Wiremaster Ritual (boom map)

[Misty]

Hello, everyone! I didn't release maps of my own in recent months, but today I'm going to change it - I'm releasing map called "Wiremaster Ritual". It was meant for 3x3 project, but I decided it's more suitable for stand-alone release.
 

 

Important information:

 

- Doom2 iwad in map01.
- Boom compatible. 
- Tested with prboom+ 2.5.1.4, dsda doom, lzdoom and eternity 4.02.
- Download from here 

- If you played Sigil, you will know what to do, if not - just shoot evil eyes!
 

Credits and music:

- Agitated Robotic by IN1_ACMM.
- No Limit by William Petiot.
 

- Textures and sky edit is by me, except for exit sign, it's taken from Survive in Hell megawad. 
- Thank you all playtesters who took their time to play this short map!

 

All criticism and good words are welcomed and encouraged. Have a good day!

Edited June 22, 2021 by Misty

[Biodegradable]

Posting mine to help boost the thread. It's a cool map, you guys!

 

 

[Li'l devil]

Good words: I really like the design, the style and the music. Really cool, and it all fits together perfectly!

Criticism: the difficulty. Did you implement difficulty settings at all? I played on ITYTD, but felt like I was playing on UV, and I just couldn't beat it. Normal encounters were always manageable, but there were two instances where the map trapped me in a difficult situation with a cyber in both cases and I couldn't figure out what to do before the cyber killed me, there wasn't enough time for me to react. I did manage to beat the first such trap, but the second one was too much. Tho I guess you expected everyone to quicksave often, which I don't do. :)

 

Anyway, a good map, can recommend everyone to at least try it. :)

Edited June 21, 2021 by Li'l devil

[Misty]

Thank you all for the comments, I was a bit worried that I won't get any.

 

@Li'l devil Well, I actually enjoy maps on harder side, even on easier skills. I will tune map more around to make it more accesible for people. I can imagine that cyberdemon is pure rng fest in blue area. 

[Bdubzzz]

Here is a FDA, overall it was a fun map.

wirerit-FDA-Dubz.zip

 

Spoiler

I would say the mastermind blocking the exit in the blue area and the cyberdemon blocking the exit in the red area are kind of just pointless grind.. if you had more of an encounter with them it would make sense but the red area has nothing as you probably have to kill the revs/viles ( unless you can just run to the exit, forget if you gotta hit another switch ) and the blue area has that little pinkie/couple baron encounter but because of where the mastermind is it's not really any threat with that encounter. Might be better to just have like a group of monsters at the exit that can walk out as well or something ( at least in the blue area, the red area cyber is actually more of a threat if you go there first and have to get close to him with SSG) . The final cyber in the last room can get stuck when you plasma him but not sure if you really want monster block lines around him because of the cacos.

 

[Misty]

Well, that's actually good idea as I'm reeading in spoilers. I just wanted to provide silly challenge, but I guess it's better to use something less grindy. I will get around with it in new version of the map. Of course I could move to new mapping format only for ground monster blocking, but then I would lose compatibility with few ports until they catch up. 

[Misty]

I did quick update on map, link is in op. Few changes so far:

 

• Removed excessive spider mastermind and cyberdemon encounter, replaced them with bunch of monsters to reduce grind.
• Did some small adjustments arond.
• Zip includes new and old version if you want to compare it. 

If there won't be more comments, I plan send it to idgames really soon, unless life gets in my way. 

[Li'l devil]

I guess I'll replay it, tho I'm not sure if I'll have anything more to say :)

[Li'l devil]

Still can't beat it. :( This time I made even less progress than before because you put a new baron/knight trap with no space for me to dodge their attacks, even plasma gun spam didn't help. There are just way too many monsters all around, so again, feels like I'm playing on UV when I'm playing on ITYTD. And while ammo is in abundance, it just didn't help me get out of these traps. Anyway, I'd reduce the amount of monsters for lower difficulties, because it seems like you didn't do that.

[Nine Inch Heels]

I happened to play what seems to be the updated version, but unfortunately failed to record... I ended up dying at the last fight because I fell down and there was no way to get back up that I could see... I ended up just cheating my way to the last fight real quick, because I wasn't interested in playing the entire map again at the time, and then I found out that at least one of the platforms can be lowered, not that it makes much of a difference necessarily, because if the cacos end up hogging it, it's all for nought... So I'll put the last fight in the "you better know what's coming" category, while the rest of the map seems doable without too much in the way of problems, I'd think...

 

In hindsight I liked the blue area the most, even though I think having the cybs face the player right away isn't really required to make the area work... The only reason I survived until the last fight was that the pinkie + nobles ambush in the blue area could be trivialized by just running out of that "pseudo-lock-in" before the monsters block any chance at egress... It's not a tide the plasma rifle can stem, and I haven't tried it with rockets but without cheesing the whole fight, so I can't say how feasible it is to play it the intended way - that said, quite a bunch of fights can be cheesed by just running back to where you came from, and weathering the storm from there...

 

In that sense, the map plays pretty "fair" even the first time around, but it does not bode all that well for the overall difficulty of the map, because knowledge of the fights allows for so much cheese (which also happens to be pretty fast overall), that a lot of stuff just falls apart at the seams from a conceptual POV... Another such example would be the 2 cybs guarding the blue key: If you know that shootswitch raises the bridge for them, you just don't shoot it until the cybers are dead, and you get a pretty good platform with 200 cells to work from for free - which also means the cybs will never push the player back into the corridors, where fighting them is more interesting. For that reason I would probably relegate that shootswitch trigger to a walkover trigger, because this one does not only come at the expense of difficulty, but also at the expense of fun...

 

The red area I happened to like a bit less, mostly because it feels relatively slow by comparison, and the absence of armour (except for the secret one) encourages a more cautious and sluggish playstyle. I'd also not want to play this area first, because the blue area starts off with all the good weapons, while the red area withholds the SSG for some time. It's not the worst thing ever, but going into the red area "geared up" makes it work better for me personally...

 

Overall it's a neat map, perhaps with a little too much cheese for its own good, but a fun map nonetheless, and I appreciate the follow up "light show"...

[Misty]

Thank you for playing this level. I'll provide another update once I'm done with other project level and include some of these suggestions here. I wasn't trying to punish players for getting away from encounters, even if end result is full of leaking cheese. But I guess, that's expected. Anyway, thank you once again for taking look at this level and play it. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Misty

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/8QIvmPFmEv4

 

My playthrough starts at 1:49:10.