Good Doom/Heretic/Hexen WADs

[toughasnails]

Here's hoping that that actually sees the light of day.
Total Chaos could be a great survival horror with some tightening and cleaning.

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[Curratum]

Statistically, if you like and played more than a couple of Doom mods, chances are, your favorite mods were made by trans Doom community members.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Finally got around to finishing Augur;Zenith. Despite a few poor maps, ie Map12 being the worst, it is a consistently high quality megawad. If there is one thing to take away is that the people at Doomer Boards went absolutely crazy with detailing. The sheer amount of minor decorative objects that serve a purpose for secrets and main progression is insane, however I cannot think of any instance where progression was poorly choreographed so kudos to the mappers for avoiding that pitfall. I cannot recommend Augur;Zenith enough go play it.

 

[Daingerous]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/whatdafuckwad


one of the most original total conversions. If you enjoy Serious Sam type gameplay and don't mind edgy cringe shit and also enjoy extremely obscure low budget 90's movie references with a touch of basic rpg stats then this is the mod for you

I really think this wad doesn't get enough attention because clearly a lot of work went into it and all the sprites appear to all be handmade with some touch of talent.

9/10 defintely worth a look

 

[Ol' Willy]

Statistically, if you like and played more than a couple of Doom mods, chances are, your favorite mods were made by trans Doom community members.

- Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta
- skillsaw wads
- Pillowblaster mods
- Ashes
- Hideous Destructor
- Moonman

How much?

 

[Curratum]

- Pillowblaster mods

I don't think anyone who has a drawing of Remove Kebab guy in his pfp can be a SJW :D

 

[Sigourn]

Is Heretic bad?

I've finished the first episode and it's been very disappointing compared to Doom. Enemies are not challenging in the slightest, the sound design and music leave a lot to be desired. Weapons lack that oomph that Doom's had. Level design is rather unimaginative. It is pretty much what I expected Doom to be before I played it, i.e. a boring game where all you do is go into a big room and shoot lots of enemies.

I loaded up Plutonia Experiment after that and beat the first three levels. I know Plutonia is meant to be difficult, but even Doom had you play to the game's strength of movement and strafing, so my criticism of Heretic applies both in comparison to Plutonia and standard Doom. Part of the problem I have with Heretic is that this doesn't really happen. More often than not I sit still in one place and blast at enemies.

Maybe the game is meant to be played at the highest difficulty?

 

[schru]

I also found Heretic to be very underwhelming after playing Doom. The maze-like level design that somewhat regularly relies on secret-like passages to proceed is interesting, but when it comes to combat Raven Software was rarely good at it, it seems. The Tome of Power makes the weapons shoot nice-looking projectiles and they ways in which the spread and effects are modified are pretty interesting, but it doesn't improve the combat as a whole; rather, it seems almost like the frequency of these power-ups was a justification or counterbalance for the large numbers of enemies and the tedium of fighting them in a regular way.

As for music, it's worth noting that it was most likely composed on Sound Blaster AWE32. Many of the tracks sound much better on it (AWE64 sounds the same as far as MIDI music is concerned):

 

[Butter]

Heretic is made for circle strafing. If you're sitting in one place and not dying, you're not playing on a high enough difficulty.

 

[Junmarko]

That is actually really well done. Quality of the video makes it harder to tell, but it is pretty seamless. Impressive mod!

 

[Sjukob]

Is Heretic bad?

I've finished the first episode and it's been very disappointing compared to Doom. Enemies are not challenging in the slightest, the sound design and music leave a lot to be desired. Weapons lack that oomph that Doom's had. Level design is rather unimaginative. It is pretty much what I expected Doom to be before I played it, i.e. a boring game where all you do is go into a big room and shoot lots of enemies.

I loaded up Plutonia Experiment after that and beat the first three levels. I know Plutonia is meant to be difficult, but even Doom had you play to the game's strength of movement and strafing, so my criticism of Heretic applies both in comparison to Plutonia and standard Doom. Part of the problem I have with Heretic is that this doesn't really happen. More often than not I sit still in one place and blast at enemies.

Maybe the game is meant to be played at the highest difficulty?

Heretic plays like a relaxed version of Doom, there are no hitscanners, revenants (nitro golems are way weaker) or archviles to really pressure you, it's very similar otherwise. And classic wads are generally very easy today, especially if you don't play them on the highest difficulty setting, which also applies to Doom. If you want some challenging Heretic gameplay check out wayfarer wad:


But mind that it's very combat orientied, it also features a subtle rebalance of weapons, new weapon called lightbringer and fantastic soundtrack on top of that. It's a very good wad, I highly recommend it.

But if you're in a mood for a more traditional gameplay, then check out elf gets pissed, another very good wad that I strongly recommend:

As for music, it's worth noting that it was most likely composed on Sound Blaster AWE32. Many of the tracks sound much better on it (AWE64 sounds the same as far as MIDI music is concerned):

Sounds great, thanks, I've never heard it before.

 

[Tacgnol]

Statistically, if you like and played more than a couple of Doom mods, chances are, your favorite mods were made by trans Doom community members.

- Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta
- skillsaw wads
- Pillowblaster mods
- Ashes
- Hideous Destructor
- Moonman

How much?

I've never seen Vos (the ashes creator) parroting any woke stuff. He's also good friends with Zan (the Hedon dev) who has a pretty antagonistic relationship with most of the SJWs over at the GZDoom forums.

