Marioluigi001's Strength In Numbers Custom Maps V1H Released

[marioluigi001]

Sorry this update took so long, I've been extremely busy lately because of school.


I really like Mission Mode / Strength In Numbers ( If you don't know, it is a mod where you choose a robot master and play a stage just like the normal 2D series, but in 3D, playing as Megaman, Protoman, Roll, or Bass) So I took a shot at making my own Strength in Numbers Maps.

I'll put a link to each thing you need to play these maps.

MM8BDM-V4a

https://mega.co.nz/#!KURhwRjJ!Tc_LsjEQSAH9kIhdeEbgLBT0kb5Ckyz6oqvX_DLoaQM

Find The RM Map pack

http://www.mediafire.com/download/p37f1nof05n7ceq/Find+The+RM+Mappack.pk3

Megaman Mission Mode / Strength in Numbers

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7dre42y6qqe5fiy/MMSP-PublicDemo1d.pk3

Marioluigi001's Mission Mode Map Pack V1H

http://www.mediafire.com/download/nekxwwhh652zj72/Marioluigi001%27s+Mission+Mode+Maps+V1H.wad

This map pack includes a stage for

Giga Roll
Bomb Man
Fire Man
Hard Man

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Coming Soon...
???
 

Change Log:

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Added Buttons to Hardman's Stage. (press Use to activate.)
Added more rooms to Hardman's stage.

Special Thanks

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Linnie, for giving me advice for the stages, and telling me how to do a few things in Doom Builder.
TailsMK4, for giving me advice for the stages.

Note: For these maps to work, the "No Monsters" setting in gameplay options must be turned off.

Note #2: Boss Doors are activated by pressing the "Use" button.

Note #3: There is a weird glitch with the buttons where when you press Use it wont activate it, this is usually fixed by walking around the button while pressing Use, and eventually, it will activate. If anyone can tell me how to fix this issue, I would greatly appreciate it.


All Resources used in this map pack belong to their respective owners. I take no credit in making any of the resources used.

And if you have any suggestions for a stage you want me to make,  post, or message me. But please note I can only make stages from Megaman 1-6 and there are some bosses from those games I do not have.

Enjoy! And feel free to tell me what you think of the stages.

[Linnie]

I figured since you went to the effort to make these, I should do my best to review it. Right now I've only done Bombman, because I found quite a bit to review. I might do Gigaroll later.

Spoilering since this is pretty large and has a lot of large screenshots.

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Okay, let's look at the beginning of the level.



If you were playing in multiplayer, having such a small ladder and a small entrance to the map would likely cause some traffic. It'd probably be good to just raise up the platform, widen the hallway, and move it a bit further away from the first room with enemies.

And, then we get to the first room with enemies.



This winding path is a huge no-no. It's quite annoying to have a narrow path with pits when there really isn't any reason to have it instead of a solid platform.

There's also a large, recurring problem with your textures. I'm not really sure why it be like it is, but you have sky textures that obscure the map. You can barely see it in the above screenshot, but it's much more pronounced in the one below:



I'll get back to that later since I'm trying to review this map in order. (Also, on a smaller note, that skybox needs work, the ball statue things only appear in one corner of the skybox.)



There are also more pits than necessary there. One general thing this map needs is to have much larger spaces; try to model it after the existing MMSP maps, it occasionally feels like a Lobstacle Course maps for the first half of the map.


Enemy placement can be a bit crowded, with you needing to give the player some room to breathe without being shot down by more than ten enemies at once.

Like this specific instance of being shot by more than ten enemies at once (nine Sniper Joes and two wall sentries):




Now back to the obscuring textures. This part is probably the worst instance of obscuring the map.



It looks like the map completely cuts off. I had initially thought the map was unfinished and stopped there, until I took a leap of faith and saw:



Yeah, that's one of the bigger issues with the map, that spot where you can't see the area ahead of you until you make a leap of faith.


Now, after that, some of the glaring issues end for a while. The map does open up, and enemy placement, while it could still be improved, is less bloated.

The main problem now is that the map is a bit bland and same-looking.

A large part of it is monotexture here, and the pure black floor seems like an odd choice considering it has spikes on it.

