Rebalanced Class Saxton Hale (v4b)

[MrL1193]

Now with (hopefully) better balanced classes (and bosses too)!

You will need the balrogsh-overhaul.pk3 wad. (Load this wad FIRST.)

Download the Saxton Hale fix HERE. (Make sure to load this wad second.)

Download the Classes wad HERE. (Load this wad third.)

Changes in this version:

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

SAXTON HALE:



Multiple boss difficulty levels added.


General difficulty changes:

Boss health changes according to difficulty (approximately -20% for Easy, +10% for Hard, and +30% for Expert).
Super Jump charges twice as fast for all melee bosses on Hard and Expert difficulties.


+Saxton Hale+
Easy: Rage only reduces damage and eliminates hit stun instead of making him invulnerable.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage gives a speed boost in addition to invulnerability.
Expert: Rage gives a large speed boost in addition to invulnerability.

+Ghost of Star Man V2+
Easy: Rage has reduced range.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage has somewhat increased range and slows Star Man's movement a bit less.
Expert: Rage has considerably increased range and slows Star Man's movement significantly less.

+Cave Johnson+
Easy: Rage fires fewer lemons, which are also slower than usual.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Main fire changes to straight shot that explodes on surfaces, rage fires more lemons.
Expert: Main fire changes to straight shot; alt can be used to fire bouncing shot; rage fires even more lemons, which are also faster than usual.

+Christian Brutal Sniper+
Easy: Rage duration is a bit shorter, rage shots are a bit slower, cool down on rage fire is a bit longer.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage duration is a bit longer, rage shots are a bit faster, cool down on rage fire is a bit shorter.
Expert: Rage duration is considerably longer, rage shots are much faster, cool down on rage fire is considerably shorter.

+Ninja Spy+
Easy: Health is divided between only 2 lives, rage doesn't blind survivors and doesn't silence the Super Jump voice clip.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage gives full invisibility in one use but doesn't silence the Super Jump voice clip.
Expert: Health is divided between 4 lives, Ninja Spy is partially invisible by default and is only fully revealed while attacking, rage gives full invisibility in one use and also silences the Super Jump voice clip.

+Ra Thor+
Easy: Fewer hypnotism items are given (about half as many), minions take more damage from attacks, rage doesn't dash quite as fast.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: One extra hypnotism item is given, minions take less damage from attacks, rage consists of 4 dashes instead of 3.
Expert: One hypnotism item is given for each opponent (about twice as many as on Normal); minions take considerably less damage from attacks; rage consists of 4 dashes instead of 3, which are also faster than usual.

+Gilgamesh+
Easy: Gilgamesh is more susceptible to hit stun, rage is changed to Bitter End (drops giant bomb while dashing forward) instead of Rocket Punch.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Gilgamesh is completely immune to hit stun (except from Spark Shock), explosion radius of Rocket Punch is slightly increased.
Expert: Gilgamesh is completely immune to hit stun (except from Spark Shock) and also builds up rage faster (same as a normal boss), Rocket Punch projectiles are somewhat faster, explosion radius of Rocket Punch is slightly increased.

+Scrooge McDuck+
Easy: Rage spawns 3 whales instead of 4 and never spawns Hogales.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage spawns 6 whales instead of 4.
Expert: Rage spawns 10 whales instead of 4.

+Morshu+
Easy: Cool down of normal attack is longer, rage is the same as before.
Normal: Giant bomb now explodes a bit sooner.
Hard: Regular bombs can be safely held for 5 seconds instead of 3, giant bomb explodes significantly sooner.
Expert: Cool down of normal attack is shorter, regular bombs can be safely held for 5 seconds instead of 3, giant bomb explodes much sooner (right after Morshu's voice clip finishes).

+Captain Falcon+
Easy: Rage windup is slightly longer, Falcon Punch projectile is slower (same speed as in older versions).
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage windup is shorter; Falcon Punch projectile is faster, instagibs any class, and is not absorbed by the first armored class to get hit by it.
Expert: Rage windup is the same as on Normal, but the Falcon Punch projectile explodes upon contact with a surface or armored class (still ripping through normal classes, though).
ALL DIFFICULTIES: Falcon Kick gives very brief immunity to hit stun.

