Yes this is def much more harder and exhilarating, I've already had the opportunity to play with this kind of approach when the Darkdoomz Black is active, throwing the torch down and fighting within the area (nice idea also to do some damage by throwing the torch!), but I thought it was a brilliant idea on your behalf to invent a lighting mechanic for the wand when at optimal ammo and would be a shame to lose that feature. Perhaps a way to lower the amount of light it gives while keeping the feature, so it can't outdo the torch? Again, what you've accomplished with mixing up various options for each Heretic and Hexen weapon is worthy of a Patreon support page!
Thank you for the staff comments! That was my way of countering how effective the light was versus having another melee weapon and optimizing blunt damage with the random(min-max) function. After NY'24, I wanted to figure out how to make melee weapons do more damage from backstabs and to make melee weapons basically silent unless they hit a wall or cause a parry, then it makes noise to a certain degree, alerting nearby enemies. I've come at a time where GZDoom and ZScript got updates and added some new variables to mess with, but I think what you've done and how you've utilized ZScript and DECORATE so far has been excellent and I've applied some of your work to SC monsters so their front attacks aren't so easy to dodge by slightly moving backwards.
PS: Breaking barrels is also another genius mechanic (amazing work on your behalf, and you even created mechanics for them when induced by fire!), with the rats helping out if you get a swarm from one of them. I absolutely love it. Sometimes the rats accidentally attack you while trying to go for the enemy, if you're in the way and I found that quite to my liking. Considering they're rats, I'd love to figure out a way in implementing them to attack you if you display violence (on purpose or by accident) towards them as well as using the torch to scare them away into the opposite direction, which would force them into portals so they can weaken or kill nearby enemies at the other end of the portal so you don't spawn into as deadly a trap as you would have without the help from the rats.
I should note that all of my testing and brainstorming implementations were via OBLIGE randomization maps. That's the experience I'm pulling from, I like how OBLIGE randomizes the maps, it's more nostalgic and simpler to me then the community-upgraded one on GitHub that you mentioned and I like the maps randomized and unfair (I'm a long-time Warhammer Vermintide 2 player, everything in there is masochistic lol), hence why I want (maybe even need) silent mechanics for appropriate weapons. Def not for everyone, so there def should be separate types of builds, as it's important for those playing the classic Heretic maps to enjoy Bitter Heretic's intended experience!
I've already made almost all of your melee weapons temporarily silent (they're globally silent, which means for each type of attack they do, which is way too silent, a temporary position until I have time to break down their various abilities and what should be silent and what should generate noise) just didn't yet put in parry and wall-hit monster alerts to test how the gameplay balance will feel on that. The crossbow when it's not powered by green magic (brilliant, again and I love the reload animation and the focus required for it, it's as realistic as can get for a Doom engine game) I feel could also go for silent kills, unless you miss and the arrow hits the wall so I'll also be trying to do something with that (but leave the sound alert for monsters when shooting with green/magic arrows).
You got my mind racing with ideas as your genius mod is absolutely inspiring. If it was a Steam game I would have already bought it!
Happy New Year!
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