Ok, I just went over VicRattlehead's big post, here's my input.
HUD/Interface
-There should be a preview of what a skill would do, how much EP it would cost and how many tokens it costs when highlighting it to buy or upgrade it. Currently, it only previews what the skill does and it only previews that when you're buying the first level of it. It doesn't preview anything at all when you're highlighting to upgrade it. Of course you have to make the distinction between what the attributes are of the current level of the skill and what it would be when you upgrade it clear. - Fixed, sort of. You can now see the token cost to buy/upgrade a skill (it's really just equal to the level you're bringing it to) and the EP Cost (base EP cost multiplied by current level) but the description stuff I'm still thinking about, I
WANT to have both descriptions there, but there really isn't enough room to do that, especially with ridiculously big ones like the God Aura
-It would be a major convenience if you can only scroll through the skills that you have. - If I do this, you can't select skills you don't have so that they can be bought/learned
-I'd like an option in the Doom RPG options menu where we can choose to have the skills not be separated into categories to allow for faster scrolling (only if the above suggestion is fulfilled otherwise it'd just be a mess) - Probably won't do this, the skill system is coded internally as catagories and separating them would be a major pain in the ass.
-In the stats screen, the text color of the Capacity stat doesn't match with the description of its corresponding effect. - Wow, how did I miss that >_>, fixed
-There's a black bar on the top left of the HUD. - This is caused by my little health bar for some reason, still looking into this, removing it seems to fix it though, maybe it's a glitch with the graphic? Anybody want to make one that actually looks good? Feel free
-Rune icons should be placed lower. They are obscured by the skill labels (i.e. name, description and EP cost). - Still deciding where best to rearrange these, I agree with you but it's hard making them fit on both the scaled and unscaled HUD (I play with the HUD scaled due to my vision problems, but I know most don't)
-The description of the currently selected skill flashes when you buy or upgrade a skill. I don't see a use for this. There's already a description of the skill in the menu when you're highlighting to buy it. It's only confusing when your currently selected skill is different from the one you're buying/upgrading. - Good point, I know I had a reason for adding this but I honestly forgot it now, so I reverted the change
-Make the error noise play when a player attempts to sell weapons or ammo to make it clear that he isn't allowed to. - Whoops, could've sworn I did that already
-Options to disable auto use of armor or health items would be nice. - I'd like this too, but unfortunately it's Impossible due to how Doom's item system works, at least AFAIK anyway, I could be wrong
Gameplay
-I'd like to see fire rate increase incorporated in the stats somehow. - Already talked with a few people about this, it would be a rediculous effort to code, it would have to be done in each invidividual weapon's DECORATE, therefore breaking compatibility with weapon mods even more
-EP is hard to come by. I think their drops should be more common. If their drop rate scales to difficulty, then I think it shoudn't. - Incorporated the idea of Health/Armor bonuses randomly turning into EP capsules, increased their drop rate from monsters a bit too, tell me how it feels after these changes
-I think randomized stimpak/medikit pickups should only replace stimpak/medikit pickups, not health bonus pickups. I think the current system is a little too generous with health items. I think it would be better if EP drops randomly replaced health bonus pickups instead to alleviate the previously mentioned issue about EP availability - Agreed
-Similar thing with randomized armor pickups, I think they should only replace other armor pickups rather than armor bonuses as well. Making health and armor too abundant makes the buy menu underutilized. - Agreed, again
-I suggest splitting up HP and EP regeneration into separate stats but make them much more impactful with each point increase. - I'm working on a comprimise to this: Regeneration will still effect HP/EP regen, but then Vitality/Energy will boost respective HP/EP regeneration respectively as well
-Why not allow the player to activate a powerup when another one is active to extend the duration of the powerup, just like how you can pick up several runes and let them add to the timer of the already active runes? - I didn't originally didn't do this due to fear of balance issues by spamming Powerups to get through a tough spot, but I guess in the end they can be spammed when they run out anyway so, added
