Walpurgis 0.99 (For Doom/Heretic/Hexen) [NEW RELEASE!!!]

[Irrevenant]

Wait, so you're not just redoing some of the attacks, but the thing itself? If that's the case then I'm a huge fan of the greatshield and giga-mace idea. It's always cool when a character's beginning weapon becomes their ultimate.

[eharper256]

Yeppers, full redo.

[eharper256]

It's ye weekly update:
Bit of a slow one this week since I was training new recruits at work, which is always extra work for me, and then playing too much XPiratez for XCOM when I get back rather than working on Walp.

However, I've been trialing various sprite concepts as I often do when I create new things (drawing random shit in photoshop, looking at various online sources, etc) to see what inspires me for the Crux replacer. This is how I also came onto the Bardiche, Heavensever, the coral head of Dagons Cane, etc. and its pretty successful most of the time. Nothing I'd want to show off yet, but some ideas to persue are there so that's good.

I've also been looking over the list of skills for the RPG mode a bit and screening them with comments as to whether I like or hate the original concepts after pondering them for a while. Some have been making me wonder.

EDIT: Also, new Hexen Wad by Matthias: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/1 ... -released/

[neto592]

Wait, so you're not just redoing some of the attacks, but the thing itself? If that's the case then I'm a huge fan of the greatshield and giga-mace idea. It's always cool when a character's beginning weapon becomes their ultimate.

I half agree with him.


I think a big roman praetorian tower shield would be pretty cool as well would be coherent with the fact that shields are already present on weapons 2 and 3.


But about the giga-mace I don't agree (kind of).
The same way the shield should be different from the shields of the other weapons (the spear and the sword one), in order to looks like more special and exclusive, the same should be true to the weapon. I have some doubts on how a big mace would be cool (and not repetitive).

Instead, I think a one hand war hammer would be better, as it would stand out better from the other weapons.

I guess the war hammer behavior could be kind the same as the mace from the weapon 1 but stronger and having a bigger range. In my opinion, what is important is to look different from the mace from the weapon 1.



................



By the way, talking about the crusader, as myself being much more a Hexen rather than a Doom player, the crusader lacking on a range response for the weapon 1 is really punishing to him. Hexen and its mods usually take a lot of its sweet time to allow you having access to weapon 2.


Even the fighter has his "Scorpion 'came here' spring" against long range enemies and when upgraded, the fighter has pillows that *need* to be stolen by the Crusader. I bet the Crusader is so envy for those... The crusader must drug the fighter beer and take those pillows for himself... LOL.


I mean, the fighter is faster and running towards the shooters to stomp them (like it was before) is also part of the fun of being a barbarian fighter. And the Fighter is quite faster than the Crusader on running.
While slowing charging (with the Crusader) to enemies and receiving lots of shooting or punches meanwhile is not fun at all! Specially when enemies poison explode on dying... (Veil of Darkness, I am looking at you).


Pillows however are part from a roman soldier arsenal, being more "atmospheric" belonging to the "Byzantine" Crusader. To compensate the lost of those pillows, those "Scorpion springs" could be faster and more precise.
Anyway, in my opinion, the Fighter weapon 1 should present more difficult to deal against ranged enemies than the Crusader one. Even more because the Fighter can move faster than the Crusader.



I would like to talk about the Druid well...


I think the Druid upgraded weapon 1 should have one dagger on each hand (because it would be much more cool). And that Dagon weapon 2 invincibility charge move could be abused on GZDoom by biding a quick turn key.


Lastly, I believe that at least the primary attack of the weapon 1 should not alert nearby monsters (maybe except for the mage weapon 1 still alerting monsters). Or Druid weapon 1 silence advantage should no longer exist.




Oh, right! One more thing...

When you posted on HeXArcadian topic about the fact that the Mage life needs being bigger than 50 HP, and I am happy with your decision of making him have 75 HP instead.

Nevertheless, I think the Mage should have another weakness, and that being moving slower (even slower than the Crusader).
The Mage should move 0.9x instead of 1.0x Doomguy speed. After all, Crusader while heavy armored is still a soldier. The mage is not.

[eharper256]

Though still nothing is set in stone, Warhammer or a Staff look to be the most likely options right now. It often depends on how the art ends up looking; I experiment until I get something I like a lot.

