Thoughts On Hexen?

[Hisymak]

I got Hexen when I was a small kid, and that was when I had plenty of time to spend with computer games as well as lot of patience. I'm not a native english speaker and I did not understand the in-game messages at all, so I had even less clues about what to do. I liked figuring out things on my own, and sometimes when I got really stuck for longer time (I remember three such cases in Hexen) I spent lot of time wandering around and trying to find where to go, until I eventually found my way further. I felt rather happy and satisfied for finally getting further and exploring new places. I definitely did not have any walkthrough. So the puzzles, switch hunt and seeking for my way was moreless not a problem for me in Hexen, at least I did not sense that as a kid.

However, what really PISSED ME OFF, were the game-breaking script bugs, which made progress impossible and forced me to restart the game. That was the most infamous script bug in the ending room of hub 4, as well as hub2, lighting up the 6 icons next to the silver portal leading to final level, sometimes an icon did not light up even if I pressed the respective switch, which locked me out in hub2 forever. That was the thing I disliked the most on Hexen at all.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Hisymak

[RHhe82]

9 minutes ago, Hisymak said:

However, what really PISSED ME OFF, were the game-breaking script bugs, which made progress impossible and forced me to restart the game. That was the most infamous script bug in the ending room of hub 4

 

I have to wonder if I encountered that bug as a kid. All I can remember that I reached Castle Grief and played good deal of it, until I couldn't figure out what to do anymore. That was the time when walkthroughs weren't that easily available, so I was left to my own devices, but I didn't have much luck. Eventually, I gave up and moved on.

 

Some ten years after that I replayed Hexen with a source port (probably ZDoom), reached Castle Grief again. I couldn't remember the puzzles, just the general gist of it and the fact that my progress had halted there once. Lo and behold, I beat the hub easily (well, I mean still without walkthroughs and not too much time spend on mindless searching and wallhumping), the only place I clearly hadn't seen was the boss room of the hub. I must have had encountered the script bug and not realize it.

[speedy206]

2 hours ago, ApprihensivSoul said:

lack of signposting, guesswork are all HeXen standbys.

 

It would be interesting to see someone release a mod for Hexen that "fixed" the in-game messages and made the game more clear. Not sure if something like this would be possible, but it could be fun. 

[Hisymak]

1 hour ago, RHhe82 said:

I have to wonder if I encountered that bug as a kid.

I'm very thankful for being lucky and not encountering any of the bugs I mentioned during my very first play through whole Hexen. At least I don't remember running into one for the first play. Thanks to that, I was able to finish Hexen and not give up like you.

However, I clearly ran into those problems during my subsequent replays. The worst thing on it was, that it was probably the first time I realized, that there can actually be bugs in games which can prevent me from finishing them, which was very cruel discovery. After that, I was always a bit afraid I would run into similar situation in any other game.

Some time later I discovered cheats, and althrough I had some period playing games with cheats, I returned into regular way of play later, and when I once more ran into any of the bugs in Hexen, I used noclip cheat just to get over the impassable section, and then turned it off again. I did not like that, but at least it rescued me.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

HeXen is good. I don't like switch hunting but everything else about it is awesome and for a doom engine game it's quite impressive.

[Matthias]

I just read this thread and I decided to add my own opinion, too, so hope it's ok.
 

Well, I think HeXen is the BEST GAME EVER MADE :D I absolutely totally love it.
 

Of couse, I am really biased here, because it's actually the very first game I have even beaten. It was back in the 90s, I was like 10 yo child or so and it was totally great.
 

My parents got our very first computer back in 90s and it had Windows 95. I had games like Doom, Doom 2, Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake... But Hexen was different. It was... something. I was convinced it's going to be another Doom or Heretic, but my older brother told me "You can go into this portal to next map, but you can also return back to the previous one."
 

And I absolutely loved the idea. It was like an open world game... Like a metrodvania in Doom engine. And also it was like a point and click adventure game in 3D, because you have inventory, puzzle items that you find and use somewhere else to progress.
 

