Ultimate Doom "In Name Only" - On IDgames

[cannonball]

I needed to relook at the exit of E1M1 anyway (buggy glitches that will need addressing), so I will have a look at this too, I think this stems a lot from working off the grid with odd angles that seems to create problems in certain node builders. I have already had issues in other outdoor parts of the map before releasing RC1.2.

Edited July 25, 2023 by cannonball

[plums]

E2M5 @mouldy great map as to be expected, no complaints or problems found, which I'm sure is good to hear after so many revisions. (I played the 22-7 update.) I did find it, for lack of a better term, oddly conventional in design at times for a mouldy map, which I'm guessing is a combination of originally being made for vanilla limits and not having any Doom 2 monsters.

 

 

E2M9 @Dreadopp I enjoyed it overall but good call on making this a secret map, I'm sure some people will hate it, it definitely pushed my patience at times. I did get the BFG without cheating due to pure stubborness.

 

I did also have to use the pistol more than I'd like, both in the start and later on in the map when I mostly killed a baron with it because I didn't have much other ammo, no chaingun yet, and it was safe if dull to do so.

 

The sudden pain on the slime crate room puzzles when you push the wrong crate felt pretty janky, I don't know there's a good way around it and I understand the purpose but silently losing a bunch of health after a brief delay just has a bad feel to it. If there was at least some aural feedback it might be better? Or if something happened to the crates when you push the wrong one? You're probably past wanting to edit this much so I understand if nothing gets changed, but since you're pushing a "voodoo doll" with barrels it's relatively easy to make something happen from a technical POV.

 

A few visual problems with what looks like the nodebuilder again, mostly in the slime crate rooms:

Spoiler

 

 

(look at the slime above the 8% armour in this one below, it's more obvious when moving)

 

 

I made a vertically tiling E2 sky since there's a few spots where the sky is used as the floor texture, I'm not 100% sold on it myself but you can use it if you want:

 

Before/after comparison shots:

Spoiler

 

I think it works well here:

 

 

but the trick looks very obvious here, which I don't love:

 

 

Take it or leave it!

 

 

Edited July 25, 2023 by plums

[cannonball]

37 minutes ago, plums said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

(look at the slime above the 8% armour in this one below, it's more obvious when moving)

 

 

I made a vertically tiling E2 sky since there's a few spots where the sky is used as the floor texture, I'm not 100% sold on it myself but you can use it if you want:

 

Before/after comparison shots:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I think it works well here:

 

 

but the trick looks very obvious here, which I don't love:

 

 

Take it or leave it!

 

 

Dobu’s call regarding the sky2 tiling, but I personally think it works well and given this only impacts E2M9 then I would be more than happy to implement it.

[dobu gabu maru]

5 hours ago, cannonball said:

Dobu’s call regarding the sky2 tiling, but I personally think it works well and given this only impacts E2M9 then I would be more than happy to implement it.

 

Absolutely add it in! Looks better this way 100%

 

6 hours ago, plums said:

E2M9 I enjoyed it overall but good call on making this a secret map

 

Actually Dreadopp's original map was a lot more "reasonable", with the only puzzles being hidden switches. I ratcheted up the zany factor with the green/blue rooms, the BFG secret hunt, and a host of other insidious changes (like the whole red key room) to really make it feel like you have to comb through the structure inch by inch. My aim was to make it feel like every room you uncovered was its own secret. Where was the baron that you killed? In the floating fence maze or by the yellow key?

 

Not sure what to do about the crate section. My fear with an audible sound is that it'll make folks think they're doing the "right" thing by hitting the crates and they just have to eat through the damage to "solve" it. And lowering/removing the crates after they're hit would ruin the mirrored symmetry between the answer section and the riddle section. If it was Boom I'd have more options available to me (including a faster damage response), but I think that section mostly is what it is. I think it's something that will entertain people that "get" the solution, and irritate everyone else that tries to brute force it.

