The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity II

KickAss · January 14, 2024

Thank you guys all for your responses! I'll give it a try with a more Vanilla environment without the PB 3.0 Stuff loaded. But I still don't like Eviternity that much. Sorry!

DJVCardMaster · January 14, 2024

MAP14 - Equanimity - Henry "Aurelius" Koivula (100%K/57%I/60%S):

Beautiful. One of the greatest maps, the best one so far, and I don't think it can be topped that much.
Uff, there are so many things to talk about it. The map itself is a playground with brutalist visuals that are just pleasing to the doomer's eye. Visually striking, and challenging. My best advice is to mow down every single enemy in the main yard before you proceed doing any tasks. You will notice at the middle of the playground that you will need 3 keys, although those are secret, and are not required for the main exit. If you see carefully, you will notice that the regular exit, which is near the start of the level, is being holded by 3 flows of black liquid. In order to open it, you will need to make the three flows activate, this means, find the three fights, hit the three switches, and exit. But first lets hold on. There isn't any single mistery on how to access the secret level, but the mistery lies in the way you need to get the keys. You will have to solve three puzzles, each containing a key. One of them is a "Dance Dance Revolution" platform that let's you move a barrel (not sure how it's fucking done). Make it get through the exit and you will have your first key. The next one, is your classic 2d-image slide puzzle, quite convoluted since to move each piece, you will have to hit the switch that faces the side in which, the only square that can move, will move (Again not fucking sure how it's done but it blows my mind so hard). Find the secret image and get the key. The last one, you will need to lower every single of those 9 squares to the ground, by using switches that, following a given pattern, will move those up. When each square is fully raised, it will instantly lower to the ground, but you will have to work your way out so you move every single one of them to the floor, considering every one of them are at different heights. This was the hardest, but I've got it easily by randomly hitting switches.
Getting all the keys will reveal a portal at the fountain in the middle of the map, that teleports you to the secret exit portal. It also gives you a BFG so you can go back to the main level and finish the rest of the fights.
The fights themselves were a real pain to deal with, mostly in tight spaces, and only one of them gives you cells to use your BFG, so use it wisely.

There is a lot more to talk about this, but I don't want to write an entire book, I think it is going to become one of the landmarks of Doom mapping from now on, because the level itself really tries to be "THAT MAP" from "that wad". Again my PSX nostalgia strikes back with this one, but I think it is because I've felt like playing Spyro the Dragon, doing random puzzle tasks to get my reward, and then doing the main task. Also you know, portals and stuff.

This one is iconic, for sure, if you are not going to play Eviternity II (big mistake, so far), at least play through this map by itself.

MAP33 - Catalyst - Bauul (100%K/I/S):

Well, there is a reason not a single sane person likes Battletoads and only replays the first level of it.

Hilarious "temple-run" map, with nice visuals, but that's it, a series of lasers with tight gaps in-between that will let you squeeze through at high speeds with difficulty. You could slow down a bit, but you shouldn't, as the map will punish you with a Barrels O' Fun trap (Feature only available in harder difficulties), a bomb constantly exploding from behind you, that will get you if you are slow. Remember when I said we will see those insta-gibing lasers again at MAP31? Well, here they are, and I don't want to see them again, honestly.

I hated Catalyst, but it still deserves a proper playthrough just because it's a gem of Doom mapping at this point.

Painful, but at least I've got a Perforator and a BFG only for the episode finale for my troubles, was it worth?

Peak Doom mapping.

Order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP14

MAP32
MAP11
MAP09

MAP07

MAP05
MAP12
MAP13
MAP03
MAP08
MAP06

MAP02
MAP04
MAP10
MAP31
MAP33

I love when megawads throw me not only one, but two iconic maps at the same time, in this case for quite different reasons.

Veeda Vidlak · January 14, 2024

Map33 “Catalyst” by Bauul

The idclev text lied to us, because Catalyst is inarguably a racing map. No enemies (that we fight anyway), no exploration, and the level does most of the movement for you. The club seems to be universal in their thoughts on this map and I’m certainly not going to break from the consensus. I’ve never played Battletoads or anything similar and unsurprisingly I’m not good at this sort of gameplay.

So we start with a switch the sends us on a fast-moving conveyer belt and massive explosions pursue us like we’re in an action movie. Our job is to dodge laser fences and balance on thin platforms while being pushed forward, failing to do either even once is an instakill. There is some strategy, if you press forward during the downtime between sections you can put a little distance between you and the fireball. This gives some leeway to briefly press the back key in the more troublesome areas, slightly easing the difficulty when it’s needed most.

And… yeah, I’m save scumming. I don’t want to spend hours memorizing patterns via trial and error. It wouldn’t matter anyway; I have no chance at beating the map saveless. The most backbreaking aspect of Catalyst is its length, there are I think nine sections of track to navigate through. I could suffer through any individual component with enough practice, but I will never, ever be able to single-segment something like this from start to finish, good luck to Dr. Strange finding the universe that happens.

In all honesty I have no complaints, the map looks good, has intense gameplay, and succeeds at what it’s trying to do. If anything, it’s a testament to the boundless potential Doom provides to those with imagination. Catalyst is strong design in a genre baseline Doom has absolutely nothing to do with. I won’t be playing it again though.

Edited January 14, 2024 by Veeda Vidlak

KickAss · January 14, 2024

DSDA-DooM-0.27.5, -iwad DooM ][ ver. 1.666, -skill 4 UV, continuous play, no saves.

I still don't like Eviternity. Sorry guys! I've made it up to somewhere in the third map where a Cyber Hell-Knight has ended my journey with his nail gun. The game is much easier Vanilla because the crazy-over-powered-god-like-moving enemy's from PB 3.0 are gone and the regular Zombieman returned back into the game and of course you have to deal with the Vanilla weaponry as known back in the good old days.

There is no difference in map01 related to the source ports. DSDA-DooM doesn't made the foot step noise while using the airways that GZDooM has made.

At last I've beaten map02. A slightly improvement. The map is not that big as it seems and anyway a little bit to crowded imho.

In map03 you have to run a lot around again and you have to take out some traps that are activated by a "blob" you have to shoot at first.

You guys seem to have more fun with Eviternity II than I do :-(.

Still looking forward for next month.

Tbh does anybody knows where DSDA-DooM saves the screenshoots?!? I don't know where mine are gone. Didn't found them in the regular places.

Edited January 14, 2024 by KickAss

KickAss · January 14, 2024

5 hours ago, Novaseer said:

What doesn't it have to do with it? You're running a mod that completely changes Doom's core gameplay loop, and acting surprised when a map designed for the vanilla game doesn't play nice with it.

A link to DSDADoom's download area is on Eviternity II's website. Pretty hard to miss.

Yes I didn't noticed the provided links for the source ports. Thank you anyway for the hint.

TJG1289 · January 14, 2024

GZDoom/UV/Contiuous/Saves

Write-ups from memory

MAP14: Equanimity - Aurelius

This was one of the maps I was most excited to get to. Aurelius has a few of the most interesting maps I've ever played under his belt. His gigantic collab map with Kaito, Ar Luminae is one of the biggest and most grand maps I've ever played. I spent like 4 hours on it and only got halfway through. I got stuck at a part that seems to have gotten a little easier since I played it, so I'll have to go back and finally finish it, cause what I played was great. Despite its size, it flowed very well, looked incredible, and used Supercharge very well. His other memorable map is from 1K Lines 2, as that was a straight-up puzzle map. That was another one that was impressive on multiple levels, from it puzzly nature to how its elements were implemented. So I was very excited to see what he would do in this WAD, and it turns out, he kinda did both of those maps here.

First off, this is easily one of the best looking maps in the WAD, and that's saying something given the visual quality of the WAD so far. It's like a mix of this episode and Eviternity 1's episode 6. Lots of the heavenly textures mix in with the brutalist/nature theme here. The linework is insanely impressive, providing really cool designs in the floor and ceilings. The general architecture and detailing is just amazing! Pair it with the understated MIDI here, and the map just has this sense of being a location with a past glory that is no more. You kinda feel a little sad wandering around it, seeing it overrun with demons. Combat is pretty tough throughout, even the incidental stuff. Most of the map takes place in a giant outdoor area, and most of the enemies in it will be alerted to you as soon as you fire your gun. So as you explore, you'll keep running into monsters who have been advancing toward your location, or you'll get shot at by a few snipers. I actually hit low health pretty quickly in my first playthrough just because monsters just kept showing up! You really need to explore to find health and ammo, and not stay put to try to have everything come to you. The main gist of this map is similar to previous maps like maps 3 and 9. Go off to 3 side areas and complete their challenges. Doing so will open the exit. These are some of the hardest fights in the WAD so far. I ended up doing them in what I would say was hardest to easiest. First was the area to the south with multi-stage ambushes in a small compound. It's the one you teleport into after killing a baron. Lots of deaths here, especially with the first fight since there were 2 archies and an astral manc to worry about. The rest of the inside wasn't as bad, but there were a lot of tight encounters that make using rockets dangerous. The next one is off to the east and starts with a teleport ambush in a courtyard before moving inside for a major multi-stage ambush that ends with an imp fiesta with 2 astral spiders. That also got me a few times, but the sides with revs have some power ups if you need them. The final one is at the north west, and that's just a simple single teleport ambush that has lots of room to move. Do all that, and you can exit. But what's with that area in the center of the map that needs the keys?

