Impromptu activity: Design a map with only two or three weapons provided. Post it here.

[baja blast rd.]

Rules:

• Doom 2; stock monsters, weapons, etc. (don't modify gameplay with deh).
• Counts as a weapon: berserk pack, chainsaw, shotgun, chaingun, super shotgun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, BFG.
• A shotgun and chaingun dropped by a hitscanner counts if it can be picked up by a player at any time (even if only sometimes). If it can never be picked up, it doesn't count.

 

Starter thoughts and theory: 

 

As wads like Counterattack and an_mutt's 2017 collection show, there is a lot of unexplored potential in deliberately giving out offbeat weapon loadouts: for example "chainsaw + plasma rifle" or "berserk + rocket launcher." 

It might seem counterintuitive, but more restricted weapon loadouts can increase the player's meaningful strategic and tactical options. One major reason is that having most of the weapons often lets you autopilot into 1 or 2 "typical uses" per gun that everyone knows and that cover all your bases pretty comprehensively (CG snipe, SSG workhorse+cleanup, RL 'power' + bunched monsters, etc.), but lacking certain weapons can require you to play in a really inventive way. 

 

One way to really explore the depth of possibilities here is to think of "trade-offs." For example, you have a shotgun, rocket launcher, and BFG loadout (all with measured amounts of ammo), and you're dealing with a pain elemental and some cleverly overlapping turrets. The shotgun might be too slow with everything else going on around you, the rocket launcher might be risky, and cell ammo in our hypothetical situation might be too scarce for you to want to BFG just one pain elemental. So the player might have to get crafty: shotgun the PE while staying in its face at the right angle to be safe from other projectiles, risk the rocket launcher damage (or bait a temporary "infight"!), or lure the PE to a spot and then use BFG tracers at the precise angle that they kill enough other monsters to make it worth it. And the fun thing is that happens even in slower-paced play, whereas if the player can simply use the SSG/CG/PR at will, you might need to dial up intensity more to create a similar tension.

 

As much as tactics are a good lens to view restriction, there are a lot of upsides for pure and simple fun too! A more restricted arsenal really lets you focus monster composition to suit the specific weapons you're handing out -- letting you lean into placement ideas that might not work as well in other contexts yet feel very fun and fresh here. Nanka Kurashiki's Nova 3 map10, "A Partner of the 49th Day," is a good example of how just about every incidental placement and quick trap is designed around the rocket launcher, even though it's mostly not a slaughtermap (there are some big fights, but most of the encounters have several monsters or fewer). In "...49th Day," largely untethering the early gameplay from other weapons allows monster compositions to be really optimized for rockets, in a way that ends up really fun. It can do that in a more focused way than even, say, a modern run 'n' gun map where you usually still have the SSG, CG, and SG and are expected to use them sometimes.

 

Being able to sculpt scenarios around your loadout lets you try out dynamics that might be rare in the wild. For example, PR+BFG seems like a weird mix right? But there are many (natural) situations in which a PR can be better than the BFG, and since you're making the map you can actually design those and thus have a relative balance of those two guns. Or what if you had BFG+x but the BFG was your lower-tier weapon? That sounds weird but it's very possible.

 

~

 

One thing you lose with a minimal arsenal -- at least in longer maps where it might be more relevant -- is being able to commonly use new weapons as tokens of escalation, for dramatic moments. But there are substitutes for this. Two examples: 1) ammo pickups; 2) powerups.  

 

As an example of #1, if you've been scrounging up cells on a drip feed, seeing a few bulk cells, spotlight in the center of a room at a point of visual emphasis, might feel as dramatic as seeing a weapon pickup.

 

And for #2, with many loadouts, the invul sphere starts looking less like a way of surviving indefinitely while doing whatever you want to do, and more a way of pushing you to get the most out of one of your weapons. In that sense it can work as a temporary "overcharge." For example what if you have RL+BFG but would rather use invuls to rocket punch close-quarters monsters instead of survive already reasonably survivable BFG fights. 

 

I'll also coyly hint that Doom has more "weapons" than just the ones you fire yourself, which can be handy for an occasional change-up. 

 

Along with that, many weapon loadouts also permit access itself to be a more prominent progression event, as in "I can finally get close to these monsters now, when killing them at first would have been impractical."

