The Pitch. Doom3: Left4Doom3 Mod blog - AmDDRed

LEFT 4 DOOM 3

Contents

1. Pre-Intro
2. Intro
3. Unique Selling Points
4. Feature Summary
5. LEVELS
6. ENEMIES
   • Knock-downs
   • Waves
   • Baby Smashers
   • Z-Smashers
   • Z-Emphasizers
   • D-Emphasizers
   • Enforcers
   • Challengers
7. RPG SYSTEM
8. WEAPONS
   • Pistolero
   • Lights Off
   • Weak Spots
   • Gunshops
   • Keyboard
9. DOOM CHAMPIONS
   • idWorkshop
   • idGames
   • idClasses
10. OUTRO

Pre-Intro

Ok, it was promised in the analysis of Wolfenstein Youngblood, let’s switch back to the mods. And I’d like to revisit and enlarge one of my old concepts - Left4Doom3, inspired by Left4Dead series.

In the 2000s computer capabilities have grown, and a general game design's vector has started to drift from arcade to more realistic approach. Somewhat started with pseudo-3D of Doom, which was actually 2D with an illusion of height (I wonder, why nobody has remade original Doom into 2D top-down arcade shooter a-la Hotline Miami... oh, wait, there is a Brutal MooD!), continued with real 3D of Quake, and reimagined genre in Half-Life etc. With a help of technologically advancing video cards it created a hope for a cyberpunk-like virtual reality just one step ahead… Only later, like in an art of the 20th century beginning having futurism burst in, a game developers pursuit of maximum realism has been diluted with indie-game’s more abstract and stylized art design.

Doom3 was one of the first to introduce dynamic shadows and very high-detailed models, but it has stopped on a half-way, staying in a classic FPS gameplay of a series, while having new realistic picture horror elements. Has this happened because the IdSoftware leader John Carmack was a techno-geek, missing a balance of John Romero's game design? Or have the Doom fans simply not noticed that an old concept of a regular marine trying to survive on a hell-damned Martian base was about the same idea? Well, just compare how it feels to play original Quake1 and how it feels in Doom3 mod Shambler Castle, recreating a Quake1 level. Or feel the difference of Q3DM17, The Longest Yard, in Quake3, Quake4 and Quake Champions...

But the grass is greener on the other side, and most of the players are recalling not the mood of a lonely survivor in a horrific environment, but the mood of "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!" that is inevitable for a player having replayed the beloved game several times on the hardest difficulty. And the next IdSoftware more dynamic and ferocious games, Quake I-III, have even more confirmed that feeling of a player being the scariest monster in a game. Thus the slight Doom3 gamedesign paradigm shift has became somewhat of a shock for hardcore gamers that had been awaiting for a little bit different from the legendary game studio. And thus, for idSoftware, which has lost all its founding fathers, the game design transition to a concept of Super Doomguy of Doom2016 was somewhat natural. And now the Doom lore even counts Doom64 as a true triquel instead of Doom3.

Well, for me Doom3 seemed to be OK, with its own thick and oppressive mood that I liked, though I'd want to have a little bit more of a horror hardcore with power of emotions a-la Half-Life, AvP2000, System Shock 2 and similar.

Intro

I have some positive bias towards Doom3 as a game that wasn't shy to allow a player to make deep modification, thus continuing the traditions of Doom I/II, and as a game with idTech4 game engine - the last engine of John Carmack that was released to GPL, that allows to develop it by enthusiasts up to this day. Of course, there are plenty of games that, in terms of modding, are allowing themselves even more than Doom3 - well, the same Half-Life2, a distant relative of idTech2 engine. And the engines themselves have become easier to use - Unreal, Unity and so, lots of them - so you can build your prototype relatively easy and fast.

But there is something contradictory about Doom3, like in a case of Youngblood - the situation, when a game has some flaws, no doubt, but that does not make a bad game, it's just a reason to think over possible game improvements to make it better. And what is the most interesting, that different gamers require diametrically different improvements! I guess that some would be more happier with cancelled Doom4 instead of Doom2016, though there is Rage for them, which I believe was collected from Doom4 unused assets and a horrible texture-blinking early version of idTech5 (when they will release the remaster of Rage?..).

