Changelog 1.5
Spoiler:
=== Melee Staff ===
• Staff altfire's reflector should be massively improved in terms of accuracy, less likely to block to the sides/behind, and less likely for projectiles to get "stuck" in it. Now resembles a thin wall in front of the player, rather than a giant cube, and sticks to the player better while moving.
• Whirling Dervish attack has been powered up: When Corvus has spare mana, it will use some to make the attack more powerful, and unleash ripping wind slashes to deal additional damage. If used when tomed, it will become even more powerful and launch an additional even more devastating volley of gusts! The powered version does still use up even more mana though, so be careful not to run out!
• Fixed a melee staff frame having incorrect offsets
• Improved the melee staff attack animations a bit
=== Gold Wand ===
• Normal fire how now been significantly sped up, should help with plinking at range significantly
• Updated the firing trail for the primary tracer
• Fixed Gold Wand accuracy reduction when rapid firing
• Spread for continued fire has been slightly reduced, though still less accurate than single shots.
• Gold wand shots will now always destroy pods in one shot
• Reduced the altfire cost back to 5
=== Ethereal Crossbow ===
• Fixed a damage miscalculation when using the crossbow's double bolt mode's primary fire (was way too high in unscaled mode)
• Crossbow bolt “shards” now have their damage drop off over distance: most attacks with the weapon are now even stronger at point blank, but weaker at range.
• Single bolt primary fire has had its spread normalized: vertical and horizontal spreads are both now more consistent.
• Single bolt primary fire now also has a manual “quick refire” if tapping the button instead of holding it. Quick refire does however have more spread.
• Single bolt altfire (jumbo bolt) has had its lower end of its damage calculation increased, and now travels faster. This attack also has a quick refire as well, though the window is much tighter.
• Powered Altfire for the Ethereal Crossbow has been reworked: Instead of bouncing around and looking for targets, it now functions as a brain-seeking drill which detonates after a short time.
=== Dragon Claw ===
• Primary Fire has been changed: Now fires sequentially from each individual talon.
• Accuracy has been improved.
• Fire Rate has been reduced slightly.
• Fixed Powered dragon claw altfire damage, is now a “one time ripper” and should be useful vs both lined up hordes and bosses alike.
• Powered altfire now also has improved visual and audio feedback.
=== Phoenix Rod ===
• Made the Phoenix Rod's normal fire a bit deeper sounding
• The powered primary fire (flamethrower) has been improved! Instead of only firing in a straight line, it fires 4(!!) projectiles at a time in a wide spread
• These projectiles still do not rip boss enemies, but have even greater crowd control capabilities than before.
• Phoenix Combo Gold Wand bombs now have more gravity, but launch upward. Should make them more contained when being used for carpet bombing
• Decreased the cost for the Ethereal Crossbow's shock combo to 0 additional ammo, 1 mana.
• Altfire charging now has a new animation, should help with identifying what projectile each level of charge unleashes.
• Third tier altfire projectile and firing attack animation have been updated.
• NEW COMBO: Shooting the level 2 charged orb with a normal Phoenix Rod shot will cause it to absorb the shot, getting bigger and having a larger and more damaging explosion! This can be done multiple times, and will detonate over time if no more are applied.
• Phoenix Combo Firemace orbs should no longer detonate Firemace Powered Altfire pods
=== Sidhe's Wrath ===
• Sidhe's Wrath normal fire has been reworked: Instead of ripping enemies, each ghost will cling to them, dealing continuous damage until it expires.
• If the enemy dies before the spooker's time is up, it will seek out a new target.
• If a LARGE number of ghosts attack the same target simultaneously, something special will happen
• Spooky ghosts are now purple, and are a bit more translucent
• Powered fire has been adjusted: Ghosts last half as long as normal ones, but do twice as much damage to compensate. They also home in on their target faster, but each shot has a minimum commitment of 5 charge (actual cost unchanged.)
• The powered altfire is finally here! Instead of summoning fallen Sidhe to help in the fight, a large friendly Maulotaur will come to your aid!
• The Maulotaur has decreased health compared to his normal counterpart, but has a much more powerful repertoire of attacks. For more information, see the Heretic section of the Vanilla+ notes.
• The Maulotaur CAN inflict friendly damage on the player, but it is at a considerably reduced rate (20%) so some caution is needed when using this mighty ally.
=== Rebalancing ===
• Reloading scaling has been adjusted across the board: Passive recharge scales directly with level, while direct reloading will improve at different rates for each weapon. Generally speaking, reloads are a bit slower than previous at low levels, and much faster than previous at higher levels.
• Increased Hellstaff altfire cost from 15 to 20
• Gauntlets of the Necromancer's punches damage increased
• StoneSkin spell now grants immunity to knockback
• Tome of Power mana perk has been reworked: Instead of disabling the passive mana drain of the spell when active, it will reduce the additional ammo cost on almost all attacks when the spell is active.
• The primary fire for the Phoenix Rod when tomed has not been reduced, since it is already extremely cheap.
• Ammo pickups have been slightly increased across the board for Classic Caster Corvette.
