FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [FINAL]

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Jimmy
 
 
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FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [FINAL]

Post by Jimmy »

Image

The hellish minions left to wander in the aftermath of Korax's defeat during the battle of Cronos have now scattered across Parthoris looking for fresh meat, and a new realm to call their own. Beings of chaos roam freely, causing disarray in the realm. The citizens of Parthoris have barely had time to rebuild their lives in the wake of D'Sparil's reign of chaos, which was put to an end by a yet-unidentified outsider.

You are Corvus. You have laid low for a while in the dockside town of Port Mercy, and become aware of the situation almost immediately. Portals open in every corner of the town, legions of the damned pouring forth and slaughtering the populace. Stepping out into the pouring rain, you come to a scene of fresh blood dashed against the cobbles, deep red tendrils of it snaking into the gutters, and raging monsters bellowing vicious cries of revenge as the townsfolk meet a gruesome end.

They smell your blood and close in on you. Standing at the foot of the belltower, you brandish your elvenwand and confront the desperate beasts as they converge upon you. The gleam of its topaz gem sends chills of fear down their backs.

It's you - the faithless one.

Code: Select all

Name: Faithless
Map Format: UDMF
Ports Tested: GZDoom 4.0.0
IWAD: Heretic
Map(s): E1M1-M9
Gameplay: Single play/co-op
Music: Frank Klepacki, David Arkenstone (Lands of Lore 1 & 2), and Tolwyn (E1M6's track)
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Multiplayer Placement: No
Build Time: A solid week of initial layouts, followed by 3-4 days of frantic thingplacing/testing (for RC1)
Textures: hexen.wad, shadowtex.wad, bak_leg.wad
Requirements: No jumping or crouching (enforced). Freelook allowed.
Some notes:
  • Could still be imbalanced, or buggy, or both. Please report in if there are any issues! Smite-Meister difficulty recommended. Black Plague difficulty has a few extra enemies, but hasn't been tested.
  • Contains all the textures from Baker's Legacy and Jaws in Space's Shadowcaster texture WAD. Resource pruning is yet to come.
  • "Repopulation" i.e. new monsters spawning into the level happens when you return to a level you've already visited. Each level will spawn different monsters. Minimise new monster spawns by optimising your route! Alternatively it can be turned off by typing "repopulation 0" into the console. (Or change the # to "1" to turn it back on again.)
  • Weather can also be turned on/off, the cvar is "weather_enabled". The code for this weather system is by Gutawer and was first showcased in The Joy of Mapping 5!
  • If the "returning to:" level name messages get too annoying you can turn them off with the cvar "returning_msgs". You'll still get the level names appear when you first visit a level, however.
Please enjoy!

Heretic is fun to map for. Hubs are also great. So yeah, more of both please!

Download "Faithless" (15MB):
/idgames Mirror

Dropbox Mirror
GZDoom required. 4.0.0+ recommended. Only tested in this port/build.
Walkthrough text file (updated as of final release) - refer to this if you get stuck!

Credits for resources:
Gutawer - weather effects
Tormentor667 & co. - Baker's Legacy texture pack
Jaws in Space - Shadowcaster texture pack
Not Jabba - red key sprites/code
NeuralStunner - red key gizmo orb
Xaser - status bar edit (four keys)
Neoworm - trees, elixir sprites
osjclatchford - trees
NoozeArts - Granite Icon base sprite
Frank Klepacki, David Arkenstone - all music except E1M6 (Lands of Lore 1 & 2)
David "Tolwyn" Shaw - E1M6 music
Base graphic for TITLE retrieved from http://www.gsfdcy.com/hourglass-wallpapers.html
Manfred Klein - Titlepic font, "UnZialish.ttf"
Various authors on Realm667 for their custom monsters/items.


Screenshots!
Click here for full size.
Image

Maplist:
E1M1: The Belltower
E1M2: Dockside
E1M3: Dread Gardens
E1M4: Kingdom of Roots
E1M5: Savaged Lands
E1M6: Unlit Serenity
E1M7: Halls of Atrocity
E1M8: Ironclad
E1M9: Breathless Wastes
Last edited by Jimmy on Sat Jul 20, 2019 10:31 am, edited 6 times in total.
_mental_
 
 
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC1 released]

Post by _mental_ »

I played a few maps on easy skill. New monsters bring some kind of refreshment to Heretic's quite limited roster. Hub structure is pretty interesting as well.

