4page wrote:You know, you raise a lot of interesting points. I'll address your last one first, with the cvar. It's not that there's really any problem with it, it's simply an issue with myself. A creator's pride in his work is a weird thing. I saw a guy wanting to figure out a way to COMPLETELY remove all cheats and abilities to give the player weapons and stuff through the console because he had it in his mind that his mod needed to be played in a certain way and if people could cheat, they would and it would ruin the way the mod is supposed to work. So my hesitance to add a cvar to disable the Arcane Blood is a similar thing. I recognize that, though, so I will add the cvar, I'll just make sure to add a line in the options warning the player that it does completely ruin any semblance of balance.
With what you're saying about how the mage doesn't have any significant abilities to offset his low armor/health/speed other than the strength of his attacks, some of which depends on hurting himself in order to utilize it, makes me think I should attempt an overhaul like what I did with the Slayer. I'll need to significantly rework a lot of things, which is frustrating, but you're right. If nothing else, telekinesis should be something interesting and special.
As far as map makers not having any healing items in their maps, that isn't something I can really affect all that much, but I can try to mitigate it as much as possible. I'm taking systems meant for a completely different game and trying to shove them into a Doom mold and sometimes things don't fit quite right. I originally designed this mod around vanilla Hexen map spawns. I am aware now that vanilla Hexen maps are VERY liberal with healing items compared to a lot of other maps. And you have a point that if there aren't any healing items, you can't get the Arcane Blood as the Warlock, since monster flasks don't spawn, and you have nothing to offset the health drain from the life tap. However, I can't really think of any other way to do it... Other than maybe doing a mana conversion from blue/green mana to Arcane blood. But then that runs into an issue I wanted to avoid being that the powered attacks basically just cost more mana. I could replace a certain Doom ammo type exclusively with monster flasks... but then that wouldn't solve anything if that ammo type wasn't placed in the map either. I could make the Warlock regenerate it, like Vesper, but I'm not too sure about that. I could let the player get it back from damaging or killing enemies, like the Magister, but I do want to do something different, not just copy the idea.
But suffice to say, I like your points. I didn't want to do the psychic bar, so I could maintain consistency between all the Warlock's weapons, but you're right about it. I am not satisfied with what I have now, it feels inconsistent with itself somehow. I'll see what I can come up with, and if you have any other suggestions regarding his other weapons and/or abilities or ones you'd like to see, let me know. Thank you for bearing with me and explaining your point so well.
Good to hear that my words of wisdom has an affect on you.
Although I just re-read my message, and gosh.. so many typos, word misplacement, grammatical mistakes... I hope it didn't affect you much and you still understood what I said.
As for maps, yeah, there is nothing much you can do. Majority of modern maps seem to only become harder after each generation, and seems being created either for experienced players who been playing Doom or Hexen for several decades now, or specifically being made for slaughtering mods that turns you in to a deadly killing machine (not necessarily Russian Overkill, but things like Project MSX). Which is why I like mods that allow me to rely on nothing but powers from within, rather than the gifts of the map designer. it's good idea to keep the mod in a shape where it allows the player to rely on map's layout and design to experience the mod's full potential as least as possible.
As for weapon suggestion of mage... Nothing much comes to mind... Other than maybe, his lightning strike attack, would be lovely if it had some chain lightning effect like cleric have, although that would make cleric's bow lose it's unique niche I guess. But then again, such lightning bolt strike isn't that useful and not that powerful, so a short ranged and short lasting chain lightning would make the lightning bolt attack slightly more interesting and unique. I still prefer the lightning ball attack for the most part.
Also, the primary attack of bloodscourge, if I were honest, is just... lame and boring. I'd even prefer the vanila bloodscourge attack which summons 3 fireballs that seek enemies and pierce through them all. But I assume, giving the balls ability to home and pierce through enemies isn't going to happen in your mod, but I just don't feel ever using this weakened version of rocket launcher that just drops fiery droplets. It's no longer than original, let alone fun to use or that useful. If the ball could seek AND drop these fiery droplets in contact with enemy, WHILE STILL pierce them and move to newer target after terminating the first one, that would be more fun; but I believe it would be hard to program so the ball only drop fiery droplets it contact with certain enemy only once, yet do the same for the next one at the same time; i.e. 1 drop of fiery droplets per enemy once in contact with it.
As for balance... Well, look at this.
The fighter have overall best stats, which includes: most hp, best protection (and armor), best speed, have unique ability of melee that almost teleports him in direction you're fisting. In fact, his protection and hp are so powerful, that even when I'm surrounded in enemies, I tank all of the damage like Königstiger and still remain okay while still have insane speed available to dodge practically everything (including homing projectiles\rockets), which is why I say he's immortal. And yet he have pretty deadly AOE magic that obliterates everything on his view, and even ranged magic is pretty powerful for a class with the best stats in the game that meant mostly to be a "close and personal".
