The DWmegawad Club plays: Valiant

[Tristan]

MAP04: Moonlit Stroll
| Kills: 108/110 | Items: 53/59 | Secrets: 1/1 | Time: 04:26 / 16:21 | Deaths: 1 |

Aha, there we go. Sometimes I've managed as far as MAP06 on HNTR without dying, but that large fight at the start of map caught me out this time. Said fight gives the super chaingun yet another chance to really shine, although for me it ran out quite early on, so I had to resort to the SSG instead. Not a problem though, as it was still very enjoyable, even if it did claim the first ErisFail, in addition to being somewhat contradictory to the map name :)

Arachnorbs are first introduced on this map, and they make up for their low health with a pretty high damage output. This first encounter was easily dealt with by using rockets, though I can understand it's easy to be caught off-guard by the group that attack from behind.
Guess I also joined the club of "missed the two monsters that teleport onto some random barrel somewhere," though I seem to recall I destroyed all barrels I saw. Perhaps there was a sneaky one hidden away somewhere. The soulsphere secret seemed to trigger itself, so I have no idea what you're actually supposed to do to get it. I just looked round and it was lowered.

The visuals in the first area were very nice, quite reminiscent of some of the themes I've tried to make myself with some of my mapping endeavours, though with varying degrees of success (mostly failures :P)
Also like the use of stewboy's "River" here. Fits the setting very well.

9/10

[NuclearPotato]

MAP05-Aggrovator

The episode's really picking up here. Lots of wide open spaces combined with waves of hitscanners, imp and revenant fire means you have to keep moving to survive. Arachnorbs pack a pretty big punch, as it turns out, shredding my health down to almost nothing twice. Secrets were relatively straightforward this time, though I nearly missed the plasma gun secret's trigger.

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

[Demon of the Well]

Well, well. I start the month off being waaaaaaaay behind, and on a mapset I voted for, at that. Let's see if I can claw my way back a bit. Felt like recording some FDAs this time, so I'm using the recommended new build of PrBoom+ (skill 4, complevel 11).

Map 01 -- Bad Reception - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Excellent opening shot, one of the best I've seen in a map 01 for quite a while. Not that this is really surprising, you can pretty much always count on Skillsaw for some nice colorful vistas, which he accentuates with his signature clean industrial base architecture. I say 'colorful', note, as perhaps even more than his recognizable architectural trappings it's the use of vibrant, saturate colors--here, deep blue night sky, deeper blue water, lush green vegetation, and neon yellow trim on a clean slate-grey concrete framework--that really defines his visual style, lending so many of his maps a certain redolence of old 16-bit action games from the days of SNES and Genesis. The Stewboy track is a fine choice as well, urgent enough in tempo to emphasize that this will be a fast-paced game but mellow enough in mood to complement the unthreatening action and pleasant 'midnight stroll' flavor of the aesthetic.

Generally speaking, I quite like the non-traditional approach to map 01 gameplay here; sure, the map's an easy introduction to the game, but it's big and airy (and very tall, vertically) and has a monster population that's rather robust, both in terms of bodycount and in species variety, with revenants, mancubi, and even an arch-vile all making an early debut along with the requisite host of imps, demons, and sloppily reanimated human corpses. The rocket launcher also debuts at about the halfway point, and with a little foreknowledge it can probably absolutely brutalize most of the remaining population after that point, again emphasizing what will presumably be a mapset-wide focus on fast, loose, and somewhat player-empowering action. I did find myself yearning for a chaingun while romping around on top of the outer wall later on, but with balance changes it's apparently a little too early to be handing that one over yet.

Balance changes! Most immediately noticeable is the rapid-fire pistol, which, Stomper sprites aside, allows the weapon to chew through basic enemies at close range a little more efficiently than the standard Doom pistol does. Nice thought, I suppose, but I doubt it will be much of a big factor in the long run, since the basic shotgun still seems preferable as a general-purpose early weapon where ammo allows. At this early date I don't see the much-vaunted enhanced imps being much of a problem for me (since I tend to overdodge anyway, unless the map makes doing that dangerous, not a design trope I think of as very characteristic of this author, incidentally); I reckon I'll be able to adjust to their altered attack pretty quickly, since their HP and footspeed don't seem to have changed. On that point, I can tell already that the new souped-up pinkies are inevitably going to throw me off my game at a clutch moment sooner or later, so we'll see how that goes. Most unsettling of all has got to be the zombies, though! Never mind that they haven't been changed in functionality at all, seeing those extra rotation frames that they're using is still messing with my head a little.