The Crusader not having a ranged response on 1 is an intentional design decision, and a nod to the original Hexen Cleric (he was godawful until he got serpent staff, but by far the strongest at the endgame with Wraithverge). He's supposed to be bad to begin with; but even so, I gave him the shield to compensate. Don't forget to really make use of your Shield Bash when you advancing into dangerous situations: IT REFLECTS PROJECTILES if you time it perfectly, and you get about 4 iframes as well. It stuns melee enemies for nearly a whole second and knocks them away. The shield is your god early on: direct threats away with the shield, damage with the mace. Upgrading your intial setup also gives you the Charging Slam to respond more rapidly. The whole setup is meant to introduce you to the Crusader's methodical tanky play.

I laughed at you saying pillows to fight with, I guess somehow, some translation of Pilums was lost somewhere there lol. (Pillows are cushions to sleep on, though I guess pillow fight does happen in college dorms). In case you missed it, Baratus IS a fantasy Roman Legionairre in Walpurgis, not a barbarian (lol), so yes, the Pilums are meant to belong to him as a matching set to his pair of Gladius. It's even called The Legion in the original Hexen, so I just gave them more identity. I see them as being the result of romans that survived longer into the Dark Ages of a magical-rich setting, and adopted more weapons but also held on to some traditions.

I always find it interesting that some people say Parias weak/Baratus strong, and some people say Baratus weak/Parias Strong! I've come to believe its all honestly it's all down to play styles.

Dual-wielding daggers on the Druid was considered for the upgrade, actually, it's just I was too lazy to create the mirrored sprites and setup an overlay, so we ended up with super bleed in the upgrade instead. However, it ended up more matching to the hit-and-run playstyle that Illitheya has; and as above, the 1 is supposed to introduce you to how the character plays in principal. Illitheya is technically a Ranger/Druid cross (or Warden/Feral Hunter, if we're doing Pathfinder 1e classes) with her arsenal so is meant to be fast and stealthy.

Magister used to go at 0.9x speed, but literally every one and their dog hated that and there were constant complaints about it. It also makes it really hard to get to precisely timed secrets that assume Doomguy speed so I eventually relented and gave Daedelon leg day in patch 0.85 or so.

[eharper256]

Le Weekly Thingy

Something, something, first not-cringy Warhammer design.

Although its also very simple, I guess. That said, a Triskele fits it quite nicely and I'm sort of fond of the blueish-brass metal.
(Also, no, a Warhammer is not definitely certain right now, that is in the air still). Obviously, this is a prototype as well, perspectives are always fixed closer to the time if we go ahead with a design.

Besides image work, it's been a bit slow, as I'm still training young'uns and I'm continuing to do that for the next 4 weeks or so in my job. However, I did make a few more fixes and balance tweaks that are still being tested.

[neto592]

Hi, thanks for replay me.

There are somethings that still unanswered...

1) About Druid having one melee and one ranged sheath attacks and the other ones don't having any, even the Fighter and the Cruzader.

2) About Druid Dagon weapon invincible charging being able to abuse if you bind a key to quick turn on GZDoom (the abuse occurring even on bosses).
I think is okay being fast (as I think the Cruzader charging should also be) but it should not be invincible.

I mean by far the most played character on Youtube videos (by other players) is the Druid. I has to be because she is easier than the other ones. Her weapon 1 sheath range attacks, for example, is one among others that (in my opinion) put her above the rest.




I still don't understand why Cruzader weapon 1 has to be worse against range enemies than the Fighter weapon 1. Even when you reflect the projectile it only come back the enemy if you upgrade that weapon while the Fighter spring works on range enemies even if not upgraded. Also the Fighter is faster than the Cruzader so the Fighter is more efficient against non-melee enemies than the Cruzader.

So please, could you make a video playing Hexen (Veil of Darkness would be even better because of poison explosion enemies on death) with the Cruzader so I could learn how to use the slow poke charging without receiving punches nor projectiles and how correctly use the shield?




And sorry for the pillow thing I made a mistake with pilum word.

[Irrevenant]

Mostly I like the shield+weapon idea since it'd make the characters "even" with their ultimates, so I'm good with a mace or hammer.

[eharper256]

1) About Druid having one melee and one ranged sheath attacks and the other ones don't having any, even the Fighter and the Cruzader.

2) About Druid Dagon weapon invincible charging being able to abuse if you bind a key to quick turn on GZDoom (the abuse occurring even on bosses).
I think is okay being fast (as I think the Cruzader charging should also be) but it should not be invincible.

I mean by far the most played character on Youtube videos (by other players) is the Druid. I has to be because she is easier than the other ones. Her weapon 1 sheath range attacks, for example, is one among others that (in my opinion) put her above the rest.

