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Ah, gotcha. Yeah, if you want to retain the limitations, definitely best to avoid things like that.

I LOVE map sequence breaking. Its so fun, and i feel cleaver or something. On the other hand, I always go back to every corner to hoard the supplies, like if it were score points
well in fact I always gathering the useless score points (coins,gold, else treasures,.. food ! in Prehistoric ) in other games.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I like it myself; watching speedrunners always entertains me with the hilarious shit they pull off.

Its actually a good sign I'm getting bored with a Doom Wad when I start jumping; and a sign of good level design when they remembered to put player blocking lines to prevent it (lol) in obvious circumstances.

I'm also a compulsive loot gatherer sometimes, but it doesn't hold me like some people. I prefer the Diablo/Path of Exile loot style of cool items for me to compare to my current kit constantly; but usually bounce off the required gameplay meta for PoR (you really have to optimise rather than piss around which is sad).

These Mage's Arc of Death hud playermodel hand's animation are so gorgeous! Not that the old one was bad, but this one just look so bad ass. Like one of these silent heroes\villains with super powers who just stand in awe in front of lots of enemies and have this sense of both self confidence and struggle to win a fight. The attack animation also looks cool, and I like the fact that you used the sound of Tesla Cannon from Wolfenstein 2009. The frostshard sprites also look dope, and I really like the finger snap animation; although I don't understand why I don't hear the clicking sound, instead I hear the Mage does his grump "hmph" sound.
Mind to share these sprites and animations with the rest of community, as long they credit you, please??


However, the output, performance and damage is really lacking in this one.
The lightning storm cloud attack is heavy ammo cost and yet very inconsistent as it can't even kill flying afrits as it constantly missing them.
The second attack it attack barely tickles even though it's heavy on ammo cost, even when it finally start emitting "lightning arcs" around it, it isn't that damaging. The range is also pathetic to be useful, and overall just suck in comparison to the second attack of the other classes' firestorm and hammer of retribution.
And the primary attack seem to be weak in comparison to the rest of the classes' third weapon, even in comparison to Mage's first weapon he finds, which is frost shards! Would been more awesome if the primary attack not just sound like Tesla Cannon from Wolfenstein 2009, but also behave like Tesla Cannon. Basically emit a powerful stream of electricity that automatically targets and hits all targets in it's vision at the same time, paralyzing and doing constant damage to all of them, but with limited range so you can't snipe with it. Something like this:


The second would be more cool if it actually behave like lightning ball that just zaps everything as it flies, like Lightning Sphere from DMoM&M (Dark Messiah) or Plasma Storm from ratchet and clank serious, without gravity pulling it on ground and lightning arcs actually aim for targets instead of shooting everywhere. As for the lightning storm cloud... Well, it just needs to be fixed to be more consistent, it actually looks cool and fun to use; maybe a better looking cloud because RN it looks like an explosion sprite animation in endless loop.



To be honest, the whole Mage class seems to be severely underpowered and skipped overall. The rest of classes not only have better overall stats and more durability, but have better ranged weapons while having pretty damn overpowerful starting weapons as well. The Timon axe and hammer of retribution have better ranged attack and damage than frost shards and arc of death, yet the cleric with his lightbringer's beam and firestorm's overall flame-ness is goddamn Lucifer incarnated in comparison, and these have a much greater range as well than of Mage's. And Mage's ultimate weapon is the worst in comparison to the rest, even at dealing range damage. The fireballs and explosions, while again heavily costly on mana, barely that effective; the explosions are very inconsistent and constantly missing the target even when I shoot under the legs of the target, so I often end up killing no one when I aimed to kill a bunch. And the third attack is HEAVY mana costly, yet all it does is creating some lame following spinning projectiles that shoot nearby enemies and last only as good as to kill a two Ettins, then they disappear. The forth weapon overall just blows, sorry; it's weakest and uninteresting out of all ultimate weapons of the other classes, especially compared to the the cleric's one that is pretty good mana cost effective and can clean a WHOLE level, even the final boss room in just a single shot! The only reliable weapon that isn't bad is the frost shard's primary attack, I didn't found much uses for third or secondary fires, as they also seemed pretty useless.

Mage is the only class that completely lacks of any upgradeable attacks as well...

Yet your mod even more handicap his speed which makes it hard and not fun to dodge projectiles, or jump on platforms and edges, and at the same time cuts his health even more, which makes the class the slowest, most fragile, least armor protected with the worst stats in the game. He doesn't even get more ammo as promised in the class selection description as all classes start with unchangeable 300 ammo cap. For a class that is basically a glass cannon, I'd expect it at least to blow all things up in his vision, or at least be stronger at Magic and ranged damage than the rest of classes. There is simple no reason to play this class when other classes have better stats, overall more things on them and even better ranged attacks + damage.

With current balance, and the fact that even fighter have infinite ammo ranged attack on his starting fists, there is simple no reason to ever pick a Mage. He's easily overshadowed and overpowered by the rest of the classes. I hope the class gets more attention in later updates. That's just my two cent.

Thanks for such a huge writeup, MaxRide.

Just to double check, you do have the most up to date version? Fulgur was indeed terribly underpowered in earlier versions; but now is pretty much up to par. It may indeed still recieve tweaking.

I'm aware that the Magister is currently lacking upgrades; obviously this is still a work in progress. For starters; he definately does get a higher ammo cap. If the other two are getting 300, something is wrong somewhere (they should have 200 max mana); you've not got something giving you free backpacks in your mod-list, have you? If you're also using a give all cheat or idkfa type stuff, you won't see the correct balance, of course.

Fulgur's plasma-ball is always a big point of contention. It does shoot at nearby targets as it passes (roughly a 50/50 chance of zapping a foe it sees; and it zaps around 25 times a second, so a good chance it'll do damage). I didn't want to literally turn it into a NewDoom BFG with infinite range and lightning of death for a green weapon, which is why it has the arc of travel. Make sure to AIM IT ABOVE and OVER the targets and give it spacing; if you just fire it point blank it will indeed do very little. Unlike earlier versions, it can pass through enemies now and zap as it goes. Fire it above a big swarm of enemies and it will cause alot of damage; allowing you to sweep up the stragglers with the primary. It may still recieve more adjustments though.

The storm's accuracy I can't do much about. Effectively, the cloud is monster loyal to the player, using monster aiming. It already technically fires a superfast invisible rocket when it shoots lightning, creating an AOE blast on impact to help mitigate close misses, but fast targets can indeed cause it some troubles. And yes, I was never vastly happy with the cloud (its actually a large smoke sprite that repeats alot), but its quite tough to get a cloud sprite to work well without it clipping the ceiling and this was (for now) the best solution.

Timon's axe does have a great ranged attack, but its awful economy-wise (15 mana for a relatively slow projectile you have to wait to return). Algor and Vis have much better sniping potential.

Its interesting that you're the first one who's not liked Bloodscourge. The homing primary fire is very powerful; and not to be wasted on Ettins (I found it a godsend against the Reivers coming up to last act in Hexen when I played), and the secondary is meant as area denial (its not a boss fighting tool). The tertiary drone's missiles do alot of damage and cover you in tight situations, allowing you to focus on priority targets. With an Icon of the Defender or Mystic Ambit; and Bloodscourge primary fire, the Heirscharch and the leaders are fairly easy.

