Incline Unreal Evolution Mod: Now Released

[Ash]

Play more games.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Play more games.

Recommend me a game that disproves everything I've been saying, why don't you.

 

[Ash]

All that you said proves only one thing: that you're retarded. I don't need to disprove that. Everything else is baseless claims you made about my work from reading a changelog.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Fuck off. If you're just going to go around saying shit like ‘Unreal has no atmosphere! It's just an arena shooter!’, then you understand nothing and have absolutely no business modding any game at all.

 

[Ash]

Haha. I never even said anything remotely close to that. See, like I said. Retarded.

 

[Icewater]

Ash why do you bother responding

 

[Morenatsu.]

Haha. I never even said anything remotely close to that. See, like I said. Retarded.

The game is so atmospheric getting locked in combat arenas by magic bars that flip and fighting battles against 50 enemies before the next door magically opens. Atmosphere was indeed the number one priority of epic, totally.
The atmosphere in this game isn't even that notable. Decent yes but it's a game first and foremost. And again you're implying the mod ruins the atmosphere by adding enemies and "modstuff". I don't think you even played it.

 

[Ash]

Play more games. Learn to read.

@Ash why do you bother responding

Modder autism

 

[Morenatsu.]

aw yeah i totally didnt say EXACTLY what that guy said i said even though they mean the same thing, haha play more games retoord xDDDDDDDDDDDD

I've played every FPS worth playing and then some. And I played your mod and it sucked. There you go.

 

[Ash]

Sucks like your mom. She does a fine job. Retard DNA is still good for something.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Unreal never had especially great gameplay, and while you could say that's the reason your mod exists, why even take any interest in it in the first place? The setting was the thing that made Unreal special, and seeing how you don't even think it has any value at all, why bother making a mod? I think you only did so because you knew how to use the editor and wanted to a new project aside from Deus Ex, and all that crap about ‘retaining the original spirit’ is just the standard stuff modders and the like say to themselves to try to avoid the fact that all the changes they've made are stupid or at the very least unnecessary. I don't really care if particular mods are just intended to be fun alternatives, but selling it as some great ‘incline’ is bullshit. It's not an improvement, it's just different.

 

[purplerhino83]

Different? So it's not Unreal anymore?

 

[Lithium Flower]

While Ash' responses are rather quixotic (so is any internet argument, to be fair), I just find it really funny that the other guy talks so vaguely ("adding extra enemies or thing or whatever spoils the atmosphere") and is yet to describe a single specific thing in this mod that ruined the game for him so.

 

[RoSoDude]

Unreal does have a wonderful atmosphere. It was obviously a major emphasis in development (likely to show off the new engine), with the decision to send the player on an adventure through logically connected spaces in a coherent setting spanning lush forests, temple ruins, exotic cave networks, ancient castles, and alien motherships. The music, visual design, and worldbuilding in the game's environments sets the game apart, and the the whole journey rivals Half-Life on the player fantasy/experience/muh immersion side for me. However...

Unreal never had especially great gameplay, and while you could say that's the reason your mod exists, why even take any interest in it in the first place? The setting was the thing that made Unreal special, and seeing how you don't even think it has any value at all, why bother making a mod? I think you only did so because you knew how to use the editor and wanted to a new project aside from Deus Ex, and all that crap about ‘retaining the original spirit’ is just the standard stuff modders and the like say to themselves to try to avoid the fact that all the changes they've made are stupid or at the very least unnecessary. I don't really care if particular mods are just intended to be fun alternatives, but selling it as some great ‘incline’ is bullshit. It's not an improvement, it's just different.

