Gameplay Mod Tempered Arms: An immersive weapon mod for Hexen in GZDoom

[Lippeth]

    

 

A "Vanilla+" weapon mod for Hexen that that adds alt-fire attacks, hold/release functions, new graphics/sounds, and reworked animations. The armaments of Hexen, but tempered!

 

Download: Tempered Arms v1.6.2

 

Requires GZDoom 4.11.0 or newer

 

Brightmaps and dynamic lights are included in a separate file. In addition to weapons, I've also made new brightmaps for monsters and torches for consistency and immersion.

Feedback, criticism and opinions are always welcome!

 

Weapon Descriptions

Spoiler

*Fighter*

 

-Sword and Gauntlet
    Primary fire: Punches using left arm; a more powerful swing will commence after two successful jabs to a target (vanilla behavior).

    Altfire: Swings the sword with the right hand; after one successful hit to a target, either another swing or back swing will commence, followed by a thrusting stab if second hit was successful. Longer melee range than punching. If pressed quickly enough after primary fire, sword will swing faster.

 

-Timon's Axe
    Primary fire: Swings the axe in one of three ways at random. reverts to a weaker axe when out of mana (vanilla behavior). If pressed quickly enough after altfire, axe will swing faster. Does not knock back monsters.

    Altfire: Swings a heavy wooden shield to reflect projectiles and knock back monsters. Amount of knockback depends on mana1.

 

-Hammer of Retribution
    Primary fire: Hammer attack at close range that does fire damage; throws hammer at long range (vanilla behavior). Reverts to a simple hammer that does less damage when out of mana (vanilla behavior).

    Altfire: Slams the hammer onto the ground, causing a quake with explosions that surround the player. Can survive any fall if pressed while falling, which can break maps. Non damaging ground quake with no mana that stuns monsters.

 

-Quietus
    Primary fire: Fires Quietus beams in rapid succession. Flammable objects burn with green colors.

    Altfire: Fires Quietus beams in the pattern of the sword swing (vanilla behavior). Flammable objects burn with green colors.

 

*Cleric*

 

-Mace of Contrition
    Primary fire: Increased speed after four consecutive successful hits as long as mace makes contact with any surface. Consecutive attacks have 50% chance to do double damage and will glow white when successful

    Altfire: Swings a small wooden shield to reflect projectiles and knock back monsters. Hold to raise the sheild for 90% damage absorption from all damage types except poison cloud which reduces damage by half as long as the shield is raised.

 

-Serpent Staff
    Primary fire: Fires two projectiles and will leech health in melee range Flammable objects burn with green colors.

    Altfire: Spawns poisonous goop from the ground that explode on impact. Does not damage flying enemies unless they're low.

 

-Firestorm
    Primary fire: Normal flame attack.

    Altfire: Rains fire at close and medium range.

 

-Wraithverge
    Primary fire: Close range holy shock that can be held.

    Altfire: Shoots a holy blast if tapped, releases three holy spirits if half-charged, shoots holy blast that releases three holy spirits if fully charged.

 

*Mage*

 

-Sapphire Wand
    Primary fire: Normal wand attack.

    Altfire: Turns the wand around to charge when held, and thrusts forward with a close range magic attack, damage depends on charge time.

 

-Frost Shards
    Primary fire: Normal Ice attack with left hand when tapped, rapid fires individual shards when held.

    Altfire: Breaks frozen targets with right hand, does ice damage to non frozen targets and instantly breaks them if damage is enough to cause freezing.

 

-Arc of Death
    Primary fire: Mages normal lightning attack.

    Altfire: Close range shock attack when held.

 

-Bloodscourge
    Primary fire: Fires a laser beam of blood that will pass through targets and explodes when hitting a wall.

    Altfire: Releases one scourge ball if pressed, and three when charged. Will damage player in exchange for mana if not enough mana to fire.

