HereticArcana! (HexArcana V3.0)

[4page]

Technically it never was hitscan in the first place, so no, but the projectile fires fast enough that it shouldn't really matter too much. Also, here's the sprite sheet. http://i.imgur.com/FIYBDSI.png

[4page]

Long awaited by probably someone! Here's the newest version! DOOM!!!!! Rip and Tear with the best of them! All 4 beloved classes banded together to defeat the hordes of HELL!
Changes highlights!
Added some kickback to almost all the weapons, so that it doesn't feel so weird when you insta gib a zombieman and he just drops to the floor instead of flying across the room.
Flying Punch now gives a small amount of damage resistance while in the air so it's a bit less suicidal when trying to charge face first into a Cyberdemon missile.
Made the Axe's swing arc actually hit enemies in an area more reliably.
Changed the Warlock's Telekinesis visuals. Personally I think they're MUCH nicer now.
Made the Magister's arrows actually have proper collision detection. I noticed when shooting up on top of ledges they would act as if they hit the wall when they clearly should have missed. FIXED THAT.
FireStorm's primary tap now has a bit of range on it instead of just directly in front of the player.
Did the same thing for FireStorm's secondary that I did with the arrow.
FireBat's now fire significantly faster, but do a bit less damage, allowing you to coat an area in flames a bit easier.
ExtraPlanar Bats primary now shoots a series of shots similar to the secondary, but less powerful, shorter range, and much faster.

NOW PLAYABLE IN DOOM WITH MOST DOOM MODS AND MAPS. Might have some issues with mods or maps that replace weapons in zscript.

[eharper256]

Nice! Good job in figuring out Doom Compatibility! As you could probably tell, its not really hard work, just extra tedium for the most part. My toughest part was getting the HUD sorted; but you already had a custom one so I imagine that wasn't as much of a problem.

I will say, having played alot of Doom maps with Walp; entirely random Ult-Weapon piece generation can get very frustrating, though, you can almost guarantee you'll see what would have been 10 plasma guns and they're all the Blade of Quietus XD. Maybe its just RNGesus hating on me though. And there are alot (I mean alot) of maps that don't give away much in Blue Armour too frequently, so you might want to think about the Green Armour drops as well.

Now you just have to do it all over again for Heretic as well. XD

[4page]

For me it was testing it out to make sure that you wouldn't be completely overwhelmed with mana all the time, so it required a lot of play testing. I was considering making it so that instead of the pieces being random, they would spawn the next one sequentially if you have the pieces at the start of the map, so the earliest you could get it would be map 3. I originally was going to make rocket launcher, plasma gun, and BFG each spawn a different piece, but that didn't feel quite right. And you are correct about the blue armor, so I may deal with that in some way...

[MaxRideWizardLord]

Huh... good work on doom compatibility.

Although I didn't notice much of the changes toward Warlock. Feels exactly the same, just the cosmetics (sprites) are different.

I still strongly believe he needs a psychic/mind bar along with his blood bar. Something that Magister have with his stamina/strenght bar.

[JuliusKoolius]

So far this is a great mod! and I also think that Vesper’s Bat should show your hand or something when using its alt.

[4page]

MaxRideWizardLord: It basically is just the cosmetics, with some under the hood changes to make things just slightly more stable for the picking up enemies and throwing them. I decided against the psychic stamina bar because I wanted to keep the simplicity intact. I want to avoid my mod having complex systems that are used in individual cases, and I feel that would stand out a bit too much.

JuliusKoolius: I think that would be absolutely wonderful as well, but I'm limited to sprites I can find. I'm not a spriter myself, though I've done a little work here and there and created some unholy abominations of sprites, I don't think I could pull that one off. So unless you know somebody who'd be willing to help out with that, I'm afraid it's going to have to stay that way. It's also why the player sprite isn't actually seen carrying a Bat with him.

[MooKing]

In contrast with 2.0, I've noticed that the Warlock's shockball primary now causes the player splash damage when the orb itself detonates nearby.

Also, I've noticed that the bloodscourge secondary sometimes harms the player, but unlike the new shockball behavior, this only seems to happen sometimes, and only when playing Doom--I've yet to see the behavior reproduced in Hexen, but that may just be incidental.