The statement I bolded is as reductive as Ash's hyperbole regarding the atmosphere, if not moreso. Unreal had great gameplay, it just had some flaws and areas worth expanding upon. Though it starts off slow, many of the levels are complex and interconnected beyond what was seen in Doom, Quake, or Build (e.g. Chizra, Sunspire, Na Pali Haven, Bluff Eversmoking, Dasa Cellars, Illumination/Darkening). There's a great mix of locations from a pure gameplay perspective, with winding labyrinths punctuated by open combat arenas to establish structure and scale for navigation, and the focus of areas oscillates smoothly between pure combat and open exploration to avoid exhaustion or tedium, all with a decent layer of resource management. Combat itself is unique among classic FPS, focusing more on dueling with a smaller number of more intelligent opponents in each encounter as opposed to threat prioritization vs. a larger number of enemies with more simplistic behaviors as seen in shooters of the time. Enemies can dodge, flank, and chase down the player, with no two attempts at an encounter playing out the same due to the dynamic elements of AI behavior. Different enemy types require unique strategies -- Skaarj aggressively rush down the player, and their dodge rolls must be met with predictive follow-up shots; Skaarj Troopers can use the same weapons as the player and favor a handheld shield over a combat roll which allows them to be locked down with suppressive fire; Mercenaries are only moderately mobile but can become invulnerable for a duration in response to incoming projectiles which makes them dangerous in groups; Brutes are walking tanks that turn all walls and ceilings near the player into a threat zone as they march forward; Slith can be easily kept at bay on land but are fast and relentless underwater; Krall line up around the player to form firing squads and will persist attacking even after their legs have been blown off. The other half of Unreal's combat is made up by its unique arsenal of weapons, which is far more diverse than can be found in FPS contemporaries. Other than the hitscan Automag, Minigun, and Rifle, no weapon has a conventional equivalent -- the Stinger spits out projectiles at a moderate fire rate or in a spread pattern; the ASMD can knock enemies back with its hitscan beam or splash them with a projectile, and shooting the latter with the former leads to the classic deadly shock combo; the Eightball combines lock-on rockets with a bouncing grenade launcher and both modes can chamber multiple shots at once in various spread patterns; the Flak Cannon turns the workhorse shotgun on its head with bouncing shrapnel fired either as a close-range spread or from an arcing bomb; the Bio-Rifle launches globs of explosive goo that can stick to walls and trip on contact; the Razorjack can be ricochet'd off walls or remote guided to slice off enemy heads. All of this makes Unreal's combat highly unique and varied with a lot of room for player expression, and clearly a predominant focus in the game's design.

There were many things worth addressing, though. Weapon effects and audio design could be improved, player dodging could be less clunky, enemy dodging could be better balanced between weapon types, enemies could have more dynamic combat behaviors, enemy composition could be more diverse (at least on the higher difficulties), hunting for secrets could be more worthwhile, inventory items could be more useful, and there could be some mode that addresses the fundamental evils of quicksaving adds hardcore checkpoint design to bring Unreal's level pacing on par with Doom and Quake. Unreal Evolution does all of that and more. How any of this disturbs the atmosphere is beyond me, unless you think the lackluster elements of Unreal's gameplay were somehow essential to its atmosphere. You've made no worthwhile critiques, all you said was "Unreal had good atmosphere, mod added stuff and ruined it, DROPPED" while displaying a casual ignorance for Unreal's gameplay elements and zero insight on the mod's changes.

Unreal has a great atmosphere. Unreal Evolution does nothing to disturb it, instead enhancing its also great gameplay. If you think the enemy composition was sacred, then just don't play the harder difficulties (I have my doubts you'd be able to handle them anyway). If you have anything substantive to offer beyond that, do so now. Otherwise, begone from this thread, you clueless sod.

 

[Ash]

I never even said Unreal had bad or non-existent atmosphere in the first place. I said it wasn't a priority of the devs over gameplay (of course), and that it is decent-ish -- it's rather atmospheric at times, yet It heavily depends on the level. Terranuix isn't very atmospheric, for instance. whereas Dark Arena or Sunspire Valley is. No matter my thoughts on it my design principles are based in preserving the vanilla identity as usual out of respect for the original work and fan's attachment to it, so please refrain from making wild claims based on reading a changelog.

