Doom Tournament [1.2]

[Jimmy]

I've been loving the hell out of this and I don't play with weapon mods all that often anymore. Everything presentation-wise here is absolutely spot-on - every weapon "feels" 100% faithful to the original, the HUD is stunning, and all the customization options are very fun to play with.

I have some very small issues:

- The bio rifle and shock rifle don't seem completely balanced - I'm finding it too easy to kill high-level enemies with the bio sludge (not to mention easy to kill myself with it), and a little tedious to repeatedly blast low-tier enemies with the shock rifle. Shock combos are still fun as hell, though.
- Certain pickups seem far too small to discern what they are even up close, and the skull keys barely stand out at all (their dynamic lighting helps a little, but the pickups are still very dark and blend in with almost every surrounding). I'd consider giving those keys a bit of a "polish", make them super bright and stand out more.

Also, would it be okay if I poked around with the music randomizer mod for educational purposes? If I do release anything as a result of it (which is debatable - I'm a slow learner with this programming stuff), then of course I'll make sure to credit you. I also may politely poke you on Discord about this. I'm way overdue learning about this ZScript stuff and this seems like the perfect starting point to get to grips with it.

Many thanks for this mod, Marisa, like I said, been loving it. Best weapon mod I've played with in years.

[Marisa the Magician]

Damn, first I get complaints that the biorifle is too weak, now I get one that it's too strong.

I'll keep your feedback in mind for when I'm back from summer break.

You can poke around with the music randomizer all you want btw.

[Enjay]

Just gave this a whirl - colour me impressed. This is a really faithful implementation of the UT99 weapons in Doom. For me, UT99 was by far the best UT; none of the subsequent games have managed to get the speed of play combined with such a satisfying arsenal. Some of the weapons in the game are my favourites from any FPS games. To see them so well done in this mod is amazing. There's just so much here that I expected to be a Doom compromise (the pulse gun alt-fire, the redeemer piloting, the shock rifle combo shot) but which are implemented in a way that almost makes me think I'm actually playing UT. Really good job. Very impressed.

[Jimmy]

Oh yeah, I also found the armor bonuses very awkward to pick up at times, and in some maps they're outright unreachable. Is their radius set too small?

[Marisa the Magician]

Huh, strange. I'm pretty sure I reverted that change. I'll take a look.

Edit: oops, fixed.

Edit numero dos: Reduced Enforcer smoke effects and removed the HUD workaround for the wipe glitch, since it's already fixed in the latest gzdoom devbuild.

[ArkyonVeil]

First of all...

Brilliant Job! I was honestly completely stunned by the fact that I was playing UT99 inside doom. Spot on work! I was not expecting this, specially from the same author as ouch/abort. (They're still great in their own... SPECIAL way...

In any case, in my murder sprees, I noticed a few quirks that weren't listed in the GITHUB list. So I thought I'd list them here:

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-The Bio Rifle has a short delay before unloading with the rightclick fill fire. This is quite noticeable and I'm not sure if its intentional.
-When you have the Megasphere/Shield Belt, and the shield is partially damaged. Picking up armor will have it replace the shield, instead of adding under it.
-Invisibility doesn't work.
-The Pulse Rifle's alt fire takes its time to reach the target, instead of being instant/hitscan.
-One time I fired a redeemer against a Cyberdemon's back and it did only a 1000 Damage. And then fired another into the air and detonated it next to an 8000 HP spider mastermind and Insta-killed it. Not sure what's up with that. (Tested this in DiabolusEX)
-Bio Rifle's sludge doesn't noticeably increase in size when continuously fired upon, and explodes faster instead.
-I noticed some projectiles exploded in the air on contact with enemy projectiles.

And here's a few tweak suggestions.

