Bitter Heretic: Melee combat emphasise

[Lagi]

Hate to necrobump this, but I noticed it got updated and I have some feedback!

I love that you give me some feedback. I dont bump post my thread myself, because I dont want to create artificial attention on my mod. And HEY I work on it every week(end)! Its not dead.

The Good:
-The axes are 1000% more fun to use. Seriously, hacking away at golems with a pair of hand axes feels awesome.
-The wand feels much more smooth and fun to use, ESPECIALLY that melee altfire. Super fluid transition.
-The trident is a very welcome addition to the arsenal, and feels much more useful than the hellstaff. Good stuff.
-The enemy changes definitely compliment the weapons, and I was pleasantly surprised by the headless skellie bois. It added an extra layer of character that felt super natural.

what can I say.. please say MOORRE compliments
For the monster (as everbody) I have big plans to add wound stages, different death animation, melee attacks for weredragon, Ophidian, etc, even new monster - but as you know, everybody have big plans and completely no strength to follow it.

The Bad:
-The crossbow feels a bit redundant. The wand has more plentiful ammo, a faster rate of fire, and does enough damage to stand in for the crossbow. Perhaps the crossbow could behave more like a sniper rifle/railgun type weapon. Come to think of it, I don't believe there's a long range weapon in the whole arsenal, which I suppose makes sense, but it would be a welcome addition for the sake of dealing with certain encounters.
-The axe altfire feels a little underwhelming. I feel like it could use a damage/speed buff, and perhaps some new graphics so it looks more like the axe your character holds.
-The enemies could use some more melee-centered tweaking. Like having undead warriors throw his axes less, and have more diverse melee attacks for instance. This could help sell the whole melee combat emphasis.
-The tar bomb's explosion radius seems just a little too big. It feels powerful, but also just a touch too volatile. On the flip side, it is still useful and fun to use.
-Most of the animations in general feel just a little slow and clunky. I may just be spoiled because I'm so used to super fluid and fast animations in mods, and I do understand why, because coding animations is super tedious.

And that's all I got! Great work so far, man. The other additions like the fire deaths and such were also neat to see. Excited to see where you might take this mod next. Hopefully no one gets mad at me for necroposting.

-agree crossbow need love - sniping weapon... primary as rail shots penetrating all targets with disable auto aim - sure

-thrown axe - projectile GRP from hexen will be in contrast to the fact that you pick up axe from knight body - I will check it anyway. More dmg - I want thrown axe to 90% times, 1-hit golem, what he do, need to test game myself to get the feeling. Whole weapons damage need still balancing, but I focus on GRP, because I believe excel exercise I can do after I burn out of passion for making new sprites.

- agree that enemies should be more melee oriented, hope to get there at some point in time. thanks

- radius is ok it =158 (of ? units), as much as gauntlets. The tar is also producing shrapnel's (called "nails" in code), and I dont know how to limit their range (or if its possible).

- coding animation is not tedious at all f.ex. MONS ABC 6 => MONS AXBYCZ 3 - will increase the smoothness of animation 100%. Just drawing X,Y,Z sprites need angels patience, you have to do that in 8 directions! Unless its possible to do auto transition in some graphic software - but I dont know how to do that.

Thanks, really appreciated your post!

[Crudux Cruo]

Hey, just tried this and thought I would simply say I do believe Heretic could use some more balls, but i'd check WOC or Brutal Hexen or Hexarcana or Hexen Walpurgis or a number of others to see how they handle melee combat - I can't say they're perfect either, but one thing that they do is make the player feel more powerful. I don't feel more powerful with the weapons. I feel like i'm fighting against the controls. and there are a lot of things leaving me to scratch my head.
Why would the axe just disappear when you throw it?
Why can't i pick up two hammers?
Why make fire and altfire the special use key when you could assign it to a weapon state, zoom state, or the reload key?

There's just a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. I'm going to keep an eye on this but my suggestion:

Make the character faster, not slower.
Make melee much faster, but also do less damage per swing; certain weapons, like the staff, would be very quick but light damage, yet long range, while a hammer might be very slow and short range but do incredible single target damage. Mace would be single target only like the mace, axe could have SOME cleave damage (able to attack wide range but less than sword) and the sword would be very wide range but low damage.

Also, bad things happening that removes your weapons stinks. just sayin.

And in general, just more speed and gameplay requiring finesse - combos, shield bashes, ect - would be different if you combined swings.

[Lagi]

Yesssss... another comment

...one thing that they do is make the player feel more powerful. I don't feel more powerful with the weapons.

