The DWmegawad Club plays: Bloodstain

[Spectre01]

Thanks Rayzik, that explains why I wasn't seeing the desync on my end since I always had it loaded. I'll keep the sounds but exclude the animations for recording purposes.

Magnusblitz said:

But when actually playing it, everything is so constricted from the combo of tiny rooms, block monster lines and overstocked enemies that it becomes a slow grind to clear stuff out. Playing continuous at least lets me skip the grind of needing to kill two barons for every large weapon I want, but even once the arsenal is acquired it's still a slow doorway camp.

I'd say the maps are short enough, even on UV-Pistol Start the longest so far must've been under 30 minutes and I play quite leisurely, that I'm not feeling that slow grind, if you will. And since you're playing HMP(?) continuous, it really speeds up the maps tremendously due to having the BFG since map 11. I think the hell chapter should be interesting as there's quite a spike in difficulty.

[baja blast rd.]

rileymartin said:

Could Boom Enhanced and pk-sfx wads which I load from the launcher after the demo cmd runs be causing it? I've been loading those for all my demos but it doesn't sound like they all desynch. Those are purely cosmetic too with the first one just giving weapons smoother frames.

:D

[Magnusblitz]

rileymartin said:

I'd say the maps are short enough, even on UV-Pistol Start the longest so far must've been under 30 minutes and I play quite leisurely, that I'm not feeling that slow grind, if you will. And since you're playing HMP(?) continuous, it really speeds up the maps tremendously due to having the BFG since map 11. I think the hell chapter should be interesting as there's quite a spike in difficulty.

The maps are certainly all short-to-medium, I'm not meaning grind in terms of absolute time, but the gameplay. Having to whittle down two barons who can't move out of their tiny room, something that provides no real threat or interest, is a grind... it's just boring time. For what it's worth, I'm playing UV, and I generally stick to using the SSG for the start of the map and not BFGing everything from the get-go.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP19 Icebreaker

So soon with a theme change, hmm. Quite a few small enemies to mop up in the beginning, and I enjoy mowing through them. The central hold has the red key and needs the other keys, you guessed it, in flanking areas. Didn't find either section too hard really, but they were fun. Had to watch out for chaingunners in a lot of places. When it comes to actually getting the red key, that's when the trouble really starts. Pain elementals teleporting? Check. Afrits? Oh fucking hell. This was actually quite tough to deal with, especially with one enemy launching skulls and the other being a hell of a damage dealer. Ending isn't a whole lot of hassle. I lazily BFG'd the spiderdemon there. The afrit pincer was okay too. I realized that they don't shoot revenant rockets this time, only the spread of mancubi shots.

[Spectre01]

Map 19: Vanilla Icebreaker Casual UV-Max with several screw-ups (21-something min)

We move away from the brown, medieval fortress/city maps into a rather fresh arctic aesthetic that continues into map 20 to wrap up the second episode. This is one of the harder maps so far, with several sections that can kill you very quickly if you're not on point. It starts off with a trivial Berserk Imp Beatdown until you jump into a hole and... yeah, there's a mass of Imps and hitscanners down there that will send you back to the beginning if you don't make a quick dash out of the cave. There's a "secret but not really" SSG nearby that's essential to grab so you can actually start killing stuff efficiently. The outdoor outpost is guarded by a horde of Revenants and Chaingunners up top and the cave opposite is crawling with mechanical spiders so the safest course of action is to line-of-sight the Revenants, take out the Imp horde and then work your way towards the yellow key in the first tunnel.

There are two harsh Chaingunner ambushes, especially the one before the Cyber door with the blue key. The Cyberdemon guarding it is positioned quite well and I like how you're forced to run in there and grab the Plasma Rifle while also under fire from both sides. Good things there's a megasphere grab there as well since you can take quite a bit of damage clearing the area if you play like I did. This map also has more close encounters with the Afrits, with four guarding the exit portal. The fire wave they shoot is quite dense even at medium range, so if there's several of them it's a good idea to use some cover. I actually like how the limited space is used in this level, and the wad in general, to add some difficulty and limit circle-strafing potential.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP19: Icebreaker
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

This one does kick the challenge up a bit, mainly due to heavy use of hitscanners in difficult situations. Some of it is a bit bullshit (such as the chaingunners in the corner towers of the central building, where they can fire out the windows and you can barely see the tops of their shaven domes through the grating) and the final Afrit ambush is also probably going to cause a death or two, but overall the combat setups here are pretty good. Only other real criticism would be the symmetrical encounters in the blue key area and the Pain Elementals on the switches, but aside from that not much to complain about. The ice theme is nice and there's some decent branching despite the small map size.

[Pirx]

MAP11 - "Verdant”

what a beautiful map. a cave with overgrown ruins and a temple where the final battle takes place. very plutonia-like, built with attention to detail. those vines hanging from the temple ceiling. also some well orchestrated encounters, like the SMM vs revenants, where you can bait all revs in that curve to fire at the spider, or the archvile reveal after picking up the red key. it's best to keep some bfg shots for the cybers (yes, there's another one at the exit)

however, there's bloodstain's crampedness again, especially in the caves and on the way to the red key. if you don't have enough health to storm the caco+PE cave, they'll congregate at the entrance (which i found late, tiny as it is) and you won't be able to enter. i had to patiently snipe them from the cave entrance. also, the SMM at the red key is kinda pointless.




nice!




that vile launched me up there




double blue key?




getting in... somehow


MAP12 - "The Slimy Dens”

an inmost dens tribute, judging by the title and the brown brick walls, mixed with some plutonia. starts with berserking some pinkies after you get behind them somehow to get the zerk pack. sounds ok, but it doesn't play well. it's cramped and quickly becomes a game of peeking behind those fucking doors that keep falling shut in your face, and sniping archviles and whatever lurks in the main courtyard. at least the exit is pretty straightforward.


