Author Topic: wut specturr'z playing  (Read 31421 times)

Spectere

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #90 on: March 08, 2021, 10:21:11 AM »
I... I don't recall ever learning about beatmania teaches typing... That's awesome.

It's a bit of an odd one, for obvious reasons. :)

There were versions for both PS2 and PC, though I ended up getting the PS2 version. Despite sharing a release date with IIDX 4th Style CS, its UI and song selection tend to be more reminiscent of classic Beatmania. It has nine note columns, representing every finger of each hand as well as the thumbs, and each note has a corresponding letter above it that needs to be hit on the beat. Generally speaking it just has you typing random letters, but once in a while it brings up entire words for you to type. Gotta say, it's amazing how much the muscle memory behind touch typing hinges on your knowledge of the language, as suddenly being asked to type phrases in romaji is surprisingly awkward. Fortunately, the game doesn't seem to demand the use of kana at any point, otherwise I would have been completely hosed, lol.

The keyboard that the game ships with is...fine. Nothing special, but not bad. I imagine it's just a standard USB HID keyboard, though I haven't tried plugging it into a PC.
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Spectere

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #91 on: March 17, 2021, 08:05:54 PM »
For some reason I started getting back into Super Hexagon today, and after playing it a bit on my iPad I found out that using the mouse on the PC version is pretty much the ultimate control scheme. Sure, the game is capped at 60hz (technically 62.5hz, as Terry used 16.0ms as a time base instead of 16.6666~ms) instead of the smooth, silky 120hz that the iOS version can manage, but mouse buttons are way more responsive than my iPad's keyboard is.

But, uh, long story short: not only did I clear my first hyper, but also my second. Wow.

Thankfully, my attempts at the hardestestest stage went about as well as they usually do, so at least I didn't mutate overnight or anything like that.

Edit: Maybe something clicked or I just got gud, but I just cleared both of those stages on my iPad as well. Huh.

Edit 2: Just did it on my phone, too. I guess it really wasn't a fluke!
« Last Edit: March 18, 2021, 03:42:24 AM by Spectere »
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Spectere

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #92 on: March 24, 2021, 03:17:21 AM »


Gettin' there!

Gotta say, though, the PC version is definitely the worst of the bunch. The input issues, in addition to the weird 62.5hz time base are honestly pretty goddamn unacceptable. It's not unplayable, per se, but it shouldn't be objectively worse than the version I play on my fucking phone.

Edit: Oh jeez. For some reason I was under the impression that Super Hexagon was a Unity engine game, which is why I thought it was strange that the frame time was so weird (it feels off when you play it on a non-FreeSync/G-SYNC display, too). Turns out, nope. Custom engine, using the openFrameworks library.

The thing that I don't get is that openFrameworks has a setFramerate() function that seems to be able to handle non-integral frame times. It almost seems like they just decided to roll their own timing routine because...reasons?
« Last Edit: March 24, 2021, 03:28:30 AM by Spectere »
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #93 on: March 27, 2021, 10:59:00 PM »
I decided to start working through increasingly difficult Doom WADs, and to start off I started with one half of Final Doom. That is, TNT: Evilution on ultra-violence.

Fuck me, I can't believe I paid money for that. Granted, the good levels are really solid, but over a third of the map pack is awful. Poor visuals, misaligned textures all over the place, and cheap enemy placement all over the place. Most traps toward the end of the game just involve dropping you in a pit with an Arch-Vile, so if you don't already have the BFG selected you're guaranteed to take a hit. One prominent part of MAP08 has a giant, open arena (so large that it's over a third of the entire map) with almost no cover, filled to the brim with hit scanners. Doom doesn't feature damage fall-off on hitscan weapons, and every bullet you're hit with is guaranteed to do 5, 10, or 15 damage.

