DoomRL > Requests For Features
Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas
Omega Tyrant:
Now to post some of my own ideas.
GENERAL FEATURES
*Add a toggle to turn off the powerup overlays of Berserk, Invulnerability, and Envirosuit
These are just rough to the eyes and make it harder to discern things (particularly with making it hard to see the enemy Xs of Intuition). Keen enough players can pay attention to the powerup indicator in the HUD to know if they still have the powerup, which players have to do anyway to be aware of when the powerup is about to run out.
*Allow already obtained badges to show up in mortems when their conditions are fulfilled again, while keeping count of how many times each badge has been obtained
Medals already do this, so it's weird that badges don't, and it makes the Awards sections of mortems a bit empty after you already got most of the badges. Could also be fun to see how much of each badge you can collect.
*Make all difficulties and challenges available from the start, or at least make it a toggable option
I can see the appeal of gradually unlocking stuff, or otherwise trying to steer newbies away from immediately jumping in on UV because that is what they do in Doom and then getting promptly slaughtered. From what I observed however, locking away the harder difficulties and all the challenges just annoys returning veterans who lost their old DRL installation, who can easily jump back in on UV and want to play some of the funner challenges like A100 or AoMC, but have to grind out several runs first before they're able to. A simple toggle in the config.lua file should suffice, giving returning veterans the option to skip that initial grind, while newbies or people who otherwise preferred unlocking things will have their experience untouched.
*In mortems, highlight badges with colors of their respective tiers
Just a nice QoL thing to make the badges pop out more when looking over your mortem at the end and to give that extra dopamine rush when getting the harder badges. Could also have obtained badges highlighted in their respective colors in the Player Info's badge collection screens. Could give medals their own unique highlight too, but I don't know what coloring for them.
ANGEL OF 100
These are some suggestions to help improve Angel of 100 specifically (and Archangel of 666 by extension):
*Add more medals and/or badges for A100
One disappointment with A100 is how empty the Awards section of your mortems are after completion, when the only medals you can get are the UAC Stars, Medal of Prejudice, the Experience Medal/Cross, Dervis' Medallion, and the Apostle Insignia (well there's a few more you can possibly get like the speedrunning medals, the Untouchable medals, the Icarus Crosses, and the "kill all enemies with knives/your fists" medals, but these aren't realistically obtainable in A100). 43 medals is also a weird amount, so perhaps bump it to an even 50. Not saying add 7 medals just for A100, but a few more you can get in it would be nice; some ideas I have is clearing out a boss-only level (could have a medal for each of them, but one covering them in general would be enough as it could get annoying trying to encounter them all), finding 10 uniques (so an amped up version of Aurora Medallion for A100), nuke 20 floors (so an amped up version of the Fallout Crosses for A100), create 15 different assemblies. This can be discussed farther.
*Cycle between the Phobos, Deimos, and Hell tilesets after floor 25
One issue with A100 is how over 80% of the floors are Hell, so things start to get samey looking. The dream would be to add more unique tilesets for deeper levels (a Thy Flesh Consumed tileset would be amazing), but that understandably would probably be too much for an update to an old free fangame, so just letting the preexisting tilesets cycle instead of being stuck with Hell's for 84 floors would help break up the monotony.
*Modify fluid generation so that water and acid can still spawn in deeper levels
Another part of the aforementioned monotony is how over 90% of fluids you encounter will be lava after past like floor 10, with only occasional level types being able to break the fluid monotony up. More randomization with what fluid type spawns regardless of depth would make floors more varied, and it wouldn't necessarily make things easier, as players can't utilize water to escape or harm enemies, and knocking enemies into acid does a lot less damage than lava does (especially to Hell Nobles). It would also serve as an indirect nerf to the Inquisitor Set, where the fire immunity may as well be fluid immunity when you rarely actually encounter any acid to run through, negating any real need to keep Cerberus Boots or Enviroboots on you once you have the set.
*Add the Angel of Death as a regular enemy in deep floors
I get not having the Arena Master in A100 when he is just a bulkier Archvile with a weaker attack, while the Nightmare Archvile exists for a stronger version, and not having the Spider Master or John Carmack when they're final bosses. But why not the Angel of Death? Having such a strong and fast melee enemy would also help counterbalance being able to near solely rely on a modded out Energy-Shielded Vest or the Inquisitor Set, when you got a melee enemy even stronger than Nightmare Demons. Is not having him appear because he would be too tedious to kill? If so, I don't think he is much worse in that regard than Cyberdemons are, or Agony Elementals for builds with weak crowd control. I would suggest having Angels of Death start spawning at dlevel 80, and hey, maybe allow the single enemy level type to possibly have only Angels of Death too.
*Guaranteed Berserker Armor and Dragonslayer spawns
In order to get a full win in A100/666 (which as I understand will be counted in 0.9.9.8, seeing the GitHub changelog for it), you need these two pieces of equipment by the final floor to spawn the Apostle and then kill it. This however requires a large amount of luck in A100, and even in A666 you're not guaranteed to find both before the final floor. The game ending text for not doing so even says you missed out on the "mystery" behind them... despite it being a low random chance that you could even have the opportunity to. So add a way to guarantee them spawning. What that should be can be debated, perhaps have the Berserker Armor automatically spawn on floor 50 if you've carried a 100% killrate that far, and then have the Dragonslayer automatically spawn on floor 99 if you've carried a 100% killrate to it? I think that would be fair, and on UV and especially Nightmare difficulty, carrying a 100% killrate through all of A100 isn't a small feat, while losing inventory space from carrying around the Berserker Armor for all those floors would be an additional handicap.
*Add more music slots in the musichq.lua file
Something that might only appeal to me, but as someone who likes to mod the music of the game, it disappoints me a bit that there are only 24 level slots to assign music to, and then the game randomly shuffles between them for the rest of A100 after that point. An admittedly minor thing that probably few people care about, but would be neat if I could mod in up to 50 songs or even have unique tracks for every single floor of A100 if I wanted to.
TRAITS
In addition to what Icy covered, I'll add:
*Let Juggler instantly swap weapons from your inventory
As you can already swap instantly with quick keys (which can be modified to be any weapon in keybindings.lua) or with your mouse wheel, the restriction on manually swapping weapons from your inventory is only a senseless inconvenience, particularly only hindering players with no functional mouse wheel and who do not have the tech savviness to modify their keybindings to utilize Juggler with exotic/unique weapons. And otherwise it is annoying to have to save out of the game to modify my keybindings upon finding a good exotic/unique if I want to utilize Juggler with it via quick keys.
*Buff Badass
I'm not sure how to buff Badass exactly, but as it is, it's easily the least impressive advanced trait by far, especially compared to the other two classes' instantly accessible advanced traits, and whenever a mastery requires it, I find it to usually be a dead level. Not having health decay above 100% is just not that big of a boon except for maybe Vampyre; any strategy that relies on retaining boosted health to survive is a flawed one, and you can't even utilize it without finding certain powerups if you're not running Vampyre, not to mention that fast builds can carry boosted health for a long time even with decay, largely negating the need for Badass. Then knockback reduction is also not that useful and can even be counterproductive, when it'll nerf rocket jumping, and knockback from enemies can be useful to escape a bad spot and reposition. Then in scenarios where you do want knockback resistance, it's better to have equipment for that, as you can then take it off when you want higher knockback, which you can't do with Badass' knockback reduction. One idea I can think of is building off what Icy suggested for the Marine and have each level of Badass give 5% or 10% inherent resistance to everything in addition to preventing health decay (whichever is deemed to be better balanced), while then removing the knockback reduction entirely. It could alternatively be that each level grants an additional 10 actions with powerups instead of knockback reduction.
WEAPONS
Some weapon ideas I have that Icy didn't touch on:
*Add a new standard Pistol
Pistol builds are inherently disadvantaged, where they require luck to find anything better than their starting peashooters, unlike other builds that will come across guaranteed upgrades to their weak starting weapons. I'm not sure how to go about this, but one idea I saw someone suggest was adding a Magnum, which would serve as a stronger but more inaccurate Pistol (maybe 3d4 with +2 accuracy?), and also help make Sharpshooter's overkill investment into Eagle Eye do something useful, serving to help their overtly hard early game, while additionally incentivizing other Pistol builds to invest in Eagle Eye or use Agility mods. I'm not too versed in Pistols however, so those that specialize in them should give their input.
*Significantly improve the Chainsaw's generation weight
Currently the Chainsaw has an item generation weight of 3, which makes it as rare or even rarer than some uniques. This makes melee builds, other than Malicious Blades, weak in A100/666, unless they get really lucky early with quickly finding the Chainsaw, Cleaver, or Dragonslayer (it also doesn't help that the two other melee uniques are worse than modded Combat Knives, farther reducing the chance of them finding a good melee weapon). I think it should have a generation weight of at least 6, maybe even higher, and perhaps let it spawn a little earlier than floor 12 too, so that melee builds can more realistically actually find a melee weapon better than the Combat Knife. This change would additionally have virtually no impact in the standard game, when any build that wants a Chainsaw will just get the guaranteed one from the Chained Court earlier than they ever could find it randomly, and finding another randomly generated Chainsaw later would do nothing useful.
