What do you think D1 beats D2 at?

[LightWolf]

One thing I think D2 beats D1 at is the fact that D1 can only do alt. exits, whereas D2 supports that as well as teleporters.

[LightWolf]

no, no.. what do you mean by "both kinds"? of what? aexit sequence WITH the secret level exit/entrance?

No, I mean that we want to include both secret levels accessed by teleporters and by alternate exits. In D2 it's not physically possible to create alternate exits per se, but it is possible to create invisible teleporter cubes hidden behind doors coded to open upon the destruction of the reactor.

It is actually totally possible. Just make an exit, and change the trigger to secret exit.

No such thing as a "secret exit" flag in D2. It would have to be the teleporter flag.

All you have to do is make an exit, then change the trigger to "secret exit", which is what I am doing in one of my levels. It's THAT simple.

[LightWolf]

Trust me. It's just like a teleporter door.

[Alter-Fox]

The problem is the secret level still won't act like a D1 secret level.
You'll arrive there with all the keys, for one thing. And if you die on the secret level, just like in D2, you'll return to the base level -- except, if the base level is not available because you blew it up, you'll get forwarded to the next level with no way to return to the secret and get your spew!

I think Xfing knows what he's talking about as well, he's been designing maps slowly for years even though he is one of the newer level designers here (unless he was here before I joined and only came back a few years ago ), and his maps are among the best out of the "new blood".

[ThugsRook]

The problem is the secret level still won't act like a D1 secret level.
You'll arrive there with all the keys, for one thing. And if you die on the secret level, just like in D2, you'll return to the base level -- except, if the base level is not available because you blew it up, you'll get forwarded to the next level with no way to return to the secret and get your spew!

I think Xfing knows what he's talking about as well, he's been designing maps slowly for years even though he is one of the newer level designers here (unless he was here before I joined and only came back a few years ago ), and his maps are among the best out of the "new blood".

yup, im (still) working on porting D1 to D2 myself and the secret levels are currently a problem.
can fix the keys with switches ~ but death and no saves is a problem.
its currently just a rescue the hostages and get out.
D2 needs a way to split level paths.

D1 is a lot easier played in D2!
D2 bots are slow and easy.

but the D2 engine is a lot cleaner and smoother, and hi-res.

yea, they facked up not having all of D1 in D2.
D1 is better gameplay.

[Naphtha]

I do like the freedom of how D2 handles secret levels, though, even if it does make inserting an ultra-hard D1-like secret level a very bad idea. I'd say Obsidian, Bahagad Outbreak and The Lost Levels were some of the best missions when it came to toying with the secret level concept, especially the last one... Very hard to unlock, but all those goodies in The Lost Levels' only secret level are worth it!

D2, to me, is the best single player game in the series. The customizability is definitely a major selling point over D1, as well as a lot of the creative freedoms in how things can be set up. I also feel like a D1 mission exceeding 20 levels is way too long, but a D2 mission can be longer than that, and I chalk that up to the extra weapons and ship accessories in D2. A little careful balance and you can keep handing the player more new goodies well past the point where they'd start to feel meaningless in D1... For that reason, D1 fan missions kind of feel like they've dragged a bit after Level 15 or so, and normally they just don't keep feeling harder and harder with every level past that point.

On the other hand, D1 is the best multiplayer game because of the weapons balance. As a newbie in the Rangers I hear a lot of people complain about the Gauss as a cheap weapon, while I don't see anybody use a Fusion Cannon in D2 unless it's the first gun I pick up after respawning. I've realized now that the D2 Fusion wasn't really too weak in single player, but it was overshadowed by the D2 weapons. But in D2 multiplayer, it's definitely too weak, as a single uncharged shot does only 15 damage. Not to mention half of the D2 weapons are typically excluded from a Rangers scored game, so D2 scored doesn't feel different enough from D1 scored for me to feel like it's a good multiplayer game.

I've proposed a promod Jinx and Blarget designed for my own D2 levels to balance the weapons fairly evenly in both game modes, but it hasn't really caught on yet...

