[v4] Less Frustrating Revenants

[doomduck]

When it comes to Revenants and their homing missiles, I think we can all agree that they can be really annoying and frustrating in most situations.
So, I made this mini mod to make these boney boys a little bit less frustrating to deal with.

Basically what this mod does is it modifies the Revenant's missile to stop homing on the player after about 4-5 seconds. Pretty basic stuff.

You can download it here.

CHANGELOG:

---

v4:
- The missile will now stop homing if you successfully dodge it
- Missile now takes more time to stop homing (about 7 seconds now)
- Removed the random timer for the missile

v3:
- The time it takes for the missile to stop homing is now random

v2:
- Missiles now stop homing if you have the partial invisibility powerup
- Missiles now stop homing if you kill the Revenant
- Added missing dynamic lights

You can use this in any mod of yours, no need to ask for permission (although I would like to have credits for it).

Have fun!

[Enjay]

That's actually quite a neat idea. I never thought about homing missiles "giving up" after a while. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone doing that before with the revenant or any of the other homing missile monsters (custom or otherwise).

[Frozsoul]

Another idea I've seen to help deal with revenant missiles is to have them shootable. I find that actually works quite well.

[Ryuhi]

thats a nice change for the ol' skelly bois, it might actually be worth toying around with having something similar with the mummy leader's homing skulls in heretic as well. Three other things that always bothered me with Revenants that I usually adjust are to make them not be able reaction shoot missiles while slightly outside of melee range, fix their collision box/sprite size issue, and make their missiles actually explode. Stuff like being able to shoot down the missiles can also be pretty fun too, as is having the right and left launchers have different properties (either in regards to homing, speed, or missile type)

[StroggVorbis]

I haven't implemented it in my mod yet, but this reminded me of my idea to make revenant missiles stop homing after they're killed.

[doomduck]

That's actually quite a neat idea. I never thought about homing missiles "giving up" after a while. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone doing that before with the revenant or any of the other homing missile monsters (custom or otherwise).

Thanks! Glad you liked it. I was quite astonished that no one had done this before in a mod lol
It would be cool if someone applied this to custom monsters. (I'm actually thinking about applying this to Heretic's homing projectiles too)

[Enjay]

I really do like it. It gives a nice impression of the rockets "locking on" with an internal logic of "right, I know where the player is now, no need to home any more, I just need to get to him" (which, of course, is the opportunity to move and get out of the way).

[KynikossDragonn]

This honestly is a really, really good idea.

Having them stop homing within a few seconds almost reminds me of how Eightball rockets in Unreal will actually stop homing if you quickly move out of the way. Infact, due to the seeking code in there comparing to a initial direction that's set when firing, the homing effect is very very trivially broken if you're on the move.

Generally speaking, I never thought it made sense for Revenant tracer's to somehow U-Turn their way back towards their target. Having the seeking get broken as a result of going off to the side or getting behind the rocket makes a lot more sense to me. Hell, even Descent's homing missiles work that way, lock is broken if you get away from the front of the projectile.

---

I'm pretty sure this could be adapted to ZScript:

Code: Select all

function Timer()
{
	local vector SeekingDir;

	If (Seeking != None  && Seeking != Instigator) 
	{
		SeekingDir = Normal(Seeking.Location - Location);
		if ( (SeekingDir Dot InitialDir) > 0 )
		{
			MagnitudeVel = VSize(Velocity);
			Velocity =  MagnitudeVel * Normal(SeekingDir * 0.47 * MagnitudeVel + Velocity);		
			SetRotation(rotator(Velocity));
		}
	}
}

"InitialDir" in this case is a Vector created from the Rotation the rocket had when it spawned.

[Spaceman333]

I'd be happier with these tbh:
- timeout from homing after 10 seconds (they'll still dumbfire fly whereever they were pointing at when they stopped homing)
- missiles are shootable with large enough hitbox
- missile tracking is looser and they turn less sharp
- missiles are slightly faster

[Matt]

This is a really good idea!

It's always so frustrating when I'm stuck in a place where there's no cover to thin out the missile swarms and I'm dealing with more and more lag due to the translucent additive sprites and bullet puffs while the big blob of missiles gets more and more unavoidable.

[Talon1024]

What I would personally like to see are Revenant missiles that stop homing on players who have the "Partial invisibility" powerup.

[doomduck]

Another idea I've seen to help deal with revenant missiles is to have them shootable. I find that actually works quite well.

Although that idea is indeed quite nice, I don't think it would work very well in Doom 2. It would make the Revenants way too easy in my opinion when they are supposed to be an actual threat to the player and being able to shoot the missiles would make them almost harmless imo

This honestly is a really, really good idea.

Having them stop homing within a few seconds almost reminds me of how Eightball rockets in Unreal will actually stop homing if you quickly move out of the way. Infact, due to the seeking code in there comparing to a initial direction that's set when firing, the homing effect is very very trivially broken if you're on the move.

Generally speaking, I never thought it made sense for Revenant tracer's to somehow U-Turn their way back towards their target. Having the seeking get broken as a result of going off to the side or getting behind the rocket makes a lot more sense to me. Hell, even Descent's homing missiles work that way, lock is broken if you get away from the front of the projectile.

---

I'm pretty sure this could be adapted to ZScript:

Code: Select all

function Timer()
{
	local vector SeekingDir;

	If (Seeking != None  && Seeking != Instigator) 
	{
		SeekingDir = Normal(Seeking.Location - Location);
		if ( (SeekingDir Dot InitialDir) > 0 )
		{
			MagnitudeVel = VSize(Velocity);
			Velocity =  MagnitudeVel * Normal(SeekingDir * 0.47 * MagnitudeVel + Velocity);		
			SetRotation(rotator(Velocity));
		}
	}
}

"InitialDir" in this case is a Vector created from the Rotation the rocket had when it spawned.

Thanks!
That's actually a really good idea too.
Being able to "break" the missile's seeking function actually would make a lot more sense and also would make the Revenants quite fun to fight.
I imagine "guiding" the missiles to a certain direction, breaking their seeking function and just watching them hit another demon would be a really funny scene lol

[Captain J]

Even to this day i hate to think about people dealing with Revenant on nightmare or just being crazed on Plutonia while playing with only keyboard. Anyways it's a better justice, merciful refinement to those skellygoons.

Although there's still nothing else you can do if the projectiles stop homing in front of you hiding at the corner, and the damage is still harsh. But nah it's still a good change!

[doomduck]

Updated!

Based on Talon1024's suggestion and StroggVorbis' comment I have added two features to the mod:

- Missiles now stop homing if you have the partial invisibility powerup
- Missiles now stop homing if you kill the Revenant

I also re-added the dynamic lights that were missing for the missile.

Have fun!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Cool! I despise the Revenant because of its homing missiles (really, what was Id thinking back then?), so this could very well become one of my essentials mods to play Doom with!

But do you think there could be compatibility problems with TehRealSalt's Alternate take on Partial Invisibility mod?