WIP Limit-Removing Megawad Crossbearer (Hiatus)

[HAK3180]

@Soulless, again I much appreciate all of your thoughts and I'm glad you're mostly enjoying things. I'll just respond to a few things.

 

5 hours ago, Soulless said:

[In Map 11] I found a couple of secrets, after the mandatory 100% kill I went for an
IDDT examination and managed to get the computer map (cool one), and to my
surprise also found a blue skull key at the start of the map by just touching the wall.
Guess theres a well hidden blue door around but I totally missed it.

Actually, the blue skull is a failsafe. It's possible to move too fast and hit a switch too early, thus breaking the map. You have to be trying to do it to do it, and you have to be very fast. But I did not want to leave in a softlock, so I put in a super obscure extra key that you cannot actually get unless you go through the motions of getting the keycard anyway.

 

I'm glad you found some enjoyment in Map 13. It can be fun, but it's easy to be confusing because of the odd progression. I think the main thing with this one is it's just too long, so that's one of the things I'm looking to change.

 

I do like the concept of Map 14 (quite linear, no keys), but again, I think it is too long and yes, the mountain scenery could be a lot prettier.

 

5 hours ago, Soulless said:

[Map 15:] Couple of secret stuff I wanted to know about. I did opened that door that let you inside the secret exit
but wasnt fast enough and closed behind my back, I couldnt replicate so I couldnt make it through,
I would make it repeatable but its a secret so...
Another moment that confused me (which I think its related also to the secret exit) is the teleported barrel,
which is triggered by a switch inside a very well crafted hole, I guess is part of this obscure alliance.

All three barrels open that door, so you get three chances. The exit door itself stays open. But in any case, I don't like the secret exit setup, so I'll be changing that, even if this map remains mostly intact. When I lost a bunch of Doom content a couple years ago, I had done some upgrades to Map 15, and those were all lost. I haven't touched the map since.

 

5 hours ago, Soulless said:

Fun fact, I found the SSG when I was 70% done with [Map 17]

There are two of them, and both are possible to get pretty quickly or pretty late. Like you said, this map can change a lot based on which way you go, and I like that a lot.

 

5 hours ago, Soulless said:

Damn, loved [Map 18]!

You are the second person who has had high praise for this map, which was the third I ever made, and has not been upgraded much at all. I may have to rethink my negative thoughts on this one. The good thing is that it does not drag on, and I do have some ideas for what I think are the weaker moments.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. I'll just mention that Map 22 is still in an Alpha state, if you will. It is not really textured yet, and the gameplay could still change a little bit also.

[Soulless]

Well sir, it was fun to play the current version, hope the text wall wasnt too redundant,

Im sure you already had plenty of feedback for these.
Best of luck with the project it has a lot of potential!

 

Spoiler

21. Valley of Iniquity
Solid layout with a good non-linear progression and a well designed ammo&health balance, but
too many roaming monsters slowed the pace for me. Despite this point, the map is well interconnected
and visually cool-looking. 3/5 secrets found, and some monsters left due to very low health on last encounter,
so I couldnt really go back with 10hp and all those damaging floors, challenging one.
I took a look at the automap with IDDT and saw a dead player guarding the 3 skull keys, wonder
what obscure scheme is behind that...

 

22. Chaosweaver
As you mentioned, looks like the map is still in progress, not only because of usual misalignements or basic layout and details,
but also (I think?) for the combat, which is quite harsh. Changing some monster placement will do the trick for a
more enjoyable map. I think is has a lot of potential, with some work it could be a classic map, but right now
is hard in a frustrating way, Its almost like you have to fully master the map to just beat it.
3/5 secrets found which saved my run for sure. Fun secret Megasphere moment haha

 

23. The High Road
Quite a cool progression on this one I must say, high Doom II vibes.
Even though visuals were cool, the map was maybe too big and there were big open areas
(mainly out of bounds enviroment) that felt a bit empty. My only issue here was the
framerate being funky here and there. I did enjoy this map, lots of chainsaw action
and good balance. Almost found all secrets, 5/6.

 

24. Wicked Devices
This map falls under the hardcore/speedrun type for me. Theres no time for hide and cover, straight madness!
I had to restart the level since my 1st run was a dead end, I had no ammo and several archies resurrecting
everything I killed making my way through impossible at certain point, I was like 30 minutes in.
My second and victorious run didnt last more than 11 minutes, My strat was just to kill the necessary cows at the start,
grab invul and kill every archie on the loose. After that was a matter of survive and manage the cells.
The caco-mancubus situation worked really well, saved me some precious ammo.
The secret plasma was useful, and the other secret found it by accident while being arch-blasted.
100% this map was a challenge, ended with no cells and some bullets, even had to finish a hell knight with the pistol.
Good times!

 

25. Seat of the Scornful
I was expecting a really difficult map but it wasnt that hard. Monster placement is gold in here, combat is fun
all along with maybe the exception of the cyberdemon fight, that one was a bit weird, after a couple of tries I figured out
how to block him by raisin the pillars, not sure if intended. In the same area there is a little outside area with a medkit,
I noticed a sector that wasnt damaging when it should. 3/6 juicy secrets found.
Interesting map, but maybe a bit easy for its map slot.