Back in 90s I didn't speak english (it's not my native language) and I didn't know what the game says to me. Many people complain about the messages are too vague, like "one third of puzzle activated" or something, but I didn't understand it at all, so I didn't care. Actually, It was Hexen that forced me to learn english, as I was curious, so I started looking for english words in dictionary.
 

Also in 90s, there wasn't any Youtube, Discord, walkthrough guides and anything, so I really had to find out everything by myself. And for some reason I totally loved it... The mystery you had to solve... You had check everything over and over again. Every switch, every door, every nook and cranny... anything... And when you actually beat the game, it really felt... earned.
 

Life today's too fast, so of course, if you are lost in the game for 5 minutes, you start googling, checking Youtube and so on. And if it's too frustrating, you just turn off the game and then complain about how the game has "bad design, switch hunting and backtracking", but back then, the world was really different. I undertand that people won't like Hexen today.
 

Actually, Hexen was an experiment, when Raven tried to push very different direction for FPS games, but they actually kinda failed, as their idea was used again only in Hexen II, Heretic II and Quake II, and then... hub system, puzzle items and so on... everything was forgotten imediatelly when Unreal and Half-Life were released.

Suddenly, every single game wanted to be like Unreal and Half-Life :D And they didn't care anymore about what was before.
 

I still play Hexen today. I find something very calming, relaxing and beautiful about the game. I love the dark medieval athmospere. I like the spooky music. I like the game is set in autumn, so that's why you never see any grass, but always only autumn leaves. That's why everything around look like it's slowly dying. That's why the game is very melancholic.
 

I also love the technical side of the game... Vanilla Hexen without any modern port was already extremely powerful game because of the ACS scripting. No wonder modern ports like Zdoom borrowed the ACS scripting and basically all modern megawads in UDMF are based on this. Hexen deservers the credit for this!

Anyway, regarding to Centaurs and Ettins... I read complains about how they are too annoying... Actually I would like to recommend playing as the warrior. His axe is very strong so you can clean all enemies very quickly. Also the hammer is pretty strong too. I play mostly as the warrior, because it makes the game easiest and the most satisfying to kill everyone around.
 

I played Hexen two weeks ago as Warrior and I was capable of beating it within 3 hours actually :D And I didn't speedrun it.. I actually visited everything, including the non-mandatory places. But puf, only 3 hours :) So basically, it's very a short game.
 

So what can I say about Hexen? It has a special place in my heart, but I totally understand why it's not for a today's gamer. It wasn't for every gamer even back in 90s.

Edited December 7, 2021 by LiquidDoom

[Captain POLAND]

I always play as the Cleric because I love the Wraithverge so much. I tried playing as the Mage once but didn't particularly care for it.

[Matthias]

3 hours ago, Hisymak said:

I got Hexen when I was a small kid, and that was when I had plenty of time to spend with computer games as well as lot of patience. I'm not a native english speaker and I did not understand the in-game messages at all, so I had even less clues about what to do. I liked figuring out things on my own, and sometimes when I got really stuck for longer time (I remember three such cases in Hexen) I spent lot of time wandering around and trying to find where to go, until I eventually found my way further. I felt rather happy and satisfied for finally getting further and exploring new places. I definitely did not have any walkthrough. So the puzzles, switch hunt and seeking for my way was moreless not a problem for me in Hexen, at least I did not sense that as a kid.

However, what really PISSED ME OFF, were the game-breaking script bugs, which made progress impossible and forced me to restart the game. That was the most infamous script bug in the ending room of hub 4, as well as hub2, lighting up the 6 icons next to the silver portal leading to final level, sometimes an icon did not light up even if I pressed the respective switch, which locked me out in hub2 forever. That was the thing I disliked the most on Hexen at all.

 

I wonder what caused this bug anyway.

 

is it this script?

script 13 OPEN
    {
    until (thingcount(T_DEMON, 0) == 3)
        {
        delay(const: 210);
        }
    Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
    tagwait(const: 28);
    Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
    }

Like "check every 210 miliseconds if there are 3 chaos serpents and if not, wait more 210 miliseconds... ? So if there are less or more of them, it never executes? I wonder what programmer wanted to achieve here :D

[leodoom85]

5 hours ago, LiquidDoom said:

 

I wonder what caused this bug anyway.

