Almost done! Thinking very carefully about what resources to bring into Rock's area. All my decisions need to be perfect if I have any chance of pulling off a deathless run. I've come too far to mess up now...
By the way, Fangride, considering that TR is still in open beta, would you be interested for me to continue the area-by-area map review after I beat it? I don't know anything about mapmaking and MCEdit and all that technical jargon, so the focus of the review will be on general gameplay and my experience as a player, and I might miss technical errors (if there are any) with custom items/mobs etc. Depending on how you look at it, that may make my input more or less valuable, but I do think I have a healthy amount of general feedback about the next 8 areas (Pink to Green) though!
Almost done! Thinking very carefully about what resources to bring into Rock's area. All my decisions need to be perfect if I have any chance of pulling off a deathless run. I've come too far to mess up now...
By the way, Fangride, considering that TR is still in open beta, would you be interested for me to continue the area-by-area map review after I beat it? I don't know anything about mapmaking and MCEdit and all that technical jargon, so the focus of the review will be on general gameplay and my experience as a player, and I might miss technical errors (if there are any) with custom items/mobs etc. Depending on how you look at it, that may make my input more or less valuable, but I do think I have a healthy amount of general feedback about the next 8 areas (Pink to Green) though!
I'm finding your replies to be super valuable, so I would love to hear it
Dropping in a quick update to mention that I've explored the I3 ruins/valley area... but before I tackle the I3 areas proper, I've got a couple questions:
1)
Does the order of the jukeboxes in the JBM correspond to the order of the discs' appearance in the map? I might have missed one of the discs. I found chirp (from the yellow area) and mall (from Palia Archi) but the jukebox between theirs is empty. If the jukeboxes are in order I'm going to need to go back to the lime wool area and do a search.
2)
So I was exploring the upper area of the intersection, and I found this 1x1 hole (it's actually directly above one of the loot chests from the valley). When I tried to dump water inside, I discovered this diabolical freak of nature (not really nature I guess, if you guys put this in):
An air block that refused to be anything but an air block! Water wouldn't pass and I couldn't place a block there. I surmise that any uncareful player who places water in there, and tries to jump down without getting visual confirmation on the water stream, is basically dead. That's nasty! How did you guys do it?
And a piece of miscellaneous feedback - nothing really game-breaking, but it's something you might want to look into:
In normal Minecraft the local difficulty (which can be checked on the F3 menu) really ramps up as you spend more time in the world - by day 30-40 you usually see many more armoured mobs with better weapons going around wreaking havoc. I was actually on day 50+ when I went back to the white wool area to check on one of my old farms, and it instantly reset the clock to Day 0, and the local difficulty decreased dramatically. Dealing with natural mob spawns suddenly became so much easier, which is a bit of a shame because I was embracing the natural mobs scaling over time. It helps them pull their own weight relative to their much tougher, custom counterparts.
I know Ragecraft II has time frozen at Day 0 too, but in that case it doesn't affect the local difficulty because the time stays frozen until you beat the map. In Titan's Revolt, though, couldn't a savvy player who wants to make the vanilla mobs easier just keep going back to the white wool area from time to time? I'm playing on Normal, and doing this made the local difficulty drop from 3.00+ (after 50 ingame days) to about 2.10-2.20 in some chunks!
Anyway, looking forward to checking out the I3 areas soon! Glad to finally have an anvil, and I managed to repair the Devourer's Ragebow. It's become a great all-around melee AND ranged weapon (how!?) with insane durability, Sharpness IV, Power III and Flame. Hope it stays with me until the endgame!
Also, here's a typo in the pink wool area!
albiet albeit
1) I believe so, yes
2) Invisible transparent blocks! They're very cheaty
3) Goodness, I have no idea why it does that. That's super odd.
Whelp. Having defeated Pantheon and Ragecraft II - two of the most notoriously immersive and expansive CTMs out there - I decided to take on Titan's Revolt as a personal CTM endgame and "last hurrah", so to speak. I never thought I'd have so much to say about it. I'm still in the early game, but here is my review of the map so far! I will write more of these as I beat new areas.
