The DWmegawad Club plays: Estranged

[Aquanet]

MAP16: Battle Room

This played as surprisingly dynamic to me, but only in the second half. I spent most of the first half camping away at the banks of mancubi on either side. I liked the geometry and snappier difficulty until the final room, which was a hair too small to do any real rocket damage. Plus, last thing I wanted to do was eliminate infighting opportunities for the mastermind. So I just ran in circles until the exit platform lowered.

MAP17: Twisted Realms

I'm playing continuous so this wasn't a big deal until the fights around the blue key where caco's keep popping up on the sides. The two big progression moments, the blue key and the early switch, are embedded in light puzzle-esque situations, which I always think is kind of swish (the switch I jumped down to). The hallways are twisty but not sure the overall experience is twisted. Barons drive home the doom 1 feeling. Barons, barons, barons.

[dobu gabu maru]

rdwpa said:

Eden is probably approaching the lower end of that. :)

Oooh yeah, I need to test that—I always like your maps so that's probably a perfect fit for me.

SteveD said:

OTOH, I can enjoy playing a nicely done largeish map, especially if some extra effort has been put into the architecture and the size is exploited for some grand-scale visuals.

Yeah, I got into Doom mapping to make large-scale architecture, so naturally I lean towards that (despite how ironically claustrophobic my maps are). I understand the appeal of working with smaller maps/speedmaps and being able to get gratification within a week of starting it, but I find way more fulfillment in finishing the larger behemoths. That said, I definitely make more smaller maps now than when I started mapping.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP12: Dig Site
100% kills, 1/1 secret

First half of this map is boring-ass brown town. Thankfully we see some other colors later on, though the techbase portion is pretty short. There's a couple of cute traps here but overall it's quite forgettable, lots of small rooms and 90 degree angles.

MAP13: Dark Heart
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Another one of those linear levels that remains interesting solely by dint of not being able to really predict the shape/size/encounters coming up next. There's a couple of really sharp ambushes here, not quite in the realm of 'BS because you need foreknowledge' but approaching it.

[grahf]

Map 16 Battle Room:

Did not really like this map. Initially you are extremely dry on ammo and there are mid/high-tier enemies everywhere. Tons of Revenants in particular on this level. Later in the map you release about 5 AVs, probably again with very little ammo left. They will resurrect basically the entire map if you let them.

Finally you are teleported into a small room with a bunch of pinkies, Revenants and a Spiderdemon. During this, the exit to the next map is slowly opening. It's actually the only part I liked from the map - how it's somewhat insurmountable odds and you just need to hold out for a few more seconds and then escape.

The map itself is cramped and seems to have lots of little areas to get caught on. It looks even more basic than the standard already set by Estranged so far. Bleh.

Map 17 Twisted Realms

Small, low-population map with cramped winding halls. I thought we were back in techbases but this definitely has a hellish feel.

For pistol starters this is pretty rough. High-tier enemies everywhere (Barons etc) and no weapons anywhere near the start except a RL. Surrounding the RL are imps, Cacos etc. So is this supposed to be fun?

Once you get over that hump there isn't much to the map. One other tough area, an AV guarded by two Barons while Cacos teleport in is pretty annoying unless you find the hidden BFG. Overall, I liked it more than Map 16 but still seems like a filler map.

[grahf]

Gotta agree. Why not another death exit? I don't see how you can balance this map otherwise for pistol/continuous.

rileymartin said:

Map 16: Battle Room

So this is a bit of a weird one as the difference between continuous play and pistol start will ludicrously stand out here, assuming you come in from either The Floating Fortress or Void Walker packing close to max cells and rockets. Frankly, this seems like a large design mistake when it comes to a megawad with more continuous focus than pistol starts.

[Spectre01]

Map 18: Crater

Is Foodles just rehashing previous maps at this point? This is another one of the 3 or so prior base+cliffs+nukage maps with extremely linear and straightforward gameplay. It's extremely dry for a map 18 slot and the only "challenging section" is the AV+Revenant Spam in the computer room. And by challenging I mean there's not enough firepower provided to fight off all that shit, and unless you're still rockin' all those cells from map 15/32, you're forced to run out and door camp with either the SSG or Rocket Launcher. Oh, and the Revenants are dumb enough that only one or two will actually run out of the door.

[salt] Honestly, unless there are some huge changes in E3, Estranged will probably end up making my least favourite megawad list. If it's lacking in ambition and presentation compared to something from 20 years ago like Memento Mori, then it certainly doesn't stack up by any modern megawad standards. How did we vote for this over Hellbound or AV again? [/salt]

[Demon of the Well]

^^Well, I don't really think the analysis that Foodles intended this WAD to be played primarily in a continuous fashion really holds water. To me it seems more like he was consciously going for a sort of IWAD flavor to the pistol/continuous dichotomy, and thus the thing's all over the board and contains old-fashioned compromises (e.g. ammo with no accompanying weapon found in some maps, immediate armament in others) rather than having a really marked slant in either direction, confusion compounded further by some rather oddly-placed death-exits. To the extent that this analysis is sound, I think he's more or less succeeded in that pursuit. Some levels are certainly much less convenient on pistol-start unless you know where all the secrets and 'ins' are beforehand (although to a much lesser extent than Bloodstain from last month, in that regard), but not a one of them has seemed categorically imbalanced (with or without secrets), m16 included. It just requires you to take a lot more risks in order to gain momentum than previous maps have, for whatever reason, perhaps a function of its less rigidly linear progression.

