Hocusdoom RELEASED (/idgames pending)

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ravage
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

Gez wrote:Last time I played through, the fire barriers were a terrible resource hog; I'd want to suggest always turning them off when the player is away.
I'm wondering if its not A_Explode that's lagging but the fact that every frame calls a dynamic light and A_Explode every frame? To be honest though, I've never had any slowdowns with the poles. My slowdowns come from sheer numbers of particles from other things.
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by Gez »

Yeah, calling A_Explode every tic for all these actors is terribly processor-intensive. IIRC I ended up using console commands to disable them ("remove" with the actor that spawns them IIRC). Disabling them when the player is away, or after solving the puzzles, or something is necessary IMO to avoid having to basically cheat because performances are too bad for normal gameplay.
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ravage
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

Well, I haven't decided what to do with them, however it may be a moot issue as I've managed to solve 90% of framerate issues by completely re-doing all particle-driven lights into static sprites. No more spawning tons of actors for every torch anymore.
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MaxRideWizardLord
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by MaxRideWizardLord »

ravage wrote:I need all the help and feedback I get, which hasn't been much to be honest.
oh dang, sorry for such a long delay then! Well, the reason I didn't respond for so long is because I was afraid to annoy you with another long post back then.
ravage wrote:Oh wow. Thanks for the feedback! Its going to take me a while to even remotely be able to reply to all of that, so please give me some time.
Yeah the menu sounds are still scratching my eardrums like mad, and so is the primary fire of player, and especially the fire of some enemies that spawn 3 or more projectiles at the same time, like that bird that drops a huge rock. Just for this mod, I turn the menu sound at 5% volume just to not get completely deaf. :P
ravage wrote:ULTRA was never meant to be taken seriously. Its supposed to be one-hit death. Unfortunately I've not had the chance to test it better while still building the maps. I've debated whether to remove it entirely given how much trouble its been giving me.
I feel like the Ultra is how exactly the platformer game is meant to be played. There is no hitscan enemy, and most enemy attacks are pretty easy to dodge, even the homing ones. Sure, it takes longer to deal with enemies as you're must to be always precise and concentrated, which as well takes the extra time, but that's what I like about it. At least, at the end of the day, I can feel assured that not a single scratch I've been taken in this long journey. :D

The ULTRA is a perfect difficulty for players to be sure that nothing did hit them in the long process of gaming.
ravage wrote:I don't know why the turreted enemies are even moving, they shouldn't move at all regardless of difficulty.
Just checked, and unfortunately they still do... :( At least the lightning strike no longer moves around like a turtle, and have same speed on all difficulties.
ravage wrote:The damage issues with that difficulty are also a problem I'm aware of. I'm not sure how to fix it outside of setting up special circumstances everywhere and that sounds like its going to be more hassle than its worth. It seems like some damage sources take difficulty settings differently to others because zdoom.

I might raise the bombs in map14 up higher off the acid as I hate things like that too. I know there are a few inescapable pits I'd like to fix in other levels too.
Well, the damage of both gargoyle's cloud and cloud's lightning seem to kill me now, including the acid and spikes\knives, thanks!

Yeah I can now safely reach the bombs too, thanks!
ravage wrote:If the difficulty is supposed to give you only one health, why do you need health potions?
Because the whole process of finding the hidden potions is one hell of an entertaining journey by itself! :lol:

I mean, seriously, a lot of rooms in various maps consist of that one hiding spot that contains potion, and on ULTRA when you find that one spot, it's just an empty room with corridor leading to dead end, or these kind of secret places that using the breakable blocks, that when you break it, you find nothing in there, and that's a lot of disappointment... :(