Garden of Erebus (White)
Area Deaths: 0
Total Deaths: 0
Personal Difficulty Rating: 5/10 (I'm just going to call it 5, it's only the first area so I should establish a baseline)
I personally thought this area, while much larger than the starting area of Pantheon, was much more forgiving in terms of available resources. As a result, it felt easier overall despite the presence of non-vanilla mobs, making the area combat-intensive rather than a grind for survival and bare necessities. If this was the mapmaker's intention, I felt it was well-achieved. The custom mobs were just the right difficulty to keep me constantly moving and vigilant of my surroundings; they hit hard, but were very much defeatable. Some of them in particular had Knockback/Punch weapons (exploding creepers included) that threatened fatal falls. Giving the Rose Knights Thorns was a subtly clever detail that elicited from me a mild chuckle. Had a few close calls (1-3 hearts) with creepers at point-blank range. No complaints about aesthetics either - the area may not have been as drop-dead gorgeous as some of the areas in Ragecraft, but then again Ragecraft is in a league of its own quite frankly.
Positives aside though, I felt this area had a few issues. For one, there was a scarcity of torches/light sources unlike anything I've previously seen in the starting area of a CTM - I only remember receiving 2 coal blocks and paltry, infrequent bundles of 16 torches from loot chests. Unless I missed a furnace or a vein of exposed stone somewhere, there was no way for me to make new torches using charcoal. (Yes, perhaps I could have dug in a random direction until I found stone, but that seems to me like a cheap tactic...) On two or three occasions I actually had to backtrack and harvest my old torches so I could make forward progress. This was my biggest issue because besides this, the area doesn't seem to be trying to deprive the player of resources. This is evidenced by the abundance of food, seen in 1) having the ability to farm, 2) being given 40+ apples and even more bread in loot chests, 3) enough hay bales to make 30 more bread, and 4) the presence of passive mobs i.e. chickens, pigs, cows and sheep. So the weird lack of torches doesn't make much sense from a gameplay standpoint unless I missed something key. Torches aside, armour handouts are also a little sparse relative to the abundance of food.
A more minor gripe would be the placement of the fleecy box. I'm a completist and so I explored the whole castle at the end, but most of it is non-essential and can be bypassed with some careful bridging/tunneling to the very top of the castle, since the fleecy box room is accessed from there. This is a similar issue to Corrupt Gatria from the first map where the entire dungeon could be bypassed by pillaring to the top. Also, the actual chamber with the fleecy box can be bypassed with tunneling and bridging too - although maybe this was done out of mercy.
Very minor issue - I think there should be barrier blocks at the skylights to prevent players escaping onto the ceiling, usually this is not really an issue but the high Y-coordinate of the area means the player can reach Y=256 with very minimal effort.
All things considered, if I'm right about the torch issue, I think that might be the biggest problem by far as it can seriously hinder progress without the use of underhand tactics or the "torch recycling" strategy which I used - potentially resulting in players giving up before even the first wool... needless to say I very much welcome the ability to make charcoal now that I've reached I1.
Shadow of Crete & Victory Monument
Area Deaths: 0
Total Deaths: 0
Personal Difficulty Rating: 0.5/10
The Victory Monument and the area preceding it are generally fine. Perhaps the use of quartz is a bit heavy-handed and consequently a bit monotonous to look at, but that's not a big deal. Aside from that, I felt that the Acolyte armour set - arguably the loot highlight of Shadow of Crete - is distributed over an unnecessarily large area, resulting in the player having to explore large swathes of darkness filled with natural mob spawns that are unstimulating to fight. As a result, I found Shadow of Crete to be slightly redundant, although the loot yield was excellent - food aplenty and a modest amount of leather.
The actual monument is gorgeous and fortunately compact, which will hopefully make the victory screenshot more photogenic as opposed to Pantheon's! I like the fact that unlike in Pantheon, I don't have to wait until Intersection 4 for the monument to appear, because having a teleport hub early in the game is a massive convenience. I also like that the beacons in the monument are aligned with the teleport pads. Everything feels clearly delineated to me. If there's a Jukebox Monument, though, I haven't found it yet (I already have 2 of the discs), but I reckon I could easily have stumbled past it. [UPDATE: Found the JBM after returning home from getting the magenta wool]
However (and this may be a known issue), when I placed the white wool I immediately received the message about the murmur in the temple. Unfortunately, I continued to receive that message sporadically while in the orange wool area - somehow I doubt that this is intentional, as it takes me out of the moment. Is this a bug?
