Blogs - BarefootMapMaker

Dear Dragon Sector Fans,

Sorry it has been so long since we've released an update. We know there are folks who look forward to our new releases, so they can see what shenanigans we've come up with next! But it's been a dry spell - for both you and us!

But... not so much for us. We have been working behind the scenes to get a few things working, and making some pretty major improvements - both in how our assets work, and in the maps.

In the Maps:

I've been working to improve play balance. I'd heard from more than just a few people that ammo was a bit too light after one of our recent updates. Since then, I've been playing and replaying the maps, and giving considerable thought as to what ammo I should add or increase. I've got to say, there is marked improvement now. Ammo is still a bit on the light side, especially through regular play areas, but there is more now, than there used to be. However, finding the secrets in the maps will bolster your ammo considerably. I've also added additional secrets to some of the maps, just so I could cache more ammo around for players to find. It is somewhat difficult to run out of ammo now, even if you don't find all of the secrets. If you are able to find some of them, ammo starts to cease to be as much of a problem as before.

Massive Improvement to the Magnet Pickup System:

DarynS has given that a massive overhaul. The system works a lot more intelligently now than it used to. It took over a solid month of experimenting and tweaking to get it where it is now, but we're sure that players will immediately see, and appreciate, the improvements.

Implementation of the KIA System:

InKoalaWeTrust has written a very advanced AI library to improve how NPCs work. DarynS is working to get it integrated into Dragon Sector. Right now, the system is in place. Now we're working to get it integrated with the Security Bot. It is proving to be a slow and drawn-out process to get it working correctly, which is the main reason we haven't released an update in a while. We want it working right, before we give it over to our fans to play. Few things can be more frustrating than needing to rely upon an asset, only to have that asset fail you in the middle of a hard fight. (I'm looking at you, WoW!) So we're doing our best to get it working properly.

So, that's pretty much our update for now. We are hopeful of having something to upload by at least the end of the month.

Thanks for being fans of Dragon Sector!

Oh man.

While I don't want to say that Dragon Sector is becoming a lot like Doom 2016, because I adore Doom 2016, but it... is!

Here over the last week or so, DarynS and I have been working on all new powerups. They're like the ones in Doom 2016, in that they give the player special abilities and help them get through encounters with much greater ease.

In example, we've added a Magnet powerup, which "sucks" objects towards the player from a distance. Then there is a second one that doubles its range.

We also have things like a damage shield and a damage multiplier. And yet another which doubles the duration of Doom's other powerups.

We're kind of debating right now, whether we want to do "Rune Challenges" like they did in Doom 2016. I am not so sure I want to, but... I may open a poll on it, to see what you guys think about it. If we get enough votes for it, then that is something we may very well look at doing.

For now, I just tested the whole new suite of powerups we've added so far, and while they need a bit of tweaking, man, they add a whole new dimension to playing Dragon Sector! They're going to be something to look forward to in our next update, for sure!

So, we're satisfied with what we have so far, and intend to go forward with our update this evening, as planned. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, there is a ton of cool new stuff to look forward to in this update.

A number of things we paid particular attention to:

• Boss in Map 6
  • We have him fixed up pretty well. He is very murderous and wants very much to see you as a splatter across the floor of his domain. And he'll do it, too, and hardcore. But! There are a couple of strategies implemented that will make him almost easy to defeat. Well, almost! But for certain sure, we have him fixed from what he was in our last release. You'll see when you play it. It makes a lot more sense now, and hoooo boy, is he a serious challenge.
• We changed out the turret model. We think you are really going to like how it looks now. It actually looks like a turret now!
• Gave all of the maps a bit of a facelift across the board. Nothing too significant, but as we learn, we add. We think you're going to like the improvements.
• We went back to a lot of code in our monsters, improving them, too. Some of them are more aggressive than before, and others do things specific to what skill level you're playing at. You'll catch on to the changes pretty quick, as you play the maps. But all of them are well thought out and make sense to the specific monsters.
  • For instance, as one example, the Zombie Fodder now drop health and armor bonuses based upon skill level. The harder skill you've chosen to play, the less they drop.
• Ammo pickups and monsters-placement strategies are a lot more intelligently placed now. It will now be very hard to get a full inventory of ammo as you play - and the more powerful the weapon, the more scarce the ammo is for it. Our maps now play as more of a traditional Doom challenge, than they did before.
  • Note for you guys who like to play on Brutal and above? Yeah, you better wear your big boy pants when you do. Ammo and monsters placements now make these higher skill levels very challenging. But a challenge is what you like, when you're playing on the higher skill levels, right? ;)
• Cooperative Play is now supported.
  • But... not so much with Project Brutality. We learned that there is a pretty serious syncing problem when using it. So you'll need to either play in vanilla or use a different mod. We're hopeful the awesome guys developing Project Brutality has plans to address this problem. But, they're working pretty hard over there, so we're left with little doubt they will.
  • The maps support up to five players.
• So that's all for now. DarynS and me are working to get the update ready now.

