[SUBMISSION] Divine Shadow

Information:
Name: Divine Shadow
Difficulty: Very Hard
Connections: None
Summon: DivineShadow
Melee: No
Distance: Homing BFG projectile; horizontal wave of weaker BFG projectiles (rare)
Type: Demon
Brightmaps: No
Added States: No
ACS: Yes (second DIVSHADW lump, too long to put in INFO, all named, no static TIDs involved)

Credits:
Submitted: ZZYZX
Decorate: ZZYZX
GLDefs: Nope
Sounds: id software
Sprites: id software
Sprite Edit: ZZYZX
Idea Base: Bijuudama

Description:
Basically this is an endurant and quite healthy archvile that will shoot slowly homing BFG balls at you, and sometimes also throw a lot of non-homing weaker BFG balls in all directions. Despite obviously being boss level, the monster is beatable and was used in my WAD (Jashin). Didn't release it earlier because I remember there was a rule that forbids ACS.

Sprite:


Download Link:
http://www.m*diafire.com/download/0g115kqc9wve396/divshadw.zip

You need to replace "Me" in the credits with your name.

Here? Why? The CREDITS lump has the name, not "Me". And here it's obvious. Whatever. My post is boring now

While I didn't test the monster, I really like Archvile variants and this one seems to be recolored / reworked in a good way.
Hopefully I'll check it in the days.

ZZYZX wrote: Here? Why? The CREDITS lump has the name, not "Me".

The info and credits you post here are expected to be copy-pasted from the ones in the submission, not something different. I didn't check the WAD to see if you'd properly credited yourself. I saw what you posted here, and assumed it's the same deal inside the WAD.

I don't like this myself. Homing BFG balls is kind of a sketchy attack already, but what makes it worse is that these still use the A_BFGSpray function. I don't think using A_BFGSpray on monster projectiles is sporting to the player, especially when the ball already has homing abilities. Remember that one of the characteristics of A_BFGSpray is that it launches the tracers in the direction the ball was originally fired, but the tracers spawn from the character who fired the projectile; under normal conditions, you can just remember the direction the projectile was shot, and don't stand in front of/too close to the monster in that direction. Now that the projectile has homing abilities, this makes predicting A_BFGSpray's effects much more difficult; depending on how the monster and player move and interact, it's entirely possible for the player to be right next to the ball explosion and/or the monster and suffer no damage (if the projectile managed to make a 180 degree turn); or, for the player to dodge the projectile, and for projectile to be nowhere near the player, and for the player to suffer the A_BFGSpray damage anyways simply because he was in view of the monster at the time the projectile exploded off somewhere else. In other words, it's extremely difficult to have a "fair" fight against the monster simply because it's difficult to keep track of which projectiles have and haven't impacted, and in what directions you can stand in front of the monster until they do. Taking damage from A_BFGSpray seems to come down to random chance at times, and that is no fun. In fact, I actually got killed by one of these AFTER the boss was already dead. Speaking of getting killed, I had to open up the console and type "Resurrect" like 8 times before I was able to kill this boss.

In short? I disapprove of using A_BFGSpray on its main projectile. If I was to suggest an alternative, I think having it spawn some of the smaller projectiles on impact is a more interesting option, and one that's more fair to the player.

Also, why is the large projectile white, when its explosion is green? The smaller projectiles are green, too, so it seems to me that they should match up.

The small projectile attack is a lot more interesting, but I think he needs to give a bit of a warning before he starts it, since the projectiles deal damage the moment they spawn from the ground--if the player is anywhere near the monster when he starts the attack, he's liable to take a ton of damage, even before the projectiles "launch".

Lastly, the recolor isn't real exciting for the most part. The preview frame looks good, but otherwise, it's basically just desaturated white. Even the blood puddles when it dies are gray, despite it bleeding red when you shoot it.

MagicWazard wrote: In short? I disapprove of using A_BFGSpray on its main projectile. If I was to suggest an alternative, I think having it spawn some of the smaller projectiles on impact is a more interesting option, and one that's more fair to the player.