 

[Morenatsu.]

stuff

You can write all that in a forum post, but it doesn't actually feel that great in the game itself. The ineffectiveness of certain weapons and the enemies' constant spamming of shields and dodges makes encounters more tedious than fun, and even the level design is less than optimal in a lot of cases.

The effects and audio were fine. I even prefer the originals over the UT sounds they added in later patches. I can agree that items and enemy dodging could be improved, but the rest is rather unnecessary. Who the hell ever asked for checkpoints? FPSes are made for quick-saving (not that I mind it being part of a special difficulty, though). The only person who is being ignorant is Ash, who is a gameplayfag insensitive to anything that isn't muh gameplay. I actually have a consideration for every aspect of the game, and what I've found is that Unreal had rather underwhelming gameplay. All it really needed was a minor rebalancing, but of course that's not enough for modders, who must always go out of their way to add a bunch of new mechanics that only serve as obfuscation more than anything. Why the silly recoil? Why the weapon upgrades? Did Unreal ever really need that?

I know I'm being unnecessarily harsh, but all modders do is go around fucking up games, and for some reason every retard accepts it as if it were the way the game ought to be. Ash's mod isn't as bad as some others, but it's all the same shit.


‘umg its not possible that someone could play my mod and not like it!! I AM INCLINE!!! I BET HE DIDNT EVEN TRY IT!!!!!! IM DA BEST MODDHURR EBURRR!!!’

 

[Lithium Flower]

oh my god you are so old

 

[RoSoDude]

More unnecessary modstuff for Unreal Evolution, this time courtesy of yours truly (I only took a crack at this after "final" release, oops). The Rocket Launcher now features Half-Life style laser guiding -- rockets realistically turn around to track the player's cursor and can infinitely circle around posts. Turn radius is easily tunable and remains consistent with projectile speed upgrades. Math is fun!



I know, I know, the shitty original rocket tracking where it just turned to face your current rotation and felt sluggish and unresponsive was a big part of the original atmosphere. Modders gonna mod, what can you do.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Anything is an improvement when it's Return to Na Pali.

 

[Ash]

Why the silly recoil? Why the weapon upgrades?

Questions. This means you don't understand the design reasoning and you mock what you do not understand.

The weapon upgrades do a very important thing to address an important shortcoming of unreal's gameplay, and that is its unrewarding exploration (from a gameplay standpoint). Take NyLeve, that whole massive optional area down the bottom is very unnecessary to explore vanilla. Rewards of interest include armor and a flashlight. The game was overflowing with flashlights as-is, and armor is not particularly rewarding as the game wasn't challenging enough to justify it on vanilla's highest difficulty level. I could fix Unreal's exploration via other means, but that would probably mean something such as changing the levels entirely rather than being faithful to the original awesome design. Now there is simply one upgrade module added down there which makes the detour actually worthwhile. Furthermore a modding system (as implemented) introduces no notable downsides to Unreal anyways, rather it makes the game way more enjoyable in a multitude of ways; Now in addition to making thorough exploration worthwhile, it does things like make the Bio Rifle actually rather fun to use, results in fun personalisation of weapons, adds tough interesting choices to consider, and increases replayability substantially (this one is huge). About the only thing that can really said negatively of their presence is they sometimes don't make sense to be scattered around the world and tucked away in secret locations, yet the same can be said for all of Unreal's pickups so.
So you're an atmosphere enthusiast asking questions about which you don't understand, but design reasoning in how UE addresses Unreal's flaws was provided on page 1 already.

Here it is again:

Identifying Unreal's Flaws:

Spoiler

Problem: Unreal's Boss Battles Suck.

FPS in general has issues with boss battles, yet Unreal's are notably bad. Do you like recycled boss fights? It's very much acceptable in moderation. But a) Titans are not engaging combatants. and b) they're recycled at minimum four times. Likewise, the final battle was a disapppointment. Here's what I did against the final boss: jumped up to the platform in the middle, strafed in a repetitive circle pattern on this platform over and over while firing away, aaaand victory. That was it. And that's all the bosses of the game. Four mediocre increasingly tired titan battles, and a pitiful end boss.

