[Ninety-Six]

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2019 - 03:39 AM, said:

Spoiler

5+2+5=12
12+3+6=21
21+8+11=40

Spoiler

I see. I thought about it differently, because I noticed that if you multiply the numbers instead of add them, and then add the first number, you would still get those results.
1*4 = 4, + 1 = 5
2*5 = 10, + 2 = 12
3*6 = 18, + 3 = 21
Thus I thought:
8*11 = 88, + 8 = 96

[ReaperAA]

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 03:08 AM, said:

Difficulty settings don't even matter in this case. Whether you defang a trap or not, if a trap is by default lethal without prior knowledge of it, it doesn't stop being bullshit just because there are other difficulties (not that most of the community's output even gives difficulties besides UV more than a second thought. You typically end up with walking simulators on HNTR, and HMP can either be more of that or only a few monsters shy of UV. There's always a massive spike somewhere. Not that the ones who do properly balance them ever really list what each difficulty is balanced around. I can count on one hand the megawads that have bothered to put such things in writing).

And Eviternity is one of the few wads that does difficulty settings right.

Personally speaking, I am not a fan of slaughterwads either, but Eviternity is in no way a slaughterwad. Neither is it a walking simulator on easier difficulties. In Eviternity, its usually the harder encounters that are toned down on lower skill levels but its not like the monster population is cut in half like in the iwad maps.

Real slaughterwads are wads like Scythe 2, Sunder, Sunlust, Ancient Aliens, Deus Vult II, SlaughterMax etc. Now those have really stupid trial and error encounters.

[Ninety-Six]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 03:56 AM, said:

And Eviternity is one of the few wads that does difficulty settings right.

Personally speaking, I am not a fan of slaughterwads either, but Eviternity is in no way a slaughterwad. Neither is it a walking simulator on easier difficulties. In Eviternity, its usually the harder encounters that are toned down but its not like the monster population is cut in half like in the iwad maps.

To be fair, I was speaking more in general on that one, rather than Eviternity itself. I haven't played it since it seems GZDoom preferred. I know it's possible with some other stuff but my port of choice is normal zdoom. I'm not sure if the GZDoom code built into it won't confuse and crash zdoom.

Regardless, If it does balance difficulty settings properly, great, that makes it one of the few.

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 03:56 AM, said:

Real slaughterwads are wads like Scythe 2, Sunder, Sunlust, Ancient Aliens, Deus Vult II, SlaughterMax etc. Now those have really stupid trial and error encounters.

Definitely agree on this point. Can throw in the first Scythe's third episode, too.


Though as far as Eviternity goes, while I haven't played it I did see footage of its MAP31. It...seems to enjoy the "if you don't have the correct weapon in advance you die" trap. I can't speak with certainty because I haven't played it myself, but it sure looks that way.

Spoiler

Apparently that map is credited to skillsaw so I wouldn't be surprised if it was truly the case. He doesn't seem to have any other map credits, which I should take as a good sign but after Ancient Aliens I'm cautious about...well, everything really.

[ReaperAA]

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 04:06 AM, said:

To be fair, I was speaking more in general on that one, rather than Eviternity itself. I haven't played it since it seems GZDoom preferred. I know it's possible with some other stuff but my port of choice is normal zdoom. I'm not sure if the GZDoom code built into it won't confuse and crash zdoom.

It should run fine in Zdoom I think. If by chance it does cause problems, then u can also use ports like Zandronum, PrBoom+, Eternity Engine (devs builds) or Doom Retro to play it.

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 04:06 AM, said:

Apparently that map is credited to skillsaw so I wouldn't be surprised if it was truly the case. He doesn't seem to have any other map credits, which I should take as a good sign but after Ancient Aliens I'm cautious about...well, everything really.

Well there are some other tricky levels in Eviternity too like maps 12, 14, 15, 19, 22, 23, 26, 29, 32. But thankfully none of them are anywhere near Ancient Aliens level difficulty. If u played TNT: Revilution, then Eviternity's levels are roughly around similar difficulty but with less ups and downs (to give u an idea).

