The DWmegawad Club plays: NOVA II

[an_mutt]

I finished my stream of this wad last night, so enjoy some links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4a - Part 4b
Part 5

I would do some write-ups but we're a full 2 days into August now and I have nothing prepared, so phooey.

[Pirx]

Jaxxoon R said:

The problem with playing a game every day of the month is that you have to play a game every day of the month. And that's hard yo.

at least when real life gets in the way and there are large maps like 32, 26 or 29 to do, and then you want to play them without saves.

ok, i'm finally hobbling to the finishing line:


24 - the descent

oldschool look reminiscent of doom2 maps, with marble & vine walls, some occasion for infighting between revs and knights in the beginning, with "getting too tense" as music track, one of my favorites from doom2.


25 - parasite hive

bfg at the start, followed by some cells packs, and an aggressive tune means slaughter? no necessarily. the knights and revs at the start are manegeable, and later there are often few monsters in large spaces, mostly in browns and greens (memorable: the hall with revenants on the balcony and some sergeants), and later this continues with an even larger outdoor area of dead nature transforming into hell (flesh walls and lava), which takes time to clear out due to its sheer expanse, rather than monster count.


26 - surreptitious ichor

ah, that map. large, beautiful, and killed me right at the start, sandwiched between pinkies and the archvile. next try - i ran straight for the ssg, which was vital. killed everything, then the map continued at a slower pace. i had fun exploring the red key metal structure. made it through the fake exit trap by hoarding plasma and throwing it all at them early, so i could clear some space out of the view of the archvile cage. the later fights offered more room to maneuver (the twin cybers at the megasphere) or i had a bfg this time (the flesh cavern) which makes all the difference against large monster groups.


27 - engraved bones

claustrophobic egyptian map with smaller monster encounters. i lost my patience with that teleporter others complained about too, until it finally sent me on the way to the exit. should be changed to something less cryptic.


28 - messe noire

a demonic church in quake's gritty, dark style - great stuff! indeed it looks much better in gl mode (i'm playing with gzdoom and smooth doom) than in software mode which i tried for curiosity, but wasn't that the case also with quake? must be because of that mass of browns, which are brightened here by doom's more colorful nature. challenging combat, without being slaugher. the music is also spot on, where's that from? must have heard it somewhere.


29 - anaemia

agree with the organ grinder here, it's an absolutely beautiful map, a hellish castle or cathedral in red, made of rock and blood, with one locked room scenario after the other, choreographed fights where you need the right weapon and strategy to avoid getting cornered. often the area looks peaceful until the ambush with enemies teleporting in, and high-hp monsters like barons blocking the way. perhaps i should follow danne's advice and play more of this kind to get experience with this gameplay. the hardest map in nova2 imo, because i mostly have to fight in a certain way, rather than moving more freely.


30 - legion

the custom boss we briefly get to see in map 27, nice touch. his projections aren't difficult, it's mostly the fact that he appears when the corridor gets full of his minions. he's not easy to hit when he's on the other side, but i guess i cheated a bit by mouselooking. yes, his death sound should be louder.

Capellan said:

IIRC, STRAIN was one of the most mentioned 'underrated' wads in that thread anyway.

cool. i posted that from my phone without checking the link. so basically your proposal won. on to strain.

[Demon of the Well]

Congrats on finishing, especially if you played without saves. The music track in map 28 is from Blood, as is the one in map 29, incidentally (can't remember the proper name of either offhand, sadly). Very cool tunes indeed, from a very cool game....Blood was always my hands-down favorite of the Build games.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: Messe Noire
100% kills, 2/2 secrets

Bit surprised to see Demonologist's name attached to a map with only 151 enemies, as he's known for his slaughtermap stuff, so I suppose this is an experiment for him. It's still got some decently hard fights, though. The start, on UV, actually felt frustratingly impossible to me... after about the 20th-odd something death, I felt like throwing my mouse through the window, but then I realized the main problem was the goddamn fucking invisible spectres blocking my way, so I cranked up the brightness to 1.20 in ZDoom (usually play on 1.0) and suddenly I could see them and it was much easier to beat. I know brightness settings is something that's difficult to balance for since everyone has their own setting (and every port looks different) but... I dunno, I think leaving the spectres out (or just making them regular demons) would be fine, since the main 'threat' here is supposed to be the Arch-Viles. I usually disagree with the "no spectres in dark spaces" crowd, but I think when used as such they should be the main threat rather than obstacles for the Arch-Viles, since in this setup it usually turns into "oh I ran into a spectre, now I'm instantly dead" rather than "oh I ran into a spectre and lost 20 health, gotta regroup."

