DescentBB

Hey dudes,

I've finally gotten D2 working on my computer and I'm playing through the Vertigo missions for the first time in a decade or so.

I recall a lot of great D2 campaigns from back in the day. It's been at least ten years (probably more) since I've really played any add-on levels, but some of my favorites were:

Project Mandrill
Encounter At Farpoint 2
Entropy Experiment 2
Obsidian

...to name a few I can recall.

I'm sure a lot of great levels have been made since way back then (Descent Vignettes seems to get a lot of love), but I don't have much familiarity with them. What are some of your favorites?

I've played several if not most of the big community projects, but still I've gotta say that my favorite missions are First Strike and Vertigo.

Of the user-made ones, Vignettes rule though.

Well, if you are going to try some new levelsets for D2, you have to start with The Enemy Within but be prepared to sink some time into it. It's loooong and the difficulty gets outright ridiculous towards the end.

I second The Enemy Within. Difficulty does go to extremes, but even the most frustrating parts (read: Level 22 and 25) are still a fun challenge. I've beaten it once on Ace (although I had to seriously abuse save states for the Level 25 boss), and it never feels like a chore to play through unlike Counterstrike. Plus, out of all the Descent 2 single-player missions out there, it's the one that to me feels the most like a completely brand-new experience.

Chasm and Strikers

TEW does tend to feel like the culmination of 15 years of D2 level design -- in all ways, ssssometimesssss good and ssometimessssss bad. It definitely gives you that feeling of playing ssssomething new though -- new enemies to hate, new bosssses to alsso hate, new levels to hate as well... . But ssseriously, that's what makes it sso fun. The ogg sssoundtrack I made for it got faaaaar more recognition than it dessserved.

I enjoyed Chasm although Ssssolrazor's other work was a lot better looking. Chasm already had that "fun factor" which a lot of sssingleplayer missions (:cough: Lost Levels :cough:) end up misssing when they try to go for the highesst difficulty imaginable, but which Sssolrazor managed to keep through all of his misssssions. Not to mention Chasm had unusual and great midi music. Pity it didn't play correctly, you have to exssstract it from the hog to hear how great it really is. (And of course, with any great midi music from a Descent mission, I have a pathological need to make some sort of tribute to it . On Maniacal Valleys EP and Track 1 on Full Moon).

That reminds me, I still need to play TEW with your soundtrack enabled, so where is that again? And how do I get it to work?

Ahm...
Let me dredge up the info. I'll have it for you by the end of today.
I don't even like that soundtrack anymore XD. I've done so much better work since then and I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'm starting to sound like you!

EDIT: Or I could have the info right now. It's all in this post: http://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17717.
Only thing is if you're using Rebirth (because of your D2X-XL sound issues) you have to load the soundtrack in the Jukebox, and make sure it's still loaded every time you play (say, if you switched jukebox folders for a multiplayer game). Zico and I were talking a while ago about creating a version of TEW where the soundtrack would just work with Rebirth, but nothing came of it, and honestly I have no idea of any site we'd have been able to use to host a file that big.
On that note, be sure to download both soundtrack files, or you'll only get the music up to map 15. Apparently there were some people who only downloaded part 1 of the soundtrack.

Well, TEW of course, it's a very rewarding and complete experience in its own right. I also love how it's story-driven. Several levels are among the best designs so far, however others were unremarkable to downright ugly. Well, guess that's how things go with community projects... it's still amazing as it is. But I like Vignettes more, simply because every level there looks amazing.

There were ugly levels?!

DarkFlameWolf wrote:There were ugly levels?!

Well maybe not objectively ugly, but I'm not overly fond of the levels that are too full of red textures. Don't worry DFW, you aren't the one that made the levels I have in mind

I can sort of understand that, seeing as how Level 11 and 13 get pretty retina-burning with all the lava. I like Descent 2's red textures and all, but those can also be a bit too bright and FIRE.PIG levels can be rough on my eyes after a while. But at least they come in at the point in the game where playing only one or two levels at a time becomes the norm.