As for me, I will think about improvements to Doom3 in terms of a co-op shooter.

Unique Selling Points

It seems to me that co-op is a better option for Doom3 than a classical Deathmatch, as it allows to use an experience of a single player campaign. There are already co-op mods for the game, for example, OpenCoop or Mars City Security. Honestly, the latter, in a chase for graphic improvements, has overblurred the original clear picture. But otherwise the mod allows you to play both arena maps a-la “kill‘em all” and campaign maps a-la “kill’em all but with a purpose, though no, just kill”. But there is always something to improve, as the ideal is by definition unattainable…

As it was told already, besides the fun of playing together, there is a need for mechanics creating the necessity of it. And I believe that the horror component of Doom3 is much more appropriate for co-op. Well, as it's easily seen from Blade Yautja mod, a player is forced to play more classical shooter instead of using thief-tactics of The Dark Mod, as the original Doom3 AI is not so sophisticated. Thus it's better to concentrate on the Action-Horror genre, like AvP, F.E.A.R., Metro, Dead Space etc, although the mod might have been a good GTFO alternative if AI is tuned… But of course, dreams always look better than their realization.

Feature Summary

• Co-op gameplay
• Action-Horror
• Wave system
• Mash-up

LEVELS

First of all, we need a location to play. I really doubt that original Doom3 single-player level design can give the best co-op experience, though it’s always fun to do things simply together - like playing through Half-Life levels in Sven Co-op stand-alone mod. So for players to find this kind of experience, new maps should be created tuned up for co-op specifics. And like the monkey from the joke that couldn’t decide if it’s being smart or beautiful, we want this location to look good and to play good © James Brown

Doom3's visual look is based on a shadow play and I believe that this key component should be saved. I hope to see ray-traced Doom3 some day, maybe, with with some open source fork. Maybe, AMD can help with it, to introduce their RTX rival and Vulkan drivers, like Nvidia has introduced RTX in QuakeII?..

As it was said earlier, we’re orienting on the Action-Horror genre. So, it requires to have different spaceship-in-distress-like claustrophobic dark locations, with a bit of a labyrinth taste to get lost for those who don’t stay with their team, and where a flashlight used as a separate weapon should become a mechanic for a co-op interaction, similar to the motion sensor from Aliens: Colonial Marines. Otherwise, it should be about all the space horrors classic audio-visual look, not the Killing Floor 2 mad circus show. :)

From this and other similar type games, level designers can get all the kind of ideas for creation of edgy situations on the same map, like:

• stay alive until some event;
• defend the location until some event;
• protect the other player while he’s doing something eventual;
• escort something;
• assault to the randevu place;
• don’t raise the alarm
• airless environment (air-stations checkpoints)
• etc

So, there are options to use. Multitask maps with alternative routes would be great, with different pace, like exploration and battle phases… Fighting all the time is tiresome, and Doom Eternal DLC approves it.

Also, levels might be randomly generated, like in a typical RogueLite. It's not about the creating a level from a scratch, but using some sublevel nodes to construct a playable level - like it's done in Vermintide 2 Roguelite mode or elsewhere. But, probably, it's more complicated from the coding perspective, while easing the life for level-designers, that could add these sublevels into the common pool - just need to strictly define the design rules; and it would greatly increase replayability. I believe that especially Quake's dimensions are something that would fit well with such 'Gunfire Reborn'-style campaign, with a bit of 'Clive Barker's Undying' Oneiros-style world and 'Call of Cthulhu' game vibes…

ENEMIES

Knock-downs

Well, as Doom3 was not only about battling through the hordes of hell, but also to get scared - or at least to have some tension on Nightmare with only 25 HP handicap - I think that overall its monsters fit the survival co-op genre. Of course, it would be nice to have “pinner” enemies, for example,

• Tentacle Commando acting like L4D Smoker;
• Imp and demons alike to run to crawl the walls and to jump over like L4D Hunter or Payday2 Cloaker;
• Cacodemon to spit the acid like his "brother" from Prodeus or L4D Spitter;
• Ticks and Trites to act like L4D2 Jockey;
• Hellknight to “bash a player into shit” like L4D2 Charger in a Hulk-Loki style or just kick him hard and fly him to the moon like L4D Tank does…

But I think that these dreams would require a lot of animation rework, so it’s a lot easier to implement the quite common mechanics of falling: if you’re hit hard, by a jump of Imp or Vulgar, Pinky’s attack, Commando kick, Z-Sec Shielder knock-back, Hellnight’s jab, spiders’ ambush or else, you’re down - but still you can use your pistol to shoot offenders.

