[Map04 Released] Ambrosia (Boom-Compatible)

[Kinetic]

Difficulty Warning: this set is very hard for most people

 

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12/07/2023 Update:

 

- fixes and adjustments in Map04

- "difficulty settings" in Map04

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Iwad: Doom 2

Complevel: 9

Tested with: Dsda doom 0.26.0, GL Rendering, Gamma 0

Designed around: Pistol Start

Difficulties: UV mostly, some difficulties implemented in Map02

 

There are some dehacked modifications:

 

- Gray/silver cyberdemon with 1000 health, can be resurrected by archviles

- Plasma gun damage is buffed from 5 to 8

- Chaingun firerate is buffed, sprite change as well

- Barons do not count towards kill count

- Aracnorb, 100 hp, pinky speed, behaves like Valiant aracnorb except doesn't continuously fires in bursts of 3's, ends attack after 3 plasma shots

- Space Guardian Hero Dude (?), 120 hp, 16 speed, shoots plasma and is speedy, kinda like a nerfed version of Scythe 2 Evil Marine

- Golden evil eye, ???

- More later

 

Proclamation (Map01):

 

Spoiler

Quick speedmap with 8 hours of build time just about. Obviously takes from the nosp series, but also from Dimensions Map31 (but lighting to make it prettier). Just trying to see if I can map fast and still whip out a solid map, less detail than what I usually add, but still trying to make it look decent and striking.

 

Edit: Reposted link with minor texture fixes

 

Cornered (Map02):

 

Spoiler

Another speedmap with around 8-10 hours of build time. Wanted to just push another map out there for Ambrosia since I hadn't in 5 months, have a bunch of maps that are started but aren't finished. Designed around a 1536x1536 space constraint (partially inspired by Flotsam Map02), but I exceed it a little to help with map flow. Map is based on tight combat and fast, flowing combat. UV-speed people should like this? UV-Max people should like this?

 

Mud Mind (Map03):

 

Spoiler

8 hour speedmap. Made it using an idea I've been playing around with for a bit. The short of it is I randomly generate 10 textures and 10 flats from a resource and make a speedmap out of it. I do it like this because I'm unskilled and unknowledgeable. This idea probably stemmed subconsciously from 10x10 and 1x1 a bit, as well as just some annoyances in the past with mulling over what texture is best to use on various walls and surfaces in past maps I've made, as usually it's combing through a huge library of resources over and over. So limiting the textures to random crap makes that easier, and easier to speedmap with since there aren't so many choices. Paralysis of analysis or something like that.

 

As for the actual map, it's about warring factions. Not much to say about the actual map, but this map has all of the usual stuff I put in my maps. Crushers at the end of the map are very jank, not the most friendly UV-Max. This map has 0% chance of being either my favorite or yours. Also I am having switch and EXIT be universal textures outside of the randomly selected 10 for each map that uses the random selection process.

 

 

Sleeping With Your Enemy (Map04):

 

Spoiler

This map took about 17 hours to make, and then another fiddling for about 1.5 hours in slade and small bug fixes. I used 10x10 randomization method again for textures. This map also has a silly story, something about a hero or hired hand infiltrates an undisclosed location to complete a heist, and you have decided it is time to strike after lying dormant undetected for an undisclosed period of time. Can you complete the heist and get back to the Normal World alive? Only if your will matches your dexterity...

 

I hope some maschochists enjoy this map, I really strived to make a unique experience with this one. If you notice any bugs such as the walls not reaching the ceiling in the main fight then please let me know so I can fix them, there is time to do bugfixes on this map since I don't anticipate anyone maxing this quickly, which is a reminder that every map I release should be demo-compatible immediately as I do not have any plans to alter dehacked or maps after they are first released outside of initial bugfixes for maps that aren't very easy to demo.

 

 

Download: ambrosiaV4.wad

 

Link Last Updated: 12/07/2023 ~ 3:45 AM

Edited December 7, 2023 by Kinetic

[David Asaad]

about the actual map tho :D
 

Cool concepts there dude! And good visuals as always; glad you have found the motivation to keep mapping. Looking forward to how this wad fleshes out

Edited July 2, 2022 by David Asaad

[kalensar]

Sincerely apologizing, I didn't mean for my now deleted former post to be rude. My choice of wording was excessively poor. What I meant more true to my brain, rather than my stupid fingers, was that I was laughing very hard at the opening because of the evil involved. Taken in context with the description about being harder than Sunlust, I thought this was meant for as more a comedy style trip.

To further elaborate, one of the most fantastic mods I know of is a legit terry wad, but fantastic in that it does mechanics in a style you'll hardly find anywhere else.

Its a wad called Endless Madness. I thought this Ambrosia wad would be a similar context. 

[Ravendesk]

Very cool map, although way above my skill level to do any kind of a demo.

Seeing HMP implemented would be nice for sure.

 

Looking forward to next maps!

