[Danukem]

This thread is for any feedback or suggestions about WGR2 that are not bug reports.

[Hank]

A request. Is there a remote possibility for the Power Up scale to stop flashing?

Since this is my first post here, wow, what a TC.

[Danukem]

Hank, on Feb 19 2011, 06:50 PM, said:

A request. Is there a remote possibility for the Power Up scale to stop flashing?

Since this is my first post here, wow, what a TC.

It's possible, but, I like the flashing because it reminds players they need to use it. It flashes when it gets to MAX. If an enemy hits you it will drop back down. Use it or lose it!

[Forge]

edit: I've already deleted the screen shots and comments I mailed to you before you informed me of this thread, so if you still have them, you can pass them on to WG if you think they're worth his time to look into. If not, toss 'em.

I've shot a few of those "ghost" things floating around using the "spectral(?)" goggles and they leave these yellow vials, but I can't figure out what those vials do. They don't seem to boost or heal anything.

I'm just curious as to what they're for.

[Danukem]

The vials give you a little goggle energy.

I have the screenshots in my e-mail and I will block those walls myself. I'm sure there are others like that, too (I remember getting stuck in Open Season by a wall that blocked on one side).

[Forge]

Interesting. I'm going to use goggles to shoot creatures that I need to use goggles to shoot in order to get more energy to use the goggles so I can shoot creatures that I need to use goggles to shoot. And then I start chasing my own tail.

Maybe if they randomly dropped armor shards, health vials, ammunition, or coins then I can see the point. It makes more sense to chase pigs and bees with a chainsaw (btw, the new saw looks pretty damn cool) to get a few pow points than to chase ghosts, but I suppose if one is desperate enough...

[Danukem]

Forge, on Feb 20 2011, 01:44 PM, said:

Interesting. I'm going to use goggles to shoot creatures that I need to use goggles to shoot in order to get more energy to use the goggles so I can shoot creatures that I need to use goggles to shoot. And then I start chasing my own tail.

Maybe if they randomly dropped armor shards, health vials, ammunition, or coins then I can see the point. It makes more sense to chase pigs and bees with a chainsaw (btw, the new saw looks pretty damn cool) to get a few pow points than to chase ghosts, but I suppose if one is desperate enough...

Yeah, you definitely are missing the point. Ghosts have the ability to possess monsters and make them much more powerful. If you kill the possessed monsters, the ghost simply leaves and tries to find another host. If you don't kill the ghosts you can be in for a much tougher time (it's especially nasty if one possesses a cyberdemon). If you have ever encountered one of the giant flaming skulls that can kill you in one explosion (VERY common in WGX1.map, since the ghosts tend to latch onto those right around the time you escape the first trap), that's due to ghost. You can see the ghost inside of the monster pretty clearly. So, yes, there is a very good reason to shoot ghosts. The reason they drop vials is that originally, there were not enough goggles in the maps, and I wanted to give the player a way to restore the energy. ALSO: goggles are very useful against phase demons, a very common monster. With goggles on, you can shoot them while they are out of phase.

[Forge]

And I stand corrected. I failed to get the purpose of the ghosts other than to float around and look neat. I have seen them hovering around enemies, but didn't know that's what they were doing.

Pretty cool, now that I understand what's going on.

[Danukem]

That reminds me, I need to add some ghosts into the new levels.

[Forge]

Summoned Axon for my first boss fight. He just kinda stood there with his thumb up his butt while I got my ass kicked. Is he really supposed to do anything?

Finished the fight, went to the 500 chest, the floor dropped, walked to the edge of the chasm, hit the use button and watched the floor sector with the chest rise back up so I could look at the cool unshaded textures.

[Danukem]

Congratulations, it looks like you have discovered a bug that has been there since the first release of WGR2 1.0, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Does it prevent you from jumping off the cliff and ending the level like you are supposed to?

I guess Axon needs more fixing. He is supposed to attack, of course. He has attacked when I have used him.

[Forge]

I don't think there is a fix unless you bother to shade the textures since it doesn't seem to stop the player from dropping into the chasm and moving on to the next level.