I dont want player to feel too powerful. I aim for more prosaic, "you are nothing more than pitiful human, you even have pitchfork" ambient. Or like Korax said: "are you ready to die? Mortal".

I feel like i'm fighting against the controls. [...]Why make fire and altfire the special use key when you could assign it to a weapon state, zoom state, or the reload key?

Guess Im gonna change it. I put some effort in this Fire+Alt combination, so the easier approach of just using R key, would feel like a waste of my work.

Why would the axe just disappear when you throw it?

Axe are not on the landing place (like dry hammer), because player can find plenty of axes. Or rather dry hammer only appear after throw because he is rare to find.

Why can't i pick up two hammers?

double hammers in both hand would look silly and the akimbo with axes would feel less special. But I think second type of hammer swing would be nice - my drawing (rather frankensteining) plan unfortunately is too long already.

Make the character faster, not slower.

Im adding running mode, after you hide your weapons. Still the running speed would be 1.3 (vanilla running is 2.0).

Make melee much faster, but also do less damage per swing; certain weapons, like the staff, would be very quick but light damage, yet long range, while a hammer might be very slow and short range but do incredible single target damage. Mace would be single target only like the mace, axe could have SOME cleave damage (able to attack wide range but less than sword) and the sword would be very wide range but low damage.

I want melee swing speeds to be slow. I adore Lord of Fallen slow gameplay. I agree think staff damage is a little too high. All the damage adjustment I will do later, when I get bored with drawing stuff.

Mace would be single target only like the mace, axe could have SOME cleave damage (able to attack wide range but less than sword) and the sword would be very wide range but low damage.

Single hit for melee feel wrong, you need to carefully aim to land a broad swing (unless you thrust, then it make sens). Mace generate 3 hit per swing, axe 2 hit per swing, sword 5 hit.

bad things happening that removes your weapons stinks. just sayin.

I add those "weapon traps" , because I like this feeling, when you screw up and get punished, because you forget to check ammo counter. Also when I was playing Heretic and find in some nice secret place again Necromancers Gauntlets or Crossbow, that was underwhelming.

And in general, just more speed and gameplay requiring finesse - combos, shield bashes, ect - would be different if you combined swings.

Combos - any specific ideas? I make melee with gold wand staff to feel little like combo, you need to change alt fire with primary fire to keep swinging. I dont plan to add more right now.

Crudux Cruo be greeted. I think my hipster mod is not for you. Maybe dont waste your precious time on things you dont like? Or Copy-paste what you like from it, and make your own (but this will waste even more of your time)?

[barosans]

do you have some megawads for heretic to recommend for your mod ?

[Lagi]

do you have some megawads for heretic to recommend for your mod ?

no,

Bitter is base on vanilla heretic, which take into account abundance of ammunition (to change 50% of ammo into other items f.ex).

---

Personally, I like most of levels from this:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=66415

hymn is good, and keep the heretic ambient:
https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/HYMN-A- ... ty-Project

and this is godlike (but quite sure not compatible at all):
[can not find a link, and have no idea where on my harddrive it is] ShadesMaster post it (or commented because i remember his avatar, you start in a castle entrance and need to dive to turn 2x switches to lower the bridge)

some that i dl but never play because i enjoy modding more
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/level ... s/apostate
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/level ... ic/v-z/vos
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/level ... o/mdomain1
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/level ... orts/curse
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/level ... -i/hisymak

[Whoah]

Oh another criticism I forgot about, is it is way too easy to lose your crossbow. All I need is to slip sorta close to a ghost enemy and then I'm down an entire weapon, even if I don't have it equipped

[Lagi]

Oh another criticism I forgot about, is it is way too easy to lose your crossbow. All I need is to slip sorta close to a ghost enemy and then I'm down an entire weapon, even if I don't have it equipped

copy,
I make Xbow require to be selected for disappearing [its done, and its working, will be included in next version]
thanks, I make current version, then complete 2x episodes to get the current felling.