Alright! We're looking at posting another update this upcoming Saturday night. And Doomers? What an update it is going to be!

First of all, we've been doing a lot more balance work. I, myself, in particular, have been going over ammo and weapon-placement strategies with a very careful eye toward play balance and challenge. I have also carefully reconsidered monster placements, to better manage what kinds of ammo are dropped and how much. In several cases, it has completely changed the challenge level of some encounter groups as well. In one example, in Map 4, the Fuel Refinery, I changed out many of the Former Sergeants and Chaingunners for Imps and Former Humans. This combination completely changes the dynamic of the encounters and it - just as importantly - doesn't drop just a glut of shotguns and bullet ammo for the player to pickup.

In all, ammo is significantly more scarce than it used to be, across all of the maps; which simultaneously encourages more careful exploration, better planning for encounters and more focus on seeking out and using asset resources, such as turrets, bots and drones. It makes for a better overall dynamic, more challenging play, and hopefully, a more enjoyable experience.

Secondly, and very possibly just as importantly, DarynS and I have been working on changing out the Voodoo-Doll-Implementation mechanic. Which will have a two-fold benefit. First, will be our ability to make Cooperative play available in the maps. Secondly, it will permit the use of a greater range of Mods. Since there will not be Player-One starts to be accidentally killed by powerful weapon usage, it will enable players to use mods which feature them, without that worry. Yep, I'm looking at you, you Russian Overtkill fans. ;)

We've also been focusing a lot of energy and thought on making the maps themselves better. For one, we have replaced the Plasma Turret model with a whole new model. It now looks like a turret, and a very agreeably sci-fi-themed one. We've also inserted a few new decoration sprites. When you play through Map 5, in particular, you will notice some of these right away. In short, prepare to have your mind pleasantly blown when you see them. ;)

All of that said, there's a lot more to look forward to in this update, too. When we do our upload, we will be updating our changelog as well, so be sure to give that look, when you snag the update for yourself.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for being fans of Dragon Sector!

Well, maybe not so big, but certainly a little back-setting!

At the end of map06, we gave players the option to deploy a small fleet of drones and a couple of bots, to help defeat the final boss and its minions. However, they made the encounter far too easy, especially the bots. Just sit back and watch the fireworks. Yeah, not a great challenge. It might be fun to watch, once, but... yeah.

So we have been trying to figure out a way to get the bots to ignore the boss. DarynS, our code guru, has been running into hurdles in that regard, though. When we released the map, we just made the boss immune to the bots' and drones' attacks, but all that did was make a mess of plasma players had to fight through. So we've been trying to work out a solution where the bots and drones will simply ignore the boss and only go after his minions.

It's been a case of butting heads against walls in that regard, though. Meaning, no dice. No prizes for us. Or, regrettably, for you.

That means, yeah, we are pushing our update back a few weeks, maybe even a month or more. It's a pain, we know, especially for those of you who are eager for our releases, but we just don't want to dump the same old thing in everybody's lap. We want it right.

On a brighter note, while DarynS has been working to solve that problem, I've been steadily beavering away on the maps. Going through them with a fine toothed comb, I've been considering ammo placement and drops from monsters, in respects to ammo, too. Ammo is becoming a lot more balanced, no longer loading players up with excesses of it, which will hopefully make the game more of an enjoyable challenge for those of you hardcore Doomers who are a fan of our maps. We've even made a new pickup which grants 50 health with no ceiling. Yep, if you have 200 already, this dude will grant you 250. They're going to be rare, though, so you'll need to keep a sharp eye out!

That's all for now. We'll keep you apprised of our progress, and will definitely announce when an update is coming up!

Happy Dooming!

Alright, since I got map 6 complete, I've been devoting some time to going back over the previous maps.

Balance work, oh my!

