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

[punnyone]

Map 19 - Bingo Pool Hall Of Blood - Tarnsman/Essel - 100% kills, 94% items, 50% secrets - HMP Skill.

Damn, this was a hard level...it was also a hell of a lot of fun to play, and it both looks and plays really good. But holy hell did it kick my ass a lot!

I'm glad that we got a new map that didn't involve replacing or scrapping any of the other already established maps (Otherwise we'd have something along the lines of Alien Vendetta's Valley Of Echoes where there would be people constantly asking for the link and download for the lost level!)

The level also is easily the most unique in the pack, and depicts what appears to be the downtown district for the UAC crew who are stationed on Saturn X. The whole sandbox element of "Downtown" combined with the smaller, but deadlier group of enemies, (no imps too IIRC!), plus the whole texture theme of the level hasn't really been used to this abundance in the other maps so it really feels unique.

Difficulty-wise, the opening (all those enemies coming after you at once!) and concluding (those arch-viles!) ambushes are the most deadly. Nothing's more insulting than successfully dodging a mastermind, revenants, and several arch-viles only to be taken down by a mere chaingunner! It was a welcome challenge for such a late in the episode map, and I'd rank it as one of my favorites.

As for secrets, I got the gothic secret (which gives us a more full fleshed look at textures that I presume will be all over E2, they look fantastic!), but I could not for the life of me find out how to get the last secret. I no-clipped to find out where it was, but since I didn't legitimately unlock it, I don't count it as my total. Even then, how it's supposed to be unlocked alludes me entirely.

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day15: Tricyclic Looper (Mechadon)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 18:48 (played on v. 099j8)

As you'd expect, Mechadon's E1 contribution is a megasized nonlinear beast only contested in size/playtime by map12 and one other big boy. Unlike those it's a not a sandbox or a hub that sends on you several magical adventures, it's one devilishly interconnected maze. Comparing it to the inside of a supercomputer seems fitting, actually. It's quite cramped most of the time, but Mek is a fountain of ideas, so you don't feel like ideas are repeated... except for his caco horde fetish here. Three times? At least. :) They're all good and varied battles though. The now famous defense of the RK tower is actually a tough battle on coop, what with an addition of PEs and everything getting the idea to fly over high things to get to you, so they bite you from high above.

I have to mention how insane Mek is when it comes to feedback. Almost any feedback post will result in a new revision, he doesn't wait for more reports to come in. He used to number his revisions, but then it went over 10 and he just started adding dates or some codewords. He defeated even my beta archiving OCD. I usually store all the intermediate versions, but I gave up on all the mek versions. :) What also drove me crazy was that I felt compelled to test all his revisions over and over, but with the massive size of the map this is a hell of an undertaking. Sometimes you forget what was supposed to be changed, haha. But we all knew Mek was a human map factory, didn't we.

The map is fairly unique in the whole BtSX set in that you can change routes around every second corner, there might be just another one or two maps all around that let you screw with the progression this much. It's not about picking a "branch" like in map12, you have to decide where to go all the time, only to realize you've looped back, hah. This makes the map a nightmare to max in a demo and I love that. During the playtesting I've chiseled something of a set route I thought was fairly logical and timesaving... and now I decided to screw that and rebuild the little detours, only to realize it's probably faster than before. Part of that, of course, is achieved by introducing an easy, but very cool looking rocket jump that helps me screw with local progression, although I don't abuse it as much as I could. :)

Fun Fact: This is the shortest Mechadon map out of 4 submissions. Fear. (Actually, the "5th" Mek/Vader map is shorter. Yeah, those two made a map together, spoilers!)

[Xaser]

dew said:

I have to mention how insane Mek is when it comes to feedback. Almost any feedback post will result in a new revision, he doesn't wait for more reports to come in. He used to number his revisions, but then it went over 10 and he just started adding dates or some codewords.

With his E2 maps, he sorta stopped doing versioning altogether. A certain map has been named "mek-btsx-unstablejourney--telefix.wad" for ages despite the teleporters being fixed long ago. :P

[esselfortium]

dew said:

Playtester's War Journal, day15: Tricyclic Looper (Mechadon)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 18:48 (played on v. 099j8)

As you'd expect, Mechadon's E1 contribution is a megasized nonlinear beast only contested in size/playtime by map12 and one other big boy. Unlike those it's a not a sandbox or a hub that sends on you several magical adventures, it's one devilishly interconnected maze. Comparing it to the inside of a supercomputer seems fitting, actually.

[...]

