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Latest: 1.032 (1/21/14) WoC Version: 1.6C
This mod is exactly what it sounds like. I like the extra features and difficulty of Wrath of Cronos, but heXercise has always been one of my favorite mods, even if it makes the game easier. So, I took the time to splice heXercise's weapons into Wrath of Cronos, and rebalance them. I like documenting my own work, even if it's trivial, so I figured, why not throw it up on the ZDoom forum since I already have a changelog.
Changelog
The changelog can be found here at my Pastebin. It will update anytime I update the PK3.
Overview
I would like to thank both Lloyd and Thetis for making the best mods for Hexen on the market today. I take no credit for anything in this PK3 or even my own work to put it together, because it was so simple Well I guess shit has gotten crazier faster than I thought it would so yeah, I take credit for the additional changes in this PK3. More credits to come if I end up using other peoples' assets.
Thanks to Crudux Cruo for his Fighter uppercut sprites.
First, if you have never played HeXercise, I advise you to go to Lloyd's thread here and read up on the weapon changes, and perhaps even play the mod yourself.
Next, if you have never played Wrath of Cronos, then I advise you to go to Thetis's thread here and read up on everything EXCEPT the changes to the vanilla Hexen weapons.
That is the basic overview of what's in this PK3. This PK3 behaves like Wrath of Cronos; there is a main PK3 (woc16c_hexercise) and several patches, which should be applied as relevant to which IWAD you are playing. (Not Hexen for every non-Hexen IWAD, plus Doom for Doom and Heretic for Heretic)
What follows is the detailed changes and rebalancing, which can also be found on the changelog pastebin:
Spoiler:
Changelog from WoC:
- Changed out all of the weapons for the heXercise versions. Check that thread if you want to know what they all do.
Fighter
- In a nutshell, the fighter is much more melee-focused. He can output a shitload more damage in melee now than he could before, even at the start of the game, but Timon's Axe doesn't have a ranged alt-fire once again. His attack speed with all weapons is improved substantially.
- Added the Axe and Hammer (from heXercise), which is a straight upgrade for the spiked gauntlets. Goes in slot 1. Only available once you've gotten both Timon's Axe and the Hammer of Retribution.
- Made Axe's strength scaling a tiny bit better when it's out of mana to give it an edge (zing!) over the gauntlets' normal punch, thus making the Axe & Hammer a more worthy upgrade.
- Changed Quietus's projectile damage to use the ranged strength code instead of the intellect code, because, seriously? Fuck that. Don't need no book learnin'. I also found it silly that there was actually an incentive to train intellect; now, the only incentive is mana capacity, and if you're a real man, you don't need no mana, neither.
- Quietus can't be used without mana, period. Sorry. Hope you like dual wielding!
- On the plus side, Quietus costs less mana to use (roughly half).
Cleric
- The cleric is still good all-around. He is good at melee, but easily surpassed by the fighter. He's good at ranged, but can be out-bursted by the mage. His "X factor" comes in the utility he gains from his weapons that other classes do not, as well as his innate divine magic which he brings out through sheer zeal and force of will.
- The mace does the tiniest bit more damage and swings faster. It puts it about on par with spiked gauntlets' primary fire.
- The serpent staff now scales with Willpower, including the life drain. Yes, willpower, because it differentiates clerics from mages more and makes you split your stats between Willpower (for damage) and Intellect (for ammo), inherently making you worse at ranged than mages are. Which is how it's supposed to be.
- Firestorm is buffed (scales better) and now also scales with Willpower. The small flames that explode from the point of impact rip. Careful you don't burn yourself.
- Wraithverge is nerfed a bit. You have to charge it briefly to fire all four ghosts like you normally would, and the ghosts are released straight from the Wraithverge; there's no direct-hit splash projectile. However, there is a "rocket" secondary that does a shitheap of direct (and splash - watch yourself) damage, so you have to choose one or the other. Like the rest, the damage scales with Willpower.
- The morningstar's explosion damage scales with - you guessed it - willpower. Of course, the melee damage still scales with strength.
- Lightbringer scales with willpower.
Mage
- The mage is changed the least in playstyle. Just pump up intellect and shit fire on losers.
- You can tap the shit out of your mouse button to shoot the Sapphire Wand fast now, but it's inaccurate and loses ripping when you do so. Hold it down to fire like normal.
- You can deflect projectiles with the wand secondary -- if you time it properly.
- Frost Shards' primary shoots faster because seriously, come on. Also it paled in comparison to the "ice rocket" in regular WoC. That is replaced with an accurate "nailgun" function, which is still pretty damn good, just without the splash (but with more rapid fire). The shards also travel quite a bit faster, to make the nailgun effective at range.
- Arc of Death's weird "falling blue tissue paper" secondary was replaced with one that is basically the Necromancer's Gauntlets, but better. Because mages don't fuck around with flying blue origami.
