#1 2021-08-24 16:55:00

Spawn-B-Gone
Guest

Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Spawn-B-Gone

Hey everyone! Figured with the new remaster release, it was as good a time as any for me to officially put up this little script I've had for a year or so now.

Spawn-B-Gone will remove selected enemy types from maps/levels for Quake, and should also work for any fan made maps or mods such as Arcane Dimensions, Quoth, etc. (While not tested, it could potentially work for Quake 1 engined based games such as Hexen II for example.)

I made it because I suck at video games. The original goal was to create something that would allow me to remove Spawn enemies from any Quake maps. They are by far Quake's worst enemy type (IMO). I didn't want to have to manually determine which map featured them, open said map, edit it, and save each file in a map editor, so I tried to find a code solution that could somewhat automate the process.

In the readme, I mention it being for the computer release, but if you have access to the .pak files for your device, it should work for that, as long as you can replace them.

Let me know if you have any questions. If you have any suggestions for improvements, let me know, or feel free to open a PR!

#2 2021-08-25 04:20:13

I Like Quake
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Cool poster! I, personally, though, love Spawns and wish there were more of them on custom maps.

There's this mod that I love, DMSP, that turns any DM map into an SP map by having monsters teleport all around, but it excludes from its repertoire the Vore, the Shambler, and, most importantly, the Spawn, and I feel that that takes away from it.

Last edited by I Like Quake (2021-08-25 05:03:36)

#3 2021-08-25 05:10:30

triple_agent
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Aye, very interesting looking program, giving a display of impressive, no-bullshit approach to solve the problem.

For the spawns - personally, I belong to a cohort that is rather unfond of these and furthermore - just in my opinion - the spawns, break the combat momentum in 'Quake', which otherwise, should have certain rhythm to it.

Much has been written about why the spawns, to some players at least, make for a gameplay breaking factor. Unfortunately, such as you have written on the project 'GitHub' website, arbitrarily removing elements from maps, may cause technical errors or deprive certain moments or scenarios, of their proper meaning. Therefore, perhaps it would be easier to simply bind a key to a god-mode, just in case?

EDIT:

For the poster, it is great - there was a weapon like that spraycan, in 'Blood', as far as I remember?

Last edited by triple_agent (2021-08-25 05:50:28)

#4 2021-08-25 07:17:58

Cocerello
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Hilarious and well done poster but if you did this because your skill level is not enough, why not play on skill 0 or 1? It will be more to your alley and spawns and shamblers are very rarely seen there, save for speedmaps.

Also, apart from what you wrote,  i do not know how you handled the riddance of spawns, but most probably your mod will break several custom maps and maybe official ones and make then unplayable, as those spawns are used by the mapper for progression or other situations, and its very hard to know beforehand if not asking the mapper himself, if he/she remembers.
In the case of other enemies, that usage is a lot more common, so expect that maps won't work at some point on a regular basis if using it for other enemies.

It could maybe work in most cases if you changed the enemies with another, harmless, killable, and with a similar AI to Quake enemies, enemy. Do not use a rabbit for that as it will confuse many players :D
I still can think of some custom maps were that won't work, but the number of unplayable maps would decrease a lot.

To summarize, is a good tool to fool around with some maps and see what happens.

Last edited by Cocerello (2021-08-25 07:36:42)

#5 2021-08-25 16:39:08

triple_agent
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Most of all, I think the tool in question, is a manifest, telling mappers to just stop making bad decisions in the direction given.

#6 2021-08-25 18:50:39

Spawn-B-Gone
Guest

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

@I Like Quake - Thanks, and that's totally fair. They're not my thing, but if someone likes them, then they can skip the use of this script. :)

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@triple_agent - Nice to see someone else that shares a similar opinion about them being a momentum breaker, and not just saying "get good". But I can respect people liking them, it's just not for me. Regarding map breaking issues, someone on celephais.net suggested custom .dat files, but that would apparently only work for maps I had the original sources for? I did update my repos readme yesterday with some more information on when it could potentially break maps. Worst case, someone can just revert to the backup and suffer through any enemies they don't like.

Regarding the poster, I think I one-hit kills spray can weapon would be a wonderful mod. ? Blood had an aerosol can and lighter weapon if I remember correctly.

Regarding "a manifest, telling mappers to just stop making bad decisions in the direction given.", I'm not really suggesting anyone change their plans for their maps. If they want to make a map consisting solely of Spawns, so be it. I would just never want to play that map haha! If someone could come up with a spawn looking enemy that was fun to fight (IMO), or a new weapon with a much wider blast radius (but maybe short distance) to more easily attack them when they're jumping all over the screen, I would be all for it.

