Regarding Sunlust

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

3 hours ago, maxmanium said:

I'll be honest: if Sunlust UV is above my skill level, I don't want to be skilled. Seems just torturous.

 

10 hours ago, AhryMahry said:

Map 20 broke me, i'm done

You know, when you start up the game, usually a screen shows up after choosing new game asking for the difficulty, and, believe it or not, there are options! You can choose any skill level you want, and go to a lower one if the game becomes too difficult!

Spoiler

The only problem is that you either have to pistol start the map you were playing or just play again from zero.

 

Going back to topic: Maybe this video by @borogk will answer you question

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Lol 6

[maxmanium]

1 minute ago, Lol 6 said:

You know, when you start up the game, usually a screen shows up after choosing new game asking for the difficulty, and, believe it or not, there are options! You can choose any skill level you want, and go to a lower one if the game becomes too difficult!

 

Not only was that not the point of my post, but you come off rather condescending. Yes, everyone knows there are difficulty levels, I'm just saying I don't like how Sunlust structures UV mostly because it results in me having to spam saving and reloading provided you don't know the map already.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

1 minute ago, maxmanium said:

 

But you come off rather condescending

Yeah, sorry about that, I offer an apology.

1 minute ago, maxmanium said:

I'm just saying I don't like how Sunlust structures UV mostly because it results in me having to spam saving and reloading provided you don't know the map already

I see your point, although in the sunlust text file, they state that UV is meant for Doom gods and be a very difficult challenge, thus they encourage players to start with HMP or lower. Maybe starting on maybe ITYTD or HNTR to know the layout may be the ideal, and then playing on medium to "train", and finally tackle hard.

Spoiler

I mean, I could say that I'm against the "UV-Blind runs" because of that, you are blind and having a hard challenge while don't knowing what you're against for can be frustrating

 

[maxmanium]

5 minutes ago, Lol 6 said:

I see your point, although in the sunlust text file, they state that UV is meant for Doom gods and be a very difficult challenge, thus they encourage players to start with HMP or lower. Maybe starting on maybe ITYTD or HNTR to know the layout may be the ideal, and then playing on medium to "train", and finally tackle hard.

 

That's a solid point; I think most people just see what port it requires and don't read further, although maybe that's just me. It does seem to break the pattern that UV is the "standard" difficulty nowadays although there's nothing wrong with that.

[Shepardus]

Every time someone jumps straight into UV, Ribbiks sheds a tear. Over time, these tears coalesced into a deep teal abyss known only as Magnolia, and in this abyss there was no UV difficulty to be found.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

13 minutes ago, maxmanium said:

 

That's a solid point; I think most people just see what port it requires and don't read further, although maybe that's just me. It does seem to break the pattern that UV is the "standard" difficulty nowadays although there's nothing wrong with that.

Of course, everyone can play however they want, but I come back to my earlier point, it can become a very frustrating experience rather quickly. That's why I always play on HMP (except for demos). I want the game to be hard, but I also want to have some breathing space and fun

 

But, anyways, let's finish this discussion, no good thing has come from it. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Lol 6

[maxmanium]

24 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Every time someone jumps straight into UV, Ribbiks sheds a tear. Over time, these tears coalesced into a deep teal abyss known only as Magnolia, and in this abyss there was no UV difficulty to be found.

 

Yeah, I'm guilty of this myself. No idea why.

[Lucky_Edie]

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

Every time someone jumps straight into UV, Ribbiks sheds a tear. Over time, these tears coalesced into a deep teal abyss known only as Magnolia, and in this abyss there was no UV difficulty to be found.

 

Ribbit

[OniriA]

13 hours ago, AhryMahry said:

Regarding Sunlust

 

Regarding people who specially make a thread on the internet to dislike thing "X" or wad "A" only solidifies and proves that things excellence in my experience. 

 

Because people are still talking about it.  Every great or excellent thing out there will have a 50 to 1 or 100 to 5 ratio. ( 1 hater for every 50 fans, 5 for every 100). 

 

I'd be honored if someone got out of its way to make a thread about how bad my wad or music was. Because I know that whenever one comes at such a stage/point, he already has 100's or 1000's of fans. 

 

So in the end, this type of thread is just the result of basic economics. 

[Devalaous]

im curious, would it to be possible to unite Sunlust and its add-on maps (summer of 69) without conflicts? Like say, an episode in the selection screen.

