Beginner-friendly Heretic wads?

[MattFright]

For the longest time i had some interest for Heretic, which just built up more and more until i eventually gave the vanilla game a try, and while i LOVED the music, ambience and combat, i absolutely DESPISED the level design in HERETIC.wad, and while i have tried some wads (Quest for the Crystal Skulls being the first unofficial one i jumped into) that people seem to really enjoy, i noticed that they're faaaar too hard for a beginner like me (I always play Doom 2 wads on saveless pistol start UV playthroughs though, for reference, i'm just not used to Heretic's gameplay).

 

So i wanted to ask: Do you guys have any wads to recommend that have a nice difficulty curve that could give me time to learn the game but still be challenging all the way through? I'd appreciate any and all recommendations!

[Not Jabba]

Hmm, interesting question. People's perception does tend to skew a bit, as many of us are more used to the game. Because mappers tend to have a decent amount of experience, it's rare to find fan-made stuff that's truly beginner, but some is easier than others. If you wanted to line up major Heretic releases in order of difficulty and play from bottom to top, it might look something like this:

 

(Some of these I haven't played very recently, so my memory may not be perfect. Also, I play most things continuous with saves.)

Easy or Moderate-Easy:

Call of the Apostate

Where Serpents Ever Dwell

Masters of Chaos

The History of Fruit
Dark Deity's Bastion

Templum Dormiens Dei

Faithless (original E1 release)

Moderate:
UnBeliever
Quest for the Crystal Skulls

Realm of Parthoris

Icebound

Serpent's Wake

Faithless Trilogy

Hymn

 

Moderate-Hard:

Elf Gets Pissed

Sold Soul

The Wayfarer
Curse of D'Sparil

 

 

You might also look for older Heretic releases, such as Chris Lutz's Reclamation and Torture, or SailorScout's Water Castle, Water City, and The Fiery Crater. I have very little memory of those maps because I played them so long ago, but they're probably on the easier end.

[Bridgeburner56]

Not sure if this counts as easy but

 

[Not Jabba]

Oh crap, how did I forget to include that? Faithless is great. It's...easy-ish, mostly.

[Bridgeburner56]

Heh, it's the first and only heretic thing I've played :D

And yes it is great

[MattFright]

I should've perhaps clarified this a bit better: Harder ones are 100% fine, my problem so far has just been with the ones that already begin with lots of enemies (some of which only appear much later in vanilla), i was mostly asking for anything that would have a difficulty curve similar to Scythe II, Eviternity, Hell Revealed, etc. where they start perhaps a bit simple, building up the difficulty with every level. I'll check those out regardless though!

[Salt-Man Z]

Try Sinful Discharge, perhaps? It's always been one of my favorite Heretic mods, fairly IWAD-y, I think, maybe a little more puzzle-y. It's basically Episode 6 to me. It says jHeretic required, but I play it in GZDoom with no real problems.

[Halfblind]

I do think that Heretic is often a lot easier than Doom especially when it comes to PWAD's though. Here are a few more suggestions that I did not see mentioned above.

 

For the Heretic Noob: These two are so small, beginner friendly and easy that those unfamiliar with Heretic can play them both in under an hour...

The Sewers of D'Sparil

Ye Olde Smudge WAD

 

For the Heretic Vet: This level though difficult on higher difficulties is one of my favorite Heretic levels of all time.

The Crypts

 

There is also some really good levels in the Heretic Treasure Chest too.

 

[irukanjji]

Here are some:

 

Master Levels for Heretic

 

Heretic Upstart Mapping Project

 

RETRO HERETIC MAPS (H!ZONE)

[RonLivingston]

There is shadowcaster by Stephen Clark, a Heretic episode with maps E5M1-E5M9

 

And I'm still in progress for blighted Aura, My Heretic RPG

Edited September 9, 2020 by RonLivingston