Playing MH-maps as SP

[salsaSkaarj]

Zacman got me into this with his MachineEnd map.

So ... I decided to start a couple of other MH maps as SPs. It's actually quite fun and a learning experience. Some MH-maps can't be finished because the exit doesn't appear (or all allies have to be present in the exit room) or coopeartion between team members is necesarry to be able to reach the exit area.

Currently I have about 7 MH-maps (MH-(ZM)MACHINEEndFix, MH-Canyon, MH-DarkWhite.unr, MH-Forbidden, MH-Lonely, MH-NaliVillage][, MH-Revenge][, MH-Trials. I know there are many MH-maps available but can anyone point out some very interesting maps for me (and preferably feasible).

[XYZ8000]

It is an interesting challenge, but you are going to need to allammo your way through unless you enjoy using the Dispersion pistol on monsters that have 10000 health
Of those maps you listed, except MachineEnd which I haven't played, I'm pretty sure none requires cooperation to enable the ending.

As far as custom MH maps go, I'll suggest the maps of some of the best MH mappers. The difficulty varies between them, but they are all pretty high quality and are some of the best MH maps around (I will avoid suggesting maps that are not feasible in classic MH such as the great LongCorridor2006). You should be able to find them all on FileFront. So I'd suggest you to get the maps of these authors:

Cardiologist (a.k.a. Cardi):
MH-Arden
MH-Canals][
MH-EdaraPassV2

Derdak2Rot:
MH-HellfireV3
MH-Kroogar-SE
MH-LandsOfNapali
MH-LiandriInvasion
MH-LostInTimeV2
MH-ShakrahV2

Nr. 2000:
MH-Andromeda-Part1
MH-Andromeda-Part2

Rob:
MH-Kittara
MH-Miam

Vatcilli Zeitchef:
MH-December24th
MH-LostSouls
MH-OperationSaveSantaV2


You can also check out my maps if you want, they are among the easiest of those I listed although they contain quite some monsters.
MH-Annihilation-V240
MH-Glider
MH-Templar

Especially Glider and Templar should be feasible when using only allammo

[salsaSkaarj]

an interesting list

Thanks, I will certainly look for those.
Yesterday I downloaded MHM-MapPack-03-18-07.zip (forgot where) containing more than 50 MHmaps. IIRC some of the maps you mentioned where included (Edarapass I think).

When I really get down to playing, I'll keep notes (things to keep track of:is there a working exit in SP (or is it clear that the exit has been reached), is allammo needed, is there a time limit, degree of difficulty, visual aspect, is it worth playing as SP, anything special ...)

I also thought about playing MH maps as MH (not SP) but by ordering my allies to stay put so that I would complete the map as SP, and then call my allies to summon them to the exit - that would give me the benefit of respawning health and ammo.

Damn, I wish I could make a living with playing all these maps - anybody willing to give me the job?

[salsaSkaarj]

Finally got down to it and started with MH-Glider because it was the smallest (in filesize). (I played on Unreal difficulty)

I thought the starting situation was a bit unfair because of the lack of punch of the weapons and the strength of the Skaarj coming at you. But ... it's not really a problem due to a path problem. The Skaarj can't enter the cave properly and it's easy to keep them at bay while DPing them (secondary fire at the ground where they recurrently pass).
So, it seems I'm going to have to kill a Warlord - I sure hope I'm going to find some heavier material than the DP, the biowaste gun and the shockrifle. No fear, I soon killed a Skaarj with a ripper but continued to exploit the glitch in the path for the Skaarj and massacred every moving thing.
TIme to enter the buildings on the opposite side of the river - hmm, resistance is getting stronger but I know my way around so managed to clear that area, activate the laser bridge (good, now I can retreat lot quicker if necessary). Entered the room with the lifts and had to disinfect it (basically still overheating the DP). Found a Flak cannon (oh oh, I guess the serious stuff is going to start soon).
Actvated the lifts and went down, and managed to take the lift back up again with ± 10 health left and nothing killed at that lower level.
Restarted with a saved my game and went for some hide and seek, riding the lift down and trying to get one enemy onto the lift and go up again so that I can take them on 1 at a time. It worked (although I died once when I made the mistake of getting onto the lift with a Behemoth).
Anyway, after half an eternity, with the room devoid of pests I pressed the screen between the lifts and magically a large door opens with more pests coming at me. Repeated the previously used strategy (I'm becoming good at this) with little loss of health. Somewhere along the way I managed to open another door with lots of goodies (weapons and ammo) which came in handy as the DP isn't very effective in terms of speed.