A fine map 01. Wholly apart from its duty to introduce some of the balance changes, I appreciate that it allows me to stretch my legs a bit, I generally prefer this more substantial sort of semi-cinematic introduction to more traditional snappy little base maps as a warmup.

Map 02 -- No Rush - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA, 1 death
D'oh, died once in this one via chaingunner, and very nearly died a second time during the opening blitzkrieg on the second attempt. An augur of things to come, perhaps?

So, speaking of snappy little base maps, this level is something like a little yappy dog with the heart of a mad jackal, its very limited real estate containing no small degree of monster density, wild crossfire, and at least one potentially rather nasty trap (nasty because it takes place in such close quarters, primarily). The new chaingun also debuts here, and she's a beaut, functioning more like a proper minigun than the classic chaingun. The thing eats bullets at an astonishing rate (I'm assuming the bullet-holding capacity was changed solely for this weapon), but it tears through low-tier enemies like an industrial saw through ricepaper, and has truly beastly painstun potential against hardier targets. Interestingly, the changes to the weapon are not just straight power buffs though--it seems like the chaingun-tapping technique is pretty much off the table, for instance, since the weapon has a short but significant spindown time after each firing cycle concludes (no spinup time though, fortunately). Interesting, interesting.

Anyway, the close-quarters battle (again against a wide variety of opponents, with cacodemons, pain elementals, and lost souls all making mostly understated debuts) and the chaingun define the level's style, a scrappy rip-and-tear sort of skirmish where your bullet-saw and Valiantguy's running speed try to mow down the monsters before they overwhelm him in a sea of weak attacks. Good thing it's as intense as it is, incidentally, since I feel like Skillsaw has made this map before, maybe even more than once before--in structural/layout terms, he has a template or two that he almost always uses for these early-game maps (he saves the more topographically adventurous stuff for later, generally), and this is a textbook example of the breed, feeling like nothing so much as a hybrid of his early map in CC4 and one of the first couple of levels of Vanguard. Hell, even the aesthetic theme is something of a straightforward mashup of these two, depicting a stark utilitarian concrete base (CC4) overgrown by grass and vegetation (Vanguard), not a wonder considering the place is half-flooded (both). The template itself is constantly undulating terrain with lots of terraces and braces of windows and ledges that is nevertheless very brief/compact given its modest scale, with gameplay mostly emphasizing target prioritization between mostly weak (but close/damaging) targets. It's a simple formula, and works well enough, but like I said, most folks have probably seen this from Skillsaw before, and so it's perhaps understandable that the map is being brushed aside a bit.

Cute little rabid chihuahua, this one. It's the chaingun that makes it.

Edit: not a fault of this map in particular, but I might as well mention early on that I am a bit disappointed that despite Valiant's willingness to tweak the game's balance lost souls apparently haven't had their HP reduced or anything, so they still remain one of the least satisfying enemies to fight/kill in the game. They look cool, though, at least, heavily reminiscent of the design of the similar enemy from Doom III's official expansion pack.

Map 03 -- Tiers of Pain - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Puns! Not particularly fitting though, this bitesized little number is very quick and mostly painless, with a heavily-armed player cleaning out a few small waves of bad guys before moving on his merry way. The word 'waves' is particularly fitting here, since the level is functionally very simple as a combat space, and the different groups of monsters that teleport in as the player claims each of the two keycards are largely interchangeable in terms of numbers, composition, and deployment. Well, they aren't literally identical/interchangeable, of course, but the fights play out in much the same way in either case, so they might as well be; making it through the first few moments is probably the most demanding bit, although that probably only so for players uncomfortable with running starts. The inconveniences of infinitely-tall actors can be vaguely bothersome here depending on your approach to the level, but hardly a serious issue in this case.

Aesthetically, it's more of the creeper-laden concrete storage base from before, with more of the Skillsaw-template concrete base architecture, the distinguishing feature here being that the whole area is essentially a compact series of terraces. My favorite feature has absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay, actually...I quite like those tree-covered mountains you can see in the distance from a few points, they recall the more scenic aspect of map 01 and help to distinguish the scene here stylistically from map 02. The trail of health potions that lead you to your kit and secret compartments actuated by target-switches are also a nice whimsical touch, emphasizing that openly arcade-like feel of a lot of the gameplay in Skillsaw's work.

