ZDoom

Oh cool! Thanks for the info.

Awesome weapons effects, I spend some time just to admiring all the circular fire dances. You make the best effect Ive seen. The new explosion of magister flachette is a poetry.

Your mod beg, for backhand combo for mace & axe.

White outline on mace looks "artificial" - I would take mace sprite change the colors to brighter and make a trial (copy paste sprite with each next one being more translucent), or add some vapor here and there.

P.S. Thanks for your work, checking your code help me to figure out how to make a mod myself.

Thanks for the compliments! I'm no spriter, so the best I could do was try to make some fancy effects with sprites I already had to work with. I've been avoiding putting a backhand combo for the mace and axe because so many other mods do that and I wanted to kind of keep the feel of vanilla Hexen. However, I think I've already moved past that with so much other things so I guess I might as well.

I'm not sure what you mean that the outline looks artificial... But you're not the first to address the white outline on the mace so maybe I should try to tweak it some.

I'm rather proud of the work on the code. I had a load of fun and every time I figured out a new aspect of the scripting language I tried to utilize it in an interesting way. Got a new thing in the works, I'm just not sure how to integrate it. And I'm super glad it helped you figure some things out!

4page wrote:I've been avoiding putting a backhand combo ...I wanted to kind of keep the feel of vanilla Hexen. However, I think I've already moved past that with so much other things so I guess I might as well.

back hand swing is VERY in the feel of Hexen - its straight upgrade, something more. Its just feels better, break the monotony. Feel natural, that the attack keep the momentum.

4page wrote:I'm not sure what you mean that the outline looks artificial...

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maybe if I add some random line in paint it would better depict the issue? compare it to quietus green flame outline, or firestorm hands. I know its subjective what someone think about "art", but IMO the mace is better without this white background.

Mace is creating white vapors (puff) on monsters after each hit, maybe you could copy/paste that behind the mace to create some trail?

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now I have the urge to make this spirit mace myself

also there is no mace swing in hexarcana without this white "spiritual" enchantments. Which is odd that you need ammo for mace bashing, and definitely doesn't keep vanilla feel.

4page wrote:Daedolon13 yeah, I had to replace the artihealth with a random spawner to spawn the quartz flasks and the monster flasks in a 50% split. The quartz flask item are now named "artihealth1". Now that you bring it up I should figure out if I can come up with a way to create custom binds for using the quartz and monster flasks and the new flechettes.

Thanks for the reply, binding artihealth1 works. I also wanted to give a little feedback on the Quietus, I like the altfire functions, especially that the flames from the charged attack keep burning for a second. However, a charged primary swing doesn't consistently kill an ettin in one shot, and I feel that it should.

Also, I had the thought that it would be cool if you could toggle the flaming effect of the sword on, which would do more damage, and maybe catch enemies on fire? The cost for this could be a constant mana drain while it's active, say one of each every 5-10 seconds? Just a thought.

Thanks for the fun mod, Hexen is a favorite =)

Lagi:
The backhand swing may feel more natural, but that's never really been a Hexen sort of feel. Hexen's weapons all are slow, stilted, and monotonous. It's the mods that people have made afterward that introduced that smooth flow of combat. I intended to keep that sort of pacing with my mod, but again I really moved past that with the fists especially.

For the white outline, I think I get what you're saying. But the white outline is supposed to be more of a white glow, like how the Axe has the blue glow. I'm not super adamant about keeping it, since I only am using what I inherited from a different mod, so maybe I'll try to make something a bit nicer. Again, though I'm no spriter so we'll see how it turns out.

What do you mean you need ammo for mace bashing? It only costs Stamina and you can turn that off if you want. If you're suggesting that it shouldn't have an enchantment sort of thing without it costing mana, though, I'll have to remind you that the Mage's wand is a magic/enchanted item and it doesn't cost mana, so it's not too much of a stretch.

Daedolon13:
I don't want to up the damage of the Quietus too much, because I like that the unpowered Hammer be the highest damage weapon aside from powered attacks. The sword has a much faster swing since you can go from a charged swing into an uncharged swing really quickly. I can up it a little more, but it's already quite powerful. I get that it's supposed to be an "Ultimate" weapon, as many people point out, but it's also a just a magic weapon. If the magic isn't being used, it's just a sword. As far as toggling the flaming effect, that sounds really cool but I would need to add yet another input which might make it a bit clunky if that's the only weapon using it, and could easily spiral out of scope of the mod if I try to implement a 4th input for all weapons. On top of that is the issue of needing the sprites. I don't have access to a lot of the sword's swings with flame on them and I am not a very good spriter, definitely not good enough for that. I'm absolutely open to suggestions on all of these points, though, because that toggle flame does sound like a great idea.