[4page]

MooKing: You are correct about all of that. And none of that was intentional. I'll be sure to fix it. Thanks for pointing that out.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

MaxRideWizardLord: It basically is just the cosmetics, with some under the hood changes to make things just slightly more stable for the picking up enemies and throwing them. I decided against the psychic stamina bar because I wanted to keep the simplicity intact. I want to avoid my mod having complex systems that are used in individual cases, and I feel that would stand out a bit too much.

That's pretty saddens to hear, considering that attack which allows you to grab enemies is pretty fun to use even if just to mess around. Wasting 10 hp of a 50 hp class is a bit too much for having fun with an attack that isn't very powerful, too risky and too to gimmicky begin with. Can we please have cvar that disables the consumption of blood mana at least?

[4page]

I'd say wasting 10 hp is a bit of an excessive amount in some situations, especially if that was the only way to get the blood mana back, but that's why the monster flasks exist. The powered attacks are supposed to be in limited supply, because they are so powerful, so the only way to get the ability to use them is to either life tap for 10 hp or use the monster flasks. (If monster flasks aren't showing up it might be because you have Stamina disabled.) Though if you have the stamina disabled, then quartz flasks will spawn instead, and the 25 hp replacing the 20 hp from 2 life taps would give you more blood mana than just using one monster flask. And since the blood mana usage is balanced around using the monster flasks more than the life taps, I think it should be fine. The monster flasks are slightly less efficient because they are more convenient by comparison. Now, that said, I might be inclined to agree that the telekinesis enemy throwing is slightly underpowered for its cost. And I'd rather not have a cvar for disabling the blood mana, but I already have one for stamina, and though it'll break the balance of almost everything, it's better to have too many options than too few, I suppose.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

I'd say wasting 10 hp is a bit of an excessive amount in some situations, especially if that was the only way to get the blood mana back, but that's why the monster flasks exist. The powered attacks are supposed to be in limited supply, because they are so powerful, so the only way to get the ability to use them is to either life tap for 10 hp or use the monster flasks. (If monster flasks aren't showing up it might be because you have Stamina disabled.) Though if you have the stamina disabled, then quartz flasks will spawn instead, and the 25 hp replacing the 20 hp from 2 life taps would give you more blood mana than just using one monster flask. And since the blood mana usage is balanced around using the monster flasks more than the life taps, I think it should be fine. The monster flasks are slightly less efficient because they are more convenient by comparison. Now, that said, I might be inclined to agree that the telekinesis enemy throwing is slightly underpowered for its cost. And I'd rather not have a cvar for disabling the blood mana, but I already have one for stamina, and though it'll break the balance of almost everything, it's better to have too many options than too few, I suppose.

This is why I was specifically was saying that ability to grab enemies, while looks and feels really fun, are not worth sacrificing your life points. Sacrificing 10hp is a big deal for a class that is a 50hp glass cannon, that's 20% of your total hp pool and even that 20% would be significant enough to not get oneshotted by random chaos serpent. Relying on something as situational and RNG as monster flasks isn't reliable option, either. Most custom doom or hexen maps won't feature them, either. Being furiously addicted on the map's pickups isn't going to make the gameplay very fluid enjoyable, let alone stable and secure; the pickups meant to be a bonus, not necessity.

I was not specifically discussing the balance issue by itself, though, but if I'd have to say my experience regarding it, a straightforward combat of even non-powered attacks are overall more reliable AND deadly than ability to grab enemies with your telekinesis, while is more a fun gimmick that makes the Mage slightly more of a versatile and unique class. This is exact why I really feel this mod just begs to have Psychic bar, similar to how fighter and cleric have stamina. In case of Cleric, he have both have his specific mana AND stamina, I can't see why Mage can't have both blood bar and psychic bar. This will just make the class less lame and reliant on intentionally hurting\killing yourself just to get the fun telekinesis attacks, which IMHO isn't makes much sense to begin with.

