Rate Chex Skulltag Pack P14 (please explain why you chose your rating)

[75]

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I should improve for the next skulltag pack, maybe you can help.

I gave it 4 stars, I had a good time playing it, but there's things in it that bother me, some of the sounds are too loud (the ammo spawning in hurts my ears sometimes), INV04 has a couple of bad spots, INV02 has too little rocket ammo, DM02's layout gets repetitive after a while, and a couple of the music tracks need to go.

Also, CTF02 is a bit too frustrating. It should be bigger.



Might be overkill, but, just wanted to make sure people see this:

If you vote, I'd like some sort of explanation, even if you give it a perfect score.

[QuadrumpusGuy]

I gave this mod 4 stars. This is a great addition to the library of Chex Skulltag maps. It has new zorchers, flemoids, maps, textures, scenery, etc. and I have a lot of fun playing it on the public servers 75 hosts.

I hope to fix the ending and nightmare waves in INV04, and make INV03 easier to navigate, and also to reconfigure spawns. Also, that Emperor Glitch is really strange where he will stop firing projectiles. I will miss the Mario Zorchmatch map unless we can get permission to use it. As well as this, a Lounge is in progress to be put in this mod, and will be the first that implements chex3.wad as the IWAD. I would like to see some survival maps and perhaps some Skulltag (The Game Mode) maps, or maybe some that implement a unique team game type.

[LAZ Trooper]

I rated 4, because it's got a lot of really good stuff. My main problem with this has only been that all the dynamic lights and glowing slime and everything slows down my computer a lot (and recently I found I didn't even have brightmaps enabled, which slows it down even more).

It would be a lot better with a lot more maps, but I don't have the ambition lately to finish my maps, but I have a whole bunch at least 50% done if not 90% if anyone wants to try their hand at finishing them up.

[Replica]

I haven't played it because I'm not allowed to play multiplayer on this internet connection.

[ChexCommander]

I gave it a 4 as well; it's a great mod and addition to our CQ Skulltag lineup! However, still needs finishing touches here and there.  Having a way to eventually find the secrets would be great too besides looking in Doom Builder, but then again, they ARE secrets.

[MajorSlime]

I gave it a 5 because, for one, its one of the first to incorportate chex into skulltag (like, make it compatible. without using a doom2.wad hack). Also, I enjoyed many of the maps, and the ones I didn't were because of my own style of play.

[75]

Having a way to eventually find the secrets would be great too besides looking in Doom Builder, but then again, they ARE secrets.

Which secret do you mean?

If you're talking about the part in LMS01 behind the windows, that one was never meant to be reachable 

Thanks for the feedback so far 

[Atariangamer]

I'm saying 3 stars...
Sosumi.

Anyway, When we were playing dwango5 the other night, I was getting so hyped up and into it, my hands were shaking with the adrenaline rush.

With most of the maps here, I almost feel more aggravated than anything. They look stunning, and for the most part play well, but I end up feeling alot of it becomes unfair to a point. And they don't get me going near as hard as other mappacks do.

However, as far as quality of maps, not to mention the amazing amount of work in the items and weapons, its a great pack. It just seems its not for me.

[75]

I think you saw this coming, but I'd like more details on what you said


What got aggravating?


The sounds, the music, the textures, the new weapons, ... , did the colors just make you sick (I get a bit of that on DM02)?

I get aggravated playing this sometimes too, like I said about the layout on DM02.

Can you narrow it to a specific map or weapon, or even a certain aspect of gameplay? Or was it just annoying from the second you started it... if that's the case, you might just not like chex quest... 



What parts of it got unfair?


For example...

Are the weapons imbalanced?
Do you find the weapons hard to use?
Did you have a hard time finding your way around the maps?


To some extent, I expect players to get used to the maps over time, but I don't want people getting lost and frustrated unless they're a pro at the mod. A similar idea goes with the weapons.


Also, if you could try to describe the differences between dwango5 and this map pack, what made it not "get you going as hard" as dwango5, I would appreciate it.

I'm glad you told me this, but you didn't give me a lot to work with here... In fact, it almost seemed like you were trying to convince me to dismiss what you said as something I can't fix 

Well, I'm not willing to quit that easily. I realize it's not as good as cybercrime or legendary CTF, and that's why I'd really like you to go into more detail, since you also realize this.
Maybe you can help me figure out something that I've been missing in my mapping. I've been looking at those mods all along, looking at what they did right, and trying to learn from them.

And also, all the hard work in the world isn't worth that much if it isn't fun... I'd do it all again, double that, if I could get this map pack in good shape. Don't be afraid to point out things that went wrong, just because it took a long time to code it/map it. I WANT to fix it, and put more work into it to get it to be a better game.

I'll start as fresh as need be. So, go ahead. Tear it apart. I want you to. I can't speak for LAZ, but I'm know me and QG would be glad to hear what you have to say.

[ChexCommander]

Well besides the fact that Dwango5 is LEGEN-

wait for it

-DARY. Also, Legendary CTF is fun too, but I digress. I'll let Atarian talk about dwango.

