Let's talk about mbf+ / a new complevel

[Xaser]

FWIW, I'm "solving" that problem with Epoch by explicitly mentioning DSDA-Doom as a supported sourceport, and leaving PR+ off the list (for now, at least :P ) -- having OPTIONS support is hella nice. kraflab over here doing God's work :P

[Redead-ITA]

37 minutes ago, kraflab said:

It was added to dsda-doom master a few days ago actually...I wanted to figure that out before making this post :^)

For pr+, I don't know. A wad overriding a user's settings isn't intrinsically good, it does have downsides - just ask the players that want jump always enabled in zdoom. Evidently the pr+ philosophy at the time was to prefer the player over the mapper, whereas mbf had the opposite philosophy. I'm not disagreeing though.

I mean, making Boom compact Terry wads would also be a good reason not wanting to do so.

Maybe we can make it so the Options would set the game for the wad, but wouldn't be saved the player options.

Unlessthatwasalreadyathingiamnotreallyintosourceporthistoryifiambeinghonest

[esselfortium]

9 minutes ago, Redead-ITA said:

I mean, making Boom compact Terry wads would also be a good reason not wanting to do so.

Maybe we can make it so the Options would set the game for the wad, but wouldn't be saved the player options.

Unlessthatwasalreadyathingiamnotreallyintosourceporthistoryifiambeinghonest

That's how it already works. It overrides settings for the current session, but doesn't actually change your settings.

[Redead-ITA]

3 minutes ago, esselfortium said:

That's how it already works. It overrides settings for the current session, but doesn't actually change your settings.

Well if that is the case, then i too question the reasoning of removing said feature, granted i have never used in my time of mapping so i cannot say.

[maxmanium]

Can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier -- it really bugs me that monsters fall off ledges in Boom and MBF. It'd be nice to make it so that monsters only fall off ledges whose flat scrolls + carries things with it.

[Altazimuth]

3 hours ago, esselfortium said:

OPTIONS would be great to have.

 

Especially if it could mean forcing off the Boom-derived blockmap bug that causes BTSX E2M20 to completely explode in Pr+ when you don't set the right complevel...

OK so as the guy who fixed it for EE: This shouldn't require OPTIONS to do. This should be fixed by a new complevel rather than an OPTIONS setting IMO, since I cannot think of a single instance where you'd actively want the bug to not be fixed outside of for complevels where it needs to stay broken..

[Dimon12321]

On 3/21/2021 at 11:34 PM, dew said:

It is important to understand that this is actually not a bug, but a feature - MBF offers a different way of infighting logic. This is a toggleable setting that is "frozen ON" by complevel 11 becoming the defacto MBF standard.

 

Too bad that logic was aimed primarily for friendly monsters which try to minimize friendly fire regarding the player. If it could retain the old infighting logic for enemies at the same time, that would be great!

 

I doubt there's any sense in retaining it since there are so few WADs that try to utilize friendly monsters because it barely improves the gameplay. However, nobody took the most out of it.

For instance, a key master could be created who would open some closed doors for the player using the logic of opening doors from the opposite side, like shown here. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Dimon12321

[LexiMax]

There has been a request in another thread for doom-format instadeath floors.

 

 

Justifications are in the thread.

[ChopBlock223]

I very much support instadeath floors, I can think of some uses for those. If we're suggesting additional sector functions, I would love to add some of the rapid light strobing like in Doom 64 or Playstation Doom (perhaps add a note to be cautious in their use for the safety of epileptics). Some more lighting functions in general would be nice, perhaps also a faster light pulsing as well as a slow one, and maybe a linedef for transferring light levels to sectors.

 

While I'm thinking of Doom 64, would there be any way to add sector coloring without having to use colormaps, or, make colormaps render in a sector without having to be inside of it?

[hawkwind]

Instadeath floors was implemented way back in CoD.exe ( Caverns of Darkness ). It was sector type 18. Also, the CoD engine also had healing sectors. It was sector type 19. Risen3D has implemented both of these.

[Krenium]

Will it further fragment the doom community and make it harder for players to play the wads they want to play? If so, I am against it.

