[Development Halted] Rogue: The Doomlike

[Josh771]

I've uploaded a new version containing many tweaks and some new graphics (weapon drops, armor pickups, spinning daggers). You can read about the changes on the OP. It's not a big deal, but it's a lot of re-balancing that hopefully makes the experience more enjoyable.

[Arthropleura]

I'm all for incorporation elements from other rouge likes, especially net-hack as they expanded on a lot of the stuff that made rouge popular. Personally I would have much preferred a Net-hack TC, but that would have undermined the premise of the joke.
Unless we make this Rouge-like the Doom-like and just throw everything into the pot and stir.

[HexaDoken]

DUNGEON CRAWL THE ONLY REAL ROGUELI-

I mean, yeah, sure, why not.

Perhaps even make a magic system for kicks, though not sure if this would be straying too much away from Rogue(which I honestly never played)

[Josh771]

Even as a traditional roguelike enthusiast, I must say this: you aren't missing much if you haven't played Rogue. It felt to me a sort of obligatory play the first time I encountered it... to be honest, I don't remember my first roguelike. I stumbled upon them with not even a stranger to introduce them. Apart from witnessing the most basic elements of the traditional roguelike envisioned for the first time, Rogue hasn't got an incredible load of gameplay value -- I mean, compared to the plethora of modern roguelikes that have improved upon the schematic.

If you've played NetHack, you've played Rogue's direct descendant. It is pretty much a super beefed-up version of Rogue.

Still, I chose Rogue because of the nature of the joke, true, but also for its simplicity. I wanted something I felt would be a feasible project. Since I usually drop my hobbies a week in at most, this mod has been a phenomenally long-lived work for me. I must credit the enthusiasm of you friendly partakers for my continued efforts.

So, how about I start looking into scrolls? Or should I work first on getting a system for potion identification in place?

[Arthropleura]

Scrolls as magic items? Not sure how that differs from potions and wands, Unless you want to make them effect both the player(like potions) and monsters(like wands will) or just make their effects completely random. I guess what I'm saying is i don't know what you intend scrolls to do so i cant give an honest answer. And as to your comment about dropping your project I'm. pretty sure you could find someone else to continue working on it if you cared to

[Josh771]

Scrolls will have different functions, more external functions. Potions are always something applied to the one drinking them. Scrolls will be able to identify items (potions, scrolls, and wands), enchant weapons or armor (if I manage to find a good way to do that), produce light, map the level, confuse the next monster you strike, cause you to sleep (and regain health), teleport you randomly (how might I manage that one?), alert monsters able to hear you, create a monster, paralyze nearby monsters, genocide an entire race of monster for the rest of the game (how will I give the player a choice?), and scare monsters away from you.

It's a lot of new functionality. Identify scrolls will be rather helpful in identifying potions safely.

And I don't intend to drop this project; what I was meaning to say was that I probably would have dropped this if it hadn't had such a warm reception.

Wands will have lightning, fire, and cold spells, in addition to magic missile, drain life, and slow monster. Some wands will have negative effects, as potions. Negative wands will haste monsters, make monsters invisible, or polymorph monsters (could turn out good for you after all). Wands and staves (staves are simply wands with more melee oomph) will be the primary means of ranged magical combat. Unless I add spells.

If you're curious where I'm getting my information on Rogue and a basic blueprint for my mod, it's this page. It documents all the weapon stats, magic effects, and gameplay mechanics of Rogue.

[Arthropleura]

enchant weapons or armor (if I manage to find a good way to do that)

Pretty sure this can be done by simply removing the reagents (weapon/armour+scroll) and giving the player the improved version

genocide an entire race of monster for the rest of the game (how will I give the player a choice?

Real Guns Hardcore grants the player invulnerability and brings up a menu all without truly stopping the game. You could probably poke in the code to see how it's done, it proves it's possible at least.

