Xim's GZDoom3 for Classic Doom (Update OCT/27/23)

[Xim]

No, it is clearly an out-of-place pale brown dot.

It is hard to see in SLADE, but in-game, it is more noticeable; for a moment, I thought it was a dirt spot on my screen.

Anyway, another criticism I have is that the Thrown Grenade sprite is comically large. I would suggest using the ones Dr_Cosmobyte used for his Nightmare Logic mod instead.

Okay I honestly can't see it on my end. Do you know what frame it's on? And is that the centre-view shotgun or the side-view?

As for the grenade I could just scale it down with the scale property for next version.

I see I'm credited for parts of the Vagary, however, is this just because of the upper half area of the Harpy monster? in which case, the chest area I took from HorrorMovieRei's Female Imp sprites, I think it would be more fair to update the credits to reflect this

on the side of criticism, I want to say, I feel the Pinky sprites are not that good, no offense to it's author, ofcourse, but I feel it would be way better if you used something like the Mechtre from DRLA (thought I am unsure if you'll get permission to use that one), I'd do my own try at making a Doom 3 Pinky but I am honestly very unmotivated as of late, atleast for monster spriting

I did indeed use your harpy monster to make the vagary. I'll just add HorrorMovieRei to the credits too.

And yeah I kind of settled on that pinky sprite because it was the most "accurate" and still kind of in Doom style. Plus, I was sort of aiming for an homage to the old D3 style mods back in the early 2000s. I found a better pinky sprite but then it looks too much out of place compared to the others for such a common enemy. I was almost going to use the Blood Demon sprite found on R667, since it's clearly a combination of the classic and d3 pinkies.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Okay I honestly can't see it on my end. Do you know what frame it's on? And is that the centre-view shotgun or the side-view?

Certainly. It is from Xim-Doom3-weapons-centresprites.pk3, and the frames in question appear to be SHTRA0, SHTRB0, SHTRC0, SHTRG0, SHTRH0 and SHTRI0.

* * *
Another criticism: giving the flashlight limited battery energy strikes me as rather odd, as it was not like that in any version of Doom 3. It is a rather unnecessary feature that does not add anything to the experience other than sheer annoyance and I wish I had the option to disable.

On the plus side, I am amazed that you managed to make the Flashlight alert enemies. It is a much-needed improvement over the original Darkdoomz addon!

Also, I am surprisingly okay with the Maggot being a reworked Freedoom Worm.

Finally, the ambient music pack you recommended works very well with your mod. Thanks again!

[Xim]

on the side of criticism, I want to say, I feel the Pinky sprites are not that good, no offense to it's author, ofcourse, but I feel it would be way better if you used something like the Mechtre from DRLA (thought I am unsure if you'll get permission to use that one), I'd do my own try at making a Doom 3 Pinky but I am honestly very unmotivated as of late, atleast for monster spriting

Wait a second, isn't the mechtre sprite the same sprite as the blood demon from R667? What if I did use that sprite instead...

Certainly. It is from Xim-Doom3-weapons-centresprites.pk3, and the frames in question appear to be SHTRA0, SHTRB0, SHTRC0, SHTRG0, SHTRH0 and SHTRI0.

Okay, thanks. I'll fix those sprites up for the next version.

* * *
Another criticism: giving the flashlight limited battery energy strikes me as rather odd, as it was not like that in any version of Doom 3. It is a rather unnecessary feature that does not add anything to the experience other than sheer annoyance and I wish I had the option to disable.

On the plus side, I am amazed that you managed to make the Flashlight alert enemies. It is a much-needed improvement over the original Darkdoomz addon!

Actually yes it does function almost just like like this in the newest version of Doom 3. At least for the XBOX version that I recently played which inspired me to make this mod. Maybe I'll figure out how to make an option for flashlight battery or not though. But the battery life is to balance out being able to use it all the time, instead of having to put your weapon away like in the first version of D3.

Also, I am surprisingly okay with the Maggot being a reworked Freedoom Worm.

Yeah, I was looking through Craneo's resources to get the Maledict sprite and then I just had the idea when I scrolled past his edit of the freedoom worm. It makes the name far more litteral.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Actually yes it does function almost just like like this in the newest version of Doom 3. At least for the XBOX version that I recently played which inspired me to make this mod. Maybe I'll figure out how to make an option for flashlight battery or not though. But the battery life is to balance out being able to use it all the time, instead of having to put your weapon away like in the first version of D3.

I am personally not a fan of this trend that was started in the early 2000s (e.g. Halo, Half-Life 1 & 2, Aliens Versus Predator 2, F.E.A.R., etc.) where your badass first-person shooter would be given a puny flashlight with limited battery life for no reason. Newer titles (e.g. the F.E.A.R. sequels, Black Mesa) did away with the feature, so I had assumed that Doom 3: BFG Edition did the same.

I think having your flashlight beam alerts nearby enemies is a better way to balance it. Having to recharge the battery every 30 seconds just makes me want to turn off DarkDoomZ altogether.

[Xim]

Personally I do like the battery life on the flashlight for Doom 3, it adds to the atmosphere IMO. But I get what you mean about it being a disruption to gameplay, so the next version is going to have an option to turn the flashlight battery off. And even an option for monster alerting just in case people don't want that.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Excellent! Thank you!

I noticed a (minor) issue when playing with only the 'World' and the 'Weapons' pk3 files: the Revenant's vanilla homing missiles make machine gun impact sounds, like they are brushing against an invisible metal surface! Maybe it is intentional, but it sure sounds weird.

[Xim]

Yeah, something about how the new bullet puffs seem to conflict with RevenantTracer, I guess because A_Tracer spawns a bullet puff. Maybe I could rework the bulletpuffs.

[Nems]

Really digging the new update! The ammo patch is also very nice along with the other patches you included. <3 I also saw Bernie a few times.

I think I better understand how the BFG works in this mod. I should be running away from the ball after launching it since it does self damage.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Currently playing this mod with Hadephobia. So far, it almost feels like it was designed with the mapset in mind!

However, I am a bit shocked by just how powerful the Shotgun is: it has been a while since I played Doom 3, but I do not remember being able to one-shot Pinkies with it.

As a result, I barely use the Rocket Launcher and the Plasma Rifle, and the Machine Gun only serves to sniper far-away enemies. I honestly have to force myself to use the Chaingun: while I appreciate the effort to make it feel more distinct from the Machine Gun than its vanilla Doom 3 counterpart, I still feel penalized using it, as the reloading time is fairly long (in part because it needs to wait for the barrel to stop spinning) and cannot be interrupted, which is a real pain in the ass in close quarters.

[kalensar]

Currently playing this mod with Hadephobia. So far, it almost feels like it was designed with the mapset in mind!

However, I am a bit shocked by just how powerful the Shotgun is: it has been a while since I played Doom 3, but I do not remember being able to one-shot Pinkies with it.

As a result, I barely use the Rocket Launcher and the Plasma Rifle, and the Machine Gun only serves to sniper far-away enemies. I honestly have to force myself to use the Chaingun: while I appreciate the effort to make it feel more distinct from the Machine Gun than its vanilla Doom 3 counterpart, I still feel penalized using it, as the reloading time is fairly long (in part because it needs to wait for the barrel to stop spinning) and cannot be interrupted, which is a real pain in the ass in close quarters.

Your bit about the chaingun... Well that was Doom 3 in a nutshell too. The Doom3 shotty and Chaingun were both OP as heck, but they had specific ways of being used and if not used in those ways you were penalized by their drawbacks. Thankfully this GZDoom3 shotgun is not as inaccurate as it's actual Doom 3 version. But yeah, the actual Doom3 shotgun could one shot a lot of crap if you made the enemies choke on it's barrel literally.

[Xim]

Yeah, I realized the shotgun is a bit overpowered so next version it's going to be toned down a bit. But as kalensar said, it is indeed intended to be stronger, but has a wider spread, so it's excellent in close quarters but not as good at far range. The chaingun is also going to have a slightly faster wind up/down speed. There's also going to be some menu options for BFG splash damage and power-up item replacements. More coming soon-ish...

[kalensar]

Yeah, I realized the shotgun is a bit overpowered so next version it's going to be toned down a bit. But as kalensar said, it is indeed intended to be stronger, but has a wider spread, so it's excellent in close quarters but not as good at far range. The chaingun is also going to have a slightly faster wind up/down speed. There's also going to be some menu options for BFG splash damage and power-up item replacements. More coming soon-ish...

I preferred the older version of the weapons mod, the centerview, for some reason. I tweaked the guns a bit so they weren't as OP by slowing down the Shotgun timing on firing and reloading. The timing I got was way more similar to Doom 3, as I went and double checked a video for just rough cut timing.

I did not touch the New update version of angled guns for anything. Personally I love both versions. But My basic gist was that slowing down the reload times on both the Shotgun and SSG made the experience closer to Doom 3 rather than closer to Brutal Doom.

[-Ghost-]

Awesome job, love to see Doom 3 still getting some attention! A few things I've noticed:

- The shotgun pump/ready sound cuts off a little bit.
- Can the chaingun and pistol/MG have different ammo pools, like Doom 3?
- On that note, having an option to use the Doom 3 ammo values would be cool, since it lets you carry a lot more ammo by default.
- I actually like the shotgun as is, it's actually pretty beastly in CQC in Doom 3, which helps compensate for the high spread. If you do lower the damage, I'd make it more accurate to compensate.
- Items and equipment would be neat, PDAs, maybe flares or a better flashlight. I really like how you put the flashlight on a timer though, not many mods do that (could maybe use a liitle bit longer for battery life by default).
- I appreciate that you split the enemies, world stuff and weapons into separate files, makes it really easy to mix and match.
- More monster variety: I like how there's different replacements for pinkies and such, would be cool to see even more variety amongst the imps, zombies, etc.
- MG reload could be a hair faster, feels like it's a little slower than D3's.

[Xim]

I preferred the older version of the weapons mod, the centerview, for some reason. I tweaked the guns a bit so they weren't as OP by slowing down the Shotgun timing on firing and reloading. The timing I got was way more similar to Doom 3, as I went and double checked a video for just rough cut timing.

I did not touch the New update version of angled guns for anything. Personally I love both versions. But My basic gist was that slowing down the reload times on both the Shotgun and SSG made the experience closer to Doom 3 rather than closer to Brutal Doom.

I've made some adjustments like those too, thanks for the idea. The shotgun will still be a bit faster than Doom 3.

Awesome job, love to see Doom 3 still getting some attention! A few things I've noticed:

- The shotgun pump/ready sound cuts off a little bit.

I'll look into that.

- Can the chaingun and pistol/MG have different ammo pools, like Doom 3?

I believe I included a patch in the second version that does that. Run it after the weapons mod and it should work. The center-view sprites patch should work along with it too.

- On that note, having an option to use the Doom 3 ammo values would be cool, since it lets you carry a lot more ammo by default.

Maybe. I'll look into that. Haven't done a script like that yet.

- Items and equipment would be neat, PDAs, maybe flares or a better flashlight. I really like how you put the flashlight on a timer though, not many mods do that (could maybe use a liitle bit longer for battery life by default).

Not sure how I'd implement PDAs into a gameplay mod. I feel like that's more on the mappers' side of things. If there's a fun way to implement them then maybe I could. Perhaps having one that gives you info on your inventory and maybe even a bestiary. Maybe I'll have a look into the PDA kit on the script library.

I've been trying to figure out a good way to include the classic D3 flashlight, but it's kind of difficult combining it with what I'm using now, and besides personally I think BFG editions armor mounted flashlight was a good game play improvement.
Next version is going to have an option to adjust the flashlight battery life, making it drain slower or not at all.

- More monster variety: I like how there's different replacements for pinkies and such, would be cool to see even more variety amongst the imps, zombies, etc

I've got a couple more new zombies for the next version. Not sure if there's much more I can do for imps other than the vulgar which is already in and I made them deliberately rare, since I prefer my imps in hordes.

- MG reload could be a hair faster, feels like it's a little slower than D3's.

Indeed. I was trying to get the animation to sync up with the sound, but I think I made the ending of the animation too long. I'll fix it up.


Thank you for all the feedback! I've got a new version in the works, I'll release it soon-ish as always.

[Xim]

Might as well show off what I've got at this point. Here's a new version released, download links in first post.

Changelog:

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-Artifact has now been added, keep finding it to unlock it's powers. First artifact has no powers, but you get the megasphere's bonus once picking it up. Second artifact enables helltime, which "slows" time. Third unlocks extra damage for all weapons, and fourth gives the user invulnerability. The powers last for 20 seconds and consumes five souls, same as the soul cube. Souls however are not kept for ammo while the artifact powers are active. Defeating a Hellhunter will upgrade the artifact to the next power level.
-Doom 3 styled Nightmare skill added. When playing on nightmare, stimpacks and medikits are removed and your health is constantly drained if above 35. However you are also automatically given the soul cube or a fully upgraded artifact at the start of the game.
-Menu options for item spawns. Megasphere can be set to spawn the soul cube, artifact or the megasphere. Blursphere can be set to spawn the sentry bot, blursphere, or adrenaline (speed boost power-up), or any of them at random.
-The armor patch is now a menu option.
-Menu option to turn off the BFG explosion damaging the user.
-Flashlight now has two new option settings, adjusting or turning off the battery drain and turning monster alerting off or on.
-You can now choose in the menu between fighting the Maledict or the Icon of Sin.
-Added brightmaps for weapon hud sprites
-Arch-Vile can be switched to being a summoner in the menu.
-New sprite for the pinky demon.
-New sprite for the arch-vile.
-New sprite for the imp.
-Pistol zombies have a new crouching attack and alt-death.
-Pistol weilding zombie scientists have been added to zombieman spawners.
-ZSec shotgunners have a new crouching attack.
-New sprite for zsec machinegunner grunts, so they look different from the commando ones.
-Elite ZSec machinegunners can now roll out of the way when being shot, also new alt-death animation.
-Lowered the ZSec chaingunners accuracy and raised the possessed commando's.
-Guardian's missile attack is more directed at target, also it's melee attack now creates a smoke ring effect.
-Sentry bots can now jump down and climb up ledges.
-Wraith has new XDeath animation.
-Cyberdemon has different sprite and new stomping attack.
-Bruiser has been slightly modifed, minor rescale and reduced health and increased damage, to reflect more on how they are in D3. They also have a new secondary attack, shooting four alternating fireballs.
-Changed the mapinfo doomednums to be compatible with "darkmoon-alpha-2019-sanitized", if for some reason you'd want to play it with this Doom3 style of weapons and enemies instead of the ones included in the map maps.
-Shotguns are slightly less powerfull.
-Chaingun, smg and plasma-rifle reloading can be interrupted before the ammo is loaded.
-Chaingun winds up and down a bit quicker.
-Added a Doom 3 style crosshair, selectable in hud options.
-Added Doom 3 player pain sounds, which sound more intense depending on the player's health.
-New plasma rifle sprite.
-New pistol muzzle flash.
-Reduced the radius for the riot shield zombie's shield.
-Lost soul charging scream no long keeps playing after they die.
-Cleaned up some sprites in both weapons and centre sprites patch.