4shockblast | H2H-XMas Map 25 UV-Max in 1:18 @4shockblast | Uploaded December 2023 | Updated October 2024, 12 hours ago.
Map name: Santa's Shop
Map author: Eric "Cthulu" Searle
Casually, this is a cute map with a bit of fun Doomcute, mostly cool to see the snow, despite the bit of HOMs that it comes with. :^) After the snow, the rest of the map is just very short and not much else to comment on, and all and all, H2H def has better gameplay elsewhere, but it's not that bad. Not really sure why the blue armor isn't a secret, or even the soul sphere, but they are pretty essential anyway for a good chance of survival, so I pick them up. You can bump the armor, but it's a bit hard, so I didn't bother.
WRT to the demo, I'm not at all happy with this run, but after over 1K attempts, I gotta cut my losses I guess. :^) I didn't expect it to be this bad, Teedre's run is lucky, but it doesn't look particularly clean, so I figured it would be beatable, but there's just something a bit obnoxious at every step of the way. I doubt I can come up with the full 100 things here, but I will give a decent-size list breaking down every little frustrating thing here :^):
- The start movement is annoying. Not huge, but the fucking tree at the SSG blocks you on occasion and when it happens it's the worst thing ever.
- The elevator cycle is in theory easy to make, but painful because you often get blocked, and you want to go there only after the infight starts with the manc and 2 revs.
- Speaking of the infight, manc often gets distracted by a zombie and doesn't infight at all.
- 64-unit hallways.
- SSGing the 2 imps at soul sphere; usually they die, but sometimes second one survives.
- If a lost soul attacks when you enter soul sphere hallway, you need an extra shot to kill it since it will be in the hallway.
- Once you drop down, every monster is scattered. Too many SSG shots.
- Once you drop down, the infight killed the manc. Too many SSG shots.
- Once you drop down, one of the revs is stuck on the entrance door. Too many SSG shots.
- In general, monsters being stuck on that door kinda sucks. Usually it's a zombie (and the start imp stuck on the start door), so you can get them in one shot, but it's a bit annoying.
- Speaking of that imp, it's too slow to kill at the start, and too annoying later because it usually is at that door.
- The room with the chair sucks to move through. The imps in that room make it worse, and if they are not grouped up, again, extra shots.
- The RL in the next room would be useful to clear that room. But there's not enough ammo for that room and the ending. Nor is it even really worth grabbing; it's too slow. Eventually, I decided PG was the best bet there, but not enough ammo to do much, so you need to finish off with SSG. And usually, if you don't get an infight, that takes too long too. So, alongside the start infight, you basically need that one for a good time.
- Room before ending is the most annoying scattered monster room possible, and with a no cover vile fight to add to the frustration. I have a specific strategy rocketing everything there, but even then it feels like ideally, you won't be using rockets there, but there's nothing else that does the room quickly enough. If things dodge, you waste a lot of rockets and likely take damage as you approach to your own blast.
- Ending is the worst thing ever. First, the arachnotron just blocks you unless you shoot beforehand to trigger it. Then the vile destroys you. The rockets would be useful but are too slow to pick up. And ideally you use rockets, but if you start with them, it isn't very efficient, if you end on them, you it is too dangerous, and however you do it, you are likely to get a resurrect which would mess everything up anyway.
In this run, things were generally clean, but I wanted to redo it to include a diff strat for rocketing at the end, which is from the exit room. But that strat isn't that easy to perform, even though on the surface it should be faster since you have to rocket or SSG the chaingunner first, and swapping means the monsters usually get too close, so you end up dying anyway. Also it's pretty dangerous anyway, and I usually have low health by that point. I skipped the blue door line as well (normally door opens with line, if you skip, you have to use the key to open, another annoying thing), which meant slightly worse combat there, but it went ok all things considered. Although it can be at least 5-6s faster probably, I should really stop running this, lol, not that I will have any chance finishing the rest of the maps this year. :P IMO, this map would be more fun if you got just a bit more rockets in convenient spots so there was less need to rush dangerous setups with SSG.
