Plutonia Revisited Community Project: Released!

[Joshy]

Thought I'd post what MegaDoomer has sent to me via PM in case authors'd like to hear what he has to say about the maps. He's also said that he'd happily discuss with the authors if they'd like to via PM; feel free to do so if you want to.
_______________________________________
This is what MegaDoomer had to say::::
I've started playtesting the PRCP. I'm testing with PRBoom+ 2.5.0.7 on HMP.

So far I'm through the first nine levels. Overall it's been quite good so far :), though not perfect (not that I'd expect it to be, on the other hand). I'll be putting down any suggestions I have to consider for each map, in addition to bug reports. (If you want to post these in the main thread and/or PM them to map authors, I'd have no problem with that; your choice though.)

Map01 and Map02 were great. Good challenge, good layout, got 100% ratios, no bugs, all round great maps. :) I'd leave them just as is

Map03 is mostly good, but I have 3 issues with it, one of which is fatal:

-FATAL BUG: This has been posted about and someone recorded a demo of it on the project thread - the map is impossible to exit. Looking in Doom Builder, I think it is a problem with linedef 1851.

-This map easily is in the style of Map05 of the original Plutonia - therefore, I'd suggest exchanging spots between this and Map05.

-I ran out of ammo at the last fight unless I used the secret plasma gun. I'd strongly suggest making a non-secret plasma gun or a bunch of additional ammo available when the blue key door is triggered.

I did get 100% secrets and kills in the level though (by looking at my map stats).

About Map04, there's no bugs but I think there's considerably too much ammo, a little too much health, and the architecture is a fair bit too bare. The map also has no secrets. I'd consider it a very average map overall in its current form.

Map05 is very well designed and lots of fun with no bugs and 100% ratios attainable. Same for Map06. However, I thought both of these maps had a little too much health, maybe a tiny touch too much ammo also. Still, good maps.

Map07 was a very good and intense level, like its slot should be, but I ran out of ammo right at the end; I only had 4 shotgun shells left to take on the Archvile in the exit, and I need eight to bring it down. Also there are no secrets (not counting the "dummy" one at the start) and no difficulty settings. Not sure if Map07 is supposed to have either of these though, on the other hand.

Map08 had no bugs/100% ratios were attainable but it was actually considerably easier than the Jan. 9th version of the map (which I liked better than this) and now has too much ammo and health, especially the latter half. The design and architecture were fine though.

Map09 is very good, better than the October 28th version I played, but I still think it's a small bit too easy overall and a little less ammo/less health/more monsters would continue to benefit this one further. As before (on Oct. 28), there are no bugs and I got 100% ratios.

Overall, once again, generally good stuff so far...on to Map10 I go! :)

Map10: Overall it was good, especially for the author's first map most likely, with no bugs and I got 100% kills and secrets. However, as with most maps I have a few notes:

-I think that (mainly) the first half of the map is a bit oversupplied (not so much so for the second half, in general), in similar vein to some other maps in here. Again it's minor, but I think that slight added difficulty would help on the maps where I've mentioned this.

-Also the player can fall into the small slimepit surrounding the blue key and become inescapably trapped to death.

Otherwise this one was pretty good, as most maps have been. :) I also liked the music; it sounded like a real nice remix of Map25's music. In fact I think the music has all been good and fitting throughout this project so far. :)

Map11 is an excellent level - an improvement over the previous
version I tested in early December. The secrets are much better
now, not so predictable. I have three small things to note: there's a
touch too much health IMO (ammo balance seems right on though), I
like the idea of some items and their attendant traps being optional
but I think there might be a few too many such cases, and finally I'd
make the exit a death exit (as I think it was in the original
Plutonia). Otherwise very good, and I found no bugs with 100% ratios
attainable.

Map12 was another good map, nice mimicking of original style without direct replication. Again I thought it was a bit oversupplied on health, and a slight bit too much on BFG cells maybe. I'm not sure I'd really qualify the BFG area as secret either. No bugs I found and 100% ratios again attainable.

