Specific issues you had with Hexen

[Ixnatifual]

I'll have to make some rough mock-ups to test the ideas, but it is sounding like making monsters drop loot and/or making monsters give XP would go a long way towards improving the combat.

How does that change the combat?

[zrrion the insect]

As it stands now, all of the monsters are simply "things that prevent the player from walking to the next thing" so when the player kills a monster they've removed an obstacle and their only reward is that the player has made walking to the next thing easier/possible. If killing a monster gives the player something besides ease of walking, the act is more rewarding. Monster loot/XP increases the player's control over the environment of the game.

In the case of dropping ammo, it makes the player potentially more able to kill the next monster because they have ammo for at least one weapon. In the case of XP it makes some aspect of the player/the player's weapons better, which makes the act of walking to the next thing/clearing the path so that the player can walk to the next thing a bit easier.

[SamVision]

The thing about the monsters being just obstacles can be applied to even Doom and Heretic. Instead of making monsters into hostile reward chests, you should focus on making the combat mechanics fun and satisfying so as to make the player actually want to kill the monsters. Once again I bring attention to Hexercise.

[zrrion the insect]

Yes, those are important as well, and they are also being addressed. I'll have to make a list of the things I've done for all of the weapons/offensive items/monsters to put up here so that I can get feedback on the concepts I've gone with. I think the interaction that would come with making the monsters into hostile reward chests on top of the changes I've already made would be several steps in the right direction.

[NeuralStunner]

I don't think that making it an RPG-lite is really the answer. If H2 is any indication, a levelling system is really pointless.

[DoomRater]

Hoewver, monsters do need to be fun to kill and that means not making it like the double Abobo fight in the NES Double Dragon game that takes forever... for normal monster encounters.

[Athel]

Hoewver, monsters do need to be fun to kill and that means not making it like the double Abobo fight in the NES Double Dragon game that takes forever... for normal monster encounters.

This. Enemies need to be interesting, to liven it up, not just dumb AI. The worst thing a mod --- no, a game--- developer can do is make the attacks of an enemy predictable. Then again, its hard to make it too unpredictable as well. Also, Hexen has that one issue with levels dragging way too long. I mean, 3 days to beat the second level on skill 1 is a bit too long.

Ok, enough of my mini rant. I got tons more, but I'll spare you

[SamVision]

Please rant as much as you want to and don't hold back, this thread is specifically for this purpose.

[zrrion the insect]

Yeah. I want to know everything people thought hexen did wrong so that I can make a gameplay mod that attempts to address those issues. Rant away.

Regarding predictable attacks, the cyberdemon is predictable and it is a great enemy. So it's not a simple matter of predictability I don't think.

[SamVision]

In Doom engine games, the threat of the enemies comes from the amount of damage they do, where you encounter them, how much health they have and how many hits they can take before going belly-up. Predictable AI is not really an issue here.

[Devianteist]

3 days to beat the second level on skill 1 is a bit too long.

It took you 3 days to beat the second hub on skill 1? Not to sound arrogant or condescending or anything like that, but what? It only took me the better half of an hour.

[Marinelol]

I think doom monsters get away because the majority of them aren't that tanky vs the ssg, rockets and plasma. ID pretty much made hell knights because they thought barons drag on the game way too much if many are used (I'd really rather shotgun several barons down than fight a couple of centaurs as cleric). Beside the fact the hexen monster's don't deal a lot of damage to even have a fear factor when you face them.

Since people are exchanging wads I think there is no harm in posting an old one I designed for gameplay just similar to your situation http://www.**LINK_DISABLED**.org/download?file= ... ed0.3b.pk3 . The whole goal of this wad was speeding up the gameplay of hexen while making it a bit more varied than (Meatshields everywhere). Infact the first thing I did was allow the player to shoot centaur's feet while their shields are up. You can either wait them to lower the shield or deal reduced damage.

The wad was stopped before I continued giving the classes new abilities so it might feel unfinsished .

[Ichor]

3 days to beat the second level on skill 1 is a bit too long.

It took you 3 days to beat the second hub on skill 1? Not to sound arrogant or condescending or anything like that, but what? It only took me the better half of an hour.

Maybe he had a lot of trouble finding a switch? Those switches are just as hard to find in skill 1 as it is in skill 5.

[SamVision]

Took me three days too, or rather roughly ten hours in total on my first try. I gave up on the game after the first half of the second hub. I later revisited the game after a few years and got through it with a walkthrough.

[PWAD Pete]

I find this all very surprising. I beat the whole game pretty quickly when I was about 4 or 5 years old. It definitely isn't the kind of game for people with no patience or attention span though. You get stuck somewhere for a bit and that's it. You should give the game more time, so that you can figure out what to do, and not give up so easily.