Serious Sam 4 ideas ?

[Poorchop]

Isn't enemies quickly and spontaneously spawning in part of the story though? Mental teleports them in. Also cheap combat scenarios where enemies teleport in without warning is a staple of the series. Sometimes picking up some health, armor, or ammo comes with dangerous consequences as a kleer teleports right behind you.

[PikaCommando]

I feel that Kleers should lunge high enough that the player can just crouch to dodge it. Such a thing may make them easier to handle (although crouching, which reduces your speed, may not be a good idea when there's more than one) but would also give the game a whole new layer of skill.

Crouching and jumping as mechanics aren't used that often in SS. Jumping usually's reserved for jump pads, and now that the series is going into a more realistic and VR-friendly direction, I'm not particularly optimistic about these mechanics being prioritized by Croteam more.

[Discy]

To me preventing cheap spawns (Kamis or Kleers in the face of a player, a red Biomech in a confined space, enemies that can 1H you way too close) is the responsibility of the level designer. Anything beyond that is part of the arcade shooter genre, including learning the enemy spawning location and behavior.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Yeah, this is how I deal with SS3 witch bride.

[Artman40]

That "show the appearing enemy" spawn could have been useful at several points in games. For an example, at the end of Karnak where up to several adult arachnoids spawn without warning while you are in an open arena.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Yeah, and every time when the game spawns a hit-scan enemy (which must be reduced to minimum and only weak ones), your weapons became hit-scan+homing.

Howbow dah?

[Discy]

Originally Posted by Artman40

That "show the appearing enemy" spawn could have been useful at several points in games. For an example, at the end of Karnak where up to several adult arachnoids spawn without warning while you are in an open arena.

That's what quicksave is for. And your memory. You might as well put a giant warning sign everywhere a hitscan enemy might spawn.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Am I the only one who finds the "nightmare" difficulty in DooM entertaining?

[Dave3d]

Heh, I got ya'll talkin about it at least.

[Buzzy]

if on Doom 2 nightmare mode is entertaining, yes, though not when enemies like cyberdemons start re spawning it's a pain...

[Skorly]

Originally Posted by Buzzy

if on Doom 2 nightmare mode is entertaining, yes, though not when enemies like cyberdemons start re spawning it's a pain...

My problem with nightmare is that pretty much the only strategy you have is to speedrun the levels and that is just not the way I like to play Doom :/

[Poorchop]

Originally Posted by Skorly

My problem with nightmare is that pretty much the only strategy you have is to speedrun the levels and that is just not the way I like to play Doom :/

Sounds like a nightmare.

[Discy]

Get out.

[Buzzy]

I can only speed-run one of the levels, like Entryway and a few others like Icon of Sin - the rest of the levels take me a while to do, especially on nightmare when it involves going back and forth and them respawning (like I did before). Though I did speed-run the Gantlet (but it didn't really count as the engine allowed me to Jump and duck and all that I'm so use to jumping (when using GZDoom or ZDoom)... Haven't played it much in the actual classic version with no mouse look, etc..

[Artman40]

Does the game's editor have an area trigger that detects how many enemies are within the trigger zone. If I want to make a battle with lots of enemies, it would be simpler if at some point of the battle, the trigger will activate with the condition "activate with 0 enemies remaining" or "activate with enemies worth of <100FC remaining". FC-related triggers might seem useful as they simplify various level triggers.

[Discy]

I believe it should be possible to detect the amount of "active" enemies using lua.

[Gnaarwarian]

Could you imagined to play Untextured Levels?

Could this abstract kind of style works inside SS?

[Artman40]

Let's look at floater again...

Aside from things I mentioned before how floaters could be used for before.



...notice that floater has arms.

Those arms could be put to use by carrying enemies (sort of like harpies could carry kamikazes). One floater could carry a human-sized enemy or smaller. Multiple floaters could carry larger enemies.

Also, potentially, mapmaker could also choose whether floater lets the enemy go when reaching at certain distance from player (good for melee enemies) or carries it until death (useful for ranged enemies).

You could also potentially make floaters carry bombs or crates or whatever.