[Kinetic]

37 minutes ago, Ravendesk said:

Very cool map, although way above my skill level to do any kind of a demo.

Seeing HMP implemented would be nice for sure.

 

Looking forward to next maps!

Thanks! I think implementing lower skill levels and saving the map might change how nodes are built or something and that could possibly desync any demos anyone has made of the map already (I know of one person who has), so difficulties for this map in particular are unlikely. But the next map I'm working on certainly will have difficulties implemented as it's a more carefully crafted map.

[pooplord]

where is this fire midi from?
edit: also i think the bars to the exit take a bit too long idk if its valid critcism or not since i didint play alot of it and i'm kinda of a n00b but the 2 times i played the fight i had to wait a while killing cybs through the bars with chaingun or tracers to kill time, maybe infight gods were on my side idk , other than that i loved the map 

Edited July 9, 2022 by pooplord

[Kinetic]

9 hours ago, pooplord said:

where is this fire midi from?

It's from the modarchive.

 

9 hours ago, pooplord said:

edit: also i think the bars to the exit take a bit too long idk if its valid critcism or not since i didint play alot of it and i'm kinda of a n00b but the 2 times i played the fight i had to wait a while killing cybs through the bars with chaingun or tracers to kill time, maybe infight gods were on my side idk , other than that i loved the map 

The bars shouldn't take long to lower. Hitting the 2 fireblu thingies in the room once the final fight starts should lower the bars in less than 10 seconds. Until you press use on each fireblu thing, the bars shouldn't lower at all. If these 2 things aren't happening, then I'm not sure what the issue is. Are you on complevel 9 and using dsda doom?

[El Inferno]

On 7/7/2022 at 11:20 PM, KineticBeverage said:

I think implementing lower skill levels and saving the map might change how nodes are built or something and that could possibly desync any demos anyone has made of the map already

 

If you untag some enemies on lower skills and dont change anything else in the map then it shouldn't desync demos on uv. Tho it's still better to check if the demo plays back. 

If the nodes are still getting rebuilt and demo desyncs, you can copy the THINGS lump from the edited wad file to the old one. 

 

Btw I played the map yesterday and it was pretty cool. Struggled a bit with getting out of the rev ring in the 2nd room, a lot of times I just get cornered when I tried to push through. Also in the long corridor fight I found that focusing on one side and completely ignoring the other one works pretty well. Im not used to 180 button so this approach feels better to me

Edited July 9, 2022 by El Inferno

[Kinetic]

12 hours ago, El Inferno said:

 

If you untag some enemies on lower skills and dont change anything else in the map then it shouldn't desync demos on uv. Tho it's still better to check if the demo plays back. 

If the nodes are still getting rebuilt and demo desyncs, you can copy the THINGS lump from the edited wad file to the old one. 

Nice, good knowledge to know, I don't think I'll implement difficulties for the first map because it's an in-your-face slaughterfest and not much else, but I'll try and implement difficulties in most future levels.

 

12 hours ago, El Inferno said:

Btw I played the map yesterday and it was pretty cool. Struggled a bit with getting out of the rev ring in the 2nd room, a lot of times I just get cornered when I tried to push through. Also in the long corridor fight I found that focusing on one side and completely ignoring the other one works pretty well. Im not used to 180 button so this approach feels better to me

Yea I just kind of slapped it together with 8 hrs of build time, gameplay isn't super finetuned or calibrated, but I still hoped it'd be some decent fun. The corridor fight yea you can kinda focus more on one side than the other, but having the cybers teleport in at either end I feel like still makes it really dangerous in the dark. Thanks for playing, am currently working on a pretty ambitious map02 with puzzles and ribbiks-y type of stuff

[Ravendesk]

On 7/7/2022 at 8:37 PM, Ravendesk said:

Very cool map, although way above my skill level to do any kind of a demo.

 

Nevermind, I maxed it. I saw a run by @Starduster and it motivated me to return to this map and try it again. Took some practice and quite a few attempts, but in the end it's not that bad, although my exit was pretty horrible.

demo/vid of the run: ambrosia01m805.zip / https://youtu.be/SxWbAV5IMXk

 

I also checked out map 02, I think it's very cool, I really like those cramped arenas with relatively low monster count but still extremely challenging gameplay. Nice change of pace from map 01. Also visuals are great, color contrast worked really well in that map I think. 

UPD: a uv-pacifist demo for map 02: ambrosia02p026.zip / https://youtu.be/7qGe4oCc0Xs

 

Very nice of you to leave that death slide in.

 

Hopefully we'll see map 03 of Ambrosia in the foreseeable future. :)

Edited December 11, 2022 by Ravendesk

[El Inferno]

I'll go ahead and bump the thread to let people know that map03 of Ambrosia got released (saw it myself on kinetics yt and got confused). Looking forward to playing it!

[Matt Eldrydge]

This looks a bit on the tough side, but I've been meaning to play some harder stuff. I'll definitely check it out, the screenies and dehacked changes are interesting.

