Brutal Strife - BETA Released

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amv2k9
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - First Alpha

Post by amv2k9 »

Observations:
-The Punch Dagger seems to jump up in the last few frames of its Raise state. I assume its an oversight, since it doesn't do that in its Lower state, and none of the other weapons do it either.
-I like the smoother animated Punch Dagger, but maybe at the end of its animation, a slightly longer tic duration might improve it, just to drive home the fact that the player is putting some muscle into the swing and not (unrealistically) moving his arm at the same consistent speed throughout the swing. Wildweasel gave this as a bit of advice in making reload animations.
-Why replace the Grenade Launcher? The Necrodome one doesn't really fit Strife, and anyway, the vanilla graphics constitute one of the better looking weapons, at least in my opinion, even if its design doesn't immediately scream "grenade launcher".
-I like the new water (Strife's was really not that great looking), but the new toxic texture really doesn't fit (as previously said). The player is slogging through sewers in the game, so it should look like sewage and not Doom-ish radwaste.
-I like the replacement for the White-Phosphor Grenades, partly for the fact that they don't stay around for an interminably long period like the vanilla kind does, but holy crap, the damage radius could stand to be taken down a couple notches. You can be quite a distance away from one of the flames and still be burnt to a crisp in no time flat.
-If you plan on keeping weapons accurate to start out with, you could always use the opportunities Strife had for accuracy upgrades to give the player other stuff. For example, some posters have commented on the unbalancing factor of the Electric Bolts being good on humans; that could be made an upgrade you get at a later time. You could even add in whole new quests if you're willing to put some work in, since there are NPCs scattered throughout the game that don't have any purpose quest-wise. I did this in Weapons of Rebellion 2.
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Sergeant_Mark_IV
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 2 Released

Post by Sergeant_Mark_IV »

I have listened to everyone's criticism and alpha 2 is now up.

Changes:
- Fixed some broken stuff from the first alpha.
- Reduced the volume of new sounds by 50%.
- Removed the new sky, liquid textures and grenade launcher sprites.
- Removed all sister weapons, and now weapons that uses two ammo types can use use the alt fire button to use the alternate ammo type.
- Removed Brutal Doom's placeholder gibs and added new gibs based on Strife's gore sprites, plus adding unique gibs for every enemy.
- Fixed weapon unbalances.
- The Targeter now actually works and makes weapons more accurate while it lasts.
- Almost everything can be destroyed.
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twinkieman93
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Re: Merry Fucking Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 2 Released

Post by twinkieman93 »

Almost immediately found two bugs. One annoying, the other gamebreaking.

Arrows stuck into the wall interfere with the operation of lifts. Self-explanatory, no additional explanation needed.
The bigger issue, however, is that if you kill an NPC to get his drops(which is required for progression at several points in the game) and you gib him or otherwise mutilate him in a way that deviates from the vanilla death animation, he will not drop the item required. For example, if you accidentally rip off Beldin's arm or cut him in half, he won't drop the ring.

The crossbow is still rather wonky. It's not overpowered now, but its behavior could still be improved. In another mod, Endless Strife, the electric bolts also stun organics. The difference, however, is that it stuns them JUST long enough in order for you to be ready to shoot again. In short, it makes the crossbow much better suited for taking on singular enemies while keeping yourself safe and silent, while still behaving in an interesting way and not being imbalanced by letting you taze a whole group of acolytes into submission while they can't fight back at all.

On that same note, the crossbow in that mod has an increased damage buff against machines, double damage to be precise. It's strong enough to take out ceiling turrets in one or two hits, a VERY useful trait that would be nice to see sneak its way into this mod.

I still feel like the stealth isn't too terribly realistic. For one, the alarms are just that; alarms. They aren't security cameras. They shouldn't start going off based on the premise that they saw me doing anything because they can't SEE anything. Also, please make the Governor killable without setting off the alarms in town. Yes, it makes sense they'd monitor his vitals or something so in the event of his death the assassin could quickly be apprehended, but at the same time, that sick son of a bitch makes my skin crawl and I feel really bad not being able to end his miserable life with a good ol' fashioned poison bolt to the throat.
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Sergeant_Mark_IV
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by Sergeant_Mark_IV »

Thanks for the quick report, twinkieman. I have updated the Alpha 3 now with this bug fixed.

Plus, I improved the hostage system. Now the hostage will try to break free if you hold him for too long. Also, you can now find a way to kill the Governor without alerting the guards if you can capture him and take him to a deserted place before you alert the guards.
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southpark2010
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by southpark2010 »

Spoiler: Bug: When you're killed by a Sentinel, your character stays frozen in one place.
Spoiler: Suggestion: When you blow up the big tree, leaves and pieces of wood should fly out, rather than it just falling down.
SuperV1234
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by SuperV1234 »

Minor bug: wooden barrels bleed on walls when hit with the knife - actually, just swinging your knife near walls sometimes creates blood splatters
Suggestion: make electrical bolts do less damage, add a quick key (like kick in Brutal Doom) to execute a fast knife attack, in order to make electric bolt + knife combos viable
Last edited by SuperV1234 on Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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twinkieman93
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by twinkieman93 »

SuperV1234 wrote:Minor bug: wooden barrels bleed on walls when hit with the knife
Suggestion: make electrical bolts do less damage, add a quick key (like kick in Brutal Doom) to execute a fast knife attack, in order to make electric bolt + knife combos viable
Hm... that's actually not a bad idea. Being able to stun an acolyte and then take them hostage is pretty awesome and could lead to some interesting strategeries. And shenanigans.