This is likely the apex of blandness, where the room is just one wall, a floor, and a ceiling.


After that you get a really tight corridor; I didn't screen it, but like said earlier, you should open up that area so it flows better.



You get to this room right before the boss, and it has several issues with it. Firstly, there's a large quantity of enemies at the bottom, making it essentially suicide to go down there if you don't carefully snipe them individually, which is annoying for the fleas that move around constantly.

Secondly, this door is so slow it's almost comical. You can't just run past the enemies, through the door, and into the boss room.


I counted, and it takes literally five seconds for the door to reach the bottom so you can pass. And then there's another one, so it takes ten seconds overall, which is precisely why going down to the bottom is suicide. You should look at the coding Cutmanmike's MMSP maps have with the boss door and try to emulate that.


Now, as to the boss itself, it's not explicitly bad, not broken or anything, but its coding is really rudimentary. All it does is jump and shoot, then repeat. You can defeat it in a few seconds without taking a hit. I understand coding likely isn't your thing, but you should try to find someone who can code you a proper Bombman SP boss, as well as coding some original enemies for the map.

It's really nice that someone is taking initiative with making MMSP maps, but this map needs a lot of reworking to be playable. It took me about two hours longer to write this than I had planned, so I'm not going to detail Giga Roll's stage today; I might do it tomorrow when I have a day of free time. I've never made an SP map myself, so I stuck with just general mapping advice and just tackled the larger issues mostly.

[marioluigi001]

Thank You for taking the time to review my maps. I will try my best to fix at least a few of those problems that you have mentioned. But you are correct, I am actually not good at coding things at all.

[Knux]

Must be tough trying to do everything on your own, but remember to be receptive of feedback as you are being. It will help you in the long run.

EDIT: I also suggest that you look at the Coop maps and see what's good about them, then try to follow those standards. Copying at first is okay, as it will help you get a good feel about what a playable map is.

[Linnie]

Yeah, I bet if you can get the mapping aspect up to a good enough standard, you could find someone who might help code you some enemies; I know TailsMK4 is going to make Woodman's boss and enemies for the two people collaborating on Woodman SP, for example. You should work on the map aspect before asking for a vote a confidence, but it's something to think about once that's done.

[TailsMK4]

Indeed, I'm the one coding enemies, and I actually do have a Bomb Man boss, but I lack a few sprites I need to make it complete. Anyway, I guess it was because I did not have the Find the RM mappack that I never saw any enemies in these maps, but really you should have included the coding for the bosses. I wasn't even aware until I saw this thread again that the bosses actually existed. So anyway, onto the maps. Linnie covered pretty much all I wanted to say, other than that the enemy placement is sometimes kind of evil on the Bomb Man map, like the Sniper Joe Defense Team there. I also wanted to say that the Bomb Man map is way too short. You need to probably triple the length of the map for it to be a decent size. Regarding the Giga Roll map, I will say that the map design was a little bit better, but as a WIP stage Giga Roll is a decent start.

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You may want to make it a little more obvious that the hallway right after the first Sniper Joes has a part that you can fall to your death. The problem is, it does not look like a pit. Extend the outside bit of that section a little more so it doesn't look like it cuts off the next room, and place the Blader Spawners a little further away from the hallway over the previously mentioned pit. On the next room, the Cannons are positioned badly. They cannot hurt you as long as you're not in their line of fire. Their shots literally do not land on any of the platforms. The hallways in general are VERY narrow. You need to have hallways at least twice the current width, three times is preferred imo. As Linnie mentioned, model your maps after the ones that CutmanMike made, as his maps are very good quality maps. The mets in the next room literally have one chance to attack you, then they fall in the spike pit and can no longer attack you. Maybe place an obstacle there instead of enemies. The long room with the Two Crazy Razies REALLY needs monster blocks, as they can fall on the lava and no longer be a problem. That room produces a TON of hall of mirrors effect, btw. DO NOT release maps without making sure every linedef has needed textures. You're missing some in that room. Try using the Map Analysis feature in Mode menu.

