Lord Pachellus

Hi Tamara. Thanks for your help. Speakng about Help!, I am sending a draft made by a colleague helping the project. This will be improved for the final version (font, background, pixel quality etc), but the main idea is this - that is the Doom version of the Beatles' Help! album cover. And I am also sending the cover of the original Beatles album, for comparison.

Hi. We are working in a wad named: "How Much Health?!" - in which all levels have a specific quantity of total health that all monsters summed must have. And the next level will always have the total HP from the previous plus an increment. We are thinking in a titlepic (it is no ready yet, I can send to you when we finish it) that will be based in the cover of the "Help!" Beatles' album. One joke with the idea "Health! i need somebody Health!" The idea is to make a MIDI song that will remember Beatles' "Help!" but "Doomenized"! I mean, make this remember the original song, but with Doom song vibes. I even thought in something that could be more or less D_RUNNIN tempo and cadence, but with Help! song notes (or the opposite). But feel free to make as you prefer. Do you accept my request? Feel free to make it in a way you guess your midi will fit our plot!

Ok, no problem. I will take the slot 7. I have drafted an alternate map07 yesterday and have it about half done already in UDB. This won't be the best Dead Simple tribute, but it is gonna work and, mainly, it is fast to make this map, won't cost me too much time.

@realjohnmadden, do you allow me working with you in your map09? I guess you had nice ideas there, and I guess that map can become 2 or 3 split. If you like the idea, we can join together. I can make some modifications, lower the monster quantity and show you. You have a very good first arena combat, and I would like to use that in our wad! What do you think?

Sorry @Beubeu, with restriction you mean? The monsters HP restriction?

Yes, MBF21, as @Novaseer has replied. About the textures, you can use Doom 2 stock textures and the ones that are in this package only (it is also in the main post): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GUFW1tF5oAKns5SEc9tmTEUbIez7CXRM/view?usp=sharing This project deals with some limitations as its premise. Do more with less: make interesting levels strict to a limit of monster HP and a specific set of textures Only skyboxes that you can add yours if you want. However there are many in the source textures wad above. You will most likely find some interesting skies there...

Nice idea. We will save slot 30 for @rafael2100 and @Novaseer. I am helping @Astro X in this project management. Can we confirm slot 30 for you? There is no special rule, but it would be Nice having an Icon of Sin at the end (and for free, because monsters not spawned when map starts don't count in the HP limit of 65k of this map.

Hi @VICE. Yes, the project stills on going. If you want, you can just select one available spot and get to work (slot 8 has already taken, it is missing to update the main post). The first link is not working anymore, indeed. Please, try this one: https://discord.gg/tCnG2GrH @Astro X, could you please update the Discord link in the first post?

Thanks. I will playtest your map soon. The deadline will be postponed. In the Discord server we have agreed that would be necessary.

Does this project have a Discord? I guess if it had one, the communication among people would be easier. We could playtest the maps and give feedbacks easier, and also help with everyone's motivation. @Astro X, at this moment, only 18 maps are claimed, and the deadline is closer. It is possible some won't be able to deliver. I finished 2 maps (21 and 32) and I am in half of third map (maybe 12). To the idea of this mapset be successful, that is the progression of monster HP, all the 32 maps need to be done. And if we postpone the deadline at least to half of the year and remove rhe limit of 3 maps per person? I guess I can contribute with 1 or 2 more maps. I have played some excepcional maps, and this project has potential. It would be a pity if this project never sees the sunlight... I can help in the organization if you need. We should go to Discord of other projects and invite good mappers directly, because the Doom World post seems ro not be attracting many people. Some authors maps I have playtested so far, that are very creative: @Kusogenes map 3 (sympathetic and fun), @Novaseer map 4 (gimmick and out of box), @Sneezy McGlassFace map 6 (straight and totally original), @JackDBS map 14 (flirts with slaughter maps and challenging) and @NickMP map 22 (this is a masterpiece, I have no worlds to define it, I'm anxious to play your map 16!) - I haven't played other maps so far. But based on these, this project has a huge potential. I will publish my 3 maps together in 2 or 3 weeks. Let's make this project be a successful! @realjohnmadden, I have also played your map 9. It is fun. But is a slaughtermap with more cyberdemons that even the map 30 of this project would support (only the Cyberdemons sum more HP than any level if this WAD will allow). I think that either you will need to submit your map for another project, preferably a slaughter maps one, or, maybe, change your map to one of the last slots (29 maybe, because 30 most likely will be a kind of Icon of Sin map) and cut down drastically the number of monsters. You can replace many of your Cyberdemons and Spider Masterminds for "cheap" monsters. See that an area with 5 revenants with their annoying homing missiles (that will cost 1500HP can be harder than one cyberdemon (that costs 4000HP) and has a predictable missiles behavior, all depends on monsters placement. I loved that first slaughter part in the round hall. But the rest of the level is a bit excessive. You could use your map flow, the current decoration, but replacing high tear monsters by regular ones. A level does not need to be hard above all, it must be fun and fit the wad proposal. I can help you counting your monsters HP (I guess you are confused about it by reading your messages) and playtest your map until it fits into the wad proposal (if you accept my offer). I would start changing this from slot 9 to slot 29, and cutting down/converting many of them to weak monsters until reach the HP limit.

