[MBF21 Community project] Paint-It Doom. Get creative with simple colors... again! But now with Ancient Aliens palette [Pre-Release 2]

V2 is out! (link)

-Reduced the number of pinkies in the pit

-Replaced the mancubies in the pit with hell knights to prevent both sides from becoming bullets hells

-The arch-vile blocking the exit was changed into a revenant

-Changed the whole forest corridor fight into 9 spectres. I originally wanted this section to feel like the forest was getting invested by demons, but after reflection, it's really not that threatening and mostly serve as stagnation for speed-runners to force them to stop and get ambushed by the surprise revenants and everything they left behind. I think 9 spectres can do the same job and will be 80% less grindy to get through

I don't really want to introduce the rocket launcher before the final fight and I don't want the BFG to be outside of a secret (the whole map should be beatable without, it's just a bonus for people that struggle). I really wanted this forest to be a SSG arena, so I instead tried to make the fights less grindy. I kept 2 arch-viles, because I really like the kind of challenge the one in the pit bring to the fight and the one in the forest now as much less stuff to resurrect, so it should be fine

15 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

@DeetOpianSky

Replayed the new version of Hollowmind.

• I think you forgot to lock the teleport to the final area
• I shot a tiny hole near blue key and somehow missed the monster closet trigger. What does it do anyway.
• I think in a yellow key fight I missed the trigger to lock me in, but I'm not sure. I fell out of arena and had to come back.
• Monsters get stuck on the platform that goes up as I climb at the start. It's only pinkie and a couple of imps so it doesn't matter much

Beside that, I think the map is ready. Maybe you should teleport extra rockets into the final battle each time I make the figure lower the shield?

I've addressed the issues above with a new update uploaded to drive.

 

Sun-Kissed Pseudo-Fed v3: SunKissedPseudoFed_v3.zip

- reworked secret fight access

- added more radsuits to final fight

Should have an updated version of my map up today or tomorrow, as I did find a fix for the issue. some of the failsafe return lines in some of the pens was too close to the wall and the scroll speed was in fact set a bit too high, so they'd get stuck. Gonna check all my pods to make sure that issue can't be recreated. 

here's the 1.3 version of Defiled Dreamscape:  Link .

Ended up consulting some people in the PUSS discord to iron out any remaining (or even potential) monster pen issue, and actually took scrolling off quite a few pens since really only a couple of fights like the Blue Key fight need it for timing, just wasn't worth the headache. reduced the scrolling speed on the blue key pens, adjusted some lines, resized a few and even reorrientated them to properly face toward the player. Did a lengthy stress test for the Blue key fight, shouldn't have any more issues. Did a lot of the same for the rest of the fights so those should be fine now as well.

other than that, just Qol and small fixes. 

-squashed some HOM's

-flattened out the shotgun alcove in the hub a bit to make the pillars easier to use for archvile cover.

-altered the stairs in the Red Key arena so the Cyber can actually leave his balcony.

-sprinkled in a few extra rocket boxes.

-made a fence in the temple impassable.

-added in a missing teleport destination for the teleporter in the final arena.

Sorry for the late-ish update, took longer than I hoped, but i wanted to really iron out any existing or potential issues I could find, especially since stuff not spawning in has been such a reoccurring issue.

I'll try to get back to re-testing in a few days, quick poll for everyone else

@senpaigru Still waiting on difficulty settings

@Chookum Have you think of anything regarding the cleanup, like bringing skipped monsters into the final fight?

@Lagoonatic Set up the invisible sectors yet?

Have I forgotten about anyone else?

@Timilyo80

I can't really sugarcoat it - shotgun combat drags. A lot.

The part where I must fight off like 9 revenants with only shotgun and chaingun was annoying, I forgot to mention it last time. I think it you reduce their number, nothing of value would be lost, while offering more dynamic. Also maybe put some health before the drop, being trapped in there on low health is bad.

The battle for yellow key is more tolerable now but still drags. You already give out a secret BFG, I think if I had a couple more non-secret BFG shots to thin the crowd, kill the vile or damage cyberdemon it would be more dynamic.

What comes before and after is good though.

12 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

Have you think of anything regarding the cleanup, like bringing skipped monsters into the final fight? 

I'll try cooking something up this weekend and post it here.

Laziest solution is to have you teleport back onto the pad you started the encounters of the map with the further illustrate that you can go back, but I'll see if I can find a way to corral monsters or de-activate/re-activate the wave-pools for each room. Not sure how the Third room can have its cacos come back based on the geometry - not unless I lift all the sectors up after you leave...

11 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

@Timilyo80

I can't really sugarcoat it - shotgun combat drags. A lot.

The part where I must fight off like 9 revenants with only shotgun and chaingun was annoying, I forgot to mention it last time. I think it you reduce their number, nothing of value would be lost, while offering more dynamic. Also maybe put some health before the drop, being trapped in there on low health is bad.