 

is it this script?

script 13 OPEN
    {
    until (thingcount(T_DEMON, 0) == 3)
        {
        delay(const: 210);
        }
    Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
    tagwait(const: 28);
    Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
    }

Like "check every 210 miliseconds if there are 3 chaos serpents and if not, wait more 210 miliseconds... ? So if there are less or more of them, it never executes? I wonder what programmer wanted to achieve here :D

Nope. You need to kill exactly 3 of them in order to advance to the next step. In harder modes, there are 4 of those bastards. If, by bad luck, you kill the third and fourth at the same time, it will softlock you no matter what.

So yeah, kill only three and wait for the script to run. It's bullshit, indeed...

[ApprihensivSoul]

10 hours ago, speedy206 said:

 

It would be interesting to see someone release a mod for Hexen that "fixed" the in-game messages and made the game more clear. Not sure if something like this would be possible, but it could be fun. 

Check this out.

I threw it up a couple years ago, this thread just got me interested enough to continue it.

It's supposed to be Vanilla Compatible, but I've been running into issues lately with that, not sure why though. But it should work on Zdoom compatible at least.

[Gez]

8 hours ago, LiquidDoom said:

Like "check every 210 miliseconds if there are 3 chaos serpents and if not, wait more 210 miliseconds... ? So if there are less or more of them, it never executes? I wonder what programmer wanted to achieve here :D

Those are not milliseconds but tics. So it's "check every six seconds". The script will check every six seconds that there are exactly three green serpents, and when that happens the pathway opens. It is indeed very fragile as you are perfectly capable of killing them too fast for the script to notice there had been three serpents.

 

It's not the only softlock that can happen due to killing stuff much faster than the devs thought possible. In the Korax boss fight, if you kill him before he opens up the second part of the arena fight, you cannot reach the exit.

 

3 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

Nope. You need to kill exactly 3 of them in order to advance to the next step.

The script logic does check for exactly three alive serpents. (Dead monsters are never counted.) It delays until there are exactly three serpents in the level.

[Matthias]

31 minutes ago, Gez said:

Those are not milliseconds but tics. So it's "check every six seconds". The script will check every six seconds that there are exactly three green serpents, and when that happens the pathway opens. It is indeed very fragile as you are perfectly capable of killing them too fast for the script to notice there had been three serpents.

 

It's not the only softlock that can happen due to killing stuff much faster than the devs thought possible. In the Korax boss fight, if you kill him before he opens up the second part of the arena fight, you cannot reach the exit.

 

The script logic does check for exactly three alive serpents. (Dead monsters are never counted.) It delays until there are exactly three serpents in the level.

 

Oh, you're right...

 

So the script is OPEN type, so it asks all the time when you're in Gibbet...

ARE THERE THREE CHAOS SERPENTS? NO! ARE THERE THREE CHAOS SERPENTS? NO! ARE THERE...

 

:D

 

So when 3 of them spawn on easy and normal difficulty, you have to wait until the end of the interval which is probably already running. But if you smash them too quickly, for example using porkelator and smashing the pigs, then you can get locked.

 

For hard difficulty, 4 of them spawn, so theoretically if you kill only one and wait until the end of the interval, then the rest of the script executes. But if you kill two or more by mistake, then you're locked again.

 

That could be fixed like this: where there need to be 3 chaos serpents or more. And the interval is little shorter (which might be a bad thing, because I assume the programmer wanted a dramatic effect of Heresiarch showing up)

script 13 OPEN
    {
    until (thingcount(T_DEMON, 0) >= 3)
        {
        delay(const: 32);
        }
    Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
    tagwait(const: 28);
    Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
    }

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by LiquidDoom

[Gibbon]

I would suspect it was not an actual programmer doing those gameplay scripts but likely a level designer.  Setting something like that for 'exactly' three demons is a really stupid error and something I highly doubt a professional programmer would do.