 

 

older version: tempered_arms 1.5.2

 

A few wad recommendations:

Cyrgoth's Manor

Cyrgoth's Revenge

Afterlands

Shadows Of Cronos

Realms of Cronos

Scourge of Viscerus

4 Weeks of Pain

Veil of Darkness

 

Changelog

Spoiler

* 1.6.2 *
-Fighter will swing sword faster after jab
-Fighter will swing axe faster after shield swing
-Fighter axe shield knockback is doubled but will reduce by half when out of mana1
-Fighter quietus melee gibs
-Quietus gauntlet projectiles use palette swapped ice shard sprites
-Quietus gauntlet mana consumption doubled, and damage increased
-Added sound effects for centaur sword and shield drops
-Layered sounds for flying hammer impacts on walls and monsters
-Fighter hammer altfire slam reworked (now requires GZDoom 4.11 or newer)
-Fighter hammer altfire no longer survives long falls
-All classes have different damagetype resistances and weaknesses
-Added monster projectile damagetypes
-Mace swings with increased speed for every successful attack after four successful and consecutive regular attacks
-Each of the faster mace attacks have 50% chance to do double damage and will glow white when successful
-Mace heals with successful white glowing hits

* 1.6.1 *
-Fixed silent axe shield
-Removed axe push and made axe shield bash attack only that still reflects projectiles
-Mace shield sways when raised, reduces damage from all types to different degrees and can be held indefinitely
-Serpent Staff attack shoots splash bubbles that serpentine until they hit something

 

* 1.6.0 *
-Reworked animations for all weapons
-Replaced alternate sprite angles with texture definitions to reduce filesize
-Added sound for Ettin's mace floor impact when gibbed
-Sword and Gauntlet only use stronger attacks when making contact with monsters
-New rapid fire for Quietus main attack
-Quietus lowers when out of mana
-Flammable objects burn with the right color of green when struck by Quietus
-Disabled Cleric combo powerup
-Serpent Staff and Firestorm alt attacks no longer go through walls
-Firestorm main attack reduced damage and increased animation speed
-removed damagetype modifiers
-removed monster projectile damagetypes
-Updated brightmaps

 

* 1.5.1 *
Added Nash's cblood:
Green blood for Korax and Daedolon/Menelkir
Purple blood for Heresiarch
Dark blood for dragon
No blood for bishop or fire bats
Unpowered Quietus shows axeblood splatter on contact
Shrubs and trees burned with Quietus have green flames
Quietus primary attack no longer splashes in water unless close enough for sword to touch
Raised height of mage's timebomb
Changed puzzle item pickup sounds to the unused weapon piece pickup sound
Updated tempered_arms_lights.pk3

 

* 1.5.0 *
Added silver ring to mage's left hand with frost shards
Added wall hit sound to Quietus primary fire
Lowered pitch of fighter punch grunt sound
Added fighter grunt to Quietus no-mana attacks
New wall hit sound for fighter jab and shield
Removed cleric mace powerup during low health

 

* 1.4.6 *
Shield invulnerability effect no longer adds invisible icon
Cleric mace gains powerup that does more damage for 10 seconds and heals for 3 points per hit if health falls below 35 or makes 10 consecutive attacks without missing or releasing fire button

 

* 1.4.5 *
Adjusted damage to actors with boss flag for all weapons to make bosses not die so fast
Hammer projectiles chase monsters
Quietus projectiles spawn homing projectiles on death that explode after a short time
Adjusted Quietus no mana altfire animation
Replaced Morph Ovum effects with Porkalator
Mana pickup radius and height match Doom's default (r20 h16)
Lightning altfire uses slightly less mana
Frost shards altfire thrusts monsters

 

* 1.4.0 *
Frost shard hold fire impact causes monsters to shatter
Mana pickup radius doubled
Hammer of retribution glows red
Added new decals to axe, hammer and bloodscourge
New brightmaps for most monsters
Changed SBarInfo to ZScript for weapon pieces

 

* 1.3.5 *
Shrubs and Xmas tree freeze with several frost shard attacks.
Fixed hammer offset issues with altfire
Hammer melee attack is stronger with mana, does fire damage and uses 1 mana per successful hit
Decreased axe damage with no mana, added one tic for downswings
Decreased shield damage for axe and mace
Serpent staff and firestorm alt attacks use noclip, can sequence-break some maps by damaging monsters on the other side of walls, but is used to ensure the attacks will work in tight spaces

 

* 1.3.1 *
Extened cleric flame distance
Reworked cleric fire rain
Fixed brightmaps not working
Fixed pitch issues with fire rain and plague spawner

 

* 1.3.0 *
Converted all decorate to zscript
Added inventory icons for all weapons
Added sbarinfo to show weapon pieces
Gave ice chunks more gravity and bounce
Added custom blood drops

 