 

The battle for yellow key is more tolerable now but still drags. You already give out a secret BFG, I think if I had a couple more non-secret BFG shots to thin the crowd, kill the vile or damage cyberdemon it would be more dynamic.

 

What comes before and after is good though.

- There's no fight with 9 revenants, so I'm not sure where to make the change. If it's the 6 revenants up the cliff in the yellow key fight, the cyberdemon should be able to get rid of them quickly, so I don't see the problem. If it's the 4 revenants during the specter ambush, I think the problem is that it's too easy to go back to the previous area and kill them one by one. I can start the ambush further into the tunnel and put the second specter spawner in your back, so it's harder to ignore everything and you might even wake up the arch-vile for more spice (it should be initially blocked by the mancubies, so it should be fine). What do you think about that?

- I don't really understand how you can be at low health for the yellow key fight. There's a berserk, 4 medkit and a soulshpere before the fight, but I can still add another medkit before entering the pit area if you want. If the problem is that you can drop in the pit before grabbing the soulsphere, that's the player's problem for recklessly dropping into a pit before looking around (I even made a trail with armor bonuses to make sure that the message was clear)

- I will add another 40 cells in the secret (I don't see the point of putting none secret cells, that's just frustrating for people who didn't found the secret). I can also put a secret rocket launcher with 10 or 15 rockets somewhere in the map if you want. My last option would be to put a rocket launcher with 10 rockets near the yellow button, but I don't want the player to be confuse and think he should immediately kill the enemies up the cliff and be stuck with a full health cyberdemon that didn't infight anything (at less in UV, maybe I could still include it for lower difficulties that don't meet that cyber). I can make the steps to the yellow button rise when the battle star and trigger the cyber (+ arch-vile) with a w1 line trigger, but it's still a last resort for me

- Maybe one of the reason why you think the yellow key fight drags is because of the arachnotrons that are not too easy to shoot without pressing the yellow button. I can reduce their number to 3 instead of 4 if you want (or even down to 2, but that would be a bit too much of a nerf imo)

(I'm asking your opinions on these changes before making them because I don't think they are big enough to deserve a playtest session. I want to know which solutions suit your needs before """forcing""" you to play my map again)

(edit: I just realized that the "someone mentioned you" notification probably work only with @ and not quotes... I don't know, I'm probably just stupid, so here it is just to be sure: @ViolentBeetle )

8 hours ago, Timilyo80 said:

- There's no fight with 9 revenants, so I'm not sure where to make the change. If it's the 6 revenants up the cliff in the yellow key fight, the cyberdemon should be able to get rid of them quickly, so I don't see the problem. If it's the 4 revenants during the specter ambush, I think the problem is that it's too easy to go back to the previous area and kill them one by one. I can start the ambush further into the tunnel and put the second specter spawner in your back, so it's harder to ignore everything and you might even wake up the arch-vile for more spice (it should be initially blocked by the mancubies, so it should be fine). What do you think about that? 

When I complained about "9 revenants" I was talking about the part before the forest where you fall into a pit with imp and mancubus, then press the button and large number of revenants shows up. It's probably fewer, but still feels way too many to fight with only regular shotgun and chaingun.

I guess reducing number of arachnotrons might work. I guess it would also be workable if you remove the arch-vile spawn from the button instead.

Edit: The reason I dislike Vile in the pit specifically is because he's throwing off the whole "Let's summon the cyberdemon and let it infight thing" - it's difficult to both evade the vile and the other monsters in the pit, meaning I'll have to clear the pit first anyway.

I get that you don't want me to have rockets here and why so you can keep it. Still I'd prefer a non-secret BFG, just one shot to soften the crowd would be appreciated and offer some tactical options.

I get notifications for all posts in topics I made, btw, and also quotes and mentions specifically.

- OH! Ok, I can totally reduce the number of revenants in that fight from 4 (still not 9) to 2. tbh, my strategy for this part was to try my best to stun-lock some revenants with the chain-gun and generally just wing it, so nerfing that fight is fine by me. I can also add some health before the collapsing floor and/or inside that pit

- For the yellow key fight, I will remove the arch-vile and also reduce the arachnotron to 3 just to be sure. You mentioned that the reason you wanted bigger weapons for that fight is to soften the crowd, so I'm assuming the problem is that you're having difficulties to deal with the pinkies and guarding hell knight while dodging everything, and not necessarily that there's too many enemies (AKA: there's too much happening all at once). I can't officially give a BFG to the player without making the monsters guarding the yellow button useless, so I think a good solution could be to teleport the ranged enemies with a delay of 5 or 10 seconds to transform this fight into a timed challenge were you need to take this opportunity to put yourself in a more advantageous situation before shit hit the fan. Does that sound good?

