SIREN | v0.86

[Leglock]

This bug is still present in the current version, you can lockdown Siren if you choose not to open that door and go for the other route instead.

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ok, now the level can be done super quick, and it's way more intutitve to know where to go, the changes you made provides visual indication of "what do I need to do now".

Few thing, even in Ultra Violence, this version seems easier than 0.26, I never ran out of ammo or health. Gotta say I didn't try Nightmare since UV is my default difficult. I'm gonna try Nightmare later today.

*Melee combat is waaaaaay efficient, even against non zombie enemies. Alt fire can make you "fly". I would nerf the whole melee combat. Either damage or range if not both.

*There is a lot of pick ups, you hardly will feel low on anything. Also the low health of enemies and the massive damage of the weapons make it worst.

*Enemies in general had low health, if you implemented the Headshot mechanic, I don't see why they can't have more health. Also, I miss the bullets-ponge zombies (Also loved the new sprites you added).

*I see you revamped some areas and I like them.

*Armed enemies are slow to react, and they do little to no damage (if you let them time to shoot).

*Is the Siren less aggresive in the current version? Not sure but I found it easier to avoid and it seems to be slower if thats makes scence... Also it has a new "attack", it rams down to a direction in stright line until it collides with any surface.


Edit:

I tryed Nightmare and for the most part seems "easy" until you get swarmed by the respawns. And you will not be killed by the swarm, since you will be stocked of ammo, you will not pass for certain areas infested by creatures and soldiers AND kitting Smoky... It was franctic but cheap.

I would suggest to check the HP of enemies and damage from weapons.


I will add more stuff later today.

[DitheredOutput]

*Melee combat feels a little bit too powerful, and has a lot of range. Alt fire can make you fly if you time it right (you can cross huge gaps kicking right after the animation ends and you add a crazy speedboost).

Fixed the flying kick, as cool as it was. I've reduced the range of melee. The damage will take some tweaking. I want it to be quite useful, to emulate the ability to cause critical damage up close with a knife. I think a low chance of scoring a critical hit may work better.


*Glass-Walls act as a barrier but some source of damage can bypass the surface (Imps melee and fireballs, supershotgun alt fire, plasmagun alt fire).

These seem a little problematic but I'm sure it can be done. Super shotgun and plasma alt fire use railattacks which can penetrate certain objects so that's fine, melee and fireballs shouldn't be going through.


*Assault rifle reload take away a full mag even if you reload 1 bullet. This is realistic, but the other weapons don't behave like this. (I kinda like the idea of adding an option of "realistic reload managment" of sorts).

Thanks, realistic but not fun. I'll fix that.


These two zones keep damaging the player.

God Damn!


*Shotgun Soldiers randomly can switch their head sprite with the shotgun-guy (don't know how to).

This may relate to unfinished alternate death states, or possibly duplicate sprites with the same name. Either way, I'll find and fix thanks.

Check out the flying kick, is hilarious.
So tempted to keep it in.



Comments on difficulty/ ammo/ resources.

I haven't customized the different difficulties yet. I agree there are too many resources for it to feel tense. This will be revised closer to completion. At the moment I'm including every weapon I finish in the level somewhere so that people can test them. This probably wont be the case once there's more levels etc.


This bug is still present in the current version, you can lockdown Siren if you choose not to open that door and go for the other route instead.

God Damn!


Is the Siren less aggresive in the current version? Not sure but I found it easier to avoid and it seems to be slower if thats makes scence... Also it has a new "attack", it rams down to a direction in stright line until it collides with any surface.

Inadvertently yes, as part of tweaks to improve performance it ended up with that attack. Restored original aggressive behavior, and included a small chance of performing the straight line attack as it looks cool when it charges into a room like that.

Thanks once again for the feedback!!

[Leglock]

*Melee combat feels a little bit too powerful, and has a lot of range. Alt fire can make you fly if you time it right (you can cross huge gaps kicking right after the animation ends and you add a crazy speedboost).

Fixed the flying kick, as cool as it was. I've reduced the range of melee. The damage will take some tweaking. I want it to be quite useful, to emulate the ability to cause critical damage up close with a knife. I think a low chance of scoring a critical hit may work better.


