HereticArcana! (HexArcana V3.0)

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4page
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HereticArcana! (HexArcana V3.0)

Post by 4page »

Image



VERSION 3.0 RELEASED!

Featuring Doom!
And Heretic!

Have you gotten bored of the Vanilla 3 classes in Hexen? Do you wish that there was something that made them different, but left room for another mod to change the world or monsters? Well, I got something that might fit for you! This mod changes all of the classes in many ways and each class requires a much different play style from what they may have had previously. And it also adds a new class!

Welcome to HexArcana!

This is the first mod created and with this update have spent months learning and using the intricacies of ZScript.
As of this update I'm unsure if I am going to continue working on this mod, but we shall see.

V3.0


V2.1


V2.0


V1.1


V 1.0


Download:
HexArcana V3.0.2 -very minor bug fix
HexArcana V3.0.1
HexArcana V3.0
Hexarcana V2.1
Hexarcana V2.0
Hexarcana V1.2
Hexarcana V1.1
Hexarcana V1.0

ALTERNATE DOWNLOADS
(In case the others don't work)
Spoiler:
OTHER VIDEOS:
Spoiler:
FEATURES:
Spoiler:


SCREENSHOTS:
Spoiler:

CREDITS:
Spoiler:
I WILL end up making small changes as time goes by, and suggestions and critiques are welcome.
A version for Doom will hopefully happen at some point. IS HERE!

Post revision history:
9/7/2021 - V3.0 - Current
6/4/2020 - V2.1
4/1/2020 - V2.0
1/8/2020 - V1.2
11/24/2019 - V1.1
10/7/2019 - V1.0
Last edited by 4page on Tue Jun 27, 2023 6:28 am, edited 46 times in total.
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Blackgrowl
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Graphics Processor: nVidia with Vulkan support

Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by Blackgrowl »

I'm liking the concept going on here.

For starters, I recommend you fix up the weapon sprites, a lot of them are broken in widescreen, I recommend checking this out viewtopic.php?f=46&t=63863 (hxwide.wad)
Also, there's another mod with the main focus being on changing Hexen visually, here viewtopic.php?f=43&t=62971 Might be worth a look, you might wanna meet with the author too, I'm sure you two could team up to make something great, maybe.

Now, I only play as Warrior so I don't know what you changed for Cleric and Mage, but I do hope the feedback will help;
Spiked Gauntlets: It's not bad, but I feel like the faster meleeing and less damage is rather unreliable as main attacks, it should be a secondary instead, some fast jabs to preserve mana while using the other melees, you know?
Also, the secondary attack is alright, but I miss the two-punch-heavy combo and it's kinda ridiculous how the air apparently damages enemies (and goodly so) from so far.

You should make the good ol' Two-Punch back as primary fire, with some modifications, such as it being slightly faster and the left being used as the second punch, with the third punch being the heavy hit, which should deal triple damage instead of double.

Timon's Axe: I'm fine with the faster hitting, but you should make it a three-hits combo with a small delay after the third to balance it out.
The throwing ability is good in concept, but gameplay-wise it's underwhelming:
1. I can't hit the enemies behind walls anymore, which is important to fight against those pesky bishops and serpents
2. It barely has any good range for long-range combat, which is just as important to fight against those pesky bishops and serpents
3. It sometimes takes its time to get back.
4. No piercing/cleaving, not even when getting back. I was expecting something like that.

You didn't seem to mention that Timon's Axe new secondary attack does splash damage (melee-range), that's a good addition but needs better 'practicality'.
In short, you should make the secondary attack the "powered" state one, not throw boomerang, make that the third attack instead.

Hammer of Retribution: This weapon had the worst change.
While it is now an incredibly powerful melee weapon, the fact it is no longer viable for ranged combat is detrimental.

Here's what I recommend;
Primary attack should be a sweep from left-to-right, dealing less damage on the next two enemies but still enough to kill (pretty much if you just sweep once it will only kill one cannon-fodder Ettin), Warrior REALLY needs a crowd-control weapon at melee-range. (Quietus does the job better, but it is also way too expensive to use, meanwhile Hammer of Retribution can be a bother when in melee-range.)
Make the secondary attack throw(shoot) the magical hammer.
The current secondary attack can stay as-is, it's very good, one-kills the Serpents for a big heap of mana.

Sword of Quietus: For what is supposed to be the ultimate weapon, it's a bit too underwhelming.

Here's what I recommend;
Make the primary attack manaless where it's non-stop wide slashes, a lot of reach and better damage than the Fists but slightly lower than Timon's Axe, it ends with, well, 3 to 6 combos, up to you, with an overhead slash that pushes enemies.
Secondary attack should be back to the classic 5-projectiles.
Third attack should be this new one you made, but improve it so it has slightly more reach and hits everywhere, as well as deal way more damage than the classic one.

By the way, I don't really like this concept of "Stamina", could you be so kind as to make an option to disable it?
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by 4page »

Thanks for taking interest and trying it out! I appreciate that you gave it a shot and that you gave me so much feedback!
For starters, I recommend you fix up the weapon sprites, a lot of them are broken in widescreen, I recommend checking this out viewtopic.php?f=46&t=63863 (hxwide.wad)
Also, there's another mod with the main focus being on changing Hexen visually, here viewtopic.php?f=43&t=62971 Might be worth a look, you might wanna meet with the author too, I'm sure you two could team up to make something great, maybe.
Thanks for pointing me in that direction. I'll definitely try to work in those widescreen sprites. With proper permissions and credit, of course.

