The final area of the castle dungeon dungeon level is stupidly difficult, i liked the sewer level but i could not find the 2 secrets

Nice maps and very good architecture and deign ideas, well done. Unfortunately the gameplay is quite unbalanced at certain points. Feels unnecessarily in your face when spawning monsters..

Very good, I especially liked the look and design of Otsegolation and the acid fight therein.

It's just that the difficulty is seriously increased on all skill levels, except on Easy, where it remains true to its name:

Normal = Hard;

Hard = Insane;

Nightmare = "Are You Kidding Me?".

I usually play on Hard. This time I played on Normal.

Don't be afraid of the skills thing. Normal is for everyone and Hard is fair. I didn't tried the others.

In other hand, both maps included are very cool looking with top notch design, never get bored!

New weapon system is cool if you want to change a bit your gampleay for sometime, and the maps are very good balanced for it.

Go and play it!

Well, Hard is the default skill I play.

I've played hundreds of maps, maybe thousands, and I've gotten a gauge for how hard the average Hard is, and this Hard is way above average, at least on Otsegolation. I start that beautiful level and before having dealt with the two Ogres I run out of ammo, and that's just the beginning of it, further a Shambler awaits, and in the acid, repeatedly spawning Vores... And on Nightmare, where you have 50 hp max, forget it.

I played your awesome map on Hard and didn't die once. That's an average Hard, this Hard is Insane.

You do realize the difficulties are renamed from the start map don't you? Skill 0 is normal, skill 1 is hard, skill 2 is v. hard

No, I didn't, I really didn't. Thank you for pointing it out. Now it all makes sense.

He did rename the skill levels to reflect the difficulty of the maps, and I think that was appropriate.

Skill 0 - Easy => Normal

Skill 1 - Normal => Hard

Skill 2 - Hard => Very Hard

Skill 3 - Nightmare = Nightmare

So unless you're saying skill 1 is still too hard and that he should've shifted it up yet another level, I don't see any problem. Otsegolation was much harder on skill 2 before the weapon balance changes, btw.

I should've refreshed before posting, clearly.

Anyway, this is great and I can't wait to see more.

awesome map, but kinda felt short on decorations, i'm trying to start to map for q1 or q2, but only used to the "radiants"... (Net/GtkRadiant)...

Any advice?

Pretty great so far. Love the small gameplay changes from Copper. Smacking stuff with the axe and watching the knock-back is always entertaining.

The maps are beautiful with gorgeous lighting and nice geometry. Not too much clutter.

I managed to scrape through both of these on Skill 2 eventually, with many quickloads.

Couple of criticisms:

The triple shotgun secret on Otsegolation isn't actually very useful given the scarcity of ammo. I think I only used it on the one shambler in the corridor (and even then nails are better when he's at range).

Whether or not you make it through the sewer section is partly dependent on how much health you had when you went in, and the rest is sheer luck.

The final fight in Majestic Miasma is extremely difficult on Skill 2, unless there's a quad or something I didn't find. I'm not even going to try it on Skill 3. The only way I got through it eventually was telefragging one shambler then sprinting around the outer edge a few times picking up vore balls to steer into enemies and trying to get as much in-fighting going as possible, then dropping down and chipping away at the shamblers from below. Once the shamblers are down it's not so bad as long as you keep moving, but that battle was where most of my quickloading was done. It's maybe a bit over the top.

THANKS

Very nice!

Great one. I like the new weapons and balance.

Great great design. Stupidly hard gameplay. Poor design choice.

Rule number one in Quake: it's got to be fun. I respected the heck out of the craftsmanship in this, but I got maybe a third of the way through the first map before admitting to myself that it was work instead of play. I'd already dropped back down from skill 2 to 1, and even then I was struggling for ammo. Then when I got dropped int a slime pit and required to kill a whole sequence of vores before I could progress -- as my health eroded from the slime and snipers -- I looked at my life and asked whether this is really what I wanted to be doing. Reader, it was not. I'm moving on.

Guys, please stop giving 1 star ratings to maps that aren't broken. It would be helpful if we all followed the editors' guidelines:

⭐ = broken, unplayable; ⭐⭐ = bad, but functional; ⭐⭐⭐ = average; ⭐⭐⭐⭐ = good; ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ = great.

Oh, this is not the first time someone has rated a five-star maps like this. Just look at how this rated https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/adv170final.html

It is perfectly fine to rate maps by one's own taste and feeling. That's an important feature of personal ratings.

Hey MikeTaylor, thanks for the review! If you're still finding this challenging, feel free to try a lower difficulty! :)

Also if you played the start map, you'd notice that Skill 2 is marked as Very Hard while Skill 1 is Hard. I can only do so much to warn the player that their balls are about to be crushed.

Thanks, Markie. I did play the start map, and read the text file, and I understood about the difficulty remapping. That's why I was Ok with dropping down from 2 (usually Hard) to 1 (Hard for this map). But when it was still nightmarish -- difficult in a not-fun-for-me way -- I just shrugged and passed. Let me say again how much I admire and respect the craftsmanship in this map. But when skill 1 is harder-than-nightmare, in a traps-based rather than combat-based way, I have to accept it's not for me.

Spirit, thanks for clarifying that ratings are intended to be subjective. I Like Quake's comment worried me, because it's certainly not the case that Reliquary is "broken, unplayable".

Tbh I think it's kinda disrespectful of something this well-built and set up to give it a 1 rating. That's for the worst maps of all time, things that don't run on your system, ect. No need to pull maps of this caliber down to that simply because you can't bear to play on Skill 0.

I totally get both sides but to me the individual player is the target user.

Any meaning interpreted into the aggregate ratings is a meaning that will clash with the individual meanings. Do you do rate a release that you did not enjoy one bit or not with its affect on the public aggregate vs. marking it in your own lost of ratings...

This is a super interesting discussion I think, someone wanna take it to the forums (with quotes from here to get started)? Maybe we can find ways to satisfy everyone.

It is great that we have the ability to rate releases. Reviews help to authors correct possible shortcomings and errors and avoid them in the future. We evaluate the overall impression of the game the level design and even the degree of emotion received after passing (or not) a level with just one general assessment. And in my opinion it would be correct to ask to fix a mistake or ask for advice on passing for that there is an opportunity here to comment instead of simply depriving it of the rating. Moreover, it does not affect ANYTHING. We are all here for the same reason. Peace to all!

Well I played on normal, not realising afterwards this may have ended up being skill 0, and it just felt like normal to me. So in that respect it was correct. Maybe next time don't mess with the difficulties and people will just play what they're normally accustomsed to.

Wasn't too hard on normal, only the bit in the lava was a bit challenging but not too bad, then larger level was mostly just normal I didn't have too much go wrong and there was plenty of ammo for that awesome triple shotgun. I wouldn't mind using that again. oh just the start with the axe but on the second try it was fine.

The detail is fantastic though man, I loved admiring the design that went into the levels. They're not huge but so nice to look at. I want more.

Played on skill 2.

Otsegolation (AKA toxic sludge exposure therapy): took 1 week to complete (without quicksaves).

Majestic Miasma (AKA ShamblerCon): took 1 month to complete without quicksaves.

The bigger level is quite devious, since it looks a bit easier than Otsegolation just up until the point when final confrontation begins.

Also, it is probably not possible to complete this maps on "very hard" skill level without getting any of the secrets.

Or may be it's just me with my paws instead of ordinary human hands. .

PROS: -nicely designed map -nice inclusion of the triple barreled shotgun, really nice -with the copper that it is based off the weapons feel nice

CONS: -the pistol looks like a shitty Romanian gun that is an AK derivative -too many shamblers