=== HUD Changes ===
• Added two new popup screens, one for weapons and unlocks, the other for Spell information!
• The weapon and unlock screen is accessed via the Strife “status” popup, so be sure to bind it!
• Status screen shows all weapons picked up, whether their altfire has been unlocked, and whether their powered altfire has been unlocked.
• The spell information popup is tied to the “log” popup.
• This popup lists the name of the spell, its HUD icon, a description of the spell, its mana costs (activation, and sustaining,) and includes a small tip on its usage.
These will be improved and expanded upon over future versions, so please feel free to provide any feedback!
• HELP screens also updated, now both more legible and covering more topics, with nifty little illustrations and extra tips!
• “Selected item” indicator is now green to help with visibility.
=== Misc Bugfixes and Tweaks ===
• Misc cleanup of code documentation
• Weapons now play sounds while The Spell of Tranquility is active!
• Weapons now have unique recharge sounds
• Armor Bonuses can go over the 200 limit now, similar to health bonuses
• Armor draining through specific melee attacks still have their previous limits
• Armor draining through attacks should be more consistently generated as well, so it shouldn't jump to full instantly with certain attacks.
• The Gold Wand and Dragon Claw primary fire are now able to activate hitscan-specific switches. Sigil fans rejoice!
• Added CVAR to disable the passive mana regeneration that can be gained at high levels. When active, mana is ONLY granted through pickups.
• When picking up an Enchanted shield, it will now automatically be used if any lesser armor types are active.
• 3D Model Projectiles and Damage Scaling Projectiles have been disabled by default, and moved to their own options section. As they aren't being considered for future updates to the mod, they will need to be re-enabled each time the game is loaded.
• Fixed Running bug that caused the player to do short speed bursts with a cooldown instead of functioning like proper running.
• The torch spell no longer detonates Pods. Navigating the dark just got that much safer!
• Fixed a bug where having level scaling enabled reduced the cost of the Gold Wand's tomed primary fire.
• Fixed an issue that would cause some of Corvus' spells to deactivate automatically after an extended period.
• Fixed a rare bug that could occur when unmorphing from the RoosterRoaster powerup.
• Fixed Access All Altfires CVAR for the Firemace Powered Altfire.
• noinfighting MAPINFO flag was causing some unintentional issues, and thus has been fixed. Changed out for a script that causes monsters to be able to hurt each other with projectiles, but only infight on low difficulty.
• There is also a CVAR to disable the infighting script entirely, allowing infighting on all difficulties.
• Fixed Hellstaff powered normal fire volume issue
• Fixed Flechette counts being incorrect while automap is open
• Fixed trajectory of Powered Firemace orbs when firing
• Fixed autoswap issue with Flechette Launcher: Should no longer take priority on pickup, Gauntlets are chosen instead
• Pods can now be both pushed AND kicked! Pods do not take damage from kicking, so go have fun!
• Gauntlets now have a new particle going forward: The previous particle effect is still there when 3D models are enabled.
• 3D models mode has had its missing projectiles fixed! No more random blue projectile sprites where there should be tracers instead!
That said, I am planning to shift away from the tracers that were carried over from Brutal Heretic, due to maintenance concerns such as this one. I will be making the CVAR set to OFF by default in this version to prepare for the future, but for now it can be manually re-enabled. If there is enough call for it to be kept, I will do my best to not remove it in future versions!
=== Vanilla+ Monsters Changes ===
Doom
• Vanilla + replacer CVAR improved: now affects Heretic and Hexen as well, and should play nicer with other Monster Mods: simply disable the CVAR when loading monster packs and you're good to go!
• Zombieman+: Attacks slowed down a bit from previous version, reduced chance of “snipe” attack. Can be kicked back as well.
• ShotGunGuy+: Changed up the attack feedback and sound for when he uses his double shot. Attack is also now slightly slower. (NOTE: will sound slightly different in doom 1 due to not having the SSG and its files.) Can be kicked back as well.
• Demon+: Bite attack improved! Will now attempt to gnaw on the player and hold them in place while enjoying their meal. Also includes a CVAR Where they will stick to the player's front during this attack instead of turning the player away. Can be kicked back as well.
• Lost Soul+: Greatly improved the dashing attack, but broke the actual damaging part into two steps: The dash itself does minimal damage, but has very good tracking. When in melee range, the lost soul will flash ominously and go for an additional attack which does damage similar to its vanilla rating. This attack can be avoided if moving but can be quite dangerous in mobs. Has a small cooldown after the melee attack to give the player time to get some distance after being hit. Can be kicked back as well.
• HellKnight/Baron+: Counterattack conditions improved! Instead of just having a chance of countering whenever a fast projectile was near, the formula was changed to allow for a bit more player control. Their pain chance is set to 25%, and upon entering their pain state will sometimes visibly prepare to counterattack. When in their counterattack stance, any fast projectile will trigger their counter, but they are only in this stance for a short period before giving up. Properly spacing your attacks can make any weapon safe against them, while going full auto will generally get punished. Its worth noting that they have a reduced pain chance from the Ethereal Crossbow to prevent exploiting their counter window, so be careful if you're trying to interrupt them! Also while the HellStaff is still the safest weapon against them, they do have a very small chance to counterattack it as well.