Map 18 -- Crater - 107% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Back on form for the set at large, this is another linear adventure-type map, with the cheek to tease you by making you navigate a treacherous trek of trials and tribulations all just to bypass a 10-foot high bit of fence (that arrow's really tacky, BTW, but I reckon someone will find it cute/endearing). The complexion of the voyage is once again not unlike "Survey Centre" from early in the set, with a lot of outdoor hiking with periodic stops in a number of small stations or bunkers, most of which are beginning to go a mite Eraserhead on us, just like the one known as the Twisted Realm from map 17. Perhaps it's just some residual mental association from the map's name, but the outdoor section looked rather Evilution to me, probably a combo of the big walls of tan/green masonry under the glowering red sky. There's really not much sense of the thing being a 'crater', I felt--it's more like a mostly manmade road (albeit a heavily damaged one) between outposts, as aforesaid--though perhaps we are to understand that the map as a whole is essentially contained inside the titular formation (you can see expanses of more harmful green fluid beyond the bounds at a couple of points). I'm not entirely sure "Waiting for Romero to Play" entirely fits the look or cadence of the level, but I like the track and saw no real reason to IDMUS away.

I suppose the principal difference between this and earlier maps in a similar mould is that this one tends to get a bit more heated, as evidenced from the outset by the surprisingly large scrum which quickly erupts in the very first yard, which is probably the largest and most dangerous encounter to be found outdoors throughout the duration. Come to think of it, that's another difference--in contrast to earlier maps, here I think the stuff inside the buildings you visit tends to be more of a concern than the perils outdoors, since apart from a couple of cheapshots Foodles takes early on (the pop-up chaingunner trio shortly after the first wooden gate, the sneaky deaf revenant who sees you from behind and above after you're well past his perch) there's less of an element of crossfire and heat coming in from the horizon. The highlight encounter is probably the one in the central blockhouse with the weird little switch-puzzle, very well-tuned for the SSG (which is again the primary weapon for pistol-starters, though there's a lot of bullet ammo lying around as well). It only uses a single arch-vile, but uses him well--the chaotic, confined geometry in there, coupled with the presence of fresh demon corpses and his small retinue of bonemen, maximizes his potential as a medic, especially since it can be tricky to get a clean shot at him given the narrow thresholds and limited elbow room.

Later encounters seem to step down in pace after this one (though I suppose you could probably get yourself in a heap of trouble pretty easily if you were to insist on going full Rambo in the last ooze/rocks area), and most of the difficulty I had was largely due to my own blundering. I allowed the arch-vile in the (extremely obvious) second secret area to push me back and ended up inadvertently stepping on the rather obnoxiously placed teleporter to the last leg, and so had to loop around to get even with him and his boney butt-buddies at the end, the latter group refusing to go quietly and stepping onto that same teleporter, buying them a final potshot when I inevitably gave chase. D'oh. That's another little quirk about the mapset as a whole, actually, almost none of the teleporters have monster-blocking lines around them, it seems, and so there's a lot of potential for mischief if they happen to gain access. Hell, almost seems like the placement of the pad from the anecdote above is actively intended to create the potential for shenanigans.

[baja blast rd.]

map17

This map is a mild departure from the predominant indoor area design techniques of maps past; there are iwad-like irregular angles in the "human-made" structures, and the layout is quite dense in visual connections from one area to another. The start was fun, but I would have appreciated some meanness near the end, maybe a bunch of chaingunners porting in to the hallways around the archvile, the barons behind them.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP18 Crater

A more ordinary level, dash for the SSG and rip through when you can. The three chaingunner bug has been fixed, I see. Most of the action outside isn't much different than what we've seen before, and neither is the inside, at least until you raise the ledge to the second indoor area. This is quite a place, where you have to hit switch after switch before each one rises, all in order to continue. This is a gimmick I cannot ever like. And the revenant horde that comes in after the switch is not helping. The cavern area with the chaingun and the cacodemon horde, plus more revenants behind them, is another potential pain. This level actually had quite a few bugs in it the first time, but most of them have been solved. The combat gets meaty as usual though.

[Steve D]

Map18

Ah, the triumph and the tragedy! In many ways, this is the best map yet, a beautifully realized crumbling techbase in the mountains. Perhaps seismic activity is to blame for collapsed walls and small craters. This map also has some of the best gameplay scenarios yet encountered, but Foodles being Foodles, it also features some spectacularly annoying sniper pin-down sessions and a bizarre switch puzzle. So once again, Foodles is succeeding – perhaps too well – at recreating the most off-putting and infuriating aspects of '90s megawads.