[Flyxolydian]

2 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

 

Absolutely add it in! Looks better this way 100%

 

 

Actually Dreadopp's original map was a lot more "reasonable", with the only puzzles being hidden switches. I ratcheted up the zany factor with the green/blue rooms, the BFG secret hunt, and a host of other insidious changes (like the whole red key room) to really make it feel like you have to comb through the structure inch by inch. My aim was to make it feel like every room you uncovered was its own secret. Where was the baron that you killed? In the floating fence maze or by the yellow key?

 

Not sure what to do about the crate section. My fear with an audible sound is that it'll make folks think they're doing the "right" thing by hitting the crates and they just have to eat through the damage to "solve" it. And lowering/removing the crates after they're hit would ruin the mirrored symmetry between the answer section and the riddle section. If it was Boom I'd have more options available to me (including a faster damage response), but I think that section mostly is what it is. I think it's something that will entertain people that "get" the solution, and irritate everyone else that tries to brute force it.

With the crate section, could you drop the damage a bit possibly, just to give people a little more leeway to solve it? 30 damage feels a bit harsh for a puzzle like that, but the idea is cool. 

[Ravendesk]

Crate section actually felt like the only sensible part of that map to me lol. The solution was really intuitive unlike many other progression parts of the map that are kinda random (not that it's bad).

[cannonball]

Here is RC2;

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jqr2qvw5vp06pu6/UDINOrc2.zip?dl=0

 

Changelog

 

Spoiler

E2 Sky edited for E2M9 - Courtesy of Plums

 

E1M1 : Minor visual tweaks (trying to make the exit look better, didnft really work)
E1M3 : Fix lift issue and fixed sector 22, 344 and 347(Now damaging)
E1M4 : Make a couple of fights harder (Yellow key and maybe a few others)
E1M6 : Removed impassable lines in big nukage trap (Unforeseen audacious jump to the soulsphere secret, which is fine to allow)
E1M8 : Amended secret doors and removed return teleporter to uncorrupted version of the map, teleporter still exists but takes the player back to the corrupted hub from the exit area.
E2M5 : Mouldy's amended map
E2M8 : Sectors 904 and 917 now damaging (Lava)
E3M1 : Visual tweaks (Increased vertical scale and light level changes), Drop down has a raised ledge to avoid being check-mated by infinite height.
E3M6 : Sector 379 fixed (damaging floor)
E3M7 : Added switch to pentagram trap and fix the bleeding sector, added switch to lower sector 289 from the other side (Useful for co-op as this allows access to the lock-in). Extra ammo for HNTR/HMP in the early stages to give the option to dispatch the heavier demons, lift in Red key area fixed. Start now in nukage to display non-damaging floor.
E4M6 : All lava floors are now damaging

 

Dobu Gabu Maru changes :
E1M7 : Stuck spectre fixed, linedef trigger now visually obvious in western puzzle room
E2M1 : secret door marked lower unpegged, fixed misalignment, fixed pinky teleport
E2M4 : Added a blue armor for the baron battle, more health vials (& 40 cell) for the caco fight, removed scrolling lines in front of the puzzle room switches
E2M7 : Fixed instance where player could get stuck near vats of acid
E2M9 : Drop-down floor leading to computer map fixed
E3M3 : Cyber will show up for the blue key fight, made it a teensy bit harder to leave that fight quickly
E3M5 : Encouraged the player to hop on the lift in the PG & RL weapon rooms, added a PG & RL to the red key platform, added in a lock in mechanism for the central fight so the player has to engage with the battle for a few minutes, added block monster lines to the overlook hallways so monsters don't block the ledge
E4M3 : Added some armor around the chainsaw to direct the player towards it
E4M7 : Removed some stimpacks to make combat more punishing, lowered the starting platform in the final battle so pinkies don't get stuck, made all teleport closets damaging, fixed an issue where the masterminds weren't joining the final battle, fixed an issue where monsters couldn't cross into the center of the final battle's arena
E4M8 : Added a teleporter out of the crusher zone, added some minor visual flair to indicate where to go for the blue & yellow keys, changed the cyber platform for the final battle so players can't camp its corner

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by cannonball

[plums]

5 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

 Where was the baron that you killed?

It was in the watery area, I'll figure out which one later. With different pathing, better aiming, or even just the knowledge of the rest of the level, I might not have used the pistol; as it was I thought that I have all these bullets and not a ton of shells or rockets, might as well use 'em.