A lot of your feedback about the weapons seems to trend toward "make it more like vanilla," and while that isn't a bad thing I feel like it's not really the direction I want to go with this mod. In short, I admit that the Fighter needs work. It's probably the class that I'm least confident in the changes I've made. But I've my reasons for the changes, mostly.
Spiked Gauntlets: It's not bad, but I feel like the faster meleeing and less damage is rather unreliable as main attacks, it should be a secondary instead, some fast jabs to preserve mana while using the other melees, you know?
Also, the secondary attack is alright, but I miss the two-punch-heavy combo and it's kinda ridiculous how the air apparently damages enemies (and goodly so) from so far.
I'm not sure what you mean by it's unreliable. I agree that it could probably use some polishing, though. Whether it's the range, or maybe a slight damage boost, or some other less obvious change, I'll work on it. As for the secondary, that arose out of a necessity for some sort of longer reach attack. The mod that I originally based this off of didn't have any ranged attacks at all until Quietus, which had something like its original attack. I kept the heavy punch in because it's nice to have a heavy damage attack with some reach. However, I'm willing to admit that it does need some work, maybe the damage should fall off a bit faster.
Timon's Axe: I'm fine with the faster hitting, but you should make it a three-hits combo with a small delay after the third to balance it out.
The throwing ability is good in concept, but gameplay-wise it's underwhelming:
1. I can't hit the enemies behind walls anymore, which is important to fight against those pesky bishops and serpents
2. It barely has any good range for long-range combat, which is just as important to fight against those pesky bishops and serpents
3. It sometimes takes its time to get back.
4. No piercing/cleaving, not even when getting back. I was expecting something like that.
I'd rather keep away from combo style attacks, to be honest. What do you mean can't hit enemies behind walls? As for not for long range combat, I wanted to keep a bit more toward the base mod in making the fighter an extremely close range style. I made some allowances for mid range attacks, since those pesky bishops and serpents and those STUPID AFRITS drove me a bit nuts without being able to attack any further than you could spit. However, the utility of the axe is not as a long range superiority weapon, but something you could attack something while being at a reasonably safe distance and also get health back. I guess in my original post I didn't make it especially clear that the axe's secondary heals you. As for how long it takes to get back, I felt it was better to have it return after hitting one person rather than cleaving multiple enemies and leaving you without a weapon for so long. So if you really want to attack something at the limit of its range you need to be sure you can deal without it for a bit. I agree that I should put the piercing damage on its return though. That makes sense. Also the splash damage it does isn't just melee range. It's just an unintended effect of how I produce the damage on that attack, but I should actually mention it, you're right.
Hammer of Retribution: This weapon had the worst change.
While it is now an incredibly powerful melee weapon, the fact it is no longer viable for ranged combat is detrimental.
As I mentioned, I want the fighter to be as close up as possible, so this is the super heavy hitting super close range weapon. I took away the range on this one because I felt the fighter could use some range a bit earlier on, hence the heavy punch and the axe throw, and since you have those options it would be redundant to include yet another ranged attack on this one since I never intended to give the fighter an infinite range attack. You later mention that the Fighter needs crowd-control and that's what the secondary is intended to be. The explosion has a very large radius and can pretty quickly clear a room, which is why it costs so much mana. Maybe I should put some sort of shockwave visuals or something that sort of indicates the range.

Quietus I gave the ranged attack to really early on because the Fighter in the original mod that I built on had literally no other ranged attack except the powered Quietus swing which ate mana really fast and felt wasteful on a single slightly out of range Afrit. I'm not super attached to it being a ranged attack. However, I do not really want to give it back its 5-way ranged attack. If I get rid of the projectile, giving it a non-mana-using attack it'll have a fair amount of reach, and do a decent amount of damage. But I really like the Flame Swing I gave it. Frankly between this and the hammer I think I could rework a fair bit.
By the way, I don't really like this concept of "Stamina", could you be so kind as to make an option to disable it?
ABSOLUTELY. I do want to do this, but making menu items and options like this are a bit beyond me at the moment. I made this mod using DECORATE script exclusively, which is the lowest and least versatile scripting language used in GZDoom. I think. I'm probably wrong. But yes, I do want to do that thing, if I can figure out a way to do that.

Thanks again for taking the time to try this out, even if it may not be what you might have been expecting or wanting. I really appreciate it.
Terensworth
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by Terensworth »

Okay, so... to be honest I have no idea how many differences there are from the original Hexen Class Rework, so I'm gonna judge this one on it's own.
And let me tell you right now, I love it.

I tried all 3 classes.
First of all, you've done a brilliant job at making just 4 weapons into something exciting, because every weapon has multiple uses and intricacies, so much so that it feels you get around 10 weapons per class purely due to the multiple alt fires and gimmicks.

Warlock

Telekinesis - Brilliant, a fantastic first weapon, precise and reliable with a shotgun close range blast to help out against melee enemies. One thing that I have to note is that the mage's gimmick of arcaneblood is, while fun and effective, a little wonky due to needing to switch to his 1 to use it. Maybe map his power up to the reload button?
Either way, when powered up, this thing is a bona-fide sniper rifle with how quickly it can get rid of enemies, very fun.

Fire & Ice - For all your close range and light mobbing needs, this one is just fun, the damage ice deals is unreal... buuut only if it's not powered up, I guess it's a fair trade off, but the extra range on the powered up version doesn't exactly feel like it's there so powering this one seems pointless. Oh, also, nice that it causes no pain state, so it can dispatch centaurs without any issue, dunno if that's intended, but I personally love it. Oh, also, love how enemies go flying when frozen, that's just funny.
Fire's got a problem with how unclear it's range is, with the effect being completely 2D, it becomes difficult to tell what it's hitting. That's the only issue I have with it, it's perfect for taking out afrits in a narrow area or breaking the frozen enemies you left from ice.

Shock Ball - I find that the electrical weapons in this mod are pretty wild with how powerful they are, exhibit A, lightning orb of room clearing. I suppose it's weakness is that if there's no room, it won't be able to fully unload all the damage it can deal, but if there's no room you switch to ice instead. I feel maybe it's alt fire is a bit difficult to find a use for, it hitting multiple enemies in a line is something ice and it's own primary fire do better, so I'm unsure on this one. Either that, or maybe Ice is brutally overpowered.

Bloodscourge - It's unwieldy, it really is. The damage is high with a hefty mana cost. But it's so very very unwieldy. What I mean by this is that the burst from this weapon comes incredibly late for when you fire it, it takes too long for the meteor shower to start hitting and enemies can walk out of range before getting hit. And the cluster bomb is harsh on when it blows up, with the orb itself dealing very light damage. Hence needing to work with the cluster explosion, it's entertaining but I'm just unsure on it's uses due to the mage's other weapons beating it out in mobbing.

It's possible that warlock's weapon lineup is simply too powerful, and thus Bloodscourge ends up feeling redundant. I will say, though, that his weapons being so powerful is a good tradeoff for having so little max health, you know... like a mage.

Magister

Mace of Confectionary - I feel like this is the weapon that suffers most from the mod's stamina system. With how quickly it strikes but with the magister's less impressive stamina regen than the slayer's, the mace becomes a weapon you have to be super careful about when you go wild with. Is this good or bad? IMO both, the mace is way stronger than it was in the original Hexen and the fact that the magister can moderately heal himself during use is a great incentive to use it, at least until Wraithverge comes along to give you AB instead. Therefore, limiting it a bit is not a bad thing, but maybe it's a little too harsh now.

Bowling of Bows - Like I said, electrical weapons are mad in this mod. And the bow's no different. Fully charged it's damage is enough to easily take out most monsters in two shots with only slight arcing [which you should probably note, by the way, that it has gravity]. The scare factor comes from the alt fire, that chain lightning is insane, and I swear it seems to go through walls sometimes. The mana cost is very heavy for chain lightning, which makes sense and forces you to use it sparingly.

Flames - I feel this one's balanced. The primary fire is a simple but slow AoE, and it looks nice.
The rage mode as I would call what it's secondary fire does, is just giving this already strong class even more strength, it's legit going berserk with power at the cost of health. Again, maybe the berserk mode should be mapped to a seperate button so this weapon would have a more legit secondary fire, not sure.