The map gets off to a blazing start that made me exult in my switchover to continuous play. One thing to be expected of a mapset designed for continuous play is escalating difficulty at map starts. This wasn't the case in E1 with its seemingly endless series of pokey breather maps, but since the death exit and the secret maps, Foodles has ramped-up the bloodshed from first step to last. This map has you trolled by a distant Baron, encouraging you to step forward – and be mobbed by Pinkies and Revvies while snipers blast away at you from an overhead guardhouse. This is just the ticket to get my blood pumping as I was forced to savescum out of 3 deaths. I would have had Hell's own time tackling this on pistol with nothing more than the provided SSG. A Rocket Launcher would have been nice, don'tcha think? Perhaps placed in the nukage pool? Alas, pistol-starters will have to go through a lot of hell before they see that weapon, or even the Chaingun.

On the issue of continuous vs pistol, perhaps what Foodles has done is create a continuous megawad with maps that can be extra-challenging for quality UV players. The extra challenge comes in the form of being denied the ideal weapon for a given situation, i.e., the missing Rocket Launcher in the dark Archie/Revvie fight, or given a weapon that endangers the player, as in the Rocket launcher in Map17. For those of us who don't enjoy such scenarios, continuous offers the best experience. If I'm right, I have to give Foodles some props, while still chiding him for not making this clear in the text file.

Anyway, once you clear the opening area, you're faced with somewhat distant Mancs, a dodgy situation for a pistol-starter with just the SSG. Foodles likes to catch you in such a way that if you retreat down his long corridors, you stand a good chance of getting nailed by a fireball. Clever guy, that Foodles.

Lost Souls begin to attrit you as you proceed, appearing out of nowhere, it seems, and taking advantage of their ability to disappear over the walls and then re-emerge from unpredictable directions. Lost Soul use has been a Foodles strength throughout this megawad, and they chopped my health down by 40%.

You then go out on a path overlooking a nukage lake surrounded by terraced walls and with rocky platforms in the middle, which as it happens is loaded with snipers. This is a Foodles map, after all! I was also extremely lucky when I heard a Revvie rocket approaching from behind me and dodged the homer just in time. Yeah, that sneaky bastard had emerged from a little cave in the wall just above me and I walked right past him without knowing it.

Once inside the building, Foodles uses classic strategies to slow you down and attrit you as heavy monsters, along with hitscanners, target you through midtextures. Beautiful sequence, I must say. I'm really in love with the map at this point. This kind of design won’t thrill speedrunners, I'm sure, but if you like traditional maps, this is fine wine indeed.

You soon come to another overlook where at last you receive the Rocket Launcher you've waited ages for. A switch opens the path to a building across the nukage lake, where you'll encounter the most difficult scenario in the map. I leaped onto the terraced hillside where a bunch of health potions signaled the path upward, and when I reached the top, I fell into a pit up there in Sector 410, in the area between the Chaingun and the Dead Player. Checking the map, I see no extra sectors at all, so I'm guessing this is some random nodebuilding error. I was also unable to fall into the pit again once I clipped out. Weird.

The interior of the building is nicely designed in the classical way, and features an easily-obtained Soulsphere secret. It also contains a very nasty trap that dumps Revvies and an Archie on you in tight spaces. After savescumming out of at least 3 deaths, I realized I lacked the skill to handle this fight inside the building, so I had to try 3 times to get out so I could lay down an anti-Revvie rocket barrage from good old Sector 410. Unlike rileymartin, I had at least 6 Revvies leave the building and fall into my trap. I had to go back to the door to get the Archie and the rest of the Revvies, who were clumped just inside, so I waited for them to open the door and then fired away. I had some trouble with this encounter. On one occasion, Archibald McJagoff managed to put me away after he survived 3 rockets, and I also suffered 3 "Good at Doom!" suicides. But it was definitely exhilerating!

But then came the switch puzzle. You had to get it right or you couldn't proceed in the map, because the final switch lifts a ramp to the other side of the nukage lake. This was not immediately obvious, either, so a player could end up puzzling over whether they missed a secret lift inside the building. IMO, this whole sequence was completely obnoxious, but it might be catnip for fans of Eternal and other tricky mappers.

The rest of the battles were nothing to write home about, and the big sniper pin-down at the nukage lake was groanworthy. It ended in a solid bit of distraction, though, because Foodles dangled some overhead sniping Imps who successfully drew my attention away from the Archie that emerged from the other side.

The final 2 secrets are, first, a Blue Armor and, at the very end, a Zerk. Thanks for giving it after I SSGed all those Pinkies. :p

If not for the incredibly annoying moments, I'd say this map was borderline brilliant. As it is, it's still definitely above mid-pack.

