[Megawad] Tarnsman's Projectile Hell - Now on idgames

I think TPHAracnorb might be coded incorrectly. It has a_spidrefire but goes to see instead of looping missile.

I'm gonna try again at a lower difficulty because at uv the ammo balance is incredibly punishing.

Okay.... some E3 Stuff...

E3M1... I'm consistently running low or even out of ammo without secrets, even if I instigate infights where it's feasible, for example baiting a cybruiser into killing a tron or whatever... There are plenty instances where it's attractive to snipe something that's perched, be it shotties, imps, etc, for none of which I'm given a burst rifle, and doing all this with the pistol feels like a time sink while using the RL means wasting precious ammo. A burst rifle early on to finish off cubes I didn't hit fully with the RL and making the sniping less time consuming, paired with a few clips and boxes might ameliorate this...

E3M2... I'm all for hot starts, but this one is obnoxious, because the armour isn't available right away despite being so close by, certainly not without soaking up lots of lead, which turns attempts at grabbing it into a faustian bargain more often than not... Burst rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher are all missable, and this causes problems when going down into the lake area and beyond. Starting area is loaded to the brim with chainers, which means that after establishing a foothold somewhere it's back to sniping scanners with the pistol until a better alternative is available at least somewhat risk free... It just feels tedious to pull one tooth after the other, but after such an opening to the map I'm nowhere near inclined to play any other way, because not only is a more aggressive approach not being rewarded, it's actually punished severely, because health to compensate for sniping chainers or stray projectiles is less than abundant...

E3M3... One of the more enjoyable maps in the episode for me, ammo feels less tight, health seems alright as well, which is in large part because the scanners are less abundant here... I do wish that some of the decorations got in the way less often, be it blocking sight, or messing with the movement...

E3M4... Second part of the map with the perched revs and the roaming trons seems a little tight on rockets, and sniping the perched stuff one by one is a tad too laborious for my liking... Otherwise there's not much I'd complain about, aside of how much the first part allows for and encourages camping the smaller ambushes down rather than taking them on the chin...

E3M5... Similar to for example E4M1, there are lots of opportunities to get into some ambushes with less firepower than I would have liked, many of which are not all that threatening, but do feel a bit too beefy compared to how threatening they can be. Otherwise annoying trons and perched imps encourage sniping away with the burst rifle, and SG-jousts are common place here... I noticed there are several shotguns placed across the map, and I wish it was the same for the minigun, which I believe I saw like once or twice but wish were more readily available so I could use the burst mostly for sniping, and less as a general purpose bullet consuming weapon...

I'll have to play the other maps again to be able to say something more concrete about them, but for E3 overall I found them more entertaining than the E1 stuff I've seen, even though the seemingly necessary sniping or grinding down of midtiers in places was still part and parcel of the deal while the slight increase in aggression of singular monsters didn't always do much to elevate these periods of time for me personally...

New Version:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckv4zluorwzid2y/TPH-v0.71.zip?dl=0

Changes:

• Fixed some items in the EDF (such as melee range, blood pool clipping, CG dmg, etc.)
• Added documentation of gameplay changes to readme for those who want to know what's changed ahead of time.
• Fixed ye olden 2013-2015 monster closets in E1/E2 which would have monsters sometimes get stuck on conveyors.
• Some gameplay and difficulty tweaks primarily on HNTR/HMP.
• Moved some rocket launchers out of secrets for E1.
• Fixed some incorrect skill tagging for teleports, monsters, items, weapons, and ammo.
• Made H.E. Shotgun have +NOAUTOFIRE

v71 Changes:

• Further balances, primarily for HNTR, for E3/E4 to better smooth out some areas that weren't as balanced for lower skills as others.

Known bugs not fixed:

• EE random sprite disappearing (primarily noticeable in E2 trees)
• Cyberdemon rockets break doom physics in EE by going too fast so at extreme distance they will veer to the right of the player.

Looks like a cacoward candidate...

Came here via the Wadazine discord. Looks rad. Need to get to dooming some more. Been quaking recently, lol.

Finally had a chance to play this for a little while, the new resources all come together so damn well - The weapons feel so good! My only "complaint" is the pushing on a wall sound.. Actually, it's kinda hilarious, I just wish it was like Duke Nukem's "where is it?" quote - it only happens once out of every 5 wallhumps or so, rather than for every single one.

The (extremely well edited) HUD face is derived from one originally made by Lynn Forest and Alice Jameson, and the player sprite was modified by Virtue, originally used as the Crash skin in a later Skulltag build. I noticed they weren't named in the credits, I figured they should probably be added. Forgive my anal pedantry, I try to be a stickler about this sort of thing since I've missed credits for minor stuff like this in the past and cringed later on down the road. I'm probably the only person on Earth who even gives a shit, but hey, it's a 2 second edit so why not.

ANYWAY, all that minutia aside, this project is goddamn amazing. This is on that list of wads that I really want to complete with no cheats and no "eh I'll skip ahead" moments. The quality is extremely high.

