[Helixhorned]

Trooper Dan, on 05 March 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

Drawing stuff is one thing, but how would I code a working mouse controlled cursor? The only way I know how to do it is in-game, where I can detect changes to the player's ang and horiz and apply them to the cursor position.

That's precisely the sort of hacking I'm referring to. Yume Nikki 3D does it this way.

This quote from me that still applies:

Helixhorned, on 09 November 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

The thing is -- the current internal EDuke32 menu "system" is just a mess of spaghetti code. It's entirely hopeless to either expose it or build on it because it's so fundamentally broken. If it's going to be redesigned from the ground up in some distant future, sure, there may be hope for a scripting API, but right now, I would simply consider it off limits due to how ugly it is.

It's nice to see that menu cleanup kind of has started with TX's changes in r3084.

[Hendricks266]

I'm on call to rewrite the menus adding mouse/touch/pointer support to benefit the Android port. It will happen when some time frees up for me.

[Danukem]

Helixhorned, on 05 March 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

That's precisely the sort of hacking I'm referring to. Yume Nikki 3D does it this way.

I haven't looked at that mod, but I understand what would be involved. To bypass the normal episode selection screen, I would make a .bat that started the game with a particular map. My own menu code would then run, with whatever graphics etc. that I wanted, and the player could start different game modes/episodes with the aid of CON commands such as startlevel. Or the map itself could contain different doors or paths leading to the different game modes.

[Danukem]

Just about finished with the flamethrower, and fixed some bugs recently.

I've decided that I don't want to add the BFG, at least for now. I like Cage's art for it, but everything it does is made redundant by the nuke and other weapons that already exist in the mod. Instead, I have an idea to give the player a choice of ANY two weapons at the start of a game, which will be the loadout whenever the player's inventory is reset. Also, I think I'll make some monsters (such as liztroop) randomly drop ammo for any weapons the player is carrying. This will ensure that the player can continue to use exotic weapons such as the shock cannon or freezer if he chooses them as starting weapons.

[Danukem]

I'm very close to having a beta ready for the next version. Two new weapons with upgrades, lots of little changes and fixes, and a new perk system have been added. The perks replace weapon masteries. Now, every time you level up a weapon, you get a perk point, which you can spend on abilities in the Attrition menu. Abilities include double-jump, immunity from self-damage, double-damage to enemies when at close range, improved nuke power, the zookeeper power, improved death rage, and fast weapon switching, and life leech. I may add a few more. Some of them are quite expensive (the most expensive ones cost 20 perk points). Oh, and I also got rid of classes...it's much better with one class and the different perks and starting weapon choices.

[Danukem]

I just uploaded War of Attrition version 1.6 to the Fissile Materials site.

It can be downloaded here: http://fissile.duke4..._attrition.html

I tried to fix all the bugs, but I consider this a beta since it hasn't been tested by anyone but me. New features include 2 new weapons, and the ability to buy perks, using points awarded from leveling up weapons. Many bugs were fixed and improvements were made, although most things are unchanged from the last version

I'm hoping to get some good feedback here, and I would like to continue to improve the mod now that I have some momentum. Any suggestions are welcome, but do take a look at the documentation before posting questions about how the mod works.

It is recommended that you play with a 32-bit renderer (Polymost, or Polymer if your system can handle it) but without the HRP. There are some glitches when using the HRP. There are even more glitches in the classic renderer, since Attrition uses some models and other 32 bit assets that have no 8-bit counterparts.

[Danukem]

I made a small but important (to me) update: The behavior of the "next weapon" and "previous weapon" functions is now rational. For example, if you have the shrinker selected, the "next" weapon is the expander, and the weapon after that is the devastator. The hardcoded behavior with the expander was very wrong. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that I had added my own subweapons to the mix. So now, when you use those functions it cycles through every single weapon in the game in the right order.

[Lunick]

I don't know why but seeing the Imps from Doom in this feels really strange for me

[Kyanos]

Lunick, on 29 March 2014 - 12:10 AM, said:

I don't know why but seeing the Imps from Doom in this feels really strange for me

I have to agree here, I hope you'll be glad for constructive criticism. For me the issue isn't so much that cyberimps don't fit, more that the lower res art is glaringly inconsistent with the higher detailed Duke enemies, and environment textures. Not to diss the Imp spritework, it's amazing.

