Samsara - No longer under active development.

[XutaWoo]

I wouldn't say it would be a N/A for detail. There's plenty of it everywhere!

[mifu]

Well if you mean the HUD, then sure. But quite frankly the weapon sprites is from most of the games we love/loved anyways. If he had an map pack to accompany the mod, then I would of rated Detail. But since you mentioned it, the HUD is fine, however since I use 1440x900 res, it does not scale to the ends fully. None of the less, it is still good.

[Animal Mother]

Missed the testing session, I assume one took place since there are test versions posted on fathax.

You moved the slot key of the slot I weapon to give way for the things you're reintroducing in the next version (don't forget to add GLDEFS by the way). I think the slot key assignment could be improved. It's not a good idea to have the chainsaw share the same slot as the pistol, especially if the pistol has priority. Sometimes you just need to be able to whip out that chainsaw quickly when a pinky sneaks up on you. I think it would be better if the two melee weapons shared the same slot, with the slot I weapon taking priority of course.

Also, the berserk still boosts the power of the chainsaw.

I'm thinking about the tome of power icon in the HUD and wouldn't it be better if it were colored not just when it's active but also when it's available? It gives a more noticeable signal to a player waiting for it to cool down when it does, just like with the flechette. Speaking of the flechette, I don't think it's necessary for its weapon numeral to light up when it's cooling down. From what I understand, the numeral lighting up means that the weapon is active but the opposite is true for the flechette once you've thrown it and has expired and it's cooling down.

[TerminusEst13]

It's not a good idea to have the chainsaw share the same slot as the pistol, especially if the pistol has priority. Sometimes you just need to be able to whip out that chainsaw quickly when a pinky sneaks up on you. I think it would be better if the two melee weapons shared the same slot, with the slot I weapon taking priority of course.

Currently, the way the keys are arranged is:
setslot 1 " Chainsaw "
addslotdefault 1 "Super Bootspork"
addslotdefault 1 "Gauntlets of the Necromancer"
addslotdefault 1 Knife
addslotdefault 1 " Pistol "
addslotdefault 1 "Mini-Zorcher"
addslotdefault 1 "Elven Wand"
addslotdefault 1 Luger
addslotdefault 1 "Sapphire Wand"
So the chainsaw and etc weapons should be getting priority when 1 is hit. If not, well, that's a problem.

I'm thinking about the tome of power icon in the HUD and wouldn't it be better if it were colored not just when it's active but also when it's available? It gives a more noticeable signal to a player waiting for it to cool down when it does, just like with the flechette.

I'd prefer to have it look unique only when it's active, but I guess the numeral lighting up does that well enough. Done.

Speaking of the flechette, I don't think it's necessary for its weapon numeral to light up when it's cooling down. From what I understand, the numeral lighting up means that the weapon is active but the opposite is true for the flechette once you've thrown it and has expired and it's cooling down.

Done. Now the numeral is only alight when the Flechette is still in the field.

Also, the berserk still boosts the power of the chainsaw.

Later on (hopefully later today if all goes well), I'm hoping to post a list of each character's differences from the game they hail from, along with e̶x̶c̶u̶s̶e̶s̶ explanations as to why.

[TerminusEst13]

And v0.18 is released! That's also a lot of fixes, mainly focusing on online play--people that want stuff especially new and different only really get polished HUDs and everyone's default melee weapons. Sorry.
I said last time that I should include videos and screenshots, but I got lazy. Hopefully this time I'm not so lazy, whoops!

I've also included a list of changes from the original games in the character overviews. I've said that one of the big goals of Samsara is to have people feel much like their original game, but sometimes I've had to make a few sacrifices for the sake of balance (or in Parias' case, for the sake of not making him a fish out of water).
I figure instead of just keeping the list to myself, it'd be best if everyone got to read over them and put their two coins in on the matter.

That being said, hopefully this goes smoothly--the final two heroes have been chosen, and the next release will definitely feature a new one!

[Animal Mother]

- B.J. now has an easter egg with his flamethrower. What it is and how to trigger it is a secret to everybody.

Found it

There's a glitch with it though, it doesn't register as a kill in the kill count.

In Chex Quest, when corpses (enemies, players) get crushed their graphics turn into laboratory flasks. Some enemy remains don't get crushed at all and remain as is (e.g. stridicus, cycloptis). In any game, Chex Warrior's corpse vanishes when crushed.

