DOOMablo: a looter-shooter DOOM (v0.1.4a - More hotfixes)

[fakemai]

Probably worth lowering the maximum HP that an enemy can receive, and more stringently for boss monsters. I've seen upwards of 10x and that's bad enough on weaker enemies, worse for angels since they normally have lower HP to compensate for their swarming potential. In general I'm going to say that +damage (or bulk for shotguns and volatile for rocket launchers) is the #1 mod on weapons followed by % to not consume ammo and mag size to sustain fire for much longer. For armor, fixed damage reduction and above average % damage reduction and you're set, ideally also enhanced repairability but that's less necessary with scrapping.

On the whole weapon slot thing, I'm not sure about weapons taking up arbitrary slots or anything silly, but I appreciate having a choice of both shotgun types now and same for the SMG and minigun. A system like BorderDoom or DRLA of just having a weapon count limit no matter the type would work fine too.

EDIT: Maybe remove the lowered chance for blink without LoS, MAP07 just had one of the mancubi teleport in with the arachnotrons. If it was a different map that'll be a major annoyance, here I can at least jump to the exit.
EDIT2: Occasionally I get some kind of damage debug message when particular enemies are taking damage, not sure which ones. I'm also moving onto DoomRL Monsters, that particular mod could allow interesting extras like having progressive tie into its adaptive difficulty mode, maybe a "legendary" modifier to give the enemies their more deadly attacks from LegenDoom Lite.

[BunnyBun]

I may be a bit smooth brained but when I try this mod out I don't get any ui pop ups for what I'm looking at. Im using the latest gzdoom.

[Jareth247]

Copied from my response over on the Doomworld forum:

Depends on what the screen size is set to. Some mods seem to need it set to 10 and some only look right set to 11. I have it set to 11 for DOOMablo.

If anyone else here is new to GZDoom and need to know this, just go to the options menu, pick "Display Options" and set "Screen Size" to 11. But some mods, like Bring Your Own Class, work better with it set to 10.

And at the moment, DOOMablo cannot work with any mod that changes the weapons. Right now, only vanilla Doom weapons will work. That means no Brutal Doom, no Project Brutality, no Alice: Toys of Madness and it definitely means no non-Doom IWADs like Heretic, Hexen or the like. IIRC, Freedoom probably worked.

[sidav]

Yeah, I need to fix this someday.
There initially was a pop-up "use different screen size please" shown on unsupported screen size, but it messed with auto-map screen and thus got removed.
By the way, I'll be off for a couple of days, so expect no updates in the meantime (this week at least).
Currently I'm working on BFG in the spare time, and it's more difficult than I've expected, mostly because I want to make some BFG-specific quirks with affixes.
I'm also considering removing "max damage" altogether (or nerf it severely) and tie this stat to the weapon's level. Not sure if it will work gameplay-wise.

[MsrSgtShooterPerson]

Yeah, I need to fix this someday.
There initially was a pop-up "use different screen size please" shown on unsupported screen size, but it messed with auto-map screen and thus got removed.
By the way, I'll be off for a couple of days, so expect no updates in the meantime (this week at least).
Currently I'm working on BFG in the spare time, and it's more difficult than I've expected, mostly because I want to make some BFG-specific quirks with affixes.
I'm also considering removing "max damage" altogether (or nerf it severely) and tie this stat to the weapon's level. Not sure if it will work gameplay-wise.

Remembering from Borderlands, (and the way item base stats for Diablo were laid out) I think base damage should scale up with the item level even for common items - from here a max damage nerf I think sounds better so it can accommodate this change

I remember in Borderlands particularly, a gun with the same exact parts and rarity between 2 levels only has the damage at all change. Of course, common weapons become far less viable pretty much immediately as the levels rise compared to other rarities - that said, what do you think of potentially extending the max level past 100? Because personally, I'd say I very well like the possibility of getting an OP weapon towards the end if the game (especially if to face often OP opponents as well)

[sidav]

I think you wanted it!
The new version is here. The most important change: the BFG is now here, up and running in two flavors with its own 10 affixes!
It took a long time, because BFG is unique in how it works.
I think I'll gather the feedback for it and fix whatever I find (there will be bugs, because of many lines of custom logic code), after that I'll experiment with the weapon damage related to its level, as we discussed above.

---

New things:

Added the BFG! It even comes in two flavors.
Added 10 affixes for BFG. Two of them change how it works mechanically.

Fixes and balance changes:

SMG will now randomly replace Chaingun.
SMG drop chance is increased.
Backpack max bull/cell affixes are sligtly better now.

Internal changes:

Backpack affix logic unification.

