HereticArcana! (HexArcana V3.0)

[4page]

Thanks everybody for the input, suggestions, and encouragement!
Captain J: Super appreciate you mentioning all these, I probably wouldn't have noticed half of them.
About the Warlock's Telekinesis Alt, if you tap it does the same thing as pressing the reload key, which is it enables/disables the Warlock's powered state. If you hold it does a life tap, assuming you aren't full up on Arcane Blood, which exchanges health for Arcane Blood. However, you're right, it does look stupid when you're full up, so I'll fix that. Also, note that if you have disabled the HexArcana option "Altfire hold performs reload effect" then tapping Alt fire will simply do the life tap.
About the FireStorm Primary having short range, yes. I wanted to give it a nice quick close range blast that does a lot of damage in a quick burst in addition to the long range alt fire and the close range area effect.

Terensworth: I don't really have any current plans to change the bat, but we'll see what happens later on. Thanks for pointing out the standing sprite.

eharper256: Not sure what you mean by you stand by your previous opinion that the Telekinesis sprites look awful, since I only just changed them this update. I wanted to kinda shy away from the weird green sprites I made before. I just thought they looked kinda bad. But now that you mention it, these ones aren't particularly great either. I'll see what I can do. Frost weapons haven't changed so I'm a little surprised this is only being brought up now, but it's definitely something I can fix.

Lagi: Holding the alt-fire was mostly so that the player wouldn't accidentally go straight into casting again after the third charge was released, but I think I can figure out a way around that.

[Terensworth]

Just picked up weapon 3 for Vesper. One thing I've noticed about the Vesper's weapons overall is that they really need some oomph on their sound design, it's all very subdued and quiet.
Only part that isn't is the finger snapping which sounds just perfect.

Weapon 3 is wonderful, 2's good for dealing AoE damage and doing fire and forget [no pun intended] and 3 is good for sniping and getting rid of enemy lines, plus, it looks rad as hell.
One last thing, Vesper's final weapon fragments are referred to as "Fragment of Quietus" on the messages, may wanna tweak that.

[eharper256]

eharper256: Not sure what you mean by you stand by your previous opinion that the Telekinesis sprites look awful, since I only just changed them this update. I wanted to kinda shy away from the weird green sprites I made before. I just thought they looked kinda bad. But now that you mention it, these ones aren't particularly great either.

This man's forgetting the PM from February already where you got me to test things.

Honestly: the waggling looks awful. General rule of thumb I figured with the mage hand sprites: the more vigorous jazz hands, the better. It looks very static right now; and I preferred the old sprites, as at least they had a movement element.

But fair enough, I realise you wanted to move away from the old ones. Perhaps I never noticed the ice before in HexArcana.

Anyways, keep up the good work man.

[4page]

Weird, I don't see that in my inbox. But that's fair enough. I'll work something out, thanks for bringing it up again!

[MaxRideWizardLord]

Umm, idk why my message didn't post. Anyway, I'm really glad that implemented Telekinesis abilities to Mage, like a physcannon (no gravity gun) from Half-Life 2 but for HeXen's Mage first weapon, something that i had strong vivid thoughts about recently. Given that HeXen have some kind of built in physics that does damage to enemies the bigger distance the fall, you can shoot enemy in air and they will fall for their death; would be cool to have similar physics if they hit walls\surfaces and receive damage, based on speed they had before hitting wall\surface.

I'm curious though, would you implement same physics for the enemies that you hit thrown objects, so they receive damage too?? Also, would you consider adding special "choke" (or ripping guts apart from within) kind of ability to Telekinesis that's been in games like Jedi Academy? Would be cool also to see the telekinesis being used to grab objects and open doors at distance like in Dark Messiah or Duke Nukem Forces.



Bug report: oh and one thing I'd like to mention. The difficulty selection menu for all 3 classes are INSANELY wide spread. I barely can read what it's written, and I can't even see which difficulty I am choosing because of how huge is it. Since I have the classy 5:4 monitor for old school games, only for Vesper it is fine optimised. But even on my android phone, which have resolution of about 20:11, I cannot even see the selection cursor at left because of how huge the text spread is. Here's example:

[4page]

