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The Ultimate DooMer

[Hexen] Serpent: Resurrection (Final Beta on p1)

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The mission in the docks where I were supposed to store barrels. If you close the doors before you store the barrels, then you're fucked.


I tried to fix that before, but to no avail sadly.

The story/talk from people are quite hard to follow because they can be hard to read against the background, go by too fast, and you can't look back in the console (which you usually can in Zdoom wads with these issues)


I didn't actually know how to do that, but I do now so it'll go in.

During the sail trip to Caldera or whatever Morrowind city it was, I lost track of who was who in the conversation. But it didn't matter because I wasn't paying attention much by that time anyway since missing a parts of sentences made me give up on following it. Besides, it didn't appear to be anything all that interesting said anyway.


That bit is mostly story stuff and idle crew chatter...although I probably did make a mistake by having the captain's spoken messages the same colour as the random crew member's messages (which was done simply cos he looks the same as they do). If I can find a presentable way of adding names I'll do that, if not I'll be changing his message colour at the least. (and adding that logging flag)

Something visually that really caught my eye was the pointy rocks (grassy knolls, very tall grassy knolls) coming in with the ship. By the water level, they were leveling out against the water surface, that really doesn't make any sense. But the ship didn't have any tall masts or sails either for that matter, so I suppose it doesn't matter.


Not sure what you mean there, are you referring to how they look on board the ship (map 02) compared to on the island (map 03) or just how they're built in general?

2)more important stuff:
-Player speed is way too slow,the action is sluggish and boring;
-The player can't jump without the boots,which is unrealistic and very,very lame.

You can jump without boots, but you need a Dexterity score of about 15+ before it really starts to be perceptible as a jump, rather than just a weird camera shift.


The practical amount of dex you need is a bit lower (7 or 8 will let you jump onto 32 unit high ledges) but I am thinking of making that the lowest jump height instead. Speed I'm not so sure about, as the inconvenience of slow movement is tempered by the different and trickier playstyle against projectiles in the more roomy maps...still I can probably increase it a little without harming the latter too much.

Also...one secret I ran across was quite the laugh.


Had to be done :P

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Seems fun, although on the ship my comp slowed down severely even when I disabled every visual feature I could.

Although I guess it wasn't an issue at the time, the serpent summon can't fit through the same spaces as the player.

I was going to say - query item gives you cryptic things like "spell2" but then I realized the info page has all the spells

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Trying to figure out the puzzle in the Frozen Fortress. I've put all the cogs in, now I'm just trying to figure out why one switch in the main hallway (next to something I'd like very much. It ain't the last piece of the Wraithverge though sadly) is telling me it has no power. Must be one thing I'm missing.

Oh well, I shall deal with that tomorrow.

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I realllllllly can't get into this one, but I have to admire the amount of work and dedication put into it. This is a huge project. Great level design too.

If only all the levels were non-stop tome of power slaughterfests .. :P

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Will the last few maps do instead? :P

Anima Zero said:

Trying to figure out the puzzle in the Frozen Fortress. I've put all the cogs in, now I'm just trying to figure out why one switch in the main hallway (next to something I'd like very much. It ain't the last piece of the Wraithverge though sadly) is telling me it has no power. Must be one thing I'm missing.

Oh well, I shall deal with that tomorrow.


If you've placed all the cogs and started the machine, you need to press each of the 4 switches once (minus the one closest to the brown/grey metal table), even if you pressed them earlier (therefore appear to be switched on). That's something that needs to be sorted.

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Heh, turns out I somehow missed a switch to get the platform going on the main level. Not sure how that happened.

In any case, I got the cleric's 7th weapon. Pretty nice, but it's quite easy to empty red and yellow mana reserves if you use it too recklessly.

Now I just need that last piece of the Wraithverge and I will be very happy (and realize it'll probably turn most of the rest of the area I'm currently in to a potential cakewalk in the process).

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The Ultimate DooMer said:

Not sure what you mean there, are you referring to how they look on board the ship (map 02) compared to on the island (map 03) or just how they're built in general?


How they're built in general.
They are pointy rocks sticking out of the ocean. They shouldn't level out by the water surface. If anything, the ocean should have dug out them by the surface, creating overhangs. But the biggest issue I am seeing with this is that the ship wouldn't be able to travel such shallow waters.

And even if the water was deep, the ship would probably be crushed against the rocks. But that's probably looking too far at it.

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The Ultimate DooMer said:

Will the last few maps do instead? :P


I can't really tell, since warping around puts you in some sort of zombie/ghost state where you have 0 health, no weapons and can't interact with anything.

I don't see why making a pure action version of this mapset is out of the question, but I have a feeling it's probably something you wouldn't do.

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udderdude said:

I can't really tell, since warping around puts you in some sort of zombie/ghost state where you have 0 health, no weapons and can't interact with anything.

It puts you into state in which you start the game - even before rolling statistics.
You have to use "changemap" command instead of "map". And you must be in phase where you already have rolled your stats, got a weapon etc.