• Projectiles for the HellKnight/Baron+ have also been updated: If a fireball rolls low damage (8-32) it is green like normal. if it rolls high damage (40-64) it is now red. If it is a revenge projectile, it is blue. Damage calculations should be more consistent in their overall ranges based of these brackets, with a little bit more variation of the actual number within said ranges. With this in mind, The Hell Knight has a slightly higher chance of rolling lower damage, while the Baron of Hell has a slightly higher chance of rolling higher damage. ***There is an option to disable the color coding if you prefer, but the damage split will work the same.
Revenant+: non-homing projectiles have been slowed down a bit, and the damage of both variations of projectile have had their explosion damage slightly reduced.
Sprite has been slightly shrunk: Hitbox now matches sprite representation entirely, with minimal distortion of sprite.
• Mancubus+ : Fixed his fireball spread not tracking pitch properly.
• Archvile+: Occasionally summons small flaming voodoo dolls that hunt down the player before exploding in their face. Will detonate on its own after a certain period of time if avoided.
• Cyberdemon+ : If he loses sight of the player during his three shot volley, he shoots a large burst of bouncing rockets that can be rather unpredictable. Be careful around corners!
• Spider Mastermind+ : Upgraded Chaingun that functions similarly to the improvements on the Chaingunners: Starts slow and accurate, then spools up to become faster and less accurate. When the player is too far away for the normal attack to be effective, The Spider Mastermind will instead prepare 4 very deadly bursts from all the barrels. Loading these bursts takes a little bit of time, so you'll definitely want to try to find cover before they go off! In addition to the new attacks, the AI has been sped up a bit, and it is also a bit more resistant to pain.
• Tracer replacement option added, when enabled, replaces standard doom hitscan attacks with comparable fastprojectiles.
• Tracer replacements have +RIPPER status, so they will go through (almost) anyone in their path.
• Enemies take reduced damage from friendly tracers + have no pain chance with it.
Heretic
The Heretic monster replacements are still fairly early in their development, and will likely be changed in the future. While the obvious move is to simply use the Heretical Doom Monsters addon, this option is for a “closer to vanilla” approach for a lot of the bestiary.
• Gargoyle: Dash attack considerably improved: Faster, much harder to dodge, and does very minor damage on impact. Increased the melee threshold a bit to avoid swarms of unavoidable damage when in large numbers.
• Gargoyle Leader: Faster attacks, both with animation and fireballs themselves being sped up. Projectile speed varies depending on difficulty chosen.
• Mummy: Increases in speed the lower his health. Speeds up at 50% health, and again at 25%
• NitroGolem: Fires homing ghosts in groups of 3, with speed and homing capabilities determined by difficulty chosen. They can be shot out of midair by default, but this can be disabled in the options.
• Undead Knight: Throws axes in quick volleys of 3, with the first being more accurate than the latter 2, thowing animation also sped up considerably. Projectile speed varies depending on difficulty chosen.
• Wizard: Can now move while charging up his attack, and when in melee range will use a repulsion spell that deals moderate damage. When below 50% health, loses the ability to move while charging his spell, but will fire three waves of projectiles at the end of his spell cast. Projectile speed varies depending on difficulty chosen.
• Iron Lich: Movement speed increased, and when under 25% health, Will become more aggressive, immune to pain, and will begin attempting to polymorph the player into a chicken! As its attacks are indiscriminate, this can also hit vulnerable monsters as well!
Fire, ice, and wind projectile speeds vary depending on difficulty chosen. ****Protip: The Chaos Device will revert you instantly from chicken form
• Werebeast: When below 25% health, will attempt to devour other creatures to regain its health. If no enemies are nearby, the beast will instead try to eat the player. While being gnawed upon, the player can fight free to avoid the bulk of the damage and deny the monster his healing, but can not interrupt his meal when he's eating a lesser monster. Currently Werebeasts will try to eat Gargoyles, Mummies, and Sabreclaws. Projectile speed varies depending on difficulty chosen.
• Sabreclaw: Sped up attack animation, and when reduced to 33% health will gain a large speed boost as it desperately tries to close the gap.
• Ophidian: Attack speed slightly improved, and projectiles travel considerably faster, and have a weaving pattern while in midair. When under 33% health, fires only the stronger homing projectiles. Projectile speed (and tracking for strong shot) varies depending on difficulty chosen.
• Maulotaur: Attacks have been revamped a bit, Charge attack has a startup, but travels CONSIDERABLY faster. Also knocks away anything in its path while charging, and has the ability to alter his movement direction slightly while charging. Fireballs fire in a 5 projectile spread and travel faster, while his ground-traveling explosive flames have a serpentine pattern to them, making them harder to dodge in small areas.
I want to give a massive shoutout to everyone that has been helping with feedback and playtesting through the discord, you guys have helped tremendously! I hope the wait was worth it, and you all enjoy the update!