* 1.2.4 *
Adjusted animations for fighter axe, hefty & spike and quietus attacks
Added decal to main quietus projectiles
Quietus attacks with no mana will stab after 3-4 hits instead of 5-6
New pickup sprite for axe & shield
Increased damage for frost missile and mage cone, reduced initial frost missile mana consumption to 2, halved rapid mana consumption
Adjusted mace animations

Added blood graphics to match custom axeblood

* 1.2.0 *
Adjusted mace animations and damage, now takes 4-6 swings to kill an ettin instead of 4
Fine tuned Serpent Staff altfire animation and damage, added custom sound effects
Adjusted Firestorm animation
Fixed the way Wraithverge takes mana

 

* 1.1.0 *
Separated dynamic lights to tempered_arms_lights.pk3
Added brightmaps to tempered_arms_lights.pk3
Removed Mace attack from Serpent Staff altfire and added a poison AoE
Changed wand charged sound to lightning ready sound
General asset cleanup to reduce file size
Added Mace swing and re-timed shield to mace swings

 

* 1.0.0 *
New animation for Frost Shards; main fire comes from left hand, alt fire comes from right hand
Frost Shards altfire breaks ice
New animation for Arc of Death altfire; does a face rake when button is released with thrust
Arc of Death smoke is translucent
Lighting now causes targets to bleed
Arc of Death and Wraithverge use small amount of mana for shock attacks even when not making contact with enemy
Raised Mana to 2 for Wraithverge shock attack
Cleaned up Wraithverge sprites
Adjusted animations for Timon's Axe
Flying hammer now has chance to seek targets, speed reverted to vanilla
Lowered Mana to 10 for Quietus
Mage wand charge adds new sound

 

* 0.8.0 *
Reworked Quietus, now works without mana
Increased Hammer melee refire speed
Added block mechanics to axe shield

 

* 0.7.7 *
Rebalanced damage and mana consumption for piece weapons
Bloodscourge altfire charges like Wraithverge, with sounds
Switched wraithverge fire and altfire attacks, and replaced primary with close range holy shock
Slowed Quietus fire rate by four tics
Reworked select and deselect animations
Reworked left axe swing graphics

 

* 0.7.1 *
Adjusted Bloodscourge and Quietus to better manage running out of mana
Quietus short range attack now always uses mana

 

* 0.7.0 *
Replaced mage's frost clone with a frost cloud
Mage's flechette has new animation
Bloodscourge main fire is a wand blast, and altfire is the normal Bloodscourge blast
Replaced Quietus close range attack with zscript
Fixed cutoff sprites from Quietus main attack due to texture lump discrepancy, so now only swings from the right hand
Quietus short range attack now only uses mana on contact with monsters

 

* 0.6.2 *
Added glow overlay to cleric's serpent staff altfire
Shortened Mace attack range to 128
Changed cleric's shield powerup to an inherited Icon of the Defender and replaced icon with TNT1A0 for compatibility with Icon of the Defender
Firestorm's altfire no longer splashes in water
Converted all sprites to paletted png

 

* 0.5.7 *
Redefined mage's weapons so they can be picked up instead of vanilla weapons
Shortened sword range for fighter
Cleric's shield now blocks if held, or bashes if tapped. Gives Icon of Defender perk while held
Frost Shards gives player half immunity to ice damage, but doubles damage taken from fire
Frost Shards altfire attack summons an ice clone of the mage, which draws enemy attacks until exploding, potentially freezing the enemies. Damages player if in range
Mage's Arc of Death altfire no longer siphons mana, and does more damage

 

* 0.5.1 *
Fixed how mana1 is taken from Timon's Axe

Credits

Spoiler

Hexercise:        le_L/Lioyd
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=33766

 

Hexen Rebalanced:    ReaperAA
  

 

Additional Decorate code by Seidolon from:
HereticalDoom:        Ryuhi
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=56762

 

Additional Sprites:        neoworm

 

Additional testing and advice: whirledtsar, Neccronixis, Whoah, FelesNoctis

 

Edited March 23 by Lippeth

[Lippeth]

Updated.

[Vorpal]

Too lazy to install Hexen just now but when I see the name Lippeth my brain says "yes"

 

added this to The List...

[Doomenator]

Too lazy to install another "unfinished" version of gzdoom for this mod. )

[Lippeth]

4 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Too lazy to install Hexen just now but when I see the name Lippeth my brain says "yes"

  

added this to The List... 

Awesome, I hope you enjoy it!