Decent enough little setpiece/arena map, almost seems like a bit of a 'Skillsaw does Scythe' venture or the like. Could've perhaps done with more differentiation between the two key waves, but alas, can't have everything, I suppose.

[dobu gabu maru]

Like Demon I'm trying to claw my way back into present day.

MAP02: Woah nelly that chaingun has some "oomph" to it! Like the pistol, I think the major drawback here is that it's real easy to spend the entire belt filling a single enemy with holes, which can be nasty later on. Case in point, by the time I grabbed the yellow key I had run completely out of ammo (I missed some minor pick-ups here 'n there) so I was forced to dance my way around the latter enemies in order to make my way to the exit. Ammo starvation aside, it was still an excellent, more "classic Skillsaw" level that's quick on time but loaded with baddies asking for lead. Good stuff.

[cannonball]

Map06 - “Engineering Disaster”

Well this was a really cool map, after 4 straight maps where the theme has been similar, we get this expansive flooded city-scape. This plays really well and again the difficulty is pitched at tricky rather than overwhelmingly difficult. You need to keep moving but there are enough resources to cope. That said it is easy to miss certain weapons with the plasma gun and SSG requiring a bit of platforming to reach them.
I died a couple of times at the red key due to the horde of arachorbs.

Really cool stuff and probably my favourite map so far.

[Pirx]

Map04 - Moonlit Stroll

Starts like a stroll in the park, a beautifully crafted mountaineous area. Same rocky texture as in Bad Reception, where the sight with the far away antenna was amazing. Here it's a mix of caverns and open spaces, with vines hanging from the rocks into every arch and opening. Enemies are a mix of many imps and demons and some revenants, and teleport in as you progress through this map, promoting an aggressive approach. SSG, chaingun and rocket launcher are found here.

Picking up the blue key allows you to enter a base built into the mountain, where you run into the arachnorbs for the first time, a floating arachnotron brain without its mech. Weaker than a caco, but does much more damage due to its plasma fire. I like this lower health, higher damage approach. The base has an outer area where trees and bushes are put to great use
(and you have to pay attention to the shootable switch for the soulsphere taunting you from above). return to the caverns for the exit, requiring 3 keys.

now on how to play that, i mostly try doing things step by step, so get SSG and gun them down from the start, but it's more efficient to just rush through and into the base, from where you return with 30-40 rockets and massacre the mob waiting at the base door.



Map05 - Aggrovator

Funny map name for a good map, a base with imps and revenants on a few concrete structures in the center. To the left there's the first important one where you get the SSG and the chaingun, the move around the others to collect ammo found in small quantities to keep one from camping. The opposite side has a warehouse where the RL is found. Also a berserk. I used that one confidently in the red key building when i saw myself swarmed by demons, but holy shit did i get bitten badly. Probably the best thing Skillsaw could do to make the pinky more threatening: it doesn't move silly like in a silent movie, it just bites faster. Eh, i learned that lesson. Should have been that way in vanilla doom, IMO. I saw now from Krankdud'd speedrun that one can step carefully around that area and leave the red key building without releasing the pinkies. Neat.

Pressing the red key switch raises a platform connecting the central structures so you can get across and pick up the next key (blue IIRC). There's an ambush by an archvile waiting behind crushers, luckily i had seen the revenant and lured it outside so i could chaingun the vile, and it kept him in pain state much better than the default chaingun. That's a fun weapon. There's a dozen or so angry arachnorbs and some cacos coming after you, but there's the exit, again a 3 key affair.



Map06 - Engineering Disaster

Said disaster is a flooded city, with a very fitting Duke3d track (as Duke had the best city maps at the time), so a lot of open spaces, jumps and teleports from one building to another. I wish doomguy had a jetpack.

Not very difficult, as there's mostly plenty of space to maneuver, with the exception of the part at the yellow (?, iiRC) key where i rocketed myself to death in close quarters, the part with the slowly lowering teleporter. My problem was mostly the fact that these arachnorbs and fast imps put so many projectiles in the air that i ran into them several times after the bombardment was over, or so i thought, because someone was firing at me across the map. I often strafe in small steps, but it's better to change this to a wider, continuous circling against these enemies.

