Doom Rebalanced - A vanilla-inspired rebalance mod

[Boondorl]

Current version: v1.1

Version without modified Wolfenstein SS enemies: v1.1 - No SS

This custom version is for compatibility with older WADs that used the dehacked method to replace enemies (the Wolfenstein SS is usually one of them).

 

Legacy:

Spoiler

v1.0

v1.0 - No SS

 

Tested on: GZDoom 4.1.3

 

While Doom is probably my favorite shooter of all time, I've had my gripes with some of its gameplay. The Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind are too easy to kill, certain weapons aren't as satisfying as they could be, hitscan enemies are annoying, partial invisibility just is, etc. So, instead of sitting around with a bunch of "what ifs" in my head, I decided to implement a lot of the changes I'd like to see. And thus, we have Doom Rebalanced, a mod that aims to tweak some aspects of the game without adding features like new weapons, enemy attacks, etc.

 

While these are all changes I like, I'd love to get feedback on certain aspects. That includes:

 

• Bugs - I want to make sure I don't leave the game more broken than how I started.
• Feedback on current changes - Maybe you feel the BFG is too strong? Or perhaps Revenants are just too annoying now. Let me know so I can make some tweaks. While this is a project I'm mainly doing for myself, I'm ultimately curious what you guys think.
• Future suggestions - Got an idea you'd like to see in the game? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

 

There's no images to show here because, well, it's just Doom with some tweaks. You already know what it looks like. However, you do probably want a change log.

 

Notes:

• The shotgun is currently not able to use custom sounds due to the way weapon switching can cut it off. However, an option that can be used at your own risk may be added if there's enough demand.
• If you're using GZDoom's althud, make sure to switch back to the normal one or armor won't display (there's some options for the fullscreen HUD in this mod to make it more customizable).

 

v1.1 Changelog:

Spoiler

/// GENERAL \\\

 

•Bullets/pellets

    •Increased speed from 100 to 128
    •Fixed incorrect spawn height offsets (should now match hitscan)
    •Now uses a cone to determine spread (was originally rectangular)
        •Note: Shots with multiple pellets (shotguns, Spider Mastermind) have been normally distributed so their pellets are more likely
         to end up near the middle. Weapons that fire a single bullet will be uniformly distributed
        •Does not apply to enemy hitscan attacks
•Melee projectiles

    •Fixed incorrect spawn height offsets (should now match hitscan)
•Added an option for Doom 64's weapon recoil

    •Adds recoil to the Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Chaingun, and Rocket Launcher
        •Note: Recoil is purely visual and will not affect where your weapons fire
    •Adds a small kickback to the Super Shotgun and Rocket Launcher when on the ground

/// WEAPONS \\\

 

•Reduced swap speed from 3x to 2.5x base speed

•Player bullets/pellets

    •Fixed an error with the velocity calculation
    •Fixed angle offset of projectiles not properly matching offset of hitscan

•Pistol

    •Increased RNG damage from 5-15 to 7-21 to more closely match the non-RNG damage
    •Decreased maximum semi-auto fire rate slightly

•Shotgun
    •Increased fire rate slightly
    •Increased pellets from 8 to 9
    •Reduced damage per pellet from 10 to 9
•Super Shotgun
    •Changed animation back to the original (note: fire rate has not been affected)
    •Increased pellets from 22 to 24
    •Reduced damage per pellet from 10 to 9
•Increased Chaingun accuracy

•Fixed BFG splash particle not spawning on custom enemies

 

/// ENEMIES \\\

 

•Sergeant (projectile attack only)

    •Increased pellets from 8 to 9
    •Increased spread
•Chaingunner (projectile attack only)

    •Reduced spread to match player's Chaingun

•Lost Soul

    •Tweaked behavior to match Doom 64's
    •Added check to help alleviate problems with getting stuck while charging
    •No longer slams into actors that aren't solid
•Optimized extended Revenant hitbox

•Spider Mastermind (projectile attack only)

    •Reduced bullets from 6 to 3
    •Decreased spread

v1.0 Changelog:

Spoiler

/// GENERAL \\\

 

•Make sure to use GZDoom 3.7.2 or later! This update fixed an issue with projectile aiming for enemies

    •Note: Make sure to turn off the GZDoom althud or else armor won't show up

•If you find something you don't like, check out the Doom Rebalanced Options at the bottom of the Options menu! There's plenty of gameplay tweaks to help
 create the best experience for you
    •Note: Enemy options are controlled by the person hosting the game if playing online

•Added fullscreen HUD options to let players see more information (located under Doom Rebelanced Options)

