Hexen: Cult of Despair - A WoC campaign (1.3A Version)

[Nightgaunt]

I admit I never liked Hexen 2 Eidolon, his design is so generic and boring compared to his brothers.

[Netheritor]

Oh, yeah. before I forget again.

Can you nerf the pyrodemon a bit? It's just his AoE is too big for map that small. The teleport is also annoying, can you make a teleport sound? I didn't really like to get ambushed in my blind spot.

The next annoying boss is the 3 spiders. But My class is strong enough to beat them, and they also don't teleport.

[Exeor]

Oh, yeah. before I forget again.

Can you nerf the pyrodemon a bit? It's just his AoE is too big for map that small. The teleport is also annoying, can you make a teleport sound? I didn't really like to get ambushed in my blind spot.

The next annoying boss is the 3 spiders. But My class is strong enough to beat them, and they also don't teleport.

Pyrodemon was always a subject of debate as the first boss, I knew that it needed a better balance since the start, but I didn't want players found it a bit easy. I'll see what to do with it in the incoming hotfix.

There is a little trick when fighting poison bosses like the 3 spiders in the sewers or the duke of sheols (or even the sludge golems), make sure you have a Purple Moss Clump to eat it after the battle is over, it cancels the accumulation of poison. Pretty useful to avoid to waste quartz flasks continuously until the poison is no longer hurting you.
btw, the poison widowmakers are x1.25 weak to fire, just in case you didn't know.

[Netheritor]

Hey, I use necromancer and some knight archer too. That spider is nothing to me. Well, it emptied my yellow magick though. It's just I remember the previous version, I throw 2 maulotaur and they (maulotaours) still lose. And like I said, I'm high level enough. Necromancer is crafting beast, I got like 6000x green reagents (It's farming for 1 hour, I think).

And I think only Cleric, Mage, Necro, and hunter has a chance to beat Pyrodemon. Also, I don't know if this bug or not; The assassin 'become invisible' ability is not working with the boss, I still need more in depth testing, because I only test it with 'summon hellsmith'.

Add 1: Actually nevermind for the boss. It's just boss thing, the original korax still detects me partially, still attacking but randomly. The thing with your boss is they know where I located.

[Exeor]

Hey, I use necromancer and some knight archer too. That spider is nothing to me. Well, it emptied my yellow magick though. It's just I remember the previous version, I throw 2 maulotaur and they (maulotaours) still lose. And like I said, I'm high level enough. Necromancer is crafting beast, I got like 6000x green reagents (It's farming for 1 hour, I think).

And I think only Cleric, Mage, Necro, and hunter has a chance to beat Pyrodemon. Also, I don't know if this bug or not; The assassin 'become invisible' ability is not working with the boss, I still need more in depth testing, because I only test it with 'summon hellsmith'.

Add 1: Actually nevermind for the boss. It's just boss thing, the original korax still detects me partially, still attacking but randomly. The thing with your boss is they know where I located.

For now, the Pyrodemon boss can't teleport but I increased the health from 8000 to 8500 HP (it is almost an unnoticeable health buff), I think it is a nice welcome for new players now, but things will be more difficult with the next bosses

I also "fixed" the infinite reagents thing, it seems that Tethis coded in Wrath of Cronos that when an actor creates a splash in a liquid surface (lava, mud, etc...) a reagent appears, but this is an exploit in Cult of Despair where players can get rich selling the flasks after mixing the reagents easily.

I hope to have the hotfix (version 1.3A) this week ready, the changelog is this at the moment:

-Golden Chakras can't be resurrected or morphed anymore
-Fixed a bug where some villagers and soldiers could disappear after a few minutes
-Lowered the Lime Slimes damage
-Added a new battle music for minor enemy fights (you can hear it during some subquests)
-Some enemies like Crimson Disciples can be resurrected correctly
-Fixed some minor grammar mistakes
-Removed duplicated Zombie Fodder sprites
-Added a new subquest in the Wasteland
-New textures added in the Swamp Temple for more variation
-Removed the teleport ability of the Pyrodemon boss but increased the health from 8000 to 8500 HP
-Liquid surfaces can't spawn Reagents now

If everything goes well and no more bugs appear, this will be probably the last update before I finish 2/3 of the campaign.

[Netheritor]

Oh, well. No easy level up for me then. Honestly, levelling up in vanilla hexen is very easy because of enemy respawn mechanics (all difficulty), that I see it's absent in this mod. No matter though, I rarely use the flask except the black one.

