Ultimate Doom "In Name Only" - On IDgames

[Nine Inch Heels]

3 hours ago, taviow said:

Currently however there's 4 sectors all clumped together tagged as secret, which makes the map look like it has 4 secrets when it doesn't, plus you can't get them all

I have no idea whatsoever how that happened. Easy enough to fix, though.

 

3 hours ago, taviow said:

 

E3M8 however seems to be a bit beyond my comprehension. I don't have anything to say about it because I couldn't beat it. I don't know if you're supposed to

  Hide contents

time the BFG balls to hit the mastermind while you're falling or something.

That's how that was meant to be done originally, but a number of playtesters pointed out that I might be pushing it a bit too far - so, you get a lift instead. But hey, nothing's stopping you from trying the "original" method. I'm not 100% sure if the timers still allow for enough legroom if you do, but I believe I wasn't dreadfully tight with those anyway.

 

1 hour ago, galileo31dos01 said:

Spoiler

When you reach to the BFG spot, on the right side there is a bridge with an invul at the end. Snag the invul and run back to the start of said bridge, and now this is the trick: you want to use the wall at the end to boost yourself to the platform to your left, that has the almighty max-kills enabler switch. For this, while at the start point of the bridge, direct a first rocket towards the aforementioned wall -the edge of it- and immediately straferun alongside that rocket (reminder that your own rockets won't crash into you) and just as you're about to reach the wall shoot a second rocket so it's twice (or nearly twice) the splash to push you onto the other platform. You need to find the better angles and speed for this to work, so it can take a bit. 

 

I hope this helps..

 

Spoiler

Easier:

 

Fire the first rocket on your way to the invuln, initiate SR40 as soon as it's out, and shoot the second rocket so both of them "stack" on the wall. Just keep strafe-running and don't forget to turn slightly, so you get nuked in the correct direction. You'll then get the invuln split-seconds prior to getting pushed over to the platform with the switch that opens up the map for UV-maxes - maxing out on the invuln-timer is a nice added bonus.

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by Nine Inch Heels

[Ravendesk]

Alright, so I finished episode 3. Here are fdas with saves: udino-e3-fdas.zip. Plays back with dsda-doom 0.26.2 -complevel 3. There are two fdas for e3m8, I'll elaborate on that below.

I actually have more to say this time. Overall episode was simply great, easily my fav of the three and I really enjoyed most of the maps. e3m6 is now my favourite of all three episodes, incredible map. Other strong highlights to me were e3m2, e3m3, e3m7 and e3m8 (although I'm a bit mixed on the last one).

 

Thoughts on some of the individual maps:

e3m2 was amazing, great atmosphere and oppressive fights. Love the lost souls bonus area. I wish it was an opener of the episode instead, it really sets the mood greatly and it's best enjoyed pistol start, so people playing continuously wouldn't appreciate it as much I think. But, well, original names decided otherwise.

 

e3m3 was also great, cool hot start, but progression was a bit confusing.

Spoiler

I figured out since there is a room with 4 radsuits I probably need to search for the blue key in lava, but took me some time to realise thet. I wish it was telegraphed a little bit better but honestly idk how. Pleasantly surprised that all caged imps get crushed at the end, even though that causes a 2 seconds lag in the end lol.

 

e3m4 was horrible to play, but it totally lives up to its name. This is a house of pain if I ever seen one. So I guess fair enough.

 

e3m6 I mentioned before as my strong fav in the set so far. Absolutely amazing map.

Spoiler

The green torches platforming sequence with raising platforms was my favourite part of the map, it's so well done and feels so satisfying to perform. Overall progression through the map felt very rewarding. The fights are clever, although I think I might have cheesed some of them (see fda). Not sure what was intended and what was not. The first fight with cyber and barons (and pinkies and cacos) in the hallway is extremely difficult without "cheese" however, so that strategy is probably intended. From the looks of the setup for the yellow key, rocketjump is expected, but I somehow managed to simply drop down without it. I later tried to do the same again (not in fda), got it a few times, but couldn't do it consistently, I guess that needs a lucky elastic bounce. Rocketjump is much simpler and more consistent though.

 

e3m7 was a beast. However, some parts were a bit confusing to me as well:

Spoiler

It was not immediately obvious that I'm supposed to drop down into the circle lava pool as normal progression. The fact the the blue and red switches were there seemed to imply to me that I need both keys to activate this fight. But turns out, that's not the case, so after I ran around the map for a bit and found no other way to progress, I finally dropped down there. I'm not sure why there portals are even needed, the way to access blue and red secret fights are completely different (nice secrets btw, it felt rewarding to find them and they were hidden just about well enough), and these teleporters in the lava arena are completely redundant. Unless I'm missing something of course. But overall great map nevertheless. I appreciate the fact that you made so much gameplay optional and somewhat hidden.

