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Showing content with the highest reputation on 03/13/24 in all areas

  1. DoomGappy
    It seems like...
    44 points
  2. Xaser
    Difficulty balance is one of things that's more of an art than a science, but I've gathered a handful of (subjective!) tips/principles/whatnot I tend to stick to. Some of these are more on the topic of "how to make a map challenging in general" rather than the OP's "how to balance across difficulty settings", but there's a good bit of overlap. Emphasis on "subjective" above -- for anything that reads like a "do" or "don't" here, there's someone who's done the polar opposite and made something amazing out of it. Perhaps that next someone is you. ;) Incoming SFALL1 of Text: It's completely reasonable to expect UV players to be familiar with the map, or be prepared to learn it. By "learn", of course, I mean "die and try again". :P A big part of the enjoyment of any map, IMO, is the challenge of discovery -- figuring out how the map works, how fights play out, finding where to go, unearthing secrets, and all those good bits. On UV, it's totally reasonable to expect players to engage with the mechanic of discovery to a higher degree than HMP and below; it's just as valid as requiring a UV player to have good knowledge of monster movement patterns, finely-tuned dodging skills, and all that other skilled-player magic. Relatedly, I typically thingplace for Ultra-Violence by "default", not 'cause I'm super-skilled (I definitely ain't), but because I already know where all the traps, secrets, and side routes are. ;) -- UV is basically the "I know what I'm doing" difficulty, HMP takes the edge off the "sneaky" evil bits, and HNTR and below are the comfy fun zone. NOTE: There are occasionally people who make the counter-claim (intentionally or not) that every map must be completable on UV blind saveless FDA or The Map is Wrong -- ignore their ass. This is a vocal minority whose existence should not influence your designs in any way. :P DOUBLE NOTE: Just to be clear, the above doesn't mean it's automatically a good idea to add deathtraps and unwinnable situations carte blanche and go "just retry or savescum!" to anyone who voices frustration. You should definitely ask yourself whether or not that instakill pit or surprise archvile mob trigger is actually fun -- BUT sometimes, amazingly, it actually is. ;) There's a fine line between trolling the player and pulling off a fantastic "gotcha!" moment, and straddling the line is an art of its own. There are entire challenge-based mapsets dedicated to the "try, fail, and try again" concept, often with hilariously unfair failure conditions, and they work. :P Ammo starvation is a legitimate tactic... ...on UV, at least. ;) Sure, some players don't care for this, but you can't please everyone and there's a very unique flavor to ammo-management-heavy combat that might complement your map well. Got a fight toward the end that's trivialized by the BFG or plasma gun? Maybe the problem isn't the monster placement, but there's too many cells in the map and players are always overstocked when they get there. Players trivializing your cramped maze bit with the SSG? Limit the number of shells the player has. And so forth. ...But don't flood easier difficulties with too much ammo. The flip-side of the above. You usually want to provide easier difficulties with more of an "ammo cushion", but don't overdo it. Although it's a bit counter-intuitive, sometimes you may want to _remove_ a few ammo pickups on lower difficulties if there's significantly less HP the player has to wade through. If you don't keep an eye out for this one, the player may end up sleepwalking through the map while holding mouse1. ;P DISCLAIMER: These two issues are often a bitch in the ass to deal with if you're targeting both pistol-start and continuous play (i.e. basically every megawad/episode ;) -- there's really no easy solution there, aside from Test Both and just do your best. :P DOUBLE DISCLAIMER: Backpacks also make this one considerably harder to deal with. There are even some folks around that explicitly recommend never giving the player a backpack ever -- "never" is a strong word, but it may be worth considering whether your map really needs that backpack; how does it play without it? Might work better. ;) RELATED NOTE: ITYTD already has double ammo, so if "survival horror ammo starvation" is an