That's not even the worst of it. The room opens with a set of stairs, and vanilla Doom doesn't feature vertical look (and, in my eyes, vanilla map == vanilla rules). Instead, you have to deal with an occasionally fiddly autoaim system. The autoaim feature does have a fall off, and over a long distance won't acquire a target. This does not apply to enemies, meaning that while you're descending these stairs (which offer precisely zero cover) you will continually get sniped by chaingunners and shotgunners.

The only way to avoid this is to know that the map has a secret invisibility sphere. This adds a random factor to the enemy's aim, greatly weakening hitscanners. I would like to once again emphasize that this item is in a secret area, and if you don't know to save it for this encounter it will do absolutely nothing for you.

Later on in the WAD there are areas where the player is forced to take damage from damaging floors. There were times where I had to reload my level start save because it was mathematically impossible to progress through the level. Yeah, that's nice.

Then there's the sudden resource starvation at around MAP27 or so. I ran out of both shells and bullets at one point and I made every attempt to conserve them. How in the hell does that even happen? Doom only has four ammo types for fuck's sake!

Oh, then there's the point where they just give up, open a wall, and flood a fairly tight area with 10-12 revenants. Cool. A "challenge" that stops moving after two BFG shots. How imaginative. It might have made more sense if the game opened a wall behind the player when they move in for ideal tracer saturation or something, but...nope. Pretty much the least imaginative trap possible.

Probably the worst was MAP22. It wasn't difficult (it was easier than some of the episode 1 maps) but it looked unfinished. A vast majority of the map was full bright, and it had this really irritating sewer section at one part.

An honorable mention to awfulness goes to MAP05, which has a section that's so tight that it routinely causes irritating collision bugs to crop up (Sigil has similar issues).

TNT's highs definitely exceed that of the OG Doom WADs, but its lows are so low that they're basically strolling along the shores of hell.

Here are some remarks about maps that I feel are notable:

MAP01: Great starter map! Gives you a false sense of security.

MAP02: Some decent traps, but some jumps are more difficult than they should be due to engine quirks.

MAP03: I like it. Good mixture of upper end enemy types, but balanced by having plenty of cover.

MAP04: Conceptually great. Kinda meh to actually play.

MAP05: Corridors are frustratingly tight. Some parts are kinda bland. Meh.

MAP06: Meh. Not bad.

MAP07: Pretty good! A good challenge in some parts.

MAP08: Fuck this map for the reasons stated above. Starts out pretty good, with some nice traps and enemy vantage points, but has some really obnoxious artificial difficulty at the end.

MAP09: I really liked this map, but I kinda feel like it's difficult enough that it should have been placed later in the map pack.

MAP10: Meh.

MAP11: Most of the map is a crate maze. Super meh.

MAP12: Looks boring. Plays boring. Next.

MAP13: A decent hub-oriented level. Also features an incredibly easy to kill cybie.

MAP14: Not great. This map forces you to take damage from nukage pools, so it's possible for the map to be mathematically impossible to complete if you take one too many hits.

MAP15: I like this one! Kind of a neat outdoor map with a central base. Nice amount of challenge with plenty of fun secrets. I took the secret exit, naturally, so it's off to MAP31.

MAP31: So, when Final Doom came out, this map had the essential yellow key marked as multiplayer-only. I would have thought that the Steam/GoG versions of Final Doom (at this point I don't remember which IWAD set I'm using) would have used the patched version, but apparently not! Fortunately, it's easy to bypass the yellow key with a quick strafe jump and linedef press, so I was able to complete it without cheating. Still, not a great look to release a commercial level pack with an "unbeatable" map.

MAP32: This is probably my favorite map of the pack, honestly. A nice mixture of indoor and outdoor combat, with some great traps and frenetic action. This one made me glad I decided to go for the secret levels.

MAP16: Meh.

MAP17: Simple layout, but a fairly fun map.

MAP18: Decent enough action for the most part, though the ending fight kinda monotonous. Unfortunately, this is one of those levels that make you activate a bunch of switches without giving you a clear idea of what each switch does. I ended up having to run all over the damn place through a nearly-emptied map just to get a feel for what changed when I pressed each switch. Ugh.

MAP19: Nice visuals. It has a surprisingly good looking office, and at one part has a well-designed warehouse with a cleverly built truck in the loading dock. It honestly felt too easy, though. It would have probably felt better if this and MAP09 were flipped. One complaint that I have is that the yellow key is very difficult to spot.

MAP20: Decent beginning, kind of a crappy ending with a bunch of unintuitive teleportation.

MAP21: God, this map sucks. Long, boring corridors with boring patches of enemies, with boring rooms, and a boring nukage pit where you collect boring keys, to work your way to a boring end with boring enemy encounters. Boring. Bland.

MAP22: I already talked about this one above, but then I suddenly remembered that the blue key is hidden behind a fucking wall. THEY HID A KEY BEHIND A SOLID WALL. WHAT THE FUCK

MAP23: IMO, the only map in the latter third of the game that's really worth a damn. Kinda feels a bit on the easy side, though. It would have probably been better placed in E2. Solid fights and good architecture.

MAP24: *spekturr snores loudly*

MAP25: I barely remember this map despite only having played it around an hour ago. I think that pretty much says it all.

MAP26: Boring. This map has a ton of imps for something this late in the game, and they're easily one of the easiest enemies to deal with in classic Doom.

MAP27: Decent early half with an awful ending section. If you don't know exactly what you're doing you'll be stuck taking hits from damaging floors. The actual exit of the map is also freaking weird, with you getting teleported to a red platform, then running off of the platform triggers the exit. Wh-what?

MAP28: Bad. This is one of those ones that opens obvious monster closets right in front of the player. Basically, if you pull out the BFG every time you backtrack you won't have to worry about anything. There is one room of the level that has five pain elementals because reasons, so I might have went a little BFG-happy in that room as well.

MAP29: Definitely a mixed bag. I liked the marble section of the map, but I was less impressed by...pretty much everything else. The cramped, thankfully optional, room that teleports in a bunch of lost souls and projectile-slinging enemies with large hit boxes was just fucking adorable. Nothing like taking advantage of Doom's infinitely tall enemy hit boxes to prevent them from dodging fireballs. That's not cheap and lame at all.

MAP30: It starts off with a "puzzle" that requires you to follow a color pattern correctly (or instantly die) so obviously it puts its best foot forward. Pretty lame combat leading up to the final boss room, if I'm honest, and as for the final boss room? Well...it's even easier than the OG Doom 2 Icon of Sin, except it's set up in such a way that autoaim fucks you over and locks onto enemies below! Literally all you have to do is hit a switch to raise some stairs, BFG the hell knights and barons on top of said stairs, stand on the top stair, and hold the fire button. Eventually you'll cut through the enemies below you and kill the Icon of Sin. Considering people have managed to do UV Tyson (that is, using only the fist and pistol) of this map, there's probably an even lamer way to kill the boss. Fantastic. What a way to end a WAD.

Yeah, honestly, I can't see myself ever playing this all the way through again. I'm almost tempted to just extract the maps I like and making a TNT mini-WAD. Should be able to get a good 10 level pack out of it without a problem.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2021, 11:34:08 PM by Spectere »
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #94 on: March 28, 2021, 06:33:40 PM »
Just finished up episode 1 of Base Ganymede: Complete. It was such a breath of fresh air after playing through TNT. While I still have two more episodes to plow through, I've been getting far more positive vibes from it than I did with TNT. With TNT it felt like right as I was starting to enjoy myself I'd either run into a complete dud of a level or some sort of bullshit trap. Even BG:Comp's most devious traps thus far have been fair and challenging. On top of that, it looks quite good from a design perspective, and the author went out of their way to make the maps stylistically connect. That is, if one level has you exiting a moon base, the next level will start with you standing outside of the aforementioned base. Great stuff!