*Improve the BFG9000's generation weight*
Similar to the above, where the BFG9000 is a guaranteed weapon you can get without too much hassle in the standard game, but is exceedingly rare to ever find in A100, due to its item generation weight of 2 making it even rarer than the aforementioned Chainsaw. This one isn't a pressing balance issue, I just think it's weird how you can easily go entire A100 runs without ever finding this trademark weapon. This can be argued against, as finding a second randomly generated BFG in a standard game can be huge, though given the BFG's minimum floor depth of 20, bumping its generation weight up to 4 or even 5 would make it very unlikely that the player would find one before the standard game ends. Either way I wouldn't argue too hard for this change however.
*Buff the Micro Launcher?
Even as a guy who likes Rocket Launchers and rocket jumping, I find it hard to find a worthwhile niche for the Micro Launcher. 0.8 second firing speed, 0.8 reloading speed, extra accuracy, and a smaller explosion radius is nice, but you already get the formermost just from applying one of the prerequisites Technical Mods on your Rocket Launcher (and it would be even slower than a Rocket Launcher with two Technical Mods). But the main problem is the substantial downgrade in power to 5d5, which aside from making it weaker for combat, also hurts its utility usages, as it has a much higher chance to fail to blow up a wall in a single rocket (or might even fail after two!), and its rocket jumps would send you a shorter distance (you can argue less self-damaging rocket jumps is a boon, but with just Fireproof Red Armor, you can already reduce 6d6 rocket jump damage down to 1-3, not to mention self-damage won't matter when you're invulnerable, where rocket jumping sees much of its usage). Then there's the Tactical Rocket Launcher that just completely outclasses this weapon, and whose BBB mod cost is arguably a lesser cost than two Technical Mods. It seems to exist as an economical improvement to the Rocket Launcher for builds that aren't investing in Whizkid, but the improvement is minor or even arguably a sidegrade.
I'm unsure how to buff the Micro Launcher to give it a defined niche instead of just buffing its power. At least though its firing speed needs to reflect the Technical Mod investment, so it should be no more than 0.7 seconds firing speed, I would maybe go all the way down to 0.5 seconds firing speed to try giving it a niche as the fastest firing Rocket Launcher. Conversely, as a basic assembly that uses common mods, you can argue a cheap economical option that isn't great is the point, though I would still argue to at least give it the 0.7 seconds firing speed.
*Buff the Double Chainsaw?
The Double Chainsaw's 8d6 power is certainly a big upgrade over a BP Chainsaw's 5d7 power, so this assembly isn't inherently bad. The problem is it's completely outclassed by the Ripper that just requires one more level of Whizkid and an additional Technical mod, while also being completely outclassed by the Longinus Spear and especially Azrael's Scythe. As a result, if you want to maximize your Chainsaw, you won't be making this instead of the Ripper, and otherwise for a weapon you plan to ditch once you get the Spear or Scythe, you probably don't want to expend the extra Power mod on it, if you don't just go for the cheap disposable option of the Piercing Chainsaw instead. The only arguable niche for the Double Chainsaw is for Blademasters in A100, where they can't get the Spear or Scythe, and they could possibly get more use from its stronger single-hit power than the Ripper, as more one-hit kills will make them mow through hordes faster (though I think the Ripper is still better, as it'll activate Berserker quicker, and because of all the boss and nightmare monsters that you aren't killing in one hit even with the Double Chainsaw).
However like the Micro Launcher, there's no clear way to buff it; make it stronger, then what's the point of getting the Spear or Scythe; make it faster, what's the point of the getting the Ripper. You can argue just leaving it as is, as the midway option for people who want to improve their Chainsaw more before the Spear/Scythe but don't want to go all in on the Ripper. Maybe my later suggestion of making the Unholy Cathedral appear a bit later would make the Double Chainsaw a more attractive option as a midgame weapon you'll ultimately dispose of.
*Increase the amount of rockets in Rocket Boxes from 20 to 25
Rocket Boxes carrying only 20 rockets is too low; proportionally, a 10mm Ammo Chain and Power Battery hold over twice as much ammo as their respective inventory stacks, and while a Shell Box also holds exactly twice as much as a shell stack does, shotgun shells are much more efficient relative to the amount of them you get and it's a much larger quantity. Once you get the Backpack, Rocket Boxes carry only six more rockets than an inventory stack can, making them not much practical for holding extra rockets in your inventory (and ten more rockets without a Backpack isn't much better). You could also argue to increase the amount of rockets you can hold in your inventory and the amount of rockets you get from ammo pickups, though for what is intended to be a secondary weapon, I don't think that's really needed, just make Rocket Boxes more valuable.
ARMORS
Some ideas on modifying or adding armors not touched on by Icy:
*Change the Medical Armor's resistances from 20% melee/20% bullet/20% shrapnel to 15% fire/15% plasma/15% acid
The Medical Armor currently has no use other than to be a crappy backup armor when you don't have a supply of Blue Armors or better yet, or used as a consolation base to the Cerberus Armor assembly when you couldn't find anything better. This set of resistances would still make it terribly outclassed by the Energy-Shielded Vest and is still gonna be rather mediocre armor, but at least it is being outclassed by only one other exotic armor that's rare to find, rather than being outclassed by most of the other exotic armors, and has reason to be worn over a Blue or sometimes even a Red armor. If these resistances are changed, also apply these new resistances to the Medical Powerarmor as covered prior. The health regeneration gimmick can be buffed too as suggested prior for the Medical Powerarmor, though the healing buff can be kept to only the Medical Powerarmor to make it more special than the more common Medical Armor.
*Change the Duelist Armor's resistances from 50% melee/50% bullet/50% shrapnel to 70%60% melee
The Duelist Armor is great and serves it role well as the armor you use to get in enemies' faces and melee them, or to otherwise be solid movement-boosting armor. The problem is it outclasses a bunch of the other exotic armors, most notably the Ballistic Vest, that has the same exact resistances but one less point of protection and no move speed bonus; it says a lot when the Ballistic Vest's primary perk is being another means to make 50+% resistance to all Cerberus Armor without having to give up your Duelist Armor. These changes will centralize the Duelist Armor around its primary purpose of melee, which can be argued as making it even better, but it leaves the Ballistic Vest a niche to be much more effective against Formers while remaining strong in melee, and it also makes for more deliberation on what base you use for Cerberus Armor; this new Duelist Armor will get you Cerberus Armor with stronger melee resistance than anything else, but you would be left essentially naked against Formers.
*Buff the Tower Shield
For an assembly that requires an Onyx mod, the Tower Shield is very not worth it. The Fireshield isn't particularly worth it either, but the niche of being able to reduce absolutely any fire attack in the game down to 1 damage is a strong niche, while it doesn't kill your mobility and has 200% durability to at least last if you avoid letting Barons and Arachnotrons hit it. The Tower Shield meanwhile has a flat 12 protection, which is very high but isn't completely negating any of the strong enemies, while killing your movement with -50% speed, and its durability is a weird 150%, so it doesn't last that long either, especially with its more generalized defense. The exact stats can be argued, but at minimum, that durability needs to be 200% and the movement penalty needs to be reduced to at least -30% for me to ever consider assembling it over just getting infinite durability Red Armor or a Fireshield.
*Buff the Ballistic Armor assembly, by having it give +40% melee resistance/+40% bullet resistance resistance/+40% shrapnel resistance/-20% fire resistance
This assembly is almost ok, problem is physical hits tend to not be as strong as fire hits, so resistances to them aren't saving you as much damage as the equivalently proportioned resistances of the opposite Fireproof Armor does. As an example, Barons and Mancubi do 9-11 damage with their melee hits, the strongest melee enemies you'll encounter outside of a couple bosses and Nightmare Demons, so this assembly reduces their damage by 3, saving you only one more point of damage than just a Power mod would have (while bullets will never do more than that and shrapnel gets doubly reduced by armor). Then against the weaker melee hits of most enemies, it's reducing damage no more than a Power mod would have, meanwhile the -30% fire resistance is really going to hurt when the powerful fire attacks hit you (an Archvile zap does 6 more damage to you for example). The extra 10% physical resistances would make any armor this assembly applied to clearly better against physical attacks than just applying a Power mod would have made it, while -20% fire resistance isn't quite as crippling a tradeoff. As it currently is, this armor only really has a niche to help non-melee builds try to beat the Unholy Cathedral.
*Change the Cybernetic Armor's resistances to 20% against everything.
