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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2020 14:43:28 GMT -5
Mansion in the Mountains (mans.wad) is a single level for TNT made in the Boom mapping format, it has player starts for co-op but hasn't been further developed for it. This map features an integrated Dehacked patch that changes the behaviour of the pistol to be marginally more useful and to add extra decorations, may conflict with some mods. I'm a lil rusty, please report any bugs I any have missed.  Story: It has been one hell of a week on the small colony on planet Reaver, demon invasions are springing up all over the shop from simple mining operations and water treatment plants to natural acid caves and military outposts, this planet you were sent to scout sure as hell turned out to be one tough job and unwittingly you've been sucked into another ground war. The enemy moves again, this time a nearby town has been ransacked by the horde and the power core at the town centre is being used to augment to invading force's portals, you aren't going to let that happen. You need to get into the substation hidden deep within the town hall and wreck that core ASAP! The locals have been evacuated so no ill effects will be felt by such a foolishly destructive action. Beware, the only reasonable way out of this blast zone will be through their world... Communication will be lost after that... God speed. (sequel coming in about 5 years) Old: www.dropbox.com/s/ns6h9rlidg9724g/mans.7z?dl=0New: www.dropbox.com/s/awdx7auoypfyw09/mans1.2.7z?dl=0 |
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40oz
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Post by 40oz on Jul 13, 2020 20:36:23 GMT -5
Nice map! I had fun with it. I was pretty cautious but I was entertained throughout. I expected some tougher encounters because of doom maps these days but I felt in control the entire time and that's a good thing. Nice job!
Here's a couple notes:
1. The pistol replacement didn't do much in the way of making me want to use it any more than to toss it away for the chaingun like the original does.
2. Ammo balance felt very fair and comfortable. I recalled having trouble with ammo in some of your previous maps so it was nice to have a stocked inventory this time.
3. A little shotgunguy heavy for my likings but it wasn't too bad. Still was having fun.
4. I jumped in the acid river a little prematurely. I didn't like that i had to find my way around monsters in the tunnel before getting my first radiation suit. And the other tunnel was just a deadend with a slimefall, I'm glad I picked the right one first!
5. The trap near the "A" switch where the door textures lower the entire surrounding walls was cool.
6. Some of the traps were a little unexpected but I appreciate that most of them were pretty tame and I felt prepared to deal with them.
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Post by joe-ilya on Jul 13, 2020 21:57:18 GMT -5
An incredibly dull map with too much meat for the shitty arsenal, there's dozens of cacodemons and hell knights, even barons and an arch-vile, but all I have is a shotgun and a chainsaw, even by squeezing through the hordes all I found was a chaingun and a very limited rocket launcher.
The map only allows for a slow approach, and that would be fine if the slow approach wasn't so incredibly boring, shotgunning hell knights and cacodemons is not fun.
At least it looks nice, but god, what an awful start, I can only hope it becomes fun later when better weapons are given.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2020 6:28:45 GMT -5
Nice map! I had fun with it. I was pretty cautious but I was entertained throughout. I expected some tougher encounters because of doom maps these days but I felt in control the entire time and that's a good thing. Nice job! Here's a couple notes: 1. The pistol replacement didn't do much in the way of making me want to use it any more than to toss it away for the chaingun like the original does. 2. Ammo balance felt very fair and comfortable. I recalled having trouble with ammo in some of your previous maps so it was nice to have a stocked inventory this time. 3. A little shotgunguy heavy for my likings but it wasn't too bad. Still was having fun. 4. I jumped in the acid river a little prematurely. I didn't like that i had to find my way around monsters in the tunnel before getting my first radiation suit. And the other tunnel was just a deadend with a slimefall, I'm glad I picked the right one first! 5. The trap near the "A" switch where the door textures lower the entire surrounding walls was cool. 6. Some of the traps were a little unexpected but I appreciate that most of them were pretty tame and I felt prepared to deal with them. Appreciate the demo 40, I'll give it a watch later. The rifle replacement is only marginally better as I didn't want to reduce the value of the chaingun but wanted something serviceable (unlike said pistol) before you got the chaingun, the faster fire rate and 100% accuracy put it leagues above the pistol but nowhere near the chaingun (I did feel like taking off the chaingun's accurate 2 burst but that would devalue it). As for the rad suit there is another one you can get by opening a doorway through a switch in the bunker located on the opposite side of the room intended to reward exploratory play. joe-ilya lower difficulties change the location of the red key allowing you access to the plasmagun and SSG much quicker, try an easier difficulty. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2020 10:42:32 GMT -5
I have not finished the map yet, as it turned out to be large (didn't expect it), so here is an FDA: It's on UV. There are some deaths early on.