[Daerik]

4 hours ago, Fairen said:

Because whenever something is regarded as "hardcore", there are people who adamantly defend it because they want to perceive themselves (and be perceived) as "hardcore" as well. They need to convince themselves it is masterful design because, if it is not masterful, then they put up with repetitive monster encounters and heavy trial-and-error gameplay for no good reason.

 

Oh yes there is, because the one time I criticized it, I had a bunch of people here flipping out and jumping down my throat for not worshipping Sunlust.

 

Almost every level in Sunlust past the early-game features an encounter that is just a stupid number of revenants. Nothing strategic about their placement whatsoever; it is simply a massive horde of revenants. It is a not a puzzle, because in most of these instances, if you do not take out the BFG and hold down the fire button, you will almost certainly be overwhelmed and killed.

 

The heart of the matter is that people are so invested in thinking they're good by saying Sunlust is good that they delude themselves about its depth and design, then lash out at every instance of people pointing out what Sunlust really is: a WAD that doesn't know how to create actual challenge without cheap monster closets and spawn-ins, that thinks "spam the BFG to not die" is a deep puzzle and then repeats it 100 times over the course of the WAD, and thinks creative encounters amount to "what if we have X cyberdemons and Y revenants this time instead of A cyberdemons and B revenants!".

Actually people are jumping down your throat because you're acting hilariously arrogant; basically calling everyone else idiots and refusing to entertain the idea that your perspective is wrong. Your criticisms about Sunlust are just flat out wrong, such as;

 

4 hours ago, Fairen said:

"spam the BFG to not die"

 

considering sunlust rarely gives you a bfg or enough cells to spam it, unless you happen to be playing continuous (which the text file says to not do) or abusing idkfa.

 

I'm still waiting to see you post a video of you playing Sunlust, because if its consistently an easy wad you may be one of the best players to ever touch doom.

[dei_eldren]

1 hour ago, OniriA said:

 

Because people are still talking about it.  Every great or excellent thing out there will have a 50 to 1 or 100 to 5 ratio. ( 1 hater for every 50 fans, 5 for every 100). 

 

As a principle this is just false.  Poor things can have millions of fans, if any objective standards are employed (people are entitled to like whatever they like, of course, it's no judgment on them - no doubt i like many things that are poor, for example Doom levels, by certain standards, at least).  Simply put, popularity is no measure of anything else but popularity - and sometimes, not talking about Sunlust, popularity can even be manufactured.

 

As a principle, in case of Sunlust, as others have basically pointed out, that a lot of Doom Gods think Sunlust is great, really doesn't make Sunlust a great WAD.  It just offers them something that gives them a good experience - maybe they even like it because it gives them a chance to 'flex their muslces' (no offense meant, truly).  Personally, i don't like the aesthetics of Sunlust - it's impressive at first, but gets tired very quickly (just my opinion.)

 

Lastly, as a rule, i'd rather do 'good' (by some objective, or even subjective, standards) things than popular things, personally.

Edited August 10, 2021 by dei_eldren

[SiMpLeToNiUm]

This thread has reminded me that I should probably give Sunlust a try at some point. Thought it was a good-looking set the first time I cracked it open. Don't know why I never got past the first few maps, tbh.

[LexiMax]

27 minutes ago, dei_eldren said:

As a principle, in case of Sunlust, as others have basically pointed out, that a lot of Doom Gods think Sunlust is great, really doesn't make Sunlust a great WAD.

 

I'm trying to tease out the point from your post, but are you saying that you take offense to people calling Sunlust a good WAD because it conflicts with your own personal preferences of what a good WAD is?

[Shepardus]

5 hours ago, Fairen said:

Because whenever something is regarded as "hardcore", there are people who adamantly defend it because they want to perceive themselves (and be perceived) as "hardcore" as well. They need to convince themselves it is masterful design because, if it is not masterful, then they put up with repetitive monster encounters and heavy trial-and-error gameplay for no good reason.

The premise that people only like Sunlust to flex their e-peen or out of some sort of Stockholm syndrome is laughable. There are certainly people like that, but those are generally people who aren't any good at it, and who may not have even played it through, similar to the crowd that thinks that Dark Souls is the hardest game ever. Those who actually know Sunlust well also realize it's far from the hardest wad out there, and if the point is to "enlarge your crucible," there are better wads for that.

