Babel: A GZDoom mod (3.0.0+)

Note: GZDoom 3.7.2 is currently broken and many projectile effects do not work properly. 3.6.0 and under work fine

Current Link is: https://mega.nz/#!fokCgb4J!OtyUkqVPh5eH5M1KSNa-7vC722vazJ5_e_n2Xz-KwAM

Monsters Only Link is: https://mega.nz/#!XxNl1Aia!LMQuCYzTw7P6G_Yr1cgiIJYbNa5So2BSDV1IWdIKC5M
Please note that the Monsters only version contains many tweaks to facilitate universal compatibility and as such may be more or less balanced depending on the weapon set used

Babel is a mod I made for Doom. This site is pretty bare but will hold the download links and some other info so that I don't have to keep changing the link on MEGA every time I fix it.

Design

Babel was designed around the concept: What can be added to Doom that makes the game more dynamic without detracting from the core gameplay experience? To that end the mod is pretty heavy on the gameplay tweaks and contains a few completely new systems that the enemies use, but overall shouldn't feel overly unlike Doom. An imp is still an imp, but in Babel the imp isn't just a meatbag with a weak attack, it's trying to kill you like a demon would. In addition, each weapon has been molded to fit a certain general role so that each weapon has it's own applications and thing that it's good at. There's still definitely a power scale in the arsenal, but no weapon ever gets completely obseleted.

Synchronization and Chaining

In addition to the plethora of new enemy attacks in Babel, the key enemy-benefitting feature that has been implemented is Sync-fire and Chain-fire. Simply put, synchronization is the ability to tell other enemies that you are attacking, and those enemies can choose to join the attack. Chaining is the ability to tell other enemies you have finished an attack, and have other enemies continue it for you. Monsters generally have one ability or the other, but never both at once. What this means is that monster groups are often far more aggressive than in vanilla, and softening up a horde will have the secondary effect of reducing the amount of sync/chain signals being sent, reducing aggressiveness.

In more detail, a good example of synchronization is Imps. Whenever an imp begins an attack, it sends out a signal to all other imps that it can see (within a certain range). Each of those imps has a certain chance (which in this case is ~40%, but varies by signal sender) to choose to join the attack, and if it does it then determines if it can actually hit with an attack. If it can, it then also initiates an attack. It's important to note that joining a synchronized attack does not send out another sync signal, so cascades do not occur.

An example case for chaining is the Mancubus. Like the imp, it has a certain chance to join any chain signal sent to it, but instead of those signals being sent at the beginning of another Mancubus attack, in this case another mancubus has finished an attack string and sends out the chain signal to its fellow mancubi. The key difference here is that the chaining monsters can themselves send out chain signals at the end of their attack strings, potentially creating a nonstop flood of attacks if there are enough recipients. However chains in practice differ from syncs in that syncs often begin with many monsters attacking and end with only a few, whereas chains beging with one monster and often end with many attacking.

Some monsters can chain or sync to monsters other than those in their species, but those are relatively special cases. Most of the time a monster will only signal monsters of the same type.

Fear

Now of course it wouldn't be fair to have these powerful new monster abilities without something for the player right? Fear is that thing. Most monsters are now no longer totally mindless, and can be frightened with the appropriate amount of coercion. All monsters except zombies, lost souls, bosses, and the archvile now have internal fear meters. Things like killing their comrades, firing weapons, causing explosions, etc. will cause them to build up fear. Once they're scared enough, they may lose their will to fight and flee. Bear in mind that a group of monsters can retain its composure faster than a single scared individual, and the stronger a monster is, the harder it is to scare them away. However the stronger a monster is, the scarier it is to its comrades when you kill it.

Some monsters, notably the hell nobles, have attacks which can reduce fear in nearby enemies. This makes them prime targets when facing large groups, as inflicting fear is a powerful tool to survive aggressive play. Killing a boss will also scare nearly every monster which witnesses it, only by chance can they retain their ability to fight.

Weapon Roles

One of the things that bothered me about Doom 2 was that the weapons, while very fun, often had far too much crossover in effective role. Notably the chaingun obseleted the pistol entirely and the super shotgun was almost objectively better than the shotgun, barring accuracy at long distance. In Babel I've tweaked the slot roles to conform to the following pattern:

Other features

Babel also has a few other QoL features which can players avoid screwups and wasted time:

I might add a few more before the finalized release

Rough version History

Contact Info: Discord: Xangi#8619 | Or just find me on /vr/, I'm usually hanging around.