The original arena for this was filled with pillars and while the projectile was being created (pretty slowly actually) the player had time to hide and make the ball fly into a pillar. Or, hide behind the archvile and just make the homing ball fly in circles. It isn't that overpowered really.

MagicWazard wrote: Also, why is the large projectile white, when its explosion is green? The smaller projectiles are green, too, so it seems to me that they should match up.

MagicWazard wrote: Lastly, the recolor isn't real exciting for the most part. The preview frame looks good, but otherwise, it's basically just desaturated white. Even the blood puddles when it dies are gray, despite it bleeding red when you shoot it.

SLADE conversion bug. I really didn't expect conversion to paletted PNG to put some global palette on it. Fixed. Also fixed blood.

MagicWazard wrote: The small projectile attack is a lot more interesting, but I think he needs to give a bit of a warning before he starts it, since the projectiles deal damage the moment they spawn from the ground--if the player is anywhere near the monster when he starts the attack, he's liable to take a ton of damage, even before the projectiles "launch".

This is what makes fighting this monster interesting. With the large homing ball you need to get close to the vile, but by doing this you will risk getting under the secondary attack. Projectile weapons are advised
It also has less health now (can be killed with approximately 25 rockets as opposed to unreal 40 in the original monster).

ZZYZX wrote: The original arena for this was filled with pillars and while the projectile was being created (pretty slowly actually) the player had time to hide and make the ball fly into a pillar. Or, hide behind the archvile and just make the homing ball fly in circles. It isn't that overpowered really.

I disagree about it being overpowered; I wouldn't have spent so much time expressing my opinion (in detail) if I didn't feel strongly about that. Also, it stands to reason that if your monster is designed to be battled in a specific type of arena, but you are releasing it for general use, you may want to re-tune it to be more appropriate to a wider variety of usage situations.

ZZYZX wrote: This is what makes fighting this monster interesting. With the large homing ball you need to get close to the vile, but by doing this you will risk getting under the secondary attack.

Getting close to the Vile isn't a reliable strategy for avoiding the BFG damage. As I mentioned before, A_BFGSpray fires the tracers from the character that launched the projectile, and not from the projectile itself; and, the tracers are fired in the direction the projectile was originally fired, which is not necessarily the direction the projectile was traveling when it impacted (due to its homing capabilities). You can be absolutely nowhere near the projectile itself, but suffer huge damage from A_BFGSpray if you happen to be standing in sight of the Vile in the same direction the projectile was originally fired. I still suggest that you remove the A_BFGSpray from the homing projectiles, and implement either traditional splash damage or have the main projectile release secondary projectiles upon impact.

But, I really do like the secondary mass projectile attack. Like I said, I think he just needs to give maybe 1 second more warning before spawning the projectiles, in order to give the player a sporting chance to avoid them. But with that said, they're still overpowered as well--each projectile does 25-200 points of damage on their own, PLUS they have A_BFGSpray on top of that (though with fewer tracers). It's a well-executed attack, but still overpowered.

EDIT: Sprites H6 through 06 have solid black instead of transparency. Also, the submission should be in .zip format, not .pk3 format.

MagicWazard wrote: Also, it stands to reason that if your monster is designed to be battled in a specific type of arena, but you are releasing it for general use, you may want to re-tune it to be more appropriate to a wider variety of usage situations.

Most bosses are designed for specific type of arena. idk.

MagicWazard wrote: Getting close to the Vile isn't a reliable strategy for avoiding the BFG damage. As I mentioned before, A_BFGSpray fires the tracers from the character that launched the projectile, and not from the projectile itself; and, the tracers are fired in the direction the projectile was originally fired, which is not necessarily the direction the projectile was traveling when it impacted (due to its homing capabilities).

Apparently I forgot something really serious about how BFG works. Will probably later replace tracers with something that actually checks the direction of the explosion. Although it's not like actual people who played this complained about BFG hitting wrong direction, but anyway needs fixing. Maybe.
I dislike blast damage for it being too generic and I don't quite get what you mean by multiple projectiles.
Might try implementing Doom3-style lightning attacks from the flying projectile. Or orbiting projectiles with lightning attack. But I'm afraid this would be a separate monster with separate 5kb ACS script.

