Heretical Doom v1.5 - Cyberdemons and Maulotaurs, oh my!

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wildweasel
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by wildweasel »

commode70x wrote:Upon attempting to start Heretical Doom, I get the error Fatal Error, with the message
Execution could not continue
3 errors while parsing DECORATE scripts

The errors it highlights are
Script error, "HereticalDoom 1.2.pk3:zscript.flechettes" line 280:
Too many arguments in call to A_SetBlend
Script error, "HereticalDoom 1.2.pk3:zscript.flechettes" line 301:
Too many arguments in call to A_SetBlend
Script error, "HereticalDoom 1.2.pk3:zscript.flechettes" line 322:
Too many arguments in call to A_SetBlend

I assume I'm supposed fix these before I can access the mod?
Are you running the latest stable version of GZDoom?
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

what version of GZDoom are you using? It does require a semi-recent build to function properly due to zscript.

also update: snuck a new neat things in with the bugfixes, in testing phase now :)
commode70x
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by commode70x »

It seems that updating to the newest version of GZDoom worked. I didn't expect it to actually require the newest version to function.
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StroggVorbis
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by StroggVorbis »

Excuse me if this has already been brought up before, but Hexen's Mana doesn't give any ammo when you're playing as the classic playerclass.
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

thanks for the heads up, I missed that in my tweaks for the next version. Admittedly, I don't play Classic mode anywhere near as much, so its a lot of ground to playtest between each IWAD :(

I believe it acted strange in Chex as well, so I'll have to make sure to get that too
zitro1987
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by zitro1987 »

Playing with Doom Reloaded (4th difficulty) and really enjoying this mod so far (with heretic monsters). However, I do think 'Colorful Hell' is a better fit, though its monster drops greatly speed up your level-ups, which may cause an issue in later levels (I will use custom doom to increase difficulty after each few episodes)


My main criticism is the health statistics of certain mid-tier monsters being too low compared to much inferior low-tier units or their equivalent doom monster replacement (if you play without heretic monsters, it is very noticeable). The difficulty shift for certain monsters become much more noticeable if you play with colourful hell mod instead of heretical monsters.

A bit high - The archers at 200hp are surprisingly hardy in groups, resulting in a battle of attrition at times. Recommendation: 200 -> 160

Very High - Ghost Warrior at 400hp - in groups, the extreme high hp (higher than arachnotron/mancubus replacements?) can greatly throw off map balance. Recommendation: 400 -> 250 would still keep these hardy, but applicable to map difficulty balance

Low - Wizards at 200hp - replacing the tanky cacodemon with a weaker unit that dodges your attacks, I see the point of lowering the hp, but 200hp keeps it too close to low-tier units. Recommendation: 200 -> 270

Low - Weredragons at 240hp - while revenants are glass cannons, they benefited from faster movement and smaller unit size to keep them alive. Their hp might need to come back to 300 for balance. Recommendation: 240 -> 300

Very Low - Ophidians (350hp) - Arachnotrons were relatively hardy and with very dangerous attacks. With very low hp now, they die too easily. In level 7 of doom2, a tome of power can easily destroy the 12 in seconds. Recommendation: 350 -> 500

Very Low - Wendigos (300hp) and Lava Wendigos (400hp) - Replacing fairly durable mancubi, I'm surprised how easy it is to defeat these replacements in most maps, and their attacks are not dangerous enough to compensate for the low hp. Recommendation: 600 for both

Balanced - fire gargoyles, Golems, Nitrogolems, saberclaw, Archer Knights, Serpent Rider, Iron Lich, and bosses
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

I appreciate the input! Heretical Monsters is still pretty early in progress, so thats very nice feedback. A lot of their balancing was based off of their equivalence with their vanilla counterparts (thus, they feel a bit weird in Doom mapping) but I can easily make IWAD specific health values for them to help with the natrual progression of said mapping. Many of the balance issues are going to be addressed as I make more "alternate" versions of monsters (like the different wizard and clink variations currently in the pack) but I will definitely put these into consideration with the main versions as well.

Archers are replacements for chaingunners, sacrificing hitscan and a bit of rate of fire for more health. It's inevitibly going to alter the balance of such the second you remove the hitscan due to how chaingunners are usually mapped, so I tried to do what I could to make them still be as threatening. I do have a few ideas to revisit this, as well as alternate variations to try, so we'll see what works best.

I understand what you mean with the Ghost Warrior, He's supposed to be very slow but very hardy. I could make him a bit slower, but that would make it nearly impossible for him to even connect with attacks unless the player is unable to move at all... I might tinker with making his attack animation sped up to compensate, and maybe bring the health down a tad. I'll definitely look into it though!