The solution: make them not suck. You still fight all the same battles, because my faithful design principles demand it. However, through AI enhancements, boss arena design and more, each should be unique from one another, and relatively engaging by comparison to what there was before. The end boss has received the most attention. It should be a real climax like any good end boss.

Problem: Flak Cannon > Eightball

The Flak Cannon is commonly perceived to be a better or more enjoyable weapon than the Eightball Launcher. This may seem unusual if you're familiar with the two. Think about it: the Eightball is the most multi-functional weapon in the game. You can fire rockets OR grenades as the default. You can hold down the fire or alt-fire key to load multiple grenades or rockets to be launched. You can hover over a target to acquire a lock-on for homing rockets. While loading rockets or grenades, you can also hold the opposing fire button to make the projectiles launch in a tight grouping, or don't for a wide grouping. How impressive is that for one weapon? And when is a rocket launcher EVER bad, let alone a rocket and grenade launcher in one... So why is the flak cannon perceived to be the better weapon, personal preference aside? There's two core reasons: first, all enemies that have the ability to dodge have a ONE HUNDRED percent chance of performing a dodge manoeuvre when any and all Eightball projectiles are sent their way, if the conditions for a dodge are met. The Flak Cannon grenade launcher alt fire on the other hand had a ZERO percent chance of ever being dodged. This makes the Flak cannon objectively the better weapon against dodging enemies (All Skarrj types, GasBags, Krall), while with the Eightball you're just wasting rockets in frustration before you finally get the kill. So you learn from this and use the Eightball on slower, non-dodging enemies, specifically the three types of Brute and two types of Titan. Guess what? They have 30% explosive damage resistance, further lending to the accurate perception of the Eightball's inadequacy. This is not a problem for the Flak Cannon of course as its primary fire is not an explosive damage type.

The Solution: I've made eightball projectiles have an 80% chance of being dodged, and the Flak Cannon alt fire have a 60% chance of being dodged (the difference justified by the eightball having better range, the ability to multi-load rockets to ensure at least one hits a dodging enemy, and a lock-on (which is still often dodged, bear in mind). Take note this dodge chance is per projectile, therefore many multi-loaded rockets are still guaranteed to trigger a dodge. Secondly, the dumb slow enemies with 30% explosion resistance now have 20% explosion resistance. It's minor, but it'll help. So there you have it, The Flak Cannon while still best for dealing with those pesky Skaarj will absolutely be dodged here and there rather than the deliverer of easy kills. The Eightball will now be able to shine, rather than either being dodged by everything with 100% frequency, or damage-reduced by everything.

Problem: Weapons can at times be rather unsatisfying to use

You recognise the Eightball, but aren't ALL the weapons just a little underwhelming? It is often said Unreal's gunplay is a little unsatisfactory. A stand-out example would be the Stinger. It's just not that enjoyable to use. This problem is an accumulation of absolutely everything: sound design, animation, projectile effects, impact effects, kickback, perceived usefulness and uniqueness of a fire mode, possible bugs present and so on.

The Solution: See the WEAPONRY category of the changelog. I've faithfully refined and enhanced everything necessary weaponry related. An FPS is no FPS without its guns. You're going to love them.

Problem: Unrewarding Exploration/Unreal's exploration is sub-par

It is. Not the level designs themselves, they're mostly an absolute joy, but rather the supporting design or lack thereof that is supposed to incentivise it. On my first playthrough I skipped over a number of areas. Why is this? Because I was often stocked up on health and ammo on the original hardest "UNREAL" difficulty without having to be completely thorough. This is the primary reason, though I believe longer-term reward is important for such an exploration-heavy game with huge levels, and Unreal has next to none.

