ZDoom project ideas you have

I have greatly enjoyed mixing and matching various mods to make strange combinations, and with some success, even mixing up monster packs so they have sprinkled spawn chances functionally, but it does not seem to work with all monster packs, and this is what leads to this question: Is there a way to make a universal baddie-blender patch/mod that can effectively string together various monster replacer mods that are all loaded together so the engine chooses randomly from all the packs to spawn in the game?

I know this is more insane then would be likely, especially with monster replacer mods that have options for choosing monsters within their own packs that might interfere with scripting, like Bratwurst, so this is more meant for the standalone monster replacer packs that have no extra spawn options, like Xenomorph Madness, because seeing Xenomorphs, Tomba and Catacomb 3d monsters spawn all together would be magnificent!

Or some other crazy combo >.>.

I'm a guy who tends to have PLENTY of ideas to things, but never is able to make them a reality on my own.
Among some ideas for Doom, I have two in particular that have stuck with me for some time.

1. A Geiger counter mod for hazardous surfaces. As you probably know, different maps have different rules for damaging surfaces. Heck, I'm pretty sure one of the maps in Plutonia has damaging water. So I thought an audio cue of some sort could help the player differentiate between safe and harmful surfaces. One of the biggest offenders I've found is blood. So much so that I have an unfortunate habit of bunny hopping on such areas. Of course, there should be an option for the frequency of ticks in case it were to get too annoying.

2. A flag to spawn co-op monsters only. Basically, JUST co op monsters rather than monsters and pickups. For masochists or use with Pillowblaster mods I reckon.

Honestly that's all I can think of right now, but I get the feeling I might be frequenting this thread. Looking forward to your responses!

Hey all. Long tie player first time editor.
I am very busily trying to fine tune the difficulty to be a more advanced UV, or Not-Quitemare as I like to call it. Tough but fair is what I'm going for. Though I've headed in a good direction tweaking frame tics and such in WhackEd (2/3 monster health globally, double damage for same, faster fireballs, etc. I know it's primitive, I'm JUST starting out). The main problem is even if they are much faster they spend way too much time sort of randomly serpentining and not bee lining the player or aggressively firing at them. Id like there to be some better pathfinding for closing in on the player, especially for melee types, instead the rather aimless zigzagging, especially when sector heights differentials are involved. UV -fast has the aggression I'm looking for but too much of it. It results in a long term cover fire milsim scenario that is rather dull even though it's more dangerous IMO. Some of that derping about needs to stay, it's necessary for flow/balance. Ive tried great mods like Enhanced Nightmare(goes a little too hard,IMO) and Brutal Doom (incompatible with practically, everything monsters only version included) but they aren't quite what Im shooting for. Ive begun looking under the hood with AI enhancing mods, and it's rather in the deep end if I'm not mistaken. Seemed like pretty sophisticated stuff.
The ideal would be something like UV -fast in a way that doesn't disrupt the enemy tier curve (promoting Pain Elementals to demigod death spammers as opposed to ticking clock pressure enhancers like in lesser difficulties, or the maybe-too-effective pinkies just to name a couple), makes the experience less grindy with less spongey but more deadly enemies (made some strides there) and general lightweightness as to be widely compatible. I have begun learning babies' first ACS scripts in doombuilder 2 to build myself up to a more advanced level, but in the meantime any pointers on what stuff is good to know for the enemy/player attributes side, or mods I may have overlooked that achieve this end, I would be very appreciative.
Thanks for all the hard work you all have done to keep this game alive. I hope to someday contribute to the cool stuff that gets done here.

Just posting this here because I don't want to pollute the forums with a single silly question:

Is it possible to have 3D characters (i.e. player models, enemy models) look up and down in GZDoom, ala Quake 3 Arena?
I can think of some hacky ways to *kinda* script it, but I'm wondering if I'm overlooking anything.