explicit Design Goal of your map, the game at least provides a built-in outlet for players who want it. It's not a catch-all, but it _is_ always there. Unless you're doing fancy GZDoom stuff and rip it out I guess. :P Don't remove the most interesting parts of a fight. e.g. if you've got a well-crafted scene where a few archviles are unleashed in a sea of fresh corpses, and it's a bit too spicy on lower difficulties, it's probably better to subtract a vile or to, or give the player more resources, than to demote the archies to revenants or somesuch, since it completely removes the entire Thing that makes the fight interesting. There are tons of different variants of this one -- it's a broad principle, but a good one to keep in mind. Invulnerability spheres are trump cards for lower difficulties. Can't figure out how to make your awesome monster mosh pit not a massive pain in the dick on ITYTD/HNTR? Try tossing in an invuln. 30 seconds of OP power fantasy is often more fun than a nerfed battle. Megaspheres work in a similar fashion -- giving players a free 4x effective-HP boost is extremely powerful. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the "Invuln on Easy, Megasphere on Medium, Medkits/Berserk on Hard" pattern; you might not even need to shuffle any monsters around if you're lucky ;) "Meat Reduction" is only as effective as your "combat arena" allows. This one takes a bit of explaining. :P There are probably better terms for these, but by "meat reduction" I mean reducing the total HP pool of a group of same-type monsters by removing a few (e.g. reducing a crowd of 8 revenants to just 2), and "combat arena" is a catch-all for any part of a map a particular fight takes place in, whether it be a literal arena or a series of rooms/hallways or a mindbending abstract fuckscape. When it comes to monster crowds, there's sometimes a "critical mass" where adding or subtracting Meat to the pool doesn't really make any difference in difficulty -- this is heavily influenced by your Arena shape. If you've got a very large circular room with some revenants in the center, it doesn't actually make a ton of difference difficulty-wise whether you've got 10 revs or 100, since in either case the fight is basically "circle strafe and don't stop moving or you Just Die". Got more of a maze-like area, though? The threat is now getting boxed into a corner, and adding more enemies absolutely increases the pressure on the player. The above examples are a bit contrived, but there are all sorts of scenarios where adjusting the monster count in an area only affects the time it takes to complete the fight, not how hard the fight actually is. If done wrong, this could lead to UV simply being a "more tedious" version of HMP, or HMP accidentally becoming "whoops it's actually still as hard as UV" if the reduced meat is still just as lethal. ;P A lot of MtPain's "monster window dressing" callouts fall into this category (i.e. a lot of time is spent cleaning up enemies on ledges which will never hit you if you're moving in a circle; the threat is the same whether there's 5 monsters or 50), and there's a phenomenon that often happens in high-monstercount maps where players lament "I've already beaten the fight but it takes 10 minutes to finish cleaning up." Less is more, sometimes literally. ;) This is another general guideline with no hard and fast rules, but you can easily fall into this trap by leaning too heavily on formulas like "3 monsters on UV, 2 on HMP, 1 on HNTR". Guidelines, not rules -- they don't always work. EXCEPTION OF SORTS: Monsters with built in "time pressure" mechanics (e.g. archviles and pain elementals) buck this trend a bit, since leaving them alone for long periods of time can have disastrous results for the player. You'll get much more mileage out of "meat-reducing" crowds of these types than others. Archviles in particular need careful consideration -- they have a very steep"meat to difficulty" (lol) curve, i.e. the difference between 0 archviles, 1 archvile, and a trio of archviles is pretty massive. Without a rocket launcher or BFG, this goes straight from "no threat" to "seek cover or take heavy damage" to "seek cover or Become Die." ;) That's all for now. I may jot down some more ramblings later, but this has been churning in my brain for long enough. So here, have a post.
    21 points
  3. The Royal We
    14 points
  4. Clippy
    U need a hug
    13 points
  5. Cascade

