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Barfing Cumlord posted:It's also brought down a lot by having only four loving weapons, which is by far the worst part about it. AND the fourth gun uses the ammo of your second and third gun at the same time  What the gently caress?  You have so few tactical options in Hexen it sucks. So its mostly just punching demons in the face, or sniping them with your wizard's staff.Dominic White posted:Good idea: Non-linear action RPG hub-worlds and exploration. And this is why I never beat it. That was cool, like, the first time. Oh snap, they opened up the fire level cuz I pulled that switch in the iron level or whatever. But it makes the worst doom keyhunts look like nothing.
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May 16, 2014 17:33
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Zaphod42 posted:If you mod Hexen to have more guns its a lot more fun. Is there a decent mod for this? The 4 weapon limit is one of the most annoying things about that game, aside from asinine switch hunting.
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May 16, 2014 17:35
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 I think Hexen is fun as hell and I'm sticking by that assertion. I guess I'm a bigger fan of the architecture and dynamic world so the lack of weapons didn't really bother me. It's really neat to be in some crazy metal puzzle room one moment, then in an icy cavern the next, then in a misty swap, etc. etc. The sound effects and ambiance are great too.
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May 16, 2014 17:39
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Convex posted:Is there a decent mod for this? The 4 weapon limit is one of the most annoying things about that game, aside from asinine switch hunting. If nothing else you can use Samsara to play through as doomguy or hereticdude or whatever. But I think I remember a mod that added all class' weapons together, or another that gave each class more weapons? I don't loving remember, no doubt some other goon knows.
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May 16, 2014 17:44
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As said before, the hexen RPG mod adds tons of weapons to the core classes of the game in the form of skills and adds two new classes. It has a stat system as well as the skill tree/level system and adds a unique ability to mix different potions together through alchemy. Its also compatible with heretic and doom. You could play with samsara as hexen guy having all the hexen weapons, indeed. Try that poo poo out goons! Experience hexen without the negatives. E: I'm talking about wrath of chronos for zandronum, actually.http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1224 Kazvall fucked around with this message at 17:50 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 17:44
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As for Heretic (which has aged better than Hexen, mostly due to sticking closer to the Doom template), there's not too many good level packs for it, but the few out there tend to be pretty great. I'd especially recommend Hordes of Chaos X and Masters Of Chaos. The little graphical mod Heretic++ is great if you're playing any vanilla maps, too.
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May 16, 2014 18:00
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I feel like the biggest problem with Heretic is that Mummies are one of the most common enemies in the game, but they are also super loving boring. They move slow as hell and take a ton of damage to kill. Mummy Leaders are at least semi-threatening, but pretty much the same story still. Early game is a loving drag because they take so many Wand shots to kill and even the Crossbow doesn't reliably kill them in 1 hit. But another big problem with Heretic (which is down to the map layouts mind you) is that nothing 'overrides' the default wand. So in a lot of maps, you end up having to go back to the wand because you've got a lot of ammo for it. In Doom, the pistol gets replaced by the chaingun, which is way better and also way more fun to use, so you always have a decent way to use up your bullet ammo. The Powered Wand is pretty great, but you only get so much time to use that. Maybe they could have had a powerup that gave you permanent Powered Wand, or changed another weapon to use the gold gems. I dunno.
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May 16, 2014 18:34
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Kazvall posted:Myself and three goons cooped hexen the other night. It was some of the most fun I've had in a long time playing a classic fps. The hexen coop fix patch helps a lot to add global pickups and such. To be fair, I started speedrunning things when you guys got stuck to keep things up to pace.  That loving ending had me in tears, though.
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May 16, 2014 18:36
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TerminusEst13 posted:To be fair, I started speedrunning things when you guys got stuck to keep things up to pace. Always take one game guru with you, or a guide to remind you to place the gems in their star pattern. Best ending ever. We are on the last area/boss. Everyone is dead but me, and I had died earlier so all I have is the Axe. Terminus is yelling at me to use a ranged attack and Im like 'I HAVE NO RANGED!'. He spawns me the hammer just in time to finish the boss off before dying. I decided to be cool and finish the rest of the monsters off with reflect and use some of those mage fuckers to shoot me through the end portal. To victory!
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May 16, 2014 18:47
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This has probably been discussed to death, but levels 20 and 21 of the Community Chest 4 pack are absolutely friggin' gorgeous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzvTXfvfN4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKJ5AtH5ewU Also, I was browsing the Doom Wiki and stumbled across Unholy Realms from last year. Pretty good so far, the levels are fairly small - even the 'big fight' maps have around 200 monsters at most.