Wizards health is tricky because they're so damn mobile. If I increase their health, I'd have to increase their pain chance to keep them from zoop scooting everywhere the second you try to take them out with anything short of a high RoF. I will see what I can do to address it tho.

Weredragon fireballs work a bit differently from skellies, but they probably should be a bit more beefy. Believe it or not, their size is exactly the same as revenants tho. (technically, all monsters should be almost the same exact radius and height as their original counterparts to improve collision placement with maps)

I agree with beefing up Ophidians, I left them a little bit lighter because they felt a bit too tanky vs vanilla weaponry (especially in heretic where everything is a sponge) but they could use the love.

I didn't want to make wendigos be AS tanky as fatsos since they are faster and a bit more dangerous, but rechecking the base values for the fatty I can see your point. I'll probably bump them up to at least 500.

Also for the record, I highly recommend Colorful Hell with The base Heretical Doom mod, Its the main monster mod I pair it with. I'm actually putting an EXP gained modifier into the next version to help with overleveling when using it, but even then I still recommend setting drops to "Scarce" when using it. Thanks again for all this input, sometimes I get tunnelvision trying to playtest everything myself and lose track of areas to keep an eye on. It'll also help for when I expand it to Hexen, Chex, and Strife as well.
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

I should also take this time to mention that I absolutely hate the developer response of "soon" without actually delivering anything in a timely manner, so I'm sorry this next update has been taking so long. Personal reasons have gotten in the way, but I am continuing to work on it each day. Thank you to everyone who is looking forward to it :)
zitro1987
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by zitro1987 »

Thanks for your responses, I think my remaining concern (not unique to any experience-based mod):

When experience is included into a mod, it scales nicely over the first 10 levels or so (if mid-sized levels) but there is a point it begins to lose that balance and make the game progressively easier because in vanilla doom you always have the same weapons around level 10 through 30. Once you start getting your levels into the 20s or 30s, your mana is ridiculous for powerup spam, yet you can still kill mid-tier units with unpowered 1-2 crossbow shots or a second of rapid fire. You become so god-like to the point I'm reducing the damage via custom doom to 40% or even 33% for the game to function.

So what ways can we mitigate this late-game balance?

*Level-ups for non-melee weapon damage boosts and extra mana/health get reduced and with significant diminishing returns in later experience levels - later levels being mainly for alternative fire requirements
or
*Level-ups being rarer, but the effect of alternative fire has lower level requisites
or
*Level-ups after around 12 or so become difficult to achieve (level requirements for shooting reduced)
or
*You add an experience bonus % modifier into the menu that does not impact alternative fire requisites, so if a player chooses 50%, then the damage boost per level for a weapon is half as good. Then the player can change it to 25% if he/she wishes on later levels. This idea is more customizable and may make the game more enjoyable to all kinds of players.
or
*Add heretic monster variants in later levels that behave a bit differently and are hardier … if not heretic monster, some other kind of added challenge not involving adjusting specific monsters (compatibility reasons). Ideas include 'fast monster' difficulty in later levels combined with an hp % modifier)


The point is - the games are designed to not get any player boosts after level 8 or so in Doom II wads. Any kind of experience progression in my opinion never work well after a certain point unless they are coupled with some modified extra challenge (project brutality adds advanced creature tiers by level for example). You can do this extra challenge via monster variants with heretic monster, but keeping experience progression without monster mods would require other handicaps, particularly relating to monster hardiness.
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

Most weapons actually have scaling damage with your level, which causes them to get more powerful as you level up more. TBH the leveling should be a lot slower, which is something I will be addressing in the next version. I've actually already been working on an exp modifier and it has been testing very well, so I will likely be increasing the base xp per level requirement for default, and allowing players to "revert" the change with the % modifier if they choose (or scale it back even more.) Pair this with the episodic mode setting (new alt fire every level instead of every 2 levels) and you will be able to fine tune progression a bit easier without having to sacrifice unlocking altfires as much.

Part of the reason I don't want to go TOO overboard is since experience is tied to pickups, not enemy kills. Campaigns and monster mods vary wildly in how many pickups are available, so what works for some, will make others practically unplayable. That said, I love colorful hell, so I want to make sure its good-but-not-obscenely-good in that like it has been in past versions :D

also mini update on the monsters addon: I have found a way to make the archer into a worthy replacement for the chaingunner. be afraid :D
zitro1987
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by zitro1987 »

I believe there is a major bug in dragon claw's tome of power's primary attack - it seems to already deal 2000-3000 damage per second in low levels (e.g. killing 2 mancubi in difficulty 5 in a fraction of a second). I have the feeling the projectiles are cutting through the target more than expected, dealing an unexpected damage multiplier.

