DOOM: RAGING ANARCHY - An Ultimate Doom megawad (OUT NOW!)

[JXC]

4 hours ago, SilverMiner said:

Why waste time on trifles? Go with Eternity

How about Crispy where it's limit-removing, but it supports MBF sky transfers, BEX, and animated walls/switches?

[katarn11]

Yeah I say go Limit removing so you're not fighting tech against your creativity - I have no idea what possessed me to play in Chocolate - I do that so rarely but it may have been from that trailer you made had me feeling like I should play it that way first

[LateNightPerson]

The trailer was recorded using PrBoom Plus ironically

[OpenRift]

On 1/10/2021 at 3:31 PM, LateNightPerson said:

Should I abandon vanilla support in favor of a more complete experience?

I would actually suggest sticking to vanilla support because I think that kind of limitation can breed the most creativity. I would recommend playing through some vanilla WADs for inspiration.

[LateNightPerson]

3 hours ago, OpenRift said:

I would actually suggest sticking to vanilla support because I think that kind of limitation can breed the most creativity. I would recommend playing through some vanilla WADs for inspiration.

Makes sense to me. Really the only issue I have is visplane overflow and tutti-frutti textures.

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 2:

Finished working on E2M6 (yeah I'm working on levels out of order lol). Its a level set on a ship.

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by LateNightPerson

[OpenRift]

6 minutes ago, LateNightPerson said:

Makes sense to me. Really the only issue I have is visplane overflow and tutti-frutti textures.

Tutti-frutti is actually a really easy fix (pro-tip, test your maps with chocolate doom). As for visplanes, I'd say you can still be detailed, but don't show all that detail all at once. Or maybe trim out the fat. The main thing I would say you should keep under control is vissegs, which is what causes those HOMs I posted the other day.

[LateNightPerson]

Interesting... I'll look into vissegs then, thanks for the tip!

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 3:

Lots of progress in E2! E2M3 is (mostly) finished and E2M9 is definitely shaping up to be a great challenge. Screenshots will come at a later date since it's pretty late right now. Stay tuned for more!

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 4:

Finished E3M5, E3M6, E2M9, and started work on E2M1 and E2M2. Looks good so far. I also edited E2M6 a bit so that it looks and plays a bit better.

Edited January 22, 2021 by LateNightPerson

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 5:

Fucking hell, my computer's fan broke. Will have to delay the wad. Thankfully E3M7 is done but I don't like how it turned out.

[Scypek2]

I saw from the trailer that it's minimalistic, but interesting. So I gave it a try! Definitely a cool choice to do cyperpunkish Doom 1 cities. Requires more imagination than usual (with the "cars" probably being the peak of it... I'm not really sure why each of them has different "wheels"), but it's fun to suspend disbelief more than usual sometimes. The low detail with the unusual theme made me feel like I'm playing a different 90s FPS at times.

 

It's pretty neat that the top of the sky is one solid color, making it fade very seamlessly in GZDoom.

 

I really enjoyed all the optional secret keys, and the more parkour-oriented secrets. The seamless level progression tied it all nicely together too.

 

I really liked the burning building, such a simple effect and yet it worked so well. I also found it clever how you placed that one lamp on a rooftop in E1M2 to prevent the player from being blocked by an invisible fence. So simple and basic but it stuck out to me somehow.

 

Sadly, the gameplay wasn't too good. It seems like the limitation of Doom 1 objects is working against you, and there was almost never an increase in difficulty - only an increase in grindyness. There were some pretty clever Baron placements but still... they're barons, and I have no plasma and barely any rockets. The reason Perfect Hatred plays just fine despite all those barons is that Romero gives you a ton of plasma to go alongside it. In your episode, you've got a E4 lineup of monsters and E1 weapons to fight them with.

 

Spoiler

The secret level was a major exception in terms of difficulty - at first it's just grindy (I loved the way you acquire the rocket launcher, but what am I supposed to do with all the barons BEFORE it?!), but then it gets a HUGE difficulty spike. Like holy shit, is there even enough rockets to take them all down? Either way... yeah, rockets. I respect your commitment to limited weapon loadout, but this gear and this opposition just aren't made for each other. You could probably just have one cyberdemon up there, and it'd be intense enough. Or many, but have them telefraggable or something. As it is, I'm playing an easy-ish mapset only to be suddenly asked to dodge insta-death rockets from multiple sources with no cover for... let's see, you shoot 2 rockets per second, a cybie needs approximately 45 rockets to die, and there's 4 of them (on HMP - I'm not sure how much the skill levels change), so that's... a minute and a half of constant dodging, I guess. If you're accurate enough. Yeah, I'm not sure about that.

 

And then there's the secondary consequence of this difficulty spike, namely that you suddenly end up with a ton of rockets to heavily simplify the further levels with... although, given that it's a secret level, that may not be too bad.

 

I really liked the look of the rooftop level, and after getting through E1M9 I fully expected that one to be something extreme too... but not quite. I thought I'll either have other monsters teleporting onto my rooftop and distracting me while I fight the barons, or that killing all the barons would unleash something else. Instead, I got a surprisingly anticlimatic fight.