Fun Fact: This is the shortest Mechadon map out of 4 submissions. Fear.

And if memory serves correctly, this was originally intended to be a small speedmap :D

[mouldy]

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

Wow, is this the same wad I'm playing here? This map is so utterly different from all the previous ones its hilarious. Difficulty goes way up, gameplay goes from methodical to madness - I don't know how you are supposed to play it, but I just ran around the whole place like a headless chicken gathering weapons and a small army of monsters behind me. Maybe you are meant to take things a bit slower, but with the guns spread far and wide and stuff sniping at you from all angles it pays to keep moving. Somehow I managed to survive in this fashion all the way up to opening the yellow door, whereupon I died from archvile ambush. By that point I was having ammo problems so I started the map again and it turned out i was just lucky first time round. The main bastards were not the archviles (although they are bastards to be sure) but the pain elementals, filling the place up with lost souls and sapping my ammo. A whole bunch of deaths later and I'm back to the yellow door, prepared for whatever might lurk within. But the surprise came from outside with a whole gang of viles appearing after the red key. This map was ridiclous fun from beginning to end, definitely one of my favourites of the wad so far. Also, the megasphere secret gave a nice hint of the hell that is to come (hopefully). Bloody marvelous.

[cannonball]

MAP19 - “Bingo Pool Hall of Blood” by Tarnsman/Esselfortium
This map I feel really shows the weak points of the wad as a whole, because it's design time is completely different to other maps (aka a speedmap instead of the map being refined constantly for months on end resulting in some homogenisation and some loss of individuality of the original map)
This map is simply awesome, small monster count, sandbox nature with the weapons scattered like a deathmatch arena. Add some big monsters and a metric fucktonne of arch viles and pain elementals which kicked my ass over and over again.
It looks nice, plays awesomely, never did I feel cheated by this map, just killed over and over again and me thinking "fair play"
This map is one of, if not the best map in the set so far. Complete breath of fresh air to the other maps.
Looks like everyone is in agreement here :)

[Tarnsman]

cannonball said:

MAP19 - “Bingo Pool Hall of Blood” by Tarnsman/Esselfortium
(aka a speedmap instead of the map being refined constantly for months on end resulting in some homogenisation and some loss of individuality of the original map)

Except this "constant refinement" didn't happen and I'm tired of hearing about it. The only maps that were "refined" were either BROKEN in vanilla or pushing the limits so hard that areas had to be left bare and looked blatantly unfinished. (Excluding a couple of things like Map 18 where everyone constantly complained it was long and sloggy and suffered from being made 4 years before like any other map.) Had I submitted BPHoB six months ago it would be the same map it is today. Most maps only changed based off the first round of feedback, same with BPHoB. Shit, more changes to the maps have been made in response to shit pointed out in this thread, than were "refined" during initial development.

[dew]

cannonball said:

(aka a speedmap instead of the map being refined constantly for months on end resulting in some homogenisation and some loss of individuality of the original map)

uhh, you're wrong. there's a fair share of btsx designs that started as speedmaps. what you say also implies that we actively dumbed down some "better maps" so they'd be as bad as the rest?! dude, think before you post.

[esselfortium]

What dew and Tarns said.

To give you an idea of the sort of thing that would cause major revisions to be made to a finished BTSX map, here's a preview of the original version of E2's start level, Shadow Port, before shadowporting was a verb: http://imgur.com/a/5gb6Y

[Suitepee]

http://youtu.be/2KAMi-x4T7E = promo video for part 2 livestream.

Time to resume my adventures in Back to Saturn X Episode 1 for the club tomorrow evening (19th August) at 7pm BST/GMT time! Hope to see esselfortium there so he can mock my UV skill/provide wad advice, Jimmy there so he can talk about his great music, and the other usual suspects as well as any newcomers as I correctly use the software renderer this time around to continue my adventures in space!

Twitch channel is in my signature, will do a writeup for the club the day after the stream happens.

[cannonball]

dew said:

uhh, you're wrong. there's a fair share of btsx designs that started as speedmaps. what you say also implies that we actively dumbed down some "better maps" so they'd be as bad as the rest?! dude, think before you post.

Three questions for you
1) Where did I say the maps were actively dumbed down
2) What exactly does "actively dumbing down a map" actually mean with respect to mapping?
3) A 2 hour speedmap has probably been praised more than the majority of the other maps so far which have obviously been tweaked to various degrees due to the extensive playtesting this wad has received over the past months/years. Please explain that, I'm curious to know.

