Thanks for this Mod. Will look into it asap, and report back (as I also need to renew my Gamepass subscription as well).
Some of the Tweaks sound promising. BTW, is there any chance you can make some Enemy AI behavior tweaks or gameplay changes as well ?
Like how the Enemy AI behaves, reacts to the player, and/or their movement as well ?
Anything related to enemy AI behavior would also be an added welcome, if possible. Like "delaying" the AI awareness, slow movement, and stuff like that. Thanks for your hard work and time !
Hey, thanks for commenting. Right now my answer is "maybe". There are a lot of folders seemingly related to ai that have been created thx to the Atlan Resource Extractor tool, which is what I used to get the right directories for the tweaks I've made thus far. Not sure if I'm going about it the wrong way, but it's really hard to find the right values for the right stuff and for those values to actually do something. You can't really tell whether or not tweaking a value will do anything unless you test it for yourself. As far as I know, there isn't any documentation on what directories' .decl files do what either.
I was considering making a tweak that would remove fence projectiles' ability to block player shots, and I may have found something in the entityDef paths, but entityDefs are not moddable quite yet.. I'd be happy to look for something that suits what you'd like out of a tweak to the AI behaviors themselves. Give me a specific idea, and I'll be off to poking around.
I'd be happy to look for something that suits what you'd like out of a tweak to the AI behaviors themselves. Give me a specific idea, and I'll be off to poking around.
Hey, thanks for looking into my request.
Well, I'm not quite sure, but like I hinted before, any AI behavior tweak which makes the enemies dumb/slow to react to the player, and/or make them ignore to attack him would do the job.
I mean, think of any Tweak which would make the gameplay much easier to beat. Like the old-school cheat codes which we have, like "Ghost Mode", "Notarget", "Invisible" etc, where the enemies totally ignore the player.
Or, how about a Tweak setting to make the enemies move very slowly in combat ? Or, make the enemy AI LESS aggressive towards the player ?
Btw, there is a console CVAR in "Doom: The Dark Ages" which we can use via the in-game console, "ai_forceidle 1", which is a sure-fire option to stop the enemies from attacking the slayer, as other commands sometimes don't have an effect.
These Cvars do NOT work properly: ai_ignorevents, ai_enableDormancy, ai_enableattacks. Used to work in the previous ETERNAL game though.
Anyway, sorry for any confusion and my dumb suggestions. I hope I'm not confusing you. lol. If you need more clarity, kindly ask again, as I'm unable to explain properly which specific "AI Tweak" might help you narrow down the search of the game's folders/files, to find the correct values.
But I hope you somehow get the gist now ? Else, it's no big deal. I know Modding this game isn't that easy nor straightforward.
When it comes to a lot of these, I'm not sure if I'm knowledgeable enough on what to change around, or if it's even possible to change around ai behavior values in that way with simple .decl modding. I did a little bit of digging and haven't seen anything on manually scaling enemy attack animations, or changing their awareness of the player. I figure if you want to change enemy reactions or speeds to make the game easier, maybe just fiddle with the vanilla difficulty sliders? Probably not the same effect you're looking for but it will indeed make the game easier. I just don't really think I can find anything about enemy attack animation scaling or awareness. It may not even be possible with the current infancy stage of modding things are in right now.
As for AI movement speed, I may be able to tweak certain things but there are so many values, and for most of them I have no idea what they could mean. Additionally, some decls from the same group of folders don't even include those same values in them. To try to tweak these by trial and error-ing them over and over would be a huge pain. And I'd have to do it all over again for each enemy type, which would multiply that pain by about 40 times, maybe? It just doesn't really seem worth it to me when difficulty sliders are already in the base game to make AI less aggressive, their projectiles slower, and make them hurt you less.
Finally, regarding a cheat-code esque mod that stops AI, I just don't see too much of a point in looking for the right decls (that may not even exist!) to make every AI stop attacking or reacting to the player if you can just use that "ai_forceidle 1" command you mentioned.
I don't mean to blow you off or seem disrespectful at all. I think a lot of this stuff may be achievable but it's just outside of my area of expertise as this is pretty much my first time diving into making mods for basically any game I've played. Maybe someone with more knowledge of Doom modding could weigh in? Sorry to disappoint man, hopefully what you're looking for can come into fruition in the future, and in a stronger way with a modder who actually knows what he's doing lol.
Like I said before, it's not a big deal if tweaking these AI values would be a pain, given the game's current state of modding. Was just throwing some ideas. Yes, we can definitely use the in-built game slider options to tweak such settings/values, but I wanted a more refined/manual control over each value.
Somewhat off topic but where can I find the base/unmodified damage values for weapons and melee attacks? You reference those in the mod description but I wasn't able to find them online. (And I don't know how I'd go about pulling them from the game files.)
I read the damage values, delays in ms, etc. off of .decl files extracted with the Atlan Resource Extractor.
From my limited understanding, .decl files are tweakable text files that, when labeled with the right directory, are able to be loaded into the game with the Atlan Mod Loader, often replacing vanilla values if you've changed them. They seem to be what defines a lot of numerical values within the game, and small examples of that are firerates, damage values, cooldowns, etc. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any documentation on where to find exactly what you're looking for, and so searching for the correct .decl(s) to change exactly what you want to change can be a really big hassle. There are a lot of leftover .decls from Eternal that don't seem to have any functions now, and plenty of .decls that can have very similar file names but change totally different aspects of a mechanic. It's honestly a decent amount of trial and error as well as extensive searching.