The Solution: Resource distribution is tighter on higher difficulty levels. Core issue addressed. As for longer-term rewards for exploration, I've introduced a basic weapon modification system: find upgrade modules in the levels (much like the Dispersion Pistol upgrades) but you can choose one of two weapons to upgrade per module. Which weapons you can choose from and what upgrade it applies depends on the module you find. This is not the sole reason the weapon upgrade system was introduced of course, just one of many, but it would probably be an important reason often overlooked by those unfamiliar with game design.

Problem: Weak Resources Distribution

Unrewarding exploration is not the only downside of weak resource distribution. Challenge of course is an important factor sullied by throwing ammunition and the like at the player. Challenge being one of most important defining factors of a game. So, exploration and finding secrets is discouraged. Strategic management of pickups is not a concern for the player. Engagements can be breezed past with lesser skill. You can spam the same overpowered gun (cough Flak Cannon) without having to diversify your weaponry and tactics so much, and so on.

The Solution: I've left the lower difficulties alone for the most part. Very Hard difficulty and above have tighter resource distribution design. To elaborate, I'm not talking survival horror levels of tight. Think more Doom or Quake. In those games' higher difficulty modes it's always worth being a thorough explorer, managing pickups, fights are that much more intense even though the AI is more primitive than Unreal's. With Unreal Evolution, you'll experience Unreal's great gameplay thoroughly optimised.

Problem: Interior levels are much more detailed than exterior.

Making vast open organic 3D playspaces, especially back in 1998, is a challenge to detail. Unreal was one of the first to even try it. Interior levels were much more suited to 1998 game tech as game engines were not too competent with smooth, rounded surfaces and accurate physics collisions. Furthermore there is a simple common sense rule of the larger your level, the more time and attention it demands. Lastly good old Unreal Engine 1 not to mention typical game dev cycles has its limits...and its priorities. This problem is very obvious in Unreal and all other games of its time that tried it. Compare the level of detail in NyLeve to Terranuix if you'd like an example of exterior vs interior detail.

The Solution: I have the time and the willingness. I have the experience of adding subtle faithful details to an Unreal Engine 1 game with GMDX for Deus Ex. I have the design sense to do it right (again as with GMDX), and lastly I have OldUnreal's updated 227 engine which enables use of advanced graphical features. Don't expect it to look like a modern game or even a mid-2000s game, just expect GMDX all over again: the same levels, just with nice new subtle details that are often confused for vanilla. Interior levels also have new details, but exterior levels typically have more work done to attain a closer level of artistic consistency throughout the game.

Problem: The first third of the game is arguably not as engaging as the second or final

This is a problem with many games, and often turns players away. It comes with the nature in most cases: you only have a couple weapons in your arsenal to do battle with. You've only encountered a couple of enemy types. You're still learning the basic rules of the game. The developers in many cases made the early levels before they had mastered the tools they were working with (not sure if it applies to Unreal, but it's obvious with Deus Ex). And so on.

The Solution: there isn't one per se, as mentioned it is a problem with the nature of the game, but this mod should be a little more engaging from the offset through my conscious design attempts to enhance early game and the general overall quality and vision of the game. Nonetheless, the Sunspire and subsequent levels will still be some of the most memorable and engaging, and I recommend not giving up to would-be dropouts. I will list some enhancements made which should help:

-The Stinger (an early, unsatisfying weapon) is now a much more enjoyable weapon to use...as are all weapons, but it's especially notable with the Stinger.
-Enemy variety and behaviour is more diverse, including an entirely new enemy type introduced early on.
-Levels not only has subtly improved visuals, but you may also find the occasional new secret or challenge.
-The new weapon modification system makes weapons further enjoyable to use, adds fun choice, and makes exploration more rewarding (see above), as does tigher resource distribution.

That's it really. As usual, nothing majorly game changing. I always strive to be relatively faithful to the original vision.

Problem: Sparse Enemy/Encounter Variety

Unreal features a reasonable amount of enemy types and styles, and most of the combat is projectile and melee based. This is good. However, I believe its combat (on the enemy's side) falls a little short in two key ways: you typically only face one-three enemies at a time per encounter, lets say two on average (except late game which are mostly all Krall or Skaarj), and if there are multiple enemies they're usually of all the same class. This means you're fighting a group of enemies with all the same behaviour, where there's less variables you have to account for. On the plus side, Unreal's AI is pretty good, sort of (skaarj at least are notably above most other FPS of the time. Most other enemy types in the game aren't at all on that level however).