The BFG and the spiderdemon battles were more an exercise in infighting. Great map, i really like it. But it gets better when you know your way through the city already.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP06: Engineering Disaster
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

After a bunch of tiny bases, we get a larger city-scape. Skillsaw does a great job here of making the level feel huge through use of large vertical space and the opening vista of being able to see the whole level at once; it's actually more of a medium-sized level in reality. Agree with Pirx that there's a very Duke3d feeling to the city, in a good way. Lots of enemies from all sides, but once the player finds where the heavy artillery is, it's nothing tough.

The map requires a bit of exploration for the search for all three keys, though the yellow key must be grabbed after one of the other two. This is a bit of a shame since I feel the red key ambush (with the fleet of aracnorbs) is the best one, while the battle for the yellow key feels like a bit of an afterthought... the BFG given there also feels a bit unnecessary. And like other maps we've seen so far, once the player has grabbed all the keys, there's no replacement monsters or final ambushes, so the last part of the level is a bit quiet and anti-climatic as the player just returns back to the exit.

[Tristan]

I made a bit of a blunder, and as a result, I'll be pistol starting MAP05. All future total times will be done via manual addition.

MAP05: Aggrovator
| Kills: 96/96 | Items: 32/33 | Secrets: 1/2 | Time: 04:36 / 20:57 | Deaths: 3 |

Initially I had forgotten this map, but as soon as I started, I remembered that it's THIS map. The one where I get to run around like a headless chicken trying not to die. I find that clearing the perimeter first was the easiest method. Which worked right up until the very fucking end of the map. Grr.

Definitely the most difficult of the set so far, and I had to do it from a pistol start too D:
Reasonably fun, but I can kind of see why it's got its name. Not one I'd rush to play again.
Fun music though.

7/10

MAP06: Engineering Disaster
| Kills: 178/182 | Items: 76/90 | Secrets: 0/3 | Time: 13:43 / 34:40 | Deaths: 0 |

A map using a flooded city theme, and Bobby Prince's "Water World" for music. I instantly recognised this as a tribute to DN3D's map, E3L3: Flood Zone. I had mixed feelings about that map, but this one less so. The theme is executed brilliantly, and the combat is fun throughout. Still loving that chaingun, and I feel this is a map where the imps - surrounding the edge of the map and sitting on top of buildings, able to hit you nearly anywhere you go - really shone here with the fast fireballs.
The mastermind makes its first appearance here, but it was very easy to deal with, by getting arachnotrons to attack it. That being said, something about the design of the arena made this a bit more difficult than the usual mastermind/arachnotron setup.
I liked the arachnorb fleet at the end, enjoyed shooting them down with rockets. I very nearly died in this map just past the platforming section. An arch-vile turned to attack an imp at the very last second. Whew!

Nice long map, though I really had to resist the urge to try and glide the red bars :P

9/10

[Pirx]

Magnusblitz said:

And like other maps we've seen so far, once the player has grabbed all the keys, there's no replacement monsters or final ambushes, so the last part of the level is a bit quiet and anti-climatic as the player just returns back to the exit.

Indeed, the cave would have been tougher without the infighting due to the mastermind (i ran a half-circle and he hit 5 or 6 of his minions already, which made short work of him). The boss could have appeared at the exit instead. Of course, no BFG.

As for the arachnorb attack, i played it rather lame, but safe (what i saw fit at that moment): retreat to a dead end and snipe them with rockets as they were hanging at the entrance.

[mouldy]

Map06 - “Engineering Disaster”

A very memorable map, the beginning is a bit of a bullet-hell shitstorm that an unfamiliar play might be lucky to survive in one piece. Or even a familiar player for that matter. I got killed pretty early on in the attempt to find health and cover, each avenue of escape just bringing more pain. In the struggle for health and ammo it soon becomes apparent that you will only get either of them by diving into unknown and potentially dangerous situations, but this time I was lucky enough to tackle everything in the right order it seems, and it wasn't long before I was tooled up enough to deal with everything that came along. Including a bfg, nice. In fact, the main danger from this map is simply the bloody imps sniping you from up high and half a mile away. Its a constant random barrage that you can't even shoot back at. Anyway, the highlight has to be the arachnorb swarm, those things are such fun to kill.