I still don't understand why Cruzader weapon 1 has to be worse against range enemies than the Fighter weapon 1. Even when you reflect the projectile it only come back the enemy if you upgrade that weapon while the Fighter spring works on range enemies even if not upgraded. Also the Fighter is faster than the Cruzader so the Fighter is more efficient against non-melee enemies than the Cruzader.

So please, could you make a video playing Hexen (Veil of Darkness would be even better because of poison explosion enemies on death) with the Cruzader so I could learn how to use the slow poke charging without receiving punches nor projectiles and how correctly use the shield?

And sorry for the pillow thing I made a mistake with pilum word.

1) I have no idea what Sheath is? You mean Stealth? Well, she is all about the stealth. A single knife is a tad bit quieter than a large mace or punching with your giant gauntlets.

2) If you can do that without motion sickness, all the power to you, I say. Quick turn is not a feature most people use for that reason, and it's not a base doom feature. She's invulnerable for a short period since she's supposed to be turned to water. That's the Watsonian reason anyways; but the Doylist reason is that the charge actually insta-kills her in Hexen if she's not Invulnerable and touches something due to it's funny instagib velocity mechanics (lol). So that can't change, sadly.

I think you underestimate how many people go "oh this is not a base Hexen character and oh it's a cute girl" as criteria for people wanting to play her first in videos. I entirely expect those reasons drown out any mechanic concerns.

I can run VoD with Crusader at some point to demonstrate shielding, sure. Might not be soon, though.

[eharper256]

Mostly I like the shield+weapon idea since it'd make the characters "even" with their ultimates, so I'm good with a mace or hammer.

Noted.

[EpikFaleEsq117]

Hiya. Made an account because I love your mod and I've been reading through this thread for a while now, and I wanted to share my idea. I am under no illusions that it is a good one, or even feasible, but here it is:

Sun-and-Star Sword
Rather than forming a full-size scepter, the pieces of the crucifix come together to create an elaborate token of faith which – for the divine's chosen warrior – becomes as a hilt and crossguard for a sword of purest light. At the chosen warrior’s command, from the focus stone emerges a funnel of sunfire shaped as a longsword. Despite its length, it is for the devoted Crusader weightless and effortless to wield.
Used in tandem with the Crusader’s trusty shield, this ultimate weapon clads him in the light – as armor – just as he wields the sunfire against his foes.

Primary Fire – Combination Strikes. In its default form, the first two strikes in this three-hit combination attack consume no mana. In sequence, the Crusader executes a right-to-left horizontal swing, a left-to-right mirroring the first, and finishes with a long-range piercing stab. The first two strikes in this sequence cover a broad range in front of the Crusader, helping him to manage groups of foes in close to medium range. These strikes are able to hit every enemy in his field of view, provided he is close enough to them. There is a fast reset at the end of these two swings, so that the Crusader may choose to skillfully alternate between these hewing strokes if he wishes.
If committing to a full combination, the final strike eschews wide-range coverage for a highly-damaging stab which can pierce multiple targets in a long-ranging line. The blade flares with burning light, and any damned souls impaled are reduced to clumps of char. Those wicked slain by this killing strike give up some of their living essence as a tithe to the Crusader, healing him by a small degree. This final blow consumes a small degree of both aetherial and verdant mana. If none is available, the stab will still function, but will not release a fire blast, nor will its range improve, and kills will not heal Parias.
Upgrade: The first two strikes come off much faster, allowing the player to more easily choose between going back and forth between one-two’s, or completing the sequence. Damage from the final blow increases, as does the amount of health replenished from foes killed by it. The final stab releases a wider blast of flame, causing more area damage.