The solution: Improved AI behaviour, new enemy placements, and occasional encounters that include multiple enemy class types (monster in-fighting likelihood was added to prevent them all fighting eachother at the most immediate act of friendly fire). Unreal Evolution does not change the game into Doom wherein you fight hordes of varied enemies, especially early game, but it does inject a little variety here and there. This results in more variables you have to account for in combat, more ways in which a battle can turn out, and more challenge.(edited)
For purists, fear not. It's a subtle increase across the board. You will notice it but it won't feel out of place or wrong. It will feel right.

this was early concept stuff too. Since it's extended to things like the dodgy dodging and more.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Questions. This means you don't understand the design reasoning and you mock what you do not understand.

Rhetorical questions. This means you don't understand the reasoning behind my argument and you mock what you do not understand.

The weapon upgrades do a very important thing to address an important shortcoming of unreal's gameplay, and that is its unrewarding exploration (from a gameplay standpoint). Take NyLeve, that whole massive optional area down the bottom is very unnecessary to explore vanilla. Rewards of interest include armor and a flashlight. The game was overflowing with flashlights as-is, and armor is not particularly rewarding as the game wasn't challenging enough to justify it on vanilla's highest difficulty level. I could fix Unreal's exploration via other means, but that would probably mean something such as changing the levels entirely rather than being faithful to the original awesome design. Now there is simply one upgrade module added down there which makes the detour actually worthwhile. Furthermore a modding system (as implemented) introduces no notable downsides to Unreal anyways, rather it makes the game way more enjoyable in a multitude of ways; Now in addition to making thorough exploration worthwhile, it does things like make the Bio Rifle actually rather fun to use, results in fun personalisation of weapons, adds tough interesting choices to consider, and increases replayability substantially (this one is huge). About the only thing that can really said negatively of their presence is they sometimes don't make sense to be scattered around the world and tucked away in secret locations, yet the same can be said for all of Unreal's pickups so.
So you're an atmosphere enthusiast asking questions about which you don't understand, but design reasoning in how UE addresses Unreal's flaws was provided on page 1 already.

I don't disagree with most of what you say about the game's flaws, but your solutions miss the point. Poor level design? Let's just use that as an excuse to throw in some retardo modern game design shit like weapon upgrades. It's, liek, more stuff, so that means it's better. Altering a few maps to flow better is not ‘faithful’, but changing how all the mechanics work and adding entirely new systems on top of it is?

So you're a gameplay enthusiast making statements about which you don't understand, but you're also modding games that were never actually about ‘gameplay’ in the sense that you conceive it.

 

[Ash]

Let's just use that as an excuse to throw in some retardo modern game design shit like weapon upgrades.

Lol. Unreal itself already had weapon upgrades you complete clown. Also, play more games. You don't know what you're talking about, as usual.

Rhetorical questions.

And? That changes absolutely nothing. You obviously didn't understand why those features were added.

It's, liek, more stuff, so that means it's better.

Yes, that's totally my design reasoning.

Also how do you propose anyone alter NyLeve "for better map flow" revolving around the lower section without changing the map in a very substantial way? It's not possible. I did that with some RTNP maps because nobody cares for them and some were notably quite bad.
Lastly, I haven't "changed all the mechanics". You should really play the mod if you're going to attempt to discuss specifics.

You are incredibly stupid, it's not worth my time. Should have listened to Icewater.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Remember that part when you upgraded your dispersion pistol with +25% retardation? I don't. Guess I just gotta play more games!

 

[Morenatsu.]