[Matthias]

8 minutes ago, Gibbon said:

I would suspect it was not an actual programmer doing those gameplay scripts but likely a level designer.  Setting something like that for 'exactly' three demons is a really stupid error and something I highly doubt a professional programmer would do.

 

It's interesting the playtester didn't encounter this bug at any point.

[Gez]

Since IIRC the level doesn't have any chaos serpent at all until those three (or four) are spawned, I'd use something like >= 1 rather than >= 3. More chance to work.

 

But really, it's the whole logic that's flawed. The best fix would be to merge those two scripts:

script 13 OPEN
{
    until (thingcount(T_DEMON, 0) == 3)
    {
        delay(const: 210);
    }
    Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
    tagwait(const: 28);
    Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
}


script 14 (void)
{
    if (thingcount(T_FIREGARGOYLE, 12) == 0)
    {
        delay(const: 70);
        Thing_Spawn(const: 11, T_DEMON, 0);
    }
}

into just one:

script 14 (void)
{
    if (thingcount(T_FIREGARGOYLE, 12) == 0)
    {
        delay(const: 70);
        Thing_Spawn(const: 11, T_DEMON, 0);
        delay(const: 210);
        Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
        tagwait(const: 28);
        Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
    }
}

Now it's the same script that spawns the serpents and opens the path. Risk of softlock removed.

[Gibbon]

6 minutes ago, LiquidDoom said:

 

It's interesting the playtester didn't encounter this bug at any point.

In the mid-90's I doubt it was tested to any huge degree.  Testing software back then was more of an afterthought.  You think Doom would have shipped with the bugs it had, if it had been properly tested? ;)

[Cruduxy Pegg]

7 minutes ago, LiquidDoom said:

 

It's interesting the playtester didn't encounter this bug at any point.

I am more surprised they never encountered the 2nd Heresiarch lock or the Korax lock. The former is super easy to get as a mage and the 2nd will happen to any cleric that uses wraithverge. 

[Matthias]

4 minutes ago, Pegg said:

I am more surprised they never encountered the 2nd Heresiarch lock or the Korax lock. The former is super easy to get as a mage and the 2nd will happen to any cleric that uses wraithverge. 

or flachénttes :)

[Cruduxy Pegg]

40 minutes ago, LiquidDoom said:

or flachénttes :)

I need to retry this in chocolate Hexen later because repulsion flechettes seem weaker in GZdoom than what I remember ( can't pierce bosses, stops after instakilling one mob in place ).

[rzh]

Top 3 games of all time for me, alongside Thief - The Dark Project and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Shadow of Chernobyl.

I love everything, the art direction, the gameplay, the music, the puzzles, the level design.

Cleric is my favourite character and Mage is my least favourite.

 

Something that doesn't get explicitly mentioned is that the first three hubs are all symmetrical.

The first map you go to has to be revisited the most times.

In each map you have to find something unique to that map and trigger something in the other ones.

Then you go to another map, find something unique and trigger something in the first map you visited and all of the other ones.

If you do it right, you only have to visit the last map in the cycle one time, to complete it (you should have all the items/ triggers required) and to unlock everything else in the rest of the cycle.

Then you loop around and you should be able to complete all of the other maps as well, portal's open, onto the next hub.

[Rudolph]

I guess the Cleric only gets fun once you get the second weapon, but he was definitely the most tedious to play as in the Hexen demo.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Rudolph

[Master O]

16 hours ago, leodoom85 said:

Nope. You need to kill exactly 3 of them in order to advance to the next step. In harder modes, there are 4 of those bastards. If, by bad luck, you kill the third and fourth at the same time, it will softlock you no matter what.

So yeah, kill only three and wait for the script to run. It's bullshit, indeed...

 

I thought that bug was addressed in GZdoom.  If it has not been addressed, then it should be reported on GZDoom's Github page.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Master O

[leodoom85]

25 minutes ago, Master O said:

 

I thought that bug was addressed in GZdoom.  If it has not been addressed, then it should be reported on GZDoom's Github page.

Haven't tried myself in the latest version yet. But it's easy to spend some time and do that thing...

