Bullet-Eye - v0.12.5b - 3/5/24 - Even More Improvements!

[Some_Kinda_Lucky]

Thank you for the quick and thorough responses! I'll admit that some of my negativity with the Overhaul Build was a bit knee jerky and after letting it sit in my brain for a bit I can see the positives in the new changes. I also understand that feature creep can be a killer for a project like this and realizing it and nipping it in the bud sooner rather than later is for the best to insure the mod's longevity. Regardless of what direction the mod goes in I'll definitely be there for the whole ride and enjoy every second of the journey. Can't wait to see what you cook up for it in the future.

[Mor'Ladim]

Thank you for the quick and thorough responses! I'll admit that some of my negativity with the Overhaul Build was a bit knee jerky and after letting it sit in my brain for a bit I can see the positives in the new changes. I also understand that feature creep can be a killer for a project like this and realizing it and nipping it in the bud sooner rather than later is for the best to insure the mod's longevity. Regardless of what direction the mod goes in I'll definitely be there for the whole ride and enjoy every second of the journey. Can't wait to see what you cook up for it in the future.

Don't worry, I felt the same way initially. I thought it was the end of the world when some things got the axe - but when I actually finally managed to test it out yesterday, I hardly noticed the removal of some things such as the vending machines. Other than the removal of Fusion equipment, which I still mourn, the other mechanics/features that were taken out didn't make too big of an impact on gameplay. Some things still need to be tuned a bit, but overall I think it will be better for the health of the mod.

There are some new changes that have been made as well, which are as follows:
-Owning multiple weapons of the same family will grant a small damage bonus.
-Scaling weapon damage depending on the weapon and enemy health. This will help some of the weaker weapons be a lot more helpful against stronger foes.
-Upcoming currency changes to bring them down to more respectable levels.
-Enemy rebalancing. Again, Dread Levels have been removed, but may return in an improved form. Otherwise, the skill levels will be modified for enemy difficulty purposes.
-Backend improvements that will make updating the mod faster and easier in the long run.

There is still quite a bit to do, but after the main work is done, I can go back to adding in new weapons/equipment!

[Mor'Ladim]

Here is a preview of the reworked Status Panel! It has all been consolidated into a single page, with info being displayed in tooltips. I apologize for the slight sound delay.



As you can see, weapons can also level up to 4. This will only grant a damage bonus rather than a unique effect, but that could easily change in the future!

Some help screens will also be removed since the info can be found on the Status Panel itself, such as element info.

The Status Panel rework was only made possible thanks to Ace's tremendous help!

Once again, if anyone wishes to test out the overhaul version, you can do so by clicking this link!

[Linz]

Hey Mor, just wanna say I would appreciate it if you say the names of what weapons you add to the mod when you do

I know you probably want people to find out for themselves but idk I'd like a little explanation on them personally

If you don't wanna that's fine tho

[Mor'Ladim]

I know you probably want people to find out for themselves but idk I'd like a little explanation on them personally

While I do want people to discover things for themselves, it's not a big deal if they want the info outright either. Perhaps next time I can add the weapon names in a spoiler tag just in case there are those who do want a surprise.

The weapons that were added for this recent update are named Glacial Lash and Frenzy Ravagers, both melee weapons.

[Mor'Ladim]

The overhaul is now live on the master branch! This means that the previous iteration of Bullet-Eye will no longer be available, except from the current live download (which will be separated into its own link later when a new update is pushed) and will no longer have certain content such as vending machines, equipment durability, weapon XP, and etc.

There are still a few things that may need to be adjusted, but the main meat of the overhaul has been completed and should be ready to receive regular updates such as new equipment, enemies, and weapons. We hope you enjoy the changes, and it may take some getting used to at first, but I promise you that you won't realize any major difference with the content that is missing! That is how little it added in the grand scheme of things.

[Linz]

You know now that I think about it, you have like a list of all the weapons implemented so far or...