That's why I wish to replace all of the health potions with same potions but recolored in Yellow and make them give you points instead, I believe that would be fair.
ravage wrote:There's no real sense to adding more things to collect in a difficulty that's already hard enough as it is.
I absolutely disagree, the journey of finding hidden items, gold and pickup is possibly the most appealing feature of whole of Hocus Pocus, along with the adventure and exploration, and finding secrets, which forces you to explore the whole level, pixel by pixel, is what makes you appreciate the level designer even more, fully grasp the depth of the design, rather than just mindlessly rush for kills and skip the most of it unnoticed. After all, the ULTRA gives you extra 50 seconds to find all items and secrets, even though most of the timer set unfairly and rather annoyingly small which encourages mindless rush than appreciation of the level art and design itself.
ravage wrote:You don't actually need the megabombs to beat each level, as they were added later in development, but they certainly do make it easier. I was thinking of removing a few in some levels. At least in map28 you can get like 20 and that's just way too many for how powerful they really are.
Well, whether the things you really enjoy are needed in our life or not, is more a question of philosophical conundrum, but they do REALLY improve the gameplay and the joy of it. The primary thing I use megamobs for is for cleaning the huge areas of breakable blocks in a matter of second, which helps a lot, since if I leave some of the breakable blocks, I feel like I haven't beaten the map 100%. TBH I liked when one pickup give you 5 bombs instead of 3, that did really improve the experience of some maps with lots of breakable blocks and unpleasant ambushes, and I like map28 exclusively for reason it gives you plently of megabombs, so you don't really need to be stressed and worry too much about whether or not this ambush situation is worth of wasting a single of these bombs or not.
ravage wrote:As it stands there's no reason to add yet another category for scoring. I might make easter egg treasure not count to the final score.
Adding the "special item" counter is possibly my the most desirable thing to have, please!!! :o

Finding the "easter egg treasures", the weaponry potions, and some hidden megabombs is what made your levels so fun to explore, and what made me really curious if I trully found every single item. I really would like of these weaponry potions, teleport potions, megabombs and pretty much the rest of items did give you a bit of points for collecting them, just like the "easter egg treasures" although not as much of points, like 100 ot 250 would be enough. This would encourage people collecting them all. Having some separate item counter which would indicate all of the "easter egg treasures", all of the weaponry potions, teleports, high jumps, megabombs, Power Wand, etc, would help a lot to know if you missed some pickups or not.

Please please please please please please please, don't be so cold to this feature, and while I'm fully aware it's your mod and you're willing to do anything you want with it, it would make the life more easier for many of us who are in to depth of exploration, search for secrets and collecting 100% of everything.
ravage wrote:Missing textures like those do indeed need to be fixed, and if you find more, please send me screenshots so I can fix them. I can only spot so many myself so that would be helpful.
I use GZDoombuilder Bugfix for mapping and SLADE for general editing for everything else.
Umm, aside from these ones I've already provided, from top of my head there were at least 3 other missed textures places and very glitched textures, but replaying your last version of the game and I see them being fixed.

There were more, but to remember ALL of them would take me a whole week dedicated to re-play the whole Hocus Pocus DOOM and explore every single pixel again, which is something I don't have time nor nerves to do unfortunately. Not until the "official" last version of HP doom being made at least.
ravage wrote:Considering GZDoom now allows custom resolutions that's going to be tricky as I've started to notice it too. I'll see what I can do.
I do believe it's possible to adjust unique placement of things for each resolution with the new GZDoom, at least I believe wildweasel can help you with this. Unfortunately, there is still lacks of 5:4 support in the latest version of your mod:
Spoiler:
ravage wrote:The flamethrower is not even remotely useless once you realize that it spawns flames on the ground that continue to do a lot of damage. What you lack in range and precision you make up for with AOE and lingering damage
I'm well aware of the ground walls. However, that doesn't negate it's rather pathetic and useless range. There are many times when I regret pickup up that potion and I'm left pretty much vulnerable. A few good examples would be map33, the first introduction of flamethrower spell. Picking it up spawns crapton of ranged enemies where flamethrower simply won't reach them for obvious reason, and rushing toward enemies who already shoot some projectiles in my direction means death, obviously. Another good example is map37, especially on ULTRA difficulty. Picking up flamethrower potion spawns too many air-bone enemies, which are obviously immune to the ground fire, and they seem to be far better at dodging on this difficulty so reaching them with fire is very hard and sometimes is impossible as the path is blocked by the enemy's projectile spam.
ravage wrote:The graphics are perfectly servicable and to be honest I'd like to keep him far away from my credits page as much as possible. No further argument here.
Before such drastic change, I used to believe that flamethrower supposed to be some sort of BFG, or a more superior, advanced version of rapid fire potion. It was a hell a lot of fun to use, very lovely flamethrower it was. In your changelog you stated that you made the change to make flamethrower look more "realistic", more like flamethrower. In all honesty, please don't take it as offense, but the fire of "flamethrower" is so tiny and such of short range that it looks like as if you've been taking a piss... and it burn when you do so. If you're do hate Mark a lot, regardless of his work, I'd like to suggest you a flamethrower's flame from various other mods, something basic like the one from all out of war 1, or the commonly used Realm667 one but with bigger range. Volkograd 3D is also planning to add soon one hell of a fun flamethrower, too.

