Bullet-Eye - v0.12.6b - 7/10/24 - Non-Hefty Update

[Some_Kinda_Lucky]

After going through a few playthrough I think I finally have some feedback to give
- As happy as I still am that Essence Stealer was nerfed I think it does need a small buff, I know you mentioned something about making it to where the kill requirement would change depending on max health which sounds like it could work, I just worry that at lower max health Essence Stealer would be too strong for early game. I think either lowering the kill requirement to 3 or upping the amount of health you get to 2 could also work.
- Now that you have the Energy Screen shard system in place I think having an equipment bonus that is basically Essence Stealer but for screen shards could be very useful but not too overpowered.
- I'm certain this is a bug but it seems like melee weapons no longer deal guaranteed hurtstun, I've basically stopped using them altogether for the time being because they're just way too risky.
- I think the Bullet-Eye energy regeneration rate should be lowered a bit, it's too easy and readily available to just whip out at the first sign of trouble, and it's too powerful of an attack to be available that frequently I feel.
After playing around with it I think the Force Wave might need a slight damage buff, it also tends to fling enemies towards you rather than away which makes it kinda risky to use.

That's all I really got right now, besides these little bullet points I'm still loving the new update, can't wait to see what's next!

[Mor'Ladim]

After going through a few playthrough I think I finally have some feedback to give
...
That's all I really got right now, besides these little bullet points I'm still loving the new update, can't wait to see what's next!

The feedback is greatly appreciated, as always!

- As happy as I still am that Essence Stealer was nerfed I think it does need a small buff, I know you mentioned something about making it to where the kill requirement would change depending on max health which sounds like it could work, I just worry that at lower max health Essence Stealer would be too strong for early game. I think either lowering the kill requirement to 3 or upping the amount of health you get to 2 could also work.

At the moment, I can try changing the requirement to 3 kills. I was thinking of reverting the healing value to 2 as it was a while back, but since the bonus can stack, and now that you can have multiple instances of one bonus on a single piece of gear...It might be a little overkill. But I would need to test things out of course, as I plan to do some things for enemies to make them more challenging as maps progress, but as a toggle of course.

- Now that you have the Energy Screen shard system in place I think having an equipment bonus that is basically Essence Stealer but for screen shards could be very useful but not too overpowered.

That can be done! I've already implemented it on my end but didn't get to test it yet, since I was busy working on a weapon all day.

- I'm certain this is a bug but it seems like melee weapons no longer deal guaranteed hurtstun, I've basically stopped using them altogether for the time being because they're just way too risky.

This one I am not sure on, as it seemed to work fine on my end and each melee weapon has FORCEPAIN on it which overrides the threshold. There does appear to be an issue with said "PainThreshold" actor property however, as a single attack must deal the required amount of damage to cause an enemy to flinch. This means that although a weapon like a shotgun can have all its pellets hit at the same time and deal the required damage, each individual pellet only causes about 8 damage each, so it does not technically reach the threshold. I've already done a workaround for the Scrap Launcher, causing it to make enemies flinch on occasion regardless of damage done. I will keep a close eye on this during testing and see if I can reproduce the issue.

- I think the Bullet-Eye energy regeneration rate should be lowered a bit, it's too easy and readily available to just whip out at the first sign of trouble, and it's too powerful of an attack to be available that frequently I feel.
After playing around with it I think the Force Wave might need a slight damage buff, it also tends to fling enemies towards you rather than away which makes it kinda risky to use.

This was due to the regeneration granting about 4 energy every 5 seconds, rather than the intended 2 energy every 5 seconds. I've fixed it and also increased the time to every 8 seconds instead, but again, I will need to test it to see how things feel.

[Some_Kinda_Lucky]

So I did some testing with the Melee weapons and it's only Quick Strike and Grind Halberd are being problematic for me, with the Quick Strike it'll deal guaranteed painstun on low tier enemies but not mid- high tier ones, unless it's the three hit charge attack, and even then that's finicky too, like Aberwraithers don't suffer any painstun from the Quick Strike at all but Mag Roaders well as long as it's that particular attack. For the Grind Halberd it's dependent on whether or not the blade is ignited or not, very low tier enemies will suffer painstun from both but everything that's a Dread Visage and up will only be stunned by an ignited blade. I also looked into the code via Slade and I found the +ForcePain code for all the other melee weapons except those two, but I easily could've missed it as I'm not the most code savvy person.

[Mor'Ladim]

So I did some testing with the Melee weapons and it's only Quick Strike and Grind Halberd are being problematic for me, with the Quick Strike it'll deal guaranteed painstun on low tier enemies but not mid- high tier ones, unless it's the three hit charge attack, and even then that's finicky too, like Aberwraithers don't suffer any painstun from the Quick Strike at all but Mag Roaders well as long as it's that particular attack. For the Grind Halberd it's dependent on whether or not the blade is ignited or not, very low tier enemies will suffer painstun from both but everything that's a Dread Visage and up will only be stunned by an ignited blade. I also looked into the code via Slade and I found the +ForcePain code for all the other melee weapons except those two, but I easily could've missed it as I'm not the most code savvy person.

