The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1

[scifista42]

Seele00TextOnly said:

Recommendations on how the current setup didn't work and how it could be helped?

How about something like a big and specially unoverlookable arrow on floor or ceiling leading to the exit path, or any other highlighting of it, so player will more likely see it soon? (-> and realize which keys are in fact needed)

[NuMetalManiak]

I looked at them when I first played and was originally thinking that I needed every key. But replaying the level proves what I originally thought false. Yes, I was indeed able to squeeze through with just either red/blue keys or yellow key only.

It works, I just didn't look at it too closely, and I should've.

[dew]

scifista42 said:

How about something like a big and specially unoverlookable arrow on floor or ceiling leading to the exit path, or any other highlighting of it, so player will more likely see it soon? (-> and realize which keys are in fact needed)

i know this sounds totally logical, but in btsx's case adding anything on the floor/ceiling often risks going over the visplane limit, haha.

[esselfortium]

scifista42 said:

How about something like a big and specially unoverlookable arrow on floor or ceiling leading to the exit path, or any other highlighting of it, so player will more likely see it soon? (-> and realize which keys are in fact needed)

An exit sign above the bars would potentially do the trick. Might be slightly misleading due to the one final room past the teleport, but it's probably a fair trade off for making the goal more explicit.

[mouldy]

MAP18 - “Cyclone Utilities (Remember Your Birthday)” by Sirjuddington/Esselfortium

Very nice map, really enjoyed this one. It killed me a bunch of times early on, but that gave me the opportunity to scope out different routes each time, and lucky i did or I'd have missed the SSG. Some meaty battles in this map, particularly liked the room with the big water tanks and the following yellow key ambush, which I only survived through blind luck. There was something quite old-school about this map, I'm not sure what it is - I think it might be the inclusion of optional areas like the crate room, that really helps give a map the feel of a real place rather than one built specifically for gaming purposes.

I also didn't realise that you only needed half the keys to exit. After getting red and blue keys I did wonder for a moment if I could squeeze through that gap, but I was having so much fun playing I convinced myself that it looked too small just so I could carry on.

[dew]

Veinen said:

Map17: Navigating Flood Regions

FDA.

oh wow, this was fun to watch. those bait cacos at the windows in front of the BK platform were when your luck started to go up and down like a rollercoaster, i laughed out loud at that. i also laughed when you got minimal damage at the nukage lift, lucky bastard!

[Capellan]

map15
I liked most of this. It seemed like there were plenty of different ways to approach the map, allowing you to explore different routes and options.

Fight-wise, the caco trap on the red key was fun, and the exit onslaught (normal exit, I didn't find the secret one) was also a good one.

The section behind the red door felt rather like padding; it was brief and very easy, and should either be dropped (and making say sector 5 the red door instead) or amped up (this applies to all difficulty levels, looking at it in DB2; even on UV there's no challenge there).

Visually almost everything was food; the one thing I didn't like the way sector 1022 looked, especially on the non-corner sections. It made those grey boxes look like they ought to topple over, to me.



I'd suggest putting another 64 wide sector on the opposite side of the wall to create a visual 'counter-weight'.



map16
If these hub maps are meant to achieve anything other than to delineate clusters, I'm not getting it.

[Tarnsman]

Barrel segment behind the Red Key door is there solely to blow stuff up with barrels. Why? Because blowing lots of stuff up with lots of barrels is the near-zenith of mindless doom fun (BFGing hordes of Hitscanners is the only thing that tops it). Not every second of every map needs to be challenging.

[Capellan]

Blowing up stuff with barrels is a thing this map already does 50 billion times (that's a rough approximation :) ). It doesn't need an entire subsection that does nothing more than repeat the same thing yet again.

edit ... another approach would be to make the current red key section optional. That way players who want yet more barrel action (and the secret off this area) can get it, without it being tedious for those who don't

[Tarnsman]

You can never have enough exploding barrels man, unless you like hate joy and happiness... and Christmas. More optional areas are always awesome though.

