Hi, folks, its been nearly 10 months since the last large update I've done for Retaliation, I had planned to release this update for Doom's 30th anniversary, but I waited to fix the mod and iron it out for release to ensure no bugs or game-breaking glitches made it into the mod.
//Quality of life
QOL changes have been made all around the mod to give the player the best, and most accessible way to play the mod, first of all, an ammo counter has been given to every weapon for maximum ease of use, such as the machinegun and chaingun, which only had digital ammo counters, and the napalm launcher, which didn't have an ammo counter at all. Various levels have also been fixed and are playable now, such as communications, which although it worked for me, didn't work for anybody else. The mod is also now shipped with 90 degrees FOV default, but weapons might look cramped because i tweaked the offsets for 120 FOV, since that is the way i play the mod. The mod's filesize has also been reduced due to optimizations, so it will take up less storage than it did before, even though it is much more feature complete than previous versions. The mod is also incompatible with other mods like essential HD or source ports like Dhewm 3, since it uses textures from Doom 3 Redux, and requires an gamex86 file, which Dhewm 3 can't support.
//Weapon Balance
All weapons have received some kind of rebalance to make them stack up better with each other. Every weapon serves some kind of purpose. The pistol now shoots slower but it deals higher damage and has a small, but deadly blast radius, the shotgun has a much tighter pellet spread than vanilla, but a wider pellet spread than the last patch to encourage the player to close the distance. You can expect similarly drastic changes for other weapons as well, such as the grenade having a huge blast radius, the rocket launcher being an explosive sniper, and a few new weapons like the Firestorm, which shoots a plasma projectile out of a chaingun.
//Enemy Balance
All demons now deal much more damage to the player than in vanilla, but deal largely the same amount of damage as the last patch, compared to last patch they kill each other much faster and make infighting a useful tactic. Some enemies however have received increased health to make them more balanced against the player and other demons, with some variants being reworked to make them much more balanced, like the grenadier having much more visible grenades, and the commando captain being easier to kill. Bosses have also been reworked to be more hard, like the Sabaoth having a dangerous and fast projectile that can instantly kill the player, and the cyberdemon having a powerful blast wave melee attack that deals heavy damage and knockback.
//Visual changes
Various models of the NPC's have been reworked to make them more realistic, to compensate for the vanilla game's "plasticky" models. Some weapons have received new models as well, like the pistol that has a more nickel-plated look to it now. or the plasma rifle, which now looks a little bit more metallic than chrome compared to the previous patch, various locations have also had their lighting reworked, and now the "daylight" version of mars has been extended to much more levels, with the "sunset" skybox and lighting being used much later in the game and a "night" skybox being used for the late game levels. I also have to clarify that I'm not aiming to make an accurate depiction of Mars, but a caricature of the Red planet that looks more appealing to my eye. Various textures have also received some kind of rework as well, to make them more coherent with the lighting of the maps.
//Audio Changes
The pistol has received a new firing sound effect, which has the sfx of a real life desert eagle, since it is chambered in .50 cal, the player now also has more audible footsteps. The main menu music has also changed to a more ambient and atmospheric tune for the mod, and the main theme has been repitched to sound a little more heavy, some of the game's music has also been worked on to fit the tone of the mod better, and some enemies have received new or different sounds, like the zsec, which emit a death scream instead of the Combine flatline they had in the previous patch.
There is a lot more changes and details that I can keep going on about, but these are a peek of the changes I've introduced since the last patch.
//When can I play?
The mod has already been released, look for the file that says "Retaliation 2.0". It is the latest updated file for the game, you wont need anything else for the mod, the download instructions will also come attached with the .zip file with anything else you might need to get the game set up.
