Happy (Now on Idgames!)

[Zolgia108]

last week before the release:

Changelog 24/09

maps 1 to 10:

- map 04: fixed the stairs so that they can be easier to climb in left secret. Removed an annoying archvile

- map 09: fixed a pain sector which wasn't supposed to be there, added a spider mastermind and a way to telefrag it

- map 10: no more backtracking after first key, added a teleport and removed a key and an annoying archvile which didn't make any sense. Fixed the soul sphere secret which was impossible to find, removed an invisible wall, removed the cacoes outside the building, added a secret.

 

I DESPERATELY NEED A TESTER FOR MAP 29, which was fixed a lot and never tested after that, any volunteers?

 

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Zolgia108

[Lucky_Edie]

2 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

I DESPERATELY NEED A TESTER FOR MAP 29, which was fixed a lot and never tested after that, any volunteers?

 

Playing it, 32 0.1 current version? Is there anything in particular you want feedback about?

 

I played the version in the OP, hopefully its up to date. 

 

These ramblings won't be in any particular order. 

 

All kills, 7/9 secrets. Missed the megasphere and cyber telefragging teleporter.

 

First thing I did was grab the bfg, the fight for it is very spacious and allows you to run around for free the entire time. The 2 viles do more harm than good and should be moved or removed as they immediately die in their current spot. With so much free room there's basically no real chance of dying, stray rev rockets are the only real threat. I really love the look of this area. The gray bars blocking the coloured switches makes it hard to truly enjoy the backdrop which is a shame as the love heart is 10/10

 

https://i.imgur.com/JvwZnpx.png 

This area is ugly/empty, probably just block it off?

 

https://i.imgur.com/FSpAyz9.png

You can walk around the evil eye on the left and get all to way up to the cyber pyramid, the evil eye on the right cannot be crossed. Consistency would be nice here.

 

https://i.imgur.com/wT8XPXa.png

Being forced to land on top of an enemy feels silly, hide it behind the waterfall instead imo.

 

https://i.imgur.com/tiJFK1V.png

This fight is boring, you can sit in this spot and literally never get hit.

 

The green area fight poses 0 risk as you can just leave immediately with tons of room around.

 

https://i.imgur.com/6LL3Dnd.png

This vile didn't seem to do anything at all? stuck or something

 

https://i.imgur.com/e1W8Dg4.png

This looks ugly imo.

 

https://i.imgur.com/FNiSKCk.png

Large skip here, walk up the ledges to the rev bodies on spikes and you can cross the gap and trigger for the fight below, the cyber will kill everything and you can safely SSG it before ever dropping down. The spider on the ledge here doesn't seem able to hit you in many cases and probably should just be removed. 

 

The pain sector near the cyber pyramid could have the secret teleporter moved back and a regular teleporter moved closer.

 

Some of the pain sectors could stand to be 10% but not everyone will agree with me there.

 

The regular exit area felt empty, maybe needs some more detailing or make the area smaller. 

 

This area felt very empty as well.

https://i.imgur.com/Sw2fFrP.png

 

 

Lastly you can just vile jump straight to the secret exit with the 2 viles near the bfg.

https://i.imgur.com/SDmqFGO.png

 

You get a lot of duplicate weapons as you're allowed to do any path you want but the BFG first makes every other path a poor choice. 

 

My final time etc

https://i.imgur.com/23PeIHr.png

 

Rather than this lift to get out of the exit, I think steps/rocks you can climb to get out would fit more in line with the levels theme.

https://i.imgur.com/xpY8NW2.png

 

The cyber telefrag secret could probably look better / more like a switch rather than a random segment of wall but it's not a big deal either way.

 

Overall visually impressive map. Love the colours. I'd personally say the map is about as hard as ancient aliens map 8-14~ but that's just my opinion. Surprisingly really enjoyed it, had no idea what to expect going in and the different enemy sprites really threw me off for a bit.

When you update it i'll stream a playthrough of the updated version for you with more ramblings. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

Playing it, 32 0.1 current version? Is there anything in particular you want feedback about?

 

I played the version in the OP, hopefully its up to date. 

 

These ramblings won't be in any particular order. 

 

All kills, 7/9 secrets. Missed the megasphere and cyber telefragging teleporter.

 

First thing I did was grab the bfg, the fight for it is very spacious and allows you to run around for free the entire time. The 2 viles do more harm than good and should be moved or removed as they immediately die in their current spot. With so much free room there's basically no real chance of dying, stray rev rockets are the only real threat. I really love the look of this area. The gray bars blocking the coloured switches makes it hard to truly enjoy the backdrop which is a shame as the love heart is 10/10

 

https://i.imgur.com/JvwZnpx.png 

This area is ugly/empty, probably just block it off?

 

https://i.imgur.com/FSpAyz9.png

You can walk around the evil eye on the left and get all to way up to the cyber pyramid, the evil eye on the right cannot be crossed. Consistency would be nice here.

 

https://i.imgur.com/wT8XPXa.png

Being forced to land on top of an enemy feels silly, hide it behind the waterfall instead imo.

 

https://i.imgur.com/tiJFK1V.png

This fight is boring, you can sit in this spot and literally never get hit.

 

The green area fight poses 0 risk as you can just leave immediately with tons of room around.

 

https://i.imgur.com/6LL3Dnd.png

This vile didn't seem to do anything at all? stuck or something

 

https://i.imgur.com/e1W8Dg4.png

This looks ugly imo.

 

https://i.imgur.com/FNiSKCk.png

Large skip here, walk up the ledges to the rev bodies on spikes and you can cross the gap and trigger for the fight below, the cyber will kill everything and you can safely SSG it before ever dropping down. The spider on the ledge here doesn't seem able to hit you in many cases and probably should just be removed. 