If it's still a "no"... Well, I hope making a simple mod that would return the flamethrower from 04-07-18 version to new one wouldn't be too hard for me to make, at least I would do it for personal use only (and... maybe give it to a friend, or two).
ravage wrote:Its taken me six iterations to get something that is somewhat fun and balanced to use. Its supposed to be a very powerful weapon you can only use sparingly. The ammo slowly refills on its own, but picking up lightning upgrades will fill up a quarter of its ammo. There's no need to further complicate it, especially adding multiple types of the same weapon.
Well, you did make the gun have altfire now, so that's at least something, thanks. :P Well, yeah, I kinda prefer the one from 04-07-18 as it did had splash damage which was effective to deal damage to multiple enemies AND clean the breakable blocks faster, but it still better than nothing. I never liked the too wasteful "charged attack" primary fire, as it wastes all of it's ammo too quick without killing that much, but at least it's useful against bosses. :P
ravage wrote:I think he's plenty dangerous enough, especially on the 3rd and 4th battles. You can kill him quickly if you're good or lucky, your can just as easily fall in a pit trying to dodge his attacks.
The third and forth battles feels the easiest for me, considering most of the castle been destroyed that had all sorts of random "surprise" map's attacks, like the spam of projectiles coming from the floor, random lowering of fence in to lava, or the occasionally firing blue lightning strikes, all of that is lacking on later battles. The pits are pretty easy to memorize as they are not random and won't get you by "surprise" once you learn their locations, so they become no problem at all.

