RAY MOHAWK 2 - Development Thread

[Walter confetti]

A first alpha of my map is ready for playtesting! There's some bugs such as some spots whit a DRAWSEGS error (that i start personally to hate), but it's ready to go for me:

DOWNLOAD!

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Title: WARehouse

Author: Walter

Port: Vanilla Doom2.exe

Tested With: chocorenderlimits

New Music: Lee Jackson - Smooth Havana

Build time: 4/5 days... expanded in 13 days

Difficulty Settngs: Yes

Description: A semi-open arena short slaughtermap sets in a flooded area of the city/warehouse, inspired by Duke Nukem 3D E2L3 and a map from Call of Duty that isaw on a youtube video, the layout tries to emulate it.

Play time: 8/9 minutes

[snapshot]

Let's get this sucker out for some testing

Link

 

Music: Daft Punk - Lose Yourself to Dance

Difficulty Settings: Yes

Tested with: chocolate-doom, Zandronum

Description: non-linear beach/hotel/waterpark themed level, tried to also make some interesting combat scenarios that require some target prioritization and a boss fight that's not just circle-strafe and shoot to win.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by sluggard

[ignatiOS]

18 hours ago, Aurelius said:

Some teaser shots of a map that is 99% complete and will be made available for the (in)convenience of playtesters in the Coming Days™.

Holy crap, that looks awesome! Definitely taking some inspiration if thats alright!

[Doomkid]

Hey everyone, since I've gotten a handful of submissions I decided to compile them all up into a new beta!

 

https://doomshack.org/uploads/mohawk2e.zip

 

We've got 7 mostly-complete maps here. The wad has the following maps in the following slots:

 

01 - my map

02 - by MidnightMage

03 - by Cheesewheel

04 - by Walter

05 - by SilverMiner

06 - by Gokuma

12 - by sluggard (in this slot to use RSKY2)

 

I've also made some slight tweaks to the weapon balance. As it was before, the cell cannon and blaster were simply too op. To counteract this, I've reduced their maximum ammo capacity a bit, and slowed the blaster down just a tad (it actually feels more satisfying now though, oddly). I came at this all wrong, though rd and Aurelius have set me straight. The link in this post is updated.

 

Conversely, I've increased the maximum shell count as I didn't originally account for each shot using 2 shells rather than 1, and also increased the maximum capacity of the flamethrower since it ran out so quickly before.

 

I think the weapons are far more balanced now. I've also moved SilverMiner from slot 18 to slot 8, and simply pushed everyone else up a slot. I had to do this to fix a moronic mistake I made with the roster earlier on.

 

"What does this mean for me?!" I hear you ask. Nothing at all, keep mapping as you were. These changes are all on the minor side, but they were necessary to get some semblance of balance in there. (They look a little nicer now too).

 

Enjoy what's here so far, and I (and all the other mappers) would love to hear any feedback you have about what's here so far.

 

EDIT: @Aurelius, that screenshot looks absolute fantastic, and @Walter confetti and @sluggard, thank you for these submissions, I'm very pleased with them!

Edited May 27, 2021 by Doomkid

[baja blast rd.]

40 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I've also made some slight tweaks to the weapon balance. As it was before, the cell cannon and blaster were simply too op. To counteract this, I've reduced their maximum ammo capacity a bit, and slowed the blaster down just a tad (it actually feels more satisfying now though, oddly).

 

This change kind of hurts because we (me and Aurelius) ended up balancing specifically around those two weapons and their OPness -- for example monsters that would ordinarily be "unfair" but you can nuke them so fast it's okay, and keeping cell cannon ammo to 20-cell handouts. And while the fights can be tuned down to the same intensity before, they lose much of that manic dynamic of "sheer panic + powerful off switch" and are more just traditional RL-spam-like fights with a buffed-RL like thing[1]. A lot of the identity of the gameplay was in that. (We also coincidentally built a fight around the 200 flamethrower capacity, but that increase shouldn't be such a big deal.)

 

 

[1]I also noticed some fights in sluggard's map that would be obscene with a weaker cell cannon (like four viles with tenuous cover) but feel very exciting and balanced with it. 

[Doomkid]

I understand, the drop in cell cannon damage was far too severe. I've bumped it back up to be almost at the level of power it was before, to the point where it should have very little impact on the fun factor of the combat you've designed: (removed outdated link)

 

I'm sorry for making these tweaks halfway through the project - I was going a little bit too insane with the balance when I very first assembled these guns and I feel like the experience was suffering for it overall. These changes in this latest revision should still have that same oomph that the weapons always had, just a bit less skewed in favor of one half of the arsenal.