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May 16, 2014 20:22
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Zero Star posted:Also, I was browsing the Doom Wiki and stumbled across Unholy Realms from last year. Pretty good so far, the levels are fairly small - even the 'big fight' maps have around 200 monsters at most. Yeah, I really enjoyed that one and recommended it many pages back. I'll also second the recommendation of Coffee Break that was made a little while ago.
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May 16, 2014 20:29
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Zero Star posted:This has probably been discussed to death, but levels 20 and 21 of the Community Chest 4 pack are absolutely friggin' gorgeous. Yeah, those two are far and away the best things in CC4, and very much in the style of the space level from Deus Vult 2, although it's a really solid map pack in general.
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May 16, 2014 20:31
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I realize I've been pretty much a broken record about Wolf 3D lately, but god drat, BJ is a fragile protagonist. I got killed from 56% health in one shot from an SS guard on Bring 'Em On difficulty. 
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May 16, 2014 20:32
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I realize I've been pretty much a broken record about Wolf 3D lately, but god drat, BJ is a fragile protagonist. I got killed from 56% health in one shot from an SS guard on Bring It On difficulty. If I remember right, bullet damage in Wolfenstein is based on distance, so if an enemy sneaks up on you or gets in a point-blank shot, it can wreck you.
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May 16, 2014 20:33
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Segmentation Fault posted:Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Secret Files (a Europe only expansion) sold so poorly that it was basically responsible for Gathering of Developers' demise. I actually looked into how much The Secret Files goes for nowadays (since the only version of Jazz 2 I own is an OEM copy I bought for a dollar or so without realizing it was an OEM copy, and even knowing that the extra levels are eh and that Lori, cute as she is, wasn't well-designed mechanically, it's technically the "most complete" version), only to find literally nobody selling it. Bodes well when the only reliable way to get it is illegal. Secret  , more like  ...but anyway, I'm seriously getting off-topic. We're talking Raven shooters now? Sure, I can talk about that: Heretic is really cool. I mean, none of the weapons pack quite the same punch as Doom's arsenal, granted (the ethereal crossbow comes close to being a good Shotgun facsimile, and I certainly use it the most of all the weapons, but even that's not the same - not that it's easy to top Doom's shotguns anyway), but I thought the level design was pretty nifty at several points, and the game's somehow more colorful than Doom itself is, which is an aspect I kind of admire (to have a highly colorful palette yet still pull off a foreboding atmosphere is pretty talented). Hexen... egh. I've only ever completed The Seven Portals (the first hub), honestly. The level design is confusing at times, especially if you're going for some of the secret areas. Also, I really hate having enemies constantly spawning in when I'm not expecting them to; I like the satisfaction of knowing that, yes, I did effectively kill every living thing that stood in opposition to me in this stage, and I'm not going to have a surprise encounter as I now try to tackle whatever puzzles are left in the level itself. I think I appreciate what it did for Doom editing more than I do what it did as a game, which is a shame, because it's damned ambitious for the engine. Hexen 2 is pretty cool, but has similar issues in telegraphing whether or not you're making any progress in the game - admittedly not helped by me attempting to continue a two-year-old save and being uncertain whether or not I've explored this part of the castle or not. I do like how they made practically everything destructible if you whack it for a few seconds, though. Chairs, corpses, inconsequential level geometry... whack it a bit, it'll explode. That part's all good. And while it's not a Raven shooter, I should mention Strife, too. As far as that goes, I'm not entirely sure what it wants to be. It pulls off the "open world in the Doom engine" task better than Hexen does, down to having NPCs, shops and (somewhat rudimentary) dialog trees. However, its stealth elements are kind of half-hearted. I like that enemies aren't immediately aggro'd in some situations (you can even talk to them), and that you have a melee weapon that doesn't wake up every enemy in the map when you swing it unlike the Doom guy's fists; combine both of these and you can pick off enemies one at a time. Problem is, you then have NPCs that the plot mandates you're required to talk to to progress, and these same NPCs alert the guards when talked to. In other (more common) instances, you have level geometry that sounds an alarm (again alerting all guards), but in order to progress, you're required to cross over it, throwing any stealth pretenses out the window. It's not bad (I've certainly gotten farther in it than I have Hexen), it's just kinda confused. Segmentation Fault posted:Has anyone made a Wolfenstein 3D-style advice animal meme thing?  Does that work?
