The Wayfarer: A 9-map Episode for Heretic (v1.2 Released!)

[Sinael]

Levels are good.
My only issue here is that Hellstaff new homing ability makes it often home in onto enemy before it actually has ability to reach it, which often steers it into a wall. Especially if the enemy is on the higher ground than you, then its almost guaranteed to hit the ledge instead of intended target.

[Not Jabba]

Levels are good.
My only issue here is that Hellstaff new homing ability makes it often home in onto enemy before it actually has ability to reach it, which often steers it into a wall. Especially if the enemy is on the higher ground than you, then its almost guaranteed to hit the ledge instead of intended target.

(sorry for the late response)

Hey, thanks for the interest, and I'm glad you liked the maps. The Hellstaff's homing quirks are more or less intentional -- I spent a lot of time playing with different parameters, and it's actually about as precise as I was able to get it using Decorate's features for homing projectiles. Even so, I find that it borders on overpowered once you get used to it and I wouldn't want to make it more so; making it more of a general-use spray weapon (like the plasma rifle can be) would take away from its best strengths, and being able to shoot around corners or snipe whatever you want, wherever you want, would most likely make it very cheese-friendly. The original Hellstaff was completely redundant with the Dragon Claw (and other weapons), and I wanted to make it a specialty weapon with clear strengths and weaknesses; part of the intended purpose of the design is that you have to develop a sense of what you can easily hit with it and what you can't, and swap for other weapons when necessary (for instance, the Dragon Claw and Phoenix Rod are both still great for clearing turrets).

The new Hellstaff is really good at all of the following:
-Destroying any and all flying enemies with little effort
-Counteracting the knockback effect of enemies with low mass, making it easy to clean up strays
-Killing fast enemies that are hard to aim at, like the Serpent Keeper
-Locating ghost enemies or enemies in dark areas and destroying them without the need for better visibility or careful aiming
-Dealing with individual powerful enemies in a way that lets you focus on dodging rather than aiming, particularly Liches, Maulotaurs, and more powerful bosses
-Allowing you to spray and pray and continue to do damage while being thrown around by a Lich tornado
-"Metal detecting" to make sure you haven't missed any enemies in a large, complex area.

It is decent at:
-Spraying down groups of enemies and doing more damage faster than you can with the Crossbow or Dragon Claw, provided you don't care which enemies you hit first

It is bad at:
-Hitting turreted enemies
-Hitting priority targets at mid- to long distance if there are any other enemies around

Hopefully that helps a bit. Like the crossbow and the Lightbringer, it requires a bit of getting used to, but I think it's really worth it to have every weapon be useful in distinct ways.

[Lagi]

This maps are excellent. Also your changes to gameplay are very good.

[Lagi]

excellent maps, every next level is better than previous one.
Quite demanding combat wise. I love the hammer pickup- that make staff go berserk, I love melee combat, and its a great fun, especially that victim is push back - satisfaing. Also gauntlets (unTomed) are weapon of choice for 1vs1. Also crossbow is now melee weapon, because without the 4x side bolts on one target, damage is not sufficient.

Damage of all weapons seems to be improved, still the Heretic monster are too tough. You shooting and shooting same guy... while there is hundreds around.

[Lagi]

quick key item use code is buggy, here is working hourglass, ring and eggs (yes missing 2 )

Code: Select all

addkeysection "Heretic Artifacts" heretic_keysection
addmenukey "Quartz Flask" "use ArtiHealth"
addmenukey "Mystic Urn" "use ArtiSuperHealth"
addmenukey "Tome of Power" "use ArtiTomeOfPower"
addmenukey "Morph Ovum" "use ArtiEgg2"
addmenukey "Time Bomb of the Ancients" "use ArtiTimeBomb2"
addmenukey "Ring of Invincibility" "use ArtiInvulnerability2"
addmenukey "Shadowsphere" "use ArtiInvisibility"
addmenukey "Torch" "use ArtiTorch"
addmenukey "Wings of Wrath" "use ArtiFly"
addmenukey "Chaos Device" "use ArtiTeleport"

[Not Jabba]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you like it

I do know about the quick keys, and it's fixed in The Wayfarer's Tome. I've been working on an update to The Wayfarer that's mostly finished, and it will include the fix for the menu keys, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to spare for it.

[Lagi]

If they make another lockdown, I'm going to mod your mod. For sure I would reduce hp of every monster.

The guy with hammer is great add on, even if the move strangely fast. He looks like slower creature than sabreclaws f.ex.

Lesser serpent should be bigger, so you know its a tanky boss.

Utilization of eggs to instantly eliminate horde of monster is great.
Use of time bomb to kill turret monsters (come close to wall) is also excellent.

IMO hellstaff is just straight better weapon over Dragonclaw.