Sorry my bad, It was stamina requirement only - that's fine, make sens, I even like it now. I thought I need the arcane power as well - its depleted when you alt heal self.

After spending 1-hour bashing ettins:
1. sometimes the spirit puff appear behind monsters, its better to spawn the white puff in front of the target (and give translucent if needed).
2. i think it would be thematic if the white glow on mace appear only if player have >50 arcane power (or 30 dont know). This way its nice graphical indicator that player possess some ammo, to spend on healing. Also there could be some little dmg bonus (or even better attack speed bonus), to incline player for hoarding Arcane Blood.

turning fire rage on/off is quite fun mechanism. Its a little too much fire spawning around to my liking, it looks like serious fire that can do some damage.

I like a lot that Magister doesnt have Serpent Staff any more. It never make sens to me that servant of one god is using competitors devices.
But...
the bow dont fit also. Bow is rather specialized tool, requiring practice and skill to use it well. Its fine for hunter, ranger, some stealthy guy. But not for all day praying and book reading flagellant.

some ideas:
- Crossbow would be better, its simpler to use.
-Magister could collect some herbs and make some exploding / poisoning mixtures - he is magister after all, some herbalism fit quite good. But its weak concept for weapon (what he will pick up, a mortar?)
- he can find some grimoire (book), and sing spells from it. but this would make too much "hand spells" in game
- he could find some staff more fitting around his god (whatever his dominion is).

Also, this is something that I've seen some people miss, but you can charge the mace's alt heal. If you have Blue mana at the second charge it'll cost some of that to heal you more, and if you have Green mana at the third charge it'll also give you 4 AC.

I agree about the spirit puff, that it should always spawn in front of the target, but it's difficult to offset it in the direction of the player. However, it would be much easier to just have the fire burn in a small circular area around the enemy, so that could work pretty well. Also, that's a great idea to have the glow be an indicator of the Arcane Blood. I don't know about a bonus for having more of it, but I will at least play around with the idea, see if it works ok.

I'll see if I can make the rage flames maybe a little less intrusive.

The mod that I built this from had a Crossbow, and I didn't want to copy that mod too much, I wanted rather to do something completely different, but I've only just realized that I went from Crossbow to Bow, which is more of a half step. I'm really hesitant to get rid of the bow, though, considering how much work I put into it (what is known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy) and I really like the feel of it. Though it may be rather specialized tool, the church in Hexen is supposed to be rather militant, a mediator between the military and the magic users. So in my mind it's not much of a stretch if some members of the church trained to be proficient with various weaponry. I figured since the Cleric was supposed to be a mix of martial weaponry and magic spells/artifacts, and in vanilla he has 1 martial weapon (Mace) and 3 magic artifacts (Serpent Staff, FireStorm, Wraithverge), I wanted to give him another martial weapon of some sort. I had it narrowed down to 3 different ideas, the bow, a whip, and a shield. I ended up going with the bow because I couldn't find any good variety of sprites for the shield or whip. And I didn't have enough experience back then to do anything particularly interesting with either of those anyways. All this to say, I'd rather find ways to make what I already have better than replace it to start a new thing completely from scratch.

Just wanted to pop in and say this is my favorite hexen mod! even though Walpurgis looks a little prettier, the weapons and special functions are a lot more fleshed out and the combat is much more enjoyable

Crudux Cruo: Thanks so much! I super appreciate this! I do really love what eharper256 is doing with Walpurgis, though. That being said I have an update coming out VERY soon, hopefully in less than a week, and I'm very excited about it!

Crudux Cruo wrote:Just wanted to pop in and say this is my favorite hexen mod! even though Walpurgis looks a little prettier, the weapons and special functions are a lot more fleshed out and the combat is much more enjoyable

Honestly I'm glad you do; I felt a bit bad for stealing 4page's thunder.

And obviously, as I've said before, if it hadn't of been around in the first place, there would be no Walp at all. I know its easy to feel discouraged; but keep on truckin' man, I also want to see what direction you continue to take HexArcana as well.

IMHO, both your mods have seperate merits, to me anyway, Harper's felt more like a fun display of power fantasy and Page's felt more like a slow methodical onslaught. Both are just great and it's really sweet to see Hexen getting mods like these in the first place.

eharper256 wrote:

Crudux Cruo wrote:Just wanted to pop in and say this is my favorite hexen mod! even though Walpurgis looks a little prettier, the weapons and special functions are a lot more fleshed out and the combat is much more enjoyable

Honestly I'm glad you do; I felt a bit bad for stealing 4page's thunder.

And obviously, as I've said before, if it hadn't of been around in the first place, there would be no Walp at all. I know its easy to feel discouraged; but keep on truckin' man, I also want to see what direction you continue to take HexArcana as well.