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May 16, 2014 20:52
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I like Hexen but I hate playing it. I can live with the limited weapons and all that, but I hate the hub levels and the backtracking and trying to figure out where the gently caress to go and if I did everything I can in this level at this time and will I have to come back. I made it past Seven Portals once. As far as beautiful Doom maps? Ribbik's maps are astoundingly pretty. Swim With the Whales is gorgeous and Stardate 20X6 is super stylish. I mean, they are super rough and I haven't made it past the first/second level in either of them, but oh my God, they are a joy to look at.
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May 16, 2014 21:15
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Stardate 20X6 is such a good .wad
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May 16, 2014 21:17
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I realize I've been pretty much a broken record about Wolf 3D lately, but god drat, BJ is a fragile protagonist. I got killed from 56% health in one shot from an SS guard on Bring 'Em On difficulty. It's basically a normal part of the franchise. Direction and position matters a lot, and both you and the enemies are really fragile in all three Wolfenstein games.
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May 16, 2014 21:19
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Zero Star posted:This has probably been discussed to death, but levels 20 and 21 of the Community Chest 4 pack are absolutely friggin' gorgeous. Some of the laser stuff is cool but man its just endless silver in the first one and endless black in the second, I dunno. I can think of dozens of better looking WADs. They did do some pretty cool original geometry, but... yeah nothing to write home about really. I guess to each his own. Second one does remind me of Dark Forces at least.
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May 16, 2014 21:33
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Elliotw2 posted:It's basically a normal part of the franchise. Direction and position matters a lot, and both you and the enemies are really fragile in all three Wolfenstein games. Well the the wolf 3D damage formula is distance-based, it is also influenced by whether or not you are moving, how fast you are moving, whether you have the supposed target shooting at you in sight, (this halves the chances of their shots connecting with you) and I believe two different random number rolls which properly calculate the supposed damage you shall take
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May 16, 2014 21:50
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NoodleBox posted:Well the the wolf 3D damage formula is distance-based, it is also influenced by whether or not you are moving, how fast you are moving, whether you have the supposed target shooting at you in sight, (this halves the chances of his shots connecting with you) and I believe two different random number rolls which properly calculate the supposed damage you shall take Obeast fucked around with this message at 22:11 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 22:08
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It kinda makes me yearn for Doom's relative simplicity.
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May 16, 2014 22:20
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Goddamn that's a lot of ways to affect enemy attacks. All I knew was that distance affected damage. I think it's kinda neat that the game kinda sorta had suppressing fire years before any other game, even if it might not have been suppressing fire when the developers thought of it.
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May 16, 2014 22:41
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There seem to be quite a few vestigial game elements in Wolf3D back from when it was supposed to be more true to the sneaking gameplay of the original 2D version. Things like guard patrol patterns, the primitive noise propagation system (which is useful for making cool traps), and backstabbling.
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May 16, 2014 22:42
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SALT CURES HAM posted:It kinda makes me yearn for Doom's relative simplicity. Doom has a straight binary hit calculation, but the damage is still crazy variable. The fist does 2d10hp damage, so you could technically take ten punches to kill a 20hp enemy if you're really unlucky, or do the job in just one. Now here's a question: Is there any mod that removes the random damage calculation and just uses the average? I always got the feeling that Brutal Doom has a much tighter range of damage values. Am I wrong?
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May 16, 2014 22:48
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I don't know if such a mod exists, but it should be trivial to make one with DECORATE. Maybe make versions that always use the minimum and maximum values, too. And extend that to monster attacks, while we're at it.
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May 16, 2014 22:54
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Pain Chance is also a huge factor of randomness as well though. I'm betting that setting the damage to always be the average value would cause some sort of weirdness there, like you could never beat pain threshold with certain weapons on certain monsters where you used to before.
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May 16, 2014 22:58
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Only one way to know for sure, really.
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May 16, 2014 23:27
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Zaphod42 posted:AND the fourth gun uses the ammo of your second and third gun at the same time That's the real problem. Everyone focuses on the four weapons, but really, modern Doom gameplay also has only four weapons: 1. Berserk 2. SSG 3. Rocket launcher 4. BFG 9000 The issue with Hexen is that ammo is shared, so that when you run out of ammo for a weapon, you also run out of ammo for at least one other. So either you go slot 1/slot 4 or you go slot 2/slot 3. It was a good idea on paper, a terrible idea in practice.