Here's where the 1K Lines 2 map comes in. In order to get the keys, you have to complete a few puzzles! These puzzles can be tricky, and some might find them annoying, but I'm just impressed they're made in Doom. The first one I did is one where you step on arrows to guide a barrel on a track. There's a slight delay in when the barrel will change direction, so it takes a minute to get the feel down, but once you do, this is the easiest of the 3. The next one tasks you with getting a series of blocks to disappear, with 4 switches that show which blocks they will change. Each use will move those blocks up a notch, until they go back down. IDK if there's a good way to do this that isn't trial and error, but with enough switches hit, I got them all down. The last one is a sliding tile puzzle. This took a few reloads, but it doesn't take that many moves from the outset to complete. I still don't know how this one was done. I tried looking at it in UDB and didn't understand what I was seeing. With all 3 keys, you can use the teleporter in the center to take you to the secret exit with a BFG to boot! I guess I should have done this first, since that BFG is about to be taken away from me. Oh well, still a nice reward for people who don't want to do map 33.

Overall, this is an insanely impressive map on pretty much every front. Amazing visuals, somber atmosphere, tough fights, and inventive puzzles. A true tour-de-force!

MAP33: Catalyst - Bauul

Judging from the intermission text and the fact there was only 2 enemies, I kinda had a feeling what was going on here. And I was right. This map is all about movement. You're stuck on a conveyor belt, trying to escape an exploding building, while trying to avoid insta-death lasers and gold liquid. This is the map I died the most to in my playthrough, but I wasn't frustrated by it. I saved every time I got a break, and just kept at at. The 3rd to last passage got the most, when lasers and thin rails were combined. Getting to the end nabs you the perforator (and now the BFG too), so it's worth it for continuous players! Overall, I really like this type of map. It's pretty unique. You don't get to appreciate the visuals while playing, but man this map looks good! And Jimmy's MIDI is one of his best.

cannonball · January 14, 2024

MAP14 - “Equanimity” by Aurelius

Okay this map is really something else. You fly towards the centre of the map and from there you are free to explore the majority of it. Your objective is the find three switches that turn the grey liquid pipes into gold that all trace back to the exit area, this is a really clever way of doing progression because once you complete the objectives you have an easy way of getting to the exit by following the pipes. Now the visuals, well this is one of the best looking mpas I have ever seen and takes the strengths of the brutalist theme and marries them with elements from the heaven episode of Eviternity. Within the cold heart of the brutalist scene you have this palace of enlightenment that is a really joy to explore. Now each switch requires you to go through a series of tricky fights, every one of these hits the spot nicely and at this point I am completely sold on this being one of the best maps I have ever experienced, but then to unlock the secret exit, you have three separate puzzles/minigames to unlock the three skull keys you need to lower the portal in the centre of the map. The barrel one was pretty easy to do, the 9 block puzzle I managed eventually, however I got frustrated by the picture puzzle and given limited time I simply decided to skip this one. However that it definitely a me problem.

Overall this is truly a masterpiece of a map, it surpasses everything else both visually and from a gameplay perspective. Aurelius, you have truly outdone yourself.

MAP33 - “Catalyst” by Bauul

On one hand I want to hate this, but actually I can see this being doable with practice eventually, getting acquainted to the soft handedness required to navigate the obstacles in front of you. Overall this is a pretty controversial map to throw at the player, but it is a secret map, it is truly one of a kind for the doom engine and in the end it adds an extra layer to a megawad that is probably going to be one of the most memorable releases of all time.

ReaperAA · January 15, 2024

Got a bit of catching up to do

MAP12: Collapse by Dragonfly

Probably one of the more simpler maps in Eviternity 2 on the visual side. The gameplay is also fairly simple for the most part of the map, where we start of in the central area and explore the various nooks and sides of the map which causes the walls of the map to gradually lower (or "Collapse" if we follow the map's name).

Once we are done with lowering all the walls of the map, we get a rocket launcher, tons of ammo and even a megasphere. And this is where the map gets exciting. Tons (probably 150+ imps) will pour throughout the maps and 3 cyberdemons will teleport on the platforms outlooking the central area of the map. This might look hard, but I found that I was fairly safe when I stayed around the area that has the soulsphere secret.

Once you are done with that area, you can telefrag the cyberdemons by going to the exit teleport, but not before having to deal with the archvile and mancubus that pop up when you get near the teleport. Not hard to deal with but just be careful to not get rear-rocketed by a cyberdemon while dealing with them.

In a way, there is some minor similarity with Eviternity 1's map10 in that once we have lowered all of the walls of the map, we get to fight tons of enemies in the central area before exiting the map

MAP13: Colosicus by Dragonfly

I see some people mentioning that this map reminds them of map19 of Eviternity 1, but honestly this felt a bit like a successor to Map17 to me, at least in terms of progression. You start of in this central arena area to fight a battle and then you have option to go to 2 paths, which you can choose to do in any order, before finally returning to the central area to exit the map.

But then again, this is where the similarity with Evit1's map17 ends. As in contrast to that map, this map is much more spacious and bigger in scale and surprisingly much more vibrant too despite the brutalism theme being ominpresent. Lot of the fights on this map are non locked-in fights and there is plenty of enemies that are more "set dressing" than anything else. This means that we can take our sweet time to slowly plow our way through each side. Each side area ends with a teleport that brings us back to the

The map ends after you step on the "jump pad" and yeeted to map14's area

MAP14: Equanimity by Aurelius

Aurelius does it again. His only other maps I have ever played are Map32 of 1000 Lines 2 and his 3 maps of 1000 Lines 3. And they all were among the best maps of those wads with jaw dropping visuals (considering the vanilla and 1000 linedefs limitations of those wads) and unique + memorable gameplay. This map is no exception. This map is probably my favorite map in Eviternity 2 when it comes it visuals (which is a ridiculously high bar) and probably in my top 3 overall favorite maps in Evit2 (other 2 being Charge and Temeraire).

This map is also the hardest map in wad till this point. We start of from the end of Map13 where we are yeeted from the exit pad and are flying our way to the center of the map before finally landing. Getting a foothold can be tricky with all the enemies, including some hitscanners and corporals (which especially blend-in well with bushes and trees due to their green uniform). That said, I would recommend to explore all the map before going into any teleports or for any of the locked-in combat fights, since we can get plenty of goodies and even a backpack if you secret hunt a bit. In order to get to the exit, we need to solve 3 different combat arenas (that you can do in any order). All 3 of the combat arenas are really good and tightly designed, though my favorite is the one that starts of with the Astral Mancubus + 2 archviles on top of stairs.

That said, for all its great visuals and gameplay, the most memorable part of this map is the usage of MBF21 features to create such puzzles like a guiding a barrel to the finish line via controlling a conveyor belt, solving a 3x3 grid pillar lowering puzzle and even solving a picture puzzle. Each of these 3 puzzles will give you a key and you need all 3 keys to get the secret exit and the BFG. Even if you don't want to go to the secret exit, the BFG is atleast worth solving the puzzles. Which is why if you plan to do a UV-max run of this map, I would recommend to solve these puzzles first and then go for the combat fights.

MAP33: Catalyst by Bauul

Battletoads + Skyroads + Temple Run - The map.

