Remembered a discarded idea for this that I realize would be really fucking awesome. I don’t want to give it away, but it’s definitely making it in now. It seemed lavish at the time but I’m realizing it would be pretty easy now!

And here we are, a full 400+ Mana battle between Hexen, lorded over by Korax himself, and Chex Quest, lead by Lord Snotfolus. A VERY close result, which is good because army prices were as close as I could get given the unit comp!🧵 #UZDoom #DoomMod #Doom #GameDev #Modding

And once more for the night crowd! A proper battle that’s actually still not as grinding and brutal as the actual game!

As planned, this battle is between forces representing only roughly 3 minutes of saving resources (if you’re on the substantial investment of two capture points with all 3 gens per point). Maps will have 5 points for 2 players, so it’s reasonable for both players to have 2 and fight on the last.🧵

And here we are, a full 400+ Mana battle between Hexen, lorded over by Korax himself, and Chex Quest, lead by Lord Snotfolus. A VERY close result, which is good because army prices were as close as I could get given the unit comp!🧵 #UZDoom #DoomMod #Doom #GameDev #Modding

Welp, I did it. All 147 Talents for the 16 Heroes of ZDoom Wars 2 are FINISHED. With that, I can move on to the Ults! A true landmark!

I really like the Deathking’s first Talent slot, an Attack slot. It’s got: -Flechettes, grenades whose exact behavior is different per Deathking -Heavy Attack: A different extra strong attack per Deathking -Deathbreath: An AOE breath attack that has a different element per Deathking

One of the Deathking’s Talents stretches the definition. Of Passive vs Attack by granting them their Tier 3 weapons. It’s labeled a Passive but in practice gives them a new attack. It’s how I want it, so deal with it!

That Ult is, of course, titled “Awe” (of the Spider Demon. You get it.).

A Hero I’m particularly happy with is the Spider Mastermind. She was so badly outshined by every other hero: unwieldy and inaccurate and vulnerable. It’s a beast now.🧵

A punchier pinned post. Had to happen!

This is the official account for ZDoom Wars 2, sequel to the classic Skulltag mod for Doom 2. ZDWars2 is an RTS/FPS hybrid where you fling Units at each other to form huge armies while wielding wild special abilities, defensive structures, and customizable Heroes! Powered by @uzdoom.bsky.social !

I’ve planned out a cool video I hope to make this weekend. It’s a battle video on a scale unseen so far, more representative of the kind of numbers you’d see in a field battle. Gotta edit some monsters to make it function appropriately! I’ll post it with all the hashtags and everything like a pro.

I toggle the +FRIGHTENED flag to make ranged units back away from close foes, so for Fear effects I had to rig up a custom script that manually toggles the flag when it’s time has elapsed, AND an exception for ranged units to stay +FRIGHTENED if under a Fear effect. 🧵 #GameDev #Doom #UZDoom #DoomMod

Almost time to wrap up Talents. Counterspell is the only remaining toughie and it’s mostly just the tedium of adding a check to each Hero. Really not bad at all. Can’t believe I’ve got 131 Talents down!

Other top rankings: -D’Sparil’s Black Halo and Spurn for their names -Counterspell (Heresiarch) and Inevitable (Lord Snotfolus) for being mean -Sorcery (Korax), and Multibolt (the Entity) for flavor -Rocket Turrets (Land Carrier) for being obnoxious (all its dozens of projectiles home).

Trying to decide on my single favorite Talent. The most elaborate one is probably the Spider Mastermind’s Fireblu Blessing, a radius effect that grants a limited number of enhanced projectile attacks, with added Fireblu trails. Between that and the Fireblu Wall ability, I’m memeing hard!

It occurs to me that I could potentially finish ALL Talents this weekend! Then it’s on to Ults which are very similar in task scope, just more extreme. Doing good!

Just implemented a simple feature I’d planned long ago and hadn’t got around to: When a Hero dies, it inflicts Fear on its allies in a radius. So if a Hero goes down at a key moment you can lose a gatehouse or other choke point, watch your battleline crumble, etc. Risk and reward, baybeeee

Current plans are two 3 minute basic tutorials, two 3 minute advanced tutorials, and a 1 minute video for each faction. I can’t decide if that’s asking too much, but also you have to know a lot to have any clue what the hell is going on.

A preview of the manual which, to reiterate, will not cover the basics. The manual is for in-depth, the tutorial videos will be what’s needed to grasp the essentials (and there are a lot)!

Discovered Fear wasn’t working right, but I fixed it. The Iron Lich has a Talent where all its Fire spells inflict fear in an AOE on contact, and it’s probably going to drive people nuts. “STOP RUNNING”

It’s straightforward and I understand them, okay?

Another round of Talents DONE! Just one more before I move on to Ults! Gotta rig up each Hero to gain charges of their Ult attacks via losing health, so that’s one whole new thing to code. Won’t be too hard. Other than that it’s flexing muscles I’ve been using already.🧵

There are only 3 ways in the game as-is for units to lose Stealth. 1. Temporary Hero Talents turning off 2. Strife’s Alarm System Faction Ability 3. The Entity’s Witness Talent. Witness is vicious because it can be used at range: If the Entity targets something, it will unstealth units in a radius.

Had a good, out loud “Son of a BITCH” when I realized every single radius check for nearby Units I’ve coded completely failed to make sure the things it was counting were alive. Yep, had to go through the entire damn game and fix that.

Aw fuck I gotta do GLDefs for all these Talents! I kept worrying I was gonna run out of work, here!