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@Cocerello Thanks regarding the poster. For difficulty levels, I enjoy playing it as is, just without spawns when I can. Every other enemy (from the base game at least, maybe not some fan made enemy types) seems nicely balanced and has a bit of a pattern to them. (Hitscan soldiers, melee/projectile death knights, Shambler dance, tight turns with Vore projectiles, etc.) It just seems like the Spawn enemies had no thought put into them other then "Hop around erratically", which doesn't seem like it adds much to the combat experience. Again, that's just my opinion, and I'm aware a lot of people like them. This script is only intended for personal use, so people that don't like certain enemies can remove them if they want. If people like all of the enemy types, they can just skip it!

Regarding map breaking, please see my comment above to @triple_agent, and the project readme. That said, swapping enemies was my initial plan, and I had looked at replacing spawns with rotfish enemies, but I think it didn't spawn them outside of water, so it had the same problems? I should find a map that does have a specific enemy death trigger and try that enemy swapping idea with it.

#7 2021-08-25 19:34:10

Spirit
Administrator

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

I love this project and I love that moment when the mapper throws a spawn in my face, me scrambling to quickly switch to a reasonable weapon to kill it before it starts jumping and feeling fantastically satisfied if I managed to. If I fail it is a sigh, cursing mappers who use spawns, but a quick reload later I am back. I think spawn encounters remain one of the most thrilling and rewarding encounters to me but I can understand if other struggle with them.

#8 2021-08-25 23:18:22

NoNameUser
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

This may sound crazy, but I'm actually glad Spawns are the least recurrent enemy in custom maps, unless you count Rotfishes of course. The thing is, these fuckers scare the shit out of me even though they are nothing but a mass of old-ass polygons and pretty much non-threatening. It's not so much their appearance as that chilling sound they make when they see you what gives me goosebumps, so much so that I actually made my own mod and replaced that disgusting belching sound with one that is far less harrowing. I think the only other monster that creeps me out that much are those crawler things from Duke Nukem 3D that get attached to your face and make a similarly creepy noise when spotting Duke. Thank God I'm not much of a Duke3D fan.

#9 2021-08-26 02:18:26

Spawn-B-Gone
Guest

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

@NoNameUser Funny you should mention those slimer enemies from Duke 3D. They were one of the first characters in a game that would make me freak out, and want to shut off my computer. Someone had actually made a script for a modern source port to basically make them invisible and have 1HP (And possibly remove their SFX?). I used that during a recent playthrough, and it was great!

#10 2021-08-26 04:36:47

NoNameUser
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Yeah, those things are pretty damn unsettling too. I imagine if they'd made Spawns crawl up to your face like that I would have never made it past the first encounter and given up playing Quake forever from that very moment. As for their threat level, some modders have tinkered with their behavior by adding some interesting stuff, like a close-up bitting attack, or the ones from Rubicon Rumble Pack that shoot eyes or some other shit at the player from a distance.

#11 2021-08-26 06:04:37

triple_agent
Member

Re: Spawn-B-Gone | Remove any enemy type from maps/levels for Quake

Spawn-B-Gone wrote:

Nice to see someone else that shares a similar opinion about them being a momentum breaker, and not just saying "get good".

Indeed and I think there are plenty of us; the 'Quaddicted', may be a niche society of veteran players and developers, who could appreciate anything 'Quake', if it originates back in the day.

But looking at it comparably, the spawn, is unlike all other opponents in the 'Quake' - it does not move in any coordinated way, but looks ridiculously animated and out of place; as if it was some wild mod that creeped into the original 'Quake', through the barrier of time. I do not believe in the spawn, to be a good thing in this game - unless a freak, is what you want.

Speaking of combat momentum, the hitscan weapons - dealing instant damage, without any projectile travelling between the gun and the target - could arguably be a thing in the hands of a protagonist, but in the hands of opponents, it is also a momentum breaker, in my opinion. The dance of combat, feels a lot better to me in 'Arcane Dimensions', than in 'Quake' naked.

Spawn-B-Gone wrote:

"get good"

"Get good" - or "git gud" - may be a thing in the multiplayer world. In the singleplayer world, it is called: bad design.

Spawn-B-Gone wrote:

If someone could come up with a spawn looking enemy that was fun to fight

The 'Quoth' mod, came up with something of sort; it does not convince me either, even though it does differ from the original spawn.

Spawn-B-Gone wrote:

Every other enemy seems nicely balanced and has a bit of a pattern to them. It just seems like the Spawn enemies had no thought put into them, other than "Hop around erratically", which doesn't seem like it adds much to the combat experience. Again, that's just my opinion

I agree.

NoNameUser wrote:

imagine if they'd made Spawns crawl up to your face

Speaking of enemies that seem unthreatening, until you learn what they are and what they do, reminds me of the facehuggers from 'Aliens versus Predator' game, the classic - but also the movies of franchise.

The facehuggers, would leap-attack, like fiends in 'Quake' - yes; they would creep around, being hard to spot; they would be small and hard to hit, potentially inducing panic-grenading; they had distinguishable sound effect, announcing presence or activity - they would make you behave very defensively, more than any other enemy type in the game; but they had all these qualities make sense together.

The facehuggers, also had an iconic outlook.

Last edited by triple_agent (2021-08-26 06:21:18)

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