SallazarSpellcaster wrote:MaxRideWizardLord wrote:I'm glad that this mod is still being developed, but I really must give my "two cents".
First, I really enjoy the new Skill the Magic Barrier, something that Mage really been needing for the longest time since beginning, despite it's eating mana way too much. However, I do miss the Blink skill even more, as it was just essential to beat some of the maps. As you know, the mage is slow, probably the slowest class of the five; some maps are physically impossible to beat without it, for example some of the Chillax maps, since mage is too slow to run from one switch to the other before time runs out, no matter how hard you're speedrun it with abusing strats like W+D\A airstrafing bhop, SR50 and whatnot. Agility is the least thing you'd spend your points on Mage anyway (along with strength).
Perhaps it should return, but as an built-in the unique niche of the class that you can bind on separate button? The blink ability, like the Mage have in Lichdom: Battlemage fps, or the new upcoming Doom Eternal. This would really helpful for a class that is slow and is very fragile, and must rely a lot on dodging. And then again, some maps are simple impossible to beat without it.
Also, I'm very upset with rather unfair and unneeded telekinesis nerf. This was basically the only skill available for mage to survive an insane spam of projectiles that you get on Chilax since it's pulse spam lasted for 3 second, and the fact it does no damage now kinda ruin it's niche of the spell. This one really need a revert, maybe make it last for 2 seconds but do pulse spam more rapid instead, and the damage should return.
There is one bug with bloodscourge, the damage of the piercing fireballs do not scale with the Intellect that you keep increasing up, even though this is essentially where the most usefulness came from the Bloodscourge from original HeXen game. Makes it pretty much an useless weapon, especially on level 900 where it can't kill a single ettin even if you shoot for 10 times in a row with it.
Hello.
Though not ideal, those three points have a "solution" of sorts.
The first situation can be solved by using the boots of speed, as they should make you fast enough to reach the switches.
The second one, not ideal either, but spamming discs of repulsion can more or less substitute the telekinesis spell, as there's no delay between casts. Either that, or an icon or the defender can make you immune and able to reflect projectiles.
The last case isn't a bug, as far as I understand, but a feature. Even in the original Hexen, the piercing fireballs weren't the main source of damage for Bloodscourge, but their explosion. To make the most of the weapon, you need to angle your shots so they either hit a wall, or the floor, since the explosion - I'm not sure but I think it's so- does scale with intellect. Personally, I'd prefer the Bloodscourge acting as your standard rocket launcher, think the Phoenix rod from Heretic; I guess the devs made it that way to be more "unique," but it really reduces its usefulness.
I'm well aware about these boots. Thing is, first of all, these boots are extremely rare and chances are very they drop once. Zero chances actually - if there are no cyberdemons\masterminds nor the maps are minimalistic\lack of any extra bonus pickups. You might as well end up using these boots earlier in the game, before even getting in this particular part of the game with map that contain such switches to know that these boots would have been
necessary here to begin with, thus be upset because you didn't save them up. Besides, using boots means being bothered by collecting items and looking for items, as they are just temporary momental bonuses that should exist mere as bonuses (i.e. addons to make things easier for short time) and not something that is meant to be
necessary to beat certain part of the game, and so I try to make my runs to be clean from being dependent on pickups or using them once. Maybe it's just a moral thing of me, but I can't do anything about it.
But then again, the Fade skill, which I mistakenly called the "blink skill", was actually pretty awesome and useful on it's own. It made mage run pretty much and even catch the rest of the five that are obviously much faster than him. It was also essential skill to dodge lots of fast moving projectiles that were coming your way, especially the seeking ones like the Revenants Fireballs. It really added niche to the Mage class as well. I really want it back, maybe reworked a bit, so instead of just making you super fast for like 0.5 seconds, it would actually teleport you in short distance in any direction you're going. Just like above mentioned blink ability from Lichdom: Battlemage or the upcoming Doom Eternal.
As for discs of repulsion, it's even less substantial than speedy boots. First of all, there is only 25 disc of repulsion can fit in your inventory, means you can't survive even a single ambush of the revenants as these discs would all be used in matter of 3 seconds, thus leaving you be an very easy target for revenants. You'd also would need to screw your fingers because you would need one 3 fingers for WASD fluid movement, one for spam the skill ability attack, and the other to spam the inventory items, all at the same time, very inconvenient. But like I said earlier, I hate any gameplay with passion a lot that forces you to be pickup\item dependant. There was zero reason to ruin the telekinesis skill to begin with, as it's damage was pretty low (there is no need to make it do no damage at all) and it wouldn't save from hitscan enemies, or enemies that shoot projectiles up close. Something that really needs a revert.
