Flash thoughts on Heretic's design

[Jimmy]

I really want to tell you my opinion on Heretic's level design. So here it is.

 

Having played it in dribs and drabs a whole bunch but never totally completing it until now, here's what I think of the experience with my as-of-this-thread-current mapping sensibilities. These are only flash thoughts, I could go into detail in many cases but here I just want to sum things up super quickly or the post will get crazy long.

 

I plan on doing Hexen next.

 

Warning!: Surprisingly enough, this is only my opinion. Don't get your phoenix rod all up in a twist.

 

 

E1 - THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

 

* M1 - Docks: Nice and succinct opener. A few winding corridors to explore in secrets, and a nice gradual introduction to the weapons and enemy roster. I probably wouldn't have the crossbow in a secret, is all. It's the best weapon! 9/10

* M2 - Dungeons: A bit obtuse - has you stumbling around in the dark a bit (thank god for the torch powerup), and friggin' large for the second level of the game (153 monsters on Smite-Meister!). Tons of secrets that are pretty fun to find. What is with those four tightly consecutive doors, though? "Get Smart" vibes. 7/10

* M3 - Gatehouse: This one has some quirks like the windy sectors, but otherwise not much to say here. I like the secrets in the starting room. 7/10

* M4 - Guard Tower: A really cool map that I don't mind getting lost in. Some awesome shaping and settings in this one like the titular tower which has an awesome circular construction to it. 9/10

* M5 - Citadel: A fabulous medieval city map. It's fairly huge, too - loads of thought put into this. Pretty easy to get lost in, but top marks nonetheless. 9/10

* M6 - Cathedral: Why would you hide a crucial switch in a dark corner of a room which is already behind a secret wall??!?! Other than that this map is alright. Just drags a bit, and is far from the most straightforward, layout-wise. 5/10

* M7 - Crypts: Crawling with baddies and has some seriously tense moments. Thematically it's a bit all over the shop. The blue key room has a slightly less egregious form of M6's switch sequestered away in a corner, again behind a "secret wall". I guess this is the game training you to start looking for "secret" areas that actually turn out to be part of mandatory progression. 6/10

* M8 - Hell's Maw: A bit of an underwhelming fight - as cool as iron liches are. Look at the huge amount of space versus how little of it you can actually walk on. Far too many items given for it to be any kind of challenge, although I admit blasting everything with the wings and tome in tandem is pretty fun. (Also man, pods are really icky. That graunching sound those generators make always put me on edge even as a kid.) 6/10

* M9 - Graveyard: Intriguing design-wise, probably the most "secret level" material offering in the set, with that big undulating checkerboard being the abstract centerpiece of the map. A bit... plain otherwise? Another dark-corner-dwelling switch, in the area past the green door. What are they, shy? 7/10

 

E2 - HELL'S MAW

 

* M1 - Crater: Another short but sweet M1. Does a pretty good job of changing the setting up and introducing the weredragons. 8/10

* M2 - Lava Pits: Less than perfect. A bit unsure of itself theme-wise - rocks and lava aplenty, but very orthogonal. One part reverts back to the boring gray brick houses theme from E1. The secret to the far east demands you have wings of wrath to get out so god help you if you ever go back to that. Sabreclaws are honestly just annoying. 5/10

* M3 - River of Fire: Large and imposing but honestly not a great play. Long trawls to get to where you wanna be. I dunno, the layout feels underutilised. Will make you wish for a radsuit. 6/10

* M4 - Ice Grotto: I want to like this - setting-wise it's awesome, a hidden village tucked away beneath a lake of fire and ice - but it's just giant and sprawling and easy to get lost in. Low friction ice floors can go to hell. 6/10

* M5 - Catacombs: Forgettable. Thematically a bit all over the place and has some weird shaping and cramped areas leading to awkward platforming, corridor-crawling and other such tropes of what I'd say is just bad design. Not a huge fan. 4/10

* M6 - Labyrinth: That huge ice square in the middle ruins everything good this map had. 2/10

* M7 - Great Hall: Like M2, wants to be a set of caves but also a building. Feels like the texturing was left unfinished more than anything. Honestly not many "great" things can be said about this hall - apart from the music. 4/10

* M8 - Portals of Chaos: I like this one - each corner has its own kinda-unique thing going on. Maulotaur count on the higher skill settings seems excessive, though - I'd have had 2 at most. 8/10

* M9 - Glacier: Really not much of a glacier, is it? I mean there's an ice staircase but that's dumb. Feels overly monotextured like M7, otherwise bearable. The only instance in the game where a switch opens that little 64-wide exit door, which itself is pointless because the door is immediately adjacent. 6/10

 

E3 - THE DOME OF D'SPARIL

 

* M1 - Storehouse: Doesn't give you the crossbow for some reason. Pretty hard as a result with lots of mid-to-high-tier enemies. The introduction of the ophidian leads me to believe they like hanging out in bathhouses. 7/10

* M2 - Cesspool: The switch to unblock the exit door is again stowed away in a dark room that might have you searching for a bit. Otherwise inoffensive. Pretty tricky, too. 7/10

