Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 10:57 pm
by Baratus
This is definitely a solid foundation for a really cool mod and I've enjoyed playing it in its early version. I gave this mod one hell of a test drive in E4 on Hard. It really gets the blood pumping without being too punishing to lose my interest. There is a good balance of speed, power and immediacy in everything that makes it an intense experience of beating the odds. It got easier when I discovered the dodge/dash and took the time to avoid being hit and it was a thrill to improve my skills to match the mod's lightning pace.
The melee swing is a bit clumsy and trying to combo enemies with it isn't easy and could use some tightening up, but I don't rely on melee all that much so it's a fairly minor issue I had.
The weapon damage is excellent, but the guns need to feel a little more mighty in the player's hands, especially the "SPAK-11". Perhaps give it a louder firing sound and add some slight visual recoil or FOV shift.
Speaking of sound, the enemy sounds are very pleasing, although the imp sounds are my least favourite, which are made more apparent as they are such a common enemy type.
Another minor gripe, the gibs are very pleasing but quite processor heavy. A reduced gore option would be nice if just from a hardware-friendly perspective.
I haven't seen everything this mod has to offer but it's full of humor and neat references, some that I get and some that I don't. The Game Over screens are varied and amusing enough to offset the frequency by which I die so very, very often, and the "not-completely-serious" tone the mod carries so consistently means that I can enjoy the mod for a long time and forgive the stress it can cause.
Nice work! Looking forward to seeing what's in store for the next version!
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 11:54 pm
by Someone64
I take back what I said about the tazer being weak since I discovered it can deal with entire crowds of enemies. One issue I found with it, though is that you can't interrupt its charge with quick melee. Also, since you have to make a choice between double barrel and normal shotgun and you can after screw yourself by picking the double barrel in levels that are shotgun heavy but require some range and throws a lot of enemies at you it would be nice to at least give the double an alt fire that fires 1 barrel at a time with SLIGHTLY less spread. I usually just find myself choosing the normal shotgun because it's so hard to use the double more effectively in most situations. Lastly, I'm not sure how this happens but sometimes if you drop your double barrel to pick up the normal shotgun, drop it again to pick up the double, you suddenly have a lot more ammo.
EDIT: Found more problems. Dog AI sucks and often fails to follow you and doesn't bite enemies it's right in front of no matter how long you wait. Enemies often go out of their designated areas due to their special movement (The Crusher has the Barons getting out of the platform and murdering you). Lastly, the mod breaks Dead Simple.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:01 am
by Kinsie
Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone! I've been spending today acting upon some of it. For one, blood and gibs are now much less processor intensive due to a bit of optimisation and code modernisation. For another, I've implemented a proper combo system for melee, ala Hexen, that should be an improvement on the previous setup. And finally, I've added a new mutator that makes explosions act like how they do in Goldeneye 64. Sort of. Please feel free to keep the feedback, both positive and negative, coming!
Someone64 wrote:Dog AI sucks and often fails to follow you
Don't worry about waiting for Co-Op Buddies to follow you. They'll silently teleport to your location if you get too far away and can't see them.
Someone64 wrote:Enemies often go out of their designated areas due to their special movement (The Crusher has the Barons getting out of the platform and murdering you).
I just added some special code (togglable as a mutator, of course) to keep the Spiderdemon replacement on the Crusher on MAP06. This shouldn't be enormously difficult to expand elsewhere as need be, but some things are just gonna break regardless (hurling the Bruisers off the Crusher with a rocket) and that's okay.
Someone64 wrote:Lastly, the mod breaks Dead Simple.
Does it? I just checked by MDK-ing the monsters, and the scripts triggered fine.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 5:39 am
by Someone64
Trying it again with Dead Simple it worked this time. I don't know why it didn't before. Maybe a monster got stuck somewhere hidden? IDK. Also as for the dog following issue the problem is levels are often too small to let the dog teleport to you and I often have fights where the dog is sitting somewhere away from where the fight is taking place causing him not to help at all.
I think situations where knocking enemies off from ledges with weapons is fine but the issue is when they just move off on their own. Could you imagine a level full of Pinkies sitting on a ledge to be lowered by a trigger but instead they just all jump off and murder you before they're supposed to even be down there?
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:42 pm
by TheRailgunner
Alright, I've come across a serious bug - as the mod runs, it becomes progressively choppier, gradually killing GZD's framerate. I've noticed this occurs regardless of weapons used, settings, or monsters alerted - it seems to happen consistently.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2017 4:49 pm
by Rozy
This is fun, I also massively appreciate the pronoun selection actually doing something so thanks for that kinsie. Also you kept the hook on the SPAS, that's also cool.
Will there be more enemy and weapon variety in the future as some mods tend to do? Or is this gonna be more like one of it's inspirations and instead focus on a more defined set of monsters/weapons?
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 1:40 am
by Kinsie
Someone64 wrote:I think situations where knocking enemies off from ledges with weapons is fine but the issue is when they just move off on their own. Could you imagine a level full of Pinkies sitting on a ledge to be lowered by a trigger but instead they just all jump off and murder you before they're supposed to even be down there?
I just checked E2M1 (which has exactly that) and the Pinkies behaved themselves... I'll need some good screenshot examples before I can investigate per-situation issues, sorry.
TheRailgunner wrote:Alright, I've come across a serious bug - as the mod runs, it becomes progressively choppier, gradually killing GZD's framerate. I've noticed this occurs regardless of weapons used, settings, or monsters alerted - it seems to happen consistently.