+Seeman+
Easy: Rage fires out fewer fireballs.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage fires out more fireballs and slows Seeman's movement a bit less.
Expert: Rage fires out even more fireballs and slows Seeman's movement significantly less.

+Seeldier+
Easy: Rage ends sooner.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Rage ramming speed is faster.
Expert: Rage ramming speed is considerably faster.

+Quote+
Easy: Rage fires fewer and slower missiles, cool down of rage fire is longer.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Spur laser charges faster, cool down of rage fire is shorter.
Expert: Spur laser charges faster, rage fires more and faster missiles, cool down of rage fire is considerably shorter.

+Curly+
Easy: Machine Gun consumes ammo faster, rage gives 3 Clone spawners instead of 4.
Normal: Unchanged.
Hard: Machine Gun consumes ammo slower, rage gives 5 Clone spawners instead of 4.
Expert: Machine Gun consumes ammo much slower, rage gives 6 Clone spawners instead of 4.


Other changes:

Changed Guts Man's rune to Strength.
Fixed rage warning messages for secondary bosses.
Fixed Doc Robot not changing colors when hypnotized.
Added custom server variables to control the difficulty setting (dynamic, random, or only one difficulty) and which boss is chosen next.


CLASSES:



v4:

Heat Man: Movement speed buffed slightly.

Needle Man: Needle Cannon's damage buffed slightly.

Toad Man: Rain Flush's damage buffed somewhat.

Yamato Man: Reduced power of alt, somewhat reduced movement speed (back to original values).

List of last survivor runes:

(click to show/hide)

SPREAD

Dr. Wily
Rockman

Cut Man
Ice Man
Bomb Man

Needle Man
Spark Man
Doc Robot

Pharaoh Man
Dust Man

Gravity Man
Gyro Man
Dark Man 1
Dark Man 4

Yamato Man
Centaur Man

Cloud Man
Shade Man

Enker


(19 total)


RAGE

Sniper Joe

Fire Man
Elec Man
Time Man

Magnet Man
Gemini Man

Wave Man
Stone Man
Napalm Man
Crystal Man

Blizzard Man
Flame Man

Freeze Man
Spring Man

Ballade


(15 total)


HASTE

Hard Man


(1 total)


STRENGTH

Mega Man
Proto Man
Bass
Roll

Guts Man
Oil Man

Metal Man
Air Man
Bubble Man
Quick Man
Crash Man
Flash Man
Heat Man
Wood Man

Top Man
Snake Man
Shadow Man

Bright Man
Toad Man
Drill Man
Ring Man
Dive Man
Skull Man

Star Man
Charge Man
Dark Man 2
Dark Man 3

Wind Man
Plant Man
Tomahawk Man
Knight Man

Junk Man
Burst Man
Slash Man
Turbo Man

Quint
Punk


37 total

I would strongly recommend using server settings to limit the pre-match countdown to no more than 5 seconds. If it is any longer, a boss will be selected during the countdown every round, which will mess up the boss picker.

If you find bugs, please do let me know. I can't promise that I'll know how to fix them, but I'll at least try.



All credit for the original wads goes to Balrog, Tails, Silversin, the Classes team, and everyone else who's ever worked on these mods in the past.

Also, thanks go to Tsuki for giving me tips on how to fix the colors and homing weapons issues.



Past versions:

(click to show/hide)

Rebalanced:

SAXTON HALE:

v3b

General changes:

Changed Bubble Man's rune to Strength.
Changed Knight Man's rune to Strength.
Changed Napalm Man's rune to Rage.
Changed Guts Man's and Hard Man's runes to Haste and added a powerup to increase the speed boost.
Made a powerup to actually double Skull Man's damage when he's the last survivor.
Added a full ammo refill to Dust Man's last survivor bonuses.
Added pain states for boss weaknesses, with "supereffective" damage sound.
Fixed boss gravity on Bubble Man's and Dive Man's maps. Still broken...