The level designs in that mission were amazing, though. If I had to pick a top 5:

- Level 9, for its overall theme of "surreal but beautiful."
- Secret Level 1, for the unique idea of juxtaposing clashing texture schemes in a single compact map.
- Level 23 for not just taking Descent 2 back to the logic puzzle styles of First Strike, but going above and beyond it, as well as really mastering the cave-like look and feel.
- Level 16 for a fun challenge with a very sweet blending of ice, water and facility elements (made all the better with Pumo's infectiously awesome music for the level!).
- And of course, Level 26. Not only does its design speak for itself, but it's an interesting spin on the usual final level and is very re-energizing considering the level right before it.


Another good one I'd recommend for Descent 1 is Sapphire Wolf's Nefarious Assault . Apparently it's still in a beta phase, but with 19 great-looking and challenging levels and both bosses, I honestly felt it was as good as done. Level 6, Level 8 and Secret Level 3 were my favorite maps for both the design and the challenge. Just be prepared for the difficulty to spike up fairly early, and a tricky final boss fight if you don't ration off the right powerups!

Through Broken Skies was a fantastic design. I loved the realism.

It was also pretty cool how that level motif with the cracks in the ceiling showed up in a couple areas of Level 23. One other thing I liked about it was the custom texturing, which in all honesty tends to be pretty iffy in most levels. A lot of times, custom-made textures don't look faded or "dingy" enough to fit in with the standard D1 and D2 textures, and it usually seems to come down to the gradients and the tones of the colors. But to me, the ruins areas really look and feel like actual Descent 2 textures.

Yeah, well if I can think of one thing that could have been improved, it would be to make the "sky" texture moving instead of static. Or is that a Vertigo-only feature?

Sliding textures weren't used until Vertigo by Parallax, at least as far as I remember, but they should have been possible earlier since all the prerequisites were there. If you're talking about levels 4 and 23, I'd imagine Darkhorse steered clear of doing that for sky textures because they always move unrealistically fast when you do that.

Of course, there's only so much realism you can pull off in D2, especially vanilla D2.

Flowing textures are definitely possible in standard D2, as with flickering lights, and I do remember both showing up in other levels of The Enemy Within. I can definitely see where you're coming from with the moving speed, though, since I assume there's no way to change that (unlike door animations, which I have seen seriously sped up somehow).

The same goes for the translucent, window-like wall function I've been toying around with. Can't come up with a close simulation of D3's outdoor environments on the engine and I could really use some pointers on the best way to mimic that.

On moving textures: The speed it scrolls at depends on the base texture. There were several textures that did it, but it wasn't possible to tweak it outside of picking a different texture; and all of them were fairly fast (I'd guess they were designed to be noticeable, and cloud movement only barely is). I'm not sure where these parameters were controlled but I suspect it might have been a setting in descent2.ham. If you modify that you might be able to slow the scrolling down some, or create new scrolling textures - but you'd also break vanilla D2 compatibility because it doesn't read modified descent2.ham files out of a mission .hog. HXMs didn't allow you to replace texture parameters (neither do POGs, if descent2.pig is actually what controls it).

Window-like walls: there are a few ways to do these.
1) Cloaked walls, which is probably what you're playing with. Resembles glass, with a pre-set transparency. You can't texture these - well, you can apply textures to them but the game ignores them when rendering - it just darkens everything behind them by a set amount. Cloaked walls also block weapons fire.
2) A closed wall with the texture "empty - light". This will stop you flying through it but won't block weapon fire, which makes it useful for blocking areas out of player access, or mimicking D3's outdoor "ceiling". Obviously you can't see it, though.
3) Glass-like partially transparent textures, i.e. with some streaking or something on them to indicate that there's something there. Not particularly satisfying since you're still dealing with all-or-nothing transparency, meaning you won't be able to see behind the areas with a visible effect on them. You'd also want to combine them with cloaked walls (in front or behind) to avoid shots hitting the glass streaks but inexplicably nothing else.
4) In D2X-XL - textures with alpha transparency. This can fully reproduce D3 glass effects. Doesn't do partial reflections but that would just be greedy.