 

And, well, about e3m8:

Spoiler

I have included two fdas because at first I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do. I then restarted and tried pacifist approach so I can search for progression while not spawning the monsters, so you can just skip to the fda-2 if you intend to watch them.

 

I kinda didn't want to believe that icon of sin setup with a spider mastermind instead of romero is actually real, but turns out it is. Things started to progress though when I tried rockejumping to the platform to the side of the tower and found an invuln here. However then I stuck there again because I couldn't reach the next platform with another rocketjump. Eventually I asked in meowgi's discord if this gap is even theoretically possible to cross with RJ and Rayziik explained to me that it's a double-rj setup. Totally did not expect it and it's very tricky to perform, but I eventually got it (although probably better with practice, I think I started getting better attempts by the time I got it). Udino totally tricked me into believing that it's a normal wad with a few spicier maps thrown in but e3 turned out to be the direct opposite.

 

Either way, after finding the secret, the map was much more understandable and was actually quite fun. But I really cannot imagine beating it without secret, it would be such a pain. The secret is super powerful, it crushes the bunch of stuff, allows you to telefrag more stuff, gives tons of cells and health and armor (normally map is extremely stingy on health and doesn't even give you blue armor). For me the secret basically turns a horrible map into a great map, but due to how niche and obscure the secret setup is, I feel like barely anyone will be able to enjoy this map. I understand that it's the vision however and if map would give everything secret does without the secret it wouldn't be the same map, but, oh well.

 

I've started rambling at this point, so wrapping this up. Very mixed impression on that map, but I definitely appreciate it for what it is.

 

Great episode, looking forward to e4. I honestly had some doubts half-way through e1 if I'm going to finish the wad or not, but now I definitely will and I'm glad I decided to stick with it.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ravendesk

[taviow]

I'm inclined to try this trick and see what comes out of it, I guess I'll take the opportunity to watch @Ravendesk doing it first though. On an opposite note, looking at this from the perspective of regular players (majority of playerbase and people likely to try the wad), if anyone thinks this is a jump the shark moment, I could not blame them. But I for one am finding it very interesting that the project became spicy and weird, so I'm on board for whatever comes next.

 

Edit:

E4M2

Spoiler

Missing textures in E4M2:

 

- Not sure what is going on with the secret exit in this map. Neither of them take you to E4M9, but looking at it in UDB the secret exit is tagged correctly. Don't know what the deal is here.

E4M09

Spoiler

Fun map, easier than I expected honestly after those E3 maps. This applies to E4 in general.

 

I don't really understand the final fight. Barons and Cybers just spawn down there on the starting area and they can't even come up to you, so they spend all their time taking each other out. You just wait for the cacos to come to you, take them out, and then you take care of the surviving monsters from all the infighting below. Honestly don't get it.

 

Also, this happened to me upon map completion:

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by taviow

[Anarkzie]

Absolutely love E4M9.

 

Pure genius!

[mouldy]

Right, finished episode 4. Very cool set of maps. Think my favourite is unruly evil, i love that idea and the music is perfect. They will repent is quite cool too, once you figure it out (which doesnt take long haha). The finale also merits a mention for its crazy dobu designs, though the gameplay gets close to my tolerance for quirkiness at times. The final fight is interesting to say the least. You have to appreciate the cleverness, even when you aren't having fun. Ah yeah, nearly forgot sever the wicked, epic chainsaw map that i wouldn't have fully appreciated without pistol start.

 

The other maps do the job, though I had problems with Against thee wickedly. It involves a lot of lava walking and not enough health to cover it when you are backtracking and trying to figure out where to go. I didn't get the supercharge, i'm assuming thats secret though so I'd still add a bit more health.

 

All in all its a solid, if somewhat esoteric, megawad. My only issues are with E3M6 and E3M8, which were like hitting a wall compared to everything else. E3M6 is just fundamentally fucked for me with all that platforming, but I think it could still use some difficulty balancing - the only difference I could see between HMP and UV was 3 monsters... E3M8 I would just remove the cyber guarding the switch.

 

Overall the difficulty of the whole megawad seemed a bit high. I was playing on HMP so it might just be that people havent toned it down much from UV. Either that or UV is ungodly hard. To be honest though, this is going to be such an aquired taste I don't suppose it matters. Congrats on getting it over the finishing line.