If your HP>0, then you can help yourself to get up by holding the “use” button in case nobody interrupts you.
If your HP<=0 then a timer starts and you have to count on your team members, that would use the same “use” button.
Uplifted player’s HP=25 if his current HP<25.
If nobody manages to help you, sorry, you’ll have to wait for the respawn point, but for now there is a chance that your body will transform into Z-Sec…

Another option for a fallen comrades would be to implement additional salvage operation from the special rooms with the sacrificial circle/table being activated after some player is lost and teleported there. In the end, a player can always be left as is, like in a Freeze Tag mode, until another player saves him. Anyway, options from L4D2 (dying and shooting), Payday2 (waiting and shooting), Vermintide2 (dying) and DRG (freeze) are available, as well, as the number of rise ups may vary - if you exceed, you just die.

Waves

Besides the monsters themselves, a very remarkable moment is how they appear in-game. And here I’m not talking about the positioning of enemies, though it’s an important question not to turn the game into Serious Sam. I’m talking about the replayability of the levels. Of course, the map can have some wonderful manually set scripts with enemy number and quality but continuous play on the same maps would bore the players. Well, maybe, except for speedrunners.

So, instead of manual scripting it would be cool to have something like the AI-controlled wave approach of enemy spawn, similar to Deep Rock Galactic, Payday2 etc., based on the player's positions, health, ammo and already spawned monsters number - well, something like The Director of L4D2. I’m not skilled enough to reproduce the full pipeline, but I will do my best and will make at least a sketch just for fun. As well, it’s interesting what rules of summoning has Archvile? Maybe, his AI might get us at least a base for the further improvements…

To form waves we need to split existing monsters into groups: most basic categorization is about regular monsters and special ones. And the special ones may vary - support specials, boss specials, usual specials… In short, it reminded me Mike Birkhead’s classification, with four enemy roles:

1. Smasher - somewhat of a cannon fodder;
2. Emphasizer - the guy with a feature, but you don’t need to follow his dance;
3. Enforcer - this guy will force you to follow his rules;
4. Challenger - well, that’s the Boss.

I don’t pretend to be 100% correct, but I’ve got this picture:

1. SMALL SMASHERS:
   Tick, Trite, Lost Soul, Forgotten One, Cherub
2. SMASHERS:
   Zombie, Zombie Fat, Zombie Wrench, Zombie Flame
   
3. EMPHASIZERS (Z-Sec):
   Zombie Chainsaw, Z-Sec Pistol, Z-Sec SG, Z-Sec MG, Z-Sec Shield, Commando CG, Commando Tentacle
   
4. EMPHASIZERS (Demons):
   Imp, Maggot, Wraith, Vulgar, Pinky
   
5. ENFORCERS:
   Cacodemon, Revenant, Hellknight, Mancubus, Archvile, Bruiser
   
6. CHALLENGERS:
   Vagary, Guardian of Hell, Sabaoth, Hunter Helltime, Hunter Berserk, Hunter Invulnerability
7. BIG CHALLENGERS:
   Cyberdemon, Maledict

So, what do we have here? There are small smashers to scare alones in the dark and to be annoying during the battle; regular smashers for entourage - well, in Doom2016+ they served as medpacks; emphasizers to be the main enemy soldiers, some enforcers added to spice up a battle depending on a level of the hell invasion, and challengers spawned by special script as a peak of a game. Big challengers would really require their own arena due their size, so they should be noted by our theoretical The Director of Doom to solve the balance issues, but never spawned if not asked by the map itself.

Baby Smashers

Small smashers consist of 3 enemy types: spiders (don’t know what’s the difference between these two), flying heads (same) and baby demons. These are small enemies, mostly for distraction in an active battle. While the direct battle mode is not activated for players, these, same as zombies, should create a nervous environment for a player, when exploring extra rooms for some random loot.

