Gameplay Mod Walpurgis- 0.99 (For Doom, Heretic, Hexen) [NEW RELEASE!!!]

[eharper256]

So locust swarms are definately locked in, with overwhelming support. Grasping Vines and Treant Fists are tied though (which was actually my dilemna myself, lol). I'll give last second lurkers a chance to get in there with votes though.

Well, if its not resolved I guess we'll have to design both and see which ends up feeling and looking best, will take a bit longer but them's the chops.

[eharper256]

New Hexen hub-megawad!

These are a pretty rare thing, but Captain Toenail has recently released this new one, Veil of Darkness, so I thought I'd check it out. It's a very mana-starved experience which means I have to lean a lot on my force blasts (probably should have used my upgrade on them rather than Aestus fireballs lol), and has extra items like the mines that are not too optimised for Walpurgis.

 

Still, very pretty, lots of Doomcute, and we've not had new Hexen hubs of note since Talparun and Penumbra, which are both quite a while ago now.

Get it here:

 

[akinata]

i was looking for a magic oriented mod for doom. i think i found the one.
i was expecting a simple magic weapon mod. i got more.
_not overly complicated, well designed, perhaps a bit op,

_enough content with different playstyles (class)

_cool sprites,
_ i like that you created a little testing maps. (however there isn't enough upgrade tomes)

_music is nice,

_the doom monsters are super reactive and not sluggish like in vanilla. i like the added abilities on some like the superjump on pinkies. bonus points for the existence of variants (tho i wold like also some rare extra harder variants with unique abilities ^^),
(on that note, the imp variants seems to miss alot.)
_items have descriptions!!! (believe it or not, there is doom mods which add lots of items without any name or description of what they are -.-)

overall a great and fun mod that does more than simply add new weapons.
the only critic i can make is that it is not coop compatible.

is there a patch i need, to play this with elementalism?

[akinata]

the wand that toggle distance switch doesn't seem to work with doom2.

[eharper256]

31 minutes ago, akinata said:

i was looking for a magic oriented mod for doom. i think i found the one.
i was expecting a simple magic weapon mod. i got more.
_not overly complicated, well designed, perhaps a bit op,

_enough content with different playstyles (class)

_cool sprites,
_ i like that you created a little testing maps. (however there isn't enough upgrade tomes)

_music is nice,

_the doom monsters are super reactive and not sluggish like in vanilla. i like the added abilities on some like the superjump on pinkies. bonus points for the existence of variants (tho i wold like also some rare extra harder variants with unique abilities ^^),
(on that note, the imp variants seems to miss alot.)
_items have descriptions!!! (believe it or not, there is doom mods which add lots of items without any name or description of what they are -.-)

overall a great and fun mod that does more than simply add new weapons.
the only critic i can make is that it is not coop compatible.

is there a patch i need, to play this with elementalism?

Thankyou VERY much for the glowing praise. Glad you like the monster tweaks and the classes!

A quick Elementalism patch is here. It's a bit quirky, since they're both heavy mods, but they at least behave together.

The Test Map does have 9 upgrade items (enough for 3 weapons to fully upgrade), but I guess I could just pop a dispenser in at some point lol.

You can adjust the difficulty in the Walpurgis options and make everything have more HP and damage output if you like.

Co-Op has some mild support, I heard someone got it working in GZ, though it has not really been tested extensively.

The hitscan wand defo does appear in the Inventory for me in Doom 2 wad, and I just doubled checked in MAP28's shootable door, seemed to work? What map are you trying? Is the wand set to spawn in the menu?

[akinata]

8 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

Thankyou VERY much for the glowing praise. Glad you like the monster tweaks and the classes!

A quick Elementalism patch is here. It's a bit quirky, since they're both heavy mods, but they at least behave together.

The Test Map does have 9 upgrade items (enough for 3 weapons to fully upgrade), but I guess I could just pop a dispenser in at some point lol.

You can adjust the difficulty in the Walpurgis options and make everything have more HP and damage output if you like.

Co-Op has some mild support, I heard someone got it working in GZ, though it has not really been tested extensively.

The hitscan wand defo does appear in the Inventory for me in Doom 2 wad, and I just doubled checked in MAP28's shootable door, seemed to work? What map are you trying? Is the wand set to spawn in the menu?