*Glass-Walls act as a barrier but some source of damage can bypass the surface (Imps melee and fireballs, supershotgun alt fire, plasmagun alt fire).

These seem a little problematic but I'm sure it can be done. Super shotgun and plasma alt fire use railattacks which can penetrate certain objects so that's fine, melee and fireballs shouldn't be going through.


*Assault rifle reload take away a full mag even if you reload 1 bullet. This is realistic, but the other weapons don't behave like this. (I kinda like the idea of adding an option of "realistic reload managment" of sorts).

Thanks, realistic but not fun. I'll fix that.


These two zones keep damaging the player.

God Damn!


*Shotgun Soldiers randomly can switch their head sprite with the shotgun-guy (don't know how to).

This may relate to unfinished alternate death states, or possibly duplicate sprites with the same name. Either way, I'll find and fix thanks.

Check out the flying kick, is hilarious.
So tempted to keep it in.



Comments on difficulty/ ammo/ resources.

I haven't customized the different difficulties yet. I agree there are too many resources for it to feel tense. This will be revised closer to completion. At the moment I'm including every weapon I finish in the level somewhere so that people can test them. This probably wont be the case once there's more levels etc.


This bug is still present in the current version, you can lockdown Siren if you choose not to open that door and go for the other route instead.

God Damn!


Is the Siren less aggresive in the current version? Not sure but I found it easier to avoid and it seems to be slower if thats makes scence... Also it has a new "attack", it rams down to a direction in stright line until it collides with any surface.

Inadvertently yes, as part of tweaks to improve performance it ended up with that attack. Restored original aggressive behavior, and included a small chance of performing the straight line attack as it looks cool when it charges into a room like that.

Thanks once again for the feedback!!

Always a pleasure! As soon as you add another revision, I will keep testing.

The difficult is fine for test, I don't mind it so far. But I am waiting to be closer to version 1.0 to go ham!

(Flying Kick can be fun in an addon or custom maps)

[Batandy]

I like what I played, however I think there's some stuff that I feel like it needs to be reworked for future versions

What I liked:
-Headshots and battle damage are incredibly cool and really contribute to making the weapons feel powerful
-Snappy weapon animations with the exception of melee, the shotguns in particular are very well done
-Great looking weapons, classic archetypes with unique designs.
-Great atmosphere and sound design

What I think could be better:
-Map needs more breadcrumbs, it's not hard to progress but it's confusing when you have a lot of switches that look the same (the automap also needs to be cleaned cause with so much detail it's almost impossible to decipher it at times)
-Blur is overused on the weapons with the knife being the worst offender, it's acceptable for fast recoil animations, but when it's used for slow frames such as the pistol reload it sticks out like a sore thumb
-The knife/punch animation needs to be completely redone, it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly as the other weapons, plus there's an ambsurd amount of blur as I said in my previous point
-The Brutal Doom lost soul doesn't really fit with the rest of the enemy cast, I feel like you could have something a bit more grim instead, even the beta lost soul would work better given it's grey-ish color palette
-Really personal nitpick but I feel like the soldier should have more generic sounds instead of the Combine's sounds from HL2, those sounds are really too iconic and kinda take away from the whole atmosphere of the mod, since they really scream "Combine from Half Life"

I'll be keeping an eye on this, keep up the good work

[Leglock]

I like what I played, however I think there's some stuff that I feel like it needs to be reworked for future versions

What I liked:
-Headshots and battle damage are incredibly cool and really contribute to making the weapons feel powerful
-Snappy weapon animations with the exception of melee, the shotguns in particular are very well done
-Great looking weapons, classic archetypes with unique designs.
-Great atmosphere and sound design

