[MBF21] Cocktails - 5 Challenging Maps (on /IDGames)

[ryiron]

 

Cocktails is a set of five maps (4 regular plus one secret) heavily inspired by the combat and aesthetics of the likes of Sunlust and Stardate 20x6. The maps are designed to be a played from a pistol start. Expect some close quarters fights, combat set pieces, and small scale slaughter. UV is designed to be a challenge (around late middle episode of Sunlust). HMP and lower are also implemented, and feedback on these difficulty settings would be appreciated.

 

I've tried my best to support co-op play, but it is mostly untested. Please let me know if you are a co-op enthusiast and can help with play-testing. Map04 is the most likely to break with some lock-in fights that can be approached from different directions.

 

Hope you all enjoy playing these and much as I enjoyed making them. All feedback, demos, videos, hangover remedies, etc welcome!

 

Full wad info and credits in the text files.

 

Wad info:

IWAD: Doom 2

Number of maps: 5: (map01-map04, map31)

Format: MBF21

Difficulty settings: Yes

Co-op: Yes, but untested.

Deathmatch: No

Jump/crouch: No

Freelook: Optional

Tested on: DSDA-Doom, GZDoom (play with default compatibility)

 

Thanks to the following playtesters (hopefully I remembered everyone) who took the time to play through these, break things, point out dumb mistakes, and provide valuable feedback:

@Maribo, @Nefelibeta, @KeaganDunn, @Phoenyx, @Meowgi

 

Cocktail Menu:

Spoiler

• map01: Bloody Mary
• map02: Espresso Martini
• map03: Whisky Sour
• map04: Last Word
• map31: Corpse Reviver #2

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

IDGames link: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/cocktails

 

Changelog:
 

Spoiler

General:

• Stripped unused resources from the wad.
• Fixed the COMPLVL lump format.
• Fixed the green skull key hud icon.

 

Map01:

• Reduced to a single vile in the hallway fight on HNTR.
• Reduced cell ammo in the final fight on UV.
• Removed the soul-sphere from the exit pathway.

 

Map02:

• Fixed a possible linedef skip in the blue key area.

 

Map03:

• Fixed softlock across from berserk secret.
• Removed monster block lines from the red door, it closes instead.
• Reduced cell ammo past the red key door.
• Reduced cell ammo and soul-spheres in the final fight.

 

Map04:

• Fix HOM on revenant pillar.
• Prevent multiplayer only switch appearing in single player in yellow key area.
• Move bars to make it slightly harder to hide in the 3 vile/2 PE fight.
• Fix exit pillars so they make sound to make the exit a bit more obvious.
• Death exit.

 

Map05:

• Minor texturing changes.

 

Old Releases:

Spoiler

Download (RC1): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t67EnG8tkPLjceGVZniqEaSklwrmYjVj/view?usp=sharing

 

Download RC2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sihut7acuJOC2nsB3au3tNx8Yas3thr5/view?usp=drive_link

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by ryiron
IDGames release

[Meowgi]

Yo congrats on the release! This wad is a real treat.

[Walter confetti]

Interesting concept and great looking maps from the shots, too bad i'm not too much inside the hardcore slaughtermaps appreciation circle to play this. Maybe on a Easy skill or with no Monsters.... Just for take a look at your interpretations

[Daytime Waitress]

I'm really not one for slaughter, but the theming, combat and music meld into a neat vibe, and there's some just plain delicious architecture on display here. I got entirely bamboozled on HNTR in the archie-on-a-pillar room in the first map and slammed it down into ITYTD to see where the heck I was going wrong. And right now I'm only on the second map - but just the fact that I was compelled to keep at it makes me feel like this one is worth developing liver failure over.

[Phoenyx]

This WAD was great! Thank you for letting me playtest it <3

[LadyMistDragon]

A few notes. I was sort of just checking out each map.

 

Map 01: The double Arch-vile trap in the sort of church-like room may be a bit much with the amount of monsters there. Either reduce the amount of monsters or take out one the of the Arch-viles.

 

Otherwise, nothing in particular stood out as being remotely egregious. Maybe the slight tendency you have to throw walls of pinkies at the player sometimes could be toned down just a little bit, but ammo supplies are perfectly fine.