Anyways, the main part of this map is pretty bland, with a decent-looking church and some bland corridors that just barely get by on the lighting effects and Quake textures. The gameplay is pretty limp here as well, unfortunately.... the blue key ambush is two chaingunners and two revenants, which is laughable after the opening ambush outside. The church isn't too hard either, and the blue door is a good example of how you can't just plunk down an Arch-Vile in any setting and expect it to be interesting. Thankfully, the map rebounds with the outdoors finale, as the player has to be quick thinking about the giant pack of Arch-Viles swarming on his position. Plenty of cover, but have to be smart and let the cyberdemon/archnatrons draw some of the fire for you.

So, the outside areas are good, everything in-between is pretty underwhelming. Nice to see Demonologist try something a bit outside his comfort zone, still plenty of room for growth here though.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/7008923 = part 2 of my playthrough, covering map 15 and both secret maps. (UV, pistol start)

And the good maps of NOVA 2 keep a rolling along.

An_mutt's map 15 starts off pretty tricky, and I wasn't overly keen on the snipers. But the map was nice, and managed to be entertaining throughout its long sprawl. For somebody who's done a long map for the first time, this was impressive.

Noisyvelvet's map 31 had an interesting opening of hitscans both pistol and shotgun-wise, alongside some all over the place item placement. Nice map.

Megiddo 2. It didn't disappoint, and I would have happily accepted this as the final map of NOVA 2.
Pinchy's section was deviously decent, and I liked the 'baron dobu GM' aka half of the DWMegawad Club's picture logo double act reference! Lots of pesky Imps around.
Noisyvelvet's section I wasn't too keen on, but the generous supplies around the part made it tolerable. Bloody pain sectors.
Jaxxoon R sure liked his rearguard wall traps.
AD's section I had perhaps mercifully practiced before in a previous playtesting stream; it didn't stop the map from killing me a few times, but allowed me to escape the evil orange skull trap and be a little prepared for what was to come.
Davethedaring's section was alright. Needed a bit more punch with the Spider Mastermind part.
Tournqiuet's finale was as evil as expected, especially with the Archviles half in the walls around the central tower. Thankfully only took me 2 attempts to beat the final godsphere Archvile rush, and to end on a semi-deafening scream of triumph!

Can't wait for episode 3 now....

[Magnusblitz]

MAP29: Anaemia
98% kills, 1/4 secrets

Alright, let's be honest, Ribbiks shouldn't have a map in a "NOVA" set. :P

As should be expected from the authorship, this is a grand-looking hellish temple, with a very consistent and excellent red/brown/black color scheme. I think I can spot the two aesthetic influences of each author; the glowing columns, 'diagonal' walls and rounded edges seem very Ribbiksian, whereas the detailed wall panels seem more Tourniquetian. I admit beyond that it's difficult to tell 'who did what', according to Tourniquet it seems each author did passes on every area, resulting in a very coherent map... compare to MAP26 where it is much clearer that each author did discrete sections (though it also probably helps that Ribbiks and Tourniquet have similar styles). I will say that I'm glad Tourniquet got the chance to learn how to use a more limited and cohesive color pattern from the master of color patterns, since one of my criticisms of MAP17 was its schizophrenic texture usage.

Alright, enough about that, onto the gameplay of the map. The opening room is tough (I think I died here more than anywhere else on the map, actually) but in a fair way. As one proceeds you'll definitely see that there's a bit of video-gameyness to it with the constant use of hell nobles stuck in place as blocking walls; I find it a bit tacky but at the same time I can understand why it's done for gameplay (the AV ambush for the green armor in the opening room is also stuck, thankfully he's the only one in the map).