The boss for me was hardly any of challenge, he's just slightly above the difficult of Mad Monk. Despite being tanky, he's just a stationary target, very hard to miss and request no aiming skills at all, most his attacks are easily dodged by A\D circle strafe. The Tree Demon was a much, much more challenging boss than the final boss Trolodon, and while I know the final boss of original Hocus Pocus game from 1994 was pretty much very easy, leaving the boss this much of a joke is kinda an insult to the final boss Trolodon as it kills the experience of fighting him. After all it took a whopping 40 huge challenging maps to finally reach to him. My only request regarding the final boss, at least toward the final battle (4th one), is to allow the Trolodon to move around (as that would make sense since the column at which he stood was completely destroyed and now he's standing on self-created magical floor with his own mind and magic), which would make the player actually aim for him and smartly dodge his attacks, taking different paths sometimes, instead of endlessly running in circle and constantly shooting in the same direction all the time. Then again, he's a final boss after all, and we won't get any more fun experience of playing Hocus Pocus, so a good and challenging final boss fight is a must have for an final and good "the end" experience.
ravage wrote:That's not a bad idea actually. The monster balance for that set is kinda off and the power wand is basically useless for much of it. But ehhhhh more sprites to make. :V
Hey, thanks for adding such a fun enemy, I actually enjoy it a lot! :D They are a bit rare, but spawn more often outside, which is what I like and what makes it more logical. A bit tanky, but nothing too hard and the primary fire of the Power Wand is finally useful for once. :mrgreen: Giving them a same look as one of the tree from background was probably a bit too much ask of me, even though they look exactly like demon tree which is a bit confusing since he's more fitting in to forest themed levels instead, but I still like this one wooden guy, making the spooky themed maps actually complete!
ravage wrote:I have beaten every single level on normal within those times and added 50 seconds to the timer to be fair. Yeah, they do still need some tweaking. Not everyone is going to be at the same skill level. I'm sure there are people even faster than me, so its not that big of a stretch to try harder!
The problem is that such small time counter encouraging mindless rushing rather taking a deep look at the map and appreciate how well done these made, look at the art design, decoration, ornament and adornment, explore every single hidden item and search for all possible easter eggs and other secrets, including a ways to get out of map, not to mention taking a more tactical and smart method of dealing with enemies by didging the fire of all of the enemies at safe distance instead of just rushing in middle of horde of enemies and tanking lots of hot magma and lightning bolts up your arse for no reason. I mean, not everyone need to speedrun every single game and mod... For most, it's more fun to take it slowly, tactically and practically, beating level by collecting every item, kill everything in a map and explore every single pixel of the map like a boss. Not to mention, not every single player can choose or even calculate the paths to beat the map with least costly of time, often you end up taking the longest paths to approach to all of the essential crystals and pickups, which means you will need a lot of backtracking and rotations; in the first run finding and calculating the least costly paths to collect all of the items on map is practically impossible, as it's matter of luck.
ravage wrote:Not every enemy needs to be completely unique. Sometimes its ok to treat them like the same enemy as before but with a themed skin.
This is your mod and I can understand that. However, if I'm able to say my two cents, it often just kills experience and feel like you're fighting some other enemy when they all fighting and acting exactly the same, at most it feels like the game just glitched by giving reskin to old enemies and you fighting the exact same crocs and mushrooms from the map01, or like you're playing the christmass edition where crocs and mushrooms get skins of eskimo and penguins for this one temporal update. Small changes, like make eskimo's projectile bounce and fell down on ground once it hit wall, so if you're next to wall you take damage for touching the falling stick, and lowering the gravity of penguin so they move slightly faster when falling from the edge of cliff is not much of a drastic change that would make the game that much harder, rather give the depth of each NPC in the game rather than them all being a clones of each other. Having a same croc\mushroom tier enemies on the LAST final maps, especially when you had a more challenging and interesting enemies before, is just feels really lacking and wrong; as Silvermander and especially Armordillo that can't even reach me when I standing on a tiny small edge are just pathetic, and sometimes I feel myself bad for killing these innocent enemies; definitelly not something you'd expect to see at the very hard of the game that's been getting harder and harder for each level for 40 levels in a row.
ravage wrote:No. Its the first map of the episode, lets not be a complete dick to the player.
ravage wrote:Also no, the shriker is fine. Its basically a flying arachnotron on its own.
ravage wrote:Maybe I could make it jump at the player occasionally, but that's about it. I'm not going to make it more complex. This isn't Strife. :P
ravage wrote:Honestly, the shriker already fills the arachnotron role, and I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about the gorilla.
ravage wrote:No.
ravage wrote:Maybe, but since its still episode 1, I don't want to be a total dick to the player.
Ehh... Kinda sad you'd just "no" 'd most of these... :( But well again, it's your mod anyway. But I'll try to reply with my curiosity as short as possible.



The cobra guy gives no threat at all, at this point in the game it feels more like a decoration than an foe. Despite it being the "first level", it's an 4rth episode, and having enemies that are not just croc\shroom reskin would be a good warning to the player to subtle give him\her a message "the levels get actually harder for the final episode of the game". Besides, we already get to see a 3-headed dragon-thingy called abyssal hydra in this very level that shoots 5 projectiles in all directions, and even worse - that one blinking-teleporting abyssal demon, which just never stop charging at you non-stop at insane speed. I'd consider this one guy as the "being dick toward player". Not that I'm complaining though, I kinda like that the final episode of the game start giving me some challenge. The way the cobra is now however, it's pretty much a joke, and doesn't fit among the rest of foes. The rail I suggested would take some time to charge, which would make cobra flicker while it's charging attack, taking about as much time as arch-vile to shoot it, and then again it's not necessarily need to be a hitscan but a very fast moving projectile like blue lightning strike, so it's still possible to dodge.

