Why is Doom more fun than Heretic?

[brick]

I think Graf mentioned the biggest problem with Heretic: weapons deal less damage and enemies have more health. Everything feels spongier and grindy as a result. I think the other major problem is that the level design isn't as compelling as Doom's. I think E1 is still great, but E2 and E3 are more forgettable. The Shadow of the Serpent Riders episodes try to up the difficulty similarly to Thy Flesh Consumed, but I don't think it works as well; some of the levels are pretty good (E5M1 has excellent difficulty IMO, it puts pressure on you and forces you to manage ammo without being ridiculous), but others are honestly pretty awful. E4M1 is notoriously stingy on ammo, and E4M9 has one of the most obtuse progressions in any of the IWADs.

 

I still like the game a lot though. The lack of hitscan enemies maybe reduces variety but I like that it makes you pay more attention to the differences in the way projectiles work. The bosses are much more interesting as Wagi said thanks to having 3 possibles attacks/behaviours. And while the base weapons are just Doom reskins, the Tomed versions have some fantastic variety.

[Lippeth]

13 hours ago, brick said:

I think Graf mentioned the biggest problem with Heretic: weapons deal less damage and enemies have more health. Everything feels spongier and grindy as a result.

It feels like it was done that way to balance the Tome of Power. I have nothing to back this up and am only speculating for fun, but I imagine the enemy health was originally more on par with Doom, and after adding the powered version of each weapon, monsters died way too quickly so they increased their health/or lowered base weapon damage.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Lippeth

[xdarkmasterx]

I don't find Heretic's weapons any weaker than Dooms' are on the baseline. The real issue is that the random damage range is even wider than it is in Doom, which makes them feel pathetic at times and lead to shit moments where a tiny weak monster takes several crossbow bolts to kill.

[LadyMistDragon]

The weapons don't feel as fun to use, and at least part of that must be blamed on the muted sound effects. @Dwars made a pack that boosts the original sounds to be more comparable to Doom's, but I've yet to download it. And also....there's something rather gloomy and depressing about the game's aesthetics. Even when dull STARTAN dominates everything, Doom feels more bright and colorful for the most part. Heretic, on the other hand, is not exactly encouraging of people suffering from depression we'll say, and getting into a gameplay groove is much harder.

[idbeholdME]

I really have to wonder what version of Heretic you all played to claim that the enemies in it feel tougher or spongier than in Doom. A cursory glance at the weapon damage vs monster health numbers proves that is simply not true. Doom has so many higher health monsters it can't really even be compared to Heretic.

 

I've said it in a thread before and I will say it again. The toughest regular monster in Heretic has 280 HP (Ophidian). That is Revenant level health, so quite fragile in Doom. The weapons are somewhat less powerful in Heretic but even then, most enemies just die much quicker than anything mid-tier and up in Doom.

 

I've played Doom to death and Heretic multiple times and I simply can't agree with what seems to be the consensus here.

[Not Jabba]

13 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The weapons don't feel as fun to use, and at least part of that must be blamed on the muted sound effects. @Dwars made a pack that boosts the original sounds to be more comparable to Doom's, but I've yet to download it. And also....there's something rather gloomy and depressing about the game's aesthetics. Even when dull STARTAN dominates everything, Doom feels more bright and colorful for the most part. Heretic, on the other hand, is not exactly encouraging of people suffering from depression we'll say, and getting into a gameplay groove is much harder.

 

My experience with the Heretic palette is that it's noticeably more colorful and saturated, with richer browns and a larger number of discrete colors that don't all blend down together into brown and gray as the light dims. A lot of those colors aren't well used in stock resources -- I think most people wouldn't know that Heretic has two starkly different purples, three different yellow/orange ranges, and bright blues and greens that practically fluoresce in dim light unless they've done texture/sprite work for the game themselves. But even just the stained glass windows and tile mosaic textures give a pretty good idea of how much the palette can pop. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the impression of monotony is again due to the fact that there are so few stock textures and all the map settings end up feeling like the same repetition. Personally though, I do like that Heretic can be so gloomy as well as so vivid.

 

Some images to illustrate the point, first of textures I've made and then a couple from recent wads.

