Dominus Diabolicus - MBF21 33-map megawad [now on idgames]

[bofu]

A few quick updates:

• Looks like RC3 is going to be the final release, pending some full playthroughs that I've been told to expect! I might go through and edit the metadata for the MIDI files since the titles of them are inconsistent, but that'd only really be an issue for anyone who yoinks them out of the WAD and peeks at them.
• I decided to go ahead and put the soundtrack (minus Lee Jackson's track, since that's his own original work and it's only right that he get to decide how to distribute and share it outside of the project, as far as I'm concerned!) up on Bandcamp here.
• I will eventually try to make brightmaps for the new enemies, but it'll be released as a separate .WAD file.

[Insaneprophet]

I think I may be at an absolute loss as what Im supposes to be doing in lvl 17 "unholy mass" where we first meet the red archie... ive killed everthing that ports in but Im having the hardest time trying to juggle all the spawning shit and try to kill him when I cant reach him, he telports around so I cant follow, more cubes keep coming and I really just dont even know if anything Im doing is helpful....

[bofu]

5 minutes ago, Insaneprophet said:

I think I may be at an absolute loss as what Im supposes to be doing in lvl 17 "unholy mass" where we first meet the red archie... ive killed everthing that ports in but Im having the hardest time trying to juggle all the spawning shit and try to kill him when I cant reach him, he telports around so I cant follow, more cubes keep coming and I really just dont even know if anything Im doing is helpful....

Spoiler

That fight is a lot easier if you stay close to some cover and wait for him to stop to zap you or summon, then start wailing on him with the plasma. Once you get a good bead on him with plasma, he'll get stunlocked back and forth between pain states and summoning sequences.

 

[Insaneprophet]

So it sounds like I kinda had the right idea, I just know if it was doing anything, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Oh yeah, by the by, youve got one of the cooler megawads Ive ever played here. 😀

[bofu]

19 minutes ago, Insaneprophet said:

So it sounds like I kinda had the right idea, I just know if it was doing anything, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Oh yeah, by the by, youve got one of the cooler megawads Ive ever played here. 😀

Thank you for the kind words!

[galileo31dos01]

There were some stuck monsters unable to teleport into their corresponding destinations in one or two maps, if you'd like to hold on a final decisive release until I can finnish this and list you other things I may stumble upon.

 

I'm gonna share with you this that I think can be of good help with tweaking your monster closets off-map, because I ran into several cases of monsters wandering for pretty long periods of time to find teleport lines, which can give trouble in speedrunning, like to give an example of one lost imp here appearing at some unknown point after that area was done. 

 

Out of curiosity, what is the damage output from these super shotgunners? I haven't noticed a very impactful difference next to normal shotgunners but up close maybe 50-something at most, not sure. I always kill them as soon as I see one, since they attack slightly less quicker than normal gunners while fast enough not to always warrant you'll dodge in time, but it's funny how they petrify for a couple seconds after shooting one round. 

[bofu]

6 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

There were some stuck monsters unable to teleport into their corresponding destinations in one or two maps, if you'd like to hold on a final decisive release until I can finnish this and list you other things I may stumble upon.

 

I'm gonna share with you this that I think can be of good help with tweaking your monster closets off-map, because I ran into several cases of monsters wandering for pretty long periods of time to find teleport lines, which can give trouble in speedrunning, like to give an example of one lost imp here appearing at some unknown point after that area was done. 

 

Out of curiosity, what is the damage output from these super shotgunners? I haven't noticed a very impactful difference next to normal shotgunners but up close maybe 50-something at most, not sure. I always kill them as soon as I see one, since they attack slightly less quicker than normal gunners while fast enough not to always warrant you'll dodge in time, but it's funny how they petrify for a couple seconds after shooting one round. 

If you could PM me those as you find them, that'd be great. My monster closets definitely get more efficient later in around map10 or so, but while the teleports might be slow in some early maps, I haven't ever had monsters fail to teleport at all.

 

As far as the SSG zombies go, I don't use them terribly meanly at first as sort of a primer on how to target them. But later in the megawad, they start becoming more of a threat as they tend to become more of an ambush enemy. Their max damage roll, assuming all their pellets hit, is 105, with the average being around 60 or so, but they usually won't all hit.

