Holy Hell rerelease! No longer "IMPOSSIBLE"

ggg · Post by **ggg** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:09 pm

The original incarnation of Holy Hell had been deemed too hard to be beatable. Therefore, I have repeatedly playtested and painstakingly changed the item placement to make each map easier and beatable from a pistol start.

Download it here and tell me what you think!

http://hyperupload.com/download/02c0971 ... 1.zip.html

Please let me know if there are any problems or areas that need fixing.
And GZdoom or another port with OpenGL is vastly recommended over Zdoom.

NOTE ON GAMEPLAY:The monster count remains massive, so craft and cunning will be needed to use the layout of the environment to your favor. Trial and error may be necessary for many players in certain situations to find the right way to attack a battle. So save often!

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:30 am

You fail at mapmaking. The architecture is blunt, first of all. And if you were trying to make a HR-style map, you failed too, as the game bogs down so hard that there can be no gameplay. Ammo is limited for the hideous amounts of monsters (6000 in MAP01, 20000 in MAP05).
I anyway wonder how much more hard the original version should have been, given that you seriously cannot beat this yourself without Freeze Mode.

Wills · Post by **Wills** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 8:31 am

This is even worse than Stun.wad.

ggg · Post by **ggg** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:00 am

Hirogen2 wrote:You fail at mapmaking. The architecture is blunt, first of all. And if you were trying to make a HR-style map, you failed too, as the game bogs down so hard that there can be no gameplay. Ammo is limited for the hideous amounts of monsters (6000 in MAP01, 20000 in MAP05).
I anyway wonder how much more hard the original version should have been, given that you seriously cannot beat this yourself without Freeze Mode.

The architecture isn't overly detailed so that it doesn't distract from gameplay. Lots of detail isn't always a good thing.
I have repeatedly posted warnings against playing it on a slow computer or using zdoom. The game will not bog down with a port like GZdoom or PrBoom and a relatively new/faster computer.
This isn't an easy wad. Far from it. But it is definitely beatable, as I have tested it numerous times now. If your computer can't handle the monster count, you could try it on easy difficulty.

DoomRater · Post by **DoomRater** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:35 pm

I for one am hoping that Belial isn't going to 0 this version. I'll play it myself but I'm hoping he notices pretty soon...

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:19 pm

ggg wrote:I have repeatedly posted warnings against playing it on a slow computer or using zdoom. The game will not bog down with a port like GZdoom or PrBoom and a relatively new/faster computer.

I assume an AMD XP 2000 with NV11 should be sufficiently fast enough, as tuning the GPU won't help with an increasing number of actors. But honestly, having more than 4000 concurrent actors active is not a good idea. "The Spire 2", recently in newstuff, was actually a map on the limit (slightly suffered fps when looking both at lots of monsters and lots of subsectors).
It should be noted that I did use GZdoom, in OpenGL mode at that (so hopefully there we do not spend processing time on any software renderer), and only at 640x480 at that.

ggg · Post by **ggg** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:29 pm

Strange. My specs are pretty similar, and I haven't had bad framerates. Perhaps other programs were running at the time?
Wait. You weren't playing Map 5, were you? That map could cause problems with your specs. Maps 1 thru 4 shouldn't. But Map 5 should only be played with high end machines unless it's on skill level 1.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 5:01 am

ggg wrote:Strange. My specs are pretty similar, and I haven't had bad framerates. Perhaps other programs were running at the time?

Windows XP? I knew it! I always knew it!!!1

Wait. You weren't playing Map 5, were you?

No, not really. When all the actors on MAP01 woke up, I already threw in the towel.

Krillancello · Post by **Krillancello** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:44 am

I played MAP01... eventually got all the Specters, zombies, Imps, Revenants (the ones that teleport to the ground) and the Cyberdemons killed by the multi-tiered tower of Revenants... but I got bored pretty fast since all I was doing was running around in circles in the main section (with the Imp towers) until everything was in-fighting. I prefer to play a game with actual gameplay, not running around trying not to get your ass blown off.

ggg · Post by **ggg** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 11:29 am

Hirogen2 wrote: Windows XP? I knew it! I always knew it!!!1

Is that special?