I kinda enjoyed the Shriker in early stages like in version 04-07-18, it had an very interesting and unique attack. I have no idea why you completely remove it, would be fun if it would still be optional attack that he would shoot at least when got hit. The role of arachnotron, however, I feel like is more fitting to Silvermander, since it's essentially just a croc reskin (on difficulties other than ULTRA he's not exactly a clone, since he shoots 2 projectiles instead of one, but on ULTRA he's more acerbated so it's harder to notice) and shooting in many directions around him wouldn't be as effective as if he was an air-borne target since most of his projectiles if he shoot in all directions at the same time around him would be blocked by obstacles around him.

I have no idea why you were surprised that I didn't mention anything about gorilla. Aside from it's rather a loud rock that summons a couple of fire projectiles that bash on my ear drums, like many of the other enemies, he's pretty interesting, unique and balanced enemy. He's having a multiple attacks, one is charging at you and other is droping a rock. Nothing too hard to deal with and nothing too complicated to avoid. Not as fun as pharaoh and demon tree, but still a pretty decent enemy. Oh, and I like the new animations you given to him. What exactly did you want me to mention about him anyway? IMHO, the rest of enemies need to get as much of changes as you've given to gorilla to make it fair toward them, since original gorilla was nothing more than shroomcharger reskin.

But the spiders in strife are awesome, aren't they? If they can't climb on walls, what else could distinguish them as actual spider rather than another-running-at-you-melee enemy that's been dozens there before? I tried to give up an interesting idea that would make spider on same tier of challenge and interesting-ness\unique-ness as you've given to gargoyle. I doubt climbing spiders on walls would make the game that much of difficult, it would give it at least some kind of challenge as most of melee enemies are just an easy to kill meatshields, only give a threat when spawn with ranged enemies at backup at long range.

Eh, I don't see why you'd hate the idea to make armordillo at least a bit less useless. You already get a better melee charger that is gorilla, yet the armordillo can't even reach you most of the time because of a really small obstacle is cutting their path toward you, like difference of height of floor by tiny-tiny bit since it can't even jump. It is a least memorable enemy, since it's just recolored porcupine, and sincerely felt bad for killing them because there been many places where they did spawn near me but couldn't reach me. Definitely not a type of enemy you'd see at the end of the game.

I can't possible see how you'd be a "total dick" toward the player by adding such an insignificant feature to the eskimo dude to give him more depth to the characteristics, I bet most players would appreciate more that enemies aren't just clones of one another, which is IMHO the main downside of original Hocus Pocus game by Apogee, since all of the levels feels and plays pretty much the same as the very first level.



My points probably means nothing to you anyway, but maybe when I get arsed enough to try to make changes for my own personal mini-mod of HP doom where I would give these NPC these features. My only request toward NPC would still remain toward the Trolodon, since I doubt I could ever get knowledged enough to make the guy move around all by myself. The final battle of the final boss is just... VERY lacking, yet it's pretty much the last seconds of you playing such an wondeful fantastic mod and after that, it's the end. Making the boss actually move around in random direction would give the player an pleasant surprise for playing this amazing mod like a parting message toward the player who passed all this long journey not for nothing, it would be like a cherry on top of the cake to save a fondle memories of this mod.
ravage wrote:I did take several ideas for each map from their original counterparts, but I didn't want to attempt a 1:1 recreation. Besides, I already had dozens of ideas for maps that I just didn't have enough maps to put into.
I can understand that, however the tree level map e2m7 had an interesting feature that seem never repeated in any other Hocus Pocus level, and that is hiding a switch behind a huge pile of breakable blocks, so if you break too many of these, you simply can't use these breakable blocks to climb on them to reach to the next floor with gold pickups and switch. Similar thing been in map e3m5 or e3m6, which is some interesting thing to have. Not that I'm saying you miss something and should add it back, I just try to eleborate why exactly do I wish to change these maps myself while still being both canon to the style you made and to the original hocus pocus design.
ravage wrote:Doom itself is not the greatest atmosphere for vertical platforming and the fact that I've achieved what I did, I'm happy with.
IMHO Doom with it's good clipping on floor and it's easily adjustable jumping is great for vertical platforming, one of the best engines for that, otherwise there wouldn't be mods like Jump Maze, Power Slave port and many other; aside from sliding when moving too fast, it's pretty smooth engine. The only a better engine for that I can think of is would be Half-Life's gold source engine. The climbing and platforming maps both for HL and TFC are outstanding, possibly one of the best I've ever seen. I am not sure if it's possible to make a moving platforms in both Y, X and Z axis on GZDoom engine yet, but I sure as heck would enjoy every second of these.
ravage wrote:Most of the skips or shortcuts you can find I intentionally left in, as long as it didn't break the level to a point where the player could no longer progress, or somehow found their way outside the map (this includes skyboxes). There's an easy one in map02 that lets you circumvent both keys to get all the crystals, but its not an easy one to pull off.

