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A most bizarre occurence...

Wed, 08 Aug 2001 06:36:00

Ichor

Playing the Korax mod, I have just completed all the puzzles in the third hub (Heresiarch's Seminary), and the most peculiar thing happened while fighting the Heresiarch. When he got below halfway, he started spawning Dark Bishops. Nothing wrong here. However, one of the green balls he threw out spawned......another Heresiarch. Fighting one is bad enough with his strength, but two?
Wed, 08 Aug 2001 08:16:00

RambOrc

Well Korax Mod is full of surprises, isn't it? Sometimes I'm really proud of having been lead gameplay designer on this mod. [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Well you shouldn't really panic, if you're a lamer and don't want to kill both, just watch which one is spawning bishops, that's the old one. Concentrate on that one, the other won't start summoning anything before you pound it down to half health. But if you're a real tough guy, just crush 'em both... think of the fact, you get extra 45-55'000 EXP if you kill the 2nd one as well! LOL (depending on how many EXP you need to reach the next level, it might even be worth it) p.s. some insider info, originally I wanted the Heresiarch to summon a Death Wyvern now and then, but the stupid thing got stuck and so it got to be the Heresiarch... [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
Wed, 08 Aug 2001 08:25:00

Ichor

The Death Wyvern (even in this mod) needs mapspots in order to direct its flight path. I'm surprised the thing didn't crash the game. Also, it may be that you'll have to kill both of them if you end up killing the spawned one first, since the original one will be the one that runs the script. By the way, will there be only one extra spawned? In other words, once you kill the original one, the spawned one won't spawn a new one of his own, creating a third one to deal with?
Wed, 08 Aug 2001 08:51:00

RambOrc

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
The Death Wyvern (even in this mod) needs mapspots in order to direct its flight path. I'm surprised the thing didn't crash the game.
Wrong... the Death Wyvern's AI has been thrown out by Camper and replaced with that of the Fire Gargoyle, and he added some delay between fire bursts or else the lizard would spit fire without pause... the results are that now you can't just get behind the Wyvern and fly him tail and bash him laughingly, he'll quite easily turn around in mid-flight and he'll also pretty often dodge your projectiles... and also, he doesn't need any map spots any more. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
Also, it may be that you'll have to kill both of them if you end up killing the spawned one first, since the original one will be the one that runs the script.
It's not a maybe, it's a fact. If you don't want to kill 'em all, you'll really have to pay attention which one is which... [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img] <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
By the way, will there be only one extra spawned? In other words, once you kill the original one, the spawned one won't spawn a new one of his own, creating a third one to deal with?
Nah, it's not that simple... depending on difficulty skill, there's a different high percentage set as random chance that every time the Heresiarch spawns, it'll be another Heresiarch. While on easy it's very low (around 3% if I remember right), on hard it's pretty high (AFAIR somewhere between 10 and 20%). That means if you fool around long enough, especially on hard skill you might get half a dozen Heresiarchs on your back. You can test it by starting a game on skill 4, teleporting into the Gibbet and using the noclip cheat to get to the Heresiarch. Use the god mode cheat to be protected and blast him until he starts spawning. Now just leave the game for 10 minutes or so, then come back and see how many Heresiarchs there are (well there might not be any becuz the space is too confined to spawn more than a dozen or so critters). Oh yes, nearly forgot to give you a tip, when the Heresiarch summons, you see him target a spot on the earth and you see how a Bishop slowly appears in a cloud of smoke... if you run into this cloud before the Bishop is fully manifested, there won't be any summoned entity. This way, you can have a much higher chance of never encountering a 2nd Heresiarch.
Wed, 08 Aug 2001 10:10:00

Ichor

I noticed a long time ago that sometimes if the Heresiarch tried to spawn something, and it hits a wall or a thing, nothing happened except the sound it makes. There is one tiny thing (I don't know if it's an actual bug or not) about them that might be a problem. Before the Heresiarch becomes active for the first time, there are no mana things orbiting his head. They appear once he does become active. Now suppose another enemy happens to attack him, he becomes active a second time, and three more mana balls appear over his head, and they move faster. The more this happens, the more mana balls will appear and the faster they move. Also, it takes less and less time for him to cast a spell, making him that much harder. Once he dies all the balls, not just three, will scatter, possibly as many as 50. I don't know if this was intended or not, but it's sort of fun trying to kill him when it takes less than a tenth of a second for him to cast that reflection spell, not giving you much time to attack him when his defense is down.
Wed, 08 Aug 2001 20:52:00

