Embers Of Armageddon

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Twitchy2019
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Twitchy2019 »

DoomKrakken wrote:I looked through the files provided by the game. :D

I looked through the files containing information about the monsters' health values and the damage dealt by each weapon's projectiles, and then reduced them to 40%.
No, what I am asking is why did you need to reduce each weapon by 40%. How did you reach your conclusion that each weapon should be reduced by a percentage of 40%? Like did you measure damage based on the number of shotgun shots each monster takes on average in Doom 2016, for example, and then tried to model EOA weapon damage that way?

For example: You say a Cacodemon has 2000 points of health in 2016. Ok, based on that logic, how does 2000 health in 2016 lead back to Doom 2 where the Caco here should have 800 health?

Or spelled a different way: Why does 2000 health in 2016 for a Caco lead you to think that a Doom 2 Caco should have double its normal 400 health to 800?
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

Ah.

The primary reason for me doing so is because many of my calculations over the past years, before I actually got access to the game's files, circulated around observing the Imp. It seemed to be the easiest to pin, to determine how much damage it'd take to stagger a monster, or to determine other weapon damage values. I found, in proportion to the Imp, many other monsters were buffed greatly, and I found that plenty of my original assumptions about monster stats (when it came to starting health values and stagger health thresholds) were pretty close to the actual values in-game.

I settled on 40% because that was easier to manipulate than, say, 20%. At 20% of their original values, the weapons would've been too weak compared to their vanilla counterparts, and would've been subject to much rounding to the point where, for example, damage bonuses from Power Shot or certain headshot damage factors would've made 0 difference. Also, I noticed that many of the weapons were still quite powerful despite the larger health values of several of the monsters. It struck the perfect balance between power, vanilla values, and ammo consumption (considering you don't carry as much ammo as you used to).

Basically, if I did more than 40%, the Heavy Assault Rifle would've been capable of one-shotting Zombiemen and Shotgunners, and not leave them open for staggering. If I settled with less than 40%, it would've made many of the monsters still feel spongy despite any upgrades that would otherwise mitigate said situation. I found it easier to stagger and not kill monsters with such values, especially for the tankier ones.

Part of the reason I'd do it this way, which led to another observation, was that they gave many of the monsters larger health pools not just to compensate for the increased damage of your weaponry, but also so they could be more easily staggered, for you to better set 'em up for a Glory Kill.

Another reason I settled on 40% was actually because in my first machinations about making a prototype version of EOA Monsters (which would attempt to recreate the 2016 monsters in GZDoom), I considered using the damage values straight from the files themselves, and globally compensate for such ridiculous damage values by globally increasing vanilla actors' max health by 167%. However, I found that if I reduced the 2016 Imp's health to 40%, it'd be left with 60 health (the same starting health as the vanilla Imp)... meaning that all this time, the vanilla Imp had been the perfect monster all along to test the damage values I had thus far, in a way that'd be more faithful to the game, while also not requiring me to globally change health values for vanilla actors. Also, I found that globally increasing all of those monster health values by 167%, again, got me close to many of the actual in-game health values of the 2016 monsters. With that said, vanilla Pinkies began acting as good targets to test out firearms against tanky fodder such as Soldiers, and vanilla Barons were great to test out firearms against, as though they were Mancubi from 2016.

By the way, I reduced these values to 40% of how they manifested in-game.

I'd write a TL;DR... but it wouldn't do this explanation justice. I hope this helps you understand the labyrinthian thought processes behind the final values I settled on. ;)
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Bodhisattva
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Bodhisattva »

Congratulations on the official public release!

I've found a weird problem that wasn't present in the older versions of the mod (1.6.3, to be precise).
It seems as if EOA somehow messes with DarkDoomZ making levels much brighter than they should be.
Here's an example:
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CasualScrub
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by CasualScrub »

Do you plan on including the animations in 2016 that happen when you first pick up a new weapon? Apologies if you've answered this already.
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

Bodhisattva wrote:Congratulations on the official public release!

I've found a weird problem that wasn't present in the older versions of the mod (1.6.3, to be precise).
It seems as if EOA somehow messes with DarkDoomZ making levels much brighter than they should be.
That was intentional. I was able to make it so that any sectors with a light level lower than 96 was set to 96. This was my workaround to the fact that there are no Night Vision goggles in 2016, and just about everything was visible there.

I'd absolutely love it if there were a way to enable/disable that on the fly, but unfortunately, there's no way the sector can store a "default" value for its light level, only an initial value.
CasualScrub wrote:Do you plan on including the animations in 2016 that happen when you first pick up a new weapon? Apologies if you've answered this already.
The resources to do so with these sprites don't yet exist, so it's currently impossible to do that. Tell you what... if someone makes the sprites, and makes 'em consistent with the sprites I have here, I'll definitely look into it! ;)
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Bodhisattva
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Bodhisattva »

That was intentional. I was able to make it so that any sectors with a light level lower than 96 was set to 96. This was my workaround to the fact that there are no Night Vision goggles in 2016, and just about everything was visible there.