 

The visual design seems very consistent and I think at the least, the fun factor isn't necessarily reduced by choosing a lower skill setting. Map 03 especially stands out in that aspect with how enemies are packed in. Good job!

 

 

 

 

[Helm]

excellent, most excellent. I've left map04 for later, but I had such a blast with the first three. Small q for map03, I am not sure what the intended strategy is for the room where you are beset by two viles on left side, two viles on right side with the walls going down. I thought ok I'll go find the BFG or something or at least show up with 200 200, but in the end I just had to intensely savescum through that bit, killing the first two viles with rockets as fast as RNJesus would allow, and then using their little cubhole to kill as much before having to dart out again. Later, after I had all three keys, I get the intended bfg, so that's where I went 'hmmm, I think I may be a bit stupid'. There has to be a more reliable thing there.

[Treehouseminis]

Just finished map04 on UV will probably do the secret later.  Great Stuff!  Maybe its odd but I found I had the least trouble with map04, maybe because its not as claustrophobic and I got used to your mapping style playing these in one sitting, better walk slowly otherwise another vile will wake up haha.  Each level feels unique with combat and visuals, I can see myself looking at this for inspiration to my own maps :)

[ryiron]

@LadyMistDragon I think you posted the wrong video :-). For the hallway fight:

Spoiler

For the two viles in the hallway fight it's (just) possible to rocket the viles before they lower if you have any rockets left from the pinky horde. I should drop it to one vile on HNTR at least, on HMP you only have to deal with cacos instead of pain-elementals. Maybe one vile is more reasonable for HMP too?

 

@Helm I'm not quite sure which fight you mean? I think possibly you are talking about map02 with the rocket launcher fight that has two stationary viles (on UV) either side of the arena. If so:

Spoiler

My strategy here is to quickly rocket down one pain-elemental while the vile walls are still lowering. Don't worry too much about the cyber/hell-nobles, they should start in-fighting. After the walls lower, quickly get rid of the viles on one side. I take out the ones on the right hand side of the arena since they are closer to the back, and then you can hide from the other two viles by keeping towards the back while you take out the other pain-elemental. It is a tough fight, so it tones down quite a bit on HMP and lower by replacing the viles with revenants.

 

[TheShep]

just uv maxed the whole thing on twitch. i'll get a vod on here once i highlight it.

[Helm]

Yeah that was the fight I was talking about, thanks for clarifying. That's pretty much what I had to do, but currently I think single segmenting that map on my skill level will end painfully, many many times in that room, trying to rocket two viles as fast as possible as two other viles are frying me. If it were 2 viles on one side and 1 on the other side at least you'd be giving me a clue. Not a uvmax doom god but I won't ask for nerfs :P I'll work on it. I was just shocked that map maker was like 'here's four viles and other stuff and no cover. Prioritize, somehow.', but I guess that's who you are :P 

time for map04 for me.


edit: eyyy, I did some actual testing for you. All the railings in this part of the arena need player block lines, you can just wak off (Dsda-doom-0.21.3, software, default compatibility, just dragging and dropping the RC on the .exe)

 

edit 2: similar problems in the final arena with walkthrough ledge borders. I would recommend a very thorough retagging of anything that's supposed to keep you in bounds for this map. It is also the slickest and coolest map in here! Though I didn't find the secret. 

also some footage to show you I am actually playing and enjoying


really inspiring work. Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us for free.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Helm

[ryiron]

3 hours ago, Helm said:

eyyy, I did some actual testing for you. All the railings in this part of the arena need player block lines, you can just wak off (Dsda-doom-0.21.3, software, default compatibility, just dragging and dropping the RC on the .exe)

 

It sounds like you are playing on the wrong complevel, it should be cl21. Complevel 21 has new player/land monster specific block lines, which all those rails have. There is a COMPLVL lump in the wad which should force that, but looks like dsda-doom is really picky about the format of that lump. Will fix it up in the next version. Nice work on the opening fight though!