About being overdone on health though, that slight excess of health (and in somewhat rarer cases ammo) seems to be becoming a common critique of mine; maybe I've just improved my skills since I played the original Plutonia (which I'm trying to compare this too with regards to hardness) about a year and a half ago. So I'll probably keep mentioning it on maps where I notice it but ultimately the overall consensus of all testers might be best (as compared to just my feedback alone) in making the decision on whether or not to trim supplies/health a little. The few cases in which I said I ran out of ammo (Map03 end and Map07 end so far) should definitely be taken to note though, I think.

Map13 is, in a word, fantastic. The design rocks, the combat is intense and unforgiving, and I didn't even find there to be any excess of health or ammo here; I thought balance was perfect - good job to Paul (pcorf). There were no bugs either, and I got 100% ratios without any problems.

Map14 continued the high quality, with no bugs and all ratios attainable once again. However I thought there were somewhat too many shells and bullets (but not ammo for higher weapons, there I thought the balance was fine), and maybe a bit too much health. Also I'd modify the map to make sure the player can't just "run through" the room with the Cyber and later the Caco's/Pain Elementals/Hell Knights without doing the fights (add a switch that must be found both ways, or something of that sort). [WH]-Wilou84 also brought this same issue up on the forum. Good relatively short 'n quick map otherwise.

Map15 is one huge behemoth of a map, and it's generally a very good one at that. Playing on HMP, though, this very critical bug didn't affect me: The teleport thing destination at sector 125 needs to be tagged "easy". This is a possible game-stopper on lower skills that someone else caught. There are also a LOT of minor glitch notices posted by dew on this map; I didn't run into them, but thought in this specific case it was worth pointing out despite the reference to the the project thread already made in the first paragraph of this PM.

Anyways, on my side of playtesting, I got 100% ratios and boy the secret exit was quite well hidden! The design and architecture of this is incredible, easily topping any previous level in both size and scale, while retaining the Plutonia style. It also played well, but until about the 3/4-4/5 point or so of the map I thought there was a notable excess of supplies. It got hard at the end, but I'd definitely recommend dropping some stuff earlier, as the earlier pareas didn't seem very hard, even though they were still fun. My time was about 45 minutes before even looking for any secrets. Anyways it's a great level aside from the aformentioned supply excess during much of the map and the sector 125 bug that obviously needs fixing.

Map31 unfortunately, I found it to have many issues. First of all, if the player runs back to Sector 285 when it is raising (after setting off linedef 1727) to catch the secret, and goes in the secret or falls off on the other side, he/she will be trapped on the south side of the map. The teleports at sectors 290/291 should be lowered with linedef 1727 rather than the switch at linedef 801 to prevent this possible trapping from happening. Also 100% secrets is NOT attainable from what I can see as it appears there are secrets in the multiplayer only area.

Also I believe the map is considerably too easy with not enough non-cyber monsters around and too much health. Not that great a homage to the original Map31, I'd say. This is probably my least favorite map in the game so far along with Map04.

Map32 is insansely hard, but that's just as it should be! In fact, I even would suggest making it a little harder. Here are some things I might suggest; implementing all of them might be TOO over the top, but implementing some of them would make this just the right "ultimate challenge" IMO. The first few in the list (marked with *) are what I feel are most important; the later ones are where maybe implement a few but not all of them:

-* Make health a little less (ammo was fine, especially considering running out ammo in this type of map would make it impossible).
-* Make the player return to the yellow key room to flip some type of switch after hitting the blue key switch. As it currently is he/she could just choose to avoid the respawning Revenants and Archviles in that room after the afortmentioned switch is flipped. That would save a lot of ammo and work and subsequently leave the player with an excess of supplies for future areas.
-*When the exit is opened, lower the archviles so they can start running. That way the player has to face one last challenge and can't just run right onto the exit pedastel unless he/she gets really lucky.
-Put a window on both sides (rather than just one side) of the Revenant cage in the final courtyard.
-Consider making at least one or two of the Archvile in the E1M1 homage area able to be released and start resurrecting monsters, rather than just leaving them trapped on an overhang.
-Make the player do a little more work to get the BFG at the beginning.

