[WIP] [Hexen] Legacy of Chaos Sphere II

[Theshooter7]

Since I'm making serious progress on this, and it's mainly for (G)ZDoom right now anyway, I figured I should post this here, too.

Easily enough to guess, this is a Hexen RPG mod that adds plenty of Role-playing elements to the Hexen world.

Some features include plenty of new skills, experience and stat system, Diablo style Skill-Tree development, a fully-functioning mouse-controlled GUI system (akin to Diablo, again), leveling monsters that become stronger as you do, and a nice new HUD.

Of course, there is more. I also plan on adding at least 3 new classes, a whole set of new maps (perhaps with a little storyline of their own), new monsters and bosses, at least one new weapon for the classic classes, and new difficulty settings.

Another thing is that, unlike the original LoCS, I will release the source files with this as well, so modders can take a look at how I did everything.

Here is a little screenshot for satisfaction:


A beta release should be ready hopefully within a week.

[Dreadopp]

Looks and sounds excellent.

A beta release should be ready hopefully within a week.

Sweet.

[Theshooter7]

Beta is all set. So, go here to grab it.

I'd be very appreciative for any feedback.

[Phucket]

I've got a bit of a problem with the wad. When I load it up, all the monsters and stuff are missing. I'm not sure if the weapons besides the beginning ones work or not though since you did that stupid crap with the cheats.
Edit: Got it. You might want to fix that though, not everyone enjoys playing hexen on the hard difficulty.

[neoworm]

Its nice piece.
I played as Cleric for some time and it was hard as hell until I got Wraith spell. Now one or two wrights will massacre every creature in map without any help from me. That major disballance between useless Spirit and overpowered Wraith is the biggest flaw I found so far.

By the way - disabling Cheats in beta is idiocy.

[Theshooter7]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

@Phucket: I think it's a problem with accidentally using the wrong spawn filter for "Normal" mode. Any other difficulty seems to work fine, however.

@Neoworm: I've had trouble trying to balance Wraith properly. I'll probably redo the damage formulas for their attacks and health so that they are not such overkill. Also, I forgot to boost Spirit's damage a little before the beta release, so that will go up slightly so it's not so useless. Also, cheats are disabled because certain cheats cause some very horrid bugs (Like killing everything with one hit because you were given 9999 Strength thanks to the "give ammo" or "give all" cheats), so I disabled them to prevent the possibility of that happening. If you have some other idea that could stop that, I'm all for it.

[neoworm]

Also, cheats are disabled because certain cheats cause some very horrid bugs (Like killing everything with one hit because you were given 9999 Strength thanks to the "give ammo" or "give all" cheats), so I disabled them to prevent the possibility of that happening. If you have some other idea that could stop that, I'm all for it.

I just wouldn care. If someone wants to spoil game with cheating let him do so. Just put a note into readme, maybe replace that script that kills you with warning thar cheating will cause RPG system crash.
I got stucked twice when playing, and because I dont save until I need to stop playing I had to replay most of map twice. Sometimes "cheats" like Fly and Noclip are necessary.

[Theshooter7]

I see your point. Very well. Cheats are enabled for all but Very Hard mode.

The next beta is up, so check the link again to get it.

[EDIT] whoops, I forgot to remove the death script for the cheat activation. One moment....

[EDIT2] Okay, it should be good now.

[DavidB1000]

Yeah, always a good idea not to punish cheaters more than what Descent ever did. "CHEATER" is fine. PLus, God mode is not that bad for beta testing. You sir are a very silly person for disabling cheats like that.

Also, this is not Oblivion, so, why must people love Leveling monsters? Huh? I understand some of the reasons, but still, not everyone here is a hardcore God of Hexen. Let alone can even beat Doom 2 on I'm too young to die.

Wait a minute, why can't I reliably kill ettins? I now have 5 points in axe mastery, 14 strength, and 9/8 wisdom and intelligence, and my blue mana runs out in 4 hits! At 10 mana a hit? Is it really so unbalanced that the warrior can actually use magic powers? Gahhh.

I'm sorry, but I object to the weakening of the fighter. Only now can I kill the fire gargoyles in two hits! Seriously, it took about 8 to kill the ettins in the first level. Now with crappy mana loss, I'll be lucky if I can even use Quietus when I get it!
at least it only takes 5 hits to kill ettins now, with 5 axe mastery!

[Theshooter7]

Also, this is not Oblivion, so, why must people love Leveling monsters? Huh? I understand some of the reasons, but still, not everyone here is a hardcore God of Hexen. Let alone can even beat Doom 2 on I'm too young to die.

Wait a minute, why can't I reliably kill ettins? I now have 5 points in axe mastery, 14 strength, and 9/8 wisdom and intelligence, and my blue mana runs out in 4 hits! At 10 mana a hit? Is it really so unbalanced that the warrior can actually use magic powers? Gahhh.