 

@TheShep Thanks for playing! I had a watch of your vod:

Spoiler

Nice catch on the map03 softlock after the berserk secret. It looks like an interesting speed-run technique to run over there and drop into the red key fight early possibly. I'll play around with some ways to fix it.

 

Your strategy of getting the cyber to fight the vile horde past the red key door isn't one I thought of (but I like it). The doorway is only blocking to stop idiot cacos flying in there and getting stuck later. 

 

The switch you pressed in map04 near the yellow key that lower bars back to the previous arena and then got you stuck there is intended for co-op only to allow players to get back into that arena. The switch should only be accessible in co-op. I fixed that up fairly last minute, so obviously got something wrong. Will be fixed in the next version.

 

I'll try to make the exit for map04 a little more obvious. I had considered allowing back-tracking from the final fight, but I couldn't find anywhere that I was happy with putting a teleporter back, that the player wouldn't confuse for being the regular progression. I might have another look at this.

 

@Daytime Waitress Wow, thanks for sticking with it! I'm keen for any feedback you have since the lower difficulties are much harder for me to gauge, so hearing from people who play (these types of maps) on the lower difficulties really helps.

[Helm]

yeh I didn't expressly load with cl21 because I figured I am playing in dsda, if it's 21 this is the best place to see if it just works out of the box. 

edit: there were places in my runthtrough where I could knock some vile or rev off of a turret placement which I thought as well probably is some blocklines from 21, which means some minor gripes with stuff like that is moot too.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Helm

[nobleflame]

Played most of map1 (before dying) and I really like the creativity of the fights. Good work. 
 

Also, interesting choice of using stock textures. Would be good to see some Sunlust / Stardate textures in there too. 

[TheShep]

not sure if you get notified if I simply update my previous post, so here's the playthrough. all legit on UV. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1880685619

 

[Blip]

I really enjoyed this mapset, it was pretty fun

 

Spoiler

I found a couple of bugs small bugs in these maps:

 

In map03 you can walk on this black ledge from the secret ledge to where the archvile is at the start and softlock yourself because of invisible walls

 

I also found this small HOM in map04, right before the red skull key fight

 

Also, I'm not sure if it is intended, but you can grab the green skull key in map04 by doing an archvile jump in the fight with 3 shootable switches behind 3 archviles

 

 

[Harmonica]

My playthrough for map01. There are videos for the other maps in the wad as well on my channel. I'm really not very good at slaughter, but hey, I'm trying to learn and get better on those :D I played this on Gzdoom 4.10.0 with mbf-compatibility, but I still fell through the railings. I see now reading the thread that it shouldn't happen, so I unintentionally cheesed some fights. Oh well, at least I didn't get softlocked. I had fun playing this, even if it's a tad above my skill level. Ammo and health balance seemed great. I like that there's enough health to allow some stupid mistakes as well, and I did plenty of those.

[ryiron]

@Harmonica Thanks for playing! I've watched your playthrough of map01, I'll watch the others when I have a bit more time. GZDoom makes everything confusing, the MBF compatibility mode is for cl11, I think you want default compatibility instead (which fixes the issue for me). I also learned that GZDoom doesn't support the COMPLVL lump.

 

Definitely make sure you have the compatibility setting correct before playing map31 otherwise it will be broken and confusing.

 

@Blip Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for pointing out the soft-lock and the hom, those are both already on my list.

Spoiler

The arch-vile jump to the green key in map04 wasn't intended (and I don't think anyone did this in playtesting either). I think it's fine though since the player still has to contend with the secret fight :-). Nice find.

 

[loveless]

started playing this yesterday, am enjoying myself!  i found a softlock on map 3.  using the ledge for the berserk secret, if you go the opposite direction toward the vile.  you can step up then drop down to the vile platform and are unable to leave. i am using dsda-doom and playing on cl21. 

 

here it is

Spoiler

 

will finish this sometime soon, nicely done!

[ryiron]

RC2 is out. Thanks to everyone who played through RC1, and to everyone who found issues. 

[Tiramisu]

Great wad! I'm a huge fan of Sunlust but I've never actually managed to beat the whole thing, so it's nice to have some stand-alone combat pieces to try without the pressure of playing an entire megawad!

