Ash
A few suggestions, if you don't mind:
Stinger:
The shake effect is too strong and looks unnatural, doesn't fit with the firing anim.
Altfire sound is also worse than original.
Stinger's altfire could be made less of a shotgun, more of a rapid, controlled, focused burst, making it more of an AR to minigun's MG. Maybe add some ricochet+shatter behaviour to flat angle shots.
Minigun:
More damage (to make it appealing when you also have automag)
Razorjack:
make it work with the amp - very fast, high damage blades (with bright, fiery trails), passing through enemies and exploding on impact with hard surfaces (preferably into a ring of shrapnel in plane of the blade NOT of the wall).
Possible other additions:
- Redeemer-like guidance (with freaky skaarj-y HUD) instead of what is in vanilla
- Alt-fire (vertical blades) with ballistic trajectories (no lift, good for trick shots), guidance decoupled from primary/alt fire (tap to fire normally, hold to guide)
Flakcannon:
Also, old sounds (but louder and more boomy - it should sound like someone loaded a shotgun with claymore).
Eightball:
It's disappointing that it is not the weapon to be used to kill titans and shit and it feels a bit weak.
- Titans and other huge enemies should be resistant to most normal attacks (bullets, except sniper rifle's, shrapnel, slime), rather than rockets.
- Rockets (but not grenades) should deal a lot of additional, non-explosive damage on direct impact.
- Rockets should get their pre-patch whistling sound back, it was really starling when one flew right over your head.
- Rockets should not despawn but switch to falling, while inheriting previous momentum when their lifetime ends.
Rifle:
Add the originally planned 3x burst as altfire. Add scope item (added to your inventory when you first pick up rifle) to switch between zoom and burst altfire.
Dispersion Pistol:
Shuffle primary and secondary fire traits a bit - one fires for 1 ammo, rapidly (possibly even faster with upgrades) and benefits from the increased magazine, the other can be charges, increases in baseline power and ammo consumption (with charge on top of that) and changes colour. Maybe put splash on the rapid one for change. Maybe consider projectile patterns reflecting changing forms of the gun as it worked in beta, consider additional upgrades, like projectile speed tweaks.
All projectiles:
Add water ring and water splash when entering water zone, add bubble trails.
Dodging:
Dodgy enemies should dodge optimally. The only reason to not dodge all the time is avoiding predictibility and weaker, less skilled enemies.
Krall:
you could boost their ground speed a bit, they look like they are built for running. Make them attack in groups more often too.
Skaarj Warriors:
Razik as the only weapon is boring and weak. For Skaarj that aren't completely naked (all but warriors) add projectile throw additional attack to make them more interesting. The projectile in question could be something like razor blade (or a whole bunch) or grenade, depending on Skaarj class. Warriors could get acid spit and better mobility. Some of the melee attack anims, esp. spinny ones could be workable for making it look right.
Warlord:
Give his gun some more interesting fire modes.
Lesser brutes:
Their skin looks like they have bandoliers full of flak shells instead of rockets. You know what to do (you might want to swap skins instead if it gives them too much power, but remember that it looks less armoured, also no matter what happens NyLeve needs some rocket firing brutes to be consistent with translator messages - or changed messages).
I would just make the skin consistent with projectiles. If they have flak bandoliers they shook flak, if they don't, they shoot whatever they sensibly might, with original rockets being (of course) the default choice.Maybe just have them be a mix of rocket and flak brutes for variety and vanilla faithfulness' sake?
What about biorifle and ASMD? Your change there is a much bigger departure from original than what I suggested for stinger (which was mostly just tweaking spread and fire cycle), and clashing strongly with the original feel of those weapons.
You are applying a bit of a double standard here.What about biorifle and ASMD? Your change there is a much bigger departure from original than what I suggested for stinger (which was mostly just tweaking spread and fire cycle), and clashing strongly with the original feel of those weapons.
People vastly overrate the significance of ASSMD penetration. I suggest waiting 'till you try it.
As for Bio rifle...shit's Unreal.
Being serious now, is it really so hard to believe the Bio Rifle is incapable of anything beyond being a glorified super soaker? And yes, it's a departure from the original design. Again I will stress it's the only one, because the original Bio Rifle alt fire was shit banal boring nobody used it (in U98 sp). I don't do major departures unless it's really needed.