The Land Carrier is now at 2,166 lines of code (including code for all its projectiles, turrets, etc.). It still needs two more abilities and 3 Ults. It’s pretty complicated for a Doom monster.

One undersung detail here is that the Crusaders can shoot over the Stalkers: Everybody being able to shoot over them makes Strife less vulnerable in melee. Because otherwise things get ugly for your sad slow … most everything.

Got an irritating Talent out of the way. Required altering every projectile attack on the Doom roster. It’s a Talent for them Spider Mastermind: “Fireblu Blessing”, which grants enhanced attacks to projectile-shooting allies in a radius. You’ll know it by the Fireblu trail behind each projectile!

THE MENUS I FORGOT THE MENUS OH GOD OH FUCK

Next round I gotta do a Buff Talent that makes every single non-hero ranged attack on Doom’s Roster do increased damage. Luckily I won’t have to define new projectiles: Gonna just insert logic on impact that increases damage, then a check in the spawn state for whether or not to spawn a trail.

All Heroes now have all 3 Slot 1 Talents! The Land Carrier’s first slot is a Passive: each changes its main weapons: anti-elite, anti-fodder, or homing. Completely changes how the thing plays!

I THINK players are more vulnerable in ZDWars 2 vs 1. Technically you could get splatted from 150 HP by a single Cyberdemon rocket in the original, but they aren’t fast and it wasn’t hard to stay away.🧵

D’Sparil vs a roughly equal cost Strife horde! Loadout is: -Black Halo: A radius attack -Spurn: An electric radius ability (limited uses; can stun Mech) -Haste: Accelerated movement and attacks when low on health -Praetorians: A summon when dismounted🧵 #UZDoom #Modding #DoomMod #GameDev

Also got 9 Talents done today. Intend to do more tomorrow and then the usual 16 this weekend, so I’ll be strongly ahead of the curve.🧵

Also it’s called Black Halo because Kamelot’s “The Black Halo” is one of my favorite albums of all time. They don’t all have elaborate names as you’ve noticed.

D’Sparil vs a roughly equal cost Strife horde! Loadout is: -Black Halo: A radius attack -Spurn: An electric radius ability (limited uses; can stun Mech) -Haste: Accelerated movement and attacks when low on health -Praetorians: A summon when dismounted🧵 #UZDoom #Modding #DoomMod #GameDev

Now getting tricksy. Made one of the Crusader’s rockets deal 0 damage, but increased the damage of the other two. Previously, against 3 armor or higher it would only deal 3 dmg. Now it’s two damaging projectiles dealing 6 dmg a piece, so against 3 armor that’s 6 dmg, or 4 against 4 armor.🧵

I was gonna do that boss vs hordes video today but I realized Hero Armor is too damn high. Too many things we’re dealing 1 damage. I mean, that’s fine with T1 units, but if something has to deal 7 damage to do 2 damage points do a hero per hit, that’s crazy. So I’m reassessing.

I really think everyone is going to enjoy the Hero Tournament (starting April 5th). The Hero Talents are so much fun to watch, and it’s all just such a cacophony. The fights are usually 1-2 minutes, so 16 characters in a bracket won’t make for any marathoning. Perfectly reasonable.

Also fun fact if you remove the vertical velocity call from A_SkullAttack, the unit will just slide along the ground. Useful for rewriting the Maulotaur’s Charge, and giving a charge to the Inquisitor (Talents in both cases).

All um love goes to the flag CMF_AIMDIRECTION for the A_SpawnProjectile function. Doesn’t require a target to spawn the projectile. I’ve used that flag for so many things at this point, so many effects and abilities. Magic. So here’s to you, CMF_AIMDIRECTION!

I know this is the third post in a quote chain, but Lord Snotfolus is a total hoss. He’s tall enough to shoot over allies, he’s tough, he does good damage. He’s got all star Talents. He’s pricy, though not quite as much as Cyberdemon/Korax/Entity, but he’s gonna be well worth it! K I’m done now

Just to be clear, normal spores produce 6hp common flemoids or the rare 9hp bipedal flemoids. Snotfolus can instead spawn 12hp Larvae and the rare, ranged 20hp Quadrumpus, so T2 spores is actually nuts. Gotta be to compete with a full army buff!

Funny what slips through in design documents that you only grasp when you have to code it. Had two Talents on the same slot, one which makes Lord Snotfolus spore more, and another which makes ALL flemoids spore more. Redesigned the first one as Snotfolus’ spores producing T2 units, which is unique.

Heroes in ZDW1 didn’t have a pain chance. They do here, but they have a threshold such that something must deal 5 or more damage to have a chance of making them flinch. In fact from Tier 2 on all units have a pain threshold depending on tier. Makes up for facing numerous weak foes.

Alright, all Talent slots now have 2 of 3 Talents intact! Holy crap! Just three more rounds, then it’s on to Ults! I’ll do that video I talked about maybe later tonight or during the rest of the week. I forgot to prioritize it, but I’ve made awesome progress so hey.

Just coded what might be one of the best Talents in the game. Chex Quest’s Flemoids have a chance in combat of producing a Spore which hatches into a basic Flemoid. Lord Snotfolus has the Inevitable Talent, which boosts the chance of sporing for ALL flemoids while he lives. Huge force multiplier.🧵

So happy with my spotter system for ranged AOE attacks. Fire an invisible projectile. Projectile uses a blockthingiterator to count all hostile entities in range. Give the shooter an item for each hostile it counts. Shooter then checks if there are enough hostiles to use the ability. Then blammo!