I've done some serious optimisation to blood particles, this should hopefully help.
Rozy wrote:Will there be more enemy and weapon variety in the future as some mods tend to do? Or is this gonna be more like one of it's inspirations and instead focus on a more defined set of monsters/weapons?
Yes to both, but I'm not sure how overkill it's gonna be.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:02 am
by Somagu
The nice little sliding ammo bar doesn't properly slide when going to or from the pistol if finite ammo is enabled for it.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:22 am
by TheRailgunner
Kinsie wrote:
TheRailgunner wrote:Alright, I've come across a serious bug - as the mod runs, it becomes progressively choppier, gradually killing GZD's framerate. I've noticed this occurs regardless of weapons used, settings, or monsters alerted - it seems to happen consistently.
I've done some serious optimisation to blood particles, this should hopefully help.
Perhaps I should be more specific - it starts upon level start and starts lowering the framerate even if no monsters are active and no weapons are fired - basically, I can start a level, stand still, and watch the FPS drop. With a GeForce GTX 750ti, it takes about three minutes before the mod becomes unplayable, and I used the newest version of it.
Perhaps there's a script or a spawner that's just going nuts in the background?
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:29 pm
by -Ghost-
The guns feel pretty good! I like the chaingun replacement in particular, has a very CSGO feel to it. The shotgun spread feels a little weird, though. It looks like it's just using the regular Doom shotgun spread, but it feels off compared to the other weapons since it just shoots the pellets in a line; maybe a little bit of spread would help it look more natural?
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:56 pm
by Kinsie
TheRailgunner wrote:Perhaps I should be more specific - it starts upon level start and starts lowering the framerate even if no monsters are active and no weapons are fired - basically, I can start a level, stand still, and watch the FPS drop. With a GeForce GTX 750ti, it takes about three minutes before the mod becomes unplayable, and I used the newest version of it.
Perhaps there's a script or a spawner that's just going nuts in the background?
What maps have you witnessed this on? I need more specifics. I haven't witnessed it myself with a computer that's a few years old (i5-3570k and GTX670) and I can assure you that it takes me a lot longer than three minutes to finish some of those Heretic maps due to my chronic inability to navigate FPS levels.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:40 am
by SoulCircle
Spoiler: Minor pyramid of quotes
Kinsie wrote:
TheRailgunner wrote:Perhaps I should be more specific - it starts upon level start and starts lowering the framerate even if no monsters are active and no weapons are fired - basically, I can start a level, stand still, and watch the FPS drop. With a GeForce GTX 750ti, it takes about three minutes before the mod becomes unplayable, and I used the newest version of it.
Perhaps there's a script or a spawner that's just going nuts in the background?
What maps have you witnessed this on? I need more specifics. I haven't witnessed it myself with a computer that's a few years old (i5-3570k and GTX670) and I can assure you that it takes me a lot longer than three minutes to finish some of those Heretic maps due to my chronic inability to navigate FPS levels.
Well seeing as I am on a 7 year old laptop and have yet to have this happen, kinda wondering if it's specific to that GeForce card/them all in general. I am running 60 FPS while playing this mod in Hardware with a shitty AMD processor. I played for 2 hours straight and got through several maps on TNT, without FPS drop.
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 1:17 am
by TheRailgunner
Kinsie wrote:
TheRailgunner wrote:Perhaps I should be more specific - it starts upon level start and starts lowering the framerate even if no monsters are active and no weapons are fired - basically, I can start a level, stand still, and watch the FPS drop. With a GeForce GTX 750ti, it takes about three minutes before the mod becomes unplayable, and I used the newest version of it.
Perhaps there's a script or a spawner that's just going nuts in the background?
What maps have you witnessed this on? I need more specifics. I haven't witnessed it myself with a computer that's a few years old (i5-3570k and GTX670) and I can assure you that it takes me a lot longer than three minutes to finish some of those Heretic maps due to my chronic inability to navigate FPS levels.
If I remember correctly, E2M1 of Ancient Aliens - I recently tested it in Sunlust, and noticed no slowdown, so maybe it's specific to Ancient Aliens or something it modifies or replaces?
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2017 1:57 am
by Kinsie
Thanks, pointing me that way helped me pinpoint the issue and fix it. It was... well, let me just quote my internal changelog diary thing:
Re: Juvenile Power Fantasy v0 "Skeleton": Find Some Meat! (p
Changelog wrote:v0.5 "Skeletonne" (10/08/2017)
- Added the TITLEMAP!
- Large under-the-hood changes to blood effects, dramatically improving FPS when lots of enemies are bleeding or exploding, as they do.
- Did first pass on new crushed actor FX
- Fixed a bug where Voodoo Dolls would constantly generate thinkers trying to figure out their own gender, eventually tanking performance. Yes, really.
- Changed the melee system dramatically:
--- Normal hits no longer fling the enemy back
--- Landing two hits without breaking the "chain" of melee attacks will make the next hit a "super hit" that does more damage and flings the enemy back.
- Other minor weapon balance changes:
--- SOCOM is slightly less accurate, slightly quieter
--- RCR does more damage and is a bit more accurate
- Added one new mutator: "Explosion Type"!
- Added an option for map-specific monster tweaks:
---Removes some of The Mother's movement capabilities on MAP06, to preserve intended gameplay
- Changed the widescreen border for Intermissions.
- Minor tweaks to Help, Game Over, audio etc.