Simple yet effective challenge

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Need a new challenge in DOOM 2 but the Nightmare difficulty level is too much for you?

I think one of the biggest problems in pretty much all FPSes is that you always have too much ammo, so I made this little patch. It's pretty simple: all monsters now have 2x health (except for Lost Souls). Good luck, and remember to use your ammo very, VERY carefully. At first, it's not really any harder, but as you'll be around level 8 it starts getting very nasty.

I once got through the whole game at Ultra-Violence with this patch, and I suggest everyone to try it (maybe except you hardcore players who can finish the game at Nightmare). I can honestly say this was the most fun I ever had clearing a FPS in single-player.

(btw, to use this patch under ZDoom : zdoom.exe -bex monster-health-x2.bex)

[Bio Hazard]

why dont you just turn on the 2x health dmflag?

[IntergalacticWalrus]

I just checked the Gameplay Options menu and I don't see this "2x health" dmflag you talk about. UPDATE: And according to src/doomdef.h, there is no such dmflag.

[Bio Hazard]

its dmflag2 #128

"Monsters have 2x health" [128]

[IntergalacticWalrus]

You must be talking about something else than ZDoom 2.0.47, cause I tried (dmflags2 128) and it doesn't work (and it's not in the source code anyway).

[arcticwolf]

Need a new challenge in DOOM 2 but the Nightmare difficulty level is too much for you?

I think one of the biggest problems in pretty much all FPSes is that you always have too much ammo, so I made this little patch. It's pretty simple: all monsters now have 2x health (except for Lost Souls). Good luck, and remember to use your ammo very, VERY carefully. At first, it's not really any harder, but as you'll be around level 8 it starts getting very nasty.

I once got through the whole game at Ultra-Violence with this patch, and I suggest everyone to try it (maybe except you hardcore players who can finish the game at Nightmare). I can honestly say this was the most fun I ever had clearing a FPS in single-player.

(btw, to use this patch under ZDoom : zdoom.exe -bex monster-health-x2.bex)

There seriously are people who can finish Doom 2 on Nightmare? *blinks* Amazing.

Speaking of this, I dimly recall that there used to be a number of honorific titles for people who could accomplish feats like this (Doom Master, Doom Grand Master, Doom Tyson and Doom Grand Ass Kicker) - a search on google confirms this. Does anyone know how "official" and/or widely-used/-recognized these were? IOW, is or was there something like a list of people who attained these titles, an SOP for judging whether someone deserved one of them, or something like that?

Just curious.

[Death Mage]

People with different natural play styles play the games in a different way. Some of us play mythotical, slowly working our way through the game. That doesn't work well for playing in Nightmare.

(And some of us only play the game every few years so we try to forget as much as possible so it is "fresh" again.)

[Enjay]

What I think would be nice would be the possibility of adding a degree of randomisation to the HPs of the monsters.

That way, you would specify a range of values for the monster, rather than a single number and the monster would randomly use a value from the range.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find it a little dull that I know exactly how many pistol/shotgun/whatever shots are needed to fell each enemy type. Even if I haven't memorized all the actual shot numbers, I know the "feel" of how hard to hit each enemy. A touch of randomisation would help keep me on my toes.

I know it can be done by scripting, but that means setting things up specifically for each level using tids etc. I'd like to be able to apply a patch and have random HP monsters in all levels.

[Graf Zahl]

What I think would be nice would be the possibility of adding a degree of randomisation to the HPs of the monsters.

That way, you would specify a range of values for the monster, rather than a single number and the monster would randomly use a value from the range.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find it a little dull that I know exactly how many pistol/shotgun/whatever shots are needed to fell each enemy type. Even if I haven't memorized all the actual shot numbers, I know the "feel" of how hard to hit each enemy. A touch of randomisation would help keep me on my toes.

I know it can be done by scripting, but that means setting things up specifically for each level using tids etc. I'd like to be able to apply a patch and have random HP monsters in all levels.

I think the randomization of the damage as it is done in Doom should be enough. Effectively it does exactly what you are describing. For example the damage of an Imp fireball can vary between 3 and 24. The same is true for every other projectile (the damage value only specifies a range of damage) and hitscan attacks.

[Kappes Buur]

its dmflag2 #128

"Monsters have 2x health" [128]

So, how exactly do you specify this when starting a game?
.

[Enjay]

to Graf Zahl

Yes, I guess that's true. I forgot damage values were randomised. I suppose randomising the damage inflicted to vary how many shots you need to take an enemy down does work (although I wouldn't say the effect was very obvious). Two ways of coming at the same problem I guess. Mind you, the range of damage is not user settable either.

Also, the damage range is the same for all enemies because it is weapon, not enemy specific. eg, with customisable enemy HP ranges, you could have an enemy with a range of 10 - 1000 randomized (ok, perhaps a bit extreme) in the same level as an enemy with a randomisation range of 500-500 (ie always 500). With enemy 1 you have a massive HP range and you really wouldn't know the sort of value you were up against until it was dead, with enemy 2, you'd have a good idea of how many shots you were going to need at the start of the fight, even with the variation in weapon damage.

Hmmmm - anyone know if when you change a missile's damage value with dehacked, what happens to the randomisation range for the missile?

[randi]

The damage done by a missile = Missile-Damage * (Random number between 1 and 8, inclusive)

[Graf Zahl]

Also, the damage range is the same for all enemies because it is weapon, not enemy specific. eg, with customisable enemy HP ranges, you could have an enemy with a range of 10 - 1000 randomized (ok, perhaps a bit extreme) in the same level as an enemy with a randomisation range of 500-500 (ie always 500). With enemy 1 you have a massive HP range and you really wouldn't know the sort of value you were up against until it was dead, with enemy 2, you'd have a good idea of how many shots you were going to need at the start of the fight, even with the variation in weapon damage.

Considering that such a feature is rarely needed (and if so probably only for a few monsters) I think the scripting method with APROP_Health is sufficient.

[Enjay]

The damage done by a missile = Missile-Damage * (Random number between 1 and 8, inclusive)

OK, thanks.

Considering that such a feature is rarely needed (and if so probably only for a few monsters) I think the scripting method with APROP_Health is sufficient.

Well, yes and no. If you wanted such an enemy to feature all the way through a 32 level megawad or something, then you'd need to script it for every level. Then if there were some of these enemies that needed to have specific tids to do stuff, then you'd have to make a special consideration for them too. That's quite a lot of dull grunt work scripting.

And I think it is something that I'd like to be able to "plug in" to any level to liven things up - even with the weapon damage variation, I think being able to specify wider damage values for certain enemies would be fun.

But seeing as how this is all just "pie in the sky" stuff anyway, I guess this is a WFDS™ moment. Of course, who knows if such a thing would be available in doomscript anyway.

[randomlag]

And I think it is something that I'd like to be able to "plug in" to any level to liven things up - even with the weapon damage variation, I think being able to specify wider damage values for certain enemies would be fun.

That's along the lines of the way I like to play levels - it's why I like a random REJECT too. Not all that hard to do either - making it even more interesting - after Randy gets FINAL on this release