Specific boss changes:

Ninja Spy: Changed number of lives from 3 to 2 and tweaked health scaling accordingly.
Ra Thor: Fixed hypnotism item and made it so the number of uses available scales with the number of players.
Gilgamesh: Rounded out melee weakness with remaining melee damage types.
Scrooge: Rounded out fire weakness with remaining fire damage types.
Morshu: Health nerfed slightly.
Quote and Curly: Health nerfed.



CLASSES:



General changes:


Changed the basic weapon check script to number 985 so Ra Thor's hypno would work.


Class changes:


Roll: Damage type of water attacks changed.

Fire Man: Damage type of ground flame and fire wave changed.

Heat Man: Damage types of Heat Tackle changed.
Wood Man: Damage type of body slam changed.
Flash Man: Ammo regeneration buffed considerably.
Metal Man: Damage type of chain saw changed.

Needle Man: Damage type of stab changed.
Hard Man: Damage type of crush changed.

Bright Man: Flash Stopper ammo regeneration nerfed considerably.
Drill Man: Damage type of surfacing drill attack changed.

Stone Man: Damage type of direct stomp changed.
Charge Man: Damage of charge and coal attacks nerfed.

Blizzard Man: Damage type of Blizzard Bowl changed.
Yamato Man: Damage type of spear spin changed.

Burst Man: Movement speed buffed slightly.
Spring Man: Movement speed buffed slightly.
Turbo Man: Damage type of Crash Drive changed.
Shade Man: Damage type of swoop changed.

Punk: Damage type of buzz saw attack changed.

v3

SAXTON HALE:

General changes:

Slender Man removed from boss selection.
Minimum number of players required for duo bosses to appear is now 4 instead of 3.
Which rune is given to the last survivor is now dependent on class (or, more specifically, possession of the class's unique weapon).
Only classes that can actually use W Tanks will receive them at the start of the round and when they are the last survivor. (Also, Roll will receive only 3 instead of 5.)


Specific boss changes:

Ra Thor: Unique damage type "RaThor" given to both attacks.
Quote and Curly: Health scaling nerfed somewhat.


Miscellaneous:

Basic BotFire states added to the boss weapons so bots will actually use rage moves and won't be completely incapable of using Quote's and Curly's weapons.



CLASSES:

General changes:

Damage factors added for "RaThor" damage type.
Reduced damage factors for Hard, Heavy, and Toad armor (without changing the number of melee hits each can survive).


Class changes:

Guts Man: Punch's damage buffed slightly.

Heat Man: Armor buffed from Normal to Sturdy, alt fire damage reduction increased to 90%.
Wood Man: All attacks' damage buffed, Leaf Shield no longer dropped upon death.
Flash Man: Ammo regeneration buffed.

Magnet Man: Charged Magnetic Shockwave's damage buffed.
Spark Man: Mainfire's cooldown time reduced somewhat.

Bright Man: Damage type of Flash Stopper changed to "TimeSlow" (inherited).
Toad Man: Rain Flush's damage buffed slightly.
Ring Man: Ring Boomerang's damage buffed slightly.
Dust Man: Armor buffed from Sturdy to Toad, starting ammo and amount regained from pickups increased exponenentially, main Dust Crusher's ammo usage raised to former amount (4).

Star Man: Armor buffed from Normal to Sturdy.
Charge Man: Armor buffed from Sturdy to Toad, both attacks' damage nerfed to their normal levels.
Crystal Man: Movement speed buffed somewhat.
Dark Man 2: Shield's damage buffed.
Dark Man 3: Damage type of Dark Rings changed to "SparkShock."
Dark Man 4: Shield's damage buffed, Buster's damage buffed.

Wind Man: Tweaked ammo usage and regeneration.
Centaur Man: Damage type of Centaur Flash changed to "FlashStopper," ammo regeneration nerfed somewhat.
Knight Man: Movement speed buffed somewhat, Shield Rush's damage buffed.
Yamato Man: Movement speed buffed somewhat, alt fire's damage buffed somewhat.