[UnbornDecay25]

Unfortunately I got a fatal error, the mod wouldnt launch

OS: Windows 10 (or higher) (NT 10.0) Build 18362

M_LoadDefaults: Load system defaults.
Using program directory for storage
W_Init: Init WADfiles.
adding C:/Users/Unbor/Downloads/Doom Mods/gzdoom.pk3, 608 lumps
adding C:/Users/Unbor/Downloads/Doom Mods/game_support.pk3, 2520 lumps
adding c:/program files (x86)/steam/SteamApps/common/heretic shadow of the serpent riders/base/HERETIC.WAD, 2633 lumps
adding C:/Users/Unbor/Downloads/Doom Mods/Bitter Heretic.pk3, 938 lumps
I_Init: Setting up machine state.
CPU speed: 1996 MHz
CPU Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
Name: AMD Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx
Family 23 (23), Model 17, Stepping 0
Features: SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4.1 SSE4.2 HyperThreading
V_Init: allocate screen.
S_Init: Setting up sound.
I_InitSound: Initializing OpenAL
Opened device OpenAL Soft on Headset (USBC Headset)
EFX enabled
ST_Init: Init startup screen.
Checking cmd-line parameters...
S_InitData: Load sound definitions.
G_ParseMapInfo: Load map definitions.
Texman.Init: Init texture manager.
ParseTeamInfo: Load team definitions.
LoadActors: Load actor definitions.
Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript, line 48: A_StartSound: action function not found in Gauntlets2
Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript, line 63: A_StartSound: action function not found in Gauntlets2

Execution could not continue.

2 errors, 0 warnings while compiling Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript

I am trying to use it with Shadow Of The Serpent Riders, which is the only legal version of Heretic to buy, so if thats causing the issues I cant play this

[Lagi]

I think you are using old Gzdoom. The current version is 4.3.3. PLease update.

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Code: Select all

Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript, line 48: A_StartSound: action function not found in Gauntlets2
Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript, line 63: A_StartSound: action function not found in Gauntlets2

Execution could not continue.

2 errors, 0 warnings while compiling Bitter Heretic.pk3:zscript

as per wiki:
https://zdoom.org/wiki/A_PlaySound

Warning: The feature described on this page has been deprecated since r4a67bfcdd, and will no longer be supported or updated by the GZDoom developers. While some functionality may be retained for the purposes of backwards-compatibility, authors are strongly discouraged from utilizing this feature in future projects and to instead use A_StartSound. Compatibility with future GZDoom versions is not guaranteed.

I use newer function, that could not exist in older GZdoom engines.

BTW: i have in fact 2x errors in code, that i clear and upload new version - but its not worth to download it there absolulty no gameplay change

[UnbornDecay25]

Ah ha. Now that I can actually play it, its a damn fine mod. I have a few complaints and a few things that should be doubled down on

-Please add an indicator or a sound cue for Corvus putting away and taking out his equipment. Sometimes i stand there like a jackass hammering the weapon keys in the vain hope that he'll take out his weapons faster
-All the grenade-esque weapons have some insane splash damage, which is good for killin, but also good for killin yourself.
-Please buff the speed just a little. I know you're going for a more raw, grunt heavy expierence, almost the "Hideous Destructor" for Heretic, but sadly, I noticed Corvus is too slow to outrun certain traps/activate certain parts of the level. I get realism is the name of the game, but vanilla Heretic has some tight timing puzzles and these are impossible without cheating now. I know the Krater Of Might buffs your speed to near vanilla levels, but I didnt have a Krater on hand for every secret that required it, even when saving them. This also makes hurtfloors a bitch

? Perhaps add a HUD of some sorts, the sprites you use for the hud dont work with the Status bar/Fullscreen hud, least not at my aspect ratio.
? If possible, switch the order of the weapons around to be more vanilla friendly or have their own slot. I almost couldnt find the axe and its combos without stopping in place and testing every button on the keyboard

+ YOU TURNED THE ETHEREAL CROSSBOW INTO A GODDAMN RAILGUN I LOVE YOU FOR THIS
+ Dual Axes. Nothing more to say
+ You made the Elven Wand not useless without the Tome Of Power, I gotta give props to that
+ Thank you for not taking all my stuff after I finish a level a la vanilla Heretic
+ I was never cornered due to the abundance of grenades, which makes fighting so much easier

Overall, this mod is pretty badass. Its a little janky in places, the GUI really needs an overhaul, and its unbalanced like fuck right now (Seriously, meleeing Iron Liches is not my idea of a good time), but I cannot admit I didn't have fun with this more raw, and grunt heavy experience. It gives all the fun realism of something like Hideous Destructor without removing what made Heretic fun and interesting. With a hoepfully not ridiculous level of tweaking and improving, this could be a Heretic mod to keep around, and goodness knows the only other decent one is Heretical Doom.

A solid 7/10, could easily be a 9/10 or 10/10 with just a few more tweaks


Edit; Perhaps you can call this mod "Heretical Destructor" Eh? Eh?! I'm here till they kick me out ladies and gentlemen.