 

Also, if you read some of the text files people post along with their demos, you'll see that producing masterfully executed, high-effort runs, exactly the sort of thing that one could describe as "hardcore," doesn't stop people from openly criticizing the design of the maps. If anything, that process of practicing a map repeatedly and optimizing a route is what uncovers the subtle flaws in something that seemed more fun on the surface, resulting in incredible demos paired with the comments "garbage map, never playing this again." That Sunlust has largely escaped such scathing criticism from those most familiar with it, I think, speaks volumes.

[Fairen]

6 hours ago, Decay said:

Imagine being genuinely upset over a pwad for Doom II

Imagine the level of projection in saying that people who criticize a WAD are "upset" about it because you're actually fuming about people making you feel less hardcore.

 

6 hours ago, Lol 6 said:

I see your point, although in the sunlust text file, they state that UV is meant for Doom gods and be a very difficult challenge, thus they encourage players to start with HMP or lower. Maybe starting on maybe ITYTD or HNTR to know the layout may be the ideal, and then playing on medium to "train", and finally tackle hard.

There is almost zero difference in how Sunlust plays between Hurt Me Plenty and Ultra-Violence. All it does is give you a few less monsters in every massive swarm—often it's the difference between "20 revenants" and "30 revenants".

 

2 hours ago, Daerik said:

considering sunlust rarely gives you a bfg or enough cells to spam it, unless you happen to be playing continuous

Almost every level past the first few is filled to the brim with rockets and cells. In fact, many later levels of Sunlust have almost no shell and bullet pickups in them compared to rocket/cell pickups.

 

Also, most levels after Map 7 give you a BFG. In fact, several have multiple BFGs in one level.

 

56 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

That Sunlust has largely escaped such scathing criticism from those most familiar with it, I think, speaks volumes.

Or it's just the fact that you can make this statement purely because you insist that anyone with criticism of it is simply not familiar with it, even though those people will point out objectively false things its defenders say about the WAD.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Fairen

["JL" was too short]

Sunlust honestly shouldn't be oppressively hard if you're willing to turn the difficulty down and use saves.  I did it and I'm a relatively shitty doomer by the standards of people who are still playing OG Doom in 2021.  If you're not willing to do either of those things, ok, but that's on you.

Edited August 10, 2021 by jerrysheppy

[Pseudonaut]

8 minutes ago, Fairen said:

Or it's just the fact that you can make this statement purely because you insist that anyone with criticism of it is simply not familiar with it.

There's a very simple way to silence those who say you don't know what you're talking about, and it was already mentioned by Daerik: post a video or demo of you playing Sunlust. The gameplay flaws you describe didn't appear when I played it, and I don't see them in anyone else's Sunlust gameplay, but maybe you can show us. A UV-Max of map25, for example, would be enough to surprise me.

[Shepardus]

15 minutes ago, Fairen said:

Or it's just the fact that you can make this statement purely because you insist that anyone with criticism of it is simply not familiar with it, even though those people will point out objectively false things its defenders say about the WAD.

Says the one insisting that anyone praising Sunlust only does so to preserve their "hardcore" machismo:

7 hours ago, Fairen said:

Because whenever something is regarded as "hardcore", there are people who adamantly defend it because they want to perceive themselves (and be perceived) as "hardcore" as well. They need to convince themselves it is masterful design because, if it is not masterful, then they put up with repetitive monster encounters and heavy trial-and-error gameplay for no good reason.

[Daerik]

1 minute ago, Fairen said:

Almost every level past the first few is filled to the brim with rockets and cells. In fact, many later levels of Sunlust have almost no shell and bullet pickups in them compared to rocket/cell pickups.

 

Oddly enough restricting the player to chaingun and ssg means you can't really throw difficult encounters at them without it turning into a slog. They aren't interesting weapons to use or design encounters around, because they're very one dimensional; point at monster and shoot. There's only so many ways to iterate on that, whereas rockets have nuances like not killing yourself with the splash, to maximizing the splash damage to be ammo efficient. BFG has so much nuance to how to effectively use tracers, that even knowing how it works it can still be difficult to maximize in situations where a mistake translates to death.

 

Let's look at the last half of sunlust;

 

15: Lots of emphasis on using rockets and bfg for the encounters, but the blue skull key fight and finale will both absolutely demolish you if you don't know how to move.

16: Actually mostly relies on SSG usage until the last half of the map, unless you open every closet up at the start immediately.

17: Basically no mindless bfg spam here.