[Xfing]

The problem is the secret level still won't act like a D1 secret level.
You'll arrive there with all the keys, for one thing. And if you die on the secret level, just like in D2, you'll return to the base level -- except, if the base level is not available because you blew it up, you'll get forwarded to the next level with no way to return to the secret and get your spew!

I think Xfing knows what he's talking about as well, he's been designing maps slowly for years even though he is one of the newer level designers here (unless he was here before I joined and only came back a few years ago ), and his maps are among the best out of the "new blood".

I wouldn't say "for years"... My first level took me like a year to make, but I was taking giant breaks and starting completely from scratch, no knowledge, no nothing.. The second one was small enough and I was already better learned in the DLE, so it was done in like 4 sessions

As for a hard-coded conversion of D1 to D2, that's definitely something we could use. Although most things are already taken care of in that regard, D1 Boss AI and secret exits are still issues. Not very essential ones, but the liberty of making an ultra-hard secret level would be a nice thing to have. As would having the D1 Final Boss spawn D1 robots all around its room.

[ThugsRook]

^the bot AI could use some work too. a DESCENT1.HAM would be nice

[Naphtha]

Sure sounds like a major letdown about the D1 Final Boss no longer spawning other bots in D2... I was thinking of converting my original D1 single player mission to D2, but I didn't even realize the final boss had been nerfed like that. Overall, though, I didn't mind the way regular D1 robots are handled in D2. It seems like their aim and tactics were made a bit harder more than anything.

[Sirius]

Doing the numbers, it is roughly half. Omega is broken, Helix and Phoenix are borderline (in decreasing order and there might be a majority of players that are OK with them), and smart mines and earthshakers drastically change the game when they're included, the latter more than the former.

Really, the principal difference with D2 is the afterburner; it makes it play much different in practice. I haven't done a scientific study on it yet, but I believe it increases average lifetime in D2 by at least 50%.

[Xfing]

Sure sounds like a major letdown about the D1 Final Boss no longer spawning other bots in D2... I was thinking of converting my original D1 single player mission to D2, but I didn't even realize the final boss had been nerfed like that. Overall, though, I didn't mind the way regular D1 robots are handled in D2. It seems like their aim and tactics were made a bit harder more than anything.

If you put the D1 final boss in a D2 level with absolutely no tweaks, there'll be some things different from his D1 incarnation.

- he'll no longer spawn robots around the room
- he'll lose the ability to cloak/teleport
- he'll basically just sit in one place and fire at you. It's also possible that he'll exhibit standard movement, but I can't recall that one.
- robot megas instead of player megas. weaaaaak.

So what you need to do in the HAM file is to assign him a different boss flag than his default one (D1 boss 2). I suggest Red Fatty Jr or Quartzon, as those are the only ones not to have an immunity. He'll then spawn according robots on hit. Other than that, you need to set his movement to 0, otherwise he'll dash at you as soon as he sees you, causing significant melee damage. And replace his armament with Player Megas, so that his damage's alright.

That way he's the closest you can get to D1 without serious hard-code tweaks. The differences are his plasma defense which the D1 version lacked and the way he spawns robots (and what robots these are in the first place).

[Alter-Fox]

Why would you use a HAM file to tweak one robot?
That seems like a lot of trouble. DLE already has the features to change everything you just said in an HXM.

[Xfing]

I could as well just have tweaked it in the HAM, since I did the weapons too. Single file, no worries etc.

[Alter-Fox]

The problem with the HAM is that people can choose not to use it.
Except in D2X-XL, where it can be mandatory in a mods folder.

Using HXMs for robot mods will make sure that players get the robot mods even if they don't get the other mods.

[Xfing]

Well, The Lost Levels included a HAM of its own if I can recall well. The file isn't particularly large, including it isn't problematic. Unless there are infringement issues...

[Naphtha]

The Lost Levels did have a .HAM, but it was only for the weapons. Every level (except the secret level, which I assume was an honest mistake) had a .HXM to insert Vertigo robots and custom bosses by having them replace various robots from D1 and D2. It's really easier to just assign robot mod data through the .HXM files anyway, especially because at least for Rebirth users, the .HAM inside a mission pack will be used instead of the .HAM in the main directory. Somebody who might want to mix and match would be forced into playing with D2's standard weapons (for example, personally I might choose to use the promod I asked Blarget and JinX to make, but that's neither here nor there ).