 

/// WEAPONS \\\

 

•Removed random damage numbers from all player weapons

    •Damage numbers have been averaged based off the original base damage and the multiplier they roll

•Weapons now switch 3x faster

•Removed small firing delay from any weapon that had it (excluding BFG9000)

•Weapons can now switch immediately after their gun flash is done playing
    •These adjustments also apply to when you run out of ammo for a weapon
•Picking up a new weapon will no longer swap to it if it has no ammo or needs to be pumped/reloaded

•Fist and Chainsaw order swapped to compensate for Chainsaw alert changes

•Fist

    •No longer alerts enemies
    •Punches can now be cancelled at any time by switching
    •No longer forcefully turns the camera when punching a target
    •Changed punch animation speed to accurately reflect actual punch rate
    •Increased damage to 15 (150 with Berserk)

•Chainsaw
    •No longer automatically swapped to when picked up
    •Now saws twice as fast (pull effects tweaked to match original Chainsaw)
    •Increased saw animation speed
    •Noise now alerts nearby enemies when selecting and idling
    •Increased damage to 15 (30 total per attack)
•Pistol

    •Increased fire rate
    •Increased fire rate significantly when firing in semi-auto
    •Now has perfect accuracy
    •Increased damage to 14
•Both the Shotgun and Super Shotgun now use a pseudo magazine system. Once a shell is pumped/shells are loaded,
 you'll be able to fire the gun afterwards, even if you have no ammo
•Shotgun
    •Increased accuracy
    •Increased fire rate
    •Increased pellets from 7 to 8
    •Pump animation can now be cancelled by switching weapons
        •You will still need to pump the Shotgun next time you switch back if you have shells
    •Note: Custom sounds will not work unless named appropriately
        •Fire: SGFIRE
        •Pump: STGNPUMP
•Super Shotgun

    •Changed reload animation speed to accurately reflect actual reload time
    •Increased accuracy
    •Increased pellets from 20 to 22
    •Reload animation can now be cancelled by switching weapons
        •You will still need to reload the Super Shotgun next time you switch back if you have shells
•Note: New weapon pickups will not cancel Shotgun pumping and Super Shotgun reloading until they're loaded
•Chaingun

    •Increased fire rate
    •Tap fire now only shoots one bullet instead of two
    •Reduced accuracy
    •No longer has perfect accuracy on first shot
•Rocket Launcher

    •Increased projectile speed by 25%
•Plasma Rifle

    •End-of-firing delay can now be bypassed by firing or switching weapons
    •Increased projectile speed by 100%
    •Increased damage to 28
•BFG9000

    •End-of-firing delay can now be bypassed by firing or switching weapons
    •Can now be free aimed without needing to set the flag for it
    •Now uses 75 cells
    •Now gives 75 cells
    •BFG spray reworked
        •Now an AoE explosion that deals 600 damage to enemies within a 1024 map unit radius (no fall-off)
        •Guaranteed to stun
        •Note: Players have been given 85% damage resistance this

/// ENEMIES \\\

 

•Enemy damage is no longer random and has been averaged

•Enemies will no longer track players behind walls but will fire at their previous location before hiding

•Enemies will now always wake up when taking damage

•Hitscan attacks have been converted to projectiles but buffed to compensate

    •Grunts are now significantly more accurate
    •Sergeants now fire 8 weaker pellets in a tighter spread
    •Chaingunners now fire twice as fast and are more accurate but deal less damage per bullet
    •SS now fire significantly faster, are more accurate, and will no longer infight with each other
    •The Spider Mastermind now fires 6 bullets instead of 3 per shot, is more accurate, and will no longer infight with other Spider Masterminds
•Wolfenstein SS

    •Note: This enemy will always appear to face the player when firing because there are no sprites for other angles. This is not a bug but an unfortunate part of the   game
•Demon and Spectre

    •Increased melee attack speed
    •No longer get increased melee speed on Nightmare! difficulty
•Spectre

    •Will now fade out the further away the player is until completely invisible
    •Note: This was done to give an idea of what the new partial invisibility power up is like for your enemies
•Lost Soul

    •Increased aggression
    •Lowered health from 100 to 60
•Revenant

    •Missile will now always lock on
    •Increased melee attack speed
    •Heightened hitbox
        •Note: This won't affect the actual collision detection
•Pain Elemental

    •Blocked Lost Soul spawns now explode
        •Pain Elementals and Lost Souls are immune to this explosive damage
    •Now spits out two Lost Souls instead of one
    •Spawned Lost Souls no longer charge to prevent infighting
    •Can no longer be hurt by Lost Souls
•Arachnotron