MAP13 - "Autumn”

visually impressive autumn theme, rocks with dry branches and leaves. albeit a bit too much brown. music from m01 of prcp. gameplay is rather slow, due to blocking lines keeping monsters in place and mostly in your way. the imp cave was ok, then you're suddenly dropped into the manc & caco arena (where i managed to telefrag that vile because they were blocking the way under the bridge by simply standing there, so i had to look for cover elsewhere). the standing in the way thing continues, one can stand in the hole with the red key bar and rocket the mob, or slip away from the hell knight ambush and shoot everything that congregates at the entrance. same for the bridge to the rocket launcher, if you back off you'll have those 3 barons on the bridge and no launcher to kill them quickly. the SMM is a joke (seriously, shoot the ssg at it until it dies?) and the viles at the exit are no threat too. nice map with gameplay suffering from lots of doors with health and questionable placement.


MAP14 - "Dryad’s Garden”

a group of connected, overgrown temples. fast moving in the beginning, you have to put the berserk pack and the ssg to good use against cacos and imps in the open. lots of high-hp meat, almost slaughter-like with PEs thrown in for complicating thing. however it's much more airy than the previous maps, so you can move around, and you're adequately fueled with ammo and megaspheres. also, there's barely a situation where you can't get away and fight on you own terms. good fight at the rk (?) where revs blocked the exits - i had plenty of rockets to free one corridor quickly and fight from there. sure there are parts that drag on (the spawning spiderling curve) and the SMM, but overall very scythe-like map, bot in looks and in gameplay.

[Spectre01]

Map 20: The Great Furnace Casual UV-Max (~34 min)

Hoho! We've got a big one here! The finale of Bloodstain's second episode is the first larger map in the set and contains the highest monster count yet (400+ on UV). Visually, it's a direct continuation of Icebreaker where the exit slipgate ends up dumping you to a nearby metallic hell stronghold. It's an interesting combination of Fire and Ice with the fortress submerged in a lake of lava but surrounded by icy cliffs. The entrance into the Furnace is behind some blue bars, and sneaky Chaingunners, so you have to search the nearby frozen caves for the key. There are 3 secrets to grab in the starting area, including a BFG, which is a must for the Pistol Start Crew™.

Once past the barricade into the Furnace proper comes arguably the hardest section of the map, requiring you to carve out a progression path while blocked and threatened from every angle. The room holding the yellow key to the left has a really cool ladder passageway which lets you grab it. There are also some cool metal bridges connecting the hub area which gives the map a nice 3D feel. In the structure to the right are some interesting elevator platforms as well as what seems to be the actual furnace. The Nobles guarding the key and subsequent Cacoswarm make for some good Cyberdemon fodder, so you might want to keep those alive and run out.

After grabbing all the keys, you may notice that there is quite a few enemies still left and the central structure looks empty besides a few soldiers at the very back... There's also a BFG right at the entrance and Cells everywhere... Yep, time for a good 'ol slaughterfest to finish the map. There's quite an army of the usual slaughter variety that spawns in waves as you progress to unlock the large door hiding the hell portal. Experienced Where's Waldo?™ players can find two Invul Spheres, which make the fights rather easy. There's also the option to retreat and camp, but that's generally a waste of time due to the Archviles and PE's increasing the enemy count. There are enough cells to hold mouse1 and clear the area rather quickly. Once the portal door lowers, you find four Cyberdemons guarding it. They are not hard to kill unless you get cocky, but it certainly looks cool. We finally get a death exit, which should have been after map 11 as well, taking us into the first part of the first part of the Hell episode. For those curious, there's a death exit after map 25 and 29 as well, splitting the episode into a sort of part 1/2/finale format.

[Aquanet]

MAP19: Icebreaker

Part of me was hankering for another cavey level (looks like that's coming next), but the base elements were pretty cool. The general hitscan action in the first half or so of the level is a bit oh-come-on. Like in other levels, chaingunners and occasionally the z-seccers are given perches designed to protect them, not provide a more even playing field for both marine and monster. The four at the corners of the central structure are ... good in that they encourage you to aggressively invade those spaces but bad in that they otherwise play Duck Hunt with you from behind a stone and metal duck blind. Dickish stuff is part of Doom, sure, what else are chaingunners for? But at some point it stops being part of the tapestry and sticks out as artificial.

The cyber and mastermind rooms are pretty fun. I like the vile placements in the former because of surprise and the potential to exploit splash damage from the cyber. The demons cluttering up the lowest floor in the spider room make it interesting. Afrits make cameo appearances but you can thumb your nose at them.

Visually, there are a couple places that made me stop:

Spoiler

dat shadow


3d bridges as arch-itecture

[Demon of the Well]

Map 16 -- Malleus Maleficarum - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hmm, quite liked this one. It's interesting thematically, both in terms of its aesthetics and in the way the actual gameplay (which still has a lot of the mapset's foibles in evidence, granted) seems cleverly credible given the setting.

To speak in terms of general templates, I guess you'd call this a 'castle' map, and a very brown and dingy one at that, but it's really quite a bit more. The whole thing is framed inside of a hard bounding wall on most sides and by the sea on the northwest corner, and is not actually terribly large, but similar to map 09 before it it is significantly more genuinely nonlinear and even explorable than has been the Bloodstain norm to this point, though as with pretty much every level in the set there is pretty clearly a general itinerary at hand that is more 'correct' than others (i.e. you're not supposed to be in the stacked eastern half of the level until after you've made some preparations in the west, but there's nothing actually physically preventing you from stubborning your way in there whenever the urge takes you). This relatively open plan, in concert with the persistence of open sky and the dark, dank, ramshackle, gable-roofed aspect of most of the individual structures gives the impression of a sort of stylized dismal 18th century village, which seems to be precisely what Pipicz was aiming for. Hints abound of a witch-hunting theme, with an immolation pyre in the town square, execution chambers sequestered in the larger civic buildings, and all manner of nameless horrors lurking just behind locked doors and tightly shuttered windows. Interestingly, the exit is a mystic portal hidden in the basement of the house that's ablaze on the eastern edge of the main square....maybe the home of the victims roasting in the fire upon your arrival? Not strictly limited to decals and doodads and diorama detailing, though, this theme of paranoia and dark secrets is carried through to the level structure itself. Again, the intended experience only seems to properly unfold if you find a goodly number of the secrets, which tend to be squalid little hideouts, accessed in a number of different colorfully roundabout ways, many of which tellingly feature sinister peepholes back onto the streets or even into adjacent buildings. The neighbors are always watching.....