The Swamp of Lost Saints (Orange)
Area Deaths: 0
Total Deaths: 0
Personal Difficulty Rating: 4/10
I honestly really enjoyed this area. The block choices were fantastic, and the mobs were thematically appropriate and varied to boot. Nonetheless, I did find the preliminary outdoors area - i.e. everything preceding the wool dungeon - to be slightly dull, with little variance in structures of interest. To be more specific, the recurring stone brick fortifications with similar layouts did get a little bit repetitive, but fortunately the varied loot added value to the process of exploring them. I think this is helped by the Acheron Quartz mechanic as it encourages thorough exploration, so I like it.
The icing on the cake was the wool dungeon itself; I thought it was very well-executed and showed great attention to detail. I enjoyed the subtle methods used to create tension, from the random button doing nothing but a harmless "Boo" to the gravel behind the chest giving a false impression of a block update detector trap. It was also quite satisfying to find a Fire Resistance potion just 2 minutes before finding a room with lava and blazes containing an Acheron Quartz - as if the loot had been deliberately and thoughtfully placed! The golden pickaxes were good for knocking out spawners on the run, especially in the intersection with 4 spawners or the loot room with 6 spawners under the coffins in a small area. Overall, it really feels like all the loot is there for a reason and was added with the player in mind.
The wool room is vast and intricately built. You know the design is good when the fleecy box is right there for you to access at any time, and yet you're still itching to explore all the peripheral stuff for all the loot. The position of the fleecy box is pretty clever too. The lingering threat of falling into the void is increased by 1) the presence of 4 blaze spawners, 2) skeletons (natural spawns) being pushed towards the box by the flowing water from all sides. As a final obstacle to overcome before the wool, it really just works. The only thing I didn't enjoy too much about the dungeon was the pathing. It sometimes felt like the correct path was too discreetly hidden, perhaps it would have helped if there were more obvious visual cues other than a few inconspicuous holes in the floor or ceiling.
As for the difficulty, I honestly found this area easier than the white wool area (which I gave a 5) due to my better equipment. The mobs in the open outside area were pretty easy to kill, especially with the Blade of Acheron from Fred. If I had to rate the area based on that alone I'd probably give it a 2. Yet the area succeeds at being hard when it really matters, such as the custom mobs with Punch bows at the top of the towers (fall damage alert!), the high density of creepers right next to the record, and of course the threat of sudden death inches away from the wool. So overall I'm calling this a 4/10 on difficulty - that's neither a praise or criticism really, difficulty is mainly about personal preference.
The EA joke was savage, by the way, I've not laughed that hard in a while.
Great area!
Echoes of the Styx (Magenta)
Area Deaths: 0
Total Deaths: 0
Personal Difficulty Rating: 2.5/10
On hindsight, I can safely say that this is my favourite area of the map so far. Great and subtle wordplay with the mythological "Styx" and the homophone "sticks" (referring to the area's theme!).
Starting with negatives, I'll admit that my first impressions of the area were sullied by the introductory area (i.e. everything before the wool fortress), which I found to be rather disappointing. The large descending cavern at the beginning was a tad plain and nondescript for its massive size, with the vanilla mobs (from spawners, not just natural) too weak and uninteresting to blend with the amazing deadly fortress up on the cliff. I personally would like to have seen more landmarks along the cavern walls to make the descent more exciting. That said, I think the birdcage for the false record disc was perfectly placed to subvert the player's hopes - the impact was increased because I was genuinely expecting to be rewarded for exploring off the beaten path.