[scifista42]

Map06 - “Engineering Disaster”

Mixed feelings of the exact opposite kinds: Excitement and displeasure - but I blame myself. I didn't properly exit the map yet, but I remember completing it a few months ago. Good change of style and pace, surely an excellent city map, pretty good with its own mechanics that differ from the "immediate pleasure" mechanics of the previous maps. Playing this one requires more strategy and persistence. That's why I'm not enjoying it so much at the moment, because I got spoilt by the previous short-and-sweet run-and-gun stylish maps, I want to just run through this map too, and I can't easily progress anymore with this strategy only. All of the snipers are annoying (particularly the numerous flying Aracnorbs), but I think I will appreciate the challenge once I accept it - surely, they keep me on toes very well, and force to use strategy to outmaneuver them when they overpopulate all around me. The arenas and setpieces also seem to be well-made - even if I manage to run away, at least some of the monsters will eventually complicate my life later. All in all, I will need to be in a proper mood for this map, and maybe I'll just skip it.

[Breezeep]

I'm back after a delay of things to deal with in real life.

MAP04 - “Moonlit Stroll” Kills: 100% Deaths: 0

Really nice looking Cave / Canyon start. The Anarchorb makes its first appearance here, and I have to admit, I think this monster is very cool popping out of an Anarchotron after you've killed it. There was neat linedef work throughout the whole map. Now, Let's move on...

MAP05 - “Aggrovator” Kills: 100% Deaths: 2

An Open ase arena map. This map got to me with those Arch Viles, but It was a nice little challenge anyway.

MAP06 - “Engineering Disaster” Kills: 97% Deaths: 2

This wide open, urban area has been flooded by a dam bust, and It looks like it's inhabitants don't tend to be friendly to the player at all. Overall It's a great, nonlinear map. I also forgot that I already had the yellow key after searching for it for a couple of minutes. I feel stupid.

[cannonball]

Map07 - “The Mancubian Candidate”
An interesting and well executed concept map. Again the visuals and gameplay are rock solid. The cyber fight at the end was okay too.
I won't talk about this much more until other people have played this.

Overall this episode really shows a lot of professional work, both in terms of the visuals and the gameplay/monster placement. A few weaknesses for me was the Map02-05 stretch which felt like a selection of speedmaps with no sense of place, the second which kind of relates is that I wish there was a little more texture variety as the theme throughout seemed to be the same cement texture/rock combo. That said Map06 really stands out from the others and is my favourite map of the set. Honourable mentions to map01 and 07. That said I thought every map in this episode was at least good.

[Memfis]

negativityyy

Overall Valiant is a "professionaly" made set that's not to my taste. I dislike how often it takes one textural combination and sticks to it: not even throughout just one map but sometimes across the whole episode with very little variety. In general, there is A LOT of filler and lazy repetition of typical tropes: it's definitely a megawad that heavily suffers from being one. As usual, the use of many custom monsters seems interesting for some (retalively short) time, but after a while I just wish I was fighting the classic ones. Most levels employ this "safe hardcore" gameplay, which tries to look challenging but then gives you so much health and ammo that you can do a shitload of mistakes and still survive easily: I find it a bit lame and underwhelming. All these things are more or less forgivable on their own, however when grouped together they start to suck. But there is some fun to be had in Valiant and it can look quite pretty at times.

E1:

01 - A good opener: the music and the nice view at the start create that exciting feeling of entering a new high quality megawad. The rest is kind of basic with nothing really standing out, but the overall feel was enough to make me remember this one.
02 - Ok, so the second map is already pure filler, that's not nice. Small typical rooms made by the level generator Skillsaw, not the human with imagination Skillsaw. And what a letdown after that grand megawad opener.
03 - More 100% filler, it didn't need to exist.
04 - Now this is something, still kind of looks like a number of cliched areas that had to be made just to pump out yet another map, but the increased brutality, the introduction of the new enemy and having two themes (cavern and base) instead of one help it to justify its existence.
05 - Again, extremely typical Skillsaw level that is brutal enough to not seem pointless.
06 - I don't like this: with the vast space provided you can run around without shooting for a long long time and surive easily. I feel stupid when playing maps that allow this, like what's the point then if running away from everything is so damn simple. The visuals are suddenly a lot weaker with very simple LEGO-like buildings and large bare looking arenas.
07 - It's a good map: it does something exciting with the tag 666 and that is enough to make it cool. The idea is not conveyed well at all (I didn't get it from the picture, neither did skepticist or Dime) but whatever.

Overall: 2 good levels, 2 okay ones, 1 bad and 2 pointless.