 

The pain sector near the cyber pyramid could have the secret teleporter moved back and a regular teleporter moved closer.

 

Some of the pain sectors could stand to be 10% but not everyone will agree with me there.

 

The regular exit area felt empty, maybe needs some more detailing or make the area smaller. 

 

This area felt very empty as well.

https://i.imgur.com/Sw2fFrP.png

 

 

Lastly you can just vile jump straight to the secret exit with the 2 viles near the bfg.

https://i.imgur.com/SDmqFGO.png

 

You get a lot of duplicate weapons as you're allowed to do any path you want but the BFG first makes every other path a poor choice. 

 

My final time etc

https://i.imgur.com/23PeIHr.png

 

Rather than this lift to get out of the exit, I think steps/rocks you can climb to get out would fit more in line with the levels theme.

https://i.imgur.com/xpY8NW2.png

 

The cyber telefrag secret could probably look better / more like a switch rather than a random segment of wall but it's not a big deal either way.

 

Overall visually impressive map. Love the colours. I'd personally say the map is about as hard as ancient aliens map 8-14~ but that's just my opinion. Surprisingly really enjoyed it, had no idea what to expect going in and the different enemy sprites really threw me off for a bit.

When you update it i'll stream a playthrough of the updated version for you with more ramblings. 

Thanks a lot!

This is a really important feedback, i knew this map had a lot to be fixed, i just didn't know where to start. I will need some time to answer to all that, everything you said was very constructive and i will do the best i can. I didn't want it to be hard (cause 27 and 28 are a bit brutal) but i didn't want it to be that easy neither. Problem is that it's in very big space so every fight is problematic to balance. Will start working right now and let you know as soon as possible :)

[Dranyan]

3 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

I DESPERATELY NEED A TESTER FOR MAP 29, which was fixed a lot and never tested after that, any volunteers?

 

Okay,

 

Spoiler

1. So basically, once you walk into the room, you're suddenly trapped in this particular area. My advice is you should add medkit around here, because if player enter this area with a low health, the encounter would be much harder (Meanwhile, they can't escape the area to pick more medkits either)

 

Spoiler

2. I noticed there are many misaligned rock textures in this map. Looks a little bit ugly, so my advice you should put a little bit more time to align textures properly (doesn't UDMF format aligns texture automatically ? What format do you use actually ?)

Spoiler

3. I think this particular secret is a little bit too easy to find. I meant-- at first i thought this is a lift because it uses metal lift texture. Also, i noticed that player could pick the energy cell pack without triggering the secret ( because the player could pick the item before entering the sector with secret flag, so my advice is to make the sector bigger so player should enter it before actually could pick the item)

Spoiler

4. This secret area can be accessed by going into this teleporter, but seriously !? I was rewarded with a soulsphere because i was being uncareful and made myself fell into a pit ? That doesn't make any sense!

Spoiler

5. This archvile was idle somehow, he didn't move or attack me at all. I think he is stuck or you accidentally gave this dude a friendly flag.

Spoiler

6. Not an important thing but-- I suggest you to make some medkits spawned in this area after player start the encounter, to make this fight a little bit easier.

Spoiler

7. Okay, this is also weird i must say. There are two different exits in this map, and one of them is a "secret" exit which leads player to map30. What i find weird is the fact that finding the secret exit is easier than finding the normal exit. Once you trigger all the switches, the wall in front of you is lowered. Usually, players first instinct is entering the sector behind those lowered walls (where the secret exit is located) instead of turning around and finding the normal exit.

 

8. I also think the map is lack of shotgun ammo, meanwhile there are too many rockets. At one point during my playthrough, i had zero shotgun shell and 100 rockets in my inventory (there are even still a lot of box of rockets scattered around that i haven't picked up yet)

 

9. The music sounds good, however it's not fit with the map. The music is calming, meanwhile the map is fast-paced. Not a huge problem though imo

 

10. On UV difficulty, there was one monster that i couldn't find anywhere. I spent minutes to find it and no luck, i just decided to finish the map with 99% kill. Are you sure it's not stuck inside a wall or outside the map ?

 

Other things, but not related to the map :

- I suggest you to keep the wad name as "Happy.wad" or any name which doesn't contain space. (Someone told me: wad name which contains space or complex characters could cause a problem, but i don't remember the detail tbh)

- I see you use dropbox as the mirror. Well-- if i were you i would use mediafire instead because it lets you know how many times your wad has been downloaded

- Just a personal preference, but i think custom weapons sounds in this wad are unnecessary, i prefer the default sounds.

- The new title picture is amazing, but the word "HAPPY" looks dull imo. I advice you to use more stylish font.

 

Anyway, despite the problems listed above, i enjoyed map29 overall. It's visually beautiful, and also very hard to complete (Good thing i'm a masochist). Also, congratulations! Your megawad has already have full 32 maps, it just need a little problems fixing and your megawad will be completely complete. You must be satisfied, aren't you ? ;)

Edited September 24, 2020 by Dranyan

[Zolgia108]

ok i am preparing a video to show some of the fixes, @Dranyan thank you so much for your time, i really appreciate it the feedback!

as i already said, i can't wait for your wad to progress, i think it will be a masterpiece :)

[Dranyan]

22 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

as i already said, i can't wait for your wad to progress, i think it will be a masterpiece :)

Thank you! Unfortunately though, i won't be releasing any new map for a while, because i'm busy with things in real life recently. But i'll start making new ones once i get more free time, i promise :)

[Zolgia108]

so here is the video

 

 

@Lucky_Edie

fixed these things:

1) blocked the area you told me it was ugly

2) red fight now can't be cheesed

3) green area now can't be cheesed (with a timer)

4) no more cacolanding

5) added some gore and a blood heart in the pyramid area

6) archvile was fixed

7) evil eye on the left was fixed and made taller, it was 8 less than the other one

8) no more archvile jump to the exit

 

the heart fight was easy for somebody and hard for other people so i think i will keep it as it is (except that now the archviles, which are only on uv, will actually be useful)

Also i am sorry for the heart which is partially visually blocked when you first go there but i've got no solution, it will be fully visible once everything will be cleared :)

 

Finally: thanks a lot for your time, i hope you will play the megawad someday, once it will be released :)

 

@Dranyan

 

1) added a couple of medikit in the blue area (1 only in hmp and lower)

2) aligned the rocks (that was dumb)

3) secret cells nw trigger the secret

4) added a secret half teleport (not in the automap) to get the soulsphere, thanks for the advice!