[baja blast rd.]

map18

The start is quite fun, an asymmetrical arena setpiece with the SSG and close-up revenants. Worth noting though that it is somewhat easy to just leave immediately, at the low risk of getting a bad RNG roll and being clobbered by the mancs behind the baron. In this case the cacodemons can follow you throughout the entire map, which is quite brilliant, but the revenants all get clogged up at the monster-block line that holds back the baron! In such cases it's typically better to use a "temporary block line" -- a deep 1-mu sector that blocks the movement of ground-based monsters and can be raised with a walkover trigger, allowing monsters to pass at that point.

After that there are a couple of revenants that don't improve the experience of the map in any way. They are no real threat, and not fun to kill. Foodles's use of pinkies and revenants has been either pretty good or somewhat bad, with less in-between, though mostly good in the case of the pinkies. This is followed by decent incidental combat -- nothing special in the way of choreography, but the SSG makes most sub-1000 HP groups of monsters fun to take out at close range -- culminating in the switch area setpiece. This setpiece is a misfire because you can stand on the leftmost side of the area (left relative to the switch), and all the revenants will funnel through a single opening where they can be disposed of with the ample rockets you're given. The vile will inevitably follow, but even if it doesn't, this is another of Estranged's "infinite shell" maps, so that isn't a big problem. The switch puzzle annoyed me a lot at first, because my speakers don't indicate direction well, but after memorizing the pattern it was fun.

Another bridge to cross, with some distant hitscanner snipers. I actually like these for a change because getting rid of them can be done safely with some basic strategy -- stay pressed against the wall with the chaingunners. The secret area next to the teleporter is somewhat amusing because of the archvile placement. I wonder sometimes whether mappers who put archviles in 64-wide cubbies know that you can make easy work of these with the SSG by simply blocking the archvile from leaving with your own body. Archviles and pain elementals are the two weird monsters that are vulnerable to those counters, lacking a typical vector attack. You can also get cyberdemons stuck this way too if you are ballsy enough.

The last area is staged somewhat weirdly. There's that hallway, a chaingunner, a PE, some damaging nukage, and some revs out of auto-aim range, all begging you to camp. I'm not so fond of 25- to 32-high "ledges" adjacent to damaging nukage; they can look a lot like 24-high ones, and the extra second of damage you might soak up while you try to cross one always feels irritating. The vile is held back by another somewhat inelegant monster-block line. I don't believe that monster-block lines should only be used for janitorial purposes, but when you use to keep a monster in place on the ground, it should at least make sense aesthetically. The simplest example is a "turret" that happens to be at a height the monster would ordinarily be able to cross without the block lines. I think this area is only truly fun if you rambo it. Luckily the secret blue armor allows you to do that. You can even risk a run through all of the meaty monsters and straight to the exit. Overall it's a decent map with some flaws, par for the course so far.

[mouldy]

MAP18 - "Crater”

A meandering journey that leads back to the start, nice. Fairly brutal at the beginning, and that switch hunting hive with the archvile and revenant invasion gave me some trouble. Man, does anyone like those running switch combos? I certainly don't. But apart from that I really enjoyed this one. Had a good mix of creeping and blasting, cool secrets too.

[Steve D]

mouldy said:

MAP18 - "Crater”
Man, does anyone like those running switch combos?

Not only no, but hell no!!!!!! ;)

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: Fissure
94% kills, 0/1 secret

Ew, more brown. The outside area actually isn't as bad as I feared - I find having long-distance revenants and chaingunner snipers to be really annoying, but most of them you can get up close to and there isn't too much time spent on clearing them out. The base section is pretty ho-hum, and the final area especially felt very weirdly designed, as everything can pretty much be just safely blasted from the windows above.

[Spectre01]

Map 19: Haunted Mines

Another linear corridor crawl with a rather large number of Revenants and Pain Elementals. Stand out sections include the big Rev+AV ambush after stepping on the red square as well as the much sought-after non-flaccid finale. The strategy there is to run outside the walls where the Mancs can't get you and release the Revenants to encourage a central brawl while you run around taking out the Imp/Hell Knight snipers as well as the Cacodemons. Grabbing the Megasphere secret in the lava tunnel is very helpful there. I never did manage to get that Soulsphere though. One of the better maps despite the very formulaic first half.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 18

Again with the Revenant horde, this time right at the beginning behind some Demons. After I dispatch them, down comes a wall and it's three Mancubi staring at me down a corridor. After I'm done clearing the clogged passage and picking off a few stray enemies, a few surprise Lost Souls end up sneaking up on me which I sort of like. I raise a bridge, and then there's this annoying switchunt puzzle sequence. I hate these so much. Who wants to try to figure out a system of hidden switches in a honeycomb complex of little techrooms? No one. ~No one~. It's enough to make me just want to say screw it on this level, but instead i cheese it with saves. At least it means less redundant running around. After I teleport there's a cluster of enemies and soon a Cacoswarm comes to join the fun; I like this encounter. The teleporting Archvile soon after by the Imps was disarming so I liked that too. The map completed uneventfully; I killed everything and found all secrets, and to be honest I'm just not that thrilled with this map.