To be clear i like both mods - i'm pretty happy (though i do have certain quips) with spellcasting in Walpurgis. I tend to have more fun with your mod for playing the mage or cleric because the effects are. EFFIN. amazing. and they for the most part feel good.

But hexarcana makes me feel like a badass in melee, and that's just something that has to do with the overall design. Not sure what it is exactly, but i guess if i were going to make a hexen mod HexArcana would be closer to my personal design decisions. i've been obsessing with hexen lately and have been daydreaming about what mod i'd make if i were going to.

I've played Korax Mod, Walpurgis, Hexarcana, Wrath of Cronos, Brutal Hexen, Hexen enhanced, Serpent Resurrection, Hexercize and a few other mods that change weapons - Hexercize, Walpurgis, and Hexarcana seem to stand out the best to me. I wouldn't put Wrath of Cronos on the same playing field because it's just much bigger and broader.

Anyway, i wish BOTH of you luck, and I'll be playing both for different reasons.
Anyway,

Hey, so a couple of critiques I have so far.

Fighter:

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-Fists: in general, good.

-Axe: I think the 15 mana price for throwing the axe is pretty steep.

-Hammer: Hammer ultimate is OP - one hits almost all monsters in a giant radius. I'm not sure exactly how to balance it other than giving it a large knockback but halving it's damage, making it more like a ground pound proper.
Also think the hammer throw should cost more *15* and do a little more damage to compensate.

-Sword: perfect.

-Flask is the least useful of them all.

Cleric:

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-Mace: perfect.

-Bow: Generally perfect, but the charged up secondary in fury mode is definitely a little OP.

-Flame: perfect

-Wraithverge: perfect.

Flask seems to be pretty good, perhaps even just a little overpowered.

Mage:

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-magic missile/hands: very good! perhaps even a little too good considering it's range and speed.

-ice/fire: Ice seems a little strong and costs less than perhaps it should. Fireball is on point. the Secondary for the fireball... it works, but perhaps could be a little more original?

-Arc: The primary seems right. the secondary is very useful and powerful, and definitely should cost MORE mana than the primary, not less. Maybe 10 for primary 15 for secondary?
The charged attack for the secondary is also slightly overpowered.

-BloodScourge: I love this weapon, it feels very good; however the powered secondary is by far the most crazy in the game and should cost accordingly and DEFINITELY not be spammable. Not saying nerf it, but balance it a bit for sure cost wise and casting time wise.

The Flask is by far the most useful; definitely overpowered.

General:
all the characters are a little stronger than original hexen, making the game significantly easier.
the flasks could use a little work.

Crudux Cruo: I really appreciate your critique, especially now. Let's me tighten up a couple more things before getting out the next update. A few counterpoints, though.

Axe: It costs that much because it's the only attack that costs blue mana, aside from Quietus. It's also got a decent range and damage and most importantly it heals you for a not insignificant amount. However, I've already dealt with this a bit and lowered it a little, though I may lower it a bit more, since I changed the axe a little.
Hammer: I kind of agree. Maybe it would be better to have it have a lot of knockback in the same radius, but deal a lot of damage a lot closer?
Flask: I've always found the Fighter's to be most useful since you can spam it at a bit of a distance. However, I can see how this might be the least useful. I think bumping up the throwing distance might help.

Bow: Maybe I should lower the damage values, and instead have the chain lightning jump more times when in rage mode. Unless you're talking about the rapid fire bow, in which case, I'll probably just up the mana cost a little bit.
Flask: Perhaps I shall make it last slightly shorter.

Magic missile: I completely (kinda) reworked this one. I think it's a little less powerful, but still very functional.
Fire/Ice: Ice costs so little and does so much damage because it's like a panic button. Mage only has 50 health so you REALLY don't want to get hit, so if something gets close you want something that will get rid of the problem quickly. Maybe it can cost a little more. Fireball, I agree, but I have yet to really come up with something good.
Arc: I feel like the primary is great for a room clear, since it attacks enemies all around it, which is why it costs more, whereas the secondary is mostly useful against enemies in a single line which in certain situations can be more powerful, yes, but it's certainly very situational, and I wanted it to be something that you can keep equipped for a while without running out of mana very fast. Which is why I made it do a lot more damage against the first enemy hit and less to enemies behind them. I completely rebuilt this one, though so it'll feel a bit different. I'll have to play both versions side by side to actually figure out if I made it more or less powerful and adjust it accordingly.
BloodScourge: As crazy as the powered secondary is, it has very limited usefulness since it's only in an isolated area. The update makes it a lot more crazy. I should really up the mana cost on the secondary, since I made the unpowered a lot better as well....
Flask: Maybe I'll bump the damage down a little. I had left the damage from the mage's original, but I think I upped the range.