For sure, he is a skilled class; the magister really benefits from on-the-fly weapon swapping. Don't forget your Flechettes (they're amazing). Don't forget your Discs of Repulsion. And don't forget your starter weapon. Whereas the Crusader especially and to an extent the Myrm ignore their 1 slot weapons whilst they have mana, I always found Magister really benefits from switching to Vis for free long range strikes (its very good vs. Afrits).

eharper256 wrote:Thanks for such a huge writeup, MaxRide.

Just to double check, you do have the most up to date version? Fulgur was indeed terribly underpowered in earlier versions; but now is pretty much up to par. It may indeed still recieve tweaking.

Yeah, 0.86 version, the latest you have uploaded.

Seeing that you didn't comment it much, it seems you're talking about "Fulgur" primary attack. In comparison to both cleric's lightbringer's secondary and firestorm's flamethrower, they both feels more powerful and deadly in comparison; and Timon axe just rips through hordes with ease in comparison to either of these, even though it have slightly less range.

eharper256 wrote:I'm aware that the Magister is currently lacking upgrades; obviously this is still a work in progress. For starters; he definately does get a higher ammo cap. If the other two are getting 300, something is wrong somewhere (they should have 200 max mana); you've not got something giving you free backpacks in your mod-list, have you? If you're also using a give all cheat or idkfa type stuff, you won't see the correct balance, of course.

Must be not been paying attention during gameplay, since in my gameplay I had never run out of mana\ammo for either fighter or cleric, so when I wanted to double check all of the weapons to collect all proper data and facts before making thread, instead of loading my old saved data I just wrote "give all" in console to test them all and make sure I wasn't just fooled by my gameplay. Sorry about that.

During gameplay however, they all seems to have similar amount of "mana cap", mostly because mage weapons are too ammo costly, cleric weapons ammo-efficient, and fighter doesn't even use ammo when using his Magical weapons.

eharper256 wrote:Fulgur's plasma-ball is always a big point of contention. It does shoot at nearby targets as it passes (roughly a 50/50 chance of zapping a foe it sees; and it zaps around 25 times a second, so a good chance it'll do damage). I didn't want to literally turn it into a NewDoom BFG with infinite range and lightning of death for a green weapon, which is why it has the arc of travel. Make sure to AIM IT ABOVE and OVER the targets and give it spacing; if you just fire it point blank it will indeed do very little. Unlike earlier versions, it can pass through enemies now and zap as it goes. Fire it above a big swarm of enemies and it will cause alot of damage; allowing you to sweep up the stragglers with the primary. It may still recieve more adjustments though.

No matter how many times I tried, it never shoots at close range and it's absolutely useless as it pass through nearby enemies. It doesn't last long due to gravity so it's not that useful at mid-long range either. As rational person and when ceiling of corridor (or even outside maps) is not that low, I always aim above to achieve maximum arc travel length, however often that one second when it actually start to shoot lightning arcs around, it just shoots RNG arcs in all directions that barely scratch anyone, often killing no one even when I shoot it in a horde of ettins. This attack is definitely no match the the flameness of second attack of firestorm, and when it's upgraded it just turns in to a broken clear room machine; NOW that's a BFG for me. Even Hammer attacks I found far more deadly than this, the upgraded third attack of hammer is really an lazy room cleaner for me, and it even autoaims.

Perhaps take what 4page did in his mod? While visually it's not that amazingly looking, at least it works far more consistent, actually useful and I find it much more fun to use. Gravity is a huge buzzkill for a weapon like that.

eharper256 wrote:The storm's accuracy I can't do much about. Effectively, the cloud is monster loyal to the player, using monster aiming. It already technically fires a superfast invisible rocket when it shoots lightning, creating an AOE blast on impact to help mitigate close misses, but fast targets can indeed cause it some troubles. And yes, I was never vastly happy with the cloud (its actually a large smoke sprite that repeats alot), but its quite tough to get a cloud sprite to work well without it clipping the ceiling and this was (for now) the best solution.

Isn't it would work better if you just make it a hitscan a_explode? Alternatively, what about just make lightning strike from above to the targets linearly down. instead of mere creating storm cloud that stick to one place? Something like that:



As for cloud, why not borrow the concept of what Wrath of Cronos does for it's blizzard spell? It creates a good looking cloud at top of ceiling where all these ice shards falling from, and it works for all heights, even in tight corridor or a small house room.

eharper256 wrote:Timon's axe does have a great ranged attack, but its awful economy-wise (15 mana for a relatively slow projectile you have to wait to return). Algor and Vis have much better sniping potential.

I was more thinking about it's secondary attack - it have about same range as Frost Shard's primary, rips through horde of enemies and often kills in just one blast. The third attack is awesome though, it's pretty fast and can kill multiple enemies in just one hit, and due it's fast speed I used it as an easy sniper replacement. The "algor" (frost shards) second attack takes ages to cast, and it isn't that reliable due it's slow speed; afrits dodge that stuff like crazy. "Vis" is the only viable option against afrits, although it's annoying since sometimes it push them toward yourself or kick them in the cosmos for no reason, so aiming gets tiresome.

eharper256 wrote:Its interesting that you're the first one who's not liked Bloodscourge.

Yeah it's both boring and unoriginal, let alone the balance that just sucks in comparison to other classes ultimate weapons. This might sound like rude opinionated nitpicking, but it's like 4th time I see a mod that turns bloodscourge in to a single projectile throwing rocket launcher that just explodes on inpact to enemy in to more explosives, and spam projectiles\explosions were never that fun anyway. I find the vanila 3 seeking plasma balls homing around, spinning around, orbiting and piercing through enemies in a ballet of death more fun, they are especially underrated when you use bloodscourge in doom wads with lots of cacodemons, they just start to orbit and pierce every single flying enemy untill there is none left and you only need like a single shot for that.

eharper256 wrote:The homing primary fire is very powerful; and not to be wasted on Ettins (I found it a godsend against the Reivers coming up to last act in Hexen when I played)

Reivers were never a hard monster, it's just afrit that just shot a single projectile in a row and can't even dash-dodging. Frost Shards's primary, lightbeam secondary and Timon's secondary cleans them quite fast. There is no point to use bloodscourge weapon's primary that absorbs a whopping 20 of total ammo. But as I just checked, It's actually terrible against Reivers since first explosion doesn't kill them and the spawned spam explosives all just miss it's hitbox, so it's like flash 10,10 of blue and green ammo down the toilet; only if they are VERY close together then it does some damage, but often not enough to kill all of them before you quickly out of ammo. They however keep constantly spawning in that one map untill certain point, so cleric's ultimate weapon one shot was just enough for me to stop caring about them.

eharper256 wrote:and the secondary is meant as area denial (its not a boss fighting tool).

The secondary is the one that I find unreliable the most. As I've described earlier, the explosions are too inconsistent and too RNG. Often when I shoot UNDER the legs of a ettin in a group of ettins, the explosions just bounce away from them and as result I end up killing no one, while wasting a crapton of ammo. In fact, the ammo consumption is just TOO MUCH sometimes, and often too random. Sometimes a single shot wastes 112 ammo total (56 green and 56 blue), like WTF??? Even cleric's ultimate weapon's ultimate attack that creates blackhole, which basically clears whole map, including bosses, in a single hit, cost mere 72 ammo, yet it's VERY cost effective. Quite bad "area denial" in all honesty, and you gotta pray that the explosions jump in the right direction so it could actually damage horde of enemies before you out of ammo. Not worth using.

eharper256 wrote:The tertiary drone's missiles do alot of damage and cover you in tight situations, allowing you to focus on priority targets.