 

everytime i tried to coop with Qzdoom modded (unmodded it works) it always desync after a few minutes. :c
not tested walpurgis coop yet but i don't have my hopes up.

what do you mean by shootable door? i am playing doom2 right now and the wand does not activate doors nor switches.

[eharper256]

5 minutes ago, akinata said:

what do you mean by shootable door? i am playing doom2 right now and the wand does not activate doors nor switches.
 

The wand is ONLY specifically for switches that activate by shooting them (like the Eyes in Romero's Sigil, the Door in the Computer Maze to the Chainsaw in Doom 1 E1M2, the door to the Red Key Door in MAP28 of Doom2, etc.).

It doesn't toggle standard doors or switches. It's just there because sometimes, mappers like adding switches that are hard to get to and require precise accuracy (usually for secrets). Which is fine if you have a chaingun, but not so fine trying to get your throwing axe or lightning bolt in there. :D

[akinata]

btw i also like very much the doom 2 end levels screen ^^

[eharper256]

12 minutes ago, akinata said:

btw i also like very much the doom 2 end levels screen ^^

I can't take credit for these; they are the fantastic work of @oliacym. All I did was remove Doomguy from my version and integrate them so that they can also work with Wadsmoosh, and Walpurgis in general. :D

You can get them separately to work for other mods here:

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by eharper256

[akinata]

after a while, when unlocking the ultimate weapon, the weapon is so strong that i just just use it and blast every monsters with ease.
i play wizard. the upgraded right click just delete any room making the use of other powers a bit useless.
instead of being an ultimate weapon for when i need it, it became my default weapon. :/
perhaps there is a need to add a 3rd ressource only for ultimate weapons?

edit: well until i run out of ammo.

Edited November 8, 2023 by akinata

[eharper256]

3 hours ago, akinata said:

after a while, when unlocking the ultimate weapon, the weapon is so strong that i just just use it and blast every monsters with ease.
i play wizard. the upgraded right click just delete any room making the use of other powers a bit useless.
instead of being an ultimate weapon for when i need it, it became my default weapon. :/
perhaps there is a need to add a 3rd ressource only for ultimate weapons?

edit: well until i run out of ammo.

Yes, there you go, the weakness of all of the Ultimates is that they chow down on Mana / Ammo at a very high rate (except maybe Myrmidon's Greatsword, but Myrm is all about ammo efficiency in exchange for being reliant on melee).

Whilst the Hellfire Cone is indeed super awesome, you only get AT MOST 16 shots of it to go from full mana to zero mana. So when levels have a high monster count, combined with the fact that it loses effectiveness at longer ranges, combined with the fact that you share the same ammo pool with all weapons, means it's more balanced than you might first think.

Of course, the original game's levels are also really easy by modern standards, since they were made for a time when we used the arrow keys instead of WASD, and didn't have mouselook. And had strict level size and BSP limits, so, yes, absolutely, I can't really fully balance around that.

Edited November 8, 2023 by eharper256

[akinata]

On 10/27/2023 at 8:53 AM, eharper256 said:

So locust swarms are definately locked in, with overwhelming support. Grasping Vines and Treant Fists are tied though (which was actually my dilemna myself, lol). I'll give last second lurkers a chance to get in there with votes though.

Well, if its not resolved I guess we'll have to design both and see which ends up feeling and looking best, will take a bit longer but them's the chops.

treant punch feels like something you already have on other class. it is a bit redundant. (you already have werewolf for transformed melee.)
so i vote grasping vine.

+ having vines entangle ennemies feel more druidic to me than punching.

[akinata]

25 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

Yes, there you go, the weakness of all of the Ultimates is that they chow down on Mana / Ammo at a very high rate (except maybe Myrmidon's Greatsword, but Myrm is all about ammo efficiency in exchange for being reliant on melee).

Whilst the Hellfire Cone is indeed super awesome, you only get AT MOST 16 shots of it to go from full mana to zero mana. So when levels have a high monster count, combined with the fact that it loses effectiveness at longer ranges, combined with the fact that you share the same ammo pool with all weapons, means it's more balanced than you might first think.

