HeXeReTiC Fantasy v2.5 (Update 12 Jun 2021)

[Captain J]

I'm absolutely loving this mod!! The random encounters, various enemy variants, powerful weapons, and that cute lil' purple trader makes me happy. And of course there's Level System too, which is a lot useful.

And i think i should show you my feedback!:

- I think torch props are way too close to the wall.

- Quartz Flask just heals you and nothing else. Kinda getting overwhelmed by a lot of good items and counter parts. Perhaps make it heal even more?

- Fiery Crystal is fairly strong, but for some reason i often get damaged by it and it's just finicky to use. Reduce the damage to the player?

- Is there a critical hit? Because i sometimes does big deal of damage and i would like to visually see if i did the big hit.

- Corvus now jumping like he's in the moon. Platforming might be hard with this one, though!

- If i get the speed boost, the footstep noise amplifies... A lot.

- The particles dropped by dead enemies tend to waste a good amount of time. Because i shouldn't touch them or i get damaged otherwise!

Good mod overall. And am i seeing enemies disguised as a prop? Very clever! Would be hardcore if there's a severed head prop that turns into lost soul or some sort of.

[LowEndPCGamer100]

As I've stated many times before, this is THE way to play heretic, whether youre using oblige, a custom wad, or just the original episodes, this mod adds so much spice to the gameplay, i mean, i know its basically HXRTC but translated to Heretic, but you sir have made some of the best, most packed-to the brim randomizes ive seen, all without making them so difficult that it takes 20 map restarts for a good run, even though that stuff is fun in it's own way lol. Ill probably continue complimenting your work over time, but it sure deserves every good word!

[Hexereticdoom]

Great Update 2.1 there you added new weapons although you forgot to include the Serpent Staff, okay, there is already a weapon that is used similarly to the Serpent Staff.

Talking about the new monsters, do I think that these monsters called Antler Goblins give me nightmares when they move and are invisible.

Yup, I could not include the Serpent Staff due to the high similarity (in sprites) with the Lightning Maker, so I made the Arachnus Chelicerae to work almost like it, except the life-absorbing attack...

So they give you nightmares, you say? Then you can make them pay with the same currency by punishing them with the Nightmare Sower, hahaha...

I'm absolutely loving this mod!! The random encounters, various enemy variants, powerful weapons, and that cute lil' purple trader makes me happy. And of course there's Level System too, which is a lot useful.

And i think i should show you my feedback!:

a) I think torch props are way too close to the wall.

b) Quartz Flask just heals you and nothing else. Kinda getting overwhelmed by a lot of good items and counter parts. Perhaps make it heal even more?

c) Fiery Crystal is fairly strong, but for some reason i often get damaged by it and it's just finicky to use. Reduce the damage to the player?

d) Is there a critical hit? Because i sometimes does big deal of damage and i would like to visually see if i did the big hit.

e) Corvus now jumping like he's in the moon. Platforming might be hard with this one, though!

f) If i get the speed boost, the footstep noise amplifies... A lot.

g) The particles dropped by dead enemies tend to waste a good amount of time. Because i shouldn't touch them or i get damaged otherwise!

Good mod overall. And am i seeing enemies disguised as a prop? Very clever! Would be hardcore if there's a severed head prop that turns into lost soul or some sort of.

Glad a lot you like it, and thanks also for your nice feedback!

I'm gonna give you my answers to it in sequential order:

a) OK, although the replacing torch actor inherits directly from GZDoom's one, I'll increase a little its radius for next release to make them less sticked to walls.

b) Even if it's the most basic and/or common of the game artifacts, 50 health points for each one used is not a small thing. Making them to heal more would make the game too easy, in my opinion...

c) The Fiery Crystal is like a double-edged sword, so you must use it at a short distance -but not too close- to avoid getting hurt. Remember that playing with fire is dangerous!

d) No, there are not critical hits implemented, all damage is calculated internally by GZDoom's engine. It's more a matter of how precise the attacks are; the more focused the shot, the more damage it will cause to enemy.

e) Really? I would say that now jumps like a true ninja -that's why he has learned to throw Shurikens- and distant platforms should not be a problem anymore!

f) It is an expected behaviour. If footsteps didn't sound at all, that would mean that you would literally be flying over the ground!

g) That's true with the small ice shards or stone boulders, but think that they can also be helpful to make additional damage to those enemies close to them. (Same applies to those 'explosive' defeated enemies!)