Then found a switch which opened a very large area (which is very similar to the Warlord area in Ortican) and yes finally the Warlord. Damn, he's not alone. I'll cut the rest of this story short. It's not all that difficult to kill al the Behemoths (or Brutes) and the Skaarj (although there are some many projectiles flying around that it's best to keep distance and always be ready to take the lift back up). Finally took a stand against the Warlord and after ages (and dying twice or thrice) I ran out of ammo. Time for allammo, which I implemented aftre restarting a previous savegame. Another eternity and finally the Warlord had to step down, but apparently he just retreated so I would have to fight him again.
OK time to go back to the top level, but unexpectedly when leaving the Warlord area a door opens and more Skaarj start peskering me. This time ammo wasn't a limiting factor so that episode passed rather quickly (I didn't die but tried this again and since I now knew where they came from, it was easy to prevent them from ever going through the opening door).

At the upperlevel it was clear that The Warlord was waiting for me with a few minions in support. As long as one stays inside the building it's possible to take on the Skaarj one or maximum two at a time. Alternatively the cave would be a good place to make a stand but I didn't try that.
Eventually It was just me and the Warlord left. I never stayed out in the open for long, there's not really much space to move around and dodge, but by sprinting from one building to the other, it's a relatively safe fight with some easy shots at the Warlord when he goes dormant. Still, it takes too bloody long a time to kill him.

Finally a message stating thet I should go to a pickup point (where I'm not picked up).


Summary:
Degree of difficulty : certainly doable although without the glitch in the cave entrance it may be testing (but still doable)
allammo needed? : for the Warlord yes, before that no if you don't waste ammo
Health sufficently available?: basically no (but thanks to the cave glitch, no health should be lost before decsending down the lift)
Time limit? : no
Exit reachable : yes (I consider a clear end to the level as a reachable exit)
Visuals: good, but nothing exceptional (the grandeur of the Warlord area was lost on me because I had seen it before in Ortican)
Worth a play as SP : certainly, it's probably a good level for a first go at a MH-map as SP because the number of enemies appearing simultaneously is acceptable.

[XYZ8000]

Thanks, I will certainly look for those.
Yesterday I downloaded MHM-MapPack-03-18-07.zip (forgot where) containing more than 50 MHmaps. IIRC some of the maps you mentioned where included (Edarapass I think).

When I really get down to playing, I'll keep notes (things to keep track of:is there a working exit in SP (or is it clear that the exit has been reached), is allammo needed, is there a time limit, degree of difficulty, visual aspect, is it worth playing as SP, anything special ...)

I also thought about playing MH maps as MH (not SP) but by ordering my allies to stay put so that I would complete the map as SP, and then call my allies to summon them to the exit - that would give me the benefit of respawning health and ammo.

There are a lot of collections of maps online, if you look harder you can find some more recent collections. I think that by now there are about a thousand custom MH maps around...
Unfortunately many of them are either junk maps (poorly built), bad conversions of SP maps (with horrible monster placement) or tuned for MH mods. The last category includes maps that are almost impossible to finish even in classic MH, since they are meant to be played with 500 base health, regenerating health, regenerating ammo, Udamage every five minutes, etc. Most of the MH servers online use extreme settings like these, so many of the latest maps are very hard if played without mods.


You're probably better off playing botless MH rather than trying to play the maps in SP, since allammo is probably required in all the maps (except maybe in the EXTREMELY easy ones like MH-Kuratorium) and you will have other advantages like Hardcore movement rather than Classic (which makes a BIG difference in frantic maps) and a proper ending.
The time limit you are mentioning is not map-based, but it is specified in the Monster Hunt game properties exactly like you would specify the time limit of a DM or CTF game. Though it cannot be set to 0 IIRC, so set it to 999 if you want it (almost) infinite. Same goes for the lives, you'll have to set them to 999 too if you don't want limits.

MH-Glider playthrough

Thanks for trying out my map, glad you made it in the end with just allammo

The glitch you found in the start cave was voluntary, basically I placed a kicker to prevent monsters from spawn raping the players.
Don't underrate the GES Biorifle, it is pretty sucky in DM but it can do wonders when you're up against a group of monsters. As you noticed though this map isn't parsimonious in terms of weapons
The bottom lift room is pretty tedious since the Skaarj troopers can deal quite some damage, even in MH you have to act quickly or they can shred you into pieces. The room with all the weapons and ammo is an auxiliary spawn point.
There's a little secret that would probably have helped you quite a bit, if you lift-jump from one of the lifts while they're coming up (you need to be quite precise with timing though) you will be able to land on the crates in the upper room and find a Shield Belt there. I guess that I'm a little late though

The Behemoths are quite easy to take out one at a time with a Sniper Rifle, although I don't know whether the ammo is enough at that point. The Warlord does indeed have a bunch of health, 8000 if I recall correctly. Keep in mind that this is a MH map, if you play this with 3 other players the Warlord doesn't last more than 20 seconds... you will find few MH maps with an easier boss fight than this one.
In the second fight as you said it's best to stay in the houses, if you try to exploit the cave kicker you get generally raped by the splash damage of the WL rockets.

