The Wayfarer: A 9-map Episode for Heretic (April 2022, significant update to v1.2!)

[Not Jabba]

**Update**

Three years later, The Wayfarer has been updated to v1.2! I've been tinkering with this update for a while to address bug reports and various little things that have bothered me about the episode. Most importantly, it fixes the badly bugged Lightbringer behavior caused in more recent versions of GZDoom. As a result, it is no longer compatible with ZDoom 2.8.1, but should work with any recent build of GZDoom. The other biggest change is better and more consistent balance for the lower difficulty settings. Here's a more complete list of changes:

 

Spoiler

-Fixed various minor bugs that have been found/reported, mostly texturing errors and a couple potential softlocks.

-Added armor and sometimes health (and occasional monster placement tweaks) to skills 1-3 in conjunction with fully retesting each skill setting, with the goal of making each feel fully consistent and properly targeted toward an intended audience.

-Added some more detailing to a few parts of M1 and M2 that felt bare and inconsistent compared to the rest of the episode.

-M2, better conveyance for a switch in the dock area.

-M2, fixed the MIDI to loop properly in recent versions of GZDoom (thanks to Volasaurus for the fix).

-M3, better conveyance for the Green Key.

-M3, the boss guarding the megasecret is now a Maulotaur on all skill settings, because the Liches on lower settings felt dumbed down; on skill 4, it's now two Maulotaurs.

-M4, fixed a lift to behave more intuitively.

-M9, fixed monsters not dying when they fell into the abyss.

-M6, gave the boss arena a little more space to move around in.

-M7, fixed monsters piling up in a southeast room (with another set of chaotic monster teleport dispensers, a la the other three corners).

-M7, the Green Key battle now has an Enchanted Shield on all difficulty settings, making it reliably beatable.

-Added ACS script in nearly all maps that alerts off-map monsters of your existence. In other words, you can't avoid monster teleports by not shooting anymore.

-Rocastus and the High Disciple (second form) each have 500 less health (now 2000 for Rocastus, 2500 for the High Disciple).

-Chaos Serpent fireballs have a slower movement speed and are easier to dodge; used the red Serpent from Faithless Trilogy as the reference for the new speed.

-Fixed dynamic lights for the Chaos Serpent fireballs.

-Improved the Lightbringer pickup sprite.

-Smoother weapon animations code for the Lightbringer, thanks to Xtyfe on ZDoom Forums.

-Fixed the Lightbringer's ripper/bounce behavior to work properly in recent versions of GZDoom.

-Nitrogolem projectiles have a reduced sound rolloff so they're not so loud, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Fixed the Staff melee range (regular, zerked, Tomed), as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Fixed the Gargoyle's charge attack behavior, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Added improvements to how the Maulotaur's ground crawler deals damage, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Disciples drop a version of the Sigil of Power that doesn't count as an item, as in Wayfarer's Tome.

-Added an alternate version version of the Chaos Serpent that doesn't drop any items, and replaced all turreted Chaos Serpents with this version.

-Fixed DECALDEF, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Fixed KEYCONF hotkey bindings, as in recent Wayfarer's Tome builds.

-Added the Automatic Wand Start/Crossbow Start options, as in Wayfarer's Tome. These are in the main menu under Wayfarer Options.

-Removed the unused MIDI files from the WAD itself; they can still be found in the zip download.

-Provided a better explanation of difficulty settings in the included textfile.

 

The Wayfarer v1.2

 

-Replaces E1 of Heretic

-Requires GZDoom. Designed for software rendering. Jumping and crouching are not intended.

 

 

 

   

   

   

   

 

The Wayfarer is not your grandparents' Heretic. It includes a built-in gameplay mod that rebalances the game in ways that are mostly subtle but make the game a lot more engaging to play. Many enemy attacks are more dangerous, and most of the player's weapons are more powerful, allowing certain weapons to have more useful combat niches and eliminating the grindiness associated with vanilla Heretic's weapon/monster balance. The episode also features two new standard enemies, two new artifacts, a new weapon, plenty of custom decorations and textures, and more.