The engine isn't really designed for D3-style outdoor environments, but with enough work you can kind of fake them. Most authors (see Pumo Mines for some good examples) will just build cubes around the shape of a fairly outdoors-like area, but if you want to go warts-and-all you can make a 2D grid of cubes and just deform the bottom points to simulate a heightmap... but of course this blows through cubes like nothing else and also doesn't make it look better. Whichever approach you take you then have to deal with the skybox - D2X-XL makes this pretty easy but assuming you're not using it you'll kind of have to fake it again. You can still make a "skybox" out of cubes that are connected to the rest of the structure (probably with empty - light walls), it's just more work. Ideally you'll want to make this as large as possible so you get a reasonable parallax effect which should make it less obvious that the box actually has a limited size. Can't off-hand think of any good references for how to do this though - almost all levels I've seen with sky did it with D2X-XL because it was a lot easier to pull it off without winding up with something that looked awful. I think there were a few levels that did stars convincingly though, just can't quite recall which they were...

I have to add a honorable mention about The Bahagad Outbreak. Just played through it and many if not most level designs are Vertigo-quality or even higher. The texture work is very tasteful as well, probably even more so than Vertigo's.

I'll now take a crack at The Lost Levels (never actually completed it from start to finish) and The Apocalyptic Factor.

I'm playing The Apocalyptic Factor now and wow... wow is the least I can say. This mission rules! It's amazing, it's probably the best Descent mission I've ever played and I'm only at the end of level 5!

Each level so far is memorable in design and looks great. The texturing style is very much like Vertigo but even better, with the dominance of "inhospitable" and "realistic" textures, while others are used to complement them. Robot placement is top notch. Superb. Not only because D1 and D2 robots are given equal rights, but because the actual difficulty of this mission is amazing. It's insanely difficult, yet not frustratingly so (I'm playing it at Hotshot, yet have had more difficulties than with any of the official D2 missions on Ace). It has what D1 had and D2 (even Vertigo) lacked - it makes me afraid, it keeps me on my toes. It's a workout and it sharpens your skills. Hordes of very dangerous robots used en masse, spewing forth even more robots, using dangerous setups... a lot like D1, but even more extreme. This is the kind of difficulty a Descent mission should pose. Descent is a fight for survival, not a sightseeing tour of the mines! Well, The Apocalyptic Factor has so far handed the punishment out in spades. Each level is an adventure worth remembering, a nightmarish pleasurefest.

Level 2 boss room was fantastic, with all those platformers, cloaked drillers and medium hulks. It has taught me the merits of the Vulcan Cannon. The entire level 3 was amazingly designed.. that long, winding tunnel and the entire level practically REEK of D1. And level 5... goddammit. Level 5 is the best level of Descent I've seen so far. Incredibly memorable, gorgeously textured, hellishly difficult. This is at least as memorable as D1 lvl 26. This is hell. While I do recognize several ideas from Vertigo levels (or even a single level, that being 4), they're incorporated seamlessly, and the level is by no means a carbon copy. As for texturing, it's downright masterful. I'm not sure if it was Darkhorse or Wolf who made this level, but they hit the freakin' jackpot. The only thing I'm not quite fond of is using different textures above and below each other with no border texture to separate them. While it doesn't look horrible in these particular cases, it's rather bad compared to the gorgeousness of the rest of the level.

Right now I'm stuck at the boss. And what a boss fight this is! I'll make a little throwback to level 3 - that huge maze as boss arena was an amazing idea. It was scary as hell - flying through dark, blue tunnels trying to find the boss before he finds you (or actually 3 of them?). Well the fight from level 5 is no exception - the arena room is huge enough that you need to actually chase the boss around. And there's only 1 invulnerability as far as powerups go, while the boss itself is instantly lethal. Literally instantly. Damn, it's the first time I'm stuck on a boss since D1 level 7 all those years ago. I never thought I'd experience that again, and as a Descent player I feel the most alive in years.

And the briefings are a cherry on top of the cake. Long, immersive and very well-written. I can't actually wait and read how the story will progress next.