- Bloodscourge is a fucking carnage machine. The projectiles seek much more viciously and bounce off walls. They only explode after a set duration, which I've tried to balance so that hopefully they're in the middle of your foes when they do, because damn do they explode. It can shoot single fireballs that still seek as a secondary now instead of wasting all of your fucking mana for two seconds of flamethrower. This weapon is good to reflect how good the mage is supposed to be in the end-game.
Changelog from heXercise:
- Obviously, you get all the crazy skills and stats from WoC, so you should read that thread. Melee damage has scaling now, based on stats. Enemies also get tougher as you level up.
Fighter
- Fighter doesn't get bloodlust anymore because of all the sustain abilities he gets in WoC.
- He also doesn't get reflection abilities with his gauntlets for the same reason.
- Mana costs were reduced to their vanilla rates because you don't start with 200 mana capacity.
- The Hammer's melee attacks don't hit twice anymore because that was too easy.
- The Hammer's melee attacks explode without hurting you if you have mana.
- Quietus costs about half as much mana to use both melee and ranged.
Cleric
- The shield's bash distance and velocity of the victims scales up based on your strength. This gives strength clerics an interesting bit of utility, since they can cause infighting quite easily or bash enemies off cliffs, rather than just deflect projectiles and give Ettins the babiest of shoves. Distance also goes up with blunt mastery.
- Serpent staff's altfire doesn't hurt you anymore because that was a waste of everyone's time. It also drains about 30% faster (attacks every 7 frames instead of 10)
- If you want to focus ranged, you can pump your "Willpower" stat and get good health and magick regen at the same time as weapon damage, allowing you to be good at casting defensive and utility spells.
- Otherwise, cleric is mostly unchanged, except for scaling added to his weapons.
Mage
- You don't get any of those cool spells at the start in favor of similar spells being obtained through WoC.
- Mana doesn't automatically regen anymore for the same reason.
- Frost shards have the cool ice fog trail from WoC on them now. They also will be a bit less powerful at the beginning (on par with vanilla, really) but they'll scale up. The shards travel slightly slower compared to heXercise.
- Arc of Death has a special accompanying spell that makes it more powerful when you fire it (primary fire only). Tell me if you find any bugs with this. I didn't test it, because I didn't feel like going through the effort required for this ("giving" myself shitloads of experience points, etc)
- Bloodscourge explosion timer is almost half as long. Without the extra burst damage actually hitting things, it was just a shitty Wraithverge.
These changes are my initial release of the mod, and while I haven't changed any of the fundamental mechanics of the weapons (yet), check the changelog for any tweaks I've made.
Video
Sorry for the stuttering. That's only in the video; I'd probably kill myself if I had to play the game like that. I don't usually record myself playing games.
Will you add/change/remove XYZ?
If you want to leave suggestions, I will consider it, but I made this mod for myself, so if I don't like your suggestion for any reason, I won't care. Feel free to try to convince me, though.
When will you release the next version?
I don't really plan on releasing new versions unless I find something that I missed, or discover some behavior in the mod that irks me. I will update this mod when WoC updates, assuming that I want to play the latest version of WoC with my mod. If you find any bugs, please post them here and I'll fix them. Otherwise, don't hold your breath for a new version with new content, or something. This is a low-commitment project.
Last edited by CrazyEyes on Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:06 pm, edited 5 times in total.
It's really awesome playing with the heXercise weapons, they are indeed fun to use, and makes the characters feel truly powerful.
There is only one slight problem I found: When playing on Heretic, the Fighter's weapons, for the most part, don't work on ghost type monsters, Nitro Golems and ghost warriors to be precise. That's a feature that comes from Wrath of Cronos itself, and it could be overcome by using magic attacks such as the axe's ranged attack or Quietus' magic. However, since Hexercise makes it so the fighter depends more on strength and melee damage (which, in my opinion, is much better than depending on intellect) it makes certain wads, and indeed huge parts of Heretic near impossible to play.
I wonder if there would be any way to modify, or eliminate this feature altogether? I mean, I understand why it is there, ghosts being ethereal and immune to common weapons, but it truly ebbs away the fun one could have playing as a melee fighter or Cleric.
Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm glad you enjoy both of these mods as much as I do.
SallazarSpellcaster wrote:There is only one slight problem I found: When playing on Heretic, the Fighter's weapons, for the most part, don't work on ghost type monsters, Nitro Golems and ghost warriors to be precise. That's a feature that comes from Wrath of Cronos itself, and it could be overcome by using magic attacks such as the axe's ranged attack or Quietus' magic. However, since Hexercise makes it so the fighter depends more on strength and melee damage (which, in my opinion, is much better than depending on intellect) it makes certain wads, and indeed huge parts of Heretic near impossible to play.
I wonder if there would be any way to modify, or eliminate this feature altogether? I mean, I understand why it is there, ghosts being ethereal and immune to common weapons, but it truly ebbs away the fun one could have playing as a melee fighter or Cleric.