Wraithverge - Can't mess with perfection except adding in a haunt primary fire that leaps between enemies and kills em slowly.

I'd say Magister is the most well balanced class with enough tradeoffs for capabilities and fun feeling weapons to make the most out of him.

Slayer

Fists - So, the fighter's stamina regen is either far better than the magister's or the stamina costs of his weapons are less heavy. Fact is, the fists do their job, what I like about the alt fire, however, is that there's a little sweet spot when you attack with it, if you hit from just the right range, you'll deal the damage of the punch itself with most of the damage from the air missile as well. Enough to cave through an ettin if you can get used to it.

Axe - It's only slightly slower than the punch, the way I see it. And it has far more range rather than just slightly. The damage of it's primary attack is fine and it costs no mana which is a big plus. The secondary fire is badass, it really is, betwene the fancy boomerang effect and how much damage it deals, plus the healing effect, it's just fun to use... but, the boomerang effect itself has no real reason for it's existence. It doesn't hit enemies on the way back [or so it seems], it doesn't go through enemies, it's just fancy. I don't think it needs to go through enemies, though, that might make it too strong and a bit too easy to recover all your health with.

Hammer - For being stronger than the axe, slower and with lower range... the damage is a bit lower than it should be on the primary fire. The lack of long range is a bit iffy though the explosion from his secondary fire can make up for it if used in the right way, I feel like the fighter takes more skill, maybe a little too much luck considering Afrits love to wander around out of range like jerks, but it's not all bad IMO.

Quietus - So... the primary fire on this is straight up comical. Not only does it launch a single weak projectile that looks like a blob of snot, it's also affected by gravity. Therefore, it's pointless as a ranged attack.
Secondary fire is as powerful as any other melee attack the fighter has, feels and looks good as well.
But that primary fire is hilariously bad.

Poor Slayer is a bit iffy on his usefulness, his weapons are middling in power compared to the other two classes, and his ultimate weapon is straight up pathetic compared to the rest of them. It's possible that what he's lacking is variety in what weapons do, maybe making the axe deal it's damage in a cone to make it the designated mobbing weapon? Make the hammer work that way? Maybe have Quietus be his one ranged weapon and focus on the damage over time aspect of the altfire, so his primary fire is throwing a green flame that ignites enemies instead of the goop it throws now? Or maybe I'm completely wrong and he's intended to be a tank first and a damage dealer later, you tell me.

I don't remember the last time I had this much fun with Hexen, the options you get are great and the mechanics are fun to work with. Hope you continue working on this one.
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4page
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by 4page »

Terensworth - Thanks for taking an interest in my mod! I really like how thorough you were with your response. Some great feedback here. Also, I should mention that this mod is intended to be played with no autoaim and mouselook on. I will put this in the primary post too. I may try to make it a little more compatible with autoaim.
Telekinesis - Brilliant, a fantastic first weapon, precise and reliable with a shotgun close range blast to help out against melee enemies. One thing that I have to note is that the mage's gimmick of arcaneblood is, while fun and effective, a little wonky due to needing to switch to his 1 to use it. Maybe map his power up to the reload button?
Either way, when powered up, this thing is a bona-fide sniper rifle with how quickly it can get rid of enemies, very fun.
Binding the Power Up to reload is pretty brilliant and I wish I had thought to do that, but I was hesitant to map anything to any sort of keybinds. I'll probably still keep it on the TK weapon but allow quick access with the reload button from any weapon. Though in doing that it will definitely make it so that no weapon can have an effect on the reload key, but then I wasn't planning on that in the first place, so it's fine.

It did a lot less damage until I discovered that there is no other effective way to kill the stalkers with this character. I needed it to be able to always kill them in one hit. Otherwise it gets too messy too quick. But I don't think that's necessarily bad, just maybe might be a little to powerful for its cost.
Fire & Ice - For all your close range and light mobbing needs, this one is just fun, the damage ice deals is unreal... buuut only if it's not powered up, I guess it's a fair trade off, but the extra range on the powered up version doesn't exactly feel like it's there so powering this one seems pointless. Oh, also, nice that it causes no pain state, so it can dispatch centaurs without any issue, dunno if that's intended, but I personally love it. Oh, also, love how enemies go flying when frozen, that's just funny.
Fire's got a problem with how unclear it's range is, with the effect being completely 2D, it becomes difficult to tell what it's hitting. That's the only issue I have with it, it's perfect for taking out afrits in a narrow area or breaking the frozen enemies you left from ice.
To be honest, it's supposed to do more damage when it's powered up. I guess it ends up doing less because of the way ripping projectiles work. I'll fix that.
It's intended to not cause pain state, it's so that you can't stunlock an enemy so they can still potentially get hits in, but with how quickly it kills things that might be a moot point anyway. I might end up nerfing this weapon a bit. Seems a little too powerful.
I'll try to figure out a good way to signify the fire's explosion radius. This is a good point.
Shock Ball - I find that the electrical weapons in this mod are pretty wild with how powerful they are, exhibit A, lightning orb of room clearing. I suppose it's weakness is that if there's no room, it won't be able to fully unload all the damage it can deal, but if there's no room you switch to ice instead. I feel maybe it's alt fire is a bit difficult to find a use for, it hitting multiple enemies in a line is something ice and it's own primary fire do better, so I'm unsure on this one. Either that, or maybe Ice is brutally overpowered.
I wasn't too sure whether I should make the shockball pierce enemies or explode on them. If it pierces that does seem to make the secondary fire a little too redundant, but if it explodes on enemies it's more difficult to get the lightning tendrils to actually be effective. Maybe I can have it explode into a large amount of the lightning tendrils as well as releasing them as it goes? Also, maybe adjust the mana costs of them?
Bloodscourge - It's unwieldy, it really is.
I'm... not sure how to deal with this one. I definitely will lower the time for the meteor shower/strike to appear or remove the time totally, that is totally valid and doable, but I'm not sure what you mean by the cluster bomb is harsh on when it blows up? I'd appreciate a little bit more clarity here with what the problem is. I might end up completely replacing this effect. But I like the meteor strike so that one stays. :lol:
the mace is way stronger than it was in the original Hexen and the fact that the magister can moderately heal himself during use is a great incentive to use it
I was a little worried that the ability to gain armor using the mace might be a little bit over powered. Since at 18 AC you take VERY little damage. I wanted the mace to be usable and fairly reliable, but not really a go-to beat-the-crap-out-of-everything sort of weapon. It holds its own, but it's primary purpose is to buff you.
I swear it seems to go through walls sometimes
I've noticed that too, but at the same time sometimes it feels like it doesn't hit enemies you think it should be able to. Honestly this is a mysterious beast and its motives cannot be known.
it's legit going berserk with power at the cost of health. Again, maybe the berserk mode should be mapped to a seperate button so this weapon would have a more legit secondary fire, not sure.
I do like the idea of using the reload to start this up. Again, I will probably will leave it on the weapon as well, though. As for giving it a more legit secondary I'll have to come up with something interesting which will not get in the way of the rage mode switch.
Slayer
This whole class needs a makeover. It's the first one I changed when I didn't really know what I was doing. Also his weapons are rather difficult to come up with something drastically different and satisfying. BUT I SHALL TRY MY BEST.
So, the fighter's stamina regen is either far better than the magister's
It really is. I may raise the range on the fists just a little, too. Also, I need to make the sprites actually look nice in widescreen. Thanks to Blackgrowl for bringing that more to my attention.
It doesn't hit enemies on the way back [or so it seems], it doesn't go through enemies, it's just fancy. I don't think it needs to go through enemies, though, that might make it too strong and a bit too easy to recover all your health with.
It only will return the health from the first enemy hit. I think it might be satisfying for it to go through enemies and damage them on the way back. However, this will have the side effect of it'll get stuck on walls, since I'll need to take off the NOCLIP flag. So if it gets stuck on a wall it'll be the longest amount of time that I've set it to be before it auto teleports back to the player. And it's not supposed to be an auto teleport weapon thing. So I may lower the mana cost of the throw a little, but charge a bit more if it needs to teleport back to the player.
Hammer - For being stronger than the axe, slower and with lower range... the damage is a bit lower than it should be on the primary fire. The lack of long range is a bit iffy though the explosion from his secondary fire can make up for it if used in the right way, I feel like the fighter takes more skill, maybe a little too much luck considering Afrits love to wander around out of range like jerks, but it's not all bad IMO.
I may increase the range on this as well a little. Also, with the problems Quietus has, I might give it back a ranged hammer throw. However, it'll still be affected by gravity, since I am morally opposed to the Slayer having any infinite range attacks. However, if I do that, the question becomes should I get rid of its explosion crowd control or get rid of its dedicated manaless swing? Or maybe I can have the throw on the altfire but if you hit an enemy with it up close it goes with the explosion effect instead? I dunno. But yes, the Slayer is designed to ignore or close in on targets that are too far away. If you can't get to it and you can't reach it, you gotta ignore it for the time being. Also, it's designed around the vanilla campaign and I can assure you that it's more than doable in both Deathkings and the Original campaigns. I can't say for any user designed levels, though.
Quietus - So... the primary fire on this is straight up comical. Not only does it launch a single weak projectile that looks like a blob of snot, it's also affected by gravity. Therefore, it's pointless as a ranged attack.
Secondary fire is as powerful as any other melee attack the fighter has, feels and looks good as well.
But that primary fire is hilariously bad.
Not going to defend this one too much. It's not as bad as I had it originally, but it's still pretty bad, I agree. This is one of those weapons that it's a little difficult to come up with something spectacular with the spriteset that I have. I'd like to make the primary a manaless attack, but I think it'll feel rather redundant, since every other weapon has manaless attacks. Fast and low damage, middle damage middle range, high damage slow and low range. This weapon will necessarily make one of the others obsolete, unless it has some sort of interesting effect in addition which will put it into its own class. But what that effect is, I don't know. Maybe I can make it a chargeable attack? And the secondary does need a little more work, I will admit. I'm not entirely sure what to do with that either.
Terensworth
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by Terensworth »