 

I see what you mean about the crate traps.

[plums]

@dobu gabu maru E2M9: The baron I killed with the pistol was the one that teleports in when you get the yellow key, I guess this was the first option I took as a path. There's already a RL there so putting another weapon in feels a bit much, so I think it's fine to chalk it up to the fact that not all paths you take in a non-linear map are necessarily equal.

 

And I can't think of anything for the crate traps that doesn't risk misleading the player, now that you've pointed out that it's a danger, so I guess it's gotta stay as is.

 

Took a brief look through the maps I've already played so far for changes in RC2, everything looks good. I'll give E2M4 a go shortly.

[plums]

triple post! :p

 

@dobu gabu maru

E2M4: This map works but it definitely surprised me with how it went from a Tyson-esque map to lock-in survival slaughter. It very much does feel like the sum of its parts, where your success in the Tyson part has minimal impact on the later sections. Given the two authors credited, people are probably going to think you took an unfinished, fairly easygoing scifista42 map and then added some intense combat setups, regardless of how true that is.

(I guess no one has heard from scifista42 again? Here's hoping he just pulled a plums and disappeared, and is doing well, however unlikely that seems at this point...)

-The narrow pathway with the cacodemons is mostly one-chance only, because of how they can swarm over the ledge and you can't get rid of them. Putting block monster lines to prevent this might help, though I don't know if that messes up the pathing for them teleporting later. A blunter solution is to get rid of all the teleporters in the lava past a certain point, so that if you fall you don't need to worry about getting lucky with where the cacos are, since you'll die no matter what.

-The red key doors don't make sound properly, because they're linked to other parts of the map, so the physical centre of the sector is way off to the side. You could split the sectors up, or if that doesn't work, join another dummy sector on the other side of the map to balance the centre around where the player is.

-The last fight with the cacos I found harder than the barons, and barely scraped by, and as such I didn't like how the crusher could be out of phase with the door opening if you get unlucky. Maybe just put the trigger to start it when you walk under it?

 

-You might want to consider giving HNTR players a radsuit in the lock-in fights, and maybe even for HMP. You can place it early so they have to take it before the fight starts, and they don't get the full minute, if you think a free pickup is too much. Or put it in the damaging floor somewhere.

Edited July 26, 2023 by plums

[Catpho]

E2M7 - (Part 1, Part 2)

RC 1.2 version. Didn't like this one. I thought it looked ugly (lots of clashing texture combos & unattractive lighting), and most of the combat, while not actively bad, is static-looking, anonymous room-clearing. That's a cool final fight though.

E4M7 - @dobu gabu maru (Peanut doesn't seem available)  - (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
 

RC2 version. Cool idea, but the warp-in hell party is really tame. In the video, I was playing very leisurely, practically walking around for most of the map. It makes me think grabbing the secret (but I had no idea how I unlocked it) BFG was a mistake, heh; I think I might've dulled the austerity aspect that the map was going for. The fight to unlock the exit is much more fun than the rest of the map, but it does feel weird that you also mostly ignore the warp in stuff in that fight as well. I went and killed all the masterminds for some reason; I hallucinated boss tags maybe :P

Edit: Too many negative words for E4M7, so just want to say the map looks killer and the Spider masterminds are really cool world builidng details. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Catpho

[dobu gabu maru]

16 hours ago, Flyxolydian said:

With the crate section, could you drop the damage a bit possibly, just to give people a little more leeway to solve it? 30 damage feels a bit harsh for a puzzle like that, but the idea is cool. 

 

The trail of health vials leading up to it is meant to buffer the first mistake somewhat... that, and the lower difficulties do less damage (30% -> 22% -> 14%). My concern is that too miniscule of a damage penalty encourages brute-forcing.

 

6 hours ago, plums said:

fairly easygoing scifista42 map

lol the baron lock-in was his idea! That fight is nearly unchanged from its original design, besides being a bit faster. Everything outside the starting complex is all dobu though, including the caco lock-in. I was hesitating on making this adjustment but I guess I'll add a blue armor to that fight on UV. Good call on tossing in radsuits for HNTR!