 

Please (at your leisure) see how the map feels with this current balance I've got here. The most you might need to change is handing out a teeny bit more cell ammo, but not enough to be frustrating - to make the calculation process a bit easier, the original cell-rocket-thing damage was 40 per unit plus splash (just ridiculous, honestly.. UGH why did I send it out like that). I reduced it to 12 plus splash in that previous build which is absurdly intense of a change.. So in this latest build it's back up to 30 plus splash, hence the possible need for a teeny but more ammo.

 

Again, I'm very sorry for any headaches this causes... I just really do think the overall campaign benefits from these little touches. See how your map feels with this when the mood strikes you and let me know how it goes. I'm definitely flexible, and I also want to hear what the other mappers think about these tweaks.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Doomkid

[Aurelius]

Taking the latest version for a spin, focusing on sluggard's map because it employs the same weapons as mine and rd's map. The flamethrower upgrade is very good, I appreciate that you can see better from behind the flames when dealing with more deadly enemies (even if there was a certain allure to the chaos of the original). The cell cannon also works pretty well, I didn't see any practical difference with the slight damage reduction on the projectile since you're spamming them quite indifferently most of the time anyway.

 

With the blaster though, personally, I'd like to see it reverted back to the original firing rate. I don't think the reduced rate is bad, and it worked fine on both our and sluggard's map, but I still felt better with the faster version. Yeah, it is pretty overpowered, and does eclipse the shotgun weapons if supplied with plenty of ammo, but I think that the minor change doesn't do much to combat this and only makes the gun feel a little less fun to use, at least to me. That being said, the blaster will probably be just fine for most people, since if you don't know the rate of fire was faster initially, you won't miss what was never there.

One aspect of the weapon balance does pose a problem, which is how massively OP the BFG is; it will trivialize practically any encounter that was designed to be tackled with less effective weapons. Currently you can get it from sluggard's map, which means any later maps are likely to be steamrollable on continuous play. Recommending pistol starts would fix that issue, but I'm guessing you were hoping this set was more continuous play oriented?

[Doomkid]

8 hours ago, Aurelius said:

The flamethrower upgrade is very good, I appreciate that you can see better from behind the flames when dealing with more deadly enemies (even if there was a certain allure to the chaos of the original). The cell cannon also works pretty well, I didn't see any practical difference with the slight damage reduction on the projectile since you're spamming them quite indifferently most of the time anyway.

I'm glad to hear these tweaks have actually gone over well! (Whew, that's a relief..)

 

Quote

With the blaster though, personally, I'd like to see it reverted back to the original firing rate. I don't think the reduced rate is bad, and it worked fine on both our and sluggard's map, but I still felt better with the faster version. Yeah, it is pretty overpowered, and does eclipse the shotgun weapons if supplied with plenty of ammo, but I think that the minor change doesn't do much to combat this and only makes the gun feel a little less fun to use, at least to me.

Nah, you're totally correct here. I've reverted it back to the faster speed (though I kept the imo satisfyingly 'bouncy' animation). I was coming at this problem from the wrong direction - I tried weakening the blaster to fit better with the SSG, when the obvious answer was to speed up the SSG just a hair instead. Why nerf when you can buff, especially in a way that makes the combat feel better?.. So glad you and rd have given your thoughts on these tweaks. I feel like where I have them in the version I'll post in a second here is the best of both worlds.

 

Quote

One aspect of the weapon balance does pose a problem, which is how massively OP the BFG is; it will trivialize practically any encounter that was designed to be tackled with less effective weapons. Currently you can get it from sluggard's map, which means any later maps are likely to be steamrollable on continuous play.

Another excellent point. The BFG already fires twice as fast and uses less ammo to boot.. on top of firing two sets of tracers in the BFG cone rather than just one. That's a bit much. I've removed the second wave of tracers and I think it feels a lot less "absurdly, ridiculously OP" and is now just "ridiculously OP".

 

Please give this latest incarnation a feel when you're in the mood and let me know if there's still any kinks to iron out: https://doomshack.org/uploads/mohawk2e.zip

 

If there's anything else that needs addressing, I'm happy to implement some other minor tweaks. If neither you nor rd, nor any other mappers see the need for further changes, then I pinky promise this will be the last wave of alterations!

[Adamantium]

im sure with my mapping skills im probably gonna get rejected before i can have time to blink after posting my wad but..... WHY DONT I GIVE IT A TRY AY! if i get in could i take map 21?

