Page 1 of 1

Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 4:58 pm
by ThornBrain
Image

Doom was a success, so Id made more Doom. Thus, Doom II. Don't need much more than that. Except maybe a double shotgun and a few more nightmarish enemies.
----------------

The Story:
Doomguy may have blasted his way through the forces of Hell both on Phobos and in Hell itself, but that didn't stop them from invading Earth. Arsenal in hand, he must help the survivors escape the only way he knows how.

The LP:
JigglyJacob takes the lead for an All Secrets run. Myself (ThornBrain) and TorpidTypist join him on co-commentary. This is just the base game; Jacob won't be playing the Master Levels or No Rest for the Living.

----------------

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image
 
Image

Image

Image

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 5:13 pm
by JamieTheD
Yesssss, was hoping you'd post this one! Ah, Doom 2. I love you so, and hate you at the same time, for your mishmash of designs and decisions.

I definitely hate the Skinny Boy though.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:01 pm
by ThornBrain
Then you'll love this week's update. Probably.

Image

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:15 pm
by JamieTheD
Can't remember if this was mentioned, but a fun fact about the Beserk Pack: The effects on the punch (10x damage) last the entire level.

I mean, that still doesn't make trying to punch everything once you've got it a good idea, but it does mean you can quite happily sprint through weaker enemies, jogging through the clouds of gore your outstretched fist leaves behind you.

What a pleasant Doomy image!

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:33 pm
by Gordon Threemen
The Citadel is my least favorite of Doom II's maps, as I mentioned in the other thread. It's basically this game's equivalent of Unholy Cathedral - big, sprawling, confusing and even with only needing two out of three keys to leave you still end up having to traverse most of the map anyway. I only learned how you're actually supposed to get the blue key a few months ago (before then I would always go for the red key then abuse the fact that I'm playing on a source port by just jumping up to the window where the blue key is), and now that I know that I think I like the map even less because of that. Say what you will about the other keys being set in areas that are flagged as secrets, the way to the blue key literally is a secret, and a pretty well-hidden one at that. I refuse to acknowledge that as acceptable game design, even for 1994.

Anyway, Gotcha's setpiece, as you'd expect, is centered around answering the question of whether the Cyberdemon or Spider Mastermind is stronger. Generally, the Cyberdemon comes out on top because of greater bursts of damage without any random aim deviation to neuter that potential, but as you put the two closer to one another to mitigate the Mastermind's spread, the odds tip closer in her favor. The placement of their platforms in this map are just on the Cyberdemon's side, but as the video shows it's not impossible for the Mastermind to win - note how she parks herself on the edge of her platform closest to the Cyberdemon before she really lets loose with her gun (and also how, after she does win, you only needed two more rockets to finish her off).

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:03 pm
by Carpator Diei
The armor and health bonus getting picked up even when you're already full is probably because they count towards the Items percentage, and having to intentionally damage yourself if you want to get 100% Items would be annoying. Of course, the Items percentage is absolutely superfluous in general, so that's not much of a satisfying answer.
JamieTheD wrote:
Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:15 pm
I mean, that still doesn't make trying to punch everything once you've got it a good idea
Not that that's stopped people; see the enduring popularity of the UV-Tyson category in Doom speedruns.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:16 am
by Commander Keene
JamieTheD wrote:
Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:15 pm
Can't remember if this was mentioned, but a fun fact about the Beserk Pack: The effects on the punch (10x damage) last the entire level.

I mean, that still doesn't make trying to punch everything once you've got it a good idea, but it does mean you can quite happily sprint through weaker enemies, jogging through the clouds of gore your outstretched fist leaves behind you.