I've been playing more wads with this mod and time and time again I find myself thinking that Corvus and Chexster are in need of some balance adjustments, mainly concerning weapon II/III and ammo 2. There are too many times when a level throws a load of shotgunguys, shotguns and shotgun ammo at you and expects you to use all of that meanwhile not giving a super shotgun and only giving a handful of bullet boxes to go with a chaingun. You'll eventually run out of ammo for weapon IV when you use nothing but that and you'll be left with just your starting plinker making some situations not only far more difficult than they should be but also making you play the wad in a more boring and tedious way until it finally gives you a weapon III and the ability to make use of ammo 2. You already mentioned somewhere else that you have plans to move Chexster's large zorcher to slot II and add a new weapon for slot III so that's good, as long as the replacement will use ammo 2 obviously. For Corvus, since changing the availability of weapon III in Doom II is probably out of the question and would only ruin the balance for the other characters, the best option I could come up with is making the firemace use ammo 2.

The shotgun drops give Parias 10 of ammo 1, I think this may be a bit much.

[TerminusEst13]

There's a glitch with it though, it doesn't register as a kill in the kill count.

Fixed, thank you.

In Chex Quest, when corpses (enemies, players) get crushed their graphics turn into laboratory flasks. Some enemy remains don't get crushed at all and remain as is (e.g. stridicus, cycloptis). In any game, Chex Warrior's corpse vanishes when crushed.

Mostly fixed. I'm not sure how to fix players turning into flasks in Chex Quest, but everything else is fixed. The lab flasks are Chex Quest's version of the crushed gibs decoration, so if I replace those with normal gibs for the players then the levels will have flasks replaced with gibs as well.
This'll take some thought.

I've been playing more wads with this mod and time and time again I find myself thinking that Corvus and Chexster are in need of some balance adjustments, mainly concerning weapon II/III and ammo 2.

I've been worried about this since day 1, and was hoping the Firemace's reduced ammo usage would help. Damn.
I'm a bit wary about shifting the Firemace's ammo source from 1 to 2, considering how it has half the total ammo (and the Firemace is balanced against the Dragon Claw, I haven't really compared it to the Crossbow), buuuut I'll give it a shot. What's the worst that could happen, right?
For Chexter's II/III...well. I've said before that I'd like to keep original weapons to a bare minimum, but that's the only thing I can think of to solve his conundrum. He's incredibly weak in the early game, the increased rate of fire for the Dual Mini-Zorchers really don't quite make up for their lack of damage--and, as mentioned before, ammo 2 goes entirely unused until the Large Zorcher is picked up.

The shotgun drops give Parias 10 of ammo 1, I think this may be a bit much.

The weapon drops give everyone the equivalent of a lesser ammo 1/2 pickup. Parias is funny in that he actually gets less ammo from weapon drops than he ever got from mana drops in HeXen, AND he's got a tighter ammo resource than B.J., and yet still has no ammo troubles whatsoever. What the hell.

Also, finally updated the screenshots section. Time to work on a trailer next!

[Animal Mother]

On the topic of corpses being crushed, the enemies zorched by Chexguy still leave gibs (or flasks in the case of CQ) when crushed.

The weapon drops give everyone the equivalent of a lesser ammo 1/2 pickup.

Actually, Parias is currently the exception to that rule. Small ammo 2 pickups only give him 4 but shotgun drops give him 10.

Parias is funny in that he actually gets less ammo from weapon drops than he ever got from mana drops in HeXen, AND he's got a tighter ammo resource than B.J., and yet still has no ammo troubles whatsoever.

BJ needs 5 units of ammo 1 to kill an imp, Parias only needs 1 to 2. Parias' weapons which utilize ammo 1 deal similar damage as weapons that exclusively use ammo 2 for the other classes. Imagine you're playing Doom, and clipboxes gave you 50 shells instead of 50 bullets. With the way ammo is currently balanced, that's what it's like for Parias.

[President People]

I just beat HeXen with Corvus on Ultra-Violence.

Neat trick, swapping the different pieces of the broken weapon for extra weapons.

Small bug: The Firemace projectiles pass right through Reivers.

Again, Korax's monologue on the final level is awesome.