    •Increased fire rate
•Barons and Hellknights can now infight
•Arch-Vile

    •Increased pain chance from 4% to 6%
    •No longer switches targets rapidly when being shot at
    •Fire is now transparent
    •Fire is now moved to the middle of the target when it explodes. This means it's guaranteed to do 90 damage and can't be blocked anymore by small pillars
    •Fire now accurately updates to target that Arch-vile is attacking
    •Fire now disappears if Arch-vile channeling it is killed or stunned
    •Can no longer harm itself or other Arch-viles with its blast
•Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind
    •Reduced pain chance significantly
        •Cyberdemon: 8% -> 2%
        •Spider Mastermind: 16% -> 4%
    •No longer affected by thrusting from damage
•Cyberdemon

    •Now fires slightly faster
    •Projectile speed increased by 25%
    
/// ITEMS \\\

 

•Certain health and armor items are no longer always picked up. This includes:

    •Health bonuses unless below 200 health
    •Armor bonuses unless below 200 armor
    •Beserk packs unless the player hasn't picked one up yet or is below 100 health
    •Soulspheres unless below 200 health
    •Megaspheres unless below 200 health or armor
 To compensate, none of these items are now counted towards the item score

•Armor is now tiered based off amount instead of type picked up

    •Armor less than or equal to 100: 33% damage reduction
    •Armor above 100: 50% damage reduction
•Health and armor bonuses now give 2 instead of 1

•Berserk packs no longer automatically switch your weapon to fists

•Reduced screen filter effect for the rad suit, invulnerability sphere, and berserk pack

•Patched up some leaks in the radiation suit

•Backpacks are no longer picked up when your ammo is full after already doubling your capacity from a previous backpack

•Partial invisibility

    •Sight range modifications
        •Alert distance is now based off the angle the player has in relation to the enemy
        •Alert distance shortened significantly at all angles
    •Enemy accuracy changes
        •If near melee range, enemies are completely unaffected by partial invisibility
        •Enemies will no longer sporadically turn during attacks but will face one angle at the start of the attack and fire in that direction unless walking into melee range
        •Accuracy is based off how far away the player is
        •At long ranges enemies will cease to fire at the player unless in retaliation (excludes Arch-vile)
    •Enemies will no longer turn randomly while meleeing and during the Arch-vile's attack
    •Lost Souls spawned by Pain Elementals will no longer automatically acquire a target
    •Homing missiles will no longer lock on
    •Enemies that fire continuously now do so in bursts
    •Enemies that fire in bursts will slightly randomize their angle while attacking
    •The Arch-vile's chance to attack is now based off distance from the player

 

Credits:

Spoiler

• ZDoom forums - General problem solving advice and feedback on gameplay
• GZDoom - Class information for everything
• ZDoom wiki - Where I spend most of my time when trying to solve problems
• Beautiful Doom - Tracer model used for bullets/pellets
• Dklark - Splitting the shotgun fire and pump sounds
• Doomworld - Feedback on gameplay
• id Software - Making this awesome game

 

Enjoy!

Edited August 9, 2019 by Boondorl

[wintertowns]

The armor meter in the GZDoom alternative hud does not show up in this mod for me. Otherwise I could not find any technical flaws.

 

Stylistically I would suggest adding some smooth animations to the weapons to spice it up, as the weaponhandling feels smoother overall with these rules. I like that the chainsaw wakes up monsters when idling, and the logical switch of fists to first weapon in slot 1 because of that. It also makes it easier to flip out the berserk when needed, making gameplay faster. I'm not sure about the armor type change, type of armor affect itembalance in levels too much I think. The BFG splash change is heretical, but fun. End-of-firing delay bypasses are a godsend. The firerate of the chaingun might be a tad op.

 

The lost soul spawn explosion might be to gamebreaking, as fighting the pain elemental with berserk is so common as a tactic. I like that it spawns two souls though, but maybe on UV-NM only? I think the spectre fade could be more extreme, so that it's only visible really close to the player. You can actually circlestrafe mastermind now, don't know if it's good or bad. I personally like it, it's kind of justified by the lowered pain chance. All the item pickup changes are just good.

 

I don't know if it's possible to do, but a rad, fitting change would also be to be able to switch from shotguns before reloading/pumping, then reload/pump when switching back. I been looking for this in other mods, but none seem to be able to do it. At least the SG could benefit greatly from this.

 

Nitpicking aside, very nice to have a mod that lets you play faster, without necessarily making you an invincible god-being, or adding lots of stuff that actually delays gameplay for superfluous visual drama.

