For Total Conversions and projects that don't otherwise fall under the other categories.
Forum rules
The Projects forums are only for projects. If you are asking questions about a project, either find that project's thread, or start a thread in the General section instead.
Now that the DRD link has been "stealthly updated" as well, there is no more working version...
Can anyone confirm that this version is really bug free and can be launched with a fresh copy of offical GZDoom 1.6.0, or also the latest SVN version, without getting the "actor postprocessing" error?
I can hardly believe it. I can't get it to work no matter what I try.
Fixed and will update soon (pretty sure it didn't used to hang with class errors like that), once I've finished playing around with the new class. (I've improved the weapons, but I'm not sure if I can get some form of stealth to work)
Like I said, just forget about stealth. It is not your fault that the original Hexen creators made no special abilities for each player class. And you sure as hell should not feel obliged (?) to fix that. SR is a fantastic mod as it is, and such complicated new functionality would only add some bugs.
Couldn't really make it work...the best I could come up with was using different A_LookEx calls to change hearing distance, but it's so inconsistent given the difference in size/openness of the maps (ie. a tiny hearing distance would be silly on the big landscape maps etc.) and the actual opportunities to sneak up on a mob are quite limited anyway.
DRD links updated (with fixes and weapon improvements), idgames soon.
Great main game, and a system also useable with vanilla Hexen maps!
Love the Hearthstone! I could use something like that in my own work.
Poison dagger that needs dipping: Ingenious!
caco_killer wrote:Starting with the Ice Fields, the sound in the game has been going out of sync. I'm using GZDoom 1.6.0 (r1482).
increase the amount of sound channels on the slider in the Sounds option menu. that should do the trick, assuming your sound card can handle increasing it.
Where is the "lost key" for the Lost Temple? I'm going through the Palace right now and I haven't come across it yet. I also have a ton of potion ingredients I haven't been able to use, either.
Here is a Review update on personal likes/dislikes, and a bug report for the newest update.
Your welcome.
|
|
|
V
The Rogue Class is a very nice touch. I like how the classes are now balanced out between the 3 original classes. But sadly, there are still things to be desired about this class which I will explain in detail. First thing, is that the dagger is, I suppose, bugged. Since now there are 2 daggers within the rogue's inventory. After dipping the dagger in poison, the game makes a 2nd weapon, which is the poisoned dagger. But now, I have a permanent 2nd dagger in the inventory. Also this bug can be exploited. After the 1st dagger is finished with poison, the 2nd dagger remains poisoned as well and can be used in the same way. Dipping the 1st dagger in poison, makes the 2nd dagger poisoned as well. This shouldnt happen I am supposing. If this was intentional, I have to say that only 1 dagger is enough. Also, when switching through weapons using the Previous/Next weapon buttons, the previous button re-poisons the blade, and that shouldnt happen when scrolling through weapons. That just wastes poison vials when tryin to scroll to another previous weapons.
2nd thing about the rogue, is that Dextarity is still a very undesirable stat and still completely useless to my character. The higher jumping is nice, but when the rogue is made fresh in a new game, thats all the dextarity I'll ever need to make it through the game with no points from leveling added to my dextarity. Even playing the Mage with no dextarity points to him, I can still play easy with him. Not to mention Jump Boots make Dextarity useless as well; just pointing that out. Now because this is a rogue we are talking about, how about making Dexarity special for the rogue, like how Sorcory is special to the Mage? Dextarity should improve the rogue's weapon swings, making her faster in swinging the dagger. This also makes using the Dipped Dagger much more desirable for those close combat situations and can save mana more effectively. Because the rogue is not a caster (and really shouldnt be at all), this makes dextarity a very appealing asset to use. Dagger + Poison Vial is an extremely nice addition. Dont waste that good idea, improve upon it with faster weapon swings by Dextarity.
3rd thing about the rogue, is that the Flame Cannon and that Electric Staff thing, is...very unappealing. This is a rogue, and cannons go boom. Why would a rogue want a weapon of choice with a cannon and electric staff that looks egyptian? It really doesnt make sense as a rogue to use such weapons. The Poison staff does sound decently appealing, I wont say thats its bad or good. Its a bit in the middle. Now, I really think the Flame Cannon and the Electric Staff should be taken out. I have a few Suggestions as to what the rogue could use in replacement. See Below:
Electric Chakram (Replaces Flame Cannon) - This electric weapon is thrown at a distance, and shocks the enemy. In the process, the Chakram stops the enemie in it's tracks as its eletricuted.
Flaming Katars (Replaces Eletric Staff) - These enchanted Katars are engolfed in super heated flames. When the Rogue swings, a wave of flame engulfs the enemy taking Damage over time, stacking like Poison. (Range of weapon is that of the Mage's Fingers of Frost.)
Those are some examples I have in suggestion to replace the 2 unessisary "Caster-like" weapons you got now with the rogue.
Those are all the issues I see at the time with the rogue. After spending some time taking notes, I do not see any other problems yet. I will keep running every difficulty with the rogue to make sure there are no other bugs within the rest of the game through the higher difficulties.
As of that, I end this report and will continue to contribute as much data as I possibly can. I want to see this game get much much better, and continue to stay a memorable game throughout doom wad history.
Thanks for the comments, it's always interesting to hear them given how complex the mod is. (especially given the amount of time I spent balancing everything in the game )
Dagger
The reason for having a copy of the dagger is so you can re-apply the poison without switching to another weapon first (much quicker), and to ensure you can still re-apply the poison if you have no ammo left for any other weapons (as you wouldn't be able to switch to anything else). The scrolling issue I didn't see at all, as I use 1-7 for weapon selection (where it all works fine), and I did design it around that method of selecting weapons. (which was probably a mistake I dunno, but fixing that without breaking it's current implementation I'm not sure can be done)
Dexterity
It does make a difference later on in the game if you have a lot of points in it, as you can dodge and run away from faster shots, as well as jump over mobs. It isn't essential ofc, but it does lead to a different playstyle...as does putting a lot of points in sorcery when playing a mage, but like with assassin dexterity this only really becomes noticeable when you have something like 30+ points in. (btw the jump boots will always take you higher than you can jump normally, even if you had 40 points in dexterity)
The reason why weapon speed isn't affected is because the duration of each frame is what determines the speed (this is true for all weapons in Doom engine games), meaning there's only a small range of speeds available - in fact for the dagger there's only one speed increase available because the frames are already set at 2 tics each. Korax Mod does improve weapon speed with dexterity, but you only get a speed increase every few points you put in (due to this limitation) which isn't a good way to improve a skill IMO, so I didn't include it in Serpent. (I designed it so that every skill point is worth something, instead of every 5th or 10th point being worth a lot and the rest being worthless)
Weapons
I based this on the Hexen 2 assassin (which is what the character is inspired by) where all the weapons are mundane apart from the big ones (hence the use of staff-type weapons for slot 4 and 7). The flame cannon is so called because it uses the hellforge cannon sprites and is meant to bear some relation to the hand cannon, in terms of it being a kind of gun. (so she has a dagger, a crossbow, incendiaries and two guns...the two staffs are the kind of powerful magic weapons that fantasy heroes look for, even the magic-hating warrior types )
Where is the "lost key" for the Lost Temple? I'm going through the Palace right now and I haven't come across it yet. I also have a ton of potion ingredients I haven't been able to use, either.
Spoiler:
The lost key is in the mountain pass, locked in a hut like the castle key was...the icy cave is the place to start. The potion ingredients are used in the monastery area where you found them, all I can say here is go back and read in the libraries
I have been playing Serpent Resurrection for quite some time now, and I find it to be an incredible, very fun mod. It has really high quality levels and in my opinion it is even worthy of being an unofficial HeXen 3 due to how it continues the story. The things you have done with the level structure and progression add up to a terrific experience that builds upon and enhances greatly over the core HeXen gameplay; the way you use the puzzles in the game and hide the stuff necessary in such a way that exploration and thought are a must makes solving them and finding the pieces highly satisfying. The maps themselves add a lot to this as well, being large as they are they are really entertaining to explore and some make for some rather terrific sights, particularly towards the later levels.
As for the characters, I think you did a pretty good job at making all of them fun to play one way or another, each with his and her own strategies and tricks for surviving. While Sallazar is my favorite character (and the inspiration for my forum name lol), I also quite like Quinefer, she is a very fun and interesting character and she fits pretty well with the rest of the cast. A small complain I have regarding her however, and I do mean small, merely cosmetic, is that her sprite is in my opinion rather bland. I mean, Anvar, Braxus and Sallazar look like properly fantastic fellas, to me Quinefer looks kind of plain and uninteresting. Of course as I said this is merely cosmetic and well you don't spend time looking at her when playing anyhow. Gameplaywise she is very entertaining, I especially like her fifth weapon, feels to me like the best 5th in the game, and her 4th and 7th are awesome.
A rather troublesome situation I find however is with Anvar. He is a very cool character to play and feels much more fluid after the latest update, however towards the later levels he still feels very underpowered. Maybe it's my own fault and playstyle, but since most enemies towards the end are ranged attackers and he's pretty much a melee fighter, it gets very difficult to hit anything at all. Even his ranged weapons feel weak compared to the other classes, for instance
Spoiler:
the Hammer of Retribution while dealing a very decent damage fires a slow projectile, by the time it connects the enemy has already fled. The Magic Claw while good for crowd control can't quite engage in long distance or aerial combat, particularly against Reivers, Dark Bishops or Blood imps towards the castle and the Trident of the Sea God is a medium range weapon, not long range. In the end this leaves him with either the Purifier or Quietus to deal with those pesky fliers and both these weapons eat mana like popcorn so it gets rather difficult as I said.
If I may offer a suggestion about this, how about a "net" type item that allows you to "catch" flying enemies and lower them to the ground? Just an idea, but in my opinion it could make things much easier when playing as Anvar and would also allow Braxus to make better use of his mace later on.
Braxus feels quite balanced in this version; while the health drain from the Serpent Staff is certainly something you miss, indeed it is overpowered, though it might be good for him to have an active healing ability, after all he is a cleric. Again another suggestion if I may; while I don't know whether you'll keep development on Serpent Resurrection, if you are, then maybe you would consider giving the characters a special ability? Sallazar is fine as he is, with his infinite spells, but for example, Braxus could heal X points of health according to how much MP he spends, and Anvar could increase his damage input for X time according to MP, and Quinefer become invisible for X time. Something along those lines to make each character more unique. I mean, Sallazar feels very different to the rest due to having infinite spells and that is his best trait, but the other classes seem like in a way they "miss" that special something.
In any case, even without those things I mentioned the game is incredible and lots of fun, and characters do feel balanced and unique in their own; this has been one of the HeXen mods I have enjoyed the most, and I find it to be an excellent work and a masterpiece of modding.
If I might so inquire however, do you plan on producing a sequel for it? It would be very cool to explore the Darklands and see how does the war go on, maybe find out who sent Profien to Hydratyr, I don't know. I would really like to see this getting a sequel however, it has a great story on its own, and even though the Serpent Riders are goners, I think it still has potential to grow.
EDIT:
Something I forgot to ask; I don't know if this has been asked before, pardon me for asking again if it has, but would it be possible that you released this mod as a Map Pack, just as you did the RPG system? I wonder this because well, your maps are excellent and they truly show the potential for adventure HeXen can give, and there are some truly wonderful mods being developed for it, such as Brutal HeXen, and sadly many seem to lose steam due to the fact that many players seem to think that the original HeXen maps are boring. To be fair, after playing Serpent Resurrection, vanilla maps feel quite small and lacking, but still, the Heretic/HeXen series is a great series of games that in my opinion don't get nowhere near enough attention as they should, so it gladdens me whenever an incredible mod such as Shadowcaster and Serpent comes out for them. So yeah, again your maps are all incredible and very fun to play, and I think they would make a very good incentive for players to pay more attention and give HeXen the love it should receive.
In any case, thank you for the hours of fun and (good freaking) frustration given through Serpent Resurrection, it truly is a one-of-its-kind experience.
I just started playing this mod and it looks great so far. Anything that adds RPG elements to classic Doom engine games automatically earns my respect.
I did run into a problem though. The first map, Lystern Harbor, runs fine with only a few minor hiccups and glitches. (Since I mentioned it, the glitch occurs if you push the switch to re-enter the underground passage immediately after gaining control of your character. It's very easy to get permanently stuck between the bottom stair and the invisible wall when the stairs rise back up, forcing you to reload the game.)
The major problem, which renders the wad nearly unplayable, is that I get a huge drop in framerate during the ocean voyage. It plummets to 1-2 FPS and makes it hard to move around, not to mention shoot down the Fog Wyvern. When I arrive on the island, it improves somewhat, but the wide-open spaces that comprise most of the map still cause noticeable lag. I've tried tweaking every configuration option I could think of, from disabling dynamic lighting, to disabling textures, to reducing the screen resolution, and nothing works.
I'm running it on a fairly old system, but it's never had problems with JDoom or ZDoom on any of the classic Doom / Heretic / Hexen maps, even with all the graphics options turned on. Has anyone else run into this, and do you know of a solution?
From my own experiences, the game/mod appears to be extremely cpu intensive for one reason or another. By switching from a P4 to an i3 motherboard a couple of months ago, my framerate went from similar choppiness to an almost constant 50+ fps. With the scale of the maps and script complexity, you can't really expect serpent to run as well as the vanilla games and maps.
The only advice I can really give beyond the obvious is enabling godmode while on that part of the island and skipping over the voyage with the console. The other maps are generally more playable.
All right, thanks. I was reluctant to skip the voyage since killing the Fog Wyvern gives you ~1000 exp, and I can't use God Mode because I usually play Hexen on the hardest difficulty. I suppose I'll have to do those though if I want to see the rest of this mod.
Does ZDoom happen to have an option to limit visibility / rendering distance so that it doesn't try to draw the entire map at once? In games that have this, it simply fogs out the part that isn't rendered. I wouldn't mind that as long as it made the framerate playable. Otherwise, does it have an option to set a minimum desired framerate?
)