Known bugs:

All the same

[sidav]

While there's no new version yet, let me share some thoughts about the current progress.
Tl;dr: the changes are more in-depth than I expected and I need someone to test it before I make a version.

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So I agree that damage affixes are the best ones in the current build. This needs to be changed. I want to make the weapons varied, not damage-centric.
The problem itself is that the monsters' health is scaled with their level, but weapons' damage is not. The damage affix is the only thing that allows you to catch up with them. I initially made it so that only the affixed monstrocities are scaled, but it's not a solution anyway.
So... I think the suggestion about general damage scaling for the weapons is good. I did it, along with the general scaling of all the monsters' HP values according to their level.

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The scaling itself works the following way: the health of a monster roughly doubles each 20 levels. That means that lvl20 zombie has 40 HP, lvl 40 has 80, and so on. The same applies to weapon damage. The monster's health rarity increase is applied after the scaling. Moreover, the values are slightly (really slightly) randomized now, so you may find e.g. a plasma rifle with 38-115 damage and another plasma gun with 43-108 damage, both on the same level and without damage affixes taken into account.
Speaking of that, the damage affixes got reworked, too:

• There are no +min and +max affixes anymore, only a single +dmg one which affects both the min and max damage. The reason behind it is that you most probably don't care about min/max in particular, but do care about general damage. In that sense old +min and +max system is the same. Moreover, +min may be worse, as it is more restricted.
• Old damage affixes added plain values, like +2 min damage. The new +dmg affix affects the percentage of the damage in general, and looks like "+3.5% damage".
• Old damage affixes could increase the damage up to x2 (+100%). The new ones start from +0.5% and are restricted to +20% (exact value may be changed though).
• The base chaingun deals 4-7 damage. With the new damage affix it may be made, like, 4.2-7.35 damage (with +5% affix). The DOOM damage model relies on whole values only, so it's not possible to deal "4.2 of damage" - but I managed to circumvent that with a new damage calculation and 4.2 is really different from 4 now (the damage is still whole numbered). Even +0.5% dmg will have gameplay effect (albeit minor one).
• The damage affix (and only itself, for now) is no more bound to the item level. That means that you may now find both lvl1 item with +20% damage, and lvl 100 item with +0.5%. It was not the case before. I think that will allow for interesting choices, as max level weapons' dmg affixes are not better per se from now on.
• Since there were two +dmg affixes before, they took 2 affix slots if you rolled both. Current affix consumes only one, so you can have one more affix for the same rarity. I don't know yet if it is good, but it sounds as if it is.

But... The more I do, the more I see that it causes a domino effect. All of my changes break existing systems. Here's what is broken by this:

• Current leveling system is trash with those changes. If you can receive lvl 10-15 items, lvl15 ones WILL be better than lvl10 ones because of the scaling. That means I should rework the leveling system. Maybe I should just stick with good ol' experience levels. And I thought that my "level artifacts" were interesting and original...
• Current drops are trash, mostly because of this "min/max item level" thing. I think it should be removed, and you should have only one item level.
• Moreover, the drops are too abundant now. This is because they're tied to the monster's health. I can't do it any other way, because I don't know which monster packs are you using it with.
• Current map-placed items are always more rare and have higher level than the average drop. It was made like that so that you still wanted to explore the secrets and search for weapons even if any enemy can still drop any weapon. I think the rarity thing is OK as it is for that matter, but the level one is not.
• The damage changes have COMPLETELY broken the "full random" mode, because if you find even a lvl80 pistol at the start, you'll be in the candyland of one-shotting, like, 40% of the threats in the game. I think the full random mode should be cut from the game altogether.
• Self damage is amazing, because receiving 10k damage from your own rocket launcher is fun. Well, it can be circumvented by "un-scaling" the self damage, so that your shiny lvl100 legendary RL will deal damage to you as if it was lvl1 one.
• Poison affix (and similar ones) needs to be scaled, but I'm yet to figure out how.
• I don't like that I had to remove two affixes, even if they're "merged" into one. I think I need to add some new mechanic which will take the place of the old affixes. Current;y I'm considering critical damage mechanic, along with the affixes for increasing the chance and the critical damage percentage itself.

The list is possibly not complete.
I'm kinda afraid of simply changing it and releasing it as it is, so I need someone helping me with playtesting the current in-dev builds when it will be ready.
Thanks for your attention, I hope the read was interesting.

[stainedofmind]

Took a little break from Doom to play other things, but I was working on a playthrough of the latest version with the BFGs. I had to take a break though, cause I was getting absolutely HAMMERED by monsters, even with the support of the newly added BFGs. I'd have to agree about redoing the balance, cause even the lower tiered baddies were becoming an issue the farther through I got. Only got partway through map 9 of Doom 2 before I stepped away. I'm definitely interesting in giving the rework a whirl, though I'm not entirely certain when I'll have the time. Is the level-scaling-rework branch good to go, or are there things you want to iron out before I should bother taking a dive into it? Great work as always!