[Phredreeke]

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 04:06 AM, said:

To be fair, I was speaking more in general on that one, rather than Eviternity itself. I haven't played it since it seems GZDoom preferred. I know it's possible with some other stuff but my port of choice is normal zdoom.

GZDoom still has the software renderer (in fact there are four different ones now) if that's why you don't want to make the switch.

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 04:06 AM, said:

Though as far as Eviternity goes, while I haven't played it I did see footage of its MAP31. It...seems to enjoy the "if you don't have the correct weapon in advance you die" trap. I can't speak with certainty because I haven't played it myself, but it sure looks that way.

Spoiler

Apparently that map is credited to skillsaw so I wouldn't be surprised if it was truly the case. He doesn't seem to have any other map credits, which I should take as a good sign but after Ancient Aliens I'm cautious about...well, everything really.

It's one of two secret levels. And yes, it's hard as balls.

[Ninety-Six]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 04:25 AM, said:

It should run fine in Zdoom I think. If by chance it does cause problems, then u can also use ports like Zandronum, PrBoom+, Eternity Engine (devs builds) or Doom Retro to play it.

If it runs in Zandronum that should be fine. I tend to use that as a backup source port.

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2019 - 04:35 AM, said:

GZDoom still has the software renderer (in fact there are four different ones now) if that's why you don't want to make the switch.

It's part of it. It's more that I caught wind of Graf wanting to rewrite the software renderer entirely.

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2019 - 04:35 AM, said:

It's one of two secret levels. And yes, it's hard as balls.

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 04:25 AM, said:

Well there are some other tricky levels in Eviternity too like maps 12, 14, 15, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29. But thankfully none of them are anywhere near Ancient Aliens level difficulty.

It's not really the tricky aspect that bothers me as much as it is being dicked around by the level, which Ancient Aliens did non-stop, and at least what Eviternity's MAP31 looks like it tries to. If it were MAP32 it probably wouldn't be as much of a sticking point because then I could skip it, but in this case, if I want to see the actual MAP32, I would have to play this Map31 at least a little bit. Or maybe a lot bit, depending on where the secret exit is.

I mean I could be wrong entirely and MAP31 is just fine, but like I said, after Ancient Aliens, almost all of my good faith was destroyed. And not much since has really restored it. As a result I eye any project with much more scrutiny, looking for evidence that it's going to screw me over and ultimately frustrate and dissappoint me like so many others.

Spoiler

I know it sounds dramatic but I can't stress enough how much I hate trial and error gameplay. It is the one aspect of bad level design I hate more than anything else. Part of it is on me because I like go saveless for the most part, outside of the start of the level or marathon maps where I make a couple of saves at key points.

And the reason I like going saveless is because I like to be punished for screwing up. I like it when I fail, I am punished and sent back to the beginning of the level. As a natural result, trail and error becomes much more noticeable, and ends up stinging extra hard because I have no saves and get sent back anyway for something that could in no way be said to be my fault.

I could just start save scumming like most everyone else, but I really hate doing that. It turns victory into an inevitability in my eyes, as opposed to a struggle. I like to be challenged, to have my victories come from ripping them out of the jaws of defeat with my bare, bleeding hands.

A bit dramatic maybe, but the point remains: I like to have to fight for a win. One of if not the main reason I play these old-style FPSes is for the combat. I love being thrust into a do-or-die combat scenario where your survival every second depends on making lightning-quick tactical decisions and good movement, where making a bad call or failing to execute a plan can either greatly wound you or kill you. I love having to maintain an active mental map of the combat situation, and needing to change enemy prioritization depending on the changing situation. I live for that kind of thing, and when trial-and-error is introduced it just kinda spreads its cheeks and dumps all over that idea.