2 hours ago, Doomenator said:

Too lazy to install another "unfinished" version of gzdoom for this mod. )

If by "unfinished" you mean in perpetual development, improvement and relevance, then awesome, I hope you enjoy it someday. (

[Alter]

I started playing Dark Citadel with this mod and I gotta say, it makes Hexen a lot more enjoyable. From smoother animations to weapons being more interesting.

 

Highlights for me:

- Quietus acting like an enchanted sword, with the old attack being delegated to altfire.

- Hammer of Retribution's altfire dealing with those always annoying, shielded enemies!

- Firestorm having an actual Fire, storm as altfire, this was fun as hell to use.

 

Good job Lippeth! I do think what you can improve is:

- Make Bloodscourge's altfire more interesting besides just being a single shot rapidfire of the old fire.

 

That's it for now, this is fun. Also protip to slackers in here, by providing feedback you will help make the mod better.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Alter

[Lippeth]

Updated with several new changes.

 

Bloodscourge's main attack shoots laser beams of blood, and will generate mana if too low, slightly damaging the player. Altfire is more or less vanilla, except the balls bounce more, and altfire needs to be held down or it only shoots one ball. Also makes disgusting sounds when firing.

 

Wraithverge's main and altfire's are switched and main fire is a melee shock attack. The single blast will now happen by tapping altfire rather than holding it.

 

A few other minor things are in the changelog.  Enjoy!

[Lippeth]

Another year, another update!

 

I took a break for a while, but recently picked it back up and had some ideas to refine it even more. New features are in the changelog.

 

Enjoy!

[Lippeth]

'Nother update

 

I've replaced all the decorate code with ZScript which was a fun journey but ultimately yields an invisible end result. It was primarily decorate, with certain functions inheriting customized versions of ZScript's method for Hexen's attack angles and other features. So I thought I'd attempt to learn more about ZScript and convert the whole thing instead of using both, which was surprisingly successful. The only issue is that the mage won't hurt himself when recharging mana with the bloodscourge which I'm still working on. So out of twelve weapons with countless states and dozens of other actors and functions, not bad!Fixed for next update!

 

I'm sure there are cleaner ways to do some of it, which I will be constantly learning and updating, but I'm happy that everything works with no errors. I've also slightly buffed the mage's frost shards and made the ice chunks drop more quickly like their not loose feathers.

 

I hope you like both Hexen and GZDoom because that's the only way this mod can run *sweats*

 

Tempered Arms 1.3.0

Edited April 5, 2021 by Lippeth

[Lippeth]

Yes, I'm still messing around with this and making updates. No I will never be finished because the point of it is to occupy my time and learn new concepts.

 

I've been kicking around ideas to make the Cleric's mace more interesting and formidable while also remembering that it's only the starter weapon, so I went with an automatic powerup based on the tome of power from Heretic.

 

If the cleric's health drops to 35 or lower, or if Cleric lands 10 consecutive hits on a target without missing or stopping, a powerup will engage to do considerably more damage for 10 seconds, with an activation sound, a different looking puff sprite, and powerup icon to let you know what's happening. It uses the sister weapon method and because there are so many animation variations it may skip a frame here and there while transitioning from the powered version to the regular weapon.

 

Tempered Arms 1.4.6

[Pirx]

a tweaker mod like wayfarer's tome is for heretic? good idea, should make hexen's gameplay less grindy.

[Lippeth]

Updated to 1.5.0!

 

Mainly minor additions that I've been meaning to get around to:

Added silver ring to mage's left hand with frost shards
Added wall hit sound to Quietus primary fire
Lowered pitch of fighter punch grunt sound
Added fighter grunt to Quietus no-mana attacks
New wall hit sound for fighter jab and shield
Removed cleric mace powerup during low health (it occasionally broke and I'm not smart enough to fix it apparently)

[maulosiarch]

I just tried this out, cheating my way straight to the maps with lots of enemies (Nave, H's Seminary and Castle of Grief) and the NRA command to get instant maps of lots of enemies, and I have to say that this is great! The alt-fire modes all seem logical for the classes and gameplay, and fit right into the world that Hexen has always inhabited. My favourite new thing is definitely the very visceral punch attack with the shield from the fighter, where two thrusts can take out an Ettin. It took me a moment to realise why my single-tap fighting style for the Cleric and Mage's ultimate weapons were so weak (they need to be charged for extra oomph), and I can't wait to play both vanilla Hexen/Deathkings, or the excellent Realms of Cronos that I discovered this year that just uses the standard weapon system.