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-Bio rifle needs a slight nerf. It fires extremely quickly and can one shot most small fry, not to speak of its effectiveness against bigger monsters. Including Barons and Cyberdemons. (It's pretty much the best weapon against Cyberdemons as it minimizes risk and does 1000~ Damage per fully charged fire), the only other one which has some effectiveness against really big foes is the rocket launcher/shock rifle shock combo(which is very hard to pull off/best used against crowds)
-Flak cannon needs a buff. The secondary fire is fine, but the first one feels weak. Even against crowds.
-The pulse rifle's alt fire needs a slight tweak, I'd say to do more damage ticks per same unit of ammo over time. Cause now it feels like it fires quick invisible projectiles instead of one continuous beam.
-The Ripper's first fire needs a slight increase in firing speed. (Props to not making so the disks hurt you, it was easily the most annoying bit about the weapon)
-The Minigun's altfire should switch to a faster spin approximately 0.6 seconds or so after starting to fire.
-The Inpact Hammer's charged attack should be able to one hit/two hit kill a pinky OR cause some serious knockback. (I understand the damage values are likely an attempt to make the chainsaw relevant.)
-The Chainsaw feels a little lame and is difficult to use. I get the feeling that the swipe attack should be better against crowds of small fry enemies while the first one would be best used against heavier enemies like hell knights/mancubus etc.
-Flak Cannon needs a very small speed up to its left click firing attack. (Possibly to keep up against it's alt fire heavier damage) With the left click being used against crowds/ out of sight enemies, while the right click is against bigger foes which might be hard to deal with.
-The rocket launcher should have a notification to when you switch fire mode from a spread formation to a tight formation.
-Cell pack's ammo replacements feel off (Being Sniper ammo and Minigun ammo). And these weapons don't feel like the ones that should replace the Plasma Gun.
-I suggest that a rare replacement to the Cell Pack should be a redeemer missile. Like 1/10 or 1/20. I do know that these don't quite exist in Unreal Tournament, but since the Redeemer replaces the BFG. It needs a different source of ammunition besides finding another BFG/redeemer. As these can be incredibly rare in most Wads. Not to speak that in Doom, the BFG uses the same ammo as the Plasma gun.

That's just a few things that just passed through my mind.
Still those Shock Combos are an absolute joy to pull off. They are really tricky, but doing so will just annihilate a whole crowd. Damn nice job there.

Don't think I am not impressed due to the amount of criticism I'm putting out, I love this mod and I want it even better! I do know the balancing bits will be tricky, since Unreal Tournament was built as an arena shooter against speedy players, and not exactly designed against crowds of slow moving enemies. Still, what's on offer is pretty good.

Highly impressive work overall, i'm amazed at how close you nailed this mod. Best of luck in the rest of its development. I already enjoyed it very much and wish to have an even more polished experience in the future. Best of luck!

[Marisa the Magician]

I'll run through all of what you've said, I think some things need clarification.

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The Bio Rifle has a short delay before unloading with the rightclick fill fire. This is quite noticeable and I'm not sure if its intentional.

Is this happening when fully charged?

When you have the Megasphere/Shield Belt, and the shield is partially damaged. Picking up armor will have it replace the shield, instead of adding under it.

Oh, this was an oversight from my part, I just double-checked the UT scripts and that's exactly how it should work. Thanks for noticing.

Invisibility doesn't work.

What do you mean by "doesn't work"?

The Pulse Rifle's alt fire takes its time to reach the target, instead of being instant/hitscan.

Intentional. Beam segments are spawned per tick.

One time I fired a redeemer against a Cyberdemon's back and it did only a 1000 Damage. And then fired another into the air and detonated it next to an 8000 HP spider mastermind and Insta-killed it. Not sure what's up with that. (Tested this in DiabolusEX)

Did the first missile explode without a shockwave? It might have been intercepted by the cybie's rockets.

Bio Rifle's sludge doesn't noticeably increase in size when continuously fired upon, and explodes faster instead.

Intentional. I don't know what kind of version of UT you've played.

I noticed some projectiles exploded in the air on contact with enemy projectiles.