[Steve D]

Map02 – No Rush – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 100, Armor 0. Death Count – 2. Bullets – 61, Shells – 21, Rockets – 7, Cells – 29

A dandy little map that I seem to have enjoyed more than most. Basically, you have to fight 106 monsters in what amounts to a quart-sized tomato can. Layout is very similar to the next map, and that threw me at first, because the opening is so similar that I thought it was Map03 and I knew that Map03 is over when you get the rocket launcher, so what you have to do is rush to the RL area and then proceed to own it. But oops! Wrong map! ;D

I came really close to surviving this one, but while dodging some Imps near the RL area, which at the time I didn't realize was there, I backed up and got torched by the Manc. My next death was remarkably stupid. It occurred at the blue key trap, which I survived on the first try by charging the Pinky and fanning the Chaingunners to death, then crossing the bridge and taking out the Chaingunners on the flanks, but somehow, I got it in my head that they were further back than they were, so I decided to replay the fight to get my health numbers up and benefit more from the Soulsphere. This time, with imbecilic certainty in my strategy, I stood my ground and filleted the Pinky, but while I prepared to take out the Chaingunners across the water, the 2 to my sides blasted me to bits. Hah! Another Dumbass Bites The Dust! That's what happens when you play like a jagoff. ;D

The PG was actually useful in this map, but it was the final secret I found, so I opened another save to make it more useful. The much-renowned Super-Chaingun got a serious workout, too. Like mouldy, I found myself almost out of ammo at the end as a result of this, but that was when I figured out the PG secret, which totally saved my ass.

All in all a nice little romp, though I agree with the others who've pointed out that this map has much less sense of place than Map01.

[Steve D]

Map03 – Tiers of Pain – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 200, Armor 6. Death Count – 2. Bullets – 69, Shells – 32, Rockets – 0, Cells – 40

Even smaller than the last map. This time you fight 72 monsters in a pint-sized tomato can! ;)

Knowing what I was dealing with, I immediately ran for the RL, and died twice by getting crammed in corners and fireballed by the speedy Imps. Maybe I should've grabbed that Zerk. Oh well.

Once I survived long enough to get the RL, the Laws of Doom meant that I was never in serious danger again. This is not to say I wasn't kept busy, as grabbing keys kept flooding the map with new monsters. However, the crossfires weren't quite good enough to keep me worried, even though I didn't notice the Super Chaingun until after most of the monsters were dead. It wasn't much of a factor in this map, which was ruled by SSG and RL. So in a way, this was easier than Map02.

My biggest complaint would be that the secrets are grouped in such a way that you get them after the map is basically over. 2 Soulspheres, no less! One of them is useless, as all it did was raise me from 198 to 200.

A return to detailing outside the play area makes this map more attractive than No Rush, but it's hard to overlook the stunning similarity in layout between these two. Still, it's a nice blast of fast-paced brutality. I liked it.

[joe-ilya]

All my runs are done with RDhud and on UV. :P

MAP01:Neat opener for a megawad, it already places mid-tier enemies, my only complaint is the AV at the end, I'd rather exit the level than to fight with it, yuck.

[Tristan]

MAP07: The Mancubian Candidate
| Kills: 83/84 | Items: 30/64 | Secrets: 0/2 | Time: 04:10 / 38:50 | Deaths: 6 |

Ok I'm just going to be blunt and get this out of the way: I really don't see what's so difficult to interpret from the picture. The sign implies "No dead mancubi," and that seems pretty obvious to me that you aren't supposed to kill it.

The concept itself, I like the theory, but I don't like the way it's been done here. On multiple occasions the mancubus was killed from infighting, so basically "Kill the mancubus, you die from arch-viles, or don't kill the mancubus, and die from arch-viles anyway."

Then there's the exit room. The travelling light effect looks cool, but what a dickish place to put a cyberdemon. Seriously, why would you do that?
The rest of the fights erred towards the intense side, but weren't too bad, though I wouldn't want to be fighting those arachnotrons without the plasma gun here.

For me, the map has a cool and innovative concept, but that one dick move right at the end plus the flaw due to infighting just made this a pain in the arse and I'm glad it's over.
At least the music choice was good. It's nice to hear Duke's better tracks being used rather than boring old Gut Wrencher and Future Military Conquests for the millionth time.

4/10

[scifista42]

Eris Falling said:

I really don't see what's so difficult to interpret from the picture. The sign implies "No dead mancubi," and that seems pretty obvious to me that you aren't supposed to kill it.