Of course, the original game's levels are also really easy by modern standards, since they were made for a time when we used the arrow keys instead of WASD, and didn't have mouselook. And had strict level size and BSP limits, so, yes, absolutely, I can't really fully balance around that.

i think reducing the amount of ammo resplenishment bags you can stack might help (3 max?). i stacked 9 ammo bags pretty easily. which made the ultimate weapon easier to use.
i still think that it using 3 ammo type would bring a stop on using it whenever you have the 2 ammo available.
its like playing with a faster BFG that consume less ammo which you can resplenish easier.

the 3rd ammo could be souls, dropped from defeated monsters. (or only from stronger monsters in larger quantity.)

[eharper256]

I can't go arbitrarily adding a third ammo type, that would not be keeping with the original Hexen, and one of the big design goals of Walpurgis was to keep everything requiring just the basic two mana types so it remains easy to understand and fast paced (heck, that's one of the things you said you liked lol).

Kraters of Might are going to be nerfed again before we reach the 1.0 version, with their drop-rate reduced, so yes, that is coming. Making sure that they provide appropriate amounts of mana across all three games is tough (Doom usually has more ammo around than Hexen or Heretic - heck if you look at that Hexen video above I'm always running low there!).

 

As for the Dryad form, I ended up designing all three of the options in the end, and I'm going through various test phases at the moment. Right now, I do personally like the vines, but we shall see. A bit more coding and spriting is still to be done, but I might get to show off another test version SOON (TM).

[akinata]

3 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

I can't go arbitrarily adding a third ammo type, that would not be keeping with the original Hexen, and one of the big design goals of Walpurgis was to keep everything requiring just the basic two mana types so it remains easy to understand and fast paced (heck, that's one of the things you said you liked lol).

Kraters of Might are going to be nerfed again before we reach the 1.0 version, with their drop-rate reduced, so yes, that is coming. Making sure that they provide appropriate amounts of mana across all three games is tough (Doom usually has more ammo around than Hexen or Heretic - heck if you look at that Hexen video above I'm always running low there!).

 

As for the Dryad form, I ended up designing all three of the options in the end, and I'm going through various test phases at the moment. Right now, I do personally like the vines, but we shall see. A bit more coding and spriting is still to be done, but I might get to show off another test version SOON (TM).

if you did create all 3 then an easy thing to do is make the treant fist one of the alternate upgrade.
so that you don't scrap what you already worked on :)

[akinata]

just a minor thing, the black cloud that flollows you when you take the alternate thunder storm upgrade is annoying. often goes in front of the screen.

you can also stack them for very stupidly strong instant attacks.

edit: seems like the spell last way too long.

Edited November 8, 2023 by akinata

[eharper256]

14 hours ago, akinata said:

just a minor thing, the black cloud that flollows you when you take the alternate thunder storm upgrade is annoying. often goes in front of the screen.

you can also stack them for very stupidly strong instant attacks.

edit: seems like the spell last way too long.

It doesn't have a duration, it lasts for X amount of shots. And yes, it orbits you.

I might increase it's mana cost and reduce stacking them, though.

[akinata]

i really don't like having a black mist hovering in front of my screen. it makes looking at far objects sometimes problematic too.

[akinata]

i think the thunder alternative upgrade right click should be redesigned. automated turrets that follow the player isn't very engaging. gameplay wise it promote passive play and it pumps up effectivness as it automatically attack with deadly precision even before seeing the enemy (it even attack through walls). it is powerfull but not very fun.

i would change it into something else.
_keep the turret idea but make it static.
_make a black mist that electrocute ennemies inside instead of a lightning bolt.

_make the thunder storm be able to move toward targets insitead of being static (but slowly).

_one big badass thunder strike instead of multiple ones.
_etc

[akinata]

the wizard ultimate weapon upgraded right click one shot the spidermastermind... ^^"

[eharper256]

Spidey has a bit of an issue with any kind of penetrative weapon: since it's hitbox is so large it takes a disproportionate amount of damage from some things in Walp (Algor and Agnus Abyssus especially). I was going to add a change where the legs and brain have seperate hitboxes before the 1.0 version.

EDIT: As you can see here; default hitbox is way bigger than it's actual sprite! (and actually, Walp reduces it to 110, it's 128 in base Doom)


Like I say, I am going to nerf Fulgur's Mutated-Tertiary. Completely redesigning it will take a fair bit of coding, so that may not happen, though I will keep it in mind.

