Contaminant Containment Control / C3.wad - First submitted map

[Lucius Wooding]

Fellow Doom enjoyers, I humbly offer a limit removing Doom 2 map which I made for fun. Having played a fair number of custom wads and studied the general criticism around them, I figured I could attempt to make something halfway decent while learning the editing tools along the way. The majority of the time spent was just embellishing the looks of various rooms and making minor tweaks to combat and mechanics. I took some inspiration from Doom 1's E2M4 as well as episode 2 in general with its mix of visual themes. There will be mostly techbase but a good amount of subterranean, hellish and occult inspired areas mixed in. Since it was my first project, I stuck with vanilla textures and tried to use a good portion of them in different places to experiment so this kind of eclectic mix between areas made sense. I included custom strings and a custom midi as a learning exercise, the music isn't my own but it beats hearing the default track loop 20 times.

 

Hosted on idgames: (This version is now up to date)

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/c3

 

Google Drive backup:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s63uBtdzW0L4kl8dNHK5i5Xdg_wh-U76

 

C3 is a limit removing Doom 2 project that I've tested in GZDoom, PRBoom+ (cl2/9), and Zandronum, but it should be widely compatible since it uses basic features. It is meant to be played with infinitely tall actors, no freelook or jumping and with software lighting mode as it tends to look washed out and dark otherwise. Difficulty settings are implemented but I generally just targeted the meanest monster placements to nerf them and didn't change the overall population by much. The first room in particular, as well as a few archviles are the main culprits, and I added some powerups on HNTR which should tip the balance in your favor. Also spectres on lower skills are replaced by pinkies to streamline things a bit. UV should pose a reasonable challenge once you figure out a good plan of attack; my own ability is pretty modest and I certainly didn't go out of my way to make it super hard. It is likely to kill almost any player a couple times on a blind run, but I think most players will certainly find it beatable once they figure out how it works. Personally I find a UV max run takes around 15-30 minutes depending on how cautiously one plays, and both patient and brave playstyles should be accommodated. Should you play with saves, I highly recommend doing so before jumping down from the big stairs into the slime pit; this is the point in the level where routes to the three keys diverge. 

 

It is nonlinear, requiring 3 keys with a pair of corresponding switches each to open the exit. They can be done in any order and can make for very interesting variations in gameplay so I encourage trying various routes and even replaying the map in different orders if you wish. Ammo and supplies are generally spread out to encourage the player to take risks and explore. There are 5 secrets which are helpful but certainly not required; none of them should be too cryptic and all are shown on the map for blind UV max players. There are a handful of non secret hidden items as well to reward the curious player. I also made some features in various places to give clever players an advantage. 

 

Finally, fans of doomcute can rejoice since I spent a good amount of time adding some eye candy, particularly in the vicinity of the blue key area. I got a bit carried away learning to work at the smallest scale possible in the editor and made a couple interesting concept pieces which you'll have to experience for yourself.

 

 

Please find attached a number of screenshots which I crudely grabbed to show off a couple cool areas. I'd love to hear feedback and constructive criticism from people, and answer any questions. Of particular interest to me would be what routes players prefer to take or if there's any part which gives people undue trouble. Thanks to all of you who check out my work, and please feel free to share it if you think it's cool. This includes any wad hosting sites or community servers aside from idgames; I'm a noob so I don't really know where else it can get exposure.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Lucius Wooding
updated updated link

[Custom Longplay]

I had a lot of fun with the map. Unfortunately, it took me much longer to eliminate the hordes of enemies. Great map. But then I collected all the secrets.

 

Contaminant Containment Control - [4K] - [100% Secrets]

 

 

[Lucius Wooding]

OK first of all, I very much appreciate your taking time to finish it, especially since you're sharing a blind run. I have to say, I think the mods helped in some places but in the yellow key fight, it actually played harder than intended since monsters moved around and you had to reload all the time. Aside from a few misaligned textures and being overall a fair bit darker than intended, it's pretty nice looking in this style of visual mod too. A couple monsters moved to unintended areas, and you were able to do some minor sequence breaks by vaulting but nothing too busted. Also a couple items and decorations aren't as intended like the blur spheres and torches, but no biggie. Still a pretty action packed and entertaining playthrough. And flipping the double birds to archviles still warms my heart.

 

The main reason it took you around an hour while it took me much less is due to the fact that I made the map and have beaten it 30x or more. I think you made a pretty decent pace for playing cautiously without knowing what was coming. You had to find progression and secrets on the fly and if you edited out the saves I bet it'd be more like 35-40 mins or something. I'm glad you left them in though since it's very interesting to see how players approach fights as they start to learn what's coming. You also found almost every interactive thing, the only one you took time to find was basically the yellow exit switch but that was largely due to the texture and lighting differences, I think it stands out a lot less here with the mods. You can see in one of the screenshots of the slime pit with software lighting mode, although it's still pretty dim you can see into the distance a lot more without it getting too dark. It helps that arena not play so big and IMO it's easier to be aware of enemies and landmarks on the other end of the room.