What's really cool about this is that the action itself, bloody and occasionally camp-happy as it can be, sort of plays along with the theme. The very first thing that happens in the level is a monstrous mob tearing down your door to drag you out into the square like fresh kindling; once you know a bit about the surroundings you can rush past them into another part of the area where they can't follow (monster pathing is very erratic here, as in most Bloodstain levels), but I found it quite fun to desperately fend them off as they poured through the door into the living room, mostly using the berserk fist from the first secret, with things getting a mite touch/go when Baron Hopkins made his entrance. As aforesaid, the general arc of level progression is to tool up on the west side before attacking the east (quicker if you find secrets), which presents itself as an intractable hornets' nest which can be handily routed if you make good use of the many different holdouts and firing positions, again similarly to the compact ZoI flavor of map 09. The secret murderholes can be used to mercilessly slaughter the opposition if you plan in advance, which is particularly pronounced versus the final wave of assailants which appears around the burning house at the level's conclusion. In a way I suppose this may not exactly be sterling gameplay--massacring monsters who have only a limited capacity to retaliate and all--but it fits in so naturally with the level's sense of setting that I found it thrilling instead of dull, and some wrangling of blocklines aside there is generally more than one way to handle any given encounter if the above doesn't suit your fancy.

As always, certain placement decisions here are simply baffling (BK revenants?), and again the elaborate setting mined with 3D bridges and the like limits encounter dynamism to a considerable degree, but overall the experience was quite positive. I reckon this map's a good example of Bloodstain's 'good side', a snapshot of its fundamental character and virtues, something I am mentally equating more and more with Kama Sutra's much more sober and somber younger brother.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP20 The Great Furnace

Rather ironic with the title considering we are still in frozen land. And also another track I only recognize from Dimensions of Time except I don't know what the hell this song is and that wad used it like three or four times.

The paths behind the starting point are the first order here, for that blue key. Lava below ice, yeah. Not much to say, they are well put caverns, with like three secrets in them. Past that going right, the next area is of the raised walkway kind, with several bridges and paths to take. Yep, two keys needed, hooray. Gotta say that the way to the yellow key was far more entertaining than the red key, mainly in how you just drop to the key. Better than waiting for lifts to lower, I say. The ending is a fucking awesome rush in, first the spiderdemons, then going around pressing switches while letting monsters hit the cybers and vice versa. An invulnerability by one of the switches makes this a complete cakewalk. I assume that killing all the afrits opens the death exit door?

"You knew it wasn't a good idea to jump into that portal decorated with corpses of marines" well find me another exit in the level then.

[Rayziik]

Gonna start streaming in a few minutes, link in my signature below. Starting from MAP09 since I stopped at 08 last time. We'll see how far I feel like going today.

[joe-ilya]

MAP19
This an average map in this wad's standarts, which are low.
The only parts I liked were the berserk start before the dropoff, the first few seconds after the dropoff and the red key trap.

1/5

[Magnusblitz]

MAP20: The Great Furnace
100% kills, 5/5 secrets

Really dig the Goldeneye 64 music track here, almost makes up for Song2 earlier in the WAD. The start of this map is pretty good, as the frozen-over cavern theme is done here pretty nicely. The titular building itself is constructed well, and while the WAD has been nicely constructed throughout, this was one of the first few spots that really made stop and appreciate the architecture. The red key area is a bit of a let-down gameplay wise (another block monster line that renders the Pain Elementals/Lost Souls useless, more boring hell knight grinding, and the cyberdemon is just begging to infight with the cacos) but looks cool, especially with the moving 3D lifts. I really dig the ladder in the yellow key area, though I also discovered some glaring HOMs if you drop into the lava pools in this area and need to press the sides to escape.

The last area starts bordering on a slaughter arena, being packed full of 200+ enemies and plenty of ammo to take them out with. Unfortunately it fizzles out due to, yup, block monster lines, which let the player easily retreat back to the entrance and rocket away. It's actually not completely safe since the windows aren't blocked, so the Pain Elementals and Afrits can actually become quite the pain (especially since the large ceiling lets them divebomb thanks to the infinite Z-movement bug). But the ground-dwellers are cursed to just gather around the staircases and await their rocket buffet. Still, a good map that generally accentuates the positives of the author's craft.

[Aquanet]

MAP20: The Great Furnace

There are some squeezy, squeezy tight hallways in this map and some pretty big areas. And so many 3d bridges used in stylized ways. The big finale, on my one playthrough, seemed too easy with monster blocking, two invul spheres and scads of cells. This is not my favorite of the maps so far. Yellow key room is cool but I kept falling into the lava pits with the HOM. Often the gameplay in the big outdoor area, which was still my favorite, turned into Find the Well-Concealed Chaingunner.

[KBlaney]

My wife wanting to go play Pokemon Go is eating into all of my Doom time. What am I supposed to do? "Sorry honey I don't want to go out and play that video game because I'd rather sit here and play this one."? How soon until someone makes a [i]Doom Go[\i] game so I can kill demons while my wife catches Pikachus?

Map 17: This map had a really nice circulation to it. There were lots of different ways to tackle problems and encounters. Although the map seems to encourage going up either of the sides, the dedicated could easily kill the barrons and run up the middle first. The paths to the various keys strongly benefit from clearing out a lot of the main keep first to prevent you from being attacked from all sides while attempting to get the keys. I imagine that this level is quite open to speedruns based on how interconnected it is.