An option/tool to find out which entries are created with what mods/wads in the (g)zdoom.ini file

I just found out a bloated .ini file causes additional lag and longer load time (especially noticeable on slower pcs/ resource-heavy mods) and took time to clean up unneeded stuff (entries by mods I rarely use etc) but sometimes it's hard to judge just by looking at the filenames

I mean like you could easily guess

bdoom_ ... Beautiful Doom
DRLA_ ... Doom RLA

but when it comes like

sv_ ... ?
hx_ ... ?
pi ... ?

Especially when it's not related to a wad/mod you occasionally use and remember

While I understand it's not practical (not possible maybe) for gzdoom to do such task , maybe including the headers of the .ini entries in the mod documents could be useful in some cases , what do you think ?

Best regards

Been somewhat obsessed this past month with The Caretaker's music, especially 'Everywhere at the End of Time' and a bunch of fan made derivatives.
It got me wondering.. What would it look like to bring the concept of Dementia to Doom somehow (certainly not in a joking manner).

Would it be in the form of a mapset of some sort, where the levels are familiar, but at the same time, eerily unfamiliar at the same time?
Perhaps a gameplay mod where the inner workings of Doomguy's mind slowly begin to deteriorate?

Will we be Knee Deep at the End of Time?
Everywhere at the End of Hell?
Who knows? Who can remember? Who are you people?

We all know the Scythe megawad series.

Now I want one titled Seed Drill.

An option/tool to find out which entries are created with what mods/wads in the (g)zdoom.ini file

This would be awesome although I'd have no idea how it could be done

I can imagine a debug mode that dumps every single time a cvar is read or written that is not one of the core cvars, so you can run a session of whatever mod you want to check and have it dump at least a partial output...

Last edited by Matt on Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Been somewhat obsessed this past month with The Caretaker's music, especially 'Everywhere at the End of Time' and a bunch of fan made derivatives.
It got me wondering.. What would it look like to bring the concept of Dementia to Doom somehow (certainly not in a joking manner).

Would it be in the form of a mapset of some sort, where the levels are familiar, but at the same time, eerily unfamiliar at the same time?
Perhaps a gameplay mod where the inner workings of Doomguy's mind slowly begin to deteriorate?

Will we be Knee Deep at the End of Time?
Everywhere at the End of Hell?
Who knows? Who can remember? Who are you people?

I actually just got off of a Caretaker kick (I had to take a break after Stage 2 because Everywhere at the End of Time was breaking my brain too hard - it got stuck in my head). I feel like both of those concepts could work - starting with a mostly-correct version of Knee Deep that gets progressively more corrupt, with more well-known paths and secrets being shifted to unfamiliar locations or being removed entirely (might even have Phobos Anomaly be entirely empty and noticeably different from the get-go) and textures that become increasingly unrecognizable. As far as gameplay aspect is concerned, that is also achievable - having weapons change in appearance and function more and more as the player progresses, sometimes ceasing to function at all from time to time. His mugshot can become increasingly hazy and featureless, a flesh-colored smear in the center of the status bar, topped with the bare outline of what was once clearly defined as hair.

We could also have the monsters change as well, eventually becoming blurry and far removed from their normal counterparts, disappearing and reappearing in strange locations at random or unpredictable times. By the end of it all, the levels could be nothing like anything seen in Ultimate Doom, the weapons, items, and monsters becoming a discordant assault on Doomguy's failing mind as health pickups become less effective, the player's movement becomes sluggish, and doors and lifts cease to function before giving way to a final, blankly bleak level. Maybe at the end, he'll enjoy one last moment of clarity at full-speed, with one last shot at killing the demons he's lost all recollection of before fading into total, eternal peace.

I don't suppose you're up for a collaboration?

So, I've got two ideas in mind, and neither of them do I have any idea of how to make them work. Scripting, spriting, putting together the various objects and items that'd all play a role, and the latter would even be a full TC with its own maps, which, like the rest, I wouldn't be able to do mapping to save my life.

Figure I'll put these two ideas in separate spoiler tags, just to keep things reasonably tidy...