In terms of resource allocation, I would occasionally feel constrained, but I never felt starved. Generally speaking, if my shell supply started to run low I could switch to my chaingun and let myself build up ammo. I would say that, more than anything, the this map set really teaches you the art of target prioritization and weapon swapping. One example that I just ran into involved a large group of imps, specters, and lost souls. Switch to the chaingun, snipe the lost souls and let the imps and specters infight. Switch to the shotgun and clean up anything next to you, then switch to the rocket launcher and clean up the rest. Good stuff.

Now for the level by level review:

E1M1: Great intro level! It isn't too difficult if you're careful, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect from this megawad. It has a nice balance of indoor and outdoor arenas with a decent mix of basic enemies.

E1M2: Kind of a logical continuation of E1M1. See above.

E1M3: A fair increase in difficulty, with a rather nice multi-level arena in one part. This is where the game starts throwing Barons at you.

E1M9: So I ended up pistol starting this one. My stupid monkey brain told me that the secret level exit switch was on E1M4, not E1M3. Whoops. Instead of aborting and restarting I decided to just finish up the map pack and warp to this one after the fact. So this one starts off with you facing off against a couple dozen pinkies, former humans, and sergeants, with imps sniping you from upper ledges, so even while the screen wipe was happening I had a "*chuckles* I'm in danger" moment. It settled down a bit after that until the run to the red key, which featured a bunch of imps sniping at you. After snaking around a nukage pool (with a radsuit, thankfully) I found five lost souls guarding the red key. Juked around them due to not having much ammo, then ran back. Three cacodemons. Agh! Led them away and ran to the red door which, thankfully, only contained an exit switch. I can't imagine getting 100% kills on this one from a pistol start without throwing a lot of punches, but I had fun with it.

E1M4: I would say that this one is a baby step back in difficulty and scope. Kind of a nice reprieve after the explosive ending of E1M3.

E1M5: This map would be kind of brutal if you somehow skipped the plasma rifle, as it features both a spider mastermind and a cyberdemon (not in the same arena, so no Gotcha!-style cheesing going on here). The spider mastermind looks like she'd be pretty easy to bypass, with the cyberdemon being a bit more dangerous (though less so if you convince him to scuffle with the cacodemons in the area), but I ended up taking both of them down. This level marks my first death, at the hands of a devious monster trap over a nukage pool. I ain't even mad.

E1M6: Another baby step back from the last level, both in scale and difficulty (or maybe I'm just getting used to it at this point...?). This one has some pretty great ambushes, with a surprise cyberdemon fight near the end of the map that relies on the player's ability to quickly clear the room and accurately circle strafe around a lava pit. Fun!

E1M7: A fairly short and sweet map with some fantastic arenas. The fight I described earlier in this diatribe is from this map. This one ends with the player telefragging an explosive barrel and being pushed over an exit linedef, forcing a pistol start for the final map.

E1M8: A good concept with weak execution. The general idea is that you have minimal weaponry (a pistol and a shotgun that they give you at the start) and you have to run like hell while being shot at from a captive spider mastermind. Hit/shoot a few switches, jump into a couple of teleporters, telefrag the spider brain thing, then hit a switch to end the episode. It's pretty easy if you have decent reflexes.
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #95 on: March 31, 2021, 10:16:29 PM »
Base Ganymede: Complete

Started playing episode 2, got to E2M6, and threw in the towel. Episode 1 was pretty great, with great fights, solid level design, and some fun traps. Episode 2 looks okay, but the gameplay itself basically took everything episode 1 did right and threw it right out the fuckin' window.

E2M1: Not bad overall, but I wasn't crazy about one particular part where you have to just know to shoot four switches. In general I find that shootable linedefs is kind of a bad mechanic unless it's widespread (like SIGIL) or exclusively for secrets. With a custom texture it could work, but with normal switches one expects to be able to just use it.

E2M2: Ramps up the challenge a bit with more enemies. There are a few good opportunities to force monsters to infight, and given your relative lack of resources at the beginning of the map, pitting the imps against the demons isn't a half bad idea. As I progressed further, however, I noticed that they started to just throw piles of imps at the player. This...is the start of a bad pattern.