I've been very carefully scrutinizing ammo and health pickups, very aware that the maps tend to really load you up on ammo, especially when you find the secrets. That kind of skews the challenge, making the maps a bit too easy. So I've been going through, playtesting, and determining where lesser ammo pickups would be more conducive to a challenge.

Not with a mind to make the maps an absurd challenge, but decidedly a challenge, nonetheless. Think Knee Deep in the Dead with a bit of extra backside kicking thrown in, and you'll pretty much have what I'm going for. I want the maps to be a challenge, but an enjoyable challenge, very much indeed, yes.

I've also been aware where some areas put a real taxing on CPU usage. I've been giving that a good looking over, too.

For instance, just today, I completely reworked the lighting in the final water area in map02. The setup now uses half the dynamic lights it used to, which lets you have a look out there without your game turning into a momentary slideshow.

I plan to do the same with map04 next, hoping to achieve the same results. I am also going to be working to do way with all those techno lamp sprites that Doom2 used. It is going to be a process, as there are a lot of those in use across the maps right now, but I intend to slowly replace all of them with 3D lighting structures and dynamic lights. It will look a lot better, doing away with those dated sprites, and it will help the maps stay better in theme across all the maps.

We're hoping to have another update for you guys, within the next couple of weekends.

We've been doing a lot of other work, too. DarynS has been revisiting his codework, improving a lot of things and making sure everything works with as little CPU impact as can be achieved. All in all, it's going to be a nice update package. Something to look forward to, definitely.

It's kind of hard to see in any detail, thanks to its size, but I overlaid an Ultimate Doom Builder screen on it, and I saved a bigger version of it!

I've always liked the image of "Barefoot".

I'm a trucker in real life, and the phrase "barefoot" has a fairly significant meaning for a lot of things truckers do, and how they do them.

If you're running a CB with no extra power, you're running it "Barefoot"! If you go over a mountain with icy roads without chains, you're doing it... you guessed it!

"Barefoot"!

What it means is, you're doing it simply and straightforward. Which is, I guess, how I like to think I approach making my maps. I just do them, learn as I go along, and just plain and simply, get making them done.

There may not be a lot of correlation between driving a truck and making maps for Doom, but eh, I like it. It just kind of fits my attitude towards it and how I approach it. Just me, my brain and my two hands - doing it, yep!

Barefoot!

Haha! Thanks for reading!

Oif!

We have a boss encounter at the end of Map 6 that will blow you away.

In more ways than one!

To start, we snagged the CyberMastermind from Realm667 and DarynS worked his magic on him. He fires two railgun shots and has a chaingun as an alternate. He is, to put it simply, deadly! He is one hard and rigorous fight, quite an amazing challenge!

On top of that, he summons in Needler Aracnotrons and Railgun Aracnatrons! You're going to need to be on your toes, to beat this baddy!

What's even more, is he is immune to electric-based attacks (which means your plasma guns or the bots or drones won't harm him)! You're going to need to battle him with your shotguns, your rifles and machine guns, rockets or your BFG! A combination of those would probably be best, all considering!

But apart from all of that, Map 6, Facilities Support, is just a dungeon crawl of decidedly epic scope. As I said in one of my earlier blogs, it is based upon Command Control from the Knee Deep in the Dead mapset. But there is where any similarities cease to register in any way that matters! It's based on that map, flows like that map, but holy map, Batman, is so, so different!

If all goes well, we're planning to release it tomorrow. Right now, DarynS and me are finishing up on polish work and making sure everything works as it should. So far, we're pretty much green across the board. We're double checking, though, to make sure there isn't any snags that can trip up a serious Doomer while they're going through it.

But all of that said, when you do your download, take a moment to check out the rogue sheet and play notes. There's a lot of information in them folks are likely to find very helpful, and hopefully pretty interesting, too. So check'em out. When it comes to playing this set, you might be glad you did!

Get ready! It's coming! Keep your eyes on ModDB tomorrow! Map 6 is on its way!

Hi, Doomers!

Map 6, Facility Support, is well on its way!

We are planning to have a big release this weekend. There's a chock-ton of new stuff we're going to have with this upload, besides just an all new, all awesomely cool as all heck map, too!

We've improved how the bots and the drones work! We've added some really cool and insane dodging ability to a couple of our custom cacos! Special effects galore! It's all coming!

But on that note, I'd like to take a moment to make a special shout out to a couple of people. Not least of these, is DarynS. I tell him I want a monster to do a certain thing, he does it. I ask for special doors to be set up, special lifts, whatever - he does it! I've never encountered anyone who can take a problem and work through it like he does. And as quick as he does, too. I've got an amazing friend in DarynS and am so very glad to have him.

