DOOMablo: a looter-shooter DOOM (v0.8.0a - Smooth, but not quite silky edition)

[Darkbeetlebot]

if it also paused the game it would be excusable

Wait, but it should pause the game! At least it does so for me, as it is with any ZForms menu. Interesting...

It's been a hot minute since I posted this, so I can't remember the exact setup I was using, but I tried it again this evening and it seems to be working now. Idk what that was about. I guess it's some sort of compatibility bug with one of my other countless mods. While I'm thinking about the menu, I think it'd be a lot better if it just displayed more info. Like for example, all of my equipment instead of just the ones I have equipped in the moment.

Just as I feared, then. Well, it seems adding more weapons is the way to go.

If you're going ahead with this, I also agree that a rifle and/or railgun type weapon would be really good. I'd still prefer a super-accurate shotgun, but they're basically the same thing as a rifle. Alternatively, you could give every weapon an alt-fire and have a high accuracy shot be one of them. Alt-fires are always really cool. It would also be nice to see one or two hexen weapons.

Also, cool feature idea. Crossover compatibility option with the DamNums mod to show when you score a critical hit.

Edit: Discovered a very funny but impractical bug: Reaching level 303 makes the experience stack overflow, causing it to go negative and prevent any further level ups. You will never reach level 303 without using commands, but I found it amusing.

[sidav]

A new version is there.
Added customization for HP bar, and fixed some minor bugs that were there in the pre-release.
Nothing new for the gameplay though.

[dawnbreez]

If we're talking about new weapons, lemme pitch an idea for a new weapon in each slot:
- Claymore: Big sword. Higher damage output than the chainsaw in short bursts, but has a long recovery animation (that can be swap-cancelled).
- Blaster: Infinite-ammo sidearm that fires a projectile. You might give the pistol higher damage or a faster firerate to make it more appealing compared to this, or make the Blaster the new default starter weapon.
- Slug Rifle: Sort of a mini-railgun, fewer pellets than the shotgun but higher per-pellet damage and extreme accuracy.
- Dragon Shot: An extreme-short-range version of the SSG that fires short-lived ripping projectiles.
- Dual Zipguns: Spits lead at extreme speed, but has only a little more mag capacity than the SMG. Kind of like an SSG made of bullets.
- The Obligatory Grenade Launcher: Trades range for more damage and the ability to fire it around corners.
- The Obligatory Railgun: You know how a railgun works.
- Plasma Cannon: Fires at a relatively fast pace compared to the BFG9k, but instead of clearing rooms with tracers, it does (non-self-harming) splash damage.

Also, some other suggestions:
- New armor type: Speedsuit. Where the standard armors work like vanilla doom armor and the energy armor is better at blocking one big hit, the Speedsuit has low damage absorption in exchange for giving you partial invisibility when you go fast! It has low durability compared to even the energy armor, though, and if you run out of durability it stops working. Just don't get hit...
- Chaingun rework: The way the chaingun works right now makes it kind of wasteful and awkward to use. I'd recommend having it start firing at a slow rate, then scale up to the current firerate over about a second, and ideally it should stop firing as soon as I let go of the trigger. You could also make it possible to start firing again while it's still spinning down, so that if I let go of the trigger I'm not locked into the spindown animation.
- New equip type: Grenades! An offhand weapon that's used with its own keybind, possibly the Zoom key. IMO, these would work best if they were built around applying status effects--i.e., a frag grenade that inflicts a bleeding DoT, a stun grenade that forces enemies into their painstate for a bit, flechette potions that turn into lingering clouds of poisonous gas, and so on. Your guns are your direct damage option, after all.
- A new stat for weapons: Ammo efficiency. Listed as a percentage (positive or negative), and affects how much ammo is used from your reserve when you reload. For instance, a chaingun with +50% Ammo Efficiency and a mag size of 100 will fully reload with just 50 bullets. Meanwhile, a SSG with -50% Ammo Efficiency would use 3 shells instead of 2 when reloading...