I don't have much to say about this honestly. Its fantastic showcase of what is possible with MBF21, but it's not my cup of tea. Also didn't help that I didn't had smooth framerate, which makes an already unforgiving 3-ish minutes long obstacle course even more difficult. Still I can respect it for the creativity and sheer audacity alone.

arlinsae · January 15, 2024

Ultra violence 100% kills/secrets, Pistol start, Using saves
Played on DSDA Doom v0.27.5 -complevel 21

Map 15: Rubicon - 24:27
Episode 3 could not have asked for a better ending. Map 15 hosts attractive brutal-techbase visuals and excellent action, and a perfect MIDI to go with it. Rubicon introduces the mini-vile(?), a purple alien creature that teleports around and flings fire at the player. Thankfully they don't have much health - 2 single barrel shotgun blasts should kill them. Any and all of the secret & keycard battles are quite lethal and can kill you quickly even with the post red key BFG. Speaking of which, the red key ambush is pretty nasty: nightmare demons, astral mancubi, imps, sniping arachnotrons, and a cyberdemon in close quarters with not a lot of recovery items. It dealt me about 4-5 deaths during RC1. My advice is to try and get the cyber to infight the mancubi (the latter is really good at that kinda thing), and eliminate the other threats while they're distracted. The other fight in this map that killed me more than once is the secret rocket launcher fight with all the crushers. It's over pretty quickly but space management and avoiding projectile damage is fairly tricky here, and of course 4-5 annihilators cruise in at the end. Also, if you're able to find it, I highly recommend blowing up the barrels before engaging the lever in another similarly deadly secret fight - you'll know it if or when you see it. The BFG being my favorite weapon in Doom, Rubicon was always going to be a good time for me, but it's also effortlessly stylish and fun and only got better with each of my three clears.
Difficulty: 7/15

Aurelius · January 15, 2024

Big thanks to everyone putting all the effort into writing these, it's been a joy to read and to follow your Evi2 journey. And another thanks for all your kind words on MAP14, it's great to read detailed accounts of your experiences; what you liked and what you might've not liked so much.

Time for some rambling then, I guess! Which means a semi-coherent wall of text. I've divided it into sections, so you can pick the part that interest you the most.

Gameplay:

Spoiler

MAP14 started out as a disjointed set of areas, some of them setpiece tests and others mainly visual experiments with color schemes and architecture. The idea of an open sandbox was there from the start, though the extent of it was gradually brought down to a more manageable and megawad-friendly size (although some might argue it's still a bit too long). Large part of the work was done in the last few months before release, as I pieced together what I had and built the sandbox to connect it all together. I wanted to further experiment with non-linear design from my previous maps, with multiple ways to experience the encounters and have all sorts of varied journeys across the map. I tried to make each route as viable as possible, so the player would never feel they came someplace "too early" or too underequipped. Exploration has always been a central part of almost all my maps, so having light combat around the sandbox part of the map helps keep the player moving without having to constantly stop to clear the meat from their path.

A lot of my original doodles and blocked out areas got cut, but most of the main fights are included the way they were originally designed. There was a circular crusher arena I had implemented, but I decided that there was already enough stuff going on in the map so I just axed it. There could be something similar coming along those lines later in the set though, but who knows...

The rocket launcher centric gameplay is partly by design but also a sort of accident, because I wasn't specifically designing the whole map the RL focused, but I guess I just enjoy using it too much and went all the way. Originally the fights were a tad more unforgiving (and more Pain Elementals, I miss them), but with good playtesting feedback from the rest of the crew we found a level of difficulty that better matched the position midway through the megawad. It's still spicy though.

More on the aforementioned crusher fight that got cut:

Spoiler

The base idea was this: there are two concentric circular crusher "waves" that move in opposite directions. The inner one is easy to run away from, the outer one not so much. If you move on the inner ring for too long, it will gradually reveal a cubby of archviles in the center that will blast you to bits. You can prevent this by moving to the outer ring, which will gradually hide the same cubby. You gotta clear the revs on the outer edges and press all switches to proceed. Of course, there are damaging floors and a couple of radsuits, so the whole thing is timed. Just my kind of bullshit.

Visual style:

Spoiler

I went with the white/gray concrete with yellow highlights to create a brighter and more elegant feel to contrast with the more imposing, dark and menacing concrete juggernauts of the rest of the episode. I felt the OCONCA set of OTEX textures was really underutilized and for a long time wanted to make a proper map centered around that texture theme, and the brutalist episode gave me a good excuse to do that (I did a similar thing with OIRONG back in 1K3 MAP30, but I've seen ukiro show some love to that set in more recent additions). I had already experimented with OCONCA in Micro Slaughter Community Project MAP31 and really wanted to see how far I could go with that look. I still slipped a few darker parts here and there for variety and contrast, but wanted to keep the overall brightness high.

I went with tall buildings and height variation to emphasize the grandeur of the place, but to really sell the feel I spent a good few days just tweaking the silhouettes of buildings, hiding the edges of sky ceilings and "cutting holes" into the top edges of buildings to make them seem more varied in height than they actually were. With the way sky is rendered in Doom, it can easily seem as if each building just stops at the same height, so I wanted to focus on breaking up that skyline and make the space seem vertically less limited.

Puzzles:

Spoiler

I've always enjoyed games mixing together genres, whether it's a small tower defense minigame in FFVII or a racing event in Jet Force Gemini, so that's something I tend to bring to my Doom maps as well. Having spent a ton of time with series like Legend of Zelda and Resident Evil, puzzles are just a natural part of my design, and I will most likely use them in one form or another in future maps as well. I also like exploring different ways to bend a given mapping format to something it wasn't quite designed for. To me as a mapper, puzzles are in equal parts about the journey of creation/implementation and finally interacting with the outcome. In a way, making the puzzle is a fun puzzle in itself.

The puzzles were originally entirely optional. They were not even tagged secrets, and were merely hiding a BFG to help with the fights. I came to realize quite late in development that there was supposed to be a secret exit on MAP14, so it was a logical step to change the puzzles to guard that instead (although the secret BFG still exists as a reward for those who finish the puzzles first). I was slightly worried about the FOMO people would experience if they weren't able to get to MAP33 if one or more puzzles caused them too much trouble, but I was happy to see that, while not always their favorite thing, most people got through them eventually. Also, just to clarify, all of the puzzles are Boom compatible, so they don't require MBF21 to work.

The slider puzzle is a direct love letter to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, in which there is a house with sixteen 4x4 slider puzzles. Back when I was a kid, I remember just doing all sixteen back-to-back. I don't even remember what the reward was, because the fun was just doing those puzzles and figuring out how to solve them. I didn't know anything about solution strategies back then, but was able to figure one out on the go. The one in the map used to be a 4x4 until I decided that with the mechanism I had in place it would just take way too long to solve, so I remade the thing as a 3x3. I spent some time deciding between a push or pull configuration, but I ultimately decided on push as it felt most intuitive to me (though the playerbase seems divided on that, heh). The voodoo-setup for it took some time to do, mainly because I had to be careful to tag everything appropriately, and with the lines sometimes being only 1 map unit away from each other, it got pretty cumbersome. Troubleshooting was a hell of its own, but after seeing multiple people not being able to break it gives me confidence it is robust enough (I also now understand why Ribbiks enjoys his Lua scripts...)

The lights out puzzle is also a nod to the Zelda games, particularly the 2D ones which used a two-state variant to guide progression in some dungeons. The concept itself was simple enough, and it was fun to work out a way to implement it in a Doom map. Due to the small number of states and relatively few cubes, the puzzle is probably the most straightforward and can be brute forced pretty easily. For my original idea, the cubes would start at the same level, and I spent quite a lot of time, energy and math to figure our how to choose the movement patterns to make that work. To keep a long story short, it was near impossible to find visually "pleasing" patterns to match the prequisite I had (all cubes at same level), so I just opted to choose the patterns first and then set the cubes in a variable-height initial configuration and be done with it. Lesson learned: don't overengineer, kids!

The barrel puzzle came about fairly randomly as I was working on another map, and it wasn't really triggered by any particular memory of a puzzle or mechanic. I had visited a local arcade recently though, so maybe DDR was buried somewhere in my subconscious. I also found it a fun way to deviate from the more "cerebral" puzzles and have something grounded to the way Doom movement works. It does so in a slightly janky way using Boom accelerative scrollers and instantly moving floors, and because there are no Actor Enters/Leaves Sector things in Boom, line actions were all I had. I feel the end result actually works pretty well, even if there is a slight delay between going from one pad to another (though at least part of that perceived delay is most likely just psychological).

Music:

Spoiler

Tristan knocked it ouf of the park with Downpour so go check the vid for his story on that if you haven't already! As for me, for the entire period of development I had Alfonzo's "Wet Lunch" as the track for the map, and only a few hours before release was it replaced with Downpour. Tristan perfectly captured what I wanted for the map, couldn't be happier with how well it meshes with the gameplay and what I wanted to player to feel when playing the map.

Map name:

Spoiler

As with most of my other maps, the name came about after everything else was said and done. I wanted something that captures the chill, explorative aspect but also the occasional spicy combat and tricky puzzles, and in my opinion the concept of "equanimity" captures that experience pretty spot on. It's also difficult to pronounce, which is always a bonus.

Celestin · January 15, 2024

MAP15: Rubicon by Scotty

Don't get me wrong, it's a hard map, but a conventional level is all I wanted after the secret stage. Rubicon is a straightforward concrete base with several tough fights. There's a new enemy here, I think it's called ~~vileimp~~ veilimp (I've checked the DeHackEd file), fires a volley of projectiles in a spread pattern or a short-range stream of flames, dies to a single SSG shot, but more importantly, he can teleport around. I don't think he can appear behind your back, but an erratic movement pattern and surprisingly tough attacks make it an unique enemy to fight.