Also I'm not looking for mappers, as most of the maps are already basically done, save for minor tweaking.
Both keys... on map02?? There is only one place with silver key, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it without pulling both of Yellow levers. Are you sure you were meant map02?

There is still one map left where I can get outside of the map that you seem to overlook, but I'm not sure if I want to tell which one is it as I kinda like it. :P There been one in map13 that you already fixed, even though you could still could return back to the map even if you get outside of map.
ravage wrote:Its ok to reuse some thematic things if they fit well. I've already made thousands of textures, what's the harm in reusing a few.
You seem to get wrongly what I said, as I meant completely different thing. What I'm saying is that map23-map24 had the mountain, lake, conifer, NATURE theme of maps, like north California, mountains in Oregon, or nature of North Idaho; hell, when I first played these maps as toddler from original Hocus Pocus game, they give me great feel like i'm somewhere in Austrain-Switzerland Alps. An comfy atmosphere of northern nature with huge mountain, conifers and lake nearby which is common thing to have in such places. But you seem to skip that entirely, making it just another clone of map01-map02 with huge-mushroom cartoon\fantasy theme. I mean, there are SIMILAR themes that are COMPLETELY different. For example, there is egypt theme and sumerian theme that re-uses same models and skins as egypt aside from background image, BUT you've actually made both Egypt AND Sumerian themes differ from each other, thus you have pyramides in Egypt and Palaces in Sumeria. You made pretty much all of the maps to fit to their surrounding theme, except these two map23-map24. Aside from that, they both pretty small and very lacking tbh, since they lacking almost entirely it's unique niche of it's theme aside from having random conifers around sometimes. Would be pretty badass to have some huge mountain and lake occasionally appearing, at least on outside parts of these maps. Mountain could be used for whole new climbing\jumping session and lake for underwater gold collectibles.

As for Pharaohs in Sumerian theme, well... I just did made a joke, I actually like pharaohs a lot despite these lacking in Egypt theme but appear in Sumerian\arab theme, one of my most favorite enemies aside from wraths from map37-39. I doubt any changes would be applied to either map23-24, although they feel like they really need some, but this is why I was curious what programs you used to make these maps, so I could use them myself to make some small changes. I'd also toss in the "easter egg treasures" for these of us who really love to search for more complicated and hardened secrets.
ravage wrote:I appreciate the comments, and thank you again.
Unfortunately, I've made even bigger reply this time it seems...

Anyway, if TL;DR, the worthy feedback I'm giving is to fix problem with resolutions (as you can see on screenshots I've given), adding item count which would help A LOT for many of us, and make the Trolodon a bit more challenging for final battle as I feel it's unfair for final boss at final battle be easier than both Dragon boss and especially much more easier than Demon Tree boss. A bit of change toward map23-24 maps, fixing the flamethrower and enhancement of monsters would be cool, but it's all up to you to decide.