[grahf]

Map 18 Crater:
An extremely challenging pistol start here. I have a feeling it would be a complete breeze on continuous though. A large pack of pinkies, Revs and Cacos needs to be dealt with in a confined area while you are sniped at by imps and sergeants. You do get a SSG with plenty of ammo but it's still pretty rough. But somehow I found even with my 10 or so reloads of this starting area, it was pretty fun to figure out the exact pattern you needed to use to have the best chance of success here.

The rest of the map unfolds fairly basically in a linear fashion with no keys. There is a large Revenant and AV ambush that poses only a small threat due to the amount of rockets I accumulated.

The map continues the E2 visual feel, and I think it actually does so fairly well. The techbase descending into hell design is quite well done. It's the first map in Estranged where I thought 'Damn, this actually looks pretty cool'.

Anyway, while I'm not crazy about the map, Crater certainly is one of my favorites so far in Estranged.

edit: after reading some other thoughts on the map, I have to say I dissent and thought the switch puzzle was fine. The timing window was generous, seemed like a tiny change of pace which is always good.

[Aquanet]

MAP18: Crater

The opening is really fun with pinkies, revenants and cacos, and the imps and sarges in the building, applying pressure at different angles (but the baron, behind his blocking line, didn't do much). The exposed start pushed me into the mix. Unfortunately, the outdoor fighting around the base that makes up the middle of the level slows down a lot with monsters set back at long distances. As for the switch sequence thing, I like mandatory puzzles to be pretty easy; this one was a bit harder. Maybe if there were more in the way of visual cues indicating which way to go next (I was playing with bad speakers). The current layout makes for a lot of blind corners and guessing. The caves that wrap things up are ok - the way they intersect with the rest of the map, which is already a mash of indoor and outdoor, is cool.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Anybody wanna see me go nuts? Let's get nuts!

Map 19

Well, it's yet another map. I feel like this wad is making me jaded somehow. Perhaps I'm being unfair to it. Kill off some hitscanners as Cacos circle around from behind a few boxes. Plowing through a steady supply of meat leads to eventually staring at a collection of Revenants and Arachnotrons with their backs to you behind a barrier guarding the YK. Hitting a switch opens that up, and on the way back around to get access through the tunnel that was cleared earlier, a parade of meat comes marching through that one must mow down. It's almost a chore, all this tunnelfighting and just constant SSG use. Speaking of which, when i finally get to the monster collection guarding the YK, I'm down to 12 shells. Um... fuck. So I count on infighting to do as much as I can as I sneak in and grab up the items and YK. Darting in and out a few time I finally see some needed ammo and am able to finish off the team of Revenants that have survived. I liked the difference this sort of encounter made so even though I think its a shame the tunnel meat had to even be there, I'm glad it meant i walked into this battle virtually unarmed. I play a while longer and eventually get to a drop down to a Mancubus past the BK door. A dead end ensues, followed by yet another Revenant horde with two Archviles in this basement with practically no cover. The thing about this encounter that really sets me off though is that there are rockets everywhere, and it's by far the ideal weapon for this, but there is no RL on the map, at least not unless it is in a secret or something. I mean I've been seeing back and forth about whether this is really a Pistol Start mapset and all I can say is that if it is, it does a pretty lame job of it at too many times.

After numerous attempts I give up that the fight is simply not possible in this environment with the SSG alone and type 'give rocketlauncher'. I guess I'm a cheater, I dunno. But the map is bullshit so fuck it. Even after that it takes lots of attempts to survive; this encounter also really needs armor. And there's no health pickups between this and the next fight past the RK door? The hell, Foodles and playtesters... just whatever. I'm already cheating anyway so i give myself a soulsphere and head into an arena fight surrounded by Mancs and Hellknights with almost no cover. I mean at this point I would call this a troll map if it were isolated and I didn't have awareness of the author. I try everything and cannot figure out a way forward amidst this arena fight. The thing that looks like it maybe could turn into a lift is already lowered. I go around wallhumping and keep dying as it goes on. I eventually am running around doing some of this when I see that the wall behind the teleport-in has lowered. When the hell did this happen, was it a timed thing? I reload and put on IDDQD to investigate this mess. After trying damn near everything I find out that you're supposed to wallhump the wooden wall portion where it looks like a lift will raise later. THAT soundlessly lowers the wall behind the teleport. Who the heck even does this? If someone has tried that already and heard nothing and died, they're not going to keep trying it and just looking around. That's like... no. It's just wrong. Anyway the trick after that is to go around the perimeter, hit a switch that raises the lift, then up that lift and step into the exit. Bluh.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP19 Haunted Mines

Ah fuck, I remember this all too well. This was another one of those ammo starvation maps, at like a midway point here I would be trying to get as many enemies possible to infight, and at that point I ran out of ammo there and fought some big monster with bare fists. And that was on the easy setting (actually I think I played in HNTR rather than ITYTD, but the ammo dearth was noticeable then regardless)! Let's see how this played out now.

