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Cronos Unleashed is a gameplay enhancement mod for Hexen, featuring

• Enhanced weapons, artifacts, and monsters
• Game-wide balancing changes
• Improved world detail
• Widescreen-compatible graphics
• Dynamic lights, brightmaps, and improved visual effects
• Written entirely in ZScript

Spoiler: Detailed list of changes

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• Health and damage values adjusted across the board
• Widescreen-compatible weapon and status bar graphics
• Redesigned main menu
• Adjusted skill levels
• Improved Alt-HUD weapon icons
• Improved blood sprites and decals
• Tasteful dynamic light definitions added and brightmaps included
• Map name is displayed on entry
• Added sounds and breath bar for swimming in deep water
• Falling damage is not longer affected by armor
• Player camera height increased
• Base player class colors adjusted

Fighter

• Now has 5 base AC
• Receives 8 AC from the Armor, 4 from the Shield, 1 from the Amulet, and 4 from the Helm
• Melee attacks deal more damage when using the Icon of the Defender

Cleric

• Now has 3 base AC
• Receives 3 AC from the Armor, 5 from the Shield, 3 from the Amulet, and 3 from the Helm
• Is now the slowest class
• Becomes fully ghosted when using the Icon of the Defender
• Gibbed death causes beheading

Mage

• Now has 0 base AC
• Receives 1 AC from the Armor, 2 from the Shield, 5 from the Amulet, and 2 from the Helm
• Spawns fabric tatters on gibbed death

Weapons

• Switching weapons is significantly faster
• Weapons now have custom crosshairs
• Firing a weapon only alerts monsters within a radius
• Weapons now have no auto aim
• Certain weapons now cast a light around the player

Spiked Gauntlets

• Adjusted attack animations and timing
• Hitting enemies is no longer required for a mighty blow
• Improved melee attack puffs

Timon’s Axe

• Now costs 3 blue mana
• New animations
• Improved melee attack puffs
• Now gives no mana with picking up

Hammer of Retribution

• Now costs 5 green mana
• New animations
• Projectile is faster and deals explosive damage immediately
• Improved melee attack puffs
• Gives no mana when picking up

Quietus

• Now costs 12 of each mana
• Missile speed and spread adjusted
• Improved explosion effects

Mace of Contrition

• New animations
• Now actually deals damage
• Improved melee attack puffs

Serpent Staff

• Now costs 2 blue mana
• Adjusted animations
• Projectile speed and spread adjusted
• Improved effects on projectiles
• Drain effect now has a proper puff

Firestorm

• Now costs 5 green mana
• New effects for flame trail
• Range increased
• Streamlined damage model, now just deals damage in a radius

Wraithverge

• Adjusted animation

Sapphire Wand

• Fires significantly faster
• No longer pierces enemies
• Now has a random spread
• Improved effects on the missile trail

Frost Shards

• Now costs 1 blue mana
• Rapidly fires one shard at a time
• Now has a random spread

Arc of Death

• Now costs 6 green mana
• Adjusted animation

Bloodscourge

• Now costs 15 of each mana
• Fires a single projectile in a straight line which explodes
• On impact, projectiles spawn three smaller missiles which also explode

Flechette

• Cannot be used while firing a weapon
• As the Fighter, is thrown farther and explodes on impact or after three bounces
• As the Cleric, is now thrown a short distance
• Poison cloud damage model and duration adjusted
• As the Mage, remains on the ground after thrown and explodes when shot

Artifacts

• Flechette, Quartz Flask, and Disc of Repulsion are now activated exclusively with dedicated hotkeys
• Optional hotkeys for Chaos Device, Icon of the Defender, and Mystic Urn
• Quartz Flask now heals over several seconds instead of immediately
• Disc of Repulsion no longer deflects its user's projectiles
• Mystic Urn now adds 100 health, up to 200
• Torch uses a dynamic light instead of fully brightening the level
• The torch’s effect can now be canceled
• Wings of Wrath are now activated immediately upon pickup

Ettin

• Improved melee attack sound effects
• Added sound effects for gibbed death dropped weapons

Centaur

• Improved melee attack sound effects
• Now has a leaping attack
• Raises shield less in melee combat
• Will now drop their shield if the player runs behind them
• Added sound effects for gibbed death dropped weapons
• Slaughtaurs fire either one or two fireballs (based on skill)
• Slaughtaur fireballs are now slower

Afrit

• Now exit their invulnerable state significantly faster

Chaos Serpent

• Now has more health
• Has a bigger hitbox for projectiles
• Brown Chaos Serpent missiles deal poison damage