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by The BMFG

[Doomkid]

Signups have been closed for a while and there isn't going to be a map21, the campaign ends with 20. Sorry about that!

[Michael Jensen]

I'm not sure if I can finish my map 13, since I've tried it a few times and never ends up being what I imagined (or good). Maybe @The BMFG could take my place?

[Azure_Horror]

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Another excellent point. The BFG already fires twice as fast and uses less ammo to boot.. on top of firing two sets of tracers in the BFG cone rather than just one. That's a bit much. I've removed the second wave of tracers and I think it feels a lot less "absurdly, ridiculously OP" and is now just "ridiculously OP".

 

Is it possible to preserve the double-tracer blast and to balance the BFG-9002 in other ways? I feel like "the two-tracer BFG" is much more special than "the normal BFG that fires super-fast".

[Doomkid]

I suppose it could possibly use 30 cells rather than 20 and have the ball itself be a bit weaker, but I'll hold off until rd, Aurelius and other mappers let me know what they think of the current balance and that idea. (I also already did the "double tracers" thing in Rowdy Rudy 2, so it did feel a little lame reusing the same shtick again)

[Adamantium]

4 hours ago, A.H. Sankhatayan said:

I'm not sure if I can finish my map 13, since I've tried it a few times and never ends up being what I imagined (or good). Maybe @The BMFG could take my place?

sure. will make map 13 right as i get back to my house today

[snapshot]

11 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I've removed the second wave of tracers and I think it feels a lot less "absurdly, ridiculously OP" and is now just "ridiculously OP".

Yikes, I think you might want to change it back to how it was before because the 3 cybies room in my map kind of relied on being able to kill one of them quickly to make room for movement before getting killed by them.

 

(I just made a quick update for the map to fix a chance to skip a trigger in the red skull room and some minor visual tweaks, link is the same as the previous post)

[baja blast rd.]

6 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I suppose it could possibly use 30 cells rather than 20 and have the ball itself be a bit weaker, but I'll hold off until rd, Aurelius and other mappers let me know what they think of the current balance and that idea. (I also already did the "double tracers" thing in Rowdy Rudy 2, so it did feel a little lame reusing the same shtick again)

 

I think mechanics changes (except the basic SSG buff you mentioned, because imo it was originally weaker than the starting pistol^[1]) are going to run into "we built fights around the exact mechanics" in some of the later maps that are already designed. For example, sluggard's map had a cyb fight that was already the hardest in the map with the super BFG.

 

But ammo tweaks would be smoother to work with, since mappers would only have to do a bit of thing adjusting. 

 

The cell cannon and the BFG9002 have a shared pool of 200 cells (400 with backpack). With a cell cannon blast being essentially a faster rocket, that gives you 4x the rockets of Doom. The BFG9002 using 20 cells per shot is a bit crazy in tandem with that. I feel like limitless ammo from basically every other weapon (blaster, flamethrower, even the plasma cannon) is unlikely to deflate the later maps much -- but a continuous player having 20 super-powered BFG shots to use whenever they want might get rid of a lot of the fun. 

 

I think there are two good choices here (and I played the cyb fight in sluggard's map to make sure either aren't incompatible with it): 

 

a) Ban backpacks until the very latest maps. [This is probably a restriction that I might have suggested very early if I anticipated this.]

 

b) BFG9002 -> 30 cells a shot. Max cell capacity -> 150 cells (300 with backpack). [sluggard's cyb fight is "rebalanced" by adding a backpack and more cells before it so that the player has 10 shots again, which is really simple.] 

 

I think both are "unobtrusive" in the sense that fights designed around the original ammo will play the same way after ammo pickups are adjusted. Also the super BFG is really fun to use with the double-tracer mechanic, so I wouldn't want that to go away.

 

(a) and (b) have a lot in common (10 max BFG shots for most of the set), but there is a risk in (b) in that it makes it harder for the player to justify using both the cell cannon and the BFG9002. The cell cannon cuts down on BFG shots that are now harder to come by, and the BFG uses 30 really efficient cell cannon shots. The current BFG isn't really cheap at all if you think about how much damage 20 cell cannon shots can do; it's more just the sheer ammo capacity (20 shots) that can make it unbalanced. So I think solution (a) feels smoother. 