Map 18: Bloodstain appears to have hit a nice stride of neat levels with lots of interconnected spaces and pathways which really tax the puzzle loving part of my brain. I'm often struggling to remember where those medkits I left earlier were so I can beef up for the upcoming fights. The map even starts out as something of a puzzle where you can use some pacifism tactics to make the beginning significantly easier. This might be my favorite level so far (maybe second favorite after Map 9).

Map 19: Another great map with the same theme as the previous few. That is, lots of different paths through the level, some more roundabout and safer, some more direct and more dangerous. This level appears to be some kind of Arctic base which reminds me, to an extent of, “The Thing”. As I mentioned last month, maps in Doom seem to gravitate away from 80's and 90's SF films and toward the horror/Satanic panic realm, so it is really cool to see maps inspired by the former. As a side note, I believe this might be the first Mars level I've ever seen based on the Mars Ice Caps.

Map 20: So this map isn't the same as the last few, but it has a really fun slaughter at the end. We appear to have journeyed through the ice to a giant Satanic temple in the arctic. Once breaching the temple we fight our way through several waves of monsters including several Masterminds and Cyberdemons. With the right amount of infighting you can activate the next wave while the current one is still around. The final wave has quite a number of archviles so with the invulnerability sphere you end up practically flying across the room with archvile jumps. After the fights you run into the obvious exit only to explode and get told just how stupid an idea that was... sort of a fun subversion of the usual Doom map tropes.

As a side note here, there is a missing set of textures in the area with the Yellow Skull. If you manage to fall into one of the lava pits near the stairs, the inside wall of the pits when the elevator is down lack a texture.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 17 -- Eerie Keep - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
A fairly reserved, but pleasant followup to map 16, with a similar virtue of explorability that lends it some modest variability/replayability. The Keep has an intuitive, segmented north-south layout framed around a steeply ascending central staircase, with complementary (though in no way symmetrical) counterpart chambers arranged at three different levels on either side of it, and a fourth unified layer at the very top, sealed off by a red-locked gate. Each of the different chambers connects to several others (if memory serves the only rooms in the place with less than two entrances/exits are the keep sanctum at the very top and the short key paths hanging off of the east and west sides), and so the number of possible routes through the level is quite large, not only on account of the number of different avenues of travel available at any given time but also because there is never anything to lock you into one path or another, and so you can flit about your leisure as you undertake the process of cleaning the place out.

Monster density is again on the high side given the overall scale and scope of the surroundings, and again the majority of the monsters are placed to occupy areas and act as obstacles rather than as an actively aggressive pursuing force. The pistol-start is a little bit rough, as neither the approach of fighting it out in the first chamber or trying to shoulder past the Keep's occupants in search of a better weapon is without some problems, but once you've gained a foothold you should be more or less unstoppable, though I guess that the delayed-trigger key trap on the east side might put a hurtin' on you if you happen to be holding the wrong weapon when it springs. The overall tenor of the combat is again characterized by fighting entrenched monsters through doorways and windows and from other vantages, but in this case I think the non-linear aspect of the level progression adds some interest to this, for a sort of ZoI-lite flavor. The placement of the spiderdemon and the final fight that follows is again a little bit of a headscratcher that doesn't levy any real pressure unless you happen to have the reflexes of a dead houseplant, but it doesn't take terribly long to clear up and does give you a chance to admire the giallo-medievalist decor of the keep sanctum from a different angle, which is again a bit of a treat considering Pipicz's penchant for aesthetics.

Map 18 -- Terracotta Palace - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets
This feels like another variation on the same theme we've seen in this last little block of maps since returning from Heaven--an earthen castle setting married with non-linear position-based gameplay--lending this section of the game a definite 'minisode' feel (which is cool, IMO). Here, the name of the game is area denial via line of sight. Whereas in the relatively slow-rolling "Eerie Keep" the layout itself was highly interconnected while still maintaining the combat in very discrete and more or less self-contained chunks (largely a byproduct of how vertically-inclined the blueprint was, I suspect), "Terracotta Palace" poses a wider and somewhat more topographically level expanse where the many screens, lattices, archways, and windows which define the palace architecture represent a tricky net of peepholes and firing lanes that allow you and your enemies to snipe away at one another with impunity.

Gaining the initial foothold here is a little less of a to-do than in the previous map (provided you don't go whole hog on the foolish bravado, at least), but the pressure holds steady for a fair bit longer, since no matter which part of the grounds you decide to start working out from you'll be just steps away from a killzone or a roadblock (or a combination of the two) in essentially any direction, largely prosecuted by a number of nasty knots of gun-toting manservants bustling around some obstructionist aristocracy holding out in key interchanges and vantages. Once again, the actual dynamism of most of the combat is quite limited, but there's more of a jagged edge here than what we saw in the previous level, where attrition can be more of a factor and one must be careful not to overreach beyond what one's munitions can allow (though again the secrets are very helpful in this regard, albeit less fundamentally game-changing than in several previous maps). As a nice topper, the level changes things up a bit (after yet another essentially irrelevant spiderdemon, granted) with a very simplistic mini-slaughter in the inner garden, which demands continuous player movement far more than anything else we've seen recently. Decent BFG skills help too, though I reckon if you have some good fortune with RNG there's potential for infighting to practically solve the situation for you if you don't nuke the cyberdemon right away.

That 'slope' at the level's conclusion is so fucking goofy. King ReOL, eat your heart out! Rest of it's a nice place to visit, though. Very brown, for sure, but I think the strong sense of identity that comes through in the architecture and layout sells it--the asymmetrical construction that nevertheless follows a very intuitive blueprint helps build the sense of a place that is quite believable while still having an air of the fantastic about it (and one that again neatly serves the particular slant on gameplay, to boot), certainly not easy to accomplish in this engine. That said, aesthetic sticklers may notice a significant faux pas or two, most notably the failures of perspective involving the curved, railed western cupola (with a line of potions and helmets sitting on its rim) and its neighbor across the way, which should obviously overlook the final garden but instead show nothing but the casually tiling sky.