 

I have two pieces of advice:

1. Less shotgun shells, more of everything else. This is often good advice for Doom 2 levels too, but especially so for Doom 1 where it's even more tedious to use all those shells up. Because of the different amounts of ammo each pickup gives you, and different speeds at which you spend it, it's easy to give the player too many shells and not enough bullets and rockets.
2. In Doom 1, low tier enemies are your friend. Even with bigger guns around. Just look at E4M1, those shotgunners cause such a bloodbath that they make the barons look like pushovers. Imps are highly versatile too, and can do a lot as long as you don't give the player too much room to dodge. They're more dangerous than pinkies in close quarters, and work well in groups. There's a lot of difficulty you can create with just low tier enemies... and a whole lot more fun, for sure.

 

Alternatively... given that your wad has such an unusual theme, maybe some Dehacked work wouldn't be out of place. You could give the tankier enemies some deadlier abilities to match, maybe repurpose some Doom 2 attacks... and make something classic but fresh, like Doomkid's Rowdy Rudy. This may be a bit outside the scope of what you're going for... but there's a lot of time until fall.

 

But whatever you decide, I'll be looking forward to playing the full thing, cause the unique aesthetic is attractive enough for me to forgive any other imperfections.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Scypek2

[LateNightPerson]

Thanks for the feedback from the demo! Yeah E1M9 needs some retooling to make it better. I intend the secret maps to be slaughtermaps so yeah lol. Also, thanks for the tips.

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 6:

The computer hath returned! Will continue development tomorrow. Short term goals: rework E3M7 into something enjoyable, rework E1's combat and gameplay for a better experience, and redesign E1M8 so that it is more climactic. See you again in a few days!

[Scypek2]

Sounds good! Looking forward to see what you come up with.

[LateNightPerson]

@Scypek2 thanks!

 

UPDATE 7:

I began reworking the E1 combat with more chaingun ammo and rockets with less shells and less shotgunners in favor of zombiemen and imps. I also made huge progress in the new version of E3M7, and I am really liking it so far! It's certainly more Sigil-like. Expect another update soon.

[JXC]

I have a cool dehacked idea: You can make a sprite-based train that spawns from an invisible point. The front of the train can replace the revenant missile (without tracers) or the arachnotron ball, and the body/back segments can replace the other.

[Scypek2]

Not sure if that's relevant to this project either way, but it would probably be simpler to use walking monsters as a base for a sprite-based train (cool idea though!). Just make sure they're not shootable, and with sufficiently limited movement you can force them to constantly walk in the same direction (like the corridor demons in E3M1 of Doom).

[LateNightPerson]

@JXC cool idea!

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 8:

E3M7 is finished, and it is glorious! Definitely my favorite map so far lol. Screenshots are below.

 

I also reworked E1M9 a bit so that it's more bearable. Will do the same with other sections of E1 in the future.

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by LateNightPerson

[Scypek2]

Looking good! Pretty Sigil-esque indeed, but not entirely derivative. I like all the fireblu, and I see a room more similar to classic Inferno. It seems all the episodes are gonna be pretty unique, though I'm not sure if you can top the cyberpunk city of E1 in terms of originality.

[LateNightPerson]

The plan for episodes 2 and 3 go like this:

- E2 is set primarily in jungles and caves, with a few techbases here and there.

- E3 will bring back the cyberpunk cities for a level or two, but is more focused on tech labs with the final 3 levels being set in Hell.

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 9:

Began work on E3M9, which is around 60% complete. I'm loving the gameplay in this one! I feel that I understand the strengths of the low-tier enemies more, so there's gonna be more prolific use of them in E3 and E2 as well. Expect a singleplayer beta in around 2 - 3 months' time.

  

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 10:

Finished E3M9 and E2M1, made E3M1, and started E3M2. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I hope this suffices. Screenshots of the new levels are below.

[The Kingslayer]

Nice, more Ultimate Doom is never a bad thing! Will the single player episodes also have deathmatch support? Deathmatch on Nightmare! with a ton of monsters is always good fun.

[LateNightPerson]

The singleplayer episodes will have coop but there will be separate deathmatch maps.

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 11:

 

NU GRAFIX! A new hud and wip menu graphics have been added. Also, E3M2 is done! 

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 12:

Episode 3: "Annihilation" is finished! Blast your way through the city streets of rioting demons once more and venture deep into the heart of the hellish rage and destroy the Devil Machine! 

May need balance updates and a new sky. Will finish the rest of E2. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by LateNightPerson

[LateNightPerson]

UPDATE 13:

 

Episode 2: "Operation Beatdown" is nearing completion! Get ready to blast through the jungle and into mineshafts as you battle to find the second demon portal inside of a volcano! Featuring a Dead Simple clone lol. Episode 4 aka multiplayer content will be made once E2 is finished.

 

Soon...

Edited April 30, 2021 by LateNightPerson

[OpenRift]

1 hour ago, LateNightPerson said:

UPDATE 13:

 

Episode 2: "Operation Beatdown" is nearing completion! Get ready to blast through the jungle and into mineshafts as you battle to find the second demon portal inside of a volcano! Featuring a Dead Simple clone lol. Episode 4 aka multiplayer content will be made once E2 is finished.

 

Soon...

Love that new status bar!