When it comes to Quietus and the slayer as a whole, you could legit claim that his gimmick IS that his weapons can all be used without mana in some way. The question is how.
Think of it this way, as it stands, all the weapons that have a manaless attack are just an improvement on the fists, now lets back up and try to work this out.

The fists are the most basic weapon available to the slayer. The weaknesses are obvious and damning, no ranged ability, not much in the way of mobbing and not that much damage.
So lets have his other weapons each solve these issues in one way or another.

Axe, make it cleave in front of him for the manaless attack, putting aside the boomerang. Have it hit multiple enemies. It's now his anti-trash weapon, taking out piles of ettins that threaten to surround him with ease but not being that useful against stronger singular enemies like serpents and bosses. The boomerang being the fighter's first instance of being able to deal with Afrits, somewhat.

This now goes against the hammer's alt fire, so lets get to the hammer.
Hammer's manaless attack should be chargeable, have it be his one extremely powerful attack that will decimate a single opponent, boom!! Now he has a way to deal some serious damage to one person.
Alternate fire, this one's tricky, I can think of a couple of approaches;

1. Something to do with earthquakes, have the hammer slam the ground launching a projectile that only travels across it, letting the fighter take out enemies below him and far away from him, but not above him. Half solving his lack of range. Have this projectile be heavy on the damage, making it perfect for taking out sniping serpents or, if... you're really good at timing, a stalker.

2. Something to do with burning, this one I don't like because I'm thinking the whole burn approach should be Quietus' but I'll get to that in a sec. Idea is to have the hammer burn an enemy it hits, dealing damage over time and possibly putting them in a constant pain state, giving the fighter a little utility and letting him smack an enemy, tell em 'You sit there while I'm handling your friends'. Maybe you can think of a better idea on this because admittedly I feel like this would be a touch boring compared to previous alt fires.

Finally, Quiteus. I feel like this weapon should go with the damage over time approach, have the manaless attack launch a single flame that attaches to an enemy, dealing damage over time, enough to take out afrits or slow down far away serpents. No gravity, no arc. If you wanna take it a step further, have the flame you throw cause the ground beneath it to become damaging to enemies as well while it travels forward, just another idea for how to make the weapon feel a little more potent and a little more ultimate.
As for the alternate fire I feel like it's perfect if a little bit lacking in the numbers or range departments.
Now he has a set weapon for both crowd control and ranged combat.

Putting it in short,
Fists are basic, cheap, reliable single target melee.
Axe is for mobbing and middle ranged combat.
Hammer is for the heaviest damage.
Sword is for range and utility.

The last thing I could point out is that while Magister and Warlock both have some sort of power up mechanic and extra bit of oomph to their class, the slayer does not. Does he need it? I don't know, it'd feel weird to slap a powerup mechanic on him just to have him fit with the rest.
Maybe, instead, he could have some sort of extra move for each weapon using reload but costing alot of stamina, since you mentioned not doing that for warlock or magister earlier, why not have THAT be the slayer's gimmick?
Like... Have the fists be a megaton punch that has the slayer travel forward super fast to hit an enemy.
Have the axe be a single wide swing that hits more enemies for more damage.
Hammer's current explosive swing could be a great extra reload move, alternatively keep it as the secondary fire and throw one of my other ideas on the reload.
Quietus... I'm actually stumped here but I really am just throwing ideas into the wind either way.
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by whirledtsar »

I would assume this is a bug but i tried in gzdoom 3.7 and 4.1 and it acts the same. Firestorm alt fire is literally suicide. It never stops draining your health until you die. Firing the main fire doesn't stop it, switching weapons doesn't stop it, nothing stops it. What is the idea here?

