[Abandonded] "Man Is The Warmest Place To Hide"

[Apeirogon]

Someone on youtube asked me to create a compatibility patch using sprites from here
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=66132
Here actual patch
https://github.com/MekBoss/Stopsignals_Beastiary
It replaces all intact human bodies on level with bodies with "surprise"

[The Philosopher]

Someone on youtube asked me to create a compatibility patch using sprites from here
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=66132
Here actual patch
https://github.com/MekBoss/Stopsignals_Beastiary
It replaces all intact human bodies on level with bodies with "surprise"

What a coincidence! In the lastest version i replaced the Pinky Demons with the same sprites.

I probably release the test version tomorrow, inactivity has benn because of my whole country situation, so stay stuned for the update!

[Valken]

Really awesome! Has that Carrion feel to it.... Would it be possible to borrow the Carrion sprites to take that monster to the next level chomping on bodies left in the map?

[-Ghost-]

Cool, glad to hear there's an update on the way! I like where this mod is going, feels like it mostly just needs polish and a replacement of the monsters/weapons that are left to do.

[Ferretmanjcdenton]

Awesome ...an update :):) sooo cool

[dawnbreez]

So I've been playing this a bit, and I love the ideas behind it. I really do. I want to love this mod.

But it just does all these really dumb frustrating things that--and I want to be clear here--I don't blame you for doing. These are things that doom mods just kinda do sometimes, because they're all habits that developed out of mods where they aren't bad habits. But they're not things that are conducive to a survival horror mod, and they REALLY aren't conducive to a mod where the player's already at a disadvantage due to being slower and not being able to get back up.

I write this, not because I hate this mod, but because I love it. I want to see it become better; I want to see it grow into something amazing.

To that end, here's the giant fucking rant.

---

First big thing: Random ammo spawns. This is a pretty common response to the fact that there's only four kinds of ammo in vanilla. This works well in most mods, because it encourages the player to switch weapons often, and ammunition is usually plentiful enough--and the weapons powerful enough--that it's not a problem. In this mod, the monsters get back up--unless you torch them, which eats through precious fuel and takes a surprisingly long time. This means that ammo balance is skewed against the player--even in maps that have plentiful ammo spawns, you're gonna run out of ammo eventually, because monsters almost always get back up. This wouldn't be an issue...if it weren't for the random ammo spawns! I often find myself running dry on the Colt MkIII because all the clip spawns dropped 9mm instead of .357, or running out of shells because I keep finding 40mm grenades on the shell spots(?!). It certainly doesn't help that it's pretty hard to hit some of these monsters--the spectre replacement is nearly impossible to see even in bright conditions due to being nearly completely invisible, and the scuttles and dogs are both surprisingly fast.

Which brings me to my next point: Buffing the pinky/spectre replacements. Again, this is a pretty common response to vanilla design; the Pinky and Spectre are arguably the most easily bullied monsters out of the vanilla bunch, and are basically just meat shields in Doom 1. In D2 they're even more laughable because of the Super Shotgun, so modders often find themselves adding some power to the monster in the form of things like better melee, better invisibility, extra speed, or even projectile attacks. All of these are present here--both the ghost thingy and the dog have increased speed and rapid melee attacks, and the dog has a projectile. The problem is that you aren't building maps for this--instead I'm running this with whatever mapset I can find, and other people don't build maps around your buffed pinky replacement, they build it around the pinky. Fights which would be trivial against a horde of pinkies become far harder or even impossible against a horde of blood-spitting doggos, and spectre ambushes that are surprising but survivable in vanilla become inescapable against your ghosts. Hell, I'm surprised I haven't gibbed myself by accident with the GL due to a spectre sneaking up on me while I line up a shot.