[MetHy]

imo the 'cyber' stuff on that imp looks completely out of place in that picture, like it doesn't belong. perhaps it's not as noticeable in game and in movement though.

[Danukem]

Drek, on 29 March 2014 - 06:37 AM, said:

I have to agree here, I hope you'll be glad for constructive criticism. For me the issue isn't so much that cyberimps don't fit, more that the lower res art is glaringly inconsistent with the higher detailed Duke enemies, and environment textures. Not to diss the Imp spritework, it's amazing.
cyperimp-trooper.PNG

I see your point and I wouldn't mind changing them if I could find something equivalent to put in their place (like a higher res version of the art). I thought that the cyber-arm made them technological enough to belong in the Duke universe, but it would be nice if the sprites were more detailed. That enemy was added in my update from over a year ago, by the way -- I didn't change them at all in this release.

Here's a movie that I posted on youtube yesterday which shows the shock cannon in action and some other stuff in the LAPD level from Metropolitan Mayhem.

[Shadow Reborn]

Hello!
I am glad to finally be able to post on these forums.
I've been following your Mods for quite a while, Deeper Thought, and in my opinion, Attrition is the pinnacle of your work for Duke (excluding WG Realms 1 and 2).
I regularly check your page for updates regarding Attrition and I always give the latest version a spin. I also read through this topic to see what's planned. I also reviewed Attrition on MODDB even though it is an older version (user: ShadowEvoReborn).
The new weapons and the perk system is a great idea. Allowing the user to decide which bonus he wants to attain first is certainly a plus. Glad you turned the classes into attainable perks.
I only tried two of the starting weapons so far: Shock Cannon and Flamethrower. They are both powerful and do their job well. I think the Shock cannon is more powerful than the Flamethrower though.

I noticed an issue regarding the Flamethrower. Every time I reboot the game and then load a savegame the Flamethrower loses all it's upgrades although they are still printed in the upgrade menu. However, the experience bar for the weapon shows level 0 but it is almost full (maybe 1 xp point short of level 1). As soon as I deal damage to any foe, the weapon levels up immediately to the level it should have been at that Savepoint. It also gets all its upgrades and bonuses applied (working this time as they should) and the HUD quickly shows the latest attained upgrade when this happens.

As a side note, can you please change the looping sound of the idle Flamethrower? I tend to use it a lot since it is a starting weapon and the hiss it constantly makes while in hand gets annoying.

Keep up the good work, man! I am hoping to see more updates!
Cheers!

[Danukem]

Thanks for the feedback and bug report, Shadow

I am going to continue updating Attrition, starting with the bug fix. At this point I have no idea how that could happen, but I will find out.

The cyberimp that people complained about will either be replaced, or become more rare. There's a new enemy in the works with sprites by a very talented artist that I'm working with, and it will be awesome. When all that is done, I will post the new version to Mod DB.

EDIT: I have uploaded an update that fixes the flamethrower bug and a few others. :-)

[Shadow Reborn]

You're welcome, Dan.

That's great news! I'm sure you'll find the root of the problem.
Personally, I can't say I have a problem with the Cyberimp, but a new more fitting enemy is always welcome! I will be waiting for the update.

Right now, I am playing through the Metropolitan Mayhem episode. Takes a bit longer now with Attrition but, as expected, it is more awesome.

Cheers!

[Danukem]

Shadow Reborn, on 05 April 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:

That's great news! I'm sure you'll find the root of the problem.

Already found the problem and uploaded a fixed version (also fixes a few other issues). But even if you installed it now, the changes would not take effect until you started a new game (saved games include code). One of the other bugs I fixed is that the death rage upgrade was tied to the total number of weapon levels rather than whether you actually bought the perk.

I would like feedback on the perks. Mainly two things: do the prices need to be changed, and do I need to add more perks?

[Forge]

i think your 1.6 b3 archive is damaged. downloaded a couple times and keep getting unexpected end of archive error

[Shadow Reborn]

Glad to see the issue is fixed. I won't install the update just yet. I still have to finish the current episode. However, I downloaded the archive without any problems.

So far, the pricing of the perks is OK for me. You could add two more but at the moment, the ones that were added fit perfectly and each has a special use. If you are to add more it should be something just as interesting.
I was thinking maybe an "Inventory efficiency" perk. Once acquired, it should make all your inventory items (all except Medkit I should say) drain slower when in use. It should cost around 17 perk points. Just an idea.