[Darkbeetlebot]

If we're talking about new weapons, lemme pitch an idea for a new weapon in each slot:
- Claymore: Big sword. Higher damage output than the chainsaw in short bursts, but has a long recovery animation (that can be swap-cancelled).
- Blaster: Infinite-ammo sidearm that fires a projectile. You might give the pistol higher damage or a faster firerate to make it more appealing compared to this, or make the Blaster the new default starter weapon.
- Slug Rifle: Sort of a mini-railgun, fewer pellets than the shotgun but higher per-pellet damage and extreme accuracy.
- Dragon Shot: An extreme-short-range version of the SSG that fires short-lived ripping projectiles.
- Dual Zipguns: Spits lead at extreme speed, but has only a little more mag capacity than the SMG. Kind of like an SSG made of bullets.
- The Obligatory Grenade Launcher: Trades range for more damage and the ability to fire it around corners.
- The Obligatory Railgun: You know how a railgun works.
- Plasma Cannon: Fires at a relatively fast pace compared to the BFG9k, but instead of clearing rooms with tracers, it does (non-self-harming) splash damage.

Also, some other suggestions:
- New armor type: Speedsuit. Where the standard armors work like vanilla doom armor and the energy armor is better at blocking one big hit, the Speedsuit has low damage absorption in exchange for giving you partial invisibility when you go fast! It has low durability compared to even the energy armor, though, and if you run out of durability it stops working. Just don't get hit...
- Chaingun rework: The way the chaingun works right now makes it kind of wasteful and awkward to use. I'd recommend having it start firing at a slow rate, then scale up to the current firerate over about a second, and ideally it should stop firing as soon as I let go of the trigger. You could also make it possible to start firing again while it's still spinning down, so that if I let go of the trigger I'm not locked into the spindown animation.
- New equip type: Grenades! An offhand weapon that's used with its own keybind, possibly the Zoom key. IMO, these would work best if they were built around applying status effects--i.e., a frag grenade that inflicts a bleeding DoT, a stun grenade that forces enemies into their painstate for a bit, flechette potions that turn into lingering clouds of poisonous gas, and so on. Your guns are your direct damage option, after all.
- A new stat for weapons: Ammo efficiency. Listed as a percentage (positive or negative), and affects how much ammo is used from your reserve when you reload. For instance, a chaingun with +50% Ammo Efficiency and a mag size of 100 will fully reload with just 50 bullets. Meanwhile, a SSG with -50% Ammo Efficiency would use 3 shells instead of 2 when reloading...

So, if you weren't aware, there actually is a variant of the BFG9K that uses what is essentially an explosive projectile. I picked it up in my last playthrough and it does INSANE damage. And while I like the first couple ideas, I would prefer if an infinite ammo weapon were a bit stranger, like that one cryo blaster from Combined Arms. Though if there is a cryo weapon, it should also deal like 1 normal damage just so it can break the frozen monsters it makes. Slug Rifle is something I recommended as a modification for the regular shotgun, but it being its own weapon could also be a thing. Personally, I think it would be better as a legendary affix or as a quality of the regular shotgun. Dragon shot I feel is too similar to the SSG when there could just be an affix that gives ripper shots to the guns. The zipguns, while cool, kind of intrude on the chaingun which is already just barely viable enough to keep up with the SMG's efficiency and ease of use. I fear they may just become the best bullet weapon if they existed. Grenade launcher and railgun though? Agreed, I'd love to see those. Perhaps the railgun could also be a rail-sniper.

As for the other suggestions, I don't see the point of the speedsuit. Invisibility is way worse when you move because of how it can make enemies accidentally lead their shots into your line of movement, which means it could be even worse than security armor. The chaingun, though, I think something does need to be done to overhaul it. The way it currently works is just a way clunkier version of the OG brutal doom minigun. Making it function more like the one in Project Brutality (but less crazy) would be great. Hell, just an alt-fire spinup would be great. Not big on grenades, though. I never use them in any mod I play, and despite the lowered ammo supply you still pack plenty of heat in this mod. And if a grenade launcher is implemented, grenades become kind of redundant. I've also never seen anything like the ammo efficiency idea done before. I know it's kind of possible as a result of a bug due to how the double ammo dvar works with reloading mechanics. For those who don't know, using double ammo in a mod with reloading usually causes you to reload at twice the ammo efficiency. So if you have a shotgun that reloads per shell, with double ammo on, it will reload 2 shots per 1 shell from your reserve. It also works with clips, so reloading a clip of 30 bullets would only take 15 from your reserve. I don't know if it would be possible to alter this behavior on a per-weapon level, though.

