Going Down

[mouldy]

Katamori said:

I just recorded MAP12, 13 and 14, and I have a question:

mouldy, did you test these maps properly? or are you a sadistic mapper?

I mean, I seriously had a WTF reaction for the difficulty on E2 maps. I can't imagine, how could you take these amount seriously...both design and concept are amazing, but maps are so cruel and trollish that I almost got a stroke while recoding.

haha wow! That map 12 can be the most difficult map of the whole wad, the traps are triggered when you pick up items, so its easy to grab everything and trigger all the monsters at once. Here is a demo I recorded after many attempts where I only just manage to get through without dying:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/yn1bjykslhg5o8c/gd-mouldy-12.lmp
I think demon of the well beat it on his first go.

But yes episode 2 can be a bit brutal and chaotic. If it starts getting too frustrating you could try putting the difficulty down maybe

[Katamori]

Then you are just sadistic. And successfull at this. :D

[Beginner]

FDAs for this wad.
I like this wad so far, maps don't look boring and gameplay is quite a hit, though sometimes traps and ambushes become frequent enough to make player predict them on the go.

[mouldy]

Beginner said:

FDAs for this wad.
I like this wad so far, maps don't look boring and gameplay is quite a hit, though sometimes traps and ambushes become frequent enough to make player predict them on the go.

Nice one cheers! I've gone through episode 1, very entertaining. Some of those maps gave you a hard time, if its any consolation the ones you didn't finish you saw most of anyway. You have quite a rambo play-style which suits these maps well, now I shall make a cup of tea and watch episode 2...

[Katamori]

MAP13. I had to cheat here, sorry.

[mouldy]

Oh dear, that went a bit bad at the end. That archvile which was trapped behind bars escapes when you get to where the mancubus alcoves are on the stairs, so its a good idea to kill him before you drop down into the middle. But there are still a lot of monsters waiting down there and it can get pretty busy.

Here's a demo of me playing it
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zmxdtvh8dwl32tz/gd-mouldy-13.lmp
I also get swamped by monsters at the end, though I managed to squeeze out of it and finish with just a few shells to spare. Took me a number of goes to get the hang of this map though.

[Katamori]

Well, it's just a mod, there's no catastrophic consequences if I cheated a little bit at the end. I think :D

[mouldy]

heh.. "you are only cheating yourself" as my grandfather would say. Not that he ever played doom, so what would he know.

[Katamori]

Haha :D but honestly, I finished 80% of the map before I cheated; also you could see that my situation was hopeless.

I make these videos (to entertain, but also) to show people your WAD. I think I did it well even with some cheating myself. :D

[Demon of the Well]

Haha, so that's what happens if you leave that guy alive. Dick move. I guess the blue armor in there implies that the bars open up at some point, but it's probably pretty easy to forget about with all the other shit going on.

[plums]

"Don't leave archviles alive if you can kill them" is a pretty good rule to follow in general, though.

[mouldy]

On UV difficulty another vile appears there even if you kill the one behind the bars, so potentially you'd have 2 of them up there. I don't even like to think about the consequences of that.

[Katamori]

MAP14 video. Better than the previous ones, with an amazing concept, but still mercilessly tough. Notice the bad berserk placement I highlighted in the second half of the video.

[mouldy]

Interesting. There are a few ways to do that map with 2 different routes to the final area, I think you might have picked the hardest one. The berserk pack is intended to be a health bonus either for after the battle or as a risky pick-up during the battle. I didn't expect people to fight the mastermind up there (and added the demons to discourage it) but as always you can never predict what people will do.

You also ran back past the hellknights which I think demon of the well did as well, which I didn't expect people to do, but it seems it is instinctive to do that rather than run into an unknown area. I've since changed it to make it harder to escape that way, which you probably wont be pleased to hear :)

A bastard map made out of nasty surprises.

[Katamori]

Okay, well, I recorded MAP15 and MAP31, but it takes some time to convert them, so until that, here's a small teaser, a kind of gift.

BTW, MAP31 concept is great but the last stairway was proven to be unbeatable for me again.

[mouldy]

pfft, cheers.

Map31 final stairs can be a bastard depending on how the archvile behaves (or archviles on UV), i've never really decided on a reliable tactic for that bit. Sometimes I just try and fight it out on the stairs, sometimes I rush forward into the archvile cupboard and blast them to death. Beginner posted a load of FDAs a few posts up, and his tactic was to rush through the teleporting monsters at the top of the stairs and hammer them from behind, which kind of worked.

[Katamori]

Was it that bad?

Anyway, I never check FDAs, I'm not that interested in walkthroughs. I'd rather do it myself instead.

[Katamori]

My mic went dead, so I have to make the remaining videos with facecam. You can see the agony on my face at least!

[mouldy]

Nice one, you did well there without the soul spheres on the pillars. Nobody seems to get those, maybe I need to make it more obvious that they are lifts.. they weren't intended to be like a secret, but i didnt want to put switches on those pillars in case they get confused with the ones that release monsters. dunno..

[plums]

When I played that map, my expectation was that they would lower by themselves at some point, which obviously didn't happen. But yes, maybe a different texture would be more intuitive.

[Katamori]

I was still happy that even without them, the arena itself wasn't THAT hard.

[dobu gabu maru]

Yeah with that texture is tough to tell that the lift is activatable since it's not used as that before in the wad IIRC. Perhaps some SUPPORT2 on the edges would help

[Katamori]

AAAAAAAAARGH, accidentally I deleted my MAP31 recordings, and even some minutes from MAP32!!

Sorry mouldy, there's gonna be a small "plothole".

[mouldy]

hehe whoops. Oh well, here's a demo of me playing map31 for anyone who is interested.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zvdubsedib8ssob/gd-mouldy-31.lmp

The technique I use for dealing with the archviles is kind of reckless, but seems to be the best way I have found

[Katamori]

Meanwhile I created the "partial" MAP32 video as well.

[mouldy]

uh oh, you are using an old version of the wad that was missing the blue key on map31 HMP difficulty. I'd recommend changing to an updated version of the wad in case there are other bugs that have been fixed since then.

Here is the latest version:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/60kvkuz12x8cf3y/goingdownE2-apr19.zip

[Katamori]

Actually I have already recorded MAP16, 17 and 18 - they were pretty much "bugless" so it doesn't matter anymore. Unless you don't know about any additional fatal errors on MAP19 & 20.

[mouldy]

I think you should be ok on the last 2 maps, though there was an issue with the exit on map 20 not working properly in prboom, that shouldn't effect you though.

[Katamori]

Okay, I recorded the rest of the maps.

MAP19. Sigh. Mouldy, I understand that you love hardcore maps, but even you can't take this map seriously. The Arch-Vile zone is completely unplayable!

MAP20. After I could (barely) kill all the incoming imps (which took 2/3 of all the monsters of the map) it was surprisingly easy and nice.

Ending "cliffhanger" is just awesome, can't wait for the final episode!! I'm gonna upload the remaining videos ASAP BTW.

[mouldy]

heh, I figured map 19 might be controversial. Its actually not as tough as it looks if you are used to handling viles, but i was interested to hear from people who play on HMP as they might have a hard time even with the extra invulnerabilities.