Shade Man: Ammo regeneration buffed somewhat.

v2

SAXTON HALE:

Specific boss changes:

Ninja Spy: Super Jump no longer triggers sound clip while invisible, Dead Ringer script triggers earlier to prevent (most) second life bypasses (with starting health raised slightly to compensate).
Gilgamesh: Default hitstun reduced, Rocket Punch blast radius reduced somewhat.
Morshu: Health scaling tweaked again.
Christian Brutal Sniper: Movement speed increased slightly.
Scrooge: Movement speed increased slightly.
Slender Man: Survival timer lengthened slightly.

General changes:

Last survivors are given a Strength Rune instead of a Spread Rune.
Boss pain states for Buster, MetalBlade, RingBoomerang, Plantbuster, and Roll damage types returned to normal.
Boss health cap lowered to 7,000.


CLASSES:

Mega Man: Slide nerfed.
Proto Man: Slide nerfed.
Bass: Dash nerfed.
Roll: Dash tweaked.

Guts Man: Punch's damage buffed.

Quick Man: Dash recharge nerfed somewhat.

Needle Man: Slowdown caused by gun revving reduced. (Also affects Bomb Man's speed while pulling bombs out, but only very briefly.)

Toad Man: Rain Flush's damage spread out over 5 hits, super jump nerfed.

Charge Man: Charge attack's and Coal attack's damage buffed somewhat.
Gyro Man: Flight buffed somewhat, Gyro Attack's damage buffed.

Wind Man: Ammo regeneration buffed.

Freeze Man: Movement speed increased slightly (back to normal).
Cloud Man: Ammo recharge buffed slightly.
Slash Man: Dash recharge nerfed.

v1

SAXTON HALE:

Specific boss changes:

Ninja Spy: Increased movement speed, reworked health, rage fixed (again).
Slender Man: Greatly increased movement speed.
Morshu: Slightly increased health, unique damage type "Morshu" given to bombs.
Quote: Slightly buffed uncharged shot's and fully charged laser's damage, unique damage type "SpurLaser" given to laser (with appropriate immunities added to Curly and Clones), "CaveStory" damage type given to uncharged shots and Super Missiles.
Curly: Slightly buffed machine gun's damage, machine gun's damage type changed to "CaveStory".

General changes:

Special protection powerup created to limit Ring Boomerang's effect, given as part of each boss's pain state.
Boss hitstun caused by Metal Blade, Oil, Roll's attacks, and especially Quick Boomerang greatly reduced.
Boss health cap increased to 8,000.

CLASSES:

General class changes:

Armor now has significance against bosses.
Classes with Sturdy Armor and stronger now have the DONTRIP flag. (Damage factor against Quote's laser is increased to varying degrees to compensate.)
Wall jumps now consume 5 times as much stamina.
Metal Blade, Oil, Roll's attacks, and especially the Quick Boomerang no longer stop bosses in their tracks with each hit.


Specific class changes:

Roll: Nerfed dash, damage type of all water attacks changed to "Roll".

Cut Man: Somewhat reduced movement speed.
Elec Man: Somewhat reduced movement speed.
Bomb Man: Hyper Bomb's damage buffed slightly.

Quick Man: Greatly reduced movement speed, much slower dash recharge.
Metal Man: Slightly reduced jump height, x5 stamina consumption while climbing surfaces.
Bubble Man: x4 stamina consumption while swimming.
Air Man: Main fire uses 2 ammo instead of 0.
Crash Man: Reduced movement speed.

Top Man: Greatly reduced movement speed, Top Throw's damage nerfed slightly.
Shadow Man: Reduced jump height; cloak's ammo consumption increased slightly, with much slower recharge.
Magnet Man: Magnet Missile's and Magnet Field's damage buffed.
Snake Man: Reduced movement speed, x10 stamina consumption while climbing surfaces (now the same as Metal Man's).