Good luck for the next update. So far, I don't see any bug in your mod. If there is any, maybe it's from WoC itself.

[Woolie Wool]

Just played through this twice, the first time on skill 3 as the Necromancer, the second time on skill 4 as the Fighter. Ever since I first encountered Wrath of Cronos several years ago, I had wanted a full-length level set balanced for and using all the functionality of WoC, and you delivered. Not only that, but it has Heretic and other Raven-style enemies to plug the gaps in the limited Hexen bestiary, no random-spawning bullshit, and a continuous overworld instead of a mere hub layout? Oh, yeah! It's almost sort of Hexen meets Strife meets Zelda in its world design and progression sensibilities.

That said, it still can't deal with the enormous ramp-up in power that any competently-built character has after 15th level, as skills, stats, accumulated resources, and path all combine together to give the player overwhelming advantages. The last dungeon and Heresiarch/rider apprentice dudes battle was an absolute piece of piss both as the Necro and the Fighter, but many of the earlier, low-level bosses (especially the Pyro Demon and Dukes of Sheol) were all but impossible as the Fighter, with any approach bold enough to actually hit the enemy in melee (which, as the Fighter, you want to do all the time because it's the only way to do damage efficiently) is likely to get you completely owned by the fuckery these bosses spawn all around them, like VG Cats' "Horrible Rape Radius" come to life. In later encounters you're so overwhelmingly powerful that it doesn't matter. As the Necro I did not have a particularly difficult time with any boss, though the Dukes of Sheol made me sweat a bit.

The biggest downside is the level design. While a good deal of it (especially the overworld maps, which seem to have had the most work put into them) looks good, they almost all use noodly room/corridor progressions that feel like pen-and-paper dungeons or uninspired Zelda dungeons, and don't take into account many of the strengths of the Doom engine. Instead of making this campaign three times as long (really, what I got felt like two thirds of a campaign, or at least half, not one third!), I would suggest revising many of the maps to have more open, complex architecture and more dynamic fight staging, with an eye towards a shorter, more focused end product. I'm lukewarm on the soundtrack; some of the pieces like the ones in "Spaurus Field" and the beginning of "Throne Room" fit very well, but many of the louder, more JRPG-ish tracks were annoying, and so many of them sounded like midis rendered with a soundfont that I don't see much reason not to just use midis instead and save hundreds of megabytes.

Even with those problems though, this is by far the best-realized and most complete "Hexen RPG" I've seen so far. Keep it up!

[Exeor]

Just played through this twice, the first time on skill 3 as the Necromancer, the second time on skill 4 as the Fighter. Ever since I first encountered Wrath of Cronos several years ago, I had wanted a full-length level set balanced for and using all the functionality of WoC, and you delivered. Not only that, but it has Heretic and other Raven-style enemies to plug the gaps in the limited Hexen bestiary, no random-spawning bullshit, and a continuous overworld instead of a mere hub layout? Oh, yeah! It's almost sort of Hexen meets Strife meets Zelda in its world design and progression sensibilities.

That said, it still can't deal with the enormous ramp-up in power that any competently-built character has after 15th level, as skills, stats, accumulated resources, and path all combine together to give the player overwhelming advantages. The last dungeon and Heresiarch/rider apprentice dudes battle was an absolute piece of piss both as the Necro and the Fighter, but many of the earlier, low-level bosses (especially the Pyro Demon and Dukes of Sheol) were all but impossible as the Fighter, with any approach bold enough to actually hit the enemy in melee (which, as the Fighter, you want to do all the time because it's the only way to do damage efficiently) is likely to get you completely owned by the fuckery these bosses spawn all around them, like VG Cats' "Horrible Rape Radius" come to life. In later encounters you're so overwhelmingly powerful that it doesn't matter. As the Necro I did not have a particularly difficult time with any boss, though the Dukes of Sheol made me sweat a bit.

The biggest downside is the level design. While a good deal of it (especially the overworld maps, which seem to have had the most work put into them) looks good, they almost all use noodly room/corridor progressions that feel like pen-and-paper dungeons or uninspired Zelda dungeons, and don't take into account many of the strengths of the Doom engine. Instead of making this campaign three times as long (really, what I got felt like two thirds of a campaign, or at least half, not one third!), I would suggest revising many of the maps to have more open, complex architecture and more dynamic fight staging, with an eye towards a shorter, more focused end product. I'm lukewarm on the soundtrack; some of the pieces like the ones in "Spaurus Field" and the beginning of "Throne Room" fit very well, but many of the louder, more JRPG-ish tracks were annoying, and so many of them sounded like midis rendered with a soundfont that I don't see much reason not to just use midis instead and save hundreds of megabytes.

