Xim's GZDoom3 for Classic Doom (Update OCT/27/23)

[Valherran]

This looks pretty awesome, gonna try this out when able!

[Nems]

So my playthrough of Doom 64 Consolation Prize with this mod is taking me a lot longer than I anticipated combined with fucked up sleep patterns and real life stuff so I'm gonna go ahead and provide feedback based on what I've played of the mod so far.

The Good Stuff:

-Huge kudos to having the weapon and enemy mods separate files. I love to mix and match weapon and monster mods so this will be something I keep coming back to in the future.
-I'm honestly surprised how much of the Doom 3 enemy roster is present (even in something like Doom 64 Consolation Prize where some of the bestiary is missing). I also like some of the interpretations of the monsters such as the Maggot being a big worm and the Pain Elemental having horns and spitting Forgotten Ones instead of Lost Souls. I like this blending of Doom 3's aesthetics with sprite interpretations. Really cool stuff.
-Most of the weapons are a blast to use. The regular shotgun especially feels good to use compared to its Doom 3 counterpart.
-The combination of the two mods really has a nice blend of power fantasy and survival horror. I don't feel starved for ammo most of the time but the bestiary definitely has teeth (been playing it on Veteran) so knowing when to engage, when to hide, and what weapons to use is essential. For me, that's pretty dang fulfilling.
-I actually liked the fact that, when using Nashgore with this, most everything turns into a gore pinata as soon as anything stronger than a sneeze hits it. Reminds me of how bodies and monsters would gib after bashing them with a flashlight.
-Having alt fire functions even if they're ADS is a nice touch and gives the weapons more character, in my opinion.

The Stuff I Wasn't Big On:

-The weapons I really don't like using are the grenades and the BFG. The grenades are too floaty, I feel like. They're great for tossing into areas below you but it's a struggle to throw them in an alcove above you without having them bounce against the ceiling and back down on you. The BFG's mechanics also feel weird. Combined with the potential for self-damage, some of the physical tracers orbit around enemies and even the player which makes using it a tricky proposition for me. I guess I'm just used to how the vanilla BFG works. I plan on playing TNT and Plutonia with this so maybe my feelings will change as I play more with it.
-Having 3D cutouts of the stimpack and medikit looks out of place with the rest of the other pick ups. Not really that big a deal but it could be distracting some times.
-I'm not real keen on having ammo shared between the pistol, machine gun, and chaingun as well as the plasma gun and BFG. I almost never used the chaingun because the machine gun is not only ammo efficient but accurate, making it ideal for most situations. Despite my gripes with the BFG I still ended up falling back on that when I needed to use an energy cell weapon simply because when it did work like I expected it to it cleaned a room out quick.
-The super shotgun feels a bit stiff to use. By that I mean there seems to be a delay between when the reload animation ends and when you can actually fire the gun again. It feels a little clunky as a result. This has thrown me off and got me killed a few times as a result. I've adjusted but I thought I'd go ahead and bring it up.
-As others have mentioned, there's infighting with monsters that shouldn't infight. I've seen Mancubi fight with other Mancubi and I don't think that's supposed to happen. I remember Doom 3 did have infighting but I can't recall if they could infight within their own species.
-Not a fan of how some zombies go stationary and have pinpoint accuracy with their shots when they do that.
-I wish the rate of fire for the machine gun was close to the rate of fire of Doom 3's machine gun.

Suggestions (aka Things I'd Like To See Implemented In Future Releases Though Their Inclusion/Exclusion Won't Impact My Enjoyment Of The Mod):

-I'd like to see a CVAR or CVARs that set up max ammo based on Doom 3's values. I know you could carry a metric fuckton more ammo in Doom 3 than in classic Doom and I know that has the potential to break balance. However, I think it would be nice for the sake of Doom 3's gameplay flavor in classic Doom.
-I'd like to see a CVAR or CVARs that give the bullet and cell weapons their own ammo pools. I honestly feel like I'd use the chaingun and plasma rifle more if they had their own ammo to use rather than sharing it with other weapons. Having the pistol, machine gun, chaingun, plasma rifle, and BFG use their own ammo pools would also be in line with Doom 3's gameplay. I know that also has the potential to muck with balance in some mapsets but admittedly I'm not that fussed over balance.
-Have a CVAR that controls how the BFG handles self-damage. Some maps and mapsets rely on close-quarters BFG fighting so having the player damaged by their own BFG blasts can ruin things. It would also be nice to have for folks who just don't like taking damage from their BFG (like me ).
-Some more variety in zombie spawns. It's a pretty nice variety already but a little more never hurt. That and I don't think I saw Bernie yet if he's even in the mod.