First, there must be a chance not only to spawn a monster, but not to spawn him, except for its sounds in a dark corner nearby but not in players’ sight. Like it was said, there is nothing more pleasant than a baby’s laugh, except for it’s 3AM, and you’re alone in your apartment (c).

Second, for spiders I’d have added some special places to respawn - some unreachable ventilation shafts, that would be activated upon player approximation, but release the spiders only when a player does not look at it, in a random amount of time - 1-10 seconds, for example, so that a player doesn’t count cards. Cherubs should be spawned just out of sight.

Third, it would be nice to upgrade these spiders and cherubs with a little bit more of social AI, similar to the houndeyes of Half-Life or spiders of Metro. If too close to the player, spiders and cherubs should attack players, otherwise they should avoid flashlights and hide away, while others of the pack surround and backstab the self-confident victim. Single spiders and cherubs should have a chance of being despawned, so that a player tries to find the black cat in a black room, especially if there is no cat inside...

Forth, flying suicide heads are pretty straight forward, and I believe they are good at what they doing. Only, I think that our Director of Doom should spawn them in large rooms, same for cacodemons: for example, it can be achieved by a bigger ‘spawnbox’, thus these are placed only in a flyable space. Maybe, it is done otherwise, I’m just guessing here.

Z-Smashers

Regular smashers consist of different zombies, the ‘calm’ ones. But regular zombies should have a sleeper mode, when they don’t move whether they are spawned in a lying or standing position, until a player finds him. Then a group of zombies close to a loud player should awake and try to attack. Well, the main idea of zombies is in their number and ‘social’ interaction, isn’t it?

As well, it would be cool, if an old Doom3 idea of indestructible zombies is implemented. Like you’ve calmed it down, but after some time if players are still nearby it gets up and asks for more brains or soul, hard to understand what it wants. It would add a timer feature to these enemies, so that players know that in case they want to avoid fighting zombies again, they should decide whether to move to the next location or to overkill their bodies with Rocket Launcher or Chainsaw. Maybe, overkill is too much, and a good old headshot would be enough - I believe, there were models without a head? Then these can be removed from the spawn list, and this blown head could replace all headshot zombies’ heads to recognize deactivated ones, of course, if it’s possible within Doom3 - or am I thinking in terms of Quake3 right now?..

Z-Emphasizers

Emphasizers start with Zombie Security - Z-Sec - soldiers. It would be nice to have for them some updated AI, so that they act like a team. On the other hand, when I played Doom3 on Nightmare without HUD, Z-Sec’s were the ones that created most of the troubles for me, as I had no chance to get close to them with a shotgun, and without the cross sight it was hard to be precise with MG or pistol. With F.E.A.R.-like behavior (or at least Half-Life one) and grenades added to their arsenal and “zombies not dead” feature, they would become the main workforce of L4D3. It would be nice to learn Commando's how to use not only CG, but as well, other specialist weapons. In return, Z-Sec’s and Commando's will serve as the ammo and weapons refill packs. As well, Z-Sawyers will share their Chainsaws.

D-Emphasizers

Emphasizer demons can throw fireballs, jump-attack, and some of them can crawl walls… The difference is in spawning: demons can be summoned via pentagrams directly into the battlefield, for Z-Sec, it is required to be spawned out of sight, to give a feeling of guys coming for help. And, demons have their timings which allows you to predict their attacks, even grab their fireballs, while Z-Sec’s shoot the same guns you have.

Enforcers

Enforcers are some serious demons that will require some attention from players. In Doom Eternal they are just emphasizers but playable characters in multiplayer - well, that's not our case, Doom Guy yet to become Doom Slayer. In our case, these guys bring some bloody flavor into the battle, as they have some special features and a lot of health. Of course, if these are made available for a Versus match, with demon players sabotaging human players progress, it would be really cool. But I believe that it will require some effort if a player would have his own progression system (evolution like in Natural Selection, Tremulous or AvP2?), GUI to select a monster and his spawn location. Probably, an easier solution in case of having our theoretical The Director of Doom would be to possess already spawned monsters.