 

So far I've played MAP01 on UV in GZDOOM, and I found two issues (I've been playing on RC1, but I don't see them in the changelog so I'm assuming they're still there):

 

- In the first area, the switch used to access the circular bridge can actually be climbed to get on the wall EDIT: This was caused by wrong compatibility level.

- The soulsphere secret should be tagged on a larger sector and not just on the pedestal, as it's possible to grab the soulsphere without triggering the secret (it happened to me and I was confused by it for a moment, thinking there's some other secret to find).

 

Overall great fun, I'll be sure to check out all the maps later on!

Edited August 5, 2023 by sq. Tiramisu

[ryiron]

8 hours ago, sq. Tiramisu said:

- In the first area, the switch used to access the circular bridge can actually be climbed to get on the wall, and you can softlock yourself if you fall into one of the revenant turrets.

 

I think you might be playing on the wrong complevel. In the text file for RC2 I've updated it to say that GZDoom players should be on default compatibility (GZDoom's MBF compatibility mode is mbf11). The wall for that switch has player block lines all along it, which only work in mbf21. 

 

I'll fix up the secret sector in map01 too. Thanks.

[Tiramisu]

Ah, okay - I had the MBF compatibility level, I thought that had me covered but GZDOOM once again makes things complicated. :p Can confirm that the lines work as intended on the Default level!

Edited August 5, 2023 by sq. Tiramisu

[SilverHurling]

I really love that the community is going for "UV is a challenge, HMP is the standard", i´ll be playing this wad (surerly) a lot

[CortexReaver]

 

[knifeworld]

How did I miss this!? These look amazing. Bookmarked and saved!

[CortexReaver]

Don't know If I can complete this WAD with fast monsters... Some places become incredibly hard with such option. On the fourth map I've made a mistake by quicksaving in a wrong place, then have to cheat and then lost motivation... kind of. That doesn't mean these maps are bad (nor you need to nerf them), they are designed this way and it was my decision to play them. Maybe some other time.

 

[CortexReaver]

Completed. The harder gameplay of this slaughter WADs gets, the more I don't like GZDoom. First of all, the quicksave rotating system is broken, which is critical in tough situations (it saves in one save slot anyway for some reason, maybe this is because of my autosave mod), then it's inability to process quick sequences of button presses and keyboard events. Because of this BFG is painful to use: sometimes the game just can't register long LMB presses, when you hold the button. Also, what schizo came up with the idea to keep your menu options in a SAVE FILE? Grrrrr...

And yes, don't try to sell me DSDA-doom or other ports like this, because they don't have all required mods to make my gameplay experience comfortable: quake moving, autosaves, crits, target spy and such.

But this WAD is cool, I just haven't played DOOM in a long time. DON'T NERF IT! May I only ask all level creators out there for one little thing? Please, disable the jump through the editor if it is not intended to be used by the player (If it's possible). Because the "allow jump" option is always set to "Default" and you never know how you are supposed to play these maps until seeing the first obstacle and then changing this an option by hand. Which is very annoying and ruins immersion, making experience more neurotic.

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by CortexReaver

[ryiron]

Released to IDGames. Enjoy, and please drink responsibly. 

[dashlet]

Nice mapset! Haven't finished yet, but i fell in love quickly with map02 (Beautiful tribute to Crumpets). Played on HMP, and i can say that it was already quite tough on that difficulty, but really fun (It felt like i had plenty of opportunities to waste ammo and recover health, which is nice for lower difficulties). Visuals are nice, and from what i can see, they change every map and tend to have a clean look which makes arenas really stand out. Also thank you for choosing the Requiem status bar, brings me some nostalgia (It was the first pwad i ever play).

 

Anyways, i recorded some demos, with a very clutch and fun moment on map02. (Recorded with dsda doom using saves and loads, skill 3)

cocktails_dash_hmp.zip

 

Lastly, a tiny note:

Spoiler

The only thing i could see being problematic that i found was this particular area on map02: The enemies tend to be stuck on the other side, and this can be abuse using the cyberdemon to pretty much kill everything. You'll see on the demo how this actually save me. (Not sure how to fix this, but i think its fine to comment on it because maybe its not intended).

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by dashlet