Bishop

• No longer tries to fire at players through walls
• Missiles can now be deflected with the Disc of Repulsion

Stalker

• Now has a higher pain chance
• No longer tries to fire at players through walls

Wendigo

• Now has a longer windup for attacking
• Takes reduced damage from ice weapons

Reiver

• Fireballs are now slower

Bosses

• Health increased
• Now have health bars

World

• Torches have new visual effects
• Torches play ambient fire sounds
• Barrels are now destructible
• Banners now wave slowly
• Small plants no longer have player collision
• Switches have an animation when pulled
• Lava damage increased
• Lava now has a glowing effect
• Water animation improved
• Warping added for fluids
• Bat spawner sound added and animation improved

Configuration Options
weapon_shake: set to 'false' to disable weapons causing screen shaking
healing_flash: set to 'false' to disable colored screen flashes on using healing items
map_name_on_entry: set to 'false' to disable showing the map’s name on entry
classic_torch: set to 'true' to use the original torch effect

Some Companion Mods
Hexen music cover
SpriteShadow
DamNums
Tilt++
Nashgore

(don't even try to play this with multiplayer)

Awesome, another Hexen MOD! Gonna check this out!

I've only started, but I wanna point out something that seems a bit... concerning with the mage, and I have experienced right off the get go;
Why remove the Sapphire Wand's piercing?

Yes, it has higher firing rate, but in the beginning of the game and for most of it, you're gonna be facing hordes, which with his arsenal besides Bloodscourge [which is risky, being a cluster rocket launcher basically, and being very mana hungry] he can't readily handle.

So he has no way to keep hordes from giving him trouble, flechettes would help, but with the piercing removed from his wand... he can't hit them, removing the entire point of an explosive flechette, since it is countered by the large number of enemies it's meant to be able to damage.

Would it be possible to give him back that little edge?

I got these two errors when I went to load the mod by itself:

Script error, "Cronos Unleashed.pk3:zscript/cmagewand.txt" line 52:
Named argument Angle not found.
Script error, "Cronos Unleashed.pk3:zscript/cmagefrost.txt" line 55:
Named argument Angle not found.

Might have to update by devbuild to see if that fixes it.

EDIT: Nope, still shows up on the latest devbuild. Maybe if I redownload...
EDIT: Nope, still broken after redownloading.

Terensworth wrote:I've only started, but I wanna point out something that seems a bit... concerning with the mage, and I have experienced right off the get go;
Why remove the Sapphire Wand's piercing?

Yes, it has higher firing rate, but in the beginning of the game and for most of it, you're gonna be facing hordes, which with his arsenal besides Bloodscourge [which is risky, being a cluster rocket launcher basically, and being very mana hungry] he can't readily handle.

So he has no way to keep hordes from giving him trouble, flechettes would help, but with the piercing removed from his wand... he can't hit them, removing the entire point of an explosive flechette, since it is countered by the large number of enemies it's meant to be able to damage.

Would it be possible to give him back that little edge?

This change was made to bring the Sapphire Wand's power level more in line with the other 0-mana weapons. The mage is more susceptible to being swarmed, but this is balanced out by his ability to dish out damage from long range. The goal was to encourage more intelligent thinking about positioning and Disc of Repulsion use.

In the future I will make it easier shoot Flechettes with the Sapphire Wand (along with some other, bigger changes) after I have refactored some of the weapon code.

Gideon020 wrote:I got these two errors when I went to load the mod by itself:

Script error, "Cronos Unleashed.pk3:zscript/cmagewand.txt" line 52:
Named argument Angle not found.
Script error, "Cronos Unleashed.pk3:zscript/cmagefrost.txt" line 55:
Named argument Angle not found.

It seems that one of the arguments for A_FireProjectile was renamed in this commit from 'angle' to 'spawnangle'. If this is not changed, I will put out a patch that changes those lines to not use named arguments. In the meantime, the mod will run just fine on 3.6.0.

EDIT: The patch is out

Version 1.1.0 is now available.

• Disc of Repulsion effects improved
• Adjustments to Icon of the Defender effects
• Boots of Speed effectiveness enhanced
• New VFX for teleporting
• Bug fixes

View the full changelog and download on GitHub

Existing save files should be compatible.

I gotta say, I am digging the hell out of this mod! Although I do have a suggestion: maybe add some animation variation with the melee weapons kinda like what Hexercise and Wrath of Cronos do? Like the Fighter doing random slashes, slices, and chops with his axe. They don't have to affect the damage or attack speed ir anything, I just think the variation on its own could create some more realistic and satisfying battles!