Challengers

And finally, Challengers. For Doom Slayer these are Enforcers. Well, these guys should be an extremum of a gameflow, while being inside of it. With that I mean that while Big Challengers have their own gameflow concentrated on them, smaller Challengers are something of a battle wave finalizer on later game stages, despawning other monsters except for smashers. Something like an improved L4D Tank.

So, trying to predict some initial numbers per wave, I’d say that max numbers should be - 1 challenger per battle plus 15 smashers; and 3 enforcers, 6 emphasizers, and 10 small smashers. Only testing can reveal more balanced numbers.

As well, if new monsters are added then they should be added to the appropriate enemy type list, maybe, some exceptions added, if it’s a flying one, a social animal, should not be spawned in numbers or else. Otherwise, The Director of Doom should not feel the difference.

RPG SYSTEM

First, we must understand if an extra RPG system with the progression outside a one game session is really required. I believe, not. Of course, there is a potential for Doom3 to be enhanced in a System Shock way, a possibility to add new classes with extra bonuses for every 5 levels in a Killing Floor style, but I don’t think that L4D3 would be played 24/7. Unless somebody makes such an add-on and makes a non-stop server for it… Anyway, if a session itself is not involving, then it’s too early to think about the meta-game.

Second, if there is no meta-game, there is no need for any Hub, as nothing to store there, except it's a part of a certain map (like the Kshatriya map for Metro Last Light).

On the other hand if a few maps form a campaign then it’s required to store information on players stats, and I don’t know if Doom3 can offer such a feature. For example, in Sven Co-op each Half-Life original campaign map started with the default player weapons, not saving the collected ones.

So, if there is a discussion about the in-session character upgrade, and if we’re not talking about the new item receiving, then we can add small upgrades of max health, max armor, max agility, max ammo etc. But I think that for a core gameplay it’s not really important. Such upgrades might be added later in addons.

Doom3 had no RPG elements. On the other hand, new weapons added to a player's arsenal were something of a measure for the game progress, and they were like new skills added to a player, new more powerful magic spells of your battle mage. The thing is that while it’s completely OK to have one-man-army in a single-player, in co-op it’s advised to have less versatile characters so that there is a need to support each other.

Well, that mage thing reminds me somehow of Quakeguy of Dreamlands and Doom Slayer: what if they were able to generate new weapons and ammo because they were a sort of unconscious mages like WH40K orkz having ammo in their guns while they believe it’s there? Ok, Doom Slayer is a primeval avatar of humankind according to the latest lore in a situation of an unnatural two dimensions merge, but Quakeguy might be the one who is strong enough to resist the voices of the Elder Gods though they have managed to call him in their dreams realm where everything is possible. If so, then it’s kinda cool that Blazkowicz and Quakeguys families were united to give a birth to a worthy descendant to become a humankind avatar with the help of Samuel “The Wretch” Hiden. It’s interesting that what seemed to be an issue with anger management in a regular situation, with the right place, the right approach, and the right application has been carved into Humanity Hope. Ok, that’s just my retcon fanfic…

WEAPONS

Weapon limitation would form the L4D3 fluid class system: not the characters define what items they are allowed to take (like in AvP2 or else), but the items define the character. The classics, like L4D, AvP2010, Payday2, Metro, F.E.A.R. and other more modern shooters, suggest approximately the following scheme: primary weapon, secondary weapon, special item, melee and support item.

Well, that reminds me of Half-Life: 5 weapon categories, melee, handguns, rifles, heavy arms and support items. Actually, I believe that categorization wasn’t accidental, and in some point of game development it was planned to be more realistic, but in the end the Quake spirit of idTech2 has prevailed in the game design of the upcoming game. Anyway, Counter-Strike has revealed the hidden truth and the era of a few weapon shooters has begun, I guess. In AvP2000 there already were marine specialists with one weapon and pistols only…

If weapon limitation is not enough, than a weight system can be added, assigning some kilograms to every in-game item, that will affect how fast is the player, how high he can jump, and how agile is he to turn around with a big gun in his hands (and as well strength might be added to improvable RPG-parameter).

For L4D3, I suggest the following scheme: there will be 3 main slots, handguns, light and specialist. The handgun fits all 3 slots, the light weapon fits its own slot and a specialist one, and the specialist weapon goes only in its own slot. Thus, for the beginning of a game there would be a possibility to have dual pistols, and MG/SG combination while the heavy armament is not yet available.