And why not make it a chemical-y flamethrower mode for weapon that already looks like a chemical-y flamethrower, and reuse energy swirly (because it's honestly cool) for ASMD (as an additional effect)?Well if you're concerned about the biorifle's alt fire not looking mechanical, i suppose the altfire could be make to look like a spray/cloud as if it were vaporized under pressure?
Yes, ASMD penetration is going to be of minor mechanical consequence, because enemies in Unreal rarely have opportunity to line up in a way that could be used. OTOH it's going to change look and feel of the weapon by eliminating visual feedback of hitting target (shockwave).
I still think it's too much of a railgun ripoff, but it's good to hear.Yes, ASMD penetration is going to be of minor mechanical consequence, because enemies in Unreal rarely have opportunity to line up in a way that could be used. OTOH it's going to change look and feel of the weapon by eliminating visual feedback of hitting target (shockwave).
The shockwave draws for each target hit. Why would I get rid of the hit feedback? Because muh realism again? It's especially useful so you know what and how many targets you hit behind the first.
Eh, I was hoping that you would do Arx Fatalis after GMDX.
Replace "realism" with "consistency" and you might be onto something. The thing is - consistency is, was and will be the king.DraQ Sorry. I disagree with your insistence that the Bio Rifle is ruined and alt fire should be disregarded because muh realism.
Wrong question. The right question is "why does P849Take the Automag for instance: why can it only rapid fire if held to the side inaccurately gangsta style? Totally unrealistic weapon design!
Seriously now? You know that it is so rampant in games it even has it's own tvtropes page, right?Why is the Vortex Rikerrs interior huge, but when you exit into NyLeve the ship is relatively tiny?
Are you for real? Next time you will be asking why everything and everyone looks so angular... ah, fuck it.Why is every level a point of no return? Why can't you go back? Why can you carry ten weapons, a horde of flairs and a bunch of other shit on your person?
There's various reasons for each of these and none of them is because the devs valued realism above all else. Likewise, there's various reasons the alt fire is a swirly and not bio-flamethrower: shit's way more fun and unique, as well as more complementary of the primary fire mode than a turdthrower mode would be. I will be and have been keeping Unreal's moderate focus on believability and consistency in mind, but there's always exceptions made in the name of FUN. Hell the game's even called "Unreal". Lastly the swirly is also more creative than a turdthrower we've seen in 50 other shooters, which is fitting as Unreal's weapons are rather creative.
That was in Unreal 2. Maybe not exactly, but it looked the part.the altfire should be used to collect monster cum.
Wrong question. The right question is "why does P849Take the Automag for instance: why can it only rapid fire if held to the side inaccurately gangsta style? Totally unrealistic weapon design!
shoot automag fast gangsta style". Maybe P849 is a gangsta? They start the game in prison cell after all, that's something a gangsta would do. Maybe it's not really possible to fire AM accurately at max rate of fire? Honestly, I don't care.
________________________
||===Player Control===||
------------------------
Dodging:
-You can now dodge underwater. Can also be used to simply traverse water faster.
-Double-click dodging is disabled. Instead use the new Dodge Key (See: controls menu and rebind to your liking).
-Dodging has altered cooldown. Instead of getting one dodge every second or so, you get up to three dodges in succession then a longer cooldown period (~four seconds).
This is so you can cover more ground in less time than simply strafing/running. In other words it makes dodging more effective and actually useful over just strafing.
-Each dodge also covers slightly more distance.
-You no longer audibly grunt with every. single. dodge. Only sometimes for realism.
Crouching:
Unreal Evolution utilises OldUnreal 227i's "True crouching", which makes you actually smaller when crouching and thus enabling you to take cover, enter crawl spaces, duck
under projectiles and so on. However, this behaviour was unpolished, so some fixes and expansions were necessary:
-You can jump while crouched, albeit not as high as a standing jump.
-There is no longer a extremely long transition period between crouching and standing.
-You can drop off of ledges while crouched (if you want the ledge-stopper behaviour, it has been moved to the walk key).
-You wont fall through moving objects when crouching on them.
-Level design is tailored to support "true crouching".
Jumping:
-You have improved air control (control over x & y velocity/positioning while airborne). Originally very minimal.