Ichor

It generally shows up when he begins spawning things. If you wait long enough there will be a dozen Dark Bishops floating around. Chances are, one of them will try to attack you, but instead hit the Heresiarch. He will sometimes go after the attacker instead of you. When he kills the attacker, he will start attacking you, and many times he will go through his alert frame again (along with playing his initial alert sound). Since when he first becomes alert (dormant or not), he goes through a frame which creates the orbiting balls. Every time his alert frame is run, this frame is run, and three new orbiting balls are created and their speed is doubled, thus cutting his spellcasting time in half. I've been trying to fix this problem, or work around it somehow, but I haven't had much luck. Besides, it wasn't really high on my priority list at the time.
Thu, 09 Aug 2001 06:26:00

Ichor

I've also discovered that you don't get experience point for enemies that were killed by crushing. In the Gibbet, as I fought the Heresiarch, he ended up spawning two more of them before I killed him. The axe key doors opened, and I was allowed to escape. I figured I could go back to earlier maps and grab whatever mana I could find and return to kill the other two. The problem is that the doors shut behind me, meaning if I were to go back in there, I'd be stuck, this time for good (since I already had to use the Chaos Device), so I stayed out. I realized that the axe doors were crusher doors, so just for laughs I led both of them to a certain spot so that when the doors closed on them, they would eventually be crushed to death with no way out. Unfortunately, I did not receive a single experience point for either Heresiarch killed like that, only for the original one. You would think that a tactic like that deserves at least 50% more experience, heheheh. Oh well, on to the last hub...
Thu, 09 Aug 2001 07:07:00

RambOrc

It looks like a bug and I guess it occured only when you teleported in to attack the Heresiarch when it still had the "dormant" flag, right?
Thu, 09 Aug 2001 20:10:00

RambOrc

Maybe I never saw this prob with the Heresiarch becuz I don't let him live long enough... I still remember the one and only case (it was at the Constable's Gate, with the fighter at skill 1) when I could blast a Heresiarch with Quietus before he could pull up his defensive spell... just hit and hit him, activated a Krater of Might very fast, then dealed a couple of more blows and suddenly he fell apart [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] As for EXP, you don't get any if a monster isn't killed directly by you. OTOH if a monster kills another monster, it gets the killed monster's EXP. If you kill this monster, you get the total EXP. That means it makes a lot of sense to make monsters attack each other, then lean back and collect the EXP from the few weakened survivors... [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
Thu, 09 Aug 2001 23:14:00

Ichor

Another fun way of killing him quickly is by using a bonch of the cleric's flechettes, and while he's enjoying the green gas, blast away with the serpent staff or firestorm. For the Heresiarchs in my mod, I've given him a couple of new spells, like that sparkly blue spell that D'Sparil uses, except it's a homing spell, and the ability to heal himself. And as for the bug, just do like you suggested for the Gibbet, and after he starts spawning Dark Bishops, wait until there's at least five bishops, then use the Chaos Device or cheat code to leave, then sit and wait a while. When you get back, the room will be filled with around 30 Dark Bishops, and maybe 5 Heresiarchs, probably half of them casting nearly instant spells. It's actually kind of fun to watch one of those die and 20 mana balls fly from his head and explode, killing many of the bishops, heheh.
Fri, 10 Aug 2001 04:32:00

RambOrc

Flechettes are a too easy way to kill a Heresiarch IMHO. We're going to patch up the Heresiarch some for the RPG as well, maybe giving it even more HP, ability to summon different monsters (but not a Heresiarch any more, I guess), stronger attacks, maybe some more spells, and the ability to teleport like D'Sparil or Korax. The real bad news is that this patched-up Heresiarch will still be a rather minor type of boss in Korax' Heritage, encountered often and sometimes in groups... :-))))))

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