I feel these weapons deal at least 2X as much damage as their doom counterparts. With many additional elements lowering the difficulty of the game (experience, inventory, spells, others below), this can be concerning.

Medikit-friendly wads result in storage of several dozen +50hp healing purple potions (don't know what they are called). I wonder if reducing the effect closer to the level of a medikit and/or putting an inventory limit of 10 or so may be needed.

I think even in low levels, mana seems to replenish too easily (and backpacks granting items too plentifully in classic mode) given the sheer power of the abilities (especially the tome and the hourglass). I'm not sure if the intention is to use extended 5+ periods of these per level, but it contributes to the easy difficulty of mod.


Basically, the game seems too easy even past the [at least 2X, closer to 3X-4X with higher exp] damage output compared to vanilla weapons. There are too many elements besides damage working on player's favor.
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

zitro1987 wrote:I believe there is a major bug in dragon claw's tome of power's primary attack - it seems to already deal 2000-3000 damage per second in low levels (e.g. killing 2 mancubi in difficulty 5 in a fraction of a second). I have the feeling the projectiles are cutting through the target more than expected, dealing an unexpected damage multiplier.

I feel these weapons deal at least 2X as much damage as their doom counterparts. With many additional elements lowering the difficulty of the game (experience, inventory, spells, others below), this can be concerning.

Medikit-friendly wads result in storage of several dozen +50hp healing purple potions (don't know what they are called). I wonder if reducing the effect closer to the level of a medikit and/or putting an inventory limit of 10 or so may be needed.

I think even in low levels, mana seems to replenish too easily (and backpacks granting items too plentifully in classic mode) given the sheer power of the abilities (especially the tome and the hourglass). I'm not sure if the intention is to use extended 5+ periods of these per level, but it contributes to the easy difficulty of mod.


Basically, the game seems too easy even past the [at least 2X, closer to 3X-4X with higher exp] damage output compared to vanilla weapons. There are too many elements besides damage working on player's favor.
The damage output from the tomed dragon claw was due to the Ripper property, something that I have been tuning with almost every single release since 0.4. It has been scaled back substantially in the next version by making the projectiles travel much faster, and it will not rip anything with the BOSS flag. This will keep it still strong at cleaning out rooms of weak enemies, but cause it to do substantially less damage to bosses and more beefy enemies. it will also, of course, continue to be monitored and tweaked in future versions, im sure.

In regards to overall balance, yes its more powerful than vanilla weapons. It was never intended to be parallel with them, especially since this mod has more of a focus on "glass cannon" gameplay: Corvus is not very beefy, and his armor absorbs a lot, but melts super fast... But he can dish out damage well, he has options and escapes, and he has crowd control for a variety of situations. If you believe things are too easy, you are more than welcome to play on a harder difficulty with zero enemy infighting (Madman is my goto with most monster mods and secret difficulty for vanilla, for anyone curious) and/or load up a custom monster mod like Colorful Hell. The hidden difficulty is also pretty punishing, making the player much weaker and the enemies much tougher. It really can be quite challenging at times, and it will be even moreso with the experience and level tweaks I'm going to be making in the next version :)

In regards to a few of your points, the health items are going to be getting toned down a bit now that the healing spell is becoming less useless. Mana accumulation isnt going to be changing, but I may be putting chunk costs on a few things like tomed altfires to make it less endless at higher levels: It's also going to have more applications like crafting a few more items instead of just flechettes. The Torch spell is also getting a huge buff, and there is still plenty of room to rework spells on the horizon. TBH the Flight spell will probably be replaced, as soon as I think of something badass enough to fill its spot.

One of the big things of the mod is to give players options. Its very unfocused in that regard, while i often enjoy more archetypal player classes, Corvus certainly is not one. If its too hard, make it easier. If its too easy, make it harder. The important thing is to find a balance that you enjoy.
AvzinElkein
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by AvzinElkein »

Wow, been more than half a year since the last update.
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Ryuhi
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by Ryuhi »

Yeah, I've had a lot of IRL things getting in the way, unfortunately. That said, I have been working on it daily, its just that work has been slow. :(
dangopacito
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Re: Heretical Doom v1.2 - Making Melee Fun Again!

Post by dangopacito »

the kick attack alerts enemies in strife and it kinda breaks immersion
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