Custom difficulty levels

[NiGHTMARE]

I was thinking that a lump (SKILLSET, DIFFICUL, or whatever ) that allows you define various skill-related settings would be pretty useful for mod makers, especially those working on TCs. Settings could include not just those things which change in the normal Doom skill levels, but perhaps a few other things too:

Ammo modifier
Damage modifier
Creature hitpoints modifier
Creature speed modifier
Creature Respawn
etc

[Siggi]

On a related note: Decorate should have settings for specific skills when defining actors.
Something like how the Demon has double speed on the Nightmare Skill level.

[HobbsTiger1]

Something like how the Demon has double speed on the Nightmare Skill level.

Other monsters do too. The parameter -fast can be used to show this if you don't want to start a NM game.

[Siggi]

That was only an example.
What I'm pointing out is how that behaviour is never applied to custom Decorate actors.

[TheDarkArchon]

Other monsters do too. The parameter -fast can be used to show this if you don't want to start a NM game.

Only those with melee attacks as their only means of attack are physically faster. The others attack more frequently and fire faster projectiles.

[Enjay]

On a related note: Decorate should have settings for specific skills when defining actors.

That can be done really easily already though. Define your basic enemy, then inherit from it, spice it up a bit and give it a new editnum. Then when you make your map, flag the basic one to appear on easy, and the harder one on harder settings. I don't see that as being any more involved than defining different states and values within the one monster to then have those states chosen by the engine at run time.

[Siggi]

That's true, but it doesn't solve the nightmare problem.
Unless I'm mistake, there is no nightmare flag for actors.

[HobbsTiger1]

the whole NM skill difficulty can be summed up by UV with twice ammo pickups (like ITYTD) with the parameters -fast and -respawn and cheating disabled.

[Siggi]

'-fast' is what causes the problem, AFAIK you can't make custom mosters which have increased movement speed with '-fast', and custom missiles don't have increased speed either.

[Daniel]

This is a good idea, but I think it's better to add customizeable skills into MAPINFO, not DECORATE.