I would love to see traps, they could probably be implemented a immobile mobs without walking sprites, this would keep them hidden, and you could use the death sprite to represent a triggered trap. This also allows for the possibility of a "trap-master" enemy by using the archives resurrect skill, although that would require setting all the other monsters sprites to a non infinite duration in their death states. Not sure if this would prevent the periodic resurrection of the regular monsters or not. Just an idea.
The site says that Fungi never stir, maybe make them immobile ore incredibly slow, make them dangerous because they're so easy to disregard.
I would prefer for some sort of permanent identification to be implemented before we add YET MORE thing that need to be identified. You could probably use the same code for the scrolls anyway, might as well get it out of the way now.

[Josh771]

I feel pretty dull after reading your comment on enchanted weapons and armor. That is the plain answer, and I don't know why I didn't think of it at the time. I think armor enchant will probably consist of just giving +100 to the remaining strength of the armor, or possibly even adding +1 to its class (so leather becomes studded, or banded mail becomes plate mail).

In my current version, fungi are immobile. I suppose I have yet to release that. I want to write a script to emulate the actual attack means of the fungi, but I've not gotten around to it. They'll probably just use the "Transfix" power that floating eyes have and give the player a toxin buildup that increases in damage the longer he lingers nearby.

If I invent a new damagetype to which the player is immune and give this damagetype to the rust monster, do you suppose it would damage the player's armor without damaging the player then?

Actually, I should probably upload a new release. I've been working on a new skill level, "Classic Rogue." I think "Random Rogue" may still be more balanced and fun, but I've attempted to reproduce the monster spawning limitations of Rogue in "Classic" mode. Basically, you'll only encounter kobolds and snakes and such at early levels, but very far levels unleash a hell of vampires, dragons, xorns, and purple worms.

[HexaDoken]

enchant weapons or armor (if I manage to find a good way to do that)

Pretty sure this can be done by simply removing the reagents (weapon/armour+scroll) and giving the player the improved version

I'd instead craft up a system where the damage you do/absorb changes dynamically depending on how much of a certain inventory items/user variable you have. Would be much less of a coding nightmare in the long run.

genocide an entire race of monster for the rest of the game (how will I give the player a choice?

A lot of ACS. HudMessage and GetPlayerInput. Note that you are unable to detect input of letter keys directly, so you will have to print all 26 or something letters on the screen and have player scroll through them using movement buttons or something and confirm selection using fire or use or something.

teleport you randomly (how might I manage that one?)

Perhaps spawn an invisible actor that calls a hell lot of A_Wander in a zero tic space and then have the player teleport to that actor. On one hand, will not result in things like teleporting outside of the map geometry, on the other hand, has very low probability of landing the player on the other end of the map(unless it's like, extremely open) and still has a chance to drop him in some unplayable zone(outside of the window of eviltech map01, say).

If I invent a new damagetype to which the player is immune and give this damagetype to the rust monster, do you suppose it would damage the player's armor without damaging the player then?

Yeah, should work.

[Arthropleura]

If I invent a new damagetype to which the player is immune and give this damagetype to the rust monster, do you suppose it would damage the player's armor without damaging the player then?

I'm not sure, The doom-wiki says that armor health is reduced when the player is damaged. Give it a try and see what happens. IF that doesn't work maybe 1d0 or 0d1 of regular damage will do the trick? I don't know much about the under workings of the engine besides what i can extrapolate from it's observable behavior during normal play. Yeah, hex is the guy you want for anything more than the most obvious things codewise.

[HexaDoken]

What I know for sure is that Doom armor proudly ignores damagetypes that it itself grants to the player. Thus you can have an armor that makes the player immune to a certain damage type, but the armor will still chip away from that damagetype.

I'm not so sure however about damage types given by different sources, such as powerups and the player directly.

[Josh771]

I'd ... craft up a system where the damage you do/absorb changes dynamically depending on how much of a certain inventory items/user variable you have. Would be much less of a coding nightmare in the long run.

But is the system you're advocating here going to produce the same problem DoomRL arsenal has with modpacks on guns? I guess it's not that big a deal, really, but I don't like the thought of my enchanted long sword enchanting all long swords (or, for that matter, becoming unenchanted when I throw it).