Edited November 10, 2023 by eharper256

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

2 hours ago, eharper256 said:

Spidey has a bit of an issue with any kind of penetrative weapon: since it's hitbox is so large it takes a disproportionate amount of damage from some things in Walp (Algor and Agnus Abyssus especially). I was going to add a change where the legs and brain have seperate hitboxes before the 1.0 version.

I am pretty sure similar concerns of rippers vs. chunky hitbox is why Raven Software gave the Iron Liches a resistance to the tomed Dragon Claw in Heretic.

[eharper256]

1 hour ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

I am pretty sure similar concerns of rippers vs. chunky hitbox is why Raven Software gave the Iron Liches a resistance to the tomed Dragon Claw in Heretic.

Yes, quite possibly. You reminded me I need to give Iron Lich some Damage Resistance in general.

Please let me know any thoughts on Monster adjustment for Walp, esp. Heretic monsters, as I don't play Heretic quite as much.

And yep, I've done the changes needed for Spidey, it was overdue anyways:

Interestingly, this actually means the Agnus Abyssus secondary does very little now, as it's a ground hugging flame blast (the legs are now invulnerable).

I suppose there is a small risk that some custom Doom levels might rely on Spidey being his default size, so I guess I should include a compatibility option as well.

[akinata]

tried multiplaye with a friend, gzdoom crash. so not multiplayer with walpurgis :c

[akinata]

25 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

Yes, quite possibly. You reminded me I need to give Iron Lich some Damage Resistance in general.

Please let me know any thoughts on Monster adjustment for Walp, esp. Heretic monsters, as I don't play Heretic quite as much.

And yep, I've done the changes needed for Spidey, it was overdue anyways:

Interestingly, this actually means the Agnus Abyssus secondary does very little now, as it's a ground hugging flame blast (the legs are now invulnerable).

I suppose there is a small risk that some custom Doom levels might rely on Spidey being his default size, so I guess I should include a compatibility option as well.

at least we wo'nt one shot it anymore. but playrs will get confused as why they super op wave blast does nothing to it ^^'

[eharper256]

Just for fun, I decided to see what the A.I. could do with the Walpurgis Portraits. I manually did a few edits afterwards, and there are clearly a couple of things that went odd along the way, but the result isn't too bad, eh?  :)

[eharper256]

So, here we have the (still in progress) Primary Fire and Tertiary Fire for the Dryad. Primary fire is on-the-fly transforming Illitheya's fists into Treant fists, which are pretty slow, but cause dangerous shockwaves. Tertiary Fire is creating strange mushrooms which explode in spores if enemies tread on them~ currently there is only a damaging red one, but I'm working on more sprites and shroom types for this so a patch of shrooms will cause all sorts of weird effects to monsters (shrinking and hallucinating ones are planned).

 

If you were following the news you may recall I originally stated I wanted to use Locust Swarms and Crushing Vines; but both have had some unforseen issues. Swarms; in order to look good, require 50 odd individual entities, which can cause massive lag spikes. Vines are fine but the sprites didn't turn out as good as I thought.

 

Quite likely, these things will end up being used for mutations, though.

 

Let me know what you think!

[akinata]

the srpites are good.
i'd still like to see how the vines one work :p

[eharper256]

I just wanted to post to say Happy 30th Birthday to Doom!
 

I guess we have to wait two more years for Hexen's 30th, though no-one usually celebrates that lol.
 

Additionally, most of the Dryad stuff is done now, though I'm looking at how close Xmas is and cringing as to whether I'll get 0.99 out by the end of the year as I first thought, since I still need to finalise all the weapon upgrades code. Might be a January release now, since I always lose about 6 days seeing my folks. Sorry about that everyone.
 

On the other hand, that probably does set us up nicely to hit the 1.0 release to come out on Walpurgisnacht 2024, which will be really cool. :D

 

EDIT: Also note that despite the websites claims to the contrary about mods; there are no issues with Evilternity II and Walpurgis working happily together that I can see from looking at the DeHacked. :-) The only slightly goofy thing is that launchpads will still cause footstep sounds.

Edited December 10, 2023 by eharper256

[eharper256]

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Hope you had an acceptable festive period and didn't kill too many family members.