[j4rio]

those are 2 questions

[dew]

cannonball said:

Where did I say the maps were actively dumbed down

in the part i quoted, when you said maps refined over months are weaker than a speedmap. it's right there.

What exactly does "actively dumbing down a map" actually mean with respect to mapping?

well, you tell me, you came up with that ridiculous idea speedmaps were somehow better and more distinguishable, even though you didn't really know what you were talking about, seeing as there are many speedmapped layouts in the wad.

A 2 hour speedmap has probably been praised more than the majority of the other maps so far which have obviously been tweaked to various degrees due to the extensive playtesting this wad has received over the past months/years.

what's your point here, fuckwit?

[j4rio]

Sorry for jumping it, but

dew said:
in the part i quoted, when you said maps refined over months are weaker than a speedmap. it's right there.

I don't see it.

dew said:
well, you tell me, you came up with that ridiculous idea speedmaps were somehow better and more distinguishable, even though you didn't really know what you were talking about, seeing as there are many speedmapped layouts in the wad.

No, you. The term "actively dumbed down" is your invention. Nothing of that sort is even remotely implied from what you quoted.

Also, you're an overreacting prick.

[dew]

you're entitled to think that, jario. anyways, i can totally agree that tarnsman's map is great - but then it's the case of tarnsman creating a great map, not of some strained theory that speedmaps are superior to maps revisited over time. its thematical difference from the rest of the wad is simply caused by the fact that city maps weren't considered before, it was a last moment decision to allow it.

i'm totally okay with people who don't like the wad, or certain maps in particular. i try to look for the constructive stuff in your posts which are mostly much more critical. passive aggressive bullshit in cannoball's third "question" just grinds my wheels though.

[j4rio]

It seemed to be as a point that adresses nothing that was in the end retorted. Loss of homogenization and individuality, I imagine that's pretty much every map that was worked on by two people and each added a different area. Yes, maybe a silly point which I could have interpreted badly, but still far from speedmap superiority.

passive aggressive bullshit in cannoball's third "question" just grinds my wheels though.

Yes it was agressive, not even passively, but it was downright provoked.

[Tarnsman]

I turned one of my 5 in 100 speedmaps into a BTSX E3 level and the only changes it will probably see between now and the five years it takes E3 to get released will be ME replacing a room or two I DISLIKE and feel are half-assed.

[cannonball]

dew said:

in the part i quoted, when you said maps refined over months are weaker than a speedmap. it's right there.

Just because I said I like one speedmap over other maps in this wad doesn't mean I have the same stance in another. A good map is a good map. Doesn't matter whether it took 30 minutes or 6 months to make

well, you tell me, you came up with that ridiculous idea speedmaps were somehow better and more distinguishable, even though you didn't really know what you were talking about, seeing as there are many speedmapped layouts in the wad.

I didn't say that. I said one speedmap is better than other maps in this wad. It's not a blanket statement, it's just my opinion of this wad so far.

what's your point here, fuckwit?

All I wanted was an explanation which you gave 2 posts later.

but then it's the case of tarnsman creating a great map, not of some strained theory that speedmaps are superior to maps revisited over time. its thematical difference from the rest of the wad is simply caused by the fact that city maps weren't considered before, it was a last moment decision to allow it.

Yes it's a diffrent style, more sandbox compared to the more hard line tech bases in this episode which allows more freedom in the encounters which I felt led the map to feel more dynamic than others I've played, plus having all the weapons readily available and plenty of space allowed the player more freedom as to how the map could be tackled which I liked.

[dew]

fair enough, i'm glad we were able to clarify the situation.

[Tarnsman]

The "outrage" here is over the claim that many of the maps were "homogenized" due to excessive polish, which is objectively untrue. Gameplay was left up to the map author excluding things that were extremely unbalanced or broken.

[Steve D]

As someone who's been away from the Doom scene until recently, I'm curious, what is meant by "sandbox style"?

Yes, I really am that ill-informed. ;D

[punnyone]

SteveD said:

As someone who's been away from the Doom scene until recently, I'm curious, what is meant by "sandbox style"?

Yes, I really am that ill-informed. ;D

Basically it means the level is very open ended with multiple paths and ways to finish it as opposed to a linear path. It also has some optional sections that are not necessary if one is speedrunning or not aiming for 100%. Doom 2's Downtown is a great example of this.

[Steve D]

Thanks, pizzabob18. I'm pretty sure I like that mode of play, so I look forward to reaching Map19 to test it out.