 

I'm a combat-oriented Doom player who has never enjoyed Heretic. Why should I play this?
The gameplay rebalance, as well as the new monsters and items, are designed to make the gameplay more challenging and allow me as a mapper to create more dynamic combat scenarios. The increased threat from monsters puts more pressure on the player to dodge and strategize effectively, and the more powerful weapons and new items allow you to play more aggressively. At the same time, Heretic's inventory management allows for an additional layer of strategy that Doom doesn't have.

 

I'm a more casual player who often finds modern Doom maps frustrating. Why should I play this?
Though The Wayfarer is more challenging than vanilla Heretic, it's still a more forgiving game than Doom. The challenge in Heretic is all about dodging and inventory management. There are no Arch-Viles. There is nothing equivalent to a Revenant, and no hitscanners (for now, at least). Though you may be faced with monster-dense combat at times, Heretic's inventory management and Tomed weapons give you lots of additional possibilities for dealing with those scenarios in a way that's quick and fun and doesn't involve meta-gaming with the BFG.

 

I'm a long-time fan of Heretic. What have you done to my precious game?
Not as much as you might think. The changes are mostly minor tweaks, with an eye for adjusting the game's balance rather than turning it into something totally different. Though I've drawn a lot of lessons about game balance from Doom, I love Heretic for the game it is and want to make sure it remains its own unique thing. 

 

I like playing Tyson-style. Does Heretic melee combat still suck?
No! The Wayfarer introduces a new item that works like Doom's Berserk pack, making Tyson as viable a playstyle as it is in Doom, if not more so. The Staff has a longer melee range, and the berserked/Tomed Staff has a tighter, more reliable damage range than Doom's berserked fist. The Gauntlets are also a bit more powerful than before.

 

Do you have more plans for Heretic? Can I use your stuff?
Yes and yes! The Wayfarer is just the beginning of a long-term effort to expand Heretic in the same way that Doom 2 expanded on Doom. This includes a much larger bestiary, more new items, and so on. The rebalance has been designed to make mapping easier for me and greatly expand the possibilities for gameplay and level design, and hopefully it will be helpful for other people as well. Please feel free to use all or any part of the gameplay rebalance or any of the new monsters/items -- just give proper credit.

 

What did you change?
You can see the included textfile for a full list of gameplay changes, but here's a condensed list of the most important stuff:

Spoiler

-The Staff uses custom animations by OSJC that make it feel more like a weapon and less like a cattle prod.
-The Tomed Staff is significantly more powerful and now hits ghosts.
-The Gauntlets are slightly more powerful and are more likely to stunlock enemies.
-The Elven Wand's shot is now a bit more powerful. Both the un-Tomed and Tomed versions of the Wand fire slightly faster.
-The Ethereal Crossbow has been beefed up to feel more like a true shotgun weapon instead of an unsatisfying projectile rifle with a couple of tiny damage bonuses. It now has four side bolts instead of two, and the side bolts do more damage. To compensate, the weapon is slower to refire. The Tomed version does slightly more damage as well.
-The Hellstaff does slightly more damage with each shot, and its projectiles are now heat-seeking.
-The Tomed Hellstaff's projectile rain lasts longer, and the rain projectiles no longer knock enemies back. This allows enemies to enter the storm, dramatically increasing the weapon's effectiveness. To compensate, the weapon now uses 10 ammo per shot instead of 5.
-The Tomed Phoenix Rod is more powerful, and its range has been increased somewhat. It also has less knockback when it hits enemies.
-Following RottKing's lead from Elf Gets Pissed, the Lightbringer has been added to the game as a replacement for the Firemace.
-(NEW ARTIFACT) Sigil of Power: provides the same weapon powerups as the Tome of Power, but activates immediately on pickup and lasts for 15 seconds instead of 40.
-(NEW ARTIFACT) Might of Tysonius: Instantly gives 25 health and increases the damage of the Staff as though it were Tomed for the duration of the level. (Note: this augmented Staff does not hit ghost enemies; Tyson players can still hit ghosts using the Wand, Gauntlets, or Tomed Staff.)
-(NEW MONSTER) Serpent Keeper: A powerful melee enemy that pursues the player relentlessly, randomly puts on bursts of extra speed, and lunges when it attacks.
-(NEW MONSTER) Lesser Chaos Serpent: A weaker version of D'Sparil's mount, but significantly more powerful than the Hexen variant. Randomly fires either a single volley of three fireballs or three sets of two in a Mancubus-like pattern.
-You can now carry a maximum of 25 Time Bombs of the Ancients, instead of the default max of 16. Time Bombs no longer count toward item percentage.
-Many enemy projectiles now do slightly more damage.
-The Weredragon has higher health (300 instead of 220) to help it function as more of a tank enemy. Its melee attack is now more powerful.
-The Ophidian has a bit less health.
-Some enemy ammo drops have been tweaked; some enemies are less likely to drop ammo pickups, and others give less ammo than before.
-The Disciple now drops the Sigil of Power instead of the Tome of Power.
-The brightness levels of various weapons have been customized/fixed. Most weapons use the set of custom brightmaps from Elf Gets Pissed. The Tomed Staff and Tomed Gauntlets are bright even when idle to reflect the electrical energy around them. All ammo pickups are now bright.
-The Chaos Device and Ring of Invulnerability are now bright, and the Morph Ovum uses custom brightmaps.
-The Weredragon's fireball and contrail are now bright, and the Weredragon lights up when firing. The Disciple lights up during its attack windup and death. The Sabreclaw and Iron Lich light up during death.
-The Sabreclaw, Weredragon, and Ophidian have slightly higher mass.
-Gargoyles and Fire Gargoyles will no longer infight with each other. Golems, Golem Ghosts, Nitrogolems, and Nitrogolem Ghosts will no longer infight with each other.
-Numerous edits have been made to sound effects courtesy of Xaser; some weapons sound more powerful, all enemy projectiles have impact sounds, and the overall sound "rolloff" range has been increased to be the same as Doom's, so the game no longer sounds weirdly quiet compared to Doom.