 

 

Spoiler

The first room is definitely done the most difficult way you could, big kudos for managing to survive it but I'm not that mean to force the player to single barrel a cyberdemon. At least with the use of saves, you're not forced to redo the fight every death which would get old for some players since it's time consuming. I encourage players who don't like that fight as is to just play on HMP since the rest of the map is almost identical. My IRL friend who helped test it basically hated that fight even though he's skilled enough to beat the rest of the map so it was the first thing I cut out on lower difficulties.

 

Again, big thanks for playing my stuff. There's nothing cooler than seeing streams and recordings of people figuring out and beating something that started out in my head.

[Ravendesk]

Finished the map twice on UV with saves (no mods or anything).

 

I liked some parts a lot, some parts I liked less, but in general I think it's very cool.

 

First of all, I really appreciate the bold beginning,

Spoiler

placing you right above the cyber is very cool and you also immediately see the opportunity to do pacifist beginning. Releasing the archviles right away is also cool, although I wish this room had more columns, so you could get cover just to take a moment to think where to run.

 

I also really liked the general oppressive nature of the map, always forcing you to move and to think quickly, you can never relax.

Some of the fights are really well designed, like the red key one.

 

Visuals are also pretty cool, especially how you change lightning dynamically, great stuff. Not commenting on doomcute stuff, cause I'm not the biggest fan of doomcute personally, but I appreciate the work you put into it. Also cool eye.

 

Now a bit of criticism.

 

I think this map actually suffers from non-linearity more than it benefits from it. There are certain intuitive ways to progress when playing this blind that leave you without a rocket launcher for the 80% of the map, for example, which results in a pretty tedious experience dealing with stationary archviles in the central area. There is also only one way to get plasma (unless I was blind) and you basically always want to go there first, and if you don't know that and you also missed the rocket launcher your experience with SSGing the two remaining areas will be uh.

 

I also think you went a little overboard with the pressure in the central area, there are turret archviles and the cyber and the the toxic floor, wow. The latter is not much of a threat and more of an annoyance, because there is a plenty of radiation suits. There is also not much cover from turret archviles, which forces you to take this area slow and clean them up instead of avoiding them smartly and telefragging later.

 

The map also seem to encourage you to skip some enemies and return to finish them off later, but in some cases it punishes you for it, because they will just gather somewhere blocking your way when you return and generally being hard to deal with (like if you skip all the stuff in the second room and then go for the secret leading you back to it, every monster will just be after that secret door and you have no room behind you to move, so you have to just turn back basically, or take it really slow).

 

So, in short, I see the general intend of the map to pressure player and I like it, but it sometimes works and sometimes does not.

 

Also, very minor thing:

Spoiler

I don't get the final archvile jumpscare, you can just ignore him and exit, this feels like no threat for a blind player and an annoyance for a maxer, so a bit out of place, in my opinion. 

 

A few non-gameplay criticisms:

1. It is better to state explicitly which is the intended compatibility level of your map is, so that people who want to make demos, can be certain, they are all being in equal conditions. Despite the fact that this plays fine with both -cl2 and -cl9, the experience will still differ. I personally played with -cl2.

2. Red-striped door sides and similar bars are usually used to indicate that you need the respective key to open the door, not that the respective key is behind that door, I think... This is a bit confusing. But maybe it's just me.

3. Some non-secrets felt more like secrets to me than some of the non-secrets. For example, idk why megasphere is a secret, it's just there, it's almost impossible not to open it accidentally. Meanwhile the nearby lift allowing you to sneak on enemies is not, but it would be very rewarding to get tagged as a secret I think.

 

 

Ok, so despite the fact that I typed like x4 more text on the criticism than on the praise, it does not mean that there are x4 more bad things about the map than the good things (quite the opposite), it was just me trying to be elaborative and explain why exactly I felt certain things not quite worked. The map is actually very good, and I enjoyed it a lot (wouldn't play it the second time otherwise). But I think it maybe needed a bit more routes balancing and playtesting, maybe some second playtesting opinions from a different person. But then again, maybe it's just me having skill issues, so take everything I said with a grain of salt.

 

Anyway, looking forward to your future works.