Those projectiles have hitboxes, this is intentional. Might disable it for biosludge since it's easy to blow yourself up that way.

Bio rifle needs a slight nerf. It fires extremely quickly and can one shot most small fry, not to speak of its effectiveness against bigger monsters. Including Barons and Cyberdemons. (It's pretty much the best weapon against Cyberdemons as it minimizes risk and does 1000~ Damage per fully charged fire), the only other one which has some effectiveness against really big foes is the rocket launcher/shock rifle shock combo(which is very hard to pull off/best used against crowds)

I buffed it due to complaints about it being too weak, now I guess I have to nerf it back.

Flak cannon needs a buff. The secondary fire is fine, but the first one feels weak. Even against crowds.

More projectiles or more damage?

The pulse rifle's alt fire needs a slight tweak, I'd say to do more damage ticks per same unit of ammo over time. Cause now it feels like it fires quick invisible projectiles instead of one continuous beam.

Have you tried moving back and forth? It deals more damage that way and it's a known strat among all pro UT players. Also the damage timer is unrelated to ammo use.

The Ripper's first fire needs a slight increase in firing speed. (Props to not making so the disks hurt you, it was easily the most annoying bit about the weapon)

The disks not hurting you is an engine limitation and not a personal choice. Firing speed can be increased, but I'll have to be careful with dropped frames.

The Minigun's altfire should switch to a faster spin approximately 0.6 seconds or so after starting to fire.

I'll keep this in mind.

The Inpact Hammer's charged attack should be able to one hit/two hit kill a pinky OR cause some serious knockback. (I understand the damage values are likely an attempt to make the chainsaw relevant.)

Another thing to buff.

The Chainsaw feels a little lame and is difficult to use. I get the feeling that the swipe attack should be better against crowds of small fry enemies while the first one would be best used against heavier enemies like hell knights/mancubus etc.

The chainsaw wasn't really a great weapon in UT either. The swipe attack only hits in front of you, but I could make it hurt in an arc even if it goes against original behavior.

Flak Cannon needs a very small speed up to its left click firing attack. (Possibly to keep up against it's alt fire heavier damage) With the left click being used against crowds/ out of sight enemies, while the right click is against bigger foes which might be hard to deal with.

I could speed it up but I think it could make the pacing of fire/reload sounds feel weird.

The rocket launcher should have a notification to when you switch fire mode from a spread formation to a tight formation.

This sounds unnecessary, especially since the mode switch happens in the very instant rockets are fired, which is when the check for the alt fire button being held is done.

Cell pack's ammo replacements feel off (Being Sniper ammo and Minigun ammo). And these weapons don't feel like the ones that should replace the Plasma Gun.

Separating the weapons into logical progression tiers is a bit complicated. If you have any suggestions on reordering them, please tell me.

I suggest that a rare replacement to the Cell Pack should be a redeemer missile. Like 1/10 or 1/20. I do know that these don't quite exist in Unreal Tournament, but since the Redeemer replaces the BFG. It needs a different source of ammunition besides finding another BFG/redeemer. As these can be incredibly rare in most Wads. Not to speak that in Doom, the BFG uses the same ammo as the Plasma gun.

I guess I'll do it, though the missiles kinda look out of place as pickups.

Edit: In response the following updates have been pushed:

• Corrected Armor/Pads + Shield Belt pickup behavior.
• Reduced Biorifle damage relative to sludge scale.
• Increased Flak Cannon chunk damage and amount and primary fire speed.
• Increased Impact Hammer damage and knockback to enemies.
• Added rare spawn of redeemer ammo pickups for cell packs.
• Reduced Pulsegun beam damage timer.
• Increased Ripper primary fire speed.

[ArkyonVeil]

Gave a hand in Github. And clarified a few things there. Also, props to the fast response with the changes!