[Rayziik]

Ugh. So I played through MAP09-MAP15+MAP31, and all I can say for this set is how much of a chore it felt like slogging through these maps. I didn't even want to comment on this set because it left me feeling agitated at the squandered potential. There's lots of great design choices visually and thematically, and as a mapper I can appreciate these on a very high level. But the gameplay is getting monotonous and predictable very fast.

I say it a lot, but honestly for good reason: insta-pop monsters should not be used in the way they are being used in this wad. It's basically come down to the point where I tip-toe my way into empty corridors and rooms expecting at any point that something is going to magically and instantly materialize in front of me. It's visually "dirty", and gameplay-wise it's obnoxious or even unfair. Especially the nearly always present archvile at the end switch/portal. It's not even a surprise anymore. The map that popped a cyber was at least a bit more interesting, but it was still just as annoying.

A mounting concern I had from the start was the onset of meat-walls. Sitting in doorways or thresholds to adjacent rooms and having to plink my way through a horde of mostly nonthreatening hell knights or cacodemons gets really old really fast. There's lots of ways that the spaces in these maps could be utilized better. Perhaps the amount of incidental gameplay is just 'too damn high'.

And something that really grinds my gears is pointless monster block line usage. It also contributes heavily to the previous issue, keeping enemies in a spot or room making them both non-threats and easy targets. There's also a couple instances where pain elementals are rendered completely harmless, namely in MAP14. For how much incidental gameplay is in these maps, the decision to use all these monster block lines ruins the effectiveness of any of it.

Personally, I'm just not a fan of the mid-tex bridges. They're noisy, they look ugly, and when you're beneath them they end up being non-solid and it breaks most of the illusion. The other major issue? In order to not get monsters stuck, they're always surround with MONSTER BLOCKING LINES. Honestly, every single one of these bridges could have been replaced by pillars or a solid lift bridge or something just to reduce these other problems.

It's also come to the point where I can safely say that there's just too many damn monsters in these maps, or these maps are 1/2 the size and proportions that they should be in order to facilitate the monster counts. It gets old when the primary strategies are to hide on a corner and plink around the corner with your regular shotgun (god forbid you are pistol starting, because you'll never have a decent weapon until 50%) at enemies nested on a monster blocking line at the end of a corridor after insta-popping up in that room that they are stuck in. This seems to be the basis of most scenarios in most maps.

Now that I've given a good beating to it though, I should at least talk a little about the good parts. There are some setups that are genuinely great and use the space where they occur effectively while not devolving into a circle strafe fest or a find-a-corner scenario. I should've taken down a list of these places, but one that immediately comes to mind is the RK segment in MAP14. That whole area was just nice, almost a Ribbik's cube kind of setup. Not as hard maybe, but definitely a standout to the corner camping gameplay in the rest of the map.

The other aspect that I absolutely am fanatical about: the visuals. These maps are beautiful. Well to me at least. I am a very theme dependent mapper, and each of these maps are based on a great theme and provide a very strong sense of place. The details, while obstructing in a lot of places but this might be more due to the overpopulation issues, are simple yet very effective in adding depth to a scene or room. The outdoor areas are really pretty. I love outdoors areas in maps. Perhaps the only bad thing is the tendency for this to create a bumpy floor in a combat area.

And that MAP31.... UGH

Please don't ever, EVER make a maze map. If you are a new or aspiring mapper reading this, DO NOT MAKE A MAZE MAP. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ok, I'm done souring the thread with my opinions. Until next time.

[Demon of the Well]

^^Another foible involved with the preponderance of 3D bridges that I've noticed is that when they appear on maps that are more nonlinear in plan, you can occasionally end up smacking your face full throttle into the 4th wall when your route leaves a bridge "up" even though you're trying to pass under it, creating an invisible barrier that you have to detour around to reset it into its intended cycle. Now you know how those poor demons feel.....

Map 19 -- Icebreaker - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah, and so fall turns to winter. A utilitarian research/staging area perched on an icecap (notice the how it is subtly implied that the easternmost annex, where the exit is found, is suspended in the air over the edge of the cliff), the snow/metal-tech theme and the red-tone interior highlights here immediately put me in mind of Dark 7, though I have to reckon that there are probably a number of more obvious references being made in this case.

At first blush this seems like it's going to continue to follow the same gameplay threads that characterized the Autumnal Fortress minisode we just left, framed as a nonlinear 3-key hunt as it is, though in practice I don't think it has quite as much depth, as each key has its own dedicated section of the map (subterranean bunker to the north for blue, generator shed area to the south for yellow, and the central 'pod' structure for red) which is almost entirely self-contained and has very little potential interaction or direct connection with the others, though the ends of the RK and YK legs do meet briefly outside of the red latch into the exit area. That said, you can still choose your itinerary here to some extent, but the sense of being able to improvise a route (and thus, a battle strategy) that livened up the past few maps doesn't make a particularly strong showing here, as there is significantly less real interconnection between the areas, and bailing out of one route into the middle of another doesn't seem to promise anything but less efficiency in this case. This being the case, I felt like the less endearing aspects of the mapset's gameplay regained some ground here--each key area has a decent idea or concept to it, which is all well and good, but you often have to pass through a senseless immobile meat-gate (which can generally only be attacked in one way, and usually from one position) before you can get in and see them, reminds me of having to wait in line to ride the rides at an amusement park. This is particularly pronounced with the spider-tunnel outside the BK bunker and especially the walls of groundlings which reinforce the machinegun nests which characterize the RK pod, which seem purpose-placed to annoy you by preventing you from tackling the nests in the intended way, which is to charge in guns blazing to clear one of them out rather than enduring an attrition-heavy/ammo-inefficient shootout with them from the exterior grounds.