The Two Hotheads in the map are placed in VERY evil spots. You will NOT survive if you didn't grab the very easy to reach E Tank in the room. Seriously, make players earn the right to get access to the E Tank. It's very easy to find and get, and place some other enemies on the top floor there instead, maybe a Sniper Joe Grenader and a couple of Beaks. What's with the Cannons in the outside area? The enemy placement here can be placed better since it's very easy to just run among the columns and never get hit. Speaking of enemy placement, the lone Escaroo is placed WAY too close to where the player enters the little area. When it does the bomb attack, the bombs explode as they start coming down, making avoiding the area-of-effect damage impossible. Consider how far the first Escaroo is placed in Toad Man's stage from the wall players jump down from. Even THAT is a little too close, but the bomb attacks are survivable. The various doors through the level, btw, are far too large. Also, you don't need to have the player press "Use" to open doors. Try studying how Gumballtoid did the doors in his hotel map. They're composed of a linedef that opens and closes a door, and said door is actually a sector that rises up and down.

One last thing, consider redoing your maps in Zdoom (Doom in UDMF format), as you will get more choices on how monsters interact with your map, and it's almost a simple copy and paste from the example map to begin mapping. All of MM8BDM's maps are being or have been switched over to UDMF if I recall correctly.

The Giga Roll map has some potential in it. If I am provided the necessary graphics needed for attacks and such, I actually can code a Giga Roll boss for you if you want. I'd really focus on increasing the quality of your maps first before you start asking for additional things. I'll let you use some of the enemies I made once I feel your maps are good enough quality that people will be interested in playing through them. I thank you for attempting to do some Coop maps, and hope you'll take our advice seriously to improve your maps. I'd really consider studying the MMSP maps, though, as people will definitely play and replay maps with quality near to that level. Good luck with your maps!

[marioluigi001]

You may want to make it a little more obvious that the hallway right after the first Sniper Joes has a part that you can fall to your death. The problem is, it does not look like a pit. Extend the outside bit of that section a little more so it doesn't look like it cuts off the next room, and place the Blader Spawners a little further away from the hallway over the previously mentioned pit. On the next room, the Cannons are positioned badly. They cannot hurt you as long as you're not in their line of fire. Their shots literally do not land on any of the platforms. The hallways in general are VERY narrow. You need to have hallways at least twice the current width, three times is preferred imo. As Linnie mentioned, model your maps after the ones that CutmanMike made, as his maps are very good quality maps. The mets in the next room literally have one chance to attack you, then they fall in the spike pit and can no longer attack you. Maybe place an obstacle there instead of enemies. The long room with the Two Crazy Razies REALLY needs monster blocks, as they can fall on the lava and no longer be a problem. That room produces a TON of hall of mirrors effect, btw. DO NOT release maps without making sure every linedef has needed textures. You're missing some in that room. Try using the Map Analysis feature in Mode menu.

The Two Hotheads in the map are placed in VERY evil spots. You will NOT survive if you didn't grab the very easy to reach E Tank in the room. Seriously, make players earn the right to get access to the E Tank. It's very easy to find and get, and place some other enemies on the top floor there instead, maybe a Sniper Joe Grenader and a couple of Beaks. What's with the Cannons in the outside area? The enemy placement here can be placed better since it's very easy to just run among the columns and never get hit. Speaking of enemy placement, the lone Escaroo is placed WAY too close to where the player enters the little area. When it does the bomb attack, the bombs explode as they start coming down, making avoiding the area-of-effect damage impossible. Consider how far the first Escaroo is placed in Toad Man's stage from the wall players jump down from. Even THAT is a little too close, but the bomb attacks are survivable. The various doors through the level, btw, are far too large. Also, you don't need to have the player press "Use" to open doors. Try studying how Gumballtoid did the doors in his hotel map. They're composed of a linedef that opens and closes a door, and said door is actually a sector that rises up and down.

One last thing, consider redoing your maps in Zdoom (Doom in UDMF format), as you will get more choices on how monsters interact with your map, and it's almost a simple copy and paste from the example map to begin mapping. All of MM8BDM's maps are being or have been switched over to UDMF if I recall correctly.




