DoomGuy II - Difficulty Test Ready

[Cardboard Marty]

Because this isn't MegaMan.

[Da Spadger]

By the way, you could get the blue key early, but jumping on that impaled human, and then press that button. This resulted in that i couldn't open the door, even though i had the key.

[Zippy]

By the way, you could get the blue key early, but jumping on that impaled human, and then press that button. This resulted in that i couldn't open the door, even though i had the key.

You can also make a running leap from the top of the vat to get there, which I find much easier. It doesn't trap you though. The blue door opens so long as you have the blue key. What might be happening is that I think I only have the outside parts of the door work (the parts that aren't over all the nukage.) I think I intended to change this and must have missed it somewhere. I tend not to stumble around in all the poison when I'm trying to open the doors.

[Da Spadger]

By the way, the door didn't work even if i pressed use at the parts over the nukage, just fyi. :]

[Nightmare Doom]

Here's another trick...you can actually crouch and go under the Blue key door...

Here's another suggustion, why not have a introduction level like in the MegaMan X games?

[Zippy]

By the way, the door didn't work even if i pressed use at the parts over the nukage, just fyi. :]

It's just ACS_LockedExecute. I've never had a problem with it.

Here's another trick...you can actually crouch and go under the Blue key door...

Here's another suggustion, why not have a introduction level like in the MegaMan X games?

The crouching thing isn't an incredibly serious issue, since in order to do it you still have to raise the nukage, meaning the only thing the player is actually skipping is physically picking up the blue key. Still, I know how I can fix it, so I'll get it done.

I don't think I should do an introduction level. I think it's a bad idea to force the player to fight through two maps with only the shotgun.

[Zippy]

Just a quick note: I've tried running my working copy of this wad in ZDoom 2.1.0. It worked perfectly, with no problems that I could discern.

For people who are going to play the difficulty test, you should be able to use ZDoom 2.1.0. to play it (the info in the readme that says it only works for GZDoom is now incorrect). The difficulty wad is a bit older that my working version, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work.

For me, this means I can now focus on making sure the wad is 2.1.0. compatible, which is nice because it is software mode only, and software mode is what I intended the wad to be for anyway. So now I can completely (and safely) ignore any visual problems that would show up in OpenGL mode of GZDoom with the excuse, "Just play it on 2.1.0."

Finally, running the few tests that I did, I realized how useful the alternative hud of GZDoom is for my wad. Particularly because the player does not get any weapons with large supplies of ammo, so the player has to rotate through weapons frequently. In these circumstances, it was incredibly handy to have a readout of all your ammo on hand. With this in mind, I'll probably wind up adding some simple custom hud elements which accomplish the same purpose (and can be toggled on and off at user discretion).

[DoomRater]

with the excuse, "Just play it on 2.1.0."

Play in software mode also works wonders, though I doubt anyone is going to ignore the new release of ZDoom.

A hint for writing those HUD displays- make sure they only update when needed so they don't waste CPU power. In this case it's rather burdensome to the engine. You can check every tic, but only make a new HUDMessage when needed.

Oh, and I bet Belial will stick to the Doomguy's standard weapon unless the other weapons have some sort of special effectiveness vs. a boss, based on his weapon preferences.

[Cutmanmike]

Sweet. I see lots of improvements. I died later on in the cacolith level though. Concider checkpoints like in megaman?

[Zippy]

A hint for writing those HUD displays- make sure they only update when needed so they don't waste CPU power. In this case it's rather burdensome to the engine. You can check every tic, but only make a new HUDMessage when needed.

Oh, and I bet Belial will stick to the Doomguy's standard weapon unless the other weapons have some sort of special effectiveness vs. a boss, based on his weapon preferences.

My intent was to check every 4 to 8 tics or so, and only update if need be. I don't see why it has to be every tic. Even at something like 4 it would update fast enough when ammo is in use. But that's neither here nor there. I'm going do a bunch of testing around with it when I get bored of mapping again, and make some real calls about it then.

Someone could play through the whole thing with the default weapon if they really wanted to. I've beaten quite a few of the Megaman games without using any of the other weapons. It can add a reasonable challenge.

Sweet. I see lots of improvements. I died later on in the cacolith level though. Concider checkpoints like in megaman?

I thought for a time about picking certain points in the level and using autosaves. Eventually I decided not to for now, mainly for two reasons:
1) I hate it when wads autosave for me (with the exception of at level change.) It just bugs me so much. That alone makes me pretty adverse to putting them in my own levels.
2) The player already has the capacity to save whenever they want, so they can really pick their own checkpoints. When I ran through test runs of the level I would generally save before certain parts I knew would carry a higher risk of dying.

I don't think I'd implement this without making it optional by the user, as I would want it off. I guess I'll note it down though, in case I feel like putting it in at a later point.

[Cutmanmike]

Well you don't really NEED to use saves. You could use ACS to make checkpoints. Heh, you could even make your own lives system easy enough.

[DoomRater]

Well, you levelchange anyway. So you end up having a save point at the start of every map you go to...

[Zippy]

As interesting as a lives system would be, I can only see it serving to aggravate most players. I imagine most people would prefer sticking to whatever saving pattern they are used to following.

[PhAyzoN]

This is awesome!

[Kinsie]

Meanwhile, on the other foot...