-The threshold before falling damage applies is reduced by 15% (originally far too lenient).
-You no longer audibly grunt with every. single. jump. Only sometimes for realism.
Translator Expansion:
The translator has been expanded to give further information relevant to gameplay:
-When picking up inventory items, under certain conditions (e.g first time pickup) you may recieve a message which details what that inventory item is. This is to encourage
inventory use (e.g amplifier and forcefield) and teach the player what those items actually do in detail without them having to read the instruction manual.
-With the translator active, Press 'Fire' to view weapon statistics and currently installed weapon mods for the weapon you currently have in your hand.
Inventory Items:
-Flares last longer (extended from a measly 10 seconds to 25).
-Forcefields are more common and you can carry more than one at a time.
-Flashlights can be carried in greater quantity, but each flashlight pickup yeilds less battery.
-NEW: Weapon Modules. Find these scattered around and use them to upgrade your arsenal.
-The Amplifier is now compatible with the Stinger. In addition to damage, it now also increases projectile speed (while active) for any weapon it is compatible with.
-BUGFIX: Scuba Gear no longer instantly drowns you when deactivated, but rather normal underwater breathing applies.
-Super Health packs only add 50 health on UNREAL difficulty level and above, though a small number of additional super health packs can be found in the game.
-Super Jump Boots: (Continue reading...).
Other:
-Auto Aim is outright disabled on Unreal and Hardcore difficulty.
-Cheating is outright disabled on Hardcore difficulty.
-There's a new optional hardcore difficulty.
_________________________________
||===Artificial Intelligence===||
---------------------------------
-Most NPCs utilize new forms of attack or tactics in combat. Beware.
-All NPCs gib under realistic conditions.
-Most NPCs can be headshot for bonus damage, and can be decapitated.
-On higher difficlties enemy counts are higher, and you'll sometimes fight enemies in diverse groups for truly engaging combat. As a result, the
likelihood of monster in-fighting needed to be reduced, otherwise they'd be fighting eachother all the time.
-Most NPCs have minor modifications to dodging behaviour.
Krall:
-NEW: sometimes fires three grouped projectiles instead of one.
-Improved sleeping behaviour.
-10% Faster projectile speed. Scales based on difficulty level.
-Run slightly faster
-Attack a little more frequently. Scales based on difficulty level.
-Other minor tweaks
Krall Elite:
-Same as Krall above, but:
-NEW: will sometimes activate a forcefield around themselves and attack aggressively from the safety within.
Gasbag:
-NEW: Gasbags sometimes build up a more powerful projectile with a large blast radius. Looking at the explosion site at close range will disrupt vision for approximately 1.5 seconds.
-NEW: Killing a Gasbag while it is building up said projectile will cause the Gasbag itself to explode, potentially damaging anything nearby.
-50% less chance to dodge all incoming projectiles.
-25% additional projectile speed. Scales based on difficulty level.
-20% additional airspeed. Scales based on difficulty level.
-Attacks slightly more frequently. Scales based on difficulty level.
-Gasbags now emit sound when belching fireballs at you.
Mercenary:
-NEW: May opt to use cloaking/partial invisibility instead of invulnerability. May also opt to use cloaking/partial invisibility upon sighting of the player.
-NEW: If health is low, may activate a self-destruct sequence on their wrist-tech and kamikaze rush you.
-Reduced health.
Tentacle:
NEW: may hide from you by retreating into its growth hole. It is still vulnerable in this state to explosive and shocked damage (e.g Dispersion Pistol Alt Fire, Eightball, ASMD alt fire).
There are various conditions under which it may hide, such as:
1. to avoid an incoming projectile.
2. upon spotting you, to stay hidden and hope you don't notice only to then barb you in the back.
3. after losing sight of you.
Slith:
-NEW: scream soundwave attack.
-No longer immune to the Bio Rifle, but rather has 50% resistance.
-Attacks slightly more frequently.
-Other minor tweaks.
Skaarj:
-NEW: The Officer Variant now has the ability to teleport in combat.
-All other variants remain unchanged.
Brute (mid-range brute):
-NEW: Their berserk charge now is something to beware rather than mostly useless: they run faster and will not stop to melee when they reach you (only to miss), instead bullrushing straight through and knocking you back.
