Turn-based Mutator

[Josh771]

This mutator should be able to make a lot of things turn-based: vanilla Doom, Heretic, and Hexen have all been tested with it. But I make no guarantees about this thing working once you start piling other mods in there, just sayin'.



I recommend you play this with Fast Monsters on in the Gameplay Options menu. Makes monster turns a little more meaningful.

I spent hours trying to iron out all the kinks in this thing. It might even work for multiplayer, with each player having their own actions in the turn order. I make no promises about this actually being fun! I enjoy it, but it was sort of halfway made as a joke. But secretly I rather enjoy turning the idTech 1 games into X-Com...

[m8f]

Josh771, you just don't stop amazing us! That's super neat. Literally Doom from the different angle

Every fight looks like in a movie.

[RikohZX]

It's a very unique, interesting concept. Figuring how to balance the player against enemies and keep things fun is a different story, though; the enemy turns feel a bit long, and yet the player's still the player so you can gun down most monsters in their path before they even get their turn in. I wonder if a method of scaling the number of alert enemies to how long turns last would work, so a large swath of monsters (especially in a map containing far more enemies) get quicker turns? Well, that or letting players decide turn lengths via the menu or stopping a turn after an attack or something.

Testing it out a bit, it definitely doesn't appreciate custom monsters much compared to the enhanced AI mod you made the other day. Plus while I was playing with Faspons (fast weapons or whatever that was supposed to stand for again), I realized I could shoot while enemies were taking turns since I guess it only checks to stop vanilla weapons, and gunned down Imp in the middle of its turn. Then, since this was MAP01 and it was one of the wall surprise imps, it got crushed by the wall it came out from, and the game forced me back to menu because I guess it flipped out as a result. Also seems to not like player death while that Immerse mod is on, since it crashed to title once and locked the program up another time.

[Gorman Frebmane]

This would only fully work on a map pack with enemies designed for this.

[Enjay]

I just played Doom2:map01. Very neat indeed. I'm really not a fan of turn-based gameplay at all but that doesn't stop this being impressive. I'm even going to sit down and play an episode or two with this just to see how it pans out.

[Leon_Portier]

Oha! I want dis!
A turn based doom game is nice!

[Josh771]

Thanks for all the kind words and excitement, everybody!

It's a very unique, interesting concept. Figuring how to balance the player against enemies and keep things fun is a different story, though; the enemy turns feel a bit long, and yet the player's still the player so you can gun down most monsters in their path before they even get their turn in. I wonder if a method of scaling the number of alert enemies to how long turns last would work, so a large swath of monsters (especially in a map containing far more enemies) get quicker turns? Well, that or letting players decide turn lengths via the menu or stopping a turn after an attack or something.

Yeah, this mutator is absolutely not balanced at all. It's meant to be a sort of universal toy that you can slap onto the various idTech 1 games. I am considering adding a menu full of customizable values, though (like max distance for a monster to be considered in an encounter, or how long player turns and monster turns are, etc.)

Testing it out a bit, it definitely doesn't appreciate custom monsters much compared to the enhanced AI mod you made the other day. Plus while I was playing with Faspons (fast weapons or whatever that was supposed to stand for again), I realized I could shoot while enemies were taking turns since I guess it only checks to stop vanilla weapons, and gunned down Imp in the middle of its turn. Then, since this was MAP01 and it was one of the wall surprise imps, it got crushed by the wall it came out from, and the game forced me back to menu because I guess it flipped out as a result. Also seems to not like player death while that Immerse mod is on, since it crashed to title once and locked the program up another time.

Those do sound like pretty severe bugs. The one with the custom weapons would be because I'm only preventing player action through the cheat flag CF_TOTALLYFROZEN. Any weapon design that bypasses that for some reason will require me to figure out another method. As for it not handling dying very well, heh, no it doesn't, but my experience has always been that it starts weirdly bouncing from monster to monster instead of having a hard crash like that. I'll see if I can't work on some actual handling for the case that all players have died.

Also, this thing will absolutely never work with any AI mods designed for realtime. I do not recommend loading Universal Enhanced AI with turn-based.pk3. Maybe I can add some sort of pathing system to this mutator in the future, though.

[RikohZX]

Also, as should probably be the expected case with all mods, don't try this with Brutal Doom. Every gib has a turn, and it's crash-happy.

[Josh771]

Every gib has a turn

That is amazing! Similar to how all the vileshards/frag have turns in Hideous Destructor. Yes, this is definitely not compatible with many mods.

[Enjay]

I just played through Episode 1 and I stand by saying it's impressive but I feel that it can really only come into its own when a map/mod is properly designed around turn based play. I spent a lot of time waiting for enemies that have woken up but which I could not yet engage (nor them me) to have their turn as they paced inside their little monster cupboard or wherever they were.

It would also be nice if any map-based action instigated by an actor could be allowed to finish before the turn passed to the next actor. (e.g. moving platforms) - or at least some handling of map-based geometry. I'm guessing that it can't be done though.


Anyway, ain't nobody got time for this...

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[matuloco]

This is beautiful I played it with Netronian Chaos + Target Spy on the Diabolus Ex map... got some amazing Anachronox vibes, very enjoyable!

As proposed features I would suggest having enemies that are woken but far away and/or out of sight move in real time or just have them go back to an unalerted state. I think that would be a good way to avoid endless turns and ruining ambushes.

Also a timer bar to inform of how much time is left in a turn would be very useful to plan actions.

Nice job!

[dawnbreez]

One recommendation: Monsters that fire projectiles are much deadlier in this due to their perfect accuracy. Maybe give the player the blursphere inaccuracy effect so they don't get 360 noscoped by every imp?

[Captain J]

Really clever and interesting Mutator!! Also gotta agree with dawn here because some enemies with throwing projectile is always accurate, eventually hits you when you're standing still without any cover.

Gotta play Netronian Chaos along with this beauty. Sounds very fun!... And of course not going to add Nuts2 map. It might take a Nutsy Aeon.

EDIT: Also here's my suggestion; i see that player's movement is limited, so can we expect to see the timer showing player's momentum?

[camper]

This is just fantastic!
It is a bit like a fallout 1,2 and X-com in 3D.

[CD-Roman]

Outstanding work, simple idea but works GREAT. Ofc, need be more balanced but basics are cool. Now crouch will be very useful as cover in many maps

https://gfycat.com/pl/AggravatingVelvetyDuck