Some remarks I can give already: - Overall, is fun and I definitely look forward to completing it - I wanted some health now and then to compensate for mistakes I make, but that's not critical due to fun level - The item placement - shotgun shells in the soil full of blocking decoration - is inconvinient. Really hard to avoid bumping into those decorations. I am talking about the area avaiable from the start, to the right, overlooked by chaingunners (the first ones that player encounters) - The "pistol" seems strange, because it sounds exactly like the original and acts like a bit faster pistol, while looking like a rifle. Perhaps it would benefit from a different sound, since it has faster rate of fire than zombiemen anyway. - When I was low at health, and a wave of monsters spawned (it is when you backtrack and encounter an arch-vile), some of them hitscanners, it was really luck getting around the fence to backtrack, since no health pickups was avaiable. That also meant I've tried to avoid the arch-vile after I already waked it up. Well, death happened soon anyway
I don't agree with joe-ilya in regards to the map being dull and only rewarding slow approach. Actually, setting up infights is fun, and if the slow approach seems to be preferrable at the moment, this can be mitigated by providing more health. Also, there is some strategy at the beginning of the map, if one chooses to setup infights, then moving to the beginning wide area (after initial setting up) is best to avoid getting cornered. I actually changed approaches a bit after each death I had.
I will have to allocate some large playing session to playing this map proper, as otherwise I won't be able to do it in single sitting. I may choose a lower difficulty, because I fastdemo'ed 40oz demo, and it was over 35 minutes, which is a lot for my short attention span.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2020 10:47:15 GMT -5
I was expecting worse from Joe comment but I managed to get the RK before the BSK but it looks like it's intended to be played in that way, otherwise you'll have big troubles with the limited rockets but you can also skip easily the av and co at the fountain. He's pretty spot on the not so appealing start and the meaty gameplay, the map is full of rooms and closets packed with monsters, most notably imps and lots of barons. It reminded me a bit of Stronghold, but I thought it wasn't as brisk as that map and uv is a very dull and slow clean-up of rooms. I liked the red-doors that give access to some needed ammo for the RL or the PR. The fight in the circular room with the fireblu reactor was the best thing, I liked that the metal cross was damaging so you are forced to move.
It looks also very dull, lighting is almost non-existent and the theme is a bunch of very generic and different parts stitched together. The design is very clean but it's also very bare and underdetailed most of the times (like at the soulsphere bstone dungeon).
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2020 11:29:40 GMT -5
I keep deleting my post every time I try to copy it, without being able to restore it (undo doesn't work). Sorry, I wrote feedback twice and twice I lost it - there was a lot of useful stuff, but I gave up. Really, what the hell with my PC anyway. Unfortunately, you'll have to watch the demo then and I might not remember anything tomorrow what I wanted to write.
Basically, this is my second attempt and it goes almost to the end of the map, but unfortunately, I made a mistake and died.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2020 11:38:09 GMT -5
Anyway, what I was trying to write (will retype from scratch a third time, fuck you PC):
- Used cheese strats to deal with Hell Nobles (and Imp crowds) at times - that is, avoided fighting them in closed quarters (the latter seems to have been intention of the mapper)
- Didn't grab SSG and plasma gun the first time I could - I thought switches operated red key bars, not windows, so didn't try to press red key bars directly. I later recalled seeing the red key bars and so revisited that house
- Backtracking for health for jumping out of the blue key building sometimes took a lot of time, because required to go around the building. Maybe shortcuts should become avaiable after the player visited the building for the first time already
- Hub gimmick took a while to figure out (shoot the center)
- What doomed me was that I couldn't figure out how to get back to hub from sewers. I pressed the switch that reveals the exit door in the hub, but I also released monsters, and there were multiple Barons of Hell, so I jumped out. After failing to find any way to get into hub, I suspected there could have been something behind enemy lines, so I tried to attack them from the lift, but that was a doomed decision, obviously, as they gathered around it. The death was quick.