@Secrets: Yeah, that one, and I never would have thought to rocket jump in CQ, which is actually a cool idea.

@CM: CQ Arena was improving upon Chextag integration too, though you used it as a PWAD or possibly to replace a skulltag file. But yeah, CQ integration is always good stuff.

[Datra]

Pretty much what QG said. An excellent game.
Some of the maps need to be attended to but I have faith in you putting out amazing places to fight in.

I gave the pack a 4,
But I really look forward to giving it a 5.

[Atariangamer]

I'll answer it here, and I'm not trying to say it isn't fixable, but I totally just realized it the other night.


What got aggravating was the map design. As far as playing goes. In detail and layout, the maps are excellent, and I love them. Great detail, and its cool stuff. However, upon playing them, some of the deaths felt unfair, and maybe that's just skulltag's weapon selection combined with the maps themselves. My favorite types of maps are those up close, in your face, supershotty fragfests. They do well with weapons like Shotgun, Super Shotgun, chaingun, and in places, rockets. You always spawn close to a weapon, and in normal 4-6 player games, you spawn away from the others to give you a chance to build up. In some of the maps I felt I was scrambling to a weapon, only to get shot in the back by a guy who just popped up around the corner. Couldn't tell you the map names, but the main example was the one I thought looked visually the best: the one with the two islands over the desert with the house and the silo...that thing. Especially hiding in that tree. Not really related to my main argument, per se, but dang. Getting sniped from out that tree was annoying. In the arena, nade spam. And quite possibly some of the runes. that map would suit itself well to pure shotgun combat. the nades and other weapons kinda detract from its classic tight design, and change the play dynamic.

All in all, the only thing agrivating was the playstyles encouraged on the maps. I can nade spam with the best of em, and I can grab the improvement runes all day long. But when you go up against people who got those before you, and you're always running into people with better weapons before you can get to one, that just makes it exasperating.

I love Chex Quest, and I love the map designs and how they fit the themes and textures around it, the music is fine (I'm a sucker for almost any type of music...save modern rap and country ><, but its the play styles.


And born of playstyles is frags and on the other end of frags is deaths. Again, mostly with the runes giving some players a bit too much of an edge, IMO. Speed is good, I love fast DMs. But It almost feels...Call of Duty-ish. You get rewarded for being able to stay alive longer. Again, this might just be me, but Another thing that might make the others more balanced and easier to play is that they for the most part have nothing other than the stock weapons and stock powerups(armor, megasphere, so on). Maybe run a playtest with all extra weapons removed. Only stock, and possibly ST's weapons. No runes. See how that plays. That would be my suggestion, and then tune the weapons to the situation. A railgun in a tight map is useful only in a hallway, but the reaction time plus the switch time plus aim time plus trigger, factor in lag, and its useless. The 'lighting gun', is it? That thing literally got me one kill the entire map, no matter how I used it. And if the weapon requires time to learn its intricacies, it doesn't work in an online fast paced environment.

I'll play it again, probably Sunday if you've got it running.

[75]

Hmm, thanks, there's some good points there

you're right about the spawn locations, especially on DUEL03 (the canyon map), one spawn is right next to a bridge, with not much in the way of weapons. It can be instant death, since there's no cover.

I always try to have spawn locations in visual proximity to a weapon. I never spawn players on top of weapons, or straight out give players weapons on spawn, unless it's something like CTF02 where by the time you got a weapon, the other team has scored five times.

The trees on DUEL03 -  yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. After playing that map a hundred times I know better than to stand in front of those things. I mostly stuck them there to be true to the original map from blast corps.

There's definitely a bit of a learning curve to the Chain Lightning (CL) zorcher (looks like a mini zorcher, shoots lightning bolts). In the right place, in the right hands, it's deadly, but its projectiles are tiny, and it's really easy to miss your target. I actually rarely use it, even though it is powerful. Its best use is bouncing it off of corridor walls (taking advantage of the player's height and thickness, however, it reduces the weapon's range), or getting an angle on camping foes. It's generally lousy against strong flemoids like quadrumpus or maximi, but it's great for clearing out a room of Bipedici with armor.

Most people can't dodge the bouncing off walls tactic. I actually can, but then again, I might have mad CL dodging skills by now.

Grenade spam in the arena (another thing I didn't realize) could be a big problem, since the arena is sunk into the ground. Combine that with the fact that a lot of people spawn there (another problem), and you have a nice hunting ground for semi-cheap players. I never play like that, I don't spawnzorch. When I see somebody's just getting started, I back off for a bit and come back, but other players might not be so kind.

There are too many runes in some maps, these maps come to mind:

INV03 (Central command invasion), INV04 (Villa Chex invasion), LMS01 (Abandoned storage facility), and maybe DM01 (Pro Zorchmatch Arena).

For LMS01, I thought I hid them well at the time, but once people knew the maps well, they could jump to them in a few seconds. I should make them more of a challenge for veteran players like me and QuadrumpusGuy, too.

