Hexercise v0.0.6: The coldest of the fixes

[twinkieman93]

It DOES feel a bit too strong, because if you can get the majority of icicles to hit it's a OHK on ettins for six mana, as opposed to a two hit kill for eight mana when using Timon's Axe without any fancy comboing. Two damage per shard probably would have worked just fine, as that would put it between the Shotgun and Super Shotgun in terms of effectiveness. I think that would be about equivalent to the original Frost Shards when used properly. Remember, the Frost Shards weren't weak. They were just hard to use for a stupid reason. You've removed that stupid reason, so they should be just about perfect if they do about the same amount of damage.

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, is the Fighter's new-found left handedness a nod to the superiority of lefties in hand-to-hand combat, or is that just something you thought it'd be cool to do?

[DoomRater]

Taking a quick break from making mrot files for my Archimedes Ships configs to test this out... Wow that's quite a punch. With all the classes getting melee ranged stuff it seems like the fighter really gets the shaft here.

[twinkieman93]

Mm, yeah, I can see how you'd feel that way. The mace is now basically Easy Mode fists, and as I mentioned, the frost shards need a bit lower damage(but higher than it was, it formerly sucked pretty hard post-derandomization). However, if you throw out a couple of fists every now and again, the axe is now an even faster killer than it was before, not to mention being more fun to use. And the hammer's alt-fire... hooo, boy, the hammer's alt-fire. Hot damn, Thor sheds a single manly every time you perform it after jumping into the air over a crowd of ettins, or centaurs, or a crowd of ANYTHING really.

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The dual-wielded axe-and-hammer combo of ultimate destiny is pretty cool too. I'm not sure why this is still considered a secret, can we stop spoilering this? The thing that Korax does I understand, but one of the coolest features of the mod? I dunno, it doesn't feel like something you should try to conceal.

[DoomRater]

Agreed on the "secret" part. However I find it sad that Fighter lacks ANY sort of ranged attack now despite being able to reflect projectiles with HIS FISTS and his ultimate attack. At least he used to have a rocket launcher hidden in that hammer of his. Hammer was my go to weapon for Fighter when I wanted to conserve mana.

[twinkieman93]

However I find it sad that Fighter lacks ANY sort of ranged attack now despite being able to reflect projectiles with HIS FISTS and his ultimate attack. At least he used to have a rocket launcher hidden in that hammer of his. Hammer was my go to weapon for Fighter when I wanted to conserve mana.

Huh? No, the Hammer of Retribution's primary fire is still to chuck out a magical fiery hammer. What exactly are you talking about?

Heh, speaking of that, the hammer's full name is fitting. Until you get it, you only have melee attacks. Now you can throw stuff right back at them, or, you know, give out fiery retribution.

[DoomRater]

Musta missed it all these times. Oh well, it's faster so yeah... kickass.

Edit: Ohgod I just kicked Korax's ass with just the sapphire wand, the mana trade spells, the heal spell, and the firestorm spell (due to the glitch, it actually makes it a nice way to juggle mana until it becomes sufficient for heals, firestorm spells, and the like, all while zapping people with the wand). Mage endgame has never felt so powerful, and none of the other characters could pull that off without their weapons.

[twinkieman93]

Glitch? What glitch? I'm not aware of a glitch with the spells.
Also, you SAY that, but I think I'm gonna go try to prove you wrong. BRB, gonna fist Korax to death.

EDIT: Ow. Okay, you're probably right, but to be fair if you had long enough, you could kill anything with the sapphire wand.

[DoomRater]

Korax hits a bit hard even on easiest. By the way, the mana glitch I speak of is using the mana convert on easiest provides more mana than it should.

[twinkieman93]

Korax hits a bit hard even on easiest. By the way, the mana glitch I speak of is using the mana convert on easiest provides more mana than it should.

Ah. Sounds like someone forgot to add +IGNORESKILL.

[DoomRater]

No he added it, didn't seem to work. Not sure why, a peek at the code might tell me what happened...