 

[schru]

As for the music, it's worth noting that it was most likely composed on Sound Blaster AWE32. Many of the tracks sound much better on it (AWE64 sounds the same as far as MIDI music is concerned):

Sounds great, thanks, I've never heard it before.

If you're curious, here's what is known of the music hardware the composer, Kevin Schilder, used: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...nd-canvas-music/?tab=comments#comment-1927601

It's not certain whether it was AWE32, but it would make sense because the game does support more advanced MIDI cards, so it's doubtful that the music was made primarily for the older FM synthesis (especially since music was an important part of Doom itself and Id Software had some oversight of Heretic's production). Still, there are some problems like distortions and cracking in the parts with choruses in these recordings, but this could be due to an incorrect set-up or a bad method of recording. Compared to SC-55 renditions, the AWE32 and 64 do sound better overall.

For those interested in giving it a try, I separated that YouTube upload into tracks that can be used with a source port of the game; dragging the MUSIC folder onto the executable or adding a command for the port to load it should work, as the tracks have their original file names. There's audible cut-off at the end of some of the tracks, but since they're played as one continuous whole in the video there's little that can be done about it without erasing the finishing notes.

I've also added the track titles which Schilder revealed some time ago.

https://mega.nz/file/mFtGnZhL#73m9aJ8yN9qtQ6sLpHeOoTKsEMgnPp6KeKoOkkgY8BU

 

[toughasnails]

Is Heretic bad?

I've finished the first episode and it's been very disappointing compared to Doom. Enemies are not challenging in the slightest, the sound design and music leave a lot to be desired. Weapons lack that oomph that Doom's had. Level design is rather unimaginative. It is pretty much what I expected Doom to be before I played it, i.e. a boring game where all you do is go into a big room and shoot lots of enemies.

I more or less agree. At least some maps are aesthetically nice, E3 in particular has a nice theme going.
Perhaps try with a higher difficulty plus something like nashgore to add a bit of visceral punch to the combat.
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62641#p1080654

 

[Sigourn]

I more or less agree. At least some maps are aesthetically nice, E3 in particular has a nice theme going.
Perhaps try with a higher difficulty plus something like nashgore to add a bit of visceral punch to the combat.
https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62641#p1080654

I've started Episode 2 playing at the highest difficulty. It's an improvement but I still stand by the lack of audio and visual oomph. I'll check that mod out, thanks.

 

[schru]

If you're playing in a source port, use the software renderer as hardware-accelerated renderers change the lighting and tend to make the environments look darker and the colours duller. Some of the maps do have interesting texture work.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Dissing Heretic's music seems like such a bizarre complaint to have, especially in the ompf department. Do you not like fantasy music or something? Despite loving the game more than Doom, I do get the complaints about monsters and weapons, to a certain extent, but I've never played Heretic and felt like the music was lacking anything. Its like one of the greatest FPS soundtracks of all time.

 

[Tacgnol]

Biggest issue I always found with Heretic is that most of the enemies are damage sponges which makes the weapons feel quite weak.

Ammo is also generally quite scarce in comparison with monster health.

 

[Deflowerer]

Heretic is made for circle strafing. If you're sitting in one place and not dying, you're not playing on a high enough difficulty.

Higher difficulties also make the enemies insufferable sponges.

I persevered through Heretic but quit Hexen because it just became so tiresome with the spongery.

 

[Lagi]

as written before - Wayfarer is a nice new iteration of Heretic, without being different game - new better maps, with better combat, nice weapon adjustments. try it (after you finish suffering from vanilla episodes)
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...heretic-april-2022-significant-update-to-v12/

for the fantasy weapon ompf, i think the default pick would be Walpurgis (it works with Heretic). However i play it with monster HP adjustment mod, because weapons deal too much damage.
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/111766-walpurgis-096-for-doom-heretic-hexen-096-release/

 

[Bigg Boss]

Heretic will always be that Shareware demo I really liked but did not buy.

 

[toughasnails]

I wanted to check out the latest map from the author of Shadows of the Nightmare Realm (which was a p solid GZDoom episode with Doom 64 like vibe). Since it's built for the K8Vavoom port I went to download it and guess what, the person maintaining it is an outright communist who uses the trademark red star for the port's logo. All the while they FUCK ALL WARS! (in red) written in OP of the thread where they post new updates.
https://doomer.boards.net/thread/2260/k8vavoom-good-thing-dies-build
For a Doom port whose logo has a red star with Doom's shogun and chainsaw crossed inside it! It doesn't bother me so much but the dissonance here is p hilarious.

 

[Tacgnol]

I wanted to check out the latest map from the author of Shadows of the Nightmare Realm (which was a p solid GZDoom episode with Doom 64 like vibe). Since it's built for the K8Vavoom port I went to download it and guess what, the person maintaining it is an outright communist who uses the trademark red star for the port's logo. All the while they FUCK ALL WARS! (in red) written in OP of the thread where they post new updates.
https://doomer.boards.net/thread/2260/k8vavoom-good-thing-dies-build
For a Doom port whose logo has a red star with Doom's shogun and chainsaw crossed inside it! It doesn't bother me so much but the dissonance here is p hilarious.

Doom modders tend to be amongst the most autistic and insane of modders (which is already quite a feat considering the typical modder).

 

[Curratum]

Never get involved with the Doom community in any capacity. That's mostly true for any online community but even moreso for Doom.

Source - being involved with the Doom community on and off since 2001.