I've played trough almost an entire random episode and a bit of the original episodes. The upgrades are great, but I do have some complaints about the gameplay:
-First of all, you take away all the weapons and items from the player once he has finished one of the random missions. I understand why you decided to do that, but IMO it kills the sense of achievement and later on the gameplay becomes troublesome because of it. Since some of the levels don't instantly give you a shotgun or something stronger, you have to defeat uberhard enemies with just your pistol (yes, it's enhanced, but it's still frustratingly difficult). I also was short on ammo constantly because of this.
-The evil dukebot is fucking hard to beat, he's tougher then the minibosses. I think you made him a bit too powerfull, or at least made him appear too often.
-The last map was I played MRCK-spiegul, by now everything was upgraded to high levels. Again, the beginning was too difficult with just a pistol, so I used 'dnweapons' to get my weaponry back.
Anyway, this level is pretty cramped, and it's clearly not meant for this type of over-the-top gameplay. Everywhere there are superstrong enemies in confined spaces. The nukes somewhat remedy this, but at one point I entered a narrow corridor and a turret was firing deadly rockets at me at an insane firerate. I got killed instantly every time, as there was no room to duck or manouver. This is were I quit the game, it just became too frustrating for me.
My point is - while the random maps are a good idea, make sure that the last maps are suitable for insane and over-the-top battles.
Sorry if I come off as harsh. I think the idea is very good, but it still lacks polish and finetuning. I hope my feedback helps.
I also played some of the original episode, I'm at level 4 now: they are more fun and easier to play, maybe because I know those levels by heart. But it's a lot of fun so far.
Thank you. Your feedback is useful, and it is the reason I released a beta version to the public -- I was hoping there would be some critical feedback from people who didn't want to commit to being beta testers.
I am writing this from a hotel room and I can't do anything with the mod for a few more days, but here are my thoughts...
First, the turrets should definitely never have rapid fire rockets. They can be rapid, or fire rockets, but both at the same time is bad. It is a combination I had meant to prohibit but forgot to, and for some reason it never came up when I was playing.
I'm actually heartened that the map you gave up on was mrck_spiegul, because I think it might be the hardest map in the whole collection (although iirc maia.map and a few others are close runners up). It is very hard even in vanilla Duke. In fact, I remember getting frustrated in exactly the same part of the map with regular Duke, because I entered the room without much health and there were several of the damn turrets shooting lasers at me. With MRCK's permission I would delete a few of those turrets, because imo they are too difficult to deal with (and will continue to be nasty even if I fix the rapid rocket issue).
On the other hand, the only difficulty I have played the map on is Come Get Some, so maybe that's not a fair criticism (are all the turrets there on easier difficulties?) For that matter, maybe you should try the mod on easier difficulties before concluding it is too hard. The player takes less damage on easier difficulties.
The last few times I have played random mission episodes I have been able to finish all the missions on CGS without many deaths. I don't want to make the mistake I have made in the past with DNWMD and WGR2 of watering down the difficulty due to some complaints and then ending up with something that doesn't have as much replay value for me because it is too easy. This particular mod is being made to my specific tastes. That's not to say that I don't value feedback about difficulty, but I'm going to be very cautious about toning it down because it's very fun for me now and I don't want to ruin it.
In the random missions, the beginning of the level is often quite dangerous because the player starts without weapons. But the player has some advantages to help compensate for this. First, you have one death rage per level, which gets used automatically the first time you are about to die. For me, that's usually sufficient to get though "hard starts". There is also the karate kicks, which are a big part of this mod. If you aren't making good use of them when low on ammo then the mod will be a lot harder. Finally, you do get to carry over most of your inventory from the previous level (nukes, medkit, etc) which can be a big help. By the way, I coded the nukes so that they cannot blow up cracks, so allowing the player to start with those is in keeping with the principle that the player should have to progress as the mapper intended. Despite all of that, I concede there might be times when, due to the randomized nature of encounters, you are confronted with a situation that is unfair and perhaps unwinnable. I want to minimize that, but due to the nature of the mod and my desire to keep it challenging for me, I can't promise to eliminate it entirely.
I will look into making the Dukebots come in many varying difficulties. Right now, the only thing that changes about them as you progress is their selection of weapons, and after several levels they have the best weapons. Perhaps I can make them start slower and weaker.
One thing to keep in mind about the random missions is that Attrition is not coded for any particular set of maps. A totally different set of maps can be substituted and it will work exactly the same. That's why I have my code try to detect appropriate weather rather than code weather for certain level numbers. And that's why I will not makes rules about which maps can come up at which points in the game.
