Read this BEFORE voting.

In this, the second of my polls, I would like to address reduced ammo types.

In Phase II beta 3, I took some Heretic ammo pickups and used them to create new ammo pickups with different amounts than the ones normally seen in the game. For example, in addition to the 20 shot phase zorch and the 100 shot phase zorch pack, the Heretic ammo pickups allowed me to add a 10 shot phase zorch pickup, and a 25 shot phase zorch pack. (The amounts given by the new pickups was determined by the amount of ammo given in Heretic.)

This was part of my strategy for making the game more difficult on higher skill levels without resorting to the usual method of adding more monsters. In this case, the idea is to increase the difficulty of the game by reducing the amount of ammunition available to the player. i.e. If the player has a 100 cell phase zorch pack in a certain room on "Easy does it" / "Not so sticky", then on "Extreme Ooze" there should only be a 50 cell phase zorch pack (or in the actual case, due to the use of Heretic ammo, two 25 packs) in that, thereby making the level more difficult by forcing the player not to waste his shots.

I personally believe this is a good strategy, but I would like to find out your opinion.

What do you think?

NOTE: I will be leaving this poll up for one week. On December 8, 2007 it will be locked.

Before I cast my future-changing vote, I would like to understand one thing. First, a Phasing Zorcher pack is 100 ammo on Not So Sticky, and a Phasing Zorcher recharge is 20 ammo on Not So Sticky. Does what you propose make the Phasing Zorcher pack worth something different on different difficulty levels, or what?

I vote yes.

It would be kind of interesting if you did this only for certain weapons, which would force the player to use weaker weapons perhaps such as the mini zorcher. The phaser does chew through ammo very quickly but it is very powerful as is the propulsor and the LAZ

Here is why:

The original version of Chex Quest Did not have skill levels. There was an error in the way Digital Café created their levels.

"Not so Sticky", "Gobs of Goo" and "Extreme Ooze", believe it or not, are exactly the same. "Easy Does It" and "Super Slimey" are different, but only because DooM is hard coded to double the amount of ammo received from pickups, and the monsters are hard coded to speed up and shoot more often in "Nightmare" mode (Super Slimey). Otherwise, everything is still the same.

Normally DooM levels are made to vary in difficulty by increasing the number of monsters on the map. For example, on skill levels 1 and 2, a particular room will have just one monster in it, on skill level 3, the first monster will appear plus a second monster, and skill levels 4 and 5, the first and second monsters appear, and a third one is added.

That is the way it is normally done.

Digital Café did not do this when they created the levels for Chex Quest. The same flemoids appear in the same places on each and every skill level. There are no variations between skill levels at all. With the exceptions of giving the player more ammo on skill level 1 and making the monsters faster on skill level 5 and making them respawn, the game relies entirely on the maps to determine the difficulty, and the Chex Quest maps stay exactly the same on all skill levels. As a result, Chex Quest has no skill levels. Skills 2, 3, and 4 are identical.

For T.U.C.Q., I decided that skill levels need to be implemented. I was not pleased with the idea of simply increasing the numbers of monsters however.

There are two ways of increasing difficulty that do not involve adding more monsters.

The first one is to replace the easy monsters with tougher versions on higher skill levels. The monsters appear the same, but are slightly faster, and take more hits on average to kill. This is something I implemented in Phase II beta 2 and Phase II beta 3.

Now the original versions of the maps have an extremely excessive amount of ammunition available on them. In fact, by the end of E1M2, just the second level of the game, the player will likely have the back pack, a full inventory of ammo and all of the weapons available in the game, including the most powerful one, the LAZ device. There is so much ammo that the player can probably win by simply turning in a circle with the fire button pressed, without even bothering to aim at all!

So this is another area where the game can be made more challenging on higher difficulty levels. Whereas it is possible to run around firing recklessly on lower skill levels, having less ammunition on higher skill levels will force the player to aim carefully before he shoots, and to use short bursts in order to conserve ammo. This of course requires the player to use more skill, which is the whole point of having skill levels.


That's why. I believe I already implemented this on Phase II beta 3. Try playing any level in episode I using the different skill levels and see what I mean.

That didn't really answer my question (I never asked "why), but I'll vote yes with what understanding I DO have on the situation, and from what you posted.

Sorry. I will attempt to answer your question a little better.

Essentially, the answer is "Yes". If there is a zorch pack (i.e. phasing) with 100 shots in a room on "Easy Does It" / "Not So Sticky" then that 100 shot pack will be replaced with a smaller pack with 50 shots on "Extreme Ooze" / "Super Slimey".

The 50 shot pack would have to be created with the DECORATE lump. It would then be implemented in each map by setting the existing 100 shot pack to appear only on skill levels 1 and 2, then adding the new pack, and telling it to appear only on skills 4 and 5.

Boingo, you haven't messed up the Chex Quest tradition yet. Just keep going with the flow of your mind.

BUT, I do think some more numbers of ammo would be good. But in the higher levels, I am leaning toward less ammo, more challange.

I vote the last one, even though it's probably not entirely true.