What I think could be better:
-Map needs more breadcrumbs, it's not hard to progress but it's confusing when you have a lot of switches that look the same (the automap also needs to be cleaned cause with so much detail it's almost impossible to decipher it at times)
-Blur is overused on the weapons with the knife being the worst offender, it's acceptable for fast recoil animations, but when it's used for slow frames such as the pistol reload it sticks out like a sore thumb
-The knife/punch animation needs to be completely redone, it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly as the other weapons, plus there's an ambsurd amount of blur as I said in my previous point
-The Brutal Doom lost soul doesn't really fit with the rest of the enemy cast, I feel like you could have something a bit more grim instead, even the beta lost soul would work better given it's grey-ish color palette
-Really personal nitpick but I feel like the soldier should have more generic sounds instead of the Combine's sounds from HL2, those sounds are really too iconic and kinda take away from the whole atmosphere of the mod, since they really scream "Combine from Half Life"

I'll be keeping an eye on this, keep up the good work

-About breadcrumbs, this new version is more clear to tell you where to go now, since in some areas you have monitors that show you which enviroment change.
-Not a fan of the Blur in ANY game, thats totally up for the user.
-I completely forgot about Lost Souls, in previous version there was a few more in the water part of the tunel. Feel out of place but maybe it is a placeholder for a new type of enemy. Will see in future versions.
-As Iconic it is the sound, I really, REALLY love the sound of the beeeeeep when they die.

[Kills_Alone]

Here is some v0.3 footage:

Regarding the room that has three computer screens (also a small switch on the left) which leads to the hallway with the Imp cells. If you lead the Smoke down that hallway into this room, then run out, the smoke will be trapped until the next scripted appearance.

[DitheredOutput]

@Kills_Alone Thankyou for the play through, the footage is great!

@Batandy Thanks for playing and for the feedback.

If you lead the Smoke down that hallway into this room, then run out, the smoke will be trapped until the next scripted appearance.

I think I have to allow it to be trapped in rooms as a tactic to get it off your back for a while. The version in 0.3 is actually a little timid. I don't think there's a way to have just one type of monster being able to open doors without them all being able to do it.

-The knife/punch animation needs to be completely redone, it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly as the other weapons, plus there's an ambsurd amount of blur as I said in my previous point

I guess the blur is subjective, I've tamed a few of the frames in melee to reduce the effect. The sprites for melee are actually screen grabs from Steven Seagal vs Tommy Lee Jones in Underseige 1. It was very hard to get any without blur. Do you mean the animation doesn't flow smoothly or the feel/use of melee doesn't flow? If there's a difference...

The Brutal Doom lost soul / cyberdemon doesn't really fit with the rest of the enemy cast

My intention is to replace all iconic stock assets with something more fitting, including things like armour/artifact pickups too. (This mod was based on BDLite so stock monsters are those from that package.) This will be through edits or creations myself or by using other great assets that fit from the doom community.

I feel like the soldier should have more generic sounds instead of the Combine's sounds from HL2, those sounds are really too iconic and kinda take away from the whole atmosphere of the mod, since they really scream "Combine from Half Life"

I agree, I absolutely love them! But I love them because they are an example of exemplar sound design from a AAA title and for too many they will be associated with Half Life. I might try and recreate something in that style but slightly more original to the mod.

Map needs more breadcrumbs, it's not hard to progress but it's confusing when you have a lot of switches that look the same (the automap also needs to be cleaned cause with so much detail it's almost impossible to decipher it at times)

Working on this! Oh no the automap!! I forgot about the automap! There will be so many lines that need excluding from the map.

[Ferretmanjcdenton]

I played the new version ...sadly it's way more demanding than the last one again ..

Have you fixed the first air vent stuck problem ?
(In the airvent after you open the second door on the right side above the boxes there was a problem with me getting stuck on the ground o believe ..) it was gone now ..

Sadly ..after entering the room with the many many zombies and killing them my phone was smoking ..
I used the same gore mod like last but last time I wasn't so extrem ..

Habe you changed anything on this regard?

Also ...I have to say to all people who report this bugs ..You are awesome ..
I only found 2 for now ...and every other one I didn't even notice..

[Ferretmanjcdenton]

I now know what caused this heavy lag ..
It was the flashlight ...
I will use another add-on now ..
The only lag then is still caused by the big room ..

[Leglock]

I played the new version ...sadly it's way more demanding than the last one again ..

Have you fixed the first air vent stuck problem ?
(In the airvent after you open the second door on the right side above the boxes there was a problem with me getting stuck on the ground o believe ..) it was gone now ..

