EntityPlus map: Survival (final)

[Eraser]

Update: map is no longer in beta

I've created a new EntityPlus map. It's something quite different from my previous EntityPlus efforts. There's no starting point or ending, no story or narrative, no real goals to achieve. It's more of an arcade type of thing where you aim for the highest score. The idea is very much like the Horde mode from Gears of War 2. Those familiar with that will find this setup familiar.

In Survival, you spawn in a relatively small map into which waves of enemies are spawned. Each wave has to be defeated in its entirety before the next wave will spawn. Each wave will become increasingly difficult because there are more enemies with more powerful weapons. You have five lives, but once they're gone, the game ends and your high score is calculated. There are 15 waves in total. When you've beaten wave 15, you will return to wave 1 but this time the waves are slightly more difficult because all the bots have slightly more health.

Here are some screenshots:

[lvlshot]http://www.theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_survival/0.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://www.theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_survival/1.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://www.theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_survival/2.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://www.theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_survival/3.jpg[/lvlshot]

[lvlshot]http://www.theenginesofcreation.com/addons/ep_survival/4.jpg[/lvlshot]

While all sorts of feedback is welcome, what I'm mostly looking for is comments on the gameplay. What kind of things would you want to change to the current setup? I'm mostly looking for a satisfying way to deal with the gates that get you new weapons. There are three gates in the map that are closed off which hold additional weapons. After beating wave 5, the first gate opens and you can grab a shotgun. After beating wave 5 the second time, the second gate opens and you can grab a Grenade Launcher. After beating wave 5 the third time, you can grab a Rocket Launcher. In my experience though, going through the waves a 3rd time is a rarity if you play at any respectful difficulty The GL feels a bit useless I think, so I might move the RL to the 2nd gate, but I'm afraid it might be overpowered. So what could be a well balanced solution for this?

Note that you'll need EntityPlus version 1.1.4 to properly play the map. Version 1.1.3 will work, but gates 2 and 3 don't open properly. After dropping the pk3 file in your EntityPlus folder, the map should show up in the map selection menu. You can also type "\map ep_survival_b1"

Download link for beta removed

Download final version here

[CZghost]

Well, I've tried the level with the released update and I would say it's really superb level. It's much more like normal DM arena with the only diffference there are waves of the enemies than rather spawning randomly in the arena. Due to this fact I would take a note at the gameplay and overall look, just as on other DM levels...
Just a small note on secrets: The map says there's one secret. I haven't found any, rather they would be behind some barrels?

Item placement:
Or object placement, to be purer...
I like the explosive barrels, they however makes a mistake when trying to find some secret they might open, but nothing happened when exploded a barrel. The coffin in the curch has something strange lying in a hole. Is it hearth or something else from a human like body?

Layout:
Nice layout, also nice textures used. Nice trasition between small courtyard, a church, underground wet tunnel and castle dinner room.

Overall look:
It's relatively solid release and really enjoyed the flow, but there are few things to be metioned. It's much difficult to find a secret and don't lose a health while on. Is there any reason why people cannot run in the valey behind castle or why they wouldn't visit the graveyard behind church? When making beta #2, I would take a note at these points.

Good map anyway

[Eraser]

The exploding barrels aren't related to the secret, nor is the coffin

Oh and the thing extruding from the coffin is supposed to be an arm. It's meant as a little joke, like the coffin holds a zombie that punched through the wood and now his arm is sticking out.

[EmeraldTiger]

Quite innovative! I didn't really ponder about the application of the EntityPlus mod to fashion an arcade-style map, so I was pleasantly surprised at the initiative. I can only imagine the effort it took to test the scripting and ensuring everything would work out, but it sure paid off. I haven't noticed any serious bugs yet, visual or gameplay-wise. The texturing, theme, and atmosphere are all respectable, and mesh well with the gameplay style.

I played the map on Hard difficulty (didn't feel like Nightmare at the time hehe) and managed to survive the first 15 hordes, and then afterwards survived the second round up until horde 14 (so 29 hordes total), where a Major bot shot me down with a sneaky slug (They're damn sharp!) after I had ran out of machinegun ammo, which is what I relied on for the majority of gameplay due to it's long-distance effectiveness, although the SG was good around corners, (though I didn't use it much as it is extremely risky) and the GL can be useful for the initial carnage before switching to MG / SG for final cleanup. My score at the end was 5716.

One tactic I found considerably helpful is to stand between the low entrance to the dining room and the tree nearby while waiting for the next horde. It turns out that while the bots can spawn in multiple areas at once, they never seem to occupy both the grassy clearing and the dining room at the same time, so if you carefully watch the clearing and the dining room, you can speedily rush to safety depending on where they spawned. I haven't tested any other "sweet spots" to see if they exist, as I didn't feel like risking it.

Marvelous, inspiring idea, splendid execution, and a great little timekiller - thanks for yet another delicious E+ offering!

[Eraser]

I've released a final version of the map just moments ago. Not much has changed compared to the beta. I've added a few small details, cleaned up the flower textures a bit and made the secret slightly more obvious to find

More info about the map can be found here

It can be downloaded here:
https://code.google.com/p/entityplus/do ... val-v1.zip

[D-Meat]

I found the secret