This is to both help the monotony of so many armors just having a flat 50% resistance to all physical attacks, and to make the Cybernetic Armor possibly actually worth it; those 50% physical resistances are mostly overkill when you have 7 protection, while no resistances against energy attacks makes this armor not really all that good at actually protecting you from the enemies that largely matter. There's the gimmick that you can't take this armor off and it has no durability regeneration but Technicians can fully mod it, with the idea being that they can use a Onyx mod, the Nanofiber Skin assembly, or Cybernano assembly to get themselves a very strong armor that can't be damaged. As the Cybernetic armor currently is however, doing those would certainly get you some good armor, but not good enough to comfortably commit being stuck with it for your entire run, before even considering the opportunity cost of Nano and Onyx mods (for example, P-modded Cybernano Cybernetic Armor still reduces damage from an Archvile zap less than simple Fireproof Red Armor does, while the latter also won't slow you down as much, is much cheaper to assemble, and can be taken off for armor better suited for other scenarios). With these new resistances, these assemblies will make the Cybernetic Armor truly a contender for best armor in the game and something to seriously consider committing to, without making you completely nigh-invulnerable; Nanofiber Skin would give you 45% resistance against everything alongside 7 protection, or you get 20% resistance to everything alongside 11 protection with Cybernano. However, even after a Power mod, they're not reducing all attacks down to 1 damage without TaN investment, and you're still going to be slow with that severe -30% movement speed penalty, so it's not completely broken. Not to mention the setup to get Nanofiber Skin or especially Cybernano Cybernetic Armor is very rare as is, it should very much be worth it and not clearly outclassed by the Energy-Shielded Vest in those assemblies.
*Buff the Necroarmor to regenerate 5% durability per action, still at the cost of 1 HP per action
The Necroarmor's gimmick is that it drains your health in order to regenerate itself. But it regenerates slower than other regenerating armors, only doing 2% per action instead of the standard 5%, and this effect is obviously counterproductive to the armor's job of actually reducing damage you take. I did some math (https://drl.chaosforge.org/wiki/Strategy:Necroarmor) and figured out that the you still come out ahead net positive in health after regeneration against hits that deal less than 17 damage. But the armor is still rather crummy, requiring hits to deal 10 or less damage just to match a Red Armor in practical effectiveness, while acid and plasma attacks just completely destroys the armor's effectiveness. This change still wouldn't make this armor that great, but it will help make it not become a net negative against acid, plasma, and stronger attacks (even against a max damage Baron ball, this change would make the armor drain 6 HP to recover after you take 14 damage, thus it's not worse than taking the hit naked), so that you will be incentivized to use it over Red Armor and modded Blue Armor at least.
*Add armor assemblies that utilize the Sniper mod and Firestorm mod
Having armor assemblies for these isn't entirely necessary, but these mods are a lot less desirable than Nano and Onyx mods, and several builds can't utilize them much, if at all. So adding some more ways to utilize them would be appreciated, and I got a couple ideas I think might be good (names are placeholders I haven't put much thought into):
Scouting armor - any armor + AS (or ATS if it would be too good for a basic assembly) = The armor gives +1 vision when worn, could also give +5 or +10% movement speed on the base armor, but could be omitted if deemed too good on top of the vision boost (would definitely be something handy for any build, thematically fits the Sniper mod, and currently the only way to get any vision boost is by Cateye and temporary Light Goggles).
Blastproof armor - any armor + TF (or TPF if too good for a basic assembly) = The armor reduces damage from explosions by half, and adds +30% knockback on the base armor, could be a bit more (or less) for what is deemed best balance wise (there is currently no way to reduce damage from specifically explosions outside of Fireangel, and there's no way to increase knockback on armor, while this would additionally serve clear utility to make ideal rocket jumping armor).
*Add the "Tactical Set" - Wearing Tactical Armor with Tactical Boots completes this set, which grants the player with the effect of Dodgemaster
I think the game could use a couple more sets, with an obvious equipment set being the Tactical Armor and Tactical Boots. Aside from being thematically fitting, Tactical Armor is also an underused assembly, as the risk of running around essentially naked is too high, and the cost of two Agility Mods is a bit high for players, especially when they've likely already spent two Agility Mods on Tactical Boots. The Tactical Armor probably still wouldn't be used much, but having this set could get some players to assemble it in more scenarios, such as an out to the Cyberdemon for low-DPS builds with no Dodgemaster. There's also already precedent of equipment granting players the abilities from traits, with the Butcher's Cleaver having inherent Blademaster.
*Change the Gothic Set from giving +4 protection to +50% resistances against everything
There are two glaring problems with the Gothic Set; one, +4 protection on an armor with no energy resistances is not enough of a tradeoff for becoming completely immobilized, and two, the Angelic Set exists, which also grants +4 protection but without any sacrifices to mobility. So not only is the Gothic Set incredibly niche in practicality, it's also completely outclassed by another set that does the same thing without any drawbacks. This change could make it become actually viable in situations where out-DPSing a bunch of baddies is imperative; currently the Archvile does 10 damage to you in the Gothic Set, 8 if the Gothic Armor was P-modded, and high damage rolls from Mancubi and Revenants could do even more, while plasma enemies are of course hardly fazed. With you still taking decent damage, the Gothic Set is just making you a sitting duck that would get promptly slaughtered. With this change, the aforementioned Archvile zap now does only 4 damage, 2 if P-modded, and you'll be often be reducing hits from common plasma enemies down to 1, while Hell Knights and Cacodemons do no more than 3 or 2 (whereas before their max damage rolls would do 7 or 6). There's farther synergy with the Gothic Cerberus Armor, where this set would give you 95% resistance against everything, and so reduce practically any hit down to 1 damage; this might sound too strong, but given you're completely immobile for the Gothic Set (while rapid-fire enemies can still rack up damage quickly in big hordes), and that the Gothic Boots themselves aren't much useful (so carrying them around is often a waste of inventory space), I think this is still reasonably balanced.
SPECIAL LEVELS
I already covered Phobos Lab vs. Military Base, so a few more changes for the special levels that I think would improve the game.
*Replace the Missile Launcher in City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains
This one is obvious, that second Missile Launcher always felt like filler that the devs threw in because they had no idea what to replace the original second BFG that used to be in City Of Skulls. I'm not sure what to replace it with, and I don't think any specific weapon would be fitting. Perhaps it can be a randomized guaranteed non-BFG non-melee exotic weapon? Would give more incentive to visit these two levels that aren't really rewarding outside of possibly making Mortuary/Limbo a bit easier later and potentially giving non-melee builds a Hatred Skull for the Cathedral, especially for pistol and rapid-fire builds that outright struggle in these levels.
*Swap the depth of Unholy Cathedral and The Vaults
An idea I seen someone else suggest long ago that I think is pretty sound. The reasoning being any good unique you find in The Vaults you won't get as much time to use, while lategame melee is very powerful with little effort thanks to the guaranteed artifact weapon from the Cathedral, thus this would serve as a slight nerf to them. It would also give non-melee builds a bit more of a chance to get good melee-resistant armor before the Cathedral, prevent you from being able to cheese Scavenger Platinum and Diamond via Azrael Scythe's altfire (though I don't exactly like purely luck-based badges to begin with, so I wouldn't mind those badges being changed), and you won't have that damn Arena Master Staff clogging your inventory quite as long.
*Modify The Vaults' enemy selection
This is one I made a thread about looooonnnnnngggggg ago, but never got a dev response to (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7270.msg63862.html#msg63862). In short, it has its hardest enemy composition on HNTR, when it's difficult to avoid the Aracnotrons in this level, the Barons on that difficulty always steal your armor (while their projectile's big explosion isn't easy to avoid in the crampness of this level either), and having just VMR to deal with makes it easy to just put on strong fire-resistant armor to neuter the threat. Even if you swap the enemy composition around, it still would be a much easier level on UV than other special levels, so I suggest the following changes:
HNTR - Same enemy composition as current HMP, which is Mancubi in the left vault and Revenants in the right vault, with a mix in the center
HMP - Replace the Mancubi with Arachnotrons
UV - Replace Revenants with Barons, add 2 more Arachnotrons in the left vault and 2 more Barons in the right vault, then add 4 Arch-Viles in the center vault without replacing any of the existing enemies.
N! - Replace Arachnotrons with Nightmare Arachnotrons, add Red Armor right next to all the Barons in the right vault to pick up (Phobos Base Entry has a Green Armor that only spawns on UV or N!, so this should be possible right?), and replace the Archviles with Nigntmare Archviles (currently you can't encounter them in the standard game, so you could do so here while making this level much tougher).
*In Mt. Erebus, prevent being able to teleport into the "mountain" with a Phase Device
A minor thing, but I inadvertently discovered this potential softlock when trying to beat Mt. Erebus without a radsuit (luckily I had a Homing Phase to get out). Perhaps have the "mountain" fill in the space where there are no monsters until the mountain is brought down, leaving no space for players to phase into it?