Sadly ..after entering the room with the many many zombies and killing them my phone was smoking ..
I used the same gore mod like last but last time I wasn't so extrem ..

Habe you changed anything on this regard?

Also ...I have to say to all people who report this bugs ..You are awesome ..
I only found 2 for now ...and every other one I didn't even notice..

I understand that peole want to play these awesome mods on the go, but Gzdoom went so far in the techincal department, that people want to to use a lot of resources. Some mods are more focused for PC users, Then you have mods like Total Chaos that have a "Retro Edition" (which I love even more than the original) that use low poly-count for people who has slower builds (or want to have a "PSX" sort of experience).

[DitheredOutput]

A few bugfixes made.

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Siren 0.35 changelog

Resized many unnecessarily large textures for performance.
Removed the need for a line portal in the big room in a bid to improve performance. (Probably wont)
Fixed lots of un-unpegged door tracks
Fixed attacks making it through the glass - and improved the thermal efficiency of the building - by making them double glazed.
Lost Souls replaced
Combine sounds replaced with original sounds (blatant rip off.)
Lots of sound tweaks and improvements. (Number of Monster active sounds reduced)
Siren back to aggressive self
Damage outputs tweaked.
You can now make it back to the upper part of the level
3-key switch doesn't take your keys
Amendments to the cavern area. (Players gonna hate!)
Skimmed a few resources from the map. (Probably too hard now)

[Leglock]

*Melee feels better. (Rip Liu Kang )
*New type of enemies looks cool but not sure how they fit in the story (ghost), also, not sure if they do explosive damage when they die but I killed one of them in melee and nothing happened.
*Zombies made some crossfit and now are back in shape! I am glad that they are now bullet sponges again.
*Since 0.26 Monster don't react to you if you attack an ally from them in the back with a blast from a weapon. Quire sure this is not inteded, since in doom they react.
*New Models for armor and new textures! Nice
*I like the way Siren doens't hold back now, It is way more aggresive and less clunky. Also, Holy Moly, is a Bullet Sponge! (you can still avoid it, but is waaaay more tankier, now is funtional).
*The Swithch in the pool area doesn't work a second time after activation.

*Assault riffle zoom burst removed: I like this change. Still taking away a full mag after you reload even for 1 bullet.
*"Fixed attacks making it through the glass - and improved the thermal efficiency of the building - by making them double glazed."
As far as I like that you care for ecological damage making glasses "thiker", THIS DUDE blasted me 3 times through that window.



So far, I liked the tweaks for damage and new enemies placement, Now is a little bit harder (tested on UV).

[DitheredOutput]

Updated to V 0.4!

It feels like quite a big update from my end, but it's probably loads of smaller elements that make the mod more cohesive.

Time to crack on with some more maps!

Changelog 4.0

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Work on the level ending which leads into the next level nicely.

Lots of texture fixes, polishing and small additions to level.

1st level considered complete, barring minor texture work and alignment of which I'm sure there will be many.

Painfully reshaded the imps for very little difference.

No need to disable auto aim in gzdoom. Added 'noautoaim' flags to weapons as, frankly, it's game breaking in this mod.

Ledgegrab/ climb by dodopod added as a replacement for double jump.

Jump and kick will do extra damage in melee.

More pickup sprites and sounds replaced

Shotgunners more reactive and deadly.

Chaingunners even more deadly.

Imp's ceiling behaviour tweaked to stop them moving between ceilings of vastly different heights. Various monster code improvements.

SpriteShadow by Nash integrated.

Again, more work with sounds with properly allocated channels to stop certain sounds being cut off. New sounds here and there.

Found a way to really reduce monster active sounds (particularly the sergeants) that really get annoying when there's a few monsters active.

Moved rifle to slot 4 and minigun to slot 5. I appreciate this could be unpopular, but with less than 10 weapons, there's no need to double up on weapon slots.

Some reload animation tweaks.

Reloading the rifle now doesn't take an entire clip.

[Leglock]

gotta try it this weekend!

[Ferretmanjcdenton]

Hey there ...when I download it it says version 3.5 ...

Shouldn't it be 4?