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Text File | 1995-07-31 | 20.3 KB | 475 lines

COPYRIGHT NOTICE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 1995 M. Scott Jordan. All rights reserved. This program and corresponding documentation is to be freely distributed with no fees beyond a reasonable copying cost. If you feel that this is a really swell program and you want to give money, send a couple of extra bucks to your local United Way campaign. SPECIAL THANKS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks to Bill McClendon (bill.mcclendon@creature.com) for ideas, testing, and proofreading. Bill is the author of an invaluable document, The Unofficial WAD Designers' Handbook (HANDBK12.ZIP), available on ftp.cdrom.com. It contains a lot of useful information for beginning level designers. Bill's efforts transformed this document to its current readable state! Thanks Bill! INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCOUNT is a DOS program intended to provide level authors with a starting point for determining how much health, armor, and ammo to place in a WAD, based on the total number of damage points of the monsters in the WAD. Basically, it's designed to give you a rough guideline of how much stuff to put in to give your players a "balanced" level. Only items in single player mode are analyzed. Multiplayer-only items are listed in the raw data file (THINGDAT.TXT) but do not show up in the analyses. Items in "secret" locations are counted in the analysis. TCOUNT assumes that the player is going to find the secrets. If they're probably not going to find the secrets, you can always take the items off the map before you run this program. In addition, TCOUNT can be used to examine existing WADS to list the THINGS, find where they are, when they show up, etc. DISCLAIMER ~~~~~~~~~~ Let me emphasize that cut-and-dried numbers are not intended to replace careful and deliberate play-testing. This program is no substitute for beta-testing. Fun is fun, and numbers don't insure that you are going to have fun. TCOUNT will give you a quick read on a level to tell you how much stuff you've given the player compared to the quantity and types of monsters. This should speed WAD development and reduce play- testing (but not eliminate it!). If you wish, you can use TCOUNT to look at other people's WADs to tell if they are overloaded with stuff, have the right number of Deathmatch locations, and have differences in their skill levels. (It can also tell you at a glance how well-thought- out Thing placement is...) WARNING: CyberDemons (400 damage points) and SpiderDemons (300 damage points) can skew the analysis badly because they carry a tremendous number of damage points, and because defeating these monsters is nearly always a "special-case scenario". My preferred approach is to leave these out of the initial analysis in order for the ratios to be properly (and fairly) calculated, then add them later and handle them specially. PREMISE ~~~~~~~ The more monsters you have and the more dangerous they are, the more ammo, health, and armor you will need to kill them all. TCOUNT makes the assumption that ammo, health, and armor quantities are a function of the total number of damage points of the monsters. Damage point figures were derived from the DOOM FAQ. Moreover, you can use some rules of thumb to assess a WAD to determine if the loading of `stuff' is typical for the number and the types of monsters. For instance, if we wanted to have twice as many ammo points as monster damage points, we could say that 1 demon (14 points) merits 2*14 = 28 ammo points. As WAD designers, we then determine how to split up these ammo points. Maybe it will be 28 bullets; perhaps 4 shells, at 7 ammo points a shell. It's up to you, as TCOUNT doesn't make the distinction. Different skill levels use different ratios. Using TCOUNT, you can make progressively-more-difficult levels more easily and populate them more consistently. USE ~~~ Running TCOUNT with no arguments gives the following help screen, which is about as user-friendly as it gets: =============================================================== Syntax: TCOUNT wadfile level (for info on that level) TCOUNT wadfile /L (for names of entries in wadfile) Examples: TCOUNT c:\doom2\doom2.wad map04 TCOUNT c:\doom\doom.wad e3m7 TCOUNT c:\doom\wads\mywad.wad /L =============================================================== To get information on a level in a WAD the syntax is: TCOUNT wad_file_name level_name To list the contents of a WAD's directory: TCOUNT wad_file_name /l There may be a lot of directory entries and you can use the DOS redirection to pipe them to a file: TCOUNT c:\doom2\doom2.wad /l > d2_list.txt This