Zacharin X
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2023
I'm almost done with Lunar Strain, right now at map20, and i can second @Übermensch Doom Cuck's opinion on the mapset. It's very solid and fresh for the most part, with a few exceptions, which are impossible to avoid due to the fairly low quality submission standard. The colaborative effort of everyone involved helps the more generic maps to reach a certain quality, but not everything can be perfected.
So far i think Matador's maps are head and shoulders above everyone else's works on that set. This guy definitelly knows what he's doing and what a fun Doom level should be. Looking forward to playing the last map in the megawad by him. As for the low moments, well...
Map06 is a bit generic but it's from Silver Miner, so that's to be expected. He has grown a lot as a mapper since the awful Plutonia 3: Going to Surface, which to this day i don't know if he was trolling with it or he was serious about it, but given the fact that it was a full megawad, and probably took him a lot of time and work, it's probably the latter. There are still trends in his maps that he needs to fight against, like having switches perform actions outside of the players line of sight or hearing. The progression is also a bit confusing, but nothing in comparison with Map16 which has some of the most autistic switch hunts i've ever seen. The map looks nice, like the rest of set, but the progression was terrible, i lost patience at some point near the end, and skipped to the next map. Map 18 on the other hand was too much of a drag, it was interesting to explore, but 300 enemies, and a big layout, it took 28 minutes to clear, which goes against the guidline of the project. I guess Matador couldn't reject that one, because it is good map overall, even if it breaks the overall pacing of the mapset.
Map14 by Thelokk felt out of place in that slot. Like it was meant to be way earlier in the set, due to how short it is. It also features a weird, abdstract area with no textures, consisting of flat solid colors, like it was using assets that are not part of the resource pack used in the rest of the maps. It's weird and ends very abruptly.
Maps 07 and 08 by RastaManGames are another low point for the set. I respect RastaMan and i was on his side when the whole Troonsalotl drama happened, but that being said, when it comes to his maps, he really needs to change the formula a bit. He can make great visuals but the combat is always the same, cramped rooms with groups of monsters placed directly behind the doors, which leads to very repetitive and boring encounters, where you're just pickaboo-ing demons at the doorframe. I know exactly why he ends up making them like that. He makes his layouts first, and always aims at creating these realistic looking loacations/building interiors, with small square rooms and normal-sized doors. Only after he's done building his maps, he then starts to place the enemies in them, but you can't design good combat in a finished map that was not build with combat in mind... you have to think and design the combat flow while building the map. This is way more important than thinking about the visual first. For someone with 10 years of mapping experience i'm surprised he hasn't changed his formula a tiny bit by now.
Looking forward to finishing Lunar Strain. I'm a bit worried about maps 20 and 21, because i'm familiar with ABearInDaWoods mapping style, and he doesn't always strike gold. It's another mapper who thinks way too much about visuals. I saw the layout to map20 and it looks like a big arena with pretty linedef drawings and shapes... like it's some Ribbiks wannabe garbage. It also has 400+ monsters, so i'm prepared to endure some shitty slaughter encounters. I hope i'm wrong about it.
DBP67 is out as well, and i'll be diving into that one tomorrow... probably starting with map02, because the first one is by Joe Ilya and oh boy, did he made one steaming pile of turds. I'm suprised they accepted it. Probably Matador had to open it and make it less shitty before compiling the mapset.
So far i think Matador's maps are head and shoulders above everyone else's works on that set. This guy definitelly knows what he's doing and what a fun Doom level should be. Looking forward to playing the last map in the megawad by him. As for the low moments, well...
Map06 is a bit generic but it's from Silver Miner, so that's to be expected. He has grown a lot as a mapper since the awful Plutonia 3: Going to Surface, which to this day i don't know if he was trolling with it or he was serious about it, but given the fact that it was a full megawad, and probably took him a lot of time and work, it's probably the latter. There are still trends in his maps that he needs to fight against, like having switches perform actions outside of the players line of sight or hearing. The progression is also a bit confusing, but nothing in comparison with Map16 which has some of the most autistic switch hunts i've ever seen. The map looks nice, like the rest of set, but the progression was terrible, i lost patience at some point near the end, and skipped to the next map. Map 18 on the other hand was too much of a drag, it was interesting to explore, but 300 enemies, and a big layout, it took 28 minutes to clear, which goes against the guidline of the project. I guess Matador couldn't reject that one, because it is good map overall, even if it breaks the overall pacing of the mapset.
Map14 by Thelokk felt out of place in that slot. Like it was meant to be way earlier in the set, due to how short it is. It also features a weird, abdstract area with no textures, consisting of flat solid colors, like it was using assets that are not part of the resource pack used in the rest of the maps. It's weird and ends very abruptly.
Maps 07 and 08 by RastaManGames are another low point for the set. I respect RastaMan and i was on his side when the whole Troonsalotl drama happened, but that being said, when it comes to his maps, he really needs to change the formula a bit. He can make great visuals but the combat is always the same, cramped rooms with groups of monsters placed directly behind the doors, which leads to very repetitive and boring encounters, where you're just pickaboo-ing demons at the doorframe. I know exactly why he ends up making them like that. He makes his layouts first, and always aims at creating these realistic looking loacations/building interiors, with small square rooms and normal-sized doors. Only after he's done building his maps, he then starts to place the enemies in them, but you can't design good combat in a finished map that was not build with combat in mind... you have to think and design the combat flow while building the map. This is way more important than thinking about the visual first. For someone with 10 years of mapping experience i'm surprised he hasn't changed his formula a tiny bit by now.
Looking forward to finishing Lunar Strain. I'm a bit worried about maps 20 and 21, because i'm familiar with ABearInDaWoods mapping style, and he doesn't always strike gold. It's another mapper who thinks way too much about visuals. I saw the layout to map20 and it looks like a big arena with pretty linedef drawings and shapes... like it's some Ribbiks wannabe garbage. It also has 400+ monsters, so i'm prepared to endure some shitty slaughter encounters. I hope i'm wrong about it.
DBP67 is out as well, and i'll be diving into that one tomorrow... probably starting with map02, because the first one is by Joe Ilya and oh boy, did he made one steaming pile of turds. I'm suprised they accepted it. Probably Matador had to open it and make it less shitty before compiling the mapset.
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