ENEMIES
*Buff Nightmare Imps
Nightmare Imps in their current form are some weird diet Hell Knight, being offensively the same, just marginally faster but with a lot less HP and no ability to use items/armor. This gives them no distinct role among enemies, and makes them laughable by the time you start encountering them, when they're much weaker than this enemy you been fighting since dlevel 3 on UV/N!. My suggestion would be to lean into the speed aspect and make them like their Doom 64 selves by being frail but very fast enemies. The exact stats can be argued, but the idea I have is:
Reduce HP to 18
Increase their speed to 160% (if too high, at least to 140%)
Reduce their projectile's damage to 2d5, but let them shoot two projectiles each time they attack.
Reduce their melee attack to 1d3+4, perhaps add the double attack effect too if possible on a melee attack.
This should give them a more defined spot among the enemy roster and finding a group of them could maybe actually be a threat to the player, or will at least be a big hassle that needs to be dealt with quickly.
*Increase the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give
Getting 95 EXP from such a dangerous enemy is a pathetically low amount, this is less than you get from Nightmare Imps, Cacodemons, Hell Knights, and even Elite Former Humans. This is also a big culprit behind Phobos Lab being so unrewarding, especially when the Elite Formers give you such a crazy amount of EXP in comparison. I would say bumping the amount of EXP that Nightmare Demons give to 263 is fair (which is equivalent to an Arachnotron), and see my prior post on even with that massive increase, Phobos Lab still doesn't give you more EXP on UV/N! than Military Base does now.
*Decrease the EXP that Elite Formers give you
Conversely, Elite Formers give you a really high amount of EXP each, despite their threat not really meriting such a high amount of EXP, contributing to the huge disparity in EXP yield between Military Base and Phobos Lab. I would let Elite Former Commandos still give you 608 EXP, but I would nerf the EXP yield of the other Elite Formers by the following:
Elite Former Humans: 167 -> 128
Elite Former Sergeants: 320 -> 263
Elite Former Captains: 452 -> 320
*Buff Elite Formers in melee
A main reason why Military Base is a lot easier than Phobos Base is how you can easily lure the Elite Formers into melee range, where they are all weak except for the Elite Commando, who is instead just mediocre. You could just give them a damage bump of like +3 to +5, though I think it would be neat if you instead let them attack with a Combat Knife, which would fit the theme of them being elite fully-armed soldiers. I do not know if this is programmable however; if it isn't, then just give them a flat damage buff to their current melee attack.
*Revert the Nightmare Archvile's attack to dealing plasma damage
Prior to 0.9.9.7, the Nightmare Archvile's zap used to do 16d1 plasma damage, but in 0.9.9.7, this was changed to 25d1 fire damage. This is a big damage improvement on paper, but we all know how much easier it is to get good defense against fire; as it currently stands, the Nightmare Archvile isn't really that threatening to a lategame A100 player that will certainly have very strong fire-resistant armor like the P-modded Energy-Shielded Vest (reduces it to 9 damage, much more if it was assembled to Nanofiber Skin or Cybernano Armor), Cerberus Armor (reduces it damage to 7, 5 if P-modded), the Lava Armor (reduces its damage to 2), or even the Inquisitor Set that completely neutralizes it. For an enemy that is supposed to invoke a "OH SHIT!" response as its ingame description gives and for being the final enemy that spawns in A100, it really doesn't live up to the hype, Nightmare Arachnotrons elicit a bigger fight or flight response from me. I'll also note its explosion still uses the plasma explosion graphics too, and it would be consistent with other Nightmare enemies who all use plasma attacks (aside from the melee-exclusive Nightmare Demon). That said, 16d1 plasma damage isn't too much of an improvement (the aforementioned armors reduces it damage to 7, 8 or 7, 6, and 10 respectively), so I would bump it up to at least 20d1, or just make it 25d1 plasma damage to really hammer in the threat of the final A100 enemy (and make carrying a Plasma Shield around more enticing).
*Make the Lava Elemental harder?
Despite being the boss of the final special level right before the end of the standard game, the Lava Elemental is quite lackluster. Having fire attacks is already easily defended against, but its attack isn't even as strong as the VMR's. It has very strong armor with 5 protection and health regeneration, but it's nothing outrageous for this point of the game, especially with its low-end HP for a boss. It's strong in melee, but not any stronger than the Barons and Mancubi. Has anyone ever actually had a hard time against the Lava Elemental, let alone die to it?
Now buffing its stats would help, and I do think its projectile and melee attack could use a damage buff. However one unique aspect of its attack is its projectile leaving behind lava. Normally this doesn't matter in The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus, as you got three spare radsuits to use even if you brought none in. So it's easy to do everything in these levels only expending a single radsuit, and then kill the Lava Elemental while being completely protected from its lava splashing effect with a radsuit on, while typically killing him fast enough to even have a spare radsuit left. My suggestion would be to take away these radsuits on harder difficulties; ITYTD and HNTR have the three as usual, but then HMP has two radsuits, UV has only one radsuit, and N! has no radsuits at all. This would make tackling these levels without bringing radsuits with you (or building lava-immune boots) a lot more difficult, and the Lava Elemental can be actually scary if you have no form of lava immunity. By making it hit a lot harder in melee, you would also discourage players preventing it from leaving behind more lava by getting in melee range.
*Expand the depth Former Commandos can spawn
Former Commandos are a potentially very dangerous enemy, but they have a very narrow depth they can appear, with them no longer appearing individually after dlevel 17. They can also appear a bit longer in a monster group with other formers, but this stops after dlevel 21. After this point, you'll never see this enemy again, outside of The Mortuary and in the rare Archviles + Formers level. I never understood why such a dangerous enemy with a defined role as an extreme glass cannon stops spawning so soon, they should be able to keep spawning throughout the game, or least make their depth range not so ridiculously narrow. Could also add them to Archvile + Formers and Barons + Formers group.
*Expand the depth Pain Elementals can spawn
Pain Elementals also have a rather narrow depth range, with them no longer spawning after dlevel 20, and the only monster group they are a part of stops spawning immediately after at dlevel 21. After this you'll never see them again in normal levels, outside of rare Pain Elemental caves, and then from the Agony Elemental at very deep depths in A100. This is despite them serving a unique role that makes them a serious pain for certain builds (particularly pistol and rapid fire builds). Like with Commandos, they should be able to appear throughout the remaining entirety of the standard game, and perhaps through all of Angel of 100, or at least until dlevel 50 like Cacodemons and Arachnotrons (who can still appear afterward in vaults and monster groups respectively). Could also make a Cacodemons + Pain Elementals group to get cute (Cacodemons currently don't appear in any monster groups, and I think this could be fitting), that spawns throughout the game.
*Make the Apostle possibly challenging?
For a super secret final boss, the Apostle is a huge disappointment. Ignoring that he is just a super Archvile, he does have some qualities that could be threatening; a 40 damage plasma attack with a huge explosion radius is actually pretty damn scary even if you're berserked, when you're stuck in the horribly slow Berserker Armor that has no plasma resistance. He also teleports around and regenerates. But you get in once, you just hit him two-four times and then he dies possibly before he could even retaliate. I have a couple suggestions that could make the Apostle possibly come somewhat close to living up to its status:
1: Increase the Apostle's HP to 500
2: Have the Apostle immediately teleport whenever it is hit
He has 30 armor sure, but when you're berserked with the Dragonslayer and likely have several levels of Brute, that 30 protection ain't making that much of a difference in surviving longer than Carmack and the Mastermind (in fact on average, they are surviving one to two more hits than the Apostle does against a berserked Dragonslayer even with no Brute). Additionally, have him immediately teleport away when hit, so that the player can't just get in once and mash click to win. This would make his health regeneration matter, and the enemies he revive will become a bigger problem with wearing you down as you chase him around the map. These changes could admittedly make him annoying and drawn out, but an annoying drawn out fight is much more climatic than the complete disappointment he is now.
*Fix hunting enemies ignoring items and armor
When an enemy has the hunting behavior enabled, they'll completely ignore any items and armor along the way, even if they're programmed to use items. This mainly affects the Bruiser Brothers and Cyberdemons, who are programmed to use items but will never use them because they are always hunting the player, but it can extend to Formers and Hell Nobles during the alarm level event and in arenas, where they can be given the hunting behavior. If Cyberdemons using items would be too strong, then that ability can be removed (conversely, medkits can have a 110 HP recovery cap, so that Cyberdemons with them won't be overtly obnoxious, but makes it so even a Marine with 5 levels of Ironman can still fully heal).
MISCELLANEOUS
*Modify danger level to increase more sharply after Phobos?
A common criticism of DRL is that the difficulty is largely front-loaded even when you're not playing challenges that exacerbate early game difficulty, where the vast majority of runs end in Phobos, and making it to Hell can often near-guarantee victory, with only the optional Mortuary/Limbo being any threat to kill you at that point. This is primarily caused by how powerful the player becomes in the lategame, and it would take a complete rebalancing of the game to fully address it, which isn't feasible, but you could maybe help the lategame keep up with the player if the danger level was substantially higher; indeed Hell levels can feel a bit empty even on harder difficulties. Conversely, you can argue the current difficulty balance is fine, as an easier lategame is countered by the fact you have much more to lose if you die at that point and so you have to be extra careful to not make mistakes; you die in Phobos, you just lose like 15-30 minutes, maybe an hour, but you die in Hell, that could be your entire evening going down the drain. I think the later game having harder Hell levels could be interesting, but I am also fine with the current level balance, and messing with the danger level climb could be too much of a balancing change. If this were to be done, you would also probably need to keep the danger level formula used in A100/666 as is, as a more sharply rising danger level could make lategame A100/666 have absurd enemy density.