is helpful when you've forgotten which (or how many) levels are in a WAD. The basic approach is to build your WAD, put all the monsters in place, then run TCOUNT to see how much stuff (health, armor, ammo) you should start with. With this starting point, you can then play-test to tune the amount of stuff you want to place. You can also put stuff in as you see fit, run TCOUNT, then examine the numbers before you plow ahead with more playtesting. DATA FILE ~~~~~~~~~ The data file TCOUNT3X.DAT tells TCOUNT the names associated with different thing numbers and the health, armor, ammo, and damage points associated with them. TCOUNT3X.DAT must reside in the directory that TCOUNT is run from; this can be any directory. It's recommended that you put TCOUNT and it's associated files in whatever directory you use to store your works-in-progress in, for ease of use. TCOUNT3X.DAT contains the relevant information on individual things: values for ammo, armor, health, and points. NOTE: Invulnerability, Berserk Packs, Megaspheres, and other "special" Things have variable effects on the difficulty of your level. You may wish to set values to these to meet your needs. You may edit TCOUNT3X.DAT to properly represent the monster and ammo mix in your level. (Actually, this is encouraged, because every level is a little bit different, and as TCOUNT doesn't figure for architectural quirks, your TCOUNT results, as compared to your playtest results, might come up a bit skewed.) *** *** JUST DON'T CHANGE THE LAST LINE!! *** *** The last line starts with a "!" and tells TCOUNT when it has read in all the data. Comments may be made anywhere except the last line. A comment begins with a "#" like this statement: # comments have '#' as the first character in the line Any thing with a "*" character as the first character on the "name" line will not be displayed on the detailed thing listing for that level. For example, if you don't want "Floor lamp" listed, call it: *Floor lamp The asterisk will keep it from being listed. This is helpful for removing long lists of decorations from the analysis. Even if a name starts with a "*", the health, armor, ammo, and damage values are still figured into the ratio analysis. If you don't want something figured in to the ratio analysis, set the health, armor, ammo, and damage values to zero. The detailed Thing listing is sequenced the same as is in TCOUNT3X.DAT. If you want to see ammo first, move it up to the top of the file. If you don't like the way things are ordered here, switch them around. TCOUNT does not need the information in any specific order. There must be no gaps between the thing text and the number, health, etc.; that's because TCOUNT expects (and needs) to find the numbers on the line immediately after the name. The last valid line in the data file must start with a "!". The exclamation point tells TCOUNT to stop reading data. You can put stuff in the data file after the "!"; however, it will be ignored. The other note is that there must a line starting with "!" in the data file or TCOUNT will hit EOF prematurely and quit. The data file format of a line entry for a thing is: THING TEXT NUMBER HEALTH ARMOR AMMO DAMAGE THING TEXT: Up to 29 descriptive characters. You can edit the file to rename things to your liking. NUMBER: The id thing number from the DOOM Specs. HEALTH, ARMOR, AMMO, DAMAGE: Points as described in the DOOM FAQ. Edit these to meet your needs. Note that each value must be separated from the next value by at least one space; you can use more, but not less. Let's look at an example: FORMER HUMAN SERGEANT 9 0 0 28 3 Here you see that Sarge is thing number 9. He carries no health or armor points. The 28 ammo points are from the shotgun he drops when you kill him; the shotgun has 4 shells at 7 ammo points each. The last number, 3, means that it takes 3 damage points to kill Sarge. There must be no gaps between the thing text and the number, health, etc.; that's because TCOUNT expects to find the numbers on the line immediately after the name. (Hey, I'm not a code wizard...) OUTPUT ~~~~~~ TCOUNT generates 3 output files: THINGDAT.TXT: A thing by thing listing showing what is in the WAD file. Note that this file can be rather large; average observed sizes on a variety of WADs is about 40k. This file is created for each running of TCOUNT -- if you need to keep previous copies of this for some reason, you should rename them, as TCOUNT will overwrite them without a warning or prompt. *.TXT: Detailed analysis file showing thing counts by level, summation data and ratio data. The "*" corresponds to the mission or map which you specified. Note that TCOUNT will overwrite (without asking) a previous file with the same name. Also, the name