-Would be nice if the chaingunguy or the other former human enemies sometimes dropped grenades. And if you could sell them. - Not until the Grenades are done, then they will be added to drops
Projectiles
-Electro and Plasma balls don't work. - Yeah that was an idiot mistake on my end, I misspelled the actor names in the code, fixed that up >_>
-I don't fully know how the balance of the projectiles are but there seems to be no reason to take some projectile attacks over others (e.g. fireball (10 EP, weak) over ice missile (10 EP, much stronger)) - Yeah, These are really just placeholder projectiles that are just the monsters projectiles
-Would be nice if there were more distincitve characteristics between each projectile type. For example, maybe make the ice missile do less damage but it slows enemies down. Other examples of aspects to look into would be splash damage, chain effect and projectile speed. Making their higher level attacks distinct from each other would be great too. - I definitely want to add things like this, it's on the list
-The description of each projectile when at level 2 or higher is "Healing". - That's because they have no level descriptions past level 1, the Projectile and Summoning skills are still pretty rudimentary
-I think projectiles are currently impractical, their EP cost should probably be reduced. - oh for sure, I was just playing with their costs and left off at what they are now really
Aura
-You can buy a basic level of an aura, activate it, then upgrade it with the aura still active and get the effects of the upgraded aura. - This is a glitch in how the system is designed, I'm still trying to come up with a way around this without rewriting the entire thing -_-. I may just make it so when you buy/upgrade an Aura skill, your current Aura is nuked if it is the current one that you upgraded, sound plausible?
-There seems to be no reason to use purple aura over pink aura. - At make level, the Pink Aura will give you both pretty fast health regen plus drain enemies HP when you attack, a good way to get back HP fast if you're really low (especially if you invest in Vitality to increase max HP)
-The aura effects don't stack with the powerup/rune effects, yes? If so, I think the aura effects should be reworked to act exactly like powerups/runes instead -- adding powerup/rune time instead of having its own timer. That way, activating an aura while a powerup/rune is active or picking up a rune after activating an aura wouldn't be a waste. With that, there would also be no reason to keep a separate aura timer so you can get rid of it to make the HUD less convoluted. However, you will need to come up with icons for the auras which don't have a powerup/rune equivalent, like 4x damage protection and the money gain aura. - I knew someone was going to bring this up eventually, the Auras effects are COMPLETELY unrelated to the runes abilities, it just LOOKS like they are because of the way the Powerup timers are coded in the HUD, still trying to get around this but SBARINFO makes it pretty damn difficult >_>... Although I MAY have just come up with an idea, I'll have to try implementing it in my private build as it'll require quite a bit of tweaking in the SBARINFO
-You might want to look into how the 4x damage and protection auras interact with 2x damage and protection runes, they may stack. - They very well might, I will investigate this, although if this does happen, that may not be that bad of a behavior to keep, kinda like a good stroke of luck if you DO get a rune while the corresponding Aura is active
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commander wrote:Do you think the new stat system is a bit odd? The Proficiency stat seems to be overpowered (5% per point). And I still don't know how Luck stat helps!
The Proficiency stat isn't as overpowered as you think, here's the formula for generating XP:
Code: Select all
TotalGained + FixedMul(Random(0, Combo + Combo * Level), (1.0 + FixedDiv(Proficiency, 20)))
This basically means that improving Proficiency early will have little effect, however, as your level becomes higher, the Proficiency will begin to kick in and you will begin to level faster as your level increases. I may change this behavior in the future but for now I think this works out fine, as it prevents someone from trying to powerlevel early on by dumping all your points into proficiency.
terranova wrote:Eneergy recharges REALLY SLOWLY, even with ten points in regen, it takes half a minute to get me a point. Or something.
I can't seem to use big tokens.
The marine summon spell doesn't seem to do anything but a green flash thingy.
The slow EP recharge is intentional, as I said above in my long rant, I've made EP pickups much more abundant to counteract this.
