DAMNED - [RELEASED]

[RUNSABER]

My thoughts on DAMNED:

I spent many nights which blended into the early morn, crafting this mod to a threshold I felt would deem playable and fun for casual play. As time went along, and enemies were roasting the shit out of me - pinning me down and coming across that greater stimpack and medikit made me realize that I may have created the ideal gameplay mod for a good co-op/splitscreen experience! This can make some of those vanilla releases at Doomworld even more fun, and I don't have to load up Zandronum to play them all of the time. I can do it right here in 3DGE. For the last and final future release, I don't plan to add any additional fluff like spikes, candle smoke, or anything out of the ordinary that distracts from the gameplay. Every monster I've selected as a variation should fit their ancestors very nicely. After testing the Assist Sphere and getting it to work, I've had my ass saved by the Mercenary Girl on Doom II Map07 much to my surprise! Whether someone plays this or not is not the prerogative - I just have something fun to play in my spare time between Astral Pathfinder development!!! Thank you for checking this out, testing and playing it to your hearts content!

[Corbachu]

I am having a lot of issues with DAMNED v0.9 on 3DGE 2.1.0. Seems like I Cannot switch weapons in the same slot as they play their raise/lower states and usually favor the second slot. Does this happen with 2.0.4?

If not, then it is most definitely a bug in our SDL2-based code when we updated the input handling...can anyone verify?

[RUNSABER]

I just released a fixed version that updates the COALHUD, make sure you get that release and I think the M_DOOM is fixed but its still unnecessarily large. The only weapons that has normal raise/lower states is the Sub machine gun, rocket launcher, twin launcher and BFG. I still have to fix that and it will be complete in the final version. I do find the switching a bit glitchy as I try to switch from one shotgun to another and it skils the weapon completely. Either that, or my weapon switch keys are super sensitive to how long I press and hold them. I work on this issue right away!

[RUNSABER]

Can you explain how the priority system works? Some weapons have crazy piriorities in their slots and I'm still trying to understand how it works. Give Immoral Conduct 2 a run and test DAMNED again. I'll test as well, and you're more than free to change the weapon defs up and see if it solves the problem!

[Corbachu]

I will test later tonight (daughters bday 2day) -- so that weapon switch bug is there on 2.0.4 as well?

It might be a piece of code I changed recently in p_weapon -- the priority system was inherited from BOOM and is just a total mess...

[RUNSABER]

I'm downloading 2.0.4 right now and giving it a test for you. Also, I came across a nasty bug in 2.0.2 that still may be crawling around in the latest builds. Pausing the game (as in using the assigned pause key) and pressing the escape key to access the menu not only kills the music, but kills any and all sounds after that. I came across it by accident while running through Astral Pathfinder for the millionth time. When you press the pause key again, the sounds return all at once. You can turn the music back on by moving the music bar in the settings, but I think it all deals with that pause key.

[Sandstormer]

This just keeps better! Keep up the good work, Run! I love those Complex Doom weapons, especially the auto shotgun.

[CeeJay]

It makes me happy to see this recent wave of mods made for 3DGE. Keep it up.

On to the review...

Weapons were fun in both design and use and there were some really neat effects here and there.

But... The weapons select/deselect is just too chaotic and inconsistent between slots. Some weapons select WAY WAY too fast, causing me to accidentally cycle past them when trying to select them while others use (slow) vanilla-style raise and lower.

Automatic shotguns is always a problem, as it will break balance instantly. Due to the large amount of pellets, high damage output and fast rate of fire it will stun just about every enemy with every shot and kill most monsters without breaking a sweat. It begs the question: Why would you want to use anything else when it is available. Perhaps give it some limitations.

The lens flare thingy on the torches could do with a little improving. Has a tendency to clip and spawn in the incorrect height.

Lower the sound volume on the torches. When there were groups of torches in an area my ear drums nearly exploded. You can use a combination of VOLUME and MAX_DISTANCE in SOUNDS.DDF.

[RUNSABER]

Thank you very much for the feedback Ceejay, yours is certainly valuable and makes a huge difference!

What ticks do you suggest for smoother weapon switches? I feel its way too chaotic, and that no one should have to hide/fire before switching to find the gun they need. The auto shotgun definitely needs major balancing. I'm giving it a Doom 64-style pump to break the action between blasts and lower the damage value just a tad bit. The Quadshot needs a lot of work to be a bit more than just another shotgun. Currently working into this.

Lastly, the torches. Those flares are spawned on top of the torch thing's placement. How would I go about fixing offset and clip issues? I tried defining them as dynamic lights (BUILTIN:SOMELIGHTNAME) but it only makes a giant ugly transparent blackground form around the flare and doesn't look right.

[CeeJay]

What I do is make custom lowering/raising frames, with each one moving 10 pixels until they are not visible on the screen. You can see this method in most of the mods I've made. Or you could fiddle around and experiment yourself until you find a method you'll like and apply it all to all weapons.

As for the lens flares. Hmm, well frames in ATTACKS.DDF don't care if parts of it end up in floors and ceilings (always same X and Y offsets), whereas stuff in THINGS.DDF are adjusted to fit the world making the Y offset useless. Perhaps turns it into an entry in ATTACKS.DDF?