The first hard fight hits early on, it's a corridor that slowly releases monsters, including two astral mancubi and a cyberdemon. I just cut through imps once they appeared and escaped. The BFG is unlocked after this and it carried me through the rest of the map - cells are in large supply here, while the rocket launcher is only accessible later on and is pretty much only useful for a single optional fight. Speaking of which, a derelict reactor that quickly floods with rather tanky monsters (cacodemons, hell nobles, nightmare demons) while you have to look out for the crushers and surpise annihilator rockets is the fight of Rubicon that killed me the most.

Most of the map isn't that tough, the BFG lowers the difficulty a lot. That is, until the final fight, which unleashes a lot of monsters on a poisonous floor. This one took me a couple of attempts, the two elevated astral mancubi are a threat here, but once this part is done, all that's left is two-shotting a cyberdemon and ending the chapter. I find the conclusion of E3 satifsying, it's a right dose of challenge for me without getting frustrated.

Edited January 15, 2024 by Celestin

DJVCardMaster · January 15, 2024

MAP15 - Rubicon - Alex "Scotty" Scott (99%K/100%I/60%S):

It's an ok episode finisher that does not reach the level that it had when it started, it would have made more sense if MAP14 was at the 15th slot, if I'm honest.
Mixed feelings with this map, as it gives you an early BFG. Considering you will need to finish the secret level on continuous to get it, it kinda makes all our journey to get it quite insignificant. OK, you also have the perforator, but it will be useless considering the low amount of ammo late in the level, and how much of a better use you could give the BFG against big hordes of enemies, specially at the fights before the keys.
The map looks a bit more depressing, just like the fourth episode of the first Eviternity, more brutalism, less green, and tries to focus a little bit more in gameplay. Luckly, this is where it kinda shines, as most of the secrets here are well staged secret skirmishes that will give you a prize, but will chunk your health. That's classic Ribbiks philosophy out there, and makes sense, as the map gets a little bit slaughterish and generous towards resources from time to time, so that's why I consider it reasonable. The key aspect of this map is the first appearance of a new actor in E2's beastiary: The purple arch-vile whose name I don't know yet, let's call them vile-lings for the moment.
The vile-lings can be quite scary as they usually jumpscare you, and can be painful if they attack you from close range, but they lack any significant power due to how of a glass cannon are they, getting bursted by one SSG blast with ease. Also, their attack can be awkwardly misspreaded, causing it to be easier to dodge from far away. Due to how poor are them at tanking damage, they are not even efficient at causing infights. Overall, I consider them being better at scaring you, rather than being actually dangerous. So, for the moment, I think they are a bit lame, I did not consider them a big threat. But hey, they are at least cool looking. Overall I think this was the weakest map of the episode, but I may be a bit biased because MAP14 was great, so take this with a grain of salt.

Order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP14

MAP32
MAP11
MAP09

MAP07

MAP05
MAP12
MAP13
MAP03
MAP08
MAP15
MAP06

MAP02
MAP04
MAP10
MAP31
MAP33

RHhe82 · January 15, 2024

MAP15: Rubicon. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 373/373 K, 5/5 S, 5/5 I. Comp. time 41:29

Ah, a map my laptop can handle. A map, that's title associates with Alien Vendetta... and nevertheless I liked this one. I didn't guess the mapper, the map just felt a bit different than what we've accustomed lately with open, majestic architecture sort of maps. Indeed, Scotty! One whose maps I've always (I think) liked.

There are some hairy encounters here; difficult, if you're afraid to use BFG in order to save ammo. Personally, using the big guns without doubts was the way to go, ammo's plentiful enough, unless you get wasteful. I suppose my favourite fight would be the blue key fight with tons of cacos, astral mancubi, cyber, annihilators. It was also the hardest (the cybers and spiders -encounter was just inciting infight while taking care of riffraff); the cyber was placed quite awkwardly...

I wouldn't call it a palate cleanser, because the wad is so consistently great, but I like this sort of map. I guess I could have done without spider/cyber area, which I did last and it was getting late, but no matter.

Not sure what to think of the new enemy. On the other hand I feel we have a preview case of a monster that would feature prominently in Ancient Aliens 2, if there were such a thing. And on the other hand the... astral imp? Purple imp? It looks a bit goofy. Astral mancs and spideys fit right in, but this one honestly looks a bit less well done. Whether they get real annoying too or not, remains to be seen, but I'm feeling optimistic once I get used to them.

Edited January 15, 2024 by RHhe82

Novaseer · January 15, 2024

1 hour ago, Celestin said:

There's a new enemy here, I think it's called vileimp, fires a volley of projectiles in a spread pattern or a short-range stream of flames, dies to a single SSG shot, but more importantly, he can teleport around. I don't think he can appear behind your back, but an erratic movement pattern and surprisingly tough attacks make it an unique enemy to fight.

From what I've seen, they don't actually teleport, just turn invisible. If you can guess where they are and prefire it, you'll kill them all the same.

Ralgor · January 15, 2024

MAP15 - “Rubicon” by Scotty

Deaths: 15

Given that this episode-ender is by Scotty, I was fully expecting some serious combat, and I got it. The map itself is ugly, but it's because we've dropped into an ugly place. It's very well realized and detailed, and so ends up looking good despite the grime. The dirty concrete walls surrounded by nukage, with flaming barrels littering the area give this map a very unkempt industrial feel. Nature is simply unwelcome here. It's a different sort of corruption than what we saw in Episode 1.

This map introduces a new monster. It's an arch-vile looking thing that seemingly teleports around and shoots fire at you. They are pretty weak, but tend to appear in packs. They killed me the first time I encountered them simply because I didn't know what they were. After that they generally weren't a threat. Unlike many of the astral demons, these guys seem to be a low threat enemy.

There are plenty of difficult fights in this map. The hardest is actually a secret, optional fight. It's a timed fight that starts with cacodemons, and ends with green demons and an annihilator. If that wasn't bad enough, timed crushers shrink your play area substantially. Most of my deaths in this map were here. It took me several attempts to beat this, and even then I felt like I got a bit lucky. In my successful attempt, an annihilator actually went through the exit teleport and I telefragged him on the way out. (Looking at the map in UDB, it looks like there are two of them. I never saw the second one on any of my attempts, but he died somehow.) I always started using rockets, but switched to the BFG at some point just to make space. I ended up eventually getting past this fight, but I never felt like I beat it.

The rest of the fights didn't take me more than one or two deaths to complete at most. But there were enough different fights that it still ran up my death count a good bit. I can't decide whether the red or blue key fight was my favorite, so I just won't decide and call it a draw.

The music was great, and gave this map an extra dose of energy.

I found all of the secrets fairly easily. I didn't have to go back and look for any of them. I feel like I got a bit lucky on a couple of them though, so I'm not sure the secrets were actually easy to find. But it did seem like there were plenty of hints for them.

This map is one of the few in this wad so far that I might go back and replay at some point. It's not because it's my favorite necessarily, but while I got to the end with 100% kills and secrets, I don't really feel like I beat this map. Who knows if I ever will have the time to replay it though.

Veeda Vidlak · January 15, 2024

Map15 “Rubicon” by Alex Scott (Scotty)

The wad is really starting to hit its stride. The entire third episode has been outstanding, and we follow Aurelius’s masterpiece with another quality entry. Rubicon is an intimidating finisher set in a dreary concrete factory compound that hits as hard as it looks. The brutalist architecture continues and here Scotty contrasts Equanimity’s idealized designs with the more cold, unfeeling rawness I always think of when someone mentions “brutalist.”

Gameplay starts innocently enough, grindy but nonthreatening. Working our way southwest we see a number of archviles behind screens. I only have the SSG, surely Scotty doesn’t… wait a minute, those are some freaky looking viles…

And that’s because they’re not viles, they’re this weird purple alien thing that warps around and spews either fire or a spreadshot kind of like the disciples of D’Sparil in Heretic. I agree with RHhe82’s observation that this monster has the vibe of an Ancient Aliens enemy, and as far as difficulty goes they aren’t all that dangerous, weak and slow in launching their attacks. However, I find the mechanics interesting. Novaseer says they turn invisible when moving, which is true, I can hit them in this state between attacks… but they do seem to also have some form of short-range teleport. One of them got on the raised platform when I was fighting in their reveal arena and I don’t see how that happens just by walking.

