Maps you play often to keep your edge

[Kira]

All in thread's title. Sometimes you are really busy for long spans of time, but you have that one map to keep being good at surviving against impossible odds.

Ideal characteristics would be:

- it's short when you know the map well
- you can vary your playstyle on it or change route easily
- it's violent as hell, or at least enough to keep you on edge

Personally I used to do sub-10mn maxruns on Go2It (with -fast once in a while) to stay fit, but the average skill for our beloved violent mapsets is higher nowadays, and some maps are maybe more suited to this, like ToD's, gggmork's or a few Sunlust entries like map29.

[40oz]

I like this idea for a thread. Sometimes when away from the computer for long stretches of time its tough to keep your game sharp. I'm interested in hearing other peoples "training" maps.

I used to warm up by picking random doom 2 maps and lately some plutonia, but I play even those maps on autopilot so it doesn't help me all that much anymore.

[baja blast rd.]

I have a big personal training map with a variety of different scenarios. You have to move the player start around in the editor. The scenario I happened to be playing the last time I used this (probably a couple months ago) had five HKs in a bumpy room with two intrusively placed pillars.



Most of these are quite easy now, because I've got a lot better since I started training regularly. ;) ;)

[40oz]

Ooooh that's a good idea, designing naturally gameplay intrusive architecture for training purposes.

[Ribbiks]

I have a couple setups like that as well. I once thought of compiling them together as a big "exercise" map, but then I realized that's pretty much what ToD was going for with expired license.

[AD_79]

rdwpa would you at all mind sending me that? I think it would be quite beneficial for me to train.

[Kira]

Nice, rdwpa! I was thinking of doing something similar lately: making maps based on scenarios I currently have difficulty with, one setup per map. First set pieces I was thinking of were:

- dealing with 2 archviles teleporting on each sides of a corridor with two covers, each protecting only from one side. Other viles entering the fray faster as time passes. Making some corners to have less predictable viles' moves. Ammunitions would be brought periodically thanks to a voodoo doll on a moving floor.
- a room based on prcp32 final area, as I tend to get stuck between barons and rockets and it's a pain after grinding the rest of the map if you don't save (I made a save before that point on the map itself for the time being).

Maps could be reworked to increase difficulty/spice things a little when it becomes an autopilot routine.

[kuchitsu]

The only training I've ever done was before some First Demo Contests. Just played random Plutonia maps or whatever to warm up. But generally I don't really think like "I need to get back in shape/get better at some specific thing", for me Doom is not about that...

[Kira]

Ribbiks said:

I have a couple setups like that as well. I once thought of compiling them together as a big "exercise" map, but then I realized that's pretty much what ToD was going for with expired license.

I gave expired license a shot. The final exam seems good but unless your "exercises" are exactly the same, I am sure there's some interest for a few players in releasing it. Monster training acts more like a warm-up and ZDoom is much more permissive than say, prboom+/vanilla, when it comes to hitboxes.

At any rate, I'll write down setups that are good training from now on, and if I have a list good enough I could make a "training megawad" for my own sake. And release it if I think it's worth something.

[RyoAsuka]

I just keep playing Map26 of Scythe, though its been getting easier for me so I need something else.

[Kira]

That's a good one indeed, as it's the kind of map where you need to be decisive to have the upper hand, and it's a really short romp.

[Royal_Sir]

Some of the later maps of 1024 Claustrophobia, especially map 22, are good,practice for me.

[TheNerdTurtle2]

The Underhalls haha, whenever I finish a single map wad I always play it because it's there and I want to

[snapshot]

lol "keep your edge" makes me chuckle .

[Kira]

So I made a trip on Expired License since Ribbiks mentioned it, and I must say it's really good at what it does: bringing you back into an operational killing machine fast.

If all you want is to wake up your vanilla skills, final exam past maps 138/139 are useless except perhaps for 150/151/153 (reality maps?). And you might want to skip 127 since it looks like it's for mouse aim training.

The maps I excluded are good though if you want to be well rounded with "modern" skills: strafe jumps, using cacodemons as platforms... There's just that rocket jump map that didn't work on the latest ZDoom version. Maybe you need to activate god mode at the start... Oh, and there are puzzle maps too.

But it really just is a warm-up. I'll investigate tom19 and gggmork's impseV2 and crapmap to see if they are good follow-ups to get you back on your feet, if you go that route.

Edit: maps 150/151 are more like easy puzzles and 153 is a very basic reality map.

[Reisal]

http://imgur.com/VPeSy7i

OBLIGE content with high monster count with my own texture compilation.

[everennui]

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/85231-spicy-evil-spaghetti-from-hell-v1-3-now-on-idgames/

Spicy Evil Spaghetti (From Hell) of course.

[Zed]

Pagan's Run - I don't know how effective this one is at "training", and it can be a little frustrating:

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/paganrun

There's also Doom Center, which has some kind of room (a dojo?) where you can spawn any Doom 2 monster at will.

[Kira]

Played a few maps on tom19. They look intimidating but a lot are actually fairly easy for now. Others look perfect to train specific skills, getting accustomed to tense situations or just plain slaughter. They feel like a good follow-up to expiredl if you want to rebuild your skill quickly. Besides, they are fun IMO, and fun is good when you are busy.

Zed said:

Pagan's Run - I don't know how effective this one is at "training", and it can be a little frustrating

Still have to try this one but given the concept I can believe it's good for movement at the very least.

[kuchitsu]

When I played Pagan's Run, I felt like survival depended a lot more on the lucky\unlucky monster behavior rather than what I was doing. Sometimes monsters just decide to block you and a cyber/arch-vile starts shooting immediately, other times you are allowed to pass through. Also that new palette is annoying.

[Kira]

Heh, if it's indeed heavily based on luck, that's a shame since the concept is interesting.

Glaice said:

http://imgur.com/VPeSy7i

OBLIGE content with high monster count with my own texture compilation.

Experimenting with those settings: https://imgur.com/zoksQTE

Seems like a good way of having 10mn romps with some actual variety whenever a feeling of routine manifests itself (generate a new wad and voilà!). Are the Nuts! setting and Strength at Crazy actually playable?

[Kimota]

Good idea, but it depends what you want to train, for example, it is not the same a map where you practise saving life cause there is not much in it, or a map with low ammo and you have to practise saving ammo, or aiming/strafe/moving with many enemies and just a shotgun but plenty of ammo, or a map for training avoiding enemies and rush to the exit...

What I use for "training" ahem are maps with many TP tags for the enemies, some with TPsound and some silent, so I "study" enemies IA (very simple by the way, hahaa) and train my reflexes cause the same map is not the same all the time cause of the random factor and movement of the enemies. And sometimes they are where they were not supossed to be. Hehe. :)

[Kira]

A little update for the few who were interested:

Spoken too fast about tom19, there are some really nasty ones in it so my post must have made some people smile hehe. But those tend to be long so they don't qualify.

Next I looked is Eternal Slumber's Party, and some are good candidates: map17/18/22/24/26. Your usual ToD madness in the palm of your hand. Learning the maps should take a while for the less skilled, but rehearsals should be decently short. Together they showcase most difficult setups you can think of. Very high level players are probably above this, but hey, coach said that one push-up is better than zero!

But the ones that really impressed me for this use-case are crapmap and impseV2 by gggmork. They reliably get you out of your comfort zone, are chaotic enough that you often have to be sharp at decision making, are short and are perfectly fit for route changes. ccc is another contender.