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Not Jabba
removed redundant bullet point in changelist

[VanaheimRanger]

Nice!  I've been looking for a reason to dust off the old Heretic IWAD.

[Korozive]

I have actually never played Heretic. Will this https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/heretic/htic_v12  run on a Windows 10 laptop? 

Edited February 27, 2019 by Korozive

[Gez]

58 minutes ago, Korozive said:

I have actually never played Heretic. Will this https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/idstuff/heretic/htic_v12  run on a Windows 10 laptop? 

To play Wayfarer, you need the full version of the game and you need to run it in GZDoom; it's not designed to run in vanilla.

[Gothic]

Great mapset, the scale and detailing reminds me of Sunder. But as great as this wad is I gotta say I'm not a big fan of the new gauntlets. Instead of a medieval chainsaw, now it works like a slightly faster staff (that can hit ghosts, but still)

[Korozive]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

To play Wayfarer, you need the full version of the game and you need to run it in GZDoom; it's not designed to run in vanilla.

I realize that. I just wanna try try the shareware on my current laptop. I downloaded it but not sure how to get it to work.

[elend]

The best reason to dig out Heretic again! Screenshots look amazing.

[holaareola]

I didn't enjoy Heretic much, most of all because of the crappy feeling weapons.  Both graphics and sounds were shite imo. But what kept me going was the atmosphere and the look of the game, so this sounds great.

[nrofl]

These pictures look really nice. I feel like I've committed a sin because I haven't tried out any of the other doom engine games besides the doom games! And how these look so far makes me want to play them right now! Really good screenshots!

[SOSU]

Finally >:O

[Gez]

44 minutes ago, Korozive said:

I realize that. I just wanna try try the shareware on my current laptop. I downloaded it but not sure how to get it to work.

If you want to run the original, you'll have to do so in DOSBox. Might have to run the installer in DOSBox too, depending how it's packaged.

 

 

I'd suggest to get GZDoom or any other source port that can run Heretic; they'll all be able to play the shareware version without problem. https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Comparison_of_source_ports

[Kepehn]

Seeing the pics and reading the info regarding the gameplay changes, I like where this is going!

 

I use to like Heretic a lot! I'm really looking forward to this!

Didn't have time yet to download and play, but I WILL definitely have to! It's already in my list!