The pickup point is pretty obscure, basically the map ends when you enter a newly opened corridor in the first of the houses.
This map is quite different from my three other MH maps, when I created this map I wanted to create an easy, small and lightweight map as a server restart map for my favorite MH server, Excalibur Holland II. So the map is a breeze when played with 3 or more players, it can be finished in about four minutes (with a total of about 60 monsters IIRC) and it weights 800Kb. That is also why some parts are a bit incomplete (like the ending) and why the map isn't generally great looking. Still, I didn't think that it could be completed alone without cheating (especially the first Warlord fight) so great job on managing to do it .
I'll have to replay Ortican to check whether there is such similarity, it's been ages since I played it and of course I did not rip anything from it but maybe the rooms are indeed similar.

[salsaSkaarj]

...
Thanks for trying out my map, glad you made it in the end with just allammo

+ lots of very useful info

First of all (you probably know this already) I'm basically an SP player, with a soft spot for really dangerous enemies (the type that can kill you with 2 or 3 semi-direct hits or will kill you if you're cornered before you even realise that you're being raped. BUT, those enemies shouldn't take ages to kill. In this respect you map was almost perfect (except for the Warlord).

The timelimit, aha, I didn't realise this was a MH trait - good to know, being able to switch this off makes the MH gametype more interesting to me, although the SP gametype allows me to "exploit" enemies fighting against each other (which, if I read correctly somewhere, doesn't happen in MH). This exploit actually makes the below lift area slightly less difficult).

In the mean time I started (and quit) a couple of other MH games (as SP) but found that they were 150% impossible.

I'm not home right now but the one other MH map which was feasible (and good) as SP was MH-Trials (I think that was it).

I'll be away for about 3 weeks (leaving in a day or 10) so I hope to be able to try a few more next week. I'll play your map again as MH before I try the rest.

[salsaSkaarj]

... I'll play your map again as MH before I try the rest.

Right, that did it. no more playing MH-maps in the MH gametype (I think). My allies don't respond to my orders, get stuck everywhere, get in the way all the time, just plain get themselves into impossible situations and even shoot me .

Just before I'm leaving on vacation I might try again with setting bots to 0. The MH gametype does have the advantage that the exit works, weapons and health spawn, but I have the distinct impression that the enemies are stronger. Especially the Warlord was a lot faster and more aggressive and cornered me regularly (with dismemberment as the logical result, mine, not his )

[salsaSkaarj]

...
Just before I'm leaving on vacation I might try again with setting bots to 0.

That worked. And basically there is only one place where there is serious danger of dying, and that's immediately when reaching the bottom level. If the second spawn point can be activated quickly then that weapon room is the safe haven (it's easy to prevent the enemy from entering), although there's no health nearby so one has to take care with the Behemoth (and later Warlord-) missiles when near the walls.

Since today was my day of testing, I had a go at MH-Annihilation-V240 and that was great fun. The only downside is the fact that there's never any shortage of ammo nor health (everything respawns) and it's always possible to retreat to the starting point where the monsters can't reach you (oh and yeah, the Queen takes too long to kill).
Was this ever released as an SP map? If not it should have been - the sequence of the fights and the environment provide some interesting challenges (the oversized Skaarj Troopers were daunting). It was nice to have a bit of searching for the path to the powerups.

[XYZ8000]

Thanks for trying them out again.

Monsters do fight with each other in MH too, but you will not find this behavior in my maps since I recoded them to be friendly with each other (otherwise things would get quite messy ).
MH does alter the stats of the monsters, it depends on which difficulty setting (Average, Experienced, Skilled etc.) you have choosen from the menu. If I recall correctly it keeps the stats equal if you play in Experienced, while they get cut a bit in Novice and Average and they get boosted quite a lot in the other difficulties. I think that in Godlike most of their stats get enhanced by 150% (health included).

Glad you enjoyed Annihilation, I don't think it would work that nicely for SP as there are a lot of monsters (which would require quite some ammo scattered around ) and there is no story. The Queen does indeed have quite some health, 24000, as it is meant to last for a while when playing with 4 people


If you're looking for other easy maps you can play the default ones if you haven't already, MH-Forbidden and MH-Canyon should be very easy to complete alone.

[salsaSkaarj]

If you're looking for other easy maps you can play the default ones if you haven't already, MH-Forbidden and MH-Canyon should be very easy to complete alone.

I played MH-Forbidden as MH-gametype and never died. It was relatively easy ... but ... a lot of fun, especially when starting and jumping out of the cave, realising there no way to get back into the cave, you've only got the enforcer (yeah, the chainsaw also worthless piece of sh*t) and there are Slith, giant Mantas, Krall pupae and a Brute around and jumping into the water is NOT an option. Great tension to start

MH-Canyon I had already played as SP and had serious problems with the translucent giant Skaarj, shortage of ammo was a major setback; But come to think of it, it's probably better balanced when playes as MH-gametype with 0 bots (although I think that Skaarj will still be very difficult).