Speaking of boss monologues, I wonder if miniboss monologues would be worth it? Minibosses being the Heresiarch (twice), and the three player bosses, Menelkir, Traductus and Zedek. I don't think the Death Wyvern would have anything worthwhile to say, though. :)

[TerminusEst13]

Actually, Parias is currently the exception to that rule. Small ammo 2 pickups only give him 4 but shotgun drops give him 10.
BJ needs 5 units of ammo 1 to kill an imp, Parias only needs 1 to 2. Parias' weapons which utilize ammo 1 deal similar damage as weapons that exclusively use ammo 2 for the other classes. Imagine you're playing Doom, and clipboxes gave you 50 shells instead of 50 bullets. With the way ammo is currently balanced, that's what it's like for Parias.

Mind, his shotgun drops operate like ammo 1 pickups, since ammo 2 and 1 is merged.
But, honestly, what I'm getting from that is that B.J. needs a damage buff. So, what the hell! I'll do both.

I just beat HeXen with Corvus on Ultra-Violence.
Neat trick, swapping the different pieces of the broken weapon for extra weapons.

Thank you. HeXen is a fantastic game, but I think its limited weapons is one of the biggest downsides. Hopefully with a full weapon arsenal, people can enjoy it for the masterpiece it is.

Small bug: The Firemace projectiles pass right through Reivers.

Not a bug! The Firemace goes through ghosts, remember?

Again, Korax's monologue on the final level is awesome.
Speaking of boss monologues, I wonder if miniboss monologues would be worth it? Minibosses being the Heresiarch (twice), and the three player bosses, Menelkir, Traductus and Zedek. I don't think the Death Wyvern would have anything worthwhile to say, though. :)

I'm sure various amounts of "SCRAYYAAAUUUGGHHH" would sum up its thoughts nicely.
Joking aside, I'm tempted but there are several wads out there that have multiples of them on one map, and having multiple monologues overlapping each other, ah, would be weird. Off the top of my head, Scourge of Viscerus and Deathkings of the Dark Citadel have multiples of Wyverns and the player boss trio.
If I figure out a way to check for specific wads via Decorate/ACS, I'll definitely be happy to.



Also. Here's a preview of something I have in mind for v0.19.
One of the biggest surprises I've had in regards to Samsara is how many people play offline in singleplayer. Samsara was designed primarily with multiplayer co-op/DM in mind, but I've been told a lot of people have been having a lot of fun playing by themselves and going through levels in singleplayer.
Being that one of the biggest goals of Samsara is compatibility, I want to address one of the biggest complaints people have talked about in singleplayer.

phpBB [video]

The [video] tag is deprecated, please use the [media] tag

In singleplayer mode, universal weapon drops are now replaced with character-specific weapon drops.

[President People]

Small bug: The Firemace projectiles pass right through Reivers.

Not a bug! The Firemace goes through ghosts, remember?

Hah! I must have missed that in DooM School. I've yet to play through Heretic fully. That's pretty awesome, then, that you were this thorough.

Also. Here's a preview of something I have in mind for v0.19.
One of the biggest surprises I've had in regards to Samsara is how many people play offline in singleplayer. Samsara was designed primarily with multiplayer co-op/DM in mind, but I've been told a lot of people have been having a lot of fun playing by themselves and going through levels in singleplayer.
Being that one of the biggest goals of Samsara is compatibility, I want to address one of the biggest complaints people have talked about in singleplayer.

[Parias at the Church]

In singleplayer mode, universal weapon drops are now replaced with character-specific weapon drops.

Playing through a WAD with a different character (seemingly impossible, story-wise) is appealing. What might have been a novelty hack is now a legitimate system. As the first post suggests, this mod breathes new life into old and worn-out wads. It's darn cool.

What WAD is that in your video, by the way?


INB4 NEXT PLAYABLE CHARACTER

[Animal Mother]

A damage boost for BJ? Keep in mind his weapons are fully accurate, fully automatic and have a high rate of fire. His ammo 2 pickups act like ammo 1 pickups and give him plenty of ammo. His weapon/ammo balance is already optimal as far as I'm concerned. Ever since you made his ammo 2 pickups act like ammo 1 pickups, I've never ran into any trouble with any level set I've played thus far. I find that he's balanced well with Doomguy and the rest of the heroes, except for Parias who I find to be the odd one in the lot. I think he receives too much ammo for the power his attacks do. If you think that's fine then okay, you're the guy who is most often playing as Parias after all and probably knows what's best for him. But I think altering BJ's current weapon/ammo balance would only be detrimental.