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udderdude said:

I don't see why making a pure action version of this mapset is out of the question, but I have a feeling it's probably something you wouldn't do.


It's certainly doable (fix the value of attributes and player/mob health , leaving the rest in)...however I'm not sure I want to.

On the upside it's less pretentious and more people might play it (plus it doesn't affect me or any other RPG fans who'd never play it this way), on the downside I can see many people defaulting to the non-rpg version simply because it's easier to get into and closer to the vanilla gameplay (though why people would want that with Hexen is beyond me - running around a map or a hub of maps bashing hordes of identikit mobs with 2 weapons while trying to find out what that switch you just pulled did? I'll pass methinks) rather than because they don't like RPG's or they think the mage is too hard to start with etc.

Which isn't how I intended the mod to be played...so I dunno. What do the rest of you think about adding this option?

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The Ultimate DooMer said:

Which isn't how I intended the mod to be played...so I dunno. What do the rest of you think about adding this option?


Don't. Plenty of other shit to fill that void. This is unique and interesting as it is. Now if only I had a week off to play the hell out of it...

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Use3D said:

Don't. Plenty of other shit to fill that void. This is unique and interesting as it is. Now if only I had a week off to play the hell out of it...


I second this.

Ultimate Doomer, I don't think the potential for the action version overshadowing the RPG version really is a risk worth taking, and IMO, since these levels weren't really constructed with that version in mind, most players probably won't have as much fun in the long term doing quests and exploring as they would have if they were playing the version that involves RPG elemements, or they might not have any fun at all, and dismiss both versions because they didn't enjoy the action one. And since you put a lot of time and effort into making this mapset what it is... would you want to risk this?

If you wanted to make a fast paced pure action mapset, it'd be better if you just made a new completely project from scratch, one that was designed specifically with balls to the walls action in mind. But ofcourse this is all up to you. :P

I hope this post makes sense, because it's 2:00 AM here and I'm tired as hell. heheh

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I told you my thoughts on the topic already but I'll just say some of it again here. I don't think you should feel compelled to cater to the super-action style of gameplay. The sense of exploration and immersion, mob occurrence, combat, puzzles, and hub searching all work to create a very different game experience.

Thinking about it, I would feel a bit like I cheated myself had I chosen to play a "simplified" version instead of the original thing, especially considering what I played was a unique and imaginative take on Hexen gameplay.

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Well...I've been adding plenty of options to try and accommodate everyone, eg. the help modes (for those who get stuck), skippable cutscenes (for those who hate them) and the altfire menu method (for those who don't like binding new keys) but this probably is a step too far.

3rd and final beta up, see the OP. (this is the closest thing to a release candidate)

I could still use some feedback on the various features though (eg. weapons, spells, mobs, ammo/health/gold balance) as I still don't know really what it plays like to someone who's not seen it before. Even if things are ok, I'd still like to know.

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Fun change of pace from the non-stop action of most Hexen/Doom wads, although (And I'm not too sure if this is from the difficulty I chose) but some of the monsters are a bitch to kill, such as most of the Ranged monsters, by the time I get to them my health is nearly cut in half and thats not even counting the melee fight I have shortly. Going to try lower difficulty. Also, I would love to get my hands on that flameless sword sprite, I've always wanted to get those images

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Playing through the latest beta on heroic with the warrior.

I noticed a couple things that seem off thus far (Nearing the end of the 1st hub). Playing this with the r833 build of GZDoom.

Firstly...it seems like slaughtars and sometimes brown serpents do not aim at your character when they fire. I believe this was supposedly fixed in an earlier beta, but must have been broken again or something with this current beta.

Next is something more serious I stumbled across.

The 4 paths that lead to the first 4 levels of the starting hub (gaea, prometheus, uranus, and aquarius I believe)...after passing a certain point, but before actually making it to the point where you head into one of those maps, it spawns a couple enemies in the eastern shores map. Seems harmless...until you realize this can be done an infinite amount of times to your hearts content. I was able to shoot the enemy count in the eastern shores to just over 1000 via this exploit.

If someone were devoted enough, he/she could gain tons of levels and infinite gold (slaughtars are one of the enemies spawned via this method) exploting this.

It should be changed to only work once or not at all so as to make sure it can't be exploited for easy levels and gold.

Other than that, haven't seen anything odd or buggy. We'll see what comes up, if anything, when I reach the first major boss (I remember this fight on heroic with the warrior on an earlier beta...it was not pretty).

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Lines are fixed, the reason you got the centaur/serpent aiming bug is because I didn't fix the slow/fast versions when I fixed the normal ones.

Anima Zero said:

We'll see what comes up, if anything, when I reach the first major boss (I remember this fight on heroic with the warrior on an earlier beta...it was not pretty).


It's even less pretty now :P

(although I did remove the -fast parameter in favour of ranged mobs having faster attack speeds as well as melee mobs...though why anyone is trying on Heroic when even I haven't yet is something else :P)

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I suppose I wanted a challenge which is why I chose Heroic.

Then again, why I chose that with a class I hadn't yet played as is another story :P.