As a result the values I reference (especially damage since there are so many different .decls for them) may not be perfectly precise. But for the most part they have the correct overall effect since you'll notice in game whether or not something's stronger or weaker. I just wanted to provide the values as much as I could so you can be more informed on how things are being changed. Hopefully that makes sense lol
7 comments
Thanks for this Mod. Will look into it asap, and report back (as I also need to renew my Gamepass subscription as well).
Some of the Tweaks sound promising. BTW, is there any chance you can make some Enemy AI behavior tweaks or gameplay changes as well ?
Like how the Enemy AI behaves, reacts to the player, and/or their movement as well ?
Anything related to enemy AI behavior would also be an added welcome, if possible. Like "delaying" the AI awareness, slow movement, and stuff like that. Thanks for your hard work and time !
I was considering making a tweak that would remove fence projectiles' ability to block player shots, and I may have found something in the entityDef paths, but entityDefs are not moddable quite yet.. I'd be happy to look for something that suits what you'd like out of a tweak to the AI behaviors themselves. Give me a specific idea, and I'll be off to poking around.
Hey, thanks for looking into my request.
Well, I'm not quite sure, but like I hinted before, any AI behavior tweak which makes the enemies dumb/slow to react to the player, and/or make them ignore to attack him would do the job.
I mean, think of any Tweak which would make the gameplay much easier to beat. Like the old-school cheat codes which we have, like "Ghost Mode", "Notarget", "Invisible" etc, where the enemies totally ignore the player.
Or, how about a Tweak setting to make the enemies move very slowly in combat ? Or, make the enemy AI LESS aggressive towards the player ?
Btw, there is a console CVAR in "Doom: The Dark Ages" which we can use via the in-game console, "ai_forceidle 1", which is a sure-fire option to stop the enemies from attacking the slayer, as other commands sometimes don't have an effect.
These Cvars do NOT work properly: ai_ignorevents, ai_enableDormancy, ai_enableattacks. Used to work in the previous ETERNAL game though.
Anyway, sorry for any confusion and my dumb suggestions. I hope I'm not confusing you. lol. If you need more clarity, kindly ask again, as I'm unable to explain properly which specific "AI Tweak" might help you narrow down the search of the game's folders/files, to find the correct values.
But I hope you somehow get the gist now ? Else, it's no big deal. I know Modding this game isn't that easy nor straightforward.
When it comes to a lot of these, I'm not sure if I'm knowledgeable enough on what to change around, or if it's even possible to change around ai behavior values in that way with simple .decl modding. I did a little bit of digging and haven't seen anything on manually scaling enemy attack animations, or changing their awareness of the player. I figure if you want to change enemy reactions or speeds to make the game easier, maybe just fiddle with the vanilla difficulty sliders? Probably not the same effect you're looking for but it will indeed make the game easier. I just don't really think I can find anything about enemy attack animation scaling or awareness. It may not even be possible with the current infancy stage of modding things are in right now.
As for AI movement speed, I may be able to tweak certain things but there are so many values, and for most of them I have no idea what they could mean. Additionally, some decls from the same group of folders don't even include those same values in them. To try to tweak these by trial and error-ing them over and over would be a huge pain. And I'd have to do it all over again for each enemy type, which would multiply that pain by about 40 times, maybe? It just doesn't really seem worth it to me when difficulty sliders are already in the base game to make AI less aggressive, their projectiles slower, and make them hurt you less.
Finally, regarding a cheat-code esque mod that stops AI, I just don't see too much of a point in looking for the right decls (that may not even exist!) to make every AI stop attacking or reacting to the player if you can just use that "ai_forceidle 1" command you mentioned.
I don't mean to blow you off or seem disrespectful at all. I think a lot of this stuff may be achievable but it's just outside of my area of expertise as this is pretty much my first time diving into making mods for basically any game I've played. Maybe someone with more knowledge of Doom modding could weigh in? Sorry to disappoint man, hopefully what you're looking for can come into fruition in the future, and in a stronger way with a modder who actually knows what he's doing lol.
Like I said before, it's not a big deal if tweaking these AI values would be a pain, given the game's current state of modding. Was just throwing some ideas. Yes, we can definitely use the in-built game slider options to tweak such settings/values, but I wanted a more refined/manual control over each value.
From my limited understanding, .decl files are tweakable text files that, when labeled with the right directory, are able to be loaded into the game with the Atlan Mod Loader, often replacing vanilla values if you've changed them. They seem to be what defines a lot of numerical values within the game, and small examples of that are firerates, damage values, cooldowns, etc. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any documentation on where to find exactly what you're looking for, and so searching for the correct .decl(s) to change exactly what you want to change can be a really big hassle. There are a lot of leftover .decls from Eternal that don't seem to have any functions now, and plenty of .decls that can have very similar file names but change totally different aspects of a mechanic. It's honestly a decent amount of trial and error as well as extensive searching.
As a result the values I reference (especially damage since there are so many different .decls for them) may not be perfectly precise. But for the most part they have the correct overall effect since you'll notice in game whether or not something's stronger or weaker. I just wanted to provide the values as much as I could so you can be more informed on how things are being changed. Hopefully that makes sense lol