 

EDIT: I played the same map over and over and, as the opposite of what I thought, it needs 3 serpents to be alive. Killing 2 or more softlocks you. By summoning serpents until it has 3 on the area, the next action happens.

Edited December 8, 2021 by leodoom85

[Master O]

12 hours ago, Gez said:

Since IIRC the level doesn't have any chaos serpent at all until those three (or four) are spawned, I'd use something like >= 1 rather than >= 3. More chance to work.

 

But really, it's the whole logic that's flawed. The best fix would be to merge those two scripts:

script 13 OPEN
{
    until (thingcount(T_DEMON, 0) == 3)
    {
        delay(const: 210);
    }
    Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
    tagwait(const: 28);
    Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
}


script 14 (void)
{
    if (thingcount(T_FIREGARGOYLE, 12) == 0)
    {
        delay(const: 70);
        Thing_Spawn(const: 11, T_DEMON, 0);
    }
}

into just one:

script 14 (void)
{
    if (thingcount(T_FIREGARGOYLE, 12) == 0)
    {
        delay(const: 70);
        Thing_Spawn(const: 11, T_DEMON, 0);
        delay(const: 210);
        Door_Open(const: 28, 32);
        tagwait(const: 28);
        Stairs_BuildDownSync(const: 18, 8, 16, 0);
    }
}

Now it's the same script that spawns the serpents and opens the path. Risk of softlock removed.

 

Assuming you have a Github account, https://github.com/coelckers/gzdoom/issues would be a good place to post that code into an issue for them to see.

 

[rzh]

8 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I guess the Cleric only gets fun once you get the second weapon, but he was definitely the most tedious to play as in the Hexen demo.

The cleric has the best second weapon and the best fourth weapon.

The third weapon is about equally good for all classes.

People claim the Mage's is the best, but his is kinda janky in cramped spaces since it uses a "homing" attack.

The Fighter gets a hammer that essentially acts like a rocket launcher, except it doesn't deal splash damage to yourself and it can be used in melee without consuming mana (but it's really slow).

The Cleric gets flaming jazz hands that act like a hitscan + splash damage sniper (I'm not sure if it's actually hitscan or a really fast projectile).

I also prefer the mace to the wand, because the mace looks cooler and doesn't have an annoying sound effect. It's also less boring because you have to move around a lot more, which I prefer to "hold mouse 1, press "S" if necessary".

[Hisymak]

Cleric's 4th weapon (Wraithverge) is the most overpowered weapon in whole Hexen.

Mage's 2nd weapon (Frost shards) is annoying because it leaves frozen corpses in front of you, which blocks your way, I always need to switch to wand to break frozen corpse and then back. Using 1st weapon over 2nd is mostly advantageous - it will actually kill, and can pass through and harm multiple monsters in a row.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Mage's 2nd weapon is a melee weapon with a weak shotgun if it misses the melee attack. Much better vs centaurs than the cleric's. Well doesn't matter because neither of them are better than the axe. Axe straight up has beast DPS and range. Only weakness to axe is the user's skill at melee range. 

 

Edit: Spent a couple of hours just testing the weapons in map40 to test how they do in the various stages of the map ( although this test is way too favorable to aoe weapons and would be good to test them again in a different level as well to test them vs spread around enemies, also no slaughtaurs and reivers which are the biggest threats in the game).

 

Note: Ambushing a room means jumping on top of the monsters the moment their door opens.

Spoiler

 

Wraithverge destroys whatever room opens in 3 shots. I think this test gives it waaaaay too much extra damage compared to the other weapons because it has a beast fire rate and enough range to cover both sides monsters can come from at any single time. Usually destroys korax and the centaurs in 30 seconds, opening the rooms doesn't increase the time by much.

 

Bloodscourge does well everywhere from single target to condensed enemy rooms. Sword actually does better if you catch enemies in a room before they get out but blood scourge straight up beats it at killing everything + korax. bonus that bloodscourge is much easier to use than sword so using it while running toward or away from enemies actually kills them.