Hirogen2 wrote: No, not really. When all the actors on MAP01 woke up, I already threw in the towel.

Not nearly all the actors in Map 1 are supposed to wake up at once. Only a few hundred actors are woken up at once. If all the actors woke up, then there must be something wrong with your settings or the version of the port you are using.

Krillancello wrote:I got bored pretty fast since all I was doing was running around in circles in the main section until everything was in-fighting. I prefer to play a game with actual gameplay, not running around trying not to get your ass blown off.

This is a big-fights map. Big fights can take some time to win. Getting the monsters to infight is only one step. There is enough ammo to do the job yourself.

Krillancello · Post by **Krillancello** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 12:14 pm

ggg: I turned on god mode and went through the first three levels... the whole damn thing is big-fights. There's nothing but big fights and switches hidden by walls that take 20 minutes to open up. If I had been playing through normally, by the time I even got to the switch that starts lowering one of said walls, all the monsters until that point would have been dead, which means I'd be waiting 30 minutes for the in-fighting, then killing enemies for another 10-20 minutes, then trying to find the switch I was supposed to activate for another 10-20 minutes, then waiting for a damn wall to show me another switch, which in turn does the same damn thing, and on and on until I've activated 4 switches, waiting 20 minutes between each switch for the next one to be revealed, then finally starting over again with a hefty amassment of enemies to go through the in-fight/finish-off-stragglers deal before having to find another set of switches that make me wait for another hour.

Hobbs · Post by **Hobbs** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:19 pm

My memory is rather fuzzy on the old version of this wad (I don't remember wads unless I really enjoy them) so I'll just give my 'review' on this version as if it were the first time I had played the wad.

This wad is lacking. It's lacking in level design; the levels have extremely plain layouts which are reused every level throughout the wad. The fact that the map layout (note the lack of s, I really only consider there to be one layout with a few changes) itself is bland is a bad sign and doesn't give a good feeling for the rest of the wad. Since you don't want to 'distract from gameplay' you could, at the very least, come up with a new design for each level. As for the rest of the visual aesthetics, all that needs to be spoke of is the texture usage. Yes, the texture usage that takes me back to 1994/5/6. Ever heard of a consistent theme, or at least choosing textures that make sense together? I assure you picking decent texture combinations doesn't distract from the gameplay at all so I see no good reason why the textures are in the state they are.

Moving onto the gameplay, which is what you (and I of course) feel is most important. Alternating massive fights and massive rooms of empty is really boring. What moved you to make this decision, I don't know, but it absolutely kills the gameplay. No, there doesn't have to be a huge fight in every place, but even a few monsters helps keep the game pace up. As for the fights themselves, well the wad is certainly beatable now, it's quite tedious at some points with the infighting and repetitive killing, but it's beatable. A lot of the wad isn't even hard, it's just a tedious slaughter. Oh, and one more thing, the excessively long lowering floors need to go. A few times I wanted to IDCLIP through them because I was tired of waiting in an empty room for more than a minute for a floor to lower so I could enter the next (sometimes empty) room.

Is there anything good about this wad? Of course; there are some good fights in a few of the maps, here and there, stuff that really wins, but nothing that brings up the rest of the wad from the rest of its damning faults.

Oya, I ran it in software (Pr+ if you must know) and it never slowed a bit.

Zeg-Vok · Post by **Zeg-Vok** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 8:09 pm

I had quite a bit of fun with the older version of the wad. Bust out some crazy weapon mods, turn on God mode and infinite ammo, and set your brain on cruise control

DoomRater · Post by **DoomRater** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:32 pm

TOTAL CARNAGE! I LOVE IT!

On the other hand, I could always play Smash TV if I wanted cruise control. Not saying that I wouldn't want something similar in Doom, but the effect is about the same as that. Only in Smash TV you can't get em to infight.