 

The value of access might open up the ways you can use powerups like radsuits. Partial invis can feel actually very useful with certain loadouts. 

 

There's even more theory to it probably, but that is a good starting point.

 

Guidelines:

• You are probably going to want to design a map on the short to mid-length side.
• While the core intent is to encourage off-kilter weapon combinations, I'm not going to restrict loadouts more specifically than to a number of weapons. Technically that allows you to use, say, shotgun+CG, and on the surface, that might read as "wait is there even a 'gimmick' there?" But if you really want to use a more standard combination in order to figure out how to get it off the beaten path, that is certainly fair play, so I'm not going to design rules that prevent that. 
• Your map should encourage the player to use more than one weapon. For example "BFG + x" should probably not play out as a pure BFG spam map in which the other gun exists as a technicality. A near 50-50 split of weapon use is not necessary though. It's up to you whether the player gets their weapons at similar times or it's more staggered out.
• You might want to factor in the pistol's existence and try to avoid setups where the player is encouraged to plink away into tedium as a proper additional weapon: for example, tons of bullet drops while using a "melee + non-chaingun" combo, prompting a more passive player to pistol out several mancubi or something boring. Encouragement is different than possibility though. It's up to the player to have fun, and you don't have to go out of your way to make dubious use of the starting bullets impossible. 
• No other relevant constraints on the map. This is not going to be a compiled project -- it's a theory session, basically. Feel free to use your maps however you'd like if you love how they turn out. I will look at maps posted in here during June, so you can think of that as the "deadline."
• edit: I'll be playing the maps and post thoughts about many maps at a time

[KeaganDunn]

Interesting prompt! I might have a few ideas on this. 

 

Quote

what if you had BFG+x but the BFG was your lower-tier weapon?

 

hmmmm

[Astro X]

I have a map right here:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s-Ok9nNJjSzINcjuthnhJu9DOH2TXk9x/view?usp=sharing

 

- all difficulties;

 

- vanilla gameplay, tested in GZDoom (Doom strict)

 

- screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Astro X

[NeedHealth]

Ive been experimenting with weird loadouts before and have actually made a a speed map with a  rocket launcher being the only weapond given ammo for (Eagle Speedmapping Session 7) . I'll see if I can come up with anything.

[SleepyVelvet]

Lots of puzzle map ideas popping into my head...

[IcarusOfDaggers]

DISCLAIMER:

Spoiler

This map or elements of this map can be used by or included by anyone in the design of their map. But please, if you use the map as basis, do credit me. Thank you.

 

Cramped Dodging Arena (CDA.wad)

 

Speedmap. Build time: 6h. (1h design, 2h balancing, 3h getting it to work in Chocolate doom. Should work in vanilla as it works in chocolate).

 

A small cramped arena. Dodge the projectiles, kill the demons. Bit slaughtery, but otherwise works. Most of the time went on getting it to work with vanilla limitations.

Plenty of ammunition. However, at higher difficulties, do be careful with spending energy cells at the first 2-3 minutes of the map...or however long it takes to clear the room before pressing the switches on the wall.

Quite linear, dodge fire, kill demons.

Also, second published map.

 

Tested on: Chocolate Doom, GZDoom 4.7.1 (Strict). 

Known issues:

You WILL run into health issues or get overwhelmed if you press the switches too early.

You may feel the map is cramped. The arena is designed in a way to allow running around, but not to be too reliant on it. Higher difficulties, you first need to make room to move around, making revenants much more dangerous than they would be otherwise.

 

Possible issues: Ammunition may make this map very easy to complete. 

 

Weapons: Supershotgun+Plasma Rifle.

1 secret: Backpack.

 

Download links:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i8Zjm1Qk976MRKLhDfGp2f9Tzw3Xv7yp?usp=sharing

 

Have fun!

Also, i do like the thread idea. 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by IcarusOfDaggers

[Omniarch]

Lunar Something or Other

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

A modest map I put together over the weekend, making use of the wonderful Syringe resources. The focus here is on chaotic, dynamic encounters that require some modest space-management skills to navigate.

