[Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony] v3.1 released (p204)

[Nmn]

Awww geez. Can't we all just get along?

Congrats to Torm and team for crafting such a gigantic project from start to finish!

[Ozymandias81]

Awww geez. Can't we all just get along?

Congrats to Torm and team for crafting such a gigantic project from start to finish!

Thank you very much for you kind words Nmn

EVERYONE:

We are actually bugfixing some addons, in case you want to follow progress and rebuilt pk3s, please join our Discord Channel.
Don't forget also to point us towards issues encountered with 3.1 under our github repository, addons are in a separate link too.
We are also gathering infos regarding people playing BoA on Mac, Linux and handled ports, such as GLESZDoom, any feedbacks are welcomed, tell us about it on Discord and Github as previously mentioned.

[Enjay]

This is a real tour de force - an amazing project: a full and complete game with some very high quality work in all areas - including many things (architecturally, gameplay-wise and many others) that are simply "impossible" in Doom. Truly, it is stunning. I didn't get a chance to play the 3.0 version, but I had played a WiP from the Git repository several months ago and it is interesting to see how it has come along since then.

I'm trying to sidestep the controversy but I think that the camp needs a mention simply because I thought that it was suitably horrible and, for me, it works as a strong point of the game - and that's the only reason that I am mentioning it. Right from the start, walking through the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gates with the emaciated prisoners was genuinely uncomfortable in a way that it should be (within the limits of a sprite-based entertainment product).

My favourite section is the Zeppelin. I just thought that it was very well realised, technically very competent and a nice change of pace to the rest of the game.

The way that the final cutscene ends is very entertaining; a very nice touch (though perhaps several decades should elapse (somehow) before "it" happens).

I did spot one or two minor glitches along the way but nothing game breaking - just minor visual things. However, I was so absorbed in the game that I didn't have the presence of mind to screenshot or make a note of them. I really didn't spot anything to worry about though.

The only thing that I do have (because by this time, I was relaxing again) is the credits at the end. Is there meant to be a big version and a small version on top of each other? If so, they sort of clash and some of the text is hard to read as a result.

---

Oh yes, and there are a lot of people saluting with their left hands in the final fly-through. Seems odd.

Was there anything that I didn't like? Well... yes (ish) - and this is going to seem like a really petty point, and it is just personal taste - but the game is big, very big, and so are all of the maps. Obviously that is a strength of the game and I'm not actually complaining, but this does mean that it is very difficult to play some "bite sized" sessions of the game. It's not the sort of game where I can just fire it up in a slack 20-30 minute slot, play a map and then put the game down again to get on with real life. Every play session requires a significant time commitment to take the game to a logical pause-point. So, for me, that will limit its replay value simply because I won't often have enough spare time to give the game the full attention that it warrants.

[Bofubutt]

First things first: I love this mod, and the work that went into it is absolutely staggering. This feels a bit like an alt-universe Wolfenstein reboot from 2006-ish, and there's so much content that it's just staggering. Side missions, secrets, easter eggs, graphical work, there's just so much about this that it's absolutely mind-boggling. Congratulations to everyone on the team for making something so ambitious that feels like a complete game, a reimagining of a series, within the limitations of the GZDoom engine.

But I have two considerable issues that I hope you can resolve. First is that some maps are so sprawling, with objectives so ill-defined (looking at you, secret mission in Episode 3) that you'll be searching for them for literal hours if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. For instance, spoiler tags below:

---

In the zombie level, in order to get any explosive charges, which are not mentioned anywhere in the level or in the objectives but are necessary to progress, you have to do the following:

• Turn on the power (this is easy enough, at least there's a note telling you to grab the repair kit in the kitchen of the mansion)
• Push over a statue to find a gem (this part was pretty clear, aside from the actual pushing part - wasted some grenades trying to make it explode)
• Find a lantern in order to navigate the darkened areas (but the 3D lantern sitting on a crate right by the entrance to the excavation area? that one won't work; no indication whatsoever where the lantern is, so you have to hunt for it)
• Take the gem to the torture area and insert it in a slot to open a new area (there's no hint of this whatsoever; no mention of what the gem does, and the slot for it is so hard to see that it may as well be invisible)

I don't think any of these types objectives need to be removed, but there should definitely be a lot more context provided to make them more obvious.