Fair point on the difficulty selection. I'll see if I can either condense them or figure some thing out. As for the Telekinesis, the way fall damage works in Hexen is that if the actor (the player, and enemy, whatever) is falling at a certain speed they will instantaneously die, essentially taking infinite damage in an instant. If they hit the ground before that, at least for enemies, they won't take any damage. What I've implemented damages enemies that you throw into walls and other enemies based on what the change in velocity was. So it will damage the thrown enemy and the hit enemy. At least that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. I acknowledge that it might not always work right, and I haven't really been able to figure out a good way to make it more reliable, unfortunately... As for doing a force choke and whatnot, I have no idea how I would go about balancing that, and ripping guts out I would need a lot of custom sprites as well. In an earlier build of this update you could pick up rocks and trees and logs and bushes and throw them at enemies, but for whatever reason they would instakill whatever they hit, so I figured it might be better to not do that.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

As for the Telekinesis, the way fall damage works in Hexen is that if the actor (the player, and enemy, whatever) is falling at a certain speed they will instantaneously die, essentially taking infinite damage in an instant. If they hit the ground before that, at least for enemies, they won't take any damage. What I've implemented damages enemies that you throw into walls and other enemies based on what the change in velocity was. So it will damage the thrown enemy and the hit enemy. At least that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. I acknowledge that it might not always work right, and I haven't really been able to figure out a good way to make it more reliable, unfortunately...

Oh, never knew about the fall damage work that way, but hey, nice attempt at implementing as well a hitting walls\surface damage based on change of velocity; this is exactly what I meant when I said "would be cool to have similar physics if they hit walls\surfaces and receive damage, based on speed they had before hitting wall\surface". Although I almost never damage the hit enemy enough. I've spent like 3 ettins and kill them to death in process just to finally kill a single ettin at which I did throw these 3 ettins to begin with.

Although I had idea that the thrown enemy would would just penetrate the hordes of enemies, damaging all of them and knock them back. Something that would happen when you throw a car in Half-Life 2 in hordes of enemies, or when you play Tank in L4D and... well... throw a car in horde of humans. I've never seen physics being used so well like in Source engine games. Perhaps making the thrown enemy pierce through other enemies would fix the fact that it doesn't always do damage it should?

Would be awesome if you can smash enemies against walls, floors, surfaces and other enemies WHILE they are grabbed by your telekinesis abilities. I mean, why not have fun with what we have and be creative?

As for doing a force choke and whatnot, I have no idea how I would go about balancing that, and ripping guts out I would need a lot of custom sprites as well. In an earlier build of this update you could pick up rocks and trees and logs and bushes and throw them at enemies, but for whatever reason they would instakill whatever they hit, so I figured it might be better to not do that.

Perhaps you can ask PillowBlaster and ZHS2\KeksDose for help. In their project Guncaster, there is a spell named ChillGrasp, which achieved, what I view, the most closest resemblance of Phys Cannon from HL2. You can grab enemy, move them around, throw them, and even use them as a shield against the upcoming projectiles in your way. You can also use the grabbed enemy to damage other enemies while holding him in your telekinetic grasp, (although unorthodoxal way, since it just freezes everyone around), which also the most close representation of choke. The only downside is that launched enemies don't take fall damage, neither when they hit by wall.

They might as well help you make the grabbed enemies feel more fluid and alive, instead of remain static like an decorate object. Same for thrown objects of the map like trees, etc. My suggestion would to make them rip through enemies as they move instead of doing a single fixated damage, that would make things more fluid and perhaps fix your instakill issue.



Also, speaking about telekinesis. I'd really wish for it to be an stand alone weapon rather than a mere "a special ability for a few uses" that you can use only if you drain your already fragile precious blood to activate your "superman" mode; i.e. I want it to be something a player can use freely without punishment and without worry about mana, health or ammo when you use it; just like phys cannon from Half-Life 2 that have infinite ammo.
I mean, you can grab only one enemy at a time and it doesn't even always kill them when you throw them against something, yet all this process wastes plenty of time; it's not that super effective combat weapon that is useful in all situations, just an unique and special ability that you can be creative with and have fun. Obviously during actual gameplay not a lot of people would use telekinesis and sacrifice their blood for it, since it demanding too much for something that isn't that useful when you can just use combat spells that are simply more efficient, affect multiple foes and less time consuming. Hell, for most case even merely taping mouse to do that weak hitscan damage would be still more efficient way to deal with enemies than telekinetic grab.

I have an idea how to balance it, though. The Mage need it's own mind's Psychic powers strengths bar, similar to fighter's stamina. Basically, a bar that indicates the stamina of Mage's mind (psychic power) and if you use it too much, the Mage start getting exhausted and being unable to use any of his psychic powers while tired; just like fighter. For example, if 100 units being the maximum, grabbing enemy would cost 20, throwing would be 20 too, and psychic regen speed would be similar of the Magister's stamina. This would balance new abilities, like choking enemies that would drain psychic powers super fast like 1 unit per 1 tic, or ripping guts apart from within since they would take like 30-50 and thus you can't exploit them so much during dense fights, but could use them more as of support or a more fun 1vs1 engagement (it wouldn't be enough to choke bosses to death, obviously). This way you can add more abilities that could use Psychic power, like adding some kind of ability like Disc of Repulsion that would take 50 units per use in desperate times. Maybe under "superman" mode you could still use your blood Magic instead of Psychic power, so you could use it more frequently rather than wait for regen to get you rested and recover your Psychic powers back.