[Not Jabba]

21 hours ago, Gothic said:

But as great as this wad is I gotta say I'm not a big fan of the new gauntlets. Instead of a medieval chainsaw, now it works like a slightly faster staff (that can hit ghosts, but still)

 

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you explain what feels off about it? It still works like a chainsaw, except there are tiny amounts of extra damage interspersed with its animation frames so that it's more likely to stunlock enemies. If anything, it's even more of a chainsaw than before.

[Salt-Man Z]

I love Heretic, and this looks frigging amazing.

[Solmyr]

It looks awesome, but specially that decadent golden "dusk" sky, it really compliments the architecture and light brown textures giving off a dark age vibe

[HRealms]

I just finished the first level and I like what I see, a lot. Heretic was always my favorite FPS as a kid in the 90s (more so than Doom, I always preferred Heretic's high fantasy setting). I'd love to see more great Heretic levels like that.

[boris]

Played the first 4 maps, and I like it so far. I never played Heretic all that much, so it's a good opportuniy to give it a whirl. The interconnectivity is nice, although it confused me a bit from time to time (that's on me, though). The only time where I was really stumped was the end on E1M4, when at the end I didn't realize that the switch to lower the bars became available.

 

I really like the Sigil of Power, although it's placement (i.e. if you notice it's there in the first place) can make quite a difference, at least in the blind playthrough. In my playthrough (see below) this is quite noticable in the exit area of E1M2, where I don't see that it's there (and use my Tome of Power instead). Yes, it's in plain sight, but it's still easy to miss with the projectile fiesta in that area. I don't mean it as criticism, but more like an observation. I know that it's easy to wonder as the map's creator how the players can miss things like that ;)

 

There are two things that kind of trigger me, though ;) The keys are not in the order yellow -> green -> blue. And many teleporters are not using the classic red floor texture, but the blue fork one, that's usually associated with the exit.

 

You can get stuck here in E1M3:

 

I also recorded my playthroughs. E1M1 is cut short because OBS was acting up, unfortunately. Playlist:

 

Hopefully I'll be able to play the rest of the maps this weekend.

[Not Jabba]

33 minutes ago, boris said:

There are two things that kind of trigger me, though ;) The keys are not in the order yellow -> green -> blue. And many teleporters are not using the classic red floor texture, but the blue fork one, that's usually associated with the exit.

Thanks for the feedback and videos! I'll definitely fix that sticky spot in M3 and check out the playthroughs.

 

Sorry about the key order -- I just like this one better (note that it is always green -> yellow -> blue instead, so you can still make guesses about how a layout will work if you care to think about such things). I like that Heretic was strict about the way it conveyed certain things, but I didn't want to be chained to the same choices that the iwad made, especially with its extremely limited texture selection. Since I have so many more custom textures available, I've chosen to overhaul the whole teleporter flat system in order to convey more information. It's not the same as the iwad, but it's consistent throughout the whole episode:

 

-All-gray trident flats are inactive landings -- you can't go back through them.

-Gray flats with blue tridents are active teleports with clear directionality, and the trident points in the direction of entry/landing.

-Fully blue trident flats are exit teleporters.

 

-Blue 8-point chaos symbol flats are active teleporters with no clear directionality (you can enter them from any side).

-Red 8-point chaos symbol flat is an exit teleporter with no clear directionality. If this is confusing due to the way the red flats were used in the iwad, I could potentially change it to a gold or green version instead, or make another custom version with a different color (purple?).

 

-Red teleport sparkles still indicate a regular teleporter and blue teleport sparkles indicate an exit teleporter, like in the original game.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Not Jabba

[boris]

I see. Honestly it sounds quite convoluted and gets pretty wonky

 

Like the north western secret area in E1M2. The trident points south, but the teleport destination isn't even on the symbol, and you can enter it from every direction.

 

E1M3, from/to teleporter hub. The destinations from the hub point the the direction the player will be facing, but can be entered from all directions.

[Not Jabba]

It looks like the secret one in E1M2 could be changed, yeah. Thanks for catching that. The ones in E1M3 have directionality, though. The fact that you can enter them from other sides isn't important; it would be silly to make only one line of the square teleport the player. The teleporter is pointing in a specific direction because of the way the room sits, and it lands the player facing in that direction.