Ah yes, you are right. The thing is that it worked just fine before since all enemies had a PainChance of 256 (100%) for all melee weapons. However, that doesn't do anything against the PainThreshold property that was given to high tier enemies just recently, and since I hardly found those two weapons in my test runs it slipped past me! I just pushed some fixes for it, along with your other suggestions. Those are highlighted in blue, while the rest are fixes that were made last week but were undocumented. (Mainly because I don't want to bump the thread with every single update I push until I have something more substantial or a large batch of changes.)

Changes:

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-Essence Stealer kill requirement reduced to 3, down from 5.
-Changed Bullet-Eye energy regen to every 8 seconds, rather than every 5.
-Increased Force Wave damage.
-Fixed Quick Strike and Grind Halberd not forcing enemies to flinch.
-Fixed some map special actions not triggering due to being set on weapon pickups, which were unable to function from weapon capsules. This change allows the specials to trigger via weapon capsule destruction.
-Fixed rare bug with dummy item being granted.
-Adjusted Power ammo spawns slightly.
-Made some "fixes" for issues with the Flash Guard where projectiles can sometimes get stuck and cause the effect to linger. It will be reworked properly in the future.
-Fixed missing sprites for Riveting Grenadier and Riotous Riveter projectile impacts.
-Fixed Defender Ammo granting ES Shards instead of an Energy Screen layer.
-Increased Metal Monstrosity damage slightly and added visual indicator to weapon to better aid players in using the weapon.
-Brutalizer now has limited damage reduction.
-Ammo Lockboxes and Item Capsules can now be opened with the <USE> key.
-Added "Start with Frost Snap Upgrade Kit" option to Overrides. Allows the player to start with an upgrade kit on a new game, specifically meant for maps with rough starts.
-Improved Frost Snap alt-fire sounds.
-Frost Snap Alt-Fire had its projectile damage reduced, but the area damage has been increased. This should deal the same amount of damage to primary targets as before, but will now deal slightly more damage to secondary targets.
-Bullet-Eye Mode kills now sometimes cause enemies to drop ammo. This ammo is magnetized towards the player.
-Item Capsules now always drop some tiny ammo pickups.
-Adjusted ammo drop rates from enemies.
-Fixed explosive barrels not damaging the player.
-Crystallized health and shields are now magnetized towards the player no matter where they are. This can be toggled under "General" options.
-Separated Crystallized Health/Shields map markers from Survivor markers option.
-Reduced amount of projectiles spawned on Dread Visage deaths.
-Fixed Cycloptic Brute blocking player when dead.
-Added extra measures to prevent enemies from getting stuck in out of reach areas due to special spawn enemies.
-Scrap Launcher projectiles now sometimes cause enemies to flinch regardless of damage dealt.
-Fixed Blaze Stream causing Flash Guard visual to disappear.
-Blaze Stream L3 nova can now trigger at any point when taking damage, rather than when only firing the weapon. The damage has been reduced slightly to compensate.

[BLSZDOOM]

the bullet eye enemies only mod doesnt work.it gives a error on gzdoom.

[Mor'Ladim]

the bullet eye enemies only mod doesnt work.it gives a error on gzdoom.

Which version of GZDoom are you using? For reference, I am using 4.11.3 and it seems to load up fine. Do you have a screenshot of the error in question?

Also, the mod isn't dead! I've just been busy with a few things, but I have been making changes and fixes! I did add in one new weapon so far, but I need to test it out a bit more. It is one of the "basic" weapons I mentioned in a previous post - however it seemed to work out rather well when I did a few quick test runs when fine tuning it. I have also buffed Support weapons a bit, damage-wise or with slight behavior changes. The original intent was for them to be more multiplayer oriented, but that is not the focus of the mod and it seems multiplayer gameplay is very rare for this mod anyway. The only instances of online gameplay for the mod that I know of is when I played with a few community members at least 2-3 times.

Other than that, I do plan to add in more weapons and more enemies for the next update, and I'm always making fixes/quality of life changes as I do my many test runs.

[BLSZDOOM]

how do i post a image here?anyway i am using gzdoom 4.13pre-84-g9d78eb5aa but it looks like it works on gzdoom-4-12-2.

[Mor'Ladim]

how do i post a image here?anyway i am using gzdoom 4.13pre-84-g9d78eb5aa but it looks like it works on gzdoom-4-12-2.

What other mods are you loading? I have downloaded that version myself and loaded it up and it seems to run just fine, even after updating the ZScript version, which I forgot to do! If you want to post an image, when you create a new post you will see a button at the top of the text field (9th button) which will allow you to post a URL for an image. Just be sure it follows the image size rules.

Also coming with the next update, players will be able to reposition the HUD as they see fit! Here is an example of an altered set up:

[BLSZDOOM]

i was trying to play it with either netronian chaos or combined arms but using 1.12 seems to work fine at the time,i can however do more tests later if you wish and try other mods.