It eventually turns into a 'gather the three keys' quest, though there's a lot of interconnectivity in the middle sanctum that had me a bit on edge, since in difficult maps I always worry about going the 'wrong' way unprepared. Thankfully that's not really the case here as each leg provides its own armaments. I ended up going blue-yellow-red.

Lots of Arch-Vile use in this map, which shouldn't be surprising. For the most part, they're used very well, though some of the turret Viles are a little banal and the two on top of the yellow key are a waste (hey, I criticized Demonologist for it last map...). My main complaint is with the red key area, and that it basically needs some health in the blood-floor room. It's easy to get chipped quite low in one battle, but still be able to beat it, but then be too low to win the next one. This is especially problematic since there's only one rad suit, and while there's tiles to move across the ground without hitting the blood if you're careful, there's no tiles in front of the two switches, so that's required floor damage. I ended up at 11 health after the main battle, went down to 1 after each switch (taking 5 from the blood each time) meaning I had to savescum my way through the AVs and PEs to keep my 1 hp intact. Other little things... Urthar already mentioned the reverse switch leaving the yellow key area; I'd also mention that the back side of this lift is just wide enough that the player will actually be over blood and take damage... may be intentional, might not be, but felt weird to me since the player can't see the blood.

These are minor issues though, the map is pretty damn great all-around. The outside vistas are a treat to look at, some nicely detailed floors, even little details like curving the switches go above and beyond. I see a lot of complaints about the combat but I found it to be quite digestible, for the most part (and I never found the BFG on UV, assuming there is one). Great stuff.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP30: Legion
94% kills, 0/1 secret

Little bit of a Going Down vibe here with the music (and some of the texture choices). Mouldy calls it a "small and simple" bossmap, not sure I'd go that far (especially since this is Doom, where we have bossmaps like E3M8 with four enemies). It is a tight map though, packed to the gills with 260+ enemies. The new boss here, glimpsed in shadow on MAP27, is the Hierophant, which starts out as a fairly benign enemy (if a baron and Hexen's reiver had a baby, and gave it slow-ass revenant missiles) but later on gains extra attacks and a boatload of HP. To be honest, I don't think the map does a great job showing it off, since the first ones are sorta weak, and the more powerful one at the end plays second fiddle to the ridiculous amount of assorted hellspawn spilling out into the tiny level. The first ones die with a teleport effect (is this supposed to represent that they're not dead, but teleporting away?) and the last one dies with a silent fizzle, making it easy to wonder why the level suddenly ends. I agree that it needed to be bigger/brighter to stand out more. But I prefer a bossmap like this over trying to figure out how to shoot rockets through a hole.

[Magnusblitz]

Final Thoughts

As should be expected from a mapset intended to show off a wide variety of new authors, there's definitely a lot of variety, though at the same time there's probably less than expected, since some authors got multiple maps and there's quite a few people in here (Ribbiks, Obsidian, Cannonball) who I don't think can qualify as "newbie" mappers. As such, there's definitely a big gap in quality, comparing the hyper-detailed MAP29 to something like MAP18 just doesn't seem fair. Since the maps were placed in somewhat of an increasing difficulty order, it isn't too surprising that the maps also tend to get better on the whole as the mapset goes on (since the amateurish maps tend to be easier, as opposed to something set-piece heavy like MAP26 or MAP29). That said, maps also seemed to be placed in an order to purposely show variety, which is also good.

Given the varied authorship its difficult to make any more over-arching comments, and I'm already four days behind anyways, so I'll just dispense with my favorite and least favorite maps:

Top five maps:
MAP09: Husk of What Once Was
MAP15: Crumbling Necropolis
MAP16: Red Morning Light
MAP20: Monuments to Thieves
MAP29: Anaemia
MAP31: Fever Blues (honorable mention)

Bottom five maps:
MAP04: Andromeda Sun
MAP07: Dry Well
MAP11: A Plague O' Both Your Shotguns
MAP22: Hated Attic
MAP27: Engraved Bones

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/7013912 = part 3 of my playthrough, covering maps 16-24. (UV, pistol start)

And still the good maps keep coming for NOVA 2. If this keeps up, it'll be better than NOVA: The Birth in having no crappy maps!