Overall though, this map did seem harder than the October 29th version I tested, so it's on the right track. But in all honesty, I think this map should be almost, albeit not quite, Sunder difficulty, and easily the hardest map in PRCP by a long shot, right in spirit with Map32 of the original Plutonia, only raised to today's standards of difficulty.

There were no bugs I found and I attained 100% ratios on the level.

Map16 is a good, potentially very good, level, but many of the criticisms I gave Mista_T when this was first finished in December remain. There is still a slight excess of health, though not as much as the previous version, and a bit too much cells/rockets in the later parts. Also both secrets are ridiculously easy to find; it's funy they're even considered secrets IMO. Mista_T wouldn't do anything about this, but I really think they need better hiding, or less useful items in them. Some of the stairs still have bad texture alignment. And I thought the BFG with the yellow key switch ruined what could be a great and challenging final fight; I'd drop the BFG at least on medium and hard and leave the player with just the RL and plasma gun. This is another one of my strong suggestions Mista_T decided to pass up on, and I really think the change would benefit things greatly. It's a good level, but if those changes were made I think it would be really good. On the plus side, there were no bugs (unless you count texture misalignment as one) and I got 100% kills and "secrets".

Map17 was excellent. The design, architecture, and gameplay were all very good. The balance was actually quite close in this one IMO. My only suggestion would be for roughly the third, I found a touch too much health and a touch too much ammo - so exchange a small amount of health for ammo instead in the earlier parts. Otherwise this map was great and I attained 100%'s with no bugs that I spotted. The exit Cyberdemon trap was particularly memorable and the BFG, while easily seen, is WELL hidden!

Map18 has, first of all, an apparent small glitch/bug - the Mancubi that teleport in at sectors 546 and 549 after the player gets the red key and is on his/her return to the main area appear to just "sit" there and not attack anything - making them an easy kill and no threat. I doubt this is intentional, so I'd find the cause and fix it. I did attain 100% ratios and secrets though. Otherwise, I thought the gameplay was good, but save some of the big fight areas, I think health should be reduced a little. Also this is one of the first maps where I have to criticize the architecture. It wasn't bad, but some walls, particularely the GSTONE and GSTONE with vines make areas look very un-Plutonia-ish. The brown stone walls from stock Doom II don't look very Plutonia-like either IMO - brown brick varieties from the Plutonia IWAD would be much better. So overall this is a nice map but I think it could benefit from tuning on various fronts.

Map19 is very big, and I like the freeform layout, where you can go multiple ways but ultimately have to visit (at least) the vast majority of areas. It was another map, however, where I thought some of the architecture (mainly the green stock walls used) is not that Plutonia-like. Also, there was a significant excess of ammo in this level. In fact there was so much ammo that I can't really make a proper gauge on health, because I plasma-spammed my way through most of it with full shells and full rockets just sitting in my inventory. I would guess health balance seemed about right or maybe a little too much, but I'd have to play it with a proper ammo balance to gauge for sure. So I definitely think this map needs some work (with textures and balance), but it could be very goood if the issues are resolved. On the plus side, there weren't any bugs or glitches I detected and I did obtain 100% ratios. Also the music was great and I thought it added to the atmosphere.

Map20 is an excellent homage to the original Plutonia Map15; normally I would recommend moving it to Map15 (like I recommended reversing Map03 and Map05) but due to the secret exit on Map15 already being in place that would be very inconvenient so I guess this one will just have to stay in the "wrong slot". :( Anyways, not a big deal. As for the map, as I said it's good and this time the architecture definitely sticks with Plutonia, unlike the last two levels. The gameplay is also good, although I do again think there's a small excess of health and ammo in many parts (although, the ammo excess is nowhere near as severe as in Map19 so I was able to judge health as well). Otherwise all is good, and I got 100% ratios and spotted no bugs or glitches. I also liked the E3M7 remix for the music track. /End of MegaDoomer's feedback.