What a pleasant Doomy image!
I think it was mentioned in the Doom 1 LP, but not this one; I was wondering if that was still the case.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 3:26 am
by Shei-kun
Glad to see this make the jump, and also I love the new avatar, ThornBrain.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:03 pm
by Carpator Diei
By the way, Bethesda has been steadily adding fan-made WADs as official add-ons to their Doom port, the newest one being the first episode of Back to Saturn X sorry, of course I mean BTSX, a WAD that does not in any way infringe on any copyrights held by notable indie rock band Guided by Voices. It's one of the most famous WADs and widely lauded for its quality, so I suppose it was only a matter of time until that one would join the ranks. The founder of the WAD's development team provides a succinct plot summary.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:01 pm
by ThornBrain
Image

Off to a good start this week

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 9:18 pm
by DoubleNegative
I have no idea why, but The Chasm is one of the levels my mind immediately goes to when I think of Doom 2. A lot of the Hell levels do that, actually.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:19 pm
by Mopey Dick
Same. Probably on account of constant and repeated falling off. The other maps that immediately come to mind are Barrels o' Fun and The Living End.
I've seen some speedrun footage of The Chasm and the way they do it is completely bonkers - turns out it is possible to actually skip most of the precarious platforming and finish the level at around half a minute (current record is IIRC 34 seconds).

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 3:42 pm
by Wordybird
That trick with the final section of thin platforms is diabolical. I love that kind of dev dickery.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:23 pm
by Gordon Threemen
My preferred manner of dealing with Barrels o' Fun's prodigious number of barrels is to set them off myself. It works in the starting area since there's just enough open space around the spawn that you can get away with it with very low damage if not avoiding it entirely, depending on how the barrels push each other around.

It obviously doesn't work quite as well in other cases, barring the use of weapon mods that treat explosives as full entities that can be sent through teleporters to let me set them off early.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:02 pm
by ThornBrain
Image

Jacob's enthused about these next few levels. Final part next week!

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 7:50 pm
by JamieTheD
The home stretch of Doom 2: It exists? Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

It's kinda weird, I remember a level which is utter pain for reasons I'll save til the end (because I'm not sure if we encountered it), but I don't recall seeing it... I mean, beyond the level where it's possible to feel the same pain...

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:23 pm
by Carpator Diei
Hell in Doom II really kind of lacks character, in my opinion. With a few exceptions, the levels just feel... random, and not even in an interestingly chaotic way. Of course, that sort of extreme abstraction where the levels don't even attempt to depict anything and just serve as containers for gameplay has in itself been pretty influential in Doom mapping, both as something mappers tried to emulate and something others tried to avoid. The 'Roots of Doom Mapping' text has a few things to say about that (there's some spoilers for one of the last three levels in there).
It also has its own interpretation of these hell levels:
The Roots of Doom Mapping wrote: The first Doom’s vision of Hell was awesome, but pretty traditional: rocky wastelands full of fire and brimstone, with the added twist of the organic elements, entire landscapes made out of flesh and guts. Doom 2’s Hell looks a whole lot like a twisted version of Earth, which is the entire point. Even as Earth’s reality bends to take on the eerie, hostile tone of Hell, Hell’s reality has begun to twist around earthly shapes and materials. “Barrels o’ Fun” (map 23) sees a hellish landscape wrought in abstract stucco and metal constructs and filled with barrels of human toxic waste; “Monster Condo” (map 27) is a haunted mansion filled with libraries and walled in the same brick and wood that make up the city maps.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:26 am
by Mopey Dick
Honestly, I think Doom 2's biggest claim to fame was the new weapon and enemies - the map design just isn't anywhere near as distinctive. The new assets are hugely important for all the modding, but the campaign itself doesn't feel as fun.
That's not to say the design philosophy didn't have an impact - Doom 1's bosses being turned into (semi-)regular enemies for one - but the community has learned to do better things with it.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 6:33 pm
by Gordon Threemen
Carpator Diei wrote:
Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:23 pm
With a few exceptions, the levels just feel... random, and not even in an interestingly chaotic way.
Yeah, that's always been the complaint I heard about the last part of Doom II, and it's one that I agree with. I don't remember if I said it in the Doom I thread on SA, but the problem with Doom II was that there was less oversight in making sure they fit any sort of theme, which was already kind of noticeable in earlier parts of the game (Circle of Death and Tenements look like they could fit in the last third of the game) but really hurts in the last third - for every Chasm or Spirit World where it really sells the idea that you're in Hell, there's an equal number of Bloodfalls or Abandoned Mines that just look like regular Earth caves with a little more blood or brimstone.