I found an odd HOM in the Soulsphere secret lift of map 16. Might want to fix that. Map was alright otherwise.
Map 17......was good until the ending. I really think the Spider Mastermind should have teleported into the room upon the third switch being pressed or at some point, since I felt it was ineffectual/annoying to clean up if you bothered.
Map 18 was alright.
I liked the Archvile usage on map 19, although I didn't die to one throughout my playthrough alas.
Egregor made a nice exploration map, and I particularly liked how it directed the player quite well throughout.
AD79's E3 opener was good.
It was weird to play an obake map that DIDN'T have monsters_monsters_monsters.wad custom enemies, but some of his wackiness in visual design remained evident in the level. A lot of enemies teleporting around the place too, and I liked how the red key switch RAISED the level up.
Cannonball map's 23 was difficult and fun, as expected. At times it reminded me of his Draft Excluder levels, especially the first interior area!
UOD's map 24 was very Ultimate-Doom esque, and the Cyber/SM infight at the end seemed a bit luck-based as to whether it happened in time to save your bacon when the lift stopped but was a nice closer regardless.

6 maps to go, time to bring on the big and nasty E3 hitters!

[SFoZ911]

As I mentioned in the NOVA II thread, the HOM that you discovered is not a bug simply because you used noclip cheat in your playthrough to get to the secret soulsphere.

[Obsidian]

Magnusblitz said:

Bottom five maps:
MAP27: Engraved Bones

:(

[Magnusblitz]

If anything, consider it somewhat of a compliment... I have good expectations when I see your name on the tin!

[Pirx]

Demon of the Well said:

Congrats on finishing, especially if you played without saves. The music track in map 28 is from Blood, as is the one in map 29, incidentally (can't remember the proper name of either offhand, sadly). Very cool tunes indeed, from a very cool game....Blood was always my hands-down favorite of the Build games.

ok that explains why the music seemed familiar.

i feel that i rely too much on brute-forcing my way through a map by agility, so i tend to die often when this doesn't work well or the author sets up traps for this kind of player (meaning that if you move much, you run into more monsters etc) and miss secrets that can be vital because of a twitchy play style.

Obsidian said:

:(

seeing that the nova2 thread got bumped, and strain is easier to get through at the moment, i'd say that engraved bones is a good map for those who like claustrophobic settings. it was just that teleporter that annoyed me because i couldn't figure it out. veinen mentioned it and demon needed some time too in his fda, if you watched it, so changing it to something more obvious should do it. most problems at the start are solved by getting the ssg early. the zombiemen feel a bit out of place and serve just to get in the way and drop ammo. sure it's a bit square shaped overall, but that's ok with egyptian buildings.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/7015379 = part 4 of my playthrough, covering maps 25-30. (UV, pistol start)

And so NOVA 2 did it. It managed to deliver a 32-map megawad without a single map that outright sucked! 4.5 out of 5 from me in conclusion, this is the best community project megawad I have played thus far, and definitely an improvement over NOVA: The Birth.

Pinchy's map 25 was very nicely detailed, and I liked the "inner" and "outer" circular areas. Reminded me a bit of Going Down at times.
Map 26......THE PAIN! THE AGONY! This was a brutal start, which I eventually overcame. Although it remained somewhat unforgiving throughout, it was a joy to beat in the end. (still waiting on that dobu/mouldy collab though)
Map 27 was alright, but I didn't like the final slog through the two Archviles resurrected puppets with just my SSG. Kind of sucked in my opinion, but the map was good otherwise and I liked the theme.
Demonologist's map may not have used Revenant swarms in creative ways like I expected, but the brutal encounters remained intact and mainly involved Archviles being at their most irritating! Good map.
Map 29 annoyed me several times throughout, but the architecture was very nice and red. Got tired of seeing PE's and Archviles by the end though. Tourniquet said the encounter with the red skull was fixed in the final version, which was good since the v3 I played I felt didn't have enough health for such a lengthy radsuit encounter.
Mouldy concluded NOVA 2 with a map that would have fit right into Going Down, wacky music and all. It was a slog, a painful Rev-heavy slog, but I eventually downed the final boss. Needs some kind of death cry on the final boss though.

NOVA 2 was awesome, and here's looking forward to NOVA 3!!