Cleric while doesn't have as much protection\hp\speed as fighter, he gets his "holy magic" or whatever that thing is, which like a pocket instantly re-healing medkit that is always with him. Refilling it is pretty easy too, especially when you have wraithverge, and such unique skill reheals you instantly. The only trouble is in beginning when you don't have it assembled, but you still have pretty deadly mace which refills it for you, and for that reason alone I called him ALMOST immortal, at least until he acquires his wraithverge which turns you in to another demigod. And damn, his magic combat is among one of the best in the game, mostly due to his firestorm ability that wipes everyone in a room, even at very long range.
The Mage have half the health than of cleric, worse protection from damage (including worse armor), overall slower speed; yet at the same time his ranged combat feels about as powerful as of cleric's if I were honest, even when powered up by blood magic (not even bloodscourge can hold a candle to the mighty firestorm's altfire). And unlike cleric whose special ability to heal himself whenever he pleases, mage's special ability only to hurt himself more.
Vasper have similar stats to Cleric, while having an infinite ranged attack that regenerates pretty quickly and set of unique fun attacks. His ranged magic combat are about as powerful as Mages powered by blood. The automatically homming portable rocket launcher for altfire for firebats, the stream of purple magic bats is like a deadly ray that vaporize everyone for purple bats, and his ultimate weapon is like wraithverge on crack that summons LOTS of bats that pretty much cleans whole map for you and yet do not waste that much of ammo per use. I just tested him on map06 in HeXen and one usage almost cleaned whole map for me, more than meteor even that is blocked by any obstacle on map. His unique ability is to summon infinite bats obviously, which can serve both as your unlimited ranged attack, a supportive companion fighter, and unique combat ability. Nothing else I can say about him so far.
So for mage to be anywhere relevant choice of pick, he either must be a MUCH more powerful than cleric and vasper, where he'd just blows everything in his vision in instant moment by just it being in his point of view, or have his own unique features that could get him on par with the rest of classes and have his own set of skills that turn him "almost immortal", just like cleric's ability to almost always being able to fully re-heal himself without much of effort, or fighter's overall best stats + best speed + extra tank capabilities which makes him a walking demigod on steroids. This is why I think the psychic bar and his own unique set of abilities\skills fits so well with this. The abilities that let you warp\blink around and pulse everyone + all the projectiles away from you, by wasting your limited psychic bar. Basically abilities that you can't abuse too much, but they will grant you some survival measures in dire situations, and due to the fact you'd still have to think about "stamina management" even though the psychic bar would slowly regenerate, you'd have to use it wisely than abuse it all the time. However, such abilities will be a survival necessity for custom maps that let you inevitable gets ambushed by lots of hitscan\homming projectile enemies, in situations where even meteor won't save you.
Regarding the blood magic regeneration, I like the idea! Maybe it should be slow, like 1 unit per 1 second, or maybe even 2 second, so it won't be that abused yet at the same time would allow the mage to use it at least from time to time and have fun with his powered abilities. This will help a lot in dire situations on custom maps that lacks of any pickups where you don't have much of monsters around, but the ones you have are mostly boss-tier and takes too long to fight to begin with. Such slow regeneration won't instantly make you op for most situations.
If the only reason you seem to dislike the psychic bar is mere because of "maintain consistency between all the Warlock's weapons" reason... Well, this is why I suggested to have abilities that are independent of weapons you're currently using\holding. Like disc of repulsion kind of attack\skill can be utilized when using reload button (or +kick, in cause you will ever bother to add kick attack to cleric\fighter), the blink which lets you warp in direction you're moving could be utilized by taping either of WASD button twice real quick (or have separated button for that which allows you to blind in direction you're moving, including combination of WASD buttons, allowing for 8 angle blink movement), the teleport in position you're looking could be utilized with either "weapon zoom" (quarter fire) button; or you could have each unique buttons to bind for each of these abilities, which is would work just as awesome, stable and even more efficiently + easy than let them be a part of existing binds.
The telekinesis is just an single exception from the rules. In fact, you can move the whole Telekinesis abilities out of weapon and make it automatically activates when you're using +use button, just like in Duke Nukem Forces, where you have Telekinesis Force whenever you want by just using the use\open button and thus you can now open doors\click buttons over distance, and grab monsters or even items over distance by using that one button. It's like a compact Gravity Cannon that is always with you, even when you're holding a completely different weapon, what's not to love? I REALLY hope you like my suggestions and will address them. You can just move the whole hud\bar system from Cleric to Mage if it gives you some trouble implementing a "new bar", and if instead of "psychic bar" you will continue to call it stamina bar, like for the rest of classes, I doubt anyone would care.