• Handguns: Pistol
• Light weapons: MG, SG
• Specialist weapons: SSG, PG, CG, RL, BFG, Chainsaw, Grabber, Spiderbot, Medpack, Shield
• Grenades: Grenades, Glowsticks
• Melee: Fists
• Flashlight

This might be discussable, especially some weapon’s category: for example, SSG is something very powerful, though it’s hard to say that it belongs to heavy arms; Grabber as well is something really specific, that it’s also might change category to light, so that the specialist weapons are combined with this and not vice versa… But this must be tested, as always.

Next, there are Spiderbot, Medpack and Shield. Usually, games with classes offer several ones, among those are engineers with turrets, medics with drugs, and gunners with heavy arms, and others seem to be irrelevant for L4D3.

So, for a potential gunner there is a choice of PG, CG, RL, BFG and even the Chainsaw if a player wants to go Berserk. For an engineer there is a Doom3 turret - spider droid, that will have a timer to reset, or ammo limited to reload. For a medic there is a need for a portable medkit-resurrector that would use medpacks and medicomp as a recharge tool. Maybe, potentially, there is a place for an armor fixing tool and additional ammo replenishing bag.

Pistolero

As for the Shield - this is a part of a pistol upgrade program, where our handgun, usually useless in a classic all-weapon scheme (which was proven right in Doom Eternal), can be combined:

• with a flashlight, useful in the dark corners;
• with another pistol, useful also in a situation of knock-down;
• with a protective shield, with a possibility to knockback personal space invaders;

To knockback: hold the melee assigned button to cover up completely, charge and hit on release. The Shield will have its own armor counter that will be possible to fix with the help of an armor-fix tool. But in the end the Shield is a feature nice to have, not a must.

Lights Off

Next, about lights and shadows: I’d like to introduce glow sticks, AvP2-like, as an additional alternative to the flashlight, used like grenades; and I’d like to improve flashlight by combining it with the pistol forever, as it was mentioned earlier. As well, it would be cool to have DRG-like light gun, something similar to Kampfpistole from Wolfenstein II or Firestorm Revolver from RAGE2, only with fire mechanics: shoots with a slight curve, sticks to the surfaces, and if touches enemies, then they burn for some time with some damage per second giving a light around.

Thus even the total lights off won’t be a problem anymore, while remaining a game design tool. And how to use this tool there were some examples, like Half-Life's discharging built-in flashlight, Metro series manually recharged flashlight, AvP series glowsticks and flashlights, Deep Rock Galactic simply being set in a no-light cave thus allowing to spawn monsters just around the corner and forcing players to use flashlights, glowsticks and Scout's light gun; and of course Vermintide 1/2 with its levels where you're forced to take a torchlight instead of a weapon or follow the only light source of a moving cart with a lantern… So, if not overused, light-missing mechanics can be cool.

I've never considered separate flashlight as a game design flaw. Well, this Martian base should have been a calm place and with people dying from a boredom and accidents, so, the Doom Marine should have played HL Barney role, simple security guy, somewhat mixed with Adrian Shepard and no Gordon Freeman. I have another a different objection that while we're having such a pretty realistic approach to a flashlight thing, everything else remains pretty arcade. So, commencing to use both marine hands should fix this situation as well.

Weak Spots

Weapon limitation would create a shortage of ammo, as there is no more option to switch to another gun, except for a pistol - some games even make pistol’s ammo infinite. The solution to this problem might be various: first, to lower down monsters’ health, but it would require rebalancing; second, to increase up carried ammo amount (no Doom Slayer is here!); third, to introduce weak spots, to make headshots possible, for example.

I like the third option, as it improves the efficiency of a handgun and light guns, and adds strategic depth to a battle. It’s like playing Doom2016 after Doom Eternal, you lack some battle features of the sequel that forced you to think and aim fast. But accuracy should be balanced, so there is a need to make weapons less precise with cross sights (or just get rid of them) and be accurate with iron sights, which can be achieved with the help of CED's Assets Pack add-on. It was made as a part of S.T.A.R. 1088 mod. I still hope we'll see the release of it someday.