 

Spoiler

MAP21 is a good example of a map that plays to their strengths, and they also caused most of my deaths in MAP33.

 

Edited February 25 by bofu

[taviow]

Started playing this one yesterday, I remember going through a bunch of maps a long time ago, and it looks like the maps have been tweaked and made even better since then :)

 

Congratulations on this release, this is some great stuff!

[DoomGuy2077]

Those MIDIs slap. Map 06 is especially a bop. It got stuck in my head so bad I made up lyrics and imagined Jim Morrison singing them

[bofu]

16 minutes ago, DoomGuy2077 said:

Those MIDIs slap. Map 06 is especially a bop. It got stuck in my head so bad I made up lyrics and imagined Jim Morrison singing them

I'm glad you like them! My goal was to have a lot of variety, as the IWADs certainly did.

[EduardoAndFriends]

Oh neato! Found this wad thanks to Vytaan playing through it at the moment… look forward to giving it a play! Congrats on the release. :D

[bofu]

Thanks to some observations during streaming as well as other feedback (during which I discovered that the Vanguard is a lot less mean than I thought he was), I have identified some further areas of refinement and currently have RC4 just about ready to go - just undergoing some basic sanity testing to make sure I didn't break anything.

 

The changes are:

• Fixes and efficiency improvements to monster teleports in early maps (and MAP20).
• Some visual tweaks for consistency.
• Vanguard gets a damage buff.
• Cybermancubus acid pools do slightly more damage, and the big ones from where the fireball impacts have a bigger radius of damage.

Edited February 28 by bofu

[EduardoAndFriends]

1 hour ago, bofu said:

Thanks to @EduardoAndFriends as well as some observations during streaming (during which I discovered that the Vanguard is a lot less mean than I thought he was), I have identified some further areas of refinement and currently have RC4 just about ready to go - just undergoing some basic sanity testing to make sure I didn't break anything.

 

The changes are:

• Fixes and efficiency improvements to monster teleports in early maps (and MAP20).
• Some visual tweaks for consistency.
• Vanguard gets a damage buff.
• Cybermancubus acid pools do slightly more damage, and the big ones from where the fireball impacts have a bigger radius of damage.

Think you might mean someone else! I haven’t streamed or played the WAD yet. Not yet but I will! 😎

[bofu]

3 minutes ago, EduardoAndFriends said:

Think you might mean someone else! I haven’t streamed or played the WAD yet. Not yet but I will! 😎

 

Haha, you're right, this is what I get for quoting when I just worked a double shift. Editing the original!

[EduardoAndFriends]

38 minutes ago, bofu said:

 

Haha, you're right, this is what I get for quoting when I just worked a double shift. Editing the original!

Haha! No worries, I loved how map01 played in Vytaan’s video. 😁 The idea of raising four pillars via switches scattered all over the level is exceptional. Has a really nice amount of interactivity!

[bofu]

RC4 is available now!

 

Here's a complete list of changes:

 

Spoiler

• MAP02: Improved some monster teleport traps' efficiency to prevent slow teleports and stuck monsters.
• MAP04: Improved some monster teleport traps' efficiency to prevent slow teleports and stuck monsters.
• MAP08: Improved some monster teleport traps' efficiency to prevent slow teleports and stuck monsters.
• MAP11: Improved some monster teleport traps' efficiency to prevent slow teleports and stuck monsters.
• MAP13: Made part of the BFG puzzle a little bit more clear if you use the automap.
• MAP20: Fixed a broken monster teleport closet.
• MAP22: Increased ammo supply near the yellow keycard.
• MAP26: Made a sneaky baron less likely to fail to be sneaky.
• MAP27: Made a yellow key bar use the yellow key texture instead of the yellow skull texture since it was a little confusing.
• Former Human Vanguard: Now does 35 damage minimum and 195 damage maximum if all pellets hit and reloads ever so slightly faster (only by a total of three tics).
• Cybermancubus: Increased the radius damage of his splash attack as well as the effective range.

 

It's available here. If you've already played through Episode 1, unless you're really feeling it, don't feel pressured to replay it, as the changes are pretty minor.