The rest will have to wait until I return from holidays, but by then I'll probably focus on the contest maps

[redeye]

I got some maps here

http://www.4shared.com/u/zFPb2AET/UTUnr ... OJeA36EhPW

[medor]

MH maps

Mayhem server http://unreal-mayhem.com/files/index.ph ... nsterHunt/
Nelsona maps http://sektornelsona.no-ip.org:9000/index.php?dir=Maps/
DU server http://www.destinationunreal.com/modules.php?name=Maps
ef server http://www.mediafire.com/?lpstcdlmg0u9w

[Nelsona]

Sorry for intervention, and I appologise my english.

Let's see a few things. Sp - Single player, a game playable usualy local, on a single computer not involving a server is very different from Network play. In network play some things need to be declared, so called replication. Without replication in net play some thing can make troubles, can crash servers, etc. Don't fool with these things because I was almost to fall laughing about so called SP servers.

Some projectiles used from UnrealShare and UnrealI packages don't have a replication for be used in network, for this reason game can be a mess. Shrimp replaced SP craps with other packages from OldSkool returning thanks for pemissions. In fact he messed some Skaarj classes, he forgot about monster vs monster damage (by default they can kill each other), also they are very agressive to fight each other. Stuffs incorrect added in maps created a lot of garbage, so called maps. I tell you shamefully, I host a mountain of craps but I considered as being good for a lesson in mapping, how to do, and how to not do. Also by default in MH you will never see any RazorJack, was destroyed by a drunk coder writing Rajorjack not Razorjack. Everybody is using at least a mutator for a reason not really small. Movers - a mover triggered once only must not be returned when encroach a player - will mess up map making impossible to advance in level. Example: If a door which is meant to be opened and stay open forever if is turned back will be closed and bye map. More dumbasses started empty servers, a skilled player know this basic issue and will not mess the game playing. Not the last crap developed by Epic is to GRAB a mover, yes some movers can be opened very easy with command GRAB (even bots know this crap and they always open doors). In any MH server these things are more than necessary to be fixed. A server runing a MH without any mutator is just other mess.

More maps ported from SP are really sucks. A teleporter to switch levels like in usual SP will never works in a MH server. For switch level in Network play we need a ServerTravel trigger not a teleporter. For this reason those teleporters will never works in SP servers.

If that SP server is not using some tricks to emulate SP, the game is just a CRAP not a SP server. First need some projectiles and weapons replacement for net play, second is to add a trigger at teleporters to make the level to be switched. These things are not really easy to be done. But I'm amused by what people can do, I mean stupid things.

I hope I didn't disturbed order here, appologise if I did this.

[salsaSkaarj]

Let's see a few things. Sp - Single player, a game playable usualy local, on a single computer not involving a server is very different from Network play. In network play some things need to be declared, so called replication. Without replication in net play some thing can make troubles, can crash servers, etc. Don't fool with these things because I was almost to fall laughing about so called SP servers.
...
etc...

I'm not sure I understand your point.
I started this topic because I wanted to try out a MH map playing as SP - this means that I select and start it via the menu (oldschool) as a new single player game. Having found out that ammo and health regeneration is absent, most MH games are unplayable as SP because of lack of ammo and health.
However, it is possible to take advantage of the MH gametype by starting the game as A MH gametype, yet playing it alone (seemingly SP) by setting bots = 0. I have found many MH maps to be very playable that way and (contrary to expectation probably) quite fun (and requiring different strategies).

If I understand your post correctly, you are actually criticising the opposite, namely playing SP maps online with the MH gametype. If that is the case, it is beyond the scope of this topic and perhaps stating a new topic with a more fitting title would be appropriate.

[Nelsona]

Of course, I note this. You can check some maps, indeed some of them containing ammo you can play them as SP, but I just mentioned about what is happening reverting SP to MH and Net Play. I don't have a real intention to criticise everything but I had too much headaches, even I received e-mails about a few maps, they didn't understood at all the difference between a SP map with all stuff nedeed for local play and MH with it's own stuff meant to work in net play and local play too. Some guys suddenly discovered their skills in renaming files. This made me confused about a so called SP conversion to MH. Things are no so easy as people is imagine, simply renaming a file will never do any magic to port a map from a mod to other, but never mind, I'm ready to fix problems without many questions.

But if you want to play MH as SP this is more than possible with proper maps sorted.

In fact I played alone more times MH maps, even I removed some coop maps, a few players entered alones in server - no coop play, the triggers for coop play from a few maps are just useless in this case, I decided to keep them away since I opened such a map in editor and I saw how was donne (I didn't liked).

I appologise for disturbing ! Have fun, everybody !