Anyway, these guys aren’t much of a problem. What is a problem is the rest of the level, which features several dangerous encounters. The red key, the blue key, a pair of fights up north en route to the yellow key, and two secret arenas, one of which is my pick for hardest fight in the map. The red key fight is first and what I found works best is to kill the nm demons then just hide for a moment. None of the enemies become active until you shoot or let them see you so if you stay put until the imp fences drop then you can burn through them and fight with plenty of space.

As for the rest, we have a BFG now and don’t be afraid to use it. My blind run was not smooth, and I discovered the mistake I was making was trying to conserve ammo for later. Areas like the blue key and both secret battles punish ammo scrimping, so don’t be afraid to let loose, especially in the westernmost crusher arena that demands aggression. Another thing I'll say is this map has the most nefarious annihilator use so far, there’s quite a few and Scotty is very skilled at maximizing their lethality. The pincer ambush on the way to the blue key is deceptively deadly and if you don’t want to fight in the narrow hallway you can jump off into the sludge and go back around to kill them without worry.

Rubicon is a strong map and a strong finish to the best episode yet. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does deliver the right amount of punishment to let us know we’d better be ready for the second half of the megawad. I’m looking forward to it.

cannonball · January 15, 2024

MAP15 - “Rubicon” by Scotty

The price of progress, the lush and bright environments of the early stages of the episode are definitely gone now. Instead we have polluted waters and a grimy and rather grim atmosphere. Fair to say that on one hand the visuals don't pop as much as the other maps, on the other hand this feels truly fitting and is the perfect send off to the episode that has really seen this wad push on. The combat takes the centre stage and there are plenty of top drawer encounters, the meanest probably being the blue key room where the room is drenched in polluted waters with only two radsuits to get your through the fight. In general the map flows nicely and whilst it isn't as strong as the last map, this feels like a nice change of pace and works well as a counterweight to the otherworldly wonder of the previous map. Fair to say that this episode is by far my favourite episode so far.

Oh and the new monster is introduced really well, never truly dangerous but they do have a habit of catching you off guard, not every monster needs to be ball busting, this one seems to fit nicely in the low to mid tier range.

Edited January 15, 2024 by cannonball

TJG1289 · January 15, 2024

GZDoom/UV/Contiuous/Saves

Write-ups from memory

MAP15: Rubicon - Scotty

I was a little nervous about this one. Scotty is a name I associate with hard maps I wouldn't normally play. Stuff like Haste and Abandon, for example. I have played a smattering of his stuff tho, like his maps is Nova III, Cydonia, and the 1K Lines ones, and I don't recall any of them being super hard like I would expect from a Haste or Abandon, so hopefully, this won't be too bad.

Thankfully, it's a very doable map. It's the hardest in the WAD so far, but it's doable. This map does take inspiration more from the challenge map design philosophy, as there's quite a few set piece fights. The first major one sics a new enemy on us. The veilimp is a glass cannon with 2 different types of attacks. Depending on your distance from it, it will either fire a volley of projectiles, or it will attempt to flambe you. These purple buggers will also turn invisible in-between attacks. Thankfully, like I said, they are glass cannons and go down super easily. Scotty gets to throwing these things in most of the major fights he spreads around, including the first really hard one that gradually deactivates lasers that unleash them along with nightmare demons, astral mancs, imps, and a cyb. I think this fight is probably the hardest in the WAD so far, and almost begs for some spray and praying with the plasma rifle (or continuous BFG/perforator). Once you get the red key, you can tackle 2 other paths to get the other keys. One path goes back into the same building and cumulates with a battle against cacos, nightmare demons, barons, annihilators, astral mancs, and a cyb in nukage. The other path goes into the adjacent building and cumulates with a fight with 2 cybs and 2 masterminds, with some perched archies and a few veilimps. Both of these final fights for their keys are tough, tho the yellow key one can cause some Gotcha!-style infighting. With the blue and yellow keys, all that's left between you and the exit portal is a surprise astral caco ambush.

But we're not done. This is the first map in the WAD to feature some significant hidden battles. You can get to both of them on the blue key path. The first one is a teleport switch by some arachnotrons, that will allow you to jump to the mega armor outside, opening up an area with a lift and pain elementals. Taking the lift will reveal the first hidden fight. It's in toxic waste and teleports a buttload of demons of all varieties in. You do get a plasma rifle and ammo here, but you should also have the BFG by now, so use that. The other fight is a trek to get to. You see that RL on a pillar by the start of the map? Well, once you climb up the blue key path enough, you can jump from a manc platform to that RL, and then jump down to the armor bonuses (or you can speedrun strat it and use the steps below to skip the RL and get to the armor ledge). Follow that to get a BFG and goodies, an astral arachnotron, and a pit to the other hidden fight. This fight loads you up with rockets. In fact, it's the only rockets you will get in the map, so use them wisely. Once the fight starts, 4 crushers will gradually activate while you deal with nobles, nightmare demons, and I think cacos? Don't quote me on that last part. This fight is probably the 2nd hardest one in the map, cause the crushers force you to move, and the tight quarters means rocket use is dangerous, but it's the best method of clearing out the riff raff. The are cells, so BFG when you need a quick escape.

Overall, this map is a challenge. Thankfully, the fights are fun and not too frustrating. I will say, part of me thinks this map doesn't really feel like an Eviternity map. It looks great, but the toxic sludge/grime aspect of this makes me feel like it doesn't really fit the brutalist/nature theme of the ep. The hidden fights also don't feel like Eviternity to me. Honestly tho, that's just minor nitpicking. The map is still a good map in all aspects, and if the Eviternity crew thinks is belongs, then it belongs. Very solid episode ender.

Cutman 999 · January 15, 2024

MAP14 - “Equanimity” by Aurelius (Pistol start, used saves, 100% kills/80% items/66% secrets)

WE ARE GETTING OUR ASSES KICKED WITH THIS ONE!

probably the first magnum opus map in this set, definitely wants to kick things into a higher gear, and if the insane gazebo's esque monumental detailing or the tactical, punishing combat doesn't tell you enough, I don't know what will. I feel this map like much of the other ones in this style, benefits on how friendly it is on replay, with many duplicates of weapons scattered in the map to let you completely customize the way you want to deal with it, considering many fights are here to kick your ass, maybe on a saveless casual run is a good idea to mix and match approaches to get the most out of it and not feel like those 40 minutes of gameplay are too much.

Fights are very, very good combat puzzles that end quickly and test your capacity to rapidly adjust to any given challenge, my favorite is definitely that rectangle arena where transforms into a plasma surfing ordeal, trying to use the enemies as cover for the astral arachnos so you don't get your ass completely handled to you, is the one with the most improvisation and the adrenaline truly increases in situations like these, only the cyber backyard is an ambush that beats itself, all the others are serious ass kickers.

Altough, the aquiles heel of this one is definitely the secret exit, the puzzles aren't bad, but they are really janky, specially the yellow key one, that thanks to how the action specials work in the engine, sometimes passing a line would not do a thing thanks to how you can't have 2 actions executing on a sector consecutively. The others are finer, although that one where you have to scramble an image it doesn't tell you in what direction the grid moves, making it slightly less intuitive.

If I was playing this saveless, probably it would be my most hated map, thanks to how this definitely benefits for foreknowledge the most out of the whole megawad to this point, and you know, playing it blind on saveless is like, no just grind the map xd, but still, this map is probably cacoward worthy by itself, and how it manages to execute everything it proposes, its more than exellent, at least to how I experienced the map on this ocassion.

10/10

MAP33 - “Catalyst” by Bauul (Pistol start, used saves, 100%K/I/S)

You remember that infamous battletoads motorcycle section? now it's fucking possible in doom and will kick the shit out of you.

Definitely the map of all time, for such an unusual gimmick map it introduces things quick, punishingly and effective as it can get, with typical easy stuff introduced, a slightly more difficult version of that at the middle, and batshit insane stuff at the end. The ending of the map is fucking nuts, just for that shit alone I stopped playing this saveless, don't be like me that tried to grind this shit for lik 2 hours to get its ego boost, and failed miserably.

Btw, probably my favorite midi of the whole wad, feels extremely fitting to a map that is just pure grind and intensity.

7/10

ReaperAA · January 16, 2024

MAP15: Rubicon by Scotty

I see some people saying that this map is not as good as the previous map. And while it's probably not as visually striking or as challenging (with one exception of course) as the previous map, it still looks and plays good. I especially like how in contrast to the rest of the episode (which had brutalistic architecture but also vibrant lush greenery), this map is in some dirty wasteland with much

Now, I am not very familiar with Scotty's works. His only two other maps I have played are Criticality (I played it when it was selected for DWIronman challenge some 3-ish years ago and never completed it) and his only map in 1000 Lines 3. I can see some similarity here with those 2 maps, mainly in terms of aesthetics, but also in terms of how some fights are exclusive to secrets and how those fights are set up.