 

I also think the backpack is more of a crutch in this. One of the first things I talked about with Aurelius was related to the fact that OP weapons might make it easy to stand in one area and clear things out with your heaps of ammo, so smart placement of ammo pickups is one of the mappers' best tools for getting the player to move around and refill while gunning things down, keeping the action fluid and dynamic. So mappers are probably making their maps better by figuring out how to avoid the backpack, outside of pure BFG spam. I also imagine a lot of people would be down for removing theirs if it was for the better good of the set's continuous play. 

 

And in combination with either (a) or (b), you might want any BFG spam maps to be moved towards the end of the progression.

 

 

[1] I'm pretty sure the starting pistol has lower DPS than the original SSG, but the pistol's greater ability to painstun things and one-tap any low-tier made it feel effectively stronger for me. 

[Azure_Horror]

33 minutes ago, sluggard said:

Yikes, I think you might want to change it back to how it was before because the 3 cybies room in my map kind of relied on being able to kill one of them quickly to make room for movement before getting killed by them. 

 

The one closest to the red key? He seems to die fast enough even with current version of BFG. The easiest and most reliable part of the fight. The hard part is dodging the projectiles of the remaining two cyberdemons...

 

On 5/25/2021 at 10:14 PM, sluggard said:

Let's get this sucker out for some testing.

...

Description: non-linear beach/hotel/waterpark themed level, tried to also make some interesting combat scenarios that require some target prioritization and a boss fight that's not just circle-strafe and shoot to win.

 

I played the map on UV a few times. I didn't fully complete it yet, but I reached quite far. I think, I can provide some feedback already:

- The starting area feels weirdly paced compared to the rest of the map. It takes too much time to clear. I think it should be either made easier, or made more crazy and intense. I am not sure, which choice is better.

- Given the intensity of the signature fights, the map is extremely lacking in defensive options. I feel that it might be good to replace the starting green armor with combat armor. It would also be good to add more medcits (or even berserks) at the starting hub.

- The cell canon fight. The fight is very fun to get right. But it is almost impossible to get it right at the first few tries, because the damage connects to your face way too quickly. And with the limited defensive options any two serious attacks kill you completely. This fight definetely needs more healing items. Maybe even a soulsphere... Also, the archvile-revenant combo is super obnoxious here. Archviles demand standing still, while revenants demand staying on the move. And both are very hard to track in this chaotic situation. Maybe replacing one group of revenants with a goup of Slyours can also make this fight a bit more forgiving without making it less fun.

- The big waterfall fight (on the autoshotgun path). Healing items are too out of the way here. I would place two medkits closer to the entrance. Otherwise, the fight is very fun. But the most effective way to win is to ignore the monsters at the ground level and to run to the gaunlets room. From this vantage point, it is rather easy to clear out the whole arena without much risk. Is this an intended solution, or is it cheese?

- The chasm style section before BFG feels a bit obnoxious given the lack of healing items on the map. Maybe a rad suit somewhere in the middle would help?

- The cyber fight. I would appreciate if some of the walkways were a bit wider. Espesially the ones between the red key and the far away cyber. It also feels wrong that you cannot escape the nukage. Falling down is already very deadly, because the cyber cells are explosive, you will take much damage anyway. Maybe some super-risky way back up should be added?

- The cyberfight is likely more easy with hitscan weapons (I did not have enough ammo to test this). Use the autoshotgun to lock the red key cyber in place, while also using him as a shield. When he dies, kill another cyber with a blaster, mostly blocking him from attacking. And after that kill the last one however you want.

- Cheese Alert! The cyber near the entrance to the BFG room can be hitscanned to death before he emerges form the floor.

[snapshot]

6 hours ago, Azure_Horror said:

(quote)

I'm fine with the fight after the waterfall so I don't think I can change much in it other than make the mancs spawn in instantly there and stop them from moving out of the way with a block monsters line, there's already plenty of healing items scattered around that room, might also make the stairs raise with a switch to make it even less simple to cheese that fight. There's plenty of cover and healing items in the blue key room and I feel like removing revs will just make that fight less engaging with how OP the explosive shots are, all I can do is recommend trying it on a lower difficulty setting.

 

Spoiler

There's a Blue Armor secret in the temple after the waterfall section, and a soulsphere secret in the section after the waterpark ride thing.

 

EDIT #3: File updated, added radsuit, adjusted cybers room layout to prevent stunlock cheese (tested with mohawk2d BFG) added stairs switch to room after waterfall and block monsters lines for mancs.

Edited May 27, 2021 by sluggard

[DFF]

Finally got some good inspiration to get past my mappers block. It will probably be a shorter map but the tropical tone of the map made me want to create a Strip mall setting. One thing I wanted to note was the White marble textures on the wall (MARBLE1) do not reflect how they look in game, as in game it looks like DOOMs normal green marble texture. There seems to be a few of these textures in the WAD.