*Do locked vaults actually exist, and if so, can they be made less absurdly rare?
According to the wiki (https://drl.chaosforge.org/wiki/Room_Generation), "locked vaults" are a thing, which you cannot open or blow up the walls of, without activating a corresponding lever. I cannot recall ever finding a locked vault once, do they actually exist but are absurdly rare, do they exist but are bugged from spawning, or did they exist in old versions and were removed? I do like the concept of them, so whatever the case, I would like if they could actually spawn at a reasonable rate.
*Make ammo rooms more randomized
Currently there is little-to-no randomization with the ammo you get from ammo rooms; all ammo that spawns in an ammo room is the same instead of being able to be a variety, and the ammo that does spawn is static based on the dlevel. Egregiously, once you reach dlevel 12, ammo rooms will only ever have plasma cells from that point forward, which constitutes half the standard game and near 90% of A100. Aside from making little sense why ammo rooms are this restricted in their randomization, it also makes these rooms less useful than they could be. It's particularly annoying to shotgun and pistol builds, whose primary ammo becomes more scarce later in the game, and so end up often becoming reliant on Formers to maintain their ammo as a result, sometimes even having to farm them near Archviles to not run out of ammo. Ammo rooms being able to have all types of ammo throughout the game will make them useful more often, and will help make the aforementioned shotgun and pistol builds less reliant on the ammo drops of Formers in the lategame.
*Add an ammo-restoring lever
Levers in their current setup are largely more likely to be dangerous. You're not gonna make players without Intuition gamble with them either way unless they're desperate for a heal, but I think adding one more useful effect would make them a bit useful more often for players with Intuition. An ammo-restoring one seems pretty obvious, have it give you ammo equivalent to a small ammo pickup for whatever weapon you're carrying, with a randomized 1-3 uses.
*Add trapped powerups and items
One suggestion I seen when browsing old feature requests that I liked was adding trapped powerups and items, which would summon enemies around the player or flood the room with acid/lava when picked up, or any other adverse effect. This is one trademark mechanic from Doom that currently is sorely missing from DRL, which should fit seamlessly into a roguelike. In order to do it, perhaps you can create designated "trap rooms" in the same vein as ammo rooms, where in the middle there will be a powerup, rarely an exotic, or very rarely a unique, and then there's a random chance it'll spring some trap upon picking it up (though not always, sometimes the "obvious trap" is just a fakeout). Exact percentages for these outcomes can be discussed farther.
*Have trees randomly spawn as part of normal level generation
It's weird that this unique object was added to the game, but is only ever used for the very first level and then never again. Doom uses the same tree object through its Hell levels, so there's already "canonical" precedent to have it at least spawn during the Hell levels if it would be considered too weird to have it in the tech base styled Phobos and Deimos levels. And/or add a new "outside" level type where this tree can spawn. Could be unique strategic applications (or hindrances) for what is effectively a wall that enemies will try to shoot you through, but is unexplored with the trees only being in the first level. Alternatively, add a new "skewered corpse" object that functionally does the same thing, but would be thematically appropriate with any level and adds some prevalent decoration from Doom that was missing before (would require a new sprite however, and I don't know if anything requiring new sprites for Graphics mode is off the table).
Icy:
I'll update the main post with all ideas once more players have a chance to throw ideas around and when I have more free time.
One suggestion I forgot to mention:
There is an exploit where Everyman Platinum Badge, Everyman Diamond Badge, and Thomas's Medal require completing Angel of Humanity as a conqueror, but you can combine this with Angel of 100 and earn them by simply beating the game as no bonus levels are generated. While I would argue this can actually be a harder way to earn these achievements, it's still an exploit that I think should be fixed.
My responses to Omega Tyrant:
I can agree with the powerup overlay. You can use the minimap to still see enemies and other things while powered up, but it can be awkward for sure. Note that doing this would also buff power-ups as you can see exactly what some items are if you have a Computer Map as well, such as mod packs across the level.
I agree with showing badges in postmortems that have been previously earned. Alternatively, exclude both badges and medals, but doing one and not the other is a bit odd to me.
I don't totally agree with having unlocked challenges right from the start since it is nice to let newbies progress more naturally, but I do like the toggle suggestion for it. While I do agree that most players are returning veterans, it's always good to be more accessible for new players. That said, starting with challenges unlocked probably isn't that huge of deal in confusing or deterring new players. Perhaps along with the toggle, have some method to direct new players to easier difficulties and standard games, but don't force it.
I like the idea of bumping medal count from 43. 50 is a nice even number, or 52 could also work to be exactly double the 26 of most badge types.
I like the idea of medals pertaining more to Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666, although they might need to be crafted thoughtfully so that they aren't confusing on how to earn, or one-dimensional in the way that Iron Skull is with Vampyre. Perhaps strictly having them say "Do X in Angel of 100" to force the idea would be good. I like your suggested ideas, although nuking 20 floors, like the Fallout medals, mostly devolves to finding Trigun.
Cycling through tilesets for Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666 sounds cool, so long as it doesn't have any other direct effects on gameplay. This might need to be adjusted slightly since lava doesn't really appear in Phobos for example, and certain level structures are also limited to certain tilesets like islands. Alternatively though, leaving it as is could make for more variety when playing through where deep into the game you encounter more large boxy levels like the early Phobos levels. Hell freezes might need to be adjusted as a level type.
I think more variety with fluids would be cool, although I do think too much water would make the game quite a bit easier, especially if you're playing a melee build and dealing with potential respawning. Maybe have them, but have the weights favor lava more, such as a 70% lava, 25% acid, 5% water split or something.
I'd lean against Angel of Death being a random spawn since it's significantly stronger than other "boss enemies" and is more similar to final bosses. It has more health than Cyberdemons, 2.5x the armor, and is quite a lot faster, just that the trade-off is it doesn't have any ranged attacks. It also would be a bit weird fighting it without melee attacks, and forcing that on the player would be pretty unbalanced. Most non-melee attacks would be doing only a few points of damage, meanwhile it has 410 HP on Ultra-Violence.
I disagree with guaranteed Berserker Armor and Dragonslayer spawning on Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666. While they don't always show up, they're not too exceptionally rare to find on a full 666 game, and in my experience I would find the pair more often than not. Granted, that does take some time to go through, but their mystique would be a bit watered down if they were easy access. With the pair of them guaranteed, it would also be easy to farm tons of kills under current circumstances. A 100% kill rate on HNTR is pretty easy too if you're patient.
I have no personal opinion regarding music slots.
I agree with allowing Juggler to easily swap around weapons from the inventory. One could argue that changing it so that it only works with the prepared slot is another good idea, but I don't think the trait is too overly powerful that this needs to be done. There is also an inventory trade-off with carrying extra weapons for instant swapping, particularly a pile of Shotguns on Nightmare difficulty in the early game.
I disagree and think Badass with removing health decay is very powerful. Since boosted health is hard to maintain, especially when using Run->Wait, giving yourself 50% and 100% more health is a huge safety net for making mistakes, receiving unlucky damage rolls, and making aggressive play when necessary. The difference between Badass x2 and Badass x0 can feel almost like immortality, so long as it's not one of the first traits you get. I do agree it's not amazing as a starting trait for Marines though, but if Marines are buffed in other ways, then it would be fine.
I like the idea of more common Pistols. Shotguns and Rapid-Fires both have a few each, but Pistols only have the basic Pistol. Magnum sounds like a cool idea.
I agree with increasing the weight of Chainsaw. I think a weight of 6 is a bit high for being a very strong weapon, especially when Ripper is fairly easy to make, or alternatively loading it up with Agility Packs if you don't have good accuracy. I'd say a weight of 5 and level generation of 9 or so.
I disagree with changing the weight of BFG9000 since when considering both it and Nuclear BFG, the sum of weights is 4 and both are absurdly powerful.
Medical Armor definitely needs some changes, and your suggestion is another possibility. I think like the suggested ideas for Medical Powerarmor that buffing the regeneration value to 50% health is good.
I think your idea for Duelist Armor could be good, but I'd have to spend a bit of time considering all possibilities. Cerberus Armor (P) with your suggestion would be arguably stronger than other current variants since most end-game enemies don't deal much bullet or shrapnel damage, and the extra melee resistance would be more appealing. It would also be a pretty insanely strong armor for early/middle games for melee builds, especially with its movement speed to help with charging enemies. I do agree that more variety for exotic armors would be good.
I think buffing Tower Shield with 200% durability and -30% movement speed could be good. The only hesitation I would have with that is since it can be obtained without Whizkid, it could make you insanely tanky with very little investment. I think it would be fine though.