The big versions of Tokens give you a random amount of the respective token, usually between 3-5 depending on what type you pick up.
yoshi314 wrote:there could be an option so that your stats influence the money you get from buying/selling stuff. or shop could have a "partnership" level - the more stuff you trade, the more discount you get and the more things become available to buy.
you could start from getting only 10% cash back from each item (or maybe make it depend on difficulty level) and offering only ammo for weapons you already have, and the list would slowly expand everytime you would spend/obtain certain amount of credits at the shop. e.g. every 2K credits would increase the discount by 1%, up to e.g. 40%.
a concept common in some JRPG games. could make game a little bit more balanced. currently you can get e.g. a rocket launcher very early if you amass a lot of equipment and sell it.
per-weapon proficiency system instead of level up stat would be neat. the more you use a weapon (e.g. by counting kills done with a specific weapon, if possible), the better you get with it (damage, accuracy, reload speed (if applicable)).
btw, why is it that i am randomly given money in game when standing around doing nothing? e.g. when looking through level up menu or a shop i sometimes get a message that i have been given 400 credits. is that a bug?
your "Partnership" idea is basically implemented in the form of Rank, as your rank increases from killing enemies you will gain a higher discount at the store to purchase items. This also incorporates what you were asking, why you randomly get money? This is a payout that happens every 5 minutes, depending on your rank, you will be paid 100 credits multiplied by your current rank level. 5 minutes may be too short I time though, I may bump it up to 10, or even make it difficulty dependent. Also, the prices are by
NO MEANS final, trust me, I know they need to be changed, but I'm still not sure where exactly I want them yet.
I pondered the idea of a weapon proficiency system, but wrote it off early in development because it would be the same issue as requested by others to increase the firing speed of the weapon depending on stats, this would retire a metric fuckton of code and weapon copies and would break mods with custom weapons, as they'd have no logic to handle the added mechanics.
vigilante wrote:To the mod author: Note that the reduced player damage at level zero (75% ?) makes the player consume 33% more ammo. On Plutonia, the ammo from maps isn't enough (I didn't invest in strength in the first few levels), buying some becomes mandatory.
Thanks for that, I haven't ever tested my mod on Plutonia, although since Plutonia is supposed to be quite hard to begin with (Right? >_>) I think this is acceptable. I originally lowered the initial player damage to 75% to make the Strength stat more meaningful, I really don't want to change it back as this will make it pretty overpowered again.
And some other misc things I should mention before I forget:
Luck at the moment only effects your Survival Bonus, this bonus is applied whenever you take damage which would lower your HP below 0 (Kill you, ultimately). if your survival bonus check is successful, you will survive the hit with 1 HP left to spare. Maxing out Luck right now will max out SB at 20%, but I plan to make your current armor also add to the SB, and some future accessories may also further increase it. I'll hopefully expand this later to give you other helpful bonuses as well. I have also nuked the Projectile and Summoning Skills in the public build until I work them out a little better.
Finally, for anybody who's interested in the code, I've written a quick write-up of what all the functions are for if you'd like to tweak or experiment with anything. It's included in the README in the root of the pk3 along with some other misc notes.
Ok, after that
MASSIVE tl;dr I HOPE that's everything I wanted to cover.
I especially became ecstatic when I was going through this thread and found out that weapon mods can work with this, but can someone tell me which mods work? I have noticed that weapon mods with reloadable weapons (which is pretty much a lot of mods out there) won't show ammo capacity properly. The counter for the ammo in the clip is fine, but the total ammo in the player's inventory always shows the value of the clip capacity. If for example you start the game with 60 bullets used for a particular pistol, and the pistol has 20 bullets per clip, the counter for the player's ammo inventory will always show 20, even if you fire off all 60 bullets and run out. This is mostly because of the HUD I would imagine. You have to load the RPG mod last otherwise the weapon mod replaces the HUD, you won't see the RPG specific HUD elements, or get enemies that drop credits, give XP, etc if it replaces monsters, so loading the RPG mod last is a must.