Also, the classes now lack their unique difficulty names and have reverted to Heretic difficulty names.
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by 4page »

fluffyshambler:
3rd weapon: Flames
Primary fire shoots a projectile costing 10 Green mana that creates a rotating ring of flames
which expands outward damaging enemies in the area.
Secondary fire creates a perpetual ring of fire around the player, which lightly damages
enemies nearby, costing no mana, but slowly draining health. Also buffs other weapons' attacks.
Mace: Primary attacks cause additional damage. Secondary fire no change.
Bow: Primary fires faster, does much more damage, arrows fly faster. Secondary fire chain lightning now explodes
Flames: Primary fire now spawns a second ring shortly after the first. Secondary dismisses the ring.
Wraithverge: No change
Secondary fire creates a perpetual ring of fire around the player, which lightly damages
enemies nearby, costing no mana, but slowly draining health. Also buffs other weapons' attacks.
Flames: Primary fire now spawns a second ring shortly after the first. Secondary dismisses the ring.
It's not as clear as it probably should be. I'll add that to the list of things to improve on the next post update.

It's supposed to drain your health. It makes all your other attacks stronger, but doesn't cost them any more mana, with the exception of the bow's primary because it's ridiculously powerful otherwise. It also damages nearby enemies. To make it go away and stop hurting you just use the Flame's secondary fire again. As for the difficulty settings, sadly that's an effect of replacing the default classes. I just haven't gotten around to making custom ones yet. I could just use the ones from Vanilla, I guess, but I might as well make something new.

Terensworth:

I kinda like the idea of giving them all a third attack effect on the reload, but I think I'll try to put them on a alt-fire hold as well. I'll probably make a config option down the line to enable/disable the hold attacks and leave them on the reload key. I also kinda like the idea of making the axe cleave, but I feel like it may be a little weird since it won't be very long range and it will only be in a line. I was thinking of maybe a side sweeping axe attack that cleaves in more of a cone shape. Now, the hammer, I think I'll take the projectile off Quietus and give the hammer back its throw, but I'm not sure what you mean by the projectile being useless if it has gravity. I want the hammer throw to have gravity, but if I can manage I'll also make a config option to turn the gravity off of the hammer as well. As for the charging attack, I was going to put that on Quietus. Also, I'm not sure why you think the hammer's basic attack doesn't do enough damage. I was looking at the numbers and it does more damage than anything in vanilla except a full force Quietus attack. Still, I think I can up the range a little bit to get it feeling nice and beefy. For Quietus, like I mentioned maybe a charge attack, though I'm not sure about its 3rd attack. Maybe it can be a long range projectile, but I still want to shy away from those if possible.

For anyone else who's following along, feel free to chime in and make suggestions/comments/critiques.
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Re: HexArcana (V1.0)

Post by Terensworth »

A cone cleave on the axe is perfect, yeah.
As for the hammer, well, maybe I haven't had enough experience with it to really feel the damage.

Oh, and the gravity turning a projectile useless is me exaggerating. A long ranged option becomes a good deal more difficult and at times impossible to hit with if it has a hefty enough arc. The current Quietus projectile falls down super quickly so it kind of misses the ranged mark and is better in low range, and in that case all the other weapons are better for that.

Looking forward to seeing how you tackle this mod.
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Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by 4page »

Version 1.1 is released! Out into the wild! Behold my progress! Gaze upon it and see that it is mediocre!
-Almost everything about the Slayer has been redone.
-Warlock has had most of his weapons touched up in the visuals and balance, most notably the changes to Bloodscourge.
-Magister has a nifty new attack on his flame weapon. At least I think it's nifty.
-Some options menu items to change some preferences.
-New Skill setting names. Just so they're not default anymore.
-New fullscreen HUD
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Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by eharper256 »

So I went ahead and used this to play '4 weeks of pain' using the Fighter/Slayer.

I didn't use the previous version, so I comparing it to vanilla. I love the changes you've done overall; I've long wanted some interesting modern variation on Hexen weapons to keep up with the ever crazy Heretical.

Punches: Its good to see the fighters standard punch combo is intact. I didn't use the double fist hammer too much as its easy to whiff with the charge up time; and normal punches have a chance to stunlock for a moment, so its strictly worse for most skirmishes except crunching dangerous chaos serpents in one hit. The charging Hadouken, however, is amazing. Closing distance, especially early on, is integral to Fighter plays, and the fact it also delivers a powerful punch is cool. It also allows a semi-hovering effect and can be used to run across short lava pools and things without issue which is cool.

Timons Axe: I really, REALLY love the wide swing and punch. Its strong and versatile; but just slow enough in cooldown to not be horribly overpowered, so great job with that. Being able to splat Green Chaos Serpents in a single swing is very satisfying. Being able to throw the axe as the tertiary fire is also a godsend; and I really like the vampirism effect on that throw. One thing to note: the 'holding secondary to use the reload' does NOT work to throw axes, I had to use the Reload bind specifically for that (though it works with the other weapons).

Hammer of Retribution: Its melee being slow and clunky is a stark contrast to the axe, and though fitting for the hammer, I feel as though the primary damage could be marginally higher (literally 5-10%). Its throw is different and feels like a grenade now, which is nice; I like it. The tertiary flaming slam is amazing and gives the Fighter a fantastic AOE clear option (this single-handedly allowed me to survive some of the hordes that 4 weeks of pain throws at you). Overall though the Hammer is excellent.

Quietus: I realise this is probably because you've followed Terensworth's advice above; but I felt very underwhelmed by the Quietus after being impressed with everything else so far. Mostly because its melee is awful; it has to be charged to get significant damage, otherwise its a slower hitting axe. The ranged shot is cool and powerful and easily the best part of the sword, but it feels slow to fire off your sword beams. Finally, after the Hammers slam, the AOE flames are extremely underwhelming; the initial sweep doesn't seem to do much despite looking visually impressive, and the DoT's of the flames themselves are insignificant. Considering the dual-mana use, its just not really usable.

I opened Quietus up in Slade and the fact that the flames deal 0-3 damage (1.5 on average I guess) explains alot. If its ticking 8 times, you're looking at around 10-12 damage on average (28, the max, is very unlikely, and you can flat out get 0). Even though there are alot of flames around from a given swing, thats still pathetic damage, you need about 4-6 of them concentrated to even think about killing an Afrit (80 HP) after several seconds, never mind a 175 HP Ettin. I tried changing it myself to 2-6 (4-8 minus 2), and that felt considerably better. I know in the notes you're concerned about it being OP, but the Quietus ~is~ supposed to be an ultimate weapon. XD
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Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by eharper256 »

Also had a quick go using the Hexmas 2018 and Xump packs to check out the Cleric and Mage to give some brief thoughts on those:

But before that: Stamina and Arcaneblood in general I'm not much of a fan of.