 

26. Slain on Your Heights
Another of my favourites! Very immersive map, great use of damage floors and a really cool
layout/progression. Theres plenty of action here, sections blends with each other organically
and even though navigation is dangerous everything connects perfect.
During my run I noticed some cool strats for a better outcome, not sure if intended,
like the big baron/revenant fight where red bars rise to lock you up from behind, I just ran
to the starting point dodgin the barons and killed them from a safe point; Similar to the
big archie room, since I couldnt decipher the yellow key secret I just triggered them and again
ran to the central area, killed them from the wall that opens revealing the blue skull key.
Gotta say there were maybe too many green armor and rockets, a minor thing.
I found 3/5 secrets, no idea how to tackle the Yellow key one, had some clues but couldnt make it.
Excellent map!

 

27. Chthonian Rampart
Best map of the wad? Depends on the player I guess, but its there on the top 5.
Great connections all along and superb monster placement. Balance is also great and helps
to make things interesting. The weapon distribution is cool, gotta collect them and suffer the consequences.
Funny how I accidentally stumbled upon the BFG room, it was kinda too much and decided to explore
everything else, at the end it was much easier to approach with all the cleaning done in the surroundings,
that showed how well designed is the map in terms of progression. Found the secret berserker 1/4 secrets.

Loved it.

 

Homs and stuff:

1st shot is the no damage floor on map25

2nd a HOM on 26

Last is a spider that got stuck on map27

https://imgur.com/a/knjlkb9

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Soulless

[HAK3180]

@Soulless, many thanks for your thoughts on your full playthrough. Some very helpful stuff. I'm glad you mostly enjoyed. Some comments/responses below:

 

Spoiler

Map 21 has an intentional sequence break that can only be achieved by doing a (horizontal) rocket jump from a secret. If you do it right, you can collect three obscure skull keys and skip almost the whole level. It's basically just a speedmapping easter egg. It's kinda pointless.

 

Map 22

6 hours ago, Soulless said:

Its almost like you have to fully master the map to just beat it.

While I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing (this is often the whole point of slaughter/challenge maps), I disagree here. I specifically try to play and beat it in different ways, and I can. If the perception is that it's a combat puzzle, it seems that it's probably just significantly harder than anything around it, but I'm quite sure a good enough player could tackle it in a number of ways / without a very specific strategy. In the end it probably needs to be less brutal. For me, no difficulty settings often means between the eventual Hurt Me Plenty and Ultra-Violence. That's not gonna work here. 

 

Map 23

Yeah, it's way too big and almost no void space, so the whole thing is rendered all the time. My plan for this is to chop most of the beginning ascent and maybe shrink down the scale of the whole thing. 

 

Map 24

The map is designed to be really difficult if you leave archies alive, but I have had some runs where ammo became a little bit of an issue. BFG only can be pretty difficult if you want there to be enough but not a surplus.

 

Map 25

It is a little bit easy, but to me it's offset by the cyberfight, which is usually quite difficult. If you can consistently get the cyberdemon stuck up on a pillar, more power to you. That's pretty rare for me. Or if you meant just raising them up to shield from rockets, sure, but that makes the cacodemons even more of a threat to your real estate. Although you may not notice that as much on GZDoom. This is probably the single most affected fight by whether infinite height is on or off.

 

Map 26

I have noticed an abundance of rockets at the end several times here. I'll take a look at that eventually. Do you mean that you arch-vile jumped out of the big arch-vile fight? That should be the only way to get out of there, and it's not super easy to pull off. Still, that is an area I've been considering making a true lock-in moment. I don't like to do those very often. In the baron/revenant area, if you rush past them into the lava, you're potentially dealing with damaging floor and an ammo shortage (another good reason to trim the rockets), but I may make that gap a little narrower to discourage that tactic nonetheless.

 

Map 27

I really do like this one. I love all kinds of Doom maps, but I always come back to ones that are wide open in terms of progression and exploration.

 

Thanks for reporting some bugs. I found the missing texture a few days ago, just haven't updated yet. No idea what happened with that spider.

 

It looks like your top maps are 3, 8, 11, 16, 17, 18, 26, 27. I don't know if you checked the order or not, but I must be doing something right, because most of those are the newer maps.

 

[Soulless]

7 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

In the end it probably needs to be less brutal.

Just a little so it doesnt get too overwhelming, but yeah. I didnt dislike the core of the map (22) and I do like the slaughter approach in terms

of mastering the map, it just was kinda drastic compared to the previous one.

 

14 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

Do you mean that you arch-vile jumped out of the big arch-vile fight?

Yeah, requires 2 consecutive blasts, not that hard after grabbing the megasphere, also if you run fast after pressing the switch

not every archie wake at the same moment, so its easier to get lock by just a couple of them.

