Try out my DEHACKED mod improving weapon balance

Inspired by Phmlwep, as the idea is basically the same. DEHACKED mod changing behaviour of monsters and weapons to suit a fun and balanced slaughter gameplay. Some of Phml's mod ideas are included, some are my own touches which I preferred. Phml is aware, I showed him this mod and we had a little talk. I made the mod yesterday in the evening and finished today.

My aim was to balance the arsenal so that every weapon can find its usefulness, even in slaughtermaps. Even pistol and chainsaw can kill powerful enemies quite quickly. Shotgun now deals damage faster than the SSG, but at the cost of higher ammo consumption. Plasma gun fires slower, but more powerful projectiles, so that damage per second is slightly higher and damage per ammo unit is doubled - this was done to better balance the weapon with the BFG.

I've also edited some of the monsters in order to increase challenge and allow for fun fights. Zombiemen become a threat, arachnotrons change their fight dynamic, pain elementals can defend themselves, and masterminds become a nightmare. On the other hand, for example revenant missile deals lower damage a bit.

All changes were done in favor to improve gameplay balance and not make any weapon (or monster) to be superseded by another one.

NEW /IDGAMES DOWNLOAD: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=utils/exe_edit/patches/hardguns.zip

Vanilla compatible. In PrBoom+, use -complevel 2.

LIST OF CHANGES:

---WEAPONS---

Fist     - punches faster
Chainsaw - deals 50% more damage
         - berserk effect even increases the damage
Pistol   - 100% accurate
         - faster fire rate
         - fires 4 bullets at once!
         - you start with 100 bullet ammo
Shotgun  - faster fire rate
         - 2 shells fired at once
          (-> much faster than SSG, but lower efficiency of ammo usage)
SSG      - [no change]
Chaingun - 2x faster fire rate
RL       - 20% faster fire rate
PG       - 66% slower fire rate
         - double damage of the projectile
BFG      - [no change]

---MONSTERS---

Zombieman   - slightly more aggressive
            - fires plasma projectile (damage 4)
            - health 30 (instead of 20)
Demon       - moves 40% faster
            - bites 2x faster
Spectre     - [same as demon]
Arachnotron - radius 52 (instead of 64)
            - much more aggressive and agile
            - projectile damage only 4 (instead of 5)
P.Elemental - radius 28 (instead of 31)
            - melee attack - strength of a revenant punch
Revenant    - projectile damage 8 (instead of 10)
Mancubus    - zero pain chance (tough guy)
            - slightly more aggressive (through shortened durations of walking frames)
Baron       - pain chance 20 (instead of 50)
            - fires 2 projectiles
            - fires a bit faster than Hell Knight
Spiderdemon - radius 104 (instead of 128)
            - walks faster, more aggressive
            - pain chance 10 (instead of 40)
            - health 7000 (!)

Have fun! Feedback is certainly appreciated. Also, if you know of a better "heavy pistol" sound effect, let me know. I know the one I used is bad.

scifista42 said:

PG - 66% slower fire rate
- double damage of the projectile

Do you mean 66% slower or that the new speed is 66% of the original? Because if it's the former, then that's a net nerf - you do twice as much damage but fire only 1/3rd as fast. It's a bit more ammo efficient, sure, but I'm not sure that's worth the trade-off.

It's 60% of the original speed (5 tics per shot instead of 3 tics per shot, so 7 shots per second rather than 11.67 shots per second).

I like how strong the pistol is in this mod, makes the weapon actually entertaining to use. 100% accuracy is nice to remove the need for quicktapping, which ruins your index finger heh. Not too sure about the increase in firing speed (I didn't notice it earlier).

No worries, the plasma gun actually fires just a bit slower, not even twice as slow. It is more effective to use than the original was. Pretty much all weapons deal damage faster now, but many of them also tend to waste ammo more than it used to be. Still, I find it great how the pistol become fun to use to one-shot zombies and quickly finish off individual tougher monsters. I think I got it right, it's roughly as powerful as the SSG, comparing damage per second.

Thanks for your responses!

Mark Klem made some weapon replacement sounds that got used a lot, his pistol sound is pretty good.

https://www.mediafire.com/?n4mfbdbhdki7ckc

Also since you're replacing sounds, you might want to replace the plasma rifle sound, just because most people seem to agree that it's too loud and annoying.

One idea I had for a SSG improvement is to have it fire one or two extra hitscan shots. Doesn't make much of a difference but should make it so that enemies are much more likely to die in the minimum amount of shots.

Another idea I had for the Plasma Rifle is to scale up the cell ammo of everything else, so that the PR is more efficient with cells and thus sometimes useful even with a BFG. This looks good too, though.