suit and a blue armor haha lol ....after clearing the last room ) 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 Guess that the only thing left to do on this map is a deathless sub 30 run O_O 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Pablo_Doom_Guy

[[Vitz!]]

Made some last changes to the map. Check the changelog up there for details.
 

EDIT: The post went a bit earlier than I wanted, but I'm updating the changelog right now. Have a picture of one of the changes (the mediafire link is already updated btw)

EDIT2: Phew topic properly updated now. yay Also added Acerola Doom to the bonus content.

Edited December 22, 2019 by [Vitz!]

[Master O]

@[Vitz!]

 

Does "Vale do Desespero" mean "Valley of Desperation"?

[[Vitz!]]

15 hours ago, Master O said:

@[Vitz!]

 

Does "Vale do Desespero" mean "Valley of Desperation"?

Yes. Exactly that. It's in portuguese.

[Gaia74]

It looks very promising, I will play this wad when I can!, good job! :P