 

3 hours ago, Catpho said:

Cool idea, but the warp-in hell party is really tame.

 

What's nice about having you upload your playthroughs is that I can witness that despite your impressions, the map is playing as intended. It's definitely a slower burn for most of the runtime, only really challenging the player once they've used up all their healing supplies. That, and the first half plays a bit meaner when you're trying to UVmax it, as the slow trickling warp-ins can catch you off guard. Due to the open nature of the map, there's not much I can do to force the player to sit down and fight the enemies... but considering what E4M8 is like, I'm not really inclined to make it even more punishing. As long as the final battle feels tense, I think the map has fulfilled its purpose.

Edited July 26, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

[Catpho]

Interesting. Thanks for explaining. It's probably not going to change my opinion on the level for the time being, but definitely something I'll think about.

 

Also that scifista trap has sick synergy with your mapping style. Sci come back g

[Auron]

I have a question. Is it possible to run this wad in Woof! ? I'm getting this error when trying to launch the wad:

 

 

or Am I just doing something wrong? Ty in advance.

 

(edit) Nevermind. Found the problem. I was being dumb and using D2 wad. XD

Edited July 26, 2023 by Auron
Nevermind. Found the problem. I was being dumb and using D2 wad. XD

[Flyxolydian]

6 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

The trail of health vials leading up to it is meant to buffer the first mistake somewhat... that, and the lower difficulties do less damage (30% -> 22% -> 14%). My concern is that too miniscule of a damage penalty encourages brute-forcing.

I mean, that puzzle is going to be subject to a brute-force approach no matter what, given that a high damage penalty like that is probably going to cause people to use saves/loads.

It feels like dropping it to 20->15->10% across the board would keep the same idea, but allow people just a little bit of room to figure it out.

[plums]

9 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

lol the baron lock-in was his idea! That fight is nearly unchanged from its original design, besides being a bit faster.

Haha, I was pretty sure that the easy scifista/hard dobu division *wasn't* how things actually went, just that people might think it so.

 

Anyhow I meant to say before that I really liked the red key puzzle in E2M9, and the visual design of E2M4 and E4M8. Also cannonball's E3M7, the floating castle theme is awesome.

[General Roasterock]

It upsets me greatly that the "Only" in the title acronym doesn't have a period for abbreviation, but this set was magnificent.

Edited July 27, 2023 by General Roasterock

[plums]

E4M6: Played it mostly to give context to E4M7, but it was also a @Steve D map I hadn't seen before. Really liked it, no surprise. The caco swarm showed up a little later than I thought it would but they got there eventually. The use of low light and the placement of the BFG make it a very different map to play blind vs. knowing what goes on there, but that's totally fine.

 

E4M7: So I liked this one quite a bit overall, the larger-scale exploration and setting were fun to travel around and the visuals were great, and it was kind of a nice "breather map." In terms of difficulty though, it definitely was easy compared to what I've played in the wad so far, even compared to some of the stuff in the supposedly easier 2nd episode (and I haven't been through much of the first yet). By far the biggest threat to my health was rocketing a spectre at close range, and while that is a legit danger, it's somewhat independent of other things that are going on in the level. I left behind 2 of the 3 soulspheres from the final arena, and that's without getting one of the secret ones earlier in the map. (I would've grabbed at least one more if I wasn't testing this map for difficulty.)

 

The fight after the blue doors seemed especially soft, if you run right up to where the enemies start teleporting in it's tough but you can trigger that without even knowing by going the other way and then you have all the room in the world to move around. And if you know how, or get lucky, you can even get the secret BFG by that point, making it a walk in the park. Again I didn't particularly dislike this about it, I'm fine with playing a relatively low-stakes map especially with a good sense of scale and visual design, but it did feel like an outlier.

 

If you decide that's a problem to be fixed, I'm not really sure what to suggest, unfortunately. Lacking the Doom 2 bestiary you can't go by the old staples of throwing in some archviles or revs. The blue door/red key fight is spacious enough that it could accommodate a cyberdemon, if you wanted to include one and gave the player some more ammo. You might also consider delaying the availability of the BFG secret, or even just downgrading it in UV to a bunch of cells and rockets.

