[Hexen] Serpent: Resurrection [New version 09/2017]

[Viscra Maelstrom]

so i decided to re-play this mod again as the new Assassin class. some things i noticed almost immediately when playing the game:

1. you don't seem to get author's notes in the game anymore. such as with MOD tracks in the game not properly playing back after being played once.
2. the poison dagger seems bugged. it gives me 3 poison swipes at an enemy, and then disappears, giving me a 'normal' dagger. however, when doing something as simple as switching BACK to the dagger, even if it's the weapon you currently only possess, the poison gets re-filled. uh?

also the thugs in the first city, while looked strange and somewhat ugly in the old versions, feels a bit harder to identify as an actual threat now. but maybe that's just me.

[SoulSkorpion]

I'm getting author's notes fine. In fact, one of them says "press 1 again to re-poison your dagger. You need poison vials to do this and will slowly use them up"

[Viscra Maelstrom]

that's weird. i never got informed by anything like that when i was playing the game as an Assassin. any particular GZDoom version you need for this, or what? i DLed the latest SVN to try the mod out.

[Caleb13]

Speaking of Assassin... I finally had the time to play her, but I found it quite frustrating, even compared to Fighter. Almost all her weapons have short range and/or large spread, so she has to get close to the monsters to use them effectively. But unlike the Fighter, she is quite fragile, which is definitely not a good combination.

To make her more playable, I would propose two modifications: lower the crossbow's side bolts spread and dramatically increase speed of the pistol's projectiles. Longer range of the flamethrower would be nice, too. And that lightning-spitting weapon consumes way too much mana (2x 20 units on normal) - the same ammount as Wraithverge, but is nowhere as effective.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i dunno, i haven't found her to be too hard to use, really. she's about as fast as Doomguy is, and has the best jumping ability out of all the classes, which means that you can easily skip around the enemies and pick them off through various means. i haven't played the mod that much yet, though, so i dunno how much harder she gets to use in the latter stages.

edit: i just realized, i DO get messages from the author, but they don't show up on the screen. only in the console. bug with GZDoom revision perhaps?

[ChronoSeth]

About the HUD messages: It looks like the same problem Enjay ran into here.

About the Assassin: I also find her very hard to play, at least in the early game (I haven't been able to get any farther with her because of how frustrating it is )

• The fact that her grenades can't directly hit elementals really hurts. The other classes don't have the problem of only having one weapon effective against them early-on.
• I agree about the crossbow; lowering its spread would probably help a lot, and it would also be nice if the animation for selecting/deselecting it played while it lowers/raises.
• The grenades are rather hard to use, yet they're considerably more powerful than any other blue-mana weapon in specific situations (like fighting hordes of monsters from above; the other weapons are all roughly the same power regardless of circumstances). It doesn't make up for the inability to use them in melee, which AFAIK isn't a problem for any other weapon.
• Her mobility doesn't quite make up for her low survivability in the early game. It might get better later on, I don't know.

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i didn't really have much trouble surviving as the assassin. sure, she's tinny, but she has one of the most powerful arsenals in the game (just wait until you get stuff like her yellow and red mana weapons), and is rather mobile. you do might want to stock up on life potions playing as her, though, as she can take quite a bit of damage. and yes, she does lack armanents against elementals. only the green and red mana weapons deal damage to them as of now (haven't gotten her ultimate weapons yet), but her versatility should make you able to dodge most of their attacks and pull them in for an attack.

also, i really fucking like the fact that, if you're smart enough, you can save up soooo many jump boots for her to use and avoid to use a lot of them in places were other classes would need to use them in.

also re- the message problem: it seems that they DO display, but they are TRANSPARENT. getting author's notes, ethereal travel screens, etc., will all show up as transparent. this might be a SVN issue, though (i used the 'latest' SVN a few days ago. i use apostrophes because it was a few days ago since that revision was up, i'd think, so it might have changed a lot with things).

also, the Assassins' dagger gets cut off by weapon bobbing when moving around. i'm using the screen resolution 1280x1024 here.

[SoulSkorpion]

Interesting how differently people feel about the assassin. I love playing as her, her weapons suit my playstyle really well. I pumped my dexterity, and I do a lot of hit-and-run fighting, which her weapons are really suited to.

Not hitting elementals with grenades is a bit of a pain, but they go down really quickly to crossbow fire. You can run in, blast them in the face three times, and they die. The crossbow is a pain, but if you think about it like doom2's double barrel shotty then it becomes easier to manage. ie, use it by getting right in close so you hit with all the projectiles.

I've got to say I LOVE the grenades. Ditching them around corners, into doorways, hitting multiple enemies at once. They let you do things, tactically, that you can't do with other weapons. You can't use them close in, of course, but that's what the knife is for. Stab them and then run away. I found I quickly realised the number of stabs necessary to kill each enemy, so as to not waste poison doses by overkilling. Or, use the crossbow in close quarters.

Hand cannon really rounds out the arsenal, it's a much-needed long range weapon. You really can't use the crossbow as a long range weapon. It's a pain at first, but I don't really mind.

[SoulSkorpion]

Ok, I give up. Where's the red mana weapon?

[SoulSkorpion]

Ok, I give up. Where's the red mana weapon?

Never mind. Just found it.

---

It's in the caves complex with the ghosts, which you access far to the west of the monastery.

[zerglin87]

Trying not to be that guy, but....

---

What in gods name is going on. I tried gzdoom 1.6.0, I tied the latest and greatest SVN as of oct 16, I tried everything.

[ChronoSeth]

I honestly don't know what could cause that, since it works for everyone else.

Are you autoloading anything?

[zerglin87]

I dunno, I did everything right to my knowedge. "-file serpent.wad serpent.pk3 -nostartup" Even tried without -nostartup, still same issue.

-edit: Whats Autoloading? I never hit this issue b4.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Interesting how differently people feel about the assassin

Same here. I designed her to fill a gap between the all-round cleric (easy to learn) and the more extreme fighter/mage (harder to learn), with an emphasis on speedy run-and-gun gameplay (unlike the other classes) as well as including some traditional rogue/thief/assassin-type traits (poison, mundane-looking weapons etc.) and ofc the Hexen 2 influences. I'm surprised no-one commented about the flame cannon slowing you down...that's a tradeoff for being able to burn enemies real fast with it. (and because it's a much heavier weapon due to it using the hellforge cannon sprites)

Elementals can be tough yes, but it makes sense to have grenades and cannon balls pass through ghosts (like Heretic). There's many other ways to kill them though - including items (timebombs/poison vials always work), the power spell (everyone can melee ghosts with that along with the special effect), splash damage from grenades/cannon balls (like Heretic) and good old infighting. Like with all characters, it's a case of working out which enemies they are stronger or weaker against.

To make her more playable, I would propose two modifications: lower the crossbow's side bolts spread and dramatically increase speed of the pistol's projectiles. Longer range of the flamethrower would be nice, too. And that lightning-spitting weapon consumes way too much mana (2x 20 units on normal) - the same ammount as Wraithverge, but is nowhere as effective.

There was actually a bug in the crossbow that was making it autoaim vertically, that was fixed in a stealth update at the start of this month (after playing the RPG mod and finding some bugs) and I did narrow the spread after testing but can't remember when, so it might have been then. Not really thought much about the cannonball's speed, except that I didn't want it extremely fast or it'd be too similar to the cleric/mage sniper weapons. Flame cannon was based on a Doom flamethrower I saw, which had limited range but very fast shot rate. The lightning staff works better on lined-up/grouped-up enemies like the cleric's sun staff, I tried to nerf it's damage after testing but in the end it made more sense to increase the mana cost instead (was originally 15) and have it splatter anything it touches

[Caleb13]

Look, it is your mod and if you think the assassin is OK, it's your call. It's just... you see, even in Hexen 2, the assassin was simply another one-man-army like the fighter, but with clumsy and hard-to-use weapons. There were no major differences between the player classes. As her name "assassin" suggests, I would expect somethig little different. For example, that she would be harder to spot by the monsters. Or that monsters would be unable to detect her if she was crouching (unless she got really close). Or that they would stop looking for her if they couldn't see her for a minute or so. Or that she could perform something like "sneak attack criticals" from Fallout 3 (instant kill on a first hit if the monster was unaware of her).

Ah, just forget it...