[Mechadon]

I've ran into two spots in MAP15 where I run out of visplanes and Chocolate Doom crashes. The first is viewing from a ledge where the red skull switch is it in the direction of the fence you hop over further on into the map. The second is when you actually hop over said ledge; if you view it from a certain angle it will go over the visplanes limit. I also ran into a really weird bug in the red skull key room. After grabbing the key and having the floor lowered, if I walked onto one of the ledges where the Demons/HKs are, the game would crash saying something along the lines of "no such sector special 2056". I reproduced it twice and on the third time it worked ok o_0

[Xaser]

Holy cripes. I'm seriously afraid to consider what will happen if every author takes the 'too much health' comments to heart. :P

Also, that key area in MAP15 really weirds me out, to tell you the truth. That crash is due to a random vanilla bug, and I really don't have a clue how to go about fixing it. The fact that it doesn't happen every time is what gets me about it...

There is something I could try... No guarantees that it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

[MTrop]

Regarding MAP16: I was thinking that maybe the Megasphere in the NE secret area could be changed to a soulphere and the soulsphere in the southern area be changed to two medikits. The player is left with a lot of bullets at the end of MAP16 and I'm not sure how to mitigate it, as the bullets are obtained late and by a lot of dead chaingunners killed earlier on.

Maybe the Bulk Cell packs near the SW plasma rifle could also be changed to small cell packs?

[dew]

ok, here's how i feel... megadoomer's feedback is impressive, but as he himself noticed, he outgrew HMP to an extent and should've moved to UV as his native difficulty. :) i found most of the maps balanced quite carefuly for UV - either health or ammo-wise, depending on author's personal philosophy. the best example would be map32 where xaser asks for more health and megadoomer for less. :p fyi, i reached the fake exit trap before dying when recording a UV FDA and i _suck_ with this type of gameplay, so while being quite tough, it isn't entirely nuts if you play like a sissy, heh.

important note here - it is entirely possible that HMP isn't balanced well enough and suffers from ammo/health stacking, it wasn't tested nearly as much as UV. so the feedback could be right, but the excess ammo would most likely be taken on _just_ from HMP. imo.

his map03 comment about ammo/plasma is right on money though. perhaps there should be yet another plasma in the blue key locked exit cube.

[waverider]

Did any of my maps "UAC Garden Facility" and "Venom", make it into the megawad?

Can't wait to play the final product! :)

[Joshy]

waverider said:

Did any of my maps "UAC Garden Facility" and "Venom", make it into the megawad?

Can't wait to play the final product! :)

Venom certainly made it :-), UAC Garden facility didn't, even though it's a really cool map. It would make a nice contribution to CC4. :P

[WH-Wilou84]

Joshy said:

It would make a nice contribution to CC4. :P

Yeah, not to mention almost every Plutonia texture is included in cc4-tex.wad, so porting a map is certainly an easy task. :)
I wish Philnemba did the same thing with his Infested Compound.

[waverider]

Joshy said:

Venom certainly made it :-), UAC Garden facility didn't, even though it's a really cool map. It would make a nice contribution to CC4. :P

Nice to hear Venom's in the megawad! :) I understand that "Garden" didn't quite make it, while I thought it was a pretty good map, it kinda lacked the right "atmosphere" at times, and of course you'll want the best maps in the megawad.

[Phobus]

dew said:

ok, here's how i feel... megadoomer's feedback is impressive, but as he himself noticed, he outgrew HMP to an extent and should've moved to UV as his native difficulty. :) i found most of the maps balanced quite carefuly for UV - either health or ammo-wise, depending on author's personal philosophy. the best example would be map32 where xaser asks for more health and megadoomer for less. :p fyi, i reached the fake exit trap before dying when recording a UV FDA and i _suck_ with this type of gameplay, so while being quite tough, it isn't entirely nuts if you play like a sissy, heh.

Hmm - I'd certainly say there being too much ammo on HMP and lower is to be expected on pretty much any map I make, as my method of reducing difficulty is to simply have less/easier monsters, very rarely altering supplies much, as the challenge would tend to rise again with less supplies to compensate for the lower number of monsters.

Whilst I personally will be leaving the ammo balance as-is (bullets and shells being the only one in surplus seems acceptable to me), I'm definitely thinking about trying [WH]-Wilou84's suggestion out with my map, as this is now a fairly common complaint, and his suggestion would mitigate it a fair amount. I'll leave it another day or two though, to let any further opinions stack up.