[Lagi]

so i beat stomping grounts. Nice level, but it expose all that i hate about heretic, sponges monster. Shooting make no sens, i use morph ovum to eliminate cluster of opponents. Also the boss fight with this Shao Khan looking guy (R..something), and brown serpent is "onerousness", also they have nice lesser serpent as turret support :/ . Its very unfair fight.

I lost my hope with next level however Onyx citadel. You spam serpents and ironlich like gargoyles. The Serpent Keeper kill me so many times I remember his name. All the new monster are even tougher than vanilla guys. Keeper can be transform into chicken so its not so bad.

im gonna look into the sandwich you make me eat now, how many hp did you give to this guys...
keeper 500!
green serpent 750

so ophidian has 280, and its considered way TOO tough.

brown serpent 3000
rocastus 2500
ok this 2x are like bosses, so whatever

----------
"they are not too tough, you are just noob"
great fun, running around shooting and not killing anything. You could limit arsenal only to Morh Ovum, the gameplay would not differ too much.

==============
levels are dope anyway.

ahaa.... i would forgot
your sunshine stick (the mace replacement) are consuming 5x ammo per shot!!! its useless.

Imo sun stick should use crystal, so gold wand ammo would have some use

=============================
I beat the last level.
there is not enough supplies for pistol start. In the starting location in this corner rooms could be store some items, TomeOfPower and more MysticUrn.

hmm... from stomping ground, onyx citadel, and the last level (forget the name)... this levels are not so fun as the first one. Mostly because they are combat heavy, and you dont have efficient arsenal to deal with all the hordes of monster (onyx citadel last switch is most intense fight i ever have... a good one). Lightbringer tomed shot is great, and you can have morph ovum as "weapon" that kill, instead pat the monsters. Rocus arena fight is a bad fight, its just quicksave till you nail each move - combat puzzle.

I will reduce the monsters hp across the board, reduce ammo pickups for crossbow(+3/+10) and wand(+5/+20), fix Lightbringer ammo per shot, increase Hourglass radious... and play this again, great levels sir.

===================
bug in the code:
staff use meleerange, but this is the function that increase melee range of monsters, not weapon. So the staff is still using the vanilla range (44?).

should be:
STFF N 6 A_CustomPunch((random(15,20)),true,0,"StaffPuff",105)

105 is the range

i increase
gold wand damage 7,8 > 7,18
staff damage 5,20 > 15,30
i give clink more speed, still experimenting but 25 ! is not so OP, i reduce his HP.

all gargoyle 40hp
all golems 80 hp... golem is too slow. I Gave melee golems 20 speed, its more fun
all knight 145 .... he need more hp, i would try 160. 160 is better, feel tougher.
disciple 80 .... ok
sabreclaw 100 ... need more dmg [ i multiply his dmg *2 - work similar like golem f.ex]. work as fast 25, but fragile.
weredrag 220 ... more hp would try 300. ok, he is tanky
ophidian 140 ... more hp would try 180. ok

gate keeper 300 hp
green serpent 350 hp

not sure if this is the intension, but knightghost has 200 hp, because he take stats from Knight, not a Knight2.

---
ed:
i add no alarm to staff, its a quiet killing weapon now. works great.
i remove wimpy weapon from staff and gauntlet. 1slot weapons are solid.

time bomb with 160 dmg and 192 range is ok, little too powerfull, maybe i need to keep original dmg?

i hate using dragon claw, i think i would replace it with Mace (i also use the fixed Mace sprites)

tyson power up, could replace staff with other melee weapon.

I think i would boost clink dmg a little, becase he hurt very little compare to other monsters.

lightbringer using crystal ammo is ok (consume 5 and 15 tome).

crystal +5/20 and bolts +3/+10 modified ammo, work well. I finally run out of ammo.

is it not possible to add new episode to the starting list?

i think i would add alt fires:
staff - thrust, to push monster back, long range 150, (swing 100 range), less dmg than swing
gauntlet - punch, more dmg than shock, but lower dps - finisher.
wand, hellstaff, phenix, lightbringer - staff swing
xbow - railgun shot
...
i would replace Claw, with Mace, and add mace swing. no hit scan weapon?! - good.

tyson would be hammer from hexen (even the pickup icon is the same, i think that was the idea). Powered hammer would burn.

[Not Jabba]

bug in the code:
staff use meleerange, but this is the function that increase melee range of monsters, not weapon. So the staff is still using the vanilla range (44?).

Is this a new change to how GZDoom handles Decorate? It was working as intended last time I played it.

[Lagi]

as far as i remember (i start modding before christmas 2019) it always work like that.
hmm... i even check your code and gave 1500 meleerange to staff, but it didnt work.
unless im stupid ofc, and I dont know something.