This has been really enjoyable wad. Level architecture and enemy placement has been very well done. New weapons feels great and returning monsters, that we've seen in few wads work also greatly here. Especially I enjoyed the buff that cacodemons received. They've not mere tanks anymore, but threatening middle-tier monsters like revenants. Gameplay is really addictive, and this is one of the wads, that makes me ignore all other wads until this one is finished. This wad has the same legendary quality as the BTSX, Valiant and Ancient Aliens had (at least for me).

Howerer I do have criticism. I never ran out of ammo in early maps, but 3 last maps I played have had me running out of ammo before finishing the map. I don't know are you actually supposed to leave most monsters alive and just run, but this would feel like strange decision since that would mean, that you can't max your kills in maps. I play on HMP. Here's where I ran out of ammo (and also more feedback on the said maps):

E2M8 - At the point when last battle with archviles, arachnotrons and arachnorbs starts I don't have ammo to kill even third of the horde. I didn't even kill all of arachnotron turrets before the battle started, but I did kill few of them. Was I supposed to leave them all alive? I just had to run past the horde to finish map, which felt very anti-climatic and unfun.

E3M1 - I didn't feel like that I would have wasted ammo, but at last (red) cyberspace section I had to skip all killing and just run past digital cubes to reach the end, because I didn't have ammo to kill them.

E3M2 - There is outdoor section with imps/devils and arachnotrons on the ledges, few chaingunners on boxes and two cyber-barons blocking the way. At this point I have only ammo to kill chaingunners and cyber-barons. Am I supposed to leave arachnotrons and imps alive. Arachnotrons have barrels beside them, and this would imply that I'm supposed to kill them, but there is not enough ammo for those. This section leaves me confused. What is the right playstyle for this?

Also this map had 2 non-optional sections where I had to step on damage floors to continue. I took damage only one time per floor, but this again seems weird design decision, because you can't progress if you lost too much health.

I'm posting feedback on rest of maps as I progress more. Please do not take this as aggression towards this wad. So far I've been loving it, but I felt like I had post feedback about the sections, which felt to have lower quality when comparing the quality of rest of the wad.

On 5/22/2021 at 10:28 PM, Killer5 said:

Slot 7 ssg I don't really understand.

I feel that the new ssg should not be in same slot as shotgun, because of it's blast radius, which can harm the player.

I just finished ep1 (v70). This wad requires your full attention. If you run in like Rambo you're going to have a bad time. You'll spend a lot of time picking off imps from a distance.

Secrets are well hidden, I didn't find many in my travels.

Ammo on HMP was very tight until about 5 maps in. I never ran out however. Playing continuous.

I love the hyper-aggressive monsters. I've always played with quicker than average monsters.

The titlepic is great.

What iWad do I use to play this? I'm seeing level names as episodic (E1M1, etc) so do I have to play this using Ultimate Doom? Or do I just stick with Doom 2

2 minutes ago, i suck at nicknames said:

What iWad do I use to play this?

there is a text file inside. besides other things, it contains such text:

* Play Information *

Game                    : Doom 2

8 minutes ago, ketmar said:

there is a text file inside. besides other things, it contains such text:

* Play Information *

Game                    : Doom 2

 

😒
Thanks. 

I'm either extremely dense, or too old for game logic in newer wads, but I can't even figure out how to progress in the very first map.

Aha! I'm embarrassed to say that I had "All special lines can block <use>" set to on in GZDoom which blocked me from using the first blue skull switch.

Are there any other specific compatibility options that could potentially break maps? I'll keep it on default for this wad, but I still wanted to ask.

Everything looks great so far, definitely something I'd like to attempt completing.

2 hours ago, Lippeth said:

Aha! I'm embarrassed to say that I had "All special lines can block <use>" set to on in GZDoom which blocked me from using the first blue skull switch.

This should be off. Lines have "pass use" but I guess GZDoom's special blocks that?

Also updated 0.70 to have the HE Shotgun have no autofire as extremely quick weapon switch + it, is a bad time.

I gave E3M1 from the updated version a look today, and I'll go over the other maps in the next couple days, hopefully...

I appreciate the changes made to the map. The burst rifle is nice to have, and replacing the 2 trons with revs near one of the switches was a very nice touch as well. It seems like the map is not overly generous with ammo, but it's definitely sufficient and allows for enough flexibility from my point of view... Spreading out resource-usage and some well-placed kicks here and there ensured I'd always have at least one weapon + RL to choose from, and as a result the maps feels pretty good to me as is on UV...

Thanks a lot for the update, I've had a good time with this one so far...

Updated to v71 for some further tweaks and refinements primarily to HNTR for E3/E4.

Ep2 gave me some serious Valiant vibes.

Ep3 killed any good vibes this had. The monster placement got very dickish. A cyberbaron popping in front of you for example. Another moment was when I opened a door and 2 spiders appeared behind me. I'm not even going to attempt ep4.

It'd be nice if there was some sort of better visual distinction between the normal arachnotron and the chaingunner arachnotron. I'm up to E3M5 and distant chaingun wielding spiders end up shredding me for half my health before I can figure out what's happening. The map mixes both kinds and they are usually positioned at a distance in chaotic crossfire situations, so the difference in their gun barrel is very easy to miss and it makes threat prioritisation very awkward!