Drill Man: Dig ability recharges more slowly.
Toad Man: Slightly reduced normal jump height, Rain Flush's damage buffed.
Pharaoh Man: Floating ability nerfed.
Ring Man: Ring Boomerang's damage nerfed slightly.
Dust Man: Vacuum ability removed, starting ammo increased to a full bar, main Dust Crusher's ammo consumption reduced slightly.

Gyro Man: Movement speed reduced, jump height reduced, flight ammo consumption doubled, flight ammo regeneration greatly slowed, Gyro Attack's damage nerfed.
Charge Man: Charge attack's and Coal attack's damage buffed.
Gravity Man: Slightly reduced jump height, Gravity Hold's ammo regeneration greatly slowed.
Dark Man 1: Reduced movement speed bonus granted by loss of health.

Wind Man: Ammo recharge from half to full greatly slowed.
Blizzard Man: Somewhat reduced movement speed.
Tomahawk Man: Reduced movement speed.
Yamato Man: Armor buffed from Sturdy to Toad.

Shade Man: Flight ammo regeneration slowed considerably, flight ammo consumption doubled, swoop ammo requirement increased, swoop always fully empties flight ammo.
Turbo Man: Somewhat reduced movement speed, reduced Scorch Wheel movement speed bonus.
Burst Man: Reduced movement speed, trap/flight bubble's ammo consumption doubled, reduced movement speed bonus while flying.
Cloud Man: Flight ammo consumption doubled, ammo recharge reduced.
Freeze Man: Slightly reduced movement speed.
Slash Man: Increased movement speed, increased jump height.
Spring Man: Somewhat reduced movement speed, considerably reduced jump height.

Ballade: Alt fire no longer thrusts Ballade forward.


MISCELLANEOUS:

Mirror Buster no longer damages allies.



Compatible:

v1c

SAXTON HALE:
+Made a slight addition to Curly's Clone's code to hopefully get the obituary to work.
*Changed Ninja Spy's rage to use "Peekaboo" instead of "FlashStopper" type damage to (hopefully) get it to actually blind and damage survivors.
*Toned down Scrooge's resistance to the RingBoomerang and StarCrash damage types (from x0.1 to x0.4) as a better solution for Ring Man and Star Man.
-Removed the boss damage type factors and placed them on the class bases instead. (Also remembered to add a couple damage types I missed before.)
*Fixed the normal Combustable Lemon obituary by adding the killer's name to it.
-Removed Ra Thor's hypnotism item from his inventory for now because it doesn't work.
-Also removed the mention of Ra Thor's hypnotism item from the instructional message displayed to the player upon transformation.

CLASSES:
*Changed a (probably no longer used) Wily Capsule weapon to use WilyFireB1 type damage, just to be safe.
+Added pain states for "Peekaboo" type damage to the base class. Hopefully this will work without additional problems...
+Added the +CANTSEEK flag to the base class and the -CANTSEEK flag to the bosses to prevent homing weapons from locking onto allies.
*Changed Ring Man's and Star Man's weapons back to what they were before.
+Placed the boss damage type factors on the class bases. (For now, all classes will take equal damage from boss weapons.)
+Added the special states for death by Scrooge and Slender Man to the base class. (Also, players killed by Slender Man will not drop junk or weapons.)
*Finally fixed boss colors! (By adding boss translations to the WCOLORS2 compiled ACS.) I can't guarantee that whatever caused the occasional color glitches in vanilla SH won't rear its ugly head, though.

BOTH:
-Trimmed out a bit of redundant code.

v1b

SAXTON HALE:
Unchanged (no version 1b).

CLASSES:
*Fixed the remaining ally-damaging weapons.
*Made a shoddy temporary fix for Ring Man's and Star Man's weapons so they can actually damage Scrooge.

v1

SAXTON HALE:
*Added player immunities to class weapons to fix friendly fire.

CLASSES:
*Added boss status bars to SBARINFO so they'll actually show up on the boss's HUD.
*Added damage types to various class weapons that didn't have a type so they won't slip past ally immunities.