Judging from the feedback, I'm rather looking forwards to playing through the finalised megawad!

[Xaser]

[WH]-Wilou84 said:
@ Xaser : Thanks for testing my lil' map 32. :)
A pity you didn't like it much though, as you were the one insisting on the name change. :p

I'll try it again on HMP. A damn lot of work was put into it, I can tell, and I was just a bit frustrated at the time from trying to play over my skill level. I'm sure it'll be enjoyable this next time around. ;)

Good to hear that mine have been enjoyable, though! Thanks there -- After playing most of the maps here so far, it's really astounding me how un-Plutonia-like both of mine (esp. Garden) look in comparison. :P

I'll play some more soon. Got some work to do first, but Gambit is calling...

[EDIT] Hot damn! I think I fixed the red key crash in Helix. A bit simpler than I thought, too...

[WH-Wilou84]

Xaser said:

After playing most of the maps here so far, it's really astounding me how un-Plutonia-like both of mine (esp. Garden) look in comparison. :P

Well it seems to me that Plutonia contained a few 'surreal' parts and concepts in it, most notably with that red fleshy sky in its later maps.
In Plutonia 2 whole maps have been made around these surreal themes ( "Plutopia", "Red Hot"... ) and here in Plutonia Revisited your maps fill this role pretty damn well. :)

As for my map 32 and MegaDoomer's feedback, I'm not really sure of what to do. As it is the map is imho a bit too hard in HMP ( no use trying it now Xaser :p ), and yet MegaDoomer wants me to boost the difficulty even more... ( instead of simply switching to UV ).
I now feel that HMP should instead be made a little easier than it currently is. We don't want less seasoned players to switch to HNTR (!) for only one map...
I'll have a look at how some other maps play in HMP.

[Xaser]

Bwahahaha!

[C30N9]

Xaser said:

Bwahahaha!

:O!!!!!!!!!

[dew]

Phobus said:

I'm definitely thinking about trying [WH]-Wilou84's suggestion out with my map, as this is now a fairly common complaint, and his suggestion would mitigate it a fair amount.

i would normally whine against it, but we both know wilou isn't exactly right about speedruns, so i don't mind. :)

xaser> hahaha... man, you need to add a loud BONK sound.

[hawkwind]

maps 16, 25 and 27 still have DoomBuilder 3D camera Thing 32000.

[Rambosee]

Are any mapping positions open? I want to join! ^.^

[MTrop]

I'm afraid you are kinda late. This project's wrapping up.

[Phobus]

dew said:

i would normally whine against it, but we both know wilou isn't exactly right about speedruns, so i don't mind. :)

That is definitely one of the main things that would make me want to not alter the teleports - ease of access. Like I say, I'm waiting on it a bit, to see what else people say.

[Whoo]

Sorry to all the testers who had something to say about my map (31), as it appears the testing wad got an old version. I'll be sending the new version to Joshy for now so that he can either forward it to all of you or put it in the next testing version.

EDIT:

Also concerning the health, I got several mixed opinions on that. I'll be changing it a little, but not much since it seems to always seems to affect certain people. The new version will also have more cybers when you play in UV/Nightmare.

[Rambosee]

Can i at least test out the final product? See how it goes with the avaredge gamer?

[Joshy]

Rambosee said:

Can i at least test out the final product? See how it goes with the avaredge gamer?

Sorry mate, you'll have to wait for the public release testing version. It should come up within a couple of weeks.. depending on how fast the testers work and the mappers come up with their fixes.

[gun_psycho]

I'm pretty busy with stuff on my end, though I'll definitely do some testing over the weekend. (College is bogging me down a bit)

[darkreaver]

With scoredoom?

[gun_psycho]

@darkreaver - I'm not playing this with scoredoom, but I'll try it vanilla-style.

[Xaser]

Fronk!