[Sparktimus]

I would say that changing every single hitscan weapon into a projectile-based weapon is a bit too drastic of a change to say you're trying to keep the core gameplay in tact, but that's just me.

[Xenaero]

I like your ambition with taking on functionality changes, I did a several map runthrough to get a feel for it.

I really love the faster weapon response time, it's such a nice quality of life change, I like the chaingun although lacking the tap accuracy hurts for taking out chaingunners long range so you don't get mulched, but I suppose in this mod you could use the shotgun for that. I didn't really try it. Shotgun in general seems a lot more useful than vanilla, where you'd mostly crush everything with SSG. I found myself using the SSG on only the meatier targets I could take down in two or three shots with it and using shotgun most everywhere else, and chaingun for crowd control. The faster plasma projectile is nice and would probably make me use it more rather than just hoard cells for BFG 9 times out of 10.

 

I've grown a liking recently to monsters hitting a lot harder (mostly due to playing coop on that hard doom mod) so that's probably affecting this judgement but I feel like monsters are way less of a threat currently. Pinkies attacking faster is a big plus, but moving slower removes that threat from reaching panic levels.

 

Overall I like what you're doing so far. A couple hiccups but the weapon rebalancing makes me think and as it stood during my brief run I was using a much more varied assortment of weapons than what I normally would, after I got a handle on the changes. It's kind of a fun not so serious mod. It feels like it makes it a bit easier overall, so might be nice for someone playtesting this to pair it with Scythe 2 or something that on UV tends to ramp up the difficulty fast.

 

e: Was gonna omit because you said you were putting in a toggle for the player's weapons, but the horizontal autoaim on the bullet weapons as it stands kinda sucks for picking targets out of a crowd you wanna eliminate first with the shotguns. If you're keeping the tracer player weapons I'd definitely look at fixing that.

[Nine Inch Heels]

8 hours ago, Boondorl said:

Doom Rebalanced, a mod that aims to tweak some of the minor aspects of the game while keeping the core gameplay untouched.

Well then... At first I thought that even if you change everything in a subtle manner you can still end up with roughly the same gameplay feel, but the more I look at your list of stuff that you rebalanced, the less confident I am that we're thinking of the same thing when talking about Doom's "core gameplay".

Literally every change you made is changing the core gameplay, at times even drastically. Would you mind telling me what aspect of the core gameplay didn't get changed? Because I'm struggling to find one...

I mean you changed weapon behaviour, you removed almost all of the RNG, you also changed item-pickup behaviour, behaviour of armour, infight behaviour.... Literally the only thing you didn't touch so far is player movement.

Dude, mod the game however you like. Just saying that you're doing false advertising with regards to leaving the core gameplay "untouched".

[Juza]

I don't think making hitscan into projectiles is a good idea. I  literally took no damage during the starting section of MAP04, something which had never happened before. Also, the pistol and SSG sprites are messed up.

[Zediru]

removed by user

Edited February 10, 2019 by Zediru

[Tango]

likewise really excited to try this, the changes sound awesome. particularly stoked about the armor changes, the invis changes, the archvile QOL changes, and a whole bunch of other stuff haha. thanks for making this and sharing it Boondorl :D

[Boondorl]

19 hours ago, wintertowns said:

I don't know if it's possible to do, but a rad, fitting change would also be to be able to switch from shotguns before reloading/pumping, then reload/pump when switching back. I been looking for this in other mods, but none seem to be able to do it. At least the SG could benefit greatly from this.

The good news is that this is actually really easy to implement as I've already done it before in my own version of Brutal Doom 64. I thought about adding it but was worried it might be a bit too flow-breaking compared to vanilla.

 

I'll probably update to some smoother animations. I was thinking about it and might add an option for those who prefer the more choppier animations that classic Doom offers.

 

Also, I know why the armor meter doesn't show up. I had to override the armor to implement my own custom formula for absorbing damage which required replacing all armor in the game to use the new system. It's likely that the default HUD is still tracking BasicArmor (the default class) instead of my own. I made sure that the armor icon in the normal full screen HUD updates but wasn't aware of the GZDoom alt HUD with the meter so I'll look into it and fix it.

 

13 hours ago, Xenaero said:

e: Was gonna omit because you said you were putting in a toggle for the player's weapons, but the horizontal autoaim on the bullet weapons as it stands kinda sucks for picking targets out of a crowd you wanna eliminate first with the shotguns. If you're keeping the tracer player weapons I'd definitely look at fixing that.