5) see above

6) added 4 medikits in total in the fight

7) the "secret" exit is more like an exit i want you to take, the pyramid is there just to tell you "don't go there", it's more a symbolic thing than anything else :P

8) added some shotgun ammo here and there as suggested

9) all teleporting monsters are working, i did 100%, there are 2 monsters hidden in secrets so maybe it was one of them

 

10) the only sounds i replaced are the plasma gun (same as sunlust) and the powerup (quake), the other weapons  should sound the same

 

i will think about the music, last few maps had pretty hectic songs and i thought this one needed a more melanchonic one, but i will think about it, thanks for your opinion as usual

take your time with the wad! You are doing this for the community and we all appreciate it, the important thing is to have fun mapping and playing ;)

Edited September 24, 2020 by Zolgia108

[Lucky_Edie]

4 hours ago, Zolgia108 said:

Finally: thanks a lot for your time, i hope you will play the megawad someday, once it will be released :)

 

My backlog is pretty insane but I really did enjoy the one map I played so I'll add it to the list.

Once you get the updated version posted I'll stream it, there's a couple things I wanna try break.

As for the difficulty of the map, if you want it to be chill that's fine. I tend to play obnoxiously difficulty maps so what I'd consider easy/hard is very different to the average player and just because I said the BFG fight with HK/barons was easy doesn't make it so. Good choice to go with your gut on that. 

 

The raised wall to prevent the vile jump looks misaligned/off putting. Is there an alternative solution?

 

As for the area near the regular exit with the dead corpse decorations, what I mean by looking ugly was the fact that it looked like it got cut in half, the evil eyes are a good touch and fit the other side so I'd use that decoration but change how it is presented. 

[Zolgia108]

7 hours ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

My backlog is pretty insane but I really did enjoy the one map I played so I'll add it to the list.

Once you get the updated version posted I'll stream it, there's a couple things I wanna try break.

As for the difficulty of the map, if you want it to be chill that's fine. I tend to play obnoxiously difficulty maps so what I'd consider easy/hard is very different to the average player and just because I said the BFG fight with HK/barons was easy doesn't make it so. Good choice to go with your gut on that. 

 

The raised wall to prevent the vile jump looks misaligned/off putting. Is there an alternative solution?

 

As for the area near the regular exit with the dead corpse decorations, what I mean by looking ugly was the fact that it looked like it got cut in half, the evil eyes are a good touch and fit the other side so I'd use that decoration but change how it is presented. 

ok so i added another wall before the exit where it looks miscut, now it should be okay. The evil eyes were still there but couldn't be seen from the pyramid side, only from the starting area, now i did something like this :)

thanks again m8 :)

 

[Lucky_Edie]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/751418206

 

Played through maps 28 and the bfg fight of map 29 on stream. 

 

If you don't have time to watch I'll type up a tl;dr for you.

[Zolgia108]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Edie said:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/751418206

 

Played through maps 28 and the bfg fight of map 29 on stream. 

 

If you don't have time to watch I'll type up a tl;dr for you.

Hey m8! sorry i was at work :( dammit

Is it possible to watch it in a couple of hours? Was everything fine? Thanks a lot for playing them!

[Lucky_Edie]

18 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

Hey m8! sorry i was at work :( dammit

Is it possible to watch it in a couple of hours? Was everything fine? Thanks a lot for playing them!

It is highlighted and will be available forever.

Some small issues which you'll see in the VoD, most notable being a softlock in map29 near the bfg fight. This happens at the very end of the VoD

[Zolgia108]

6 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

It is highlighted and will be available forever.

Some small issues which you'll see in the VoD, most notable being a softlock in map29 near the bfg fight. This happens at the very end of the VoD

Ok cool. This fucking map 29 is giving me an hard time. I hate this... Sorry for the softlock

[Lucky_Edie]

2 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

Ok cool. This fucking map 29 is giving me an hard time. I hate this... Sorry for the softlock

 

All good mate, that's what testing is for!

[Zolgia108]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

All good mate, that's what testing is for!

ok i watched the video

for starters i will change the bfg secret with a teleport to telefrag the mastermind in map 28, then i will see about the rest. Map 29 wasn't updated for some reason, so you played the same map from before (archviles aren't supposed to be there for example), i ll fix that softlock right away. Well at least the first part of map 28 worked well i think. The barons in the end were a poor choice, they were supposed to be a "help" for the cyberdemons, nothing else, but until now nobody actually pressed that switch before killing the cyberdemons so yea, pretty pointless :) i will remove them

[Lucky_Edie]

18 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

ok i watched the video

for starters i will change the bfg secret with a teleport to telefrag the mastermind in map 28, then i will see about the rest. Map 29 wasn't updated for some reason, so you played the same map from before (archviles aren't supposed to be there for example), i ll fix that softlock right away. Well at least the first part of map 28 worked well i think. The barons in the end were a poor choice, they were supposed to be a "help" for the cyberdemons, nothing else, but until now nobody actually pressed that switch before killing the cyberdemons so yea, pretty pointless :) i will remove them

 

I didn't have the updated version, just wanted to redo the fight because it was fun. :)  

 

The BFG early on 28 is a bit too strong imo, maybe change it to an early plasma gun for UV and leave it as a bfg for HMP? Might make it too hard however.