 

Some misc tech issues etc:

Spoiler

-For the two lifts on either side of the bridge here (you can barely see them in the screenshot but hopefully you know where I mean), the western lift makes sound, but the eastern one doesn't, probably because it's a split sector again.

 

-You can fall down into the floor here, it's damaging at least so you'll die instead of getting soft-locked, doesn't seem like there's much reason to allow it though.

 

-The decorative SKSNAKEx textures here follow a pattern except for the northeastern one which has 3 of the beige texture and 1 of the pink texture. This sounds like a silly thing to complain about but it made me wonder if it was something I was supposed to notice for a puzzle etc. later in the map (and if it was, I missed it entirely :p)

 

-I didn't really understand the point of the barriers that rise after getting the red key. No problem if there actually is a point to them that I didn't appreciate, but from my playthrough it just seemed like they were there to make you zigzag around the map a bit for the sake of it. (no screenshot)

 

 

Will try E4M2 and E2M7 next.

Edited July 27, 2023 by plums

[Firedust]

Beat the first two levels! It ain't a Steve D map if you don't get to rocket a bunch of cacos xD

[plums]

E2M7 @General Rainbow Bacon: As chaotic as it was visually, I liked it, I get what cannonball was saying in this comment about looking like a base falling apart. Gameplay-wise I have to agree with Catpho, most of it is just find a monster and shoot it, then move on. There were some exceptions, like the hot start with hitscanners and the great final fight which does an excellent job at feeling dangerous without being overly so, but otherwise it was fairly bland. When I first joined Doomworld GRB was posting a lot of maps and I played some, plus there was his map I played recently in PRCP2, so I know he has no compunction over putting in nasty traps or combat. My guess is that he was trying to make sure he didn't go too hard on anyone for a community project like this, and while I appreciate the intent if that was the case, it goes too far in the other direction.

 

Minor bug, the alcoves where monsters spawn in during the big slime pit fight aren't damaging. Also it's too bad that it's not more obvious that you overlook the starting area during the slime pit fight, but that's tricky to do especially since the players' attention will definitely be centred on the fight.

 

 

E2M8 @Scotty : Decided to keep going, this is a great map, the start is still a lot of forward-facing combat but there's enough danger with hitscanners to make it engaging. More importantly the huge, grand cliffside architecture, where you can walk over almost everything, is such a draw that I'd be fine just wandering around this map for a bit in nomonsters. End fight is good, not overly hard but a nice idea to make a single cyberdemon battle at least potentially dangerous.

 

-Loading the map gives a few errors about texture ROCK13 not found, they're just terminal messages (command-line terminal, not terminal-as-in-fatal) so it's harmless and I didn't see any visual errors but it should be easy to fix anyhow.

 

-Having a long lift at the end to a teleporter seems a bit silly, I get the point of it from a thematic and Doom-engine point of view, but still. It probably is what it is right now and you should probably ignore me here.

 

-I didn't like the way this lift worked, since if you don't get on it as you jump out the window you have to circle a ways back, and without monsters to guide you where to go you could get lost. Again a minor complaint but if someone is up to fixing this you could either have the lift at ground level to start, and it raises to the right height when you walk out the window, or have an easier way to get back to the room with the window.

Edited July 27, 2023 by plums

[General Rainbow Bacon]

@plums.  I made the map almost 10 years ago now.  But I can go in and make it harder if you want :D  Anyone else think it's too easy?

 

[Catpho]

If you feel like it. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a 2023 version.

[plums]

1 hour ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

I made the map almost 10 years ago now.  But I can go in and make it harder if you want :D

Hah, I do forget how old some of these maps can be. That said it can't be any older than things like this, unless you started it before the project was announced?

 

Anyhow the issue isn't so much one of difficulty as it is lack of engagement; making it harder is one obvious way to change that. I don't know how much of a major revision dobu and cannonball are willing to accept at this point, but maybe?