Unfortunately I'm not sure this is possible for me to alter as this is actually behavior from the original game itself. Maybe I can find a way to override the game's autoaim with my own, but it would have to be a hacky workaround since there's no way to truly disable the default autoaim functionality.

 

As for ranged enemies, the Pistol is there. ;) I know, it's a weird change to get used to. For so long the Pistol has been a joke weapon made almost to mock the player for not having a better weapon, but it has an actual purpose now. The accuracy on it is almost perfect and the change to semi-auto means it can be fired very quickly if you have the trigger finger for it. I didn't find myself needing to use it too often, but when I did, it got the job done.

 

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Just saying that you're doing false advertising with regards to leaving the core gameplay "untouched". 

Fair enough. To me the core gameplay revolves around circle strafing projectiles and baiting out melee attacks (well, and hiding from hitscan/Arch-viles) while using an array of situational weaponry to take on Hell's army. What I was mainly trying to say is that this mod doesn't add anything that isn't already there, just tweaks it. Item management has always been unnecessarily obnoxious, and given that fact that enemies no longer vary between 10 and 80 damage (looking at you, Revenants), I figured an armor nerf would be justifiable. In my play testing I found it balanced out pretty well, but that's just me and a sample size of one obviously isn't very rigid.

 

I'll likely add in some more customizability options once I make sure everything is working.

 

9 hours ago, Juza said:

Also, the pistol and SSG sprites are messed up.

The pistol I had a hard time finding a good animation for. 3 frames is unfortunately too few to really make it flow well. I'll be playing around with it more to hopefully find something that resembles the original Doom decently enough. Keep in mind I also needed to change the starting frames of the fire to compensate for the fact that it can be fired far more quickly now.

 

Not sure what's wrong with the SSG. The reload animation is sped up a bit to remove the 11 frames of ending lag it normally has (holding fire will skip them in the original game). I could tweak it a bit to act the same as the classic while still having the cleaner response time. The big thing for me is to make sure weapons feel responsive to what the player is doing.

[GarrettChan]

People like to complain about circle strafing and having boring gameplay on maps (or more likely slaughter maps). Revenants are such a good design to avoid this problem because of the randomness of the their missiles (although they could be less harsh if the missiles deal something like 8D8 instead of 10D8. To me, they're perfectly fine because playing a game with low difficulty is simply boring). Then, people complain about Revenants having RNG in their missile behaviors. Sorry for my complaint about other complaints.

[Boondorl]

24 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

People like to complain about circle strafing and having boring gameplay on maps (or more likely slaughter maps). Revenants are such a good design to avoid this problem because of the randomness of the their missiles (although they could be less harsh if the missiles deal something like 8D8 instead of 10D8. To me, they're perfectly fine because playing a game with low difficulty is simply boring). Then, people complain about Revenants having RNG in their missile behaviors. Sorry for my complaint about other complaints.

I guess I should mention that RNG damage is something I have a personal gripe with. It's definitely a carryover from tabletop RPGs which almost always feel incredibly dated when added into non-turnbased video games (like Morrowind's dice roll combat). I never had too much of an issue with it when it came to enemies (weapon RNG had to go since it severely gimped the SSG most of the time) until I watched a speedrun where it really clicked for me just how bad it could be. Dying from a missile, reloading a save, and then having the same missile only do a quarter as much damage because you moved slightly differently just isn't a good look.

 

For Revenants specifically, their missiles had a 50% chance to track you. Since the damage is averaged now I made them always track to ensure they're still high priority without needing to rely on RNG to achieve it.

 

The real issue here is that most things die before they even have a chance to show off their stuff. Players who aren't as deep into the game will likely find a lot of these balance changes more fitting, but to anyone who instinctively knows which enemies to prioritize and what weapon to use where, a lot of these changes will inevitably feel underwhelming. I don't know what to do about that because in a game that now relies almost entirely on skill, skilled players will always have the easiest time (see: Dark Souls). Maybe that's not a bad thing. I haven't had a chance to test this mod yet on more difficult WADs like Sunlust where the tweaks might shine through better.

 

If I could make one major tweak, it'd be better mod compatibility so players could add whatever they want on top of it. Unfortunately that's just not possible due to the way modding works in this game.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Boondorl

[GarrettChan]

12 minutes ago, Boondorl said:

I never had too much of an issue with it when it came to enemies (weapon RNG had to go since it severely gimped the SSG most of the time) until I watched a speedrun where it really clicked for me just how bad it could be. Dying from a missile, reloading a save, and then having the same missile only do a quarter as much damage because you moved slightly differently just isn't a good look.