[ReaperAA]

If saveless is what u are planning, then just make sure that u don't do it for maps 19, 29 and 32 (they are looooonnnnng).

[Ninety-Six]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 04:54 AM, said:

If saveless is what u are planning, then just make sure that u don't do it for maps 19, 29 and 32 (they are looooonnnnng).

I did hear about 19 and 32 being marathons. I didn't hear about 29 but I did hear that its song is 45 minutes long. Perhaps that was a warning?

[ReaperAA]

Ninety-Six, on 10 December 2019 - 04:55 AM, said:

I did hear about 19 and 32 being marathons. I didn't hear about 29 but I did hear that its song is 45 minutes long. Perhaps that was a warning?

29 is not as long as 19 or 32, but its still longer than most of the maps (and also harder).

[Phredreeke]

Map 19 took me 2 hours to play through.

[Zaxx]

The Watchtower, on 09 December 2019 - 11:55 PM, said:

The retards of Doomworld don't deserve another Romero episode. They handled their gift in an even more atrocious way than the Duke community handled World Tour. At least the people here had legit reasons to bash the release, the poorly done sourceport, the price, the coding errors, and Randy in general. At least we regarded the actual episode pretty high. But those people are terrible. Let them play Eviternity and other flashy stuff. I played that overrated POS and stopped caring around map10 as everything felt totally similar and generic.

I don't know why you're so frustrated, the Cacowards are a joke for the longest time now. There are always a few good wads in there but usually the best ones are disregarded for some bullshit reason.

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 10 December 2019 - 05:59 AM, said:

I don't know why you're so frustrated, the Cacowards are a joke for the longest time now. There are always a few good wads in there but usually the best ones are disregarded for some bullshit reason.

Pretty much, though I tended to find more good ones when Scuba Steve still helmed them.

That could just be coincidence, but that's at least the dropoff in validity for me.

[NNC]

Zaxx, on 10 December 2019 - 05:59 AM, said:

I don't know why you're so frustrated, the Cacowards are a joke for the longest time now. There are always a few good wads in there but usually the best ones are disregarded for some bullshit reason.

Some Doomworld members make a combined list of their favourite wads by fellow Doomworld members, and they call it "award".

[Phredreeke]

I can't say whether Sigil deserved an award because I haven't played it yet.

But Eviternity definitively deserved it.

[Radar]

From what it sounds like, I guess the cacowards are the video game equivalent of a high school popularity contest. Only mods by authors in the "clique" get nominated and the most popular dude wins.

[ReaperAA]

Radar 100 Watts, on 10 December 2019 - 09:51 AM, said:

From what it sounds like, I guess the cacowards are the video game equivalent of a high school popularity contest. Only mods by authors in the "clique" get nominated and the most popular dude wins.

While I admit that I too don't necessary agree with all of the cacoward selections, I don't agree with this "clique" part. The cacoward judges just select the wads that impress them the most (yes I will admit that their tastes do wary from mine). An example is D4V (Doom 4 Vanilla) which got a cacoward for the best gameplay mod. It's the first major mod/wad by the author who himself is a relative newcomer to the doomworld community.

[Ninety-Six]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 10:15 AM, said:

I don't agree with this "clique" part.

Unfortunately we might have to agree to disagree. Sometimes they're open to newcomers but only to those who "fall in line." There have been a few cacowards that read like backhanded compliments, and unshockingly they come from the developers who are typically at odds with those who spearhead the community.


I've been a passive outsider for years and it's hard to ignore the one dominating clique that rules above them all. Likewise it's hard to not see some of that spill into the cacowards.

[NNC]

The clique is not the only problem. They seem to appreciate only one wad type, the flashy, large outdoors, huge monster count/slaughter style. Occasionally something else can make the list, but it's the exception, not the rule.

[NightFright]

What I wonder: Are the votes from the Cacowards poll thread even taken into account or are they just considered some kinda recommendation to the jury which they can ignore if they please? If so, I guess there's no point in voting at all.