Getting the SSG early is a good thing, as are the conventional weaponry. I usually ignore those cacos in the next cavern (don't remember if they were on easy difficulties or not, for that matter). At the horseshoe shaped area was when I got conservative, even though there's a shell box in one corner, I really wanted some infighting going on. Seeing a boatload of monsters directly in front of a yellow key is likely to be bad enough, but goddamn, after hitting the switch which opens up the inside of the horseshoe (where the key and monsters are) actually teleports in more monsters who are more trouble than they are! Yes, this is that area I'm talking about. There's a few shells on the walls, but one medikit, plus whatever you could scrounge before, but there's lots of hell knights and cacos who teleport into the room PLUS some chaingunners. I wanted to have some infighting done here, but sometimes there's too much for this small room to handle. I guess Foodles did make this room better by adding those extra shells, or maybe I just suck enough to not remember them before.

The dust needs to settle regardless, but I can imagine that yellow key area to be a REAL pain; just think, revenants, arachnotrons, and pain elementals all over there? I don't even remember the latter monster being a part of things in here, and they ruin infighting chances. After that the map starts to wind down in difficulty a bit, though one has to be careful of arch-viles behind the yellow bars or the switch that releases spectres. It can get quite nauseating, especially since the author seems to place more ammo boxes than shell boxes and the combat doesn't offer us other choices of weapons at the moment.

Whoa, what was I saying about pain elementals again? Right, after the blue door, there's more of that and revenants. The red key battle is also a pain in the neck, but with revenants and some archies thrown in. FYI, a rocket launcher is in a secret, so it might be wise to find it (not exactly a hard one either). The finale pits the player in a small fort, accommodated by some rather annoying monsters, mancubi in the center, cacodemons, and those that are always on the walls all the time. I recall there being an invulnerability on the easy settings, but it isn't sure present on UV, also you have to press somewhere to get the outer wall open so you can wheel around and hit a switch on the backside of the fort. I always hated these switches. You go a long way to figure out you can't leave the inner section, then have to go all the way out on an outer bend to find something directly behind it. Blah. This map sure needed more combat versatility if you ask me, no plasma weapons OR a berserk pack, yet you fight so many big enemies that it isn't at all fun, particularly for pistol starts. If I had trouble pistol starting this on the lower settings, you WILL have trouble on the higher ones.

[Steve D]

Map19

Seele went nuts on this one, and I can see why. I almost went nuts even on continuous!

The early going was pretty standard fare until your first backtrack after seeing the yellow key room. Foodles once again resorts to chokepoints as Hell Knights, Cacos and Chaingunners come at you down a dark, narrow corridor. Infight opportunities were bad given that monsters seem shy about shooting when there's a monster in front of them, so I expended a lot of ammo until I piled up enough bodies to run out and get some infights between the Nobles, Cacos, and the platoon of Chaingunners behind them. I took a lot of damage from the Chaingunners, but FFS, I was so damn tired of being pinned down. Again and again and again, Foodles does this. YAWN!!!!!!

The first arena fight against the spiders and Revvies, plus Pain Elementals, was quite mild, since you could cheese it just by shooting through the midtexture from a cross-connecting hallway and let them infight, then racing out to finish off the survivors. By now I was low on all my ammo, so the boost in shells was welcomed. At this point, I began to really empathize with what Seele went through.

My first death came at the blue door when I hesitated at the sound of Revvies and a Pain Elemental teleported right in front of me. Rather than crowd it, I stepped back reflexively and proceeded to unload way too much ammo against that PE along with the others that seemed to come from an infinite source. I was finally taken down by a Revvie rocket after racing in for some health and shells – yes, I ran out of shell ammo! It took a few tries before I finally beat this room. Credit to Foodles for making "Defend The Door" an actual challenge.

And then came That Room. All those rocket boxes, many in the lava. Thanks for trolling us, Foodles. Once I'd collected all but a couple lava-bound rocket boxes and stepped on the red square, it was, "Uh-oh!" time. That was some trap, I'll tell ya. IMO, the RL is definitely not the preferred weapon here, the BFG is. With that little opening, soon crowded by Revvies and Archies, it's a "Good at Doom!" suicide generator. Foodles has been rocket-launcher trolling us again and again and again in this megawad. Enough already! But for the better players, this is quite doable. However, I was at 32% health with no armor, and walking out into a mass of Revvies and Archies plus a Manc that I heard but never saw in living form was a no-go. I tried it, just to prove I was right. So I God-moded out of it, just like Seele.

And then came That Finale. That was quite the sucker-punch we teleport into. It took me many tries before I figured out a winning strategy. Victory for me came when I sidestepped the Manc to my right, because I had learned that if I sidestepped the Manc to my left, the one to my right almost always got a shot off, while if I went right, the Manc to my left almost never got a shot off. It seems to be one of those things where the RNG does the same thing every time. I noticed this once when chainsawing Spectres in a Jaws In Space map. 4 or 5 in a row went down, but then came the one that always got bite-through and always with massive damage.

