DOOMablo: a looter-shooter DOOM (v0.1.6a - I have no idea how to call this release)

[sidav]

With the help of this amazing community I figured it out. It was much simpler than I expected, but oh boy how many animations ended up broken on reload-switching. Anyway, should work now. New update is there. https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/relea ... prerelease
- Fixed a typo in ENU locale file which caused settings menu to be broken; - sorry for this
- Allowed weapon switching during main segments of reload sequences;
- Added animation interpolation to smooth out some reload animations.
- Greatly reduced generated affixes' levels spread, which should create more powerful affix stats an average.

The last one is a funny one. Initially there was a big spread in generated affixes' levels. If we have lvl60 item drop, its affixes were not necessarily of level60, but of random in lvl30-60 range. This made sense before the level scaling was here, as it allowed the same leveled items to be more varied. Aaaaand this logic was forgotten right there after the scaling and affix rework. Reworked affixes stats are now dependent 50% on random, 50% on affix level, and this forgotten logic caused the level to be 25% lower on average, which led to underpowered items to be too frequently generated... Well, this is now fixed.
Tl;dr: all of the affixes on all of the items are now considerably more powerful on average. Maybe it will even reduce the need in monster HP scaling setting.
Here's an example for you:

---

[sidav]

It seems I just couldn't stop today.
New version is there. https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/relea ... prerelease
Please note: older saves will most likely either not load or break the game!
Update #2 2025-01-05:
- Reworked armor damage absorption formula. No more rounding errors, so even 1% of difference matters now;
All armor affixes reworked:
- Bad armor affixes made either weaker or potentially useful;
- Good affixes are more powerful now;
- Fixed some armor-related bugs;
- Periodical affixes ("gives X every Y seconds") are now fractional ("gives X.Y per second");
- Many armor affixes now have double generated stats. For example, Feedback now rolls both for probability and damage percentage (rolled for probability only before this update).

I'm quite sure some armors could now be generated very overpowered, but at least armors are really varied now. Now that's a real release candidate, only balancing remains to do.
It was reworking/rechecking approximately 1000 lines of code, so it's very bug prone. Please report anything you find.

[jewelryguy]

I didn't have time to play through more than a couple levels but YES! Gameplay flows much better now. I don't think it's quite balanced for the hard megawads (like Sunder, Stardate, Scythe etc) but for the more casual, classic feeling wads it works great. I've been really enjoying Bloodstain as the progression in difficulty is very smooth.

Something I noticed is when I try to recycle items it says "Hold to scrap" like there is a missing key bind but I can't find it in the menu anywhere.

[sidav]

There is a new version, and it's a release this time.
https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/releases/tag/0.1.0a

This version is so huge that it feels like a completely different mod from the previous release.
What's new? Well...

---

Changes from the previous test build:
- Added player experience and leveling;
- Added 5 stats to level up;
- Inferno Books can now be put in inventory;
- Allow configuring the time required to scrap an item;
- Added (or returned?) Inferno Sigils. The difference with books is that they can't be put into inventory;
- Added character screen menu. Thanks to Gutawer for ZForms!
Full release notes are on GitHub release page.

The player leveling is currently somewhat underwhelming, but think of it as of a base for further mod improvement. Balance is off once more, but I hope it's in player's favor this time.
I also am pretty new to ZForms (and that means here will be bugs), and once I'm used to it I'll make the ZForms-based inventory screen instead of the current mess.

I hope you'll love this release. Have fun!

[jewelryguy]

How do we activate the menu to level up? I can't find the button anywhere in the settings. I'm still having the bug where there is no key bound to scrap powerups.

[Darkbeetlebot]

Oh wow, you updated the crap out of this while I was taking a break. I'll get around to playing through plutonia again with this new update.

One thing I noticed when trying it with older versions is something I hadn't actually thought about before. Some wads actually RELY on the player picking up the shotguns and chainguns that shotgunners and chaingunners are normally guaranteed to drop. As a result, during plutonia's first level, I was forced to play through the entire map with just a pistol and MAYBE one good weapon if I was lucky with the single guaranteed placed weapon on the early part of the map. I think there might be a couple of ways to fix this. The first is to just give the player a free regular shotgun or chaingun at the start of the first level. The other is to make chaingunners and shotgunners specifically be highly likely to drop their respective weapons, perhaps as standard common variants instead of any colored rarities. That would probably be more work to implement, but it would be a surefire fix to a problem that otherwise plagues an entire style of map design.

Will edit this post later once I play with the new version.

Edit: I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA. Map10 so far. I think maybe health should be 2 per level instead of 1 since leveling feels like it slows down a lot as you start to get up there. I also noticed in my past several playthroughs that monster infighting gets worse and worse as you go up in inferno level. You know Gotcha? With the spider mastermind and cyberdemon fighting? Yeah, on my Doom 2 playthrough, that fight took fucking forever. They weren't even halfway dead before I cleaned out the entire rest of the level. I had to basically crouch-walk past them as they were fighting to open the door. And I don't think there's really a way to solve that besides maybe multiplying monster damage per their level against only other monsters. The only mod I know of that lets player health go past 200-300 is Russian Overkill, and I have no idea how it does that. Nor do I think it would work particularly well. A bit of a dilemma there, because I don't know what solutions are possible.