MAP16: Gambit
+ Hehehaha, the revenant-wall scene with the arrow was crazed brilliance. "Quick, go here!" OKAY
- Super-minor nitpick: It might be worth shortening the transitional SFLR* textures by eight units on the brown side, so there's not a leaky pink row of pixels in imprecise renderers (i.e. anything that's not GL or Cardboard).
Overall: Waaaahooo! Didn't comment much along the way because I was too busy having fun. Great layout, VERY Plut-ish in design, and non-stop, well-balanced action. Didn't find the spidey much of a threat, but sometimes that's not a bad thing. After all the danger in the map, it's good to be able to unwind with a nice n' destructive BFG Rambo charge. Two Xaserthumbs up. :)

MAP17: The Unholy Crypt
- Not sure if this was what happened, but I'm pretty sure I was able to get nicked by one of the chaingunners before they were actually revealed. One somewhere was definitely firing at something, though.
+ Great texturing here. I'm sensing a Mucus Flow vibe for some reason. :P
- Watch the automap lines. Mark the secret ones as 'secret'. :P
Overall: Really liked this one, I did. Great design -- very 'open', it feels, with all the decorative areas you can see. Makes the map feel like part of a world and not just a closed-in segment. Fun throughout, and -just- enough ammo to clear everything... I managed to pull off an interesting finale. ;)

MAP18: Phantom Silence
- The lowering-doors to the revenant chambers in the Spiderdemon area are missing some lower textures on the sides.
- The outer lines of the spiderdemon area need the 'hidden' flag (sky sector). Cyber area ditto.
Overall: Good map -- definitely has eerie ambience, and the suspended walkways everywhere really add to the precarious feel of the place. The Vile section was well done, too -- a bit of a nice surprise, and a fitting one considering the music. :P

MAP19: Venom
- BUG: the intermission screen says "Sinister Daybreak" -- whoops. :P
- The fight at the blue key is way too much of a clusterfarg. The difficulty comes only from the tight jamming of monsters, and is pretty frustrating and cheap as a result.
- The near-end soulsphere Archvile does not teleport in if you save+load in the area in Vanilla, since he is only alerted from the previous area, which won't happen if the door is closed.
Overall: Not too keen on this one. It's slow as hell, really low on the equipment side of things at first, and seems to drag on forever. Good atmosphere, but it quickly devolved into a switch hunt, which really does nothing more than serve to artificially lengthen the map. I really feel as if it could do with being a bit less lengthy, if only by cutting out the red switches and just provide the key behind a yellow door somewhere (perhaps hide powerups in the other ones).

MAP20: Sinister Daybreak
+ Whoa, music :D
Overall: I like it. I'll admit I was never a fan of the original Plut MAP15, but this one not only lives up to the style but succeeds in passing it, IMO. Fun and well laid out with a fitting conclusion. Nice exit placement, as well. ;)

Random nitpick: "it's" is a contraction, not a posessive -- it's short for "it is", and the correct posessive form is "its". Hence, the MAP20-21 intermission screen reads "...stopped Hell in it is tracks." :P

[evocalvin]

The following bugs were fixed. thanks all tester's bug report and
great feedback about my map.

map 17 ... (by hawkwind)
1. Remove double-sided flag on line 2390.
2. Flip lines 3485/3496/3125/3097.

Map 18…
MAP18 Line 3494 back side lower has unknown texture '-L' probably should be '-' –4mer
Lines 1632/3787 missing mid textures. – hawkwind
- The lowering-doors to the revenant chambers in the Spiderdemon area are missing some lower textures on the sides. - Xaser

Map18 has, first of all, an apparent small glitch/bug - the Mancubi that teleport in at sectors 546 and 549 after the player gets the red key and is on his/her return to the main area appear to just "sit" there and not attack anything - making them an easy kill and no threat. I doubt this is intentional,

thanks for your report but It's not intentional
That’s quite weird problem because It happens randomly.
The mancubi part sometimes works fine or sometimes they move only and never attack me.
Seems the mancubi can’t see me.
I tested this cause in chocolate-doom, prboom-plus and zdoom, but these 3 source port came out the same result.
I also tried to enlarge the 2 cages area, but didn’t work.
I don’t know why.

I may redesign this part if the problem can’t solve.

[4mer]

evocalvin said:

Seems the mancubi can’t see me.