[Eric_]

Why did the fighter get nerfed so badly by this update? A three-punch combo sometimes doesn't even kill an ettin anymore. The cleric, on the other hand, is now killing them in two hits from the mace, or gibbing them in three if the second hit doesn't kill.

Also, a fun little tidbit: in co-op, a wounded fighter can heal himself by using his buddies as punching bags.

[le_L]

Well whaddya know, a target is a target.

Fighter got the short end in the de-randomising process, but the next build is to deal with all that balancing business. That also includes the Frost Shards. Taking into account the lack of ranged attacks, I'm trying to decide whether it's reasonable to double the axe's damage so as to mirror the doubled mana cost. And then maybe some, so that it always one-shots Ettins. Thoughts on that are more than welcome, as is any talk on balance.

I'm actually hoping for it to be the final release. Past that, I'm thinking of opening it up for others to tinker with.

[DoomRater]

Fighter actually being a slaying machine with the axe? Sign me up! It always felt weak even though the amount of damage it puts out OUTSIDE of Hexen is insane. Plus it was always really good at multiplayer as it was.... now it'll feel like the close range Super Shotgun it's supposed to.

Edit: How about Fighter stays unrandomized but everyone else has to deal with RNG?

[twinkieman93]

I really think making the axe deal even more damage than it already does is a good idea. After all, currently, there's almost no reason to use mana when wielding it, except in panic situations. See, in terms of the time it takes to kill an ettin, a punch-manaless slice-punch combo will kill an ettin just as fast as a slice-punch combo, and is actually FASTER than a slice-slice combo.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that there's no reason to just go ham and swing the axe around like a madman, except if you start panicking, which any person who's played this game for an unhealthy amount of time(me) almost never does.

[Valherran]

Fighter actually being a slaying machine with the axe? Sign me up! It always felt weak even though the amount of damage it puts out OUTSIDE of Hexen is insane. Plus it was always really good at multiplayer as it was.... now it'll feel like the close range Super Shotgun it's supposed to.

Really? I use Timon's Axe all the time. The punch-slash-punch combo kills Ettins and Slaughtaurs in the same amount of time as 2 normal hits. I don't think it really needs a buff since it gets outclassed by the dual wield anyways.


My thoughts on balancing this further:

1. Ice Shards do need a buff as said above, I would double the RoF of the alt-fire and increase the damage of the primary fire enough to kill an Ettin at medium range in 1 hit.

2. Firestorm alt-fire is useless, I would rather spend that little bit extra mana using the primary fire than use the alt-fire and get hit for it currently. I would tweak it so that it can set fire to things all around you and have a little more range. Or you can make it a new attack, have the Cleric punch the ground and create a fire pillar and explode everything around him.

3. Arc of Death alt-fire sucks too. I would have made it so that it spawns mini storm clouds over monster's heads within a large radius of the player, and have it rain down lightning bolts as long as you hold the button down. Or you can give him chain lightning that bounces a certain number of times.

4. I mainly use Timon's Axe on the Fighter because of the HP I get back from the punches connecting from the life steal. I would remove life steal completely from this so it will give more reason to use the fists if you need HP.

5. Fighter Fists life steal is pretty high, I used the fists a lot against those annoying wraiths with the lava fireballs to use less Quartz Flasks. You can either lower the amount gained per punch, or only grant the life gained on kill instead of on hit. Or you can do a combination of both, say gain 1 HP per hit and 3 on kill.

6. Cleric shield could use a buff on the knock back distance of the shield bash. Would also be good if monsters took damage from impacting into walls or objects when shield bashed. An alternative is to allow a stun effect instead of knock back too.

7. Mage's Energy blast alt fire from the Sapphire Wand needs a small buff in damage, enough to guarantee a kill on an Ettin in 1 shot when fully charged. Kind of annoying that you take that time to charge it, just to see them still standing with 1 HP if you are not completely point blank in front of them.

I got plenty of other ideas for this, but it all depends on how far you are willing to go. If you decide you want to add extra content later on down the road, let me know. ^^