I'm sorry, but I object to the weakening of the fighter. Only now can I kill the fire gargoyles in two hits! Seriously, it took about 8 to kill the ettins in the first level. Now with crappy mana loss, I'll be lucky if I can even use Quietus when I get it!
at least it only takes 5 hits to kill ettins now, with 5 axe mastery!

I'll answer each of these in their own block.

If I didn't make monsters grow stronger, they'd either be impossible at the beginning, then normal when you are super-high level, or they would be easy as cake by level 10 or so. They don't grow too fast, though, so you can become quite a bit stronger than they are later on.

I boosted the Mana costs, seeing as you can go well over the normal limits of Mana by raising your Intelligence. Of course, I didn't do a huge amount of testing with the Fighter, so I could probably take your word for it being too high.

As for killing foes quickly, this game shouldn't be all that easy, particularly not at the beginning. But imagine when you start to reach levels in the 30s and 40s. Your Strength stat can be high enough to mow down even leveled Ettins, Chaos Serpents, and perhaps other enemies in just a couple hits.

I've made most of the damage formulas work on a basis of 60% Stats, 30% Skills (Mainly for the Fighter, that is, with his Weapon Masteries) and 10% base damage. I figured this system would be best, because then you can ALWAYS increase the amount of damage you do (as opposed to reaching the maximum skill level of 10 and then not gaining anymore useful bonuses from then on, which would make the game even harder than it should ever need to be, once you realize how quickly you can gain ranks in your skills).

I do appreciate your feedback, though.

[DavidB1000]

Ah, well, thank you as well, because that explains some things indeed. I'll keep testing it on normal, waiting to actually not die of boredom trying to kill Ettins with an axe.

Maybe at 20 strength, I'll notice an increase in damage? It's just that by now in unmodded, I would have been able to kill them in three or 4 shots. So, I though 10+ strength would be like 100% or so, not 86% to 103% or so.
Also, maybe you should have the wisdom drop the costs of hitting with a magic axe, and what not. Like Korax did.

I don't know, but compared to LOCS I, this is really disorientating, the difference.
Also, thanks for explaining how the monster leveling works. Better than Oblivion, anyway.

[Theshooter7]

Ah, well, thank you as well, because that explains some things indeed. I'll keep testing it on normal, waiting to actually not die of boredom trying to kill Ettins with an axe.

Maybe at 20 strength, I'll notice an increase in damage? It's just that by now in unmodded, I would have been able to kill them in three or 4 shots. So, I though 10+ strength would be like 100% or so, not 86% to 103% or so.
Also, maybe you should have the wisdom drop the costs of hitting with a magic axe, and what not. Like Korax did.

I don't know, but compared to LOCS I, this is really disorientating, the difference.
Also, thanks for explaining how the monster leveling works. Better than Oblivion, anyway.

I know, it seems kinda dull at first perhaps (especially in the Fighter case, seeing as half of his skills are Mastery skills ) But overall, you'll certainly notice larger boosts in damage once you get into the higher levels. I did a little play-through on my own as the Mage, and at about level 23, I was able to kill Ettins with the Sapphire Wand (Which is really nerfed in this mod) with at least half as many shots it took to kill them at Level 1 (I think I had about 28 Intelligence as well, and also remember that the Mage doesn't have Weapon Mastery skills). Seeing as you will Level up rather abnormally fast in this mod (I'm usually level 27 by the time I finish Seven Portals), boosting your stats up quickly shouldn't be a problem.

I'll certainly cut down the Mana usage on the Fighter's weapons for the final release(s). I tried to make the Mana consumption Dynamic (So that, as you suggested, it would go down as your stats increase) but for some reason the code would never work properly. I couldn't figure it out, so I gave up and made them static.

I was also considering reducing the MP recharge time, but at current it is at the highest threshold so that you can't invert the value (I.e. go below 0 charge time or so), assuming you put every point up through Level 99 in Wisdom (Like some people did for LoCS One, at least for the Fighter's Strength which made them kill Korax in ~2 hits). On the other hand, I was also thinking of making it like Korax Mod where every time you successfully use a Health Item or a Crystal Vial, you'll receive some MP back. I'll probably go with the latter, for the sake of simplicity and not wanting to put limits on player Stats (I want people to be able to develop their players in any way they choose).

[TheDarkArchon]

Which skills are NYI? Because the Glacier spell for the mage seems to be a frost shard with bad damage and awful accuracy

[Theshooter7]

All the skills are implemented for the three classes, if that's what NYI is. I do think that at Rank 4 Glacier becomes a lot different (and better) for use, but I definitely need to rethink how the original forms of those skills work (Glacier and FireJet).

[Dancso]

Good to see this project advance!

Kinda encourages me to continue my mod and stop being so addicted to my favourite MMO.

Didn't give this a try yet, i will soon, though.
Good luck with this, if you need help with coding just ask