[Sirius]

Lost Levels would have been a "V-HAM" wouldn't it? (A different version of the format, used in D2 Vertigo and with limitations compared to the main .HAM, although still with the same file extension.) Back when it was published, there was no Rebirth (or probably XL even) to load custom full .HAM files. Vanilla D2 1.2 ignored those.

[Naphtha]

No, it was a standard .HAM. I know I didn't see a .VHAM when I opened the .HOG in Yahoma to take out the custom weapons for a playthrough. The Lost Levels was standard D2, with a .HAM for weapons and 24 .HXM files for the robots in each level.

[Xfing]

Well, D1,5 has its own HAM file with all the weapon tweaks (mostly returning the D1 weapons to their original powers and speeds). It also has its own .S11 and .S22 files. Pumo is also making another .PIG palette, which it'll also make use of.

I was thinking it would need a separate directory to play in Rebirth, with the regular D2 files replaced with the new ones. It would be too much bother to actually try to make everything load on the run without replacing the original files.

[Alter-Fox]

I don't think I'd have a problem prepping it for XL; replacing the POG files with hires textures in a mod folder and such.

We'll see though, things can pop up.

[Sirius]

Huh. Did LL come with some instructions/.bat to swap the main descent2.ham with its version or something?

[DarkFlameWolf]

Might as well hop in here and clear things up. Yes there was a batch file (back when those things actually worked) that saved your old descent2.ham and replaced it with my new descent2.ham with the new weapons and ship dynamics. It worked well enough until Rebirth and XL enabled Descent to start reading for HAM files first from inside the HOG. Since then, the re-release of Lost Levels featured the descent2.ham inside the HOG file instead, which made things FAR simpler.

[Xfing]

Does that also work with .S11 and .S22 files? I have replaced some multiplayer sounds to accomodate the original D1 robot sounds for the mission.

[DarkFlameWolf]

Good question, try it out. I do not have the answer to that one.

[Xfing]

Oh, I will. A bit later, though. Right now I'm gonna lay low and focus on other stuff until Pumo finishes his custom PIG. That's really gonna be useful.

[MegaDescent]

If the question this thread titles from is only about strictly FS versus CS, then I have quite a single answer for it :

Texture variety and fun factor.

[Xfing]

If the question this thread titles from is only about strictly FS versus CS, then I have quite a single answer for it :

Texture variety and fun factor.

Interesting point! Most people are convinced that D2 textures were in fact much more varied than those from D1. And looking at the Zeta Aquilae set I have to agree. However, four levels in a row for a particular theme does feel sameish, quite a bit more so than Descent 1 did.

[vision]

Most people are convinced that D2 textures were in fact much more varied than those from D1.

More varied, yes. More better, no. I think this is why people prefer Vertigo over CS; better texture usage and less redundancy.

[Avder]

To me, a lot of the textures in D2 just feel cartoony and unnatural.

[Alter-Fox]

I like D2's textures -- but even so I prefer the D2X-XL hires versions not because they're higher-res, because they're more "muted" and natural looking.

[Xfing]

I've recently come to the realization - late may it be - that all the differences between Descent 2 and its predecessor may have been fully intentional in order to make the two games stand apart as products. If Descent 2 had everything D1 had, no one would still be buying D1, that's what they probably thought back in 1996. I mean I know many textures were either axed for redundancy or because they simply don't look that good with the new palettes, but you can't say the same about the robots and the sounds, there was nothing stopping Parallax from recording 22khz versions for the robots absent from the game too.

Even with Vertigo they didn't quite mesh the two games 50/50, so while it did bring the D1 feels (and robots) here and there, it was still primarily a D2 experience. And it does make perfect sense when you think about it from a marketing perspective. If this was 1997 or so and we were doing all that content restoration stuff we've been at recently, Parallax would probably sue our asses to hell and back

[LightWolf]

That is logical...