[dew]

Capellan said:

another approach would be to make the current red key section optional. That way players who want yet more barrel action (and the secret off this area) can get it, without it being tedious for those who don't

although i doubt a 30sec detour where you dispatch two sets of monsters with chain barrel explosions could be "tedious" unless you're exaggerating, that area could be optional. it's a bit out of the way and player has to recall where it was, or check the map. opening the big door directly from the main area would probably cut down the chaos factor a little and the "control room" area could still be RK locked and worth it because of the cell pack secret.

If these hub maps are meant to achieve anything other than to delineate clusters, I'm not getting it.

that's because you're not playing -solo-net! seriously though, i think we already covered this - clusters were added back when we realized there's no way the team would've stopped at 32 maps and the project was split into 3 wads/episodes. suddenly those became kinda sparse though and we wanted to reach some of the text intermissions without going full dv2. essel says it's for the secret maps, but don't believe him. the wads filled up since then, but the hub idea grew on us. and yes, it delineates clusters.

[punnyone]

Map 18 - Cyclone Utillities (Remember Your Birthday) - Sirjuddington/Essel - 100% Kills, Items, Secrets - HMP Skill

Wow, this map's certainly changed since the last time I played it. I thought I would miss the original ending rooms which have now been scrapped, but all in all, I think this streamlining and redecoration of the level was for the best. In my early playthroughs, I found this map to be a bit samey, texture and theme-wise, but having parts optional and all connected now almost gives it a sandbox-style which I love.

There are some brutal parts to this level, notably the drop off into the lava section and the really cool looking water tank room (those pain elementals!)Secrets were a bit harder to find this time around, and due to the sandbox nature of the level, I almost didn't get full kills.

The music was really nice too, it heavily reminded me of an Eternal Doom track (it's probably the synthesized marimba sound that brings back that nostalgia). All in all, I like the new look of the level, it's certainly an improvement, and I enjoyed it.

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day14: Big Chief Chinese Restaurant (foodles/essel)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 10:21 (played on v. 099j8)

This thread is moving so fast and I actually lag behind a little, so I'll do another one today. Although it's already the following day in my timezone. Anyways. This is another of the most ancient maps. Actually, I think it's one of the three oldest maps I got to play along with Torn's and one of RottKing's maps. E1 is quite a museum of early design it seems, people started with the techbases all those years ago.
EDIT: Memory fooled me, the map is roughly from mid 2011, so not one of the oldest maps. Oops! It probably feels ancient, because Foodles more or less disappeared after he handed us the "finished" map - except BtSX maps are never finished.

Foodles' map had pacing issues from the start, to be honest. We all liked the rooms, they were all nicely done, but gameplay was on the boring side with too much meat in front of you down the next hallway. essel did one massive visual rehaul that made the map look up to par with the rest (read: samey, forgettable, boring) and also tweaked the layout in several ugly bottlenecks, then we tinkered with the gameplay endlessly. From the bitching in this thread I assume we need to tweak a little more in the "transitional" parts, because I'm content with the SSG room, the balcony and (save some minor tinkering) the final fight. The items grabbing your autoaim on the balcony are not gonna change. ;)

The demo is not entirely polished, but I did give it some serious attention to make it look good. I'm very aggressive to get the maximum out of infights, even though it's suicidal in some situations. I'm rather proud of this one, you could say. The revenant snipers in the final area are extremely annoying to shoot down, heh.

Fun Fact: Whoever called the blinking HK neutered pissed me off. :) Next time he's going to warp right into your face, when you're sitting on the toilet. The guy originally walked up that long hallway and I wanted a cool looking way to get him into action while there still was some.

