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Post by EasyHard on Jun 27, 2021 23:34:24 GMT -5
In Map08, there is indeed armor and ammo in the lava at the start. I quickly figured that part out, although my preferred method was to grab everything and return to the map start instead of taking the teleporter inside the lava. For the starting enemies I began with the plasma rifle and let myself sit there exposed for a little while in the first room. Once the revenants made their way out of the two side hallways I got in closer and could circle around the whole crew (at very close range). I would usually take a couple mancbus fireball hits at some point, but it worked well.
RE: what I don't like about Skillsaw's style: Skillsaw's style has what I think of as a slaughter-like pacing and attitude, with all the focus on enemies installed everywhere and little focus on the level. It also typically has an uncountable number of imps and other ranged enemies on ledges from the distance, encircling the whole map as well as individual trap arenas. The monster counts feel way too high for how he is using them. I tried Aeternum and it had 600 monsters on the 2nd map -- on HNTR! Playing through this map made me think that nothing is ever "enough" for Skillsaw. I also recently played Valiant on ITYTD and warped to 4 random maps. I usually dislike how his maps flow, with one typical map being a very mono-aesthetic level mostly consisting of multiple tiers of wide balconies. It doesn't naturally suggest a way to proceed through the level or find your way around.
Longer ago I played Vanguard which has the same things I dislike. Somehow without realizing I ended up giving Vanguard two separate attempts about 7 years apart, and both times I couldn't bring myself to play all the levels.
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 28, 2021 12:56:50 GMT -5
Ever played a wad with more focus on zombies/shotgunners than imps? heh.
Guess I can see what you mean about skillsaw. The way you put it, his style certainly is more "combat" oriented than anything else. I still think his design is one of the closer things to Plutonia out there. But with Plutonia so fresh in my mind, it focuses a lot more on the "level" itself being an obstacle course and often something tricky to navigate. Nor did the monster count ever seem overblown, yet enemy placement seemed very meticulous and purposeful. Though those brothers were probably laughing at how much they favored chaingunners. For as devious as Plutonia is most of the time, it still has shades of "adventure" and exploration. I'm having a hard time recalling stuff like that with skillsaw and compared to what I've played this year, I think he might utilize more cliche' triggers/traps than some other wads. No denying he does lean into some slaughter moments too. It never goes too far for me though. But yeah, I still liked Vanguard, Ancient Aliens, and Valiant especially. That's a lot of content though, if I could get some more megawads from other authors I discover I like a lot, maybe they'd outrank him for me.
I get the vibe I should probably never touch Ribbiks' maps. The novelty of watching decino get through some of his stuff wears thin too for me. His style might be more combat focused than skillsaw even, with severely high difficulty that crosses over to the point of not looking fun at all to me. Kind of a shame since his level aesthetics and all look cool, but Eviternity was a nice reminder to me that you still need a lot more than just simply "looking good" to be a fun map.
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Post by EasyHard on Jun 28, 2021 20:33:05 GMT -5
Completed the last map of Arrival, Map 08 (The Writhing Altar). Enjoyable and suitable for a final map. You get the BFG again, but there is more time to use it and bigger crowds that it is intended for. A lot of the map (like, the middle 70%) follows the pattern of clearing out a city-like area, then triggering enemies to teleport into that area. As a level concept I am probably less enamored with how it turned out than the other maps that unlocked more gradually in tandem with your gear, but I still have no complaints about the map.
Overall, Arrival is very consistent in quality and doesn't "ramp" as hard as I think is tempting when someone makes a community creation intended for veterans (Scythe 1 & 2 being an extreme example). It does have a mild difficulty ramp, and somewhat of a progression ramp with how much you use each weapon and which enemies you face. I think having some form of progression is a key feature of truly excellent mapsets, whereas increasing the difficulty makes a very small difference to me (and can easily go wrong).
I ended up using two saves: one ultimately unused save near the end where you have to trigger multiple teleport armies to get the 3rd/yellow key, and another even closer to the end when I was whisked to away to what was obviously the final confrontation. I was thinking about this and the difficulty feels appropriate for "no saves", the only problem is that it just might feel too long if you happen to die at the 80% mark. The death that cost me the most progress was at that yellow key, and I wonder how I would feel if I had a similar death very deep into map 7 or 8.
Speaking of those yellow key teleport armies, when I was jumping down off my ledge to take out the new enemies I was repeatedly surprised how quickly 100+ health and 100+ armor went straight into the danger zone -- even as soon as 1 or 2 BFG blasts into a crowd of revenants and hell knights. If I had an instant replay camera I'd want to find out what it was that hit me so fast. Maybe the problem is that enemies are firing projectiles constantly before you even jump down, and there are homing rockets flying above me when I land or something.
Arrival is notably generous with health. If you have a subjectively shit performance against something and survive, you can usually get health quickly or else go back into the level and get back up to 80-100%. There aren't that many secrets though, with some levels having just 0 or 1. Secrets probably aren't a significant factor to overall enjoyment, but it was a little disappointing to me whenever I noticed it. Maybe some of that generous health could have been stuffed into secrets. Finding secrets that aren't marked as secrets seems to be common, and I wonder if there is a logic behind these choices. In map 08 I entered a false wall that gave me an invulernability sphere (intended for the archvile on a spire), but it wasn't that map's secret.