Is it just me, or is this mod MUCH harder than the original Hexen. I understand that gameplay enhancment mods up the difficulty a little but holy hell

Whoah wrote:I gotta say, I am digging the hell out of this mod! Although I do have a suggestion: maybe add some animation variation with the melee weapons kinda like what Hexercise and Wrath of Cronos do? Like the Fighter doing random slashes, slices, and chops with his axe. They don't have to affect the damage or attack speed ir anything, I just think the variation on its own could create some more realistic and satisfying battles!

I am definitely planning on making some significant changes to the weapons. Right now I am working on refactoring the underlying weapon code in preparation. More animations is something I am planning to add.

UnbornDecay25 wrote:Is it just me, or is this mod MUCH harder than the original Hexen. I understand that gameplay enhancment mods up the difficulty a little but holy hell

Keep in mind that the difficulty options have shifted 'up' by one. So the first difficulty on the list is what was previously the second difficulty level.

Rip and Tear wrote: I am definitely planning on making some significant changes to the weapons. Right now I am working on refactoring the underlying weapon code in preparation. More animations is something I am planning to add.

Good to hear! This just might turn out to be my favorite Hexen mod!

First thing, great mod! I really love those little balance changes, they heavily refresh, extend and compliment original gameplay.

Terensworth wrote:I've only started, but I wanna point out something that seems a bit... concerning with the mage, and I have experienced right off the get go;
Why remove the Sapphire Wand's piercing?

Yes, it has higher firing rate, but in the beginning of the game and for most of it, you're gonna be facing hordes, which with his arsenal besides Bloodscourge [which is risky, being a cluster rocket launcher basically, and being very mana hungry] he can't readily handle.

So he has no way to keep hordes from giving him trouble, flechettes would help, but with the piercing removed from his wand... he can't hit them, removing the entire point of an explosive flechette, since it is countered by the large number of enemies it's meant to be able to damage.

Would it be possible to give him back that little edge?

Yeah, mage is... underwhelming at current state. Now he is ranged spammer, which is kinda boring. I understand and accept part with being swarmed, but even single target elimination is still boring. Right now i can't come up with decent mechanic that increase effectiveness on single enemy pick with the wand(Charged shot? Hexercise's ring puff?). And ice corpses should have fixed lifetime to be more effective and predictable, maybe even increase lifetime of ice corpses by icesharding it? But it would require more visual feedback of it. I can try to replicate it with decorate (don't know Zscript at all), but don't think that will go along with your intention of Zscript-only mod. However, it looks pretty cpp-like and straight-forward, soo idk, maybe i'll give it a try. Ice attack in general should differ a little more from wand in behavior side.

Thanks for the effort. Will wait for altattacks in the next release

I Just beat this with all 3 classes and here is my feedback...

1. Fighter - The Fighter feels very nerfed in this MOD. I sucked down more potions and vials than I cared to just to survive. HUB 4 and 5 were a total pain in the ass to get through due to this because of the mana consumption.

2. Cleric - Feels slightly better than before, and probably the only class that benefits from the changes.

3. Mage - He sucks. Feels super weak and eats too much mana due to the removal of the piercing wand and the icy touch. I felt massively handicapped trying to get through the game. The biggest kick in the ass was that you can kill yourself with the Bloodscourge.

But I see you are still making adjustments to this though, so I will come back and see what's in store on the future updates.

I'd like to update everyone on my future plans for this mod.

I am currently working on version 2.0 of the mod, which will focus on enhancing the mod's weaponry. I have already refactored much of the existing weapon code. Many of the existing weapons will have small updates to their animations and behavior. Some of Hexen's more complex weapons, such as Wraithverge and the Arc of Death, will be receiving updates to improve their reliability.

The biggest change will be that all of the non-ultimate weapons will have an alternate fire added. I have already implemented alt fires for the Spiked Gauntlets, Timon's Axe, Sapphire Wand, and Frost Shards (currently in the GitHub repo). If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know. Here are the currently implemented alt fires

Spiked Gauntlets: standard fire is the normal punch, and alt fire is a more powerful blow
Timon's Axe: a quick punch attack with low damage but high knockback; can be combo'd with axe swings
Sapphire Wand: fire a powerful three-round burst that costs one mana (based on which type you have more of)
Frost Shards: shatters all nearby frozen enemies (no cost)

As of now running Cronos Unleashed on GZDoom 4.0.0 doesn't work. The mod crashes on start-up

thewolfman00001 wrote:As of now running Cronos Unleashed on GZDoom 4.0.0 doesn't work. The mod crashes on start-up

You’re in luck, because I just put out patch 1.1.1 to fix that.