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Tzar Sectus
Ichor
Tzar Sectus
I noticed that Bright Crucible (secret map) bug too, but I didn't know if it was a bug or something one of you threw in as some kind of experience reward. It was like that in the first mod as well. It seemed like a good idea to give some experience to the player whenever he solved a certain puzzle or discovered a hard to find key, like maybe a linedef or thing special that can be used in an ACS script to give some experience to the player whenever the script is activated.I agree to giving the player a reward if he does something tough or not, but this is just insane. 4 levels are a *lot*. But that's not the worst thing, the experience points stay the same!!! For instance, if you pick the artifact while being 6 you get to become level 10. And then you can become 11 at the same experience points price as level 7. That's the outrageous part. Doing that secret level or not makes a gigantic impact on the rest of the game. Personally, I would have remade that part, so the player gets a set amount of experience points instead of levels, that way the higher levels still need high xp to gain. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
And as for the experience from trees, it was also in the first mod. Destroying trees, pots, and that suit of armor gave a tiny amount of experience (around 10 or so). It was so low that I didn't even bother worrying about it.That is not what I mean. I found a tree on the first level which was invincible. Hit it as much as you like, it would still stand there forever. But for each hit, you gained some xp (very little though). I've been aware all the time you gain xp for destroying non-living objects. -Remi
Ichor
Camper
Ichor
RambOrc
The "bug" with the trees was also known, but ignored because it only gave very little extra xp.Wrong, Camper... I know that it was a bug but afterwards I didn't want it to be "corrected", as I found it rather hilarious. You see, in Hexen II you can demolish a lot of things in the environment, which is fun in the beginning and an itching constraint later on... after playing the game for the 3rd or 4th time, I nearly hated it, as I just felt the need to hit them but I never got a single EXP for it ==> one of the reasons (however little) that I got so frustrated with Hexen2 I stopped playing it. That's why I found it simply great that in KMOD you could smash that fuckin' pot and get some EXP for the deed done... [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] To answer the 1st question last, I don't think anyone wants to spend more time than necessary on KMOD2 any more when we could use that time to work on the full-blown RPG Korax Alpha which will be way more popular anyway (new mods w/o new maps have a rough time, that's why KMOD managed only some 500 downloads in nearly half a year, whereas a cool new Hexen map might get more downloads in a month). If any new feature should be implemented into KMOD 2.1 it's the planned multiplayer things like the Cleric healing other player or the Mage extending his invulnerability spell on the whole team... indeed, making Cooperative as good as possible would make a lot of sense since KMOD2 is the last Korax project ever with classic Cooperative mode (Korax Alpha will have team multiplayer, but never a player characters vs monsters kind). For the balance tipping, it'd make a lot more sense for Korax Alpha, where it can even be enhanced further (i.e. more spells, a more detailed stats system, etc.). p.s. download number for KMOD2 currently stays at 136. I find it very low but Camper means we got less DLs in the first 2 days for KMOD. I'm not sure any more, but we'll see in half a year how much KMOD2 will get. [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Ichor
Tzar Sectus
Also, the D'Sparil's heart thingie was entirely my idea back in Spring this year, it's just a little bonus for people who're very good at finding secrets or intelligent enough to check with the RavenGames walkthrough [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] (w/o a strategy guide or that walkthrough there's nearly zero chance you'll ever figure out how to get to the Bright Crucible, this secret level is the most hidden in Hexen).Well, I still believe it's too much. If the xp was changed it would acceptable... ~14 free skill points is a lot. Every time I've played has been without getting those free 4 levels and even *then* I thought it was too easy... grrrrr... thou leaves me no choice, heathen! *shoots RambOrc* Hear hear all! With RambOrc killed I'm the new team leader and I have some changes around here! First of all, Korax Gamma and Serpent Flower or whatever they're called are now cancelled. We're now making a TC called "Remi's TC" for Hexen which is all about what a cool person I am and that everyone should become my slave... it's going to be really neat. The TC will play very simple, the gamer will stare at a picture of me... and sometimes a text will appear with the text "Remi is cool!". It's going to be so cool. And I think we should demand money for it, 100$ per copy should be enough. And we should release a collector's edition costing 1000$ where the only difference is that the user gets a free picture of me free of charge with the purchase. [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
I played KMOD with the Fighter on skill 3 and along with these 4 extra levels I was able to defeat Korax by a hair's width (w/o these levels, maybe I'd have never made it).Which means that if you don't get those 4 free levels you *can't* beat Korax at all? [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img] Personally I call that imbalance. The reward could be done a completely different way. We could simply give the player some skill points. That way he wouldn't get those uber powerful spells so early and we could give him a more balanced quantity of skill points... don't you agree a tiny little bit that 14 skill points may be a little tiny bit too much? Also, there's one bug with this thing. The spells (or other stuff) the player gains while gaining levels through the heart will not be announced... it would be pretty easy to fix though. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