My VoD shows its possible without either secret at the start. I'm going to jump back into 28 for a bit and look around, see if I notice anything else. 

 

Are there any other maps you'd like me to look at specifically? maybe 2-4 in case I have time to chill. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

4 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

I didn't have the updated version, just wanted to redo the fight because it was fun. :)  

 

The BFG early on 28 is a bit too strong imo, maybe change it to an early plasma gun for UV and leave it as a bfg for HMP? Might make it too hard however.

My VoD shows its possible without either secret at the start. I'm going to jump back into 28 for a bit and look around, see if I notice anything else. 

 

Are there any other maps you'd like me to look at specifically? maybe 2-4 in case I have time to chill. 

oh! ok then :)

anyway, fact is that i don't want that mastermind to be telerfragged cause it's a real pain in the ass and an important setup in that fight, if you can telefrag it right away it means that on an eventual uv max run you could just run for that and deal with the rest too easily, i think i will take your advice and put an early plasma there :) it's probably the best shot.

If you want to test episode 5 is basically the one that needs more testing cause it was played only 2/3 times (maps 27 28 29 only twice), in case you can skip map 24, maybe 25/26/27 and 31 would be the ones i need the most (31 was tested only once until now... so it may have some horrible bugs), map 25 has a secret fight which is more or less sunlust style, very very rng based^^ i hope you won't kill me (if you find it that is). Thanks again Edie.

[Lucky_Edie]

13 minutes ago, Zolgia108 said:

map 25 has a secret fight which is more or less sunlust style, very very rng based^^ i hope you won't kill me (if you find it that is). Thanks again Edie.

 

No problem. Very RNG? sounds like something for me to play. I won't kill you, absurdly hard is what I love.

 

Minor map28 issues:

 

Forgot to make this a pain sector to match the other 

https://i.imgur.com/faNAPm5.png

https://i.imgur.com/oiRJixE.png

 

Misaligned textures:

The wall on the right of the right pentagram

https://i.imgur.com/OVOPwra.png

 

The top of this wall, both sides need tweaking

https://i.imgur.com/KuNV3LF.png

 

Pink wall

https://i.imgur.com/UJKkfwi.png

 

Column on the right doesn't match the rest

https://i.imgur.com/Ozw2hMW.png

 

Other:

 

Maybe open up the wall near these torches so they're easier to see and show off the room better. Prefrence here don't have to take it.

https://i.imgur.com/DjdGwEV.png

 

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

19 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

No problem. Very RNG? sounds like something for me to play. I won't kill you, absurdly hard is what I love.

 

Minor map28 issues:

 

Forgot to make this a pain sector to match the other 

https://i.imgur.com/faNAPm5.png

https://i.imgur.com/oiRJixE.png

 

Misaligned textures:

The wall on the right of the right pentagram

https://i.imgur.com/OVOPwra.png

 

The top of this wall, both sides need tweaking

https://i.imgur.com/KuNV3LF.png

 

Pink wall

https://i.imgur.com/UJKkfwi.png

 

Column on the right doesn't match the rest

https://i.imgur.com/Ozw2hMW.png

 

Other:

 

Maybe open up the wall near these torches so they're easier to see and show off the room better. Prefrence here don't have to take it.

https://i.imgur.com/DjdGwEV.png

 

 

perfect! everything fixed^^

Well i think that i needed to hire a tester like you from the very start, the wad is probably full of these things sadly... i don't even know if i want to spend the rest of my life searching for them and fixing all of them or just release it :) Next time i'm gonna abuse of your testing capabilities, without paying of course (or else it wouldn't be an abuse). I appreciate this mate :)

[Lucky_Edie]

1 hour ago, Zolgia108 said:

I appreciate this mate :)

 

<3  

 

Played map 25. All kills, only a couple secrets. Intentionally skipped the invuln as I didn't need it. Endscreen pic https://i.imgur.com/5PY8CMz.png

Rambling thoughts and issues in no order.

 

This is sexy

https://i.imgur.com/YnEYl4h.png

 

Misaligned texture
https://i.imgur.com/m4WOKAc.png

 

When running up these stairs its easy to get caught here and it's dark so easy to miss, maybe smooth it out so going up /down is easy.

https://i.imgur.com/JmHN4fv.png

 

This is sexy but the exit sign confused me until I realized I had the key now

https://i.imgur.com/O0StStg.png

 

I think the height of the torch pillars could be mixed up so it isn't so straight.

https://i.imgur.com/ECvnPlf.png

 

First thing I did in the map was grab the chaingun and see this switch for a secret(on the right), it should be moved to be less visible from a player grabbing the chaingun at the start. Also the texture left of it is misaligned just like 'misaligned texture #3' below

https://i.imgur.com/1XUn3EU.png

 

Misaligned texture #2

https://i.imgur.com/YkHT2ss.png

 

This little bit of wall I'm looking at is very jagged compared to the rest of the map

https://i.imgur.com/QkmQTxQ.png

 

This spot is very strong for hiding, probably too strong.

https://i.imgur.com/C8vSk6c.png

 

Misaligned texture #3 (east of the blue key secret) The bottom doesn't line up well.

https://i.imgur.com/4m7rQr5.png

 

Little detailing in the bottom left doesn't extend all the way to the stairs.

https://i.imgur.com/7Zm7QZ6.png

 

New cacos were a surprise, they're scary.

