Good Doom/Heretic/Hexen WADs

[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.

 

[Average Manatee]

Never had problems with GZDoom performance even on slaughtermaps with my shitass PC. Even the mods I've tried don't seem to tank performance that much. I'm entirely inclined to agree with the devs.

 

[Average Manatee]

Me, with 1300 enemies/corpses on the screen and a 120 FOV, a CPU from 2011, a GPU from 2016, and 8 GB of what's probably the slowest DDR3 (not 4) memory available back in 2011, running in 1440p. You probably can't buy a new PC that isn't at least 2x as powerful unless you live in the third world. Map is sunlust 24, dying on cue ending.

Just fucking run normal doom without a million ugly shaders and other effects and don't play shitass mods. You'll probably be unable to run Windows sooner than you're unable to run GZDOOM.

Also yes, nuts.wad runs fine too.

 

[HansDampf]

Try to play map 31 from Antaresian Reliquary (The Eclipse of Betelgeuse) in GZDoom. I could measure my framerate in seconds per frame and had to switch to PrBoom+.

 

[toughasnails]

If you want utter insanity
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...d-heavily-detailed-boom-map-otex65k-linedefs/

I also remember this being borderline unplayable for me with GZDoom back in the day regardless of what I did


It would probably be alright today and as they said it would run fine in PrBoom, but the framerate is the main thing I remember the map for. If you watch the vid, at one point they get to the set of ersatz 3D tables, when you see HOW they were done you'll get how much the author gets that filthy Western capitalist "optimization" thing.

But these are really the problems with over the top maps rather than with GZDoom. Other examples would be some gameplay mods ruining maps with huge monster counts, or TCs like Solace Dreams (the OG everything is voxels version) or some maps in BoA.

 

[gerey]

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.

And coincidentally, those two are some of the most talented, productive and creative Doom modders around.

Also, ReformedJoe, that worked with Vos on Ashes Afterglow (and made the expansion for 2063) seems to be pretty chill - I haven't really seen any hint of the mind virus, though incapable of committing to one project and finishing it, but I like both the mech mod he's working on, as well as the immersive sim mappack he's developing.

The Trenchfoot devs all seem to be non-woke Christians, and if the most recent little Trenchfoot cartoon (about the Master Templar beheading a heretic) is anything to go by, they may be much closer to my neck of the woods ideologically than most modders.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

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?

To me, Heretic is not 'bad', but it's still lacking in many ways.

I'll give some anecdotal evidence: I played Doom (2) and enjoyed it very much, to the point that I have some residual memory of pretty much every map in the game, even 30 years later.

Now with Heretic, I've played through all five episodes at least once (a LONG time ago) and the only maps I have any residual memory of, are part of Episode 1 - the shareware episode, and the boss fight at the end of Episode 3. Everything else is a blur, and I'm not interested in revisiting any of it ever again.

Compare that to its 'sequel', Hexen - where I can, again, make recollections about pretty much every map of the game, all these years later.

I'm not gonna diss Heretic's music, simply because I can't remember any of it. Hexen had some thematic tunes, but not good enough to be remembered outside of it. Meanwhile much of Doom's soundtrack has become timeless classics, even though much of it is based on earlier rock works. :/

 

[Sigourn]

Unkillable Cat
I see.
I read about The Wayfarer's Tome, which is meant to port the gameplay tweaks from The Wayfarer into the base game. I'm still not sure if I should try it out. I'll probably give it a quick try next week.

 

[Lagi]

Unkillable Cat
I see.
I read about The Wayfarer's Tome, which is meant to port the gameplay tweaks from The Wayfarer into the base game. I'm still not sure if I should try it out. I'll probably give it a quick try next week.

wayfarer episode maps are much better than anything in vanilla. Plus the monster encounters are much better. Not sure why you want to replay base maps. Wayfarer maps are not key/switch hunt - dont worry, they quite straight forward combat maps - i really enjoy them.

 

[Sjukob]

To me, Heretic is not 'bad', but it's still lacking in many ways.