Thank you designers, for The Apocalyptic Factor. Not even through with level 5 and it's already my favorite Descent mission. Goddammit.

Yeah I was intending to add levels to the set and was actually the original motivator to do a co-op set with Darkhorse and Sirius. But due to real life obligations at the time, I had to bow out. But Sirius and Darkhorse picked up the slack and built all 15 levels without me. It truly is an amazing set. I later DID come back and do a co-op set with them, that turned out to be Enemy Within. So I finally kept my promise to work together with them on a Descent mission!

Yeah, and you did a great job!

BTW, what mission predates The Bahagad Outbreak? I got the impression from some briefings that there's a prequel. I know that The Lost Levels postdate TBO, but there also seems to be something before it.

Deep Kragg Gorge. That was a one-off mission with a simple story that was to lead into my first, primary mission pack: Bahagad Outbreak. You're not missing much, actually. Especially considering it was my first 'officially released' SP level.

And Genova Caverns introduces some element that's behind the main character's PTMC-hating in Lost Levels, right?

Thanks for the compliments (level 5 was a Darkhorse level FYI), and I apologize in advance for level 12. Use save/reload on that one, it should make it less annoying.

Sirius wrote:Thanks for the compliments (level 5 was a Darkhorse level FYI), and I apologize in advance for level 12. Use save/reload on that one, it should make it less annoying.

I have already abused it to death and I'm only in lvl 9

A bad habit, I know. Even if I tell myself "saving only at the start of the level", I tend to forget it and saveload the hell out of my game anyway. If I hadn't done it, I'd have died like 15 times on that boss at least. I'm a pretty timid player and have yet to develop a bold, dogfight-oriented style. This mission is helping me progress a great deal, though.

And yeah, as for level 5 I thought it was Darkhorse's. Dude has amazing style. Great geometry, texturing, robot placement, feel, looks nice on automap and is a blast to play.

Xfing wrote:...I'm a pretty timid player and have yet to develop a bold, dogfight-oriented style. This mission is helping me progress a great deal, though.

Multiplayer helps. Multiplayer is probably I progressed so quickly in the singleplayer game from Trainee to Hotshot -- in literally two months. And getting bolder was definitely a big part of that.

I volunteer to dogfight you.

I still haven't finished AF, I'm deliberately leaving it unknown so I can have some fun with Xaihyv when we finally get around to doing co-op. It's not really so fun if one of us (me, likely ) knows the mission and the other doesn't. We've reached the start of level 5 but we did do 5 and 6 previously and they're both definitely among my favourites. And in the soundtrack we used the level 6 song became... infamous. Because it had a horrible loop.
And that's why "Gravity Hurts" will be forever associated with Alarof Kiln...

I'm definitely down to have a duel sometime. But I'm a keyboard player so I die instantly to all those mouse gaussers. One of my USB sockets got screwed too, and I need to get me an active hub before I can have both a modem and a mouse plugged into my laptop.

You know it's funny, but I can't remember ever playing a custom SP campaign for D1 or D2, outside of whatever was in the Levels of the World in D1. By the time we got Internet access at home, I was pretty much only playing D3.

You're missing out Top Gun. There are dozens of great SP missions for both D1 and D2.

I'm on level 11 now. Once again I have to stress the aesthetic genius of most of these levels. Lakshmi Outpost was almost exclusively Solar System themed. with complementary D2 textures that fit the taste perfectly. I'd call that theme "Neo Sol". And I'm increasingly convinced to consider that aesthetic for D1,5's Solar System instead of just D1-exclusives. The end result is more important than an absolutist rule such as "only D1 textures for the Sol levels". Several D2 textures go with the D1 ones perfectly.

The level pack so far (up to level 11) has succeeded in making levels memorable not because of the theme, but because of the geometry and non-theme-reliant textures. It's even more free for all than Vertigo in that regard. There are several exceptions, like the clearly Baloris Prime level 10, but the levels overall lack that forced thematic distinction that Counterstrike had. Good on you, designers!