With what you are presumably aiming for, I can also suggest using Boom format for the future maps and maybe incorporating some classic dehacked enemies (like green cyber, that would be very fitting in the starting area instead of a red one, for example). 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Ravendesk

[Lucius Wooding]

Very much appreciate the detailed criticism, and also giving it a second playthrough. I can certainly agree with some issues so I'll try and address some points:

 

-Regarding the beginning which I know some people won't like:

Spoiler

Pacifist is intended, you can escape pretty easily without damage most of the time and even grab the secret to help with the second room. Not much in the way of cover but you get the teleporter and a general infight party to mitigate things. Usually I grab the secret and bail, and just come back post rocket launcher to stir things up if needed. Usually it's pretty well calibrated so the cyber dies in 1-5 SSG shots but occasionally he can die, especially from prolonged archvile zaps. You can also cheese him a little bit if you can peekaboo shoot him from behind the door to the left of the start, but you have to make sure his rockets hit the far side to avoid splash damage. It's safest to just strafe gently back and forth in the middle of the room and SSG him a few times. The reward for killing him is nice early on and it's really a mean looking fight that takes minimal effort to deal with if you take this approach. 

 

The second room and first are laid out so the enemies never crowd the teleporters. However monsters can pass through these in either direction so I often just blow up the barrels and pick off hitscan while I lure spectres/cacos into the teleporter to get rid of them; their pathing takes them straight into the cyberdemon and they die to splash damage without needing to waste shells. It certainly pays off since they can easily block you from all the bottlenecked passages in the room. For this reason I often find the single barrel to be better here since it can snipe the barrels and zombies with less cooldown, and you can even take the risk to telefrag the cacos if you wish to save ammo, or use the chainsaw a bit. The SSG is a lot more convenient for the spectres though to prevent them from cornering you. Rarely a roaming archvile can come into the second room which can be exciting, usually it will be right behind you as they come out of their alcoves, or if you go too far up the stairs and camp sometimes their pathing will bounce them far enough along the wall that they hit the teleporter. It's pretty unlucky ammo wise when this happens but it can be dealt with by killing him or luring him back into it.

 

-Regarding the plasma:

Spoiler

There's one in the red key fight, which can be gotten fairly early and is the main benefit to that route. But there's also one by the cyberdemon cage/mancubus wall on one of the archie pillars that can be gotten via a secret teleporter and a small jump. Possibly the archvile or his corpse made it hard to see if you didn't go round the right first. Or you might have picked it up while you already had one and didn't notice I guess. That secret is probably the most cryptic of the five but it's fairly straightforward.

 

And I'm glad you liked the red key fight, I basically just wanted a hellish area you couldn't circle strafe completely, and would more or less force you to use up the plasma. If you come here with a supply of cells you'll have plenty to spare to kick ass afterward, but otherwise you'd probably have to dump them into the mob as soon as you pick it up to punch a big enough hole to SSG stuff. I've also had some luck using a couple rockets initially but it's very risky and you pretty much need to limit it to 2 or 3 or else move really skillfully. Optionally you can sneak in here without grabbing the plasma and pick off a couple enemies without the main ambush to make it easier, or grab the plasma and get out via teleporter but you'd unleash the archvile and have to deal with a mess later. You can aim rockets down through the door from the pyramid to help thin them out but I was delighted to find the cyberdemon can also snipe you from the outsideside if you do so. I think this and the second room are probably the best pure fights in terms of action that are self contained. I didn't want to overuse teleporting enemies overall so most of the waves in the central area can thin out and are more slow paced as a result. I don't mind it however, I like a mix of fast and slow paced combat in a longer map. But yeah the more open fights can play very different with different routes.

 

-Regarding the rocket launcher:

Spoiler

It's probably the most important weapon in the entire map so I probably should place a third one somewhere that's a bit more accessible, I considered making the SSG in the central red area go on top of the big stairs so maybe replacing it with a RL wouldn't be a bad idea either. Or at least putting it on the platform next to the red key maybe so you have it for the post red key fight for sure. Given the beginning is based on E2M4 I figured players would go up the lift first before tackling the big branching area so I didn't really consider the alternative too much. There is the secret leading behind it, which can provide another means of getting it as well if you took the blue path first. Certainly once you know it's there I don't think any player would skip it. Also it's not the easiest to see in the dark room but I did throw an arrow made out of rockets on the floor pointing up there. If I release an update at some point I'd probably put it on my to do list to stick one at the front of the central red area and move the SSG to the stairs. 

 

-Regarding the central area:

Spoiler

The idea was to make the hurtfloors an attrition thing; you'd have tons of space to dodge as long as you had a radsuit, but also you're not forced to take more than a slight dip so you can still cross it without one (with plentiful stimpacks, but you'd lose your mega health and armor over time leaving you vulnerable to being one shotted). Without one you're very restricted in your movement to the perimeter and the archies and cyberdemon certainly deny/force your movement a ton. There are a few ways to deal with the various threats but there will usually be a mob of enemies chasing you and forcing you to keep moving. It does require skillful movement and patience to go from cover to cover without getting rocketed but eliminating the turret archies is very worth the effort of 2-3 circuits even if you take some damage. Getting a foothold is meant to be the toughest part and I think you grasp what I was going for. A couple of the monsters eliminated on lower skills also make this part a bit easier turning them into revenants and such but the main challenge it poses is still there.

