Yurei Battle Fix (V4)

[CarThief]

I've been working on a fix for the Yurei Battle recently, and seems Cutman doesnt mind if i make it public, so, here it is, maybe people will like it.

Its updated to V4 now. Most noticable change: An optional Hard mode is added. Flame Vortex deals a little less damage again, too.
Its uploaded on wadhost:
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/YureiBattleFixV4.zip

As for the details, the most noticable change is that the yurei will no longer scare you to death (trust me, some dont like it, it probaly gets old anyway).
There's a changelist too:

(click to show/hide)

* No loud screamer noise or picture upon being killed by either of the Yurei's methods.
* Choke and Frost Bite should die like the other ghouls now.
* Hopefully it works better now. Last time the yurei disappeared forever after killing
someone with her screamer attack.
* Yurei no longer disappears during final attack when respawning.
It seemed to be intentional, but for the sake of allowing multiple lives, it was altered.
* The ghouls killed give the ghostbuster the ability to upgrade his weapon.
* Added a script to check for if the yurei is no longer active to reactivate her.
* Respawning now hopefully gives players their tids back so the yurei can continue
to utterly destr-- uh, function properly. Hopefully.
* Summoned ghouls aside correctly giving the ghostbuster his powerups, they also give
archivements when killed now. Meh, why not?
* Creepers are now actually visible. I'm guessing some sprite names changed in due time, thus
they no longer where shown.
* Creepers hopefully dont do the picture/screamer trick like the yurei
does when killing people.
* The Sjas the Yurei summons now die after they roam around too long. Mostly because they seem
very dangerous in swarms, and yet the kill cost is rather high, you could say. Grenades are
the best choice to deal with these, but there's only 10 per marine. Like every other summoned
ghoul when they suicide they do not give their target any kill credit or upgrades.
* Tids are removed and reassigned upon death and respawning. So, stuff like ice spikes
abusing the corpses should be rather nonexistant. It acts oddly when the humans all die
and thus fail the round, though, sometimes. Oh well, it'll get reset anyway.
* Ghouls drop ammo now sometimes, the drop chance is larger when they're killed.
Jitterskulls got the highest drop chance, Sjas and Creepers have lower chances, ghouls that
die by suiciding will have reduced chance to drop ammo.

V2:
* The Flame Vortex attack has been hopefully made more lag free. Reduced projectile amount but
increased damage so the outcome is still similar, hopefully. I can hardly make it more
lag free without having to entirely change the attack or in a worst case scenario remove it.
* Some actors made client side only to reduce lag as well. Such as the grenade explosions.
* Creepers are now actually a threat! Sure, a low-hp one, with 20 hp, easy to kill, and grenades
can take out groups, but now they actually hunt for people and kill them quickly, too.

V3:
* The Yurei didnt appear very much, and i'm guessing its something odd with the ST engine.
Mostly because she has the +LOOKALLAROUND flag, too! But that problem's fixed now.
She still wont teleport outside the arena though, so by all means, dont stray too close to
the walls.
* Small change to script to make sure there will be no duplicates running. Sometimes the Yurei
started teleporting while an attack was going on already. Hopefully this doesnt occur anymore.
* The Yurei's Flame Vortex now deals a little less damage. Should make surviving one hit
somewhat doable, dont count on surviving two hits without some luck.
* On kind request of BlueWizard, the ghouls can now (atleast TRY to) fight the Yurei.
Dont expect this to be that easy though.

V4:
* Added an hard mode for those suicidal freaks who like to call things easy. Hard mode
basically mixes attacks and does 2 attacks at the same time. Twice the dodging!
Credits goes to Falcy for inspiration to make this. Its completely optional to use though.
Note: to use, set compat_limitpain to true. It is off by default.
Dont ask me why of all flags to use that one, atleast its easy to manage. :P
* The Flame Vortex fireballs now deal a little less damage, AGAIN! People complained it still
one hit killed them, they really have to die in 2-3 hits though. You will die if you're
running along with the vortex and it catches up though, as you'll get hit multiple times.
* Ammo will be slightly refilled when the Yurei's final phase/form starts for classes other
then the Cyborg or Ghostbuster (they already have an ammo refill made/coded).
(Exception: Explosives are not refilled due them being useless against the Yurei.)
* Ammo is refilled when the yurei is defeated. Before that people who beat the Yurei would
be out of ammo at the start of the next round. Though this may stack ammo beyond what you
normally start with. Err, consider it a reward for beating her. You get healed, too.
* Added small guide to starting it singleplayer.
* The script forcefully tries to disable crouch now. Though i think Skulltag is being thick
about it and just thinks nothing of it. Meh.

There's more information on the readme file that's in the zip as well as in the wad itself. Bugs may still happen, its still a V1, so if you would be so kind to report any here. :P

The big idea is to aside making it work, to make it uh, more fair, some classes might just run out and become useless without way of recovering ammo. As for the attacks, they are basically the same but Sjas now too dies after he roams around too long.
I'll consider any suggestions too, if any. :P

[CutmanMike]

Well it's pretty stable now!

[CarThief]

Indeed. It still has its occasional absurd bug going on, like one time lightning just... stuck around, even when there was a huge MISSION FAILED, and the map reset, but it still stuck around.