 

Let me know if you see anything else. I've been over everything for consistency, but the first few maps in particular were made when I didn't have a firm system in mind yet, so I may have missed things here and there.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Not Jabba

[boris]

So I finished E1M5 to E1M8, and wand-started E1M9 (didn't find the secret exit). I uploaded the playthroughs and updated the playlist accordingly:

 

It's a really good mapset, and how little feedback it gets here really doesn't do it justice.

 

What I don't like that much is how it suddenly takes a quite slaughtery course starting with E1M6.

 

In E1M6 that made me take the yolo approach to just try to skip the fights alltogether. Enemies everywhere. I guess it only worked because of the yellow key bug (see below), since I didn't have to spend much time in the open area. The fight for the blue key was really frustrating for me, I died over and over again. I even had to resort to in-fight saveing. I think the main problem I had that the player acceleration (when trying to change directions) was just too slow for the fighter, resulting in nearly insta gibs when he meleed me. I didn't have a tome of power, though, so it might have been much easier with one. At least I could easily dispatch the Serpent Keeper with an Ovum, which seems to be generally a good strategy against them in close quarters.

 

The start of E1M7 was really rough for me with all the enemies teleporting in. Not sure what's the intended strategy is, here. Going into the outer ring looks like an option, but there are plenty of enemies, too. In retrospect I guess it would have made sense to go into the middle to pick up a Sigil of Power or two. The areas where you get the keys could use some indication that this is the case. You can see the yellow and blue keys, but they are really far away. In the beginning that was mostly a problem with the green key, since it wasn't visible to me at all from the entrance. I entered the room once, thinking that it was just for the Tome of Power, and abandoned it when I died in the trap. I just deducted that this must actually be the green key room from it's position and the rooms for the other two keys.

The way I reached the exit is probably not intended: I got hurled over the bars from a Lich's tornado. It's not really clear what do to there.
 

Spoiler

 

Looking at the map in the editor revealed that there's actually nothing but monsters blocking the path to the exit. Knowing this it seems rather trivial to just use the empowered Lightbringer to blast a path clear and bolt before you're overwhelmed. Is that the intended way?

 

 

E1M8 was a bit of a letdown. The beginnig was really frustrating for me again, and again I had to resort to in-fight saving. I just couldn't find a good strategy to handle the encounter. And the final fight was just an uninspired BFG fest. The map looks nice, though, and using the empowered lightbringer does feel rewarding ;)

 

E1M9 is an extremely atmospheric map, probably one of the most atmospheric ones I've played. I can't really pinpoint why, I think the theme and textures and Heretic just works spot-on here.

 

Problems I encountered:

 

 

In the playthrough it happened twice that monsters were teleported in, but were "frozen", as in not doing anything, but being able to be killed. Here's the place in E1M2:

 

 

In E1M6 you don't need the yellow key to press the yellow key switch. That lets you skip most of the map.

 

When you pick up the Might of Tysonius and using the alternate HUD the quartz flask icon goes away. I guess that's because in Doom the medikit gets replaced with the berserk pack icon, and there's no icon here.

[Not Jabba]

1 hour ago, boris said:

feedback

 

Hey, thanks again for playing the whole thing and letting me know what you think!

 

The yellow key bug is definitely embarrassing. Thanks for finding it! I'll want to put out a new RC pretty soon for that one. As for the teleporters, I'm not sure what that could be on the mapping end, as those monster teleports work the same way as any others -- it's probably an issue in the build of GZDoom you're using? I've heard of some other very strange bugs happening with the mapset in GZDoom 3.7.x, and I've heard that those builds have a fair number of bugs in general. GZDoom 3.6 seems to be totally stable and hasn't resulted in the teleportation bug or the other one I know of that somehow affects weapon switching with the Sigil but not the Tome (even though they're the same powerup). Hopefully later versions of the port will fix those bugs as well.

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the Quartz Flask icon bug, because I don't know what alternate HUD you mean, and I'm not seeing any similar bug in the regular HUD. Is it another HUD that comes as a standard option in GZDoom? I'm a bit surprised that the medkit/berserk pack icons affect what you see in Heretic, since it's a different game with different items. But if you know how to fix this, I'd be grateful for the info -- is it just a matter of placing a duplicate Might of Tysonius sprite with a certain name in the resources?