    Share Your Sprites!

    Firebert and 11 others reacted to Cascade for a topic

    More doom 2016 stuff, barrel
    12 points
  6. Brad_tilf
    First off - KISS my fucking ass! Are you shitting me? Hard is ok. I get it. You're the master. You're the king of Doom/Doom2 but what the literal fuck? I had to play level 1 a 2nd time because I learned that you don't believe in ammo and it's easier to let the monsters do the work for you. I'm now on level 3. FUCK YOU again. Are you shitting me? God DAMMIT, I just want to enjoy the game (and I am) but did you REALLY have to make it this difficult to figure shit out? BTW, I just ordered your new release **Limited** 3.5” Edition of DOOM II One Humanity mod" so you can fucking kiss my ass again. You are SO fucking good but you are so god DAMN infuriating!
    11 points
  7. Craneo

    Share Your Sprites!

    A.Gamma and 10 others reacted to Craneo for a topic

    Doom 64 zombie tank credits: Id Software, 3DRealms, Enjay, Midway, DrDoctor, Gorman Freebmane, inkoalawetrust frankensprite by me (Craneo)
    11 points
  8. Volter/Voltage
    taking a break from work, I decided to make three levels that are simple in content and gameplay using textures from 1 quake. download link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UH_hCfFF_fChqLT11QcF1UkSg5WjherU/view?usp=drive_link ports tested on: dsda, nugget doom, gzdoom. IWAD - DOOM2 texturpack q1tex.wad is included with the map in the zip archive. screenshots: download link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UH_hCfFF_fChqLT11QcF1UkSg5WjherU/view?usp=drive_link
    10 points
  9. Novaseer
    Just a little progress update on my map to revive the thread. First screenshot's a tad old but I like the perspective.
    10 points
  10. dobu gabu maru
    Finally reached the halfway point on Merciless—roughly 16 maps to go, 3 of which need to be made from scratch. Here's to hoping the other half doesn't take like 12 more years!!!! !! ! !! !! ! !!!!
    9 points
  11. Aurelius
    Not sure if the same intent, but I personally use this to keep closets tight. Early on I noticed that if you just remove closeted monsters on lower difficulties, the closets become "loose" and monsters spend more time wandering in the closet than perhaps originally intended (especially true with big closets), which slows down throughput. That's not always a bad thing for lower difficulties, but if you specifically want quickly dispersing closets, this is a good way to keep things consistent across difficulties.
    9 points
  12. AconyX
    8 points
  13. horselessheadsman
    Full Color version -orginal textures by ID Software -window texture by @SLON -empty stimpack by @Shark , BloodyAcid -made by Horselessheadsman Free to use if appropriate credit is given.
    8 points
  14. ⇛Marnetmar⇛
    My dear Brad_Tilf, I sense a discord within you. You seem to think that I designed these labyrinths to cause you anguish; as though I were trying, malignly, to break your spirit, sector-by-sector, line-by-line, vertex by vertex. Perhaps it would be wise for me to take some responsibility for this predicament, for regardless of my intentions, my devilish designs seem to have brought you to a point at which you would be justified in suspecting me of such heinous behavior. The truth, Brad_Tilf, is quite the opposite. Hearing that sentence, you've probably filled in the blank for yourself, thinking it probable that, rather than being designed out of malice, they were designed to test you for some purpose unknown to you, and that your passing or failing of this test will be consequential in some way that has not been revealed to you. However, that would not be accurate either: I have designed these maps, Brad_Tilf, these wickedly mischievous designs, of whom only the strongest can conquer, not to torment you, nor to test you. I designed them to help you, Brad_Tilf. You see, ever since you first began Dooming, I have been observing you, playing map after map, wad after wad, and though you quickly gained skill and the much-deserved confidence accompanying it, I sensed a certain tension within you: the more difficult the wads you completed, the less high you reached in your ambitions for the next one. Because, Brad_Tilf, you were afraid. You were afraid that you would not be able to conquer the next one. You were afraid that if you kept going, you would eventually reach a kind of challenge that you had no chance of overcoming. You didn't know what that challenge looked like, but you felt its presence. It haunted your thoughts by day and your dreams by night, lurking in dark shadows, never quite fully revealing itself, but briefly, in rare moments, revealing something amorphous and loathsome. Such a monster never existed. Not until now. I designed the beast that stands before you, Brad_Tilf, for one reason and one reason only: that purpose is for it to be swiftly and decisively defeated by you. Because not only do I believe you can slay this beast -- I know you can. Of course, in your exhaustion and frustration, it is reasonable to ask: how can I trust Romero? Why should I believe he has my best interests at heart after the hell he's put me through? It's not a matter of whether or not you believe me, Brad_tilf. It's a matter of whether or not you believe in yourself. Now go boot up Doom. You've got demons to slay. Your friend and humble guide, John Romero
    7 points
  15. Lisaancelle
    There is literally no shame.
    7 points
  16. AD Epoch

    Random Doom maze maker

    Andromeda and 5 others reacted to AD Epoch for a topic

    Hi All. A few days ago I released a pet project onto Sourceforge that may or may not be good.... I'm happy if it isn't of interest. The proejct can be found here https://sourceforge.net/projects/a-wad-of-dungeon-mazes/files/. It's not perfect, and is written in Python so is quite slow (mostly the BSP generation I think). But if it gives someone a fun hours worth of game play then it was worth making. I built it because I was looking for some unpredicatable dungeon crawl gameplay, and realised I could turn it into a Doom level generator. I also like reinventing the wheel just to see if I can make it round, so building it from scratch was the aim, and not using anyone else's BSP algorithms. Anyway, I hope it's useful, if not then that's ok, happy to play it myself :-)
    6 points
  17. Plerb