I also felt that the massive waterbody below the wool fortress - littered with lily pads and three towering ruins - missed the mark in terms of gameplay. I didn't think it was that interesting to begin with, but I distinctly remember having difficulty disabling the small pillars containing poison slime/Sticky Archer spawners, and eventually I gave up trying to do that. It's somewhat of a missed opportunity because the player has no incentive to attack those spawners: there's no discernible loot chests, and you can navigate around them just fine and still explore the three stone brick ruins. As a result, something that could have posed an interesting challenge to the player ended up becoming an afterthought. Having said that, the loot in the three stone brick edifices is good and timely: plenty of building blocks and arrows to lessen the need for grinding and farming.
On a more positive note, the actual castle containing the wool dungeon, comprising the bulk of the area, is superbly designed. The amount of detail present in the castle interior is breathtaking, and the variance in layout, furniture and block palette kept me interested despite fighting through an otherwise lengthy dungeon. The pathing is practically perfect - there are plenty of interconnecting hallways, offshoots, secret chests and loot rooms to explore, yet the entire dungeon managed to be linear enough that I never got lost or had to retrace my steps looking for something I'd missed. The castle/dungeon complex has a terrific, balanced layout that lends itself to seamless flow and progression, and in this regard surpasses even some of the areas in Heliceo's Ragecraft II - often deemed a gold standard in CTM mapmaking, and my favourite CTM map ever. I absolutely love it.
There's only two things I don't really like about the castle/dungeon area:
1. The mobs here are lacking in terms of variety. The poison slimes were fine and honestly just a minor nuisance to deal with, but the "Sticky" melee and archer mobs became stale very quickly, and were spawning copiously even till the very end. While I appreciate that Sticky Archers were used in the wool room to threaten the player with knockback and fall damage, I personally think that stronger melee/ranged custom mobs, maybe with Punch I/Knockback I weapons, would be a better fit for such a late stage in the dungeon. (As a sidenote, this mostly explains why I gave this area a 2.5 for difficulty, finding it a fair bit easier than the white and orange wool areas).
2. The birdcage containing the "blocks" record is a bit too well-hidden. It seems that to access the birdcage, one must first break the layer of slime blocks in the ceiling of the uppermost room in the castle and then identify the stone slabs as part of the underside of the birdcage. Quite honestly, the only reason I recognised the underside of the birdcage was because 5 years ago I played three_two's Vinyl Fantasy CTM series, which really pioneered the use of record discs as CTM objectives, and so I know what his birdcage design looks like. I think there may need to be more subtle visual cues to suggest the presence of a music disc - maybe a missing block in the ceiling or something.
Overall, this area didn't have the best start but its later parts were excellently designed!
The Forest of Asphodel (Light blue)
Area Deaths: 0
Total Deaths: 0
Personal Difficulty Rating: 1.5/10 (more on that later...)
It's tempting for me to be harsh on this area, especially because it's more simplistic in structure and design compared to the other I1 areas which are aesthetically quite refined. However, I've done some thinking and now I don't think it's fair for me to compare this area with the others. It may be a fair bit simpler, but this area really hearkens back to the golden age of CTM maps - it's very reminiscent of Vechs' Super Hostile series and its sprawling mossy brick dungeons, its nondescript and regularly shaped castles, having multiple paths available besides the softly prescribed "fun path", and the simple pleasure (and rage) of looking for fleecy boxes in dungeons. As weird as it sounds, this area sent me on a trip down memory lane, and reminded me of the CTM maps I grew up with in the Super Hostile era before mapmaking and building tools advanced. (If anything, I'd argue that the release of Heliceo's Ragecraft series was the turning point responsible for redefining the genre, especially with regards to linear-branching maps.) And despite being rustic, the area is still very much balanced, playable and enjoyable in 1.8.9, so kudos for that!
I don't have much to say about the gameplay of the area itself. I wasn't a big fan of the enormous "empty" area on the same elevation as the wool castle. There were lots of pillars containing custom mob spawners, confirming my hunch that the area-maker expected me to explore around, and even so, loot items were few and far-between. It just wasn't very interesting, but I've definitely seen far worse in some "classic" CTM maps where there are vast expanses of darkness containing almost nothing because the mapmaker didn't do anything to customise that massive area. This area definitely does not suffer from that syndrome, thankfully! Another thing - some of the custom mobs, especially in the upper floors of the castle, are very bulky (in terms of HP/armour). While this could perhaps be challenging, posing the threat of the player getting cornered/swarmed, fighting these mobs was sometimes tedious and formulaic especially because the castle balconies were so expansive and flat, resulting in a rather boring combat experience. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun both in the castle area leading to I2 and the dungeon area with the wool.