Well, atleast it works quite nicely gameplay wise without any serious bugs. I dont know why but the LOOKALLAROUND flagged ghouls seem... Impaired regarding their vision. You need to shoot, or get close, for them to notice you. Fortunately the thing hate command solved this.

Seems to be fairly popular too, my server gets attention for long perioids of time (long to me, atleast). Maybe to hop back into the server and play a little.

[Anonymous]

I try to play it in Offline Skirmish and it won't enter because there's no player 1 start. Same goes for single player and use of the map command. Okay, it LOADS, then kicks me out because of said error. Yes, I've added the latest GVH stuff with it (gvhv2b9.pk3, gvhv2b9maps.pk3). Could you either explain a workaround or fix it?

EDIT: Added another way to encounter problem, clarified about the error.

[CarThief]

Ah, i never tested or tried it in singleplayer, it focused mainly on the multiplayer aspect. I suppose i could give it a try to make it singleplayer compatible too. Guess i'll include any possible instructions too.

Hmm... I recall a page on Cutstuff that tells how to run the Yurei Battle thing in singleplayer, i'm not sure if it works on my edit though.
http://cutstuff.net/blog/?p=994

Try doing what the page says for now, maybe it works. I never messed with the player starts though, so i dont know what that's about or how its caused, guess i'll take a look sooner or later and edit it if it doesnt work in singleplayer.

Oh, and if you try to do this with an older GVH with an unedited Yurei Battle thing, expect a screamer when she kills you in some situations. :P

Edit: V4 now comes with explanation on how to run it singleplayer. Well, hopefully it is accurate enough. I encountered a no player start error while running it singleplayer from IDE, but i could play it after i chose to do the map gvhfin as an offline skirmish in coop survival or whatever it was called.
Using the command multiplayer to emulate multiplayer works too, though without any other settings you'll probaly have infinite lives.

[Eruanna]

Are there any objections to me tweaking this fixed version and redistributing it as an available (and advertised) add-on?

[CarThief]

Ah, sure, feel free to try and fix up whatever still appears bugged as well, while most things have not been altered majorly, do note the... what was it... ah, the flame vortex has been altered to reduce lag and remain as deadly, in case it looks odd.

Also, i believe there's a small glitch that very sometimes happens that causes the yurei to stop appearing, somehow the loop of scripts that causes her to teleport around her target shuts down entirely, i've added a few messy failsaves but it still happens occasionally. Also planning to do anything with this... uh, less serious hard mode that has been implemented as well?

And i suppose you'll return the screamer effect that occurs, just a minor preference on my side and some others that it was removed. (Though i could still replace the image when editing this new version, i guess. :P)
Aside this im guessing you will try to get it to look mostly like the original (that worked decently back in the day), i guess?

I could send over the last gvh maps file that had GVHFIN in it too in case you're needing any more resources such as that image i deleted as it wasnt used in the edit anyway. Assuming Cutman or anyone else doesnt have it around or so,

[Eruanna]

I'll probably keep the image removed. While I have a very thick skin myself, I generally don't like to "walk up people's backsides" so to speak when it comes to shock images and things of that nature. It's funny the first few times but if some people don't like it - it proves that such things are not quite fitting for the people who will play it.

Normally, I wouldn't care, but the image crosses the boundaries of what some usually refer to as "acceptable."

[CutmanMike]

Hey it could be worse   I don't mind, it scares the jeebies out of me too so rid of it if you must

[Eruanna]

Yeah, scary factor, it definitely rates high. I've been scared by it too several times.

EDIT: If you do have newer maps, that would be great. I'll want to SVN them.

[CarThief]

Ah, GVHFIN is not an map i made, its rather the wad containing the whole Yurei Battle thing, its ACS, DECORATE, uh, and a map, i suppose.
If you ask me the whole scare thing isnt quite... amusing after getting hit by it for the 50th time, doesnt get any more original on it, of course some persist in wanting to have it back in, not many, i think, though.

Edit: GVHFIN was found in one of the early versions of the GVH map pk3 files. Still got alot of those official old files around if ever needed.
I also wonder, will the yurei battle be added into the main wad or as an addon simply advertised along with the official files? Assuming its not too large, its always interesting to host on survival, possibily with extra lives, ah, good times... Saves space on that precious limited list of wads too, perhaps.

[Eruanna]

Well until someone who wants it back in says something, we'll never know.

So for now it'll stay out.

[Ivory]

I wouldn't mind seeing it back in. I don't really like needing dozens of external files to join a server.

[Eruanna]

Since it's small that probably won't be an issue for me to do. Main reason why I opted to keep it out is because I figured any server that's going to be hosting GVHFIN probably isn't going to be set to the right mode for any other map, anyway, since it/s a coop/survival add-on and GvH proper is everything but that.

I'll let that topic be debated a bit before I make a final decision about that, though.

[CarThief]

I'd say assuming it isnt too large, its probaly good to just add it in, among the reasons include:
* It (probaly) requires the classes from GVH, and possibily some resources from other files, such as graphics files that where used in certain GVH maps.
* People would need to download twice otherwise, and they need GVH for it anyway, not to mention there's only so much space on the list of wads before the server starts having a fit (i think).

Hope the possible need for it to have resources from the GVH map files isnt going too restrictive or making things plain impossible, when editing this, wether you're going to add it or not.