 

     

 

 

[Gibbon]

Because Doom has the shotgun and all you get in Heretic is a pea shooter staff and a pair of gloves :)

[RDETalus]

20 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

I really have to wonder what version of Heretic you all played to claim that the enemies in it feel tougher or spongier than in Doom.

20 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

most enemies just die much quicker than anything mid-tier and up in Doom

I think part of the reason why people feel Heretic has tougher enemies than Doom is because Doom has more enemies that can be killed in a single shotgun blast than Heretic does. Doom has 4 meat grinder enemies (Zombieman 20HP, Shotgunner 30HP, Imp 60HP, and Chaingunner 70HP) whereas Heretic only has one reliable single-shot kill (Gargoyle 40HP).

 

In Doom, you can unleash a 10 man squad of 20HP zombiemen for the player to demolish, but that's not possible with Heretic as much, an equivalent would be 5 gargoyles with 40 HP each.

Edited February 2, 2022 by RDETalus

[Nikku4211]

With all this discussion of Doom's weapons vs. Heretic's weapons, I wonder what people think about shooting Hexen enemies using Doom's weapons in Void.

[Gez]

Fun fact about Void: the dark imps are actually undead warriors from Heretic. That's why they have two different projectiles, they correspond to normal green axe and bloody red axe.

[Marscaleb]

13 hours ago, RDETalus said:

I think part of the reason why people feel Heretic has tougher enemies than Doom is because Doom has more enemies that can be killed in a single shotgun blast than Heretic does. Doom has 4 meat grinder enemies (Zombieman 20HP, Shotgunner 30HP, Imp 60HP, and Chaingunner 70HP) whereas Heretic only has one reliable single-shot kill (Gargoyle 40HP).

 

In Doom, you can unleash a 10 man squad of 20HP zombiemen for the player to demolish, but that's not possible with Heretic as much, an equivalent would be 5 gargoyles with 40 HP each.

 

That's what we need for Heretic mods, some weak fodder enemies!

 

Though I never considered the chaingunner to be fodder; he may have only 70 HP but he will f*** you up hard!

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Normal gargoyles aren't really tanky, they have 40 hp while Doom imps have 60, very close considering the heretic weapons usually have slightly less damage. The stupid fire tossing ones have 80 hp ( double the hp ) while having the exact same sprite are the problem.

[Marscaleb]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:07 AM, Not Jabba said:

 

My experience with the Heretic palette is that it's noticeably more colorful and saturated, with richer browns and a larger number of discrete colors that don't all blend down together into brown and gray as the light dims. A lot of those colors aren't well used in stock resources -- I think most people wouldn't know that Heretic has two starkly different purples, three different yellow/orange ranges, and bright blues and greens that practically fluoresce in dim light unless they've done texture/sprite work for the game themselves. But even just the stained glass windows and tile mosaic textures give a pretty good idea of how much the palette can pop. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the impression of monotony is again due to the fact that there are so few stock textures and all the map settings end up feeling like the same repetition. Personally though, I do like that Heretic can be so gloomy as well as so vivid.

 

Some images to illustrate the point, first of textures I've made and then a couple from recent wads.

 

     

 

 

 

Perhaps the problem is that it doesn't have enough muddy colors.
For a medieval setting, you are going to have a lot of stone textures, and they only have their basic grey for regular stone, and then a tan-brown for alternate stones.  So most of the game is just a basic gray.

Compare that to the Hexen palatte, which retains most of the same colors, but shortens the vibrant colors (used mostly for magic effects anyway) and gives some more muddy colors.  And the Hexen textures used those to add little pieces of detail to the textures.

Of course, Hexen had fewer levels that were supposed to look like they were in a castle and more that were "outside" so the game doesn't look as grey, but still.

Compare that further with the Hexen II palette and the vibrant colors are almost non-existant.  There are four colors with four shades for some full-bright magic effects, and after that only the red and gold colors even get bright.

 

But then again, ShadowCaster has even fewer muddy shades than Heretic, and nobody ever complains about that game's aesthetics, so what do I know?

[BigBoy91]

Doom has more run and gun action. Heretic is cool, but feels like a first person puzzle game at times. The weapons and bestiary aren't nearly as memorable, either. Not enough variation.