[cannonball]

@mouldy if it was UV then I might be a bit more defensive. But the intention wasn’t for HMP or lower to murder players that much. So if there are any fights you can recall that felt overly excessive on HMP then let me know and hopefully I might a way of toning it down a little. I did suspect that lower difficulties may need some more refinement anyway. 

 

[mouldy]

heh, to be honest this wad on HMP feels like my idea of UV, so maybe the doom community has left me behind a bit. I reckon you should get a few more opinions on the matter

[taviow]

I don't think it's too bizarre to expect a friendly experience on HMP or below, but there is no way to balance the platforming in E3M6 that I can think of that doesn't involve skipping it by giving you the key earlier or implementing a very slow elevator to the top or something. You just have to practice it until you make it.

 

Spoiler

I still suck, but I've been trying to improve:

 

Managed to accomplish the bare minimum to beat it at least. Bet it's gonna be fun to watch people optimize this as much as possible.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by taviow

[Not Jabba]

1 hour ago, taviow said:

I don't think it's too bizarre to expect a friendly experience on HMP or below, but there is no way to balance the platforming in E3M6 that I can think of that doesn't involve skipping it by giving you the key earlier or implementing a very slow elevator to the top or something.

Sometimes platforming is balanced for lower skill settings by raising more platforms so that the path is easier. It might be trickier to do this in vanilla format though, or may not be feasible with this specific map. I haven't gotten that far into the megawad yet.

[Nine Inch Heels]

40 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

Sometimes platforming is balanced for lower skill settings by raising more platforms so that the path is easier. It might be trickier to do this in vanilla format though, or may not be feasible with this specific map. I haven't gotten that far into the megawad yet.

A couple things here...

 

E3M6 has different platforming sections for different difficulty settings, UV is somewhat tight while HMP is basically built around the idea that pure keyboarders should have a fair shake at it - if there is any willingness to invest some practice-time. And to address the point Mouldy made about the difference in monsters - I adjusted difficulties by way of monster count, extra goodies, or more forthcoming timers.

 

E3M8 for example has different timers for when new sets of monsters get to warp into the map, also based on difficulty settings. Having said all that...

 

4 hours ago, mouldy said:

E3M8 I would just remove the cyber guarding the switch.

I'm not going to budge on that. Doing a 3/4 "lap" around the cyb guarding the switch, at a measured pace until it starts shooting (instead of bum-rushing the switch and getting a rocket up the ass) is not only consistent, it also makes lining oneself up for easy access to the switch trivial for all but the greenest of doomers.

[Ravendesk]

I have replayed e3m6 on HMP and HNTR out of interest. I think HNTR balancing is really great, keeps the fights very close in spirit but at the same time makes them much easier.

 

However, differences between UV and HMP seem very subtle. If I just go through the fights:

In the first fight with 2 barons and two imps the changes on HMP are great - one imp is removed and is teleported to a different location and that makes a huge difference.

Second fight with berserk and imps seems to be the same on HMP and UV? It's not hard though.

For the next fight (arguably the hardest in the map) I didn't notice any difference on HMP when I played, then I checked the editor and it's just two less cacos, I think? While that really helps if your strategy is to run to the back of the hallway (as opposed to trying to get past the barons), the main hazard (cyber suddenly changing targets from barons to you or just in general misbehaving) is not really mitigated. Two less cacos make it easier but barely so, to me it still feels easier to just squeeze through the barons than to do the fight properly.

This fight in the ring arena also felt completely the same to me. I then checked the editor and I think there are no changes between UV and HMP? Unless I missed something. This fight can be very hard if you come here with little health and don't manage to run back past the barons into the previous area.

Spoiler

 

Overall HNTR feels like a great HNTR to me, but HMP feels overcooked aside from the very first fight with two barons.

 

Also, I noticed that HNTR/HMP teleport you to a different area for green torches platforming compared to UV, but I didn't notice any difference in platforming itself. I'm curious, what's changed there?

Edit: nevermind, I found the change, the ledge walk sections are shorter, that's actually very neat. Didn't realise that when played, just thought I got good at this part xdd.

 

Also, one thing I forgot to mention for e3m6 first time, but got reminded by replay.

This particular lava lake on the right is not marked as damaging. Coincidentally I used it to check if lava hurts or not in my blind playthrough and concluded that it doesn't. And later was a bit surprised in the fight with imps xd That's very minor though.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Ravendesk

[taviow]

E4M5

 

VERY cool map by the way! Loved the gimmick here.