Like Tower Shield, I think your buff suggestion to Ballistic Armor could be good, but definitely want to avoid making it too good since it's a basic assembly and only requires basic mod packs. Maybe take your suggested changes and also include -15% movement speed?
I like your suggestion for Cybernetic Armor, just keep in mind that it can be somewhat consistently obtained in Hell's Armory, so making it too good might make it broken. The armor being cursed does help balance out giving it a buff, and also indirectly buffs Technicians who can mod it while other classes can't and likely would be interested in it.
I agree with the buff to Necroarmor. Currently, players could use it tactically though by gift dropping it to sap away the health of an enemy, but it's definitely more used for the players themselves.
I like the ideas of your suggested armors with Sniper and Firestorm Packs, but I'm a bit split on if they should be usable for armors. First, what would be their inherent property if you have something like Green Armor (F)? Second, canonically, it seems a little silly to stick Sniper Packs on an armor. It can depend on your perspective though, whether you view it like attaching scopes to your armor, or if it's more like a computer chip or something. I do agree that more assemblies could make use of Sniper Packs and Firestorm Packs.
I'm uncertain what to suggest regarding the Missile Launcher for City of Skulls and Abyssal Plains. Maybe Napalm Launcher, although that might become a bit too strong for that point in the game. Semi-related, but I do think the difficulty between the two also needs to be adjusted.
I like the idea of swapping The Vaults and Unholy Cathedral, but I would need to think about it more.
I like the idea of adjusting enemies for The Vaults. The only thing with your proposal is you would have Barons on HNTR and UV, but not HMP, which would be a bit weird. I think changing it is good, but it'd need more discussion.
I kind of diagree with preventing getting stuck in Mt. Erebus as that's the risk you take from trying to cheese it. However, it should at least have a bit of a lava patch so that you can gracefully end your game and receive a proper ending instead of Ctrl-Qing.
Regarding changes to Nightmare Imps, Former Commandos, and Pain Elementals, I'd have to thoroughly think about them since adjusting enemies is a pretty fundamental part of the game.
I disagree with hunting enemies being able to use items as they would get absurdly powerful, but I do agree with fixing the coding logic for them. Note that a Cyberdemon wielding a Plasma Shield could survive nukes currently, and while you could just buff nuke damage, it's a good demonstration of how insane they would be.
I believe locked vaults is an older version or glitched and never existed as I have never encountered them. It could be an interesting idea.
I like the idea of a lever potentially restoring ammo, but it feels a bit silly as a concept. Maybe more specifically, have it drop a random small ammo pickup, similar to making enemies spawn around you, as opposed to directly reloading your weapon or something.
I sort of agree with your tree idea, just that enemies can get stuck and be dumb around them. For example, Former Humans in Phobos Base Entry will endlessly fire into them, to the point of expending all their ammo. I'm not sure how other AIs would interact with them.
Omega Tyrant:
Thanks for the feedback!
--- Quote ---Regarding my Intuition change with bonus floors, I meant the red stairs leading to the bonus levels. Having those not be stair sensed would be a slight nerf to Scout to help balance it a bit more compared to other classes.
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Ah I see, I agree with this change then.
--- Quote ---I like your points about Arena Diamond Badge, although I'm not a fan of making Hell's Arena appear on different floors for different challenges, which sounds like a messy inconsistency. Although this is a slightly different topic relative to the badge, perhaps having Hell's Arena appear on floor 3 but be a fair bit harder could be a good change? Depending on how much of a change it would be, it could still keep all the current badges and medals relative for it being fair.
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I'll note that Hell's Arena does already have different rewards depending on the challenge you're playing (sometimes radically so), so Hell's Arena adapting to the challenge you're on is already a part of it and as such, I think having its depth adapt too for different challenges wouldn't be that inconsistent.
--- Quote ---I like your suggested ideas, although nuking 20 floors, like the Fallout medals, mostly devolves to finding Trigun.
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If that number would be too high without the Trigun, it could be reduced to like 15 floors or whatever other high number that requires active effort to achieve but isn't too high without lucky drops.
--- Quote ---I'd lean against Angel of Death being a random spawn since it's significantly stronger than other "boss enemies" and is more similar to final bosses. It has more health than Cyberdemons, 2.5x the armor, and is quite a lot faster, just that the trade-off is it doesn't have any ranged attacks. It also would be a bit weird fighting it without melee attacks, and forcing that on the player would be pretty unbalanced. Most non-melee attacks would be doing only a few points of damage, meanwhile it has 410 HP on Ultra-Violence.
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I'll note the Cyberdemon used to be the actual final boss in earlier versions of DRL, and we now got him as a normal ass enemy in A100! I do think being melee-restricted still significantly keeps the AoD in check, as evidenced by the fact the throwing knife strategy is a legit way to cheese him, except in A100 you would have actual guns to use instead of having to plink him with an inaccurate knife for 1 damage at a time. That 10 armor can be a big pain, but at such deep depths, you should certainly have something to handle it with by then; shotgun builds can get Nano-Shrapnel, Plasmatic Shrapnel, and the Plasma Shotgun; pistol builds can get the Energy Pistol or Blaster; rapid-fire builds got their Plasma Rifles and the Laser Rifle (both of which can also be used by other builds with sufficient investment); as long as Brute isn't blocked by their master, most builds can comfortably invest a few points into it and Berserker; and then rocket launchers, the BFG, and other non-build specific weapons like the Railgun can also be used effectively on him. If you want to really make sure that any build will have some reasonable means to kill him, you can have him start spawning at dlevel 80 instead (while bumping the Shambler down to dlevel 70, so you don't got all the bosses suddenly appearing at once at dlevel 74-80). Or even at dlevel 90, so that the Nightmare Archvile isn't the only new enemy that starts spawning in the dlevel 84-90 range.
--- Quote ---Granted, that does take some time to go through, but their mystique would be a bit watered down if they were easy access. With the pair of them guaranteed, it would also be easy to farm tons of kills under current circumstances. A 100% kill rate on HNTR is pretty easy too if you're patient.
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Being only able to use the Dragonslayer for a single floor with my suggested idea I think limits losing the mystique of it (in A666, you could bump the guaranteed spawn to floor 665), and you could limit it to requiring UV difficulty at least, or something else besides maintaining 100% kills. In any case, I don't think a full win in A100/666 should be entirely luck-dependent on any difficulty, part of why the Lava Element and guaranteed nuclear weapons were added in the standard game was so that a full win was always obtainable without getting lucky with specific item spawns, as very old versions of DRL required.
--- Quote ---I agree with allowing Juggler to easily swap around weapons from the inventory. One could argue that changing it so that it only works with the prepared slot is another good idea, but I don't think the trait is too overly powerful that this needs to be done. There is also an inventory trade-off with carrying extra weapons for instant swapping, particularly a pile of Shotguns on Nightmare difficulty in the early game.
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If Juggler was changed to only work with your prepared slot, that would nerf it to near worthlessness; aside from the limitation of only being able to utilize it with two weapons at a time, it would also prevent utilizing it at all alongside an ammo box. I agree Juggler isn't an overpowered trait; it's very handy for sure and I don't ever mind picking it for a mastery, but it's usually not a trait you'll go out of your way to get before more pressing traits (such as you would with Intuition). And yes, having all those weapons to take advantage of it is a cost in itself with limiting inventory space.
--- Quote ---I disagree and think Badass with removing health decay is very powerful. Since boosted health is hard to maintain, especially when using Run->Wait, giving yourself 50% and 100% more health is a huge safety net for making mistakes, receiving unlucky damage rolls, and making aggressive play when necessary. The difference between Badass x2 and Badass x0 can feel almost like immortality, so long as it's not one of the first traits you get. I do agree it's not amazing as a starting trait for Marines though, but if Marines are buffed in other ways, then it would be fine.
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I do disagree with this, finding that I can keep boosted health long enough with fast speed, or can utilize it well enough to go super aggro at the start of the level to kill beginning enemy hordes, as well as finding that relying on randomly spawning powerups to be useful at all to be a limitation. This is certainly a very subjective argument though and so I won't press if people disagree (I'll just continue to grumble having to invest in Badass when a mastery requires it...)
--- Quote ---I agree with increasing the weight of Chainsaw. I think a weight of 6 is a bit high for being a very strong weapon, especially when Ripper is fairly easy to make, or alternatively loading it up with Agility Packs if you don't have good accuracy. I'd say a weight of 5 and level generation of 9 or so.
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I don't think a weight of 6 would be too out of whack, considering how you normally get an early guaranteed Chainsaw from a potentially easy special level, while a Ripper would still take a while to make in A100 considering you're missing on the guaranteed mods from special levels (not to mention you need at least Brute 3 to actually hit things with it, and Brute 4 to go over 90% accuracy, which you might not even be able to get until around dlevel 25 on UV, while Agility mods are wasted on it). I'll also note the Assault Shotgun and Combat Pistol each have a weight of 6, so it's not unusual for powerful staple exotics to have that weight. In any case, not much point in arguing over the exact number, as long as we agree that the Chainsaw should be more common.