To continue my through from previous paragraph, I do believe it's important for me to add serious caution that most map's pickups, especially on modern wads\mappacks\mods\whatever, are created by regulars for regular players (i.e. "pros"), and the pickup in these maps are meant to be mere little indulgence of the authors of these custom maps to replenish the health of player that committed mistakes which he could have avoided to begin with, just a little mercy to the player from the developer, therefore these are often at high scarcity, or completely lacking all together. It's important of a good game and map design is to make sure it's possible to avoid all of the damage if you actually learn the gamesense and overall mechanics of the game to be sure to build up enough skill which allows you to dodge\avoid all of the damage, thus forcing the player to rely on his own skill for survival, rather rely than handouts pickups and condescension of the map's designer.
But back to my core point of the argument is that relying on map pickups just to experience the game to the fullest, let alone rely on it as if it was the element of necessity in order just to progress further, is simply anti-fun and, indeed, very frustrating. Often is even impossible since author just doesn't care to add health pickups as he believes the player is skillful enough to never find them as the need.

While I know it's possible to beat majority of games and custom maps with just using your non-powered attacks, but where is the fun in that? And that's how I'm being forced to beat most of the maps\custom mods when I play Mage in DoomArcana. You're essentially missing out like 60-70% of the fun content that hide behind the blood-mana-powered attacks. I mean, the telekinesis ability is quite the fun of the attack that, for me personally, makes your mod worth playing; after all, what else mods that exist for doom that basically adds a fully functional Phys Cannon from half-life 2 which allows you not only grab enemies and move them around, but push enemies and damage enemies with enemies by throwing enemies and enemies. I don't even care that much about the rest of Mage's blood-powered attacks, I just want to have fun with telekinesis whenever I want, without intentionally killing myself for that, or praying that the next map will spawn these overrated monster flasks.

The fighter is immortal and unstoppable machine, the cleric is simply overpowered with both combat magic and healing abilities which also makes him almost immortal, why can't Mage have his own stronghold abilities and unique niche that doesn't necessarily will force him to sacrifice his life to use, or being too reliant on the map? Not to mention, mage is the slowest AND fragilest glass cannon that doesn't even get his unique abilities of self-defence like reflecting the incoming projectiles his way, and due to his slowest speed, he's is the hardest to dodge most attacks, especially homing ones or ambush. This brings backs me to the reason why I suggest to have psychic bar that could be used whenever mage uses telekinesis abilities, and have some kind of special ability that would function like disc of repulsion for the means of self-deference and necessity of survival.



What exactly would go wrong to have mere cvar that disables blood magic? After all, it's just a command line that would make blood magic limitless, and that would be specific console command that only these who are interested in it would know and use anyway. The cvar will simply serve as an option to have fun rather than care about balance, given that neither infinite ammo and infinite items built-in cvars of GZDoom do not affect the blood mana, unfortunately.

P.S. sorry if it happen to be a bit too big for what I thought would be a short reply.

[4page]

You know, you raise a lot of interesting points. I'll address your last one first, with the cvar. It's not that there's really any problem with it, it's simply an issue with myself. A creator's pride in his work is a weird thing. I saw a guy wanting to figure out a way to COMPLETELY remove all cheats and abilities to give the player weapons and stuff through the console because he had it in his mind that his mod needed to be played in a certain way and if people could cheat, they would and it would ruin the way the mod is supposed to work. So my hesitance to add a cvar to disable the Arcane Blood is a similar thing. I recognize that, though, so I will add the cvar, I'll just make sure to add a line in the options warning the player that it does completely ruin any semblance of balance.

With what you're saying about how the mage doesn't have any significant abilities to offset his low armor/health/speed other than the strength of his attacks, some of which depends on hurting himself in order to utilize it, makes me think I should attempt an overhaul like what I did with the Slayer. I'll need to significantly rework a lot of things, which is frustrating, but you're right. If nothing else, telekinesis should be something interesting and special.