The problem with the mancubees not being able to see you is due to the reject. It is possible to edit the reject so that they can see the player. If you need any help with that PM me.

Something else I noticed while playing through your map was that there are some lines (1059, 511, 1061...) in the lava that are marked impassible (I fell off into the lava and was blocked by an invisible barrier).

hawkwind said:

Line 36 does not have a mid texture.

Well spotted. I will fix that.

[Xaser]

MAP21: Asmodeus Circle
+ Damn, you know how to make cyberdemons threatening... ;)
Overall: Wheeee, this was a fun one. Very faithful to the original, and an interesting layout to boot. Tough, though -- I was on low health the entire time, but it wasn't in a bad way, I suppose ;)

MAP22: Suicide Mission
- I'm not sure if you were exactly shooting for "fake exit", but if so, it's spoiled by the automap -- mark those lines as 'secret' ;P
Overall: Once again, very faithful to the original, and not a bad map at that. A bit linear, but it's fun throughout so I suppose that can be forgiven. :P

MAP23: Necrogenesis
* Hehe, I think I'm a sucker for this style of map. Living End, Final Frontier, Anti-Christ... and now this guy. I can already tell it's gonna be a favorite. ;)
+ SPIDERDAMN! Nice BFG area. :)
Overall: Yaaahoo! Great one, this. Looked nice & played nice, with a couple of dynamite secrets. A bit of backtracking, but it's not so bad thanks to the back-to-start teleports. Top notch work, I say!
Also, I managed to somehow get 100% across the board on this map. Bonus! :P

MAP24: Terra Incognita
- The pain elementals that pop out when getting the blue key are completely harmless, given that there's an impassible line between you and them that stops all Soul traffic.
Overall: Wicked cool! Nice n' expansive, and very MAP29... in fact, I'd say it's moreso than either of Plut's tributes to it. Like a lost Romero Doom 2 map, nearly. Had a blast with it, I did!

MAP25: Wicked Garden
* Xaser is a monkeyface.

[dew]

ok, i've took the wad for some coop testing. you know how i bothered everyone with that stuff. :) here are some notes from getting ultra-slaughtered on skulltag survival, heh. they concern coop only!

map01
there's no coop stuff here, but the map is paradoxically harder, as in painfully difficult for map01! more people = more targets for all the chainers, more ammo waste, less healing.
- add 1 green armor and about 20 shells (separate, not a box) and 1-2 bullet boxes at start or near it.
- spread about 100-150% health around the map
- consider a chainsaw for the desperate ammo wasters

map02
this map works well in coop, except there's just 2 berserks and the other players waste ammo on pig swarms, creating ammo shortages.
- add a chainsaw at start so everyone can melee fight

map03
this map is insane right now (and i've removed the stuck archies from our test version). the second cyberdemon in the blue key area is pure murder, the hitscanners at start brutalize the nearly defenceless players 2-4, there's generally not enough ammo to kill everything.
- convert the blue key room cyberdemon into an archvile, that should suffice
- deposit 2 green armors and at least 200% worth health around the main circles to balance the hitscan hell
- a soulsphere in the BK area?
- convert cell charge thing 307 into a cell pack

map04
has been reworked already

map05
so much fun in coop thanks to players going different paths, then meeting somewhere, etc. on the other hand we had to turn double ammo on, it was fighting for every shell before that. more players mean more ammo waste, not to mention ammo lost on deaths.
- consider a green armor in the baron hallway
- put two more shell boxes in the imp room!
- add two bullet boxes in the pain elemental room
- scatter 5-10 rockets around the map
- another shell box in the BK room

map06
this map works great, the ammo drops from all the zombies provide all the excess ammo needed.
- consider a green armor somewhere

map07
hilarious, but also hilariously deadly. more players create a huge clusterfuck, hehe. it is manageable with proper planning and team roles.
- the outside cybers wake up too early by spotting some of the players, then they end up owning the shit out of people inside even before it is cleared. perhaps they should teleport in along with the spiders?


not tested beyond that yet. as you can see, it is BRUTAL... kinda what i asked for, but now i see we managed to overdo it a little. :)