[Ninety-Six]

NightFright, on 10 December 2019 - 11:02 AM, said:

are they just considered some kinda recommendation to the jury which they can ignore if they please?

Pretty sure it's this. I think it says as much somewhere.

[NightFright]

Well, I am not glued to the Cacowards, anyway. I play what seems interesting to me throughout the year. Sometimes that stuff is also winning something, but I also like "average" projects. Doesn't mean those are bad, they just don't have anything special like Eviternity does, e.g. Nicolas Monti's Mass Extinction. I really enjoyed playing that one, yet it didn't win anything.

Sadly, now everybody will mostly talk about and look at the Cacoward winners for a while again. There are many other talented people out there who would deserve some appreciation, but with a system like that, it's probably never gonna happen. If a couple of chosen people think what you are doing isn't good enough, you won't stand a chance.

[Zaxx]

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2019 - 08:25 AM, said:

I can't say whether Sigil deserved an award because I haven't played it yet.

But Eviternity definitively deserved it.

Well, sure it's a quality wad but I'd say SIGIL was much better honestly. The thing about the Cacowards is that at this point it's nothing more than a sort of award for "technical achievement" and not much else. If you make a WAD that's full of really complex levels, kinda nice looking new textures and whatnot then you have a high a chance of winning a Caco but if you for example make a 9 map episode with great level design and only use the base assets they'll be like "eh, it's just 9 maps and base assets, NOT WORTHY!"

So in fringe cases it can happen that somebody releases a wad with 30 levels and two third of those play like shit but since there is a certain technical complexity and attention to visual detail there it can still end up as a winner. That sucks and for example in the case of Eviternity you can say that sure, from the technical and level complexity aspect it's great... but is it fun to play? Does it show coherent game design? Eh, not really, a large portion of its maps are quite shit even if the rest is great, it's just bloated and generally all over the place artistically.

SIGIL on the other hand is a classic Doom 1 episode with 9 levels: they are not overly complex but basically 8 of them is peak Romero level design, there is a clear concept to its overall pacing that you may like or dislike that but it's absolutely there + there is strong, coherent art design throughout the whole thing that again can be judged subjectively and it may not work for everyone but it's there and it's excellent considering it's only base Doom 1 assets.

So the problem is that the Cacowards likes to value these "ego wads" that are not much more than "look at me, I'm a SUPERMODDER, I can do everything with the editor I want even though I don't know much about game design" projects so the smaller, less technically impressive stuff with genuinely good game design, a great sense of flow etc. = all the good shit can fly under their radar. That sucks, man, and it seems like that even if you're John fucking Romero they'll push it under the radar.

[NightFright]

I kinda agree with Hocus Pocus Doom and Eviternity winning, but Doom Zero only a runner-up? Meh. That is a superb vanilla-style megawad with great classic design. It's not easy to recreate the style of the old days, but DZ nailed it.

Why don't they just open polls with people being able to add entries and the top ten win or something? It could be so easy. And fair.

[Phredreeke]

Zaxx, on 10 December 2019 - 02:19 PM, said:

If you make a WAD that's full of really complex levels, kinda nice looking new textures and whatnot then you have a high a chance of winning a Caco but if you for example make a 9 map episode with great level design and only use the base assets they'll be like "eh, it's just 9 maps and base assets, NOT WORTHY!"

I was about to mention Vanguard then realised it was released way back in 2011.

[Zaxx]

Well anyway, sometimes appreciation comes from the place you least expect it: when the next update drops SIGIL will be OFFICIALLY available for the new Bethesda-released console ports of Doom and Doom 2.

[Zaxx]

Oh, and here's the 26th anniversary stream where this stuff was shown off along with Doom 64 and some new tidbits from Eternal:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/519684536
Cool stuff, basically the Bethesda ports will receive all the missing official content (+ SIGIL) and Doom 64 has all the new KEX features you might expect.

