[WIP] Project MSX - Beta 2 (v0.2a) July 22, 2013 Update!

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1. The autoshotgun feels a hair weak, to the point that even the pistol feels a bit more powerful.
2. I'm not a fan of the Satyr Imp replacements. They'll keep, certainly, but I feel they don't fit in well with the other foes, especially since there are already barons and hell knights.

This. The autoshotgun is, for the most part, my last choice in weapon - it takes two shots to kill a Kabro, versus one melee - at any range where a shotgun would be useful, you might as well just bludgeon the creatures to death with it.

Furthermore, Kabros are absurdly fast, and deal a lot of damage in a very short space of time.

Also, amid all of the enemy replacements, there are no replacements for the Wolfenstein SS - it's such an unusual change of pace to get to level 31 after killing your way through legions of ultra-hard monsters to be faced with enemies that you can literally just melee your way through.

I am actually not bothered by the attack power and speed of the Kabros. I can deal with that just fine. It's the appearance I am not a fan of. It's like a heretic/Hexen monster snuck into my doom game.

Also, as much as I love the hud, could you please introduce an option to remove the opacity from the top and bottom of the screen? It's a bit annoying. I understand that is it a nice, stylish look, and it should stick around for those who want it, but I'm not a fan, myself.

[User160971235]

I'm not really a fan of the autoshotgun myself, either. The power's okay, but it just feels/looks/sounds weak compared to a proper pump shotgun

I can agree somewhat on the visuals of the gun (though the idea of a versatile bullpup shotgun is kind of neat) but I figure that if the gun is made to sound anymore powerful, it'd probably be too clamorous due to it's rate of fire. Probably wouldn't mind the sound being a little more gainy and heavy, though.

The nail shotgun is definintely a pump shotgun done right, perfect blend of sound, model and damage for a weapon that's very satisfying to shoot.

I find the flare/spark effects on the nails to be a bit annoying, both because of a second of lag per shot as well as obscured vision, but yeah other than that, the Raptor is pretty much flawless.

The autoshotgun is, for the most part, my last choice in weapon - it takes two shots to kill a Kabro, versus one melee - at any range where a shotgun would be useful, you might as well just bludgeon the creatures to death with it.

Agreed. It is pretty frustrating that the autoshotty takes two shots to kill a Kabro, even when you're directly up in its face. Perhaps it needs just that small increase in point-blank damage to manage the one shot kill so it's not as agitating when you get attacked by an ambush of a bunch of Kabros.

EDIT: Playing around with the Raptor again, I realize that the nails themselves really don't cause any lag for me; I probably made it sound worse than it is. I guess the only reason I mentioned any lag is because I really only experience it when in the heat of combat, where there are abundant gibs and projectiles with trails from other enemies flying around at the same time

[Patriot1776]

The autoshotgun is, for the most part, my last choice in weapon - it takes two shots to kill a Kabro, versus one melee - at any range where a shotgun would be useful, you might as well just bludgeon the creatures to death with it.

I've now started playing with the autoshotgun's damage. It was originally 11 damage per pellet, and it shoots 9 pellets, for originally at best, 99-198-297 damage per shot at point blank range. So, I've for now upped it 15 damage per pellet to give 135-270-405 damage. Got more playtesting to do, but it's definitely more useful now, better to use at close range than the assault rifle when marines/satyrs are around, along with the maulers.

EDIT: Just noticed that 'FBF_NORANDOM' is set for the AutoShotgun, probably every weapon, so the autoshotgun, after my changes, is doing 135 damage now per point-blank shot. Now trying to narrow the spread a little and reducing the pellets to 7 while upping the damage per pellet to 20, to give 140 damage per point-blank shot.

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For the Power Fist, I was thinking in adding a low damage air blast when you swing a punch and miss, but still I have no idea how to implement it into the game

A short, wide cone of very low damage, invisible ripper projectiles with weak knockback, that triggers when you DON'T impact an enemy. Make it weak though, because most likely enemies will be impacted by more than one projectile at once, compounding the effect.

Personally, I voted against the arm blade, but it was a near thing. If the arm blade WERE put into the game, I would suggest a slight damage boost over the fists, but the primary reason for it to exist would be to change the nature of the charge attack, like a wedge of deadly energy projectiles that rip through enemies for a short distance at charge levels 2 and 3, and A much wider wave of projectiles with push and ripper at rank 4.

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After some further play, in Scythe2, Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, I have a few other suggestions.

1. Lower the speed of the Kabros by like... 15%. If you don't, that's cool. It doesn't bother me THAT much.
2. Buff Mancubus damage. Seriously, like... double or triple it. I wasn't feeling threatened by those giant fluffy pillow launchers at all
3. Replace the human marines with zombies or demons, please. I am not a fan of human enemies spouting the same 5 or 6 lines over and over again. Plus I feel killing human enemies (even if they're mind controlled or whatever) that aren't obviously undead to be against the spirit of the game.
4. Make the cacodemons a little bit (10-15%) faster. They rarely ever get a chance to use their screech attack, even ones that manage to blindside me.
5. I like how occasionally a trooper with a nail shotgun will pop up amongst the other soldiers. The occasional rare variant monster keeps the game interesting. You should extend this feature to other enemies.