But anyways, got past the first major boss of the game. That new phase was a surprise, that's for sure. Took quite a few tries to survive to the end with only 15 health and no potions of life remaining.

Just got a bit into the volcano when I stopped playing yesterday. Everything seems to be fine thus far into it with no glaring bugs to report.

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Is it worth knocking up a strategy guide of some kind, or would that spoil it too much? (assuming that many will default to the easier option and read it before playing rather than find stuff out for themselves)

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The Ultimate DooMer said:

Is it worth knocking up a strategy guide of some kind, or would that spoil it too much? (assuming that many will default to the easier option and read it before playing rather than find stuff out for themselves)

Not sure if a full blown strategy guide is really needed. Hints also would seem like a silly idea if only because you can basically get some in game hints (Game actually tells you how to do that at the beginning).

Only thing left after that is maybe secret locations? I dunno. I'm not one that likes to have an entire game spoiled for me unless there's detailed locations for any missables/how to reach optional fights and die/so on and so on.

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A secrets guide would be worth a read. I've played through the game 3 times and still have not found all the secrets. Some of the ones in the later maps really allude me.

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Been awhile since my last post, but I'm about to go on the hunt for the two pieces for my warrior's 7th weapon.

Managed to stumble across a few bugs in the process.

Firstly, in the Chasm of Fire, there are 4 Weredragons that apparently can't move because the ceiling is too low, meaning they're just running in place and can't blast you.

Picture of the automap where they're located, complete with lovely red fail circles marking where they are:

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7544/stuckenemies.png

Next, I don't know how this one happened, but a pair of wild hounds warped into one of the fenced areas where random animals roam outside the Monastery of Selene.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/3137/randomenemies.png

Moving on...2nd major boss was certainly a step up in challenge compared to the time I fought it on Normal with the cleric on the 1st beta. Not quite as painful as the 1st major boss with the warrior on heroic, but still a good challenge. I actually came out of this fight with some potions of life to spare...and an immortal manbeast to boot. Yeah somehow that one didn't die upon the boss's death. None of my weapons damage it. Rather fun having to stay away from an immortal enemy when I'm trying to get to the shops to restock items.

Nothing buggy until something random I found involving trying to speedrun through the Dauthi Mountain Pass to the palace, then to the dungeon so I could complete Quietus.

Firstly...good thing I managed to have a backup save right at the start of the palace dungeons because I totally forgot about flooding the place while a certain someone was alive. Whoops.

But before that happened...the mana surrounding the room with the boss can't be picked up for some strange reason. The mana doesn't float up and down like it usually should, but rather just sits there spinning in place.

Just for lulzs...I managed to take out the boss on my...2nd or 3rd attempt, can't remember, with 3 health and no potions of life left. Awesome eh?

Also, imagine how I had to get past 4 hell guards at the lower palace in a small hallway without getting hit, then hit town before realizing I made a huge mistake in the dungeons :P.

Finally, this is more of a curiousity, but I wonder if that boss in the Dauthi Mountain Pass, the gigantic two-headed hound, could be improved. It seems like that nasty charge it does only occurs like once every 30 seconds or so. It'd be nice if it could do that charge more often as its health decreases (or the boss itself gets faster maybe?).

That's about all for now.

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an immortal manbeast to boot. Yeah somehow that one didn't die upon the boss's death. None of my weapons damage it. Rather fun having to stay away from an immortal enemy when I'm trying to get to the shops to restock items.


That was fixed after I found it last week.

Dunno why the mana's doing that, I've never seen it so. Or the hound issue. The weredragons I'm sure can fire, I've been hit by them many times but maybe I can give them some more room. I wouldn't mind making the hound boss a bit harder though, even if the main focus on that fight is crowd control.

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The Ultimate DooMer said:

That was fixed after I found it last week.

Dunno why the mana's doing that, I've never seen it so. Or the hound issue. The weredragons I'm sure can fire, I've been hit by them many times but maybe I can give them some more room. I wouldn't mind making the hound boss a bit harder though, even if the main focus on that fight is crowd control.


There's a possibility that me using GZDoom r833 might be a contributing factor to the stuck weredragons/odd hounds/uncollectable mana issues.

But anyways, 7th weapon fully assembled. Just gotta get Quietus assembled now.

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Hey I had this for a while but I'm just starting to get into it. Is there any way to see how much gold you have? I'm kind of at a loss in the first map (did both the gauntlett and the boat job) cuz I don't know how much money I have to expunge on the shopps.

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If you pull up your stats screen (assuming you've binded a key to pull it up of course), you can find your current amount of gold in possession at the bottom of it.

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Alright thanks. The text file didn't say anything about all those new keybindings. Most of them are pretty marginal but the rpg menu is pretty fragging important and it isn't set to any key by default.

I just noticed I posted this in the wrong thread when I should've posted here.

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PaganRaven said:

Most of them are pretty marginal but the rpg menu is pretty fragging important and it isn't set to any key by default.

You can also pull it up with alt-fire, but that pauses the game.

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