[Whoah]

Alright, another update means more playtesting. I'll keep stuff nice and brief this time around, as I didn't get much time to play:

-The new running system feels much better, but I feel like the speed boost from putting your weapons away could be better to accommodate timed puzzles and such, as stated above.
-The crossbow is a fair bit more useful, but I feel like the projectile could stand to be a bit faster. Besides that though, the weapon is great fun to use. Although a new set of sprites for it wouldn't hurt for the sake of variety.
-The axe doesn't seem to have an impact sound which makes melee combat feel a little less satisfying. I'm actually surprised that I hadn't noticed this until now. Guess that's what I get for listening to music while playing!
-The wand's altfire is a bit too strong. I totally forgot to mention that in my last feedback dump.

And that's all that comes to mind as of now, my dude! Keep up the good work, and I'll provide feedback as usual

[Lagi]

-Please add an indicator or a sound cue for Corvus putting away and taking out his equipment. Sometimes i stand there like a jackass hammering the weapon keys in the vain hope that he'll take out his weapons faster

I will improve hiding weapon indication (there is only chain sound now).

-All the grenade-esque weapons have some insane splash damage, which is good for killin, but also good for killin yourself.

Part of the Tar charm (there is no way to limit the 'nail' projectile range in the code). Need to replay game myself to get the proper feeling about all that.

-Please buff the speed just a little. I know you're going for a more raw, grunt heavy expierence, almost the "Hideous Destructor" for Heretic, but sadly, I noticed Corvus is too slow to outrun certain traps/activate certain parts of the level. I get realism is the name of the game, but vanilla Heretic has some tight timing puzzles and these are impossible without cheating now. I know the Krater Of Might buffs your speed to near vanilla levels, but I didnt have a Krater on hand for every secret that required it, even when saving them. This also makes hurtfloors a bitch

Can you tell which sectors on which maps are impossible? Need myself to replay few episodes. I think its fast enough, playing earlier iteration of Bitter mod, I completed E1 with 0,85 speed on hard (yes I know, Im cool).

? Perhaps add a HUD of some sorts, the sprites you use for the hud dont work with the Status bar/Fullscreen hud, least not at my aspect ratio.

I spend some time this morning checking UI in different configs, also with the standard UI mod. Which sprite you find misaligned? Axe ammo? Book page ammo? Plate armor icon in max zoom out? For me all is fine.

? If possible, switch the order of the weapons around to be more vanilla friendly or have their own slot. I almost couldnt find the axe and its combos without stopping in place and testing every button on the keyboard

I on purpose put double weapons under single digit, to not reach into numbers 7890 while playing.

1 mace: torch/shield
2 wand / trident
3 xbow / axe / axe+shield
4 gaunlets / book
5 hammer /sword
... but why not, i can double some slots for 6,7,8,9,0 - f.ex for 6 book, 7 trident, 8 sword, 9 xbow, 0 mace&torch

+ YOU TURNED THE ETHEREAL CROSSBOW INTO A GODDAMN RAILGUN I LOVE YOU FOR THIS

You need to thanks Whoah, it was his brilliant idea.

+ Dual Axes. Nothing more to say
+ You made the Elven Wand not useless without the Tome Of Power, I gotta give props to that
+ Thank you for not taking all my stuff after I finish a level a la vanilla Heretic
+ I was never cornered due to the abundance of grenades, which makes fighting so much easier

thanks, now I remove 1h of sleep from my daily schedule to work more on Bitter.

its unbalanced like fuck right now

it is
I will write down damage from each weapon after next update, so players can make some more informative judgment about them.

---

game balance is about players feeling
balance is base on amount of hit need to make some effect = kill monsters (or wound them - change their permanent (pain state doesn't count) graphical representation to indicate that they take damage). Expected amount of successes, depends from monster tier of toughness and weapon used (obviously that punching cyberdemon need 100's of hits)

if you can kill something with 1 hit - it means weapon is powerful
2 hit , are standard
3 hit, means victim is tough
4 hit and more = labor not combat, boring gameplay with hp-sponges

additionally to above there is % chances, f.ex. you can have 80% chance to 1 hit Golem with thrown Axe, or 20% chance to 1 hit Gargoyle with staff swing