It's only useful for short range and only do somewhat reliable damage if you summon at least 4 of these. They aren't that great defense tool as they keep spinning behind your back and basically become unused for a while. Then again, as I just checked again, a single of these drones can only kill two ettins and one afrit maximum, can't even kill two green chaos serpents before vanishing. Creating many of these at the same time is very counterproductive, as they all shoot at the same time even when the monster is already dead, as result wasting more shoots in a vain and they all disappear once they are out of shots to fire, so creating more of these isn't inherently means that they will kill more monsters before vanishing. If these drones were permanent per hub or at least stayed to the end of the map, then there perhaps there would be reason to summon these; but for mere two basic enemies? It's ridiculously pathetic. And yet, it cost a whoping 48 total ammo just to summon one of these mofos! Absolutely not worth using. For tight situations, I'd use Frost Shard's primary anyway, or play clever and not allow monsters to get close to begin with, as I usually play.


Now compare it to the ultimate weapons of other classes. Sword that can create something like even more overpowered version of BFG shot yet doesn't use much of ammo, and primary that spams powerful ranged Magical wave strike blast that pierce through hordes of enemies, kills everything in vision by just doing never ending W+M1 and it DOES NOT EVEN USE AMMO. Or cleric that creates powerful shield which blocks all upcoming projectiles yet doesn't deflect your own, and second attack creates black hole that, literally, cleans a whole map in just one shot. Yet all bloodscourge does is an outdates overused fireworks show, might as well use fighter's flask for that, at least it doesn't drain all of your ammo.

eharper256 wrote:With an Icon of the Defender or Mystic Ambit; and Bloodscourge primary fire, the Heirscharch and the leaders are fairly easy.

Literally a single shot of cleric's ultimate, and Heresiarch is a history. No need to waste something as precious, rare and valuable as Icon of Defender just to pass through a single insignificant monster; often you won't have Icon of Defender along yourself anyway, too. You can even oneshot Korax with cleric's ultimate weapon. breaking the map because you kill him before he teleports back. In fact, cleric is overall so overpowered, that non-upgraded firestorm second blast is enough to oneshot Korax, but at least there is a chance he will teleport, so the map won't be broken.

Also, Mystic Ambit doesn't spawn in singleplayer, even in it's DLC. Are you sure you weren't playing it along with some other mods, or multiplayer coop?

eharper256 wrote:For sure, he is a skilled class; the magister really benefits from on-the-fly weapon swapping.

I always find vanila Mage to be the both most underpowered and hardest class of the group of 3, something that both GmanLives and Doom Wiki agree on. But always hate when modders try to transfer such aspect in their mods as well, rather than see it as a flaw or overlook. For same reason they always make wraithverge usually the most overpowered ultimate weapon of all, and fighter is just unrealistically tanky and too powerful with his weapons. As a result, you get games with fighter that is just W+M1 noobtank, a Press X To Win cleric, and Mage that is actually challenging. I hope you won't take it as offense, but this mod seems to be no different. I say, if the other classes are OP, the Mage needs his own version of OPness, even if he still remain a slow and fragile glass cannon. Mere more ammo cap (while his weapons consume more ammo and not as useful, and pickups give as much ammo as for other classes) won't do the trick, I'd expect at least to have new unique abilities that other classes won't have, or at least be powerful enough to outdamage and out-AOE other classes.

eharper256 wrote:Don't forget your Flechettes (they're amazing).

OH right, I totally forgot to mention Flachettes. Without a doubt, the Mage also have the worst of them, and let me elaborate in details why.

First of all, the Mage is the only class that cannot throw them and only use them as "time bomb", which is often useless, especially in situations when you're already ambushed and no place to run. Time bombs is something that isn't useful for a class that specializes in a ranged attacks.

Second, the damage output is pathetic. Even when they stick to ettin, the explosion is weak that it can't kill a single of them. Even vanila flachette could kill at least a single ettin sometimes. Only when I use like 3-4 of them, then they kill a horde of enemies, but I always hate to waste items like that. While the cleric's Flachette can create powerful stream of flames that create a pool of AOE fire for some time and kill anything within it's radius, and it's quite a big one radius too; and the fighter's Flachette seem to create a big explosion that just kills everyone in a big radius instantly of a single blast and, of course, with the very original concept, it spawns more projectiles all around it just like Bloodscourge's attacks.

Third, the fire projectiles that Mage's Flachette spawns in all directions seem to be kinda useless? I don't see it do anything, outside of damaging the player of course. Doesn't push enemies around, doesn't seem to inflict damage, I just find no use for them.
Just tested, and it took me like 3 to 4 Flachettes to kill a single ettin just by flames. Compared to the flames of cleric Flachette that are actually useful, I just find them useless in comparison. It looks funky, but that's about it.

There is also bug that I found that when the Mage's Flachette stick to ettin, it seem to not create any fire projectiles at all. I'm not sure if it's just visual bug or not, but it happens like like 30% of chance. Possible that a single ettin tank them all at once? Ettin, of course, doesn't die once that happens, neither anyone around seem to get damage.

eharper256 wrote:Don't forget your Discs of Repulsion.

These are rather rare pickups, and you won't ever get enough if you'd use them to deflect the projectile spam that moves in to your direction.

Then again, in all honesty, I absolutely despise the concept of being reliant, or even depend on pickups and finite items in a game where you supposedly play as a Magic casting class. He's a Mage after all; he's supposed to use the Mind and Powers Within and be reliant on nobody\anything except himself, not being dependent on materialism and being addicted to pickups. For that reason, I try to have a gameplay where you won't need to use any of these at all.

eharper256 wrote:And don't forget your starter weapon. Whereas the Crusader especially and to an extent the Myrm ignore their 1 slot weapons whilst they have mana, I always found Magister really benefits from switching to Vis for free long range strikes (its very good vs. Afrits).

It's not that fighter or cleric first weapons are not as powerful as Mage's (Seriously, this mace is like close range BFG, although not too damaging), it's just that Fighter's weapons, even ultimate one, doesn't use ammo even though they still shoot\cast Magic; and cleric's weapons are too mana cost effective. I still find myself often switch to fists, since it's alt attack shoots an long range chains that can take down afrits at any range, and they even have aimbot homing ability. Same for cleric mace, the second attack have HUGE aoe radius, it's like mininuke, and it push everyone away from you. The radius is so big, that hitting walls, or even floor, often kills afrits that are in the sky and otherwise you won't able to hit them with normal melee attack.
But yes, due to other Mage weapons and attacks aren't that useful and some are pretty useless, Vis is the primary weapon that you'd find use all of the time. I still prefer the saphire wand though, since it have faster projectile so it won't miss afrit, faster fire rate, ability to pierce through enemies and most importantly - it doesn't push enemies around inconsistently for no real reason. The usage of primary fire of "Algor" I find more necessary when you're overwhelmed by monsters so you're too lazy to kill them with "Vis", or when you're in "tight situations", since most of Mage's weapons drain ammo like mad. The 300 ammo cap obviously doesn't help, perhpas if Mage get ammo regen instead, like 1 per second or so, perhaps I'd find more reason to use other weapons attacks, including infamous bloodscourge.



But anyway. Even if you find most of my opinions and arguments as garbage, any chance would you allow to use your weapon sprites, pretty please? Of course crediting you. Maybe one day I'd like to use them for my version of mage, and it's the only arc of death weapon sprite that I find pretty awesome while seemingly ready to do some "ulimited power" havoc.

Hmm... I'm not going to quote and respond to everything here; because its alot.

That said, no I don't think any opinions are crap, and I appreciate you writing so passionately about my mod!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing a different game though since I never had such an issue with him being weak. Maybe because I always play difficulty 3? Because I'm always constantly on the run and attempting to flank stuff?

Still, even so, balance is important. I do understand that. I may power-down the Crusader slightly if he's too strong; and interestingly I reduced the cost of the Lightbringer before because of a thought from others that it was too pricey, so that's open to review. I guess that the Magister hasn't got many tweak requests until now, so I assumed that he was fine, but I guess it might be that he's simply not being played (haha). Its nice he's getting attention.

Just a couple of corrections:

Also, Mystic Ambit doesn't spawn in singleplayer, even in it's DLC.

The Mystic Ambit replaces Banishment Devices in Walpurgis, so you should find some, no matter the map. I used one to help take down Menelkir in my Magister playthrough of Hexen.

Time bombs is something that isn't useful for a class that specializes in a ranged attacks.

Its actually a proximity mine. Lay a few in front of advancing foes, and run around the corner, and bam. Don't use it in close combat. Very useful when baiting Chaos Serpents. Since I always find myself throwing grenades in my own face with the Myrmidon, I actually prefer them. Flechettes are fairly common even in the Hexen Campaign, so I have no problems blowing them like Candy.

I may indeed increase the damage output slightly, as it is still a little low. My concern with overpowering it lies in the fact that its already crazy effective right now in Doom (zombie hordes explode from a well placed flechette mine!) and slightly more damage on it will also nuke Imps, Demons and Sergeants.

Then again, in all honesty, I absolutely despise the concept of being reliant, or even depend on pickups and finite items in a game where you supposedly play as a Magic casting class.

Then you really should change that. One of Hexen's main 'cool things' is juggling the inventory system and I want to encourage its use (hence me making Discs and Flechettes more powerful). I know its fun to play an all-consuming wizard, but I saw Daedolon as not an Archmage, but a low-mid-level D&D Mage; stuck at that point where he really has to be careful with his casting and juggle with magic items as well.

the fire projectiles that Mage's Flachette spawns in all directions seem to be kinda useless?

Yes, they're purely decorative (so are the ones in the Quietus sprial, technically).

I'd expect at least to have new unique abilities that other classes won't have

Actually, I'd like that as well, but as someone fairly new to coding (my strengths are absolutely in art and writing, not coding) and only stuck using DECORATE, there's not alot of super-unique stuff I can pull off.

(Fulgur Storm) Isn't it would work better if you just make it a hitscan a_explode?

I did try that; but it causes the monster to be damaged BEFORE the lightning hits (hitscans happen quicker than railguns) which looks stupid. A fast invisible projectile is better as a result.

(Fulgur Plasma Ball) it never shoots at close range and it's absolutely useless as it pass through nearby enemies

That's an unfortunate quirk of the ball itself. Because of how it sprays lightning haphazardly, there is deliberate delay before it starts shooting. If I didn't have this; huge amounts of blood spray from the player if you have a blood mod on (even though no damage is caused) because its very likely to hit you repeatedly when it starts.

As everyone seems to want it; I may change the arc and gravity. I was also considering making it bounce a couple of times before dying.

The "algor" (frost shards) second attack takes ages to cast, and it isn't that reliable due it's slow speed; afrits dodge that stuff like crazy.

Funnily enough; it literally cannot cast any faster with the current sprites and functions it has (its already about 40% faster than it was in 0.7). Algor's secondary has a very complex set of code that took me ages to write, and I love its execution so that's not going to change. Its very, very cheap (2 mana per spear) so it shouldn't be as effective as a 15 mana axe throw. That said; I'm happy to increase its projectile travel speed, since I agree it should be better for sniping, so I'll add that in the next patch.

Fun fact, it was supposed to act like the shots of the Star of Torment from AMID EVIL (carry enemies along with it after impaling them) but sadly that's impossible to make in DECORATE.

(Bloodscourge)... Yeah it's both boring and unoriginal

Haha, well, the primary fire is literally almost unchanged from HexArcana, barring the stats.

Fun fact number two: there were originally plans for the Magister to have an entirely different (or at least resprited/recoloured) ultimate like the Cleric firing Wind Related attacks; but since everyone seemed to love it in its current form, I shelved that. Perhaps I'll consider bringing that back (I think I still have the prototype Amber Skull recolour around I made). Maybe I'll make it a CVAR option.

Reivers were never a hard monster

Maybe I suck then, I found that section in the graveyard to be crazy hard because all those shots are explosive.

In fact, the ammo consumption is just TOO MUCH sometimes, and often too random

As you can probably find in the patch notes; since the initial exploding skull replicates a random number of times, the cost is going to be random. Originally it charged a flat rate; and you could end up with nothing for your money, or indeed, a huge swath of destruction on the cheap.

It looks entertaining, and again, its had alot of positive feedback so I thought it was okay; that said I do kind of agree I didn't use it much myself in my playthroughs.

They aren't that great defense tool as they keep spinning behind your back and basically become unused for a while

Keep in mind that even behind your back, they track enemies in a 160 degree (or so) arc in front of them, always facing outwards from you, so they can and will engage stuff sneaking up on you, which is the primary purpose of that. Its very reliable when you're surrounded by enemies.

Literally a single shot of cleric's ultimate, and Heresiarch is a history

This reminds me that I need to give the Heresiarch and Korax a few buffs (lol).

Same for cleric mace, the second attack have HUGE aoe radius, it's like mininuke, and it push everyone away from you. The radius is so big, that hitting walls, or even floor, often kills afrits that are in the sky and otherwise you won't able to hit them with normal melee attack.

The Secondary Mace attack is being reviewed in the future. I meant it as an occasional 'get away from me' tool, but its still inherently abusable even though I've nerfed it several times.

Even if you find most of my opinions and arguments as garbage, any chance would you allow to use your weapon sprites, pretty please? Of course crediting you. Maybe one day I'd like to use them for my version of mage, and it's the only arc of death weapon sprite that I find pretty awesome while seemingly ready to do some "ulimited power" havoc.

I've already given someone else permission to use it, so carry on, so long as you credit "its by eharper256, originally from Hexen: Walpurgis", that's fine. Same with any of my code, sprites, or work.

Speaking of alternate options for Bloodscourge; it did remind me that I made this in the concept stage:

As usual; image transparency gets completely fooked up by this forum; if you click on it, it'll work fine.

A very lovecraftian tome, based on Neoworms excellent tome model. I avoided this eventually as it would likely be some kind of void/gate/dimensional attack, and I didn't want to overlap with Crux Calicus.

eharper256 wrote:Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing a different game though since I never had such an issue with him being weak. Maybe because I always play difficulty 3? Because I'm always constantly on the run and attempting to flank stuff?

Always pick Archamage (difficulty 5) in the HeXen, given that in this game you won't get an infinitely respawning monsters. That's the only difficulty worth playing, including it's DLC.

And believe me, dodging isn't as easy as simply click A or D, and you won't EVER get enough disks of repulsion to save your ass from endless spam. Afrits dodge like mad, bishops never stop shooting their stream of homing projectiles and wendigo... these motherfuckers are absolute pain in the ass, especially in your mod that cuts your hp and running speed drastically. Doing something as basic like "constantly on the run and attempting to flank stuff" will handle your ass in a couple of seconds, especially in a second hub of Deathkings of the dark citadel, not that there are places to run and flank anyway.

In fact, in my vanila HeXen walkthrough I made rules to play it as vanila as possible, thus Dosbox and 4:3 resolution. Plus I have the duty to play it without ever using any finite resources and yet collect all of them, so I used my saphire wand through whole playthrough and never used any finite temporal resource\pickup outside of Wings of Wrath as it's an permanent item unlike the temporal ones, and it would vanish anyway if you don't use it before exiting hub, plus I had honor to kill every single enemy, collect everything I could, find all secrets and obtain full map as possible and take no damage at all. The only TWO places, out of all HeXen, including it's DLC, where I took damage, was the Ice Trap oft he first hub, and in the second hub you had to fall from a bit too high cliff, that is in Darkmere level once you get the open the door that request the Cave key. These seems to be the ONLY places where taking damage is unavoidable. Well, there is MAYBE possible to take no damage from Ice Trap, but perhaps you'd need TAS to do that.



Saphire wand works better than "Vis", since it doesn't push enemies around, which as result it's easier for enemies to hit you and harder for you to hit enemies, it should either push enemies away from you constantly, or not push them at all, because it's really annoying. Although I'd like if it reworked in to something more productive and fun, like proper telekinetic powers that allow your to move objects, items, including monsters.

eharper256 wrote:Still, even so, balance is important. I do understand that. I may power-down the Crusader slightly if he's too strong; and interestingly I reduced the cost of the Lightbringer before because of a thought from others that it was too pricey, so that's open to review. I guess that the Magister hasn't got many tweak requests until now, so I assumed that he was fine, but I guess it might be that he's simply not being played (haha). Its nice he's getting attention.

Unfortunately Mage isn't that popular class among average casual doom player, and it mostly comes from the fact that he's vastly underpowered in Vanila.

I'm definitely not the guy who would advocate the nerfs for the other classes in a singleplayer game, but rather the Mage gets buffs so he'd be on same overall power and interest level as cleric or fighter. Crusader might be overpowered W+M1 noobclass that doesn't take ammo at all to use, and can mow down enemies with his magical weapons while consume no ammo at all, but isn't that's all he's about? The hammer blows things up with magical smash in just one hit almost any enemy, cost 0 ammo to use, and I'm saying if fighter gets something as brutal as this, while having best stats in the whole game, then the mage, who have WORST stats in the whole game, and his third weapon drains ammo pretty quickly, should get something far more brutal to compensate for the fact that he has both worst stats in game and the fact he has weapon that drains ammo quickly. I still can't grasp the logic behind the fact that second attack of third weapon of Mage is so lame, yet the third attack of fighter and cleric are so awesome.

The primary of "Fulgur" might not be as useless as the rest of Mage attacks, but it's no match for the Flamethrower attack, lightbringer's beam attack, and Hammer attack that require no ammo to use. For example, flamethrower takes like 2 ammo to kill ettin, and fulgur's primary takes some time and 5-6 ammo to kill ettin, even though it have SLIGHTLY higher range; let's not forget that mage have worst speed and durability, though. That's why I suggest it to behave like Tesla Cannon instead, so while mage would still remain slow and fragile which means he's pretty much doomed when there is prenty of bishop spam, at least he would have best attacks of all classes that would exterminate all enemies in your vision the quickest of all, and that be the Mage's niche of a class in comparison to cleric that have both good stats and rather oneshooters and mana-effecient guns, and fighter's "run foward and mowdown everything in your vision while tank all damage with no fear of dying" niche.

eharper256 wrote:Just a couple of corrections:

Also, Mystic Ambit doesn't spawn in singleplayer, even in it's DLC.

The Mystic Ambit replaces Banishment Devices in Walpurgis, so you should find some, no matter the map. I used one to help take down Menelkir in my Magister playthrough of Hexen.

Oh yeah, now I noticed that I had them in my inventory. Considering that I try to not any of pickups temporary items, and the fact that these are pretty rare, I found no use for them anyway.

eharper256 wrote:

Time bombs is something that isn't useful for a class that specializes in a ranged attacks.

Its actually a proximity mine. Lay a few in front of advancing foes, and run around the corner, and bam. Don't use it in close combat. Very useful when baiting Chaos Serpents. Since I always find myself throwing grenades in my own face with the Myrmidon, I actually prefer them. Flechettes are fairly common even in the Hexen Campaign, so I have no problems blowing them like Candy.

I may indeed increase the damage output slightly, as it is still a little low. My concern with overpowering it lies in the fact that its already crazy effective right now in Doom (zombie hordes explode from a well placed flechette mine!) and slightly more damage on it will also nuke Imps, Demons and Sergeants.

I'm well aware about them being like proxy mines, which is why I called them time bombs, in terms of how they are utilized. Also, they are 100% useless on Archmage difficulty because monsters aren't as braindead to run straight toward you, but rather shoot at you ever frame available, so no matter how "big" is the buff, they are going down the garbage bin regardless as unnecessary junk; unless you want to use them against ettins, which are mostly in closed quarters where you'd not recommend to use these. Maybe by a rare chance bishop or afrit will flight toward your direction, but that is a pretty rare case.

I really don't care about flasks, but wouldn't mind them getting buffed; as long as I won't be forced to use these as the necessary means to "balance" the class in terms of power and surviability in comparison to the rest of classes. The least class I want to see being reliant on a material addiction.

eharper256 wrote:

Then again, in all honesty, I absolutely despise the concept of being reliant, or even depend on pickups and finite items in a game where you supposedly play as a Magic casting class.

Then you really should change that. One of Hexen's main 'cool things' is juggling the inventory system and I want to encourage its use (hence me making Discs and Flechettes more powerful). I know its fun to play an all-consuming wizard, but I saw Daedolon as not an Archmage, but a low-mid-level D&D Mage; stuck at that point where he really has to be careful with his casting and juggle with magic items as well.

Nah man, HeXen's THE main cool thing is the exploration, adventure, puzzles, platforming and key\switch hunting. Quite giving you the depth immerse of walker game that no game before ever made. The vanilla weapons were pretty funky and original for 1995 year as well, although balance and utilizations demanding the better. At least I'm so thankful that the game is nowhere the D&D garbage like what the The Elder Scrolls developers were trying to do with their Arena title, imho the worst TES game of the series and mostly because of D&D element, like many monsters were IMMUNE to many of your attacks and you were forced to use certain attacks or element to make sure you'd at least do some damage to enemies; so glad D&D is actually dying out.

I always hated being reliant on pickups, and that's dating back to first Doom and Wolfenstein 3D games, both of which were my first FPS, and HeXen is bombarded with way too much of pickups everywhere filled in every square meter of level that you won't find usage of, which I find more annoying than anything.


But that is aside. I just can't stand the dependence on material artifacts when it comes to playing as the Mage (i.e. Magus, i.e. person of high rank of spiritual advancement which gather abilities deemed to be Super of the Natural fauna). I remember how bad and disgraceful I felt for using Dark Servant item so I could jump on Maulotaur head and not take damage from fall damage, and I feel myself dirty and unclean just by thinking about having to use disks of repulsion, or flasks to make my way out. I beat most games on hardest difficulties and attempt to avoid ALL of the damage not just to being forced to use pickups in a fanmade mods afterwards. D:

When I play as class that suppose to be reliant on nothing but power within, that's the only thing I want to do of said class. It's equal bring the Glock 17 and headshot your opponent to death on a mere boxing match, or smashing your opponent with a hammer to death like some psychopath maniac when playing yet another chess game, it just doesn't feel right lol.

There is also why I call these green and blue floating cubes as ammo, because mana is something that comes from within, like an skill, ability, capacity, potential or that supernatural strength such as "qi", or simple "power\force". That's both the Melanesian mythical and the English dictionary meaning of that word, so I refrain to use that word in vain. You can't just inject yourself with adrenaline or steroids to get "more powerful" on "mana". One of reason why I really wish you'd add a small mana regen, even a tiny one like 1 to blue and green per second, even at the cost of having 200 mana cap instead. It would encourage people to use stupid and unnecessary attacks that waste too much ammo for little to no benefits, like the 'drones' of the Bloodscourge, rather than stick to the only useful attacks that actually don't waste that much of ammo, like Frost Shard's primary that I actually find ammo-cost effective in comparison to the rest attacks.

eharper256 wrote:

the fire projectiles that Mage's Flachette spawns in all directions seem to be kinda useless?

Yes, they're purely decorative (so are the ones in the Quietus sprial, technically).

That doesn't prevent Quietus to be a quite a long ranged powerful ammo-free weapon though, heh.

eharper256 wrote:

I'd expect at least to have new unique abilities that other classes won't have

Actually, I'd like that as well, but as someone fairly new to coding (my strengths are absolutely in art and writing, not coding) and only stuck using DECORATE, there's not alot of super-unique stuff I can pull off.

Yeah, that's why I keep having this idea of Mage having his own unique various psychic abilities and psychic meter scale, or "the power of Mind" equal to the Stamina of many fighting classes. It would work the same, i.e. you're using psychic abilities, and it's draining quickly, and then it replenish automatically when you're not using it for some time.

Basically, the Psychic abilities will mostly used as supportive abilities for survival means, so it could have like "Blink", "teleport", "push force", and if possible, something like Grab and Choke would've been awesome. So let's assume we have 100 of psychic\mind mana\power cap.
The "Blink", which is like "dash" in Doom Eternal that would teleport you around in 8 directions, but teleport you instantly instead of simply "move you very fast there" . For example, it could blink you forward, backward, right, right+forward sideways, etc by teleporting in that direction by a few meters. Could consume like 25 mana per usage.
Teleport would teleport you were you point out, something you can do in games like Dishonored, good to compensate for the lack of movement speed which is essential for certain platforming, which now makes certain levels physically impossible to beat, like that one level in Chillax which request real quick movement to click 2 buttons before the gates are closed. Would cost 100 mana, though.
Push force is something literally like Disc of Repulsion that just push all enemies away from you, but this time you won't need to rely on god damn cursed pickups, but would cost like 50 mana per use so you won't be able to rely on it all the time and could use it twice in a battle.
Grab and Choke is something you'd might saw in Star Wars games and it's mods for other games, like you could grab pickups, push buttons over distance, grab enemies, grab map's props and throw them at enemies, etc. Also, ability to Choke enemies. Duke Nukem Forces did fantastic job at this. But there is also mod like Guncaster where you can grab enemies over distance and move them around while still damaging them in your grab. The choke would drain your mana quickly and won't be used too often, but still would be hell a lot of fun to use. Like 1 mana per tick.

The Mage gets pretty exhausted once he's out of psychic Mana, as if were you after math exam at university. The Psychic\Mind mana meter would refill automatically once you stop using any of the psychic abilities for 3-5 seconds, and would go up like 1 unit per 20 ticks, then after another 10 seconds it would speed up to 1 mana unit per 3 ticks as long you won't use any psychic abilities during that period of time. Something like that, just like stamina. I remember 4page was curious how he'd have to balance his new telekinetic abilities, so I suggested something like this on 4page's mod, I'm not sure if he liked that idea since he didn't said much about it, unfortunately.

With this kind of abilities, Mage finally could be on par to cleric and fighter in their durability and surviability, since Mage suffer a LOT from the spam on 5th difficulty, especially bishop's homing things and wendigo, while other classes simply can outrun most projectile spam. It's his solid tradeoff for being the slowest and fragilest of the bunch.

No, I don't want to nerf enemies, just in case.

eharper256 wrote:

(Fulgur Storm) Isn't it would work better if you just make it a hitscan a_explode?

I did try that; but it causes the monster to be damaged BEFORE the lightning hits (hitscans happen quicker than railguns) which looks stupid. A fast invisible projectile is better as a result.

Assuming making something like Call Storm from Skyrim is pretty hard, is it possible to make sure the invisible rocket actually home to the target it's aiming? That way it makes sure it won't miss afrits so easily. I find most ettins often tend to survive the strike somehow, too.

eharper256 wrote:

(Fulgur Plasma Ball) it never shoots at close range and it's absolutely useless as it pass through nearby enemies

That's an unfortunate quirk of the ball itself. Because of how it sprays lightning haphazardly, there is deliberate delay before it starts shooting. If I didn't have this; huge amounts of blood spray from the player if you have a blood mod on (even though no damage is caused) because its very likely to hit you repeatedly when it starts.

As everyone seems to want it; I may change the arc and gravity. I was also considering making it bounce a couple of times before dying.

Cmon, nobody cares about mere visual "blood spray from the player", and it's unfair to nerf such attack just because of the extra useless unnecessary mods that you can add to THIS mod as an extra addons, by the option. It's like we had to nerf firestorm weapon to the ground just because there exist some mod which makes all fire look too realistic and as result it would drop the FPS to 1 on most PC when using that weapon. Besides, if you so desire, you can still run close to it for such "blood effect" even now.

As for removal of gravity and making it actually move linearly forward, that's great. It's definitely none of these attacks you'd wish to see to work like a grande anyway, and since the visible lightning nor electricity have no weight (or mass) IRL, it makes no sense as to why it's pushed toward the Earth like you cast a damn mortar. As for the ball bouncing off walls, I believe Doom Incarnate had something like that for it's Tesla secondary attack.

eharper256 wrote:

The "algor" (frost shards) second attack takes ages to cast, and it isn't that reliable due it's slow speed; afrits dodge that stuff like crazy.

Funnily enough; it literally cannot cast any faster with the current sprites and functions it has (its already about 40% faster than it was in 0.7). Algor's secondary has a very complex set of code that took me ages to write, and I love its execution so that's not going to change. Its very, very cheap (2 mana per spear) so it shouldn't be as effective as a 15 mana axe throw. That said; I'm happy to increase its projectile travel speed, since I agree it should be better for sniping, so I'll add that in the next patch.

Fun fact, it was supposed to act like the shots of the Star of Torment from AMID EVIL (carry enemies along with it after impaling them) but sadly that's impossible to make in DECORATE.

What if each frame of animation actually took a single tic, or it's impossible?? If you just gonna increase the speed of the darts itself, it would be used more for mere sniping purpose, but won't be used that often in normal combat due to it's unreliable slow charging speed. Also, when he has all 4 darts loaded, imho he should keep the charges so you could have time for precise aiming and when releasing m2 you actually snap the fingers and darts fly, rather than shooting immediately automatically once all 4 darts charged.

Also, why not to replace the sound that the Mage makes when snapping of finger with... actual snap of the finger? Every time the Mage say "beh" when he snaps his fingers, it's just... doesn't sound very convincing, or makes any sense at all to be honest.

eharper256 wrote:

(Bloodscourge)... Yeah it's both boring and unoriginal

Haha, well, the primary fire is literally almost unchanged from HexArcana, barring the stats.

Fun fact number two: there were originally plans for the Magister to have an entirely different (or at least resprited/recoloured) ultimate like the Cleric firing Wind Related attacks; but since everyone seemed to love it in its current form, I shelved that. Perhaps I'll consider bringing that back (I think I still have the prototype Amber Skull recolour around I made). Maybe I'll make it a CVAR option.

Not sure what you mean by "win related" attacks, but his ultimate is far greater than of what Mage have, for sure.

eharper256 wrote:

Reivers were never a hard monster

Maybe I suck then, I found that section in the graveyard to be crazy hard because all those shots are explosive.

Try to play on Archmage difficulty, you'd find them a mere free flying target in comparison to Bishops. Let alone wendigo.

eharper256 wrote:

In fact, the ammo consumption is just TOO MUCH sometimes, and often too random

As you can probably find in the patch notes; since the initial exploding skull replicates a random number of times, the cost is going to be random.

Quite a terrible design if you ask me. Why make an unreliable attack that ALSO makes you play the dice as to how much such an useless attack will absorb your total ammo? Not to mention, the explosives are unreliable since there is a chance that they will simple bounce away from the enemy, as result wasting over 100 ammo and kill none. At this point you better use like, you know, Frost Shard's primary for example, that doesn't waste all your ammo in instant and actually guaranteed to make your job well done.

eharper256 wrote:Originally it charged a flat rate; and you could end up with nothing for your money, or indeed, a huge swath of destruction on the cheap.

Also, a weapon of supposed "area denial" that has chance of showing you middle finger instead is not a very reliable weapon to use for that matter, which only further proves my point that Bloodscourge is absolutely not worth using. Like, at all.

eharper256 wrote:It looks entertaining, and again, its had alot of positive feedback so I thought it was okay; that said I do kind of agree I didn't use it much myself in my playthroughs.

It's not really entertaining seeing your ultimate weapon flip a bird in your face and wasting crapton of ammo mere of some stupid and boring, unoriginal bouncing explosives that aren't very reliable or deadly to begin with. These who gave that feedback either masochists, or actually hate the Mage.

eharper256 wrote:

They aren't that great defense tool as they keep spinning behind your back and basically become unused for a while

Keep in mind that even behind your back, they track enemies in a 160 degree (or so) arc in front of them, always facing outwards from you, so they can and will engage stuff sneaking up on you, which is the primary purpose of that. Its very reliable when you're surrounded by enemies.

I am well aware about their "cover of the back", that doesn't change the fact that they are simple too situational and absolutely unworthy to be used for their price. My point still stand that they are unreliable in the times of need as they keep spinning based on timer, so when the enemy that pop up infront of your, or your back, the said drone might be located in a position where it simply can't shoot it in the times of need; so it's indeed not reliable and not something you can depend on as it's another play of the dice. Besides, there is no better weapon to deal with surrounded enemies than logic, common sense and reason, which would prevent you from being surrounded by enemies to begin with.

It's just too fancy useless extra feature that would have been neat to have it as an free exta abilities of many, provided the Mage would have crapton of all sort of different neat skills, abilities and attacks; but NOT as an attack of your ultimate weapon, especially for such price and such small longevity. MAYBE if mage actually had regen of his ammo\mana, and MAYBE if there been better attacks to use, this one extra fancy little bonus addon would have some reason to use it maybe a few times for diversity\multeity purpose. Definitely none of these attacks that you'd use for their usage or "usefulness".

eharper256 wrote:

Literally a single shot of cleric's ultimate, and Heresiarch is a history

This reminds me that I need to give the Heresiarch and Korax a few buffs (lol).

That doesn't change the fact that cleric's ultimate weapon is overpowered. Besides, you could give million, or even billion of HP to either Heresiarch or Korax, and you'd still oneshot these with cleric's overpowered ultimate weapon; you'd just make the fight against these monsters a real annoyance for the rest of classes since they don't posses such oneshot powerfulness. While I'm not advocating for it's nerf, I just want the Bloodscourge to be as good and not as useless.

eharper256 wrote:

Same for cleric mace, the second attack have HUGE aoe radius, it's like mininuke, and it push everyone away from you. The radius is so big, that hitting walls, or even floor, often kills afrits that are in the sky and otherwise you won't able to hit them with normal melee attack.

The Secondary Mace attack is being reviewed in the future. I meant it as an occasional 'get away from me' tool, but its still inherently abusable even though I've nerfed it several times.

Eh... Don't feel like nerfing it. I mean, it's overpowered, but we like it for it's being overpowered. Besides, the damage is not that high, so it still takes a few floor punches to make sure it kills all of the flying afrits in the vision. For 1vs1 engagement, W+M1 works better though.

eharper256 wrote:

Even if you find most of my opinions and arguments as garbage, any chance would you allow to use your weapon sprites, pretty please? Of course crediting you. Maybe one day I'd like to use them for my version of mage, and it's the only arc of death weapon sprite that I find pretty awesome while seemingly ready to do some "ulimited power" havoc.

I've already given someone else permission to use it, so carry on, so long as you credit "its by eharper256, originally from Hexen: Walpurgis", that's fine. Same with any of my code, sprites, or work. [/size]

That's good to know, thanks!

eharper256 wrote:Speaking of alternate options for Bloodscourge; it did remind me that I made this in the concept stage:

As usual; image transparency gets completely fooked up by this forum; if you click on it, it'll work fine.

A very lovecraftian tome, based on Neoworms excellent tome model. I avoided this eventually as it would likely be some kind of void/gate/dimensional attack, and I didn't want to overlap with Crux Calicus.

Wow, that looks awesome! I'd love to have it at least just for the amazingly looking violet-glowing hand at left. If it could create something like black holes, reality distortion and whatnot that would clean whole map of enemies, that definitely would work better than lame Bloodscourge.

Anyway, in case you're bored of this very long wait between my messages, any chance you have discord channel, or any other device\programm where we can chat in real time? That would make conversation far easier and won't flood the forum with such long messages. Not that I have anything against them anyway, but I'd just like to talk with your privately in real time about all other stuff, if you'd like.

Always pick Archamage (difficulty 5) in the HeXen, given that in this game you won't get an infinitely respawning monsters. That's the only difficulty worth playing, including it's DLC.

Nah, I like being a filthy casual. That would just piss me off and I'd never play the game again.

I'm a person who doesn't play games for challenges; I don't think I've ever played difficulty 5 on any Doom game at any point. HMP/ Skill 3 is my go-to at most, and usually its HNTR (2) on a first run of a level. I still die every so often on these settings.

I get very frustrated with modern Doom level design, actually, because its very high skill level. And these young gamers who enjoy this achievement malarky. And people who go 'this is the only level worth playing'. Why? To me, that's like masochism. I play games to relax, so I just want to win and get on with another one. My favourite kind of game lets me play suboptimal builds and piss around a bit along with occasional spikes of challenge to make me sit up once in a while. Avoiding hassle is my life mantra. Ambition is a scourge. We're very likely opposite types of people in that regard, eh?

As a result, I'll probably never get it balanced to be optimal on a high setting, because I'd never be able to playtest that much. Everything I made in Walpurgis was made because I thought 'I like this in HexArcana, but what if it also did this? Wouldn't that be cool!?'.

Why make an unreliable attack that ALSO makes you play the dice as to how much such an useless attack will absorb your total ammo?

Which answers this. Because its cool. Bouncing Betty skull bomb throwing napalm everywhere!? Cool! Guardian Blood Shurikens that fire at enemies attacking you? Cool. Vortexes, Fire blasts, and going full lightning hose emperor are all there, because its cool. The same reason you watch a Michael Bay movie. It might be crap, but its cool.

eharper256 wrote:

Always pick Archamage (difficulty 5) in the HeXen, given that in this game you won't get an infinitely respawning monsters. That's the only difficulty worth playing, including it's DLC.

Nah, I like being a filthy casual. That would just piss me off and I'd never play the game again.

I'm a person who doesn't play games for challenges; I don't think I've ever played difficulty 5 on any Doom game at any point. HMP/ Skill 3 is my go-to at most, and usually its HNTR (2) on a first run of a level. I still die every so often on these settings.

I get very frustrated with modern Doom level design, actually, because its very high skill level. And these young gamers who enjoy this achievement malarky. And people who go 'this is the only level worth playing'. Why? To me, that's like masochism. I play games to relax, so I just want to win and get on with another one. My favourite kind of game lets me play suboptimal builds and piss around a bit along with occasional spikes of challenge to make me sit up once in a while. Avoiding hassle is my life mantra. Ambition is a scourge. We're very likely opposite types of people in that regard, eh?

Come on, the game is VERY easy when it's compared to the rest of games on doom engine. It's more of a walker, adventure game of switch hunting and exploration than shooting for the most part. There are only two places which seems to be impossible to avoid damage, and one is overlook by map designers since it impossible to avoid fall damage, unless you waste Dark Servant like I did, and the other either require a godlike tier skills or TAS, since the wendigo trap doesn't give you any room for dodge. Other than that, just keep distance, play smart, take one enemy at the time and you'd be good.

Comparing Archmage difficulty to nightmare is silly, since HeXen doesn't have respawning enemies. Heretic seem to have neither, but that game is pretty easy on it's own too. Not to mention that HeXen doesn't have asshole hitscan monsters or super tanky beasts like in doom, and all enemies are relatively basic and easy to learn to deal with. The fifth difficulty at least gives some depth to HeXen, so the monsters aren't just your basic "please shoot me" walking training shooting targets. Besides, I didn't get any warning to not play on the difficulty above the third one to experience the best out of balance in your mod, either.

It's very terrible design choice to balance games around 'n00b' tier play, as result these will be unfair, unfun and unbalanced at higher level play. Both cleric and fighter are easy walkers at these difficulties without much of risk of dying, and the Mage, as usual, the only class who struggle. Besides, you were the one who first said that there isn't much "difficulty" playing the Mage, and there is damn right there if you play on difficulty that the HeXen games are meant to be played, by the devs. It's unfair to make Mage remain to be the worst of all classes just because he isn't "difficult" on a difficulty level that barely meant to be difficult to begin with.

eharper256 wrote:As a result, I'll probably never get it balanced to be optimal on a high setting, because I'd never be able to playtest that much. Everything I made in Walpurgis was made because I thought 'I like this in HexArcana, but what if it also did this? Wouldn't that be cool!?'.

You being "filthy scrub" or not, the balance is still a balance. And I was doing my hardest to test all of the weapons to grab as much data and solid experience from actual gameplay to give you my honest opinion in the most objectively elaborated way possible. That is, if you of course care about balance to begin with. If the Mage in it's current form is the worst class on hardest difficulty, that doesn't make him any better on the easier difficulty; he'll just be easier to play while the rest of the classes will be even more easier and brutal to play. I'm kinda upset that you skipped my most notes I made and suggested to you to improve the class to make him to be on the part with the rest.

eharper256 wrote:

Why make an unreliable attack that ALSO makes you play the dice as to how much such an useless attack will absorb your total ammo?

Which answers this. Because its cool. Bouncing Betty skull bomb throwing napalm everywhere!? Cool! Guardian Blood Shurikens that fire at enemies attacking you? Cool. Vortexes, Fire blasts, and going full lightning hose emperor are all there, because its cool. The same reason you watch a Michael Bay movie. It might be crap, but its cool.

But then again, that second attack of Bloodscourge is not cool, it's not fun, it's not original, it's not complicated and with given stats it's about as "entertaining" as opening a swollen jar after 50 years of conserved ancient shit and piss. It's just frustrating and annoying seeing an attack giving an a completely random result instead of doing something consistent and reliable, and it's literally insulting when you compare this ultimate weapon to the ultimate weapons of other classes. I simple can't comprehend what kind of mindset one has to have to enjoy having the long awaited weapon doing nothing by flip a bird in your face, this one degree of masochism I really don't want to deal with. I'm just trying to be objective.

You say you were trying to copy many of things from HexArcana because you find them cool\like them. Well, why not just copy the second attack of Bloodscourge from HexArcana to your mod then? At least it doesn't suck, isn't random and unreliable, and actually fun. Both big meteor that cleans the whole map or the swarm of homing fireballs, both would work well for your mod.

I'm sorry if I was too critical of your mod and unintentionally insult it, just tried to describe the flaws it have and wished it all the best to be improved.

Great mod.

Btw, is it intentional that the Magister's ice pillars turn invisible shortly after they're summoned?

The thing doesn't quite work right with Kinsie's Doom test map: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=57221

AvzinElkein wrote:The thing doesn't quite work right with Kinsie's Doom test map: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=57221

Sorry, what thing doesn't work? I just tried Kinsies map and its fine?

That said, if you want to test the more specialised Walpurgis features, I'd recommend using my test map:

eharper256 wrote:Oh, and here's my Test-Map, which is a modified version of HexArcana's:
https://mega.nz/#!8B1FAZAC!_1BV9jX-Gdca ... MGvwHpslyk
Figured that some may like to be able to have access to it to easily test the weapons before they start play. And you know, having a place to just freely slaughter Ettins with Quietus for fun. I do just that sometimes. [/size]

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MooKing wrote:Great mod.

Btw, is it intentional that the Magister's ice pillars turn invisible shortly after they're summoned?

Thanks! No it isn't, I'm not sure how that happened... I must have broke it at some point. Will fix that, thanks for the report!

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I'm sorry if I was too critical of your mod and unintentionally insult it, just tried to describe the flaws it have and wished it all the best to be improved.

Look man; this is getting nuts. I cannot be insulted in anything, and I appreciate the feedback, I'm just getting a little tired of the same topic. I really get it; I will look at the Magister- I've already proposed the changes I'm thinking about. In fact, I've already added some behaviour changes to Fulgur yesterday.

Come on, the game is VERY easy when it's compared to the rest of games on doom engine.

My last post is entirely serious as well. I wouldn't know, because I wouldn't try it. I will make balance suggestions based on what others say. But you must, MUST remember that at the end of the day, I'm making a mod that I want to play. Modders aren't professionals and I'm not obligated to change anything. In fact, professional devs shouldn't either, they should follow their vision.

But then again, that second attack of Bloodscourge is not cool

But it is. Again, I get it, you don't find it fun if its not helping your game get won, but I find it hilarious just to watch explosives bounce around the map, regardless of effectiveness, regardless of whether it fucks me over and I die and fail. I can look at it and go 'look at this cool effect I made!'. There is childish glee there; and I'm a big, old kid at heart.

I was referring to only the first piece of the final weapon spawning on Kinsie's test map (The Doom and Heretic ones, not the Hexen one).