Despite my gripes, I'm really enjoying this mod and it will definitely be a mod that becomes part of my rotation. I look forward to any future updates you provide to this mod. <3

[yum13241]

Took a quick look at the assets, I noticed that you have "TheVengefulOne" credited on the view Plasma Rifle sprites. I'm pretty sure that's the modelshot I took for my Hideous Destructor Doom 3 reskin set here viewtopic.php?f=43&t=53251 / https://i.imgur.com/6YyIPfZ.png. I personally don't mind not being credited at all, since none of the models are mine anyways, but I do have concerns for miscrediting people for things they didn't do.

Anyways, with that out of the way. A minor critique on the mod itself. I haven't played the mod much, so forgive me if I miss some elements here and there. Mind you, this is just something I noticed immediately opening the mod in a test range. I'll play for a while and then see if there's anything else that comes to mind.

I'll just say right now that I'm not a big fan. I won't go into things like all the major gameplay differences compared to the original game, obvious aesthetical changes like the use of gloves instead of bare arms, or even minor things like how you completely changed how the MG88 reloads (bottom load instead of mid load requiring the top to be opened), since you said at the opening post that Doom 3 accuracy isn't really something you're concerned about and adjustments were made. I do however have problems with how the mod looks.

A lot of the view weapon sprites have this blurry look to them that I feel seriously damages the visual aspect of the mod. I can understand some smears being used in high speed motion, but half of the blurry sprites used in this mod aren't even being used in a fast motion context, they're very obvious. Anti-aliasing can be found in a lot of the sprites as well, with something like the RPG having the aliased bits sitting right next to non-aliased ones. Suffice to say the graphical assets feel a bit all over the place right now.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 083927.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 083920.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 090757.png
Stray pixels here, right under the left hand's thumb.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 083911.png
The hand along with the battery should probably be resized here, since it's closer to you in perspective.

Noticed the weapon blocks under the ammo in the HUD also doesn't light up depending on the weapon equipped.

The scoped view sprites aren't adjusted for movement.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 093444.png

Noticed you don't get the fancy HUD thingy when you get a new weapon.

Turn off texture filtering. It's basically glorified blur.

[ZikShadow]

Take a better look. It is already off.

[Xim]

Thanks for the continued feedback. Next version is going to have different weapon sprites, and maybe some mutators/options for things. It'll be a bit of a change but I think it'll be for the best. More coming soon-ish...

[Nems]

I think this might be a bug with the BFG (and why I was taking self damage) but whenever I fire a fully charged BFG shot and it collides into an enemy projectile, it turns that BFG ball hostile, causing self-damage though it does continue to damage monsters too. The BFG ball also gets knocked off its travel path sometimes as a result. I'm gonna play the mod with a few more levelsets to see if I can spot anything or provide some late feedback.

I look forward to the next version. <3

[Xim]

And the next version is here! First post has been updated with new links.

Here's what's new...

