[UPDATE] GateKeeper

An update to address a few issues found with the GateKeeper. Originally brought up to fix the Flame Breath and Grande attacks which MagicWarzard has so kindly taken the time to fix the issue as well as update a few other things as seen below.

Copied from Reoccurring Issue thread from MagicWarzard
All changes made are:
- A_CustomMissile was passing the value for Pitch to Aimflags; a value of 0 was assigned for Aimflags for all calls to A_CustomMissile.
- Corrected spelling of "Grenade".
- Replaced NULL with TNT1.
- Converted sprites to PNG.

Additional changes made by Doomedarchviledemon:
-Positioned the GATEF3F7 frame to match the GATEE3E7 so that there is no jerky motions when viewing the monster firing from the side.

GateKeeper Update v.11

Additionally, MagicWarzard has expressed wanting to re-balance this monster further, and I second that after fighting it again. This monster is really powerful to the point of almost being overpowered, imo. With full armor and full health its pain attack took away half my health alone just from one shot. However, I have not made any changes behavior or damage wise as of yet to leave this topic open for discussion first to see if this may be something to address while this monster is still 'updating.'

As always, any thoughts or feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Well, the author, zrrion, is still semi-active on here, so perhaps he might see this eventually and weigh in. Otherwise I guess we can ping him on ZDoom.org and see what he says. Luckily, I think the fundamentals of the monster are mostly strong; it could just use some balance adjustment. If I was to give this a pass myself, here's what I would do:



And one of his death animations is just him walking and fading out? Not very gratifying. The first time that happened, I didn't even realize I killed him, on account of how he can teleport and all.

EDIT: Oh! And since I didn't explicitly say so before, thanks on catching the sprite offset.

I pretty much agree with all of the suggested changes. I especially like the idea for the Gate Cubes as being what I call a Chipper, something to just chip away at a player's health. Though, personally, I would also make it invulnerable so they remain as an additional obstacle throughout the fight. Of course it would remain having weak attacks to balance that factor. I was actually thinking of a few kinds of 'attacks' these could have.

• Weak projectiles (Probably a weaker and smaller version of those Ring shots)
• They spawn in the lost souls instead of the Gate Keeper
• Sends out a shock wave of energy if the player gets within melee range that will damage and push them back
• A combination of the suggestions

The only other thing I would change is getting rid of either the slow large ring shot or the fast dark ray shot since they're pretty much the same attack but with a different graphic. I am more incline on removing that dark ray shot thing because the sound it makes matches the Gate Keeper barfing it out of its mouth more that is does shooting out of its giant gun hand. Either that or change that attack's behavior. Maybe instead of a second heavy damaging attack it could explode into large black clouds that would impair the player's vision? Not a damaging move but more of a hindrance action, but still more interesting than another highly powerful attack when it already has one.

Additionally, although I want to balance this monster a bit more, I also don't really want the level of difficulty and danger levels to drop. Like, don't get me wrong, I'd lower the damage some things deal a bit and stuff to make it have less one-shot killed situations and just being unfair, but keeping it just as strong and difficult I think is important because it lives up to its title as a Gate Keeper. When I hear that I imagine it as one of the top elites. They are guarding the entrance/exit to hell, or some shadow dimension I imagined, and need to be able to defeat anything that comes to the gates. So you know they have had plenty of battles and wouldn't show any mercy because they are the last line of defense between the player and their goal.

Also... now that I think about it... maaaaaybe the Moloch could use a bit of re balancing as well because I believe it's even more overpowered than the Gate Keeper.

Since I loved this actor on TUTNT (or was there a variant? I don't recall atm, late night), I noticed that it's decorate is fully of crap and imperfections.
I know that I can do a better work, but it's just a small help that I would left here and maybe I'll come with colored brightmaps too (don't know when).
This is what I have "fixed" (added also inside UPDATES dummy lump):

- Crushed all PNG sprites, saved 50kbs circa
- Fixed several code indentations (spaces between rows, trimmage, caps etc)
- Added simplified inheritance for CubeTail#, PainTail#, Up#, Deathout and DSkulltail# actors
- Replaced with +BRIGHT flags those actors which had BRIGHT defined inside all their rows (unnecessary)

Noticed that there are several deprecated stuff here and there (such as DOOMBOUNCE for example), but yet this file comes not tested and I didn't check everything, but I am sure this will be of use for you. Good night chaps!

New update

Quick update, I went ahead and pm'd Zrrion on the Zdoom Forums and he said to "Feel free to make any changes you see fit." So any areas that could be improved on and balanced out is now open for further discussion and implementations.

Great! Tell him we said "thanks". (Assuming you get over to ZDoom before I do, which is likely.) Are you interested in taking a stab at this yourself?

And thanks for the tweaks, Ozy!

lol I thanked him right after I got his approval. I can take a stab at this, sure. I'll post another update in a few days or so with some of the changes previously suggested.

Cool. I don't really have an opinion on whether he has both the ring and the ray attack, or how you should modify either, so feel free to play around.

I have updated the Gate Keeper a little bit so far and here is what I have currently implemented.

• Reduced damage amounts of all the Gate Keeper's direct attacks
• Added Black Clouds to the Laser attack to add more variety
• Added the Gate Cube's ability to attack the player (Currently wip)
• Added GLDEFS to some of the GateKeeper's projectiles

Currently I am having an issue with the cubes targeting the Gate Keeper and not the Player. Not entirely sure what it is doing this. Other than that there was a bunch of damage reduction. All of the Gate Keeper's direct attacks have been significantly reduced. I believe that laser attack had a base damage of 600. The damage reductions should make a fight with this monster much more fair but still be very dangerous. It's not killing you with full health after a single hit now.

Any feedback so far on its current state? I might take a small break from this to work on my next thing if anyone would like to pick it up from here for a bit.

Gate Keeper says to click this text

doomedarchviledemon wrote: I believe that laser attack had a base damage of 600.

600?? Holy cow. Yeah, I'd say that's at least slightly gratuitous, considering the player maxes out at 400 points' worth of health/armor.

I'll look at the cube behavior when I get a free chance. Will probably be a few days, and I make no promises of anything.