I'd absolutely love it if there were a way to enable/disable that on the fly, but unfortunately, there's no way the sector can store a "default" value for its light level, only an initial value.
Oh, I see. But... how do I get rid of this "workaround" if I prefer having really dark areas? If you cannot make an option for this, can I probably comment out some lines in your code to make it work the way it used to?
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Rowsol
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Rowsol »

There are lighting options for a reason. If someone can't see they can set it to bright.
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

Bodhisattva wrote:
Oh, I see. But... how do I get rid of this "workaround" if I prefer having really dark areas? If you cannot make an option for this, can I probably comment out some lines in your code to make it work the way it used to?
Currently there is no option to disable that. If I were to add one, it'd require restarting the map altogether, as sectors don't have "default" values.

I can't stop you from making modifications to your own personal copies of the mod (that'd be kind of a dick move anyway, no?), so feel free to do so. :D

Here's the code you'll need to comment out. You can find this in ZScript/EOA/Base.txt, under EOA_StaticEventHandler's WorldTick override. ;)

Code: Select all

        For (Int i = 0; i < Level.Sectors.Size(); i++)
        {
            If (Level.Sectors[i].LightLevel < 96)
            {
                Level.Sectors[i].LightLevel = 96;
            }
        }
Rowsol wrote:There are lighting options for a reason. If someone can't see they can set it to bright.
Yes, well... I'm not a fan of having to switch options between mods. Besides that, there are maps that will contain pitch-black areas, which will be nearly impossible to deal with without LightAmp visors, so setting sector brightness to "bright" ain't gonna work. At that point, you'd need to mess with other light level options that'd mess with minimum darkness levels, which I'm not very fond of using because one could crank it up all the way to the point where everything is fully bright.
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Bodhisattva
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Bodhisattva »

DoomKrakken wrote:Here's the code you'll need to comment out.
Thanks! Now it looks perfect.
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

No problem! :D
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Captain J
 
 
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by Captain J »

SUPER ULTRA SUPRA great mod there! Definitely solid, powerful and beefy weapon mod to enjoy. The Glory kills, even first person interactions feel so universal, yet so real, i almost cried in joy... :D

If i could complain, although there' nothing else to pick, that would be BFG effect. The explosion doesn't feel much powerful as the Fuck-You Weapon. Unlike Gauss Cannon, it's quite small and does not shake the earth, if you know what i mean.
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elCreyo
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by elCreyo »

This is a very enjoyable mod. Feels like Doom 2016 with all the interactions. I think Super Shotgun might be a bit too strong though.
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

Captain J wrote:SUPER ULTRA SUPRA great mod there! Definitely solid, powerful and beefy weapon mod to enjoy. The Glory kills, even first person interactions feel so universal, yet so real, i almost cried in joy... :D

If i could complain, although there' nothing else to pick, that would be BFG effect. The explosion doesn't feel much powerful as the Fuck-You Weapon. Unlike Gauss Cannon, it's quite small and does not shake the earth, if you know what i mean.
I'm flattered! :D

For the BFG's effect, well... to be fair, there wasn't much to the BFG's explosion in DOOM (2016). I got the ring, the core of the explosion, and the implosion sparks. I used to have qualms with the BFG not looking or sounding powerful enough... but then with more observation, I got more used to it, considering one sees how it destroys everything in such little time! Eventually, psychology ascribes that massive destructive potential to the sounds and effects associated with the BFG, and then it feels awesome. ;)

Under the hood, it winds up having a wide area of effect. It's now a very fancy rocket, that's not only able to seek and destroy things a sizeable distance away from the projectile, but is now capable of generating a sizeable explosion dealing significant damage. Monsters killed by the BFG's projectile will explode, releasing a green puff of energy.

I suppose you'll warm up to the BFG eventually, once you get to using it more often. Go and upgrade that Ammo Boost rune so that you can have more chances to watch it in action! :D
elCreyo wrote:This is a very enjoyable mod. Feels like Doom 2016 with all the interactions. I think Super Shotgun might be a bit too strong though.
I can see that, but I think part of the reason why it seems a bit more effective here is because monsters from 2016 have more dynamic hitboxes. Meaning they're linked a bit more closely to the actual model. In GZDoom, everything has this one big hitbox (so, for example, you can hit a monster even if you shot the empty space under its armpit), which if I'm to be totally honest, many of these monsters could afford to drop a couple of pounds have a hitbox that more closely resembles the sprites' actual widths/heights. Besides that, Imps in 2016 have an even smaller hitbox because they like staying hunched over, making it a bit harder to score headshots on 'em. More faithful renditions of the 2016 monsters and their hitboxes here in GZDoom would mitigate that problem a bit, but it certainly doesn't help that DOOM's devs decided to make the Super Shotgun so OP compared to the Combat Shotgun... so that carries over here, too.

The Super Shotgun was meant to destroy. Even in Doom II, it was certainly OP (fires one pellet short of 3 shells' worth of buckshot, at the cost of 2 shells, firing at a speed about 50% faster than it takes to fire the Combat Shotgun twice). ;)
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BerserkerNoir
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by BerserkerNoir »

Congrats on the release!
Just tried it, and its a pretty solid build, impressive usage of the limited assets of Praetor Sprites for pick ups and power ups.
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DoomKrakken
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Re: Embers Of Armageddon

Post by DoomKrakken »

Many thanks! :D

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