I forgot to mention before that I switched Stamina off half-way into the second hub with my fighter play; as its more just irratating than tactical; there are quite a few areas in many custom maps that aren't kind enough to give you a breather for you to catch up your stamina; and you can you can screw yourself over fairly easily by charging into a fight you think you can win and dying because you suddenly can't attack.

And Arcaneblood: the Cleric doesn't really care that much because he can farm it fairly easily with kill blows from the mace, and only uses it with heals and Wraithverge; this was fine, its inobtrusive. But the Mage, boy is he screwed. He only has 50 HP; sacrificing 1/5 of his health for a paltry sum of blood (which he needs pretty bad for the good effects) is dire. I actually went in and changed the blood conversion cost to 1HP for 100 Blood.

Anyways, individual weapons:

Mace of Contrition: I like the fact that its now holy, and that the cleric can heal himself. Its good.

The Bow: Ugh. I hate the bow. By default, spam clicking it is a huge mana waste for little effect (the projectiles also have a very short range), and the full charge takes AGES to reach. I get the Cleric isn't exactly a professional archer, but taking that long to draw it indicates he shouldn't be trying to use arrows in the first place, lol. I went in and increased the base projectile speed and damage to make it tolerable to use, and reduced the number of charges it takes to reach max and it feels a bit better. As for the Lightning Arrow, its not horribly reliable at picking up extra targets unless they are very tightly clustered. The damage is pretty crazy though. Whilst I was editing the other things, I set its cost to 10, because 20 is nuts. I still miss the Serpent Staff, mind. -_-;

Firestorm: Is great. It actually feels like it justifies its name now (it was 'Emberstream' at best before, lol). I also like the idea of the buff; though I don't actually recall taking any damage from having it on?

Telekinesis/Magic Missiles: My main thought about this is that its really, really, annoyingly sensitive; quite often I'll want to shoot repeatedly at a far off enemy and constantly trigger a shotgun blast. And when I'm up close and in a dangerous place with the Mage, I want to use the shotgun instantly but have to waste a few precious frames holding down the button, potentially inviting a melee hit or letting the enemy move. As a result its far more clunky than the Sapphire Wand, so I would seriously consider having the two functions on seperate fire modes. You already know how I feel about Arcaneblood, but if you have to use it personally I would very much consider Monster Flasks giving more of it and allowing the Mage the same functionality as the cleric (gaining it via basic attacks) rather than using a fire-mode on it. And perhaps consider an inventory item the Mage starts with as being the trigger for using the resource so you can leave your shoot buttons for actually shooting. Alternatively, I'd just make the higher end versions eat more mana or use a Heretic/Hexen II-like Tome of Power.

Fire and Ice: Both of these are good except a couple of notes: the shards/steam mist are very short ranged and very, very Mana hungry. It feels like Mana is consumed way faster than the 3 per burst that the vanilla ones have. The Fireballs are good.

Arc of Death: Good. I like both the ball-lightning and the railgun modes. Since the ball also appears to pierce, its basically seems like a better mode, but this is balanced by its triple cost so I guess thats fine.

I didn't get to use Wraithverge or Bloodscorge, sadly, but I'll eventually get back to you on those. That said, they're both rather hard to break in the first place and are naturally very powerful, of course.

Finally, as a standard balance measure, I'd consider giving the poor mage 75 HP at least, 50 is a two shot kill from some Hexen projectiles, so he can't make many mistakes.

EDIT: Ah yeah, and if you feel like continuing, it might be nice to visit the Flechettes and see what you can do with them. At the very minimum, it might be nice to give the Fighter a less rubbish throw on his!
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Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by 4page »

Eharper256:
First off, thank you so much for trying out my mod and for giving me such substantial feedback. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I wanted to look into a few things in my mod and didn't have access to the computer with my mod tools.

Punches: I'm glad you like the changes, though I think the double fist is quite useful, it's cool if you don't like it. Though, when I looked into it, it wasn't behaving properly with the alt fire hold. You're supposed to be able to go from the end of any of the combo punches really quickly into the double fist, but if you had the alt hold option enabled it would skip over into the dashing punch. I fixed it and it'll work right in the next update. Also you can go from the double fist directly and quickly into the dashing punch. The gauntlets are supposed to have a sort of progressive combo system going on kinda. Combo punches > Double Fist > Dashing punch > Combo punches etc.

Timon's Axe: I appreciate that you like the vampire effect. I believe that at times it's absolutely necessary, since a random half of the quartz flasks are now monster flasks. Which reminds me, I need to see if I can get it so that the monster flasks won't spawn if the stamina option is turned off. Anyway, the wide swing, after looking at it, is kinda broken. It's supposed to be used as a light crowd control, but it does HUGE damage (roughtly 350) at close range and basically nothing at distance (something like 50 or 60). I'm trying to figure out a good way to work it out, but I want it to at least be a bit more consistent. I'll try not to make it too underpowered, but it really needs to be toned back a bit.

Hammer: I'm honestly not sure why everybody thinks the hammer needs to do more damage. It is literally more damaging than any weapon in vanilla Hexen. Except a full Quietus blast, maybe Wraithverge, and I'm not sure about lightning. I guess it would be nice to up the minimum damage to 100% always kill Ettins, but I like having that very very slight chance that you don't. Maybe you're right, though, I thnk 10% or 15% even could be doable. Still leaves a very small range in which an Ettin survives, but just makes it a bit less likely. I think right now there's a roughly 33% chance of the Ettin surviving. I'll look into it.

Quietus: This is one that no one seems satisfied with. Everyone gives me the advice that it's "an ultimate weapon" but when it boils down to it, if it's not using mana, it's just a sword. And so I'm limited to doing just sword things. Now with mana costing things I'm trying to be imaginative, but useful and powerful feeling. For the basic sword swing I didn't want to just have him hacking away like with the axe, but I also didn't want to overcomplicate the swing pattern like what some other mods do by adding variations to the swings (Wrath of Cronos with the axe), because that's just not what this mod is about. I was ok with doing things like that with the gauntlets because that's keeping a little bit in the spirit of Vanilla I guess. So my options are limited. I could charge it, but that slows down the attack by quite a bit. And by charging, that means the basic quick attack must be weaker than the charged attack. Or I could keep a faster paced attack that is just a series of regular attacks and would feel much like the axe again. Only maybe a bit stronger with much more reach totally negating the need for the axe other than for maybe healing. I could do something fancy, like a sweeping attack (already taken by the axe), or a linear shockwave, or a knockback, or something, but then the sword would lack any sort of simple universal utility. I'd appreciate suggestions if you'd like to.
The ranged shot was kinda not very well designed in the way it deals damage, so it's going to have a little change to it, to hopefully even out its damage based on if you hit them directly or if they're to the side. It will also come out a bit quicker and not look quite as derpy when being cast (I got a cool lunging thrust attack to go with it).
The sweep. This is one I'm dead set on keeping because I love it. HOWEVER I appreciate your concerns for it because it got me to look into the numbers and everything and make it work better. The initial sweep will do more damage, and the DoT flames absolutely were not insignificant in any way shape or form. You claim that they would barely be able to kill an Afrit, but I have visual proof of them taking out groups of centaurs, Serpents, and ettins. ALSO HOWEVER part of the reason for this is due to the cone shape the flames are more concentrated at the point and further apart at the edge. So you can easily get 550 to 800 damage at close range, but the damage fell off to around 50 to 80 at the edge. This is unacceptable. I have made changes which sort of even it out a bit. Now they'll do approximately 400 to 550 at close range, but 200 to 500 at the edge. Much more reasonable ranges and a damage falloff that encourages getting close without being too harsh. Yes, Quietus IS supposed to be an ultimate weapon but that doesn't excuse improper balance or making any other weapon obsolete. I'm just having a bit of a hard time figuring out that balance.