The Giga Roll map has some potential in it. If I am provided the necessary graphics needed for attacks and such, I actually can code a Giga Roll boss for you if you want. I'd really focus on increasing the quality of your maps first before you start asking for additional things. I'll let you use some of the enemies I made once I feel your maps are good enough quality that people will be interested in playing through them. I thank you for attempting to do some Coop maps, and hope you'll take our advice seriously to improve your maps. I'd really consider studying the MMSP maps, though, as people will definitely play and replay maps with quality near to that level. Good luck with your maps!

Thank you very much for telling me what I need to fix. I've actually already started fixing most of the flaws in both maps.

Edit: Fixed some of the issues in both maps.

[Linnie]

Alright, so I took a look at the new Bombman, and first thing to say: definite improvement. It's great to see someone responsive to criticism, and one can go far by learning from such.

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Now a general thing I noticed, the linedefs still seem to have issue. I checked it in Doombuilder and I found that you have a lot more linedefs and sectors than necessary. I learned the hard way when I made my first map that having too many of those will overcomplicate things. Now, the specific issue with those linedefs, unnecessary amount aside, you put "Line Horizon" on them, which is why parts of your maps are obscured by them.

Doombuilder also showed me there's an easy fix for your skybox issue. You should move your Skybox Viewpoint to the middle of the Skybox, that way you'll have the skybox on all sides.

I noticed you removed some enemies in the first half. That's good, it's less crowded now, but enemy placement feels a bit odd now. The first two Sniper Joes particularly; the first one feels like it was just loitered there and the second could likely be replaced with one sniper Joe on each side; nine is too much, but having two would be fine.

Now, one praise I should give is that I like the opening you made in this room:



It looks much more flowing than the closed off room from V1A. One thing I would recommend to make things even nicer looking would be to add the fences from Bombman's core map to the outer edge there; you're not at risk of falling or anything, it would just look good.

For the room past that area, I'd recommend adding a window or two, similar to Cutman's stage, having the bladers that spawn in the room be spawned from there.



Now, onto the new areas. I can already tell that you've improved since this new area is much better designed overall.

Little thing:



It'd be better to have these two pits line up. Some fences here might also be aesthetically pleasing.


Right now the long catwalk seems a little bland, but, I could see it working, actually. I can see it be a place for those Killer Bullets to come in and attack. So, even if it's bland for now, it looks like it'd be a good spot for that so I'd keep it in.

The hallway after that also looks good.



The new final room I actually really like.



It's a good idea; perhaps not completely thematic, but I do like it. However, I noticed the lift goes all the way up to the ceiling rather than stopping at the door; it would be a good idea to have the lift stop after a certain height. The same goes for when it goes back down; it should go back down to the initial height it was as opposed to all the way to the floor. Also, after the boss door is opened, you should have a teleporter appear so that anyone in multiplayer doesn't have to wait int he event one player gets ahead and springs the lift; being able to use the teleporter rather than having to wait for it to come back down and up again.

Again, this is definite improvement, keep up the good work, you're moving forward now.

[marioluigi001]

Thank you so much for giving me the advice for improvement. I really appreciate it.

[TailsMK4]

Without a doubt, the maps are better. Still some things remain, though...

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Bomb Man:

To me the level is still a bit too short, but you're close to what I consider an ideal length of a level. Try making maybe two more large rooms or something close to that size. I really liked the gimmick you did at the end of the stage, though the Sniper Joes didn't really do much. The area should be a little more difficult, maybe have a Big Eye for the players to fight on the platform? Other than that I mainly noticed texture errors, most notably the very room the players start in. The "shadows" of the walls don't line up where the walls meet the stairs, and where the stair sectors meet the ceiling is a different texture than the rest of the walls. Let the height of the ceiling of the stairs be the same as the rest of the room, except for the last step. Try looking at the beginning room after you climb up a little in the outside area, and you'll see where the textures on the ceiling look a bit off. The parts of the ceiling you can see should be the same texture as the walls. The other thing I will point out is that the Beaks seen in Linnie's second screenshot look like they are floating in midair. Make sure they are completely against the wall. As for the bit where in v1a I referred to the area as the Sniper Joe Defense, I'd add a couple of Shielded Sniper Joes back on the end columns so the area doesn't look quite so empty. This may even be a good area to experiment with arguments. Try setting 1 to Argument 1 for those Sniper Joes. It will make them stay still without moving around like crazy on the small platforms.