 

Sword is straight up a worse blood scourge in everything but ambushing a room of monsters before they manage to get out. Puts you in harm way if you want to get the dps, needs a lot of timing to reliably kill centaurs in a fast manner. Still does the map in around a minute though.

 

 

Let's face it all the 4th weapons are just for killing enemies quickly as they are very bad from a mana usage point of view. If this map didn't have a lot of kraters of might none of them would be able to finish. You'd actually have to use your other weapons and only use these if can ambush a room to get max damage ( which is trivial for Wraithverge but would be harder to do well in other maps). 

 

Now to the 3rd weapons:

Spoiler

 

Hammer does the best in this map's scenario both when enemies are trapped in a room or out in the field. Uses less mana than the other weapons to kill everything so what not to like. Harder to aim than the other weapons so Korax might get to actually hit you and instakill you ( because no armor in the test ).

 

Arc does beast mode vs centaurs and korax. Leaves a bad taste while fighting the serpents room ambush as it is very sluggish at killing them and gives them more time to hit you since you need to get out of hiding to shoot for longer than the other weapons. Some annoying time wastes happen when the lightning stunlocks multiple centaurs while only doing reasonable damage to one of them.

 

Holy fire is weird because it has different damage to different enemies with the way it works ( summons projectiles on the enemy ). Constantly whiffs on ettins/centaurs if the shot kills them before spawning projectiles which lowers its dps a lot vs them. Absolutely destroys serpents though. Not very great vs bishops as the 2nd weapon does about the same.

 

Hammer straights up wins in this map. But without room ambushes it doesn't do that much better than the other 2 weapons. All 3 of them are about the same when you factor in rate of fire ( but mana usage is a problem for holy fire because it compensates for lower damage with higher rof while almost costing same as arc ).

 

2nd weapons test was wild:

Spoiler

Axe as expected does insanely well vs everything as long as you can space yourself. You'll probably die to Korax if you aren't  good at dodging as one good hit from him sends you to the spawn room. Have to note here that test was on UV and Axe would do a LOT worse on nightmare with enemies constantly firing projectiles.

 

Freeze wasn't great. the freezing enemies are useful to block enemies as you melee them to death one by one. This weapon does a lot better when using rings and flechettes ( which I had none of in the map ) as you can kill enemies in groups faster so have to remember you can always fix its aoe issue. Very easy to use as long as you always hit the melee, if you miss the melee vs a centaur you are probably going to the spawn room shortly afterward.

 

Serpent Staff's time to finish the map just depends on how annoying centaurs want to be with their blocks. Sometimes it goes very well and others are super boring as you wait them to stop blocking over and over. Have to dodge a ton more than the other weapons during the centaur phase or you get stuck and die horribly. If it gets reflected chance is you will be blinded and lose half your hp. If the test had slaughtaurs this would be even worse as you will be overrun even faster due to their extra hp and projectile attacks.

Serpent staff does best in this test for a time / safety point of view. Axe is a beasts as long as you don't mess up and get instakilled by Korax. Serpent phase was hilariously easy using axe as you can just kill them around a door or use Korax to kill them. All the weapons can handle the map though.

 

Didn't bother using 1st weapons as it takes way too much and 2 of them are a worse axe..

 

But Pegg what about the pew pew wand? Pew pew wand is stronger than all tier 2 weapons in this map and does better than the tier 3 weapons as well if you herd the centaurs. so yes if you are mage and doing map40 runs only just use wand and blood scourge only.. If in any other map wand dps is shit compared to ice unless you are reliably hitting 3 enemies or missing all your ice melee hits.

 

Overall game is too easy and it doesn't matter what class you pick unless you are horrible at melee then ignore both fighter and mage since mage will force you to melee until you get arc of death or use a very boring weapon and make your game a slugfest. Doesn't help a lot since you will be stuck using the horrible mace as a cleric anyway whenever serpent staff runs out of ammo and all the way until you find it. 