E2M3: You're a bit resource starved at the beginning of the map, and right away you're faced with a few barons on a ledge. They can't get at you, so it's easy enough to just leave for a while and build up your arsenal before going back and taking them out. Not a bad map, though this is the point where it starts to spawn cacodemons right next to the player without really giving them the ability to fight them aside from unloading a dozen shells in their big, dumb, cute faces. This map wasn't hard, but it was definitely tedious because of this. But hey, you end the map with a rocket launcher and plasma rifle! Awesome! Then you take the exit teleporter and the game forces you into a death exit. Fucking nice. Thanks.

E2M4: Fuck this fucking map. You're forced to pistol start it due to the mandatory death exit in the previous map. While I'd describe the previous map as being somewhat resource starved, this one is a resource drought. The game gives you nothing other than a berserk pack (which amplifies the damage of the player's punches until the end of the level...or four years, whichever comes first). There are dozens of imps and demons that you literally have to punch to death, and anyone who's played Doom knows that the punch mechanics are a bit wonky, to put it politely. Then I heard a cyberdemon waking up. Walk into a room and there's a cyberdemon on a ledge. Nice. Thanks. There's a teleporter behind him that causes the player to telefrag them, but between having to climb stairs to get to it and how tight the area is, it's difficult to make it there without taking splash damage. There really isn't a reward for your trouble, either, aside from earning the opportunity to grab a shotgun and exit the map. Terrible. If someone put a gun to my head and gave me the option of playing through TNT again or playing this map again, I think I'd pick fucking TNT. As with the rest of the episode thus far, this map wasn't really hard or clever in any way, it was just annoying and tedious.

E2M5: This is where things start to get irritating, with teleport ambushes becoming pretty much the only source of difficulty and every fight basically consisting of a carpet of a single type of enemy. Gone are the interesting fights where you would have to prioritize targets. Welcome to holding down the fire button until everything is dead.

E2M6: The moment that broke me (aside from having to fight through multiple walls of imps which, again, is not very interesting) is when I hit a switch and a cacodemon was teleported so close to me that I was wedged between them and the wall and almost instantly mauled to death. Nope. Fuck you. That's not proper challenge, that's "HAHA GOTCHA! HAVE FUN RELOADING YOUR SAVE!" bullshit. Considering how little health this episode gives the player up to that point, that's guaranteed death unless you know that there's a teleport destination in that particular spot, and the second you know that all you have to do is run past it, turn around, hold down the fire button, and you'll never take a hit.

So, no. Fuck that. That sort of design isn't fun, it isn't clever, and it doesn't actually make the game difficult, because it's nothing but artificial difficulty. It just makes it into a stupid guessing game that you can easily win by memorizing where the monsters are going to spawn. It's like those rhythm game charts that have nonsensical scroll speed changes just to throw off players or act as some sort of gimmick. The second you memorize them the chart stops being "challenging."

It's important to note that just because Doom is a granddaddy FPS doesn't mean that this is the only way of adding "challenge" to it. There are plenty of examples where map authors were able to make hard as balls maps without them being a total crapshoot. I mean, check out decino's channel on YouTube for some playthroughs of some cleverly designed, slaughter-y maps that emphasize dodging projectiles and target prioritization.

This one? Nah. Not even close.
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #96 on: May 11, 2021, 12:34:08 AM »
Just beat Moonblood, and had a generally good time with it!

I'm not going to do a level-by-level breakdown here, since I've been working on this over the course of several weeks, but there's definitely some ups and downs. The first half dishes out resources at a fairly slow and steady rate. You don't even get a backpack until MAP16 (or the secret levels, if you do those) and it waits to give you the BFG until MAP17.