[sidav]

How do we activate the menu to level up? I can't find the button anywhere in the settings. I'm still having the bug where there is no key bound to scrap powerups.

Doesn't the DOOMablo settings option in options menu show for you? If so, it's strange... Maybe you have "full options menu" disabled? Could you please show me a screenshot with your settings menu?
Anyway, the new update may help.

I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA I HATE PLUTONIA.

I hope the new update will solve your problems for both of you! The new version is here. https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/releases/tag/0.1.1a
It contains rebalance... but in player's favor. I'm thinking of adding stat-altering affixes, so many things should be nerfed in the future... But why restrict having fun right now? So here are some bugs buffs for you.
All player stats are buffed, some weapons (plasma rifle and pistol) are buffed, DMG affixes got buffed, almost nothing got nerfed. I think maybe you'll be overpowered for a while until I rebalance it again. It should be done because some new planned systems.
Added a possibility to start with common editions of SMG and/or Shotgun (see the settings). I also added DOOMablo settings to main menu so that people won't miss them.
Aaaand If it's still not enough, I'll buff player stats even more for the time being.
Have fun!

[sidav]

Aaaaand a new minor release. I was too tired yesterday to understand that Plutonia is tougher than I thought. So the new minor update full of minor buffs is here.
The most notable thing is the Stat Scroll item. It's a rare one-time drop which gives you a free stat point. Rare but useful.
Have fun!

[fakemai]

Just throwing a quick bug report up with the rocket launcher VM aborting on self-damage, seems to be related to the irradiation mod. I can upload the save file if necessary. No particular remarks, I've only gone through up to Doom 2 MAP08 before hitting that bug but there haven't been any major hurdles yet.
EDIT: Also it'd be nice to have the crosshair display on the HUD, apparently it's not a feature of the custom one.

[sidav]

Just throwing a quick bug report up with the rocket launcher VM aborting on self-damage, seems to be related to the irradiation mod. I can upload the save file if necessary. No particular remarks, I've only gone through up to Doom 2 MAP08 before hitting that bug but there haven't been any major hurdles yet.

It would be great to see that save. Which gzdoom version do you use?

[fakemai]

Dozens of resets later after losing the original autosave. Just blow yourself up until the effect procs and it should abort. Barrels seems to work fine, abundance doesn't generate ammo, venom procs correctly (clarification edit: I only mean for self-damage/killing). This should be with your tag 0.1.2a and GZDoom g4.14.0.

[sidav]

Dozens of resets later after losing the original autosave. Just blow yourself up until the effect procs and it should abort. Barrels seems to work fine, abundance doesn't generate ammo, venom procs correctly (clarification edit: I only mean for self-damage/killing). This should be with your tag 0.1.2a and GZDoom g4.14.0.

Thank you very much for the help!
New release is there. Not much have changed, but the issue should be resolved now.

[Darkbeetlebot]

I hope the new update will solve your problems for both of you! The new version is here. https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/releases/tag/0.1.1a
It contains rebalance... but in player's favor. I'm thinking of adding stat-altering affixes, so many things should be nerfed in the future... But why restrict having fun right now? So here are some bugs buffs for you.
All player stats are buffed, some weapons (plasma rifle and pistol) are buffed, DMG affixes got buffed, almost nothing got nerfed. I think maybe you'll be overpowered for a while until I rebalance it again. It should be done because some new planned systems.
Added a possibility to start with common editions of SMG and/or Shotgun (see the settings). I also added DOOMablo settings to main menu so that people won't miss them.
Aaaand If it's still not enough, I'll buff player stats even more for the time being.
Have fun!

Fun to have my hatred of Plutonia immortalized in a mod update! I just got through the entirety of the wad with the new update, and in my opinion, this is pretty damn good so far. I'm gonna have to do some more testing, but from what I can tell here's some balancing suggestions:

1. Buff rocket launcher accuracy. They have a small clip size and take a while to reload, so it's important that those rockets land when they fire. I think making the rocket launcher be a high accuracy weapon makes the most sense of any of them, save for the pistol.

2. Butt the beta BFG's damage to be similar to the plasma rifle. It consumes 1 ammo per shot if I'm measuring it correctly, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If it is, it's dealing about half as much damage as the plasma rifle.

3. Maybe nerf the summon affix, or just prevent it from spawning specifically on archviles. I had a point in map 2 or 3 where there's an archvile that aggros early and it spawned as a summoner, so when it entered the arena there were like 20 archviles in one room and they instantly killed me. Most enemies are fine with it, it's literally just the archviles that become ten times more bullshit. Or maybe you could also make it so they only summon while the player is in line of sight.