Edit: Derp. Forgot to give feedback on the BFGs overall. Unfortunately, by the time the BFG comes into play, the monsters are already outpacing you, so it made the BFGs feel slow, too expensive, and very underwhelming. Seeing as I only made it to map 9, they were also rare enough that I wasn't able to find a decent one in the time I was playing either. I'm certain the damage overhaul will solve most of these issues however.

[sidav]

I'm definitely interesting in giving the rework a whirl, though I'm not entirely certain when I'll have the time. Is the level-scaling-rework branch good to go, or are there things you want to iron out before I should bother taking a dive into it?

Hello, thanks for the answer!
No, the current branch you mentioned is by no means ready. The whole list of broken things from my previous message is broken there, and some weapons are not scaled yet (like the BFG itself, haha). I think the game will be even more messy in this current state, so wait for some time please. I will put some tag on the branch when it's playable, maybe will make a pre-release build on the github page.

By the way, currently I'm considering how should I better do the new leveling.
If I make experience levels for the player (without any stats/upgrades yet), how should the monsters be leveled then? Should their level depend on yours? Like, level 5 zombies will spawn only if you have level 5? Or should I make this tied to the level number, so that you face lvl1-3 monsters on MAP01 and lvl97-100 on MAP32? Or, maybe, you'll simply have to select the "map level" yourself on the level start? This is the top priority thing to decide, because everything else depends on that.

For the current release version maybe I should temporarily nerf monsters' HP bonuses so that the game will be more playable while I rework the systems, what do you think?

[YukesVonFaust]

Will you add tiered progression on the monsters in the next update?

[sidav]

Will you add tiered progression on the monsters in the next update?

Currently working exactly on that. Still not sure how exactly it should work to be interesting, so it's more experimentation and less implementation.
To answer the question directly: yes, I think I won't release any new updates before a new progression system is there.

[Jareth247]

What if you did it like in the Dead Island games, where the player levels up over time and all the weapons and enemies are at the same level as the player? And when you level up, you gain more maximum health and you can hold more ammo.

Maybe combine DOOMablo with GunBonsai. Wait... is GunBonsai open-source?

[sidav]

Here's the test one if you wish to test. It's not finished, so it's not really a release.
https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/relea ... prerelease
Initially, I've made a EXP-based leveling system. Kill monsters, get exp, level up, repeat. Drops and monsters' levels depend on your EXP level.
But it creates some problems. The most important problem I faced is: how to ensure that you always are equipped for your level? You can kill monsters and gain levels, but you're not guaranteed to have the loot. In other words, monsters' numbers ramp up (and you can't do anything to stop it), but your weapons' levels not necessarily do.
So I decided to stick with the books, but reworked them to be more balanced given the new numbers. The main idea is that if the things are becoming more difficult for you, you just stop picking those books up until you find better loot. It's not really good solution, but at least it's better than facing gazillion HP zombies with bad items. I think the monsters should have some kind of progress even if you don't pick the books up. I'll think what can be done.
If the books idea works, I'll make it possible to scrap them so that you have a mechanism for getting rid of unneeded books.
Exact changes are listed on the prerelease page.

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• Are the new damage numbers and monster's HP values better?
• Is the growth of those good? Should it ramp up faster/slower?
• How are the weapons with the new system now? Are they over/underpowered?
• Do you get enough Tome of Knowledge drops?
• Is the gameplay in general better or worse than before?

Thanks for your attention to my mod!

[sidav]

Updated the test build The link is the same: https://github.com/sidav/doomablo/relea ... prerelease
One of the things I want to ensure is that you'll always get enough books whilst not being overwhelmed by them. In other words, you should always get at least some amount of books each level, but you shouldn't be on level 100 on 10th map at the same time. This update addresses that.
First of all, books now have fully separate drop mechanic. It means that the monster can drop a book even if it didn't roll to drop any loot. It also means you'll have more artifact drops than before, because those books were on the list of "what to drop" roll variants before, which is not the case anymore.
Second, you're guaranteed to get at least 2 books per level (given that you kill the monsters). You'll also get no more that 4 books per level, but this amount is not final yet, I think it may be raised.
Third, and irrelevant, there's a minor gimmick now: books now heal you for 25 HP.
I hope it will make the inferno level gaining speed smooth enough.

[stainedofmind]

Gonna start giving this a run though, but I had an idea pop into my head. Instead of books automatically applying, you could have them be an inventory item that the player needs to use. Will let you know how things go.