Couple of the vile placements felt a little unfair but nothing too drastic.

Players will complain about the plasma gun being on a pain sector lift, I personally like it but I'm a fruitcake. 

 

The final secret fight really did remind me of God Machine's fight. Beat it first try with no idea what to do, bfg'd one side of the viles and then the room was free. When I stream next time I'll do this room another 10-15 times to determine if it is RNG, I firmly believe it's got no RNG from the one time I checked it out. This area has a lot of shotgun shells that aren't needed by the time you get there. Also way too many rockets, can easily remove half the rockets here. 

 

Overall health and ammo is very tight compared to maps 28 and 29 but I also didn't use the invuln. I'd add 1 extra 100 cell pack somewhere and 1 extra box of rockets. My mistake was releasing the special cacos and then releasing the viles and chaingunners, so the special cacos got resurrected a lot. These changes would make it feel more in line with maps 28/29, if you want 25 to be tight on ammo then it is fine in its current state. (not counting all the extra ammo in the secret fight that you never use).

 

Maybe change 2 stimpacks to medkits and health levels would be relaxing but this is not neccessary as I intentionally skipped using the invuln and the extra secret soulsphere. Depends how tight you want the balance to be for people who miss the secrets.

 

Good map, was fun.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

30 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

<3  

 

Played map 25. All kills, only a couple secrets. Intentionally skipped the invuln as I didn't need it. Endscreen pic https://i.imgur.com/5PY8CMz.png

Rambling thoughts and issues in no order.

 

This is sexy

https://i.imgur.com/YnEYl4h.png

 

Misaligned texture
https://i.imgur.com/m4WOKAc.png

 

When running up these stairs its easy to get caught here and it's dark so easy to miss, maybe smooth it out so going up /down is easy.

https://i.imgur.com/JmHN4fv.png

 

This is sexy but the exit sign confused me until I realized I had the key now

https://i.imgur.com/O0StStg.png

 

I think the height of the torch pillars could be mixed up so it isn't so straight.

https://i.imgur.com/ECvnPlf.png

 

First thing I did in the map was grab the chaingun and see this switch for a secret(on the right), it should be moved to be less visible from a player grabbing the chaingun at the start. Also the texture left of it is misaligned just like 'misaligned texture #3' below

https://i.imgur.com/1XUn3EU.png

 

Misaligned texture #2

https://i.imgur.com/YkHT2ss.png

 

This little bit of wall I'm looking at is very jagged compared to the rest of the map

https://i.imgur.com/QkmQTxQ.png

 

This spot is very strong for hiding, probably too strong.

https://i.imgur.com/C8vSk6c.png

 

Misaligned texture #3 (east of the blue key secret) The bottom doesn't line up well.

https://i.imgur.com/4m7rQr5.png

 

Little detailing in the bottom left doesn't extend all the way to the stairs.

https://i.imgur.com/7Zm7QZ6.png

 

New cacos were a surprise, they're scary.

Couple of the vile placements felt a little unfair but nothing too drastic.

Players will complain about the plasma gun being on a pain sector lift, I personally like it but I'm a fruitcake. 

 

The final secret fight really did remind me of God Machine's fight. Beat it first try with no idea what to do, bfg'd one side of the viles and then the room was free. When I stream next time I'll do this room another 10-15 times to determine if it is RNG, I firmly believe it's got no RNG from the one time I checked it out. This area has a lot of shotgun shells that aren't needed by the time you get there. Also way too many rockets, can easily remove half the rockets here. 

 

Overall health and ammo is very tight compared to maps 28 and 29 but I also didn't use the invuln. I'd add 1 extra 100 cell pack somewhere and 1 extra box of rockets. My mistake was releasing the special cacos and then releasing the viles and chaingunners, so the special cacos got resurrected a lot. These changes would make it feel more in line with maps 28/29, if you want 25 to be tight on ammo then it is fine in its current state. (not counting all the extra ammo in the secret fight that you never use).

 

Maybe change 2 stimpacks to medkits and health levels would be relaxing but this is not neccessary as I intentionally skipped using the invuln and the extra secret soulsphere. Depends how tight you want the balance to be for people who miss the secrets.

 

Good map, was fun.

wow good thing that im not working this afternoon lol, so many things to fix^^

 

The optional fight was actually inspired by that map! I hope it wasn't too obvious but i m glad that you noticed it :) and i'm glad that you made it first try, it means that it's not that bad after all

 

I've added some ammo (nothing particular) but if it was tight for you then it means that it's really tight, then i changed 2 stimpacks into medikits like you said. I m finishing aligning (can't wait to use ultimate db, fucking db2 sucksss).  Those cacodemons are spread all along the wad, the last map in which they will appear (excluding their corpses, don't know if you noticed them, is map 26).  Thanks again!

Edited September 25, 2020 by Zolgia108

[Lucky_Edie]

The changes don't have to be drastic, just keeping in line with what I'd expect an average gamer to need. 

1am in Australia at the moment so I'll be off to bed in a second, and ill try to fit another couple maps in tomorrow for you.

 

Good night mate.

[Zolgia108]

1 minute ago, Lucky_Edie said:

The changes don't have to be drastic, just keeping in line with what I'd expect an average gamer to need. 

1am in Australia at the moment so I'll be off to bed in a second, and ill try to fit another couple maps in tomorrow for you.

 

Good night mate.

well until now everything you said was right on point, i decided to keep some stuff but misalignents and such are things that shouldn't exist in general. Then i saw how you play and i think that if you say that map 25 was too tight then it probably was :) Problem is that first maps will have a lot of these kind of problems, that scares me a lot^^. Also first maps are totally different both in gameplay and in aesthetics, they are a bit more "classic".