4. I don't remember how accurate the normal shotgun is in doom, but it feels like it's less accurate in this mod than usual. Either way, I'd suggest buffing its accuracy so that it has a clearer role. That or maybe have an affix that gives it slugs? It would just be nice to have a really accurate shotgun type that doesn't use the slow moving homing flechettes.

And as another thought, the way the player level curve feels now is that it starts off being faster to gain than inferno levels, but then around player level 50 the two level types seem to converge in progression speed and the leveling slows down quite a bit. What kind of curve are you using for both them?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that there's some kind of bug since 1.0 causing the Gzdoom crosshair to not display on the fullscreen hud size. And on Map26 I encountered a legendary cacodemon, shot it with a rocket launcher that does +54% damage to legendary enemies, and it crashed with a stack overflow.

[fakemai]

And on Map26 I encountered a legendary cacodemon, shot it with a rocket launcher that does +54% damage to legendary enemies, and it crashed with a stack overflow.

I just hit the same, it's a full GZDoom crash too. Save file, just shoot the hell knight with the plasma gun this is still on 0.1.2a. Unfortunately I normally build "Release" but I can do one suitable for gdb if necessary.

Also I'm going to second that there's a lack of long range weapons. It's not too annoying for most official maps but there's a couple of notable exceptions like MAP15 of Doom 2.

[sidav]

Thanks for your feedback and help. Crosshair and crash are now fixed. The saves should not be broken at all.
Now, about the other stuff:

1. Buff rocket launcher accuracy. They have a small clip size and take a while to reload, so it's important that those rockets land when they fire. I think making the rocket launcher be a high accuracy weapon makes the most sense of any of them, save for the pistol.

A good suggestion. I think I'll raise the accuracy in a later update. I'm also thinking about adding "homing projectiles" affix for RL as well.

2. Butt the beta BFG's damage to be similar to the plasma rifle. It consumes 1 ammo per shot if I'm measuring it correctly, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. If it is, it's dealing about half as much damage as the plasma rifle.

Yeah, but it should still have much higher DPS. Hasn't it? I'll check what can be done there anyway.

3. Maybe nerf the summon affix, or just prevent it from spawning specifically on archviles. I had a point in map 2 or 3 where there's an archvile that aggros early and it spawned as a summoner, so when it entered the arena there were like 20 archviles in one room and they instantly killed me. Most enemies are fine with it, it's literally just the archviles that become ten times more bullshit. Or maybe you could also make it so they only summon while the player is in line of sight.

Oh that's a good one. But the problem is that I can't determine if the current monster is a summoner when giving the affixes, so if I restrict archvile only, it won't prevent modded archviles from being summoners...
My current idea is to change the summoner affix logic. Instead of making the monster summon monsters of the same class, summoners will summon some low level monsters only (selected by their HP value). No archviles this way. It's currently in the works, but I'm having some technical issues with implementation.
I also think the "Horde" affix should work the same way as well.

4. I don't remember how accurate the normal shotgun is in doom, but it feels like it's less accurate in this mod than usual. Either way, I'd suggest buffing its accuracy so that it has a clearer role. That or maybe have an affix that gives it slugs? It would just be nice to have a really accurate shotgun type that doesn't use the slow moving homing flechettes.

What would you think if I double accuracy affix effect if it's applied to shotgun?
About flechettes: I think they should be made either faster or smarter, or even both. Will do that for the next release.

And as another thought, the way the player level curve feels now is that it starts off being faster to gain than inferno levels, but then around player level 50 the two level types seem to converge in progression speed and the leveling slows down quite a bit. What kind of curve are you using for both them?

Inferno levels is simple: it's just how many inferno items you collect. Each level the game tries to spawn at least 2 and no more than 4 inferno items. This way for 32-map WAD you'll be at inferno 100 by the game end, plus 28 some extra items to spare, just in case you couldn't collect all of them on some levels.
Formula for levels is the following:
expForNextLevel = (baseAmount + A * currLevel) * M ^ (currLevel/K)
baseAmount is XP required for first level you gain (level 2), it's 500.
A is additional required XP each level, it's 200 currently.
M is exponent base, it's 1.275 now.
K means "each this many levels the required amount is multiplied by M", and is 6 now.
Stats scaling (damage and monster HP) uses very similar formula but with other constants.

So, the list for the very next release is:
- Make flechettes better;
- Scale monsters' infighting damage, as some maps really rely on that;
- Rework summoner and horde.

I'm considering adding a new affixable item, and currently my main idea is to add reusable health potion, which can be bound to a hotkey. Hello, PoE2. Maybe I should rename the mod to "Doom of Exile".
So, the idea is the following. You can pick up a multi-use potion. It is refilled by killing monsters.
Potion has the following base stats:
- Restored HP
- The time, across which the HP will be restored
- Max charges
- Charges spent by single consumption
- Usage cooldown (?)
The affixes will alter those stats, as well as add some tiny mechanics there, like:
- X HP will be healed instantly
- Applies Poison to you
- Gives some minor ammo amount on usage
etc.
But this idea may be not as good as I think of it (I'm playing poe2 too much lol). What do you think? Would it make the mod better?