[Not Jabba]

No, you're probably right. There's no way 150 is the right range anyway, that's huge. I was messing with the damage and range changes at the same time, and it probably just felt like it was reaching farther and hitting better because it was killing enemies more efficiently. I'll fix it in the update, and do the same for Wayfarer's Tome.

[Lagi]

i just check with 105 range, feel more like it. yess, 150 its too much, if we looking for realism. But its more fun, and staff has edge over gauntlets.

[Lagi]

Lightbringer sun projectile behavior is buggy.

Projectile disappear when hit the monster. It cannot even 1shot kill golem.

dmg Damage (2*Random(21, 24)) is probably ok, if the Ripper flag would work. Heretic and Hexen bounce flag, make it somehow malfunction. I would investigate tonight.

solution work like charm:
add +BOUNCEONACTORS

Code: Select all

Actor SunProjectile
{
  Radius 16
  Height 8
  Damage (2*Random(21, 24))
  Alpha 1.0
  Scale 1.25
  Renderstyle Add
  BounceFactor 1.0
  Projectile
  +Ripper
  +HereticBounce
  +BloodlessImpact
  +CanBounceWater
  +ForceXYBillboard
  -BloodSplatter
  +HexenBounce
  +BOUNCEONACTORS
  speed 60
  Reactiontime 100
  SeeSound "Weapons/Lightbringer/Bounce"
  States
  {

[Not Jabba]

Yes, that one is also known and is fixed in The Wayfarer's Tome. The episode was originally designed to target the last build of ZDoom, but GZDoom has changed some stuff since then. It will be fixed in the Wayfarer update.

[Not Jabba]

**Update**
Three years later, The Wayfarer has been updated to v1.2! I've been tinkering with this update for a while to address bug reports and various little things that have bothered me about the episode. Most importantly, it fixes the badly bugged Lightbringer behavior caused in more recent versions of GZDoom. As a result, it is no longer compatible with ZDoom 2.8.1, but should work with any recent build of GZDoom. The other biggest change is better and more consistent balance for the lower difficulty settings. Here's a more complete list of changes:

---

-Fixed various minor bugs that have been found/reported, mostly texturing errors and a couple potential softlocks.
-Added armor and sometimes health (and occasional monster placement tweaks) to skills 1-3 in conjunction with fully retesting each skill setting, with the goal of making each feel fully consistent and properly targeted toward an intended audience.
-Added some more detailing to a few parts of M1 and M2 that felt bare and inconsistent compared to the rest of the episode.
-M2, better conveyance for a switch in the dock area.
-M2, fixed the MIDI to loop properly in recent versions of GZDoom (thanks to Volasaurus for the fix).
-M3, better conveyance for the Green Key.
-M3, the boss guarding the megasecret is now a Maulotaur on all skill settings, because the Liches on lower settings felt dumbed down; on skill 4, it's now two Maulotaurs.
-M4, fixed a lift to behave more intuitively.
-M9, fixed monsters not dying when they fell into the abyss.
-M6, gave the boss arena a little more space to move around in.
-M7, fixed monsters piling up in a southeast room (with another set of chaotic monster teleport dispensers, a la the other three corners).
-M7, the Green Key battle now has an Enchanted Shield on all difficulty settings, making it reliably beatable.
-Added ACS script in nearly all maps that alerts off-map monsters of your existence. In other words, you can't avoid monster teleports by not shooting anymore.
-Rocastus and the High Disciple (second form) each have 500 less health (now 2000 for Rocastus, 2500 for the High Disciple).
-Chaos Serpent fireballs have a slower movement speed and are easier to dodge; used the red Serpent from Faithless Trilogy as the reference for the new speed.
-Fixed dynamic lights for the Chaos Serpent fireballs.
-Improved the Lightbringer pickup sprite.
-Smoother weapon animations code for the Lightbringer, thanks to Xtyfe on ZDoom Forums.
-Fixed the Lightbringer's ripper/bounce behavior to work properly in recent versions of GZDoom.
-Nitrogolem projectiles have a reduced sound rolloff so they're not so loud, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Fixed the Staff melee range (regular, zerked, Tomed), as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Fixed the Gargoyle's charge attack behavior, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Added improvements to how the Maulotaur's ground crawler deals damage, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Disciples drop a version of the Sigil of Power that doesn't count as an item, as in Wayfarer's Tome.
-Added an alternate version version of the Chaos Serpent that doesn't drop any items, and replaced all turreted Chaos Serpents with this version.
-Fixed DECALDEF, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Fixed KEYCONF hotkey bindings, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.
-Added the Automatic Wand Start/Crossbow Start options, as in Wayfarer's Tome. These are in the main menu under Wayfarer Options.
-Removed the unused MIDI files from the WAD itself; they can still be found in the zip download.
-Provided a better explanation of difficulty settings in the included textfile.