[sidav]

A new version is here, and it brings the first iteration of flasks.
- They are reusable;
- They restore HP, not immediately but gradually (different flasks restore at different rates);
- They recharge when you kill monsters - the higher the rarity of the enemy, the more charges it gets;
- They can give buffs or debuffs when used;
- When picked up, they are empty (this is on purpose);

The UI for the flasks is kinda questionable, but I'm yet to find a better way.
- There is a number near equipped flask.
- If your flask is not on cooldown, it shows the current percentage in relation to a single use comsumption. In other words, if your flask spends 20 charges on use, and it has 50 charges, the indicator will show 250% (charges are enough for 2.5 uses).
- If your flask is full, the number will be blue. If you don't have enough charges to use the flask, the number will be red.
- If your flask is on cooldown, the remaining seconds will be shown instead of the percentage. The number will be gray in this case.

There are three flask types now.
Vial: Fills quickly, has short cooldown. Intended to be most useful with a buff affix, so that you can often use it on yourself. That is, it's a flask where the buff itself is a main effect, whereas the healing can be viewed as more of a side effect.
Potion: Average filling, average cooldown. Intended to be most useful as an emergency healing tool.
Flask: Takes a long time to fill, heals slowly, but heals for a very long time. Intended use is to drink it right before a battle, so that you're under its regeneration effect throughout the entire battle (the healing status effect doesn't reset when you reach maximum HP).

Of course it's just a first iteration and the balance is absent here. I hope you'll like the new update nonetheless. I would be happy to hear your feedback. Have fun!

[Darkbeetlebot]

A new version is here, and it brings the first iteration of flasks.
- They are reusable;
- They restore HP, not immediately but gradually (different flasks restore at different rates);
- They recharge when you kill monsters - the higher the rarity of the enemy, the more charges it gets;
- They can give buffs or debuffs when used;
- When picked up, they are empty (this is on purpose);

The UI for the flasks is kinda questionable, but I'm yet to find a better way.
- There is a number near equipped flask.
- If your flask is not on cooldown, it shows the current percentage in relation to a single use comsumption. In other words, if your flask spends 20 charges on use, and it has 50 charges, the indicator will show 250% (charges are enough for 2.5 uses).
- If your flask is full, the number will be blue. If you don't have enough charges to use the flask, the number will be red.
- If your flask is on cooldown, the remaining seconds will be shown instead of the percentage. The number will be gray in this case.

There are three flask types now.
Vial: Fills quickly, has short cooldown. Intended to be most useful with a buff affix, so that you can often use it on yourself. That is, it's a flask where the buff itself is a main effect, whereas the healing can be viewed as more of a side effect.
Potion: Average filling, average cooldown. Intended to be most useful as an emergency healing tool.
Flask: Takes a long time to fill, heals slowly, but heals for a very long time. Intended use is to drink it right before a battle, so that you're under its regeneration effect throughout the entire battle (the healing status effect doesn't reset when you reach maximum HP).

Of course it's just a first iteration and the balance is absent here. I hope you'll like the new update nonetheless. I would be happy to hear your feedback. Have fun!

Could you make it so that the amount of flask charge you have is a player value not based on the one you have equipped? Like with ammo? Because I noticed that every time I pick one up, it has 0 charge, and that's kind of annoying when it took me like the entire level to almost fill up the one I have on hand. Especially since it doesn't give you nearly as many charges as you had when you scrap the old flask. Also, is the amount that gets recharged based JUST on the monster rarity, or also on its type?

Also, found a game breaking bug. I can't close the player or artifact menus after opening them, no matter what I do. I don't know what's causing it.

[sidav]

Especially since it doesn't give you nearly as many charges as you had when you scrap the old flask.

I think I'll address this, making flasks drop more charges depending on their fullness on scrapping. Maybe it's worth it to increase recharge value for refills as well?

Also, is the amount that gets recharged based JUST on the monster rarity, or also on its type?

Currently, it's only the rarity considered. I don't know how to manage monster types there as well given that you may have monster mods.

Also, found a game breaking bug. I can't close the player or artifact menus after opening them, no matter what I do. I don't know what's causing it.

That's strange... ESC key works for me, as well as clicking in the top-left corner on the screen. Does the game freeze for you? Or do you mean that the game runs well, and you just can't close the menu?