Of the self-contained fights, I liked the one in the exit annex the most, where you are compelled to electric chainsaw through one vile and his retinue before the other can circle around and roast you from behind, all while being lightly peppered with minigun fire from the sliiiiightly more relevant spiderdemon (although sometimes he derpily autoaims at the pinkies down below as well)--BFG's a tripwire secret back at the entrance, incidentally, I didn't use it on anything but the last afrits this go-round. The BK bunker is a solid break/enter type of fight where you are again better served in nutting up rather than trying to camp the door for a change, although as is often the case with turret-style cyberdemons the big bull does a fine job as a useful gameplay device right up until the moment where you have to actually kill him with small-arms fire, which is never very satisfying or cathartic. Telefrag secrets, Pipicz! The YK path is somewhat more understated in air, though ironically it was the only part where I was really sweating--immediately beforehand I had foolishly tried to enter the RK pod before being properly armed (again missed the secret SSG until about halfway through the level, incidentally) and so got chewed up pretty badly, so you can perhaps understand that I may have momentarily lost bladder control when the trap at the yellow card sprung--think I came out of there with all of 8% health, and had to do some more fighting (inc. punching!) before reaching the medikits in the cave at the other end of the RK path. On that note, I suppose here we can see another small uptic in the difficulty curve evinced simply through supply placement--all told, I find I'm still leaving most of these maps with a ton of ammo and in pretty good health (as pickups tend to be handed out quite liberally in the vicinity of designed fights), but the pistol-starts are indeed becoming noticeably more labor-intensive as far as building to a stable level of positive momentum goes. Nothing to make me feel like I need to use carryovers to maintain my sanity yet, though.

[Spectre01]

Map 21: The Purgatory Gateway Casual UV-Max (~10 min)

Welcome to hell marines! Now, a map 21 with a death exit before it? What is this, some kind of obligatory Tyson map? Well, not really. The Berserk Pack is actually a secret (that's right under you when you start) and you're able to grab your core weapons very early on in the map. Ammo can be tight, so punching out the rabble is strongly recommended. Health and armour are also sparse unless you manage to grab the secrets, the best one being the Megasphere outside in the blood lake. It allows you to play significantly more risky/sloppy than you otherwise would if you missed it.

None of the combat here is particularly harsh to those who made it this far, so it's a nice and quick episode opener. The visuals are, as per usual, well done with plenty of lighting variation in the cave area and a cool looking Scythe 2-esque castle/cathedral. Although I did notice that one of the stone faces was mis-aligned. Then again, I'm usually happy with anything that's not redrock spam these days. Bonus points for the great midi too. I'm not a Cradle fan, but it fits really well here and the fast tremolo picked sections sound really good.

[baja blast rd.]

Since it's a short and easy, here's an FDA before I go to bed.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4njqpnuk4sgcbfq/bstain21_rdwpa_fda.lmp

~18 mins because I play slowly.

I liked much of the gameplay here, but there was a lot of silliness scattered around too. So many monster-blocked monsters. The vile+baron wave confined to that room in particular was unnecessary. Deployment of flying monsters is absurd: cacos behind those rocks, an afrit used as a baron . . .

Pleasantly surprised at the lack of four instapop AVs in the last area (cordoned off by monster-block lines of course). I expected that or a cyber when I saw monsters still remaining.

[Paul977]

Rayzik said:

And that MAP31.... UGH

Please don't ever, EVER make a maze map. If you are a new or aspiring mapper reading this, DO NOT MAKE A MAZE MAP. REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Eheh all depends how the maze is executed (see Hunted). I saw the streaming of this map: the outdoor area is not bad (corridors a little too tight, perhaps) while the indoor guarantees more maneuverability but too predictible encounters (hell knights at every corners), if I were the author I would have used a lot of monster closet to scary the players to death :D
I totally agree on the outstanding visuals of most of the maps of this megawad.

[NuMetalManiak]

Magnusblitz said:

Really dig the Goldeneye 64 music track here

Is that where it's from? How come I never knew about this till now?

also mazes are fine for me unless I don't have a map or they're from Wolfenstein 3d.

MAP21 The Purgatory Gateway

Obligatory MAP21 berserk level give me a break. Also inescapable pit RIGHT THERE where it is fml. What even is this music?

Okay maybe it's just a berserk in a secret that supposedly makes things funner, as a shotgun is given in the valley area that comes up next, and the chaingun can be got soon enough. The caverns in the northwest are the first thing to accomplish. Getting the plasma gun is almost essential for this area, since it and the key are guarded by some annoying midtiers that would be too much trouble with my current armaments. Seems you need the yellow key just to get the red key, and since the two color switches are next to each other and my experiences with the past levels, that was something...different. The ending features a pop-up monster gallery where an afrit actually took most of the meat down with me.

[Spectre01]

I actually fell into that inescapable pit on my first demo attempt while grabbing the Berserk. Not a big deal since it's right at the start but still amusing.

rdwpa said:

Since it's a short and easy, here's an FDA before I go to bed.

Strange the 4 Chaingunners didn't trigger during the megasphere grab there. I did like how thoroughly you tried to break into that cathedral at the start and the reaction to the misaligned face.

[Magnusblitz]

Getsu Fune said:

Is that where it's from? How come I never knew about this till now?

Yup, specifically, it's "Caverns" from this site here.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP21: The Purgatory Gateway
100% kills, 4/4 secrets

Full disclosure: I used to really like the "death exit into Tyson map 21" cliche. I still actually do like the concept, but not that it always needs to be tied with going into hell. This isn't a Tyson map, really, since the berserk is a secret and the shotgun is given right away, but unfortunately it is a death exit into hell map, so, boo. I do appreciate that the smaller monster size means less meat to grind through, though.