of the *.TXT file will be the level designation; i.e., MAP01.TXT for MAP01 levels. This file is where most of the useful information will be found. These run really small next to THINGDAT.TXT -- about 10k. *.SUM: A summary file suitable for importing into many spread sheet programs. This is useful for really geeky analyses such as the ones shown later in this document. Another 10k, average. Of note: the "*" in the filenames above corresponds to the level number of the WAD you're analyzing; i.e., if you were analyzing a level that was MAP01, you'd get THINGDAT.TXT, MAP01.TXT and MAP01.SUM as your output. Note again that all three of these files will overwrite any previously- existing files of the same name without warning. =============================================================== Sample THINGDAT.TXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thing analysis of c:\doom\doom.wad Level: E2M7 XCOORD YCOORD ANGLE TYPE ATTRIB |1+2| 3 | 4 | D | M | 0 1904 -352 45 3001 7 | X | X | X | | | 1 1168 176 180 3002 7 | X | X | X | | | 2 -32 448 45 3001 7 | X | X | X | | | 3 176 816 0 3001 7 | X | X | X | | | etc.... Number on left: Just a sequence number XCOORD, YCOORD: the X and Y coordinates of the Thing's location. ANGLE : the facing of the Thing; 0 is north, 90 is east, etc. TYPE : the Thing's "type" number, from the DOOM Specs. ATTRIBute : I have no idea, but there it is in case you need it. (ho ho) 1+2: X'd if the Thing is present on skill levels 1+2 3 : X'd if the Thing is present on skill level 3 4 : X'd if the Thing is present on skill level 4 D : X'd if the Thing is flagged "deaf" M : X'd if the Thing is flagged "multiplayer-only" =============================================================== Sample E2M7.TXT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Detailed Thing List of c:\doom\doom.wad Level: E2M7 1+2 3 4 PNTS DESCRIPTION HLTH ARMR AMMO THNG 3 4 4 3 FORMER HUMAN SERGEANT 0 0 28 9 40 41 46 6 IMP 0 0 0 3001 18 26 33 14 DEMON 0 0 0 3002 0 1 5 14 SPECTRE 0 0 0 58 2 5 5 36 CACODEMON 0 0 0 3005 1 1 2 100 BARON OF HELL 0 0 0 3003 1 1 1 0 Backpack 0 0 98 8 1 1 1 0 Chainsaw 0 0 0 2005 1 1 1 0 Chaingun gatling gun 0 0 20 2002 16 16 16 0 Ammo clip 0 0 10 2007 3 3 3 0 Box of Ammo 0 0 50 2048 6 6 6 0 Shotgun shells 0 0 28 2008 6 6 6 0 Box of Shells 0 0 140 2049 1 1 1 0 Rocket launcher 0 0 40 2003 etc... (Here you get a listing of counts of the different things you have, broken down by skill level. Monster Damage points are shown immediately to the left of the names. To the right are the number of health, armor, and ammo points associated with a single use of the Thing. The point values are straight out of TCOUNT3X.DAT. On the far right is the id thing number, or TYPE from the previous chart.) (NOTE THAT YOU CAN ALSO USE THIS TO COUNT THE NUMBER OF DEATHMATCH SPOTS BEFORE FINDING OUT THE HARD WAY.) Unknowns No Unknowns Found (If there is a thing with no number for it in the data file, you will see an entry here. Very helpful if you accidentally edit out something important in the data file.) E2M7 Totals by Difficulty: HEALTH ARMOR AMMO POINTS 1+2 444 312 2200 673 3 444 312 2228 916 4 444 312 2228 1200 (Totals by skill level. You can check to see how much difference there is between skill levels in your WAD. You can also check other peoples' WADs to see if they even bothered to build in different skill levels.) (Multiplying these numbers and your desired starting ratios gives the total number of health, armor, and ammo points to build into your WAD for starters, should you desire to populate your level in this manner.) Ratios to POINTS by Difficulty: HEALTH ARMOR AMMO 1+2 0.66 0.46 3.27 3 0.48 0.34 2.43 4 0.37 0.26 1.86 (Here's where we get down to serious business. Look at the ratios and see how they stack up against your expectations. More on expectations in the next section.) (WADs with 0 damage points for a given skill level get no ratio data for that level. This would require division by 0.) =============================================================== TYPICAL VALUES Ahh... here's the tricky part. While Jerry Falwell and Newt Gingrich may believe that there is one and only one set of acceptable values, the fact is that these are going to vary from person to person and WAD to WAD, especially when architectural quirks (such as low lighting and tight corridors) are figured into the final count. 