One particular fight is the secret crusher fight, which kind of reminds me of the secret crusher fight in his 1000 Lines 3 map. Except this one is much harder. This is the hardest fight in the map and probably in the entire wad up till this point (Map14 is overall a bit harder than this map, but this one fight of Map15 is harder than any of the fights on Map14 imho). It's why (if doing a saveless UV-max run) I like to do it early by getting there with SR50 strategy, so not only am I done with it quick, but also get an early BFG and a rocket launcher. As for the fight itself, it involves fighting in an arena involving 4 crushers in a series and throwing in cacodemons, hell knights, barons and nightmare demons at you in this tight space. My current best strategy is to initially stay in the safe zone between the 2nd and 3rd crushers and start firing rockets at cacodemons and hell knights. When barons and nightmare demons arrive and get near you, switch to BFG and push towards the corner teleports and grab the cells there and then finish of the rest of the enemies before finally pressing the switches (as hitting the corner switches will release annihilators on opposite side)

There is another secret fight that takes place on damaging floors and explosive barrels spread throughout. The battle is short, consisting of plenty of fodder enemies like corporals and imps, followed by revenants and finally an archvile. This fight is one of the rare situations where I actually find myself doing better with the plasma gun rather than the BFG. Though, I still switch back to BFG once the archvile reveals himself.

The rest of the main fights are somewhat tricky but nothing too hard. If you know what you are doing, you should be fine. Also the map gives plenty of cell ammo, so don't be reluctant when using it. There are really only 5 fights in this map and 2 of those are secret fights.

One last thing to mention about this map is that it introduces another new custom enemy called Veil-imps. These look like purple miniature archviles that move really really fast and go invisible when doing so (giving the effect that they teleport around) and they have two different attacks, one is a spread of low damage projectiles while the other is a short-range flame burst which does pretty good damage. Thankfully, their attack is very well choreographed and they have only 100 health which means that a single SSG shot will take them down with ease. Chaingun also works fairly well against them. They don't play a major role in Map15 though and they only start playing a major role from next episode onwards.

MAP16: Barbican by Dragonfly

Episode 4 harkens back to the medieval era/castle style aesthetics of Episode 1 of original Eviternity which gives a warm and fuzzy feeling. As far as this map is concerned, it's not a big map, but definitely a very non-linear one where you can explore various different parts of the map however you want.

Early on, you might have a rough time with not having much resources. But once you establish a foothold, this map is pretty easy all things considered. The only fight that comes anywhere near being spicy is the one where you are locked with imps teleporting once you grab a megasphere, followed by an archvile. The cyberdemon in this map is kind of a chum, who is only there to waste some ammo but is otherwise harmless :p

Be on the lookout for secrets, because the secret exit is on this map, the very first map of this episode.

Edited January 19, 2024 by ReaperAA

ReaperAA · January 16, 2024

Whoops I accidentally posted before writing about the secret map :p

MAP34: Freya by Bri
Possibly the most "conventional" of all the 6 secret maps in Eviternity 2, but I don't mind it because Bri delivers another absolute eyecandy of a map (yes I get it that praising the visuals of Eviternity 2's map is becoming a very common theme, but still). The natural scenery around the ruined old temple/castle/medievial whatever place, is really great followed by a touch of... Fallen Leaves (*ahem ahem*, I'll see myself out).

Also I mentioned in map15 writeup that Veil-imps will play a very prominent role later on. Well this map is one of those situations. Very judicious usage of veil-imps right from the start and you will especially have to deal with 2 dozen+ veil-imps + 2 archvile trap at the end of the map (easy if you obtained the secret perforator and/or the secret BFG). Other than that, the rest of the mostly mild in combat with the exception for the part where you press the blue key switch that reveals an archvile, 2 veil-imps and a few pinkies in a small area. And then when you deal with that, only to be greeted by an astral mancubus, astral arachnotrons and a good deal of other enemies. If you managed to obtain the secret perforator before all this, then you should be fine.

Which brings me to another thing I realized that the location of the secret yellow skull key was changed between RC2 and RC5. In RC2, it wasn't hard to obtain per se, but was kind of easy to miss which, while not needed for main progression, is necessary to obtain the Perforator from the secret.

DJVCardMaster · January 16, 2024

Chapter 3: Bastion:

MAP16 - Barbican - Dragonfly (100%K/I/S):

The new episode gives us a throwback to the first episode of Eviternity I. With castles and meviedal landscapes. This time, more in daytime rather than nighttime. I really dig the aesthetics that overpopulate the entirety of this sequel though, everything gets eaten by lush environments and nice falling leaves, giving you that summer/autumn aesthetic. The best time of the year, as you abandon that disgusting heat, but you are not 10 degrees below zero yet. Still, there is some heat in Barbican, as combat here throws everything at you right from the bag. Hardest start yet, on par with MAP11.
The map itself is one of those classic, circular-shaped maps, like a "key hunt in-between" type of maps, just like we have seen in the first Eviternity. The type of maps that I liked the most, most of the time, during my playthrough. You should know where to get your guns though, as you could be using your boomstick for tanky enemies for a while, and that's what happened to me. After you do certain tasks, you will trigger a cyberdemon that will spawn at the middle of the level (not sure if it spawns or it's just there), and will hunt you down around the entire map. You could use him to infight, or ignore it completely. I tried removing every enemy from plain sight before fighting him with my last bullets. Luckly I did not see him as a big threat, but you should always know where is he shooting you from. The map is perfect for a cyberdemon to roam like this, as he literally always has a window to shoot you from. After that, regular exit holds two annihilators. You will see the secret exit easily from the west courtyard that looks like Eviternity's MAP01. The way to access is by hitting a pretty hidden switch in a pretty random corner to open this area. There is a secret fight before the exit, and you will still need the three keys in order to escape. Before the exit you will see some astral cacos, which at this point, I do believe this is the Eviternity version of the "Arch-vile at the exit" cliché. Every single exit holds them, and I'm starting to hate them because of how difficult it is to dodge their attacks. Really enjoyable map.

After playing this one, I've noticed that the mini-archviles have two different attack patterns, and not only one, how dumb. Still not a big threat, just annoying

MAP34 - Freya - Bri (100%K/I/S):

Luckly it was a shorter secret map than I thought it would be, considering how tough and long where the first two. Still, I think this was tough, if not the hardest map yet. Particularly because of its abuse of new monsters, giving you a great showcase of what's new on this installment. A beautiful ruin map that kinda says "Episode two was not over yet". Everything feels etheteal, from another heavenly world. It gives you nice "babylon" looks with all those buildings and plants tribing from every single wall. A beautiful landscape as it is usual for Eviternity 2's maps. I can't describe its progression as it felt a bit open, but at the same time it felt quite linear, maybe with some branching paths to give the player a little bit more alternatives. Most battles where fun, I've finally felt like those vile-lings were actually a threat, although not because of good reason, but because Bri decided to spam me with a bunch of them, in open places, making it obviously harder, but hey, every single Doom monster is painful to deal with in oversized packs, so that's cheating. I do think they are good in hallways where there is not a lot of room to dodge, though. Vile-ling spam was quite obvious at the end with that ridiculous amount of them before the exit portal, guarding it and two angry arch-vile papas trying to help their children massacre this Doomguy. Luckly, I've found both the BFG and the Perforator, so my last battle was easy to deal with.

Order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP14

MAP32
MAP11
MAP09
MAP34

MAP07
MAP16

MAP05
MAP12
MAP13
MAP03
MAP08
MAP15
MAP06

MAP02
MAP04
MAP10
MAP31
MAP33

A secret level? This quick? We are not even starting Episode IV...

Ralgor · January 16, 2024

Edit: Forgot to post my thoughts on episode 3 as a whole...

Episode 3 Thoughts

I have to admit that brutalism isn't my favorite style. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that this my least liked theme in the wad so far (as of having played part of E4). The parts that weren't brutalism felt like Episode 1 again to an extent, which I don't mind because it looks so good. The big exception here is MAP15, which pivots to a sort of "industrial wasteland" theme. I kind of wish we could have gotten an episode that leans into that esthetic more.

We did finally start feeling the difficulty ramp up in the latter half of the episode, which I'm glad to see. I might end up wishing someone would turn down the heat in another episode or so though.

MAP16 - “Barbican” by Dragonfly

Deaths: 2

The opening of this map is pretty brutal. There are chaingunners all over the place who will wake up when you fire the first shot, and will seek you out and find you at the worst possible time. Twice when starting this map I ended up backing into a chaingunner trying to avoid something else, and got obliterated. The third time I specifically sought out all of the chaingunners to kill them all, and just ignored everything else. That seemed to do the trick. The rest of the map isn't nearly as difficult, and in fact is the easiest map we've had since maybe MAP12. There was a couple times I was close to death but survived. There's plenty of health around though, including a secret megasphere and soulsphere.