MagicWazard wrote: But, I really do like the secondary mass projectile attack. Like I said, I think he just needs to give maybe 1 second more warning before spawning the projectiles, in order to give the player a sporting chance to avoid them. But with that said, they're still overpowered as well--each projectile does 25-200 points of damage on their own, PLUS they have A_BFGSpray on top of that (though with fewer tracers). It's a well-executed attack, but still overpowered.

I don't really want to edit this monster anymore, it's few months old untouched. Although if I will and this will happen before upload to the website I probably will do something about it. Or not.
Also I'm stressing this the player is supposed to EVADE the projectiles, not get hit by them and successfully run away. There are enough generic Doom projectile monsters that are super easy to evade by just running around in circles, with only hitscanners or heavily homing/spamming projectiles being hard.
Again, the A_BFGSpray here (particularly here) is good because unlike the homing attack this attack is noticeably circular and quick.

MagicWazard wrote: EDIT: Sprites H6 through 06 have solid black instead of transparency. Also, the submission should be in .zip format, not .pk3 format.

This is a SLADE bug caused by PNG optimization tools. Can't do anything about it. ZDoom doesn't have this. Tested in g2.2pre-1814-ge56196e.
Also zzzzz file extension. Technically it follows the rules. There's a ZIP archive with WAD in it. Fixed though. Link changed. Previous WAD edits didn't change the link, thats why I didn't want to change the filename,

ZZYZX wrote: I dislike blast damage for it being too generic and I don't quite get what you mean by multiple projectiles.

I meant having the main projectile spawn multiple smaller projectiles upon impact. Like a cluster bomb.

ZZYZX wrote: This is a SLADE bug caused by PNG optimization tools. Can't do anything about it. ZDoom doesn't have this. Tested in g2.2pre-1814-ge56196e.

Looks like you're right; the sprites do appear as transparent in-game. (I had to turn on God Mode to verify this, though.)

ZZYZX wrote: Apparently I forgot something really serious about how BFG works. Will probably later replace tracers with something that actually checks the direction of the explosion. Although it's not like actual people who played this complained about BFG hitting wrong direction, but anyway needs fixing. Maybe.

Admitting that you apparently forgot one of the cornerstone mechanics of BFG behavior, despite making it the focus of the primary attack, is pretty much an admission that the projectile implementation needs to be re-examined. And, "actual people"? That sounds like a passive-aggressive way of trying to dismiss my opinion (as an experienced Doomer and ex-professional game designer). I'll assume no offense was intended by that and move on.

ZZYZX wrote: Also I'm stressing this the player is supposed to EVADE the projectiles, not get hit by them and successfully run away. There are enough generic Doom projectile monsters that are super easy to evade by just running around in circles, with only hitscanners or heavily homing/spamming projectiles being hard.
Again, the A_BFGSpray here (particularly here) is good because unlike the homing attack this attack is noticeably circular and quick.

Yes, but when he summons about 3 dozen projectiles all at once, with no warning, and each one can do up to 200 points of damage (BEFORE A_BFGSpray damage is added), that's really putting an awful lot of burden on the player to "EVADE" them all, and penalizing him VERY harshly (probably killing him, in fact) for failing to evade even one out of the approximately three dozen projectiles. You're even stating yourself, in a roundabout way, that you expect this attack to kill the player.

Either way, providing "challenge" through overwhelming force and overpowering damage isn't ingenious design--it's just a lazy way to keep the difficulty high. I know you're proud of the sophisticated behavior of the attack scripts--and you should be, as they're quite impressive--but that doesn't give carte blanche to make the monster gratuitously overpowered.

ZZYZX wrote: I don't really want to edit this monster anymore, it's few months old untouched. Although if I will and this will happen before upload to the website I probably will do something about it. Or not.

Again with the passive-aggression. Maybe you'll edit it, maybe you won't? That's not the gung-ho attitude that gets things approved around here. Well, if you don't want to edit this monster any more to address its glaring power issues, then I can just reject it and be done with this whole discussion; if you don't want to respond to criticism, then we're under no obligation to accept this. If you're willing to dial back the overpowered attacks, then we can give this some real consideration.