[ChopBlock223]

5 hours ago, Krenium said:

Will it further fragment the doom community and make it harder for players to play the wads they want to play? If so, I am against it.

How would it?

[siege cunt]

4 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

How would it?

 

yeah indeed.

 

kraflab's original thread-starting suggestion would be quite simple to implement by any engine authors (activative/deactivate some flags they already have) and would be a big win for map creators and also people just playing and enjoying.

 

the rest of the thread details many additional features which of course would be more work for any engine authors to implement, but I think the whole purpose of kraflab's post was to get input not just from map creators but also engine devs to _avoid_ fragmentation.

[LexiMax]

46 minutes ago, siege cunt said:

the rest of the thread details many additional features which of course would be more work for any engine authors to implement, but I think the whole purpose of kraflab's post was to get input not just from map creators but also engine devs to _avoid_ fragmentation. 

 

I work on an engine and have made patches that have made their way into many other ports and I'm tracking with you.  There are a good number of features in this thread that really seem like they would either be a pain in the neck to implement or go above and beyond the original scope.  Maybe we can get there one day, but baby steps.

 

The reason I specifically suggested instakill floors is because they have the potential to be massively useful, but also they're already a common feature in other ports.  Strife has an implementation, ZDoom offers Strife's special in Hexen mode, Risden3D had them, and even if no other port had them a damage type that kills you instantly, implementing them would not be that big of a lift.

 

That is the kind of suggestion I would like to see more of, ones that affect gameplay and are easy to implement, even better if the implementation is so small it can be a patch that can be dropped into a port with minimal changes.

[Redead-ITA]

1 hour ago, AlexMax said:

That is the kind of suggestion I would like to see more of, ones that affect gameplay and are easy to implement, even better if the implementation is so small it can be a patch that can be dropped into a port with minimal changes.

What about the generic projectile and hitscan variants for monster and player? don't those fit the latter categories seeing they are generalized?

I can understand some of the requested features kind of being a pain to implement (Don't know if Extra sounds (for extended dehacked) would also fit that category.)

[LexiMax]

4 hours ago, Redead-ITA said:

What about the generic projectile and hitscan variants for monster and player? don't those fit the latter categories seeing they are generalized?

 

I had another look at them, and yeah, they looked very promising.  Codepointers are pretty self-contained as-is, and as long as they stick to stuff that the engine is already easily capable of, they seem like a good idea.

 

Not that my opinion should necessarily be sacred here - I only work on a ZDoom 1.22 fork that is only sorta demo-compatible with 1.9.  I'm just a fan of the idea of a MBF+, and I would love to do what I can to help out.

[Alaux]

There's a particular feature I'd consider useful: Lift actions, but for ceilings. Such actions (e. g. WR Ceiling Raise Wait Lower) could be used to make D64-esque doors that split in half horizontally, if coupled with flat bleeding. This can already be done with voodoo dolls, but dedicated actions for it would be sweet.

[Death Egg]

On 3/23/2021 at 8:26 PM, hawkwind said:

Instadeath floors was implemented way back in CoD.exe ( Caverns of Darkness ). It was sector type 18. Also, the CoD engine also had healing sectors. It was sector type 19. Risen3D has implemented both of these.

+1 for making this standard for the new MBF+ mode. Compatibility with existing mods/source ports and very useful to mappers. Inescapable pits without insta-death sector types are the bane of many mods. (Looking at you, Precarious from Sunder)

Edited March 26, 2021 by Death Egg

[GoneAway]

On 3/21/2021 at 8:21 PM, skillsaw said:

I'll also add that I'm curious if any further DeHackEd expansion is on the table (I ask because I'm not sure if that discussion falls under "MBF+" compat or something else). If so, I have a long wishlist there, but I'll keep it to myself unless it's within scope for this topic.

If you've got other priority stuff not covered by Xaser, I'd love to hear it :^)

[Xaser]

I've been chatting with Skillsaw and Essel a bit about stuff. We came up with a few more gaps that need filling, so it'll be a bit more than just the 5 I posted about, but nothing too crazy. No point in trying to turn this into a poor man's EDF/DECORATE, but there's a lot of low-hanging fruit here, turns out.

