It's often said by my critics that all I do here is talk about how my mods are better than everyone else's... despite the fact that none of those critics has yet been able to point to where I've actually made such a claim and despite the fact that I present to my readers for the sake of comparison the mods of my competitors, like Aeons of Death. It has also recently been said that people would rather play Doom with Scalliano's 667 Shuffle than with my Doom Upgrade. Thus I present a look or two at Scalliano's 667 Shuffle so that you all can make your own choices without any coercion from me.
I found some free time this weekend, so I played some ultra-violent Doom 2 maps with both Scalliano's 667 Shuffle and the Anniversary Edition of your Upgrade.
ReplyDeleteHere is a direct comparison, along with more (hopefully constructive) criticism on your mod.
Note, this little review is based on the stuff that randomly showed up while playing the first few stock maps. But beware, my opinion might be imba because I played the Upgrade for many many hours and the Shuffle for just a few.
Shuffle pros:
-Challenging, I even died a few times (some people think that's a contra, but it's not)
-Many monster variants that like to fight each other
-some very cool new weapons
Shuffle cons:
-Too many weapons! Honestly, who needs all this stuff? There are like 6 different guns of each type which is way too much, it's quite annoying to hit weapon hotkeys all day. There are some really useless weapons like mines, I can't imagine how it's fun to lure stupid monsters into mine carpets. And some of the guns sound really awful. Scalliano could remove half of the weapons and it wouldn't hurt the mod at all.
-Not really a contra, but there was too much ammo (maybe cause there are too many guns? o_O)
-Maximum armor/health doesn't seem to have changed from vanilla, it's still 200 and that might be a bit low given the increased difficulty of monsters and bosses. Armor and health melt away pretty fast with certain monsters around.
Upgrade pros:
-Challenging, although not as much as Shuffle, since I know your mod's guns and monsters very well by now
-Only 2 or 3 variants of each weapon type, no useless weapons.
-Ammo distribution feels balanced to ammo consumption
-Increased Armor/health maximum to 300, to counter the stronger monsters
-Some very cool new weapons (the flamethrower is a nice addition, it was one of my favorites from ÆoD)
Upgrade cons:
-Only one melee weapon (unless you get beserk power). Hmm, maybe you really should make the double chainsaw consume plasma ammo, and add a weaker chainsaw or melee weapon that doesn't consume ammo, that would be nice...
-The chainsaw zombie should be faster or silent while idling, he's no threat at all. You can hear him miles away as he burns gas like there never was an oil crisis on Phobos.
-The new Satyr showed up a few times, but didn't feel like a threat. It could be faster or stronger (or both), but then again it's probably a worthy enemy when you're cornered.
Conclusion:
Shuffle felt a bit imbalanced at first, because there were powerful monsters early on, and I rarely got over 100 health until the first soulsphere. I died a few times, probably because I didn't know what to expect from the different monsters. Guess it's only a matter of time until I know how to deal with them properly. And I think I won't need 50 different guns for that.
While playing the same maps with the Upgrade, I never died and finished each map with over 100 health/armor, probably because I played it so often that I can easily survive.
Shuffle seems to have more monster variants, which is totally OK, maybe just a bit imba in the beginning when you got only a puny pistol and there are dozens of strong zombies around (Again, that's not much of a problem cause I like the challenge).
Shuffle definitely has more weapons, and that's just a waste of space. I don't need more than two or three balanced variants of each type, and your mod does that quite well.
So yeah, sometimes less is more. Your Upgrade wins the direct comparison, congratulations! xD
Sometimes it seems like there's a fine line between challenging and imbalanced. I think both mods are more on the challenging side. I'm sure about the Upgrade, but I'm gonna find out about Shuffle. Won't gonna give it up so soon, there are some cool guns and monsters that your mod does not have, I guess that's enough of a reason to play on.
Nuff said, feels like writing this took longer than actually playing...
WOW!
DeleteIf you've at all been following my DoomWorld adventures with my little mod you'll understand why I'm so amazed that someone took the time to compare these two mods and offer intelligent feedback rather than slinging profane insults at me. Sincerely, thank you very much for this.
Since a lot of the same monsters and weapons are used in each mod, it's in that regard difficult to make such a thing feel unique rather than an emulation of another randomizer; I had never played the 667Shuffle when I made the first draft of my mod, so hopefully that lent to anything about mine that sets it apart from others.
You mentioned that you were playing this weekend, so I think you might want to check an addendum I made at the end of my blog post concerning the Anniversary Edition of the Upgrade; you might not have the latest version. Though the last-minute changes that were made were not drastic they were still necessary; hopefully I won't be making any other alterations to it in the near future.
Again, thank you sincerely for taking the time to play and provide feedback. Hopefully it will set an example for others.