 

One thing:

Spoiler

 

These rocks are tagged as damaging.

 

[cannonball]

Here is a fix for many of the issues/bugs spotted so far. As of yet no obvious gameplay amendments have been made outside of making 100% kills/secrets possible and in one case worth it. The OP has also been updated.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/faenlosubrwxe8l/UDINOrc1.2.zip?dl=0

 

Changes below

Spoiler

UMAPINFO amended to fix secret exit issue in episode 4 (both entry and exit)

Compatibility issues resolved with E2M1, E2M4, E2M6, E2M9, E3M3, E3M4, E4M7 and E4M8 implemented by dobu gabu maru

E1M4 – Soulsphere secret adjusted to make it actually worth the effort. A couple of weapons have been moved around too.

E1M5 – Made non-nukage floors non damaging around the yellow key door.

E1M8 - Automap removed and replaced by a blue armour (green armour obtained in the first section has been subsequently removed).

E1M9 – modified blue key trap – fixed misalignment

E2M1 – fixed unpegged doortraks

E2M3 – Alignment fixes for the yellow key room

E2M4 – Hopefully prevented a soft-lock by the red key door leaving the first section

E2M6 – Narrowed the width of the sector with the brown floor from 16 to 8 units from the outside, this should increase the space around the perimeter to prevent the player getting stuck and soft-locked.

E2M7 – Fixed ceiling oddity and moved floating items

E2M9 – Fixed floating stimpacks

E3M6 – Untagged superfluous and un-taggable secrets, some lava flats have now been marked as damaging.

E4M2 – Hom fixed, secret exit works now

E4M5 – Rock floors in secret area are now non-damaging

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by cannonball

[taviow]

E4M7

Spoiler

In my opinion, too slow paced for the last stretch of the wad. Lots of hype building up toward a final fight that I ultimately think amounted to nothing. I mean, this map may have been intended to be just a breather before the finale and so perhaps I was just deluding myself into thinking there would be a cool ending to it.

 

Very, very easy fight. You have excellent cover against the cybers in the center, they never hit me even once, although they were a mild annoyance when I went to grab more plasma. The spiders you just BFG down trivially. No danger from any of the hitscanners and imps as you have a ton of armor and soulspheres at that point. The imps on the cliffs amount to nothing but window dressing.

 

They do nothing to you in those elevated positions when you have a BFG, health and armor. The arena is too big for you to be unable to escape at any point. Cherry on top, pinkies spawning on top of a pillar so they can't go anywhere? Whaaaaaaaaaat? Am I missing a joke? Like, what about putting a cyber on there or something? What about spawning a lot of barons and a bunch of cybers at strategic positions to give you a scare? I think this island had the potential for a great encounter.

 

 

Well, I don't really understand this fight honestly. But I'm sad that there was nothing to it other than some pretty weak combat, especially in this wad where I was repeatedly shown how clever the maps can be.

 

But I suppose it's a disappointment of my own making, because this was probably intended to be just a breather. Nonetheless, I'm going to play E4M8 today and I hope that one comes to the rescue.

 

Also, these guys somehow failed to teleport into the final arena:

 

Looked at it in UDB and I see no reason why, upon pressing the switch to lower the floors, it would fail for those sectors. But somehow that's exactly what happened.

 

Anyway, onwards to E4M8! The journey reaches its end. Whatever comes next, I've had a very positive experience thus far and this has certainly become my favorite UD project I've played thus far.

E4M8

Spoiler

Thus far I'll have to echo mouldy's sentiment that this is more interesting than fun. I've been having a particularly aggravating time with this segment:

 

Upon running round and round and round and checking that I'd already pressed every single switch, I've found that the bars simply do not open. I'm playing dsda-doom complevel 3. I guess I'll cheat to get past this segment.

 

If necessary I can provide my save. I'll make a separate save right here.

 

Upon grabbing the red key to get to what I assume is the final fight, when I jump down I get softlocked down on the black floor with no way that I can find to leave or get up there, the floor does not do any damage.

 

Well, the final fight was pretty fun!

 

Ultimately I did enjoy this map. I just got a bit salty over the red key bars not opening in that one baron room. However it is a very slow and methodical map to play, and leading barons to teleporters over long-ish distances does not always lend itself to the greatest thrills. I checked out the room that I missed, a fight with a cyberdemon that pursues you as you press switches, and that one was pretty great as well.

 

Overall, I am pleased with the map, even if it made me salty.

