Why is Doom more fun than Heretic?

[Marscaleb]

Okay, I know that this is really just a matter of taste, but I just find Doom so much more fun to play than Heretic.  But that said, I SHOULD like Heretic more.  I like Heretic's theme better, and I'd rather play a game where I run around a fantasy world than one where I run around military bases.  Heretic has some more interesting powerups and you can even activate them when you need them.

But yet, I just have more fun playing Doom than I do Heretic.  Even though I've played Doom so much more and neither Doom nor Doom II have many surprises left for me, I am more enticed by the idea of playing through Doom yet again on a new system than to play through Heretic.

 

And yes, this is all just a subjective thing, and I'm not going to knock anyone who thinks Heretic is more fun.

But still, I can't quite put my finger on why I like Doom more.

Any thoughts?  What is it that Doom is doing better than even Heretic, a nearly identical game (mechanically speaking) just can't quite do as well?

[Captain Keen]

As someone who still likes Heretic, and who LOVED Hexen as a child (despite its insane puzzles and map design), I think it's the weapons. They just feel so satisfying compared to most other FPS games, especially those from that same era. And the atmosphere has such a great feel, and it offers more variety than a pure fantasy game which feels a little more limited in scope. Doom can do a variety of designs (tech base, Hell, castles, cities, you name it) and it has a perfect balance of weapons and monsters and it just feels more timeless. It's "cooler", for lack of a better word. With the simple premise of fighting demons, you can pretty much do anything.

 

The level design also had less crazy labyrinths with hard to figure out puzzles, especially compared to Hexen, so I think it was easier to pick up for new gamers getting into the genre. Hexen had some truly insane switch hunts.

 

But I do still enjoy Heretic, Hexen and (yes) Strife.

[gwain]

It could be anything from a subconscious link to something making you not like it or mabey it has a different fantasy feel than what you like or its just that doom is so cool

 

[Thelokk]

Heretic looks very 'flat' compared to Doom. It's a gut feeling, can't explain it better. Maybe it's the lighting, maybe the predominantly brownish-grey monsters. No idea tbh. 

[RHhe82]

I feel the same; I enjoy Heretic, but it is lacking something. I think I agree with Commander Keen's assessment. The level design is more monotone compared to Doom's. Doom's techbases or hellscapes feel more varied than Heretic's medieval towns or watery mosaic temples. For me, Heretic's level kind of mesh together whereas Doom's levels seem to have more distinct personalities.

 

If you open up Heretic IWAD in a map editor, it also looks Heretic has less textures, which might explain, at least in part, the feeling of less variance despite the possibilities provided by the inventory system.

[Graf Zahl]

It's mainly the weapon. Heretic has upped the monster health but also lowered the weapon damage, and that really affects combat very, very negatively because some weapons like the Skull Rod feel very weak compared to its Doom counterparts.

Playing Heretic with a weapon mod that corrects this imbalance gives the game a real boost.

 

The available texture set also doesn't help - it's too limited and in part too cartoonish. Most of the better mods for it borrow textures from Hexen which help a lot.

 

 

 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

This question comes up a lot, but I always enjoy hearing from everyone about it.

 

Besides the gameplay/weapons, Heretic has a very subdued feeling and a unique atmosphere that won't appeal to everyone. It isn't as dark or gritty (or as detailed) as Hexen, or as innovative as Strife, it isn't as crazy as Hacx, or as violent as DOOM. It has a generally laid-back feel to it, so it usually isn't as "fun" as the competition. 

 

I like Heretic quite a bit, but it's something I have to be in the mood for.

[RDETalus]

Heretic's monster line-up isn't all that fun to fight

[jval]

When I play Heretic I get motion sickness. It doesn't happen when I'm playing Doom, Hexen, Strife or any mod. That happens only to Heretic, regardless the source port.

[blob1024]

2 minutes ago, jval said:

When I play Heretic I get motion sickness. 

oh cool to see:

that i'm not alone

how exactly the problem is called.

 

but i sometimes experience it with doom (never played heretic)

[jval]

2 minutes ago, blob1024 said:

how exactly the problem is called.

 

Cybersickness ?