[Steve D]

Map14 (Continuous) – Big Chief Chinese Restaurant by Foodles and esselfortium – Kills – 102, Items – 100, Secret – 66. Time 42:11. End Health 100, Armor 34. Death Count – Zero

Trying to catch up after falling behind (as usual).

This is another gorgeous but relaxed map. The base interior looks fantastic and it’s surrounded by nice-looking outdoor areas that help inspire a sense of place. I also have to mention Stewboy’s spectacular track “24,” one of my absolute faves in a mapset loaded with great tracks.

Gameplay is what we’ve become accustomed to, which is monsters mainly in front of the player, snipers up on platforms, with occasional traps and a couple fierce battles. The fierce battles make the map, although in this one, you have to be careful about sticking your nose onto the outdoor platforms, especially at Sector 437, because sniping Mancs and Arachnotrons are there to distract you while Sergeants blast you from the side, and when you turn to engage the Sergeants, you might get torched by the big guys.

As cannonball mentioned in his commentary, the Mancs and spiders are placed across from you with an open field below your plane, where smaller monsters serve as auto-aim bait for “Good at Doom!” disasters. Thanks to cannonball for the warning, because I turned auto-aim off for this area and got through with ease.

Ease is a watchword for this map, with too much of the incidental combat relying on players to fling themselves into new rooms so that monsters gain an advantage. For casual save-and-reload players like me, this makes for a very easy map, and in places, a rather dull one. The monster setups are too tame for too much of the map, though there are better parts, like the red key Archie trap which put a smile on my face, and the occasional danger of Revvies and Chaingunners that usually got 20 points or so off my health. Luckily, there’s plenty of health to restore you to specs. Still, after this map I decided I’d need to play more aggressively if the monster and trap setups were going to stay this . . . gentle. As it turned out, the next map was rather more intense even without more aggressive play.

While I agree with Tarnsman that maps don’t have to be challenging 100% of the time, this one seemed challenging only about 25% of the time, if that. My suggestion, probably unpopular with most players, would be to add more Chaingunners here and there, and in some dickish locations in, say, the 4 o’clock or 8 o’clock position in relation to the player, to the extent one can actually predict that, so they can get some blasts off before getting killed, and the player gets drained of some health. The Chaingunner in Sector 520 is a good example of this. Another specific example -- if the Sergeants in Sector 587, which overlooks a nukage pool, were Chaingunners instead, that room could be a real bitch. It was a bit unnerving as is, but that would add more spice, for me at least. The current monster mix has a fair number of mid-tier monsters in largish rooms, which tends to make maps easier rather than more difficult, assuming you have enough ammo.

Aside from the red key Archie trap, the two real highlights of the map are the “leap of faith” past the blue door, and the Revvie horde at the end. The former was a good fight, potentially fatal if you make a couple mistakes, but a fun battle where I ran around like crazy, blasting away. The Revvie horde almost killed me and really got my blood pumping. I was down to less than 24% health before I finally prevailed, and was thankful that so many Medikits and Stimpacks were available to restore me. I did find the ammo a bit tight, even on continuous, which also appears to be a theme of this cluster.

Overall, I liked the map. It was beautiful to look at, and Stewboy’s excellent music helped create a strong atmosphere. I liked it mostly for the beauty and atmosphere, but there were some nice fights, too. I also noticed HOMs in the Sector 523 area playing on Risen3D, but since this mapset is aimed at vanilla compatibility, that’s probably not important. The problem was not present in GZDoom or ZDoom. I also like the use of red flats, as Capellan mentioned IIRC for Map13. The Meshred texture is especially awesome.

[Crusader No Regret]

The mapset continues to hold my interest.

map 12: did not finish, 6 deaths

The monster count hints at bigger maps to come. Multiple paths give this a feel of adventure. The combat is more intense than map 7. Quite a number a early deaths. One attempt, I made progress in an area with a slime river before falling to health starvation. Never found any weapons bigger than a SSG in these attempts. Only time I reached a key is the last death. Snagged the blue key and proceeded to die a stupid death. I picked the worst place to drop into: right in front of a Spider Mastermind without any cover within reach.
Only found one secret: early SSG. I'll be coming back to this map; it's definitely quality. It was an arbitrary choice when I chose to stop recording.

map 13: did not finish, 2 deaths

Aborted recording while still alive due to real life circumstances. Found 2 out of 3 secrets with little trouble. Other than the start, most monsters appear at a distance. Gameplay felt like a breather which makes it appealing for casual play though easy to get flanked when rushing (this occurred during one of my deaths). As a disclaimer, I made it about 2/3rds of the way through before stopping.