Everyone who loves our maps, has reasons to love him, too. A lot of the really cool special effects we have, are all thanks to him and his ability to just... make things happen! So let's take a moment to take a bow to DarynS and tip our hats to him!

I'd also like to thank Inkoalawetrust. He has been helping us a lot. He's helped DarynS a lot, especially. Koala (as we affectionately know him), has been there every time, to help DarynS figure out some bit of code here or there, and is always happy to help when DarynS asks him; he's a true ZScript code mensch, and truly an all-around awesome person, too. Mine and DarynS' hats are both off to you, Koala. You rock, man, plain and simple.

Now! Be looking forward to map 6! It's coming! It's going to be glorious! It's going to rule! It's going to be Dragon Sector!

Oh my, indeed.

When I started on this map, I thought at first that I wanted to do a nod to "Dead Simple" from Doom2. Big, double-parted arena where it's fight or die, and if you die, you die hard. But...

We ran into a limitation with the GZDoom engine wherein 3D floors made into lifts, can't be made to crush. If something gets stuck underneath them, it just causes the 3D floor to stop at the height of whatever got beneath it. Which is also why I have damage-dealing floors underneath the lifts in map05. If a player remains beneath a lift while its coming down, it will just stop at the player's height - which will in turn, force the player to need to "noclip" out from underneath it. A immersion-breaking experience, if ever there was one.

All of that said, map06 was going to be this big indoor hangar, with a huge landing pad that came down, revealing more monsters, as the monsters were all taken out underneath it. But due to the lack of 3D-floor crushability, that idea had to be nixed.

So then, I did some thinking, and also went back and played some more classic Doom maps.

I always loved Knee Deep in the Dead, it remaining my favorite mapset from all of the classic sets done by the id guys back then.

I decided I was going to take inspiration from Command Control, from that original set. It was always one of my favorite maps from that set, so, I thought, "Why not? Yeah, I think I'll do this map, yep."

There's another reason for this. As I said in my previous blog, all of my maps either take inspiration from or give nods to maps from the original games. This is because my thinking is, "The UAC is the UAC. Why would they change the formula for their architecture? Tried and true works, right? So we go with the same basic layouts and same functionality."

It seemed reasonable to me, anyway! Also, it gives us old school Doom nerds a bit of a nostalgia trip, retracing old ground with things that feel so familiar! Also, it's fun having some idea of what you're doing, when you enter these maps - the ones from Dragon Sector, I mean. You get that feeling of, "I've been here! I know how this works! So yeah, let's go slay some demons!" In fact, often to the contrary, often frustratingly so, most player-made Doom maps are just these super complex puzzles. Sure, part of Doom is about puzzle-solving - it's fun! But for me, the bigger draw of Doom, is just the down-in-the-blood-and-guts, nitty gritty and often over-the-top demon massacring! There's an audience for puzzle-solving, absolutely, and I only hope you guys who love it, find Doom maps that give you the level of challenge you enjoy. But my maps?

They are about atmospheric immersion, and just plain having fun!

So. Map06.

So yeah. "Atmospheric Immersion", my fellow Doomers, just kind of says it for this one. Oh yes. This map will bring back those feelings of funhouse carnival rides. Of exploring haunted houses on Halloween. Of going to a great slasher or horror flick and sitting and quaking and biting your nails in your seat! This map, if you love those things, is going to take you by the scruff of your neck and whisper all nastily with dark amusement in your ear, "Oh, so you think you know what horror is, eh? Think you know what being scared is, do you? Well, if you dare, step into my domain and find out what horror really is."

Hah!

Simply said, this map is scary! You just get this feeling of apprehension. You won't want to play it in the dark. Your shoulders will hunch, getting these feelings that something is looming up behind you.

That's Doom!

Doom is fun! Doom scares you! It excites you! It gives you escape, catharsis and just plain getting to have fun! That is what Doom always was, and was always supposed to be!

The phrase has been coined, "Lightning in a bottle". Am I tooting my own horn a bit? Eh, maybe. But once you see map06, and play it, maybe you won't be so sure I am.

Look forward to it. Once you play it, you be the judge.

Oh, and vote, Doomers! We've been nominated for best mapset of 2023. So go to where you can download our stuff and put a vote there!

Yeah?

We'd appreciate it!

Doomers forever! Now go blast some demons!