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by taviow

[finnks13]

Hello again :)

 

I finished off episode 3 tonight, and I thought it was a bit of a mixed bag admittedly, with some of my favourites and least favourites. The highlights this time were E3M2 for it's sinister atmosphere, tough combat and the genuine surprise of a Benjogami map that was only fairly unhinged, E3M6 for the incredibly creative and cool fight and set-piece design and E3M7 for the grand, very pretty visuals and entertaining combat encounters. I do have to also commend E3M4 for being absolutely hilarious, and I am so glad that it's not incredibly long because it means the gimmick stays amusing. 

 

This was with RC1, so hopefully I don't mention any bugs that have already been fixed:

E3M1:

- Floating stimpack in the starting area

Spoiler

 

E3M3:

- You can softlock yourself by running into this corner of the flesh monster (the little path with the medikit in it)

Spoiler

 

- The hexagon rooms in the blue key area felt a little anticlimactic, since nothing really happens there and they look so cool

- Is it intentional that you can just completely skip the large area in the south-west of the map that has like 500 caged imps? I didn't know this area existed on my playthrough (only found it existed from this thread lol) and was very confused when I found the exit room and suddenly had all the kills.

 

E3M4:

- This little island doesn't change it's texture to lava

Spoiler

 

E3M5:

(entirely subjective stuff here, I just think it's a shame this map's quite dull because it looks fucking awesome)
- I feel like the rocket launcher & plasma gun only being accessible by jumping into random pits is a weird choice, I only managed to find these by sheer luck when I fell in by accident. Perhaps the monsters waking up would be a good enough indicator for some people, but I assumed it was just a death pit :P

- The large fight in the main cathedral is a little dull and takes ages to clean up, I feel like a couple of cyberdemons might make for a more interesting encounter, though I guess it's cool that in it's current state a giant horde of zombiemen of all things is the most engaging and challenging part of the map

 

E3M6:

- I think giving out a soulsphere right before the crusher maze section (which I wasn't a massive fan of but it's fine I guess) leads you to assume that the crushers are fast crushers and it might be better off to just have it be given out afterwards.

- It's weird you get teleported looking away from the regular exit at the end, made me assume that rocket jumping was mandatory progression for it.

- Mt. Erebus is misspelled on the intermission screen graphic

 

E3M7:

- Sector bleed here

Spoiler

 

E3M8:

Spoiler

Should preface this by saying I didn't bother attempting to max the map, I saw the phrase "double rocket jump" mentioned in this thread and figured it was probably beyond me. Seems like the secret makes the map much more fun, but I can't do them to save my life so I'll have to be happy with being forced onto the loser route :P

 

I think the concept of having the mastermind require a small timing minigame to kill, like a less annoying Icon of Sin is really cool and I didn't have too much trouble figuring out what was required of me (basically only needed one "failed" attempt to figure out what was going on) but I still found this map incredibly annoying to actually pull off to the point where I considered skipping it. The main issues I had were missing the switch that lowers the elevator, having to slightly double back, then taking a rocket to the back, and getting constantly sniped from the perched cyberdemons as I was waiting on the lift and nearby platform to see if the BFG balls actually hit. Both of these are definitely on me for being bad at the game^TM but it was still an incredibly demoralising map to play through, getting constantly blocked, running out of cells at inoppourtune times & taking random cyberdemon rockets to the back, and it rather sours my opinion on the episode when I think back over the whole thing.

 

I can respect and see what the map is going for but it's really not for me, sorry :/

 

Will play through E4 over the next couple of days hopefully, I'm getting a weird crashing bug in Woof when loading saves sometimes so it might take me a bit longer (I have no idea why this happens, but it's not unique to this wad). Hope any of this is useful :)

Edited July 12, 2023 by finnks13
clarification of the clarification

[taviow]

15 minutes ago, finnks13 said:

E3M5

 

My first time through I missed the weapons, the 2nd time through I totally cheesed the main cathedral fight because the cacos cannot get over the fence in the area with the imps. Pretty breakable map, yeah.

[dobu gabu maru]

Excellent feedback thus far, much appreciated!!! I'm sorry for all the minor stuff in my maps that break due to -cl3 peculiarity—I promise the blue key fight in E3M3 is supposed to be more exciting than it currently is! I've fixed most of the issues that folks have caught (hopefully the caco-cowards will show up to play now) and the only thing I have left to tweak is the central fight of E3M5, given that "boring" is not a descriptor the map is aiming for.

 

14 hours ago, mouldy said:

My only issues are with E3M6 and E3M8, which were like hitting a wall compared to everything else.