--- Quote ---I think your idea for Duelist Armor could be good, but I'd have to spend a bit of time considering all possibilities. Cerberus Armor (P) with your suggestion would be arguably stronger than other current variants since most end-game enemies don't deal much bullet or shrapnel damage, and the extra melee resistance would be more appealing. It would also be a pretty insanely strong armor for early/middle games for melee builds, especially with its movement speed to help with charging enemies. I do agree that more variety for exotic armors would be good.
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Former Captains and Sergeants can do a nasty amount of damage when you got no armor, and only 2 protection after a Power mod will let them still be able to leave a dent in you, so it would be a fair tradeoff I think for the Cerberus Armor (while Gothic Cerberus and Onyx Cerberus would still be very stiff competition). As for early-mid game melee, it would certainly be very powerful, though losing the bullet and shrapnel resistances is also gonna really hurt at this point of the game too when Formers are still very common, who are also enemies you can't easily rush when you don't got an armor that can just tank them.
--- Quote ---Like Tower Shield, I think your buff suggestion to Ballistic Armor could be good, but definitely want to avoid making it too good since it's a basic assembly and only requires basic mod packs. Maybe take your suggested changes and also include -15% movement speed?
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I think the movement speed penalty would be excessive, unless you also got rid of the negative fire resistance that serves as a major tradeoff to it as is.
--- Quote ---I like your suggestion for Cybernetic Armor, just keep in mind that it can be somewhat consistently obtained in Hell's Armory, so making it too good might make it broken. The armor being cursed does help balance out giving it a buff, and also indirectly buffs Technicians who can mod it while other classes can't and likely would be interested in it.
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It should be noted that getting the Cybernetic Armor in Hell's Armory/Deimos' Lab also takes up a rare mod slot, while getting a Nano mod or Onyx mod is necessary to actually take advantage of the armor. So the chances of actually getting to utilize Nanofiber Skin or especially Cybernano Cybernetic Armor in a standard game is still exceedingly slim, and thus like with the point about super weapons and Inquisitor Set, it shouldn't factor heavily into balancing it.
--- Quote ---First, what would be their inherent property if you have something like Green Armor (F)? Second, canonically, it seems a little silly to stick Sniper Packs on an armor. It can depend on your perspective though, whether you view it like attaching scopes to your armor, or if it's more like a computer chip or something.
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You can still leave Sniper and Firestorm mods unable to be used on armor normally, which wouldn't be unusual, when you can't use Firestorm mods on pistols yet the Demolition Ammo assembly exists. As for how it would make sense, I like to think of it as adding scopes to your helmet that lets you see farther :)
--- Quote ---I'm uncertain what to suggest regarding the Missile Launcher for City of Skulls and Abyssal Plains. Maybe Napalm Launcher, although that might become a bit too strong for that point in the game. Semi-related, but I do think the difficulty between the two also needs to be adjusted.
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Would be really interested to hear how you think their difficulty should be adjusted. Abyssal Plains is currently a lot harder for most builds, you do got some more stuff in it but I wouldn't be opposed to tinkering with it a bit to make the risk/reward better balanced.
--- Quote ---I like the idea of adjusting enemies for The Vaults. The only thing with your proposal is you would have Barons on HNTR and UV, but not HMP, which would be a bit weird. I think changing it is good, but it'd need more discussion.
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You misread, my suggestion would take the current HMP setup for HNTR, which consists of Mancubi in the left vault and Revenants in the right vault; Barons would only start showing up on UV. I have edited my post to make it more clear.
--- Quote ---I kind of diagree with preventing getting stuck in Mt. Erebus as that's the risk you take from trying to cheese it. However, it should at least have a bit of a lava patch so that you can gracefully end your game and receive a proper ending instead of Ctrl-Qing.
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I think softlocks should be avoided as a fundamental part of game design (which should also be addressed with The Wall/Containment Area, where one suggestion I saw that I liked was having the wall collapse after killing all enemies), and I'll note that The Lava Pits has no softlock risk for using a Phase Device despite being much harder to do without a radsuit. If it's deemed too easy to beat Mt. Erebus without a radsuit with just a Phase Device, perhaps add more far out islands that decreases the chance of the Phase Device getting you to the main island.
--- Quote ---I disagree with hunting enemies being able to use items as they would get absurdly powerful, but I do agree with fixing the coding logic for them. Note that a Cyberdemon wielding a Plasma Shield could survive nukes currently, and while you could just buff nuke damage, it's a good demonstration of how insane they would be.
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Bruisers being able to use items I don't think would be excessive to deal with, as is they're arguably currently less threatening than Barons in A100, since the latter will eat up all your medkits, armor, phase devices, and ammo (though I guess you can also argue that lets Barons and Bruisers keep separate niches in lategame A100, instead of the latter just being a strictly upgraded version). I remember we discussed the possibility of a Cyber being able to survive a nuke with a Plasma Shield, and it was inconclusive if the armor would only absorb 100 damage or the full theoretical 5700. I do think someone nuking a level and finding a Cyberdemon still alive would make for a hilarious moment though. In any case, I don't think a Cyber with even strong armor would be too unkillable, but medkits would certainly need to have the aforementioned healing cap before letting any Cybers use them.
--- Quote ---I believe locked vaults is an older version or glitched and never existed as I have never encountered them. It could be an interesting idea.
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Good to hear I'm not the only one who never seen them. I like the idea of them, so I do hope they're brought back or whatever bug is preventing them from spawning is fixed.
--- Quote ---I like the idea of a lever potentially restoring ammo, but it feels a bit silly as a concept. Maybe more specifically, have it drop a random small ammo pickup, similar to making enemies spawn around you, as opposed to directly reloading your weapon or something.
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That sounds better than supplying the ammo into your inventory as I originally suggested, just as long as we get a couple more useful levers.
--- Quote ---I sort of agree with your tree idea, just that enemies can get stuck and be dumb around them. For example, Former Humans in Phobos Base Entry will endlessly fire into them, to the point of expending all their ammo. I'm not sure how other AIs would interact with them.
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I think that's part of the strategic applications they could have. Conversely, enemies with explosive projectiles could hit them to still damage you (or you could exploit them for enemies to kill themselves). Lots of potential ways they could be utilized for the player or enemies, which I would like to see experimentation with (as well as just added decoration flavor that DRL currently lacks).
Omega Tyrant:
I added a few more things to my original suggestion post, I'll point them out here for ease of convenience to review:
--- Quote ---*Buff the Micro Launcher?
Even as a guy who likes Rocket Launchers and rocket jumping, I find it hard to find a worthwhile niche for the Micro Launcher. 0.8 second firing speed, 0.8 reloading speed, extra accuracy, and a smaller explosion radius is nice, but you already get the formermost just from applying one of the prerequisites Technical Mods on your Rocket Launcher (and it would be even slower than a Rocket Launcher with two Technical Mods). But the main problem is the substantial downgrade in power to 5d5, which aside from making it weaker for combat, also hurts its utility usages, as it has a much higher chance to fail to blow up a wall in a single rocket (or might even fail after two!), and its rocket jumps would send you a shorter distance (you can argue less self-damaging rocket jumps is a boon, but with just Fireproof Red Armor, you can already reduce 6d6 rocket jump damage down to 1-3, not to mention self-damage won't matter when you're invulnerable, where rocket jumping sees much of its usage). Then there's the Tactical Rocket Launcher that just completely outclasses this weapon, and whose BBB mod cost is arguably a lesser cost than two Technical Mods. It seems to exist as an economical improvement to the Rocket Launcher for builds that aren't investing in Whizkid, but the improvement is minor or even arguably a sidegrade.
I'm unsure how to buff the Micro Launcher to give it a defined niche instead of just buffing its power. At least though its firing speed needs to reflect the Technical Mod investment, so it should be no more than 0.7 seconds firing speed, I would maybe go all the way down to 0.5 seconds firing speed to try giving it a niche as the fastest firing Rocket Launcher. Conversely, as a basic assembly that uses common mods, you can argue a cheap economical option that isn't great is the point, though I would still argue to at least give it the 0.7 seconds firing speed.
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--- Quote ---*Buff the Double Chainsaw?
The Double Chainsaw's 8d6 power is certainly a big upgrade over a BP Chainsaw's 5d7 power, so this assembly isn't inherently bad. The problem is it's completely outclassed by the Ripper that just requires one more level of Whizkid and an additional Technical mod, while also being completely outclassed by the Longinus Spear and especially Azrael's Scythe. As a result, if you want to maximize your Chainsaw, you won't be making this instead of the Ripper, and otherwise for a weapon you plan to ditch once you get the Spear or Scythe, you probably don't want to expend the extra Power mod on it, if you don't just go for the cheap disposable option of the Piercing Chainsaw instead. The only arguable niche for the Double Chainsaw is for Blademasters in A100, where they can't get the Spear or Scythe, and they could possibly get more use from its stronger single-hit power than the Ripper, as more one-hit kills will make them mow through hordes faster (though I think the Ripper is still better, as it'll activate Berserker quicker, and because of all the boss and nightmare monsters that you aren't killing in one hit even with the Double Chainsaw).