    Doom Pictures Thread 2024

    Tango and 5 others reacted to Plerb for a topic

    trucks
    6 points
  18. Cutman 999
    Skill issue
    6 points
  19. Clippy
    🫂 that's 4u
    6 points
  20. Arsinikk
    ENDOOM for 150 Line Massacre: The Golden Skulls.
    6 points
  21. baja blast rd.
    Aurelius got it. That's a teleport closet setup and the blocking object keeps the closet from being unnecessarily spacious when many monsters were removed. More generally, it's a good idea to pay attention to how (removed) monsters interact with your geometry. Like, if you have those SWTW-style "dormant monster" closet setups with a fake wall tightly surrounding a group of enemies, unflag enemies from the back (or middle) rather than the front (or borders) so the invisible wall now isn't suddenly strange.
    6 points
  22. Arrowhead
    APPREHENSION: MAP02: 'WRACKED NERVES': The second map is complete - or at least a proper test-build of it. Let me know what you think! This one has quite a bit of chaos - this is the last 'normal' base - the third level will start to show more hell corruption. Currently, there is only UV implemented, but don't worry - before I release this, all difficulties will be implemented. Please play MAP02 from pistol-start - the updated MAP01 is included in the below link too: https://www.mediafire.com/file/408yb0foczu23es/ApprehensionMAPSET-FIX1.wad/file :D EDIT: I've yet to add the gameplay changes mentioned in the last post for MAP01 - I will do that a bit later, once this map requires an update!
    6 points
  23. horselessheadsman

    Doomcute thread

    Buhseo_ and 5 others reacted to horselessheadsman for a topic

    (from @Dee Legit's remake of 'The Chasm'(doom 2 - map 24)
    6 points
  24. Justnecro
    After experimenting with midi music, I decided to make a map similar to a slaughtermap incluiding my work, tested in Zandronum 3.2, GZDoom 4.11.3 and ZDoom 4.8.1. Hope you like it. Screenshots: Read Me: Download: Phobophiliac.rar
    5 points
  25. Treehouseminis
    Yep. Time to start the big map of this set. How can you tell?
    5 points
  26. Dark Pulse
    Yes, and that's the thing you are forgetting. Somehow, this community has gotten it into its head that Ultra-Violence is supposed to be the normal difficulty. It's not. That's Hurt Me Plenty. Ultra-Violence is supposed to be HARD. Romero gets that. Ultra-Violence is hard. You, apparently, are not. Suck it down, bonepie.
    5 points
  27. Gothic
    What no status updates do to a mf
    5 points
  28. Li'l devil
    Forgot to mention, but I think it's actually a good idea to make your map obscenely hard on UV only so that you can annoy the UV-only players!
    5 points
  29. thelamp
    The monster closet has more than one teleporter and the gray tree makes one of them unavailable? This controls the difficulty by changing where monsters will enter the play area
    5 points
  30. Cilian
    a platforming wad is probably not the answer you expect but jumpwad is awesome. No monsters, you actively look into every corner of the map on your own trying to find as many gems as possible. Map02 probably has the strongest exploration "sandbox" feel of all maps, it's one of the least linear
    5 points
  31. Hebonky
    I am a bit of an idiot myself! I do really wish that UDB had a feature like slade where you could mass rename things by replacing the first few characters... would make this less terrible
    5 points
  32. Captain red pants
    Depends on your distance from the equator I'd imagine
    5 points
  33. DoomGappy
    Hey, we got a new pretty logo. Check it out!
    5 points
  34. t.v.