[Marisa the Magician]

New batch of changes:

• Changed Pulse Beam size to be the same as in UT99 (10 81-unit segments).
• Tweaked Starter Bolt textures to look better in first person.
• Tweaked Pulse Beam model UVs to reduce seams.
• Switched Chainsaw alt-fire to damage in an arc.
• Rebalanced damages of Chainsaw, Enforcer, Biorifle, Pulsegun, Minigun, Flak Cannon.
• Adjusted Redeemer damage formula.
• Added view flash to Redeemer shockwave.
• Reduced Enforcer fire speed.
• Reduced delay of Minigun altfire. Should happen after exactly one cycle.
• Increased knockback of Impact Hammer.

While I do appreciate your suggestions on rebalancing, I felt that most of the changes suggested were maybe too overpowered and balance-breaking, to be honest.

[Kyotra]

Is there an option to give the weapons Doom-style sprites? 3D models in Doom always irk me.

[wildweasel]

Is there an option to give the weapons Doom-style sprites? 3D models in Doom always irk me.

Someone would need to make some first, I'd imagine. But bear in mind, the use of models is most likely the entire reason this mod got made.

[Marisa the Magician]

The use of models rather than sprites was simply because creating sprites for so many different frames of animation for so many models would have been a painstaking process. Not to mention that models actually look better in this case.

[PixelWAD]

I love it, been playing a lot of deathmatch recently.
However, it's there a chance to get it to work with 3.2.0? I'd like to run it with vr mod

[Enjay]

Thanks for continuing with this. It's amazing and it keeps improving and becoming more and more UT-like.

New batch of changes:

• Reduced Enforcer fire speed.

Could just be my imagination, but it seems a bit slow now. Is it the same as in UT?


How easy is it to do a speed conversion from one to the other? Are you working with scripting/game data from UT or are you doing it by feel? (I'm guessing the former due to the level of accuracy in the mod. On that note, how easy would it be to get other models in and working - like the bot models, or the enemies from Unreal etc? What tools are you using to inspect the models to figure out their frames etc? Does UnrealEd allow that or are there better tools out there?

Bio-sludge gun also seems a bit too weak now (I agree that it was a bit OP before though). But then I always found it a bit of a weak/disappointing weapon in the original game, so maybe it's about right. It was always very much a "it'll do until I pick up something better" weapon for me. In fact, the enforcer was often preferable IMO. One of the things I always liked about the enforcer was that it was still definitely a start/basic weapon but it was actually still quite useful/not crap.

[Marisa the Magician]

I try to match the timings of the original's animations, but since they are based entirely on animation speed, which can be completely arbitrary, it's next to impossible to always map accurately to doom's 35Hz timings. Usually the animations have a base rate of 30 FPS (though this can be changed per-animation on mesh import) and then have some speed factor applied in the PlayAnim() calls in UnrealScript (which can and often is randomized).

About player/bot models, those will need to wait because apart from the fact we're talking of stuff that has around 300 frames of animation each and multiple, user-settable skins, they need some special work for attaching guns to their hands that the engine doesn't handle (yet). Unreal monsters, on the other hand, those I definitely want to try doing first.

For checking the animation sequences I just open the actor scripts in UnrealEd and look at the directives that define them.

Edit: Ok I'm definitely going to double-check that the Enforcer isn't too slow now.
Edit 2: Oh crap, you're right, I made it too slow now. And other weapons are also slower than they should be.

New updates:

• Tweaked fire rates of Enforcer, Shock Rifle, Ripper, Flak Cannon to be even closer to the originals.
• Reduced gravity on Biosludge to make it feel more like the original.
• Buffed chainsaw altfire, making it hit fast on a wider arc.
• Correctly fixed armor + shield belt behaviors.
• Made it so jump boots drain after landing, thus preventing fall damage on the last jump in case it's enabled.
• Made jump boots drain slowly over time, for balance reasons (especially when jumping is disabled).

So much for that summer break, here I am pushing updates to Doom Tournament again.