Anyways

Thanks again, have a good night!

[Lucky_Edie]

Played map 26. Rambling thoughts in no particular order. 

 

100% kills, 3/4 secrets. End screen pictures https://i.imgur.com/0ifP8Cy.png https://i.imgur.com/8oWAQhc.png

 

Note I played through the level twice, once using the secret invuln at the start and once saving it for the end. The slower time was my first playthrough using the invuln for the first big fight.

 

Minor issues with the start

Berzerk secret can be acquired without triggering the secret.

The steps are misaligned.

https://i.imgur.com/hBJ6TQ9.png

The fence sticks out oddly

https://i.imgur.com/2FrvWLp.png

 

The 2 spiders on pillars is becoming over used, replace them with some imps just to make it different imo.

 

The secret to get the soulsphere and blue armour should be 1 time use. They kept going up/down over and over and over for the entire level, was driving me crazy. Screenshot https://i.imgur.com/BM1Nf7j.png

 

Box of shells stuck inside a box of rockets

https://i.imgur.com/Ft7c8bo.png

 

I personally dislike the 1 armour bonus/heath bonus spam behind the HKs/Imps. Between it, the single rockets and shotgun shells it feels like there's things placed everywhere and it feels cluttered.

https://i.imgur.com/duzcfnQ.png  

 

Boss cacos can't fit through this gap

https://i.imgur.com/bPltacA.png

 

Pink torches on pink background are hard to see, with the colourful teleporters it might be worth changing them from pink to a different colour. Also the pink brick texture is misaligned.

https://i.imgur.com/UQR4Dnw.png

 

Plasma gun could be moved towards the hallway so the player can spot it when initially running away from the hell knights, not sure if its better or worse.

https://i.imgur.com/RP3xEEY.png

 

This little area beside the stairs could use a medkit

https://i.imgur.com/QrNupae.png

 

The waterfall secret with 2 cell packs could stand to be changed to a single cell pack, not sure how much it matters but it feels really strong with two. 

 

Another misaligned texture on the boss caco room

https://i.imgur.com/PqC3Zud.png

 

There's effectively infinite shotgun shell boxes around the place, get rid of about 1/3rd of them, maybe half. 

 

Now for the balance discussion, holy crap this is a hard map. The first main room fight is really good, forced me to start clearing out other parts of the map with rockets while trying to stop them rushing in. Initially I beat this fight with the invuln but did it without on my 2nd playthrough. The cleanup took a lot longer than I expected but a little grinding isn't too bad, if that's something you wish to mitigate removing 2-3 hell knights should be all that's needed. If you intended the player to use the invuln secret here then the invuln should be moved to behind the hell knights.

 

The little traps around the map were all fine, nothing here caused me any trouble other than the spectres closing in on me while I was trying to rocket the hell knights and cacos. The revanant trap could use 2-5 more revs.

 

The finale with boss cacos, holy crap that's a tough fight. With the invuln I just ran in and BFG'd almost all of them before it wore off, there was about 4 left alive.

Without the invuln this fight took me 10~ attempts, ended up running laps around the room with the rocket launcher trying to slow them down. I kept trying to grab the megasphere behind the bars but it takes so long to get it that I was getting swarmed by boss cacos and having my run end. Eventually had a good run where I made some space using the cave areas of the map and that allowed me to get the megasphere. Doing this fight without the invuln was rediculous as it takes forever to kill them all. 

 

If you intend for the player to use the invuln here, then the invuln should be moved to where the barred off megasphere is as this will reduce how long the player can use it for and it won't completely trivialize the fight as you'll still have to kill a decent number of them without invuln. 

If you intended for the player to do this without the invuln, you're kinda crazy. This fight is completely over the top of everything else I've seen from your maps. If you wish to remove the invuln from the fight completely (aka moving it to the HKs room for the first big fight) I would recommend cutting the number of cacos down significantly, maybe remove 1/4th to 1/3rd of them. 

 

Personally I think having the invuln moved to where the current red key megasphere is the best choice. Replacing the 1%hp 1% armour bonuses with 2 soulspheres maybe? 1 soulsphere and 1 green armour or some combination. 

 

Edit: if you move the invuln, move the mega to the caco corpse pillar but don't force the player to pick it up.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

1 hour ago, Lucky_Edie said:

Played map 26. Rambling thoughts in no particular order. 

 

100% kills, 3/4 secrets. End screen pictures https://i.imgur.com/0ifP8Cy.png https://i.imgur.com/8oWAQhc.png

 

Note I played through the level twice, once using the secret invuln at the start and once saving it for the end. The slower time was my first playthrough using the invuln for the first big fight.

 

Minor issues with the start

Berzerk secret can be acquired without triggering the secret.

The steps are misaligned.

https://i.imgur.com/hBJ6TQ9.png

The fence sticks out oddly

https://i.imgur.com/2FrvWLp.png

 

The 2 spiders on pillars is becoming over used, replace them with some imps just to make it different imo.

 

The secret to get the soulsphere and blue armour should be 1 time use. They kept going up/down over and over and over for the entire level, was driving me crazy. Screenshot https://i.imgur.com/BM1Nf7j.png

 

Box of shells stuck inside a box of rockets

https://i.imgur.com/Ft7c8bo.png

 

I personally dislike the 1 armour bonus/heath bonus spam behind the HKs/Imps. Between it, the single rockets and shotgun shells it feels like there's things placed everywhere and it feels cluttered.

https://i.imgur.com/duzcfnQ.png  

 

Boss cacos can't fit through this gap

https://i.imgur.com/bPltacA.png

 

Pink torches on pink background are hard to see, with the colourful teleporters it might be worth changing them from pink to a different colour. Also the pink brick texture is misaligned.

https://i.imgur.com/UQR4Dnw.png

 

Plasma gun could be moved towards the hallway so the player can spot it when initially running away from the hell knights, not sure if its better or worse.

https://i.imgur.com/RP3xEEY.png

 

This little area beside the stairs could use a medkit

https://i.imgur.com/QrNupae.png

 

The waterfall secret with 2 cell packs could stand to be changed to a single cell pack, not sure how much it matters but it feels really strong with two. 

