Hearts of Demons - BARON [1.1.0] 7/29/22

[Brohnesorge]

Don't feel bad at all; this kinda of critical look and (for lack of a better word) nitpickiness is what is really needed for this mod right now. So I greatly appreciate your thoughts!

Difficulty balance is...weird. If a map has too many human/zombie enemies, its super easy because constant heals. If it has no zombie enemies, it's less so because you need to depend on what's on the map. I may have to shift around the soul drop chances, but I have to be careful to avoid you being starved of gun ammo by doing that. But it's something I've noticed as well. There is also a HUGE power spike once you pick up a Bruiser Sphere. Like I can go from hovering around 600 HP, pick up a Bruiser Sphere, then suddenly I never drop below ~1800 HP. I really feel like I need to tweak it but am not sure how. The problem may just be BDMonsters' balance.

I feel the Azazel is way too versatile. I wanted it to be a good general use weapon, but it's waaaaay too much so. Every weapon is "better" at its one thing, but the Azazel does it all and still does it very well. The rework I'm planning will make it still versatile, but it will have it's own place in the weapon balance instead of BEING the weapon balance. I'm also planning a rework of the Enchantment system, which will also help with this issue. Rocket Loading does an AoE explosion while the FLASH's alt-fire doesn't have any AoE but does HUGE damage.

Vulcan is not designed as a general use weapon; its designed as a slaughter-map weapon, for sure. That's why you click once and it shoots like...8 times I think? It's also in the middle of a rework, potentially being replaced with an equal ridiculous weapon, like a Breda-SAFAT or a Type-99.

A general modding principle of mine is if the gun exists in RL, I want to be accurate to it. Hell, my other mod is completely about that. And I have worried about feature creep with this mod, but I also like to have options. I prefer mods that have a low to moderate amount of weapons that you can do a lot with, as opposed to mods that have a shitton of weapons. So that's what I did here.

[Gideon020]

*snip*

By Type-99 do you mean a machinegun or a tank cannon, because a tank gun would be a neat weapon to use in a mod that isn't Russian Overkill.

[Brohnesorge]

The WW2 era Japanese AA autocannon one.

[Gideon020]

The WW2 era Japanese AA autocannon one.

Ooh, fancy.

[Armaetus]

The automap is not completely obscuring the first person view when you access it. This has occurred with GZDoom 3.2 devbuilds. Anyone else get a similar issue?

[Doomenator]

...

I did not like how the player moves. And the camera too high. It gives strange and unpleasant impression of gameplay.
Also the HUD need to fix.

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[Brohnesorge]

Change your screen size to 11. Also the camera is high because, you know, you're a really tall pink monster thing. That's one thing I won't move on.

I've been getting quite a few complaints about the movement though so I'll start tweaking around a bit with that. Can you be more specific with what is unpleasant about the movement so I know where to start?

Finally, the weird bar thing on auto-map is a result of the HUD. It technically replaces the status bar, so the map makes space for the bar that's not there. I think. Either way I'm not sure how to fix that, but I'll throw some stuff at it.

[Doomenator]

Change your screen size to 11. Also the camera is high because, you know, you're a really tall pink monster thing. That's one thing I won't move on.

I've been getting quite a few complaints about the movement though so I'll start tweaking around a bit with that. Can you be more specific with what is unpleasant about the movement so I know where to start?

Finally, the weird bar thing on auto-map is a result of the HUD. It technically replaces the status bar, so the map makes space for the bar that's not there. I think. Either way I'm not sure how to fix that, but I'll throw some stuff at it.

Try replace the first line in the SBARINFO on:

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//height 32;

Next, I pointed out 2 reasons why I have no desire to play the mod, they are obvious and require no explanation. But this is my opinion. So do what you see fit.

[Atik]

My own two cents on movement:

When I first load it up without playing in a while, the Baron's increased height makes him feel a little "floaty". The obvious solution would be to slow his max speed, but I don't really want to see that happen because it's a minor issue, and I would rather have the current speed when I need it.

[Goregrinder]

i don't think the height is too much of an issue, it would be weird to be normal doom guy height while playing a baron. your view ducks down when you go through low ceilings and doorways anyway, like a baron would have to walking around on some maps.

but yeah i like that the vulcan is really a bfg type weapon, it's cool to have a rapid fire weapon in that role instead of a big explosive.

for the health stuff what I might suggest is having the demon type enemies who never drop ammo have a chance to drop the demon-heart type items. like pinkies and imps might have a very small chance (since theres a lot of them on most maps) to drop the red demon hearts, then barons have a slightly higher chance to drop the green baron heart item because they're rarer.

Or maybe, and I don't know how hard this would be to implement, you could only get demon hearts from melee kills. bullets or explosives would probably destroy the heart, but if you were clawing another baron open you'd be able to spare their heart and consume it. It would add an element of risk and reward. But I don't know, that might be really hard to code and might not work out in practice, stuff like this is tough to balance.

[Atik]

I think the latest version has a bug where the "BFG" book can't be picked up.

[Dalse]

On my opnion about the movement, I think it is fine because his foward momentum is enough for platform walking, while his sideways walking is not that fast to compensate his huge hp!

[Brohnesorge]

for the health stuff what I might suggest is having the demon type enemies who never drop ammo have a chance to drop the demon-heart type items. like pinkies and imps might have a very small chance (since theres a lot of them on most maps) to drop the red demon hearts, then barons have a slightly higher chance to drop the green baron heart item because they're rarer.

Or maybe, and I don't know how hard this would be to implement, you could only get demon hearts from melee kills. bullets or explosives would probably destroy the heart, but if you were clawing another baron open you'd be able to spare their heart and consume it. It would add an element of risk and reward. But I don't know, that might be really hard to code and might not work out in practice, stuff like this is tough to balance.

Both of these are actually pretty good ideas and MIGHT be possible with the power of ZScript. Let me ask around and I might just be able to do this. Also feel like I should remind people that if you have Carnage, you can either grab a Berserk or activate the Baron Ball Spell Strike and it gives you life drain on your claws. Just in case that was forgotten/not realized. I know it's not in the OP and I've actually been pecking at the OP to get it updated with all the info of the mod.

Quick little HOTFIX because yes the Devastation Tome was broken and you couldn't pick it up.
Here it is.

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-Fixed Devastation not being pick-upable.
-Fixed gap in Automap.

[Armaetus]

My Random Deaths & Decorations runs really nice side by side with this mod BTW.

Also, some video using Beta 7.3 and a trio of classic 90s megawad maps:

[Dalse]

I have been thinking about a suggestion of mutators that may be interesting regarding the difficulty with this mod:

-How about making the bruiser sphere toggleable? I think it is a interesting way of giving more difficulty due to the difference of power between the normal and bruiser being too high!
- Or a toggling of max hp limit? Good if a map gets too easy due to many spheres! Or a option for disabling of HP over 1000?