My first thoughts on House of the Damned

[dragon808tr]

I just came off my first map completion here and I definitely have thoughts and constructive criticism for both devs and players.

I usually hate enclosed maps, and dislike the Ashes of Sker hotel map the most out of the current lineup due to being enclosed and confusing. Though there is a bit of that here, it is pretty forgiving for the most part.

My biggest complaint here was the opening sections. Particularly in the kitchen where you had to kill 4 demon hags to advance. This went on for 4 rounds (going from round 3-7) before they actually spawned in at all and I was able to continue. Additionally, some of the opening objectives (getting the gas from the walls and hitting all the switches in a short time) were very vauge and didn't have markers, so i ended up just keeping a enemy at the end of each round to look for them, which took a very long time as some were well hidden.

After that, you'll solve a simple electric puzzle and have a few branching objectives to go get the ritual items to fight the boss. I did the painting first, which started hard (as area defense in small areas is a pain) and then fight the 3 original bosses all at the same time, which was pretty frantic and fun! Other objectives had a simple one for the corpse grinder weapon, and one to pick up a ghostly head to reveal things in the map. While the art here was nice, it was again more searching which I found a bit repetitive by now. Thankfully the glow here is pretty obvious and by now the house layout is becoming second nature.

After this you'll have to escort this ghost (which you can only see by having the head out), though by this point the enemy spawns were so insane I stayed outside and ran for my life to keep them at bay! The ghost will slowly reach his goal on his own which leads to a "Kill enemies in this circle" in the worst possible areas of the map! The saving grace here is you only need to kill like, 10 enemies to advance to the next spot so its not as bad with a short train at the end of a round. (My experience here was to fill up his spot at the start or end of the round then run out if I had to save my life.)

Once this is done, the boss is open and he can be fought. The boss is pretty good! Very interesting visually as well.

My favorite thing about the map is the new weapons! A PPSH style gun can be grabbed in a special case upstairs and it is the only way I finished this map! It decimates enemies, but runs though ammo fast, which leads to having to run to ammo machines often. The corpse grinder is basically a BFG, though feels a bit weak at the beginning. Very effective against the annoying dogs though!

Though, I do have some complaints, mostly the dogs being extremely strong and hard to hit with most guns and there really should be an outdoor ammo machine besides the one in the boss room. Also I hate having to wait to buy perks until the electricity is back on. Also wish there was a way to disable the head at a certain point, as I'd go to change weapons only for it to come up.

The only technical issue I came up with was something with the elite maker, as it triggered once I got outside and then never again until 12 rounds later, where it felt like it went off every minute! I had like, 5 back to back. I was able to beat it fine and took the free points, but seems like it could be a glitch?

TLDR

The good:
New weapons rock!
Not bad for a mostly indoor map.
Escort takes care of itself slowly.
Neat boss.
Nice, spooky visuals.
The Music!

The bad:
Takes a long time to get going and you have no perks until power is restored.
Demon Hags sometimes spawn infrequently, causing slow progress.
Early objectives are a bit confusing.
A lot of searching for things in the house.
Confined in some areas and sometimes areas are bad or result in dead ends.
Dogs are evasive and deal a ton of damage.

I hope this helps both devs and players alike. Overall a pretty decent map I'd say! Comments are of course welcomed!

[typervader]

Yea I hope the dogs are nerfed, they are way too strong for how often they can spawn

[Echorion]

The dogs killed the experience for me; god help you if you play on a controller.

[Darthanaarx]

would defo help the pre-power phase if you could do both objectives at the same time