[Patriot1776]

1. Lower the speed of the Kabros by like... 15%. If you don't, that's cool. It doesn't bother me THAT much.
3. Replace the human marines with zombies or demons, please. I am not a fan of human enemies spouting the same 5 or 6 lines over and over again. Plus I feel killing human enemies (even if they're mind controlled or whatever) that aren't obviously undead to be against the spirit of the game.
5. I like how occasionally a trooper with a nail shotgun will pop up amongst the other soldiers. The occasional rare variant monster keeps the game interesting. You should extend this feature to other enemies.

Gotta agree with these three, especially #3. Either that, or put together a logical storyline to justify human marines working together with the monsters. Meanwhile, I'm gonna try suggestion #1 myself, do the editing myself. Are you referring to both movement speed AND projectile speed?

[VICE]

5. I like how occasionally a trooper with a nail shotgun will pop up amongst the other soldiers. The occasional rare variant monster keeps the game interesting. You should extend this feature to other enemies.

I would like to note that raptor grunts aren't actually spawned randomly at all, they always spawn in pairs with spectres (via a shared spawner that replaces the original spectre). At least that's what it was like last time I was poking around in there.

[submerge]

1. Lower the speed of the Kabros by like... 15%. If you don't, that's cool. It doesn't bother me THAT much.
3. Replace the human marines with zombies or demons, please. I am not a fan of human enemies spouting the same 5 or 6 lines over and over again. Plus I feel killing human enemies (even if they're mind controlled or whatever) that aren't obviously undead to be against the spirit of the game.
5. I like how occasionally a trooper with a nail shotgun will pop up amongst the other soldiers. The occasional rare variant monster keeps the game interesting. You should extend this feature to other enemies.

Gotta agree with these three, especially #3. Either that, or put together a logical storyline to justify human marines working together with the monsters. Meanwhile, I'm gonna try suggestion #1 myself, do the editing myself. Are you referring to both movement speed AND projectile speed?

I was mostly thinking of foot speed, but slightly increasing the time it takes him to throw fireballs a bit might help too. The projectile speed is fine, really. But slow down his foot speed and attack animation a bit.

The hell knight could use a more interesting attack or two though. For now he's just a slightly faster reskin. The Baron and Archvile are terrible recolors, by the way. The ridiculously saturated red look is kinda awful on them, even if it works on the cacodemon.

I don't see many mods where demons are actually carrying and using rifles in their hands. It's always former humans. I think a demon with powerful legs for leaping, running, and kicking, while using wielding armaments would make for an interesting foe. As long as he doesn't jump around like a flea on meth...

The charge punch is fun as hell to use, but at the same time, it is too easy to use, at this point. If possible, make it so punching a wall or floor will result in an extremely reduced shockwave. Maybe knockback only. Having it so the player does not actually have to connect with the enemy with his punch takes a lot of the risk out of this particular risk/reward attack

[Patriot1776]

1. Lower the speed of the Kabros by like... 15%. If you don't, that's cool. It doesn't bother me THAT much.

I was mostly thinking of foot speed, but slightly increasing the time it takes him to throw fireballs a bit might help too. The projectile speed is fine, really. But slow down his foot speed and attack animation a bit.

I guess thing I've gotta play with things in the 'See' state too then, right? I tried just lowering its base speed to 8 instead of 10 and it didn't seem to do a darn thing. I agree too with the frequency he throws his fireballs. Several Kabros throwing fireballs at you in unison, with you in a spot you cannot easily dodge them, your shield gets completely depleted in no time, forcing you to fallback and wait for it to charge back up in case you don't have shield boosters. So yeah, its either slowing the Kabro down and reducing his enthusiasm to fling lots of fireballs, or make shield boosters more abundant. I wanna go with the former first.

[Patriot1776]

Sorry for the bump, but I just experienced a situation that definitely JUSTIFIES toning down the Kabro or just plain replacing it.

Map06, Community Chest 1, western room where you get the MegaSphere. Went in there the second time with full shields and I believe full health, and was DEAD from two waves of Kabro balls because they both hit me in a bang-bang fashion and because of the sheer number of fireballs, first wave knocked out ALL of my my shields and the second wave killed me. Used 'resurrect' and 'god' right then and there to keep from rage-quitting. I'm going to update in my post my efforts in not only dialing back the Kabro's foot speed a bit more, but also the speed of its projectiles and adding some tics to the attack time.

Getting killed in such a 'bang-bang' fashion, without really any chance of reacting to what's going on, by what is supposed to replace only the Imp, should not really be happening. Yes, I get how it was a roomful of them, but they were all facing in your direction and so you were wide open and they ALL throw fireballs so massed at once and in such quick succession, you got really no chance.