18: The closest thing to a map that gives you an abundance of resources for you to go crazy and spam.

19: Hard fights that rely on careful rocketing to control space in conjunction with restricted amounts of space. Plasma ends up being a tool to fall back on if you fuck up controlling the encounters.

20: By the time you're at a comfortably position in this map with resources, you've basically beaten it.

23: Super limited on resources, again by the time you get in a comfortable position the maps over.

24: You're mostly reliant on rocketing in fights that put pressure on you constantly from all angles, while the map constantly teases you with the bfg. Even when you get the bfg, you still have two somewhat difficult encounters that you cant just "spam bfg to not die".

25: Not enough bfg ammo to mindlessly spam, again emphasis on varied setups where you rely on good rocketing and movement to control space.

26: Very cramped arenas in conjunction with few cells, again emphasis on good rocket usage.

27: Pretty easy map until the finale, where even with 600 cells and a bfg you can still extremely easily die from how lethal it is. Definitely nothing mindless about it.

28: Every single encounter will out right kill you if you make a mistake, even if you're holding left click with 600 cells.

29: Very hot start, can't mindlessly bfg spam through the merry go round.

30: You can genuinely run out of ammo with bad ammo usage here, and the fight that gives you the bfg can sometimes kill you even with good play.

 

Not much in the way of mindless bfg spam. Sure theres a repeated reliance on good rocketing, but that tends to be a consistently enjoyable challenge, as you constantly have to walk a line between being aggressive enough to control space while not killing yourself, and even then it's always a different setup.

[Fairen]

13 minutes ago, Daerik said:

Oddly enough restricting the player to chaingun and ssg means you can't really throw difficult encounters at them without it turning into a slog. They aren't interesting weapons to use or design encounters around, because they're very one dimensional; point at monster and shoot. There's only so many ways to iterate on that, whereas rockets have nuances like not killing yourself with the splash, to maximizing the splash damage to be ammo efficient. BFG has so much nuance to how to effectively use tracers, that even knowing how it works it can still be difficult to maximize in situations where a mistake translates to death.

I cannot believe you are trying to sound smart at game design while saying it's impossible to create difficult encounters unless you force the player to consistently rely on only the strongest weapons in the game.

 

"Difficult encounters" are not simply about drowning the player in rockets and cells and monsters. They're about enemy placement, enemy variety, rationing of supplies, knowing what weapon is best to use in what situation. A fight where you want to switch to the chaingun to lock down an enemy like a pain elemental while avoiding other monsters is an interesting fight. A fight where you only have a few uses of the BFG throughout the level so you have to use it wisely is an interesting fight.

 

It's interesting that you use the word "slog", because that is in fact what the majority of encounters in Sunlust turn into, because they're incredibly repetitive in design and incredibly predictable in placement. The hundredth fight where you have to spam the BFG against a horde of revenants is not an interesting fight.

 

But I like that last part, where you think it's good game design to force the player to have to "maximize" the damage output of a finicky weapon in order to not die. It's like people who think they're hardcore because they can two-shot cyberdemons with the BFG, despite such being luck-based and the fact that any map that would require you to do so would be very poorly-designed.

[Lucky_Edie]

That's a lot of nonsense.

[galileo31dos01]

23 minutes ago, Fairen said:

Almost every level past the first few is filled to the brim with rockets and cells. In fact, many later levels of Sunlust have almost no shell and bullet pickups in them compared to rocket/cell pickups.

 

Also, most levels after Map 7 give you a BFG. In fact, several have multiple BFGs in one level.

 

Well I don't know about you but I'd very much rather be handed tons of rockets and cells for the kind of setups in latter levels instead of more ammo for double shotty, single shitty and miss chainy, but to each their own!

 

Daerik clearly said "sunlust rarely gives you a bfg or enough cells to spam it", and considering your wording in your previous post, it seems like you have infinite height turned off because his point flew right over your head...

[ukiro]

8 hours ago, Fairen said:

Nothing strategic about their placement whatsoever

 

12 hours ago, AhryMahry said:

It just spam the same trick again and again and again

 

I think the hard truth is that Sunlust seems this way—just walls of enemies with no thought or deeper intent—until you get to a skill level that allows you to decipher the nuances and "solve" the fights. Once you're at that level, they no longer seem identical at all, and ever piece of geometry, ammo placement, powerups, and combination of enemies begins to look extremely deliberate and fine tuned. (Again, for the record: I am not personally this good, but in the case of Sunlust I've watched enough playthroughs for this to become evident.)