Now that I have read that the Mancubus in the secret area is intentionally stuck. I didn't understand why before. But now it makes sense!!! Ok. I have no time now to replay. But there are other people in playtesting. Have you fixed the 2 issues I found that are map breakers?

Hi. My second post about suggestions about UI glitches, maybe has some issues you have already fixed. But you replied while I was creating the post, and I had no time to replay it. But please, take a look at my findings and disregard the ones you have fixed already. Once again: very good map! It lacks only some small details to become perfect! Only the issues #1, #2 (from my first post) and #11 (from my second post) are really mandatory. The others are just polishing. I got one more issue, by inspecting the map errors (issue #12):

Now I will add the glitches and strange UI behaviors I found (the fix of them is optional, but it can make you map better). UI glitch (issue #3): UI glitches (issues #4 and #5): UI glitches #6, #7 and #8 (only textures misalignment): One place where player can get softlocked in 2 ways (issues #9 and #10): Here one suggestion about one of the secrets (issue #11): And to finish, the issue #12. This one is not optional. There is no balancing among the easy, medium and hard skills. In all the number of monsters is the same, and I guess items are also the same. It is a requirement to the WAD to make skill differentiation. I guess the skill for UV is perfect (there is neither ammo nor health in abundance). But I guess that for lower difficulties, you should cut monsters. I think that in easy skill, maybe it should have about half of the monsters, and in medium, about 25% ou 30% less monsters, something like that.

Very good map @Hebonky I've playtested your map, it flows very well. However I found some issues and glitches. And I had to inspect your map in editor because I was unable to find 3 of 4 secrets by exploration (in part because there is a map breaker problem). I will make 2 posts. This first one with map breaker issues. And a second one with UI problems and glitches. My first impression when I played (hidden because contains spoilers): So, I will start indicating the 2 map breakers I have found. These must be fixed:

@Angry Saint I have played your map, very good hard map! I enjoyed it a lot! Nice decoration, good difficult that will not allow even excelent players heaving easy life at any moment! And the song is good too! I totally agree with Rita: I felt the need of more stimpacks and medkits. The initial open area is hard, and I have consumed all health available. Then when I reached at the second area (where you get the red key), wow, I had to provoke all kinds of monster infighting and play cowardly in order to survive. I had to wait some monsters to kill themselves. In this part, the lack of stimpacks is very mean. Have you added difficulty balancing? By inspecting your map, all monsters and items I looked at are set to be spawned in easy, medium and hard. If the map is that difficult on UV (that is the skill I always play), ok, the lack of stimpacks can be understandable. However in Medium and Easy skills, you should either decrease the number of monsters or increase the health and ammo available, or even a balance of both. I imagine one person playing on easy, and then reach your map, the player will get nuts (assuming that who plays on easy expect an easier life, I think it is not the case of 90% of the Doom player base, but for sure there are these people, mainly the newcomers). Your secrets, one of them I found easily, the other 2, were hard. I guess that by finding both would make the map much easier because they would increase the health and armor in critical moments. However when creating a map, we must assume that map can completed from start with pistol only, at UV skill, and without finding any secret. Your map is possible, but I need to assume that I found it frustrating because I died a lot (however did not stop me, I like some frustration when playing), and the main reason was those revenants firing homing missiles and not much place to hide in the second area and almost no health available. These criticals are constructive, I am also a little, how a say, sadist (my map so far is at the end of the list of the HOWT project, due to its difficult and huge size). And about textures, I found 2 missing ones - I hid the contents to avoid revealing one of your secrets to anyone that does not want to see: