Completely sick of constants in GZDOOM.pk3 and no help

[AshHouswares]

I have made numerous complaints about this issue but it's gotten to a point now where I literally want to throw in the towel, much like the guy before me, and quit this project. Every single turn a take, another brick wall hits me in the face. Before, it was removing the save anywhere menu. It took me absolutely ages but I eventually overcame this and implemented my OWN save system, the way this project is SUPPOSED to be. But then I got reminded that their are keybinds for quicksaves and save menus using the F2 and F6 keys.

I have tried endlessly to bind these to something else, and these binds I am making are completely being ignored by the game. I have gone into the constants folder in zscript in the GZDOOM folder to attempt to remove these, and in the defbinds of the gzdoom pk3 and removed them there which just causes my changes to STILL remain ignored, or even worse, prevent the game running at all.

I have seen HUNDREDS of people complain about these issues on here when searching for answers myself. And I constantly see the same response, over and over and over. "Make a fork, and do it yourself, because nobody is going to help you." Nobody is going to help me? Why not? Because you do not know or because you think you should have some kind of say over a game being made by someone else? Usually, it's the latter.

By far, this community is one of the most helpful places I have ever been a part of, but THIS PARTICULAR TOPIC gets you shot down like a penis. Nobody wants to offer help or assistance on overcoming these crippling boundaries that should not even be gatekept the way that they are, and even speaking of such often gets you ganged up on like rape. I've never known anything like it. You can google until you die, you will not find anyone revealing this gatekept secrets that there is no question, the GZDOOM developers know how to fix. It's not even a matter of understanding code. It's a matter of understanding how one thing affects another, and you cannot ask for help and you cannot find the help on the wiki because the information is gatekept like it's the holy fucking grail.

The last guy that was doing my job on this project quit, and I don't blame him one bit. I'm about 2 more brick walls from doing the same. DOOM is supposed to be an open source engine for developers. I do not care if it's "meant to be for DOOM or not", face reality, it is used by indie game developers ALL THE TIME and every single one of us are sick of being restricted at every turn. We do not want save anywhere in our games. We do not want automaps in our games. We do not want DOOM cheats in our games. And it is up to us if we have them or not. These are OUR games, how WE designed them. You can argue that this is a free software and I shouldn't complain. Yes, I should. DOOM Engine is open source. And there were no rules placed on it when it was licenced out to developers before, and there shouldn't be now. Yes I know... I can still make a fork though! Except, there is no information on how to pull of this stuff, because as I said, it get's you attacked by everyone who thinks they should have a say on OUR project.

I do realize I'm arguing with a brick wall here because brick walls are often praised it seems, but the fact is, nobody is asking YOU to change YOUR GZDOOM project or sourceport, we are asking YOU to tell US what to do, to fork it for OUR OWN PROJECTS. You do NOT have to play them. You do NOT have to use our fork. You can stick with your original GZDOOM and be completely unaffected by OUR game projects, but gatekeeping the information we need is what is really irritating me. This game was supposed to be released YEARS ago and it's been held up over and over and over because of these stupid restrictions. Nobody is asking you to like our decisions, nobody is forcing you to play our game, and nobody is asking you to make our game for us. We are asking for information on how to do something and we are getting outright "NO I'm not telling you" as a response.

[Jarewill]

I understand your frustrations, but your post could have done without some of the more colorful words you used.

I just tested it and adding bind F6 "" to DEFBINDS unbinds the quicksave button.
But the reason it still works for you I would guess is because changing DEFBINDS doesn't change your current binds in your .ini file.
DEFBINDS are only set the first time you run a project, so if you already have the binds set, changing that file won't change your current binds.
You need to delete your .ini file and then run the project again, that should make it work properly.

[Xeotroid]

You can set the defaults. If the player wants to force their own settings and effectively cheat, that's up to them. A mod coming in and messing up or changing basic functionality - the kind that is affected by common options in the settings – is a pretty asshole move. As for people suggesting making a custom fork – yeah, if you want to strip basic functionality from the engine, then making a mod probably isn't the way to go. You can make a stand-alone GZDoom game.