Maybe Axon has problems with enemies that aren't "ground" based. The first boss was that floating half skeletal thing from heretic/hexen(?)
Or he was having problems with the layout and got stuck. Either way, he just stood there and did nothing.

I did notice that the "freeze" was more effective with slower firing weapons like the rocket launcher and the shotgun, but didn't seem to work very well with the machine gun.
I don't remember if I had regeneration or life leach selected, didn't matter. I was getting such a beat down that neither one made a difference.

[Danukem]

Did you get the latest patch that fixes Axon etc? So far no one has acknowledged that they got my PM with the password for the private forum or said that they downloaded the new patches or anything.

[The Commander]

You received my PM? (the patch that I can see in the public forum does not work sadly)

[Danukem]

The Commander, on Feb 21 2011, 08:25 AM, said:

You received my PM? (the patch that I can see in the public forum does not work sadly)

OK I will add you as a beta tester.

[Forge]

I apologize. I did download the private patch, but I've moved on to try different things. I'll go back to Axon on the next level.

The blade barrier and barbarian horde work quite well. The only gripe about the barbarian horde is that a few of them can get in front of the player and cover the entire field of view so one can't see anything but barbarian backside, especially in cramped areas where there's not enough room to back off from the action. Some people might enjoy it, but it's not quite my cup of tea.

As a suggestion, maybe a little transparency would do the trick.

[Danukem]

Good idea, I can make them turn transparent when they are close to the player and the player is facing them. By the way, I realized after the last patch that I had nerfed the life leech power too much. I'll have another patch up later today.

[Scott_AW]

I haven't got too far yet, but its a very challenging game thats for sure. But one thing that bothers me is the poison effect. Either its introduced too early in the game or should not be able to kill you. Nothing sucks more than have 19 life and having 22 pending poison damage. Perhaps have it stop when you have 1 life or maybe make the poison a little less strong.

Thats about it for now, still need to log more hours in that game.

[Danukem]

Scott_AW, on Feb 21 2011, 11:35 AM, said:

I haven't got too far yet, but its a very challenging game thats for sure. But one thing that bothers me is the poison effect. Either its introduced too early in the game or should not be able to kill you. Nothing sucks more than have 19 life and having 22 pending poison damage. Perhaps have it stop when you have 1 life or maybe make the poison a little less strong.

Thats about it for now, still need to log more hours in that game.

Do you remember which enemies were causing excessive poison damage?

In the first level that has fighting, there are wasps, slime golems, and spiders, all of which can poison. I'll reduce some of it but I don't want to eliminate it. With the golems, I find the most annoying thing is when you break the big one up into little ones, the little ones are hard to hit and get right under you -- I'm going to fix that.

[Scott_AW]

DeeperThought, on Feb 21 2011, 12:04 PM, said:

Do you remember which enemies were causing excessive poison damage?

In the first level that has fighting, there are wasps, slime golems, and spiders, all of which can poison. I'll reduce some of it but I don't want to eliminate it. With the golems, I find the most annoying thing is when you break the big one up into little ones, the little ones are hard to hit and get right under you -- I'm going to fix that.

Its in the very beginning, I'm not sure what it is because I just saw little gremlin critters. I don't know if I noticed any wasp or spiders and I know I didn't come across golems. I get poisoned right in the main entrance, right after you escape the water and open the main gate on the second map.

But reducing it would be best as there is already a lot of offense against the player. Maybe half of what it is would be more tolerable yet still a challenge.

Seriously though, I'm rusty at fast paced shooters, I need to get more time into it.

[Danukem]

Heh, I'm pretty sure you were stung by hornets. That's the only thing in that area that could poison you. Removing them from that part of the map might be a good idea.

[Headless_Horseman]

I'm playting through the remade WGR1 episode and as far as I experienced (first two levels), the difficulty is balanced even at Let's Rock difficulty. Is a challenging experience, even with Duke, but nothing particularly unfair.
Too bad about the new patch, I'll have to restart from beginning...

[Forge]

Getting close to the jumpboot location in the first episode. Haven't had a chance to try Axon yet. Didn't want to try him against the flying dragons and lost some pow points, but got them back after the big fight at the gate, so the next good fight I'll cut him loose to see what he does.