Unfortunately, what is here still isn't all that interesting. The cave ambushes are pretty predictable and I really dislike the use of the Arch-Viles as... well, guard towers, basically, on the way back from collecting the keys. A lot like the revenant groups on MAP16, actually. For some reason the author clearly finds that sort of gameplay mechanic a lot more interesting than I do. For me it just feels like shooting fish in a barrel.

[Spectre01]

Map 22: Chambers of Suffering *Casual "UV-Max" (over 20 min)

*You can check the ending of my demo to see what I mean, but I'm still gonna vent about this first. There's a part, right and I mean RIGHT before the exit line where what seems like your voodoo doll telefrags the Cyberdemon behind a gate, which deals something like 100+ damage to you. And if you happen to be low on health from the previous fight, this kills you even though you cleared the map. This is, frankly, complete bullshit. Also, the yellow key grab spawns two exploding barrels right next to you. Again, if you can't take 100+ damage at that point you just die. It's possible to avoid it by grabbing the key and instantly running back, like I did in my demo, but that's because I played the map once before in Zandronum with saves, so I repeated that part so see if it's avoidable. First time players are almost guaranteed to take the damage. Due to that, I technically didn't exit the level and finish the map, but I'm not gonna bother recording again just to do that.

I'll post the more positive impressions when my "jimmies" are a bit less "rustled".

Edit: Now that my blood pressure and sodium levels are back to normal I can talk about the map. First of all, as mentioned in the text file, map 22 takes some inspiration from Doom's e3m4, the House of Pain. The biggest homage being the room with the 4-sided switch pillars unlocking 4 monster closets. That's where most similarities end though. As with several of the maps before, on Pistol Start the opening is again the hardest part of the map. You're given a measly Shotgun/Chaingun/green armour and have to take out a Revenant, 10+ Imps shooting from multiple directions and 5 or so Cacodemons rising from the blood below. All while maneuvering over a bumpy bridge and then more unever terrain that makes dodging and navigating rather difficult. It's best to skip the Berserk as it's more useful as a health pickup afterwards, and if you grab the two side secrets with a bit of platforming, you'll be at 200/200 before unlocking the castle. Once you grab the SSG and RL, you're set to take on the map. There's quite a large number of Archviles here, and monster movement is less restricted than before. You can still use doors to camp/funnel enemies and initiate infighting.

The aesthetic alternates between a gothic torture chambers and Scythe-style red rock/blood caverns. I much prefer the former and the red, blood-stained (heh), marble floor texture looks really good. There's also a room where some poor Imps get crushed, burned and exploded. For some reason, the burning Imp causes a repeated clicking sound after dying that's persistent and annoying in the general area. The section where you descend the stairs full of Revenants and a Mastermind below is really cool though. There are 3 Cyberdemons behind large doors that can be freed individually or together but can be amusingly cheesed. I did this in the demo, but if you kill one of the Cybers, you can use the gap in the floor between the rooms to shoot the BFG at their feet and then unlock the doors once they're dead. There's a bit of a mini-slaughter encounter with some Revenants once you jump off the 3D bridge and the exit room holds 3 Archviles that are able to run out and start resurrecting stuff. Good map, aside from my grievances above.

[Aquanet]

MAP21: The Purgatory Gateway

Pipicz makes snappy little castles, but the caves drag down the overall quality with predictable and a bit tedious ambushes. Also, the trap that teleports in a super baron just where you killed one after collecting the red key is annoying. I wanted to like the caco wave, but it just seems lost. Encounters are stepping up in difficulty, and I'm interested to see how tough things will get. The midi track is odd but in a doom-suitable way.

[Pure Hellspawn]

rileymartin said:

Map 22: Chambers of Suffering *Casual "UV-Max" (over 20 min)

*You can check the ending of my demo to see what I mean, but I'm still gonna vent about this first. There's a part, right and I mean RIGHT before the exit line where what seems like your voodoo doll telefrags the Cyberdemon behind a gate, which deals something like 100+ damage to you. And if you happen to be low on health from the previous fight, this kills you even though you cleared the map. This is, frankly, complete bullshit. Also, the yellow key grab spawns two exploding barrels right next to you. Again, if you can't take 100+ damage at that point you just die. It's possible to avoid it by grabbing the key and instantly running back, like I did in my demo, but that's because I played the map once before in Zandronum with saves, so I repeated that part so see if it's avoidable. First time players are almost guaranteed to take the damage. Due to that, I technically didn't exit the level and finish the map, but I'm not gonna bother recording again just to do that.

I'll post the more positive impressions when my "jimmies" are a bit less "rustled".

Could be a bug in the map. Maybe a Romero telefrag would be a better idea? Or maybe this is the Chamber of Suffering?

I rmemmber that but I actually survived it on HMP with 45% left. Played through the whole mapset and I'd say this megawad's gems are the hell maps.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 20 -- The Great Furnace - 109% Kills / 100% Secrets
Something a little bit lengthier here, in a somewhat more adventuresome style. Like many of the set's early levels, in game terms the route here is quite linear (though I think you get to pick whether to approach the red key or yellow key first in the map's second segment), but ties in with shifts in the scenery in such a way that there is more of an overt sense of story to the proceedings. A lot of Bloodstain relies on serialized sense of place more than on overarching diegesis or narrative, featuring mostly one-off settings with a location-based design; this is an absolutely valid design choice, especially in a Doom context, but all the same it's a nice changeup to see something with a bit more cinema to it here. I like the way you can saunter up and get a look at the titular Furnace from a distance by peeking around the blue barricade early on, but before you can go and take a closer look you've to deal with the subquest of getting the blue key out of the dark, frigid cave system carved into the mountainside. Once that's done, you find you spend more time scrabbling around outside the furnace on iron walkways over its molten bath in order to get two more keys to unlock the inner gates, before finally proceeding into the ominous metal edifice's yawning maw for the real showdown, only to encounter a great portal to Hell at its heart. Natch.