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Post by optimus on Jul 18, 2020 4:13:12 GMT -5
I just played it today. It's indeed a bit short on good weaponry in the beginning, although to my taste I still enjoy such play. I tend even in regular Doom to always have a love for shotgun or SSG and rarely switch to Rocket Launcher/Plasma even when I have it and there are Barons. I am a shotgunholic and precise aiming with hitscan weapons maniac. But yeah, given the amount of the enemies in the level (especially in UV), it was a long way where I was still shotgunning harder enemies. Of course, if I thought to go back just when I grabbed the red key to get both the SSG and Plasmagun, that changes everything. There is a rocket launcher earlier but not enough ammo. You end up depleting your rockets too fast, still having to deal with the vast majority of the horde of enemies with simple shotgun. Maybe an SSG earlier would be good, because personally even as a shotgunholic, at least the SSG makes it much better for bigger enemies (you count 5-6 on Baron instead of 18 simple shotgun). Anyway, I still enjoyed this map, I like the simple design of it, I am sure because of the grinding it wouldn't be for everyone.
Funny thing. I ran this first time over Doom 2 not realizing it was using resources from TNT. And was halfway through and ranting "I don't understand why he put all these invisible walls? Is it experimental design? I am gonna definitely mention this on my review, I wonder why nobody did?". Heh,. good it popped in my mind, opened Doombuilder to examine it and I was facepalming myself. Then I had to replay from the beginning (and it's a big map).
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2020 8:02:51 GMT -5
Updated version here www.dropbox.com/s/awdx7auoypfyw09/mans1.2.7z?dl=0On Easy/Medium difficulty you get the SSG first thing, the Red Key weapons room now gives you more rockets. On Ultra-Violence the SSG still appears at the same place it used to as I do no want the player to crutch on it however the rocket launcher now appears after the first section (it appears when you lower the wall to the pinkies) and on Ultra-Violence and there is more rocket ammo in the second outside section (some other ammo has also been replaced with rockets) to encourage more tactical play. Was testing further modifications to the base weaponry however they seem to outright break with slight modification, the chaingun becomes TOO useful and just mows everything down, open to suggestions. Looking to find a feasible way to shorten outside travel after blue key, was thinking lifts that raise to windows but they look hella goofy. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2020 10:26:53 GMT -5
I recorded a new demo. This misses 1 secret and 1 monster, but is deathless and I make to the exit this time. Still I played it safe and it maybe boring to watch because of that, although I sometimes finished hell nobles with a saw after shooting them enough. Didn't use rocket launcher as much as I could, if I did, it would definitely go faster, but the level is big and I prefer not to take risk.
As for weapons: DBP24 "Spaceballs" used a shotgun that shoots slightly faster than in base game, it used custom graphics with a very different reload sequence, though. I wouldn't touch any other weapons, chaingun is already good at stunlocking a lot of enemies, it is a shotgun that players want replaced by SSG, because shooting SSG is faster than shooting SG two times, and it is still more powerful than shooting SG two times. So, dropping only a few tics from shotgun reload sequence maybe a good idea, that speeds up the game but doesn't really change balance. One needs custom graphics, though, as years of playing the game make it hard to accept anything that looks like in stock game but works differently, even if it is better. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2020 17:50:39 GMT -5
Nice map! I died a couple times playing on UV but I still had a good time. I was wondering when I'd get an SSG or find the Plasma Rifle but then I remembered... the red key locks! I like the design of this map it's pretty interesting and it ended up being quite a while longer than I initially thought with two blockades to the real exit which honestly did feel a little cumbersome to me but you still had interesting areas ahead. First approaching the steep stairs with all the monsters up above was a little awkward. I like that there were a lot of Barons too and I also had a good fight against the 2nd Archvile in the corridors with ammo areas around.
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