 

Another misaligned texture on the boss caco room

https://i.imgur.com/PqC3Zud.png

 

There's effectively infinite shotgun shell boxes around the place, get rid of about 1/3rd of them, maybe half. 

 

Now for the balance discussion, holy crap this is a hard map. The first main room fight is really good, forced me to start clearing out other parts of the map with rockets while trying to stop them rushing in. Initially I beat this fight with the invuln but did it without on my 2nd playthrough. The cleanup took a lot longer than I expected but a little grinding isn't too bad, if that's something you wish to mitigate removing 2-3 hell knights should be all that's needed. If you intended the player to use the invuln secret here then the invuln should be moved to behind the hell knights.

 

The little traps around the map were all fine, nothing here caused me any trouble other than the spectres closing in on me while I was trying to rocket the hell knights and cacos. The revanant trap could use 2-5 more revs.

 

The finale with boss cacos, holy crap that's a tough fight. With the invuln I just ran in and BFG'd almost all of them before it wore off, there was about 4 left alive.

Without the invuln this fight took me 10~ attempts, ended up running laps around the room with the rocket launcher trying to slow them down. I kept trying to grab the megasphere behind the bars but it takes so long to get it that I was getting swarmed by boss cacos and having my run end. Eventually had a good run where I made some space using the cave areas of the map and that allowed me to get the megasphere. Doing this fight without the invuln was rediculous as it takes forever to kill them all. 

  

If you intend for the player to use the invuln here, then the invuln should be moved to where the barred off megasphere is as this will reduce how long the player can use it for and it won't completely trivialize the fight as you'll still have to kill a decent number of them without invuln. 

If you intended for the player to do this without the invuln, you're kinda crazy. This fight is completely over the top of everything else I've seen from your maps. If you wish to remove the invuln from the fight completely (aka moving it to the HKs room for the first big fight) I would recommend cutting the number of cacos down significantly, maybe remove 1/4th to 1/3rd of them. 

 

Personally I think having the invuln moved to where the current red key megasphere is the best choice. Replacing the 1%hp 1% armour bonuses with 2 soulspheres maybe? 1 soulsphere and 1 green armour or some combination. 

 

Edit: if you move the invuln, move the mega to the caco corpse pillar but don't force the player to pick it up.

ok m8 i finally fixed this thing:

 

1) aligned what you said was misaligned

2) berserk secret now should work

3) removed the clutter and replaced with a soulsphere on the right and a green armor on the left

4) shifted between invu and mega (mega not mandatory ofc), i think this is the best choice like you said

5) cacoes can now enter the gap

6) moved the plasma to the center

7) added a couple of medikits and removed some shells

8) waterfall secret now has only 1 cell pack (and 1 invu for lower difficulties btw)

9) the platforms now lower only once :P

 

exactly what secret did you miss? from what you wrote you should have taken all of them

 

i hope everything is fine now!

[Lucky_Edie]

1 minute ago, Zolgia108 said:

exactly what secret did you miss? from what you wrote you should have taken all of them

 

Changes seem good, I'll have to replay to test again. 

 

After I beat the map the 2nd time I went exploring for texture misalignment and general feel of areas etc, weird process I know. During that time exploring and really looking at the map I found the waterfall secret. Sorry for the confusion but I like to give mappers an idea of what secrets are found during normal gameplay but also what my thoughts would be if I had found them. 

[Zolgia108]

13 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

 

Changes seem good, I'll have to replay to test again. 

 

After I beat the map the 2nd time I went exploring for texture misalignment and general feel of areas etc, weird process I know. During that time exploring and really looking at the map I found the waterfall secret. Sorry for the confusion but I like to give mappers an idea of what secrets are found during normal gameplay but also what my thoughts would be if I had found them. 

ok perfect, i will upload a new file once i will test again till map 24 ( i am doing this these days), sadly earlier maps are, like i already told you, full of problems as they were the first ones i made for the set (this is the main issue when you are still developing as a mapper i guess). The more i look at them and the more i would change them, but yea this is how it went, at least they are easier and more enjoyable :). Map 17 for example ends with a whoopy 500 hundred monsters running in a huge arena like a trivial horde, that fight is just pointless and you have 100 acres of space to move and 5000 cells but at that time i liked it that way, looking at it now hurts me a lot honestly :P

Edited September 26, 2020 by Zolgia108

[Lucky_Edie]

You can always delay the full release to give yourself time to fix issues on older maps. Still working through ep5 atm, spent all day grinding a silly demo for Frog_and_toad map32. I should have more time tomorrow.

[Lucky_Edie]

Played through map 27.

All kills, 2/3 secrets (missed the shoot switch megaarmour secret) and I found the megasphere secret after all monsters were dead. 

Screenshot of end screen. https://i.imgur.com/QVn6UmY.png

 

Thoughts and ramblings.

 

Good start, gives you time to think about where to go and then makes you move. Had no problems beating this part without dying.

Had a death each to the pop up vile outside the red key arena and the door trap revs here https://i.imgur.com/Y8KsGvj.png I think the stim packs here should be moved to the starting room to use it as a 'refueling hub', at the moment there's 3 different sets of stim pack sets in that one area and it's too many.