---

-Weapons have been modified from the previous version. Adjusted some of the behaviours for the weapons. Sprites now in sideview with classic brown gloves. Centre view weapon sprites have been re-done, and moved to an optional patch.
-Added brightmaps for a bunch of enemies.
-HUD has been changed a bit. Instead of weapon icons the weapon blocks under the ammo now light up depending on which weapon is equipped. The blocks will also only show when a weapon is found.
-Added the "Flaming Zombie", a rare enemy. Spawns with pinky demons.
-Machinegun can be found as a rare spawn with bullet clips.
-Increased gravity for thrown grenade projectiles.
-Fixed lower powered BFG balls clipping through some enemies, also explosions on lower power blasts will not harm the user.
-Turned off weapon bob when using the scopes.
-Recolored most of the zombies to have grey-ish skin like in Doom 3.
-Cacodemons move faster and have less health, similar to Doom 3.
-Did some slight graphical adjustments to the cacodemon and pain elemental so they look a bit more different from each other.
-Cherubs are now less likely to be spawned than before.
-Added GLDEFs for the Lost Soul and Forgotten One.
-ZSec zombies are less accurate.
-ZSec zombies now have XDeath/Gib animations.
-Pistol zombies drop clips instead of pistols for better weapon mod compatibility.
-Removed Commando's broken tentacle grab, and simply gave them a longer melee range.
-Wraiths have a higher pain chance.
-Fixed hitboxes for several monster projectiles.
-Archvile is less aggressive and flames do less damage.
-Certain monsters should (hopefully) stop infighting with their own species now.
-Added "no random monsters" patch.
-Added "alt-ammo" patch, where bullet and energy weapons have their own ammo types.
-Added an armor patch, to have the armor behave more like Doom 3.

Enjoy! Let me know if there are any bugs or issues.

[Armolitskiy]

Good work! I love this mod!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

The first download link in the OP is not working.

[Xim]

Good work! I love this mod!

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

The first download link in the OP is not working.

Hmm, sorry about that. I'm not sure why. I updated it with a new link. Let me know if it's working or not.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

The mod is pretty good, although I wish there was such thing as a Doom 3 MIDI project to accompany the game. The default MIDI soundtrack really does not fit the dark aesthetics.

Also, I am not sure I understand how to defeat Shield Troopers: most of my shots seem to be blocked, regardless of the direction this enemy type is facing.

Finally, I see a brown pixel square floating in the air near the bottom of the screen during the shotgun reloading animation.

[Xim]

Here's a music pack that I play with. It's not in MIDI though, but it suits the mod better than the vanilla midis.

Shield troopers are a little tricky, yeah. Best way to defeat them is keep your distance and blast at them a bunch of times, maybe aim higher too. I might adjust them a bit, or maybe make them commandos instead of zombiemen, not sure. The shield might have too much of a radius and it blocks the back of them too, but I'll have to look into it.

As for the brown pixel square? Hmm, I think that's just part of the fingers sticking up and I guess it looks odd.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

No, it is clearly an out-of-place pale brown dot.

It is hard to see in SLADE, but in-game, it is more noticeable; for a moment, I thought it was a dirt spot on my screen.

Pale brown dot.jpg

Anyway, another criticism I have is that the Thrown Grenade sprite is comically large. I would suggest using the ones Dr_Cosmobyte used for his Nightmare Logic mod instead.

[Craneo]

I see I'm credited for parts of the Vagary, however, is this just because of the upper half area of the Harpy monster? in which case, the chest area I took from HorrorMovieRei's Female Imp sprites, I think it would be more fair to update the credits to reflect this

on the side of criticism, I want to say, I feel the Pinky sprites are not that good, no offense to it's author, ofcourse, but I feel it would be way better if you used something like the Mechtre from DRLA (thought I am unsure if you'll get permission to use that one), I'd do my own try at making a Doom 3 Pinky but I am honestly very unmotivated as of late, atleast for monster spriting

[Time_Streamer]

I must say that I'm liking the latest update very much. I had some side by side comparison between the previous weapons vs the new ones (centered vs angled), and after playing with both through the same couple of levels, I prefer the new angled ones. I'm happy to see the Doom 3 alpha shotgun featured here (honestly, I always found it more attractive than the one featured in the final version).

I would like to add some minor adjustments that would be beneficial in my opinion:

1: Not that I don't like them, but, as already stated, Shield Troopers are too tough. I do like your idea of making them Commandos, since those are way more common than Shield Troopers in Doom 3.
2: Pistol bullets are not aligned with the gun barrel, making it awkward to watch. Bullets are leaving the gun some pixels below the muzzle flash.
3: The plasma rifle is a bit... dull. I've saw better sprites of it in other mods by now, but apart from that I've really noticed the basic reload animation and the lack of any UAC logo or any kind of animation in the gun little display.
4: I didn't really confirmed this but it seemed to me that the pump action shotgun item sprite it still the old one instead of the alpha shotgun. It didn't break muh immersion but here it is anyway