 

Cheers on finishing the whole thing! Glad you stuck with it even when it got a bit bonkers at the end.

 

The maps in question that you struggled with are indeed overtly prickly; I had arguments with Heels over turning down the difficulty, and she's already compromised quite a bit (believe it or not). I agree with you on most points (like how the cyber blasting you in the ass in E3M8 on HMP is overkill) but as shown by the thread, she can be quite firm about sticking to her guns. They're good maps overall, but can feel a bit out of place in this community project due to relatively laid-back nature of earlier maps in E1 & E2. That, and it definitely is weird to have the difficulty of the megawad spike massively in E3 and then "normalize" in E4. However, its undeniable that this project is a ragtag group of weirdos surrounded by more conventional maps that act as breathers, so it's not as though Heels' maps don't belong—it's more-so that I wish I could better forewarn players that the set is unexpectedly demanding. It's why I compared UDINO's difficulty to Scythe in the text file... something not everyone will read unfortunately.

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 hour ago, dobu gabu maru said:

The maps in question that you struggled with are indeed overtly prickly; I had arguments with Heels over turning down the difficulty, and she's already compromised quite a bit (believe it or not). I agree with you on most points (like how the cyber blasting you in the ass in E3M8 on HMP is overkill) but as shown by the thread, she can be quite firm about sticking to her guns.

Overtly prickly is probably one of the most charming ways to spell sadistic. :P

 

The maps are mean-spirited, and I knew, long before the RC would be released, that there was gonna be some talking going on about them. What baffles me is how the E3M8 cybs keep coming back as a talking point - I'd been expecting way more blast for the platforming in E3M6, tbh - I'm fine with adjusting lower difficulty settings to make the maps more forgiving (fewer monsters here, more power-ups there, etc) - I am not even against the idea of tweaking UV a little bit more - but the E3M8 cybs are gonna stay for UV and HMP respectively, because they create a problem that almost hands out the solution to itself on a silver platter.

If it was HNTR we're talking about, then I would be open to the idea, because I think asking greener players to remember that they came down a short hallway that may now contain cybie-rockets, might just be enough "stress" already, and I could genuinely fathom a poor soul walking down that short hallway backwards, just to know when and where that other, distant cyb is shooting (which would be a pretty smart move, actually).

Edited July 12, 2023 by Nine Inch Heels

[Capellan]

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I'm not going to budge on that. Doing a 3/4 "lap" around the cyb guarding the switch, at a measured pace until it starts shooting (instead of bum-rushing the switch and getting a rocket up the ass) is not only consistent, it also makes lining oneself up for easy access to the switch trivial for all but the greenest of doomers.

 

I suspect you are seriously overestimating some people's coordination. Including mine,  most likely.

[mouldy]

One of the hard lessons I have to keep learning about mapping is that it doesn't matter how easy or obvious the solution seems to me, because people play how they play and if they don't play your way and constantly fail, they aren't going to take the time to figure out the proper strategy or execution, they will just think "this is a bit shit" and go do something else.

 

Maybe thats their problem, or maybe its your problem. Either point of view is valid. But in a community project its also everyone else's problem, so thats something to keep in mind. If your map fails unless the player dances around a cyberdemon in a particular way then you've kind of painted yourself into a corner i guess.

[cannonball]

I will look again at E3M8 again later, for me it isn’t the cybers that are the problem, it is the switch that for me feels rather awkward to hit. I am not sure whether it is the size of the switch, or the construction of the switch and surrounding geometry. I am not sure whether there are any ways of making hitting the switch easier that doesn’t render the action pointless (aka you might as well have a walk over line at this point). I have taken a lot of deaths from multiple cyber rockets whilst i was trying to mash doomguy into that switch in sheer desperation :p

[Ravendesk]

7 hours ago, finnks13 said:

- I feel like the rocket launcher & plasma gun only being accessible by jumping into random pits is a weird choice, I only managed to find these by sheer luck when I fell in by accident. Perhaps the monsters waking up would be a good enough indicator for some people, but I assumed it was just a death pit :P

Oh, I forgot to mention that, but I also was very confused by that part of the progression. In general agree with your notes, architecture is grand but fights feel underwhelming for that scale.

7 hours ago, finnks13 said:

- I think giving out a soulsphere right before the crusher maze section (which I wasn't a massive fan of but it's fine I guess) leads you to assume that the crushers are fast crushers and it might be better off to just have it be given out afterwards.

If you are just a bit off from the safe spot you can squeeze out of the slow crusher. Additional health allows you to survive small mistakes like that.