As far as map makers not having any healing items in their maps, that isn't something I can really affect all that much, but I can try to mitigate it as much as possible. I'm taking systems meant for a completely different game and trying to shove them into a Doom mold and sometimes things don't fit quite right. I originally designed this mod around vanilla Hexen map spawns. I am aware now that vanilla Hexen maps are VERY liberal with healing items compared to a lot of other maps. And you have a point that if there aren't any healing items, you can't get the Arcane Blood as the Warlock, since monster flasks don't spawn, and you have nothing to offset the health drain from the life tap. However, I can't really think of any other way to do it... Other than maybe doing a mana conversion from blue/green mana to Arcane blood. But then that runs into an issue I wanted to avoid being that the powered attacks basically just cost more mana. I could replace a certain Doom ammo type exclusively with monster flasks... but then that wouldn't solve anything if that ammo type wasn't placed in the map either. I could make the Warlock regenerate it, like Vesper, but I'm not too sure about that. I could let the player get it back from damaging or killing enemies, like the Magister, but I do want to do something different, not just copy the idea.

But suffice to say, I like your points. I didn't want to do the psychic bar, so I could maintain consistency between all the Warlock's weapons, but you're right about it. I am not satisfied with what I have now, it feels inconsistent with itself somehow. I'll see what I can come up with, and if you have any other suggestions regarding his other weapons and/or abilities or ones you'd like to see, let me know. Thank you for bearing with me and explaining your point so well.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

You know, you raise a lot of interesting points. I'll address your last one first, with the cvar. It's not that there's really any problem with it, it's simply an issue with myself. A creator's pride in his work is a weird thing. I saw a guy wanting to figure out a way to COMPLETELY remove all cheats and abilities to give the player weapons and stuff through the console because he had it in his mind that his mod needed to be played in a certain way and if people could cheat, they would and it would ruin the way the mod is supposed to work. So my hesitance to add a cvar to disable the Arcane Blood is a similar thing. I recognize that, though, so I will add the cvar, I'll just make sure to add a line in the options warning the player that it does completely ruin any semblance of balance.

With what you're saying about how the mage doesn't have any significant abilities to offset his low armor/health/speed other than the strength of his attacks, some of which depends on hurting himself in order to utilize it, makes me think I should attempt an overhaul like what I did with the Slayer. I'll need to significantly rework a lot of things, which is frustrating, but you're right. If nothing else, telekinesis should be something interesting and special.

As far as map makers not having any healing items in their maps, that isn't something I can really affect all that much, but I can try to mitigate it as much as possible. I'm taking systems meant for a completely different game and trying to shove them into a Doom mold and sometimes things don't fit quite right. I originally designed this mod around vanilla Hexen map spawns. I am aware now that vanilla Hexen maps are VERY liberal with healing items compared to a lot of other maps. And you have a point that if there aren't any healing items, you can't get the Arcane Blood as the Warlock, since monster flasks don't spawn, and you have nothing to offset the health drain from the life tap. However, I can't really think of any other way to do it... Other than maybe doing a mana conversion from blue/green mana to Arcane blood. But then that runs into an issue I wanted to avoid being that the powered attacks basically just cost more mana. I could replace a certain Doom ammo type exclusively with monster flasks... but then that wouldn't solve anything if that ammo type wasn't placed in the map either. I could make the Warlock regenerate it, like Vesper, but I'm not too sure about that. I could let the player get it back from damaging or killing enemies, like the Magister, but I do want to do something different, not just copy the idea.

But suffice to say, I like your points. I didn't want to do the psychic bar, so I could maintain consistency between all the Warlock's weapons, but you're right about it. I am not satisfied with what I have now, it feels inconsistent with itself somehow. I'll see what I can come up with, and if you have any other suggestions regarding his other weapons and/or abilities or ones you'd like to see, let me know. Thank you for bearing with me and explaining your point so well.

Good to hear that my words of wisdom has an affect on you.

Although I just re-read my message, and gosh.. so many typos, word misplacement, grammatical mistakes... I hope it didn't affect you much and you still understood what I said.

As for maps, yeah, there is nothing much you can do. Majority of modern maps seem to only become harder after each generation, and seems being created either for experienced players who been playing Doom or Hexen for several decades now, or specifically being made for slaughtering mods that turns you in to a deadly killing machine (not necessarily Russian Overkill, but things like Project MSX). Which is why I like mods that allow me to rely on nothing but powers from within, rather than the gifts of the map designer. it's good idea to keep the mod in a shape where it allows the player to rely on map's layout and design to experience the mod's full potential as least as possible.