As strange as this may sound, my largest gripe with the area is not with the area itself per se, but its difficulty relative to the other I1 areas. Broadly considered, I appreciate that difficulty is a matter of personal preference, and that some players like challenging areas more so than others. However the difficulty progression following the recommended order of the I1 areas simply did not make sense to me. I found the light blue wool area to be far easier than the white, orange, and magenta areas. There were no real surprises or traps for the cautious player, maybe aside from the Punch bow skeletons adorning the initial descending tower. I gave the starting area a 5/10 difficulty-wise as a baseline, and I find it strange that I've given every subsequent area a lower difficulty grading. Perhaps this is merely contingent on my playstyle, which is best described as aggressive yet cautious and systematic. But I found this area way too easy relative to those that came before it. There may be further balancing/nerfing/buffing of areas needed.
Going to take a break and restock on supplies before hitting up the first I2 area!
Thanks for all the incredible feedback so far! It's actually quite interesting to read some specific things due to behind the scenes readjustments we made at times that resulted in some stuff that got brought up. For instance, the start of Echoes of the Styx used to be a really dull water tunnel that spiralled down, and we opened it up into the big shaft to give the option to just "skip" past and get to the area proper. In context hopefully that helps explain that one, haha.
I definitely agree with you on the torches for White Wool, though it's also rather intended that torches should feel tight. I'm super happy to hear you overall enjoyed Orange Wool. That one started out as an area by Lord Tirnis for Discordancy, which I went in and totally overhauled visually and gameplay wise (that outer part used to be the whole area, and had an underwater section). TikaroHD and I were then decided to add a crypt to it, and it turned into the majority of the area, and what seems to be the best loved part. I'm super happy you had a good time with it, even if it ended up a bit easy there.
As for Light Blue, it's easily the oldest area of the Intersections, and was given to us by Krose after we discovered the original Light Blue was completely non-functional mechanically in 1.8. It's definitely not his best, and he knew that, but it looks like it needs another balance pass. We nerfed it during the closed beta due to people saying it was too hard, so maybe we need to find a good middle ground.
Hope you enjoy I2! We think the difficulty really starts to ramp up from there, and I'll get the feedback offered here into our to-do document
Running a server on 1.8.9. The "is the redstone ticking" button doesn't work and neither do all the teleports. I manually teleported to the first area, but the set spawn button didn't work either. What do?
What are you using to run the server? It may be that the server config is interfering with the Command Blocks.
Hey, I a having trouble with Titan's Revolt. I am at the black terracotta tunnel, and there is nothing there. I think the download in the thread is broken. I am using version 1.12.2. Is my Minecraft version causing these issues?
Yes, you need to use a 1.8.9 version of Minecraft, as noted above the download!
I have found a bug with Intersection 2/Yellow wool though:
Just beyond the box for Chirp music disk, under Intersection 2, activates the final boss for the yellow wool. When i first activated it, it said something like "Do you think you could get the yellow wool so easily?" After that happened, the boss randomly appeared around the witch hut area in the middle of Intersection 2. I killed her, and when returning to farm up the spawners around Chirp, I kept getting spammed with the death message every so often.
I just finished the Yellow Wool area, the boss never spawned but I was able to collect the wool fine.
Progress and thoughts so far on map:
Pretty damn rusty with CTM maps and 1.8 combat, up to 8 deaths now. 1 death per each of the first 4 wools, 1 death getting shot off Intersection 2 by punch bow skele spawner, 3 deaths clearing the Chirp area above.
I am enjoying the map a lot though!
Gear and supplies are spaced nicely, though unsure about a few things:
There's no trapped max passive mobs cap at spawn, so animals are constantly spawning everywhere where there's grass + sunlight. I have a large cow farm at the monument. Is this intentional?