Most of my complaints stem from the final third of the game, where some of the traps basically require you to have knowledge of the map in order to survive. It had a tendency to throw arch-viles at the player at close range. They have a powerful, delayed range attack, the ability to resurrect enemies, a fast running speed, and an extremely low pain chance. The game would occasionally throw a couple of them in front of you in a relatively open area, so if you didn't already have the BFG out you were guaranteed to take a hit or two, and that's usually enough to kill the player unless they have blue armor (which is fairly rare in this megawad).

They also had a tendency of putting in a ton of spongy enemies into a tight arena. The Doom engine doesn't really handle tight spaces left, with issues like elastic collisions rearing their ugly heads at inconvenient times, so those tended to be rather unpleasant. I'd say the later levels were at their best when they threw a bunch of opposition at the player in an arena-style setting, with plenty of bits of cover and room to move around and dodge. MAP26 (The Coliseum) started off hard and fast like this, and wound up being one of my favorite maps in the set.

It's definitely a step above TNT in terms of difficulty (at least on UV) and doesn't have any of its awful lows. I highly recommend this.

Next megawad on my list: Memento Mori.
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #97 on: May 21, 2021, 09:38:36 PM »
I played a little bit of Memento Mori and...ehhh, it really wasn't my thing. I wasn't too crazy about the layouts, and the quality was all over the show. I didn't really have any issues with the difficulty, but it was definitely a "where the fuck do I go" kinda WAD.

I ended up moving on to the Plutonia Experiment, the more difficulty half of Final Doom. Definitely a giant step up from TNT, though I expected that. I haven't been running into much trouble thus far, but I've only gone through the first 7 levels so far.

One of the things I like so far is that most of the larger scale fights take place in fairly open courtyards, so as long as you're good at moving, dodging, and prioritizing targets you won't really run into too many issues. The Casali brothers used a solid combination of enemies to ensure that you have to consistently swap between hiding from hitscanners and dealing with closer-range enemies. While I found myself kind of disappointed with TNT, even early on, I find myself enjoying Plutonia more than I figured I would.

It's possible that my tone could shift as I start pushing into the final episode, but we'll see. :)
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #98 on: May 31, 2021, 02:38:05 AM »
Either I'm getting better at Doom or this map's difficulty is grossly overstated:



I died once due to hubris early in my first attempt, but aside from that it was a reasonably clean run, ending with 200% health/armor (I actually had to run around picking up extra megaspheres to get the 100% items count) and full ammo for all weapons. There's quite a few enemies (206, to be exact) in a fairly limited space, with a ton of arch-viles, revenants (it is Plutonia, after all), and cyberdemons strewn about, but that's counter-balanced by a metric assload of resources and plenty of possibilities for infighting. All in all, it's fun! I didn't find it particularly challenging aside from one courtyard outing that was a bit of a clencher (the four cyberdemons that were alive were spread out, so explosions went everywhere), but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #99 on: June 04, 2021, 02:12:32 AM »
I had so much fun with Go 2 It UV that I played it a couple more times. I ended up recording a demo with 100% completion in 12:55. Here's a video:



And a few remarks (also found in the video description):

Quote
Port: PrBoom+ 2.6um (complevel 4)

Gotta say, when I started doing my first Plutonia UV playthrough recently I wasn't exactly looking forward to this map. However, it quickly wound up becoming one of my favorite commercially released Doom levels. There's just something immensely satisfying about it that I can't really put into words.

Overall, I was pretty happy with how this turned out. A few notable "meh" bits:

1) I know rocket dueling cyberdemons is inefficient, but my survival rate for that particular section is somewhere around 50% if I try to use the BFG. It's not even due to splash damage, it's because I tend to eat that particular cybie's rockets for some reason. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2) I normally don't run out of cells during the third courtyard battle, but the arch-viles were really being uncooperative. Still, could have been worse.

3) I think that's the first time I ate a rocket during the baron/cyberdemon fight at the end, and it startled me more than it probably should have. Doesn't help that I accidentally nabbed the last remaining megaspheres at near-full health right before that encounter. Whoops.

