[Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

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wildweasel
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by wildweasel »

My sincerest apologies for the silence. Finals week is this week, and I've been trying to square away my math homework before putting any focus on the mod. That said, here are some things that are actually done and will show up in the next version...

Medical skills have been rebalanced. Leveling up is a bit quicker due to changing how the experience is handled.

Player class selection. Currently, though, they lack sprites, and I have not yet added specialization bonuses. Right now the only difference between classes is starting skills and items.

The beginnings of Athletics skill. Don't yet have movement speed affected by it, but the water bottle becomes more effective at high levels.
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twinkieman93
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by twinkieman93 »

Something I realized that I'm not sure was intentional or not is that the harder a gun is to use, the more gun experience using it gets you. Think about it. If you rank the guns from easiest to hardest to use, it goes shotgun>pistol>SMG. As it happens, you have to fire less times with the shotgun to kill something than you do with the pistol, and you have to fire less times with the pistol to kill something than you do with the SMG. Gun skill grows per shot for the same amount regardless of which weapon you're using, so like I said, more difficult-to-use guns = more experience gain.

In addition, you gain experience more slowly as you level up naturally as well. More of your shots miss at low levels, meaning you have to shoot even more shots to down your targets. As your accuracy improves, you have to shoot less, until eventually you're only firing as many bullets/shells as you need to kill a monster. Shooting less = less experience gain.

Again, not sure if this was the intent, but if it was, that's pretty ingenious.
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Josh771
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Josh771 »

Okay, so I read the OP when this first started and I thought to myself, "Meh, it might have merit. I'm not interested." Just played it, and I must say it brings something to Doom that just feels natural. I rather like it. I like it a lot. :)

Needs a catchy name to drop in conversation around the forums. Something like "Skilled Doom," unless that's been taken.
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wildweasel
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Post by wildweasel »

twinkieman93 wrote:Something I realized that I'm not sure was intentional or not is that the harder a gun is to use, the more gun experience using it gets you. Think about it. If you rank the guns from easiest to hardest to use, it goes shotgun>pistol>SMG. As it happens, you have to fire less times with the shotgun to kill something than you do with the pistol, and you have to fire less times with the pistol to kill something than you do with the SMG. Gun skill grows per shot for the same amount regardless of which weapon you're using, so like I said, more difficult-to-use guns = more experience gain.

In addition, you gain experience more slowly as you level up naturally as well. More of your shots miss at low levels, meaning you have to shoot even more shots to down your targets. As your accuracy improves, you have to shoot less, until eventually you're only firing as many bullets/shells as you need to kill a monster. Shooting less = less experience gain.

Again, not sure if this was the intent, but if it was, that's pretty ingenious.
As a counterpoint to that, the current leveling curve rises pretty sharply past around level 60, to the point where you would need to empty at least three clips of pistol ammo into something to gain one level. At level 97, that's 150 shots, and at 98, 300.

Also, the SMG is set to only give one shot worth of experience per 7 shots fired, yet it is still the quickest way to gain experience if you have the ammo to feed it with.
SidDoyle wrote:Okay, so I read the OP when this first started and I thought to myself, "Meh, it might have merit. I'm not interested." Just played it, and I must say it brings something to Doom that just feels natural. I rather like it. I like it a lot. :)

Needs a catchy name to drop in conversation around the forums. Something like "Skilled Doom," unless that's been taken.
I'll have to think of something. I've already written out a pretty large chunk of the project lore, the names of the four characters, and some light fiction to go with them. I'll see about including that lore file with the mod in a later version.
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ravage
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by ravage »

I just had a thought about the experience. Perhaps give a bonus to experience if you actually HIT an enemy? It'd give more incentive to actually aim rather than just firing blindly to raise your level.
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Josh771
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Josh771 »

As much as I like this thing, there is just one thing that is starting to nag at the back of my mind. This whole trigger-pulling mechanism... if anyone here has ever pulled the trigger on a gun -- double-action, I don't care what -- it's not exactly a feat of great strength. Is our level 1 civilian Doomguy just afraid to pull it or something? It would be more realistically modeled to let the trigger be pulled at least twice as fast as current and make gun skill mostly affect reload time, screen wobble, and recoil.

But sometimes I suppose realism can be pitched for game balance. Still fun, it's just starting to chisel its way into my OCD mind.
:P

EDIT: Whoa, wait. I was running this on an outdated GZDoom. The aiming and recoil effects weren't present. I suppose I've misinterpreted; it's not that he's having a hard time pulling the trigger, it's that he's steadying his weapon before firing... which is a much better effect than what I'd thought was going on.