As per usual, the combat is periodically marked by blocking lines and other construction-related foibles which hamper the action's sense of vitality in one way or another. The most pronounced instance I saw involved the RK cyberdemon and the attendant cloud of pain elementals, which can very easily be rendered almost tragically impotent by more 3D bridge-related fuckery in the vicinity. All told, though, it's certainly not the worst of this we've seen in the set, and I felt like the sense of setting and adventure here went a long way in helping to compensate.

It also helps out a lot that the map's three different segments all feature a distinctly different style of gameplay: first, we have traps and periodic claustrophobia in the early ice tunnels, more or less in line with the style of action that has defined the greater part of the set thus far, which is slow to get the ball rolling (too many mid-tier monsters in the early part of the upper tunnels, methinks, which of course is a recurrent issue with the mapset) but fits well enough thematically and thankfully doesn't overstay its welcome. The 'secrets needed for map to flow correctly' thing crops up a bit here, true, mostly with your needing the BFG not to be totally ganked by the vile & co. at the top of the blind lift upon your return, but in truth I haven't really seen this as a problem with the set (rather an uncommon/unorthodox/old-fashioned design slant) to this point and still don't feel that way now. The second area, which for me was actually the biggest to-do, is another of the break/enter/clear scenarios that have been prominent in the set, this one distinguishing itself through its unusually wide physical scale and use of limited footing over lava to complicate matters. The two little setpieces to the sides here are so-so, IMO--as aformentioned the RK one is not terribly well thought-out and laughably exploitable as a result, but I did like the sudden revenant incursion on the floor in the YK bit (took me a while to figure out how to get the key, I admit--I simply did not interpret the setup there as a chute/ladder until trying the midtex as a door of some sort). The final bit is a simple slaughter piece framed to seem as though the hellspawn are deeply entrenched and defending the heart of the furnace. Much of this can play out in an EXTREMELY camp-laden way, it's true, but I think it's much more mutable via player agency and more open to subversion (the good kind of subversion, I mean, vs. the patently broken setup at the RK) if you toy with it a bit, and I had fun turning it into a mostly self-exhausting clusterfuck (aided by a very useful early secret V-sphere, for sure). The PCorf Quartet, you say....? Ah, well, shucks. I'll forgive 'em, this time. They're just so earnest, you know?

Likable map. In truth I'm a little surprised Bloodstain handled a map in this style this well given some of its play/placement issues, but there you have it. That's the power of presentation!

Map 21 -- The Purgatory Gateway - 130% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah, map 21 Tyson map. Wait.....no, it isn't. Not even remotely, in fact--there's a bit of a slow startup to your ammo situation, true, but by the end of the map's short duration you're packing a full kit again (inc. a backpack), missing only a BFG and a chainsaw. Nevertheless, I played half of this as a Tyson map with very little prompting on the author's part without even really thinking about what I was doing. How.....Pavlovian.

Bloodstain's intro to E3 is completely and unapologetically a traditional snapshot of the iconic Doom take on Hell, jagged rocks, rivers of blood and brimstone, and looming horror-gothic cathedrals and castles and all (I suppose it can be argued this is more true of PWAD Hell than IWAD Hell, but that's another matter). As has been discussed prior, some players are wont to meet this type of endgame setting with a certain attitude of ennui, but if there's anyone to breathe life into the presentational tropes of this tried and true theme, Pipicz is surely prominent among them. Things start out fairly low-key with a series of rocky sloughs dotted with gnarled vegetation and flyblown corpse-totems seguing into a shadowy burrow and a blood-creek or two, but the eastern face of the island (if that's what it is) is dominated by a squat blackstone barbican sheltering a transitory chapel within. And seriously now, how cool is the beetling, buttressed facade of said chapel, perched on the edge of a bloodfall with its flaming beacons juttering in the purgatorial winds? Shit, even the traditional skyhole-style exit housed in the building's apse is quite snazzy-looking with its provocatively placed marine corpse on the bloody altar. Many players already seem to agree that aesthetics are the strongest aspect of Pipicz's craft; tidings of things to come, let's hope. Let's also hope the following BGM tracks are better than this one.

Oddly, though, there are some rather obvious polish issues here, from the purely aesthetic (the grossly misaligned stone gargoyle faceplate at about 8 o'clock in the yard outside the chapel, the candle on the right side of the chapel entrance which starts floating/clipping once the bars are raised, etc.) to the more substantial (the megasphere chaingunners also failed to appear for me, and I didn't know about their existence until reading about it here). Gameplay here is not very imaginative and feels like it exists primarily to fill time and space, with the short duration being heavily marked by really blatant threshold fights (prosecuted as usual by very heavyhanded usage of blocking lines) and a couple of basic encirclement-style ambushes which are very easy to escape even without taking the blocking lines into account. Usage of arch-viles here is also extremely questionable; the first guy I can kinda understand, since he's a nominal deterrent to just running away from the YK guardians in the caves (can they actually pursue, though...?) and the chaingunners he inevitably revives can actually hit you from some weird angles down by the blood-pond. The second and third viles are hard to rationalize about, though--they essentially make your door-camp fights inside the barbican take longer without adding any threat, which is inexcusable considering that it's actually the same fight in the same room twice. Woof.

I reckon E3 is going to be what makes or breaks Bloodstain at this point (which is arguably true of many other megaWADs, of course), going to be interesting to see how it pans out. The setting here allows Pipicz a lot of room to work his magic with aesthetics, but I can't help but realize that the traditional needs/expectations of an E3 difficulty curve could prove more than a little problematic on the gameplay end given some of the set's gameplay design propensities......for my part I felt the Autumn Fortress episode was the set's best handling of its slant on gameplay thus far, here's hoping for more in that vein as we move on, rather than the dry grind we see here in m21.