Cheers!

[Danukem]

Forge, on 06 April 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:

i think your 1.6 b3 archive is damaged. downloaded a couple times and keep getting unexpected end of archive error

Yes it was damaged, thanks for the heads up. I updated it more than once, and Shadow must have downloaded it before the corrupted version was put up. It is fixed now.

[Shadow Reborn]

Ok I installed the new version of Attrition.
I just remembered a small issue that was present in the previous version too. When the player starts a new "Metropolitan Mayhem" episode (immediately after difficulty selection) the pre-loading shows "Hollywood Holocaust" instead of "0:00 Start" and then the first level loads. Just a small issue.

[Danukem]

Shadow Reborn, on 06 April 2014 - 02:34 PM, said:

Ok I installed the new version of Attrition.
I just remembered a small issue that was present in the previous version too. When the player starts a new "Metropolitan Mayhem" episode (immediately after difficulty selection) the pre-loading shows "Hollywood Holocaust" instead of "0:00 Start" and then the first level loads. Just a small issue.

That's because of the hackish way that level loading works in this mod. I have 5 episodes listed in the menu, but levels are defined for 7 episodes (because the random missions actually span 3 different episodes). I could fix it, now that the allowable number of levels per episode has been expanded, but it would be a pain and very error prone, since there are potentially lots of places where code would need to be changed (owing to episode specific boss behavior and other events).

At least the correct level does end up being loaded, even if is named incorrectly at the load screen.

[Shadow Reborn]

I understand. Indeed, it is an insignificant issue and definitely not worth fixing if it requires a lot of code alteration.
Nice that you practically bundled 3 episodes in one to make the menu look better.

[Darkus]

I agree with others to change the cyber-imp, I'm so used to see him in Doom that I always felt that he was not appropriate with the other monsters here.

There are the monsters you could take from the community stockpile, but I found two others which may be interesting (coming from the expansion Duke Xtreme):
King Cobra
Gorilla Captain

[Danukem]

Darkus, on 09 April 2014 - 02:12 PM, said:

I agree with others to change the cyber-imp, I'm so used to see him in Doom that I always felt that he was not appropriate with the other monsters here.

There are the monsters you could take from the community stockpile, but I found two others which may be interesting (coming from the expansion Duke Xtreme):
King Cobra
Gorilla Captain

Thanks for the suggestions. The cyber-imp will be replaced with a high quality liztroop sprite edit that is currently in-progress. I'll have to recode it from scratch, though, to make the behavior fit with the new sprites. It's for the best but it's a lot of wasted work on the cyberimp, since I had to code different versions of the imp for different pals/attacks.

[Fox]

That would also depend on the mouse sensitivity settings, so you kinda of need a way to actually detect the position of the mouse in regard of x-ydim.

[Danukem]

Fox, on 09 April 2014 - 07:25 PM, said:

That would also depend on the mouse sensitivity settings, so you kinda of need a way to actually detect the position of the mouse in regard of x-ydim.

I haven't found mouse sensitivity to be a big problem. As long as the cursor moves a minimum of one unit in response to changes (so that low sensitivity settings don't result in a static cursor), and there is a maximum movement value (for high sensitivity settings), it works pretty well.

[Shadow Reborn]

Here goes some feedback from my journey in Attrition.

I played the Metropolitan Mayhem and a Random Missions episode with the newest version. Everything went smooth. The perk system is pretty well balanced.
The only thing I missed a bit was the HRP. Any chance of it being fully supported by Attrition one day?

I am also playing WOA at the moment and I'm having a blast, even if the robots at the end of the "Pain" arena kicked me around quite a few times! (I got so "lucky" since one of them could teleport and kept using it extensively ). It was a nice sight when they finally blew up.

Meant to ask the following: Do the difficulties affect the amount of spawned monsters in WOA mode too? I only played in Come Get Some.

Thanks for taking your time to make such an everlasting Mod!
Cheers!

[Danukem]

Shadow Reborn, on 16 April 2014 - 05:14 PM, said:

Here goes some feedback from my journey in Attrition.

I played the Metropolitan Mayhem and a Random Missions episode with the newest version. Everything went smooth. The perk system is pretty well balanced.
The only thing I missed a bit was the HRP. Any chance of it being fully supported by Attrition one day?