BOTH:
*Copied some code between the wads (probably unnecessarily) just to be safe.

Any help or advice from those with coding know-how would be greatly appreciated.

[ZeStopper]

I understand what you're doing here and I guess it's fine, but why are there two WADS when you can combine data into one.

[MrL1193]

I understand what you're doing here and I guess it's fine, but why are there two WADS when you can combine data into one.

I wasn't sure how to go about doing that. :? As I've explained, this is my first time doing anything with wads; I apologize if it's a clumsy solution, but it was all I could think to do at the time. I'll try to correct the issue in the next version (if I can actually make a new version).

[Balrog]

The bosses are currently picked just tics after the map starts. No evading that. Also, the code/data split is intended to reduce overall bandwidth requirements by keeping updates that change only the code from forcing you to download all the graphics.

[MrL1193]

The Classes wad is now updated to version 1b.

Hopefully this will resolve the team attack issues...I also used a temporary fix to alter Ring Man's and Star Man's weapons so that they can actually hurt Scrooge. Against other bosses, Ring Man will generally do less damage than before, while Star Man will do more. I intend to implement a more permanent solution in the next version.

[ZeStopper]

It worked pretty smooth on the server, good job on fixing those bugs too.
Although, I would really like to see This be compatible with SH, unless it already is.....

[tsukiyomaru0]

It worked pretty smooth on the server, good job on fixing those bugs too.
Although, I would really like to see This be compatible with SH, unless it already is.....

Last I checked, yes, it is. As long as it is the last file in the command line, I think.

[ZeStopper]

That's good. I think I'll host a server now.

[MrL1193]

Both wads have been updated to version 1c.

I've included a detailed list of changes in the first post. The most significant change is that bosses should now appear with their proper colors. Also worth noting is that homing weapons will not lock on to allies any more.

The rest of the changes were mostly just minor fixes and preparation for class rebalancing. If there are no other problems to deal with for now, my next move will be to balance the classes (and probably buff/tweak the hales a bit).

[tsukiyomaru0]

filesize is still absurd. Really. Blame it on music and sounds.

[Rozark]

filesize is still absurd. Really. Blame it on music and sounds.

I blame the monsterosity that IS Classes + Saxton for the fileseize.

[Alpha X]

when the mm8 classes are released,  you're going to do all this again?

[ZeStopper]

It seems that they will be included. Mainly as this is tweaked Classes with Saxton.

[MrL1193]

filesize is still absurd. Really. Blame it on music and sounds.

I blame the monsterosity that IS Classes + Saxton for the fileseize.

The entire Classes file only makes up about 10% of the total (hence why I decided to only change the Classes file for version 1b). Tsuki is right; the sprites, music, sounds, graphics, and maps make up about 99% of the Saxton Hale file's ridiculous size. For my purposes, I don't need to touch that stuff, so the next time I need to fiddle around with something in the Saxton Hale file (which may not happen immediately), I'm just going to split it into two files so people don't have to keep re-downloading the graphics and audio.

And yeah, I'll try to make Classes v7 compatible whenever it happens to come out. Unless there's some sort of dramatic change, I should be able to do it fairly easily now that I have an idea of what to do.

[tsukiyomaru0]

filesize is still absurd. Really. Blame it on music and sounds.

I blame the monsterosity that IS Classes + Saxton for the fileseize.

The entire Classes file only makes up about 10% of the total (hence why I decided to only change the Classes file for version 1b). Tsuki is right; the sprites, music, sounds, graphics, and maps make up about 99% of the Saxton Hale file's ridiculous size. For my purposes, I don't need to touch that stuff, so the next time I need to fiddle around with something in the Saxton Hale file (which may not happen immediately), I'm just going to split it into two files so people don't have to keep re-downloading the graphics and audio.

And yeah, I'll try to make Classes v7 compatible whenever it happens to come out. Unless there's some sort of dramatic change, I should be able to do it fairly easily now that I have an idea of what to do.

IIRC, the sound and music are the big files, whereas images are not so big.