EDIT: Bug found after I also discovered that aiming the assault rifle is a thing. Wish I had been told this earlier. -_- Anyways, the point is that aiming the rifle alerts guards as surely as firing the gun itself. This would make sense if I actually aimed it AT a guard, but I didn't, so it doesn't.

On that whole aiming thing: I hope you don't plan to do what you did to Brutal Doom and Hexen and changing up the starting weapon. It made sense in those games, because your reasoning for it was logical. Changing up Strifeguy's armaments would not make sense for two reasons:

Guns are a relatively new thing and arrived with the Order. From what I've seen, it looks like the tech level of the world of Strife's society was pretty low, around medieval level. The Order used alien knowledge to make awesome stuff. As such, a random mercenary wouldn't know how to properly aim a gun or other such things. Although he'd be able to get a good idea of it by imitating acolytes, he wouldn't carry one around because he'd rather stick with what he knows. He'd probably carry a crossbow.

Secondly, the manual fluff says that you were dragged down to the sewage plant for interrogation, execution, and then a nice long swim in some sewage. As such, they took any weapons or belongings you had and thus were left only with the emergency punch dagger you kept in your boot. So while starting off with the craptastic boot knife sucks, it's mandatory to not screw with the story.
SuperV1234
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by SuperV1234 »

Another annoyance: arrow hitboxes are WAY too large. They often get stuck in walls and their sprite gets stuck in mid-air. Make them smaller.
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southpark2010
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by southpark2010 »

Bug: When you drop/kill a hostage or when he gets out, you switch back to a different weapon, rather than your dagger. If he gets out, you and him are stuck together.
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RikohZX
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Re: Merry kek'n Xmas: Brutal Strife - Alpha 3 Released

Post by RikohZX »

twinkieman93 wrote:
SuperV1234 wrote:Minor bug: wooden barrels bleed on walls when hit with the knife
Suggestion: make electrical bolts do less damage, add a quick key (like kick in Brutal Doom) to execute a fast knife attack, in order to make electric bolt + knife combos viable
rant about weapon canon
I'm pretty sure he's not aiming on replacing the primary starter weapon, geez. No offense, but going into a large tirade about how starting with a rifle wouldn't make sense progression-wise when Mark already toned down a lot of the alterations for the newest release in-favor of more 'solid' gunplay changes is a bad much.

Played up to the part
Spoiler:
Definitely spruces up the gameplay, to say the least. Haven't seen many oddities other than arrows randomly not working, the aiming of the assault rifle causing enemies to be alerted, and I got this weird graphical glitch when I blew up the Power Station's crystal - but that's probably the iwad's end and not the mod's.
SuperV1234
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by SuperV1234 »

Arrows hitboxes are still too big. Makes the game almost unplayable, I can't make any "precision" shoot. I understand you can use arrows to climb walls, but what about making the hitbox bigger only after the arrow hits a wall?
Is it normal Strife behavior that robotic enemies attack you even if acolytes/templars are friendly?
Is there any way to prevent robotic enemies from respawning (even on Bloodbath)?
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twinkieman93
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by twinkieman93 »

SuperV1234 wrote:Arrows hitboxes are still too big. Makes the game almost unplayable, I can't make any "precision" shoot. I understand you can use arrows to climb walls, but what about making the hitbox bigger only after the arrow hits a wall?
Is it normal Strife behavior that robotic enemies attack you even if acolytes/templars are friendly?
Is there any way to prevent robotic enemies from respawning (even on Bloodbath)?
Lol, he hasn't made a new version yet, cool your jets. It'll probably be fixed on the next release. And yeah, the growing hitbox thing seems like an interesting idea.
Robots are supposed to attack you on sight if you're an intruder. They will do this regardless of the state of the alarm. They always have.
Pretty sure there's a flag that stops enemies from respawning that you can add whenever you like. And that might be neat, although if the Order can teleport in more acolytes(which is what I like to pretend the "respawning" in), I don't see why it can't teleport in robots.
SuperV1234
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by SuperV1234 »

twinkieman93 wrote:
SuperV1234 wrote:Arrows hitboxes are still too big. Makes the game almost unplayable, I can't make any "precision" shoot. I understand you can use arrows to climb walls, but what about making the hitbox bigger only after the arrow hits a wall?
Is it normal Strife behavior that robotic enemies attack you even if acolytes/templars are friendly?
Is there any way to prevent robotic enemies from respawning (even on Bloodbath)?
Lol, he hasn't made a new version yet, cool your jets. It'll probably be fixed on the next release. And yeah, the growing hitbox thing seems like an interesting idea.
Robots are supposed to attack you on sight if you're an intruder. They will do this regardless of the state of the alarm. They always have.
Pretty sure there's a flag that stops enemies from respawning that you can add whenever you like. And that might be neat, although if the Order can teleport in more acolytes(which is what I like to pretend the "respawning" in), I don't see why it can't teleport in robots.
Didn't mean to sound hasty, sorry.
I find it pretty weird that while robots shoot rockets in your face guards do nothing at all. Either have the robots do nothing, or have the guards who witness robots attacking you become hostile.
Also, acolytes do not respawn, only robots do. That's why it seemed strange to me - again, I suggest making both humanoids/robots more consistent in their behavior.
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Enjay
 
 
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by Enjay »

Sad to see the custom liquids go. I liked them. :P
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twinkieman93
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Re: Brutal Strife - BETA Released

Post by twinkieman93 »

Enjay wrote:Sad to see the custom liquids go. I liked them. :P
They didn't fit Strife's art style. Maybe if he redid them using Strife's textures instead of Doom's, it'd be okay. Otherwise, I'd rather have the originals.
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