Played Heretic for the first time. Impressions

[Dusty_Rhodes]

On 12/2/2021 at 9:55 AM, Stupid Bunny said:

Yay more love for Hairy Tick

 

I haven't played through Heretic in some years now.  It's definitely a bit grindier than Doom; the Tome of Power is maybe the greatest power-up of all time, and I love those charged-up vampire Gauntlets, but I find that I have less patience to play 10 Heretic maps in a sitting than I have for Doom.  Oddly enough, I probably have more patience for Hexen, in spite of it being a far grindier and more arcane game...I find it a lot more immersive than Heretic, which is pretty visually repetitive after a while, and I enjoy puzzly exploration enough that I can enjoy a lot of Hexen for that too (which isn't to say that a lot of the puzzles aren't really boring, of course.)  Heretic is far from perfect but it does have a special atmosphere of its own, and even as it gets repetitive there's something to the bright, ethereal yet gritty medieval world it creates that is really unique, something even the more realistic, earthy and dour Hexen doesn't have.  I should try making a Heretic map sometime.

I've always enjoyed Heretic but it is pretty grindy. The enemies all have a lot of health, the ammo pickups are stingy, and some levels have mildly confusing progression, but that may be because I haven't spent much time with it compared to Doom. Doom's Inferno episode is probably harder to navigate, but I've played it fifty times *shrug*

 

Even though, like you, I get tired of it after a little bit, I really do like Heretic's setting. It nicely done and pretty unique.

 

I also prefer Hexen, I think the combat is less grindy overall but Hexen does through just huge hordes at you. The environments and technical talent of Raven's mappers in Hexen always blow me away. Even if I'm lost in Hexen, I'm generally enjoying myself as the textures and sprite work are beautiful. I kind of relate Hexen to Morrowind, in that it can be hard to get into and sometimes pretty clunky and arcane, but I love the setting, the story, the visuals, and even get enjoyment out of the gameplay. The level design is also the worst at the beginning of the game. It gets better as it goes along. You should totally do a Heretic map, as should I! I'd also like to try out Hexen mapping, some really cool stuff can be done in that version of the engine. 

 

Unrelated, but what do you think of Eternal Doom? I rather like it and equate it to Hexen a lot; yeah it's obtuse, but the gameplay is fun and setting is beautiful. Both have great music too. I find outside of the Phocas Island duology I don't enjoy Doom engine puzzle elements too much. Something about the setting, exploration, and sound design of all previously mentioned wads are just awesome. 

 

Wait, isn't this a Heretic thread?

6 hours ago, Smouths said:

Heretic's pretty great, though the levels don't always vibe with me anymore, and I don't always have the patience for managing the power-ups. I have a few gripes about the hitpoint values of some mid-tier enemies too.

 

Side note- I love the song for E1L1, in a lot of ways I think it does a better job of delivering the dramatic impact of the story's premise than E1M1's At Doom's Gate.

That's another thing, the power ups are cool in concept, but I find I'm kind of annoyed by them for some reason. I shouldn't be, as I'm sure if I used them more I'd find the game less grindy. Still later episodes are more what I have a problem with.

 

Side note, the music is excellent in all of the Serpant Riders games. Heretic 1 and 2 and Hexen 1 and 2 have some of my favorite shooter sound tracks. The composer really did great with them.

4 hours ago, magicsofa said:

You are correct. I love Heretic but I always felt that this aspect of it left a bit of a skill gap for the modern player. It's still challenging in places, but often just because of lack of ammo. Skill 5 is not that interesting for anyone looking to replay the game in expert mode. I started a mod where I put in "evil" elves that have wand and crossbow attacks, and I thought it was pretty fun and turned up the heat in a much needed way. Planning to pick that up again eventually and you bet your ass there will be dragonclaw elves as well, so nobody has to miss chaingunners ever agian :P

Dude you gotta release that. Sounds awesome, I find Heretic's balancing really weird. It's seems like the thought process was "well Doom is too easy, crank up the health and damage of all the monsters".  I hate it, all the monsters are tanky and it sucks the enjoyment out of a game I otherwise enjoy. Is there a Heretic Dehacked? I'd love to get my hands on that.

[Rudolph]

Browsing through Realm667's repository, I have discovered that someone thought of a Supershotgun-type weapon for Heretic: the Arbalest of the Ancients, made by none other than Xaser! Once I figure out how to create a weapon mod, I will have that weapon replace the Ovum Morph! Also, the Lightbringer ought to make for a good replacement of the Firemace.

[magicsofa]

2 hours ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

Is there a Heretic Dehacked? I'd love to get my hands on that.