From Doom Eternal we can take the enemy vulnerability to a specific weapon as well, so that there is no chance that one specialist weapon would rule them all, and you will need to cooperate and talk with your team members to plan next moves.

Gunshops

Doom2016+ offers weapon upgrades as well. I don’t think it’s necessary for a basic L4D3. Maybe later some add-on would offer upgrades for reloading time, accuracy improvement, attachments or even adding new special effects like fire via upgrades or ammo itself. These upgrades might help to differentiate player purchased weapons and to keep them instead of picking up the basic ones from Z-Sec's.

So the question is, how to get all these weapons, items and potential upgrades? In this case I prefer the Counter-Strike / Killing Floor system, that gives a short time to buy weapons and stuff in special places for a certain price. This is a good option not to lose the pace of a game, especially with 4 or 5 live persons. Of course, in-game currency entails the necessity of balanced economic system, so that the game is nor too hardcore, nor too casual.

If any other weapon introduced like various shotguns from every mod that tries to fix the original one or to get rid of RoE dependency (well, maybe now mods should initially be developed for a fork of BFG edition?), then the new weapons should be defined in a list of Handgun/Light/Specialist weapons, with a cost and upgrades, if any, to be available for a purchase.

Security booths can be these shopping places: restore health via medicomp, and even use it for buying stuff. As an option, the computer will give you a security code to apply on a nearby locker, where the stuff will be generated.

Keyboard

In the end, there should be some changes in key binding (of course, with possibility to change them):

• 1 - handgun:
  pistol; if pressed repeatedly flashlight and pistol combination will appear; if a second pistol and/or a shield is available then pressing 1 will consequently scroll through available pistol options (somewhat like it was done in Necrovision, or RAGE, when multiple same weapon selection forced the ammo type switch);
• 2 - light weapon
• 3 - specialist weapon
• G - grenade:
  hold and release to wait, throw and return to the weapon (not counting as a previously used weapon);
• V - melee:
  press to hit and return to the weapon (not counting as a previously used weapon). If the weapon is pistol+flashlight or pistol+shield, then the flashlight and the shield are hitting. This is a cheap alternative to a Duke Nukem’s boot and L4D weapon repulsion;
• F - flashlight:
  if pressed, switches weapon to a pistol+flashlight, if hold then a flashlight only appears, and return to the weapon (not counting as a previously used weapon)
• H - drop weapon: hold to throw (just an idea);
• RMB - ironsight: hold or press to enable;

DOOM CHAMPIONS

Game market is oversaturated, and that means that the quality of a game means more than a date when it was released: that’s the story of an indie-game Among Us. A good game design can overweight photorealistic graphics, which means that good old games can bring money, especially if they are supported on modern equipment and they have a community that supports the game. Up to this date a bunch of mod files for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. appears on ModDB, up to this date patches for Half-Life are released, and while Doom3 and Quake4 are not abandonware and are sold in Steam, Gog and Karmack knows where, a player should manually modify configuration to have a today’s de facto standard widescreen resolution! It’s not hard, thanks Karmack, but why is it not a default thing?.. The same thing with Aliens: Colonial Marines! And then they say that the game's sales are bad, so we won’t support it, while the game's sales are bad because it has no support! It’s not always a quick run like a lottery, it might be a marathon like a bank deposit interest. At least, that’s how I see it.

idWorkshop

I believe it would be a win for idSoftware/Bethesda/Microsoft to create their own alternative to Steam's workshop and Half-Life 1&2 mod ecosystem, only with support of open source idTech1/2/3/4 - creating a possibility and tools to construct mods from all the official assets. I strongly believe that such workshop creation would increase an interest for Bethesda's own launcher (don’t know if it’s actual yet after Microsoft deal), long-term game support and it would serve as a source of new quality content, game design concepts and talented game developers by reusing old assets that won’t be used for new games.