As for the bloodscourge issue, this is
definitely a bug or an oversight. If by some weird circumstances ends up it was not a bug, then it's an really unfair and awful design choice. Pretty much all of the weapons or any type of attack with all of it's variants of damage source
DO scale with either of the character's stats, be that intellect, strength or agility, even the ones that one may label as insignificant one. Turning the ultimate weapon of mage in to generic "rocket launcher" attack is probably the
most unoriginal and unfun attack you can think for mage, there is
nothing unique about it because mage as is already have a whopping
five of explosive fireball creating attacks, six if you count ice bolt which functions like your average projectile rocket launcher that just freezes enemies. Forcing user to get "maximum" of this weapon by mere shooting walls next to enemies, not only strongly handicaps his the only ultimate weapon, but also seriously makes it anti-fun and annoying to use.
Not to mention that in original HeXen, from the objective point of view, the Mage had the
weakest weapons of all of the classes, aside from the beginning weapons (which is possibly the definition of mage class in that), ironically both fighter and especially cleric had more powerful magic weapons than Mage itself.
For example, mage's frostshards had slow fire rate, very inaccurate and most ammo consuming, yet at the same time pretty weak as you would need 3 shots with all shards perfectly hit the target in order to kill a single ettin, while it took 2 hits of timon axe or 3 shots of serpent staff that both had faster fire rate and consume less ammo, being more accurate. Same for 3rd slot type of weapons, cleric got firestorm which is reliable because of it's quick speed and it highest DPS of all weapons in that slot, although most useful against hordes because otherwise it doesn't always oneshots ettin. Hammer is like rocket launcher you're looking for, good damage, AoE splash, consume least of ammo and can oneshots ettin. Yet mage got the arc of death, which is most ammo consuming, slowest fire rate, and very unreliable since it's waving around in random directions, doesn't oneshot kill ettin, especially centaur, if either of these are near wall (which is like most of HeXen monsters are), takes a while to kill single slaughtaur and for some reason doesn't always kills afrits. Then we get to "ultimate weapons". Wraithverge is just
gamebreakingly overpowered, literally. Not only it cleans whole room in one shot, it cleans monsters from ANOTHER rooms as the ghosts can travel behind some closed doors and windows, killing monsters that aren't meant to be killed and thus break the game, making it impossible to advance. The bloodscourge, in reality, is kinda pretty bad and consumes way much more ammo than the goods it provide. Often even all of the balls hit ettin, they don't even kill him, and sometimes even survive the explosion once they hit the wall. To reach it's full potential, there must be a HUGE open area map with lots of flying enemies like afrits and bishops whose fireballs can pierce through them all untill they day, and as we all know there is none. Quietus, on other hand, is least ammo consuming weapon and shoots 5 fast and efficient rocket-launcher like projectiles, doing about as much damage and having about as much big AoE radius as the bloodscourge's fireballs, but this time explode on impact so a single projectile can wipe out ettin. The full potential of bloodscourge however, I found in doom mappacks with open area and lots of cacodemons and in this rare case is when the bloodscourge is even more useful than wraithverge, but such things are never pop up in actual vanila HeXen. So yeah, mage weapons weren't well balanced in HeXen, and even in vanila HeXen there was already way too many rocket launchers; so vanila HeXen shouldn't be looked upon as solid source to balance your weapons around.
Oh, and I just noticed I made a typo. Instead of "Any chance you would add damage\hp scale for enemies per level? That would help a lot of people to keep enjoyment of the mod once you reach reasonably high level", i meant to say "Any chance you would add
sliders for damage\hp scale
adjustment for personal preference for enemies per level? That would help a lot of people to keep enjoyment of the mod once you reach reasonably high level." Sorry about that. A lot of enemies do scale up insanely high, so at high level, even if you spend a lot of your points to constitution (increase the hp of the char), you feel yourself weaker than if you did not level up, which kills any excitement and desire to level up to begin with. Instead, you'd feel like avoiding to level up at all. For this reason I'd like to have options in Wrath of Cronos to make NPC scale less rapidly in both hp and damage they deal.
By the way, are you the new member of developer team? I haven't heard from Thetis in a while, did he drop this project?