The lock-in fight with the non-secret megasphere was probably the most memorable fight in the map. I ended up just standing on one of the teleporter exits and blasted everything with rockets. A little cheesy, but it mostly worked. Eventually I had to dodge something and then imps blocked my way back to my spot, but by then the lock-in had ended and I could just go outside. Almost everything else is incidental combat. There is one point where a bunch of fodder warps in on some water, but that was pretty easy to just go up the stairs and kill everything.

The cyberdemon was kind of annoying, because it wasn't actually dangerous but took a bit to kill. At least I had found the secret plasma rifle already so it wasn't that bad. I ended up trying to conserve some plasma for what I thought might be one more fight, but it turns out I needn't have bothered.

When I started playing this map, I didn't know it had a secret exit. Luckily you can see it through an opening, and I was able to find it anyway. This map doesn't make you work too hard to find the secret exit, which is a good thing since this is the second secret exit in three maps.

The music is good, and the level looks great too. I really like this theme. It reminds me of the first episode of Eviternity, which was one of my favorite in terms of theme. I know the wood look is sometimes overdone in Doom, but I still like it. I had some good fun in this map.

MAP34 - “Freya” by Bri

Deaths: 1

This is a beautiful romp in a map that seems to use a fusion of multiple episode themes. We have the mesoamerican textures combined with caves, ice, green forests, and even some of the hallowed textures. On top of that is an orange sky that gives the whole thing an otherworldly feel. There are some arched doorways done entirely through small sectors. The result is quite captivating and unique.

The combat mostly comes in the form of incidental combat. There are a few lock-in fights but they aren't generally too difficult. My only death came at the very end with the vile-imp hode and arch-vile duo when I got zapped. I wasn't expecting a horde like that and couldn't get to the arch-viles to take them out. The second time I just used the BFG and Perforator to make short work of the everything before they could scatter. Besides that fight, the area before the red key gave me some trouble, but wasn't quite able to kill me. I just ran around with 3% health for a good couple minutes at one point.

I got all of the secrets before the end of the map, but I didn't get the Perforator until right before the final fight. I got to shoot a couple arch-viles with it and that's about it. I'm really hoping another map has one at the beginning like MAP31 did.

I'm being repetitive, but the music is good here too. Like it is in every map.

Edited January 17, 2024 by Ralgor
typo

antares031 · January 16, 2024

Like I briefly mentioned before, Prowler Imp was one of the earliest custom monsters ever designed for Eviternity II. After I finished playing Doom Eternal in early 2020, I thought that Prowler's "teleporting around" gimmick might be an interesting idea to be added to the classic doom. By using TNT1 invisible sprite and MBF's A_Spawn code pointer, I managed to simulate the Prowler's gimmick in complevel 11. It's actually an invisible monster, moving around really fast, and then becomes visible with teleportation visual effect and sound, whenever it attacks the target. Prowler Imp's attack pattern was pretty simple; shooting three cacodemon fireballs. But its premise was still there, as a glass cannon to surprise the player from nowhere.

Spoiler

Before we migrated from complevel 11 to 21, there was a short period of development time with the brand-new DEHEXTRA extension, suggested by Xaser. While DEHEXTRA didn't provide new custom code pointers to work with, its extra dehacked resources, such as frames, things, and sprites, allowed me to put custom actors with no concern about dehacked resource management. With this new tool, not only I put lots of custom decorations (mainly tree & bush sprites, provided by ukiro), but also I re-designed Prowler Imp, with the new name "Veilimp". Once again, I quoted Amuscaria's amazing sprite work "Hellion" for our new monster. And I swapped its color to purple, in order to differentiate them from classic monsters visually. I also made their pre-fire delay longer than Prowler Imp, so the players could have more time to react from a sudden ambush. Veilimp also got new attack pattern, quite similar to the Astral Cacodemon's.

Spoiler

MBF21 allowed me to make their attack pattern more interesting and reasonable, something like a projectile version of a single barrel shotgun. After that, while making the intro fight of veilimps in MAP15, Scotty suggested to let them have AoE attack, since their "teleportation ambush" movement could work really well with close-range AoE attack. Based on Scotty's idea, I brought the concept of adding short-range flamethrower attack, and Dragonfly provided all the necessary sprites to make this new pattern. Veilimp's flamethrower attack is actually a melee attack, like a revenant's punch. But thanks to MBF21's custom melee range, it will try to "punch" the target within 256 map-units range with its flamethrower.

Veeda Vidlak · January 16, 2024

Map16 “Barbican” by Dragonfly

Bookshelves! Chandeliers! Dungeons! The fourth episode starts with everyone’s favorite ye olde Medieval castle setting, delightfully detailed to this megawad’s impeccable standards. Dragonfly yet again shows himself to be the straight man in Eviternity II's rogues gallery, toning down the escalation at the end of Episode III with an engaging yet lower stress outing.

Not that low stress though, we have a hot start which I would describe as Gusta-lite. A number of interconnected rooms all patrolled by small squads of dispersed low to mid-tiers, applying inescapable pressure until the player clears most of the initial area. While finding your footing you’ll no doubt notice the skull key switchboard in the starting hallway, indicating we’ve got three keys to hunt down. You’ll also no doubt notice the purple gateway resting out of reach to the southwest, yes, the episode’s secret map is accessed in the very first level.

For the most part the remainder of the map does not have the energy of the opening minute, combat is either incidental or laid-back due to the abundance of cover and resources. The one exception is the cross-shaped room to the south, which assails us with imps and shotgunners at a steady rate followed by an archvile once the room reopens. We get a megasphere to start so its forgiving but still a nice test of RL aptitude in an enclosed space. Otherwise, the biggest concerns are the smattering of astral foes, like always they can 187 you in a heartbeat.

The secret exit isn’t too hard to find, though it also requires the three keys to enter. The small scuffle triggered by lowering the megasphere isn’t hard but watch out for that sneaky annihilator released behind you. He tagged me for a ton of damage because I didn’t realize he was there.

A casual opener and nice breather after the last three levels. My only criticism is that I found the cyberdemon a perfunctory grind and the sadist in me wonders if it would be more fun to have him gunning for you right at the start, placed at the other end of the entry hallway (anyone on board with this?)

Map 34 “Freya” by Bri

Oooo, what a pretty map.

The secret maps have all been themed around a gameplay feature so far. First, we had a weapon map (perforator), then we had combat built around a unique mechanic (instakill electric floors), then we had a map imitating a different game entirely (Battletoads), and now we have a level built around a custom monster. Freya is a showcase of our new purple alien buddy’s capabilities, with most fights employing them in force. The perforator also makes its return and is a welcome tool when dealing with threats like astralcacos.

Not to sound like a broken record but this map looks so good. It’s beautiful, the mix of sparkling water, brightness, greenery, and eviternity temple aesthetics meshing perfectly to give a feeling of paradise (which is a glamor according to the level intro). The textures are very similar to Episode 1 and I’m curious if this was initially slated to be the secret map of that section. Strengthening this suspicion is the opening text crawl, which matches the narration of the 1st Episode as well.

As for combat, it’s not too harsh but there are a few stickier spots. The most notable one is the entire western part of the level started by hitting a blue key switch. A lot of it is grind but we start with a cramped vile skirmish followed by getting hemmed in by imps with various weapons platforms sniping at us. We have plenty of tools to handle this though, the secret perforator picks off the vile and snipers and the plasma given here will handle the imps. The other notable encounter is the finishing one, a big horde of purple people eaters backed by a pair of viles. The power weapons make mincemeat of this mess, BFG for the aliens and perforator for archie.

I don't have anything else to say but I'll happily beat a dead horse with the visuals. Freya is just a gorgeous piece of doom art and it put me in a good mood to kill stuff in it.

RHhe82 · January 16, 2024

MAP16: Barbican. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 278/278 K, 4/4 S, 5/7 I. Comp. time 27:17

A new episode, a new look. I like the theme, although it feels like we've seen it before, I guess on Eviternity 1, episode 1. It's cool, but doesn't get me excited right away. No matter, the map is fine, its encounters manageable, although the imp teleport trap had me retry a couple of times, mostly thanks to facerocketing while being hunted by archvile or two.

The fight that ensues after grabbing the yellow key also felt fun; I might have panicked there, lost almost all my health, but had the enemies mostly kill each other. Almost felt that I should have retried that to see if it went differently, but oh well.

One negative remark: the cyberdemon. It felt unnecessary, and I SSG'd it death. I guess a second playthrough of this one would be more fun, knowing that I could safely grab, for instance, the megasphere in the secret area leading to the secret exit. Or that I could safely use the plasma, having no need to preserve the cell for any big fight I totally expected to take place in the moat in front of the secret exit; only a couple of astral cacos there.