[Darkbeetlebot]

That's strange... ESC key works for me, as well as clicking in the top-left corner on the screen. Does the game freeze for you? Or do you mean that the game runs well, and you just can't close the menu?

It doesn't freeze, I can still click around, the menu just refuses to close.

Also, for the monsters, you may want to just base it off of one of the monsters' values that all monsters have regardless of mod. Like base Health, Pain Chance, or Mass. The first two actually correlate very cleanly with how generally powerful various enemies are. I'd probably choose base Health if I were in your shoes.

Edit: Scratch that, it WILL close, I just have to mash escape or the top left back key like 10 times. The weird part is that it gets worse the further in the wad I get, and I have no idea if it's the wad doing that somehow or just some weird thing with the mod? I can't exactly uninstall one of my mods in the middle of a playthrough to test it since it'll just instantly crash, but if you want to check, the only new additional mod I'm using is Ultimate Classic Minimap.

[Jareth247]

So far, the only real issue I've had with the menu is that I can't use my controller to navigate it.

[Dam22]

Darkbeetlebot wrote:
> [quote=sidav post_id=1258291 time=1739149859 user_id=18889]
> That's strange... ESC key works for me, as well as clicking in the top-left
> corner on the screen. Does the game freeze for you? Or do you mean that the
> game runs well, and you just can't close the menu?
> [/quote]
>
> It doesn't freeze, I can still click around, the menu just refuses to
> close.
>
> Also, for the monsters, you may want to just base it off of one of the
> monsters' values that all monsters have regardless of mod. Like base
> Health, Pain Chance, or Mass. The first two actually correlate very cleanly
> with how generally powerful various enemies are. I'd probably choose base
> Health if I were in your shoes.
>
> Edit: Scratch that, it WILL close, I just have to mash escape or the top
> left back key like 10 times. The weird part is that it gets worse the
> further in the wad I get, and I have no idea if it's the wad doing that
> somehow or just some weird thing with the mod? I can't exactly uninstall
> one of my mods in the middle of a playthrough to test it since it'll just
> instantly crash, but if you want to check, the only new additional mod I'm
> using is [url=https://github.com/Lewisk3/UltimateClassicMinimap]Ultimate
> Classic Minimap[/url].
Sounds like a weird bug, maybe related to the mods or the way the menu is being handled in certain areas. If it gets worse further into the wad, it could be something specific to the mod interaction, like the Ultimate Classic Minimap. Maybe try disabling it for a test run and see if the issue persists.

[Darkbeetlebot]

Okay, I think I figured out what was causing the problem. It's not a mod conflict, but instead some kind of conflict specifically with the Sunlust wad. The bug ONLY occurs in that wad, regardless of any other loaded mods. It also occurs with Rush, Ancient Aliens, and Eviternity. I'm sensing a pattern: All of these are older megawads that have jumping force-disabled.

[sidav]

A new version is here. I tried to address flask usability issues (they should be much easier to refill now), and to better implement the intended flask "roles", so they're considerably rebalanced (hehe... rebalanced...) now.

[Starman the Blaziken]

I may be asking a really silly question, but how do I pick up the flasks strewn around that have replaced health bonuses?
Tried the custom binds and have used most of the sensible-to-use buttons, but they do not seem to be picking up. Unless there is an issue to them, because they do not display any stats when floating there.

[sidav]

I may be asking a really silly question, but how do I pick up the flasks strewn around that have replaced health bonuses?
Tried the custom binds and have used most of the sensible-to-use buttons, but they do not seem to be picking up. Unless there is an issue to them, because they do not display any stats when floating there.

If you're talking about the tiny floating vials, it's not the flasks, it's the refills. They're auto picked up if you have a flask equipped.

[Starman the Blaziken]

I may be asking a really silly question, but how do I pick up the flasks strewn around that have replaced health bonuses?
Tried the custom binds and have used most of the sensible-to-use buttons, but they do not seem to be picking up. Unless there is an issue to them, because they do not display any stats when floating there.

If you're talking about the tiny floating vials, it's not the flasks, it's the refills. They're auto picked up if you have a flask equipped.

Yeahhh that explains it... I thought they might have been the flasks since they float around just like them but otherwise might go unused until you even find a real one.
But thanks though, at least from here I wanted to play this since it is getting a few steps along in development and I thought to give it a spin to see how it differs from the last mini-incarnation of the mod so far.