The other thing is, I'm not a jumpmaze god, in fact, I'm terrible with jumpmazes/jumping puzzles so secrets I thought were really, really hard to reach, are only a mild detour to players like QG.

In DM01, I thought the runes were kind of funny at the time, but I guess it is a bit too easy to jump over that wall and grab the rune, maybe I'll replace them with something else...

Runes in the invasion maps make a bit more sense, and I wouldn't be the first to spam runes, but still... I don't really like the idea of players trippin' on runes the whole time. If I wanted this mod to play like turbocharged arcade, I would've made the weapons super fast and triple firing from the start.




It's like Call of duty? Really? That's about the last thing I would've expected to hear, when I think of call of duty, I think of slow, hulking movement with giant, chunky, iron sight weapons, taking place in boxy metallic or trench environments. Then again, my entire experience with Call of Duty is Real Guns Advanced. That's about all I needed to know about CoD 


Hmm... rewarded for staying alive longer... I suppose you are, in LMS 

In Deathmatch, (remember, I know the maps well), I can run from pretty much any situation, in any map, just turn a corner and maybe hide behind a wall, problem solved. Grab some health/ammo/weapons, and go back to fighting. It's important to stay alive, because if you get zorched, you lose all of your weapons.


Sometimes I didn't think really carefully about the weapon placement, like in LMS01. I kind of just picked the weapons I liked, and stuck them wherever I felt like it. The railgun might be a little useless in LMS01, the best place to use it is in the hallway where I spawned it, since that's the longest continuous passage in the level.

However... I tend to avoid the railgun in deathmatch. I usually save it for invasion, or when I expect somebody to run directly towards me in a straight line  (which rarely happens in DM).

[QuadrumpusGuy]

The other thing is, I'm not a jumpmaze god, in fact, I'm terrible with jumpmazes/jumping puzzles so secrets I thought were really, really hard to reach, are only a mild detour to players like QG.

Perhaps I should make this jump a bit easier...
[spoiler][/spoiler]

For one, I need to fix that so that the slope doesn't look so chiseled. And make it so it's possible to go up on almost all sides.

[Atariangamer]

The COD reward thing is that if you stay alive, you get all the perks. Its a problem in doom when you lose your weapons, and the one who stayed alive has more time and a better chance of getting his health, armor, ammo, and possibly runes/better weapons.

Line of sight to weapons is good, but getting there is totally different. I hate spawning on top of weapons, so I'm with that, but I should be able to have a decent weapon in my hands before the post-spawn flashing wears off, at least in these maps, because of the spawning problem.

And I love jumping, not so good at jumpmazes and what not but I'm really good at doom jumping for the most part (save rocket jumps ><. But, then again, there's still that knowledge factor. You and QG know these maps like the back of your hands, compared to me, who walked in off the street, so to say. And because of this, you know exactly where the weapon you want is, the powerups you need, and all the secrets and their timings. Eventually, I learned these, but it made for a frustrating play before I did, and I bet now, after not playing for awhile, I'll have forgotten all those need to know things. Against Xbolt, SS, and anyone else, I do pretty well, and so do they. But add you or QG, and it starts getting off balanced, especially depending on how people meet, going again to the availability of weapons and the locations and distances of spawns.

IMHO, best way to do it is to make a central area that the major fighting and hiding and weapons grabbing happens, but some out of the way places where fighting is hard, that people spawn in, and find a weapon close to their entrance to the main area. Not necessarily rooms off the main area, just small sectors away from major action. Also, enable the 'Spawn farthest from players' DMFlag. Might solve it a bit.

And for that tree...just put something on top of it that makes it impossible to visual glitch in, so you have to be exposed to shoot.

Railgun is my favorite weapon. Great for those prediction shots. But when its nearly impossible to use in every situation, its not very fun...so, take it out and replace it with something better suited, maybe a low power phaser. I say low power because in a confined space, a phaser is a death trap. Maybe nerf damage a tad, and speed it up some. Currently its almost always a killer, if someone goes to face off. That much damage that quick, pwns shotguns or chainguns any day. Also, BFG spam. Thats the only problem I had with DWANGO sometimes was the BFG spam. Knowing how it works makes it easier to dodge, but in most of the confined spaces, its no good. Even worse, it can be used as a trap. People think they dodged it, and then run up to get in a quick shot, and BAM, many hitscans to the face. Even backwards.

BFG10k is worse, IMO. Way too fast, its like a Phaser on steroids. Rapid fire, massive splash damage, instant apparition (that is, no projectile). Noooo. Spam that, and its bad.

So basically, everything that's probably wrong with the maps can be traced to Skulltag additions to regular Doom DM, and a spawn problem (which can be fixed with a little thought).

But again, They are nowhere NEAR bad maps. I enjoy their style, visual appeal, and variety. Attempt to fix those problems, and I'll re-eval. Its got so much potential, I'd just like to see it play better.


Oh, people could also tell me to just suck it up, but I think it'll be better for the noobs and the pros when it gets a bit more balanced.