 

As for the last few maps, I'm sure we've all seen plenty of arguments about the merits (or lack thereof) of combat with high monster density. Though I wouldn't consider them to be slaughtermaps (or even to require the Tomed Lightbringer/BFG equivalent, necessarily), I understand the complaint and am sorry you didn't enjoy the fights. I don't play saveless, but I also don't save mid-combat, and I and my two main testers were able to beat all the fights in the episode without doing so. The thing about high-density combat in Heretic as opposed to Doom (aside from the fact that most of the monsters don't deal as much damage) is that you have the inventory to help you. Running low on health? Tank up from your inventory. In danger of being cornered? Use a Morph Ovum to break through. Facing an extremely intense individual battle and need to reduce monster numbers efficiently? Use a Tome or carpet bomb with Time Bombs. Personally, I've enjoyed the element of strategy that comes with inventory management, and I would strongly recommend using a control setup that is easier to deal with than the default controls -- I have the mouse wheel bound to scroll through inventory and one of my extra mouse buttons bound to select/use items. In M7, I wouldn't stick around the start area and try to fight everything (there's hardly any ammo there), but rather wage a running battle and pick up resources until I felt ready to fully engage with the fighting. I would also say it's intentional that you can Lightbringer-rush out of the big final battle to the exit in that map. If people want to complete the battle, they'll do so, but given the scale of the battle, I feel like it's ok for people to have a way of opting out.

 

Thanks for the videos. I'll look forward to checking them out.

Edited March 4, 2019 by Not Jabba

[boris]

2 hours ago, Not Jabba said:

As for the teleporters, I'm not sure what that could be on the mapping end, as those monster teleports work the same way as any others -- it's probably an issue in the build of GZDoom you're using? I've heard of some other very strange bugs happening with the mapset in GZDoom 3.7.x, and I've heard that those builds have a fair number of bugs in general. GZDoom 3.6 seems to be totally stable and hasn't resulted in the teleportation bug or the other one I know of that somehow affects weapon switching with the Sigil but not the Tome (even though they're the same powerup). Hopefully later versions of the port will fix those bugs as well.

I'm always using the latest devbuilds, i.e. some 3.8.x now. I played E1M2 again and this time it didn't happen. The weapon re-selecting when the Tome of Power ends is quite annoying, I opened a bug report for it, but it turns out that it's intended...

 

2 hours ago, Not Jabba said:

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the Quartz Flask icon bug, because I don't know what alternate HUD you mean, and I'm not seeing any similar bug in the regular HUD. Is it another HUD that comes as a standard option in GZDoom? I'm a bit surprised that the medkit/berserk pack icons affect what you see in Heretic, since it's a different game with different items. But if you know how to fix this, I'd be grateful for the info -- is it just a matter of placing a duplicate Might of Tysonius sprite with a certain name in the resources?

The alternative hud is a built-in option in GZDoom, it's been there for years. It basically a fullscreen HUD that shows more info, like your whole inventory (you can see it in my videos).

 

In Doom it looks like this  without and with berserk:

 

In Wayfarer it looks like this without and with Tysonius:

 

Apparently it can be fixed by adding a lump called ALTHUDCF and put the following line in it:

 

Berserk MITYA0

 

or whatever icon you want to display. Then it looks like this:

 

Not sure if there are a ny other implications associated to it. There's basically no documentation on this feature, and I had to wad through the ZScript and GZDoom source code to find it.

[Not Jabba]

Awesome, thank you. I'll go ahead and implement that; it probably can't hurt anything.

[Not Jabba]

Hey all. RC2 is ready with some useful changes.

 

-Most importantly, I've finally managed to rewrite the Tomed Phoenix Rod's attack from scratch to remove all the unpleasant hardcoding. The projectile no longer transfers direction and momentum from the player, meaning that you can actually aim and dodge at the same time! How novel, right? The weapon also depletes ammo over time (1 ammo per about 40 shots of the flamethrower), rather than the nonsense it does in vanilla. This is a very powerful weapon, albeit one with a relatively short range, and this is the first time it has ever been properly usable -- so while it seems pretty good to me so far, I could really use some feedback on how well it's balanced for combat.

 

Other changes from RC1:

-Fixed the bug with the YK switch not requiring the key in E1M6, and some other assorted minor issues that have been reported in this thread and elsewhere.