[Ninety-Six]

Zaxx, on 10 December 2019 - 02:19 PM, said:

Well, sure it's a quality wad but I'd say SIGIL was much better honestly. The thing about the Cacowards is that at this point it's nothing more than a sort of award for "technical achievement" and not much else. If you make a WAD that's full of really complex levels, kinda nice looking new textures and whatnot then you have a high a chance of winning a Caco but if you for example make a 9 map episode with great level design and only use the base assets they'll be like "eh, it's just 9 maps and base assets, NOT WORTHY!"

So the problem is that the Cacowards likes to value these "ego wads" that are not much more than "look at me, I'm a SUPERMODDER, I can do everything with the editor I want even though I don't know much about game design" projects so the smaller, less technically impressive stuff with genuinely good game design, a great sense of flow etc. = all the good shit can fly under their radar. That sucks, man, and it seems like that even if you're John fucking Romero they'll push it under the radar.

I kinda hate how well this pins down my own feelings on the matter. Caco winners almost universally have exactly that problem these days. Look absolutely fantastic with how it uses the engine, but plays like garbage. What's worse is that the community actively encourages this sort of thing. Even outside the Cacowards, anything that actually focuses more on playing good is more or less completely ignored. I can't tell you how many single map PWADs, or in some cases even megawads get absolutely abysmal attention simply because they want to do what Doom was always best at: killing demons.

I know in a big community like that one it's natural that some projects get pushed under the rug, but how consistent it is with grabbing only the technically or visually impressive ones (which are now a dime-a-dozen), and ignoring ones that actually bother to play well... It's frustrating.

Sigil had some flaws but I certainly enjoyed my time with it more than almost every other wad I've played in the last several years. Romero may be kind of an asshole in the way he designs levels, but even in the 1.1 version (I waited for the inevitable bugfix patch) nothing ever really felt insurmountable. At the very least I was confused if a death was mine or the level's fault. Not exactly high praise but compared to how it usually goes? A breath of fresh air.

It was also while playing Sigil that I started to realize another aspect that most community levels fail at. And that's the way Sigil grips you firmly in its teeth and starts emotionally toying with you. Now I don't really mean that in the sense of like watching a tragic movie or whatever, but if Romero wanted the player to feel a certain way about a certain section, he generally got what he wanted. If he wanted the player to feel scared or cautious, he made the player feel scared or cautious. If he wanted them to feel claustrophobic you would. If he wanted you to feel relief, you felt relief.

I'm not trying to praise him just because he's John Romero, but when I go back and play Sigil I notice how everything is organized in a structure. How the levels all start off bright and fiery, then they become cavernous and dark, and then as you near the end, you start seeing the sky and everything brightens up a bit. The rising and falling of the difficulty curve. It's still always hard, but there's still peaks and troughs, tension and release, difficult sections followed by catharsis. It's an actual journey, and I don't think it's a stretch to believe that a game design veteran like Romero would intentionally mix all of that together in an episode he had full control over.

I threw all that out there because I realized that a lot of modern doom wads don't actually bother to think at that kind of level about the player. How they want them to feel at any given moment. They only go for spectacle and nothing else, which wears out its novelty really fast when that's the only thing on offer. The most ironic part of all is that the naivete of most amateur level designers that the doom community has "evolved" from... that naivete also came with a basic understanding of wanting the player to feel something. Usually it's fear or shock because amateurs don't realize the benefits of positive emotions as well, but all the same: they at least made you feel something.

NightFright, on 10 December 2019 - 02:28 PM, said:

I kinda agree with Hocus Pocus Doom and Eviternity winning, but Doom Zero only a runner-up? Meh. That is a superb vanilla-style megawad with great classic design. It's not easy to recreate the style of the old days, but DZ nailed it.

It isn't but such things almost never get the credit it deserved. Even when DTWiD won a cacoward it read like an insult than a commendation. Regardless of how one feels about DTWiD's accuracy it at least still played pretty good.