 

16 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

if you rush past them into the lava, you're potentially dealing with damaging floor and an ammo shortage (another good reason to trim the rockets), but I may make that gap a little narrower to discourage that tactic nonetheless.

Well, I guess sometimes I play really defensive, and despite the few rad suits I think it worth the risk. Its cool to have options!

 

20 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

It looks like your top maps are 3, 8, 11, 16, 17, 18, 26, 27. I don't know if you checked the order or not, but I must be doing something right, because most of those are the newer maps.

I will add maps 4 and 24, but yeah you´re doing really well!

 

[JXC]

Any progress so far? 

[HAK3180]

I hate to be one who posts without substantial content, but a few have asked, so here's a progress update: I have done very little Doom over the last 6 months or so. That has a lot less to do with lack of desire and more to do with other demands of life. Those demands will be considerably less once we get into summer proper, so I hope to be spending a good amount of time mapping by as early as late June. I have not set any hard deadlines for myself, but I definitely want to wrap this thing up sometime in 23, so definitely look for new maps to start coming at a decent pace by fall. 

 

The OP has the latest version, which includes, most notably, updates to Map 22, mainly that it is actually textured now.

[HAK3180]

I've released version 13.0, which includes a brand new Map 12 and heavy modifications to Maps 13 and 23, as well as very minor things in other maps. 

 

That leaves

• Map 05 - I've decided I don't like it and will redo it
• Map 09 - never been started, vague idea only
• Map 14 - needs moderate - heavy overhaul or replacement
• Map 15 - needs mild - moderate upgrade
• Map 18 - needs mild - moderate upgrade
• Map 19 - needs mild - moderate upgrade or replacement
• Map 20 - needs significant upgrade and finishing or replacement, never been released
• Map 28 - never been started, some ideas
• Map 29 - never been started, vague idea only
• Map 30 - never been started, extremely vague idea only
• Map 31 - never been started, ambitious idea
• Map 32 - new vision never been started, current progress to be abandoned

[Clippy]

If you're the forum staple does that make me the forum paperclip?

 

 

good times - you are full of interesting ideas - I had a blast! + some visits by @MAN_WITH_GUN @sandwedge and @RockyGaming4725

 

I'm almost compelled to play again with other weapon for funzies

 

I do genuinely enjoy your maps, most fun map I played in the last bit - you always have creative ideas and super well constructed gameplay

 

good times

Edited July 25, 2022 by Clippy

[HAK3180]

@Clippy, Hey, thanks for playing and recording.

 

Needless to say, I'm very happy you eventually found the rocket launcher. In one of your runs you opened the door and hit the switch but didn't see the weapon lower. I actually think selecting the rocket launcher at the beginning is a little tougher because it's hard to overkill anything with plasma, but if you rocket a sole former human, for example, that's very wasteful. Glad to have some friends on the video too. Since not one of you had any ideas about how to get the rocket launcher, maybe I'll try something a little different. I might actually use the third key and just give up yellow and red simultaneously. We'll see. 

[HAK3180]

A brand new Map 14 is ready for your playtesting. There are still 6 untouched maps, but now only one to be completely redone and a few other bigger upgrade projects.

 

Download

[Clippy]

Good stuff buddy I'm always impressed by your maps. It was an honour to help you test your map while you visited! Well designed and full of interesting crazy challenges and secrets. Everybody should check it out! 

 

 

 

[JXC]

How's the progress going?

[HAK3180]

On 7/14/2023 at 2:18 PM, JXC said:

How's the progress going?

 

Thanks for asking. Probably time for an update.

 

Almost a year ago, I moved across the country for work. That has brought major changes to my life, including, sadly, almost no time for Doom. I have not only not worked on Crossbearer, but I have barely done any Doom or logged onto the forum since about last fall. I'm still figuring things out in the new job, so I sincerely hope someday to be in a position where I can work on Crossbearer and some other creative projects that I have had to put on hold, but I simply have no timetable for when. I'm not at the point where I'm saying this project is as complete as it will get, but it's safe to say it's on hiatus right now.

[MAN_WITH_GUN]

On 7/27/2023 at 6:11 PM, HAK3180 said:

 

Thanks for asking. Probably time for an update.

 

Almost a year ago, I moved across the country for work. That has brought major changes to my life, including, sadly, almost no time for Doom. I have not only not worked on Crossbearer, but I have barely done any Doom or logged onto the forum since about last fall. I'm still figuring things out in the new job, so I sincerely hope someday to be in a position where I can work on Crossbearer and some other creative projects that I have had to put on hold, but I simply have no timetable for when. I'm not at the point where I'm saying this project is as complete as it will get, but it's safe to say it's on hiatus right now.

 

We all be very grateful to see your activity in this community anytime, i heard almost 3 years ago that you getting troubles with finding time for Doom and mapping for it and as i see now it's not getting any better, i feel that, the more we live - the less time we have for something else.

 

Wish you patience and luck, because goddamn you will need it both in life and your projects.

 

Stay legend, Henry.