*

MAP34: Freya. Played on DSDA v0.27.4, UV, PS. 245/245 K, 4/4 S, 2/2 I. Comp. time 28:22

After Charge and Catalyst, I was expecting a secret map to be a very gimmicky affair. Freya is nothing of the sort, it actually plays like a completely casual map. Only the visual style is unique, like a combination of first three episodes with a colourful, garden of Eden -like flair.

Completely casual... except possibly for the very final fight. I wouldn't call even that a gimmick fight, but it certainly had me chuckle when I saw dozens of purple imps emerge along with a couple of archies. Good thing I had found the BFG. Anyway, I sound unenthusiastic, but it's a really good map I would have liked to see in a regular roster -- although I suppose it doesn't fit into episode themes, so I'm glad we at least get it as a secret.

Celestin · January 16, 2024

MAP16: Barbican by Dragonfly

Episode 4, Bastion, takes us back in time to the middle ages. The surroundings feels like a combination of Eviternity's first and third episode, but set in autumn. You'll be moving through stone dungeons and libraries in search for all three keys.

I'd say the difficulty is front-loaded, as once you fire a shot, a lot of monsters start closing in and it can get overwhelming without any proper weapons. Sort this out and the map is yours to explore. I started with heading towards a super shotgun, which released an archvile I had to kill with a chaingun. The rest went smoothely. You have a library with the yellow key, the initial combination of zombies, revenants and veilimps with a peripherial pain elemental was fun to take out, though the key itself only trigger a pair of astral arachnotrons. The red and blue key areas are rocket dumps with a lot of weaker monsters, with the best one being a cross-shaped room that gets saturated with imps. There's also a cyberdemon at one point, but I would cut him out, he feels a bit fillerish to me.

From the yellow key library, you might have spotted a portal leading to the secret exit. The search for the way there didn't took long, there's a switch next to the SSG I've grabbed early. One more horde of pinkies and astral demons and with yellow, red and blue key I could exit to MAP34.

MAP34: Freya by Bri

The first secret map that isn't a techbase, Freya takes place is a beautiful green valley, with remnents of ancient structures around. It's another slow burner, starting with taking out veilimps and corporals. This map loves Eviternity II's custom monsters. I think astral mancubi gave me the most trouble with their powerful attacks and a ton of health, requiring two shots from the perforator. I've only found one in MAP32 at the very end and the one in MAP33 is rather useless if you pistol-start the maps, so it was fun to use it as much as I could - unlike in MAP31, bullets are rather scarce here.

I started to have problems after I got the blue key - there's this tiny room with veilimps and an archvile, it's easy to lose a lot of health here. It's followed by a sea of imps, with bigger demons behind their backs. Astral mancubi returns here, there's one hiding behind the imps and three blocking your way to the red key. They are very annoying to kill, I ended up pumping rockets or plasma and running behind cover to wait for their attacks to end. The red key is guarded by an archvile and veilmps, at that point I've found a secret BFG, rushed the archvile and eliminated the rest. I really recommend getting the BFG for the completely insane ending: a giant horde of veilimps and two archviles behind their backs. I wouldn't try to beat this with only plasma.

Freya is another solid map - solid in a context of Eviternity II, a wad full of consistently good maps. It speaks a lot about the overall quality of the project when even B-side levels display this much quality and polish.

Bauul · January 16, 2024

A few notes on Map 33: Catalyst now most people are past it.

We knew before release that this would be likely the most divisive map in the megawad, but one of the real benefits of having six secret slots is that we had room to try a variety of different gameplay and aesthetic approaches while keeping the main campaign (relatively) straightforward.

Even so, Catalyst is probably the most extreme diversion from the rest of the gameplay, and so far the response to it seems to be either "this is the best map ever" or "I don't like this at all", with little in-between. But that's fine: given that a) it's an optional map and b) it's a pistol start (so IDCLEVing to the next map loses you nothing) we felt confident its inclusion wouldn't be too disruptive, and so far this seems to being borne out.

My original plan for this level was much more mundane: I had the Map31 slot and set about making a grimy industrial tech-base, featuring things like sludge and conveyor belts. The more I built it, the more it became clear the conveyor belts were the most fun parts, so I started designing set-pieces around them. One of these set pieces became a kind of obstacle course on a conveyor, and ultimately I thought "why have all the filler when I can just do the most fun part?" and the concept for Catalyst was born.

We quickly realized it wouldn't work in the first secret map slot, so we swapped it with Afterglow's Map33 position (without really knowing what Redshift would turn out to be). In a great irony, the eventual version of Redshit that shipped turned out to be remarkably similar to my original idea for Map31, so the final mapset includes essentially two results of the same vision.

Catalyst I built over a period of about four months, and actually ended up running out of sidedefs by the end of the level (the relative simplicity of the ending scene is a result of this limitation). If you poke around the editor you'll see there's a lot of unaligned textures: this is deliberate to allow the sidedef compression to squeeze more sidedefs into the final wad.

I always wanted the experience to be exacting on UV: I didn't anticipate anyone would be able to beat it on their first attempt (although YouTuber Brendondle proved me wrong!). Lower difficulties are much more forgiving, and as it's a pistol-start map this gave players the opportunity to more easily change difficulty without losing progress if they wanted.

Ultimately I think it's quite fascinating how differently people handle the level. It's a very niche aspect of Doom's movement, and even within the Evi 2 team there was a huge variety of opinion on whether it was ballbustingly hard or actually quite accessible and fun. Either way, I'm glad we included it!

Finally, a few people have hypothesized this was inspired by other games - usually I'll happily wear my influences on my sleave but in this case there was no inspiration other than "conveyors are fun" (although maybe I should go and play Battletoads to see what all the comparison is about!)

Edited January 16, 2024 by Bauul

Cutman 999 · January 16, 2024

MAP15 - “Rubicon” by Scotty (Pistol start, used saves, 99% kills/80% items/60% secrets)

Another level that wildly kicked my balls extremely fucking hard. Looking at the author, is no wonder. Even the first fights can catch you off-guard in so many levels, and if you were playing this in an absent-minded way as I did at the moment of writing this, it can turn into a very messy blind playthrough. Definitively this map benefits a lot on foreknowledge, because the results are not always so apparent, and guessing wrong can get your dick turned into a pretzel. Making that rocket launcher a secret you can access like 60% into the map is pure goddamn evil, probably it was made this way to make dealing with long range monsters more difficult.

Talking about another thing, I like that purple archvile I'm not sure at all what its name is, moving just by teleporting makes it similar to a shitty enemy in doom 3, just that a lot better sense it can do stuff as soon as it teleports, and making it extremely high damage, but really fragile, balances it a lot. I want to see the potential of this monster with the regular vile, it seems they have a really, really good synergy together, at least on paper.

About the secret fights, the yellow key one you can turn it into dust with the bfg, simplifying it a lot and making not so easy to get killed, the other in the crusher room is a big motherfucker, since you need to know previously you need to flip the switches and technically, not engage with the fight in order to win it, which is again like i said at the beginning, not intuitive.

Aldo my overview of this map sounds a bit negative, i enjoy the spike in difficulty and I think it could have been a lot more ball busting, so at least you can say it was balanced for the project, and it was placed in the right slot to do so.

7/10

Edited January 16, 2024 by Cutman 999

cannonball · January 16, 2024

MAP16 - “Barbican” by Dragonfly

A nice opener with a rather unnecessary cyberdemon, the issue being that I triggered the trap involving it last and I never saw the cyber again once I went for the exit. The rest of the map is a solid three key hunt, now I think I lucked out because I stumbled upon the secret exit very quickly. There are some nice fights dotted around but you are given power up for most of them, so nothing too taxing.

Overall a solid opener, though I couldn't be bothered to get 100% kills here because of the wandering cyberdemon. Onwards to paradise...

MAP34 - “Freya” by Bri

Well by luck I found the perforator really quickly. This is a very colourful and lush environment that is a lot more liberal with the Eviternity 2 exclusive monsters. As such this plays at times like a mix of Bri's first entry in this set mixed with a more Plutonia-esque deployment of monsters, as such the new monsters can be deviously placed, not only that but there are plenty of turret monsters, usually revenants. The final fight I must confess to cheesing quite badly because out in the open I struggled to avoid getting hit numerous times. There are a medkit by the platform where the switch to open the exit resides, because of the design of the platform you can technically tucked yourself in there are reduce the number of directions the monsters can attack you from, this worked first time. Overall this was probably on par with Bri's other map, there is a lot of solid work here, though at times it felt a little crude and harsh. Also after a few secret maps that felt very out there, this just felt like a map that didn't fit into the other episodes, that said I felt the same about Map31 in that regard.

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