[T-117]

For the Vanguard, do you mean a max of 105 (7*15)?  Or is the min now 65 (13*5)?

[bofu]

2 hours ago, T-117 said:

For the Vanguard, do you mean a max of 105 (7*15)?  Or is the min now 65 (13*5)?

He now shoots 13 pellets with a minimum damage of 3 and a maximum damage of 15, but with a variable enough spread that a player at about 128 map units away takes something between 45 and 90 damage before armor reduction. An unarmored player, however, is likely to die to a close range blast.

 

This has also made the Vanguard good at fighting Hell Knights, as it turns out - I've seen them kill more monsters in infighting than they were able to previously, which helps make them a useful tool for players. And since they have a relatively long firing a donation, the player should be able to evade or kill them before they shoot.

[bofu]

Just a quick heads up that I had to reupload RC4 due to some additional items that squeaked through:

Spoiler

• MAP15: Fixed some items being stuck inside ledges.
• MAP22: Some Archvile spawns weren't particularly fair, so I moved them somewhere less bottle-necky. Also fixed some item placements.
• MAP31: Fixed potential situation where you could permanently miss the first secret.

Same link as before.

[Lucky_Edie]

 

 

Gave map 33 a shot on UV. 

I enjoyed most it. The biggest issue with this map is it drags on.

Every area has the same mechanic of  Clear it-> Hit switch -> Clear it again -> hit switch -> clear it again, loop around and clear it again. 

This made every area twice as long as it needed to be and when most of the encounters are the same.  Cacos with a few PEs,  A cyber with 2 viles beside it, it feels like the same thing over and over and over. Which for a map of this length is a bit painful. 

 

I loved the finale, I loved outside area for the YSK, I liked the RSK fight.  I wasn't meant to go in with all 4 cybers alive was I? cos having to deal with all 4 cybers without cover felt impossible compared to how relaxing the rest of the map was. 

 

 

 

I loved the first two starting fights. I disliked the random doors with health that only slowed the map down more. 

 

 

Ammo and health placement needs a lot of work. I left like 10 green/blue armours lying on the ground and the ammo placement was "here is a pile of every ammo type" with no real thought. It clutters up the map imo.

More cells, more rockets, reduce bullets and encourage more BFG spam to clear up the areas. 

 

New mancs are cool.
The new viles seem OP. 

Both felt under ultilized for a secret map.

 

Midi was sweet. 

 

All enemies spawned in, no issues with monster closets. 

 

Edited February 29 by Lucky_Edie

[bofu]

17 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

Gave map 33 a shot on UV. ...

Thanks for the feedback. I'll address what I can, as well as what I might be able to tweak:

 

Spoiler

For the new enemies, since they trigger specific map actions on death, I couldn't use them very much without requiring the player to 100% every part of the map to make sure they killed every single one. I didn't want players to get softlocked in the final area by risking a cybermancubus being left alive somewhere in the previous areas. I could introduce some that the player is guaranteed to have to kill, but my worry is if a stray Archviles resurrects one (or the player is using -respawn or NM for some ungodly reason), the player could get stuck with no recourse.

 

Also, because of the nature of the DEHACKED codepointers I use for the Summoner, they're basically required to only operate in an area with Icon of Sin spawn targets. Otherwise, they might spawn enemies across the map, which isn't very threatening (and is more likely to just frustrate people).

 

Armor placement is definitely a bit generous - I will probably replace some of it, at least on UV, with armor bonuses or stimpacks.

 

I wanted to limit the amount for BFG spam (so that the player doesn't waste their BFG shots on weaker enemies) and encourage more rocket and SSG use, but if you have any specific suggestions for how ammo can be shifted around, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

 

I might lower the Cyberdemon count in the red key area, or even replace them with other enemies altogether. If you don't kill them first, it definitely makes the red key area more difficult than intended (though I have cleared it with all four alive when I entered).

 

[galileo31dos01]

32 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

I wasn't meant to go in with all 4 cybers alive was I? cos having to deal with all 4 cybers without cover felt impossible compared to how relaxing the rest of the map was. 

 

No it's possible, although kinda risky. I landed on the blood on the side that didn't have cybs and spammed BFG to the two guarding the RSK, used the pipe as cover for when getting up close, cause I didn't want to run of out cells, and of course avoided direct impact to the face as long as I could. You will be taking splash damage and I guess you can get unlucky if too many rockets happen in short succession. The megasphere was best saved for mid-fight, and that is my advise. 

[Lucky_Edie]

16 minutes ago, bofu said:

  Hide contents

For the new enemies, since they trigger specific map actions on death, I couldn't use them very much without requiring the player to 100% every part of the map to make sure they killed every single one. I didn't want players to get softlocked in the final area by risking a cybermancubus being left alive somewhere in the previous areas. I could introduce some that the player is guaranteed to have to kill, but my worry is if a stray Archviles resurrects one (or the player is using -respawn or NM for some ungodly reason), the player could get stuck with no recourse.

 

Also, because of the nature of the DEHACKED codepointers I use for the Summoner, they're basically required to only operate in an area with Icon of Sin spawn targets. Otherwise, they might spawn enemies across the map, which isn't very threatening (and is more likely to just frustrate people).

 

Armor placement is definitely a bit generous - I will probably replace some of it, at least on UV, with armor bonuses or stimpacks.

 

I wanted to limit the amount for BFG spam (so that the player doesn't waste their BFG shots on weaker enemies) and encourage more rocket and SSG use, but if you have any specific suggestions for how ammo can be shifted around, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

 

I might lower the Cyberdemon count in the red key area, or even replace them with other enemies altogether. If you don't kill them first, it definitely makes the red key area more difficult than intended (though I have cleared it with all four alive when I entered).

 

 

Medkits would be fine instead of so many armours. Depending how tight you want the map to be. 

 

Shame about the custom enemy limitation. Just means i need to play more maps aye? ^^ 

 

Good luck to anyone who thinks Nightmare is a viable option for those maps. 

 

I usually used 600 cells for a fight, upwards of 800 and then shifted to rockets and then SSG. I almost always had 100 shells, 50-80 rockets and 200-400 cells. Keeping the shells feels fine, ammo balance would require either a stream session on discord or playing through the map several times over. Bullets were the worst offender, as I rarely felt bullets were needed or would ever have a use. I used in total 400 bullets throughout the map. 

 

I cleared it with all 4 alive as well, barely. In terms of challenge it felt like one of those impossible challenge encounters when I'd rate the rest of the map as a pretty casual slaughter map, challenging until you locate the viles and then relatively free. 

 

You could add me on discord and I'll show you what i mean in detail with screenshare. Name on discord is the same as here. 

 

4 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

 

No it's possible, although kinda risky. I landed on the blood on the side that didn't have cybs and spammed BFG to the two guarding the RSK, used the pipe as cover for when getting up close, cause I didn't want to run of out cells, and of course avoided direct impact to the face as long as I could. You will be taking splash damage and I guess you can get unlucky if too many rockets happen in short succession. The megasphere was best saved for mid-fight, and that is my advise. 

 

Yeah, I completed it that way too. The impossible comment was more about how steep a jump in difficulty it was and the average player might not be so happy with that situation. 

Edited February 29 by Lucky_Edie

[galileo31dos01]

26 minutes ago, Lucky_Edie said:

Yeah, I completed it that way too. The impossible comment was more about how steep a jump in difficulty it was and the average player might not be so happy with that situation.

 

I was tempted to grind a couple of the cybs before going in the room, with what little cells I had at the time, because I could foresee that trap being sort of awkward for my tastes, but between the two options I'd stick to the latter (very likely not if I played without saves). Perhaps a second megasphere, or some crushers, idk, or a cyb from each platform teleports into the hallways as soon as the walls raise....

 

Curiously I actually thought the fight right past the YSK door, with the multiple caged archviles and some roamers more likely to screw up people should you get targeted by many of said archviles before your BFG connects, if only because that all happens at once while the RSK cybs can be circumvented as per choice. Maybe my reasoning is because that whole vile area killed me the most times while the cybs was a lucky first win, though not to the point of not seeing that it's indeed a big jump in danger.