I don't really get it. Since SSG has 20 pellets stacked on top of each other, it tends to deal a more average damage (even with the weird random "generator" used by Doom). On the other hand, Rocket Launcher has higher variance than that because you can get 3 consecutive 20 damage rockets in a row, or you can get ultra lucky and kill an Arachnotron/Hell Knight in 2 shots. Another thing that I don't understand is the latter sentence. Do you mean save/load is allowed in the speedrun you're watching?

[Boondorl]

The speedrun was what made it click, but the example I gave is something you'd come across in normal play where someone could be saving a lot. I was actually thinking of Joel of Vinesauce fame since he does this quite often and I feel is a pretty good look into what the average player actually plays like.

 

As for the SSG, it's always the enemies that have health divisible by 200. Getting average damage isn't optional like with Hellknights, it's mandatory. The more shots an enemies needs the less of an issue it is, but getting up into a Cacodemons face just to have a 50/50 chance it'll only take two shots feels awful. The Cacodemon and Pain Elemental aren't exactly uncommon enemies so this scenario shows up a lot. It's similar to how the Mancubus always fluctuates between 3 and 4 rockets needed to kill it and it makes me feel bad every time it happens when I'm playing.

 

The Berserk fists would have been a better example here, doing anywhere from 20 to 200 damage. Sometimes you can kill that Pinky in one hit, other times it takes 3.

 

That's just me, though. A lot of people probably don't even notice, but I've been playing this game for too long and need things to complain about :^)

[Mk7_Centipede]

Super Psyched and thank you.

 

Couple things: Hitscan is good. Random damage is good. And if you buff the pistol and Shotty i think you should likewise give the Former Human/ Sarge/ Imp/ Commando slight health boosts. But I do like the nerf to Lost Soul HP. It was always weird they had more HP than anything low tier except a pinky.

 

So, the Mastermind doesnt have a BFG? ;)

 

also, with the revenant, its awesome because it has 3 different attacks. I was looking at some concept art for Doom2 and the Revenant had a shotgun! I am all for OP enemies :) however you do it, he needs to have a variety of attacks.

 

Thanks, though. Now I have another reason to stop working on maps.

 

edit:

The pistol fires too fast in semi auto. Its nice to have it fire faster but maybe only by 15% maybe 25%. This feels twice as fast.

Shotgun Guys are simply weak. They deal, what , 25% of a full health bar? I am pretty sure they could basically kill you in 2 shots before.

In Doom 64, Former Humans fire 3 round bursts. I think that is ultimately the desired change to make them a threat.

I am Ok with the Chaingun not being perfectly accurate, but if that is the case, the Pistol needs to be perfectly accurate. Gotta snipe.

 

Overall I like the item changes and faster weapon swapping and Chainsaw/fist changes and plasma rifle. But This isnt Doom 2016. Hit scanners are important. Random damage sorta suffices for location damage as well, so...

Thank you and keep it up.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Mk7_Centipede

[wintertowns]

1 hour ago, Boondorl said:

The real issue here is that most things die before they even have a chance to show off their stuff. Players who aren't as deep into the game will likely find a lot of these balance changes more fitting, but to anyone who instinctively knows which enemies to prioritize and what weapon to use where, a lot of these changes will inevitably feel underwhelming. I don't know what to do about that because in a game that now relies almost entirely on skill, skilled players will always have the easiest time (see: Dark Souls). Maybe that's not a bad thing. I haven't had a chance to test this mod yet on more difficult WADs like Sunlust where the tweaks might shine through better.

 

Was actually download Sunlust and Sunder again after trying this out. This is the most interesting thing for me as an experienced, but kind of intermediate player. To be able to play more extreme wads relatively blind using instinctive tactics, without having to rehearse strategies for every fight. It might break the game just enough for that ;).

 

1 hour ago, Boondorl said:

I guess I should mention that RNG damage is something I have a personal gripe with. It's definitely a carryover from tabletop RPGs which almost always feel incredibly dated when added into non-turnbased video games (like Morrowind's dice roll combat).

 

This is so true. It has a charm in itself of course, but hey, if you want pure vanilla, just don't use the mod then. It could definitely be argued that such a mechanic actually hinders the core gamplay of modern Doom pwads rather than working for it. I personally cannot think of a wad that actually make use of the randomness aspect of the game specifically, and I don't know how many modern players actually feel true horror distress rather than casual annoyance when you get fucked by RNGesus. 

 

1 hour ago, GarrettChan said:

Do you mean save/load is allowed in the speedrun you're watching?