OH, and final thing I've been forget to give feedback the previous time. PLEASE, fix the game so multiplayer would actually work, at least for GZDoom! I've tried to play Hocus Pocus DOOM with friend, but there is a bug: only one person get to regenerate ammo, so that means once you fire your lightning bolt once, you're pretty much out of ammo forever. I've managed to glitch the game so we both get to regenerate ammo, but that only works for one map and we had to restart server each time once we wanted to play a new map.
While having a full multiplayer support would be hard, like making the game automatically respawn one of the dead players instead of the screen going black to the titlescreen, but I hope asking to make all of the players to regenerate ammo so it would be at least somewhat playeble is not too much to ask.
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ravage
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

I don't think you understand the amount of time and effort it would take to change/add new features, especially multiplayer support, to a project I am wrapping up in the next month or so.


Also: the map02 skip can be done if you jump up to the middle window across from the tower holding the crystal and SR50 onto it. Takes a few tries but is doable.

Edit: Also its ironic that you say Trolodon is too easy when I've had several people tell me he's too hard, so again, skill levels vary from person to person.

Edit 2: Now that I think about it, no--The flamethrower's damage extends infinitely to the ceiling so it does in fact damage flying enemies.

Edit 3: Be glad not meeting the par times doesn't kill you... like Skulldash :V

Edit 4:
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MaxRideWizardLord
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by MaxRideWizardLord »

ravage wrote:I don't think you understand the amount of time and effort it would take to change/add new features, especially multiplayer support, to a project I am wrapping up in the next month or so.
I don't ask for a full multiplayer support, but a simply fix that would make both players regenerate ammo is all I'm asking. I've asked a few other folks who are more advanced in the coding, like Dino_Nerd and DoomKrakken, both couldn't find the solution to fix it, unfortunately... :( Dino once said to ask on forums. :P
ravage wrote:Also: the map02 skip can be done if you jump up to the middle window across from the tower holding the crystal and SR50 onto it. Takes a few tries but is doable.
Map02 still have only one key, and there is no window in the key room. Neither a crystals.



I don't see any tower either, unless you're just trolling me. :?
ravage wrote:Edit: Also its ironic that you say Trolodon is too easy when I've had several people tell me he's too hard, so again, skill levels vary from person to person.
I'm being 100% sincere saying that Demon Tree, especially in that one place where you encounter TWO of them at the same time, provide far more advanced challenge than one stationary guy that die after 4 power staff spam + 3 nade to face, whose attacks can be easily dodged by simply circle-strafing and whose pits are provide no threats at all once you memorize them, since they aren't as random and surprising as some traps. Were they also complain about Demon Tree by any chance? Not that he was that hard either, but these spam of random moving flowers minions, spam of branches that pretty much cover the whole map and lead to your death, really that is less hard than just a guy that is countered by clicking A or D? Fine then. I doubt that making him moving would make Trolodon would make the final battle THAT much of harder, it will just require at least some kind of aiming, this would just make the guy NOT so incredible easy to defeat, because as I've just stated, it literally takes 4 power wand shoots + 3 nades (or a few splitter lightnings shots) to face in order to force him to retreat, which will take mere 10 seconds to perform. Not to mention the amount of rapid fire potions + other powerful power ups spam you get in the "armory" room. The rapid fire + power wand sucks his hp like in 5-7 seconds until he teleports. This way you would actually carefully aim your power wand charged shots and time well your fire bombs, instead of just spam them in one spot.

ravage wrote:Edit 2: Now that I think about it, no--The flamethrower's damage extends infinitely to the ceiling so it does in fact damage flying enemies.
Just tried this very moment and it doesn't have that, or they at least manage to dodge the pilars of fire rather quick. These gargoyles explode only once they get close down to the fire:



It's quite a counter-intuitive to shoot floor to hit air-borne targets, however, and often it's not something that is possible if they are standing in a area that you simply can't reach or doesn't have floor\ceiling where you could spawn these pillars of fire.
ravage wrote:Edit 3: Be glad not meeting the par times doesn't kill you... like Skulldash :V
Actually, this is a good idea. It would actually work well for ULTRA difficulty and help the player to understand the exact time he is left to beat the whole map in order to get the sweet 100,000 points, instead of just hopelessly striving to reach the par time just to get disappointment at the very end of it. I don't see it as something bad, at least for ULTRA difficulty. Skulldash however, gives you plenty of time to beat the whole thing calmly, but then again it's a game where you're not even have to explore a whole a lot of secrets and collect all of items. In fact, you could beat each of Hocus Pocus level by making several mistakes, like backtracking without key, getting lost and wander around, wandering slowly and calmly and still get in time to get the par time points. Not something that is possible in HP doom, unfortunately.
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

I've realized its not map02, its actually map03. My bad. Everything else is just barmy though.
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by MaxRideWizardLord »

ravage wrote:I've realized its not map02, its actually map03. My bad.
Oh, you mean THAT room. Yeah it's not a big deal to jump there. However, there is this one level where you can skip like 95% of map by abusing jumping, beating a map in a matter of 30-40 seconds instead of 850 intended.



But anyway, how exactly the ammo regeneration does work in this mod? For some reason it just regenerates it for one person most of the time, and that's the server host. I've asked around the community but nobody seem to know how to fix this, even though it shouldn't be that super hard thing to fix.

Even if you don't care about MP at all, can we have at least resolution fix, pretty please?
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

What map is that?
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by MaxRideWizardLord »

ravage wrote:What map is that?
Ehh, not sure if I want this to get changed, after all I like to find such an specific "easter egg" places, or more precisely, the-fun-places-you-can-reach-that-weren't-intended-to-be-reached-by-the-mod's-developers. :P

But fine, I'll tell you anyway. Map07, all of the keys can be easily reached if you just jump on that... well, phallic-tractile-pyramid-fire-torch-lamp-post thingy that is placed in a next corner, which is symmetrically placed on both ends with equal distance, then you have to jump from it the key hole and jump from key hole to key hole.

Yeah I don't know how else better to elaborate it, so I've tried to look for means to record a video of it. Unfortunately, recording a demo is a real pain in GZDoom, so I was looking for free screen recorder on the internet, but these are quite annoying and lag FPS A LOT while recording the screen. I've had to use GZDoom 3.7.1 "vintage" since, for some reason, it plays your mods more smoothly than the latest GZDoom build, which is 4.2.1 or something. Even then, I still had pretty low FPS so it was pretty pain to pull off. But regardless, here is the video




As you can see, a map normally that I usually could beat in about 846 seconds if I speedrun it drastically, can be easily be beaten in mere 28 seconds with almost no effort, skipping like 95% of the whole map. With 60+ FPS, it can be done even easier.



Now since I've been the good guy and did all this for you, any chance you'll see if you can fix the game to adjust it for resolution 5:4 (1280x1024) and fix the mod's inability to regenerate the ammo for the second player, pretty please? :lol:
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by Captain J »


So i found this typo thing in Episode 1. Is this really your instead of you're? Anyway i'm hella enjoying the game here! Each secret level is fairly challenging!
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by ravage »

Whoops. Thought I was better than that. Fixed for the next update.
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by Captain J »

Oh, and few more things:
Spoiler: Seriously. They contain major spoiler.
Last edited by Captain J on Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by Gez »

Captain J wrote:Hocus' line ends with comma (,) instead of full stop (.).
That's normal, because the Hocus quote is part of a larger sentence. It's always written like this in English and in all European languages I know of. The one thing is that English traditionally puts the punctuation inside the quote marks, whereas other languages put it outside of the quote marks unless it's part of the quote proper.
"Bring it on", he said.
"Bring it on," he said.
He said "Bring it on!"
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Re: Hocusdoom BETA (new version 08-13-2019) nearing the end!

Post by Captain J »

Well that's something i never knew about. I guess that's reasonable. Thanks for the info!
Spoiler: Got some feedback. And of course it's a major spoiler!
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