However like the Micro Launcher, there's no clear way to buff it; make it stronger, then what's the point of getting the Spear or Scythe; make it faster, what's the point of the getting the Ripper. You can argue just leaving it as is, as the midway option for people who want to improve their Chainsaw more before the Spear/Scythe but don't want to go all in on the Ripper. Maybe my later suggestion of making the Unholy Cathedral appear a bit later would make the Double Chainsaw a more attractive option as a midgame weapon you'll ultimately dispose of.
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--- Quote ---*Revert the Nightmare Archvile's attack to dealing plasma damage
Prior to 0.9.9.7, the Nightmare Archvile's zap used to do 16d1 plasma damage, but in 0.9.9.7, this was changed to 25d1 fire damage. This is a big damage improvement on paper, but we all know how much easier it is to get good defense against fire; as it currently stands, the Nightmare Archvile isn't really that threatening to a lategame A100 player that will certainly have very strong fire-resistant armor like the P-modded Energy-Shielded Vest (reduces it to 9 damage, much more if it was assembled to Nanofiber Skin or Cybernano Armor), Cerberus Armor (reduces it damage to 7, 5 if P-modded), the Lava Armor (reduces its damage to 2), or even the Inquisitor Set that completely neutralizes it. For an enemy that is supposed to invoke a "OH SHIT!" response as its ingame description gives and for being the final enemy that spawns in A100, it really doesn't live up to the hype, Nightmare Arachnotrons elicit a bigger fight or flight response from me. I'll also note its explosion still uses the plasma explosion graphics too, and it would be consistent with other Nightmare enemies who all use plasma attacks (aside from the melee-exclusive Nightmare Demon). That said, 16d1 plasma damage isn't too much of an improvement (the aforementioned armors reduces it damage to 7, 8 or 7, 6, and 10 respectively), so I would bump it up to at least 20d1, or just make it 25d1 plasma damage to really hammer in the threat of the final A100 enemy (and make carrying a Plasma Shield around more enticing).
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--- Quote ---*Make the Lava Elemental harder?
Despite being the boss of the final special level right before the end of the standard game, the Lava Elemental is quite lackluster. Having fire attacks is already easily defended against, but its attack isn't even as strong as the VMR's. It has very strong armor with 5 protection and health regeneration, but it's nothing outrageous for this point of the game, especially with its low-end HP for a boss. It's strong in melee, but not any stronger than the Barons and Mancubi. Has anyone ever actually had a hard time against the Lava Elemental, let alone die to it?
Now buffing its stats would help, and I do think its projectile and melee attack could use a damage buff. However one unique aspect of its attack is its projectile leaving behind lava. Normally this doesn't matter in The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus, as you got three spare radsuits to use even if you brought none in. So it's easy to do everything in these levels only expending a single radsuit, and then kill the Lava Elemental while being completely protected from its lava splashing effect with a radsuit on, while typically killing him fast enough to even have a spare radsuit left. My suggestion would be to take away these radsuits on harder difficulties; ITYTD and HNTR have the three as usual, but then HMP has two radsuits, UV has only one radsuit, and N! has no radsuits at all. This would make tackling these levels without bringing radsuits with you (or building lava-immune boots) a lot more difficult, and the Lava Elemental can be actually scary if you have no form of lava immunity. By making it hit a lot harder in melee, you would also discourage players preventing it from leaving behind more lava by getting in melee range.
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Icy:
My responses:
While Hell's Arena does give different rewards, I do think it would be out of place if it appeared on different floors just based on the challenge. Perhaps a better alternative would just be having different rewards and different enemies based on challenge? Planning out how Dual-Angel games work would be important though.
Regarding nuke floor counts, the number isn't really what impacts it, it's just simply the existence of the Trigun, whether the count is high or low. Nuking 15 in an Angel of 100 game could definitely be done without it, but it still definitely be easiest by waiting on finding a Trigun. However, the HP depletion would require finding many natural nukes, and then ideally spamming Angel Arm after to get the remaining count. I'm not opposed to the idea of making a medal regarding nuking a ton of floors on Angel of 100, just that the same strategy will be significantly more optimal than any other.
While the Cyberdemon was the final enemy before, the Angel of Death is still stronger than he is, and the big issue is the 10 armor, which does funnel builds towards needing something that can handle high armor, which is mostly plasma damage or piercing damage. I'd say if it were to be a reasonable enemy for those game, it would need something like 95 depth, 1 weight, and 40 danger. I'm not 100% opposed to it, but it would have to be done carefully so that it doesn't become too overpowering or forcing certain playstyles.
For the guaranteed Dragonslayer and Berserker Armor, maybe 100% kills UV could be fine so that it still requires some committed effort and skill to get. It would also help dilute farming easy kills. It may be good to have a check to prevent them from spawning if you already found them earlier naturally though.
I agree Juggler would lose a lot of power if it only worked with the prepared slot. I think easily allowing it to work with any weapon in your inventory would be nice for quality of life. What is your opinion on it functioning for ammo boxes?
Regarding your suggestion for Duelist Armor with making it have lots of melee resistance and no bullet or shrapnel resistance, I don't think it would be broken in Cerberus Armor (P), but I'd strongly argue that the trade-off for more melee resistance is far more valuable than bullet and shrapnel. Bullets generally don't do a whole lot of damage, even in the end-game, and with 2 protection and possibly some points in Tough as Nails, a lot of the damage can be reduced to 1 without any resistances. Shrapnel can be dangerous up close though, but it gets heavily reduced from decent range. With the melee resistance though, you can happily camp out enemies and not worry if they get adjacent to you. Overall, I'd be for the change to Duelist Armor and hope that nothing is being overlooked. It could also be pretty insane in just Ballistic Armor for a very low cost, but it could be argued that it'd be a waste.
Regarding your suggested buffs to Ballistic Armor, the main thing is it's super cheap and accessible to make, and while the fire resistance penalty is the trade-off for it, fire damage isn't as common in Phobos and even somewhat uncommon in Deimos except on the harder difficulties. I think raising all of melee, bullet, shrapnel, and fire resistances on it by 10% is too much without some other kind of cost to it.
Regarding Cybernetic Armor, fair point that it spawning in the bonus levels does take up an exotic mod pack slot. It should be fine then.
Regarding Sniper/Firestorm Packs on armors, fair point that Firestorm is used on some weapons for Demolition Ammo that can't normally appear on it. You can also argue that a Sniper Pack used for the only assembly being Shotguns is also already silly. Perhaps call the armor something like "Spelunker Armor". I do like the concepts of your suggested assembly outputs, but I'd want to avoid it becoming a slippery slope where all mod packs work on all items.
For difficulty between City of Skulls and Abyssal Plains, the big thing is that you can enter and exit City of Skulls with no worry of anything if you want to. Abyssal Plains also starts you off surrounded by strong enemies that you can't really hide from. City of Skulls is dangerous as you flip the switch, but you can often use various weapons to kill groups of Lost Souls and then chip away at whatever remains in your vision. That said, Abyssal Plains does already have quite a bit of extra useful items and ammo. I'm not sure how to fairly balance it since it can be a high variance level.
For avoiding softlocks in Mt. Erebus, another simple solution would be to just have an extra lever within each ring, although it might be a bit silly to have so many in there. Another idea is to just fill in the walls so you can't teleport in there and have enemies on all open tiles. This could technically be countered by spamming Azrael's Scythe with Whisper of Death though.
Regarding hunting enemies picking up items, there are a few situations that can become silly to deal with, such as Cyberdemons picking up Shielded Armor, Phaseshift Armor, and others that we're currently theorycrafting making. It could also be abused with giftdropping Necroarmor, Fireproof Armor, or Gothic Armor for the Tower of Babel fight. I'm still personally leaning on no overall, but not 100% against it.
Regarding trees, the only other thing that's important to consider is they can't be randomly generated or they might block important pathways. They would have to be preset in some way.
I agree on buffing Micro Launcher, and my intuitive suggestion would also be increasing firing speed. I think 0.5s would be fine to counteract the natural nerfs of it relative to regular Rocket Launchers.
For an idea for Double Chainsaw, what if the doubling of Chainsaw's 4d6 instead of 8d6 was 4d12? This would give it a very different damage output, and a Bulk Pack to finish the assembly would give it a pretty nice boost in power with 5d12?
I like the idea of switching Nightmare Archvile's damage from fire to plasma, just so long as it doesn't get too insane. I wouldn't go higher than 20d1.
I agree Lava Elemental is quite weak and increasing melee damage is a good way to counter it by avoiding the lava splashes. Perhaps just give it a higher teleportation chance? Or what if its splash radius was bumped up to 3 or even 4 instead?
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