Great! You gave some feedback on classes that AREN'T the Slayer class!
Stamina and Arcane Blood: I get why people wouldn't want to use stamina. That's why there is the option to turn it off. There may be areas in custom maps that won't give you breathers, but I designed this around the vanilla mapsets, so I can't account for other map designs. Also the monster flasks are precisely for those extended fights. I probably do need to tinker with stamina costs of things, but there's some legit gameplay reasons for using it but if you don't like it, I'm not going to make you use it. Cool beans. Arcane Blood is staying absolutely 100%. If I get rid of that, I'd get rid of half of the Mage's potential. Because I'm not going to let you power up the weapons for free, and I'm not going to just make them cost more mana because then you'd chew through your mana really really fast and leave you mostly defenseless. Thus the only recourse would be to get rid of the powered up mechanic entirely. The switch for 10 health for 15 arcane blood is intended as a last resort or for if you have extra crystal vials laying around that you might not need. The whole thing with arcane blood is so that you can activate it when you need it. If you find yourself without it way too often, that means that maybe you should be using it a bit more sparingly. It powers up your weapons, so it's supposed to be a bit of a precious resource. Though I should probably buff most of the powered attacks a bit more. For the Cleric it stays as well, so that you can't just heal yourself completely any time you wanted. Farming it with killing blows with the mace is exactly what the mace is for.

Mace: Did you find the fact that you can get armor from it too excessive? In my playthroughs I found myself constantly wavering between 17 and 21 AC, which made me nigh untouchable. Though I guess that plays in a little bit with some of your other critiques. If you have such high armor I feel like slightly underpowered weaponry work in the Cleric's favor. When playing as the Magister, I found my playstyle changed to be less aggressive than the Slayer, but less dodgy than the Mage. You can take hits because you take so little damage with all the armor, but you can also heal it with the mace, but that also eats up mana used with your weapons. I felt it made things interesting.

Bow: You're not supposed to spam click it. That's there so you can finish off near dead targets. I love the bow because I love picking things off at a distance. Also it's a silent weapon so it doesn't alert enemies that aren't already alerted, but that only comes into play rarely. That being said, I figured I could see if I could make it better, and I believe I succeeded. It now has a max of 5 charges instead of the 3 it had before. It takes roughly as long to get to the 5th charge as it did before to get to 3. The base damage and speed of the quick shot have been upped, and at charge 3 it does slightly more than it did before at charge 3, and at charge 5 it's really frickin powerful. I think it might be a little bit too strong personally, but it's hard to say without a few playtesters. Lightning arrow! It does tend to stay between two targets a lot of the time, but the total damage that it does (unpowered) is over 1100, so more often than not it's killing several different things. I have an idea to make it spark between a better variety, but I don't know if it'll work. I think 20 mana is more than reasonable for that much damage that you really don't need to aim or think about.
I got rid of the Serpent staff for very specific reasons related to the lore of the game. The church was supposed to be a medium between arcane and martial prowess. I felt in vanilla the martial weaponry was severely lacking, only the mace. The Serpent staff I suppose makes sense since all the Serpent imagery in the game related to the serpent riders, but I thought that magic would make more sense to be stronger. So having a make be really weak, a magic staff be the next tier, then some other martial weapon beat out a magic weapon didn't make sense to me. So I thought to have the bottom two weapons be martial weapons, and the top two be magic. It's not the most solid argument to be sure, but it is what it is.

Firestorm: Great! I'm glad you like it! I wasn't too certain about its current primary fire, but I feel like it works out ok. The buff slowly drains your health silently, but won't actually take any of your health if you're above 20 AC. It will, however degrade your armor. If it's not working for you, then I don't know what to tell you. It should. Also, the buff is supposed to work with all of the weapons (excluding wraithverge) in case you weren't aware. You never mentioned it.

Telekinesis: I guess that makes sense that it's sensitive. You gotta get the timings right if you want to keep firing. It'll be fixed in the next update to where when you release fire you will immediately do the long range shot, unless you hold it which it'll do the shotgun blast. It will work better than it sounds. Hopefully. Again with the Arcane blood, I'm not going to have a tome of power type item, because that REALLY limits where and when you can use the powered weapons. I like the versatility it has now. Having them eat more mana... I think I went over that. That being said, the power switch is bound to the reload button, so I could take it off of the secondary. But I do like the life tap. Again that is supposed to be a last resort or a way to turn crystal vials into arcane blood. The arcane blood isn't supposed to be an easy thing to get. (With the cleric it's a bit easier, but I should've from the beginning rebranded it as something else anyway since it doesn't make sense for him to have arcane blood in the first place).

Fire and Ice: Cone of cold is VERY short range. Yes. It's supposed to be. And it's mana hungry. Yes it's supposed to be. Considering the unpowered cone of cold deals roughly 900 damage for only about 20 mana. And the powered version deals roughly 1100 damage for only 20 mana with around 3 times the range. Yes mana is consumed a LOT faster than the vanilla ones. But it's meant as a sort of panic button. The mage is a rather long range oriented class. Because he's slow, has only 1 AC, and only 50 health it's beneficial to not get too close to things, and if you are too close, then you either push them away (Telekinesis), kill them REALLY fast (Cone of cold), or blow the crap out of them (Bloodscourge). I appreciate that the fireballs are good. Again, I may buff the powered version of them a bit more.

Arc of Death: The ball isn't supposed to pierce. It did in V1.0, but it shouldn't in V1.1 It might be because the radius of the actor is too small. Gotta fix that. The railgun I need to work on to better even out the damage and again make the powered version better.

Mage could have 75, but I think he works pretty great as a particularly fragile glass cannon.

FLECHETTES! I may try to do something with them. It might not be great. We'll see.

In conclusion, I really appreciate your feedback. It's helped me make some essential changes.
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Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by eharper256 »

No worries.

