Havoc in Creation

www.mediafire.com/file/yg7ns279lcw6rso/dbp_52_v1-1.zip/file

download link busted in first post

The Map05 easter egg. lol.

MAP01: I actually got to test this one earlier in the month. Fun map. Really liked the aesthetics of the rocket launcher room. Went out of bounds to see if you ever added anything out there, guess not. I liked the tyson start alot but had a friend who is a super-casual doom player try the map and he ran out of ammo.
MAP02: Not going to say anything about my own maps, but some comments on the sections that others detailed:

matador - ok right away the floor lighting on the bridge blew me away. Looks like a damn boom lighting sequence! How?!?!? I'm prying open the editor to see how that is done right after I finish this map. Really like the magma falls out here. I like that you split them up into so many little flows, looks very natural. You certainly went more ostentacious on the blue trim then I would have but it looks really damn good and now I'm sort of sad I didn't put colored stripes down any of the other round towers since they look really nice. I was planning to add the red grass out by the camp site so I'm happy to see you went that route. I noticed a slime trail on the cyan crack coming off the castle on the west side and I was never able to remove the slime trail on the brick up on the ramparts either. Great job overall, thank you so much for helping to save this map by detailing the start area!

40oz - I was really amazed that you knocked the main hall portion of the map out so quickly. You are really a skilled and proficient mapper and you draw an incredible amount of elegance from some very simple geometry. The curvy floor detailing is something I never would have thought of doing because it seems so abstract, but it looks really good here. I like your liberal use of SHAWN in these areas, something I need to do more often because it looks great. A few other things that really impressed me:

The round elevated pillars over the entrance and stairs up to the monolith. The player may never even glance over at this section of the map but it looks really good. I like the lighting sectors you do on the central pillar over the door and also on the fountain here. They are simple but very effective. I have started incorporting these into my style after seeing you use them to great effect and I think other mappers could take a look at how they are done here and in your other maps in this set and add a nice tool to their map polishing arsenal.

The midtexture on the half circle staircase. I know its a simple trick but the midtex use here was like an ah-ha moment when i first saw it. Its such an easy and good looking trick that i used it to fill out some blank walls when rushing to finish Havoc III. A really nice way to squeeze out a "new" texture by combining some existing ones.

The scrolling blue texture over the monolith. I tried to make that texture work in a few spots but never liked it anywhere. This is such a natural fit for it. Probably should have done this on all of them tbh.

Thanks again for helping to save this map from being scrapped! It was really fun collabing on these maps and I would love to see more of these collaborations in the future. I'm glad these maps turned out to be more atmospheric than combat focused as its a really allows you to showcase the mappers style and revel in the visual details which you both delivered here in spades.
MAP03: Man rude start on this one. Glad I circled around the back to find the SSG and armor! The blood detailing on the floor is nice but the pits are way too deep imo and they cause severe "bumpy floor" syndrome. I think you could have used a 4-8 unit depth here and it would be much better because it also affects infighting in this area which I'm guessing is intended since you put a baron here. There were one or two instances in the first demo where I was trying to provoke infighting and the baron steps down in the blood causing a rev rocket to miss him and hit me instead. Its sort of an added annoyance. Crap accidentally overwrote the demo, but I died in this first room 2 times in first demo.

Ugh died to a hell knight behind a fake wall. Not a fan of that enemy placement. I would have rather seen anything else come out of that fake wall (lost souls, cacos, PE) if that was the visual effect you were going for. You crush them anyways right after that so whats the point of them other than a possible cheap kill on the player if they get unlucky? Back side of the arch between the first and second room has a bunch of misaligned textures.

This big outdoor arena could probably have used some central cover. The high perched revs are quiet annoying here. Maybe you could have tossed some small support pillars along the blood moat? The HK's pinned into the corner are an unusual choice as well. What was the thought there?

Sorry got to harp a bit on the blood pit a bit. The slow raising/lowering floor here is probably the most annoying way to traverse out of the pit. It really stalls out the gameplay while you wait for it. Heck, even if you don't fall in, sometimes you have to wait anyways when going for the switch on the island. The pit isn't damaging so there is no real punishment for falling into it other than wasting the players time. I would recommend in the future using a teleport or even better a set of stairs to get out. Putting exit points in more than one area of the pit is always helpful too! If you do have to use a lift for a liquid pit, an easy trick is to put another sector around the lift and raise it a bit out of the liquid and give it a different texture than the liquid. This way the lift won't lower to the same height as the liquid which looks a little odd (since in real life dropping something to water level usually means the water will cover it and your brain kinda subconsiously expects the flat texture to change).

The imp pincer attack on the stairs is a neat idea, but a little too easy to sneak past. Not sure what to suggest to remedy this. Wasn't really a fan of the door that closes on you in the hallway after the stairs. At least the encounter wasn't something really egregious like a baron in that narrow hallway, but it just felt like a waste of the players time. Generally my thought here is that if you want to pay off a semi-cliche trap like that it better be a visually impressive reveal of the enemies (example: multiple wall lowering ambush or opening up an area with a unique vista or geometry) and the fight better be worth my time (tricky fight, clever gimmick, or nice reward). You might have been able to do it by building out an arena to the west here, but its a really tricky balancing act either way.

Glad you gave out a plasma gun for the exit fight, sadly i missed it until after I had taken out a few of the enemies. The closet this gun is in sort of blends in with the rest of the map, even though its a real important room for the player to check out. A couple ideas on how to make an important item stand out for the future:
- Give the pedestal the plasma gun is on a really bright and unique texture. Almost every wall in this room uses the same gray brick texture, so something bright and distinct will help catch the players eye.
- Bump up the lighting in here. slap a light texture on the ceiling above the plasma gun pedestal and crank up the lighting to make the gun stand out.
- Backlight the room. draw a small square sector at the back of the room and put a unique texture there that stands out. crank up the lighting in this sector. Get really fancy and make the texture scroll or give it a lighting effect like glow or blink. That will draw the player in.


I don't think I've played any of your maps before but you've got a good foundation here with some nice detailing. I want to see you improve and make more maps so hopefully the feedback is not overly negative and you find something constructive here.

Here's an updated version of DBP52 from the bugfix thread: v1.2

Changes:


Still needs fixing:

thanks for the report. there is one other texture bug i've found as well.

@AskYourDrAboutUVFast thanks for the feedback and going over each fight! I probably should've got rid of that teleporter in that room before the plasma gun fight, I think it's a leftover from the very first version, same with the HKs 'guarding' switches even though the ball-busting version didn't have the blue key room lol. But I'd hate it if anyone would choose to camp in the doorway since it essentially makes the fight super easy and boring imo. Tbh all of the fights after the plasma gun room were added as an afterthought just to finish the map before the deadline ends :/
I'll be sure to keep those advices in mind for the next map!

Having the latest DBP stickied might help solve the problem. Also, maybe there could be a custom DBP icon for DBP threads?

These are cool ideas, thank you

Here's v1.3 from the bugfix thread: DBP52 v1.3

Not final, there's still some bugs to be fixed.