E1M4 has a texture missing on line #697.
Screenshot_Heretic_20190427_171757.jpg
Sector #173 of E1M2 is empty on easy skill. A shield and maybe one mummy would be nice to have here.
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC1 released]

Post by Jimmy »

Oops, good catches! Both those issues will be fixed in RC2. Cheers!
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC2 ready!]

Post by Jimmy »

An update is ready!

Download "Faithless" RC2 (15.1MB)
GZDoom required. 4.0.0+ recommended. Only tested in this port/build.
Walkthrough text file (updates as of RC2) - refer to this if you get stuck!

Changelog:
Spoiler:
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StroggVorbis
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC2 ready!]

Post by StroggVorbis »

-There are 3 dormant ghouls in E1M7's center room that I don't know how to wake up.
-In the same map, the trial with the crushing floors can be a bit unforgiving. After you pull the switch, the floor tiles light up momentarily. Take too long and they turn dark again. Since there's no button on the other side which mixes up the pattern like there is at the entrance, the only other two options left are trial and error or activating the display of trigger lines in the automap options. (Which some people don't do, because it would be cheating)
-Again in the same map, not sure if you're aware of this, but the section with the portals can be cheesed: Simply enter a portal, wake up the monsters on the other side and back off where you came from. You can now shoot them through the portal without them seeing you.
-Also in the same map, in the room with the switch puzzle. The center one which spawns 1-3 knights can still be activated once sunken into the ground and causes the crushing floor to rise like it does with the proper switch, but this way you won't get killed ;)
-I think you made the North Boots weaker than before. A damagefactor of 0.75 means 75% of the damage, so it's only reduced BY 25%, not TO 25%.
-The Flame Shield's Armor.SavePercent is 25. This is even weaker than Quake's Green Armor.
For reference:
  • Q1 Green Armor: 30
    Doom Green Armor: 33
    Doom Blue Armor/Heretic Silver Shield: 50
    Q1 Yellow Armor: 60
    Heretic Enchanted Shield: 75
    Q1 Red Armor: 80
-It seems you used the Cleric's fall sound but the PuzzleFail sound is the Fighter one. Imo you should set the latter to the Cleric's too, a deep voice doesn't fit Corvus :P
-The MacePickup actor should inherit from RandomSpawner, not WeaponGiver. The latter isn't mod friendly, because you will get the default mace even if a mod replaces it and assigns a different weapon to Slot 7.
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC2 ready!]

Post by Jimmy »

M7 dormant ghouls = fixed! How'd that slip by me. x_x
M7 blocks trial switch = fixed! Silly me had two lines tagged the same.
North boots = fixed! Jimmy is good at basic decimal math.
Flame Shield = fixed! I could've swore I set it back to how I had it before.
MacePickup = fixed! Thanks for the tip. I had to find some way to try and circumvent the weird hard-coded behavior on the Mace actor's spawning but I wasn't too sure how to do that elegantly. But yeah, I'm all for mod-friendliness if possible.
Fighter puzzlefail sound = changed! I'm used to hearing the Fighter one more often so it just sounds more natural to me, but I suppose consistency is better.

As for the M7 portal trial cheesing: I don't think I can really fix this one. It's not a properly fun way to play anyway, so if a player does this, frankly shame on them. :P

Can you elaborate on what you think I should do about the M7 firewalk trial? When you reach the other side, all you do is hit the switch to complete the trial, then the puzzle gets reset then and there - with the fatal tiles re-illuminating and staying lit for twice as long. I think you get enough time to cross, especially considering the puzzle sometimes lets you take a straight line to the other side by its random nature. :P
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC2 ready!]

Post by AvzinElkein »

Note: if playing this with Guncaster, the red key will not show up on the HUD, but it will show up on the keys list.
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [RC2 ready!]

Post by Jimmy »

I forgot to update this thread, sorry. The final release of this is out!

Download "Faithless" (15MB):
/idgames Mirror

Dropbox Mirror
GZDoom required. 4.0.0+ recommended. Only tested in this port/build.
Walkthrough text file (updated as of final release) - refer to this if you get stuck!
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [FINAL]

Post by StroggVorbis »

Any changes/differences between RC2 and the final version?
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Re: FAITHLESS - A Heretic hub episode. [FINAL]

Post by Jimmy »

Yeah, quite a few. From the changelog:
Spoiler:
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