Now that I played through this a few times I should probably get back to, y'know, the rest of Plutonia.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2021, 02:14:12 AM by Spectere »
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #100 on: June 05, 2021, 05:48:22 AM »


Just finished Plutonia. Gotta say, it really started to drag near the end. While in part of the second episode, as well as the secret levels, the enemies are placed in such a way to ensure that they have relatively good synergy, the final few levels just felt...rushed. There's one monster spawner in MAP28, for example, that just spawns a whole bunch of enemies in a large arena. Pretty much the only way that room would be even remotely difficult is if you were doing a pacifist run, speedrunning, or something like that. The map gives you plenty of cells, rockets, and shells, and just lets them sort of trickle into the room. I get the feeling that fight was supposed to be some sort of big, epic encounter, but all I did was circle strafe through it and I got out without a scratch.

I did everything after MAP32 (basically, MAP16 and on) blind with minimal saves, and the only time I died is when they decided to throw me into a trap that you have no hope of escaping without prior knowledge. I'm talking teleporting you onto a bridge with multiple revenants and hell knights in close range, so you die within a second or two unless you already have the BFG out. Another common occurrence would be putting you in a position where you're guaranteed to take damage, such as putting a high DPS hitscanner (i.e. a chaingunner) on a ledge with a slow, tanky enemy (i.e. a mancubus) underneath it to fuck with Doom's autoaim. Bullshit like that. A vast majority of the "traps" consist of monster closets with chaingunners and revenants, but they generally aren't placed in a particularly inspiring way.

Pretty much my mindset throughout most of the later maps was, "oh, a key. Grab it, get behind cover. Nothing can hit me. Take potshots at the hitscanners, then circle-strafe everything else. Done. Next room." I'm not sure if it's just me getting used to Plutonia's tricks, the on-the-job training I got with Go 2 It, or if the latter half just trails off hard, but the last hour felt like a slog.

Still, I would recommend it. I'd say there's more good levels in it than there was in vanilla Doom/Doom2.

Next stop: Back to Saturn X: Episode 1.
"This is a machine for making cows."

Spectere

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #101 on: July 02, 2021, 11:21:11 PM »
Next stop: Back to Saturn X: Episode 1.

And...done!

Pretty fun ride, I've gotta say. The early parts were generally stronger than the later bits, but the penultimate map was *chef's kiss* fucking brilliant.

MAP19 probably stands out as the most frustrating one due to sheer developer dickishness, since they decide to do a cacodemon and pain elemental swarm at about the halfway mark. In advanced ports like GZDoom this isn't an issue, but in vanilla-accurate ports this is a huge issue. I prefer to play maps in the port that they're intended for, and since BtSX is a vanilla-compatible WAD that means PrBoom+ with complevel 2.

The reason that this particular combination of enemies is an issue is because there are certain cases where vertical height isn't considered in the Doom engine, and enemy melee attacks aren't one of them. Couple this with the fact that all objects with collision have infinite vertical height and you've got a recipe for disaster. Cacoswarms in tall, vertical maps are awful because you'll just be walking along, your movement will suddenly stop, and you'll start taking massive melee damage out of nowhere. Couple that with pain elementals shooting lost souls and you're in for a world of pain. There are a bunch of little hidey holes that you can lure them to, but that's not fun. Blasting swarms with a rocket launcher is fun.

Which leads me to MAP24. BtSX isn't particularly slaughtery, but that changes. I wouldn't say that it's comparable even to stuff like Go 2 It, but the encounters are focused around dealing with chaos, prioritizing enemies, and, in one case, blasting hordes of imps into tiny little giblets. So fucking good.

At this point I'm trying to decide what to play next. I'd like to go back to doing level-by-level breakdowns, but we'll see.

Speaking of slaughter maps, I ended up playing a legit slaughter map. It was on easy, but that's a highly, highly relative term in this case (1817 enemies in a single arena ;D). Behold, Dimensions MAP01 on Hey, Not Too Rough:



I did some narration on this one, but my mic ended up picking up too many mouth noises for my liking (hence why it's unlisted). I've been practicing it on Hurt Me Plenty, which is a decent jump up in difficulty. I'll probably do another video when I manage to beat that consistently without saves.
"This is a machine for making cows."