Hehe, you might refer to Killer Plants and Black Widows, right? And yes, that sounds pretty cool, maybe in a future release I'll create something similar to that...

As I've stated many times before, this is THE way to play heretic, whether youre using oblige, a custom wad, or just the original episodes, this mod adds so much spice to the gameplay, i mean, i know its basically HXRTC but translated to Heretic, but you sir have made some of the best, most packed-to the brim randomizes ive seen, all without making them so difficult that it takes 20 map restarts for a good run, even though that stuff is fun in it's own way lol. Ill probably continue complimenting your work over time, but it sure deserves every good word!

Thanks for your kind words man, I hope you keep enjoying and having fun with the mod!

[AvzinElkein]

I assume that Killer Plants resist fire since they shoot it, but what are they weak to?

[Captain J]

d) No, there are not critical hits implemented, all damage is calculated internally by GZDoom's engine. It's more a matter of how precise the attacks are; the more focused the shot, the more damage it will cause to enemy.

Huh, is that so? I'm pretty sure that some hits deal serious amount of damage. Even when i use my default weapon. Again, would be nice if critical hit effect is implemented, but it's your call!

f) It is an expected behaviour. If footsteps didn't sound at all, that would mean that you would literally be flying over the ground!

Ehhhhh actchually, when i run diagonally with no speed boost powerup, he literally, naturally does make a lot of footstep noises. I just don't know why.

[Hexereticdoom]

Huh, is that so? I'm pretty sure that some hits deal serious amount of damage. Even when i use my default weapon. Again, would be nice if critical hit effect is implemented, but it's your call!

Yes, it may be so, I mean, it is perfectly possible that certain hits be more harmful than others, but that's up to the Damage property itself, not the mod. Anyway, I'll check if that 'Critical Hits' feature can be included into it somehow (but I can't promise anything for now...)

Ehhhhh actchually, when i run diagonally with no speed boost powerup, he literally, naturally does make a lot of footstep noises. I just don't know why.

Oh wait... That's another question then. After having tested it in deep this afternoon seems that effectively, the 'double step' sound effect is produced when you make a diagonal movement, specially when running. So then, I'll have to inspect the Footsteps addon file for finding a fix to that issue if possible...

[Captain J]

About double footstep making glitch, are you using A_SpawnItemEx for making footstep sound and added it to the player's state or just ACS? If that's latter, might worth checking it out.

[Sage009]

Every once in a while, I get a monster or 2-3 with messed up textures. Not sure what causes this, as I managed to play all the way through E6 with no issues earlier today in the same version of the mod (Latest).

Not using any other mods, either.

[Hexereticdoom]

About double footstep making glitch, are you using A_SpawnItemEx for making footstep sound and added it to the player's state or just ACS? If that's latter, might worth checking it out.

Actually, the addon only uses ACS to process the footsteps.

To be precise, it's been a long time since I replaced several versions ago the old Decorate method, which sometimes it didn't work as expected and it turned out even worse... So for that reason it was replaced by the current addon, which is actually a 'translated' version to Heretic from TheZombieKiller's original Doom addon.

The bad thing is that I'm not too good with ACS, and having looked at the addon's code it results specially complicated to me for fixing the 'double-step' issue...

Every once in a while, I get a monster or 2-3 with messed up textures. Not sure what causes this, as I managed to play all the way through E6 with no issues earlier today in the same version of the mod (Latest).

Not using any other mods, either.

I see.. In fact, this is just related to GZDoom/LZDoom rendering, because it seems that for an unknown reason, the 'Subtract' renderstyle mode aplied to some actors -like enemies or projectiles- looks strangely distorted when there is not a tonemap in use (switched to 'off' in OpenGL Postprocessing options). I don't know if it's just a rendering bug or if it works as originally intended...