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May 16, 2014 23:30
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I dunno, while the SSG is definitely my mainstay weapon, I do break out the normal shotgun for weaker individual enemies, the chaingun for enemies I really want to hitstun a lot (like the Cacodemon or Pain Elemental), the rocket launcher for groups of enemies or strong enemies at a distance, the pistol for sniping weak enemies at a distance, the BFG9000 for when I'm like "screw this"... Only weapons I never really found a niche for, and as such almost never use, are the melee ones (Berserk/Chainsaw; they're last resorts to me and little else) and the plasma rifle (because I want to save the ammo for said "screw this" moments). That said, the lack of weapon variety didn't really bother me in Hexen. (Says the guy who less than a page ago admitted he hasn't gone anywhere in the second hub, but still.)
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May 16, 2014 23:48
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Shadow Hog posted:(Berserk/Chainsaw; they're last resorts to me and little else) Pinky Demons! If you can get the right angle to keep them from flanking you, you can take a whole group out using the chainsaw. They can rarely get a hit through if you're holding the button down and they're in front of you.
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May 16, 2014 23:55
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I usually just take each one out with a single SSG blast, personally. I suppose I resort to melee when I want to conserve shells (or simply don't have any)...
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May 16, 2014 23:58
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Shadow Hog posted:Heretic is really cool. I mean, none of the weapons pack quite the same punch as Doom's arsenal, granted (the ethereal crossbow comes close to being a good Shotgun facsimile, and I certainly use it the most of all the weapons, but even that's not the same - not that it's easy to top Doom's shotguns anyway), but I thought the level design was pretty nifty at several points, and the game's somehow more colorful than Doom itself is, which is an aspect I kind of admire (to have a highly colorful palette yet still pull off a foreboding atmosphere is pretty talented). Did nobody play Heretic 2? I remember reading about it in PC Gamer back in the day and it looked badass, but that's the only one in the Heretic/Hexen saga I've never played.
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May 16, 2014 23:58
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heretic 2 was a 3rd person shooter set in a fantasy world with magical plague. standard doom/heretic red key/blue gem/yellow macguffin fetch-quest gameplay. melee combat was good, and you could level up your staff & weapons with runes. I recall the last boss fight being annoying.
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May 17, 2014 00:20
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Zombie Samurai posted:Did nobody play Heretic 2? I remember reading about it in PC Gamer back in the day and it looked badass, but that's the only one in the Heretic/Hexen saga I've never played.
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May 17, 2014 00:23
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The latest episode of retro gaming podcast Back in my Play has David Kushner on to talk about writing Masters of Doom. Never listened to it before but sounds like this one could be pretty interesting.
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May 17, 2014 00:57
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Dominic White posted:Doom has a straight binary hit calculation, but the damage is still crazy variable. The fist does 2d10hp damage, so you could technically take ten punches to kill a 20hp enemy if you're really unlucky, or do the job in just one. All the Id guys were huge D&D nerds, so that probably influenced the design in tiny ways. Its funny to me to read "2D10" when talking about video games, but that's what it is.
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May 17, 2014 01:20
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In all seriousness people, you're doing yourselves a disfavor if you don't start playing completely random WADs off of /idgames and seeing how far you can get in them.
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May 17, 2014 01:23
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Zaphod42 posted:All the Id guys were huge D&D nerds, so that probably influenced the design in tiny ways. Yeah, that's what I figured was the reason for calculating damage like that. It's probably part of why the gameplay transfers so elegantly to DoomRL. It even uses the same notation for weapon damage. I'd love to see some kind of Deterministic Doom mod, though, which cuts or highly reduces the random elements. It's surprising the game is so popular with speedrunners as-is, considering the number of completely random elements involved. Install Windows posted:In all seriousness people, you're doing yourselves a disfavor if you don't start playing completely random WADs off of /idgames and seeing how far you can get in them. There are so many amazing levels out there that even if you limited yourself to play the top 1-2%, you'd still have more Doom than you could ever feasibly get through.
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May 17, 2014 01:24
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Dominic White posted:Yeah, that's what I figured was the reason for calculating damage like that. It's probably part of why the gameplay transfers so elegantly to DoomRL. It even uses the same notation for weapon damage. But it's not completely random! It's got a completely repeatable pseudo random number table, which leads to thoroughly deterministic gameplay as long as you mind the game ticks, and which is why demo files work. Several outcomes for various game rolls are impossible to happen, because of the way said pseudorandom table is laid out.
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May 17, 2014 01:26
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