[blob1024]

3 minutes ago, jval said:

 

Cybersickness ?

it's like my usual air-sickness

headache, almost the urge to puke sometimes, due to the movements of the game.

happens only with doom, and well sometimes while on boat trips, car, etc...

[Murdoch]

Doom is simply a more refined experience. Heretic does not try to do enough unique. It is very much a "Doom clone".

[El Juancho]

The gameplay is just worse (the most important aspect about a FPS IMO) simply because the weapons and enemies are worse designed than in doom.

[Nefelibeta]

Combat feels a lot weaker, without creative monsters like arch-viles or pain elementals, you can't really create an intersting combat scenario.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Nefelibeta : wicker lmao

[Synuś Vader]

because it's doom 

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I love Heretic's powered-up weapon system and using items to help you out but weapons in DooM feel much more impactful.

For one, the shotgun just feels much more powerful than the Ethereal Bow, in both sound and damage output. DooM also has the BFG9000 which lets you kill off several enemies at once with one satisfying BLAST of energy.

 

Though to be fair to Heretic, the gauntlets of the necromancer is better than the chainsaw when you use the tome of power.

Hippity hoppity amma suck yer health. :3

[Lippeth]

I think one of the only things it has going against it for me is a lack of nostalgia because I only first played it in my late 20s, same with Hexen. And to sort of echo what Murdoch said, if you're already well accustomed to Doom, it's hard to jump into Heretic without comparing every little thing. There are new additions of course, and the theme is totally different but for the most part nearly everything about the gameplay loop has a parallel to Doom in some way. But depending on the day, I'd say I like it equally to Doom and play both it and Hexen just as often.

[Antroid]

I'll echo the people that say it's the weapons. It's both the gameplay balance and the presentation of them for me. Most of them sound and feel like throwing a wet rag at the enemies instead of shooting them with high velocity projectiles. I think you really need to up your sound and visual effects to make fantasy magic weapons and/or medieval stuff feel as good and powerful as Guns. And perhaps add some more creativity to the arsenal so it isn't just Doom's-but-lamer.

 

Personally I have no problem with Heretic's overall looks, setting or the atmosphere, it's the weak-ass-feeling weapons and the slightly too tough enemies that make it feel less fun.

[ReaperAA]

For Heretic, it basically boils down to two things that have already been mentioned by others: Gameplay and visuals

 

Gameplaywise, Heretic is pretty much like Doom but with weaker enemies and (on average) more tanky enemies which makes it seem like an inferior version of Doom. Heretic really only has one "feature" over Doom and it's the inventory system. That combined with some cool powerups like tome of power, morph ovum and wings of wrath do help Heretic stand out from Doom, but its not enough in eyes of most people. A gameplay mod that makes weapons more powerful or makes enemies less tanky works wonders for the game and one such mod I use is Wayfarer's Tome which is a gameplay balance mod that makes the gameplay less grindy and make weapons sound more punchy as well. All the while also keeping the vanilla feel.

 

Visuals wise, while I like the average Heretic texture over the average Doom texture, the lesser variety becomes painfully obvious pretty quickly and the levels start looking samey after a while. That's why in order to add more visual variety to the maps, mappers tend to borrow textures from Hexen because many of Hexen's textures work surprisingly well for Heretic while also filling the gaps of the Heretic texture set.

[Captain POLAND]

I agree with the weapons point, specifically that for Heretic there is no equivalent of the BFG, an ultimate super weapon that can cause mass devastation with a single shot. The Phoenix Rod is basically just a rocket launcher, and in powered up form it's too short range to feel all that powerful. The Firemace is frankly pathetic, as well.

 

That is why I loved Hexen, you get 3 superweapons, and the Wraithverge is actually probably my favorite FPS weapon of all time, and I like it even better than the BFG.

 

 

[blackthorn]

I’d agree with what others here have said. I think the main issue for me is that the combat just never feels as satisfying due to the tougher monsters and weaker weapons. Visually as well there’s just something flatter and less interesting about Heretic, even though similarly to the OP I do generally prefer a fantasy setting.

