Steel Sepulchre (Vanilla)

xdarkmasterx · November 26, 2020

Hey guys back again with a new map, as usual it's vanilla

Warning: Some rooms might overload sprite limit in vanilla/chocolate doom but it's fully playable otherwise

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qfzm0huuunifo2l/stlsepu.wad?dl=0

Edited November 26, 2020 by xdarkmasterx

MattFright · November 26, 2020

The aesthetics are really really good, and i get the idea you had for some of these encounters, but to me this feels like a level only reliably doable if done tool assisted.

Spoiler

There are several encounters you have to go through to complete the map and through the red/blue door i assume, but even i'm too young to die feels just about the same as ultra-violence since they require such specific precise inputs. The rocket launcher room with the two archviles, imps and revenants is by far the easiest (aside from the starter one, which by the way, was the only room i really had some fun in), but even that one on "i'm too young to die" required very precise inputs to get through and you'd be almost guaranteed to take a lot of damage on your way out.

Maybe there are people who like maps like this?? But as it stands, i don't think people would have fun perfecting their inputs down to playing like a robot over the course of several hours, or even have the time to do so. Again, great aesthetics, great ambience, some good ideas for encounters, but overall too sadistic and not much thought put into making them actually fun aside from the first room it seems.

xdarkmasterx · November 26, 2020

4 hours ago, MattFright said:

The aesthetics are really really good, and i get the idea you had for some of these encounters, but to me this feels like a level only reliably doable if done tool assisted.

Hide contents

There are several encounters you have to go through to complete the map and through the red/blue door i assume, but even i'm too young to die feels just about the same as ultra-violence since they require such specific precise inputs. The rocket launcher room with the two archviles, imps and revenants is by far the easiest (aside from the starter one, which by the way, was the only room i really had some fun in), but even that one on "i'm too young to die" required very precise inputs to get through and you'd be almost guaranteed to take a lot of damage on your way out.

Maybe there are people who like maps like this?? But as it stands, i don't think people would have fun perfecting their inputs down to playing like a robot over the course of several hours, or even have the time to do so. Again, great aesthetics, great ambience, some good ideas for encounters, but overall too sadistic and not much thought put into making them actually fun aside from the first room it seems.

Aww come on, I played each 4 paths extensively and even made them easier than they were initial :p. Does using the monster Does I thought that replacing stronger monsters with lesser ones would have sufficesd tfor the lower difficulty settings, do you think should I put more helath on them as well?

Spoiler

very precise inputs to get through and you'd be almost guaranteed to take a lot of damage on your way out.

Wellm , funny thing is I actually hate unavoidable damage in games usually, but Doom isn't that kind of game to me, since even the IWADs are full of things you can't really avoid (way too fast hitscanners, toxic slime you have to run across, things like that) so I'm fine with that sort of thing happening in my levels :p.

Any way, thanks for feedback. Perhaps I need to make rocket launcher path more difficult >:)

Edited November 26, 2020 by xdarkmasterx

Juka · November 26, 2020

37 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

the IWADs are full of things you can't really avoid (way too fast hitscanners, toxic slime you have to run across, things like that) so I'm fine with that sort of thing happening in my levels :p.

Keep in mind that hitscanners and damaging floors will only take a chunk of your health while also giving you options to deal with it, like covering, running faster or looking for an alternate route. A cramped room filled with very dangerous monsters is not the same thing, it will end your run if anything goes wrong, which is only frustrating.

I enjoy difficult levels as well, but most of the encounters in this map were just frustrating because there's no room to dodge. When a drop happens and the player is caught off guard and dies they can at least think "oh so this is why I died, next time I'll try X or Y", because chances are the player didn't use the arena to it's fullest so of course they died. During this map's traps however there's nowhere to go, no new strategy to try, and every death feels like the RNG just decided to end your run.

Take the rocket launcher room for example, I lost count of how many times the archviles spawned and ran behind the pillar, or cornered me without being stunned by the rockets, or ran straight to me and I couldn't fire rockets because I'd kill myself if they hit, and that's one of the easiest traps.

Point is, hard for the sake of being hard is not even close to fun, the traps would be way more fun if I could run and dodge things, because then dying would mean "you didn't dodge well enough", instead of "the archvile's painchance RNG didn't smile, try again".

I want to end this on a positive note though, the overall structure and texturing are very pleasing, I found the map pretty interesting to navigate through and really wish I had more fun while playing, it would have been a very pleasant experience.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Juka

xdarkmasterx · November 27, 2020

8 minutes ago, Juka said:

Point is, hard for the sake of being hard is not even close to fun,

Things are never hard for its' own sake, least not this level. It's as difficult as it is because this is the level of difficulty I find challenging on UV, and therefore makes the level more fun. Again, I tested the combat encounters again and again, and then made them even easier than they were at that point (less monsters, more supplies), and so I could not in any way call this level "Just RNG" or "unbalanced", perhaps difficulties under hard mode could be made easier (I try to keep them a little challenging :p) but don't think UV needs to be any easier

Noiser · November 27, 2020

Glad to see you're still making maps @xdarkmasterx. This one is definitely on my playlist!

DynamiteKaitorn · November 27, 2020

I'd want to test this in Chocolate but for the simple fact that

A: There's so many enemies you give Nuts.wad a run for its money (almost)

B: There's a savegame buffer overrun

and C: ITYTD in some regards is still to hard

Delisk · November 27, 2020

Wilster_Wonkels · November 27, 2020

It's not a horrible looking level for the most part, but it's a bit too much of a ballbuster for me.