[Some_Kinda_Lucky]

Hey Mor! Just got done playing around with the new master build and I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the more streamlined experience, I thought I would continue to miss things like the vending machines and weapon XP but I ended up not really noticing their absence, the whole experience felt like the perfect blend of arcade run'&'gun/RPG action that Bullet-Eye is aiming for. Plus the new HUD and Status panel are incredible, less cluttered and much easier to navigate while still being a visual treat to look at. I have noticed a couple problems with the master build, one being that the Flash Guard will stay active even when the energy meter is empty, the other being that weapon capsules seem to only dispense certain weapons, like rapid capsules will only give out Repeaters or Spitfires, power capsules only give Scrap Launchers or Triple Wyverns etc, not sure if this is intentional or not but I thought it was worth pointing out regardless.

[Mor'Ladim]

Hey Mor! Just got done playing around with the new master build and I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the more streamlined experience, I thought I would continue to miss things like the vending machines and weapon XP but I ended up not really noticing their absence, the whole experience felt like the perfect blend of arcade run'&'gun/RPG action that Bullet-Eye is aiming for. Plus the new HUD and Status panel are incredible, less cluttered and much easier to navigate while still being a visual treat to look at. I have noticed a couple problems with the master build, one being that the Flash Guard will stay active even when the energy meter is empty, the other being that weapon capsules seem to only dispense certain weapons, like rapid capsules will only give out Repeaters or Spitfires, power capsules only give Scrap Launchers or Triple Wyverns etc, not sure if this is intentional or not but I thought it was worth pointing out regardless.

I'm glad you enjoy it so far! I'll have to look at the Flash Guard further because I have noticed with certain actions it does stay for longer. It may be due to some of the changes made to it recently where the deflect time actually adds up if projectiles are deflected fast enough.

As for the weapons, we are testing out a sort of "tier" system that allows only certain weapons to drop from capsules based on score. Though, this may be reverted due to weapons being found less often than before since they can only appear on high tier weapon spots now. A positive of this change though, is that it can make some weapons easier to level. However, I am sure there are other ways to achieve that such as the Weapon Enhancer system being a sort of wildcard like it was in older versions, allowing you to level the current weapon you are holding when picking it up.

[MsrSgtShooterPerson]

Hi, Morladim! Just wanted to say amazing work on the overhaul so far and I'm excited to see where Bullet Eye continues to grow - I'm superbly pleased with the upgrade and weapon system at the moment - I think I haven't actually seen much mods try to work affixes unto equipment and I like mix-and-matching whatever shows up.

I do have a few concerns (and I'm not sure if they're necessarily bugs to report rather than features)

As of the master build from GitLab on this posting (and playing on Delta Touch), just a few things off the bat - I haven't played in a while and some of the new weapon names are still unfamiliar to me.

* While using the Monstrosity, it's possible to cast fear on your own spider bots.
* While using the Hyper Burster (Blaster? Rapid fire weapon with purple projectiles), the explosion proc can damage you (and pretty heavily at 20 points docked from the life bar from relatively far away)
* Not really important on this part is this one is more towards balancing - I feel at times that the item GP costs feel too steep ( and admittedly l, I wouldn't mind them being one-use/limited-uses and but no GP cost), mostly since I try to gather enough for upgrading rather than a one-off use.
* Is there a way also to show or flash the item's name as it is cycled through/elected in the inventory? Throwing it out and picking it up again works for the pickup message, but probably not something doable in the heat of combat.

I'll keep playing and report any oddities I find - I also have the following questions:

* When it comes to some pickups, what's the difference between picking up ammo versus energy? (i.e. a support ammo pickup versus a support energy pickup)
* I noticed there's Treasure Level in the status bar - how does this quanitity increase? (I'm currently playing on mostly episode sized WAD's, and I'm wondering if this is limiting the variety of items I find)

Thanks again! I haven't played Bullet Eye in a while so I'm admittedly not even sure what to compare between the master and old builds.