 

My other favourite change would have to be that the Ice-Shard weapon is now rapid-fire. This weapon finally feels like a decent weapon to rely on - most people never really liked it in it's cumbersome standard form.

[Lippeth]

Glad you're enjoying it, maulosiarch!

 

Most weapons have both tap and hold functions and a few will behave differently depending on how long they're held and when they're released.

 

Some of my favorite wads that also work well with this mod are Seidolon's Cyrgoth trilogy, and I can't recommend them enough.

Spoiler

 

Cyrgoth's Manor

Cyrgoth's Revenge

Afterlands

 

I'm glad you liked Realms of Cronos as well, I actually did the music for that project and really enjoy the maps they did.

 

A few things I'm planning for the next release:

 

Adding Nash's cblood with green blood for Korax and Daedolon/Menelkir, purple blood for the Heresiarch, dark blood for the dragon, and no blood for the bishop and fire bats. It's all really subtle but helps sell the whole vibe.

 

Adding an extra file that adds a chapter select screen for Hexen and Deathkings, while being able to fairly quickly find the weapons and weapon pieces you would've gotten from previous episodes. Because this includes modified map data for hub levels, I'm unsure if I'm legally allowed to distribute this, so I plan to do a bit of research first. If anyone has some insight on the topic I'd love to hear it. It's all too easy to do but impossible to find online, which leads me to believe that it's simply not allowed. After a bit of research I've found that it's a resounding grey area, so I'm going to treat it as I do with any other resource as to not arbitrarily pick and choose what assets are okay and not okay to modify.

 

A few other minor fixes and features, giving the unpowered Quietus the axeblood splatter on contact, raising the height of the mage timebomb, changing puzzle item pickup sounds to the unused (afaik) weapon piece pickup sound because I don't know how many times I've picked up a puzzle item without realizing it because the normal pickup sound is so unobtrusive.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Lippeth

[Lippeth]

I've restarted this mod from scratch over the past few days after having played a few more years worth of Hexen in DOSBox, keeping what I think still works and removing the guff, with optimizations here and simplifications there. So far it's just a rough version of the fighter but I'm sure I'll have the other classes working in no time.

 

I still can't think of a good alternate attack for the hammer; I'm open to any ideas regarding that and anything else!

 

 

[Doomenator]

5 hours ago, Lippeth said:

I still can't think of a good alternate attack for the hammer; I'm open to any ideas regarding that and anything else! 

Quite a good attack. Just need to remove the jump, it feels superfluous.
In addition, since you added the sword to the first slot, then swap the main-alt attacks. And add repulsion a small stunlock (since the repulsion is already on the shield, or you will have to remove it for the shield and just make protection) for a hand strike, like it's a kick.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Doomenator

[Nimlouth]

Been playing through og Hexen with this and must say, I'm impressed! I've always thought Hexen suffered from having VERY boring weaponry, and sometimes I kinda get a bit overwhelmed with mods like Walpurgis (which I love so much tho <3) that add a lot of extra stuff. I specially wanted something more vanilla+ to play through the original Hexen campaign but having actual fun and not just being annoyed to death. This was a perfect fit! Tysm!

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this pairs SUPER well with Gun Bonsai, LegenDoom Lite and MK's Champions!

Edited October 28, 2023 by Nimlouth

[Lippeth]

Updated OP with newest version!

 

* 1.6.0 *
-Reworked animations for all weapons
-Replaced alternate sprite angles with texture definitions to reduce filesize
-Added sound for Ettin's mace floor impact when gibbed
-Sword and Gauntlet only use stronger attacks when making contact with monsters
-New rapid fire for Quietus main attack
-Quietus lowers when out of mana
-Flammable objects burn with the right color of green when struck by Quietus
-Disabled Cleric combo powerup
-Serpent Staff and Firestorm alt attacks no longer go through walls
-Firestorm main attack reduced damage and increased animation speed
-removed damagetype modifiers
-removed monster projectile damagetypes
-Updated brightmaps

 

[Lippeth]

Here's a quick showcase of the cleric's weapons:

 

[Shepardus]

Very nice, this adds some much-needed spice to Hexen without deviating from the gameplay formula too much! Wish I had known about this before my playthrough of Veil of Darkness that I finished recently, would have made the mage combat a lot less monotonous (not least because I would have actually had a use for frost shards).