Since you're changing the weapon pickups to make them specific for each hero, will you also be doing the same for ammo pickups? Actually, never mind that. The ammo pickups act differently from the game the heroes come from anyway, it's fine as it is. It would only be confusing to have a ammo 1 box be replaced by a blue mana icon, you expect it to give 15 mana since that's how it is in Hexen but you actually get 50. And for Corvus the ammo system is completely different (weapons sharing the same ammo as opposed to each weapon having their own ammo) so it wouldn't work at all.

[TerminusEst13]

What WAD is that in your video, by the way?

A version of Church I modified about half a year ago, with tweaked enemy spawns, different music, and some modified ACS to familiarize myself with SpawnSpot and TeleportOther. The unmodified version should still work fairly well with Samsara!

NEXT PLAYABLE CHARACTER

SHIT HE KNOWS TOO MUCH

A damage boost for BJ? Keep in mind his weapons are fully accurate, fully automatic and have a high rate of fire. [...]

Ah. Point taken.

[Llewellyn]

It's not a good idea to have the chainsaw share the same slot as the pistol, especially if the pistol has priority. Sometimes you just need to be able to whip out that chainsaw quickly when a pinky sneaks up on you. I think it would be better if the two melee weapons shared the same slot, with the slot I weapon taking priority of course.

Currently, the way the keys are arranged is:
setslot 1 " Chainsaw "
addslotdefault 1 "Super Bootspork"
addslotdefault 1 "Gauntlets of the Necromancer"
addslotdefault 1 Knife
addslotdefault 1 " Pistol "
addslotdefault 1 "Mini-Zorcher"
addslotdefault 1 "Elven Wand"
addslotdefault 1 Luger
addslotdefault 1 "Sapphire Wand"
So the chainsaw and etc weapons should be getting priority when 1 is hit. If not, well, that's a problem.

That's not how it works, the weapons need the Weapon.SlotPriority property to set what order they appear in the slot.

[Aqua Kitty]

Neat concept.

[TerminusEst13]

That's not how it works, the weapons need the Weapon.SlotPriority property to set what order they appear in the slot.

Still doesn't work, unfortunately. But, oh well, I'll figure it out sometime. Thanks for the lead, though.

Hopefully later today, I'll be making an announcement regarding who exactly the new hero is, so stay tuned~

[TerminusEst13]

You asked for him.
You're getting him.

Duke Nukem is joining the wheel of Samsara.

[Aqua Kitty]

When I get my mapping juju a little stronger I'm thinking of making a non linear hub-style campaign for this mod; a Doom-themed hub, then Heretic themed, then Hexen, then ChexQuest, then Wolfenstein, then Duke Nukem, then Strife if Strifeguy and Strife compatibility is ever added, and finally a hub where the arch-villain of the massive crossover lies (Probably a massive floating disembodied John Romero head if I can get away with it).

Also if I ever get my "Aqua the Hedgehog" mod idea off the ground (which won't be awfully different from Doom II, the main character will be slightly faster but have less HP, and I have an experimental BEX "balanced" weapon mod sitting on my hard drive that Aqua could use), then Aqua could be made into an addon for Samsara and I could make a version of my mod that'll be compatible with Samsara. I'll only add my gun-toting Sonic recolor to the Wheel if he ever becomes popular enough, but the fact that the Doom universe collides head-on with the Sonic universe might make the concept worth exploring for Sonic fans out there.

[XutaWoo]

Yeah uh that'd kinda break the purpose of the mod entirely, considering nobody who played the games here during their childhood also played Shadow the Hedgehog during it.

If it's zany enough, you might be able to get him into Doomvengers...except from the sounds of it, he's just a boring ol' dude who using boring ol' weapons which would also not fit either of the mods because you might as well just play the Doomguy or Chex Warrior.

[Aqua Kitty]

Yeah uh that'd kinda break the purpose of the mod entirely, considering nobody who played the games here during their childhood also played Shadow the Hedgehog during it.

If it's zany enough, you might be able to get him into Doomvengers...except from the sounds of it, he's just a boring ol' dude who using boring ol' weapons which would also not fit either of the mods because you might as well just play the Doomguy or Chex Warrior.

I would still add him to Samsara as an addon for my own amusement if he becomes popular enough, but I never count on anything I make becoming popular, at least not overnight. That's not saying I'm unable to come up with good ideas or make quality levels. Aqua will be able to use more weapons than the pistol, so it'll be more like Super Sonic Doom with more weapons, including one that's enhanced by Chaos Emeralds, rather than Shadow the Hedgehog.