Giga Roll:

I didn't see too many changes here, though some of the problem areas I mentioned have been fixed. The area with the Crazy Razies still has the missing textures right where the ladders are. The first time you encounter the Cannons in the level still cannot hit anyone, as their shots fall to the floor instead of any of the platforms. The second set of Cannons (where the Mets used to be) is in a good spot, though. The E Tank is also a little harder to get, which is good. I would recommend maybe raising the platform where it rests just a little higher, though, as it's still fairly easy to get. I see you took my suggestion to replace the Hotheads with a couple of Beaks and a Sniper Joe Grenadier. The area is much more manageable now, though I guess maybe another Beak or two wouldn't hurt. My one big concern is actually still the Escaroo, but I noticed an even bigger problem with its current placement. You can take out the Escaroo before you even reach the ladder. You can defeat the Escaroo without any worry of being hit at all. I'd suggest making the hallway with the Escaroo a little longer and place the enemy completely indoors if you can, so it can't be sniped by players.


All right, guess I'll mention how you can set up the fences that Linnie mentioned for Bomb Man. If you're using UDMF, give the linedefs where you'll place the fences the "Jump Over" value. This makes it so you can go up against the fence and not fall off, but players jumping at the fence will. As for making the fence look right, in Visual Mode adjust the height of the texture until it reaches the ground of the ledge, then double it to get the same effect in the game. It can be tedious to do this, but adding the fences will make your level MUCH more pleasing to look at. Just do this with the outside areas, and the spike pits in the first inside area after you begin the stage.

So yeah, keep up the good work. It's tough to do maps like these with just the current resources. That'll end the day my Coop Enemy Resource Pack gets released (maybe the end of this summer, we'll see), along with some actual bosses to place in levels.

[Linnie]

I see V1C is out, let's take a look.

Bombman:

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I see you got the majority of texture flubs, though I still see some line horizon errors here and there. I recommend using the "Fly" cheat in-game to zoom around your map and see if anything is being obscured.



The fences are off; rather than being thick, they should be created the way Tails brought up.

And, actually, though I like where it's at now, when I recommended the fences I was initially thinking this part of the room:



That way you could see it from when you're leading up to it.

The new added area is nice enough, I suppose, though it isn't exceptionally grand.



The Big Eye is a nice touch in that last room. I still think you should do the thing with the elevator I previously recommended with V1B. Try looking at, I think AMP, there are maps with lifts in there.

Fireman:

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I see you made a new map. Just keep in mind, quality is prioritized to quantity, so I'd hold off on Hard until your current maps are up to snuff. Better to have 2-3 good maps than 10 lower-quality ones, right?

Now, the overall thing I see issue with in this map is that it's really, really flat. You should add some elevation differences in more parts of the map, otherwise it just feels like a hallway.

I usually do this in order from the start of the map to the finish, but, there's one issue that's so big that I need to point it out first.



No. Bad. This is very bad design.

For those reading this without having tried the map, if you take the path to the right, you get treated with unavoidable death. No warning, just a death trap. It's of utmost importance that you get rid of that death trap.


Now that that's out of the way, let's look at the rest of the map. It starts off looking good, and the first little issue I notice is these two hotheads. They're too close together and unless you take the time to snipe the first one without moving, they're annoying to fight unless you run straight past.




After that, I like the circular design of the fire shooters. One thing I should recommend is that every MMSP in the standard set has a secret or two, and I think having a short path to a hidden ETank would be a nice secret to use with that area, without having to alter any structures other than adding that small place.


Taking the non-death part of the two paths next, you come across a hothead. I'm not entirely sure if it's good or not for it to be in the position it is, so unless someone else has an opinion on it, I won't comment on it.

Now after that is the spot that made me think the hallway comment. That windy, narrow path is wayyyy too long for just a normal hallway. If you're ballsy and really want to go all out on this map, maybe you could do something like make it an open vertical area with ladders, something reminiscent of this:



Though, that would likely require a lot of use of possibly-overlapping 3D floors so as a mapping novice that might be too complicated. Still, some kind of variety is needed to make the hallway less bland.