 

Probably a marathon run vod/stream?

 

1 hour ago, Boondorl said:

Sometimes you can kill that Pinky in one hit, other times it takes 3.

 

Then there is the dreaded 4-5 hit...

[GoneAway]

On 1/16/2019 at 11:02 AM, Boondorl said:

And thus, we have Doom Rebalanced, a mod that aims to tweak some aspects of the game without adding features like new weapons, enemy attacks, etc.

Rebalance mod that tweaks some aspects of the game. 🤔

Nearly every aspect of the game is changed, sometimes dramatically. 🤔

Pain elemental is changed so much that it is now a custom enemy. 🤔

Many of the other monster changes completely alter the monster's role in encounters. 🤔

🤔

[Mk7_Centipede]

bumb the health of former human & former sergeant  to 50.

[Gaia74]

The truth seems to be a wad that puts another way of playing doom, the idea is fine,is a good wad, but I will not play it since it is not something I want to play

 

Is difficult to modify doom without changing the central game mode, I had the idea of doing a wad with all the enemies with new attacks and more difficult, something more intelligent and of course the cyberdemon and spider mastermind would not be easy

 

But I did not do it for the same reason, it's difficult to *rebalance* without changing much the original style

 

This is my opinion and good luck in your project! :P

[wintertowns]

After playing a few levels of Sunlust with this, I'd say it works really well, and feels like a buffed vanilla mode. I stand by that the chaingun firerate probably should be nerfed a little, and that the damaging lost soul explosions should be removed, and the armor type change still seems unnecessary. Many wads require you to deal with close combat situations, and the exploding souls are just too punishing. This really is the ideal UV blindrun mod for me, keep it up. Will test more cause I'm exited for this.

 

I don't know what people who are criticising the changes for being too radical imagine that a mod, that claims to introduce slight changes to gameplay, should look like? I mean, all enemies do the same stuff, the overall flow is just more streamlined, in a specific way sure, but that's kind of inevitable if an individual is making a mod that affect gameplay, no? All dodging, infighting, aiming, projectile prediction and encounters in general works the same way as in vanilla, it just turns the general balance slightly in your favor, given that you know how to play. I mean, it's not a power fantasy, If you fuck up, you probably die faster than in vanilla because of consistent monsterdamage, but it makes skillful play more powerful, which, as I understand it, is the entire point of the mod. It allows you to break the level easier without doing it for you.

[Boondorl]

Beta 2 is out! A quick update to some of the more problematic aspects so far. Change log in the main post. Some thoughts on some of the changes:

• I opted to drop the Chaingun's damage down as opposed to lowering the fire rate since I don't find it as satisfying when it fires slower. My ideal role for it would be for fighting medium enemies in close quarters (to make good use of the stuns) and for clearing rooms of smaller enemies like Grunts and Sergeants. Slowing down the fire rate would make it little more than a crappier Plasma Rifle so I'm trying to give it a defined purpose. Hopefully the hit to the ammo economy and time to kill will balance it out a bit better.
• I tweaked the explosion on Pain Elementals by lowering the damage significantly alongside the range (to compensate I removed damage fall-off so it actually deals damage). I did some testing and found it works out pretty well. The only way to take damage from it is by intentionally body-blocking them since the radius isn't big enough to damage anything nearby when walls block it. These changes should hopefully make them far more forgiving to fight in small areas without readding the ability to exploit them.

[Ancalagon]

I don't know what kind of speedrun you were watching but saves are not allowed unless it's a TAS run.

[Woolie Wool]

On 1/17/2019 at 2:36 AM, Boondorl said:

I guess I should mention that RNG damage is something I have a personal gripe with. It's definitely a carryover from tabletop RPGs which almost always feel incredibly dated when added into non-turnbased video games (like Morrowind's dice roll combat). I never had too much of an issue with it when it came to enemies (weapon RNG had to go since it severely gimped the SSG most of the time) until I watched a speedrun where it really clicked for me just how bad it could be. Dying from a missile, reloading a save, and then having the same missile only do a quarter as much damage because you moved slightly differently just isn't a good look.

I hate "dated". Doom is not "dated", Doom is old, and that's OK. Art, though it might involve technology, is not some disposable tech product that is obsolete in two years and thrown away. People still play all those tabletop RPGs, and they still play Doom, and they still make games inspired by those things. We do not need to subjugate Doom to the tyranny of "good dame design" as defined by large companies making disposable games for an audience that just wants a cheap piece of entertainment. It's not just a coincidence that Doom made it through 25 years with a strong and enduring fanbase when games like Rise of the Triad (moar violant than Dewm!!!!111 Highest RSAC violence rating evar!!!!!1111 Wait, what's an RSAC?) did not.