Mash-ups are quite popular nowadays: Broforce, Mortal Kombat, comics multiverses and so on. Quake3 was the first id-verse introduction, then there was a Quake3: Generations Arena mod, where mod creators have split in classes all IdSoftware games characters, from Wolfenstein3D up to Quake3; and there is Quake Champions that essentially does the same.

idGames

Doom3 is built on idTech4 engine - the latter has started with Doom3 and has ended with it. And it would be cool to unite all the games of idTech4 engine that use more or less the same grimtech realism art approach. And that is, being honest, almost every game released on IdTech4 - Doom3, Quake4, Prey2006, Wolfenstein2009, ETQW, Brink. And if it would be possible to get assets from cancelled Prey2, Quake4:Awakening and Sin2:Reborn prototype, then it just would be just breathtaking.

• Doom3 is idSoftware and Prey2006/2 are Human Head Studios, both are now Bethesda's inner studios, so there is a chance that these can share assets for a good cause. But there is a question why Prey2006 is not sold anymore?
• Quake4 and Wolfenstein2009 are Raven Software who were id-satellite and now are Activision Blizzard. This is also tough. And there is a question why Wolfenstein2009 is not sold anymore? Maybe with Microsoft that now owns both Bethesda and Activision Blizzard some things could change?
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Brink are Splash Damage who were id-satellite and now Tencent. This is also tough. And there is a question why ETQW is not sold anymore? Though the Brink is still available for playing by Bethesda
• Quake4:Awakening and Sin2:Reborn are Ritual Entertainment, another id-satellite. Quake4 DLC was cancelled but some assets were created, and Sin2 was cancelled as well: there was just an idTech4 few weeks prototype to attract investors, but they failed. Anyway, if Nightdive Studios has the Q4A and Sin2:Reborn assets left from bankrupt Ritual and can share them for modders' fun, I think it would be a nice advertisement for the upcoming Sin remaster.

But OK, it was a long intro, and I don’t know if it’s really possible to gather this idTech4 dream team, but it’s fun to dream about it. Anyway, there are enthusiasts that start implementing Quake4 on open source fork of idTech4. What's next - Prey?..

idClasses

So, here is the idea: there will be classes in L4D3, but in a different way. Every game character is considered as a class: there will be Doom3 guy, Quake4 guy, Prey2006 guy, Wolf2009 guy etc. Each class should have an armament of their own game. Will this weapon be available only to them, or it would be possible to use combinations - this is the question to the realization and balance.

For now I’ve made an approximal prototype of how the weapon categorization might look, and it already shows that some weapons should be shared among all characters, like BFG, Dark Matter Gun, grenades, glowsticks, shield, grabber, chainsaw and a flashlight. Anyway everything is discussable when it comes to the realisation.

As we see the later games offer more upgrade options (marked with +), which means that they offer more variety in a game progression. As well, secondary fire can be added as an upgrade. And Wolfenstein2009 is a winner here by the upgrade count, but its weapons don’t fit the futuristic line of art, though it might be interesting to shoot out hell demons with Reich weapons and Reich demons with hell weapons.

Magic items, Soul Cube and The Artifact, are not to be used, as they are something out of scope: what’s next, Ranger’s Orb from QC, portals and gravity change for Prey2006 guy? Now even Grabber looks like a magic telekinetic heresy. Though it's always possible to look into the magic realm...

And of course, the same way other character classes will be added to the list, for example, Q1 Shambler Castle and Q2 Lost Marine mods weapons (and other assets) can be added with the introduction of Ranger and Bitterman. For example, I've included idTech5's RAGE as it actually shares the same 2000's ideology of FPS games, not yet going into Wolfenstein2014 or Doom2016 FPS-RPG systems.

Outro

In the very beginning it was a 3 page light description but then it has grown into a 13 page google document, absorbing some earlier ideas and getting more details. This mod pitch was just something that I wanted to do, for fun, for applying the idea of co-op gameplay to different situations, and to express myself. And if somebody would be inspired by these ideas then it’s great. I hope it was thoughtful to read and you have not wasted your time here.

P.S.:

Read More Of Id-verse

• Quake: Champions
• Quake: Good Old Classic Champions
• Quake: Nine Inch Nail Gun
• Doom3: "System of a Doom" or "Hell Shock"
• The Pitch. Doom3: Left4Doom3 Mod
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood as an Example of Co-op Shooters

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• The Pitch. Doom3: Left4Doom3 Mod
• The Pitch. Middle-Earth: The Dungeons of Moria
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