Secondary Fire – Empowered Bulwark. As when wielding the ever-reliable Mace of Contrition, when wielding the Sun-and-Star Sword, Parias can clash his shield against nearly any threat – cold steel or magefire – to turn away harm and force his foes on the back-foot. Only now, the holy light shed by this righteous blade envelops his shield, strengthening its innate blessing.
A quick tap of the secondary fire button triggers an empowered shield bash, if sufficient mana is at hand. This has an effect similar to a disc of repulsion, albeit one that strikes foes only at near point-blank range. Nearby foes in front of Parias are forced backward, are bludgeoned, and begin to bleed as white-hot sun-fire scores their flesh. Projectiles in front of Parias are turned away, possibly striking foes as instruments of the Crusader’s will.
If there is not enough mana available, this shield bash functions the same as that of the Mace of Contrition’s.
Briefly holding the secondary fire button builds up a charge in the shield. When it is ready, releasing the button projects a protective Starwall directly in front of Parias. Incoming projectiles are turned away, potentially returned to attackers. Foes may attempt to pass through the Starwall, but they do so at their own peril – the motes of light therein shall sternly rebuke the wicked. Even should a foe survive traversal, they will surely find themselves covered in bleeding wounds by the time they reach the other side. Though this warding wall serves to stymie the wicked, it shall not hinder the righteous Crusader in any way. He may pass through it freely, and likewise, any magic he casts, or any blow he would land, will not be impeded.
The Starwall persists for a short time before dissipating, and is somewhat taxing on the Crusader’s mana to summon.
(Note: These should both take the lion’s share of the weapon’s mana to use. I imagine the shield bashes should be powerful, but expensive.)
Upgrade: More bleed damage from both effects. Shield bash does higher damage to enemies hit with it, and passing through the Starwall starts a limited health regen.

Tertiary Fire – Empowered Sunfire. Open the Sun-and-Star Sword to a great torrent of mana to briefly heighten its power, extending its range and fueling its flames to cut vast swathes through hordes of evil.
Press the tertiary fire button, and Parias shall hold the blessed icon aloft. Channeling mana into the Sun-and-Star will cause the holy light to shine ever brighter: the blade grows longer, and the flames burn hotter, wild and untethered – though the Crusader need not fear his own might. These flames consume only the unrepentant. (Consumes ~50 combined mana.)
In this state, the weapon functions differently.
Primary fire strikes are always horizontal swings. These attacks have high reach, and are very damaging, burning foes to ash, but come off slower and more sluggish like some sort of giant fire-whip. Each strike consumes a moderate amount of combined mana. It will chew through hordes of mid-range enemies, but it will also chew through the Crusader’s mana reserves. Foes killed restore Parias’ health slightly. When mana runs out, the weapon returns to its normal state.
Secondary fire causes Parias to lift his shield, and – pressing the Sun-and-Star Sword into it as a conduit – unleash a spiraling lightspear from its center. This is a wide, penetrating beam with great range and a fairly fast travel time, inflicting a tremendous amount of damage on anything it passes through. It is stopped only by solid walls. Foes hit who aren’t killed outright are flung away from the beam. (If possible, the beam might turn away projectiles, too.) When mana runs out, the weapon returns to its normal state.
Tertiary fire spends a small amount of combined mana to unleash a short-ranged light nova that deals damage and repels foes in a ring around Parias, returning the weapon to its normal state afterwards. Parias clangs the blade across the front of his shield, issuing a war cry, sending sparks flying as the flames stabilize and the blade returns to normal. If there’s not enough mana left for the nova, it does not trigger. Instead, the weapon simply returns to its normal state.
(Note: Turbo mode, aka. (Holy) Devil Trigger. Strategic use is important, because I imagine both attacks in this mode chew up lots of mana. Challenge comes from knowing when to let off the gas.)
Upgrade: Consumes less mana to start (~20 combined mana) and takes less time to trigger. Primary fire strikes are a little quicker to swing, and Secondary fire blasts have less of a delay before firing.

So yeah, light sword. Thoughts?

[eharper256]

Not bad at all, actually. It's the Sommerswerd (showing my age with this reference, lol), and your descriptions make me think of the books that's from as well.

You've clearly thought long about it and turbo mode (as it were) sort of mirrors the Lightbringers Prism Mutation, and I like that. It also gobbles mana much like Crux does anyways (lol).

It also gives us good excuse to have the shield and have it be the source of the Star-Wall, although Disc of Repulsion effects are incredibly unpredictable and uncontrollable except range, and the player passing the shield is hard to implement ~ shield effects in general cause a bit of programming shenanigans, the first 0.99 release before I hotfixed it had some crazy interactions with Heavensever's shield.

Which, yeah, does kind of bring us to the fact it's a second sword, it has shield effects and long range slashes and stuff that can penetrate. Even though its a different holy-fiery flavour, rather than dimensional manipulation like Heavensever, the two would still share a fair few similarities. Also, Quietus already exists in the Flaming Sword design-space, albeit in a greener, plasma-like flavour.

Finally, flaming swords are great, but fire effects on weapon sprites are hard as fuck to make them look good (honestly I still need to revise Firestorm's Gloves with better effects than the base Hexen ones as they annoy me!). This isn't insurmountable, but it would be a very high effort sprite-package for me to make.