Second issue: the difficulty. Dear God, the difficulty is brutal. You die so quick, enemies are so spongy, health pickups are so sparse and feel like they barely heal you at all. It's so easy for things to one-shot you even with full health (I wouldn't say with full armor, but honestly, I have yet to have full armor in this game for more than five seconds, so I wouldn't know how effective it really is) that you can lose 30 minutes of progress to a single Nazi hidden in the fog. I can bump it up to easier difficulties, but if I want to do that, I have to start a new game and lose hours of progress. It's frustrating, and I end up cheating just so I can experience the content without the frustration. I don't know what exactly needs to be toned down (and I'm sure there will be plenty of people who love the difficulty as is), but something sure does. Don't even get me started about a certain respawning, teleporting boss in a certain level who respawned in a tight, enclosed indoor space where I couldn't get around them because I had 25% health, no healing items left, and literally nowhere to run. Previous releases didn't feel nearly this brutal most of the time, so I don't know if a conscious decision was made to try to turn this into the Dark Souls of Doom Total Conversions at some point, but yeah.

Now, the reason I wrote that big block of text is because, again, I love the hell out of this game, and I'd like to see it absolutely succeed, especially for all the work that's gone into it. I bit the bullet and threw away all the progress I made to play on the easiest difficulty in hopes that it allows me to more thoroughly enjoy the experience. But I do think it's worth looking at some damage adjustment, particularly with regard to bosses/mini-bosses. I shudder to even think about what happens.

EDIT: Oh, for the love of...

---

It won't come down :/

[Sebrw]

Hi BOA Team and thanks so much for your outstanding mod !!!

I did not play through chapter 3 yet (I'm going again through chapter 1 & 2 first) but there's something I did not remember from my last playthrough that bugs me:
When you buy something in the armory, it is only for 1 mission only? It seems any weapon I buy there is removed on the following mission...
Is it the same with inventory items? If I buy a backpack or mine detector, will it be removed on the next mission?

In a future update it could be cool if each mission start with fresh weapons (as it is the case) but you could at least keep the equipment you bought and you get for example just to buy more ammo for a reduced price.

Also something I liked back in the day in WW Nazi mod (v2) was the weapon classes (you cannot carry several handguns or several shotguns or several rifles etc...). Any plan to implement this?

Thanks again, it's a great great game

[ZikShadow]

You do keep inventory items or armor, it's just weapons that gets wiped out.
Considering how the arsenal in BoA is severely cut down compared to OG Nazis!, with there being only 2-3 weapons perslot unlike Nazis!'s 4-5, I imagine a weapon swap system wouldn't be necessary at all.

[Ozymandias81]

The only thing that I do have (because by this time, I was relaxing again) is the credits at the end. Is there meant to be a big version and a small version on top of each other? If so, they sort of clash and some of the text is hard to read as a result.

---

Oh yes, and there are a lot of people saluting with their left hands in the final fly-through. Seems odd.

Thank you very much Enjay for your feedbacks and kind words, I always appreciate your honest comments and points and this since I have joined ZDoom Forums (yeah I still remember feedbacks you gave me for Gore and Batman Doom too!).

Regarding quoted sentences: the ending credits has necessarily been updated after (and previously) the issues we had with 3.0, and I had to manually edit it in order to get rid or add some names to the list, and the process unfortunately break them and forgot to fix it somehow. Will be fixed soon for 3.2 release.
About ppl salute with left hands well, some actors are randomly spawn with flipped positions, but you are not the first to note that (AFADoomer told me way before) and so I'll think I'll directly modify the code to flip those actors only in proper positions (all sprites mostly salute with left due to some edits which went then applied over tons of frames, so instead to flip them offsets wise, I'll go codewise).

But I have two considerable issues that I hope you can resolve. First is that some maps are so sprawling, with objectives so ill-defined (looking at you, secret mission in Episode 3) that you'll be searching for them for literal hours if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. For instance, spoiler tags below:

---

In the zombie level, in order to get any explosive charges, which are not mentioned anywhere in the level or in the objectives but are necessary to progress, you have to do the following:

• Turn on the power (this is easy enough, at least there's a note telling you to grab the repair kit in the kitchen of the mansion)
• Push over a statue to find a gem (this part was pretty clear, aside from the actual pushing part - wasted some grenades trying to make it explode)
• Find a lantern in order to navigate the darkened areas (but the 3D lantern sitting on a crate right by the entrance to the excavation area? that one won't work; no indication whatsoever where the lantern is, so you have to hunt for it)
• Take the gem to the torture area and insert it in a slot to open a new area (there's no hint of this whatsoever; no mention of what the gem does, and the slot for it is so hard to see that it may as well be invisible)

I don't think any of these types objectives need to be removed, but there should definitely be a lot more context provided to make them more obvious.