 

Key features:

• limit-removing port required
• no difficulty settings implemented
• tested with: DSDA-Doom, Crispy Doom, GZDoom, Eternity
• weapons: RL (primary), SSG and BFG (support)

Commentary: my intention was to create a map centered around the RL, with the SSG being used primarily for dispatching enemies in close quarters in order to make room for rocketfire. Unfortunately, the SSG only really ended up being useful for half of the big fights, due to my inexperience with fine-tuning monster-space relationships. The BFG is mainly present to add a bit of variety to the final encounter, as well as a mini-objective of sorts to give the player a clear direction in the otherwise choatic situation.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Omniarch

[gabirupee]

made a small combat puzzley map.

-DOOM2.WAD 
-complevel 9 (boom-strict) 
-title: Big fucking guts 
-midi: Moi re by Ribbiks
-tested: nugget doom 1.8.0, dsda doom 0.24.2, gzdoom 4.7.1 
-build time: 4 hours
-difficulties: only uv
-no jumping and crouch

download

Edited June 6, 2022 by gabirupee

[Nefelibeta]

Here is a speedmap called Sphinx Lowering, inspired by *obviously* Stardate 20x7 map05. 

Complevel - 9, map05, used sdx7.wad as base so I hope Ribbiks won't sue me. UV is really unfair, which is probably expected.

Spoiler

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkyp14eiovrlv59/sphinx.wad?dl=0

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

Why do you all have such cool ideas for community projects? I wanna join them all, how am I supposed to learn Trenchbroom? 😅

[Nefelibeta]

On 6/4/2022 at 7:22 AM, baja blast rd. said:

Doom 2; stock monsters

LOL fucking hell I used Stardate 20x7's custom afrits. Does that still count?

[LadyMistDragon]

On 6/4/2022 at 4:01 PM, IcarusOfDaggers said:

DISCLAIMER:

  Reveal hidden contents

This map or elements of this map can be used by or included by anyone in the design of their map. But please, if you use the map as basis, do credit me. Thank you.

 

Cramped Dodging Arena (CDA.wad)

 

Speedmap. Build time: 6h. (1h design, 2h balancing, 3h getting it to work in Chocolate doom. Should work in vanilla as it works in chocolate).

 

A small cramped arena. Dodge the projectiles, kill the demons. Bit slaughtery, but otherwise works. Most of the time went on getting it to work with vanilla limitations.

Plenty of ammunition. However, at higher difficulties, do be careful with spending energy cells at the first 2-3 minutes of the map...or however long it takes to clear the room before pressing the switches on the wall.

Quite linear, dodge fire, kill demons.

Also, second published map.

 

Tested on: Chocolate Doom, GZDoom 4.7.1 (Strict). 

Known issues:

You WILL run into health issues or get overwhelmed if you press the switches too early.

You may feel the map is cramped. The arena is designed in a way to allow running around, but not to be too reliant on it. Higher difficulties, you first need to make room to move around, making revenants much more dangerous than they would be otherwise.

 

Possible issues: Ammunition may make this map very easy to complete. 

 

Weapons: Supershotgun+Plasma Rifle.

1 secret: Backpack.

 

Download links:

Google Drive

Doomshack download

 

Have fun!

Also, i do like the thread idea. 

 

 

Demo I just did(DSDA)Cool stuff here!

lmd_cda.zip

 

Also @gabirupee and @Omniarch, I also did demos, though I didn't specify a complevel for either, so there may be some problems with playback in non-DSDA ports.

Edited June 8, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Phobus]

As is often the way, I’ve done a fair bit of this in the past, so I might be back with some links in the “here’s something I prepared earlier” vein, if that’s alright!

[baja blast rd.]

43 minutes ago, Phobus said:

As is often the way, I’ve done a fair bit of this in the past, so I might be back with some links in the “here’s something I prepared earlier” vein, if that’s alright!

 

That's cool.

 

10 hours ago, Nefelibeta said:

LOL fucking hell I used Stardate 20x7's custom afrits. Does that still count?

 

Yes it breaks the Rules(TM), but that case wasn't the worst way to do that. :P

 

 

Have played just about all of these so far, just have to find time to do a big batch of comments. 

 

 

@Arrowhead sure go ahead. I don't think I'd be able to comment on those insightfully, but it would be interesting to see (especially if you explained what you expected the playing dynamic to be in DM). 

[Arrowhead]

14 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

Yes it breaks the Rules(TM), but that case wasn't the worst way to do that. :P

Hey rd, are deathmatch maps allowed? I didn't see anything barring them in the rules - but maybe I missed something. I think it would be interesting to experiment w/ limiting weapons in a DM arena.