 

And I'm not a speedrunner and probably never will be, but considering how Doom players pretty much invented speedrunning as we know it, I don't think speedrunners are overly bothered by the fact that chance plays a heavy role in Doom's combat.

[wintertowns]

That shotgun change is the best thing. Still no armor counter though, maybe it's a sign :^)? You also have an irrational love for your pain elemental.

 

[Boondorl]

I just hate how body blocking can make the Pain Elemental so useless. It needs something going for it other than being a minor nuisance. I ripped the design straight from Doom 64 so even id themselves approved of changing it.

 

I can't find anything about an armor meter in the GZDoom alternative HUD. I don't see it in vanilla either but I think I know what HUD you're talking about. If it's a mod I'll need a download link to make a compatibility version.

[wintertowns]

It's not a mod, just the regular alternative, fullscreen hud in GZDoom, enable it from "options" > "hud options" > "alternative hud" > "enable alternative hud", and zoom out from the normal hud. I just call it an armor meter, it't the regular number in the lower left corner that indicates how much armor is left. In your mod, I only see health, no armor. Normally it doesn't show up until armor is picked up, maybe that's why you missed it? Didn't know about the special snowflake D64 PE, only played D64 a little bit. I guess it's at least an explanation. No worries, I'll just spray it to swiss cheese with the chaingun.

[Boondorl]

Wow, not sure how I missed that.

 

The solution to this is unfortunately a big yikes. The althud is hardcoded and the only thing althudcf lets you actually modify are the icons. I can't fix the armor for it because there's no way to actually change what it's tracking. Instead I'll need to get an SBARINFO that essentially emulates the althud without actually being it. I don't know how long that will take to get/make, so the unfortunate answer I have to give for now is to use the standard fullscreen HUD.

 

And such is the life of GZDoom modding. Sometimes beautifully simplistic, other times needlessly frustrating.

[ReaperAA]

My opinions on some of the things:

 

The Good:

- Shotgun pellet increase from 7 to 8. This actually makes it much better and it doesn't become obsolete after getting SSG.

- Fist has higher priority than chainsaw. Good for berserker/tyson players.

- Buffed Pistol.

- Removal of RNG damage. RNG in everything else(monster behaviour, weapon spread) is okay but RNG damage is absurd.

- Not picking up powerups (berserk, health/armor bonuses) unless below certain health. This means they are not wasted.

- Lost soul change is good. More aggressive but less health (I like it)

 

The Bad:

- Change of hitscan weapons to projectile weapons and buffing of zombie/hitscan enemies.

- Revenants always lock on. As if they are not already annoying enough.

- Health/armor bonuses provide 2 points instead of 1.

 

The Ugly:

- Spider Mastermind is wayyy too dangerous at close/mid range.

- Pain Elementals have "body blocking protection" AND "spawn 2 lost souls". I think only one should exist as it would make them too dangerous/OP.

- BFG change. Wayyy too drastic of a change, to a point when it would break balance of maps that make use of it (either making things too easy or too hard). Also it consumes 75 cells instead of 40 which means byebye ammo.

Edited January 19, 2019 by ReaperAA

[Boondorl]

Beta 3 is out! Includes some more fixes towards the weapon system and the long lost options menu. The change log has all the current options, but some features include:

• RNG damage for both players and/or enemies
• Rebalanced or vanilla styled BFG and armor system
• Hitscan toggles for both player weapons/melee and hitscan enemies
• The ability to turn off damage from blocking Lost Soul spawns from Pain Elementals
• And more

You can find these located at the bottom of the Options menu named "Doom Rebalanced Options." There's a little bit of something for everyone in here. If you have any other things you'd be interested in having as an option, let me know.

[Boondorl]

Ok, quick hotfix. Make sure to redownload it since a surprise guest appearance from the Doom Beta Lost Soul showed up when RNG damage for enemies was turned on.

[wintertowns]

Having a lot of fun with this brother. It's still a bit annoying not to be able to see kills and secrets in the HUD with this mod though. I've tried two different custom HUD's that replaces the regular fullscreen HUD, and the armor-problem persists. I don't know enough about scripting to be able to understand why, but maybe you could look into it if you have opportunity? If so, I've tried this with NC HUD and Peter's Sexy HUD. Anyway, can confirm that it seems to be compatible with Ketchup v. 5. It's also great to have a settings menu to streamline the game even further, keep up the good work.