[Mor'Ladim]

Hi, Morladim! Just wanted to say amazing work on the overhaul so far and I'm excited to see where Bullet Eye continues to grow - I'm superbly pleased with the upgrade and weapon system at the moment - I think I haven't actually seen much mods try to work affixes unto equipment and I like mix-and-matching whatever shows up.

I do have a few concerns (and I'm not sure if they're necessarily bugs to report rather than features)

As of the master build from GitLab on this posting (and playing on Delta Touch), just a few things off the bat - I haven't played in a while and some of the new weapon names are still unfamiliar to me.

* While using the Monstrosity, it's possible to cast fear on your own spider bots.
* While using the Hyper Burster (Blaster? Rapid fire weapon with purple projectiles), the explosion proc can damage you (and pretty heavily at 20 points docked from the life bar from relatively far away)
* Not really important on this part is this one is more towards balancing - I feel at times that the item GP costs feel too steep ( and admittedly l, I wouldn't mind them being one-use/limited-uses and but no GP cost), mostly since I try to gather enough for upgrading rather than a one-off use.
* Is there a way also to show or flash the item's name as it is cycled through/elected in the inventory? Throwing it out and picking it up again works for the pickup message, but probably not something doable in the heat of combat.

I'll keep playing and report any oddities I find - I also have the following questions:

* When it comes to some pickups, what's the difference between picking up ammo versus energy? (i.e. a support ammo pickup versus a support energy pickup)
* I noticed there's Treasure Level in the status bar - how does this quanitity increase? (I'm currently playing on mostly episode sized WAD's, and I'm wondering if this is limiting the variety of items I find)

Thanks again! I haven't played Bullet Eye in a while so I'm admittedly not even sure what to compare between the master and old builds.

Thank you, but I have Ace to thank for most of the work done since he is far more experienced with ZScript coding than I am. I am getting there, though!

-The Metal Monstrosity fear can in fact affect the Plasma Spiders, but as I recall, they don't actually become feared and only have the debuff visual appear. I should be able to prevent that from showing up to avoid any confusion.
-The Hyper Burst explosion dealing damage to the player is an easy fix, and was due to the weapon using some damage types that were no longer utilized.
-Inventory item GP costs is something I was looking into, and I did have the idea to just remove them and make items single use, as I came across the situation of holding on to GP to upgrade equipment rather than using items multiple times as well.
-Currently you can bind a key to "Query Item" and that will show the item name and description of what they do, but it has to be pressed for each individual item. I'll see if there is a way to display the info outright.
-The difference between the ammo and energy pickups is just the amount they provide. The small orbs look like energy so I went for that name, instead of naming them "Tiny Rapid Ammo" as they are named internally, as it wouldn't look right. I am not sure if I will keep those, however, since I hear they aren't too useful considering how little ammo they provide, but they were made at a time when ammo acquisition was really high.
-Treasure Level can be obtained from rescuing survivors, opening weapon capsules, or each time the player kills a certain number of enemies, to name a few cases. However, it can "fluctuate" due to lowering when a rare item drops. This was done to control the amount of rare drops that appear, and was meant to be an internal stat only but I decided to just have it visible to the player.

Thank you for giving the mod another shot and I hope you've enjoyed it thus far!

[Mor'Ladim]

I've uploaded an update to the pre-overhaul version which fixes a few bugs and backports some improvements from the overhaul branch. Unfortunately, it's on Dropbox so there is the risk of the download link going down due to overload, but I highly doubt that will happen. Below is a list of changes in that version!