[bioshockfan90]

Alright, only time I'm going to plug the videos of this WAD but here's E1M1, after lots of fiddling with volume and playing email-tag with a friend of mine.

 

E1M1

 

Will have the videos release weekly every Wednesday starting today, gives me wiggle room in case some maps prove to be harder than others. So far I'm almost done with E1M7. My (very brief) thoughts on the map will be in the description of each video, and for more detailed writeups/if I find any bugs, I'll report it here. Good work once again and.... that's my end of things. E1M7 is really cool, I'm just struggling a bit at the final section because I suffer from layout blindness. 

[Nine Inch Heels]

10 hours ago, mouldy said:

One of the hard lessons I have to keep learning about mapping is that it doesn't matter how easy or obvious the solution seems to me, because people play how they play and if they don't play your way and constantly fail, they aren't going to take the time to figure out the proper strategy or execution, they will just think "this is a bit shit" and go do something else.

 

Maybe thats their problem, or maybe its your problem. Either point of view is valid. But in a community project its also everyone else's problem, so thats something to keep in mind. If your map fails unless the player dances around a cyberdemon in a particular way then you've kind of painted yourself into a corner i guess.

 

"Tell me how you play, so I can make a map that fits like a glove" isn't a solution either, and I am quite possibly the worst "target" for such a suggestion. You do something wrong - you get hit. You're not willing to adjust your play - you'll get hit in the future - universal truth for virtually every map ever put in a .WAD file, to say the least.

 

You can keep arguing this all you want, I'm not gonna budge on HMP and UV cybers in E3M8, when it's as simple as waiting for when the cyb starts shooting, so you will know when and where the rockets will go, and while you're waiting, you might as well line yourself up for the switch. There is nothing "specific" about it. It's literally just waiting for a window of opportunity, and I'm not going to map around a mere lack of patience on the player's side. It's just not going happen for those 2 difficulty settings. If getting a clean hit on the switch without being blasted to death right away was subject to RNG, I would actually be able to wrap my head around this discussion, but it's not. The only thing that's subject to RNG is when the cyb will start firing rockets, from there on out, it's as deterministic as it gets.

 

Making the switch easier to punch is up for debate. Additional health or even blue armours are up for debate as far as HMP and lower go, but the cybs are non-negotiable on HMP and UV, because even if you happened to mess up the switch-press, you could just keep playing the map and try again the following cycle. There is enough time for that, even though time is a limited resource for one reason or another. The timer on UV predates any possibility to even get 2 shots in on the SMM, and back when the map was significantly harder, you could still afford to miss a couple shots, or opportunities to shoot, for that matter.

 

As for painting myself into a corner: If I wanted to just solve it all immediately, I could just plop down an impassable fence in order to force players on the path that clearly beats rolling the dice. Problem solved, player's situational awareness and willingness to do some tactical thinking severely disrespected, however.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Nine Inch Heels

[dobu gabu maru]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Making the switch easier to punch is up for debate. Additional health or even blue armours are up for debate as far as HMP and lower go

 

I mean, these are things I recommended to you when I first playtested the map, so perhaps you'll more seriously consider these additions? Not that they really stop the problem of the cyberdemons blasting inexperienced players in the ass. For that I'd suggest making the cyber spawns limited on HMP to like, 1-2 per platform. That way tenacious players can toss their cell away in exchange for an easier time killing the SMM. That and it'll eat some time until the cacos arrive, which ideally balances out the danger-level of the map.

 

The main issue with those cybers isn't necessarily that baiting cyber rockets is too hard for more "casual" players to perform, but that there isn't a tangible difference between HMP and UV for this spot—inarguably the hardest part of the map for a lot of folks! And in a community project like this it's better to make changes with a wide brush than a fine detail one, especially when every map previously has adhered to this philosophy.

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Finished E2. Still having fun. Dying a lot more.

I had a couple ZDoom issues in E2, but they were addressed in the 1.2 release.

 

E3M2 - Tag 16 switch doesn't animate in ZDoom. ZDoom animates unseen upper SW1GARG before visible mid-texture SW1GARG.

[Flyxolydian]

Playing through the WAD atm, just thought I'd pop in and say well done to Corsair and DGM for E3M5. What a level.

*Edit* just to update now having played E3M6 and E3M8 and wanted to weigh in. Playing UV btw, so I've only myself to blame for the torture, but a couple of things stick out:

 

Spoiler

 

E3M6 - So, I can kind of see where Dobu is coming from with the fight after the blue key gate. It only took 6-8 tries to beat it, but it's quite hard to get the Cyber infighting with the Barons when the Caco's swarm in. Could possibly stagger the spawns a bit, just to give you a couple of seconds to get some infighting going.