 

So moral  of the story : If you are good at melee combat pick any class because they are all overpowered and do well. if you don't want any kind of melee combat go play doom or heretic instead if you don't want the combat to last all year.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Pegg
Fixed

[leodoom85]

Is there any video or demo of someone finishing Hexen, on the hardest difficulty, by using the cleric's mace only? (Can use any item, of course)

[ReaperAA]

5 hours ago, Pegg said:

Let's face it all the 4th weapons are just for killing enemies quickly as they are very bad from a mana usage point of view. If this map didn't have a lot of kraters of might none of them would be able to finish. You'd actually have to use your other weapons and only use these if can ambush a room to get max damage ( which is trivial for Wraithverge but would be harder to do well in other maps). 

 

But Pegg what about the pew pew wand? Pew pew wand is stronger than all tier 2 weapons in this map and does better than the tier 3 weapons as well if you herd the centaurs. so yes if you are mage and doing map40 runs only just use wand and blood scourge only.. If in any other map wand dps is shit compared to ice unless you are reliably hitting 3 enemies or missing all your ice melee hits.

 

Overall very good weapon analysis post, but I disagree with these 2 points.

1. While Quietus and Bloodscourge are bad from a mana efficiency point, the Wraithverge is actually quite decent at mana efficiency. Sure it is not as good as 2nd and 3rd weapons, but it is close. When enemies are close enough (lets assume ettins), I can kill like 8-ish ettins with one Wraithverge shot (costing 36 combined mana). Killing 8 ettins with 2nd or 3rd weapon usually takes similar amount of ammo.
2. Sapphire wand DPS is not much worse than frost shards, even if the wand is only hitting one enemy and all of the shard projectiles are hitting the enemy. Both of which, lets be honest, don't always happen. You will often get opportunities to hit multiple enemies with the wand and you will often miss some frost shard projectiles when hitting enemies. At the very best, the weapon can be used as a melee weapon (like a weaker version of fighter's axe). Apart from melee attack, the frost shard is worse than the wand in almost every way imaginable.

 

43 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

Is there any video or demo of someone finishing Hexen, on the hardest difficulty, by using the cleric's mace only? (Can use any item, of course)

 

Most of the vanilla game should be doable. Although I do fell like the class bosses (Zedek, Traductus, Menelkir) on skill 5 would be a mountain of pain.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

12 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Overall very good weapon analysis post, but I disagree with these 2 points.

1. While Quietus and Bloodscourge are bad from a mana efficiency point, the Wraithverge is actually quite decent at mana efficiency. Sure it is not as good as 2nd and 3rd weapons, but it is close. When enemies are close enough (lets assume ettins), I can kill like 8-ish ettins with one Wraithverge shot (costing 36 combined mana). Killing 8 ettins with 2nd or 3rd weapon usually takes similar amount of ammo.
2. Sapphire wand DPS is not much worse than frost shards, even if the wand is only hitting one enemy and all of the shard projectiles are hitting the enemy. Both of which, lets be honest, don't always happen. You will often get opportunities to hit multiple enemies with the wand and you will often miss some frost shard projectiles when hitting enemies. At the very best, the weapon can be used as a melee weapon (like a weaker version of fighter's axe). Apart from melee attack, the frost shard is worse than the wand in almost every way imaginable.

 

For 1 I was talking about how it would be when doing random maps where you'll almost never see that many enemies in a tight area outside of a trap/ambush [ usually enemies are spaced by a few feet and not in giant packs]. Although wraithverge is the most overpowered and requires the least amount of planning to never care about mana. As the games are very generous with mana and unless you use it to kill single afrits/ettins it will always go on a rampage because of the wall bypassing powers it has. The decision is also very easy for the cleric since both his 2/3 weapons use a lot more mana for the same kills as the other classes.

 

2 like I said it is a very weird spot for the frost shards. The weapon has to compete with an overtuned infinite ammo railgun. It is only better if the wand isn't useful in a fight (ex: slaughtaurs coming from all directions in halls ) and you never miss doing the melee damage of the attack ( so shooting projectiles unless running to the next target is a strict no ). At least Mage can brag about having an op starter weapon that keeps up with any other class non-ultimates in trap fights :P.