Even with those problems though, this is by far the best-realized and most complete "Hexen RPG" I've seen so far. Keep it up!

Thank you very much for your feedback! I really appreciate this long response!

Yeah, I am aware dungeons lack the same quality as the overworld areas, I want to spend time improving them (especially ceilings and more diverse textures) in the next big update.

Strange, I always considered the three Duke of Sheols pretty easy for the second boss compared to the Pyrodemon, you even have a really big open area to fight the Sludge Golems without so much trouble. I think that I didn't make it clear that you should bring one or two Purple Moss Clump items to deal with the poison damage before entering the Swamp Temple. I'll keep it in mind!

The Fighter counts with projectiles from the secondary attack of his weapons and he is able to fight bosses from a safe distance with items, even if things can be a bit hard for him in specific situations, you can always bring a Krater of Might or an Icon of the Defender with you. Money is really important in Cult of Despair and the most strong items may be scarce

Don't worry, I have a lot of elite variants of heretic and hexen monsters to show for the next parts of the campaign if things feel easy, I want to make sure they offer a good experience for every class without being annoying neither powerhouses creatures that can almost one-shot you.

Remember that if you find the latest part a bit easy because your high level, you can always lower the experience multiplier. In my opinion, I think the best is to set it at 50 in the WoC options.

About the music... Sure, I have replaced a few tracks with the next updates, probably I will change a few of them if they get a bit repetitive.

The fun thing is, in old versions you fought against the Pyrodemon before getting the third weapon making the battle almost impossible for the Fighter and there was even less mana scattered around the arena. Now with the hammer and the axe you have enough to kill it, (since going melee against bosses is suicide) also throwing yellow flasks can help a lot during the fight.

Again, thanks a lot for your opinion, I really listen to the community and I have changed a lot of things over the months based on the feedback

[Nightgaunt]

Thanks for your work Exeor, and merry Christmas

[Netheritor]

Yeah, fighter has the biggest disadvantage in this mod. Most enemies in this mod has range attacks, good thing few of them can fly. This mod also don't have class specific enemy spawn, yet. In hexen (and doom mod called aliens 'something'), when you picked a class, you will get different enemy spawn. Don't let this comment change your priority. This comment is what you may 'to-do' when at least the story is finished.

Anyway, Merry Christmas. 🎄

[Exeor]

Merry Christmas guys, and thanks again for playing my mod! That means a lot for me

Hotfix coming tomorrow! I'm finishing some texture alignments in the swamp temple, nothing important but I really care for the visual details.

[Nightgaunt]

I really liked how you managed the nail the "dark fantasy" theme, even with the names' choices, with sinister sounding words like Spaurus and Sheol.

If only Thethis woundn't have used WoW icons for his mod, they look so "cutey" and out of place.

[Exeor]

I really liked how you managed the nail the "dark fantasy" theme, even with the names' choices, with sinister sounding words like Spaurus and Sheol.

If only Thethis woundn't have used WoW icons for his mod, they look so "cutey" and out of place.

Fun fact: Duke of Sheol was supposed to be the original name of the Scrag from Quake 1 according to John Romero, I named it this way because the other creature called Wicked (the minor enemy version that you can see in the Horror Grotto and in WoC when playing with the extra addon pack) is based on the Scrag, so this was more like a hint.

Yeah, that is why I don't want to change anything from the WoC core files directly even if I don't like the wow icons so much, my plan is that Cult of Despair is always compatible with the latest WoC version. Hopefully Tethis will update the mod by 2021. Wrath of Cronos almost always get an update every year.

[Woolie Wool]

I really liked how you managed the nail the "dark fantasy" theme, even with the names' choices, with sinister sounding words like Spaurus and Sheol.

If only Thethis woundn't have used WoW icons for his mod, they look so "cutey" and out of place.

I would love to see a new WoC HUD that reuses original Hexen assets, but it may not be realistically possible because 320x200 is not a lot of screen space.

[Nightgaunt]

Is Thetis completely unreachable, no e-mail addresses?