Captured using DSDA-Doom v0.27.5
Map name: Santa's Shop
Map author: Eric "Cthulu" Searle
Casually, this is a cute map with a bit of fun Doomcute, mostly cool to see the snow, despite the bit of HOMs that it comes with. :^) After the snow, the rest of the map is just very short and not much else to comment on, and all and all, H2H def has better gameplay elsewhere, but it's not that bad. Not really sure why the blue armor isn't a secret, or even the soul sphere, but they are pretty essential anyway for a good chance of survival, so I pick them up. You can bump the armor, but it's a bit hard, so I didn't bother.
WRT to the demo, I'm not at all happy with this run, but after over 1K attempts, I gotta cut my losses I guess. :^) I didn't expect it to be this bad, Teedre's run is lucky, but it doesn't look particularly clean, so I figured it would be beatable, but there's just something a bit obnoxious at every step of the way. I doubt I can come up with the full 100 things here, but I will give a decent-size list breaking down every little frustrating thing here :^):
- The start movement is annoying. Not huge, but the fucking tree at the SSG blocks you on occasion and when it happens it's the worst thing ever.
- The elevator cycle is in theory easy to make, but painful because you often get blocked, and you want to go there only after the infight starts with the manc and 2 revs.
- Speaking of the infight, manc often gets distracted by a zombie and doesn't infight at all.
- 64-unit hallways.
- SSGing the 2 imps at soul sphere; usually they die, but sometimes second one survives.
- If a lost soul attacks when you enter soul sphere hallway, you need an extra shot to kill it since it will be in the hallway.
- Once you drop down, every monster is scattered. Too many SSG shots.
- Once you drop down, the infight killed the manc. Too many SSG shots.
- Once you drop down, one of the revs is stuck on the entrance door. Too many SSG shots.
- In general, monsters being stuck on that door kinda sucks. Usually it's a zombie (and the start imp stuck on the start door), so you can get them in one shot, but it's a bit annoying.
- Speaking of that imp, it's too slow to kill at the start, and too annoying later because it usually is at that door.
- The room with the chair sucks to move through. The imps in that room make it worse, and if they are not grouped up, again, extra shots.
- The RL in the next room would be useful to clear that room. But there's not enough ammo for that room and the ending. Nor is it even really worth grabbing; it's too slow. Eventually, I decided PG was the best bet there, but not enough ammo to do much, so you need to finish off with SSG. And usually, if you don't get an infight, that takes too long too. So, alongside the start infight, you basically need that one for a good time.
- Room before ending is the most annoying scattered monster room possible, and with a no cover vile fight to add to the frustration. I have a specific strategy rocketing everything there, but even then it feels like ideally, you won't be using rockets there, but there's nothing else that does the room quickly enough. If things dodge, you waste a lot of rockets and likely take damage as you approach to your own blast.
- Ending is the worst thing ever. First, the arachnotron just blocks you unless you shoot beforehand to trigger it. Then the vile destroys you. The rockets would be useful but are too slow to pick up. And ideally you use rockets, but if you start with them, it isn't very efficient, if you end on them, you it is too dangerous, and however you do it, you are likely to get a resurrect which would mess everything up anyway.
In this run, things were generally clean, but I wanted to redo it to include a diff strat for rocketing at the end, which is from the exit room. But that strat isn't that easy to perform, even though on the surface it should be faster since you have to rocket or SSG the chaingunner first, and swapping means the monsters usually get too close, so you end up dying anyway. Also it's pretty dangerous anyway, and I usually have low health by that point. I skipped the blue door line as well (normally door opens with line, if you skip, you have to use the key to open, another annoying thing), which meant slightly worse combat there, but it went ok all things considered. Although it can be at least 5-6s faster probably, I should really stop running this, lol, not that I will have any chance finishing the rest of the maps this year. :P IMO, this map would be more fun if you got just a bit more rockets in convenient spots so there was less need to rush dangerous setups with SSG.
Captured using DSDA-Doom v0.27.5