 

How much of an asskicking can someone who can't autopilot through Plutonia expect? :P

[Kinetic]

I should give a better difficulty warning for the wad, I make very hard stuff for most players, so generally anticipate these maps being save-scummy or rewind-scummy or impossible if you are someone who has a hard time playing Dimensions with saves. If you can't autopilot plutonia or probably sunlust on UV, then I wouldn't recommend playing this set without cheats :p

Edited November 30, 2023 by Kinetic

[El Inferno]

Found a silly max route and recorded a quick tas for it :^)

 

 

 

[Kinetic]

haha nice, didn't even think of that route when making the map. Super cool demo :D

[El Inferno]

Ok I finished map04, wow. Quite a cool experience, I enjoyed it, in a way. 

The platforming to the "NoEscape" (I hope its a reference, heh) part was smooth and intuitive to do, felt like a 1000-ish platforms in total? Anyway, that was going for much longer than I expected. I was saving every maybe 20-30 platforms and wasn't falling very often which made it quite enjoyable to do. Didn't do the path backwards because downstairs platforming is just not fun to do imo (if there was a teleport back, I didn't find it).

The maze is a fucking meme of course, but it was interesting to slowly pick it apart (with iddtx2 and saving every 3 seconds; but I'm totally fine with this mode of playing the game, not everything has to be single segmentable to be fun), I would imagine it is more reasonable with a decent route. I liked 1 time teleports and viles ressing 1k cybers - adds nice dynamic of hunting down viles in the maze. The start of the map fades a bit compared to the rest but the plasma guys vs rev rockets was pretty cool. And I had to consult udb to figure out what you wanted from me after red switch.

Nice visuals, very unique look.

 

 

Notes:

- you probably want to make the pit bottom damaging 

- you can get softlocked in that 1st room right before jumping to blue key

 

[Kinetic]

22 minutes ago, El Inferno said:

Ok I finished map04, wow. Quite a cool experience, I enjoyed it, in a way. 

The platforming to the "NoEscape" (I hope its a reference, heh) part was smooth and intuitive to do, felt like a 1000-ish platforms in total? Anyway, that was going for much longer than I expected. I was saving every maybe 20-30 platforms and wasn't falling very often which made it quite enjoyable to do. Didn't do the path backwards because downstairs platforming is just not fun to do imo (if there was a teleport back, I didn't find it).

The maze is a fucking meme of course, but it was interesting to slowly pick it apart (with iddtx2 and saving every 3 seconds; but I'm totally fine with this mode of playing the game, not everything has to be single segmentable to be fun), I would imagine it is more reasonable with a decent route. I liked 1 time teleports and viles ressing 1k cybers - adds nice dynamic of hunting down viles in the maze. The start of the map fades a bit compared to the rest but the plasma guys vs rev rockets was pretty cool. And I had to consult udb to figure out what you wanted from me after red switch.

Nice visuals, very unique look.

 

 

Notes:

- you probably want to make the pit bottom damaging 

- you can get softlocked in that 1st room right before jumping to blue key

 

thanks for the feedback inferno. I forget what No Escape is a reference too but it was in my mind easily for some reason so I put it in an empty bit of the maze.

 

I may add a teleport back down if a lot of people complain about it, but for right now I like the idea of having to make a long ascent up to the temple and then having that feeling set in that you have to go down the same way you came. I could also have the maze sink into the abyss after completing it and provide an express route back down to the beginning that way, might be cool visually.

 

The maze is VERY hard yeah, I'm considering nerfing it since my most reliable route for it currently has less than a 5-10% success rate I think. Feels tough  though since I like the cell balance with the monsters but another silent teleport may be needed or something and I might have to move a teleport spawn or switch for that.

 

There is a signposting issue with the end yea, I tried to mark it slightly by adding an exit sign above the end portal but it's pretty small and I don't think anyone can even tell it's an EXIT sign lol. I'll give it a fix soon.

 

I am aware of that softlock before the blue key, I kind of didn't care about it since a softlock usually is equal to a death for players which just means save + reload and avoid it, but I just thought of an easy fix for it that is fine visually and functionally that I didn't think of yet for some reason.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Kinetic

[Kinetic]

update: made abyss damaging, "nerfed" maze fight (i only changed the teleport locations but didn't actually test the fight to see if it was easier or not lol), changed sequence after maze completion , fixed softlock by blue key, added "difficulty settings" (invuln in maze secret on HMP and HNTR instead of megasphere)

 

This took over 4 hours to fix these things because the nodes and blockmap was being a piece of shit since my map is too big I think. Diagonally the map is at 32500 something (32767 is the limit) but in 3D taking height into account from a top corner to opposite bottom corner of the map cube space it's way over the limit lol, so that's probably what's causing the issues. I would've adjusted signposting for the exit better but at this point I'm coming across blockmap issues and voodoo linedefs not triggering every 5 minutes and it makes editing the map hell so I'm not going to mess with the map anymore unless something gamebreaking is discovered.