[Grain of Salt]

Oh no I'm late

MAP01 - Yes
MAP02 - I don't like the mancubi near the start
MAP03 - It's good, I like it.
MAP04 - I love this map. Excellent bricks, great monster placement... I don't like the building where you get the red key at all, though. It seems a weird shape
MAP05 - I like how you get a sense of the overall layout of this location in the open areas, but at the same time I don't really like any of the horizons in this map.
MAP06 - Probably the most memorable map of the first few. The very first time I played this map, I had the sound muted, and when the revenants appeared behind me at the end I just died without any warning, which wasn't much fun.
MAP07 - I love the underground areas, but I don't much like the big open spider fields in the main area. They feel much less controlled than most btsx maps. Interesting use of spiders though.
MAP08 - Actually the episode hub is one of my favourite maps in btsx, because it's the one that just feels the most like a real place. Way too small though. Nuts to your episode progression thing, just give me a huge empty train station to wander around in.
MAP09 - I like the last few rooms of the map (when you have all keys) a lot more than the rest. I'd like to cut that part off and file it into a horrible ordeal thing.
MAP10 - There's a really cool little area with small plutonia-esque bricks, and I'm just gonna hang out there.

[Sp00kyFox]

long time, no see.
after several months of playing other games, seeing evo and quakecon I'm back for some good old doom gameplay.

just wanted to ask before I start with one of these wads, are both designed to be playable with pistol start?

[Jayextee]

MAP18 - Cyclone Utilities (Remember Your Birthday)

It's not my birthday yet.

This seemed like a very gentle map, though many mid-range enemies abound, including a lot of revenants. Nothing worthy of note, I guess, apart from the awesome lava section which looked good and was fairly tense as I couldn't back away and peck at fights from safety -- which is good! Just a shame that it was loaded with enough cells to fill me up; although I didn't just BFG the pain elementals and chaingunners, I could've done.

In fact, this map is super-generous as-is. I love the yellow/blue-and-red key nonlinearity, I went for red/blue personally. And the end section was low-key but neat.

[scifista42]

MAP19 - “Bingo Pool Hall of Blood” by Tarnsman/Esselfortium

This is the new map. And it's unforgettable and really different from the rest of the mapset.

IT'S NOT A TECHBASE. It's a city map! The last thing BTSX needed to be perfect. Might remind the Industrial Zone from Doom 2, with all its height variation, buildings and lifts, but of course it's a modern map with highly polished design and modern gameplay. By which I mean...

Although the map starts with only about 100 monsters in it, it's a massacre! Definitely something for hardcore pistol starters. Honestly I couldn't imagine beating this map myself without fully packed BFG and rockets I brought from previous levels. But on pistol start the map initially gives you only a shotgun and berserk, and then floods you with revenants, pain elementals, archviles, cacodemons, spiders, mancubi and even the mastermind right away. I'm actually curious what you pistol starters will say about this map.

I managed to get both secrets. One of them is amazing, as it introduces never seen yet textures that are... find for yourself.

This map is far above my player's capabilities, as even on continuous play I had to abuse saves/loads due to dying way too often. Which for me however doesn't exclude that I was enjoying it thoroughly. Those details! Vanilla pushed to limits again. I was also given plenties of free space to move around (and dodge), so I can't complain about it being totally unfair. I just can't always handle archviles and PEs in such numbers while projectiles are bombarding me from all directions. I say - great map. I'll let possible difficulty-wise suggestions to be considered by other players instead of me, I don't complain.

[Jayextee]

MAP19 - Bingo Pool Hall of Blood

Fuck this map.

No, I'm kidding. This has been, unequivocally, the finest map in the set so far. It starts with the pressure cranked right up (I'm wondering how pistol-starters will cope though) with towers of projectile throwers everywhere, a mastermind on patrol and Archviles in every route of escape.

Technically, this is a short map. Yellow key in the center tower, red key up a lift and exit. But the playfield is re-energised so many times throughout, it certainly cranks up the challenge.

Spoiler

And how many fucking Archviles are released after the red key? Heaven!

I loved this map the most.

[Tarnsman]

5 on UV, 6 on solonet. It was 10 on UV and 15 on Solonet, but the cries of "Tarns this map is unbalanced and broken as fuck, fix it!" made me reduce that number.