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #102 on: July 03, 2021, 04:48:40 PM »
I decided to move onto Rush, and went through the first three levels (of 12) levels today.

MAP01: This is a wintery techbase with wide hallways, TONS of imps, a handful of specters, and a couple of tomatoes, spooky bois, hell knights, and mancubi. The map basically starts you off with a berserk pack, and before I knew it I ended up doing a UV tyson run. Most of the beefier enemies (sans the cacos, one of the revenants, and the two hell knights) can be telefragged using a secret teleporter, so I went ahead and did that. Fun little map, and a pretty good indication of what to expect from this WAD: fairly straightforward gameplay with slaughtery elements.

MAP02: This one is a bit tighter, taking place entirely indoors. Imps and hell knights are used cleverly to restrict the player's movement in the tight passageways, necessitating the use of the super shotty and plasma gun (with the chaingun used sparingly to pick off faraway/squishy targets). There are a couple of larger arenas where the rocket launcher and infighting are your friends. Pretty tricky in some parts, and definitely a step up in difficulty compated to MAP01.

MAP03: This is a straight up slaughtermap. You start off in a room packed to the brim with supplies, open the door, and are greeted by the first 94 enemies (out of 333, in a fairly small map, too!). The arenas are mostly open, taking place in outdoor fields or large caves (aside from a tighter, indoor tomb at the end) so there's plenty of room to dodge and maneuver. I didn't find this to be too difficult, even being a step back in difficulty from MAP02, but it was fun as hell. I didn't bother to do any secret hunting until the very end, so I ended up missing out on an invulnerability sphere near the beginning of the map. Whoops.

Overall, I'm enjoying it. I imagine it's going to get harder in general as I go along, but the difficulty seems to be pretty even-handed so far, with the map designers giving you plenty of resources to do your thing. The maps are fairly average in terms of raw detail (especially when compared to something like BtSX), but the maps are well laid out and are very easy on the eyes.
"This is a machine for making cows."

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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #103 on: July 04, 2021, 06:57:25 AM »
More Rush!

MAP04: More wintery slaughter! Mostly wide-open arenas with a nice variety of enemies, plenty of opportunities for infighting, and a smorgasbord of supplies. I'd say the encounters are a bit trickier than MAP03, mostly due to the increased number of mancubi spewing fire every which way, but nothing too difficult to manage.

MAP05: Fairly light on the enemy count, with a bunch of close quarters combat. Bundles of imps and hell knights in tight spaces, with a bunch of bony bastards and archies running around. Definitely a nice change of pace and moderately difficult in some areas.

MAP06: Tricky, but not because of enemy count. I'd say this probably qualifies more as a puzzle map, featuring a fairly small level and a number of encounters in tight passageways and, thankfully, plenty of room to dodge. Aside from one cramped fight with two cyberdemons there isn't much of a challenge here, but I see it more as a way to wind the player down a bit. Like the last level, it's a good change in pace.
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Re: wut specturr'z playing
« Reply #104 on: July 05, 2021, 03:36:49 AM »
Yet more Rush!

MAP07: Kind of a return to basic slaughter, with some of the snow even melting to mark the occasion! Nothing really difficult here, but it's fun.

MAP08: Another straightforward slaughter. This one proved to be fairly tricky, taking a few tries for me to figure out the best place to stand so that I didn't end cornered with 39274 revenant rockets heading straight towards my face. It starts off fairly tough but it peters off by the end, and the last two arenas are frankly a bit of a disappointment after the leadup.

MAP09: A fairly open slaughtermap with plenty of hallways and opportunities to kick off some classic infighting, not to mention the opportunity to telefrag four cyberdemons. Kickass music, too (apparently it's a MIDIfied version of the Lava Powerhouse stage from Sonic Spinball).

Three maps to go!
"This is a machine for making cows."