[skillsaw]

Thanks for asking! As Xaser mentioned we've been talking about this so we're pretty well aligned... The generic code pointers for player and monster projectile, bullet, and melee attacks are the most important thing, and those will be covered by Xaser's work.

 

But beyond that (and really without knowing the technical feasibility or whether it fits into the dsda-doom vision), below are some other things I would like to see ... I fully recognize that I'm wishlisting here so I understand that many/most/all of these things won't happen (I just can't help but be excited about an mbf+ spec that can gain traction in multiple ports).

 

Generally useful codepointers

A_AlertMonsters - Primarily as a means to wake up monsters (in closets and off-map teleporter closets) without requiring the player to make noise in an artificial way

A_Detonate2 - Decouple the "damage" property of the calling thing from this codepointer so it's a bit more sanely parameterized and less limited

 

State flow control (primarily for monsters)

A_JumpIfHealthBelow(State, Value) - Jump to state if health less than value
A_JumpIfTargetInLOS(State) - jump to state if target is in line of sight
A_JumpIfTargetWithinDistance(State, Distance) - jump to state if target is within distance value
A_JumpIfFlagSet(State, Flag) - jump to state if a flag is set on this thing
A_VileChaseGeneric(State) - Or A_HealChase(State) - Basically a way to provide a Heal state to non-archvile monsters

 

Thing Flag control

A_SetFlag(flag) - Sets the specified thing type flag on the calling thing
A_UnsetFlag(flag) - Removes the specified thing type flag from the calling thing

 

New thing flags

Low gravity
Short missile attack range (i.e. hardcoded Archvile behavior)
More frequent missile attacks (as in the Cyberdemon/Spider Mastermind)
Doesn't take splash damage (hardcoded Cyberdemon/Spider mastermind behavior)
Force splash damage (Thing causes splash damage even if the target shouldn't take splash damage)
Disable infighting against this monster (as in the hardcoded Archvile behavior)
Ripper projectile flag

 

There are undoubtedly other useful flags but I'd have to review some more...

[Jacek Bourne]

I really like that block ground monster linedef. It would be excellent for areas with limited footing and flying enemies so that enemies cannot get stuck below and become only able to die through splash damage.

[Redead-ITA]

A lot of these thing skillsaw proposed sound fair, some makes wonder why weren't added in, but then

8 minutes ago, skillsaw said:

Ripper projectile flag

I mean... sure it is possible, but that would be a pain to balance for some projectiles (Especially if the projectile is being recieved by a spidermastermind), not to say that aren't bad.

If i can add my request for it, maybe add a Pierce projectile flag, does damage to a monster once in the projectile life and only dies when it hits a wall.

 

For some extra's i can propose projectile flag that makes it jump in it's death state if it meets a linedef that has mid texture and Impassalbe flag (Admittedly maybe instead of that we could make it a block projectile)

[ChopBlock223]

Here's another one: a linedef property for blocking hitscans and projectiles. It'd make translucent windows a bit more straightforward, and would allow for some of the use of midtextures to look cleaner overall.

[Swalzi]

Can we get rid of the "cool down" animations for player weapons when we run out of ammo that BOOM added? Super shotgun and plasma gun are examples. Also toggable safety trigger for rocket launcher and BFG through dehacked?

[ChopBlock223]

1 hour ago, Swalzi said:

Can we get rid of the "cool down" animations for player weapons when we run out of ammo that BOOM added? Super shotgun and plasma gun are examples. Also toggable safety trigger for rocket launcher and BFG through dehacked?

Doesn't Boom skip those if you don't have any more ammo, at least on some complevel? For a safety trigger, one would need to add some kind of state jump or secondary attack function.

[maxmanium]

2 hours ago, Swalzi said:

Can we get rid of the "cool down" animations for player weapons when we run out of ammo that BOOM added? Super shotgun and plasma gun are examples. Also toggable safety trigger for rocket launcher and BFG through dehacked?

 

Pretty sure those are bugs which are fixed in higher complevels.

[Krull]

.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Smite of Disrespect]

The compatibility flag "Monsters don't give up pursuit of targets" is set to no by default in MBF. Pls make it yes to use the original Doom infighting in complevel 2021!

[Dimon12321]

Will infinite actor's height be removed?