- I will not change the forest corridor fight after all. You didn't really mention it, so I will assume it was actually fine by itself. I will also revert my decision to add another 40 cells in the secret since it didn't seem to solve any problems

- The reason why I don't want to officially introduce bigger weapons for the yellow key fight is not some illusive personal reason, but just simple weapon progression. Personally, the SSG is more than enough for that fight, but you telling me that you really want a bigger weapon signal me that it's not actually the case and the fight is not properly designed and balanced around the SSG. It's fine, I had the same difficulties to adjust my level design to a lower skill set than mine during RAMP 2023 and ended up with a really hard map that people were barely able beat, even tho I though it was medium or kinda hard at best ^^'

4 hours ago, Timilyo80 said:

- OH! Ok, I can totally reduce the number of revenants in that fight from 4 (still not 9) to 2. tbh, my strategy for this part was to try my best to stun-lock some revenants with the chain-gun and generally just wing it, so nerfing that fight is fine by me. I can also add some health before the collapsing floor and/or inside that pit

- For the yellow key fight, I will remove the arch-vile and also reduce the arachnotron to 3 just to be sure. You mentioned that the reason you wanted bigger weapons for that fight is to soften the crowd, so I'm assuming the problem is that you're having difficulties to deal with the pinkies and guarding hell knight while dodging everything, and not necessarily that there's too many enemies (AKA: there's too much happening all at once). I can't officially give a BFG to the player without making the monsters guarding the yellow button useless, so I think a good solution could be to teleport the ranged enemies with a delay of 5 or 10 seconds to transform this fight into a timed challenge were you need to take this opportunity to put yourself in a more advantageous situation before shit hit the fan. Does that sound good?

- I will not change the forest corridor fight after all. You didn't really mention it, so I will assume it was actually fine by itself. I will also revert my decision to add another 40 cells in the secret since it didn't seem to solve any problems

- The reason why I don't want to officially introduce bigger weapons for the yellow key fight is not some illusive personal reason, but just simple weapon progression. Personally, the SSG is more than enough for that fight, but you telling me that you really want a bigger weapon signal me that it's not actually the case and the fight is not properly designed and balanced around the SSG. It's fine, I had the same difficulties to adjust my level design to a lower skill set than mine during RAMP 2023 and ended up with a really hard map that people were barely able beat, even tho I though it was medium or kinda hard at best ^^'

That sounds like it would work.

V3 is out! (link)

-Added 45 health before the collapsing floor and reduced the number of revenants from 4 to 2

-The ranged enemies in the yellow key fight take around 7.5 seconds to spawn (+2 seconds for the revenants on the stone pillars)

-The arch-vile as been removed and the arachnotrons are now 3 instead of 4

-Added a medkit in the forest because why not

I hope that damn yellow key fight finally feel alright!

@ViolentBeetle just returned from a trip, will get the updated files uploaded

Updated versions for Legend Of The Vile Catacombs and Cryptic Void

LOTVC:

- fake floor used for campfire

- added more block player lines to prevent accessing areas sooner

CV:

- improved timing of certain actions during the Arch-vile blitz

- changed floor textures during final encounter to better indicate safe zones

- replaced one of the Archie fights in the final area with a Revenant wave

I've tried implementing suggestions towards the lowering invisible platforms but it all would affect everything surrounding the platforms instead.

LOTVC & CV wads

@Lagoonatic

I am accepting Legend of the Vile Catacomb. There was a minor graphical glitch at the cyberdemon arena, I solved it by subtly moving vertices around, you won't notice the difference. I will continue to play through submissions, shorter to longer in the coming days.

On an unrelated note, I've been tweaking my own map too. Mostly minor stuff like moving monsters around so they don't get alerted prematurely. And removed one green armor since it was an overkill.

waterfront_V4.zip

@Lagoonatic

I think you moved player start in Cryptic Void. I'd move it back, but not 100% sure where.

Just FYI, if you are using Ultimate Doom Builder, you don't need to move player start for testing, you can just point mouse somewhere and press Ctlr+F9 to start there for a test.

@Timilyo80

I think right now the balance is perfect. Challenging, but fun - and I didn't even feel like I needed secret BFG (Though I used it to finish the cyberdemon)

Moving to accepted.

I didn't write down what MIDI did you use, and I can't find you mentioning it either. Can you give a name and author please?

Edit: Nevermind. You put it in text file.

@HiMyNameIsChair

I got 100% kills, so it seems all good. You still got two teleporters with lines facing the wrong way in a pool around red key. I'd flip them myself, but my computer doesn't seem powerful enough to build nodes.

That's the only problem I found, once you fix it it's all good.