In regards to saving specifically: A game preventing me from saving or loading at any point in time ticks me off. What if I need to get up and leave, either suddenly, or if I know I have a fixed amount of time to play? Or wondering at a save location whether or not I want to play for another hour or two before I can save my progress again (even if I don't have objective time constraints)? Either the game allows me to save at any point, or it's a massive pain in the ass that just makes me want to look up a mod or hack that removes this (see: My Summer Car or Grand Theft Auto). Now, if the game has frequent checkpoints like the new Doom games, sure. Those games, however, have just a couple of slots that keep information outside of levels too, not a traditional save system.

Hiding the automap is far less egregious, but again: Hide it by default, but don't force the player's hand and try to completely bar them from utilising basic functionality that works in every single other game and mod in the engine. It only results in the player getting annoyed and turning to cheating or editing your mod. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Doom source port allows you to do this, and for good reason.

[AshHouswares]

I apologise for my outburst it's just I'm spending so long on this every single day trying to get this game exactly how the original designers bible says it should be. We are a small team but most of the coding stuff is up to me, which is great, I love it. But the constant brick walls are something else. Jarewell I've looked for the .ini file everywhere, and I can't find it no matter what I do. It's not in the GZDoom folder or the documents folder. It seems to not exist (though I'm sure it must do somewhere.) Where could it be? I've literally searched everywhere. Also, sort of related, if I delete this file for me, when we ship the game, will the player also have the same issue or will it create a new one based on OUR defbinds when they boot up? Because I imagine it would just start a new one first time for them too? Or should I include OUR .ini file in the shipped product? Because it's already set up that way.

I honestly do not mind if people want to hack in the features we have removed. Like DOOM itself, the modding options will be left open to the player. But the initial experience, when shipped, we want to be how we want it. Our game is a standalone, non-doom title. It's a first person survival horror game. It's a small game, but meant to act as an effective introduction to the universe we plan to build over the next few games we have planned. I wouldn't want to remove maps, cheats or saves for a DOOM mod. That would be horrendous, especially considering how action packed DOOM can get, it would be frustrating as hell. It's only because our own game doesn't need or benefit from these things. It actually kills the experience. If the player chooses to hack those things back in, that's on them. But to ship out a game in a state we don't want is not suitable for us at all.

[Jarewill]

With the newest version of GZDoom, it should be in the documents folder.
I deleted my potrable .ini and launched GZDoom and the .ini file appeared in the Documents/My Games/GZDoom folder.
If it's neither there or in the installation folder, then I'm frankly out of ideas.

Edit: I don't know if I missed the second part or if you edited it in while I was writing it, but regarding if the player will need to do it: They shouldn't.
If it's their first time launching your game, it should set the game-specific binds according to what your DEFBINDS defined.
However you can also provide your own .ini file if you name it gzdoom_portable.ini and put it in the folder with GZDoom if you ship it with a copy.

[AshHouswares]

Okay I was able to find the file. I've deleted, started up GZDoom with our project and... the F keys are still bringing up save menus etc. I don't know what the Hell is wrong with it. Is it possible to edit the .INI file to just do what I want? Because the defbinds are still not working.

[Jarewill]

You can do that, however it should be working.
Are you sure it's the save menu that's opening up? Because in the DEFBINDS file you provided in the other topic you rebound F6 to open the load menu.

[AshHouswares]

I just did a double check and deleted the bind. So like you suggested, I now have: bind F6 ""
I ran it again, still the same issue. Not sure why, so I changed it in the .ini file and made it into a portable for the player. Not sure why it wasn't working. I also had to change a lot more stuff via the .ini because I have a custom menu that doesn't allow changing it through the menu now. But it seems fine with this setup. I wish I could set it up to all be inclusive in my IPK3 though.

[Jarewill]

I am still not sure why it's not working for you.
Could you show your current DEFBINDS?

One last idea I might have is to check if your IWADINFO has Config and AutoName set.
This is the IWADINFO of my own project and it works for me, so maybe compare it to yours?

Code: Select all

IWAD
{
	Name = "Broken Lands"
	BannerColors = "ff ff 80", "ff c0 80"
	Autoname = "BrokenLands"
	Game = "Doom"
	Config = "BrokenLands"
	IWADName = "BrokenLands.ipk3"
	Mapinfo = "mapinfo/mindefaults.txt"
}