-Fixed the Might of Tysonius icon in the alternate HUD.

-Fixed some visual glitching in the regular Gauntlets attack animation.1

-The Staff's melee range has been increased a tiny bit more.

-Lowered the Maulotaur's health from 3000 to 2500 (probably should have done this ages ago).

-Added two more Sigils and two more Morph Ovums in E1M5.

-Fixed the bars in the final battle of E1M7 to mostly eliminate the potential of getting thrown over by an Iron Lich tornado. It looks like it's still theoretically possible to end up on the wrong side if you try *very* hard or get *very* unlucky, but now you can simply lower all the bars by pressing on the back side of any one of them.

-Adjusted the shaping of the first arena in E1M8. Interesting lesson there -- I had tried constricting the amount of space in that arena to make circle strafing more difficult, but the effect was that the enemies ended up clumped anyway, because they didn't have enough room to use their natural advantages, which made them easier to circle-strafe. More space means the Maulotaurs and the boss can charge around a lot better, and the boss's deflection shield is in the open more often, which makes things more interesting. The Maulotaur health nerf and working Tomed Phoenix Rod should help to make this fight go quicker for those who felt it was sloggy before.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Not Jabba

[boris]

On 2/27/2019 at 5:46 PM, Not Jabba said:

Jumping and crouching are not intended.

 

BTW, disabling jumping and crouching in the MAPINFO is perfectly fine, if players really want to play it not as it is intended they can just override it in-game (i.e. no need to change the MAPINFO. If it's not disabled players who do not read the readme might think that jumping and crouching is intended or even required.

[Not Jabba]

Yeah, that's probably a good idea if you can just change the settings in the menus. I'd never noticed how easy it was.

[Not Jabba]

RC3 is out with some more useful changes. I expect this to be the last significant update, so if you've been waiting for the point where everything is smoothed out and polished, now is a good time. I'll keep The Wayfarer in RC for awhile longer to catch any stray bug reports that come straggling in.

 

Changes from RC2:
-Slightly reduced the health of both the Nitrogolem and the Undead Warrior. Ghost versions still have the same health as in vanilla Heretic.
-Went over every map and made minor ammo tweaks to most of them to accommodate the recent enemy health reductions; also removed some excess ammo on the lower skill levels.
-Made the E1M6 boss charge a bit more often. Lowered the height of the Lesser Serpents' platforms in the boss arena to make them more dangerous so that you can't simply ignore them by circle-strafing. Placed a Tome of Power in the antechamber before the boss fight, and changed the Tome that you could get earlier in the map to a Quartz Flask.
-Added some more detail to a secret area in E1M6.
-Made a visual improvement to the water-lowering area in E1M2 so that the switch doesn't tile.
-Various minor bugfixes in several maps.
-Made a minor improvement to the weapon/armor rack textures.
-Added a basic /idgames textfile to the zip (wayfarer.txt); improved the visual layout of the main readme (wayfarer_info.txt) and added a table of contents.

 

If anyone is interested in creating a title pic and intermission pic (or an episode map) for the final release, let me know.

 

I've also been working on a standalone mod that lets you apply the gameplay changes from The Wayfarer to any other Heretic maps. Keep an eye out for that in the next couple of weeks!

[Gez]

I've finally taken the time to play through this. Excellent all around, gorgeous levels with tight gameplay and a lot of exploration to do.

 

The secret that requires chickening a monster was the one that I found the most puzzling, but I did manage to discover them all in all maps.

 

My favorite moment was using a ring of invul in the Onyx Citadel during the final mass onslaught so as to calmly wait for a lich tornado to lift me to the elevated secret corridor in order to completely cheese the horde. Please don't "fix" this.

 

Anyway, here are two minor visual nitpicks I screencapped.

I think this was level 3. Give random offsets to these risers so that you don't get the obvious tiling.

 

Bad alignment in the see-crate level.

[Not Jabba]

8 hours ago, Gez said:

I've finally taken the time to play through this. Excellent all around, gorgeous levels with tight gameplay and a lot of exploration to do.

Awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I was wondering how long it would take someone to figure out the morph secret. I'll take care of the two visual things you mentioned -- thanks!