However they turn much slower while doing this and can be dodged.
-5% additional projectile speed. Scales based on difficulty level.
-5% additional movement speed.
-Reduced explosive resistance to 20% (all Brutes originally had 30% armor vs explosive damage).
Fly:
-The sound they emit covers greater distance. This is to make all those times they come from behind you in Chizra etc less of a nasty surprise.
Manta:
-50% faster movement speed.
-60% Reduction of health.
Biter Fish (the tiny fish in water that you can barely see):
-No longer block the path of pawns.
Bloblet:
-Increased movement speed.
-Reduced Health
NEW ENEMY TYPES:
================
Squid:
-A previously unused enemy.
-Extended general artificial intelligence.
-New attacks and more polish.
Spinners A.K.A Spiders:
-Some may prefer to aggressively chase you, others may prefer to stay back and use their ranged attack.
-Are present in Unreal (prev. RtNP expansion-exclusive).
-Are faster.
-Moderately reduced health.
-Come in varying sizes.
-No longer sound like a rat when shot.
Lesser Brute (Flak):
-Fires flak shells instead of rockets.
-Has 20% resistance to bullets.
-Slightly modified charging behaviour.
Behemoth (Flak):
-A Flak version of the Behemoth Brute.
BOSSES:
=======
Titan:
-Overhauled Titan Bossfights, namely adding diversity to each fight rather than the same fight recycled numerous times.
-All Titans have less HP, and their rocks deal less damage.
-Reduced explosive resistance to 20% (all Titans originally had 30% armor vs explosive damage).
Stone Titan:
Same as Titan but:
-NEW: Ground slam attack which unearths a group of rocks your way.
The Warlord:
-NEW: multi-rocket attack.
-Dodges projectiles much less frequently.
-Now has a sound effect when firing rockets.
-New flying behaviour.
Queen:
Originally a pushover. Now an adequate final challenge.
-NEW: scream soundwave attack.
-NEW: proximity orb attack.
-NEW: an additional surprise if playing hardcore mode.
-Updated and polished teleportation behaviour.
Increased health.
-The super jump boots that are exclusive to this fight remain infinite-use, but continually recharge and only offer three jumps per max battery capacity. This means while you're still able to jump around like a lunatic, you must time
your jumps when maneuvering around the arena and dodging attacks.
-Considerably reduced melee attack damage.
-BUGFIX: no longer screams when the player is walking around the arena after it is killed.
NO DIRECT CHANGES:
==================
Lesser Brute
Behemoth
Devil Fish
Pupae
_________________
||===Weapons===||
-----------------
Improved various weapon effects and handling, creating visceral gunplay:
========================================================================
-Improved weapon firing animations.
-New screen shake effects when firing.
-Improved nearly ALL weapon effects considerably and added some new (e.g projectile effects, impact effects, tracers, screen flash, new splashing when shooting water).
-New recoil system. Each weapon has its own unique recoil pattern.
-Many mostly subtle audio design improvements.
General weapon improvements, fixing and balancing:
==================================================
Dispersion Pistol Primary Fire:
-Rate of fire no longer decreases each time it is upgraded.
-Projectile speed now increases each time it is upgraded.
-Altered damage, ammo consumption and amplifier behaviour for balancing.
-While the amplifier is active, primary fire gets small blast radius capability.
Dispersion Pistol Alt Fire:
-no longer autofires immediately when fully charged.
-Blast radius scales with the power level of the weapon (including amplifier).
-BUGFIX: fixed an issue with alt fire audio getting cut off towards the end of the sound clip.
-BUGFIX: Fixed an audio bug with the charge-up sound.
-Altered damage, ammo consumption and amplifier behaviour for balancing.
Automag:
-BUGFIX: fixed an issue with automag firing animation tweening.
-BUGFIX: There is no longer a large delay when attempting to switch weapon from the automag to another after firing the automag.
-The alt fire is slightly more accurate.
-Restored an unused AutoMag idle animation.
-AutoMag max ammo capacity increased by 50.
-Increased the lifespan of ejected bullet casings.
Stinger:
-Can now be used with the amplifier (boosts damage and projectile speed).
-Minor damage increase.
-Increased Knockback (especially w/alt fire).