As for weapon suggestion of mage... Nothing much comes to mind... Other than maybe, his lightning strike attack, would be lovely if it had some chain lightning effect like cleric have, although that would make cleric's bow lose it's unique niche I guess. But then again, such lightning bolt strike isn't that useful and not that powerful, so a short ranged and short lasting chain lightning would make the lightning bolt attack slightly more interesting and unique. I still prefer the lightning ball attack for the most part.
Also, the primary attack of bloodscourge, if I were honest, is just... lame and boring. I'd even prefer the vanila bloodscourge attack which summons 3 fireballs that seek enemies and pierce through them all. But I assume, giving the balls ability to home and pierce through enemies isn't going to happen in your mod, but I just don't feel ever using this weakened version of rocket launcher that just drops fiery droplets. It's no longer than original, let alone fun to use or that useful. If the ball could seek AND drop these fiery droplets in contact with enemy, WHILE STILL pierce them and move to newer target after terminating the first one, that would be more fun; but I believe it would be hard to program so the ball only drop fiery droplets it contact with certain enemy only once, yet do the same for the next one at the same time; i.e. 1 drop of fiery droplets per enemy once in contact with it.



As for balance... Well, look at this.

The fighter have overall best stats, which includes: most hp, best protection (and armor), best speed, have unique ability of melee that almost teleports him in direction you're fisting. In fact, his protection and hp are so powerful, that even when I'm surrounded in enemies, I tank all of the damage like Königstiger and still remain okay while still have insane speed available to dodge practically everything (including homing projectiles\rockets), which is why I say he's immortal. And yet he have pretty deadly AOE magic that obliterates everything on his view, and even ranged magic is pretty powerful for a class with the best stats in the game that meant mostly to be a "close and personal".

Cleric while doesn't have as much protection\hp\speed as fighter, he gets his "holy magic" or whatever that thing is, which like a pocket instantly re-healing medkit that is always with him. Refilling it is pretty easy too, especially when you have wraithverge, and such unique skill reheals you instantly. The only trouble is in beginning when you don't have it assembled, but you still have pretty deadly mace which refills it for you, and for that reason alone I called him ALMOST immortal, at least until he acquires his wraithverge which turns you in to another demigod. And damn, his magic combat is among one of the best in the game, mostly due to his firestorm ability that wipes everyone in a room, even at very long range.

The Mage have half the health than of cleric, worse protection from damage (including worse armor), overall slower speed; yet at the same time his ranged combat feels about as powerful as of cleric's if I were honest, even when powered up by blood magic (not even bloodscourge can hold a candle to the mighty firestorm's altfire). And unlike cleric whose special ability to heal himself whenever he pleases, mage's special ability only to hurt himself more.

Vasper have similar stats to Cleric, while having an infinite ranged attack that regenerates pretty quickly and set of unique fun attacks. His ranged magic combat are about as powerful as Mages powered by blood. The automatically homming portable rocket launcher for altfire for firebats, the stream of purple magic bats is like a deadly ray that vaporize everyone for purple bats, and his ultimate weapon is like wraithverge on crack that summons LOTS of bats that pretty much cleans whole map for you and yet do not waste that much of ammo per use. I just tested him on map06 in HeXen and one usage almost cleaned whole map for me, more than meteor even that is blocked by any obstacle on map. His unique ability is to summon infinite bats obviously, which can serve both as your unlimited ranged attack, a supportive companion fighter, and unique combat ability. Nothing else I can say about him so far.


So for mage to be anywhere relevant choice of pick, he either must be a MUCH more powerful than cleric and vasper, where he'd just blows everything in his vision in instant moment by just it being in his point of view, or have his own unique features that could get him on par with the rest of classes and have his own set of skills that turn him "almost immortal", just like cleric's ability to almost always being able to fully re-heal himself without much of effort, or fighter's overall best stats + best speed + extra tank capabilities which makes him a walking demigod on steroids. This is why I think the psychic bar and his own unique set of abilities\skills fits so well with this. The abilities that let you warp\blink around and pulse everyone + all the projectiles away from you, by wasting your limited psychic bar. Basically abilities that you can't abuse too much, but they will grant you some survival measures in dire situations, and due to the fact you'd still have to think about "stamina management" even though the psychic bar would slowly regenerate, you'd have to use it wisely than abuse it all the time. However, such abilities will be a survival necessity for custom maps that let you inevitable gets ambushed by lots of hitscan\homming projectile enemies, in situations where even meteor won't save you.