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Yeah, a Mass Effect-themed mod for DooM. I'm thinking it would be better to adapt the overheat mechanics from ME1 rather than using the "thermal clips" system seen in the latter two. However, the big issue would be incorporating some form of progression mechanics, which I think could be handled in a manner similar to Pillowblaster's Trailblazer; specifically, use "Omni-Gel" as a resource to enable the player to upgrade their abilities.

The way I see it, you could condense down Mass Effect's three main ability types(Combat{weapons performance, physical attributes}, Tech{technology-based abilities fired from your Omni-Tool} and Biotics{gravity manipulation powers from having "Element Zero" in your body with special implants to enable the use of the abilities}) into three broad "Talents" that the player could upgrade with Omni-Gel to unlock new powers and boost up existing powers, as well as things like increasing max health, giving and enhancing natural health regeneration, improving max shield strength and shield regen, enabling faster cooldowns for certain types of powers, unlocking new melee attack abilities, etc. etc.

That said, I'd still like to see a version of ME2's weapon upgrade system, possibly even alongside ME3's weapon attachments system, and have both the ME2-style weapon upgrades and the ME3-style attachments have the ability to be upgraded by spending Omni-Gel. This would actually require players to ration out their use of Omni-Gel, and decide whether they want more abilities, or more effective guns. You'd also have the option to spend Omni-Gel to create special "Power Cells" that would be used as ammo for the mod's BFG replacements, instead of said Heavy Weapons using the ME1 overheat system.

And if anyone feels like they could handle making enemy sets for this, knock yourself out. Good luck, though, considering how many different factions of enemies there have been in Mass Effect.

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Now, this second one is because I've been spending too much time reading up about the Hearts of Iron IV mod known as The New Order: Last Days of Europe. I'd never be able to play it myself, but I've become fascinated with this mod, and one particular potential storyline contained within it. See, after the Nazis won World War II in LDoE's timeline(yes, I'm going to refer to it as LDoE because of several other things - including a Wolfenstein-themed mod for HoI4 based on Wolfenstein: The New Order - that are called "The New Order" and often abbreviated "TNO"), the Soviet Union broke up into a vast array of warlord states all vying for control of Russia.

There are many who can potentially reunify the Motherland, and almost all of them were there in LDoE's 1962. Whether they be collaborators who helped the Germans, remnants of the Soviet Union claiming to be its successors, fragile democracies, repressive despots, whatever, they almost all are already in Russia when the game starts.

Except for one.

American mercenary, son of a Czarist cavalry officer, veteran of the Office for Strategic Services, Mitchell Livingston WerBell III. He can be hired by the pragmatist but still repressive fascists of Mikhail Matkovsky's "Free" State of Magadan to help him establish a military. However, when Anastasy Vonsiatsky dies in February of 1965, WerBell is left without pay for his work, and he can stage a coup to overthrow Matkovsky and take over for himself.

What ensues is one giant love letter to Metal Gear Solid in one of Russia's most entertaining paths to reunification, all punctuated by Warren Zevon's "Jungle Work" should WerBell make it all the way.

Basically, this DooM TC should start you off in 1963 in Magadan, repelling a border raid by Konstantin Rodzaevsky's Amur. Then, second map is set in March of '65, after Vonsiatsky dies, as WerBell stages his coup against Matkovsky. From there, just try to integrate as many of the potential unifiers as possible, making separate maps for each, and include a system to represent WerBell's men going global as a private military company, sending guns for hire to various hotspots around the world, hopefully with additional maps for said zones.

The weapons would be a broad and eclectic bunch of real life guns, with a mix of WWII-era American and Soviet guns, steadily transitioning into more and more Cold War-era guns as the campaign progresses. Eventually, you'd have to fight against Marshal Georgy Zhukov to bring all of Russia under WerBell's banner and declare the "United States of Russia". But even that may not be the end...