I may have misunderstood, but simply producing weapons "EnchantedMace" et cetera will be an easy approach that immediately allows such things as exchanging enchanted weapons with others or keeping track of a thrown weapon as having been enchanted (which, I suppose, could be done even using your method, if I use a separate projectile when the player's weapon is enchanted -- plus then I could make a custom weapon drop for it that restores that enchantment to whomever picks up the weapon).

I'm not afraid of making menus, although I'm uncertain about freezing the game while navigating. I see an example involving Thing_Stop, PROP_TOTALLYFROZEN, and PowerTimeFreezer that looks feasible I suppose.

I saw an example on the wiki of using A_Wander to make Cacodemons "blink." That would probably suffice for implementing the scroll (or I could do some weird random coordinate mess and try to place an invisible "beacon" that indicates to the script that the player can fit there... I think that's possible, isn't it? Make an actor the size of the player and try to spawn it?)

I'm glad my theory on rust monsters is acceptable; I'll probably just go ahead and implement that. Or, seeing your new post, I'll at least test my theory. If it doesn't work, I could settle for now with a monster that only hurts the player when he is unarmored.

Edit: My theory failed. I guess I'll have to find another way. I can probably use scripting to make the rust monster harmless against unarmored opponents. No biggie.

[HexaDoken]

But is the system you're advocating here going to produce the same problem DoomRL arsenal has with modpacks on guns? I guess it's not that big a deal, really, but I don't like the thought of my enchanted long sword enchanting all long swords (or, for that matter, becoming unenchanted when I throw it).

Normally, yes. I actually have a solution for this, but it's a bit hacky(for example, the weapons stop being actual weapons and become pseudo-monsters). I could drop it to you the moment I get to my main machine.

I'm not afraid of making menus, although I'm uncertain about freezing the game while navigating. I see an example involving Thing_Stop, PROP_TOTALLYFROZEN, and PowerTimeFreezer that looks feasible I suppose.

Or do not freeze the time at all and let the enemies happily hack away at you while you're trying to choose a letter.
Because, you know, genocide scrolls can't be that cheap

I saw an example on the wiki of using A_Wander to make Cacodemons "blink." That would probably suffice for implementing the scroll (or I could do some weird random coordinate mess and try to place an invisible "beacon" that indicates to the script that the player can fit there... I think that's possible, isn't it? Make an actor the size of the player and try to spawn it?)

Yes, possible, and while it increases the chances of getting thrown across the entire map(preferably skipping all nasties and landing right next to the exit), it will also increase chances of landing you somewhere you really, really, REALLY should never be. An example would be outside of the window in D1E1M1 - which is a non-issue for the A_Wander approach due to the window being marked as impassible(or at least I think it was impassible).

[Josh771]

Or do not freeze the time at all and let the enemies happily hack away at you while you're trying to choose a letter.
Because, you know, genocide scrolls can't be that cheap

I suppose there's no need to freeze time with it, then. There's only one genocide scroll in the entire dungeon, anyway.

Yes, possible, and while it increases the chances of getting thrown across the entire map(preferably skipping all nasties and landing right next to the exit), it will also increase chances of landing you somewhere you really, really, REALLY should never be. An example would be outside of the window in D1E1M1 - which is a non-issue for the A_Wander approach due to the window being marked as impassible(or at least I think it was impassible).

I guess I'll just use a ton of A_Wander in 0 tics. In the future, if I design a custom dungeon mapset (or get a dungeon generator) I'll possibly implement it the other way, assuming there are no decorative spaces where the player does not belong (in which knowledge I can design the maps in the first place).

I'm actually thinking about implementing experience next. A level one Rogue only has 12 hitpoints. That should be interesting.

[HexaDoken]

With a custom dungeon mapset you'll be actually able to invent a teleport mechanic that will be able to flat out ignore certain areas, giving you a teleport-friendly map while retaining the freedom of detailing.

A level one Rogue is instakilled by 5 imp fireballs out of 8. Heh.