 

For all of the complaints levelled at Hexen these days I still always enjoyed it vastly more than Heretic and would count it as one of my favourite games of all time to this day. In contrast to Heretic the visuals are just the best of any fantasy-themed game I’ve ever played, and I actually don’t mind the confusing hub-based puzzling style of it at all. It makes it it’s own thing rather than a less fun fantasy Doom as I feel Heretic is. I think I’ve only played through Heretic from start to finish once, whereas I’ve beaten Hexen loads of times.

 

All that said Doom itself is still clearly the best of the three. I think it all comes down to the feel and flow of the gameplay, which is just unsurpassed as far as Doom goes.

[SilentD00mer]

Probably the weapons are one reason, they feel "weak" comparing to Doom ones(the "BFG equivalent" for example). Maybe the sound effects are another reason. In Heretic the sounds feel like "everything is so far from me that I can't hear", and this changes how the player look at the fights of the game.

[rzh]

I actually like Heretic more than Doom.

Might be bias, since I started playing Heretic when I was 3 years old and Doom when I was around 12-13.

I feel like the original Heretic levels are great, fun, thematically distinct and unique.

I like E1, but love E2 and E3.

The expansion replaced the title pic with a worse one, had thematically inconsistent levels, no new textures (which really harmed the game).

Gameplay-wise, I also prefer it to Doom. Sure, enemies are tankier, but you get an inventory to more than make up for it.

Turning Ophidians into chickens and dropping bombs on hordes of Undead Warriors, Golems and Sabreclaws is great fun.

Heretic also has the better boss enemies. The Iron Lich is Archvile-tier, not Baron-tier. The Maulotaur is more dangerous and versatile than the Cyberdemon, and D'Sparil wipes his ass with the Mastermind.

As for your weapons, the wand is better than the pistol, the crossbow isn't as fun as the shotgun, the claw is much, much more fun than the chaingun (I always disliked the way the weapon looked and sounded), the gauntlents are also cooler than the chainsaw. The firemace does not compare to the BFG, the staff also doesn't hold up to the fists, but the Hellstaff and Phoenix Rod are about on par (without the ToP) with their Doom equivalents.

I also liked Heretic's textures and palette better.

The music, also much better.

Apart from that, Heretic also doesn't have infinite height for it's monsters, you can look up and down/ fly which alleviate so many frustrating moments.
Not only that, but you can also push enemies back frequently. I always forget if you can do it or not in vanilla Doom.

In Heretic when you're about to be boxed in by a horde is when the fun begins, in Doom it usually means death if one or two barons (or cacos) get in your way.

Edited January 30, 2022 by rzh

[Uncle 80]

using the chicken spell on people in DM was fun, though. I also enjoyed getting slaughtered by Maulotaurs and Iron Liches in episodes 4 and 5, which both turned the heat up a few notches.

[SilverMiner]

Title:

Why X is more fun than Y?

Me:

I dunno, I think Y is more fun than X

[Luleta]

i really like heretic, hated hexen, and never got to playing strife.

i feel like the simplicity really helps doom, not having to manage inventory or flying or all that stuff just feels better in my opinion, like a way more raw gaming experience. 

i think that same simplicity makes it so that it works better as a baseline for new maps and thus there are more doom wads than heretic's (well that and also the fact doom is more popular)

lastly, a lot of heretic enemies are tankier than it feels like they should, and the weapons don't feel as good.

 

that being said, again, i really like heretic and wish there were more wads.

 

 

[Antroid]

1 hour ago, rzh said:

The music, also much better.

This is downright heresy.

[Lippeth]

I always really liked the sound of the weapons, and the sounds of everything else for that matter. It all has that low-fi warmth from downsampling, and I find it very satisfying and fitting for the game. If they ever made a slot machine with Heretic sound effects I would probably develop a gambling problem. The only thing I'd say that I don't love about the weapons are the very simple animations, but Doom suffers from the same issue.

[Yumheart]

I'd say it's in the monster design. Most Doom II monsters are very different from each other and incredibly versatile, which enables map designers to easily create varied and interesting combat scenarios. Most Heretic enemies hurl one or three projectiles at you in a straight-ish line, only really different in terms of speed and damage output, and are often really tanky, making everything a bit monotonous.

I'm not saying Heretic is at it's core a bad game, there are plenty of good Heretic maps out there, but the original map designs don't do the weaker cast any favors, often being quite the drag with their huge amount of unthreatening "fodder" demons.