Noiser · November 27, 2020

7 hours ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

B: There's a savegame buffer overrun

You can fix this issue on the Chocolate Doom setup:

image.png.2d1ebed2c2f51bbc3c0c6a614431dfc0.png

Edited November 27, 2020 by Noiser

xdarkmasterx · November 27, 2020

7 hours ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

There's a savegame buffer overrun

Damn, didn't notice the saving bug (I don't use it :p). Here, this version has no gore decorations so you should be able to save your game in vanilla:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zw71gur6dup0ncq/SSvanfx.wad?dl=0

Also, map updated: No more arch viles on easy, slightly more health on easy and medium

DynamiteKaitorn · November 27, 2020

Nope! The SGBO crash still happens.

I know I can disable this feature for Chocolate DooM but if a wad says it's vanilla compat I WILL check that bug. ;)

EDIT:

Also in the room with the red key, how come the revenants are spawned inside of a bunch of imps? Are the imps meant to be flagged easy and the revenants flagged hard?

Edited November 27, 2020 by DynamiteKaitorn

Dodgy Dave · November 27, 2020

That feel when you love the level but you suck at video games too much to finish it.

<3

xdarkmasterx · November 27, 2020

2 hours ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

Nope! The SGBO crash still happens.

I know I can disable this feature for Chocolate DooM but if a wad says it's vanilla compat I WILL check that bug. ;)

EDIT:

Also in the room with the red key, how come the revenants are spawned inside of a bunch of imps? Are the imps meant to be flagged easy and the revenants flagged hard?

Strange, I can save on it without the crash happening. Are you playing with SSvanfx.wad?

Crap, I forgot about that second one >_< I should have tried it out a few more times on easy

Edited November 27, 2020 by xdarkmasterx

ElPadrecitoCholo · November 30, 2020

Steel Sepulchre

Ultra-Violence || GZDoom || Nguns

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

In order not to do much text with respect to what you will already deduce from my comment, I will save words and summarize them in a few lines of text.

The visual aspect of the Wad is very good, and the playability is not. In fact, the gameplay of this Wad does not work for me, and because it does not work for me, I quickly classify it as bad, Hmm... I think I'm being very tough, wait I compose it, ehem... the gameplay on this map it's absolute shit, Slaughter style encounters, some even with closed spaces but in the end they are part of the same thing that I said, with many Imps, Archviles, Hitscanners, Archviles, Revenants, a Mancubus, ARCHVILES, well... anything salvageable from all this mess?, hmm... I guess the final battle was fine, yeah, really fine, decent in my humble opinion, but everything else can go down the toilet, and I don't care if everything gets stuck there, no I'm going to get close to that crap. With all that said, I hope you have a very nice day.

Spoiler

Just to clarify, a lot of the complaint I had with the map was actually about the gameplay in Vanilla, which I found almost impossible to pass it, too many casualties for a miserable map that is not as extensive as I thought from the beginning.

Edited November 30, 2020 by ElPadrecitoCholo

Noiser · November 30, 2020

4 hours ago, ElPadrecitoCholo said:

Ultra-Violence || GZDoom

I didn't played it yet, but how about lowering the difficulty? Darkmaster maps are always challenging, it's part of his style. There's no shame of playing on HMP or even ITYTD\HNTR.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Noiser

ElPadrecitoCholo · November 30, 2020

7 hours ago, Noiser said:

I didn't played it yet, but how about lowering the difficulty? Darkmaster maps are always challenging, it's part of his style. There's no shame of playing on HMP or even ITYTD\HNTR.

Bruh, It does not make much sense to play it that way if you know that the elements present in the maps in low difficulties are only there to make one feel more comfortable, but the reality is that it's not very helpful either if in the end you can't enjoy it in UV because those elements that you saw in low difficulties are not there, and it is even more screwed up the fact that the challenge that the 4th difficulty has is not at all pleasant to the playable experience, and that you better stay in the 3rd difficulty until the previous ones, and that is something that I do not like at all, and that I am not going to retract what I have commented on.

Edited November 30, 2020 by ElPadrecitoCholo

TheMagicMushroomMan · November 30, 2020

28 minutes ago, ElPadrecitoCholo said:

Bruh, It does not make much sense to play it that way if you know that the elements present in the maps in low difficulties are only there to make one feel more comfortable, but the reality is that it's not very helpful either if in the end you can't enjoy it in UV because those elements that you saw in low difficulties are not there, and it is even more screwed up the fact that the challenge that the 4th difficulty has is not at all pleasant to the playable experience, and that you better stay in the 3rd difficulty until the previous ones, and that is something that I do not like at all, and that I am not going to retract what I have commented on.

So, in other words, you think that selecting a difficulty appropriate for your level of skill is a waste of time and it's better to complain that UV is too hard?

ElPadrecitoCholo · November 30, 2020

3 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

So, in other words, you think that selecting a difficulty appropriate for your level of skill is a waste of time and it's better to complain that UV is too hard?

Consider it as you want, I am not going to make any more answer to this, colleague

xdarkmasterx · December 1, 2020

Skills 1-3 aren't for show, guys. I made sure to do them so that people who don't enjoy hard levels can still play. If you think they are still too difficult (or too easy), then I can modify perhaps, but if you are too proud not to play on UV I can't help you :p