[Moustachio]

MAP17:

MAP18:

MAP19 and MAP20 coming soon!

[Urban Space Cowboy]

Map 10: That lonely outdoor pentagram teleporter looks woefully out of place, especially after getting accustomed to the pattern of animated circular blue flat == active teleporter, still circular blue flat == teleport landing. Is there not enough room to put in a lift or stairway instead?

Map 11: More teleporter zanies with the red colored lights which at first I didn't realize were usable teleporters at all. What's more, there's a large red light in one spot and four smaller red lights in another spot so it's not even consistent with itself.

Map 15: When a map is by Mechadon, you know two things: First, it's gonna have that streamlined recycling symbol of his somewhere. Second, it's gonna be fraggin' huge. Sprawling multi-pathed complexes seem a tradition for maps with secret exits, and it delivers, although it's NOT as ridiculously gigantonormous as the maps from the Vela Pax betas -- I think Mechadon actually benefits from vanilla Doom's strict limits, since it forces him to restrain himself a bit and not tack on 10,000 rooms to every map.

Map 16: It seems kind of pointless to build a whole 'nother area of the tram station just for this map, but oh well you're the boss.

Map 17: Inescapable slime pit right at the start! Boo! Hiss! And with the blue keycard on a ledge with a gap in the railing that the player can sail right through into the drink?! OSHA's going to come after you with pitchforks and torches!

Map 18: First order of business: This map's title is too long for the automap display. Try just "Cyclone Utilities".
Second order of business: The map has indeed been overhauled quite a bit, and not all for the better.
The Good: Adding a lift to the ledge with the blue keycard; getting rid of lots of annoying blocking fences; getting rid of the "pull switch and dash for lift" bit on the way to the red keycard. And of course, MORE BARRELS. :)
The Bad: Making two out of three keycards optional (sure, you COULD go for all three keys -- but effectively the progression is now required yellow key, optional red and blue keys -- how about requiring two out of three if you don't want to go for the hat trick?); stripping the exit area down to the bone (and people were complaining about OTHER maps having anticlimactic exits?? Hahaha).
And The Ugly: The passage to the final secret area is flagged entirely invisible, even though the doorway is RIGHT THERE. Surely y'all can think of a better way to hide it.

Map 19: The northeast secret area's Hellish metal/marble/flesh texturing looks reeeeeeeally out of place. Yes I know it's a secret, but seriously now: aside from this one secret area, the most Hellish this episode gets are bits of map 22 and about half of map 24. Going from techbase to EVIL FACES CARVED IN RED MARBLE!!! is too much too soon.
Speaking of secret areas: Let's see, first shoot a not-at-all-obvious distant switch. Then go to a completely different area to find a secret passage, the existence of which was previously not at all hinted, and which OF COURSE is flagged entirely invisible (seriously stop that). Let's try that again, shall we?
The northwestern area's "all tram service suspended" sign -- why? The southern door from this area only opens from the outside even though there's a teleporter into there back at the map start -- why?

[cannonball]

MAP20 - “U.S. Mustard Company” by RottKing
Can't say much really, a very solid map, well designed with some good traps, good monster placement and surprisingly easy to find secrets (found 7/8). I died a lot in this map, health and ammo can become quite scarce, especially in the first half.
One niggle was the blue armour secret, I really don't like that revenant being there, as he got a couple of jabs on me which were impossible to avoid. Maybe it might be best to remove him.
Whilst this map didn't exactly wow me, it's very solid and probably a 7 or 8/10 map. Good stuff.
May I add that I've enjoyed this episode a lot more than the second section so far.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP20 U.S. Mustard Company

And you thought Big Chief Chinese Restaurant was a crazy title :p.

Really though, this level isn't hard, but it's certainly long, with eight secrets. I fucked up at one point and ended up missing a few secrets (and monsters), then later on I found out that the red key switch, not door, operates a lift leading to a teleporter which teleports me back to the beginning so I could get some missed secrets and monsters. Interesting layout, and combat overall was not tough, only one really troublesome area somewhere in the center south of the second layout. Neat level, but kinda boring. Final Time 14:49.

[cannonball]

Tarnsman said:

The "outrage" here is over the claim that many of the maps were "homogenized" due to excessive polish, which is objectively untrue. Gameplay was left up to the map author excluding things that were extremely unbalanced or broken.

Fair enough, US Mustard company certainly feels like a Rottking map given the layout and the way the secrets are built feel a little double impact like at times.