 

Many of the secrets are shortcuts which allow you to lure the majority of enemies to one side of the ring and free up a path. I always try to give the player one or two means to avoid being trapped; either shortcuts, monster blocking areas near ledges, or at least a place to lure enemies away from ledges. Also with the ammo and powerups spread out, it's easy to run out of ammo if you camp early on. Basically the three key themed areas are the safest place early on even though they contain some nasty fights. If I didn't place lots of monsters then it feels pretty empty in the big area, and I also wanted to make sure the cyberdemon would take enough damage so when you eventually fought him, it'd be fairly quick and likely you'd have plasma. I also limited the cover since I primarily didn't want to restrict the cyberdemon's movement much. The pipes were somewhat a later addition, as well as the cubbies with health and armor bonuses. In fact initially I intended the cyber to be able to roam much more of the map like down in the slime river area but ended up realizing he'd get stuck everywhere without a super gimmicky layout.

 

Good call on the color coded doors, now that you mention it it's a pretty obvious and common assumption. I think I had my decorator hat on a little bit there and wanted to pick the most fitting textures rather than considering the implications. For reference, the only things in the map that require keys are the 3 switches that open the 3 doors blocking the exit. A couple of the keys are meant to be visible from the central area to signpost the player but the red one is kind of far from the red door so I can see the confusion. If I update this I'd probably remove some of the relevant trim from the doors and switches altogether. Honestly I could literally give the player all 3 keys at the start and it would still require the same progression so yeah. Sometimes playing your own map can brainwash you a bit I guess.

 

The complevel is really up to the player, I made sure all the kills and mechanics of the map worked on 2/9 and mostly had 2 in mind. The lost soul limit doesn't come hugely into play and falling monsters is definitely noteworthy in a few spots but also not a huge deal. I wasn't sure anyone would bother to play it at all let alone record demos but in the future out of etiquette I'll specify one in the txt. The other maps I've started have been in standard boom compatibility and I've learned enough about custom enemies and stuff that I'll probably take your advice, but being the first time using the editor I thought it'd be easiest to stick to all vanilla since I didn't have any compelling ideas for this project to change them. 

 

Non-secrets and the final bit:

Spoiler

Generally I designed with UV max players in mind, so I didn't want to make the tagged secrets hard to find. People won't get pissed off or frustrated from easy secrets, but they will from missing monsters or secrets. And even if I felt they weren't justified to complain, I'd still feel a bit bad. I did want to reward curious players who actually explored stuff a bit more so I used some extra decorations and minor supplies. And usually the rewards themselves are more about shortcuts and routing options than actual item pickups. The megasphere is mostly there to get you to look at that room a bit more closely, but it was meant to be somewhat automatic. As for the lift you refer to, there are two ways up top and the one it sounds like you found is the easter egg while finding either can net you a secret. Kudos for being observant and leaving no stone unturned. 

 

As for the final archvile, yeah it was pretty much just a tease. I thought it'd be funny if a player on 5% health died to chaingunners from it but it's really just there to worry you more than anything. People would see it teleport and go "Oh shit, it's probably resurrecting half the map", but the decor of the room hints that it went to a fairly trivial location. The rest of the archies in the map I felt served a good purpose with their placement but that one's more out of humor and tradition than anything.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

I'm too tired for any detailed criticism, safe to say that I started to have quite a bit of trouble with an Arch-vile near the end I had to rewind my way out of (or maybe not). Demo recorded DSDA doom, Complevel 2

[Lucius Wooding]

I've made a couple tweaks just to tighten things up, I'll be updating the idgames entry when I get around to it but the google drive link should work for now. It will mainly address small issues with the map and how progression is offered, the fights and layout are unchanged.

 

Spoiler

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s63uBtdzW0L4kl8dNHK5i5Xdg_wh-U76

 

-The red key route is now more visibly indicated from the top of the stairs.

-The door to the red key fight has neutral trim to not seem like it requires a key.

-The SSG in the central area is moved up to the top of the stairs and a rocket launcher takes its place in plain view for the player who skips the first. This should mainly affect UV players but is there on all 3 skills.

-The red and yellow key waves could be triggered from the slime pit without entering the respective rooms (How embarrassing!). It didn't hurt gameplay a ton if the player chose to sequence break in this way but since it was unintended, thin walls now block both switches until the rooms are entered. It's a bit ugly but this was the one thing that was a bit broken that I didn't catch.