 

I only map deathmatch these days, that's why I ask. :)

[baja blast rd.]

"Three Guns Challenge" by Astro X: RL+CG+PR. Favorite concept was the early RL vs. spectre mobs in blue rooms. It's so hard to spot those in software mode, and the way the gameplay was designed around this mechanic was both interesting and something one can only really do with RL being the player's only weapon at the time. I ended up either trying to rely on hearing, or running far away so they couldn't realistically reach me and spamming rockets. My favorite bit of the plasma rifle stretch was this one minimalist encounter that primarily involved a cyberdemon and a ledge archvile that could run freely (and thus not be easily killed). The RL-PR starts feeling more conventional again later on, but it's still clear how encounters were inspired by that mix. The whole back two-thirds of the map is dominated by these encounters in which fleets of cacos and groups of revenants and even the occasional cyber shows up and yet it doesn't feel grindy, which is the whole "normalization" effect, and there's a radsuit-cyb setup later on that probably wouldn't show up in a "typical" map that gives out SG -> PR.

 

"Cramped Dodging Arena" by IcarusOfDaggers: SSG+PR. The ammo worked out fine. Could be tighter in cells early*, but the current setup still enforces a style of play where you prefer to leave the turrets alive, even as they constantly barrage you, in order to keep enough cells to handily dispose of the ground-based infiltrators. And that keeps a constant continuity to what would be a more discrete set of encounters otherwise. The excess plasma at the end allows you to mop up everything without relying on the SSG for cleanup sniping, so that's not a big deal.

 

*

Spoiler

It's very possible to hit every switch quickly and rout everything with plasma, but that is not a bad thing (that there are incentives to do that is a sign of the weapon loadout working). Also most people won't want to try without knowing what's coming behind those lowering walls.

 

"Lunar Something or Other" by Omniarch: RL+SSG+BFG. The Syringe moon theme looks good. I wonder what a mapset of it would look like. Its grimy look would be a good contrast to the more familiar clean and shiny Lunatic moon. Combat is solid all around. This combo of weapons plays very conventionally, but without the chaingun and shotgun and with measured ammo supplies, I chose to tolerate some tricky snipers (like the exit archvile, which had partial line of sight of some arenas for the entire map) for the entire map. There was also an incentive to leave monsters alive a bit longer, if I could tell they'd end up blending into another wave of the action, for extra infighting. 

 

"Big Fucking Guts" by gabirupee: berserk+BFG. Brutal and cleanly made. Feels like a Ribbiks JQ2.wad-style map, but much harder. Berserk + BFG is a neat combo in general, the elegance of such greatly contrasting weapons, and how much each BFG shot really counts when your only fallback is getting up close and personal. The first mechanic is archvile distraction/"infighting," which sort of gives you an idea what to expect here. The imp squatting on the BFG and the lack of even a shotgun means you can't save easily the berserk for health, as tempting as that might be. 2-shotting the cyb in a cramped space, either with the help of the revs distracting it or not, is the key to the last part playing smoothly, and due to that I didn't use the berserk much past the opening, but that is fine; this map is brief enough that even that one use counts for a reasonable % of the action.  

"Sphinx Lowering" by Nefeibeta: SSG+RL+BFG. Cute homage. The Balls of Steel map by David A. has ignited some curiosity in me of very direct homages like this. I would not use Stardate 20x7 as a direct base, though, because some of the assets in it were commissioned for it. Every encounter is intense and challenging, but honestly the only part I had any serious trouble with on UV was the exit because shifting from a pentagon to a rectangle means it's a lot easier for the viles to spawn in with unavoidable line of sight of you. More than the other SSG-RL-BFG combo, this one plays like a very regular map -- in this case it's the gauntlet type where SG/CG might go unused and PR might be ignored if it exists if it's clear a BFG is coming. The chaingun pickup simply not working is pretty funny, though. If I had to pick a favorite encounter, it would probably be the RL invasion, or maybe the big gasbag cloud + cyb pairing before the exit. That latter one has a neat tension where I didn't have enough ammo to simply nuke the horde of fliers, so I had to kill the PEs without getting rid of all the cacos that the cyb had to handle instead.