Super cool; and honestly, if you gave me this back in 2021 when I was re-designing Quietus, this would have been Quietus (lol). I'll keep these ideas in mind though, and I do really like the Secondary Fire stuff and might well implement that, regardless of what the actual weapon ends up being.

[eharper256]

Ze weekly update:
This week I have been laying the coding foundation for the optional levelling up system, and proofing various ACS scripts for that purpose, whilst brainstorming the various ideas about how to handle the XP drop and what generic levels actually give you besides the already sort of decided passive skill bonuses you choose from.

Notably, I realised GZDoom has a generic score system I can hook into to serve as an innate XP counter and which I can track and control easily with ACS. I can also gradually alter Max HP, Mana Capacity, Speed, and Armour (to an extent) with some of this code, so basically your levelups will always give a tiny buff in that regard. This was the summary I wrote:

Code: Select all

General Levelling up bonus:
Myrm: +1 Base Armour (15=>25), +0.01 Speed (1.1 => 1.2), +5 MAX HP (150 => 200)
Crus: +1 Base Armour (20=>30), +2 MAX MANA (200 => 220), +5 MAX HP (110 => 160)
Magi: +0.005 Speed (1.0 => 1.05), +10 MAX MANA (300 => 400), +2 MAX HP (75 => 95)
Drui: +0.01 Speed (1.2 => 1.3), +5 MAX MANA (200 => 250), +2 MAX HP (90 => 110)

[neto592]

The Cruzader final weapon could be a Ice one since I think Ice is underutilized on Heretic or Hexen and their mods and therefore deserves be a final weapon once.


In order to be related with the Cruzader Christian tone it could be called 'Cocytus Deliver' or 'Cocytus Maul', 'Cocytus Punisher' or 'Cocytus [insert a name here]'.

Primary Attack: It could be like the Baratus Hammer Retribution Primary Attack Mutated but Ice splash damage instead.
Upgrade: It increase its AOE and damage with some explosive stalagmites to look cooler (and gives more damage).

Secondary Attack: It could be like the secondary Baratus Aurelius Sword second attack but being a Ice BFG instead that delivers a large damage AOE and a very high damage at center of that sphere.
Upgrade: Even more nuclear. More damage, more AOE and now with several ice explosive stalagmites (specially on the center to be a bosses killer).


Tertiary Attack: It could be a combination of the Magister Algor both upgrade and mutated primary attack, in other words a super Ice like flame attack with a respectable AOE reach.
Upgrade: It could be 50% larger AOE and 25% stronger.



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I believe all the weapons from slot 3 and specially from slot 4 primary attack should always spend mana (both mana on 4th ones case) but being stronger that they are now. Regardless if they are melee ones (with its mutations spending even more mana and being even more powerful or more useful).


I think the 3th weapons as a tactical weapons and the 4th ones as strategic (Doom deliverance) ones. Their primary attack should focus their limitations on cost instead of nerfing their power.

[EpikFaleEsq117]

Sorry about the terrible formatting. I typed all that up in a word processor, and… it didn’t translate well.

I’m familiar with the Sommerswerd! I played Lone Wolf (the pc game) back in the day, and I found it much to my liking. I’m aware it comes from a series of game books, but I haven’t had the pleasure yet.

About the Sun-and-Star being another sword – that’s a completely fair point, yeah. I did think about that about halfway through. But you hurt my feelings about Quietus: I wouldn’t want that weapon to change for anything. I think your Quietus is one of the coolest weapons I’ve ever used in a game ever. I’m not kidding. Everything about it is just perfect.

It’s a kind of weird point to argue, but I’ve always loved how the Cleric’s hands look when using Firestorm. I mean, if I could have everything, some extra frames of animation would be nice. There’s just something I like about its weird, blood-red outline, and the “super-magical” star shapes when it’s firing. But now I’m ranting.

Definitely not trying to push the point, but I think the “fire-light” effect *could* work if the idle frame has a simple “shaped hard-light” sort of feel. No burning flames or any of that so long as the weapon is held idle. You can sell the "burning light" effect with some particle effects whenever the weapon swings. Ha, listen to me – like I know what I’m talking about. But at the very least I do know what you mean when you say that truly “fiery” effects are hard to do in a sprite.

Anyway, I’m having a ton of fun playing through Hexen over and over again with your mod. It’s an absolute blast. Crusader’s where it’s at.