Edit: Whoops! Wrong thread.

[Artman40]

You know how in some enemies (Such as major biomechanoids in City of the Gods) are launched over the wall or fence. Currently, it requires a bouncy surface to be where spawner is or where enemies have to go.

Could this be simplified if we'd add enemy spawner an option to launch enemies at desired direction?

[PikaCommando]

You can launch enemies in a direction with the EnemySpawner alone in SE2+

[Buzzy]

Well I know on the level (Elephant Atrium) with the Kleers, they do have bouncers propelling them across and launching them across the fence so yes it is paired with the bouncer, though the kleer enemies are also part of a secret (second room on Elephant Atrium) or something. But that is an example of enemies being propelled via bouncers. Other than that, I have no idea. But I haven't tried parenting an enemy spawner to something like a moving brush for it to work or something but I'm not sure.
But as for specific direction it would be specified in the bouncer.

[Serious Sam(BG)]

I did it. It works, parenting it to a moving brush allows you to make all-side spawn with just one spawner. Attach a spawner to a moving brush and put the brush in circle arround the arena.

Or - make a moving brush in the background, put it to rotate arround itself and parent the background viewer to the brush - rotating background with no markers and mirrors used.

It works for classic/revolution only. I'm not sure does it work in ss2/HD/3...

***
Wait, do you want to tell me that there is way to open the forever locked door in Elephant Atrium?

[PikaCommando]

Originally Posted by Serious Sam(BG)

***
Wait, do you want to tell me that there is way to open the forever locked door in Elephant Atrium?

Sure

[Discy]

Actually no, you can't open the forever locked door in The Elephant Atrium without cheats.

[Artman40]

You know, it could be interesting if there was some kind of collectible (equivalent to green stars in Super Mario 3D World or whatever the 100% collectible is in recent main Kirby games) that gets you a different ending if you collect enough of them.

But rather than these things being located in secret locations, they could be placed or spawned under following conditions:

1. Are located in an optional branch off from the main path. For an example, in Oasis in the First Encounter, an example would be small dead-end path after the room with a grenade launcher or perhaps at the end of some dead end paths in Tomb of Ramses III.

2. Triggered by collecting obvious trap pills and armor shards (and then completing the small battle after that). Examples would include that pill in Dunes that spawns a kamikaze wave or perhaps that pill/armor shard combo before marsh hopper room in Oasis.

3. Spawned after completing some sort of challenge related to main battles. The completion item would spawn after the challenge is complete. Examples would include "stand your ground" type challenges. Such challenges would include staying at the center part of the arena during the large battle or during corridor battle, not retreating from your current position. Other challenges would include triggering multiple waves within the short time period.

Those challenges would prove more difficult to implement in co-op. Perhaps only one person would have to adhere the conditions of the challenge then. Also, how to make challenge obvious without explicitly telling the player what to do?

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Originally Posted by Discy

Actually no, you can't open the forever locked door in The Elephant Atrium without cheats.

Yeah, long time ago, back in 2002, when I played for first time SE, I used cheats to open it and now I'm wondering - why CT connected it with moving brushes and markers if they don't mind to use it...?

[PikaCommando]

Originally Posted by Serious Sam(BG)

Yeah, long time ago, back in 2002, when I played for first time SE, I used cheats to open it and now I'm wondering - why CT connected it with moving brushes and markers if they don't mind to use it...?

Maybe it's a leftover from the beta Lake&Alley

[Serious Sam(BG)]

Can you give me more info?

[Artman40]

On the other hand, story of Serious Sam 4 is a foregone conclusion.

[PikaCommando]

Originally Posted by Serious Sam(BG)

Can you give me more info?

Legends has it that since Tower of Babylon and Land of Damned were converted from beta TFE levels (Temple of Thoth [a reworked Grand Obelisk from Sam2000] and Terrain&LavaCaves, respectively). These two levels take place between Metropolis and Alley of the Sphinxes), it is quite probable that either or both Elephant Atrium and Courtyards of Gilgamesh were converted from the beta TFE version (not to confused with Sam2000, which is the alpha) of Lake&Alley.