Irkalla - An 11-map wad for Doom II (complevel-9/Boom)

MegaPancakeStrategist

Now that i've played your a map A LOT i feel more comfortable to present you some friendly suggestions or as the hip kids says nowadays: feedback.

I've felt compelled to do so in order to balance out the negative commentary that the angry russian gave to your map - opinions are like assholes as they say, right? So vigilante showed his and i'll show mine - you can close your eyes in terror or decide who's ass looks sexier on a g-string. I'll not distance myself from my bias tho, as i don't think that he did so with his comments.

With that in mind i've already said that i loved this map the way it is and i still do. The increase in difficulty compared to the previous ones is very noticeable and, to me, very welcome. After all, the name of the thing is Den of Suffering - so one will have to expect a tougher gameplay to match that name. And it does, but what some may call suffering i call fun. And my suggestions will not be to end any suffering but to shift the frequency of constantly throwing salt at the wound from every 5 seconds to every 15 secs, so to speak.

These will be three suggestions that i think it would not disrupt your vision for this map.

- The first is regarding the green armor that stands at the top of that lift in the middle area. Since i'm taking the opportunity of playing this mapset not only for fun, but also to study different mapping styles - i always try to see the intention behind the placement of things, traps, secrets, etc. My first impression with that lift was of being a death trap. You have two green armors very close to each other. One requires facing chaingunners and a revenant to pick. The other requires killing just a caco that's blocking the way.. or so the player will think - until he finds out that he will need to time his "jump" to go back or he is stuck in a lava pit. But since you've placed a couple of medikits to smooth things out, it seems that the intention behind it was actually of being an easy but risky reward.

My suggestion: since the means for the player to go back to high ground is more risky than the reward is worth, a couple of things could be done so the player does not opt to skip that part so easily. Both green armors could go away and instead replaced by a blue armor and a radiation suit. The radiation suit could be placed at the chaingunners + revenant area along with one more medikit and the blue armor atop the lift, and, instead of being a lift; the switch could just lower that sector to become even so you cold get to higher ground easily - you also could add close lift linedefs to that sector, so the player can activate that in case he falls. Or, if you prefer to keep that lift the way it's, maybe just make it faster -or- a more simple route would be to just make the sector lower to the lava level and you could add some steps to that fleshy island that holds a lonely rocket, so there's a more friendly way for the player to go back from the lava but he will have to activate the switch in order to get the armor nonethless. I think that it help immensely for those places to become coveted, as they would house the only blue armor and the only radiation suit in the entire map.

- The second is simple, it involves that small sector with two imps and a opaque mid texture.

My suggestion: because once the player activates that switch an archie + PEs will appear, i think that you could place some more ammo in that sector - maybe an additional box of shells and a backpack will suffice. So when the player is caught by suprise and don't know where to go, he can stand and fight with more ammo available.

- The third is regarding the secret.

My suggestion: look, it's a damn good burn ngl - but maybe you could do a litte more with it. Instead of just being something of a classic Serious Sam trap it could also open a small room full of goodies at the skull switches area (or another surrouding area since they are all connected). This could ease the ammo shortage, thus giving more reason for the player to go for the secret other than just for completion sake.

^{Idk if that secret actually does something more tho, as i didn't opend the map in any editor to check.}