And you were right about that level 12 boss... the worst thing about him is that I still can't figure out what kinds of damage he takes. It seems to me like he takes kinetic weapons anywhere, while energy weapons only work on his back O_o

EDIT

Ok, got him. Turns out he only took stuff in his behind. Haha. You perverts.

And the lvl 5 boss was still worse, the arena for this one had room to dodge, hide and predict. Guided missiles are viable too, I finished him with one.

I love guided missiles for bosses...

Alter-Fox wrote:I love guided missiles for bosses...

Haha yeah, they kinda give you that feeling of impunity, now don't they

Ok, I'm in level 13. Yet another amazing "Neo-Sol" level, showing how D2 graphical content should have been used to make D1 better. Beautiful stuff. I'd kill to have some Darkhorse's levels for Sol and Beta Ceti...

Level 14 was a particularly brutal level. The downtime of level 15 is sort of anti-climatic, sadly. The end boss makes up for it though! And level 15 will go by INSANELY fast unless you TRULY take the time to explore all the level's secrets, where I swear to gawd that 80% of level 15 IS A SECRET. So yeah...don't search and you'll find level 15 ending in minutes.

Admittedly I kind of spoiled myself to things in DLE before going into the coop on that one with Ryusei. It definitely took me by surprise when it turned out we didn't need any keys to get to the final boss, but I couldn't begin to figure out how to get into the rest of the level.

In coop, a lot of the levels are obviously going to be a lot easier, though, but I remember Level 11 and 12's bosses being pretty damn hard regardless. 14 wasn't too bad except for when we had to find the exit... some of those are pretty tricky, especially since most levels still had the typical countdown time!

Well, many of the secrets are counter-intuitive and overall too hard. Guess that's one of the co-op gimmicks.

EDIT:

Ok, completed The Apocalyptic Factor. Damn, I loved every bit of it. Every single bit. Except for all those overly had secrets, that it, haha. Even the story was a nice change, compared to all those where the PTMC screws the player over. Amazing mission by all means! As for the difficulty, I'd compare it to Doom's "Thy Flesh Consumed". It starts off insane right off the bat, but one can get used to it, and levels 11-15 are actually comparatively no big deal. On Hotshot.

The level design pushed the Descent engine to its limits, the creativity was stunning. Much of the same level of goodness was later found in The Enemy Within, but guess one could expect that from the designers.

Now I'll do The Lost Levels. Luckily the latest download has all the stuff like the modified weapons and ship models, so it'll be lots of fun.

Xaihyv will be done his exams today and hopefully I can convince him to do more AF.
I think I've figured out a way to make a less annoying soundtrack for it, after playing Seaside Hill in Sonic Generations...

Hey, if the mission doesn't have its own soundtrack it's fair game for me to invent one!

Yeah... yeah it is...

Anyway, I recently replayed level 15 (in co-op) and even having some vague memory of how it worked it still turned out to be pretty tricky. The kicker was that "find the panel! Which is conveniently hidden behind an unmarked secret door SOMEWHERE in here, which just so happens to be out of direct line of fire!" at the end. So we started duplicating guided missiles, set up a guided missile firing line behind the grate, and just peppered everything in sight. Eventually worked.

The rest I just took my time and avoided shooting stuff until I had a good idea of what it'd probably do.

Xfing wrote:As for the difficulty, I'd compare it to Doom's "Thy Flesh Consumed". It starts off insane right off the bat, but one can get used to it, and levels 11-15 are actually comparatively no big deal. On Hotshot.

Not the worst comparison considering the difficulty really jumps around in both campaigns. I don't think it's that you get used to it so much as it's that it just happens to be very erratic... The first few levels wouldn't be that bad if they had more weapons (and Level 4 is actually the only level without any of the over-the-top modded robots, IIRC), but then there's a tough boss roughly every other level from 5 onward and some weird tricks and traps. I think Level 8 is as easy as it gets after the Level 5 boss, although Level 10 is pretty easy for a boss level.

But both AF and "Thy Flesh Consumed" just can't seem to make up their mind on how difficult they want to be. Still can't get past E4M6 on Ultra-Violence without dying...