NightFright, on 10 December 2019 - 02:28 PM, said:

Why don't they just open polls with people being able to add entries and the top ten win or something? It could be so easy. And fair.

When it was just one man running the show it kinda made sense (only kinda though).

Now that he stepped down though and it's being pushed as the "best of the community", it really doesn't anymore. I assume the reason is so that they can gatekeep. For all their talk of how "welcoming" they are, they really don't like people who aren't "in" with them to decide what is and what isn't good.

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2019 - 03:06 PM, said:

I was about to mention Vanguard then realised it was released way back in 2011.

Vanguard is such an odd little number. I never really made it past like MAP08 or 09 or something like that, but it always stuck out in my mind for being the polar opposite of Ancient Aliens (which is even odder because it's the same guy behind both). It looks like crap but it plays pretty good. Most notable is "13 Angry Archviles", which is an absolutely brutal level, but it actually doesn't feature archvile abuse. They're all put in reasonable locations where they can be dispatched with good movement as opposed to relying on luck or being aware of them in advance. You are given everything you need to succeed at the start of every encounter.

And the rest of the levels were also pretty decent. Everything felt fair and balanced; even the slaughtermap on Map07.


And then you look at Ancient Aliens which started dicking the player over from the first map onwards, well before any slaughtermaps show up. I just don't know how skillsaw went from knowing how to make a good level to absuing his mapping power.

[ReaperAA]

Zaxx, on 10 December 2019 - 02:19 PM, said:

Well, sure it's a quality wad but I'd say SIGIL was much better honestly. The thing about the Cacowards is that at this point it's nothing more than a sort of award for "technical achievement" and not much else. If you make a WAD that's full of really complex levels, kinda nice looking new textures and whatnot then you have a high a chance of winning a Caco but if you for example make a 9 map episode with great level design and only use the base assets they'll be like "eh, it's just 9 maps and base assets, NOT WORTHY!"

So in fringe cases it can happen that somebody releases a wad with 30 levels and two third of those play like shit but since there is a certain technical complexity and attention to visual detail there it can still end up as a winner. That sucks and for example in the case of Eviternity you can say that sure, from the technical and level complexity aspect it's great... but is it fun to play? Does it show coherent game design? Eh, not really, a large portion of its maps are quite shit even if the rest is great, it's just bloated and generally all over the place artistically.

Your opinion. Personally speaking, I liked Eviternity much better than Sigil. The only bad map (the map that played like shit) in Eviternity is map 19.

To Ninety-Six, I recommend trying out Lunatic wad. It's a 5-map wad made by Skillsaw back in 2010-11. It plays similar to Vanguard.

[Ninety-Six]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 09:15 PM, said:

To Ninety-Six, I recommend trying out Lunatic wad. It's a 5-map wad made by Skillsaw back in 2010-11. It plays similar to Vanguard.

I have. I haven't gotten even halfway into level 2 yet though so I don't really have an opinion on it one way or the other currently. I know there's only five levels but still too early to declare my opinion on it.

[Zaxx]

ReaperAA, on 10 December 2019 - 09:15 PM, said:

Your opinion. Personally speaking, I liked Eviternity much better than Sigil. The only bad map (the map that played like shit) in Eviternity is map 19.

And that's a fine opinion, I don't have a problem with that since SIGIL's level design certainly won't work for everyone... and partially that's why it's much better game design than Eviternity. You know, when I play Eviternity I get the sense that I'm playing a Doom megawad with some nice graphics and overall good level design but when I play SIGIL I get the sense that I'm experiencing Romero's idea of Hell expressed through Doom. It has a greater sense of place, a stronger overall concept and dare I say an artistic goal on top of just being a wad.

So Eviternity is something like a Marvel movie while SIGIL could be I dunno, Midsommar or some other quality artsy-fartsy movie in the movie world and the Cacowards should appreciate both types of entertainment.