Attrition

[Dan G]

Duke Nukem:  Attrition is a mod that I started last week.  In this mod, Duke's weapons upgrade as he gains experience with them.  As his score increases, monsters become more powerful to compensate.  It is a sequel to DNWMD, but with more refined gameplay and without the crazy stuff like dimension-X goggles that DNWMD had.

I plan to include about 100 user maps with Attrition (and eventually even more).  When you play an episode, maps will be picked in a quasi-random order.  This is what I could use some help with right now.  I need suggestions for which maps to include.  I am looking for action oriented maps that have good gameplay.  No custom art or cons -- they must be vanilla maps.  Also, no maps that are really confusing or with difficult puzzles.  I have quite a few good maps for this purpose already, but I could use more suggestions.  It's fine if the map has a boss ending, by the way.  I will code it so that bosses simply end the level instead of ending the whole game.



The red bar in the lower right corner is the weapon's XP bar.  The little 0 on the left of the bar means the weapon is level 0.  The bar fills up as you kill enemies with the weapon.  When the weapon upgrades, a text box pops up telling you what is different about the weapon and the XP bar resets.

So far I have five upgrades for each of the 12 weapons.

[Henri K]

Great idea to add RPG elements to Duke.  I would like to play Red Rock with this mod (made by Suppressor). 

Also you could add more goals to the game, like after you have upgraded every single weapon to it´s maxinum level, there could be extra levels open after that.  You could also include some maps never seen before (brand new maps). It could be very interesting. 

I could create some maps for this mod, if it´s possible in the future or if I could have enough time for that. 

[Mikko_Sandt]

I'm sure MSSP8 would fit right in, a vanilla city map.

[ck3D]

I will take the time to make other suggestions later on, but just like Razorz I would be down to make a specific map for this mod as well.

You can pick any of the maps I've made in the past too, if you wish, I don't mind.

[Mikko_Sandt]

If people are going to build usermaps, they should have their own episode so that they don't get lost in the middle of those 100 or so maps.

[Dan G]

As I said at duke4.net:

I didn't sufficiently explain my motivation in the OP.  The other day I was looking at some reviews on MSDN, and one review was of a map pack that some guy had released last year that contained tons of new vanilla maps, most of which were pretty decent.  How many people have played those maps?  Not many.  The vast majority of vanilla maps, even the ones that a lot of people did play back in the day, are now just sitting around unappreciated.  I'm not just talking about the masterpieces, nor about the shit maps, but about the hundreds of perfectly ordinary and fun Duke maps that are the bread and butter of Duke 3D's post 1996 existence.  Attrition would be made for those maps.  Those maps are like a cupboard full of white bread, and Attrition would be like a spread that you put on the bread to make it better eating.  That's an imperfect analogy, though, because while every slice of white bread is pretty much the same, those maps are all different.  The point is that they help provide almost limitless replay value to the mod.  My hope is that I could include about 500 maps, and there would be some way to automatically generate a new episode by quasi-randomly selecting some of them when starting a new game (this would require some new EDuke32 features, I think, but nothing too outlandish).

[Forge]

Ale's maps and the Red series might work well with this.

[Henri K]

Good idea, but they aren´t very vanilla stylished maps, Ale´s maps are hi-tech and maps in Red serie are "artistic" as the Merljin said.

[Dan G]

Good idea, but they aren´t very vanilla stylished maps, Ale´s maps are hi-tech and maps in Red serie are "artistic" as the Merljin said.

That's ok, they don't need to be in the 3DR visual style.

[Henri K]

Oh, I think I misunderstood.  But take a look at this:

...-- they must be vanilla maps...

So is this order or just suggestion? 

And, about your mod. You could try to put maps into some kind of order so they go like seamlessly together with storyline. You could also make sure the storyline is quite interesting, too, so there´s also extra feeling in it.

[Dan G]

Oh, I think I misunderstood.  But take a look at this:

...-- they must be vanilla maps...

So is this order or just suggestion? 

And, about your mod. You could try to put maps into some kind of order so they go like seamlessly together with storyline. You could also make sure the storyline is quite interesting, too, so there´s also extra feeling in it.

This mod is only for maps that have no custom art or code.  That's the whole point of the mod, in fact:  to provide a spiced up experience for vanilla maps.  Each map is a different mission.  So at the beginning of the first level, it will say "MISSION 1:  MAPNAME" and so on until mission XX.   The player's weapons and ammo will be taken away at the end of every map so as not to screw up the maps (I don't want the player blowing up cracks with the RPG from the last level).   But the player gets to keep his inventory, and any upgrades he has (such as increased max health, weapon proficiencies, etc.)

I might do it like this:  pick 10 maps from the folder at random, in a random order, and after the ten maps there is a final mission which is a boss battle (that one is the same every game), then the game ends.  The only reason to put them in an "episode" at all is so that the player and monsters can upgrade from level to level.  Oh, and there is a 50% chance of each map being mirrored (that feature is already in).

[MetHy]

And obviously you're asking every mapper their authorization, right ?

That screenshot in the first post is the best example. Back Alley was a map made to look, play, feel, sound like a typical 3D-R map. As it is: the map is close to perfection on every point (some argue that it is too short but I disagree, this is how 3D-R style maps are supposed to be, it feels like a map from ep1 or 3).
Now adding all your things from your mod into this map is not what the mapper intended at all, and is most likely going to ruin that "perfection" I was talking about, gameplay-wise.

As long as the mapper in their .txt claim that "bla bla bla you shouldn't use this map as a base bla bla bla" then you shouldn't use those maps in your mod.

[Dan G]

And obviously you're asking every mapper their authorization, right ?

User maps can be freely distributed.  I don't need anyone's permission.  I will include the readme files, of course.

That screenshot in the first post is the best example. Back Alley was a map made to look, play, feel, sound like a typical 3D-R map. As it is: the map is close to perfection on every point (some argue that it is too short but I disagree, this is how 3D-R style maps are supposed to be, it feels like a map from ep1 or 3).
Now adding all your things from your mod into this map is not what the mapper intended at all, and is most likely going to ruin that "perfection" I was talking about, gameplay-wise.

And anyone can play the map the way it was originally intended, any time they want.  I'm not stopping them.

As long as the mapper in their .txt claim that "bla bla bla you shouldn't use this map as a base bla bla bla" then you shouldn't use those maps in your mod.

That's irrelevant because I am not using anyone's map as a base to build anything.  I am not modifying the maps at all.  I am simply including some maps that in my opinion go well with the mod.

It's sad that you have come to this.  I remember a few years ago you played my DNWMD mod and enjoyed it a lot.  Now you seem very uptight.  By the way, this mod (so far) does not change the original gameplay as much as you seem to think it will.

[Forge]

I like the concept of this mod...but...If the aliens get stronger at the same rate as the weapons get more powerful, are you really changing anything?

Oh, and there is a 50% chance of each map being mirrored (that feature is already in).

This is pretty cool.

[Dan G]

I like the concept of this mod...but...If the aliens get stronger at the same rate as the weapons get more powerful, are you really changing anything?

Every game that involves the player leveling up in some way has a version of that problem.  It's a game design challenge.  Psychologically, the player feels like he's progressing and getting more powerful.  This is reinforced by the fact that even late in the game you will still encounter many "vanilla" monsters who have not changed at all, and when you blow them away with ease it indicates how far you have come.  But there will also be an increasing number of elite monsters.  These aren't simply stronger than regular ones, they have new abilities that force you to try different tactics.  For example, some of the monsters will have energy shields in front of them that they lower only when firing on you.