I love the platforming section though, coming from someone who hates platforming. There's enough margin for error that you can mess up a couple of times while climbing. Crusher section kicked me ass though. 

E3M8 - love the premise, not so sure about the execution. I've got no problems with the Cybers or the switch placement, it's more ammo issues, and the fact you have to do a double rocket jump to access the secret? Come on... that's a bit much. If that switch was a bit easier to access, or there was more ammo around, it wouldn't be an issue.
Also, I'm guessing that it's impossible to UVMAX the map, on account of the turret Cybers? If it isn't intended to be, that's fine. If it is, maybe have a secret switch to crush the spares? Or maybe that could be what the existing secret switch is for, instead of it being for essential ammo.

I'm not sure why they're as tough as they are to begin with, for a community project anyway, but hey ho.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Flyxolydian
Updating post

[mouldy]

14 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 

"Tell me how you play, so I can make a map that fits like a glove" isn't a solution either, and I am quite possibly the worst "target" for such a suggestion. You do something wrong - you get hit. You're not willing to adjust your play - you'll get hit in the future - universal truth for virtually every map ever put in a .WAD file, to say the least.

 

You can keep arguing this all you want, I'm not gonna budge on HMP and UV cybers in E3M8, when it's as simple as waiting for when the cyb starts shooting, so you will know when and where the rockets will go, and while you're waiting, you might as well line yourself up for the switch. There is nothing "specific" about it. It's literally just waiting for a window of opportunity, and I'm not going to map around a mere lack of patience on the player's side. It's just not going happen for those 2 difficulty settings. If getting a clean hit on the switch without being blasted to death right away was subject to RNG, I would actually be able to wrap my head around this discussion, but it's not. The only thing that's subject to RNG is when the cyb will start firing rockets, from there on out, it's as deterministic as it gets.

 

Making the switch easier to punch is up for debate. Additional health or even blue armours are up for debate as far as HMP and lower go, but the cybs are non-negotiable on HMP and UV, because even if you happened to mess up the switch-press, you could just keep playing the map and try again the following cycle. There is enough time for that, even though time is a limited resource for one reason or another. The timer on UV predates any possibility to even get 2 shots in on the SMM, and back when the map was significantly harder, you could still afford to miss a couple shots, or opportunities to shoot, for that matter.

 

As for painting myself into a corner: If I wanted to just solve it all immediately, I could just plop down an impassable fence in order to force players on the path that clearly beats rolling the dice. Problem solved, player's situational awareness and willingness to do some tactical thinking severely disrespected, however.

You are missing the point by trying to justify it, because the guy you are explaining this to isnt here. He didn't come to the forum to ask how its done, or even to complain about it. He just closed the wad and did something else. That's the reason i'm giving you the benefit of this reaction, because thats genuinely what I would have done if i wasn't involved in this project.

 

Saying its fine because people can work it out ignores the fact that average players don't work things out under stress, and you aren't feeling that stress because you made the map and you know exactly how it works. Lesser doomers deal with big doom problems by dividing them up into smaller problems, and you've created a problem that can't be divided because its a single technical execution with little to no margin for error.

 

So here's one solution you can at least consider, just so we aren't going round in circles forever. Let the player do the switch once without the cyber there, just so they can see what it does and get an idea of what they are meant to do without the threat of instant death over their shoulder. Then once they've had one go on easymode, spawn the cyber guarding the switch. If you want to teach players to bait the cyber rockets before going for the switch then there are probably ways to do that. You could even have a barrier next to the cyber blocking its rockets, giving players a safe spot that encourages them to wait there and time their dash to the switch. There are ways to fix this, you just have to think about it a bit more, and maybe settle for a map that isn't as hard as it possibly could be. This isn't about nerfing shit to the point where your granny could beat it, its about reducing the difficulty spike to match the surrounding maps.

 

 

[grothendieck1453]

I'm playing through the wad, and am loving it so far!

 

I noticed a possible minor bug: The step that leads out of the far side of the nukage pool with the two nukage pillars in E1M6 (sector 355) starts out not being damaging, but seems to turn into a damaging floor once it re-raises. Is this an engine-bug and/or is there a work-around?

[Nine Inch Heels]

5 hours ago, mouldy said:

So here's one solution you can at least consider...

 

Alright, fine, I'll think about it.