The next big critique goes back to the weapons: Jesus Christ the bolt-action rifle is fucking useless. Useless! The mistake here is less common, but it's a mistake I'm familiar with nonetheless: you made the rifle far less accurate when not scoped in. "But breez," you say, "it's a long-range weapon with a lot of commitment! You're supposed to scope in with it, sacrificing your situational awareness for damage!" Yeah, yeah, I get it--and it's entirely valid to want to have a weapon that's only viable at long range. The problem is that nobody makes doom maps that necessitate a 10x magnification zoom! The rifle's zoom function is nearly impossible to use because few, if any, maps have engagements at any range where that level of zoom is useful. As a result, I find myself using the rifle in short-range engagements, where I quickly learn that I can't hit the broadside of a barn! This only compounds with the ammo problem--using the rifle is a waste of precious bullets and even-more-precious time, because unless I'm engaging at point-blank range--the exact place you DIDN'T want me using the rifle--I miss two out of three shots! Hell, the revolver is a better sniper rifle than the sniper rifle is! The rifle is useless! Useless, I say! Muda muda muda MUDA MUDA MUDA--ahem.

My last critique is for the flamethrower--well, the improvised flamethrower. I get that it's supposed to be less useful than the proper flamethrower, but I burn through a solid three quarters of my starting fuel supply trying to kill that bunnyhopping strafing skull-faced bastard that replaces revenants. It shakes around so much on firing that I can hardly hit anything--and what's worse, it doesn't stunlock runners! Maybe I'm supposed to swap to it after damaging monsters a bit, but even so, it feels like the improv flamethrower is just a waste of fuel. Naturally, this kinda kills the mood. I love the idea behind having this resource management aspect--having to choose which monsters you want to just not deal with anymore, because you're never gonna be able to stop ALL of them. But trying to use this mechanic is so annoying that I just don't use it, which means the mod plays like always-on Nightmare mode.

And some suggestions for how to fix these:

---

It's possible to do some advanced zscript stuff to check the player's inventory and see which weapons they have. You could also check which weapons have spawned in the map. Between these two bits of info, you could write a spawner that spawns appropriate ammo for whichever weapons the player has access to, ensuring that they always have the right ammo for their guns...or you could just spawn both 357 and 9mm on every clip spawner. Either or.

The ghost thingy needs less transparency--that, or some other kind of obvious tell for when one is in the general vicinity. I'm leaning toward reducing the transparency on it because it's nearly fucking invisible, even in bright areas. As for the dog--I'd replace the projectile attack with a leap, similar to the gray imp thing. Or maybe the dog could leave a trail of nasty blood vapor? Something that pushes it away from ranged attacks and back into melee-only territory, so it fits the role that pinkies are put in when mapping.

Either reduce the zoom on the rifle to manageable levels, or get rid of all that excess spread when unscoped. The rifle problem may be less of a problem when ammo balance is addressed, since I only really use it due to not having ammo for other weapons.

The sprite for the improv flamer looks like it's some kind of hand-pumped chemical sprayer with a lighter strapped to it--maybe make it fire in pulses, instead of constantly? This would also encourage the player to use it as a finisher instead of as a stunlocking tool. Alternatively, I know a little trick you can do with ZScript that would make a damage-over-time effect with guaranteed stunlocking possible--which would allow the player to use the flames as either a way of ending a monster permanently, or a way of keeping a monster busy while you switch weapons. I bet you could even make monsters jump to the flame death state if they die while the DoT is on them, even if you land the killing blow with a different weapon--that would be a great quality of life feature.

Oh, one last QoL feature: Can we get a check on the portable health items to keep the player from using them when they're already full on health?

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

Hell, that feedback is useful for a LOT of modders, even me.

I approve and agree with breez, and i would add that weapons should not lock you in place when reloading, but drastically reduce your speed.

I have a code for the medkit to avoid wasting the extra units if you want.

[-Ghost-]

I wonder, would it be possible to have an item you can use to burn enemies and finish them? Something like a match or flare ala Evil Within where it's risky because you have to get really close, but you can stockpile them and they're useful to clean up after a fight. So you drop/throw it on the corpse and it does damage to it, causing it to burn up. It'd probably still deal some damage to enemies as well, but throwing a lit flare at something *is* gonna burn it, so as long as they're not one hitting everything I think it'd work.

[The Philosopher]

So I've been playing this a bit, and I love the ideas behind it. I really do. I want to love this mod.

But it just does all these really dumb frustrating things that--and I want to be clear here--I don't blame you for doing. These are things that doom mods just kinda do sometimes, because they're all habits that developed out of mods where they aren't bad habits. But they're not things that are conducive to a survival horror mod, and they REALLY aren't conducive to a mod where the player's already at a disadvantage due to being slower and not being able to get back up.

I write this, not because I hate this mod, but because I love it. I want to see it become better; I want to see it grow into something amazing.

To that end, here's the giant fucking rant.

---

First big thing: Random ammo spawns. This is a pretty common response to the fact that there's only four kinds of ammo in vanilla. This works well in most mods, because it encourages the player to switch weapons often, and ammunition is usually plentiful enough--and the weapons powerful enough--that it's not a problem. In this mod, the monsters get back up--unless you torch them, which eats through precious fuel and takes a surprisingly long time. This means that ammo balance is skewed against the player--even in maps that have plentiful ammo spawns, you're gonna run out of ammo eventually, because monsters almost always get back up. This wouldn't be an issue...if it weren't for the random ammo spawns! I often find myself running dry on the Colt MkIII because all the clip spawns dropped 9mm instead of .357, or running out of shells because I keep finding 40mm grenades on the shell spots(?!). It certainly doesn't help that it's pretty hard to hit some of these monsters--the spectre replacement is nearly impossible to see even in bright conditions due to being nearly completely invisible, and the scuttles and dogs are both surprisingly fast.

Which brings me to my next point: Buffing the pinky/spectre replacements. Again, this is a pretty common response to vanilla design; the Pinky and Spectre are arguably the most easily bullied monsters out of the vanilla bunch, and are basically just meat shields in Doom 1. In D2 they're even more laughable because of the Super Shotgun, so modders often find themselves adding some power to the monster in the form of things like better melee, better invisibility, extra speed, or even projectile attacks. All of these are present here--both the ghost thingy and the dog have increased speed and rapid melee attacks, and the dog has a projectile. The problem is that you aren't building maps for this--instead I'm running this with whatever mapset I can find, and other people don't build maps around your buffed pinky replacement, they build it around the pinky. Fights which would be trivial against a horde of pinkies become far harder or even impossible against a horde of blood-spitting doggos, and spectre ambushes that are surprising but survivable in vanilla become inescapable against your ghosts. Hell, I'm surprised I haven't gibbed myself by accident with the GL due to a spectre sneaking up on me while I line up a shot.

The next big critique goes back to the weapons: Jesus Christ the bolt-action rifle is fucking useless. Useless! The mistake here is less common, but it's a mistake I'm familiar with nonetheless: you made the rifle far less accurate when not scoped in. "But breez," you say, "it's a long-range weapon with a lot of commitment! You're supposed to scope in with it, sacrificing your situational awareness for damage!" Yeah, yeah, I get it--and it's entirely valid to want to have a weapon that's only viable at long range. The problem is that nobody makes doom maps that necessitate a 10x magnification zoom! The rifle's zoom function is nearly impossible to use because few, if any, maps have engagements at any range where that level of zoom is useful. As a result, I find myself using the rifle in short-range engagements, where I quickly learn that I can't hit the broadside of a barn! This only compounds with the ammo problem--using the rifle is a waste of precious bullets and even-more-precious time, because unless I'm engaging at point-blank range--the exact place you DIDN'T want me using the rifle--I miss two out of three shots! Hell, the revolver is a better sniper rifle than the sniper rifle is! The rifle is useless! Useless, I say! Muda muda muda MUDA MUDA MUDA--ahem.

My last critique is for the flamethrower--well, the improvised flamethrower. I get that it's supposed to be less useful than the proper flamethrower, but I burn through a solid three quarters of my starting fuel supply trying to kill that bunnyhopping strafing skull-faced bastard that replaces revenants. It shakes around so much on firing that I can hardly hit anything--and what's worse, it doesn't stunlock runners! Maybe I'm supposed to swap to it after damaging monsters a bit, but even so, it feels like the improv flamethrower is just a waste of fuel. Naturally, this kinda kills the mood. I love the idea behind having this resource management aspect--having to choose which monsters you want to just not deal with anymore, because you're never gonna be able to stop ALL of them. But trying to use this mechanic is so annoying that I just don't use it, which means the mod plays like always-on Nightmare mode.

And some suggestions for how to fix these:

---

It's possible to do some advanced zscript stuff to check the player's inventory and see which weapons they have. You could also check which weapons have spawned in the map. Between these two bits of info, you could write a spawner that spawns appropriate ammo for whichever weapons the player has access to, ensuring that they always have the right ammo for their guns...or you could just spawn both 357 and 9mm on every clip spawner. Either or.

The ghost thingy needs less transparency--that, or some other kind of obvious tell for when one is in the general vicinity. I'm leaning toward reducing the transparency on it because it's nearly fucking invisible, even in bright areas. As for the dog--I'd replace the projectile attack with a leap, similar to the gray imp thing. Or maybe the dog could leave a trail of nasty blood vapor? Something that pushes it away from ranged attacks and back into melee-only territory, so it fits the role that pinkies are put in when mapping.

Either reduce the zoom on the rifle to manageable levels, or get rid of all that excess spread when unscoped. The rifle problem may be less of a problem when ammo balance is addressed, since I only really use it due to not having ammo for other weapons.

The sprite for the improv flamer looks like it's some kind of hand-pumped chemical sprayer with a lighter strapped to it--maybe make it fire in pulses, instead of constantly? This would also encourage the player to use it as a finisher instead of as a stunlocking tool. Alternatively, I know a little trick you can do with ZScript that would make a damage-over-time effect with guaranteed stunlocking possible--which would allow the player to use the flames as either a way of ending a monster permanently, or a way of keeping a monster busy while you switch weapons. I bet you could even make monsters jump to the flame death state if they die while the DoT is on them, even if you land the killing blow with a different weapon--that would be a great quality of life feature.

Oh, one last QoL feature: Can we get a check on the portable health items to keep the player from using them when they're already full on health?

Hello! Thanks for the suggestions, ill try to answer them the best

- The ammo spawners i made them to spawn more common type of ammo ex: Shells will spawn more frequently than 40mm grenades, but i think i could spawn ammo for the respective monsters spawners like Shotgun Guy spawned enemies could drop Shells or something like that

- Ill try to change the Hunter transparency, maybe making him invicible when he gets hurt and going to a "Frightened" mode when he is in that mode and then turn to normal

-The dogs for now are non present in the build i have, i removed them with the scuttler for now, as i am trying to keep all of the enemies melee only.

-The AWP is replaced with the PSG semi auto rifle, i will try to reduce the zooming in that too

-The Blowtorch is removed for now

-I do not know how to "lock" using the health items while full health, maybe using the Strife code for health?


And for the updates here are some of the features:

-Based on the RE aiming system, weapons need to be drawn to be used (Firing and Reloading), you cannot move while the weapon is drawn

-Changed the sprites of the Carcass and the Bloodsucker

-Monsters will not always spawn, so encountering them will be less freuquent

-Reduced Health and Speed on most enemies

-Buffed the Flamethrower and now the GL will deal fire damage

-Removed the M202 and the Blowtorch

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

pm me about the health code dude, i can help you.

[Artman2004]

Have you thought about adding more fire-based weaponry? Like flare guns and molotov cocktails?

[The Philosopher]

Have you thought about adding more fire-based weaponry? Like flare guns and molotov cocktails?

I did actually, i just couldn't find the sprites for it

[dawnbreez]

Have you thought about adding more fire-based weaponry? Like flare guns and molotov cocktails?

I did actually, i just couldn't find the sprites for it

IIRC, there's a flaregun somewhere on r667...

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

Killing time had a molotov, and i screen ripped one from Medal of Honor too.

[r&r]

A compatibly mod for Cold as Hell Special Edition,
would be good for this mod