[Lucky_Edie]

14 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Curiously I actually thought the fight right past the YSK door, with the multiple caged archviles and some roamers more likely to screw up people should you get targeted by many of said archviles before your BFG connects, if only because that all happens at once while the RSK cybs can be circumvented as per choice.

 

The idea of teleporting 2 out is sweet. 

 

The YSK fight with the viles in cages seemed fine to me, I completed it blind first try, while also being at the start of the map. Unless it's another YSK as there's multiple paths and a lot of viles. There was one particular fight with a soulsphere on top of some steps that has 4 viles in cages and a cyber with multiple viles that is pretty mean. 

Edited March 1 by Lucky_Edie

[Bertt91]

Congratulations.

I'm going to make a quick and simple summary:

I had a lot of fun and the fights have been very acceptable challenges. Furthermore, it took me around 8-9 hours to complete it in UV-MAX, which was not an easy task. The architecture, the design, the traps, the atmosphere, seem outstanding to me. Any megawad fan should play this.

My most sincere thanks for your work. 9/10 Mate.

[T-117]

On 2/29/2024 at 11:12 AM, Lucky_Edie said:

I cleared it with all 4 alive as well, barely. In terms of challenge it felt like one of those impossible challenge encounters when I'd rate the rest of the map as a pretty casual slaughter map, challenging until you locate the viles and then relatively free. 

 

Doing it that way ended up being too difficult for me.  But I can just kill them ahead of time so no big deal.  That's not really blind-friendly but the whole map is really too intense to be blind friendly anyway.

[bofu]

Alright, hopefully the last revision here (gee, that sure sounds familiar)! RC5 contains a plethora of tweaks and fixes, mostly to polish and provide some better balance as well as add some punch and refinement to the more difficult maps.

 

Download it here!

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

MAP13: Added some visual indicators to the BFG secret and made one of the skull switches a lot less tricky to discover.

MAP16: Retooled the invuln secret and made it less easy to miss. Also fixed a really noisy door in the green marble area.

MAP19: Added additional ammo and health to the first big outdoor fight and made a shootable switch slightly more obvious. Also added an area map instead of green armor to the first secret.

MAP20: Added additional rocket ammo and moved the rocket launcher to where you get the first key.

MAP32: Combined some secrets, changed which sectors are tagged, and incorporated the cybermancubus in a few areas, making this technically the first map where it can be encountered. Also removed some redundant armor pickups.

MAP33: Cleaned up messy ammo pickup areas, rebalanced ammo and armor distribution in a few fights, figured out how to use the Cybermancubus more often than just the eight you need to kill at the end.

Miscellaneous: Added a custom Read This! screen detailing the new enemies you'll encounter; recorded new demos; updated credits; replaced plasma gun with a less grating sound, courtesy of Napsalm; tweaked the ZDoom-only custom cast call.

 

At this point, I probably won't fix little things that are found, but if my sleep-deprived ass has screwed up anything major, I'll fix that and that's it. I'm thrilled with the positive reception this has gotten so far, including from some streamers, Youtubers, speedrunners, and other content creators. Huge thanks to them for their encouraging words and feedback, as well as the OG playtest crew.

Edited March 2 by bofu

[George90]

I've recently started playing this set. Currently on MAP07 and loving everything so far!

Just a minor thing I noticed on MAP03.

 

The textures I've marked are slightly different, is it supposed to be like that?

 

Spoiler

Also, the Invulnerability secret on MAP05 in the hellish area seems a bit useless to me because there's nothing really that threatening that you don't actually need it. Maybe replace it with a supercharge or something?

 

Edited March 5 by George90

[bofu]

23 minutes ago, George90 said:

I've recently started playing this set. Currently on MAP07 and loving everything so far!

Just a minor thing I noticed on MAP03.

 

The textures I've marked are slightly different, is it supposed to be like that?

 

  Hide contents

Also, the Invulnerability secret on MAP05 in the hellish area seems a bit useless to me because there's nothing really that threatening that you don't actually need it. Maybe replace it with a supercharge or something?

 

The texture is intentional. It matches the floor texture it goes up to more than the brown texture does.

 

As for the other thing:

Spoiler

It's getting replaced with a lite-amp in the final release, which is basically what the invuln ends up functioning as by the time you grab it anyway.