There is HHE, but it is still DOS only and apparently a pain to use for other reasons too. I wouldn't mess with it unless you are truly obsessed with vanilla Heretic. And this is coming from someone who does enjoy making vanilla Doom mods. For Heretic I just think the overall level of interest and support isn't going to match up with the headache of exe hacking. I'd rather just use zscript and forget the old limitations.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

4 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

There is HHE, but it is still DOS only and apparently a pain to use for other reasons too. I wouldn't mess with it unless you are truly obsessed with vanilla Heretic. And this is coming from someone who does enjoy making vanilla Doom mods. For Heretic I just think the overall level of interest and support isn't going to match up with the headache of exe hacking. I'd rather just use zscript and forget the old limitations.

Understandable. I'm a big fan of dehacked though, and I've never tried ZScript. I don't think there are any Heretic ports with embedded dehacked support though.

[Rudolph]

@magicsofa Have you checked out Realm667's Cultist? It does not have much health and shoots fast projectiles, which makes it a decent low-tier enemy replacement. I have begun experimenting with it as a basic Mummy replacement.

 

I reckon the Ghoul ought to be a good replacement for the Mummy Ghost Leader as well.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Rudolph

[LouigiVerona]

As I am playing Heretic, further thoughts.

• Already in several levels I've encountered the situation when the next step is triggered by a switch which is hidden somewhere in the corner. This is annoying and frequently forces you to go around the level in circles, looking in every crook, hoping to find a missed switch. I don't remember the exact level, but something like 4th or 5th in the first episode where a switch is in a corner in a room which is a secret or at least looks like a secret. I spent literally like 20 mins just searching for the next switch before I found it there by accident.
• Hunting secrets is very tough even with the map. On one of the levels I couldn't find the last secret in spite of the fact that the map showed me that I visited every room.
• Some rooms are marked as secret, although there's no thing secret about them. Some rooms that are a secret for some reason are not marked as such. In one level there was a tiny secret room that had virtually nothing in it and did not lead to anywhere else.
• I am loving the atmosphere and texture work. However, Heretic leaves this strange feeling of being empty. Somehow in Doom it can feel really crowded, but in Heretic I always feel like the level is almost empty. I wonder why.

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, LouigiVerona said:

Some rooms are marked as secret, although there's no thing secret about them. Some rooms that are a secret for some reason are not marked as such. In one level there was a tiny secret room that had virtually nothing in it and did not lead to anywhere else.

To be fair, I do believe Doom has some empty secrets as well. I cannot think of a specific example at the moment, however.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

3 hours ago, LouigiVerona said:

I am loving the atmosphere and texture work. However, Heretic leaves this strange feeling of being empty. Somehow in Doom it can feel really crowded, but in Heretic I always feel like the level is almost empty. I wonder why.

Doom has more "filler" decorations to fill up empty rooms than Heretic.

[LouigiVerona]

I think there are genuinely less monsters. Because they are all quite spongy, you don't need too many to make it hard for the player. Whereas in Doom you can have a whole room full of zombies and sergeants and demons and imps.

[LouigiVerona]

Another thing I'm noticing is that in-fighting is not that prevalent. It's not very effective and it's not happening too frequently. Also, multiple times I've observed one monster attacking another, but the monster being attacked continues to attack the player (and the player is not attacking either of the monsters). This is weird behavior, I never see anything like that in Doom. There's a threshold, of course, but it's way lower.

I also tried generating some Oblige levels and realized that in-fighting doesn't happen very much even on levels with very many different monsters and doesn't seem to distract the monsters too much. Definitely, way, way less than in Doom. So, if in Doom in-fighting could be a legitimate strategy, in Heretic it doesn't seem to work all that well.

[CrocMagnum]

20 hours ago, LouigiVerona said:

As I am playing Heretic, further thoughts.

• Already in several levels I've encountered the situation when the next step is triggered by a switch which is hidden somewhere in the corner. This is annoying and frequently forces you to go around the level in circles, looking in every crook, hoping to find a missed switch. I don't remember the exact level, but something like 4th or 5th in the first episode where a switch is in a corner in a room which is a secret or at least looks like a secret. I spent literally like 20 mins just searching for the next switch before I found it there by accident.
• Hunting secrets is very tough even with the map...

 

I think it's a Raven Software quirk from the era. In those time, 90s to 2002, they often made games with a labyrinthine level design (at least those that I played). 

 

Still Heretic is less mazey than Hexen or say Jedi Knight II. The latter being a marathon of a (great) game that will often make you scratch your head wondering what is the next step or where is the exit ^^. I'm a sucker for exploration - I enjoyed the SACRAMENT.WAD" after all - so it's ok with me, but I concede the id games had a more intuitive level design. 

 

On a side note, I miss the Raven Software of yore.