That said, going right also had the benefit that the Hell Knight snipers always opened fire and hit the Manc, generating a necessary infight. Then, it was proceed to the first tower to my right, which separates banks of Hell Knight snipers, so I could rocket the Manc in the right corner pocket without being slimed, then into the corner pocket, rocket the Hell Knights above, rocket whichever Manc was coming for me since there were always at least 2 that avoided infights. Then ring-around-the-rosie taking out all the Mancs as fast as possible while avoiding "Good at Doom!" suicides from the Cacos. It was essential to kill the Mancs because their spray-fire is way too dangerous to me as a keyboarder to keep them alive for infights. Once the Mancs were dead, go for the Cacos and then the Nobles. There was also a distant line of Imps with harassing fire, and I suffered at least 1 death to them. Then I pressed the wooden panel, thinking it would be a lift – but no! – it was a silent switch lowering the walls behind you to unleash a horde of Revvies. Holy boney skeletons, Batman!

After dying once, I had to race out of there, which happily corralled the Revvies inside, this allowed me to, very tediously, run back and forth to peek around the corner and rocket them. Boring. I used the Chaingun to kill the sniping Revvies on the exit tower once I found a favorable angle. ZZZzzzzzzz.

So it's a Foodles map, intensified. It looked great for the most part with excellent use of the E2 theme, enhanced by dim lighting. It had some good battles and it had some pin-downs and rocket-launcher trolling. You could call Estranged "Snipers, The Megawad," or "Rocket Launcher Trolling, The Megawad." If Foodles could cut down on those elements, along with his penchant for cheap shots, this could be a much better mapset.

[baja blast rd.]

map19

no

[mouldy]

MAP19 - "Haunted Mines”

Holy shit. Do not attempt this map from pistol start unless you know it like the back of your hand, because there is a secret rocket launcher and you will die without it. You will die with it as well, but at least you might stand a chance of crawling to the exit on your knees.

What the hell happened with the testing on this map? Why is the rocket launcher even secret when it is mandatory? If you are playing continuous then its pretty likely that you would have one by now, so its only really there for pistol starters, who are utterly fucked without it. So even with the rockets I still found the only way to do most of it was by running past everything if possible, and just hoping that I scraped through with enough health because the few medkits that are sprinkled around are barely enough to cover the amount of damage I was taking. Anyway, its possible. Not fun, but possible, and while there might be room in the world for such maps, it seems to be a bit of a jarring difficulty spike in this wad.

[Spectre01]

There's a non-secret rocket launcher in a reasonable spot, but it's flagged MP only for whatever reason. No idea how this got past QA.

rdwpa said:

map19

no

pls elaborate

[Magnusblitz]

MAP15: Floating Fortress
91% kills, 4/4 secrets

After quite a lot of IWAD-style type designs, we get a map type that is a well-worn PWAD trope, almost to the point of cliche, with the (boringly) named Floating Fortress. I wasn't having too much fun with this map at first, slowly slogging through everything with the single shotty, chaingun and limited rockets, until I realized I must've missed something and went back. Lo and behold, I had missed the SSG (and backpack) in my initial scramble from the start. Oops. Grab those and its a lot better, though still bordering on sloggy in some parts due to the large amount of mancubuses in the map. I did enjoy searching for the keys for the secret exit (though they often come with a fair amount of boring backtracking).

MAP31: The Tomb
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Cute little map. Not much for combat (until the AVs in the super secret exit area), just exploration, basically the same as last map's key grabs.

MAP32: Void Walker
38% kills, no map secrets

I'm not really a fan of slaughtermaps, and judging by the comments here, I made a good choice in not trying to really 'complete' this one. I decided to see if I could beat it without firing a shot, and I did manage to make it all the way to the final area without doing so with only a couple deaths (thanks to the AVs by the boss head cube). Did have to finally pull the trigger on the final AVS, but ah well.

[Steve D]

rileymartin said:

Map 19: Haunted Mines
Grabbing the Megasphere secret in the lava tunnel is very helpful there. I never did manage to get that Soulsphere though.

I didn't get any of the secrets, so I checked the map in DB2. The Megasphere is accessed off the Archie/Revvie room. You have to walk onto -20% lava and then face a Manc the second you open the door, then run down a corridor of -20% lava. Yeah, walking in at 32%, no way am I gonna make it, and I generally don't look for secret doors in lava moats. A similar but less severe path takes you to the Soulsphere. I noticed something fishy about the wood walls outside the blue door. One of them lowers to reveal a teleporter that leads to the Soulsphere, but to activate that sector, once you get past the blue door, you have to jump into the -20% lava immediately to your right. You'll notice a lift in there. I was suspicious about it but lacked enough health to try it. You have to do something to a generalized line sector in a room you can see below, and that is what lowers the teleporter.

Those are some nasty ways to get secrets, I must say.

[Demon of the Well]

^^To get the soulsphere, you have to shoot the hanging corpse (texture) behind the grate just past the blue door. No lava-dip necessary. That megasphere secret sure is something, though...