Edit:

For those curious about Map 19, Essel made a 2 hour speed map with stock Doom 2 stuff about three weeks ago, then we decided 2 days before the latest release to make a new map so I took his layout detailed it, added new areas to it, and redid all the gameplay about 8 hours using textures that didn't exist when I started detailing the map (essel made the entire CITY and CITYCONC sets in about 3 hours while I was working on the map).

[Jayextee]

Final figure is great. I was fearing a very front-loaded map, but the pressure is kept up nicely. Good work! :)

[Tristan]

Sorry, I got sidetracked by other things and stopped posting on this.
All I can say though is that last time I played BTSX, after the final map you just went to a map called "That's It" and it was just a 0 brightness nothingness. Just a placeholder I see. What's been done with it is amazing. However, there's something I'm unsure of.

And if you haven't seen the end of BTSX-E1 yet, for god's sake don't read this, even if I do try to keep as little spoiler out of it as I can.

Spoiler

Once "To Be Continued" can be seen, nothing actually happens. I noclipped around for a bit and found a voodoo doll. Was there supposed be a telefrag here? I was using PrBoom+

Anyway, I'm now very interested by the start of E2

[Alfonzo]

Hello there folkpeople of Doomworld. TTV's Where's All the Data? concludes its streamthrough of (Kindly) Get Out of My Stations with quality commentary from key developers Pavera and Esselfortium.

Part 2a (map16-17) = http://www.twitch.tv/st_alfonzo/c/2771607
Part 2b (map18-25) = http://www.twitch.tv/st_alfonzo/c/2771618

We shall return for Favillesco and finger food! Please don't take all of the spicy capsicum dip. I want some with my tortillas when I get back.

@Eris Falling

Spoiler

That's all she wrote! The map doesn't feature an exit or anything as it was the developers' wish for the player not to stumble into a horrifically palette sodomized Abandoned Mines at the end of their Domino voyage.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP19 Bingo Pool Hall of Blood

The new map.

Fuck I think I missed a secret in this one, the northeast one was the one secret I could go to but I can't find the other secret :/.

Anywho, this large open map has low monster population of 78 on HMP, but almost all of them are the big fighters, hellknights, mancubi, archviles, arachnotrons, cacodemons, painelementals, and revenants (oh and about four or so chaingunners and a spiderdemon). It can be difficult to dodge the archviles as well as the spiderdemon if they start running around. When first starting, I somehow stumbled into a teleporter in the east where there's an invulnerablity for the taking where I end up (not a secret), which totally helps. Southwest area has intersting jump sequence to get a rocket launcher but not much else. Grabbing keys triggers teleporter ambushes, yellow triggers cacodemons to fly around, red I think summons archviles. Word of advice, even though you can access the northeast secret from where the red key is, don't grab the key and hit the secret soonafter, cuz the archviles and anything they resurrect can be a roadblock if you wanna get outta there. A nice change of pace for a level *almost* devoid of nasty hitscanners, but I missed one secret and the battles can be difficult depending on how things are played. Final Time 5:56.

[Tarnsman]

Alfonzo, I don't know what you're talking about the last 5 levels look amazing with BTSX resources.

[SFoZ911]

I can't wait to get my hands on the BTSX texture pack, it will sure be a happy day for me.

[Jimmy]

Here is what will probably be my only contribution to this thread.

MAP19: Bingo Pool Hall of Blood
This map, ladies and gentlemen. This map.

[cannonball]

Seele00TextOnly said:

In response to the 8/9 secrets posts, I ran through again and it is possible to get two secrets without flagging them, I believe. The most likely culprit is the Blue Armor that raises out of the floor on a tiny sector; that sector is substantially smaller than the armor itself. I just pulled that off myself, apologies for that oversight as tester. The other is the Blue Key, which one can snatch while running across the lowering sector without touching the sector I believe.

Readdressing this point after watching Dew's demo for this map, yep I missed the soulsphere secret just past the red key door so me missing a secret was due to me not spotting one rather than any issue with the map.