-Stinger alt fire blast fires one extra crystal and has slightly tightened spread, with the intent to make this fire mode worth a damn.
-Stinger alt fire blast is dodged by Skarrj less frequently, also with the intent to make this fire mode worth a damn.
ASMD:
-Increased damage (primary and secondary both).
-Increased knockback (primary and secondary both).
-Second highest chance of gibbing enemies (after explosives).
-Amplifier increases alt fire projectile speed and blast radius (in addition to vanilla damage increase).
-Decreased amplifier drain rate.
-Primary fire damage is reduced to a lesser degree vs shielding enemies, implying penetration. (all other weapons are reduced by 90%).
Eightball:
-Improved trajectory of alt fire grenades, and grenades are slightly less bouncy.
-Rockets are dodged by enemies a little less frequently.
-Slightly increased damage.
-Seeker rockets track a little more precisely.
-Increased blast radius by 5%
Flak Cannon:
-The alt fire grenade can actually be dodged by NPCs from time to time (Vanilla: never).
-Slightly slower alt fire rate of fire as it is often superior to the primary fire in terms of damage and reliability.
-Increased alt fire blast radius by 5%
GES Bio Rifle:
-Primary Fire: slightly increased damage and range, slightly slower rate of fire.
-Alt Fire: blob now explodes into many smaller clusters like in Unreal Tournament. The number of clusters is determined by how much the shot was charged.
-The pressurised bio wave seen in earlier beta versions has been scrapped.
Razorjack:
-Increased Damage.
-The killing blow will likely shred and pass through the enemy, hitting anything behind.
Rifle:
-Now fires explosive rounds. The most powerful (non-amplified) weapon in the game. (Open to reverting to vanilla on the grounds of unfaithfulness. It's super fun though and makes the rifle more stand-out).
-Increased the lifespan of ejected bullet casings.
-Increased knockback/momentum transfer.
Minigun:
-BUGFIX: While using the primary fire of the Minigun and immediately switching to Alt fire, the fire sound correctly plays rather than a period of silence.
-Buffed minigun damage. Still weaker than the AutoMag, but should be more competent by comparison w/extreme damage per second potential.
-Slightly higher accuracy of both fire modes.
-Minigun max ammo capacity increased by 50.
REMEMBER: Each and every weapon has new recoil, overhauled visual effects and firing animations, audio design improvements, bugfixes, screenshake, headshots and decapitation and more.
This text does not give the full picture. Much work has done into weapon design. You're going to love them.
New Weapon Modification system:
===============================
You can upgrade one of two weapons predetermined weapons per upgrade module, your choice which.
Examples of upgrade choices:
1. ASMD primary fire penetrates through multiple objects/enemies, OR Bio Rifle primary fire explodes on contact with any surface.
2. Skarrj Infantry T2 Upgrade Module: +25 Automag rate of fire (both primary and secondary modes), OR +25% Stinger Rate of Fire (both primary and secondary modes).
Find upgrades most commonly in secret areas. Once you attain one, simply use it from your inventory with the desired weapon equipped. No complicated menus slowing down the gameplay pace.
This increase in power the player has access to is challenged by improved AI, tougher encounters (e.g enemy placement), and slightly tighter resources (on higher difficulty modes).
You can view what mods your weapon has as well as other information via the translator (Press 'Fire').
____________________________________________
||===Graphics/Environmental Art/Effects===||
--------------------------------------------
The goal here is to create a enhanced artistic direction and full HD experience in combination with other HD mods for Unreal. There's two main approaches: 1: The excellent popular Unreal Texture Project (UTP) HD texture mod for
Unreal is an incomplete project; only a portion of the game's textures were updated. What Unreal Evolution aims to do is finalise it in a relatively faithful manner, so that the full game experience is HD and better looking than ever.
The second approach is to add subtle details here and there, in particular to levels that were barren, to attain a consistent level of artistic detail. Various effects are also added or improved.
If you've played GMDX you know what to expect.
-New Decals
-New Weapon and object Effects.
-New Sunlight Coronas.
-New Geometry
-New Texturing work
-New Lighting work
-New decorative objects.
______________________
||===Level Design===||
----------------------
If you've played GMDX, you know what to expect: relatively faithful improvements to all levels. It will still look, feel and play like Unreal at its core, but on the next level.