[Not Jabba]

11 hours ago, Marscaleb said:

 

Perhaps the problem is that it doesn't have enough muddy colors.
For a medieval setting, you are going to have a lot of stone textures, and they only have their basic grey for regular stone, and then a tan-brown for alternate stones.  So most of the game is just a basic gray.

Compare that to the Hexen palatte, which retains most of the same colors, but shortens the vibrant colors (used mostly for magic effects anyway) and gives some more muddy colors.  And the Hexen textures used those to add little pieces of detail to the textures.

 

Every time I look at the Heretic and Hexen palette side by side, the Hexen palette seems to be a magic trick. They both have all the same colors that are in the Heretic palette, but Hexen also seems to have more of everything, plus a couple of new colors. I still haven't figured out how they did it, as they condensed some ranges but expanded others or left them the same size.

 

However, I'm not sure the above statement is true. The two new colors Hexen adds are the salmon pink and the oddly putrescent gold that are both on the bottom row of the palette. The duller, stonier colors are all the same (the jade green is also located alongside those other ranges, but note that Heretic has that color too, it's just located in a different part of the palette). Some colors have slightly more or slightly fewer shades, but it doesn't seem like that much of a difference, they're just arguably a bit more efficient.

 

I've seen all the following Heretic colors used effectively for stone and other construction materials:

-Gray (and white and black)

-Moss gray (though usually this is mixed with regular gray rather than being treated as its own separate color)

-Standard brown

-Tan

-Icy/steely blue (which Doom doesn't have at all)

-Pale/jade green (which has a full range -- Doom's equivalent range has about half as many shades)

 

The saturated red, blue, and green ranges also work for stone and other materials if you want to create more whimsical, colorful environments. Doom mappers often do the same thing. I have rarely seen the autumn/bronze range used for stone, but it works well for metal and vegetation as well as more brightly colored materials, and there is no equivalent color in Doom.

 

Hexen has all the same colors I just mentioned -- I think the pixel artists had just learned how to use them better by then.

[Wagi]

Counterpoint: Heretic's ultra colorful palette is the reason its appearance stands out among all of the other bog-standard fantasy games that all use the same drab gray/brown colors everywhere. Look at E2M4, E3M2 or E5M7... You just don't see places that look like that in other fantasy games.

[MrBanjo]

At the same time, I like how Heretic still has a dreary feel despite all the colors. I like Doom for this reason as well.

[Doom_Dude]

How can it be fun when heretic has no trees. Not even a stump. ;)

[Gez]

Honestly, I find Heretic more colorful than Hexen.

[LadyMistDragon]

19 hours ago, Marscaleb said:

 

 

 

But then again, ShadowCaster has even fewer muddy shades than Heretic, and nobody ever complains about that game's aesthetics, so what do I know?

No one has even played ShadowCaster. ;p

[Gez]

15 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

No one has even played ShadowCaster. ;p

It was one of my favorite games back then. I liked the whole shapechanging gimmick that allowed to progress. Get the frogman shape to go through an underwater level. Get the dragon shape to fly above lava. Get the golem shape to punch open breakable walls. Nowadays it'd be considered a metroidvania.

[Marscaleb]

On 2/4/2022 at 12:37 PM, Gez said:

Honestly, I find Heretic more colorful than Hexen.

Heretic seems to make more use of strong saturated colors, especially for things like all the powerups that are all over the maps, projectiles, enemies, etc.  Wheras Hexen doesn't use as much of the "bright" colors, the vibrant reds and the vibrant greens etc.  But when you really compare the two, Hexen puts a lot more subtle coloring into its art.  A slime-covered wall in heretic is a grey wall with big splotches of bright green slime.  A slime-covered wall in Hexen is a grey-ish green-ish wall.

So I get why someone would say that Heretic is more colorful than Hexen; you really have to look closely to see the more refined use of color that's going on in Hexen.

But once all the enemies are killed and the power-ups are collected, the Heretic maps start to look more drab and dull than the Hexen maps do.

 

13 hours ago, Gez said:

It was one of my favorite games back then. I liked the whole shapechanging gimmick that allowed to progress. Get the frogman shape to go through an underwater level. Get the dragon shape to fly above lava. Get the golem shape to punch open breakable walls. Nowadays it'd be considered a metroidvania.