I guess it has to be taken in mind that most custom Hexen levels are significantly harder than the original levels (much like most Doom wads are); so I'm sure that if I were to play the original maps again I probably would be thinking everything was overpowered, lol. I'm also a strictly mediocre player (even though I've played Doom since it came out when I was 6, lol) that likes OP weapon mods and usually plays medium difficulty/HMP rather than the UV equivalent. So take all of my advice with that in mind.
----------------------------
Slayer General: Yes, considering I didn't play with Stamina for long, Monster Flasks are useless to the Slayer in that case and Quartz Flasks are at a crazy premium. Perhaps consider having Crystal Vials restore some Stamina and Arcane Blood, and have the Monster Flask also do a small (5-10 Hp?) heal?

Gauntlets: Ah if they actually combo properly that'll be nice and yes might make me use the double fist more.

Axe: The Swing is amazing and actually I don't find it horribly OP as you really have to get into a dangerous position to maximise its potential (like Doom's Supershotgun). But if you really wanted to change it, perhaps instead reverse it: the Swing becomes a weak AOE option and the primary fire, and the Fighter doing his customary 'BENNN!' with an overhead power attack on secondary for damage~ which is actually how you would use a Battle-Axe in a real fight (as an archaic military nerd, I can confirm you snake in and out with wide swings and your shield up; an overhead 'wood splitter' leaves yourself open and locks yourself in place for longer, so its a killing blow. Of course, Hexen isn't about realistic melee and the fighter clearly catches maces with his pecs so whatever... XD).

Hammer: Yes; I think you've nailed it: I'm used to instagibbing an Ettin with the Hammer, which is where this comes from.

Quietus: Yes I can understand the quandary. Let me preface that the flames burst attack IS VERY COOL looking, and I can see why you like the effect and absolutely you should keep that. You may have it correct in that I was using it like the BFG and assuming equal damage in all areas I see. As for adjusting the melee; again I call upon my nerdness to say that when using a greatsword, one effectively relies on letting yourself flow with the sword, its all about footwork and pendulum like motions; it is not a precise weapon unless you start half-swording by grasping the blade itself.
That is very difficult to emulate in Hexen, since attack clicks and movement keys are divorced, unlike real fighting. However, you could still be inspired by the 'flowyness'. The silly option is turn the player into a chain lighting type projectile if thats possible (including no-clip obviously). The more sensible one is keeping the charge-up, but rather than stocking up power, you stock up lots and lots of swings that strike in superspeed succession (Fighter looks beefy enough to pull that shit off whilst stood still lol). Clicking the Primary is just Axe 1.1 for slightly more mana, but the charge allows a rapid unleashing flurry. Just ideas though.

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Mace: I honestly didn't even notice the armour boost (oops!).

Bow: I guess I'm not a patient player either. XD I was often just getting annoyed at waiting for charges. My personal change (considering I suck at Decorate) was actually a nerf looking at the code, since it can't reach stage 3 anymore, but 2 effectively did about 2.6x damage, and 1 did about 1.6x or so. But I guess it felt better since I like my bows to plink; real Legolas in the making I am. XD
Lighting Arrows; after more use it depends heavily on the positioning. Its sometimes really powerful. I think my problem is that I have this whole constant thought of 'no I cannot justify 20 mana on this attack', and I will plink them down, lol.
Interestingly, when I was bored at the weekend, I ported over Serpent Staff again from Wrath of Chronos, and gave a third projectile and poison effect for lolz and enjoyed myself again with it, but I'm not saying you should.
In terms of lore, I agree, the Serpent Staff never felt very religious as such, and as you say, I also justified it as being some artifact of Korvax. I also considered swapping in the Lightbringer from WoC in the past just for better thematics (of course I never got around to a proper Hexen mod of my own; and honestly you providing this as a base for me work off randomly is appreciated, by the way).

Firestorm: Yes I'm aware of the buff affecting the others. The Firemace is fun, and the Fire Arrows are probably part of the reason why I thought the base plink speed was intolerable. I guess I've also played Hunter on Wrath of Chronos and I'm used to this sprite firing quickly, who knows? It definately doesn't drain HP; and I don't pay much attention to AC most of the time.

Wraithverge: I tested it (with Give Weapons), and its fine, by the way. Not much to say about it; its nice that it has a cheaper mode, and you can't do much with the Wraiths mode that can possibly be improved. XD

------

Telekinesis: Eventually I got annoyed with the sensitivity, and changed it so that the plink was primary fire, the shotgun the secondary, and the blood conversion was deleted. I really enjoyed it this way; being able to hold down primary to plink returns us to the Sapphire Wand feel, whilst still having the emergency shotgun panic button on secondary and no mishaps getting me killed! Mage is already my biggest quicksave offending character with the low HP and this helped prevent some of that.

Bloodscourge: Tested this one properly in Elements.wad. I was honestly very shocked with there being so much gravity on the primary fire when its normally a pierce missile. And the Meteor/Fireballs Shower is a bit unwieldy, if hilarious. It is very powerful, and very cool, but its definately not the Scourge I remember. I think I'm a little dubious about the mage losing a powerful homing long range option like it used to be, since in the wad I played, it was nearly always more efficient to use Ice and Fire in tight spaces, and Arc in open areas. The Scourge now feels like a mixed Flak-Cannon/Redeemer from Unreal Tournament and thats a weird combination that feels like it doesn't have much of a niche.
I basically only pulled it out for the final boss of that wad and spammed the Arcblood Primary Fire to slaughter him in moments, whilst simultaneously slowing GZDoom to a 10 FPS slideshow (which is impressive on Ryzen 5 2600 with Radeon RX580!!): I think all the bomblets use alot of processing power!!

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Anyway; I popped my horrible hacked-up version up on MEGA: https://mega.nz/#!pZlxyIoT!tx3tXuNWA3tY ... yz9HOU6dqY

Forgive me for the butchery of your code. Its way unbalanced and I'll take it down again once you've got it if you like; but perhaps its an interesting curiosity for you to analyse at least.
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4page
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 5:08 pm
Location: American Pacific Northwest

Re: HexArcana (V1.1)

Post by 4page »

Hey, if you want to use my mod as a base to build your own off of, go right ahead. That's kinda what I did with this one. I took a different one and built on it until it was unrecognizable. Having a starting point is really helpful. Yeah, BloodScourge was a little difficult to get something particularly powerful feeling and useful. Especially since most of the feedback I've had has been with the Slayer. I'm going to nerf it a little, since the powered primary does literally over 1200 damage to a single target. I'm not sure why Firestorm isn't draining your health like it should. I may have to change the way it works a bit to make it more reliable. If you have any tips on the BloodScourge I'd be more than happy to hear! It doesn't really have much options, since most roles are taken by all the others. Maybe I ought to bring back it's homing function in some way....

EDIT: Also, the slowdown from the BloodScourge is probably due to having hundreds of ACTORS spawning each with dynamic point lights on them. Doesn't do good things to framerate. My options for fixing it would be to remove the point lights, but that would look weird, or maybe to slow down the fire rate. Or reduce the amount of bomblets significantly. I'll have to make some sacrifices here...
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