[knifeworld]

I couldn't help but use this as a good excuse to make a slaughter-lite map where you progress from ssg to BFG...

The map is abstract in design with fights and architechture coming into being on-the-go at more or less the same time.
I couldn't think of a good name so I asked some cool people and got 4 different names, so enjoy "Gerd Cowman's Bloodmire Surgery", or "Bloodmire" for short which was my favourite and least meme-y sounding of the lot.

INFO:
IWAD: doom2
Format: Doom2 / -complevel 2
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Ports Tested: From Doom With Love v2021.10.12, GZDoom g4.8pre-415-g0a6cd28af (a dev build from: https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdoom/)
MIDI: Sea Isle Dementia, by Jimmy. From "Compound Fracture" by Dubbag. (seemingly a wad or project with the same name and not Dubbag's compfrac.wad, will have to look into it ).
Build Time: a few days, working on it every now and then.

Download: Impromptu Activity 2022 KW - Bloodmire.zip

Shots:
 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by knifeworld
accidentally fat fingered a key and posted before adding the zip and screenshots, fixed!

[IcarusOfDaggers]

Got another name for you @knifeworld : Bloody Rockets. Considering you use mostly rockets and the map is mini-slaughter with bloody textures, why not?

[Arrowhead]

Snipe n' Gripe

 

IWAD - Doom2

Format - Boom

Tested w/ - Zdaemon, Zandronum, LZDOOM, and GZDOOM 4.1.2

MIDI - Torque by Jimmy

SKY - sky by Kuro_mahoh

Build Time - approximately 4 hours.

 

DM Rules - Weapon Stay ON, Respawning Items ON, Freelook ON, Jump and Crouch OFF

 

Download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/t7fuin75xfo9edr/DM145.wad/file

 

Screenies:

Spoiler

 

 

Edit: The couple rockets seen in the screenies have been removed. :)

Spoiler

 

Okay, so I chose the BFG, SG, and CG for my three weapons in this map. The BFG is located in a central cistern-type container in the middle of the map. This container has a switch inside, that causes the BFG to perpetually raise and lower throughout the match. This adds an interesting element, as depending on when you lunge from the upper platform to the BFG, you may be 'in' the cistern, (at the perpetual elevator's lowest point) or you may be at the very top of the elevator's height, and find yourself vulnerable to sniping players. This makes it difficult to 'time' when one can safely access the Big Gun. The sightlines in this map are designed to allow fighting at very great distances - this is why I chose the other two weapons as CG and SG - both are effective long-range weapons in Doom2 DM. Both are also an effective counter to the BFG, as the BFG's effective tracer distance is less than the damage range for both the CG and SG. The idea is that the BFG 'jumper' is most vulnerable while lunging - a well-timed SG blast may careen the jumping player out of the way of the path to the cistern. There is also a respawning blue armor - this is to cushion the effectiveness of the BFG - w/ full health, one has the chance to survive a BFG tracer hit - and I made sure to only give enough ammo, (in the cistern, at least) to fire 2 BFG shots at a time, before having to find new ammunition. There is other cell ammo throughout the level, but it is unlikely that a BFG player will be able to collect much of it, as they'll likely be getting peppered heavily by other players' weapons. There's also a pair of teleporters that allow quick exit if a player finds that they're in the hot seat. Much of this level will revolve around safely retrieving the BFG - but as this is fundamentally a 'gimmick' map, I don't really see much issue w/ that. I chose to make all the spawns spawn on a SG, and chose to leave the CGs as 'pick-up' weapons - I did this, as the CG is more precise at a distance than the SG is, and so more effective in a map like this. There is the chance that a BFG jumper will be able to grab both the blue armor, and the BFG - as they are quite close in proximity - even w/ having picked up the blue armor, if you're playing a skilled enough group of players, they've probably already damaged you enough during your jump / run to the BFG, that picking up the blue armor really doesn't matter as much as you think it would. Things got pretty crazy when more than one player was able to retrieve the BFG.

 

When I played a 50 frag game w/ my brother and some bots last night, we had a good time. Of course the BFG wielder has an innate combat advantage, but often a BFG player was more vulnerable than you may think, as it can take a long time for the BFG projectiles to hit a wall or object in a map that is this 'open'. This makes direct BFG projectile hits unlikely, as there is so much open space to dodge projectiles here. This also culls the effects of tracers, as it becomes more difficult to time a tracer 'peek' when a projectile has to travel such a relatively long distance.