 

I'd love to see them release some sort of remastered version.  It doesn't need updated graphics, but an updated interface would be nice.  Even just a version that plays nice with modern systems would be nice.  Hell, I'd even settle for a DOS-Box version that comes from a legitimate site that I'm not worried is going to give my computer herpes.

[printz]

Is it, though? I find Heretic more fun than DOOM II, due to its superior feature set. I'm not going to repeat it, I said it several times in the past. What DOOM II has going for it is the more punishing gameplay and the tendency for mappers to make some evil levels, giving you a higher sense of accomplishment if you survive.

[Koff3Katt]

(Quick 'n' Dirty post & some uncategorized ramblings)

 

Hate to come by and be that guy™, but I feel that most people are going about playing/viewing Heretic the wrong way. For starters, I feel looking back at Raven's older title ShadowCaster is a good point for what they were going for. Heretic feels more like an evolutionary step over ShadowCaster than it does trying to be the next step for Doom, but of course, using the same engine muddles that IMO.

 

Almost the same way Battleborn was unjustly compared to Overwatch, even though Battleborn was going for something different.

 

Another point is how I've seen some go about Heretic's weapons and inventory. Most are holding onto the belief that the crossbow doesn't feel like a worthy Shotgun replacement. I honestly think of all the weapon similarities in Heretic; both the Firemace and Crossbow were not trying to replicate the BFG and Shotgun. Also, for those that hold onto excess inventory, please don't. You'll lose all but one anyway, so if you have excess Ovums, Tomes, and the like, then have at it. It'll make your encounters with enemies feel less like they're sponges and more like they're wet paper towels.
 

Going into Heretic comparing it to Doom or expecting it to be very close to Doom will damper one's time enjoying it. I wasn't fond of Heretic many years ago before I figured out: I'm playing Heretic, not Doom.

 

I think they both prove to be fun in their own ways, and if you like Doom's fun over Heretic, to that, I say RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE!

[Yasha]

It's hard to make magic weapons feel as nice to shoot and fire as guns, really. I own a game on Steam called Amid Evil that's an old-school shooter in the vein of Doom and Quake, and it's great fun...but the weapons just don't feel as satisfying as even Doom 2's because they're all magic based. The shotgun equivalent is a sword that fires a sweeping crescent beam and it cuts through enemies like butter...but the bang of Doom shotgun still beats it in my book. And this is a game from 2018!

[Cruduxy Pegg]

9 hours ago, Yasha said:

but the weapons just don't feel as satisfying as even Doom 2's because they're all magic based. 

Can't hear this over the lightning rod chain lightning an entire room down after killing one gargoyle.

[Not Jabba]

11 hours ago, Pegg said:

Can't hear this over the lightning rod chain lightning an entire room down after killing one gargoyle.

 

This is a good point. The Tomed weapons are all really exciting to use because they feel like you're casting powerful and unique magic spells, whereas the normal versions of the weapons are the ones that tend to feel like they have lower impact and less impressive feedback compared to Doom's. Each Tomed weapon is tactically distinct, visually distinct, and devastating. I actually enjoy big, dense, strategically challenging battles more in Heretic than I do in Doom because once you're familiar with the inventory and the abilities of the Tomed weapons, there are tons of strategic options for dealing with most situations. The only downside of this is that not a lot of people have made big, dense, strategically challenging battles in Heretic yet -- I hope more people will realize the potential as time goes on and the game gets a bit more of a spotlight.

[Captain POLAND]

I still find the Wraithverge from Hexen pretty much the most fun FPS weapon ever.

[Koff3Katt]

On 2/8/2022 at 1:58 PM, Not Jabba said:

 

…not a lot of people have made big, dense, strategically challenging battles in Heretic yet -- I hope more people will realize the potential as time goes on and the game gets a bit more of a spotlight.

If you haven't played Sold Soul yet I think you'll love it!

Edit: Well, nevermind for you lol. Anyone else interested in challenging Heretic maps should try it out! 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Koff3Katt

[nightdiveistrash]

It’s not. Both are equal.