Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition

[PsychEyeball]

11 hours ago, Devalaous said:

I got through the first level and the three 'Deluxe Shareware' levels with 100% in each, albeit on Medium instead of the UV/DI equivalent, and the game does get more fun once you adapt to the bizarreness. The opening shareware level feels a little too big and ambitious for an opener, its kind of overwhelming. Now that im a lot more used to how the game plays though, I just might get through it. I...am not looking forward to Extreme ROTT though.

Extreme ROTT is definitely... quite the acquired taste. I'd strongly advise to keep it for last, that is if you even decide to play through it. No one will blame you for skipping it. It's definitely got a strong romhack energy as in some of its stuff barely seems to hold up together and was built to skirt around the limitations of the engine and to achieve weird results.

 

The Hunt Continues is a good compromise between Dark War's more conservative level approach and the zaniness of Extreme ROTT. It's quite harder than the main game, but doesn't quite reach the heights and lows of EROTT. It's mostly hard fun and not frustrating hard. It's also much more polished than about everything else featured in the game.

Edited August 15, 2023 by PsychEyeball

[betabox]

Start by getting through the regular campaigns, as in finishing them. Extreme ROTT is better approached when you actually have a feel for what the core game mechanics are like. Another major concept about the expansion is that it plays heavily on the idea of letting your eyes deceive you. It presents you with seemingly mean or unfair scenarios that maximize the struggle, while stashing away utter challenge breakers nearby that just amount to the same level of secret hunting that any other campaign entails.

 

Not to say that Extreme ROTT is really great or greatly designed. IMO, it isn't, at least not to the level as Hunt Begins and especially Hunt Continues. But its difficulty is mostly misjudged and highly exaggerated. Other than a small number of levels that can be counted with one hand (out of its 40+), the rest is very doable. Even Hunt Continues has its own little touch of EROTT to a couple levels and you know what, unlike EROTT, there are no secrets or tricks to cut you much slack in those.

 

Again, if you can get through the main campaigns, you can handle it. Just don't approach it like those others, for the most part, where you're just gunning down enemies while looking for keys, switches, etc in a really mazy construct with a lower degree of caution. The level progression is very much unlike that; sometimes the switch or key is nearby or otherwise in plain sight of where you need to get to next. Instead, just take a moment to look at the challenge presented, and figure out how to get through it with what's provided to you in the map (items, weapons, etc.).

 

Here's a casual playthrough of Extreme ROTT on Crezzy Man difficulty (highest), and with only saving at the start of each stage. Not at all saying to play it like that, but it just shows how feasible it actually is. You'll have a much easier time on the lower difficulties and saving more often. If you're stuck at any part, you can see how to get through using it (levels are timestamped in the description). This was played in Ludicrous Edition, where a lot of things for it were fixed and otherwise changed.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmeqZiAFQzihkvM5RgMCPB5KJb3MvPG75

 

[Master O]

I know it's a bit late to mention this, but how come GOG at a minimum didn't give a discount for Ludicrous Edition to GOG owners of the original Rise of the Triad?  Quake 2 Remastered was given free to GOG Quake 2 owners.  Merely curious.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Master O

[Individualised]

26 minutes ago, Master O said:

I know it's a bit late to mention this, but how come GOG at a minimum didn't give a discount for Ludicrous Edition to GOG owners of the original Rise of the Triad?  Quake 2 Remastered was given free to GOG Quake 2 owners.  Merely curious.

Because they are from completely different publishers? Plus Nightdive's Quake 2 is the de-facto official version of Quake 2 now. ROTT:LE has a subtitle.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Individualised

[Kinsie]

I don't know about GOG's policies, but apparently Steam doesn't do "legacy discounts" for owning a previous game anymore so it may have been set up to be the same deal on all platforms.

Also, the bit where Quake 2 was published by one of the richest corporations in human existence probably didn't hurt.

[PsychEyeball]

ROTT also likely had 5-10% of the player base that Quake 2 had. And I'm probably being generous here.

[Major Arlene]

pretty sure the Steam discount was there regardless of whether or not you were a legacy player. and yes, different publishers.

[MrFlibble]

Guys, a discussion in another forum made me wondering: what exactly does the KEX engine do for Ludicrous Edition? It is still based on the original DOS ROTT source code, right? So what does KEX provide? Is it just the layer that handles video/audio output and controls, or is there more, like replacing the original renderer with the KEX one? Is there a place where this can be looked up?

[Kinsie]

11 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

Guys, a discussion in another forum made me wondering: what exactly does the KEX engine do for Ludicrous Edition? It is still based on the original DOS ROTT source code, right? So what does KEX provide? Is it just the layer that handles video/audio output and controls, or is there more, like replacing the original renderer with the KEX one? Is there a place where this can be looked up?

It's the original source code, with KEX's nice multiplatform, console-friendly framework for inputs/networking/localization/etc., plus a new renderer, plus like a year of fixing bugs and swearing at an address sanitizer.

[Edward850]

Kex is our own internal modular engine, it does whatever we want it to do. For ROTT, it runs basic cross platform IO and handles the final render output (ROTT is still using its software renderer, albeit upgraded), and runs the networking.

[MrFlibble]

@Edward850, thank you for the explanation!

[ASD]

Does the PS4 version have online? I don't see it mentioned on the store. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by ASD

[Edward850]

7 hours ago, ASD said:

Does the PS4 version have online? I don't see it mentioned on the store. 

Multiplayer is still being approved on consoles.

[ASD]

Sold. I've played it a bit and liking the performance and the stick configurations, just like in the Quake remasters. The previous weapon button is also useful on a controller when I only need to use two weapons. What would make the gameplay great is a button bind for freelook with a toggle/hold option. Maybe add customizable speeds for the volte-face, from regular to instant. The music stops after player death but resumes on the menu or second death.

 

Extra: add score and time attack modes with global leaderboards and demo recording.

[Devalaous]

1.1 is out finally, with the alt lightning guard and all that.

 

I had put the game on hold till the update, and found myself utterly lost and stuck in Wall to Wall, with nothing left to kill.