That's not to say there's bad gameplay to them. Abandoned Mines sticks out in my mind because of one of the original demos and it's one of the levels I like from this portion.

On the subject of Bathdoom, they've been using game engines for designing houses and the like for years. I remember this old map for Unreal Tournament, where a guy designed a house within Unreal Editor to show off how the engine could be used for real estate purposes, and then he turned it into a CTF map by copy-and-pasting the house with a different color scheme. Looking it up, that map got released like three months after the game itself.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:03 pm
by ThornBrain
Image

And to do it, we had to kill a man.

Thanks for watching folks! Look forward to Doom 64, hopefully also on Friday next week but in a new thread. Also keep an eye out for my LPs of Graveyard Keeper and Jet Force Gemini, both on their way this Sunday and Wednesday.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 8:30 pm
by Carpator Diei
I'm both sad that this is over and very glad that you're doing Doom 64.

Final Doom has quite an interesting backstory. Of the two games bundled in it, only The Plutonia Experiment was originally commissioned by Id; its creators, Milo and Dario Casali, had sent a few of their levels to Id and made enough of an impression to get a publishing deal for a MegaWAD that they would then proceed to design in a mere four months. TNT Evilution, on the other hand, was a collaborative MegaWAD designed by a team of mappers from the nascent Doom community (in fact, the Casali brothers also contributed a few levels); it was intended to be simply available for download, but literally the night before its planned release date John Romero struck a deal with the development team to relaese it commercially along with Plutonia. The Doomwiki pages for the games have some further details on the whole thing.
By the way, in another example of wildly different opinions within the Doom community, quite a few people consider Plutonia to be the better Final Doom WAD by far, with Evilution having a bit of a reputation of mediocrity while Plutonia is held up as a precursor to most combat-oriented mapping of later years. As an example and because I like contradictions, here's what the aforementioned Roots of Doom Mapping essay has to say about Plutonia's monster-placement decisions:
The Roots of Doom Mapping, Chapter 2 wrote: The megawad focuses almost entirely on the threatening placement of small numbers of monsters, heavily emphasizing the more powerful monster types, though it goes fairly light on the boss monsters. Chaingunners, Revenants, and Arch-Viles are the holy trinity of Plutonia combat, as they are the most immediately threatening monsters in the bestiary and the ones that have the greatest effect on the player’s movement decisions. Mancubi, Arachnotrons, Pain Elementals, and harasser Cacodemons typically fill in the supporting roles, with groups of shotgunners providing periodic bursts of glass cannon uncertainty to keep you on your toes. Imps mainly exist to give you the occasional quick pop of satisfaction; Hell Knights, Barons, and Pinkies are used sparingly and are there to intimidate and hog space, demanding that you slot them into your list of priorities in order to gain more freedom of movement. At the risk of stating the obvious, most small-scale challenge mapping over the years has followed a very similar mold for overall monster placement, simply because it works extremely well and is very hard to improve upon. [...] Although the Casalis’ work leaves plenty of room for improvement, it’s fair to say that they laid so much groundwork that there wasn’t a whole lot left to lay, and that all combat-oriented mapping has been a series of footnotes to Plutonia.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:27 pm
by Mopey Dick
It sure as hell moved map design towards more and more frustrating - nowadays designers are moving away from spamming chaingunners and revenants in favor of cleverer monster setups, thankfully. I don't think I was ever tempted to replay TNT or Plutonia.

Re: Doom II: Hell on Earth - No Place to Wreak Havoc Like Home

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:34 pm
by Greener223224
I don’t remember chaingunners being central to Plutonia. TNT, certainly, plus that one really well-known map with the reviving chaingunners, but nothing else where they’re as central as Archviles or as numerous as Revenants.