Hoo, boy. What started as a small update to just add the missing active skills from v1.7 has really ballooned into a massive update. Thanks to help in no small part from That Blind Guy (TBG), Xterra, Twinkieman93 and Nems, v1.8 will aim to give a more complete feel to Doomzone. Where do I even start? I suppose with the biggest part of the update...
Active Skill: Rip & Tear (UAC Elite)
UAC Elite will bring his own pain in v1.8, with his new Rip & Tear active skill. Yes, we've all seen the comics, we've all played DOOM 2016 (well, some of us have). Activating Rip & Tear causes the Elite to fly into a berserk rage, multiplying his damage output by 400%, and mitigating all incoming damage by 75%, making him very near-invincible. There's a catch, though - As long as he's enraged, he'll refuse to draw a weapon! You can't rip your own fist off and throw it at those sniping Revenant bastards, so you'll need to manage your anger wisely!
Rip & Tear will have a cooldown of 60 seconds after the effect wears off.
Active Skill: Quad Damage (Slipgater)
In response to the ever increasing hordes after the fall of Shub Niggurath, all Slipgate marines are required to carry Quantum Ultraviolent Amplification Devices on their person at all times. What, that's too wordy? Alright, fine - The engineers say you can just call it Quad Damage. While it amplifies your damage output by 400%, it only lasts for 20 seconds, so you'll have to make your shots count.
Quad Damage has a lengthy cooldown time of 100 seconds after activation, so only use it when you absolutely have to!
Buffed Bosses
Classic players aren't the only ones getting a buff - Good ol' Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind have got a few new tricks of their own. You can expect to see new attack patterns and increased aggression as their health diminish. Stay sharp if you want to stand a chance against the big baddies now!
Loot Drops for Ludicrous Gibs
To go along with the new active skills, enemies now drop new health and armor bonus items as they spew into red chunks - A little reward for your excessive brutality. Stronger enemies drop better items, great for those slaughter situations. Don't like DOOM 2016 stuff in your GZDoom? This behavior can be disabled in a new Doomzone Settings menu for a more classic feel.
Unpaletted Ultraviolence
Amongst all the new features, I've been working to make Doomzone compatible with megawads such as Back to Saturn X and Ancient Aliens, both of which use custom palettes of their own. Needless to say, this clashing would result in palette oddities. The best solution? Doomzone v1.8 will ditch the palette for maximum compatibility.
For those who prefer to play with the old palette with the washed out greens and blues, an updated palette will be provided as a separate download.
This isn't by any means a complete list of changes, as there are many, many more tweaks and fixes - Too many to list here. Development is still ongoing, with Samurai's active skill still in the conceptual stage. There's much more to come in the future, and much work to do. So for now, it's back to work for me.
See you in the next update.
Damn looks sick