[4page]

Apparently the Warlock is next up on my revamp list. I changed the weapon animations again, obviously, and offset the cone of cold/frost shards. I also changed the enemy throw a little. I had thought I fixed it for the 2.0 release, but apparently between fixing it and releasing, I broke it again, so that will be dealt with. Also, when the enemy hits another enemy it will thrust enemies back. Check out the video, let me know your thoughts and if you think the thrust is too aggressive or not. Oh, and I also fixed the alt fire doing weird things, but that's not shown in the video.

[eharper256]

Nice work; yep those do look alot better!

[MaxRideWizardLord]

Apparently the Warlock is next up on my revamp list. I changed the weapon animations again, obviously, and offset the cone of cold/frost shards. I also changed the enemy throw a little. I had thought I fixed it for the 2.0 release, but apparently between fixing it and releasing, I broke it again, so that will be dealt with. Also, when the enemy hits another enemy it will thrust enemies back. Check out the video, let me know your thoughts and if you think the thrust is too aggressive or not. Oh, and I also fixed the alt fire doing weird things, but that's not shown in the video.

Wow, these hands looks awesome, how\where did you get the sprites for it? The always present rocks, though, do not make much sense; IMHO it was better when you used your telekinetic powers to just attack them with psychic attacks.

Thrust is awesome too, probably even better than idea I had in mind so the thrown enemy pierce through enemies and knock them back; although the thrown enemy should still save it's momentum. Thrust isn't aggressive, although it would make more sense if it did more damage (and kill ettin) the faster the speed the thrown enemy (and struct enemy) had when they hit an object\map\enemy. Same should apply to the size of the enemy (the bigger they are the harder they fall, they say), but I imagine that would be harder to code.

Still strongly believe the telekinesis should use separated Psychic power bar instead of blood mana, though. Good luck on the revamp\overhaul!

[4page]

The hand sprites I got from a sprite sheet I found containing a huge amount of hand sprites, then edited them a little to work. The stones I got straight from Hexen. Getting them to all work together, though.... It's not just all one image. It's made of 5 separate images on overlays, one for each hand each stone. The rocks are there to depict a telekinetic force, as well as for a source of "ammunition" throwing the stones at bulletlike speeds at the enemies. Which is why they disappear when you fire, and a projectile comes from the stone.

[Lagi]

telekinesis looks good and fun.
I think the stones are great touch, that clearly said what type of power is in use - I support to keep it.

Nice addition to telekinesis would be ettins knock down animation. Otherwise the visuals are not so convincing. Ettin death is nice fall over.

Ettin with the same freeze sprite look dull en masse. At least sprite flip would be nice. GZEngine can produce faithful color translation for every spirte, however without the small icicles it looks cheap (I think eharper know how to draw frozen corpses ).

[4page]

While I agree with you in principle that it would look a lot nicer to have knockdown animations, and more varied freeze sprites as well, in practice I don't want to have this mod make any changes to enemies, so that way you won't be missing out any functionality by using monster replacer mods. I know that having more dynamic sprites for the vanilla enemies wouldn't really affect monster replacers in any practical sense, but I know that if I do start editing the enemies I'll get carried away and end up adding fundamental changes that would potentially break with the monster replacers, so in interest of keeping this mod friendly with other mods, I think I'll have to pass. Especially for when I end up making it Doom (and hopefully Heretic) compatible.

[Crudux Cruo]

Loving this, looking forward to warlock tweaks!
I feel like just about everything was addressed

[MaxRideWizardLord]

The hand sprites I got from a sprite sheet I found containing a huge amount of hand sprites, then edited them a little to work. The stones I got straight from Hexen. Getting them to all work together, though.... It's not just all one image. It's made of 5 separate images on overlays, one for each hand each stone. The rocks are there to depict a telekinetic force, as well as for a source of "ammunition" throwing the stones at bulletlike speeds at the enemies. Which is why they disappear when you fire, and a projectile comes from the stone.

Wait, so the attack is still an hitscan I hope? If so, then I'm ok with it.

Anyway, mind to share the sprite sheet with us, please?