 

This is not to be played as duel, as it would be too easy to predict where your opponent is in the map. This would work much better for a more hectic 3-4 player FFA match.

 

Anyway, cool project, rd. - I don't typically map w/ 'restrictions' so this was fun. :)

Edited June 17, 2022 by Arrowhead

[LadyMistDragon]

So I played the other maps

 

@Astro X sorry I didn't record a demo, but I was short on time and the map was just a bit long in the tooth for that. But it's your best map so far, easily, though I didn't think much of Astroverse. Although you can softlock yourself inside the night-goggle secret. Idk, but this is in the firm tradition of Scotty or someone. Awesome one!. Though I did have to reload a few times at that first spectre fight. Other than your boldness in using Wolfenstein textures, but it works, mostly.

 

Also @knifeworld and @Nefelibeta did demos of both of your maps. Sorry I couldn't finish Sphinx, but I had to make sure the pits were inescapable. I chuckled about the Bloodmire secret being inaccessible essentially. I also see From Doom with Love was used to test Bloodmire. I never expected to see someone testing with that port.

lmd_imromptu.zip

Edited June 9, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[IcarusOfDaggers]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:54 AM, baja blast rd. said:

"Cramped Dodging Arena" by IcarusOfDaggers: SSG+PR. The ammo worked out fine. Could be tighter in cells early*, but the current setup still enforces a style of play where you prefer to leave the turrets alive, even as they constantly barrage you, in order to keep enough cells to handily dispose of the ground-based infiltrators. And that keeps a constant continuity to what would be a more discrete set of encounters otherwise. The excess plasma at the end allows you to mop up everything without relying on the SSG for cleanup sniping, so that's not a big deal.

 

*

  Reveal hidden contents

It's very possible to hit every switch quickly and rout everything with plasma, but that is not a bad thing (that there are incentives to do that is a sign of the weapon loadout working). Also most people won't want to try without knowing what's coming behind those lowering walls.

 

Thanks.

 

Sorry for late answer, i missed the comment somehow.

 

I did think of that, especially after LadyMists demo. I will be reiterating it if and when I get home.

[Astro X]

Hey, thanks for the feedback, @LadyMistDragon!

 

I'm surprised you found out this map is actually MAP31 from Astroverse. And yea, I like it so much, it's one of my best maps, even though it's one of the first I ever built. The only thing I don't like too much is the platforming at the hellish area lol. And I legit thought I had fixed that softlock in the goggles secret, thanks for pointing that out.

 

Tysm everyone for playing my map :)

 

Spoiler

I like long and difficult maps, but next project I'm working on very short maps, but they should be very interesting still.

 

[Phobus]

On 6/8/2022 at 11:02 PM, baja blast rd. said:

 

That's cool.

Call me "Slim Shady", because I'm Back.

 

We'll ignore White Light (either edition) and Justice: Infernal Mechanics (or indeed the compiled version of all of them!) as they're very ZDoom-y and use custom weapons and/or enemies to achieve the experience. I will say that the juxtaposition between the DMC/Zen Dynamics-style Sword/Scythe weapon and the Rocket Launcher definitely makes Infernal Mechanics an interesting idea, although my inexperience may have played against me a bit there with the actual level design. Likewise, I'll skip out on the more "MAP01"-style maps that only give a shotgun, chaingun, chainsaw and/or berserk and don't do anything more interesting with the idea than not be too hard, and any tyson maps I've made over the years...

 

Scars of the Wounded Prey (latest version is in Persephone [/idgames link to vol. 2]) is a ZDoom map which uses the Chaingun and Rocket Launcher as primary weapons, deliberately omitting the shotguns to keep the player juggling between the two weapons to keep on top of the situations they're thrown into. The secret Plasma Rifle can be used to defuse one or two of the hairier situations, if you find it, but is certainly not necessary thanks to an abundance of rockets and bullets. Two difficulties are implemented in this version, as opposed to the original (with just one), giving either a mid-2000s slaughter flavour or something a bit easier.

 

Escalation I: The Breach (/idgames link) is a plasma rifle map after a high-pressure pistol start. Working within the constraints of 50 monsters, it gives you a couple of combat scenarios, including a pretty heavy arena battle.