v0.12.1 - 6/16/23 - PRE-OVERHAUL
-Lowered Flame Bloom Darts weapon sprite.
-Revamped Flame Bloom Darts L2 effect and slightly modified L3.
-Improved Hyper Burst L3 volatile orb interactions.
-Reduced Triple Wyvern spread and pressure building is faster.
-Increased Triple Wyvern magazine size to 8, up from 4. Full pressure now consumes 2 ammo.
-Metal Monstrosity jaws will no longer despawn when touching terrain.
-Reduced Metal Monstrosity L2 claw damage.
-Improved Storm Mine explosion visual effects and sounds.
-Increased swap speed for SUPPORT weapons further.
-Increased amount of B-E Energy acquired from a Perfect Flash Guard counter.
-Fixed Volley Shot Cylinder Upgrade equipment bonus not functioning while also possessing the Firing Override bonus.
-Fixed Dogfighter Missile weapon firing sound. This has been bugged for a very long time...
-Increased amount of kills needed to gain 1 Treasure Level.
-Fixed kicking weapon capsules sometimes selling the weapons.
-Changed ammo drop rates from enemies.
-Fixed missing fear and slow states on some enemies.
-Changed Monitaur missile attacks slightly. They will be much more threatening.
-Fixed equipment items taking all bonuses of a given type, even ones belonging to a different item.
-Fixed Ammo Eater items some times not spawning an item due to attempting to spawn incorrect actor.

The download can be found on the first post, labeled as "DOWNLOAD PRE-OVERHAUL VERSION" or you can download it here.

I think I covered everything. Do let me know if there are any other issues!

[Linz]

https://imgur.com/a/ZtKpLbc

Been having some weird crashes playing Bullet Eye that I have no clue why they happen, so hopefully you can figure it out based on the error messages + my addon list

Also Also, you wouldn't happen to have a list of every weapon in the mod for testing purposes?

[Mor'Ladim]

Important Announcement: For anyone playing, keep in mind that the development version no longer exists. Any updates made to the mod are now pushed to the main branch, so it will always be the current release. I will do my best to keep players posted on major updates as usual. If you happen to download the mod and are met with an error on start up, that means I am currently making changes to the mod. Trying to download the mod again in about a minute or so should work, as I usually don't keep major errors like that up for too long, even when experimenting with changes!

Been having some weird crashes playing Bullet Eye...

Also Also, you wouldn't happen to have a list of every weapon in the mod for testing purposes?

Sorry for the late response, not only was I working on an update, but sometimes I think that people don't really reply here, so I tend to forget to check. That issue should be fixed now. And the only list I have is more of an internal development doc, so you'll need to remove the spaces and asterisks in the weapons name, then follow them up with "weapon". So for example "CrashCometWeapon". There will possibly be a feature later where you can type a command that will create a list of all the weapons in the mod. I will give you a freebie and post a list this time, but I do in fact want players to discover things on their own.

---

SORTED BY TYPE:
===Power===
Crush Blast
Scrap Launcher
Triple Wyvern
Shotwave
Sniper Cannon
Crash Comet
*Bloodletter Magnum
*Decimator
===Area===
Spread Shot
Buster
Blaze Stream
Storm Mine
Volley Shot
Toxic Storm
===Rapid===
Frost Snap (STARTER)
Spitfire
Hunting Laser
Repeaters
Viper Wave
Hyper Burst
Riotous Riveter
===Tech===
Assassin Vulcan
Winged Reaver
Mag Shurikens
Metal Monstrosity
Scatter Bomber
*Redline
Electrocutioner
Stinger
===Support===
Dogfighter Missile
Vampiric Gauntlets
Plasma Spiders
Flame Bloom Darts
===Melee===
Quick Strike
Grind Halberd
*Galaxy Slicer
Glacial Lash
Frenzy Ravagers

As stated above, the mod has been updated over time, with new changes being pushed out yesterday (October 1st). I will highlight those specific changes in blue in the changelog. The rest of the changes were made at other points in time such as August, but there were no notes on those changes until today.

