[WIP] Malignant Monsters Pack v9

Current Version is 9 - December 6th, 2014

Engine Requirement:

• ZDoom 2.8pre-763-g6073adb or newer.
• GZDoom 2.1pre-188-g1a8da51 or newer.
• It doesn't work with "Skulldronum", sorry.

What's new/changed in this version:

• Malignant Fiend: Lengthened its normal attack animation sequence a bit, and increased its pain chance from 15 to 30.

Finally got around to updating my engine versions so I could try this out. As before, it's great! The transformation ability is a lot of fun to witness (I really like the eyeless Demon transformation). I like that the monster returns to its normal state as it dies (though at first I thought this meant that the monster returned to its normal state alive rather than actually dying). I think my only real criticism at this point is that the number of monsters he can convert is (understandably) limited right now, but that's not exactly your fault, since new versions of each monster have to be hand-made--but he's got a ton of potential, even if he's limited to use with the stock monster types (or maybe some particularly popular community monster types). Luckily, I think you can largely get away with using palette-swaps to fill out his roster of converted monsters if need be.

Only bug I think I've seen is that if he starts converting a monster while infighting with it, he'll continue to try to kill it while converting it--probably a bit counterproductive, since there's a good chance he'll kill it before converting it, especially with Imps. Any chance he could be blocked from infighting with a monster he's converting?

MagicWazard wrote: Only bug I think I've seen is that if he starts converting a monster while infighting with it, he'll continue to try to kill it while converting it--probably a bit counterproductive, since there's a good chance he'll kill it before converting it, especially with Imps.

Yes, that... I had fought against it and lost, sadly.

My idea was to make the Fiend clear/null its target field in its chasing routine if, itself, is currently targeting a monster which is in the process of morphing. This worked mostly on a hostile version of the monster, but not so much on a friendly one. Since friendly monsters only target hostile monsters, the monster, after nulling its target field, will try and acquire a new target (A_Chase does the search for targets). This target could end up being a/the currently-morphing monster. If this new target happened to be a morphing monster, then the Fiend's target field will be nulled again, and thus starting this whole cycle all over again.

Let's just say, you'll end up with a broken friendly Fiend!

Well, that's a shame, but I wouldn't say it's a deal-breaker. Perhaps instead, you could give the Fiend's fire attack a unique damagetype, and give the monster he's converting resistance to that damage type while the conversion is in effect? That won't prevent the Fiend from attacking it, but at least it would (in theory) prevent him from killing it.

That is already in (since version 5 of the pack); monsters in the process of morphing have a 50% resistance to dark-based attacks (the damage type the malignant monsters do with their attacks).

Blue Shadow wrote: That is already in (since version 5 of the pack); monsters in the process of morphing have a 50% resistance to dark-based attacks (the damage type the malignant monsters do with their attacks).

Sorry, when I said "resistance" I more meant "immunity". I figure that if you're already changing the damage factor on the converting monster to try to prevent it from dying, might as well go the full distance and make it immune.