    ENDOOM Appreciation Thread

    8088mph and 4 others reacted to t.v. for a topic

    My latest creation is now included in Eviternity II RC5 :-)
    5 points
  35. Cacodemon187
    Hello Doomworld! Tomorrow is the big day: the day I start attending university. Just like my past few standalone releases, I'm doing a map in a handful of days to commemorate the occasion. I'm afraid I won't have much free time to do anything for a while too, so I wanted to get something out to properly close this chapter of my life. _______________________________________________LA GRAN ALAMEDA________________________________________________ Screenshots: La Gran Alameda is a limit-removing map (complevel 2) set in the middle of a city under an otherworldly red sky. Make your way out of the facility and bring the fight to the rooftops! The city is completely infested, so watch out for fire coming from every direction. This is not like the other bimonhtly demon invasions though... This time they've brought some backup!: NEW ENEMIES: Class II Imp: A fast Imp that continuously shoots projectiles until you're out of its line of sight. Class II Baron: A regular Baron of Hell that shoots a string of 5 projectiles instead of just 1. As a trade-off, it has the health of an Archvile (700 HP) compared to its original 1000 HP. Cyberdemon Jr.: A baby Cyberdemon with the health of a Hell Knight (500 HP). NOT immune to splash damage, meaning you can trick them into blowing themselves up, or infighting with other baby cybies. Admittedly this is the roughest of my standalone releases so far, both difficulty and quality-wise. I really had to map overtime to get this done in just four days. It may not be one of my best, but I really wanted to release something before tomorrow. Anyways, I implemented difficulty settings this time! ...kinda... There's only UV and HMP right now, and the differences are minimal. I still recommend playing in HMP your first time around though, as I made sure the hardest parts of the map were eased out a bit. I'll be studying architecture these next five years. It's the career that interested me the most, mostly because of my history with making maps! Based on what I've heard, making this map on crunch time is just a taste of things to come :,) Hopefully this map is worth your time. Any comments and feedback are appreciated. ______________________________________________>>>> Download <<<<______________________________________________ Slots: MAP01 Name: La Gran Alameda Compatibility: Limit-removing Tested with: DSDA Doom Build Time: March 7th - March 10th, 2024 No jumping or crouching. Freelooking is fine. Credits: Textures, music and sounds taken from many sources. Check the CREDITS.TXT file inside the .wad for a full list. Enjoy!
    4 points
  36. OniriA
    You worry about very insignificant things. Go do something better with your time, something that gives you more joy and peace of mind.
    4 points
  37. lirui1001
    Speed Master Map10 UV Max in 1:54-sp10m154.zip
    4 points
  38. Stupid Bunny
    Rabbit season kinda blows tbh
    4 points
  39. DoomGappy
    I've updated the OP post, but just to give everyone a heads up: Maplist Song list: If anyone wants to change their map or song name, please quote this post or reach out via DM. We have 26 maps in tip top shape and 31 songs! I'm very very happy that we've come this far.
    4 points
  40. ceski
    This should be useful: Mouse Sensitivity Conversion
    4 points
  41. Jayextee
    This. So hard. I'm probably a pain in the ass for resource-starvation on UV. Intentionally so. You find yourself without enough to continue? Coulda played smarter -- believe me when I say I test my maps on all difficulties. I don't run out of ammo, and if I did at some point during mapping/testing I'd add a cache somewhere to balance things out. I give excess resources on skill 1/2, ample on skill 3, 'enough' on skill 4/5.
    4 points
  42. Qu4k3r
    Hi the community, First demo here ! It's an old one I recorded back in 2021. E4M1 UV MAX in 4:47 n4e1-447.zip
    4 points
  43. blueyosh43
    How often do people just not take into consideration other difficulties? When I start mapping I'm most likely just going to flag everything to appear on every difficulty. I'd rather just make my intended vision and have it at that, I'm not interested in compromising or adding stuff. What's the consensus on this?
    4 points
  44. Revae

    REKKR - V1.16

    Rancid Sam and 3 others reacted to Revae for a topic

    Neat. Hope he doesn't get too lost. I don't think it's that mazey, but ofc i dont
    4 points
  45. Hebonky

    Doom Pictures Thread 2024

    Scorcher and 3 others reacted to Hebonky for a topic

    I love overdetailed techbases I love the grunge, the filth, the disrepair The missing tiles in the floor, and unevenly placed tiles. The holes in the wall and the pipes hanging from the ceiling.
    4 points
  46. Kinsie

    Emulator future

    Artyoman and 3 others reacted to Kinsie for a topic

    They'll be fine if their authors aren't fucking idiots.
    4 points
  47. Burgish

    Share Your Sprites!

    VICE and 3 others reacted to Burgish for a topic

    Upgradeable Skeletons! Free to use w/ credit, individually or as a set! For best results, store your skeletons in a cool, dry place.
    4 points
  48. Decay
    Never irrelevant
    3 points
  49. philcul
    To be honest, I prefer when mappers mostly do not change enemy composition but add power ups and so on on lower difficulties.
    3 points
  50. t.v.

    ENDOOM Appreciation Thread

    Xane_MM and 2 others reacted to t.v. for a topic

    I don't think the Endoom I made for Scientist (Scientist 2023) was posted here yet:
    3 points
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