Chirp area has been by far the hardest area so far, however the OP monsters are farmable. Currently have 4 skele + 4 wither skele + 2 zombie spawners as a mob farm that drop:
-Sharp 1 Unbreaking 2 iron sword
-Prot 2 Unbreaking 2 gold chest
-Prot 1 unbreaking 2 chain chest
Pretty commonly as well with Scythe of Cronus (+7 attack and looting 1 hoe, from music disk reward).
Also infinite arrows and Zombie flesh + bones which can be traded for steak at Intersection 2 villager.
As a comparison, the best gear I've found so far is Sharp 2 stone sword, prot 2 leather armour. Not sure if you want to make the Chirp area easier + less farmable?
Also, Yellow wool could also be a bit harder, I found it to be the easiest area so far.
And we've fixed some problems and got the open beta 1.1 for you all! Shout out to Csil for taking the time to update stuff today! See the main post for an updated download and a changelog, and cheers to everyone who has played and provided feedback on the CTMC Discord
Adventure Mode I love you Mojang! You've finally brought what we've all been waiting for <3
The trip-wires seem really cool as well, and I'm glad to see Enchantments and Trading in such a great light. I'm really looking forward to working with the 1.3 update.
The FOV set to Quake-Pro makes it look like he has Fly-mode on, combined with bigger jumps then there actually is... but honestly, that's a pretty cheap Parkour map compared to some of the amazing ones on the forums.
They're sueing for use of the word "Scrolls"? They don't own the word scrolls, for God's sake. As much as I love the Elder Scrolls games, this really seems to be going a bit far...
Bone Meal is nerfed 
I love you Mojang! You've finally brought what we've all been waiting for <3
1
I believe it's nearing completion of the official launch patch.
1
Beyond my april fools joke on the CTMC Discord, nothing. Been very busy with Monumenta.
1
I'm finding your replies to be super valuable, so I would love to hear it
1
1) I believe so, yes
2) Invisible transparent blocks! They're very cheaty
3) Goodness, I have no idea why it does that. That's super odd.
4) Thanks for that spot
1
Thanks for all the incredible feedback so far! It's actually quite interesting to read some specific things due to behind the scenes readjustments we made at times that resulted in some stuff that got brought up. For instance, the start of Echoes of the Styx used to be a really dull water tunnel that spiralled down, and we opened it up into the big shaft to give the option to just "skip" past and get to the area proper. In context hopefully that helps explain that one, haha.
I definitely agree with you on the torches for White Wool, though it's also rather intended that torches should feel tight. I'm super happy to hear you overall enjoyed Orange Wool. That one started out as an area by Lord Tirnis for Discordancy, which I went in and totally overhauled visually and gameplay wise (that outer part used to be the whole area, and had an underwater section). TikaroHD and I were then decided to add a crypt to it, and it turned into the majority of the area, and what seems to be the best loved part. I'm super happy you had a good time with it, even if it ended up a bit easy there.
As for Light Blue, it's easily the oldest area of the Intersections, and was given to us by Krose after we discovered the original Light Blue was completely non-functional mechanically in 1.8. It's definitely not his best, and he knew that, but it looks like it needs another balance pass. We nerfed it during the closed beta due to people saying it was too hard, so maybe we need to find a good middle ground.
Hope you enjoy I2! We think the difficulty really starts to ramp up from there, and I'll get the feedback offered here into our to-do document
0
Oh and I have been greatly looking forward to this!
0
What are you using to run the server? It may be that the server config is interfering with the Command Blocks.
1
Beta 1.3 is out!
0
Yes, you need to use a 1.8.9 version of Minecraft, as noted above the download!
0
Thank you for the feedback!
1
And we've fixed some problems and got the open beta 1.1 for you all! Shout out to Csil for taking the time to update stuff today! See the main post for an updated download and a changelog, and cheers to everyone who has played and provided feedback on the CTMC Discord
1
Titan's Revolt is now available to play in open beta.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mtds0hxxbakys56/TR_v0p3nb374.zip
0
It's in closed beta
0
This thread has been locked and all maps on it have been moved to a central hub for all the CTMCommunity maps! It can be found here:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/maps/2869726-the-ctm-community-maps-discordancy-series
0
What about?