To fix it for now, please just activate in GZDoom options a tonemap mode, like 'Lineal' -which I personally prefer- or any other one you like. Optionally, you can enable Bloom effect to make the H-Fantasy's ghostly monsters having a murkier appearance.

[Sage009]

Every once in a while, I get a monster or 2-3 with messed up textures. Not sure what causes this, as I managed to play all the way through E6 with no issues earlier today in the same version of the mod (Latest).

Not using any other mods, either.

I see.. In fact, this is just related to GZDoom/LZDoom rendering, because it seems that for an unknown reason, the 'Subtract' renderstyle mode aplied to some actors -like enemies or projectiles- looks strangely distorted when there is not a tonemap in use (switched to 'off' in OpenGL Postprocessing options). I don't know if it's just a rendering bug or if it works as originally intended...

To fix it for now, please just activate in GZDoom options a tonemap mode, like 'Lineal' -which I personally prefer- or any other one you like. Optionally, you can enable Bloom effect to make the H-Fantasy's ghostly monsters having a murkier appearance.

There's no Lineal option in my tonemaps and the problem also occurs with the Palette tonemap, but the others are fine.

[Sage009]

The Topaz Scepter has an accuracy problem and it's really messing with my head when trying to shoot enemies.
All my shots are a few pixels below my actual crosshair.

[Korell]

The Topaz Scepter has an accuracy problem and it's really messing with my head when trying to shoot enemies.
All my shots are a few pixels below my actual crosshair.

This is actually normal for GZDoom. Boot up the vanilla Doom game and shoot a wall and you'll see that the marks on the wall are below the GZDoom crosshair. It is less of an issue at larger ranges, but closer up it is much more noticeable. The reasons for this are described in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=52001&start=15

[UnknDoomer]

Question. Can somebody recommend good list of... let's say 3-5 Heretic WAD's to combine with? I've released that things can be completely unpredictable if you not playing just the original game +/-. The degree of pairing can range from "normal" to "completely unplayable" in case of difficulty and enemies toughness. No metter mostly what difficult to choose.

Update: got the list from author's page on moddb. In addition can say two things:

1. I'm not recommend to put difficult higher then "Skillful Magician", #4 of 8, or "Amateur Enchanter" in total, which is #3 out of 8. Depends on specific WAD.
2. I highly recommend to turn on QUAKE_TILT.PK3. So as result you will don't need to turn on the autoaim / no problems with shooting and moving will be.

[UnknDoomer]

2 suggestions for future build:

1. Add an option to turn off annoying useless enemies - flying small books, swords and other weird stuff like that. There is no point of them. In most games, where were such opponents, the players always noted this as a negative thing. As example - Daikatana.
2. Another optional thing - turn on mode where only classic Heretic/Hexen monsters will be and their more danger 2-3-4 tiers, kinda, but nothing else, like kind of strange too powerful snakes and enemies like that. As example you can take a look on Complex Doom. At the moment your mod more close to Clusterfuck add-on for Complex Doom. There are several players like me who prefer not "too messy" / or Diablo RPG slasher kind of gameplay, but like new features in total which WAD's in the original taste doesn't have.

Another RPG mod, that supports Heretic, Wrath of Cronos, doesn't have a such of pack of the enemies that you have and has a different focus. So, It might be huge point for your creation.

Here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=60112#p1048497 your mod is #128. When already kinda old Wrath of Cronos RPG is #44. It might be higher, I guess, if you add this two things.

Same things may be actual, perhabs ever more, for HXRTC Project. Which is #83 now.

[Hexereticdoom]

Hi there mates, a minor update of the H-Fantasy mod is ready for download.

This version doesn't bring any remarkable changes, it is just a maintenance release that fixes some problems related to a few actors that were not spawning correctly in certain circumstances and were being 'destroyed' instead (specially in very narrow places or on liquid surfaces).

Updated download links at first post, as usual... Hope you keep enjoying and having fun!