[CacoTwoShoes]

As of 1.6.1, Timon's Axe shield attack feels somewhat unreliable for projectile deflection (if deflection even is an inteded mechanic, I swear before 1.6.X I could sometimes bounce back Afrits' projectiles with well-timed mace swings when playing as Parias!) and when I simply bash at the monsters, there's barely any knockback. I think that both the damage and the knockback magnitude should be linked to Baratus' impetus at the moment. Bashing into a group of enemies while running should send them into space at least a few feet back like a tiny shockwave, the initial impulse propagating through the enemies' ranks like they were cue balls. This would make the shield attack uniquely useful for breaking through crowds but only if Baratus isn't completely cornered and still has enough leeway to speed himself up. So far, I end up eventually abandoning the shield attack altogether.

 

Sword and gauntlet would definitely feel better if sword and shield attacks were being automatically mixed by a script, e.g. gauntlet finishers following fast sword attacks and sword finishers following quick gauntlet jabs, and quick attacks with both weapons mixed at random. Given the separate manual control of both weapons, I end up using only one of them most of the time.

Quietus' primary fire costs 1 of each mana per projectile, secondary is 14 mana per 5 projectiles, both kinds of projectiles look visually identical which leads one into thinking that secondary fire is a total waste of mana. Why not give the secondary a different, more powerful-looking projectile design...

 

Same goes to Frost Shards, which cost 3 mana for what visually appears as an initial blast of dozens of shards followed by stream of shards costing 1 mana each. Maybe the scatter blast should be the secondary, also instantly breaking any frozen enemies, and the stream should be the primary. Current secondary of Frost Shards visually feels like a failed spell / frost fart. It isn't weak or useless, but it visually comes across as such.

 

Parias' mace power-up takes ages to trigger... perhaps there should be more incentive to it like maybe both the damage and swinging speed building up in small increments with each successfully landed blow. Otherwise the game fails to visually telegraph the player's charge-up towards triggering the bonus.

Parias' shield mechanics are now very different and I'm not even sure I understand them fully. Unlike Baratus, Parias now can hold the shield up indefinitely and shield bashing with Parias feels funny...

 

Using GZDoom 4.11.3

Edited January 26 by CacoTwoShoes

[Lippeth]

Thanks for the feedback @CacoTwoShoes

 

Lately I've been working specifically on the mace's powerup, as well as how the shields work for both cleric and fighter, and how to differentiate the two, so hopefully you'll see some improvement in the next update. I may just end up going back to the shield making them both completely invulnerable and automatically lower after a set amount of time, but I always liked the idea of the fighter not using the shield to protect but only to knock away and cause damage, but it's hard find that sweet spot when the axe is already so effective. In my current working and unreleased version the shield knockback power is based on having mana or not, and I can always increase this amount as well or find a new idea.

 

I've thought about having the sword and gauntlets correlate with each other before and ended up leaving it alone for the time being, but I should revisit that idea and make it so each one can "charge" up the other allowing you to do two fist jabs followed by a sword thrust, for instance.

 

The cleric mace takes 12 successful hits on a target to trigger the powerup, but I agree that there should be some visual cue as to what's happening. I did consider leaving the whole mechanic on the cutting room floor, but there's a part of me that still wants it to be there, and I think your idea of a visual indicator that it's charging up will help.

 

The change to the cleric's shield being held up indefinitely is because being completely invulnerable feels like a bit of a cop out, but since the mace doesn't do a great deal of damage (and I don't really want to change that) I wanted to focus on defense without being immune to things like poison cloud, so I lowered the damage factor to every relevant damage type and then decided why not just let him hold it up forever. I also didn't want to have too much knockback power to rival the fighter's axe shield, but if bashing feels weird to you now I think it's back to the drawing board. I should probably make separate attacks for blocking vs bash, that's at least something I can start with.

[CacoTwoShoes]

I kept editing my post while you were typing...

 

Quote

but it's hard find that sweet spot when the axe is already so effective.