I'll give some anecdotal evidence: I played Doom (2) and enjoyed it very much, to the point that I have some residual memory of pretty much every map in the game, even 30 years later.

Now with Heretic, I've played through all five episodes at least once (a LONG time ago) and the only maps I have any residual memory of, are part of Episode 1 - the shareware episode, and the boss fight at the end of Episode 3. Everything else is a blur, and I'm not interested in revisiting any of it ever again.

Compare that to its 'sequel', Hexen - where I can, again, make recollections about pretty much every map of the game, all these years later.

It's the opposite for me, I don't really like Hexen, but enjoy Heretic. Hexen has shallow combat, respawning enemies and long levels, not a good cocktail IMO, it's to the point where I can't even play it without spicing it up with something like HexArcana. But I understand why people like it, it's very immersive and gives you a good sense of adventure, I don't know if similar games exist at all. There are some good wads for Hexen though, I played through Shadows of Chronos, which I found to be excellent.

I'm not gonna diss Heretic's music, simply because I can't remember any of it. Hexen had some thematic tunes, but not good enough to be remembered outside of it. Meanwhile much of Doom's soundtrack has become timeless classics, even though much of it is based on earlier rock works. :/

After playing Doom for years I've developed fondness for MIDI soundtrack in general. Nobody (or barely anobody) uses it in video games now, but I feel like it's a waste, because it sounds very unique, could've fit certain games perfectly. Some of the stuff people create for various wads is truly great, check it out:

 

[toughasnails]

I suspect that the paucity of Hexen wads might have something to do with the scripting being required for creating Hexen-style hubs. You can create intricate af maps in Doom Builder without ever writing a line script or knowing how to. It's probably safe to say that you have many long time mappers with lots of vanilla and limit removing releases who are like that.

Speaking of wads for hexen btw this one was really good but I bet it's broken under more recent GZDoom as these older zdoom wads tend to be.
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/hexen/v-z/wolfen

 

[Curratum]

Oh man, I remember this thing... Made by someone called LittleWhiteMouse who was supposed to be a girl.

Back then being trans wasn't really a thing unless you were a sex industry worker, and I never assumed, but seeing how things turned out, in retrospect...

Mouse's content was great though. I remember one more thing Mouse made, a Heretic-based city-dungeon-hub shooter thing, I really don't remember much apart from it being very cool.

Yeeep, all the signs of them being trans are there:

https://forum.worldofwarships.com/t...s-angry-youtuber-review-pan-asian-destroyers/

Plays military action games.
Has 13 000 posts on World of Warships forums.
Has anime girl avatar.
Uses words like "gudbote".

Jesus Christ, that's some grade-A unfiltered autism. 30-minute video reviews of ships.

Yeah, girls totally do that. Just like Lilura, who is also totally a girl, right! :D :D

 

[Echo Mirage]

Can anyone recommend some WW2 themed maps, or at least something with that kind of aesthetic?
I'm using the Doom Incarnate mod with Kriegsland enemies and want to pretend that I'm playing Bloodrayne 3.

 

[toughasnails]

Not WW2 themed per se but at least the period matches.
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/120132-dbp33-rainy-days-in-casablanca/

Maybe you could try Voodoo Guns too, the first map iirc was a huge & detailed early 20th century style cityscape.
Otherwise I can't think of many wads with believable environments set in specific historical period that at the same time aren't TCs. Maybe you should just search the idgames database for the related keywords and see if you stumble upon anything interesting.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Can anyone recommend some WW2 themed maps, or at least something with that kind of aesthetic?
I'm using the Doom Incarnate mod with Kriegsland enemies and want to pretend that I'm playing Bloodrayne 3.

It doesn't come with any maps, but WildWeasel Presents: Nazis! is pretty good, not his best though. There's also WolfenDoom and Blade of Agony. Some of the original scenarios there will probably fit what you want.

 

[toughasnails]

This could be promising, looks a bit like Ashes with a darker, body horror-infused vibe.
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/129951-deluge-gzdoom-standalone/

 

[Jack Of Owls]

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.

Always loved the music in E1M1. As memorable as anything in Doom, imo.