Second issue: the difficulty. Dear God, the difficulty is brutal. You die so quick, enemies are so spongy, health pickups are so sparse and feel like they barely heal you at all. It's so easy for things to one-shot you even with full health (I wouldn't say with full armor, but honestly, I have yet to have full armor in this game for more than five seconds, so I wouldn't know how effective it really is) that you can lose 30 minutes of progress to a single Nazi hidden in the fog. I can bump it up to easier difficulties, but if I want to do that, I have to start a new game and lose hours of progress. It's frustrating, and I end up cheating just so I can experience the content without the frustration. I don't know what exactly needs to be toned down (and I'm sure there will be plenty of people who love the difficulty as is), but something sure does. Don't even get me started about a certain respawning, teleporting boss in a certain level who respawned in a tight, enclosed indoor space where I couldn't get around them because I had 25% health, no healing items left, and literally nowhere to run. Previous releases didn't feel nearly this brutal most of the time, so I don't know if a conscious decision was made to try to turn this into the Dark Souls of Doom Total Conversions at some point, but yeah.

Now, the reason I wrote that big block of text is because, again, I love the hell out of this game, and I'd like to see it absolutely succeed, especially for all the work that's gone into it. I bit the bullet and threw away all the progress I made to play on the easiest difficulty in hopes that it allows me to more thoroughly enjoy the experience. But I do think it's worth looking at some damage adjustment, particularly with regard to bosses/mini-bosses. I shudder to even think about what happens.

EDIT: Oh, for the love of...

---

It won't come down :/

Thank you too Bofubutt,we appreciate a lot that you like the mod! But let's see how can I reply to your cons: the first issue well, C3M0_A has a "survival horror" themed background, the mission requires that you read every possible clue and interprete them to progress on the map... maybe we'll consider to add some more hints, but there are already enough if you check it deeply. Second issue: we had tons of feedbacks back in the past C1-C2 releases where people sustained that enemies where too easy, then bosses where too easy, then enemies and bosses bullets sponges and so on; so internally we decided to calibrate them doing some comparation over old/new beahviors and then seeking for external feedbacks regarding how to set health/attacks/behavior for all enemies quite, and what you see now is the process of 4 years of tests (one whole year specially from n00b) so I hardly doubt we'll change it, one can always choose a different skill (and I have seen several youtubers playing it at skill 3-4 so). The last issue well... that's unexpected, I'll point that to AFADoomer in our repository, there seems to be a problem with gravity there (how did you manage to solve it then?).

Thank you very much all of you, more feedbacks are welcome. Do not forget to join our Discord Channel and to create Issues in our Github Repository for more debugging from us. Stay Psyched!

[Zenon]

I never managed to complete the last level of Episode 3 before v3.1 was released, due to the performance issues.
Have they been resolved in this update?

[Tormentor667]

The performane has been heavily improved, chances are high that you can complete the last level of chapter 3 now with a reasonable FPS-count

[Zenon]

Ah, okay, cheers

[JoeyTD]

context for the bug:

After you open cross fence door to the underwater part with the shark then go swimming into said area.

Is bugs keeps on happening then crashing my game back to the menu.

[Ozymandias81]

context for the bug:

After you open cross fence door to the underwater part with the shark then go swimming into said area.

Is bugs keeps on happening then crashing my game back to the menu.

Did you play with score addon? Because we fixed internally that addon weeks ago, which was the cause of the issue, and if you can't wait you can get the pk3 on boa-addons channel from Discord

[Yhe100]

Hello, I ran into an issue with new Blade of Agony. I like to play with texture filtering, and when I turned turned filtering on. The environment is filtered, but the Character sprite are still pixelated. How do I fix this? Thank you much!

[guru]

I remember some talk and commits about coop mode. Is that still a thing? I can't imagine how cool it would be to play BoA in coop with my brother. I'd also love to help bugtesting any coop mode in the future.

[Tormentor667]

Well, we are working on something... if you are interested in testing coop, join us in Github https://github.com/Realm667/WolfenDoom/issues