-New Challenges: refined resource placement on higher difficulty levels. Refined Enemy placement. Minor quality additions to up the engagement level.
-New content: new secret areas, new events.
-Enemy variety: Unreal originally frequently had moments of sparse enemy variety (e.g IVS Kran levels consist mostly of Skarrj Warriors only). One goal of Unreal Evo is to diversify engagements, within the constraints of the plot and
existing design. An example of these constraints would be no Skarrj in the Terraniux Mercenary ship, as it wouldn't make sense without altering the lore and/or story.
-Utilisation of various 227 engine features.
-Advantage-taking of missed opportunities in the level design.
-Support and tailored design for 227 true crouching.
-Made some secrets that were impossible to discover via intuition/perception/logic but rather pure chance a tad more discernable.
-Fixed many map bugs.
______________________
||===Audio Design===||
----------------------
-Additional ambient audio design in select levels previously lacking.
-You no longer grunt with every jump.
-BUGFIX: The Male 1 class no longer plays metal footstep sounds on every surface.
-Many weapon audio enhancements.
-Minor enemy audio improvements.
-Restores five unused music tracks, the majority replacing recycled music, the rest expanding upon the music of a level theme (None of the vanilla music is gone).
-Also adds three music tracks from the Return To Na Pali expansion pack.
-BUGFIX: fixed some music bugs/oversights. For example the combat music on Noork didn't play as intended.
_________________
||===General===||
-----------------
-Autosaving: you have five autosave slots. The game autosaves on a per-level basis. If playing hardcore mode, Nali saves also go here.
-Save games now display what difficulty level you are playing on.
-Numerical values displayed in the HUD (inventory counts, health, armor, ammo) use larger font. This makes other HUD modes and/or higher resolutions viable.
-The player will gib under realistic conditions now (e.g a rocket to the face).
-Polished the way in which sludge barrels explode and spawn sludge.
-Tarydium Barrels no longer have a puny blast radius, and have improved explosion effects.
-Bugfix: The Stinger, Automag and Minigun all display their hit impact effects when hitting decorations
-Bugfix: dispersion pistol projectiles passing from one water zone to another don't lose all their velocity.
___________________
||===Challenge===||
-------------------
Here's a brief summary of how Unreal Evolution affects challenge:
Increase:
-Weapon recoil
-Improved AI (some scaling based on difficulty)
-Additional enemy placement (some based on difficulty)
-Reduced Health from super health packs (high difficulty modes only).
-Additional challenges in level design.
-Altered resource distribution.
-New optional hardcore mode.
Decrease:
-Reduced excessive damage scaling on 227i's higher difficulty levels
-Various minor base weapon buffs (e.g minor weapon damage buffs, new bio rifle alt fire explodes into clusters like in Unreal Tournament, new explosive rifle).
-Weapon modification. You can make your weapons more powerful.
-Additional player control such as better dodging, true crouching and air control.
Playing on NORMAL or HARD is recommended for those that are new to FPS.
Playing on VERY HARD is recommended for those that have some experience with FPS.
UNREAL or HARDCORE difficulty is recommended for FPS veterans or on replays of Unreal Evolution. Use your own discretion.
Hardcore Mode:
-Manual saving is disabled. Saving is triggered per level, and per Nali ghost found. Survive the gauntlet of challenges between each save!
-Some enemies only appear on hardcore mode.
-Some weapon upgrades only appear on hardcore mode.
-Super Health pickups are worth 50 health points.
-Dispersion pistol Ammo capacity gained per power level upgrade is reduced.
-Cheating is disabled
-Auto aim is disabled
Ash will you stop at nothing? What's next? Stalker: SoC?
That might be a way you could actually get paid. Imagine if modding could have made people money aside from being auditions for jobs 15 years ago. Wesp5You bet. Sky's the limit. I'll open a patreon. If my talents are in demand and funding is steady and sufficient, I'll continue my modding career and we'll have years ahead of enhanced classics in the vein of GMDX and Unreal Evolution. If not, it ends here and I'll focus my time on more beneficial endeavours. Modding is simply way too time consuming to not get some form of compensation long-term. I spent over 5 years of my life on GMDX, working on it nearly every day or every other day. Unreal Evolution has been more manageable but it's still been nearly 2 years.