...although really I should be able to pull the trigger really fast and hit basically nothing as a total noob...
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Crudux Cruo
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Crudux Cruo »

You know one thing that bothers me that i forgot to meantion, one thing that isn't in this mod, is recoil and accuracy adjustments. I think that if you really want to get it as realistic as possible, recoil and accuracy should get better with skill level as well.
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wildweasel
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by wildweasel »

They already do. At skill level fifty, the pistol is almost perfectly accurate and the shotgun hardly kicks as badly as at level zero.
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Josh771
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Josh771 »

Currently playing this with my own little adjustments to it: small ammo capacity (~2 reloads per weapon, 5 w/ backpack), slower walk speed, scripted darkness, and a toggled beam flashlight. Considering turning up the damage factor on the player, too. It's becoming a sort of scary, more accessible Hideous Destructor on my machine. :P

Are the player classes and athletics skill supposed to have been uploaded? I only ask because you described them as though they were current features and perhaps the upload had slipped your mind. I was saddened to see I had no such class options or athletic opportunities. I probably just misinterpreted things.
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-Ghost-
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by -Ghost- »

Those sound like good tweaks, Sid. Would you mind uploading them? A slower, darker and more tense atmosphere would go great with the skill stuff in this.
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wildweasel
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by wildweasel »

I feel like those tweaks would actually be kind of cool. Reduced movement speed is planned for the athletics skill system (when I've actually implemented it), and scripted darkness sounds like it'd be awesome for harder difficulties.

And no, the athletics system and character classes are not in a public release yet. I've still got things to tweak and add.
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Josh771
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Josh771 »

I'll be sure to upload them with an edit to this post if wildweasel isn't too guarded about it (don't know folks well enough yet to just run with things like that and I want to respect his project rights). Since everyone seems to like the thought, I may as well credit TheZombieKiller for uploading the Resource for the beam flashlight, although mine is modified to have a blue tinge and considerable range. I also play with ketchup.pk3, splash3.wad, and this wonderful ambient music pack. It's actually several wads/pk3s, so I'll zip 'em and Dropbox 'em. I'll edit this post when it's online.

EDIT: wwsd-skillguns.zip
wildweasel wrote:...Reduced movement speed is planned for the athletics skill system (when I've actually implemented it)...
I only modified the walk speed; running is still vanilla Doom, since I have had a bad habit of breaking vanilla maps that require speed.

EDIT2: I should probably note that dark_doom.pk3 is my own creation. I don't know if there's already a pk3 out there with that name, but it's basically just a script that lowers all sector lights a good deal and stops lighting effects. Works well with GZDoom's "Sector Light Mode" set to "Doom."
Last edited by Josh771 on Tue Jun 10, 2014 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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zrrion the insect
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by zrrion the insect »

I've modified this a little myself actually. I added A_Refire in a few places so that I could just hold the trigger down and keep shooting, and I made it so that, when you try to fire the weapon and it does not have any ammo in the clip, you have a chance to reload. The higher your level, the more likely you are to reload.
I also added some stuff so that hitting reload while walking wouldn't break the weapon bobbing.
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-Ghost-
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by -Ghost- »

Thanks for uploading it. The dark doom thing in particular is cool, and it and the flashlight seem to work pretty well with any other mods as well, a plus.
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Josh771
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Re: [Proof of Concept] Build Your Skill

Post by Josh771 »

I wonder if I should just upload the dark doom and flashlight package as a mod and let the forums use it as an instant-atmosphere-just-add-water... thingy. Glad you like it. :) It does accentuate that feeling of being a fumbling novice in a terrifying and demanding situation.

(And we really should, I suppose, stay on the subject of wildweasel's mod... so... yeah, I'm steering his ship off course. Apologies.)

EDIT: I added a "SkillPump" state to the shotgun that gets used with a gun level of 70+. It simulates pumping the shotgun with only frame A and offsets, to make it appear as though it is still being aimed as it is pumped. It works really well with having A_ReFire thrown in there. It gives the player a good visual cue about his skill level, too, seeing that he no longer throws the shotgun back to pump it.

Maybe you could use cues like that for each of the weapons at different milestones? Perhaps reloads start out kind of fumbly -- even have slippage and bumping magazines against the weapon, that kind of thing -- but they eventually become streamlined and the hand follows an almost orbital path as everything gets locked and loaded.
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