The spectres in this map are nearly completely invisible in the cave sections and against the rock walls on eternity, regardless of any gamma and contrast settings. Ordinarily that would be manageable, but the increased aggression of demons means they bite you immediately after bumping against them with no chance to react. Given the high density of spectres on this map, it's gets very frustrating and led me to waste a great deal of ammo when I wasn't sitting in a corner spamming the kick wildly for 60 seconds.

There's some really interesting and rewarding stuff in this set mixed in with some of the more abrasive design concepts. I'd also like to echo many of the other remarks here and state these maps are gorgeous and layouts very satisfying to traverse. I'll write up my thoughts in full when i'm done playing!

2 hours ago, koren said:

The spectres in this map are nearly completely invisible in the cave sections and against the rock walls on eternity, regardless of any gamma and contrast settings. Ordinarily that would be manageable, but the increased aggression of demons means they bite you immediately after bumping against them with no chance to react.

That combination of factors has caused me great frustration where otherwise i was having a lot of fun. I haven't even got past the first episode yet but i really did feel like the near-complete invisibility of specters was the biggest thing by far holding back my experience. At the start specifically, E1M2 felt like a HUUUGE difficulty spike from both the previous and following level simply by the way it uses specters and how it's unavoidable to keep running into them and either blasted by a million projectiles/enemies you were running away from, or just being mauled to death by something you can't see under the most insignificant drop in brightness between sectors.

Also full agree that, specters (and the peashooter-ness of the assault rifle) aside this is a LOOOOT of fun, absolutely gorgeous and fun to move through. I might just wait on a fix for the specters before continuing though, because i don't want to let that leave a sour taste in my mouth for this entire megawad :P

I do however think that despite feeling like UV is pretty manageable (despite being indeed ball-bustingly hard) there could be a tiny bit more ammo in these maps... Though then again i should wait to see if that's "fixed" by making the specters visible in EE, because i do think it caused me to waste a looooot of ammo shooting nothing but thin air most of the time. Otherwise, armor and health placement are P E R F E C T as is (at least on UV, haven't tested lower difficulties), i think you did a great job at balancing that part for sure :)

6 hours ago, koren said:

It'd be nice if there was some sort of better visual distinction between the normal arachnotron and the chaingunner arachnotron. I'm up to E3M5 and distant chaingun wielding spiders end up shredding me for half my health before I can figure out what's happening. The map mixes both kinds and they are usually positioned at a distance in chaotic crossfire situations, so the difference in their gun barrel is very easy to miss and it makes threat prioritisation very awkward!

From a distance that indeed can be an issue. I'll see about what various tweaks can be done to make them more distinct without resorting to simple recolors.

3 hours ago, MattFright said:

the near-complete invisibility of specters was the biggest thing by far holding back my experience.

I might give them a separate slower bite than the regular demon since certain settings makes them very difficult to see in EE for sure.

One thing I would like to see is have shotgunners/chainguns drop ammo instead of weapons, so as to not cause confusion to new players.

Also I agree with some people here that the maps could use a bit more ammo.

On 5/25/2021 at 10:47 AM, Tarnsman said:

Updated to v71 for some further tweaks and refinements primarily to HNTR for E3/E4.

I tested the new e2m8, e3m1 and e3m2 on HMP. I was able to kill all monsters and also miss a few shots without losing all of my ammo. Thank you for the fixes. I will be continuing my playthrough today.

2 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

One thing I would like to see is have shotgunners/chainguns drop ammo instead of weapons, so as to not cause confusion to new players.

I wouldn't recommend this wad for new players due the higher difficulty. Also this would kill the joke.

Also about digicubes: I feel that their hp could lowered a bit, so they would be always killed by one missile. This is just my opinion though. Sometimes they took two missiles to bring down. Is this intended? I'm not sure is it source port thing since I'm using LZdoom.

Amazing maps, but seriously, fuck e1m8

I completed the wad on HMP. I felt that the ammo balance was perfect now. Not too much of ammo, but just enough that I never did run out of it.

Driller was awesome enemy. Never seen quite like it in any wad. Final boss felt a bit of disappointment as it fell down very quickly and thus wasn't much of a threat, but this was probably intended solution à la Gradius.

As for the ssg, I didn't find much use for it. It always seemed to lose when compared to rocket launcher. Ssg was slower due the reloading, less accurate and used two rockets. It sure could dish out double damage compared to rocket launcher on classic ssg's "almost melee" range, but this would just end up to loss of health because of the blast radius. Thus I would end up using ssg on the range, where it just wouldn't deal much more damage than a single rocket, and then I would see no reason to use it.

Anyway. This wad is cacoward material. Had really fun playing it.

E3M1 is pretty rad, loved the 80s virtual world style

I hate you.

Also this

Following up from my last post, I've played more of this and have just a couple more notes. Firstly, it seems strange that the shotgun shell ammo sprite still features 4 shells, even though you only get 2. Secondly, E1M4 is probably my favorite map yet, it's just so fast and punchy.. Excellent Dooming to be had. Thirdly and most importantly, I think it's funny that E4M8 has 420 monsters hehe lol

E1M4 is a thing of beauty.