Things seem to be working well for the most part. The rocket launcher lock-on acts odd every so often.
Sometimes it locks onto enemies that aren't even in the same area and it fires the rockets into a wall; annoying when an enemy is standing there in plane site and won't get locked onto.
Sometimes the rocket launcher will lock-on to lava creatures that haven't even emerged from the lava yet and it does them no harm.

[Danukem]

Forge, on Feb 21 2011, 08:58 PM, said:

The rocket launcher lock-on acts odd every so often.
Sometimes it locks onto enemies that aren't even in the same area and it fires the rockets into a wall; annoying when an enemy is standing there in plane site and won't get locked onto.
Sometimes the rocket launcher will lock-on to lava creatures that haven't even emerged from the lava yet and it does them no harm.

I just improved the rocket targeting and made sure that hiding golems don't go on the target list. I'll post the new code tomorrow.

[Forge]

Used Axon against the dragons in the jumpboot caves. Not very effective, but at least he can hit an airborne enemy. From appearances, it looks like he used a similar attack as those lizoid type creatures that spit a spread a fireballs. Not very focused and about as powerful in damage as well.

I'll try him again against a ground based opponent and see how well he does and pay more attention to his attack and the effectiveness of his damage.

[Danukem]

Forge, on Feb 22 2011, 09:44 AM, said:

Used Axon against the dragons in the jumpboot caves. Not very effective, but at least he can hit an airborne enemy. From appearances, it looks like he used a similar attack as those lizoid type creatures that spit a spread a fireballs. Not very focused and about as powerful in damage as well.

I'll try him again against a ground based opponent and see how well he does and pay more attention to his attack and the effectiveness of his damage.

Axon fires a BFG once about every 10 seconds. The other projectiles that he fires are plasma shots and they track enemies. I think the BFG makes up for any deficiencies... If he didn't fire a BFG, then you must have killed the dragons too fast for him. Oh well.

The main thing I need to do now is improve the gameplay in the WGR maps, but I'm waiting for Helixhorned to post the uncorrupted versions first.

[Forge]

I replayed the battle with the dragons and payed more attention to Axon. His attacks are as you say, though against a mobile, flying enemy the BFG blast are not 100% accurate (a few did actually strike and did deal heavy damage). Also the plasma shots did track and strike as designed.

Slight anomaly afterwards at the start of the next level:

Duke starts off encased in a suspended ice "cage" and some enemies are supposed to start shooting at Duke, thus breaking a hole in one of the walls so Duke can escape. No enemies showed up. I started kicking around at the walls and either I kicked through a wall (it didn't visibly crack, but I though I heard it shatter), or I managed to duck-clip through one of the walls.

[Danukem]

Forge, on Feb 22 2011, 12:07 PM, said:

Slight anomaly afterwards at the start of the next level:

Duke starts off encased in a suspended ice "cage" and some enemies are supposed to start shooting at Duke, thus breaking a hole in one of the walls so Duke can escape. No enemies showed up. I started kicking around at the walls and either I kicked through a wall (it didn't visibly crack, but I though I heard it shatter), or I managed to duck-clip through one of the walls.

There is a ceiling door across the pit from the ice cage that is supposed to open while the player is imprisoned. Enemies behind the door are revealed who then are supposed to shoot at him, breaking the cage. So I need to know which of the two things are happening:

1) The door is opening, but the monsters just stand there doing nothing.

2) The door does not open.

Which is it? (If it's 2, then you won't be able to complete he level without clipping through the wall).


EDIT: I just tried it. The door opened, and the monsters had no trouble shooting me like they were supposed to.

[Forge]

The door didn't open. Game save file attached.

I also saved the game right before the dragon fight. I'll fight it again and see if the door opens the second time I progress to the next level.

edit:replayed the dragon battle, progressed to the next level, the door to the monsters opened this time (I was still able to kick my way out the cage before they started shooting so I didn't have to depend on them to make my escape)

[Danukem]

Being able to kick out of the cage is fine, that's not a bug. Since we can't seem to replicate the bug, it's time to take a look at the door and find out what is supposed to cause it to open. I wish WG were still around.