Ver 1.4 of Defiled Dreamscape with fixes teleport lines. Actually did a final look around and found a couple more, guess I tend to forget to flip them a lot: Link

Sorry this took so many revisions, and in case I forget: thank you. In the past year I've been actively mapping this was probably the best learning experience I've had. Your feedback helped a lot and gave me a lot to think about for future projects.

@DeetOpianSky

I still can't figure the puzzle, like I'm looking at this I don't know how to translate it into anything actionable.

But since it's going into "Weird levels" side part anyway, I think I can accept it at this point.

@Chookum

You said you were going to think of something about your map on weekend, did you think of anything?

1 minute ago, ViolentBeetle said:

@DeetOpianSky

I still can't figure the puzzle, like I'm looking at this I don't know how to translate it into anything actionable.

But since it's going into "Weird levels" side part anyway, I think I can accept it at this point.

Both it and the 'Boss' fight are optional aside from 100% runs.
Much appreciated !
 

3 minutes ago, DeetOpianSky said:

If we go into an RC phase or if there's a hard deadline set I'll take another pass at it and fully implement the randomized solutions/match game aspect.

I only have a couple of maps to playtest, at which point I will put all the maps together in a wad and let them sit here as alpha for a bit before creating a new thread. I expect it would take me about a week.

I don't think "fully randomized" solution is necessary, since most people probably don't play wads repeatedly to appreciate it.

1 minute ago, ViolentBeetle said:

I only have a couple of maps to playtest, at which point I will put all the maps together in a wad and let them sit here as alpha for a bit before creating a new thread. I expect it would take me about a week.

 

I don't think "fully randomized" solution is necessary, since most people probably don't play wads repeatedly to appreciate it.

That was my thought also, sounds great.

If I am able to get a considerable update done at that point (aside from bug fixes) I will let you know.

2 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

You said you were going to think of something about your map on weekend, did you think of anything?

Testing with IDDQD and skipping through leaving enemies alive for encounters, I got a pair of monster teleporters for the first encounter going just fine, but my implementation for the second encounter gets completely gummied up by lost souls being created by pain elementals. I might change my monster choices and save Pain Elementals for the last round if I can't reconcile this with further changes, or make more lines for more monster closets to teleport into.

A similar monster teleporting method is in encounter 3 and I can verify that things get teleported to the monster closet and back into the last encounter, but I need to make the closets bigger to accommodate this and change the position of the teleports in the final arena (or raise the roof) to accommodate tall monsters like either of the two cyberdemons coming through.

Also made the player's last teleport be further back, to show you're still in the structure and shown the way to the exit.

Since we are fairly close to finishing and my hopes for custom graphics didn't pan out, figured I'll make an attempt at M_DOOM. The boundary is work in progress and so is overall size, but as a concept I think it works.

@DeetOpianSky

I replayed Hollowmind.

First, there's a couple of graphical glitches

Missing textures of something on this staircase? It's not as visible on screenshot, but lots of texture bleed here.

Something shimmering in the window, slime trail?

I also realized there's no reward for flipping a switch behind the white door (tag 21). It just adds extra problems.

It opens a window to the platform and teleports stuff, but that seems to be it.

I think maybe another rocket and some rockets in the revenant closet would both make it worth it and let me shoot those on the platform.

I've got no other complaints.

On 6/11/2024 at 4:06 PM, ViolentBeetle said:

@Lagoonatic

I think you moved player start in Cryptic Void. I'd move it back, but not 100% sure where.

Just FYI, if you are using Ultimate Doom Builder, you don't need to move player start for testing, you can just point mouse somewhere and press Ctlr+F9 to start there for a test.

well that's embarrassing lol I never knew that 

updated the file, player start is correct now

@Lagoonatic

I have no complaints about gameplay, but halls of mirror make me seasick. Here are some screenshots of the HOMs.

Some of them can probably be fixed by fake floor/ceiling effect, some can be textured black. Some might require changes to layout.

I can accept this map as is into the "extra" episode. I could probably help you with fake floors too, but I'm kinda busy with the work right now.

15 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

@DeetOpianSky

I replayed Hollowmind.

First, there's a couple of graphical glitches

Missing textures of something on this staircase? It's not as visible on screenshot, but lots of texture bleed here.

 

Something shimmering in the window, slime trail?

 

I also realized there's no reward for flipping a switch behind the white door (tag 21). It just adds extra problems.

It opens a window to the platform and teleports stuff, but that seems to be it.

I think maybe another rocket and some rockets in the revenant closet would both make it worth it and let me shoot those on the platform.

 

I've got no other complaints.

Update uploaded to drive for Hollowmind.

Corrected some bleeds, probably caused half as many more.
Tried several different node builders and wiggled the heck out of a ton of vertices.
There are going to be a few here and there.
Squashed the most unsightly ones.
Added some ammo to a few areas.