Now, after that is this section:



There's not much here, but, I see a really easy way to spice it up: you should remove those turrets (since they can't hit you anyway) and instead have the upward fire shooters from Fireman appear every 3-4 platforms. You don't even need to wait for Tails to finish his enemy pack for that, they're in the core. Just make sure to replace the textures of the pillars you add the fire to so players can tell they'll shoot fire.

The next area is a bit harder to work out, but I think it could be done as well:



This is really a differently shaped but still mostly featureless hallway. To be honest, I could see an enemy barrage work, either with the fireballs that shoot out of the ground (you know, the ones the Hotheads shoot, but in Fireman's stage they flew out of the lava instead) or Killer Bullets. Or hell, maybe both if you keep their concentrations low enough.

I'd replace the ETank with a WTank, since it's so easy to grab.


The last thing is that it's really weird how many gates there are at the end. Feels disingenuous, when you think you're at the end and the level isn't yet over.

So, overall, Fireman in its first form is in better condition than the first forms of the other two maps, though it still needs progress.

[marioluigi001]

Thank you for telling me what I can fix in the maps. I'm actually trying to fix the issues now. But there are a few things I actually don't know how to do.

1. I tried placing fire pillars in the level, yet they don't come up to hurt you. Is there something I'm missing in making them come up?

2. I actually don't know how to make the lift stop at a certain height both going up and coming down.

If anybody knows how to make these things happen, do you think you can help me out?


Edit: I've actually tried switching the maps to Zdoom (Doom in UDMF format) and it screwed the maps up big time, to the point of being unplayable. So I don't think I'll be able to make the fences the way Tails said to. I don't know what actually caused the maps to become screwed up like this. Thankfully I had a copy of the maps so I didn't lose any progress.

[Linnie]

Alright, so I checked the Fireman issue and it's pretty simple. Even though you have the spawner there, you also need the Fireman script from the map for it to work:

Script 3 OPEN
{
Delay(35*3);
SetActorState(16,"Fire",0);
Delay(35*3);
SetActorState(17,"Fire",0);
restart;
}

After that, you just need to set your fire pillars with either the 16 or 17 tag, as shown in the code. If you set it to alternating codes, the pillars will alternate in their firing pattern due to the delay.


As to the second question, you should use action 35 (Floor Raise by 8px) instead of what you have, that way you can set the height you need, which would be 135 in this case (135*8 = 1080, the difference between the bottom of your platform and the floor of the boss door). You could do similar with action 36 for lowering the floor, though, again, I think it'd be more efficient to just have it go up once, remove the lowering code, and put a teleporter that opens when the platform gets there. Perhaps make it so when your platform starts raising a door behind you shuts so you can't just jump off and wait for the teleporter to open.

[marioluigi001]

Thank you so much for your help. I will try to fix the issues right away.

[Linnie]

I only now noticed the comment about the fences.

I checked back to V3B Bombman since it was done in Hexen, and here's how you add fences in that version:

On the linedef you want the fence, give it action 121, Line Identification. After you do that, go to "Flags" and check the box titled "3D Midtexture." Then you just add the midtextures and you have your fence.

Proof of concept:

(click to show/hide)

Now, I noticed there's one line horizon that still needs to be fixed in V1D Bombman, ironically the one that made me notice the line horizon issues in the first place. In the line of platforms leading up to the first place with fences, the next platform is still obscured. It should be immediately noticeable going through the map since it completely obscures the platform.


Fireman, is looking pretty nice. Now that the pit of inescapable death is gone, you could probably do well to widen that chute downward a bit just so it doesn't cause a stackup in multiplayer mode (most multiplayer servers will have players go through each other to avoid exploits, but it's still good to keep known issues like that taken care of just in case a host forgets to put that server variable up).

I want to ask you for the code you used to make the Killer Bullets, because I can't find it anywhere in your wad. Their coding is odd, to say the least, and I'd like to look at it.



Overall, I'm liking what I see now. You fixed the lift, have almost all the visual bugs taken out, and to be honest I think I'm running low on the advice I can give you since I'm not very knowledgeable on single player maps.