I am also playing WOA at the moment and I'm having a blast, even if the robots at the end of the "Pain" arena kicked me around quite a few times! (I got so "lucky" since one of them could teleport and kept using it extensively ). It was a nice sight when they finally blew up.

Meant to ask the following: Do the difficulties affect the amount of spawned monsters in WOA mode too? I only played in Come Get Some.

Thanks for taking your time to make such an everlasting Mod!
Cheers!

Thanks once again for the feedback! I hope you don't mind taking the mod for another spin in the near future, because I have continued to update it since the last upload. As for your questions:

I may add HRP support back in, but I don't have specific plans for that right now. One problem is that I am actually in the process of adding more 8-bit assets that don't have 32-bit counterparts
Difficulties don't effect the amount of spawned monsters in WOA mode. It effects the rate at which monster difficulty progresses, and the amount of damage taken by the player. In the next update, it will work a bit differently, though.

I'm going to upload a new version later today.

[Shadow Reborn]

Trooper Dan, on 18 April 2014 - 07:38 AM, said:

Thanks once again for the feedback! I hope you don't mind taking the mod for another spin in the near future, because I have continued to update it since the last upload. As for your questions:

I may add HRP support back in, but I don't have specific plans for that right now. One problem is that I am actually in the process of adding more 8-bit assets that don't have 32-bit counterparts
Difficulties don't effect the amount of spawned monsters in WOA mode. It effects the rate at which monster difficulty progresses, and the amount of damage taken by the player. In the next update, it will work a bit differently, though.

I'm going to upload a new version later today.

I will always give the new version a spin. Of course, I had hoped you'd continue to work on it.
I am almost done with WOA mode (at Roch Island) and things got quite crazy. When I am done with it I will get the new version!

I understand. Well there is no rush with the HRP, of course.I am looking forward to the new enemies!
Yep, I knew the difficulties affect the damage and the score in Attrition. Higher score means tougher and more diverse monsters so basically it becomes harder. Very good system. Never got to tell you that.
I am now curious as to how will the new difficulty system be.

Cheers!

[Danukem]

I uploaded 1.6b4 to fissile materials site.

There was this bug, which had been present for a long time, that I finally fixed. The bug caused 1 out of 8 monsters in WoA mode to not spawn at the end of their materialization sequences. For a long time, I mistakenly believed that the monsters were spawning but then instantly teleporting to another location on the map, so I was looking for the bug in the wrong placees. Turns out, it was a result of me neglecting to add brackets around some statements. Anyway, it's fixed now, as well as some other stuff. Oh, I also changed the difficulty levels so they work differently.

There will be a big update in the future when I have a new enemy arted and coded. I'm also going to tweak the perks, add a better ending and some other improvements. But that could be another month or more, and this latest uploaded version is quite good in the mean time.

[Shadow Reborn]

Trooper Dan, on 18 April 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:

I uploaded 1.6b4 to fissile materials site.

There was this bug, which had been present for a long time, that I finally fixed. The bug caused 1 out of 8 monsters in WoA mode to not spawn at the end of their materialization sequences. For a long time, I mistakenly believed that the monsters were spawning but then instantly teleporting to another location on the map, so I was looking for the bug in the wrong places. Turns out, it was a result of me neglecting to add brackets around some statements. Anyway, it's fixed now, as well as some other stuff. Oh, I also changed the difficulty levels so they work differently.

There will be a big update in the future when I have a new enemy arted and coded. I'm also going to tweak the perks, add a better ending and some other improvements. But that could be another month or more, and this latest uploaded version is quite good in the mean time.

So where these monsters affected by the bug, spawning somewhere in the map after all or they simply failed to spawn completely? I never had progression problems in WOA so far, but I did see a lot of these spawning and disappearing monsters. I thought it was intended.

How exactly do the difficulties work now? I noticed there are tougher enemies right from the start. In Come Get Some - Hollywood Holocaust for example, I got an Evil Duke right at start, lol.

Can't wait for the new version with the new enemy already but I got 1.60 beta 4 too.


UPDATE: I just finished WOA with version 1.6 b3. It was literally INSANE in Roch Island at the end! I noticed two things though:
The wave ends if the first Boss encountered dies even if I haven't killed all other monsters.
Regarding the second issue: the final wave is announced as over when all monsters around the second Boss are dead but not the Boss itself too.


Cheers!