Hi.
First, I'd like to apologize. I promised help but I can't really help recently. I have severely limited internet access, 4h/day work, I'm studying IT (and failed some exams, this means extra work for holidays). I'm suprised I can remember my login...
I hope some feedback is welcome...
I typically play skill (warlock/berserker/cardinal)
Mage, the man without good weapons
This isn 't really your fault, the developers of Hexen are guilty. Mage's weapons suck, when it comes to both efficiency and ease of use. I mean it.
For instance, you can easily replace the yellow wand (yes, the yellow one) with Frost Shards, and make it use no mana. It's extremelly poor ! It does next to 0 damage at long range, it uses lots of mana (in best, perfect case it takes 6 mana to kill an ettin), and it's pretty hard to use it efficiently at short range. Try it yourself !
This is especially irrritating because I always liked the Frost Shards weapon.
Intelligence doesn't seem to improve Frost Shards ! Yes, it looks like a bug. A mage with 40 intelligence can't freeze an ettin with one shot, I tried it many times.
The arc of death is pretty cool weapon, but as infefficient as a mage's weapon can be. Hexen developers probably made it use 5 mana per shot because it may kill Chaos Serpent in one shot... but its usefulness is greatly decreased by the fact that it fails A LOT in tight corridors. There are many, many tight corridors in Hexen. It's a real pain to use, and you waste much mana for every miss. On the other hand, Firestorm, while not so strong, fires faster, projectiles fly faster, have much less tendency to hit wall, and deal splash damage. And the hammer (from original hexen) is even more efficient.
Note: Intelligence doesn't seem to increase damage dealt by arc of death :( . It may or may not kill chaos serpent (40 intelligence), but will never kill dark bishop or slaughtaur (the shooting one).
Bloodscourge - it's good only in theory. It almost can't be aimed, and is next to useless in corridors and closed spaces, becuse it hits walls even more often than arc of death. Even in open areas (ice citadel from deathkings) it's hard to kill more than 2 creatures with one shot.
However, it seems to work suprisingly well against flying ones, given enough room ! Try the last level from deathkings, and you can kill several reavers/wraiths with one shot ! I was shocked.
And one more thing. Bloodscourge seems to be designed to kill single targets. Well, there aren't any big, single monsters in hexen ! (bosses are too rare)
I'm sorry, but even Bloodscourge doesn't seem to deal more damage
with 40 intelligence. I can't kill a slaghtaur .
As I (hopefully) proved, mage's weapons are the most irritating to use of them all. I think it's a very cruel price for the allmighty Sapphire Wand. Please give him some better weapons, or make levels where his weapons are actually worthwhile !
And... your new, blue freezing wand suprised me. Is it meant as Bloodscourge replacement ? It is VERY powerful with around 40 intelligence. Usually it freezes Green Serpent with one shot, it also often freezes dark bishop with one shot.
With 10 wisdom, and around 40 intelligence, it took me... one long volley (200 mana, divided by 12 blue per shot) to kill the death wyvern. As I ran for cover, pressing Shift (mana creation spell), it took me several seconds to realize the poor thing is already dead !
And no, mana is not a problem at all. Not only does the intelligence increase weapon power for mage, but also gives insane amounts of mana from Mana Creation Spell. I purposedly didn't pickup any mana crystals, yet I used only blue freezing wand (several levels from shadow wood to orchard of lamentation, I think). Extreme firepower and you never run out of mana ! (actually, I used quartz flask once per level or so, there are many of these everywhere).
Something has to be done with mage. Developing very high intelligence is far too beneficial for a mage. I had no need whatsover to increase wisdom past 10. Oh, and I failed to mention that with 40 intel the Red Wand kills shooting slaughtaurs(can't defend), dark bishops, ettins and generally most monsters...with one shot. I feel those few points put into wisdom were wasted, you can complete the whole game with only red wand and use no mana.
Beside that, I really appreciate the life increase for mage. It's perfect - now you can actually heal, because it is possible to survive a hit once in a while. At the same time, it's low enough to make you play carefully.
The other classes have much more health and it's fine. My suggestion is to remove Protective Spell, because it's no longer needed, and pretty abusive. Playing with it teaches you bad habits. It's an another kind of fag mode.
I suggest to replace Defensive Spell with Repulsion. The new mage can survive with just repulsion, and it's much more interesting than the fag spell. I think the ice room from Guardian Of Steel can be done with just repulsion, I'm going to try it. Let the mage also have his tough rooms, not just Brackenwood for warrior !
The warrior Is pretty much ok. I even think it's easier to play now, at Berserker skill. More on this later, see "Miscalculation".
The warrior is fun to play, but you somehow made him more dull. The warrior from original Hexen has some ranged weapons; ranged warrior weapons from Kmod are very infefficient. And melee weapons are too similar. There are no reasons to use any weapons instead of Quietus. You always use the strongest of weapons you have at the moment. Remember - original Hexen may have only 4 weapons per class, but one great thing about them was that even the weakest (perhaps excluding the mace) were usable !
I didn't test the cleric too much, but It seems that with introduction of Intelligence the mace becomes much less useful. You need only few points to make Serpent Wand unlimited. With only 20 intelligence Serpent Wand is good enough to kill Serpents quick.
I'll think about some way to make Mace more useful.
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Miscalculation
I think that despite having 5 attributes instead of 3, you gain too much points per level. I would reduce it to 4. Kmod is much easier now.
As a mage, you need no strenght, few (6 total) points of constitution, and few points of speed to make dodging possible. You can assign the rest to Intelligence.
It's similar for warrior. You can assign few points to intel, few more to constitution, and the rest to strenght/speed.
The problem: you made the classes in such way that some attributes are completely useless... or you need only very slight increase. At the same time, you have almost 2 times more points than before !
It seems that the mage has no use at all for strenght. How about carrying capacity ? To keep it simple and user-friendly, how about limiting amount of items to one item per 2 points of strenght ? 10 strenght mage could carry 10 quartz flask, 10 flechettes, 10 disks of repulsion...
Mage can afford to forget about Wisdom.
Mage cannot increase constitution above 6, and he doesn't really need more considering his awesome firepower.
Warrior can totally ignore Wisdom, and do very well.
Misc
Please make it so Ice Wendigos are vulnerable to falling damage. It would be very fun to kill them by making them fall several meters or less.
Melee weapon range (vertical only) needs to be reduced, in my opinion. It could cause problems with Death Wyverns, but do you remember the beggining of level2 (Deathkings) ? It's very silly.
Hexen has no nasty melee monsters ! Please include some deadly, fast melee monsters. Ettins certainly aren't, and slaughtaurs are only dangerous because of their blue, devastating projectiles.
I bet you reveice much more damage from afrits than (melee) from slaughtaurs and ettins together,
Hexen has no tough, resistant monsters. I don't vote for making all monsters very tough, but you need to realize that Hexen is always about hordes of monsters. Why not make it that sometimes you have to fight 5 very resistant monsters at once instead of 20 weak ?
An idea for Warrior 'spell': Charge.
Play Nox for reference.
This would make the Warrior run very fast in a fixed direction without abilty to change direction... until he hits something.
- wall - 10 damage taken and 1 second stun
- monster - most probably killed, warrior not stunned, healthy.
At higher levels you could possibly trample several monsters !
B0rsuk