---

v0.12.2 - 10/2/23
=WEAPONS=
+GENERAL+
-Weapons now sell for more GP.
-Some weapons now have an increased ammo cost. The magazine size was adjusted where applicable.
-Ice Bulwarks from ice element deaths can now slide on walls. This will make them get stuck much less often.
-Ice Bulwarks "activate" faster, allowing some weapons to interact with them earlier.
-Reduced damage of melee weapons via the swipe attack mechanic, but they now cause enemies to flinch with every hit (except bosses) to make them more viable.
-Reduced range of melee weapon swipe attack mechanic slightly.
-Increased swap speed for SUPPORT weapons further.
-Fixed weapon attributes on the status panel not showing the bar if it was 1 unit.
-Fixed elite weapons dropping from normal weapon capsules.
+ASSASSIN VULCAN+
-Adjusted damage of firing modes and changed alt-fire for now to make it more useful, until it can properly be reworked.
+BUSTER+
-L2 effect now does less damage, but works on all unpowered shots, instead of only the last few in the magazine.
-Adjusted damage and increased ammo cost of charged shot to 4, up from 3.
-Can now bypass the charge function and launch regular shots with alt-fire.
-Buster's L2 effect dealing damage to the player.
+CRASH COMET+
-Fixed rare VM Abort.
+FLAME BLOOM DARTS+
-Flame Bloom Darts now deals increasing damage per hit against targets that have been darted.
-Flame Bloom Darts now has a magazine.
+FRENZY RAVAGERS+
-Reduced alpha of L3 projectiles.
+HYPER BURST+
-Fixed VM Abort related with L3 effect.
+METAL MONSTROSITY+
-Fixed crash issues with bosses related to fear effects.
-Actors related to the player will no longer receive the fear debuff. While they were always unaffected, the visuals still appeared.
+QUICK STRIKE+
-Attack speed has been slightly increased.
+RIOTOUS RIVETER+
-Now has its drop rate increased if the player has the weapon in their possession.
+SCATTER BOMBER+
-Increased magazine count to 45, up from 36. Slightly increased fire rate and projectile speed.
+SCRAP LAUNCHER+
-Changed damage mechanic of L3 launched chain, so that it no longer easily kills bosses.
+SHOTWAVE+
-Increased damage.
+SPITFIRE+
-Spitfire has received a partial rework.
-Removed recoil from L3 effect.
-Fixed L3 not benefiting from the Spitfire: Trick Shot equipment bonus.
-Fixed Spitfire reducing alt-fire ammo cost with the "No Escape" equipment bonus. The effect was moved to its own bonus.
+SPREAD SHOT+
-Adjusted Spread Shot projectile count, damage, and spread.
+STINGER+
-L3 cooldown has been modified.
-Fixed weapon not getting the L3 weapon switch bonus when at L4.
-Cover bonus now only reduces ammo usage by 1, rather than 2. This means each shot during the cover bonus will require 2 ammo, rather than 1.
-Now has its drop rate increased if the player has the weapon in their possession.
+BULLET-EYE+
-Bullet-Eye Energy acquisition has been doubled in most cases. This means players should be able to activate Bullet-Eye Mode more frequently. The mod is called Bullet-Eye, after all.

=EQUIPMENT=
-Added many new equipment items. Priority was given to slots that have little variety, or that have very low amounts in a given quality tier.
-Added 6 new equipment bonuses.
-Due to the number of equipment items in the game (Now over 120) and with there no longer being a reliable way to get them (vending machines), enemies drop equipment at a higher rate after several maps in.
-Normal equipment items have had their sell values doubled.
-Buster L2: Crowd Clear equipment bonus effect changed since unpowered shots now always gain the powered explosions benefit.
-Fixed Wildfire Guards (Shoulders) stunning enemies each time the fire damage ticked.
-Shrouded Hood (Helmet) effect changed to modify chests rather than item crates.
-Fixed Siegebreaker Combat Boots not affecting some melee weapons.
-Fixed Hologram Device (Accessory) dealing massive damage.
-Fixed VM Abort related to previewing equipment.