 

------------------

 

E4M2: Another great Steve D map. The BFG secret area seemed very familiar, so I may have played this one a while ago. I had no problems with it personally, my playstyle is a lot slower than Catpho's and I did find that secret. (You were so close @Catpho!) I did think finding the switch to open the secret exit was overly wall-humpy, but whatever.

Edited July 28, 2023 by plums

[plums]

BTW Looking through the text file I see Eli C is credited as 'elic' but the WILV00 graphic still credits him as processingcontrol. Don't know if that matters but I thought I'd point it out.

 

Also E3M2's music is casa3.mid from Hexen II, sometimes titled either King's Court (the name of the level it appears in) or just Castle3 but usually known by just its filename.

Edited July 28, 2023 by plums

[Catpho]

@plums lol. I assumed the teleporter would just take me back up as an anti-softlock measure. In fact, I was dissapointed that there was no secret for the cool window jump.

E4M8 - @dobu gabu maru

A mountain of playthroughs:

For RC 1.2: Part 1, Part 2
For RC2: Part 1, Part 2 - "Secret RK exit", Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Spoilered a larger-than-tiny post:

Spoiler

 

So close. Also all those extra cells were really only for clean-up & the spider fight? Or is the one secret I missed not the green armor but a cell weapon? Also, does doing the BK or YK meaningfully affect the final battle? I see demons being crushed, but it's hard to tell if that affects anything.

 

To paraphrase an expression from DotW's write-up for The Event Horizon: this is not a map, but more like a fate that befalls you. Your enjoyment of the level entirely depends on whether you find the adjectives "perplexing" and "inexplicable" to be positive map qualities, so there goes 98% of the player base.

 

I can see why you named this your favorite map released up to this point. It is just so much. I played this map back when the project was in Alpha, and I wish I recorded my initial go over, because I spent so much time banging my head against the initial spider fight that ended up being completely optional, which, really, sets the tone for the rest of the level. I always liked maps that are overwhelming in information and demands, when they are these enigmas that react in violent and wonderful ways when being prodded at (I tend to lump maps like this with the more thorny works of yakfak and benjogami). You can finish the map at multiple points with varying levels of difficulty, but the map never truly feels over until you've seen it all, at the cost of everything. The "place" that houses the level is not even a place; it is more like an abstract translation of upsetting thoughts, given literal flesh, and even that can't ground you when all dissolves to ruthless red on black prison of lines, drawing, much like the rest of the map, something primally horrible. An unstable aesthetic for an unstable map.

 

So yeah, good stuff, real sweet dreams fuel. I'm like the lab-tested subject for this map though, so me saying "great map" doesn't mean much.

Bonus:
 

- An impression of mine in the RC 1.2 playthroughs: you can see that I had no idea about the pentagram mechanic despite it obviously being telegraphed (I must've assumed that it was a one-time thing), so the entire main area was a herding exercise for a long while. I think the concept is cool, but in my messed up niche opinion I really loved being chased around there, and I felt a little sad that I could remove them. It was really in keeping with the level's anything goes ethos. This is not a complaint; it's more like this thread is the least insane context I can share this :D

Edited July 28, 2023 by Catpho
no idea how these mistakes get past the word processor

[Inuk]

Did a quick check on RC2 to see what changed, and the maps definitely got a lot of fixes, here are a couple of things that didn't get fixed though:

e1m1: I think it got even glitchier than before

e4m2: Variant monsters for different difficulties are still stuck because the cyberdemon spawns on easy (things 375, 407)

Now seems like a good time to play e4m8, I will post again if there are any issues, I will also do a godmode + weapons cheats run through the mappack to see if there are any node bugs left.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Inuk
fixed embed?

[plums]

Made an E3 tiling sky since you could see it in E3M3 among other places. You can't hide your sky seams from me dobu, no matter how many midtex layers you use!

 

I tried to do E1 as well (you can see the seam even in E1M1 with widescreen rendering) but I didn't get anything I thought looked good, it's a lot harder with the colour contrast between the mountains and the sky.