 

I'd personally change each stack of 4 stimpacks into 2 stimpacks and a medkit to give the player better control of health levels without spamming items.

 

The stimpacks on the right here were completely missed by me because of the caco bodies, maybe just place a medkit either side of the blue key so the player can easily see, grab and move to them while fighting the cacos. https://i.imgur.com/ln8tvGx.png

 

Chaingunner stacked on green armour doesn't look good to me https://i.imgur.com/kIkY3tm.png

 

The lifts in the red key arena raising slowly caused a cyber of mine to get stuck https://i.imgur.com/6nv3DSB.png

 

These textures seem somewhat misaligned even though they are centered on the wall. Lower the roof on the very edges here to make them fit better

https://i.imgur.com/aFU8wrk.png

 

The highlight of the map is the red key fight arena. Once again you give the player entirely too much ammo. I exited the map with 100 rockets leftover so you can probably remove a few boxes from this room and possible move some more to teleport in after you open the red key door, just so this arena isn't completely full of rockets and the player still has enough to deal with the rev/caco/spider fight for the blue key.

 

Shotgun shells, I had over 200 spare shotgun shells at the end of the map. The shotgun shell boxes stacked here https://i.imgur.com/YkU1Wyn.png should be turned into medkits, my reasoning is the cybers splash damage was the only thing that killed me as I moved around the arena and it would of been nice to have +25 hp to prevent some of those deaths. If you do this change however you should add more cacos to teleport in with the PEs (keep the 1 PE per group) maybe like 3 extra cacos per group? 

 

Because of the stacked green armour near the red key door, I think the blue armour secret should be a soulsphere so the player can reach 200/100 in this room. 

 

Maybe remove the backpacks from the red key arena and place 1 closer to the player start so the player doesn't have to backtrack for shells when clearing out some of the vile traps. At one point I just ran into a group of enemies because I was at 0/0/0/0 ammo. There's tons of ammo I was just too lazy to go back. 

 

Waterfalls and rocks look fine misaligned so I didn't spend any time trying to check all of them. Is the exit a refrence to sunlust 24 dying on cue?

Edited September 27, 2020 by Lucky_Edie

[Zolgia108]

5 hours ago, Lucky_Edie said:

Played through map 27.

All kills, 2/3 secrets (missed the shoot switch megaarmour secret) and I found the megasphere secret after all monsters were dead. 

Screenshot of end screen. https://i.imgur.com/QVn6UmY.png

 

Thoughts and ramblings.

 

Good start, gives you time to think about where to go and then makes you move. Had no problems beating this part without dying.

Had a death each to the pop up vile outside the red key arena and the door trap revs here https://i.imgur.com/Y8KsGvj.png I think the stim packs here should be moved to the starting room to use it as a 'refueling hub', at the moment there's 3 different sets of stim pack sets in that one area and it's too many.

 

I'd personally change each stack of 4 stimpacks into 2 stimpacks and a medkit to give the player better control of health levels without spamming items.

 

The stimpacks on the right here were completely missed by me because of the caco bodies, maybe just place a medkit either side of the blue key so the player can easily see, grab and move to them while fighting the cacos. https://i.imgur.com/ln8tvGx.png

 

Chaingunner stacked on green armour doesn't look good to me https://i.imgur.com/kIkY3tm.png

 

The lifts in the red key arena raising slowly caused a cyber of mine to get stuck https://i.imgur.com/6nv3DSB.png

 

These textures seem somewhat misaligned even though they are centered on the wall. Lower the roof on the very edges here to make them fit better

https://i.imgur.com/aFU8wrk.png

 

The highlight of the map is the red key fight arena. Once again you give the player entirely too much ammo. I exited the map with 100 rockets leftover so you can probably remove a few boxes from this room and possible move some more to teleport in after you open the red key door, just so this arena isn't completely full of rockets and the player still has enough to deal with the rev/caco/spider fight for the blue key.

 

Shotgun shells, I had over 200 spare shotgun shells at the end of the map. The shotgun shell boxes stacked here https://i.imgur.com/YkU1Wyn.png should be turned into medkits, my reasoning is the cybers splash damage was the only thing that killed me as I moved around the arena and it would of been nice to have +25 hp to prevent some of those deaths. If you do this change however you should add more cacos to teleport in with the PEs (keep the 1 PE per group) maybe like 3 extra cacos per group? 

 

Because of the stacked green armour near the red key door, I think the blue armour secret should be a soulsphere so the player can reach 200/100 in this room. 

 

Maybe remove the backpacks from the red key arena and place 1 closer to the player start so the player doesn't have to backtrack for shells when clearing out some of the vile traps. At one point I just ran into a group of enemies because I was at 0/0/0/0 ammo. There's tons of ammo I was just too lazy to go back. 

 

Waterfalls and rocks look fine misaligned so I didn't spend any time trying to check all of them. Is the exit a refrence to sunlust 24 dying on cue?

My main fear here was the circle strafe arena, i had to modify it several times cause it was too straightforward initially (and too easy) but from what i read maybe i did a good job, i will fix everything once i ll be back from work tonight. In the meantime i will limit myself to thank you a lot for testing episode 5, it was really needed, and for being so precise :)

The episode itself was inspired by the moon in Legend of Dragoon (a psone rpg, don't know if you know it) and i didn't really want to create a similar building to the crusher that explodes in dying on cue, but then once i made that area i realized that it was actually similar in the concept. Fact is that i built this megawad right after playing Sunlust for the third time (and meanwhile i was making episode 5 i was playing stardate20x6 :P) so yes i guess that it was an unconscious reference, i'm okay with that, Ribbiks is by far my favourite mapper :)

Edited September 27, 2020 by Zolgia108