Regarding the blood magic regeneration, I like the idea! Maybe it should be slow, like 1 unit per 1 second, or maybe even 2 second, so it won't be that abused yet at the same time would allow the mage to use it at least from time to time and have fun with his powered abilities. This will help a lot in dire situations on custom maps that lacks of any pickups where you don't have much of monsters around, but the ones you have are mostly boss-tier and takes too long to fight to begin with. Such slow regeneration won't instantly make you op for most situations.


If the only reason you seem to dislike the psychic bar is mere because of "maintain consistency between all the Warlock's weapons" reason... Well, this is why I suggested to have abilities that are independent of weapons you're currently using\holding. Like disc of repulsion kind of attack\skill can be utilized when using reload button (or +kick, in cause you will ever bother to add kick attack to cleric\fighter), the blink which lets you warp in direction you're moving could be utilized by taping either of WASD button twice real quick (or have separated button for that which allows you to blind in direction you're moving, including combination of WASD buttons, allowing for 8 angle blink movement), the teleport in position you're looking could be utilized with either "weapon zoom" (quarter fire) button; or you could have each unique buttons to bind for each of these abilities, which is would work just as awesome, stable and even more efficiently + easy than let them be a part of existing binds.
The telekinesis is just an single exception from the rules. In fact, you can move the whole Telekinesis abilities out of weapon and make it automatically activates when you're using +use button, just like in Duke Nukem Forces, where you have Telekinesis Force whenever you want by just using the use\open button and thus you can now open doors\click buttons over distance, and grab monsters or even items over distance by using that one button. It's like a compact Gravity Cannon that is always with you, even when you're holding a completely different weapon, what's not to love? I REALLY hope you like my suggestions and will address them. You can just move the whole hud\bar system from Cleric to Mage if it gives you some trouble implementing a "new bar", and if instead of "psychic bar" you will continue to call it stamina bar, like for the rest of classes, I doubt anyone would care.

[4page]

I do like a lot of your suggestions. It's unfortunate that you've noted the sort of OP nature of the Slayer and Magister, since they were originally supposed to be much weaker. Power creep has gotten a little out of hand in this project, but I don't think it'll be really possible or a good idea to nerf them in any meaningful way...

But as for your suggestions regarding the mage, I might have some ideas, maybe, and I'll definitely rethink the Bloodscourge. However, having abilities bound to a whole bunch of keys, that's something I'm a little hesitant (like a lot of other things you've brought up, I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here) because I wanted this to control rather simply only having 3 major bindings, fire/alt fire/reload keys, and completely playable and functional using only two (fire/alt fire). I was thinking maybe having a certain survival ability bound to the reload key (and if I can, make it usable holding alt fire as an option like all the other reload key abilities) for each of the weapons. Doing this I'll definitely have to shorten the weapon switch speeds, and honestly most of the Warlock's attacks are just his hands, so maybe I can come up with transition animations like what I did with Vesper. But at the same time, if I did that, I'd have to possibly get rid of the weapon powering mechanic, since the keybind to activate it will be taken by the new survival abilities, and it would be cumbersome to have to switch to a certain weapon all the time in order to activate/deactivate it (which is how I had it in early versions of this mod). I COULD make it so if you held alt fire, then pressed fire it would activate it, but I feel like that would get a little too complex and confusing, far more so than just adding another keybind... But if I did leave it in, which I would like to do rather than take it out, I would probably get rid of the life tap and just stick with the recharge and monster flasks, similar to Vesper. Having the life tap would be nice for a dangerous quick rush of power if you have excess healing around, but it would be one more function to find a place for and how to actually activate it.

Having the versatile use button, like you're suggesting does sound interesting and kinda neat, but I have no idea how I would go about making that work. And I have no issues with giving the Warlock another bar on the HUD. I was just going to do basically exactly what you were suggesting there.

If anyone else has any thoughts on this about changes to the Warlock, or possibly toning down other class's power levels, feel free to weigh in.