The Wayfarer's Tome: a standalone gameplay mod for Heretic

[Captain J]

Just figured it out: If you set Sprite Billboard to X/Y Axis, it does like that. So i guess i have to turn it to Y Axis...

[Not Jabba]

Hi all. Here is Beta 5!

Changes from Beta 4:
-Whole project converted from WAD to PK3.
-Replaced all player sprites with new ones created from scratch (except for the popped skull and burn death). Accordingly, all player sprites from the Minor Sprite Fixing Project are removed.
-Improved Lightbringer pickup sprite.
-Smoother weapon animations for the Lightbringer (thanks to Xtyfe).
-Added +EXTREMEDEATH flag to the non-Tomed Lightbringer projectile, so it always gibs enemies if they can be gibbed.
-Added DECALDEF with decals for all the modified Heretic projectiles.
-Fixed KEYCONF again because for some reason the corrections didn't properly make it into the last beta.
-Fixed the Staff range (regular and Tomed) because it was incorrectly implemented. Its range is now 68, compared to the vanilla range of (iirc) 44. (Thanks to Lagi)
-Reduced the sound rolloff min and max for the Nitrogolem projectile's scream so that it's not as loud. It should be less annoying now, but you can still hear when it's coming at you in order to evade it.
-Added an improved colormap that smooths out various color ranges so that they don't become flat quite so fast in dimmer light. This is most noticeable with the red range, but it affects several other ranges as well. It also fixes a couple of obvious small mistakes in the original colormap. This is somewhat experimental, so if anyone has experience with colormaps and is able to improve it further, I'd be happy to take fixes.
-By popular demand, a Wand Start option has been added. I based it on the one by JP LeBreton and DevilBlackDeath rather than the one by m8f because it was simpler and I was able to understand it better in order to make modifications; it's possible that m8f's has some cool functionality that I'm missing, but Wand Starts seem like a simple thing, and this one works the way I want it to. Under the Wayfarer's Tome > Wand Starts menu option, you can choose either Automatic Wand Starts or Automatic Crossbow Starts. If you choose Crossbow Starts, you will enter each subsequent map with an Ethereal Crossbow with 20 ammo and the Gauntlets of the Necromancer, in addition to the Elven Wand with 50 ammo. Note: the Crossbow Start only applies if you continue from a previous map, not to the start map of an episode or if you use the ENGAGE cheat to skip maps.

[Lagi]

bugfix, so do you think the gameplay of Watfarer Tome is perfect, and cannot be improved?

[Not Jabba]

bugfix, so do you think the gameplay of Watfarer Tome is perfect, and cannot be improved?

There are a few more features and mapset patches I want to add. The main thing I am still planning to do is expand it into a mapper toolkit/resource pack with additional monsters and items and stuff, and eventually more player classes. I'm happy with the base mod (as a set of balance tweaks and a platform for making new Heretic maps, which are its primary goals), but will continue to do bugfixes if needed.

[Not Jabba]

Wayfarer's Tome is updated to beta 6!

This update includes two new patches, one for Quest for the Crystal Skulls (wtome_qcs.wad) and one for Sold Soul (wtome_ss.wad). These patches (and the one I'm working on for Faithless Trilogy) use an ammo reduction system, which is especially important for QftCS because it's a hub and is intended to be played continuously. It also feels necessary for Sold Soul to keep the intended gameplay balance. The reduced ammo pickups are: small Crossbow ammo (3 instead of 5), large Crossbow ammo (16 instead of 20), small Hellstaff ammo (15 instead of 20), and large Hellstaff ammo (80 instead of 100). The full list of changes for each patch are:

Quest for the Crystal Skulls:
-Uses the ammo reduction system described above.
-Fixes the dead player decorations to be compatible with the new Wayfarer's Tome player sprites.
-The red Disciple miniboss becomes bright during attack/death frames like the regular Disciple (as well as its teleportation windup frames); species is fixed to match the species of the Wayfarer's Tome Disciple; has slightly more health to counter the more powerful player weapons.

Sold Soul:
-Uses the ammo reduction system described above.
-Hellstaff does not heat-seek.
-Lightbringer is replaced with the Wayfarer's Tome version; the correct ripper behavior for the non-Tomed Lightbringer is also restored.
-Made slight color changes to the apple health pickup and a few of the pottery decorations to palette better in software renderer (however, software mode still has some midtexture bleeding glitches, so hardware is the best way to play it).

Other changes to Wayfarer's Tome in this update:
-Player class display name is corrected to "Corvus" rather than "Corvus2"
-The Undead Warrior and Undead Warrior Ghost drop three Crossbow ammo instead of five.
-Fixed an error in the Gargoyle's charge attack that caused it to behave differently from the vanilla charging behavior.
-The Fire Gargoyle and Weredragon's projectiles, and the Iron Lich's flame tower attack, now have the fire damage type. The Iron Lich's attack causes burn death; the Fire Gargoyle and Weredragon projectiles do not.
-The Shadowsphere has been recoded. For the standalone mod, it is currently almost the same as normal. However, it now also makes the player immune to melee attacks from the Golem, Nitrogolem, and Sabreclaw (I still need to do this for the UW/UW Ghost, because their attack is hardcoded).
-The Maulotaur's ground crawler attack delivers damage a bit differently. In vanilla Heretic, a direct frontal hit does low damage, and the residual fire trail does massive damage. With the mod, a direct frontal hit does full damage, and the residual fire trail's damage is reduced a bit; it's still very powerful, but easier to tank a hit if you have armor.
-Added some fixes to the Elf Gets Pissed patch for the Lightbringer, and fixed the player's death animations for compatibility with the new player sprites.