There are a lot of blur spheres. Not a ton, but probably more than 90% of wads. I don't know about you, but I always picked these up and I actually don't recall ever regretting it. I think this wad proves that you don't want to put these powerups as secrets.
If there was an appearance of the Spider Mastermind, I must have plum forgot. Cyberdemons were used frequently but with enough restraint in their setups for my tastes. It's probably a tricky thing to get right. Past experience says I am likely to get tired taking down Cyberdemons legitimately in non-boss maps. I'm the type of guy who still enjoys very simple boss maps that more or less just puts 1 boss monster (& company) straight away and doesn't try to be challenging. However, that is more of a Doom 1 thing to capstone an episode.
My favorite map is clearly Map 06 (The Ledge), which I was already strongly attached to beforehand. Map 03 (The Water Putrefier) also stands out as one where I stood up and took notice how much I was enjoying my time. Maps 08 (Bloodstone Citadel) and Map 01 (Waste Abandonment) are also in this mix. I have especially fun memories of dying and restarting in map 08, which also goes for my more distant memories for learning map 01.
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 28, 2021 21:13:29 GMT -5
The red key was my hangup in map 09. Sounds like you saved the yellow key for last.
I can confirm there was never any Spider Mastermind. Can't say I really missed it. I think there were 2-3 moments with two Cyberdemon's in this that was pretty cool.
I agree about the generous health. Armor too, I was often able to save some green or blue armor at some parts in the map to return to if I ever needed it later. The intensity of the mobs and difficulty will still get you pretty quickly if you're not paying attention in these maps, but yeah the generosity might be why I just kept thinking about how "fair" everything felt.
Definitely one I'll need to revisit someday and try no saves on.
So, can you think of any other mappers or wads in the vein of Pavera's style?
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Post by EasyHard on Jun 28, 2021 22:45:12 GMT -5
Syringe might be the closest to Arrival in style. Map 26 (Wrecking Fist) of "Interception" also comes to mind, although I'm guessing here based off memory. If someone said they liked Arrival, I would tell them to play Plutonia AD (and possibly Plutonia), even though I peg that style as distinct.
For Doom 1, Pavera made the first map of "Ultimate Doom the Way Id Did", and likely was a tester for the others.
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 30, 2021 19:23:10 GMT -5
I just realized that the Cydonia project has AD_79 as one of the two creators. I wonder if his Plutonia AD maps are in there? Or if they're of equal quality, that's epic too. I've managed to get through the first three episodes (24 maps) of Tarnsman's Projectile Hell, chipping away at it these last few days. It's weird one for sure. I dislike most of the new enemy types and some of the modifications. The new weapons and changes are cool enough to have me interested after so much vanilla Doom though. I save scummed my way through E1 on UV, then bumped it down to HMP for E2-E3. I skipped E1M8 after awhile, then God moded through the end of E3M7 and all of E3M8. Kind of insane to wonder what some of these maps are like on UV. This makes some of the skillsaw stuff seem easy to me. It's hard to tell just how much care Tarnsman really put into this or not, saying it was originally a speedmapping project... and some of it just seems like a joke that shouldn't be taken seriously. So it's such a strange mixed bag and weird to evaluate. I was praising his D2TWID and Syringe work, but I don't think I could really sell anyone on this megawad. It's probably like C tier for me. I do find myself wishing I could breath more or get some "adventure", which he did well in other wads. But yeah, it's not super boring like Eviternity was to me, so it beats that...
Truth be told, I think I'll bump it down to HNTR for E4. I'm having enough fun to see this one through. But skipping maps and God moding through some parts, that alone makes this one something I can't confidently recommend or rank highly.
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Post by EasyHard on Jun 30, 2021 20:20:17 GMT -5
I'm still not clear if Projectile Hell is close to standard Doom or trying to be mechanically like a first person bullet hell. I just looked at the thread briefly the first time you mentioned it.
Edit: Also, good find on putting the Cydonia project on my radar.
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 30, 2021 20:35:57 GMT -5
Well, he modified the Imps to shoot way faster and way more fireballs, then there's Revenant's and Spiders everywhere. So maybe the bullet hell meme is kind of intentional. There's always loads of health/armor, but you can die in a blink.
Gonna check out some Cydonia tonight for a little bit.
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 2, 2021 21:21:26 GMT -5
Alright I kept hearing this track in a few wads and videos lately, finally rediscovered it. Of course it's another awesome DN3D track!
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Post by Xeogred on Jul 3, 2021 20:39:37 GMT -5
Going through this VOD of a John Romero interview right now, he said Sigil II is in the works and will be Doom 2 based. My dream coming true.
EDIT: Holy frick it's going to be a FULL 32 MAP MEGAWAD.
Somewhere around the ~1:20 mark the interviewer asks if he's been influenced by the community at this point, but he mostly goes into detail that he favors gameplay and design before aesthetics. Which definitely makes sense coming from him to me. It sounds like he intends to make Sigil II as something you could have played after Doom 2 back in the day, much like how Sigil feels like a real E5. Sounds great to me.
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