Hmm. That's an interesting point. I think I could do something like allow the Fighter to hit ghosts with Timon's Axe and/or the Hammer of Retribution, as long as he has mana for said weapon(s). He also still has the Vorpal Blade and Dragon Claw to deal with those enemies (although, the availability of such weapons heavily depends on what WAD you are playing through. I have not played through all of Heretic with the Fighter so I don't know how available those weapons are).
By the way, if you have been paying attention to the Editing forum, I'm working on making the Cleric's shield reflect projectiles in a much more offensive manner. I'm trying to make them reflect more "accurately" (i.e. towards the original shooter) and deal extra damage when you reflect them based on your Strength, since monster projectiles do low damage by default, which makes deflecting them in the first place not worth the effort.
CrazyEyes wrote:Hmm. That's an interesting point. I think I could do something like allow the Fighter to hit ghosts with Timon's Axe and/or the Hammer of Retribution, as long as he has mana for said weapon(s). He also still has the Vorpal Blade and Dragon Claw to deal with those enemies (although, the availability of such weapons heavily depends on what WAD you are playing through. I have not played through all of Heretic with the Fighter so I don't know how available those weapons are).
By the way, if you have been paying attention to the Editing forum, I'm working on making the Cleric's shield reflect projectiles in a much more offensive manner. I'm trying to make them reflect more "accurately" (i.e. towards the original shooter) and deal extra damage when you reflect them based on your Strength, since monster projectiles do low damage by default, which makes deflecting them in the first place not worth the effort.
It does depend on the WAD you play through. On vanilla Heretic you get the Dragonclaw on the second map, so it's not that troublesome. However, certain wads have nitrogolems galore on the first map, so they become quite a pain.
Having the weapons damage ghosts so long as they have mana is, I believe, the most logical choice. It is done in other mods and it works quite well, and in my opinion it makes sense. As for the projectile deflection, that'd actually be really awesome, I take it it'll also work for the Mage?
As for the projectile deflection, that'd actually be really awesome, I take it it'll also work for the Mage?
Eh, maybe. I did this because it's another utility thing for the Cleric to have. My vision of him seems to be like some sort of holy Batman. Mage would benefit from something more along the lines of a short-lived but decent defensive ability, whereas the thing I'm doing for the Cleric is more offensive. Maybe I could replace the deflection with absorb projectile for mana (for the Mage) .
Patriot1776 wrote:Absorb Projectile to gain mana would be very fitting for the mage and give him a means to gain mana on maps where mana is in short supply.
It is indeed really fitting for the Mage, and would be really cool to have. However, the Mage already has the Mana Charge ability, and well, when maxed it pretty much gives him infinite mana. Perhaps instead of mana he could regain health? I mean, the wand secondary looks like a necromancer spell, with the color palette it has. So, if the mage regains some health by absorbing projectiles, it could have a very defensive use for him, and serve as a means to heal himself beyond potions.
Sallazar, as always you come up with better ideas for magic-based stuff compared to me, I like that idea better too, brings more balance to the mage and a secondary way to regain health, minus obviously found accessories.
I noticed that while playing in Doom 1/2 with the nothexen patch and Doom patch the Cleric's shield is all messed up when it appears during swings. I'm guessing it's because it's not in the nothexen patch?
Um, possibly. I don't think I've tested this mod much outside of Hexen yet. That is probably a simple fix, but I've really been trying to get this stupid deflection crap to work. It actually deflects now, but because it's not reflected by the +REFLECTIVE flag/effect, it doesn't damage the original shooter (in fact, it actually phases right through them, which is even stranger). I have done most of the fixes you all have mentioned in the meanwhile and they're all going to be in the next release. The exception being the mage wand secondary; absorbing for health sounds like a good idea, actually, since in my head it was a drain spell. I'd just have to make sure it's not better than Serpent Staff leeching, which I suppose wouldn't be much of an issue since the Serpent Staff is constant drain while the "drain" spell has a charge time and short cooldown.
Edit: Just fixed that last issue. Called SetPointer incorrectly, derp.
Double Edit: A quick update, I will go ahead and go through the other IWAD patches and make sure everything I just did is compatible with other IWADs.
So in the next release, the Mage's wand/secondary will actually drain health and give it to the player? EXCELLENT. That will make the Mage a viable option for playing many DooM mappacks. Whenever playing DooM mappacks with WoC, I NEVER considered trying with the Mage OR the Fighter because of how quartz flasks/crystal potions are much more rare in DooM mappacks than HeXen/Heretic, it was Cleric only since the Cleric could heal themselves. Now that the Mage may be starting with a means to drain health from baddies and so not totally reliant on potions/flasks for health recovery, I can try a few DooM mappacks because I already LOVE how kick-arse the mage now is offensively.