Include an additional series of maps accessed from a map posted on a wall in the back of the tent where you capture Zhukov. Seems that the founder of Omsk's All Russian Black League, Dmitry Karbyshev, was right. The Germans are invading again, and it's up to WerBell - and you - to secure Russia's future and hopefully liberate Europe in the process.

*phew* Yeah, that second one is.... Well, yeah, that might as well be Everest standing before you. Even the first of these two ideas looks like a crazy monster of an idea.

I've been working on and off on a remaster of Laz Rojas' Astrostein trilogy (the Doom version). The trouble is I haven't had the patience to do it all in one go. It's like I need someone to tell me to get off my butt and DO something.

Idea I had today (and that I am *this* close to actually starting) is for a combination hexen-heretic enhancer mod, readjusting heretic to have more hexen DNA in it with the hexen player classes, a more limited weapon selection, and if I get ambitious enough, textures remade from hexen textures to make heretic look less cartoony. The main goal here would be to allow for a more hexen-like gameplay experience but in levels that aren't as confusing to navigate as hexen's. With proper use of filter directories it could be made to work for either game as well which would let it provide the best hexen experience possible, even if it isn't actually in hexen.
Ideally I'd do the same thing I've done with 64k+ where I've added additional content that doesn't replace anything so that custom levels can be made with this mod in mind and that content should ideally make the game feel more like a build engine game. IMO hexen feels a bit like a proto-build experience. there's fancy scripting set pieces and more interaction than doom, but not as much as duke and a hypothetical hexen mod really should try inject as much build DNA as possible.

There is some kind of a slightly "mentally-unstable" idea. This is like... Grezzo 2, but less offensive. Well, you know, it's like The Punisher, Postal and... unexpectly, Cry of Fear had an adopted son. There is some kind of twisted version of "somehow real" world full of different kinds of "baddies". Mobs, corrupted army and g-men, naz1s, etc... And there is The One. Big and P1ssed off anti-hero (Scum Slayer). Grindhouse-like stuff, righteous violence, lots of blood and offensive words from our enemies. But our protagonist is not just a psycho, when there is hostage or victim - he is donna to the rescue. All I need - is a "baddies" sprite sets - from street mobs and drunken psychos like in "Condemned" to the just "faceless" variations of soldiers, mercs, cyborgs etc... Especially welcome stalker bandits sprites and other kinds of "gopniks". This kind of sprites is a real treasure.

Horror-like beings are also welcome.

world full of different kinds of "baddies"..... a "baddies" sprite sets - from street mobs and drunken psychos...Especially welcome stalker bandits

goons.PNG

stay tunned ...

I may be working on something

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Last edited by DeeDeeOZ on Wed Sep 08, 2021 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Universal Corpse Cleaner".

Okay, first off, I have very little code experience for modding Doom, so I readily concede that I don't know how insane this idea is, but at LEAST I hope it would bring inspiration to discussion, or even inspire mod makers to consider this for their own individual mods:

The idea is simply for a mod that when mixed with other mods, auto-cleans monster corpses from the field, assuming the mods it mixes with do not already have such gib/corpse cleaning mechanisms.

While I do enjoy the nice gory view of so many fallen foes in my games, sometimes it is incredibly annoying to have corpses block my view from an enemy that is shooting me, very bad especially for mods that make you more vulnerable such as Hideous Destructor, or Special Weapons.

I think a second option would be awesome, though this is even more nuts, where an option toggled will let the player shoot up corpses to clean them up.
However, I know it would be impossible to make a mod that lets you do this in a way like say Brutal Doom or other mods by shooting corpses into pieces, a bit too much work, my thought was that instead, shooting a corpse would bring out a generalized blood spurt or two while the corpse disappears, giving the player the fun of cleaning those up by their own hand, but still functioning well enough with just about every mod .

[quote="Nomakh" world full of different kinds of "baddies"..... a "baddies" sprite sets - from street mobs and drunken psychos...Especially welcome stalker bandits

goons.PNG

stay tunned ...

I may be working on something[/quote]

Wow, nice sprites! What are they for if this isn't secret?