 

Blood Red (/idgames link) is a Chaingun map that has a berserk pack as a backup weapon, although ammo is plentiful enough that you should be fine. It uses one "combat area" to house a few waves of varied battles and a couple of objectives to keep you moving. There's plenty of cover in the lower area, which you'll appreciate later!

 

MAP22: Power Trip (from Doom II: 25 Years on Earth [/idgames link]) gives you a plasma rifle, a ton of ammo and encourages you to blast your way through massed hordes of fodder. There are chaingunners and shotgun guys, and you can pick up their weapons, but this is so heavily intended as a plasma rifle map that I'd almost say you're doing it wrong if you use anything else!

 

 

For multiplayer versions of this idea, MAP25: Rooneytech of 32in24-11: Occupy Doomworld is a Rocket Launcher Deathmatch map, and MAP16: Summoning Temple from Ten Community Project is a ZDoom WAD that deliberately splits up the players, giving half of the an elevated view and the chaingun, whilst the other half are down in the trenches with a shotgun. One of the Persephone volumes has a fully-realised single-player version of this map that takes that choice away, but isn't relevant here.

 

I often experiment with restricted weapons, particularly when there's a pistol start or multiple map progression, but those are the examples that most stand out in my memory.

[IcarusOfDaggers]

Did a small update on my map, balancing the ammo around on UV and Medium difficulty. Now there is less cells to go around on UV, and Less cells in early for HMP. 

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i8Zjm1Qk976MRKLhDfGp2f9Tzw3Xv7yp?usp=sharing

Also fixed a couple of small issues.

Edit: Pacifist start now allows to collect all 4 corners of ammo before getting the guns, if the guns don't get blocked.

Edit 2: Fixed the link. 

Edited June 13, 2022 by IcarusOfDaggers

[FEDEX]

Hi @IcarusOfDaggers i think the download link is restricted

[IcarusOfDaggers]

6 minutes ago, FEDEX said:

Hi @IcarusOfDaggers i think the download link is restricted

 

It's fixed now. Thanks

[baja blast rd.]

"Bloodmire" by knifeworld: SSG+RL+BFG. This reminds me a lot of a Benjogami map (in the big endurance arena especially), with some of the other Haste crew's mapping tropes mixed in. So far, of all the maps to use SSG-RL-BFG, which has proven a popular combo, this one is probably the most recognizably a limitation map -- it heavily features snipers/turrets against which the SSG is of questionable use, and boss monsters that are splash-resistant. The BFG also appears only at the very end, mostly included for the cyb alone. But at the same time it also lets you have lots of easy fun tailored to your weapons, with rockets and imp hordes being the archetypical rocket spam combo. Don't be baited into going overboard with this, though; the ammo balance is tuned such that you'd be best off allowing some infights to happen uninterrupted, and the imps are good temporary cover against a nukeball of rev missiles or a mastermind barrage. I love how that fight especially fits together.

 

"DM145" by Arrowhead: thanks for the map and explanation. No real thoughts to add but I ran around the map for a few minutes and noticed I could track the up-down state of the BFG by hearing, and eventually get a mental rhythm going in order to ignore hearing. That might be too much to track in the midst of hectic fighting -- but it might be an interesting tactical wrinkle if a good DM player can actually do that. 

 

Escalation I: The Breach by Phobus: (pistol+)PR. Not having full understanding of how many cell packs the map contained, I reverted to the pistol after the start, specifically for a few zombiemen. The pistol is still a capable weapon against them, and those zombiemen being nearly 10% of the map's monster count actually makes it feel like satisfying, significant progress to plink one down.

 

It's a small map with little bits of level design cleverness, like all the different goat jumping paths you have in the start room (to the secret GA and an alternative way to the plasma rifle). Being able to reach foot level of the ceiling of the door you start near makes it feel, oddly, sort-of 3D? Enjoyed the messy fiery visual centerpiece in the yellow key room.

 

The monster usage definitely feels very plasma rifle tuned; I don't think we'd see quite a big onslaught of mid-tiers and viles in an SSG map, but the plasma rifle makes them very manageable. The overall impression reminds me of Going Down due to that intense onslaught around a visual centerpiece. 

 

I will probably play another one from this batch of maps.

[Astro X]

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Astro X