[Gen5lock131]

bugfix, so do you think the gameplay of Watfarer Tome is perfect, and cannot be improved?

There are a few more features and mapset patches I want to add. The main thing I am still planning to do is expand it into a mapper toolkit/resource pack with additional monsters and items and stuff, and eventually more player classes. I'm happy with the base mod (as a set of balance tweaks and a platform for making new Heretic maps, which are its primary goals), but will continue to do bugfixes if needed.

Not gonna lie having more fantasy monsters would be pretty nice. It gets tiring killing the flying red gargoyle/imp mobs for the umpteenth time. Within reason of course.

I know that Hexeritc Fantasy already does this but IMO that mod can sometimes be... too much. Same with Heretical Doom. Sometimes a peep just wants to play a less chaotic, more grounded experience ya know?

Which is what I have found with Wayfarer. Thank mate!

[Not Jabba]

Not gonna lie having more fantasy monsters would be pretty nice. It gets tiring killing the flying red gargoyle/imp mobs for the umpteenth time. Within reason of course.

I know that Hexeritc Fantasy already does this but IMO that mod can sometimes be... too much. Same with Heretical Doom. Sometimes a peep just wants to play a less chaotic, more grounded experience ya know?

Which is what I have found with Wayfarer. Thank mate!

I'm working on a full expansion of the bestiary, inventory, etc. for future mapping projects (I'm envisioning it as doing for Heretic what Doom 2 did for Doom), and I plan to eventually release a complete resource pack bundled with Wayfarer's Tome. I suppose it could make sense to throw in some (optional) randomizers for the mod too. All of that's a long way off, though -- I'm making the monsters from scratch.

Some previews here and here.

[Lagi]

Ophidian immolator, new bonelich and elven sprite (corvus and zombie) looks good. It will be great to have some new monsters.

What monster type do you think is lacking in Heretic? As a resource to include in the fan made maps?
How they should behave, what attack type they could have?

I think there is no proper late tier of tough guys. Mappers are using often for that purpose IronLich, who suppose to be a boss monster. Iron lich and that's it... Maulotaur is too strong, and noone is using D'Sparil.
In many maps you can find Serpents from Hexens, with boosted HP. Soul Soul use Corax, but this monster was very nicely tweaked in colors and behaviors.

Wayfarer has this nice "hammer guys" - a melee, lethal opponents in late levels, i like this guy a lot.

[Not Jabba]

What monster type do you think is lacking in Heretic? As a resource to include in the fan made maps?
How they should behave, what attack type they could have?

I think there is no proper late tier of tough guys. Mappers are using often for that purpose IronLich, who suppose to be a boss monster. Iron lich and that's it... Maulotaur is too strong, and noone is using D'Sparil.
In many maps you can find Serpents from Hexens, with boosted HP. Soul Soul use Corax, but this monster was very nicely tweaked in colors and behaviors.

I agree about high-tier/miniboss monsters. Heretic is great for those, because you can give them multiple attacks and they fit in perfectly alongside the Iron Lich/Maulotaur. I'm adding monsters in the following niches:
- "Glass cannon" enemies with low health but higher threat (Undead Sidhe, etc.)
- Moderate "projectile hell" enemies with attack patterns that require dodging (Ophidian Immolator, Chaos Serpent, etc.)
- High-tier enemies that are dangerous (Serpent Keeper, Chaos Serpent, Stone Lich, etc.)
- One or two boss enemies, because with the stock bestiary, the only reusable boss-tier monster is the Maulotaur.

[Not Jabba]

Happy Halloween! The Wayfarer's Tome is now updated to beta 7!

Changes in this beta:
-Fixed GLDEFs for the renamed Lightbringer projectiles.
-Fixed GLDEFs and DECALDEF as needed for all included patches. The patches for UnBeliever, Quest for the Crystal Skulls, and Sold Soul have been updated.
-The Undead Warrior's attack has been de-hardcoded. The purpose of this is to add a custom damage type to the melee attack, which means that players with the Shadowsphere are now immune to it.
-The Torch lasts for 45 seconds instead of 120 seconds. The patch for UnBeliever reverts this change, because it has a map where the full 120 seconds is necessary.
-All the random red and orange pixels in the Ophidian's tail have been cleaned up across all frames of animation that had them (replaced with appropriate shades of brown). Where relevant, Minor Spritefix Project sprites were used.
-Player sprites changed to Doom graphics format instead of .png for compatibility with custom palettes.

[Not Jabba]

Hey all, here's a quick update to beta 7a. This update just has one change, which is to sort out some issues with the Wand Start options. It fixes the Bag of Holding bug, and properly ensures that you can't carry over any inventory items when using Wand Start or Crossbow Start.