% have feelings too:
83% or more - its a sure that something will happen
66 - 82 % - player think he will succeed, but if not he don't mind
50% - its risky, player assume failure, and have back up plan
30-50% - not likely, might try, but we all know its not gonna happened
less than 30% - waste of time, need to repeat action multiple times to expect anything

monster tier can be:
"ammo wasters" - weakest. Sometimes you change weapon to save precious ammo for more worthy opponents. This should be most common type of opponent, that is very pleasant to exterminate. Should be in few variants. Zombieman, ShotgunZombie, Gargoyle.
core - dudes that can withstand more than single shot from currently wield standard weapon. Imp, Golem
tanks- dudes that need 3 shoots to be taken down. Pinky, Skeleton Knight, Weredragons
bosses - or mini bosses, you need to hit them multiple times, but thats ok, because its rare opponent

the tier of monster can change, if the arsenal in player possession get more powerful. F.ex. Doom Imp become ammo waster when you have PlasmaGun.

=================================

Whoah, you have dig out my mod from underground. The amount of visit on this page more than doubled, so the downloads counter on MediaFire, since you comment about it. Also you have very good ideas, that improve this mod significantly (removing Hellstaff, Xbow, speed) or are on my todo list (melee-centered tweaking, more animations, wound states (headless knight - feels awesome in game, I want to put more of that)

Alright, another update means more playtesting. I'll keep stuff nice and brief this time around, as I didn't get much time to play:

Everybody should always keep stuff nice and brief, and I cannot think about any exceptions.

-The new running system feels much better, but I feel like the speed boost from putting your weapons away could be better to accommodate timed puzzles and such, as stated above.
-The crossbow is a fair bit more useful, but I feel like the projectile could stand to be a bit faster. Besides that though, the weapon is great fun to use. Although a new set of sprites for it wouldn't hurt for the sake of variety.
-The axe doesn't seem to have an impact sound which makes melee combat feel a little less satisfying. I'm actually surprised that I hadn't noticed this until now. Guess that's what I get for listening to music while playing!
-The wand's altfire is a bit too strong. I totally forgot to mention that in my last feedback dump.

speed - i need to check
axe sound - sure
tone down staff swing, yes

what exactly would you like to see changed in crossbow sprite? Hand that load bolts on the body? groove for more bolts? double arc?
Current design is little iconic, heretic = ethereal crossbow.

[UnbornDecay25]

A few replies to you

A) I forgot Heretic only had 6 weapons, so only 6 vanilla slots carry on
B) I found it near impossible to escape from the crusher trap in E1M2 without crouching, since Corvus automatically picks up the book a la Doom rules. I could change this in my settings but if I have to change my settings to accommodate a mod, then that mod has a little problem.
C)Tar is fine, I'm more talking about the freezing vial
D) Specifically the axes didnt fit the screen as well as I think they could have
Other than that, yeah I'm excited to see where this goes!

P.S: In my review, a - was something that could be fixed, a ? was a possible, but not necessary option, and a + was a goddamn perfect decision

[Whoah]

Whoah, you have dig out my mod from underground. The amount of visit on this page more than doubled, so the downloads counter on MediaFire, since you comment about it. Also you have very good ideas, that improve this mod significantly (removing Hellstaff, Xbow, speed) or are on my todo list (melee-centered tweaking, more animations, wound states (headless knight - feels awesome in game, I want to put more of that)

Thank you! Although that's definitely not just me, man. The fact that you're actually responding to feedback, taking it into account, and implementing it where it feels best does wonders when it comes to the attention your mod receives. I also appreciate the compliment on my ideas! It's mostly just stuff that I think would be cool to see that fits in with the point of the mod, which seems to be a challenging mod, with a distinct, Dark Souls-esque melee gameplay focus that rewards timing and strategic thinking. And it is totally turning out that way. Plus, you're making a mod for Heretic, and god knows Heretic needs mods!

what exactly would you like to see changed in crossbow sprite? Hand that load bolts on the body? groove for more bolts? double arc?
Current design is little iconic, heretic = ethereal crossbow.

I was thinking just a set of sprites with some more detail or something along those lines. I know there's a few knocking around, and I'm pretty sure I saw some good ones in OSJC Latchford's mod for Hexen and Heretic. As classic as the Heretic crossbow looks, it's a tad jarring seeing the vanilla sprites surrounded by weapons that all use completely new ones. I dunno, I thought maybe it would give the mod a more cohesive visual style.

EDIT: I saw them in these mods: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=35089 You would have to look in the credits to see who made the sprites should you decide to use them, but there's some cool resources in here, especially in the Heretic one. ALTHOUGH I don't know if Latchford would like you taking resources from the mod, so be sure to double check.

[Lagi]

E1M2 crusher: