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Hello. The Drake Raider is here again. Just threw together a mod I wanted to make, that made Heretic faster paced. So far I've changed every enemy and weapon found in the first episode. Uploading it because I figured other people might like it.
New version out today, weird version number. I'll explain later.
It's a rather massive overhaul version. The following changes are finished, for the most part.
1) All weapons are more balanced. Cool but impractical weapons such as the Crossbow are useful now, and the Phoenix Rod has it's own behaviour implemented.
2) The Green Mana system I mentioned has been implemented. It's not fully balanced yet, I'd like feedback for fine tuning. However, as long as you have green mana, your non-tomed attacks are more powerful overall, for varying reasons. If the projectile isn't changed in some way, the weapon fires faster. Nonetheless, everything's been tweaked. Weapons have reached a level almost at Rocket Tag Gameplay now, and would be overpowered were it not for...
3) Enemies have also been redone. Gargoyles spawn in groups of 1-8 now, instead of a consistent 4. Golems have three different idle states which they choose randomly, each behaving differently, adding more variety to playthroughs. Ghosts and Wizards can stealth and teleport. Iron Liches can summon more types of enemies. Ophidians can resurrect each other.
4) Inventory items have been added. Well, a couple, anyway. That's why this isn't just 4.0, there's enough changes to justify it. I'll update the number when I finish the Artifacts. So far I've tweaked
-Timebomb is thrown now, and has a completely different explosion with shrapnel.
-Morph Ovum has completely new behaviour reliant on the new Blue Mana. Basically, when you have more than 1, you throw it as a bomb, but when it's down to your only one, it's more of a firing weapon. Try it out!
-Tome of Power can be toggled on and off, and only one copy can be carried. The others serve as mana pickups. I haven't finished this weapon, as I hope to implement a mana drain whilst active. I have yet to figure out how, though.
Anyway, both you and monsters tend to die really quickly. This leads to a really bizarre difficulty curve, where the early areas are fairly easy, but the late game is stupidly difficult. Not that I personally have a problem with that, I'm a huge fan of nintendo hard gameplay. Especially when Wizards, Ironlichs, and Ophidians take main stage, all three of which can resurrect monsters, making late game really chaotic. It's my kind of masochism.
Anyway, anyway is turning into a verbal tic for me, it seems. However, if anyone has a desire to test some deathmatch, HMU on steam, my name's "Ratt". I wanna see how the weapons flow in multiplayer. Screenshots will be updated sometime tomorrow.
Goals:
Object-Goal/Progress
Enemies
Gargoyle-Nothing visible until aggro'd, summons a swarm of four imps when alerted, but out of sight of player. Smaller and weaker than normal.
Fire Gargoyle-A larger than normal gargoyle that throws arcing fireballs, and summons swarms of the smaller variant while hunting.
Golem-Still and grey until approached. Breaks off grey layer when triggered, has a charge attack, is resurrectable.
Golem Ghost-Teleports, wanders around invisible until aggro'd, not grey./needs invisibility
Nitrogolem-Same as golem, but has a ranged attack where he fires three flaming skulls, and leaves a flame trail when charging. Orbited by flares that deal splash damage./needs flares
Nitrogolem Ghost-Golem Ghost+Nitrogolem, natch./Needs invisibility, flares.
Undead Warrior-Corpse until aggro'd. Throws two variants of axes, either a pair of green magic homing axes or a single bloody ripping one. Can be resurrected
Undead Warrior Ghost-Invisible until aggro'd, teleports./Needs teleport, invisibility
Disciple of Dsparill-Fires multiple variants of burst of magic spheres, fires off a shockwave when wounded and near death, or at the end of a combo. Resurrects enemies, can be resurrected, can teleport./Teleport
Ironlich-Can resurrect enemies, more destructive attacks, gets stronger when wounded, can shockwave when near death.
Weredragon-Has a human form that hits like a truck in melee, and leaves a flame trail. (Beastiary courtesy) Turns into beast when near death. Beast form spouts larger fountains of flame, and can ignite when hurt. Can be resurrected
Sabreclaw-Has a variety of slashes, and a charge attack. Counters when in pain. Explodes in death.
Maulotaur-Leaves flame trails when charging, has new attacks, is more durable, gets more dangerous when wounded.
Ophidian-Projectiles home or rip, fires them like a machinegunner, more aggressive.
Dsparill-Wide variety of lightning attacks. Uses a few when riding serpent in addition to the breath, has the ignition of weredragons while riding. Gains a larger variety of lightning attacks when serpent is killed. More durable, aggressive.
Weapons(Powered Mode)
Staff-Projectile based thrust rather than hitscan.(")
Gauntlets-Can resurrect dead foes to help, otherwise shocks targets(Four resurrection spirits at once)
Wand-Fires rippers(Fires homing rippers)
Ethereal Crossbow-IDFK. I don't know how this weapon works. King Crimson. I just made it cool. Sorry. I use it, and it's natural, and I look at the code, and it makes an instinctive sense, but it kinda just happened. Can be chained or burst, I guess, for varying effect.(More shots?)
Dragon Claw-Slightly homing beam darts. (Heavy exploding ripping shot)
Phoenix Rod-I haven't changed this, apparently. Going by code anyway. I thought I had. I'll think of something cool.
Hellstaff-Shots leave damaging trails. (rain lasts a long time, covers more area.)
Firemace-Shots bounce more, rip. (Original)
Artifacts haven't been touched, and my goals are a bit more lofty, as I wanna work a mana system in which I don't know how to do fully when it comes to interaction with them. Toggle artifacts won't be consumed by use and effects last until the end of a level. Repeats only give mana.
Thusly:
Green mana: Dropped by Knights, Nitrogolem, Weredragon, Maulotaur, as crystals, also given when weapons are found. Weapons are slightly more effective/aggressive when you have it, it costs 1 green mana a shot of any weapon.
Blue mana: Dropped by Disciples, Ironlich, as crystals, given when mana consuming artifacts are found.
Timebomb:
Can be dropped at your feet or thrown long distance. Has a longer timer, but proximity detonation and shrapnel. Never effected by gravity.
Torch:
Can be carried or placed as a lightsource/diversion for enemy attacks/wanderings.
Flask:
Heals 25/can be thrown to heal 25 on target. Damages ghosts, undead knight, ironlich, D'sparil in splash damage, heals all else.
Urn:
Always used four 100 automatically when out of health. When used manually, explodes and heals everything for 50 in a large radius, same rules apply as flask.
Morph Ovum: Can't use last one. When only one remains, fires a single morph shot for 5 blue mana. 3sec cooldown. When more than one remains, can be thrown as a grenade, firing a transforming shockwave 360 degrees.
Chaos Device: Triggers automatically on death, or manually. Can be thrown to trigger on enemy similar to Banishment Device from heXen.
Wings of Wrath:
Drains 1 blue mana a second when active, costs 10 to trigger, not consumed by use, costs 2 blue mana when jumping while active. Player suffers low gravity, not none.
Tome of Power:
Can be toggled on and off, Drains 1 blue mana a second when active, 1 mana a shot of any weapon, 15 to activate.
Shadowsphere:
True invisibility in multiplayer, player becomes mildly visible while attacking, similar to stealth monsters. Player is untargettable by homing attacks, monsters. When visible, fires an invisible drone that monsters target instead at player's speed and direction. Can be toggled on and off, costs 10 to activate, 1 a second when active, 4 to return to invisible after becoming visible.
Ring of Invincibility:
Can be toggled on and off, 15 to activate, 1 a second while active, 1 when hit by anything. Each continuous second of being hit drains an additional mana.
I lied. New version. I wanted to do some tweaks to bring back atmosphere. No changes to artifacts yet, but, while guns-blazing gameplay is still preferred, sneaking is now an option, as enemy LOS is greatly diminished. And there are some new behaviours to work with as well. I like exploring the world in ambience, only to get sprung upon by something unexpected.
Now the full second episode has new monster behaviour, with some new weapon changes. I have two weapons left to do (Pheonix Rod, Firemace), and two enemies (Ophidian, D'Sparil.)
Feedback would be appreciated. Still wondering about that multiplayer.
If you enjoy it, give me feedback. Kinda curious if it would work in multiplayer. No great ambitions here.
Last edited by Drake Raider on Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:31 am, edited 18 times in total.
The crossbow's method of fire is cool, as are the gargoyle spawning methods (there IS a 'dark gargoyle' tho you could have used as a sprite base), the Wizard (lich) 'NovaShot' is overpowered tho IMHO....
Ooh, this is good! Love the new gargoyles, the new projectiles on the wand and claw and the fact that fights don't seem to be a bullet-sponge-fest. Interesting effect with the dragon claw...
Now the full second episode has new monster behaviour, with some new weapon changes. I have two weapons left to do (Pheonix Rod, Firemace), and two enemies (Ophidian, D'Sparil.)
I will respond to all posts thusly:
Overpowered Nova Shot
-ShadesMaster: Much rarer. It's now part of the Wizard's ai pattern in the case of the Disciple, making it a manual attack that requires woundhealth, and made it nearly as rare in the Ironlich.
Dark Gargoyle Sprite
-ShadesMaster: After my fiasco with Bloodmoon and stolen sprites, I've been increasingly careful to use my own work whenever I can. The translation effect worked quite well, so I'm content with it. I don't want to wind up forgetting who to credit several sprites in again.... I was hopelessly lost there.
Tomes of Power
-Vaecrius: I have no idea. They appear fine for me. Unless you're referring to their effects, in which case I made new ones for each weapon.
Yo. Double posting, because that's acceptable. That said, I have a reason. I finished V3. All monsters and weapons should work correctly now. If some peeps could tell me what they thought, I'd be pretty psyched.
If I do another version, it'll be after I remaster all the artifacts. But no plans for it actually happening. I just get urges to play heretic alot, and tend to mod when I do. Again, the mod's more for me, but feedback would be appreciated.
EDIT:
I wonder what the progress is on Heretic++... I'd love to make this cross compatible, as the atmosphere is one of Heretic's stronger points, and I think I've hurt that a bit in my execution of this mod.
Are you sure you uploaded it correctly? .rar says that the format is damaged or something, I tried changing the extension to .wad and .pk3 but it did nothing when loaded in GZDoom. Am I missing something or is the .rar actually broken?
I lied. New version. I wanted to do some tweaks to bring back atmosphere. No changes to artifacts yet, but, while guns-blazing gameplay is still preferred, sneaking is now an option, as enemy LOS is greatly diminished. And there are some new behaviours to work with as well. I like exploring the world in ambience, only to get sprung upon by something unexpected.