Maybe the shield should be used for doing little damage but sending the enemies on a long haul, and even more so when fed some mana? Because playing as a fighter you'd naturally want to break through the encroaching hordes instead of standing one's ground while methodically chipping at them. Raise shield and charge to break out of encirclement and bamboozle the enemies, chop them with the axe while they are dispersed to kill them one by one. Rinse and repeat. The shield offers some protection while raised, but you as a fighter can't / don't go around with it raised all the time, Baratus' fighting style demands that shield be used for ramming (i.e. running into people while holding it up, not just standing rooted in place like a glorified hydrant). Holding Alt Fire while standing or slowly walking results in fast consecutive shield swings, like maybe for partial projectile deflection as it is now, or for ever so gently pushing the enemies back -- suboptimal practice but Baratus can't do much with the shield while standing, it's against his style, he's not been trained for that after all. On the contrary, Holding Alt Fire while running in a straight line (NOT straferunning or backpedalling or circle strafing like there's no tomorrow) raises the shield until you bash into something or stop running, charging with the shield up also grants Baratus a bit of damage protection for as long as the shield is up. "Make your enemies feel like bowling pins and receive less damage while doing so, use the axe to turn those bowling pins to chips while they are still scattered". I couldn't possibly think of a more offensive use of a shield while fulfilling its defensive role while being cleanly differentiated from the axe, the massive damage dealer.

 

Quote

and I think your idea of a visual indicator that it's charging up will help.

Every consecutive (successful) swing being just a tad faster and more damaging than the previous one should be very noticeable and feel pleasing. 12 could be just the level at which any further damage or attack speed bonuses are capped, miss or stop swinging and all the accumulated bonus decays in like 2 seconds. You kinda have to keep it cranked up to 12 all the time, or start doing the charge-up all over. The white halo around the mace simply means you have reached the max charge level and are at your top achievable attack speed and damage. There could even be different visual grades to that halo, becoming noticeable at say hit #7 and maxing out at #12.

 

Quote

why not just let him hold it up forever.

I like this idea but maybe instead of his hand twitching like he's being electrocuted he should rather hold it still but every hit taken by the shield should trigger an animation where the shield is literally pushed (like shotgun recoil) right into Parias' chest, and if there's another incoming hit before the animation makes a full cycle, that hit gets through. The attack triggering this animation is always blocked, but any attacks in the following N seconds do their full damage until the shield is fully steadied again. This should make Parias immune to individual ettins or slaughtaurs (while being unable to hurt them as well) but barrages of multiple projectiles will still hit him save for the first projectile, and the shield won't be efficient against melee crowds unless you backpedal or strafe a lot to momentarily break contact and give Parias time to steady the shield over and over. Stronger attacks stopped by the shield could result in more time needed to re-steady the shield. To prevent block abuse even further, there should be either no bashing for Parias at all, or tapping Secondary Fire should result in a lengthier, better telegraphed bash animation that can't be instantly aborted in favor of a quick shield block. Fully raising the shield after performing either a shield bash or a mace swing should take at least half a second...

Edited January 26 by CacoTwoShoes

[Lippeth]

Based on feedback from someone on the ZDoom forum saying they felt too op with this mod, I've reintroduced damage factors for each class, but instead of changing them when each weapon is raised, I've made them static for each class to give each playthrough a slightly different focus.

 

*Fighter*

-Resists melee damage (-20%)
-Weak against fire and poison (+20%)
-Very weak against magic (+40%)

 

*Cleric*

-Resists poison damage (-20%)
-Weak against fire and magic (+20%)
-Very weak against ice (+40%)

 

*Mage*

-Resists magic damage (-20%)
-Weak against fire and ice (+20%)
-Very weak against melee (+40%)

 

I doubled these values while testing just to push the limits, and I haven't yet tested on the hardest difficulty, so it still has a lot of room for balancing and feedback. I've also made sure that every enemy attack in the base game uses one of these damage types, specifically by adding magic as a new damagetype for enemies like the bishop and slaughtaur, and making the poison projectiles from the stalkters and green chaos serpents more like poisoncloud damage. At one point I gave each monster a resistance to specific damage types but commented them out for now because I don't think making them take more hits to kill is very fun, but giving them weaknesses and killing them more quickly doesn't sound that fun either.

[Impulse9]

Oh, thank you very much for the work. I'll test it right away!
Different damage types or even resistances for all monsters - that would be great! Then HeXen feels even more like an RPG.
Best regards

[Lippeth]

6 hours ago, Impulse9 said:

Oh, thank you very much for the work. I'll test it right away!
Different damage types or even resistances for all monsters - that would be great! Then HeXen feels even more like an RPG.
Best regards

 

Sorry to make you come over here to see the update, but thanks for the feedback and for testing it out!

 

If you open tempered_arms.pk3 in Slade3 and go to the decorate.txt file, you can remove the comment and end comment "/* and */" around the monsters to enable each one's resistance type. I chickened out on keeping it in for a release but I left in the code in case someone else likes it.