[Steve D]

^^Thanks for clearing that up, which reminds me, as a general rule, I never think about shooting hanging corpse textures. :D

[Spectre01]

Map 20: The Rift

Now this is a pretty good one, aside from the head-scratching exclusion of cells or any cell weapons. This map's mostly a collection of 4 setpiece encounters minus the whole lock-in deal. The initial arena can be circlestrafed quite leisurely and the left bridge can be camped while baiting infighting, but the right encounter with the lava drop is quite good. Plenty of threats from all sides as well as a radsuit based time limit on how much you can linger in there. The last encounter should've really locked the door behind you as it's just too easy to trivialize by camping the top of the stairs while the Cyber does everything or retreating back for some health if you catch some unwanted projectiles. Still a step above most other maps in the set and decent episode closer.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 19 -- Haunted Mines - 104% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Spooky scary. Mean and nasty, too. Another dark, indoor/underground sequence of traps, "Haunted Mines" is quite a bit like "Dark Heart" on steroids, continuing the mapset's pattern of periodically rehashing itself thematically. I reckon it's probably accurate to say that this is the most dangerous and meanspirited map thus far in the set (and it's moreso than at least the next couple of maps to follow it, to boot), contributing along with the oddly-spaced death-exits to the mapset's rather unusual internal cadence.

Let's get the thing with the RL out of the way, since it's somewhat emblematic of the character of the map as a whole. Often I find myself playing the advocate/apologist for various unconventional placement/design decisions when things like this crop up, and the issue of whether or not it's "wrong" to put weapons or other heavily balance-affecting items in secrets is something that's come up a lot these past couple of months. In this particular case, to be quite honest I find it really difficult to come up with any way to excuse the decision (if it even is a 'decision'--if Riley's right about the MP-only RL I suspect it might be nothing more than an oversight), since the map is borderline dysfunctional without the RL in play. The big fight in the underground lava-sauna is probably doable with just the SSG and/or chaingun if you're good enough at door-marshalling techniques (or even with flashier vile-shield tactics if you're a really good player), but there's nowhere near enough shell/bullet ammo in the map for either of these approaches to be viable. If you're going to fight (not sure how viable running away would really be, since you have to wait on the lift to prime itself), you need to use the fount of rocket ammo that starts showing up later in the map, and of course you can't do that without the RL, found only in a simple/straightforward but nevertheless tricky-to-spot secret. Just not the right call, in this case.

Now, assuming you do find that RL secret (which I did), the map's balance is still uncomfortably tight up until near the end--seems like it'd really slack off if you got the cheeky-ass performance-gated megasphere at the right time, but I played badly in the last fight in my FDA and so felt the heat right 'til the end. Clearly what Foodles is going for here is what KMXEXII likes to call "survival horror", and it's been a while since I've seen a map where the term would be more fitting. Even before the critical junction point of finding the hidden RL/not finding it comes up, ammo and healing is doled out very carefully in the context of another linear tour where nearly all of the combat features very intimate encounters with a wide range of powerful/high HP foes who simply cannot be reliably avoided or bypassed given the nature of the environment. A number of players mentioned the clot of knights and cacodemons and commandos which you have to drill through on the way back to the YK's chamber and all of its awaiting guardians; I don't think these 'preamble' monsters are supposed to represent a threatening force per se, but rather intended to make you sweat via the heavy unavoidable ammo tax they represent, which in turn forces you to have to make some pretty dangerous moves in the YK fight proper in order to stay stocked on shells and keep the problematic front of pain elementals from getting too out of control; even if you play it right you still likely feel like you let too much slip by, engendering anxiety as you move further into the mines and still don't find that 'turning point' with resources for quite a while. Even minor issues occasionally become stressful with the way things are laid out in this level, sometimes to the point where it's difficult to tell if every facet of the oppressive flavor is entirely by design. For instance, healing items are quite valuable and should be used carefully in this level, but several of the few medikits are placed in spots where it's really difficult not to inadvertently absorb them while carrying out the movements of battle. I think I must've used at least 2-3 medikits at 98% health in the FDA as a result, which of course can heighten the pressure of mistakes later on in the progression (and also arguably devalue otherwise competent play in the earlier stages).

To that end, I think the earlier parts of the level are actually more crucial to its overall design than its marquee encounter in the lava-sauna pit, which offers a comfy pile of buffer resources (again, provided you at least found the RL secret) and simply tasks you with not panicking, which can be easier said than done given how relatively stressful things have been to that point. That the map keeps going for a few more minutes after this is also interesting....I'm inclined to give Foodles the benefit of the doubt and reckon that this is done to underscore the map's grueling design, but given what we've seen in a fair few of the other maps it could just be another instance of his penchant for cutting from one level to another at odd and sometimes irrational points.

I certainly admire what this map is going for in the context of the greater set, which has mostly been a straightforward safari. Shame its hand is overplayed (maybe not even on purpose?) and thus will probably leave a bad impression on many players. That rocket launcher really shouldn't have been secret....