[Veinen]

Glad I can provide some entertainment with my recordings! Truth be told, I didn't even notice how lucky I got in the nukage elevator in map17 haha. I thought I had more health than 20 before the missile hit me but I guess not.

Map18: Cyclone Utilities (Remember Your Birthday)

FDA. The last FDA for this wad for me since this is where things really start to get nasty (on solonet at least). Maxkills, 3/5 secrets with final time being 28:26.

A fine map this one. Kinda similar non-linear approach like in map12 but this time you don't even need all the keys. I did notice that the YK wasn't required to move on (after already grabbing all of them though) but there's no way I'd voluntarily leave survivors. But I think it's still cool to give options for the player beyond the usual non-linearity. Of the three routes I found the BK one the least interesting since it didn't have any particularly threatening encounters and it was mostly just shooting enemies in front of you.

The red key route was alright and had some solid battles. The lava pit area looks really good and the fight there was pretty neat as well. After grabbing the RK, shitloads of enemies teleported on to the ground level which made for an ok massacre. On solonet, a single AV teleports in also which I thought was an excellent addition and proved to be a bit problematic.

The YK route, however, was easily the best of the bunch and had a lot of exciting action. I liked how the main area in this section is recycled thrice with more opposition introduced every time. The twin water tank -area was absolute golden combat-wise. In the demo I play it pretty cautiously but I replayed the map on UV and went totally nuts there releasing everything asap and running around spamming plasma. Loved it and it worked just as good. Also props for that one smaller ambush which got me good. There was a Manc sitting on top of some stairs and when approached a closet opens up behind you revealing three Revs which then proceeded to nearly blast me to pieces.

The final area was a bit weird to be honest, I thought the map should have ended with the YK-switch teleport trap. The final secret there is also very redundant since pistol starters have no use for it and there's a berserk pack at the start of map19 so continuous players don't have much need for it either. Also the crate-maze was an odd addition but it's entirely optional so I can't really complain about it too much.

"Fuck you, Tarnsman." were my initial thoughts as well about map19 but I've actually warmed up to it quite a bit. But more about that map later or tomorrow.

[esselfortium]

Eris Falling said:

Sorry, I got sidetracked by other things and stopped posting on this.
All I can say though is that last time I played BTSX, after the final map you just went to a map called "That's It" and it was just a 0 brightness nothingness. Just a placeholder I see. What's been done with it is amazing. However, there's something I'm unsure of.

And if you haven't seen the end of BTSX-E1 yet, for god's sake don't read this, even if I do try to keep as little spoiler out of it as I can.

Spoiler

Once "To Be Continued" can be seen, nothing actually happens. I noclipped around for a bit and found a voodoo doll. Was there supposed be a telefrag here? I was using PrBoom+

Anyway, I'm now very interested by the start of E2

Spoiler

The voodoo doll is used to trigger the end map automatically in Boom-compatible ports. In vanilla, the conveyor belt line action is ignored and the end map starts to lower you as soon as you move slightly in any direction.

Killing you at the end would just make people press space and start the level over, which wouldn't really help its purpose as an end screen.

[dobu gabu maru]

Finally got some time to squeeze this in.

MAP09: I must admit I'm a bit disappointed that the "section 2" theme doesn't feel significantly different than the first. Perhaps there's a tonal shift I'm overlooking but this feels like it could've easily fit on the end of the last section. Gameplay-wise the level is a lot of fun now that I'm without proper arms, making engagements a little more interesting. Some spots however, like past the blue and yellow key doors, seem to punish the player for pushing ahead, prompting them to stay by the side and snipe it out. Music was really nice too, I especially like the drums during the mellow part.

MAP10: An alright map this time, not too much to say about it. I liked that there's at least a change in scenario since more of the outside and underground gets to be explored, but the gameplay became a little stale after the more frantic beginning. The two fights I liked the most were the SSG fight in the pit (good use of a PE) and the finale (which unfortunately winds up being easy due to the copious amounts of health strewn about). Also, I think these need block monster lines to avoid getting the arach stuck like I did in ZDoom.