Okay faggots, I played the whole mod now. Previously, I played up through part of Chizra on Hardcore before I dropped it. That's quite a bit more than just reading the changelog, you know (this was when the mod first released, also). This time, I played it on Unreal. So:

Fun fact about those optional areas in certain maps: The game was originally hub-based, and all those hubs were made by Eekels, who made all the maps with said optional areas. I always thought, ‘oh, maybe Nyleve could have an elevator or something that goes back to the start’ and ‘maybe the well in Harobed could be an alternate path instead of a dead end’, but what a fool I was. Clearly the answer was teh upgradez.

Said upgrades are a pointless addition. You had to cripple some of the weapons in order to justify it, and even then most of the upgrades are for boring, imperceptible shit like recoil. The only upgrades that had any use were for fire-rate, which I either needed to uncripple said weapons or used to make them kind of silly. Wow, look at my super-duper extra fast Stinger, it's now uselessly overpowered. It's amusing, I suppose, but it's not anything the game ever needed. Most of it just doesn't make an interesting difference.

How many of those 50-enemy trap rooms are there really? Well, there's Dasa Cellars, and... not a lot. There's nothing atmosphere-spoiling about the occasional dungeon trap. Meanwhile in your mod, in addition to adding its own traps, most encounters have two or three times as many enemies, including types that weren't even there before. So you say that all those enemies destroy what little atmosphere the game has, but you added most of them yourself. Hm.

The part where all the Slith came out of the temple entrance is rather comical. It even happens on easy! In fact, there are still lots of new enemies that appear on any difficulty. That means you were lying to me before, or at least being very misleading. Which is called lying. And why is the Skaarj Mothership full of Krall and Gasbags and whatever the hell else? You just couldn't help yourself, could you. By the way, nice new enemies, bro, I totally love those shitty UPak spiders and red Gasbags. Really adds a lot to the game. I especially loved the part where you added a brand-new pitch-black spider maze near the end, which was made entirely of right angles and looked like some retard's first map. I couldn't even see anything the whole time, because you deleted all the flashlights. Very inclined.

Speaking of power-ups, what happened to the amplifiers? Am I imagining things, or are there less of them? I guess it depends on difficulty? Perhaps they are all in secrets a total newb me wouldn't understand, right. Well, I just wanted to see if the dispersion pistol was still overpowered. You did fix that, so at least that's good. Still, I'd have thought the increased difficulty would make items like that even more important, but it can't if they just don't exist. Of course, no items is even harder, but...

Why the hell did you replace the music in one of the mothership levels with something that isn't even part of the soundtrack? You also changed the music for the boss fight at the generator. I guess the Warlord Theme isn't the Warlord's theme anymore according to you. Can you hear it? It's the sound of ruined atmosphere, the sound of modding! Trolololololo

What is that awful stone wall texture in Sky Town? That wasn't there before. I also enjoyed the cloud effects around the Sunspire that don't work without multi-texturing. The interior has some new funny-looking textures for the navigationally impaired, too. Decline!!

Very cool Queen boss fight. I jumped around and avoided all of those fancy new attacks like it didn't even matter. By the way, I played the entire game without dodging. Not even once. You think I'm lying, but it's true!

So I've just wasted my time playing a mod with bloated encounters and otherwise only a bunch of silly crap. Who would have thought.

tl;dr: lrn2read pley moar gaemz lmao

 

[Ash]

Cool story bro. You're retarded but at least you went and played the mod this time (or watched a YT playthrough). Nice job with the fake news. There's not "two or three times as many enemies", not even close, weapons aren't "gimped to justify the ugrades". It's actually the opposite: all weapons have (minor) buffs in various ways. There's actually one or two more amplifiers than vanilla. You're being completely disingenious about the "pointless upgrades". There were gasbags in the mothership vanilla. You're accurate about additional subtle signposting to help with navigation in some cases. This is a good thing, not a bad thing you dumbass...eh whatever. It was a pleasure to have "wasted your time", and have fun "wasting your time" with the RTNP expansion pack which I'm sure you'll want to play next. The best you could do is make up hyperbole and complain about a goddamn texture change?