 

Anyhow I know dobu said that he's proudest of E4M8, and with good reason, it's a fantastic map, but E3M3 has to be up there as well. Bullet hell imp fireballs, incredible moving metal/lava floor texturing, a great cyberdemon fight on sinking platforms with a well thought out intro section, changing the huge lava cavern to non-damaging floor so you can explore more when you're done the map -- loved every moment of it.

 

E3M1, M2, M4 were all good too, and each trollish in their own way, I guess this is the episode of pain haha.

Edited July 28, 2023 by plums

[Firedust]

In e1m5, I actually managed to walk inside the plasma teleporter without triggering the walls around the other teleporter rooms to rise. No idea how I did that lmao

 

Playing in ZDoom.

[Ravendesk]

Playing at a slower pace now, so will post fdas in parts. First part is e4m1-e4m9. There are two fdas for e4m2 because I restarted after a few minutes.

Recorded with dsda-doom 0.26.2 -complevel3 on RC2 version: udino-e4-fdas-part1.zip

 

A few thoughts on the maps.

e4m2:

Spoiler

Kinda feels like a map for people who love shotgunning cacodemons. My first thought was obviously to run past cacos and find an RL, and I was right that it wasn't far, however there is not nearly enough rockets to deal with them and things get even worse in the next area with plasma. End result is 0 rockets left and tons of cacos flying around the map. Secret bfg actually makes the tedium bearable (very overpowered secret considering that the secret fight itself is a joke and you get tons of ammo from there), but secret hunting is not so easy when there are tons of monsters around.

The fight with 3 cybers is weird, if you fall, you telefrag one of them, but because you are stuck in the telefrag, you almost always die from the rockets of other cybers. What's the point in telefrag then?

A switch for a secret exit being in a completely unrelated area was also kinda random, but idk.

 

Overall it's 10 times better experience on the second playthrough just because you know where bfg and ammo is, but unlike e3m8, playing with and without the secret is not two different ways to approach the map, rather that just e4m2 just stop being either tedious or annoying (depending on your patience for shotgun gameplay) if you know the secrets. Felt like the map was playtested with secrets in mind. Probably the only map in the set that I completely disliked so far.

e4m9:

Spoiler

Very cool concept, loved the high octane gameplay, that was super fun. I guess keeping all cybers alive was a mistake on my part, but I thought they could be useful for infighting later. All the different fear sections were creative and with a lot of attention to detail, really cute stuff. The lecture hall felt so real when barons started walking in lmao, felt like I'm in uni again.

 

A few issues that I see:

1. The first door to the right (intimacy) doesn't really force you to shoot and if it's the first door you choose (like I did in the fda) there is no incentive to shoot either before it or during the encounter with baron, so that area ends up being kinda dull. I could've probably return there to kill everything in my fda, but I forgot.

2. The switch marking are very confusing. The door that leads to YSK and the door that requires YSK are marked completely the same way. I first went to one of them, there were YSK bars and I left, and I honestly thought that the other door is the same and I need to find YSK somewhere else. However I randomly tried checking what's there and was very surprised to see the key and not the bars. Exit markings are confusing as well, since YSK exit is marked with yellow key bars not yellow skull bars and I totally thought there is also a key somewhere. Same for the other exit more or less.

 

Hopefully can finish the rest of the maps quite soon, and I'll post some final thoughts (bro who asked) on e4 and the wad as a whole.

[cannonball]

23 hours ago, Inuk said:

Did a quick check on RC2 to see what changed, and the maps definitely got a lot of fixes, here are a couple of things that didn't get fixed though:

e1m1: I think it got even glitchier than before

e4m2: Variant monsters for different difficulties are still stuck because the cyberdemon spawns on easy (things 375, 407)

Now seems like a good time to play e4m8, I will post again if there are any issues, I will also do a godmode + weapons cheats run through the mappack to see if there are any node bugs left.

 

Different ports seem to generate different results with that exit area. At least for me with DSDA doom it works fine and as intended. I will have another look at it and if it is the linedef I suspect it is then it might be quite easy now.

 

As a general note, I am currently on holiday at the moment until the second week of August, so I suspect there will be a little slow down in progress in regards to map updates/fixes. I am still hopeful of a final release before the end of August though.

Edited July 29, 2023 by cannonball