Perhaps younger people are more likely to think the proper way to understand the picture - like in the case of this puzzle. :)
(I mean "younger people" generally, I know Eris is 18 or so)

[Memfis]

I don't know, I had no idea how to understand that sign when I saw it. Then I thought that I'm on Map07, so probably it means "kill all mancubi", duh. I would need a clear "DON'T KILL THE MANCUBUS" text to understand the idea.

About infighting, at first I also thought it was very shitty how I got punished "even though I did nothing wrong", but then I realised that the possibility of an infighting happening makes the whole map a lot more intense, and I like that.

[joe-ilya]

It should've said "Don't feed the mancubus ammo"

[SyntherAugustus]

Memfis said:

I don't know, I had no idea how to understand that sign when I saw it. Then I thought that I'm on Map07, so probably it means "kill all mancubi", duh. I would need a clear "DON'T KILL THE MANCUBUS" text to understand the idea.

To me, kill the mancubi would have meant an alive mancubus with the no sign on top, rather than the dead mancubi with the no sign on top. Along with the no mancubi, the archviles caged should have been some kind of hint as a consequence. Thankfully, the consequence is merely a level restart/loadsave rather than say, restarting at least 20 hours of progress in Elite: Dangerous since you didn't look at the rebuy cost of the ship you just bought (hasn't happened to me since there's endless threads about it in said game forum).

When I first played this, I didn't really look at the signs and went on in and had a laugh realizing it was in fact some kind of concept level.

[SFoZ911]

I kinda agree with Memfis here. It's a very cool and unique idea but I didn't get it in the first time.

[Zulk RS]

Is it too late to join the club? If not I'll post.

MAP01: Bad Reception

Kills: 98%
Items: 97%
Secrets: 50%

Deaths:

1) Got killed by a monster ambush at the very end of the map. Couldn't dodge the Revenant rocket.


This is my first time playing Valiant and so far, I like what I see.
The power-up to the pistol was much needed. Although this is a good starting map, I was actually surprised by the use of mancubi so early in the megawad. Let's see what else is in store.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP07: The Manchubian Candidate
100% kills, 2/2 secrets

I admit I also didn't quite figure out the "don't let the mancubus die" sign at first, but after one bad attempt it's pretty easy to connect the dots. For me, at least, a sign of a crossed-out dead mancubus and a live mancubus with a check sign next to it would've done the trick. But no biggie. Really creative use of the 666 tag here, and the the need to avoid infighting - those damn cacodemons! - creates a good amount of pressure, of a different sort than Doomguy usually faces. I also wasn't a fan of the Cyberdemon fight at the end just because it was so dark it was hard to see where the walls were... but it is a pretty cool looking room. Good map on the whole.

[AD_79]

joe-ilya said:

my only complaint is the AV at the end, I'd rather exit the level than to fight with it, yuck.

Then just ignore it and exit the map.

Regarding MAP07 (which I need to post my thoughts on as well at the previous two maps), I understood the idea pretty easily: no mancubus corpses.

[scifista42]

AD_79 said:

I understood the idea pretty easily: no mancubus corpses.

You are 15, right? (*collecting evidence for my age theory posted before*)

[scifista42]

Map07 - “The Mancubian Candidate”

Cool name, I thought. The beginning was climatic and impressive, obviously well polished specifically for that preparational purpose. I confess, I've killed the mancubus during my first playthrough a few months ago, I saved at that point, and I didn't immediately realize that the archviles were a punishment that I was supposed to avoid - I had to die 10+ times while dealing with them before I understood that I need to restart the map.

The gimmick is interesting. The execution is OK, but I feel it could have been better. Even the unwanted infighting aspect could have been played better, still with tension, but also more fair to the player (clear and easy to influence on purpose) - but it's admittedly pretty well done as it is.

The ending was somewhat underwhelming. Lighting was nice, but it was still just a Cyberdemon + a few minions in a dark and symmetrical arena, easy to avoid. It was OK, not terrible, though.

EDIT: Black trails strike back! They appear in Zandronum and I've noticed and reported them in some of the previous maps, and skillsaw fixed those. These ones slipped through unnoticed by either of us, as it seems.

[Cynical]

Your theory is wrong; I'm 28, almost 29, and I understood the "no dead Mancubi" image as soon as I saw it.

[Tristan]

I think memfis is only about 21 or something, so yeah I don't think age has much to do with it. That puzzle you linked was pretty awesome though.