10 Demons in a narrow bright hallway are far less difficult to kill than 10 Demons in an open dark room, yet to TCOUNT, both sets of Demons are equally easy to kill. We both know they're not, though, are they? This is why it is so vital to change the TCOUNT3X.DAT file for each level you analyze. Listed below are values which I've gotten from analyzing v1.666 of DOOM 1 and 2. My basic approach was to look at "typical" levels, then throw out levels which produced odd results. In Doom 1, data from the first episode was omitted as it seemed significantly different from the second two episodes -- the health ratios were particularly odd. Levels with CyberDemons and SpiderDemons were omitted, as these monsters threw the analysis off. Look in the D1.PRN and D2.PRN files to see which levels were included in this analysis. ======================================================= DOOM 1 SUMMARY VALUES HEALTH/ ARMOR/ AMMO/ AVERAGES POINTS POINTS POINTS POINTS 1+2 426 1.40 0.95 4.99 3 846 0.73 0.47 2.61 4 1260 0.47 0.29 1.74 LOW VALUES 1+2 252 0.82 0.46 3.27 3 611 0.48 0.31 2.33 4 871 0.37 0.18 1.43 HIGH VALUES 1+2 560 1.90 1.57 6.82 3 1018 0.97 0.62 3.01 4 1723 0.65 0.38 2.15 ======================================================= DOOM 2 SUMMARY VALUES HEALTH/ ARMOR/ AMMO/ AVERAGES POINTS POINTS POINTS POINTS 1+2 404 1.28 0.70 5.94 3 964 0.67 0.30 2.82 4 1435 0.45 0.20 2.25 LOW VALUES 1+2 153 0.93 0.24 4.14 3 309 0.40 0.10 2.06 4 423 0.26 0.06 1.26 HIGH VALUES 1+2 797 1.86 1.45 7.60 3 1553 0.96 0.59 3.76 4 2493 0.73 0.37 3.20 ======================================================= The high and low values are the highest and lowest included in my analysis. It gives you a feel for what the original id values were. Average values are just typical values. Some WADs will be lower, some will be higher. What does this mean, though? Let's take an example: Suppose that you are doing a DOOM 2 level and you want to check out the numbers for skill level 4 (Ultra-Violence). You would run TCOUNT on your WAD. If your WAD's HEALTH/POINTS number was less than 0.45, your WAD has less HEALTH items than a typical DOOM 2 WAD on skill 4. If it's below 0.26, then it has a *whole* lot less than what you typically see in D2. You might wish to take out a few monsters, use some less lethal monsters, or add some more health; alternately, you may prefer to have your level be more difficult, relatively speaking, than the originals. On the other side, if your WAD's HEALTH/POINTS number is well above 0.73, then you should look closely to see if there's too much health. You can run TCOUNT on a WAD with no stuff (other than monsters) in it to get the total number of monster points on the different levels. Once you know the number of monster points, you can use the typical numbers above, or ones of your own, to estimate how much stuff to put in. Getting back to the D2 example listed above, let's say that your WAD has 1500 POINTS of monsters. For skill 4 this would suggest that you start out with: HEALTH = 0.45 * 1500 = 675 health points ARMOR = 0.20 * 1500 = 300 armor points AMMO = 2.25 * 1500 = 3375 ammo points After populating your WAD with this much stuff, you start testing and tuning. Note that, in my experience, it's better to add everything first and play-test it, then run TCOUNT on it to see if the ratios match up with the play-testing data you've gathered, rather than say, "Okay, I need to add 63 medikits and 3 suits of green armor because that's how much TCOUNT says I need." It's interesting to note how the ratios change with skill level. Here you can see how id changed their loadings for the different skills. POINTS reflects the monster population; you can see that skills 1+2 have about 1/2 the monsters of skill 3. Skill 4 has about 50% more monsters than skill 3. Full listings of the data used in the analysis can be found in D1.PRN and D2.PRN. You can generate full listings for D1 and D2 by using the TEST1.BAT and TEST2.BAT routines included in the archive. MISCELLANEOUS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TCOUNT will probably work for HERETIC too; someone just needs to make up a data file. Not being a HERETIC person, I'll leave that to others. My current e-mail addresses are: SJORDAN@MAIL.WIN.ORG SJORDAN@MEMC.COM I don't pay for either one of these. If your message bounces, try the other one. The analysis of D1 and D2 data was done with Microsoft Excel. If you would like a copy of the spread sheet, drop me mail and I'll try to send you a UUEncoded copy. TCOUNT's front end is pretty straightforward, if you like command-line parameters. I don't write them to look nice -- I just try to do a job. If there's enough interest and need, I could probably be cajoled into writing a Windows 3.1 version with a decent user interface. ABOUT THE AUTHOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scott Jordan is a 37 year old engineering supervisor in the Epi area at MEMC's St. Peters plant. He is a chemical engineer by background and writes code on an "as needed" basis... which goes a long way to explaining the lack of a decent interface on TCOUNT.