Part of me wonders if the Cell Cannon might be better balanced if it used 4 cells rather than 1, since it seems like while not as fast of DPS, you'd get a lot more out of 20 Cell Cannon missiles than one BFG shot (I tested against a large clustered group of enemies, and was able to kill way more on 20 cell cannon shots than 1 BFG blast) but perhaps thats a fair trade off, the BFG is better at boss killing and huge horde destruction at the cost of high ammo consumption while lacking harmul splash damage, whereas the cell cannon is slower but way more efficient. Just my 2 cents there but i may feel different if i playtest some of the submitted maps.
 

Spoiler

Image 1
Image 2

 

[Doomkid]

Based on what I’m reading here, the current changes I’m planning compared to version 2e are:

 

1 - Give the BFG back its double tracers, but now costs 30 cells

2 - Request that mappers in the first half of the set swap out backpacks for some other kind of bonus (can’t believe I didn’t think to restrict backpacks from the getgo..)

 

These two changes I really like the sound of. I think these changes will make it so that mappers who have designed around the OP BFG (as sluggard did for example) won’t gave to rework anything other than potentially adding a few more cells.

 

Would it be overkill to reduce the max cell capacity to 150 / 300 on top of those changes? I feel like it’s a good idea because worst case, mappers who are depending on the cell cannon / BFG will just need to add more cells, but mappers who didn’t want it in their map won’t need to worry about their map being a total pushover, because a player who has carried over the BFG/Cell Cannon will run out of ammo before wiping the whole map up with no challenge, making continuous play more engaging.

 

This is what I’m planing to go with for the next and final weapon iteration, since I think it mucks with mappers and their gameplay vision the least (something I definitely didn’t intend to do..) Does this seem like a good idea moving forward?

 

Edit: I really like those screenshots DFF, and when you send your map over, I’ll compare the map in-editor and in-game to see what’s going on with the textures and get it fixed. The same thing happened to me early on with the texture mismatch between editor and game.. definitely a result of Freedoom’s bizarrely implemented custom textures, wherein every patch was also a texture for whatever reason, and numerous textures were double defined.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Doomkid

[adamastor]

What's that? Ray has returned? And is now on an early beta? Sign me up.

[DFF]

One other question I had which might be better suited for the Doom Editing subforum, but currently my map is on the upper end of the visplane limit in many areas and I'm trying to find ways of breaking up sight lines without making the map look too weird. There is a way to make invisible sectors though in vanilla. Technically being a 0 height sector it breaks sight lines, but the player can see through it. Would that still cause visplane overflows? I think it would as the sectors are still rendered onscreen, but if not that would be huge for some design in my map.

[Adamantium]

making my map rn. since its gonna be vanilla compatible im gonna get chocolate doom to test it instead of gzdoom

[Doomkid]

3 minutes ago, DFF said:

Technically being a 0 height sector it breaks sight lines, but the player can see through it. Would that still cause visplane overflows? I think it would as the sectors are still rendered onscreen, but if not that would be huge for some design in my map.

I think VPOs (and drawseg limits which I'm not worried about) both apply to what's actually being seen - in other words, a 0 height invisible sector won't be good enough to "trick" the engine. I wish it worked that way, though!

[Adamantium]

hm something weird is going on. are the new weapons and enemies supposed to be for gzdoom and zdoom only @Doomkid?. because when i test it out on chocolate doom the new weapons and enemy sprite changes seem to be gone

[Doomkid]

When you load it with chocolate doom, click the "warp" thing on Chocolate Doom setup, then where it says "Add extra parameters", click that and add:

-file mohawk2e.wad

-deh mohawk2e.deh

 

Then it should all load correctly in Chocolate

[Adamantium]

wait a minute do i have to put my map into mohawk2 for it to work when i put the parameters..... if i do have to then give me the tag officially retarded because i have no fucking idea what is going on @Doomkid

[Doomkid]

When adding your own map, try:

 

-file mohawk2e.wad yourmap.wad

-deh mohawk2e.deh

[Adamantium]

4 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

When adding your own map, try:

 

-file mohawk2e.wad yourmap.wad

-deh mohawk2e.deh

still not working.

 

god damnit i am retarded

[Adamantium]

i think i will just to have to deal with this. im sure @Doomkid can still play it with the new enemies and weapons. i can just check the thread to make sure im placing down the right enemy replacements