=PLAYER/ABILITIES=
-Renamed all instances of "Quick Melee" to "Quick Kick" for consistency.
-Fixed issue with Flash Guard not despawning when energy was depleted.
-Adjusted the amount of Treasure Level earned from various sources.
-Offensive Item Power now affects most equipment items that deal direct damage.

=ITEMS=
-Item Capsules now drop ammo depending on your current weapon loadout. This is similar to enemy ammo drops.
-Adjusted drops of Item Capsules modified by Scavenger's Leather Gloves, since score items are no longer used as currency.
-Item Capsules now drop GP.
-Added 9 new inventory items.
-Removed the two weapon capsules that spawn near the player on a new game.
-Some inventory items are no longer reusable, but now have a shorter cooldown and increased power/duration to compensate.
-Health and Shield items that are leftover in a map when all enemies are defeated now turn into unique score items that are tracked on the map.
-Flash Serum item now also freezes Flash Guard drain for 3 seconds when used.
-Fixed Cromwell item not attempting to change targets if an enemy was not in its line of sight.
-Adjusted cooldown and cost of inventory item, "Tek Spell: Energy to Gold".
-Healing Tonics now have color coded caps to more easily identify which version each one is.
-Ammo Eater items will no longer spawn other regular Ammo Eaters.
-Chests once again drop score items.
-Lowered requirements for elite item drops.
-Elite item crates now have a higher chance to drop as levels are completed.
-Increased amount of GP gained from currency items.
-Red chests no longer have requirements and now always provide loot as if all map objectives were cleared. This was done in order to prevent excessive backtracking. Appearance rate and chances for items within have been reduced to compensate.
-Wood chests can now evolve into red chests after certain map objectives are cleared.
-Special chests (invisible green) can now be opened immediately with Quick Kick.
-Added tiny ammo bundles to other spawn areas.
-Health Augments have replaced score items in the bonus health spawn list.
-Shield Capsules S have replaced score items in the bonus armor spawn list.
-Score items have had their values adjusted by 50% for most items and now spawn less in maps.
-Collectible items score values increased by 10k.
-Fixed missing sprite for large green score gems.

=ENEMIES=
+GENERAL+
-Enemies are now worth more points and each has their own score reward value, rather than being a static amount for all.
-Enemies now deal more damage depending on how many maps have been cleared. For example, enemies will start dealing 1 extra point of damage starting after 8 completed maps.
-Fixed possible damage miscalculation related to enemy projectiles.
-Adjusted some jumps and disabled enemies entering their pain state while stunned from shockwaves, both to prevent issues and also make stuns even more useful.
-Fixed missing fear and slow states on some vanilla enemies.
+ABERWRAITHER+
-Visual effects no longer spawn if the player cannot be seen and is in close range.
+AVATAR OF AGONY+
-Death animation should no longer have collision.
+DREAD VISAGE+
-Converted visual effects to particles for better performance. The effects should look nearly the same.
+INVADING SWARMER+
-Will now evade attacks after taking damage only ~15% of the time, down from ~33%.
+MONITAUR+
-Fixed firing animation offsets for Monitaur.
-Added logic to prevent them from becoming stuck in out of reach areas.
-Fixed the issues related to deaths once and for all.
+RIVETING GRENADIER+
-Reduced drop rate of Riotous Riveter.

=MISC.=
-Inventory bar numbers have been shifted vertically for easier item viewing. The current active item's numbers were made smaller.
-Explosive barrels can now be pushed.
-Fixed possible VM Abort when loading certain mods.

[Some_Kinda_Lucky]

Oh man, I've been wanting to play more Bullet-Eye as of late and now you push a huge update for it! Life's been pretty busy as of late but I'm gonna take some time to download and try all the new stuff out so I can give some feedback, but just reading the patch notes has me excited for all the new additions/changes. Really excited to see what else you're cooking up for the future.