 

But again you might not enjoy this kind of play and it can become a grind and a chore with just relentless challenges, even if they are of varying nuances. And that's fine!

 

Oh, and anyone arguing about Sunlust with Daerik is going to look like a fool.

[Lucky_Edie]

 

2 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

it seems like you have infinite height turned off because his point flew right over your head...

 

Holy shit I love you 

Edited August 10, 2021 by Lucky_Edie

[Daerik]

2 minutes ago, Fairen said:

"Difficult encounters" are not simply about drowning the player in rockets and cells and monsters. They're about enemy placement, enemy variety, rationing of supplies, knowing what weapon is best to use in what situation. A fight where you want to switch to the chaingun to lock down an enemy like a pain elemental while avoiding other monsters is an interesting fight. A fight where you only have a few uses of the BFG throughout the level so you have to use it wisely is an interesting fight.

 

So like basically all of Sunlust?

 

Interesting is not the word I'd use to describe chaingunning a pain elemental for 5 seconds.

 

2 minutes ago, Fairen said:

It's interesting that you use the word "slog", because that is in fact what the majority of encounters in Sunlust turn into, because they're incredibly repetitive in design and incredibly predictable in placement. The hundredth fight where you have to spam the BFG against a horde of revenants is not an interesting fight.

 

Sunlust literally does not give you enough bfg ammo to spam endlessly for every encounter. You are 100% wrong about this, and your stubborn refusal to demonstrate any sort of proof to back up these claims is pretty telling about your intentions here.

 

6 minutes ago, Fairen said:

But I like that last part, where you think it's good game design to force the player to have to "maximize" the damage output of a finicky weapon in order to not die. It's like people who think they're hardcore because they can two-shot cyberdemons with the BFG, despite such being luck-based and the fact that any map that would require you to do so would be very poorly-designed.

 

In what world is two shotting a cyberdemon "luck-based"? Any remotely competent player can do it 100% of the time.

[Shepardus]

12 minutes ago, Fairen said:

It's like people who think they're hardcore because they can two-shot cyberdemons with the BFG, despite such being luck-based and the fact that any map that would require you to do so would be very poorly-designed.

Since when is two-shotting cyberdemons luck-based?

Edited August 10, 2021 by Shepardus

[ReaperAA]

I haven't played Sunlust yet, so I am not going to comment on it. But....

 

13 minutes ago, Fairen said:

But I like that last part, where you think it's good game design to force the player to have to "maximize" the damage output of a finicky weapon in order to not die. It's like people who think they're hardcore because they can two-shot cyberdemons with the BFG, despite such being luck-based and the fact that any map that would require you to do so would be very poorly-designed.

 

What is wrong with forcing the player to maximize the damage output of a weapon? Also as Daerik said, if you are good enough, you can 2-shot a cyberdemon almost 100% of time. In fact, there are was a practise wad out there that requires 2-shotting 15 cyberdemons one-by-one in succession to beat it. And people have made demos of it.

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by ReaperAA

[Optimus]

18 hours ago, AhryMahry said:

Can someone explain to me, why Sunlust is soo well regarded?

 

It seems most of the highly popular by community standards WADs are not in my favorite list. That's just my taste, I like more oldschool adventurous maps, where there is some exploration and not too slaughtermappy. Now, I tried to play Sunlust and I enjoyed it in the beginning because the first few maps where smaller with more normal encounters. It's after the middle that things became tougher. And it was still allright. I do adore the architecture of course (but I still prefer the oldschool architectures of classic WADs, somehow these were more memorable but I don't know why, modern maps are pretty "solid", "perfect" but not memorable imho) but not a map I would replay. I also avoided Sunder which seems to be it's little brother or something, because that one started with slaughter from map01 (Cyberdemons, many arch villes, wtf?) while Sunlust starts low and then goes high. There were some clever ideas (arch villes in revolving circular sectors), didn't find it repeatitive but mostly forced me to savespam all the time from some point on (and even cheat in one map). Most of the highly regarded maps are slaughtermappy, while I dream of the old maps, but that's just me.

[Deadwing]

I was watching decino play some later maps of Sunlust and actually the wad looked sexy as fuck, a lot less enemies than I was expecting and very intricate and thoughtful setpieces lol

Edited August 10, 2021 by Deadwing