EDIT: My initial coding changes -

Code: Select all

actor Kabro replaces DoomImp

States
{
Missile:
			KABR EE 2 A_FaceTarget
			KABR EFG 2 A_FaceTarget  
			KABR G 5 A_CustomMissile ("Kabro_Fireball", 35, 0, 0, 0, 0)
			KABR PPQR 4 A_FaceTarget  // This.  Switched from 2 tics/frame to 4 tics/frame, so now 16 tics between fireballs instead of only 8 tics.
			KABR R 5 A_CustomMissile ("Kabro_Fireball", 35, 0, 0, 0, 0)  
			KABR R 6 
			Goto See
}


actor Kabro_fireball

speed 18 // This had been 24.  Reducing it to 18 gives a 25% speed reduction in the moving speed of its fireballs.

So far, these two changes have made the Kabro a more fair and equal replacement for the regular Imp so far. More difficult yes, but not near as overpowered as before.

[Valherran]

Funny, I was going to say something about the Kabro too when I got maimed in a few map packs by a horde in a small room. I think those changes may balance him out too. I was never fond of this guy's fireball spammage.

[Patriot1776]

Other people who've got SLADE, try those changes I posted to the Kabro and see what you think. If you can improve upon it, great. I did consider briefly upping the 'A_FaceTarget between fireballs in the above code to 5 tics a frame instead of 4, but then decided having more than half a second delay between fireballs (20 tics) would be a bit much nerfing. May remove one of the 'P' frames and bump the tics to 6 tics a frame to get 18 tics a frame to get right at around a half-second delay to see how it is. I'm okay with the 25% slowing of the fireball speed at the moment though.

[MagSigmaX]

I wouldn't much miss light amplification goggle pickups if it was built into the player as another side function. Besides, I think it kind of makes sense that the player character would have that technological advantage, being a high-tech supersoldier. Also, it could open up the opportunity for the light goggle pickup to be replaced with another new pickup, like perhaps a energy amplifier battery that temporarily reinforces players suit power, giving the player a little bit of time to be able to max charge a couple punches or grenades without the danger of rerouting shields and dying in a split second? just food for thought

Yeah, I been thinking in adding a nightvision mode to the suit, it makes sense after all. And I will replace the light amplification visor powerup pickup with an overshield sphere or a defense sphere, since that pickup is barely used in non-id maps anyway.

Will there be a Zandronum compatible version later?

As far as I know Zanondrum Zandronum is not up to date with the latest ZDoom features that Project MSX uses, so no Zandronum compatibility yet.

After some further play, in Scythe2, Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, I have a few other suggestions.

1. Lower the speed of the Kabros by like... 15%. If you don't, that's cool. It doesn't bother me THAT much.
2. Buff Mancubus damage. Seriously, like... double or triple it. I wasn't feeling threatened by those giant fluffy pillow launchers at all
3. Replace the human marines with zombies or demons, please. I am not a fan of human enemies spouting the same 5 or 6 lines over and over again. Plus I feel killing human enemies (even if they're mind controlled or whatever) that aren't obviously undead to be against the spirit of the game.
4. Make the cacodemons a little bit (10-15%) faster. They rarely ever get a chance to use their screech attack, even ones that manage to blindside me.
5. I like how occasionally a trooper with a nail shotgun will pop up amongst the other soldiers. The occasional rare variant monster keeps the game interesting. You should extend this feature to other enemies.

1. The Kabros will be nerfed for the next version.
2. They already do a lot of damage, however I will revise the attack patterns so he has more a little more chance to hit the player.
3. I will change their voices so that they don't sound too normal, but that's low priority right now.

And Patriot1776, Glad to hear your dad is doing better, hope he recovers. And also thanks for all the feedback... Regarding the tutorial map, this is something that someone on youtube suggested and I agree. It would be nice to have a good tutorial map to teach new players all the new abilities and quirks that Project MSX has. But the problem is that I suck at mapping, so I will have to see how I solve this, guess I have to practice more mapping.

Also the autoshotgun is receiving a damage boost, slightly increased clip size and a new burst fire mode for the next version.

Thanks for all the feedback!

[Valherran]

Rough estimate on Release?

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And Patriot1776, Glad to hear your dad is doing better, hope he recovers. And also thanks for all the feedback... Regarding the tutorial map, this is something that someone on youtube suggested and I agree. It would be nice to have a good tutorial map to teach new players all the new abilities and quirks that Project MSX has. But the problem is that I suck at mapping, so I will have to see how I solve this, guess I have to practice more mapping.

Also the autoshotgun is receiving a damage boost, slightly increased clip size and a new burst fire mode for the next version.

Thanks for all the feedback!

I could help you with the tutorial map. Been a while since I built a map, and I would enjoy the chance to pull out Doom Builder again. Just drop me a note. I'd be happy to discuss it.

Also thanks for the autoshotty buff.