To answer the 1st question last, I don't think anyone wants to spend more time than necessary on KMOD2 any more when we could use that time to work on the full-blown RPG Korax Alpha which will be way more popular anyway (new mods w/o new maps have a rough time, that's why KMOD managed only some 500 downloads in nearly half a year, whereas a cool new Hexen map might get more downloads in a month). If any new feature should be implemented into KMOD 2.1 it's the planned multiplayer things like the Cleric healing other player or the Mage extending his invulnerability spell on the whole team... indeed, making Cooperative as good as possible would make a lot of sense since KMOD2 is the last Korax project ever with classic Cooperative mode (Korax Alpha will have team multiplayer, but never a player characters vs monsters kind). For the balance tipping, it'd make a lot more sense for Korax Alpha, where it can even be enhanced further (i.e. more spells, a more detailed stats system, etc.).Well, I believe that we should at least contribute some effort into the patch. There's some bugs which would take so little time to fix. And the multiplayer bit... I'd really really really love to fix it up, but since I don't have access to playing it it would be very hard. I could perhaps fix some of the bugs (berserker, spells affect all and those minor bugs) but those major ones would be near impossible without playtesting. Grrrrr, if only JHexen supported software rendering I could test it multiplayer. And another thing I'd like to do in the patch is to balance the other difficulty levels. Right now only the normal (3rd) difficulty level seems to be really playable. -Remi [ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: Tzar Sectus ]
RambOrc
to get to the secret level of the first hub, you have to jump in the water where the stone pillars originally blockedSo much about ppl not using automap, I figured out at the beginning that there's a level teleport in there as you see the red line on the automap; OTOH it took me years to figure out how to get in there... [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] BTW to confirm the automap thingie I just fired up DOS Hexen... throughout these last 2 years, I started it a couple of times for testing something, but always just to the point where a new game starts in Winnowing Hall, and it always looked dark and blurry and pixely and old and awful... now I warped to the Seven Portals and after setting gamma to the right level it didn't look as bad any more, indeed it had a different feeling than jHexen/Vavoom. While it looks realy pixely on my 21", if I'd play it on my 17" it'd look much less so... so so I guess that once KMOD2 is closed with all patches (and thus all testing) and I'll ever again play the original Hexen levels, than in the original DOS version (as I do with Heretic up to this day). Source ports are cool for eye candy screenshots and for developing new mods/TCs but the original is much more fun to play. Maybe it's just that I grew old, dunno... [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
RambOrc
Which means that if you don't get those 4 free levels you *can't* beat Korax at all? Personally I call that imbalance.To be honest, this D'Sparil's Heart thingie has been added because this was the only thing Camper was willing (or able) to code at all. It's also meant as a special reward for the die-hard Hexen fans who know the game inside out. Of course I can't say for sure, but I think I might've beaten Korax even if I had 5-6 levels less, not only 4. It'd have taken a lot more time, but it might've been manageable. Difficult to say... The original idea was that the player gets EXP for puzzles solved, secrets found etc., but ask Camper what happened to these and tons of other ideas I had about Korax Mod... [img]images/smiles/icon_sad.gif[/img] ...that's BTW why I like you this much Remi, whenever I have an idea, you get down trying to code it and most of the time you get it running... it's a lot more motivating than when I have an idea and the programmer's answer is (w/o even trying to code it) "it can't be done/it's too much work". Anyway, if this discussion about EXP for puzzles & co. would've been brought up between July and October, it could've been implemented in KMOD2 from the beginning, but now for a bugfix patch it's IMO not worth the work. Especially that the system works a lot better if you have clearly defined sidequests, like in Korax Alpha. Another thing for our first TC... [img]images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img] As for bugfixes, I never said they shouldn't be implemented, of course do them. For multiplayer, we could test it with Camper some over weekends, so if you want to try to fix the bugs, we could give it a reasonably good try. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
Grrrrr, if only JHexen supported software rendering I could test it multiplayer.Another advantage of the Vavoom engine we'll start using once Korax Alpha is out, it's got not only software rendering but also DOS and Linux ports (==> even more players). <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
And another thing I'd like to do in the patch is to balance the other difficulty levels. Right now only the normal (3rd) difficulty level seems to be really playable.I'm not sure what you exactly mean? Between the different skills, all original differences of Hexen exist, plus one thing from KMOD, i.e. that once you get a new level, you get 5 points on skill 1-2, 4 points on skill 3, 3 points on skill 4-5. With 12 levels or so reached by the end of the game, it makes quite a difference. I'm pretty convinced that once the game is playable on skill 3 it's also playable on skill 1-2. As for skill 4-5, good Q, I know that KMOD wasn't playable on skill 5 with the Fighter, I tried it and failed at the first Wendigo (you'll never beat them in fastmonster w/o invulnerability, healing or a fast-shooting range weapon).