* M3 - Confluence: A pretty cool map with an iconic opening shot and lots of other neat stuff going on, plus the most underloved music track. Can beat this one pretty quickly if you know what you're doing - much of it is totally optional. 8/10

* M4 - Azure Fortress: I like how this one seems to be set underwater. Outstays its welcome a bit, though. Pretty easy to find the secret exit here, you'll probably find it first. 6/10

* M5 - Ophidian Lair: Probably the first real challenging map, but I don't think it's because of the maulotaur. Unfortunately it's also pretty obtuse, found myself lost a lot here. Dig the overarching "snake pit" theme, though. 5/10

* M6 - Halls of Fear: Decent map (with a less-than-decent name) with some challenging moments like the weredragon hallway and the maulotaur fight. Otherwise kinda forgettable. 6/10

* M7 - Chasm: The main gimmick here is just an annoying tightrope walkway where you have to fight the excessive wind scroller in order to reach the blue key. Fun to fly around the side areas with the wings of wrath, though. Some fun fights in this one, nonetheless. 6/10

* M8 - D'sparil's Keep: Pretty underwhelming closer. D'sparil isn't that fun to fight in such a huge open space, and like with E1M8 you're given a massive excess of items that just wind up going to waste since it's the final map. 4/10

* M9 - Aquifer: A pretty challenging map with cool interconnecting architecture and another "underwater" texture scheme which I must say I'm a fan of, but it's not "secret level" material, by any means. 7/10

 

E4 - THE OSSUARY

 

* M1 - Catafalque: A nice map but a huge leap up in difficulty - stingey with ammo, and lots of high-tier enemies. You basically need one of the wizards to drop a tome for you. Maulotaur is entirely ignorable. 7/10

* M2 - Blockhouse: Pretty fun carnage-fueled gameplay if you can stand the 4-way-symmetrical layout. Gives you loads of goodies in the outer moat. 7/10

* M3 - Ambulatory: Puzzle map. Some interesting mechanics and encounters but lays on the secret-hunting pretty thick. 6/10

* M4 - Sepulcher: Coolest opening shot. A couple of spots where you might be wandering but otherwise fine, at least for the regular exit. For the secret exit, you need to go secret-hunting within secret areas. Getting to the optional top half of the map is only accessible by walking into the monster closets that open in the start room, then hitting the switch behind the two blocking doors. 7/10

* M5 - Great Stair: An interesting map - not without its challenges, particularly how the green door is sequestered behind a couple of secret walls. (?!) Those shoot-to-open stained-glass window cubes are hilariously 90s. 7/10

* M6 - Halls of the Apostate: Definitely a filler map. Just doesn't look like much of anything. Has a couple of interesting setpieces/ambushes though. 5/10

* M7 - Ramparts of Perdition: At least the setting is interesting, but some severe progression issues in this one. You have to scurry around for the first important switch which is behind a pillar. You then have to walk near the yellow door to open the crucial teleporter to the yellow key room. The room to the west with the phoenix emblazoned on the floor (the game's only non-liquid hurtfloor!) is the most interesting part of the map - pity you only fight like 12 gargoyles - but the final fight is where it gets fun, with tons of powerups including the wings in a big fight against the liches. 6/10

* M8 - Shattered Bridge: Just the worst finale possible. Mazes, wind everywhere, the only key is in a secret, and the main gimmick is broken - you can just straferun across the bridge. Which I thank god for, because why in fuck's name are the bridge segments raised by shooting at the lifts across the way? I've never shot at an elevator (especially at a distance) in order to unlock its arcane secrets. This would've been even harder to figure out back in the days of 320x200. I guess you're supposed to haplessly sling projectiles at all the ghost mummies on the other side and have the bridge restore itself when your crossbow shots etc. phase through them and by chance strike the lifts? Weird as hell. 2/10

* M9 - Mausoleum: Headache incarnate. It's a giant fuck-off maze with half its lighting constantly pulsing. You need several torches just to allow your eyes to function. Only one key used, in an environment where color coordination to delineate areas would have been really useful. The inner sections don't even look like anything, they're just silly setpieces, perhaps scraps of maps that they ended up wrapping in corridor. Avoid even warping to this one. (Also, guys guys... this one uses scrolling sky textures on walls. I'm not kidding. Behind the caged braziers in the mid-western square towards the south. For realsies.) 1/10

 

E5 - THE STAGNANT DEMESNE

 

* M1 - Ochre Cliffs: Some weird progression bullshit, like opening a secret wall and then stepping into the room behind it just to gain access to the exit door, and mandatory wall-humping for a fake midtexture in order to escape the blue key room. Maulotaur that comes out of nowhere is scary as shit. Not all that friendly for an M1. 6/10

* M2 - Rapids: Pretty cool setting, interconnected nicely, lots of secrets to find, but just a few too many scrolling floors that just make basic moving around a massive pain. 6/10

* M3 - Quay: Another key behind a "secret" wall. Otherwise a pretty decent map, looks like a "place". The barrel-hopping secrets are fun. 7/10

* M4 - Courtyard: Feels filler-y - a bit cramped and questionable use of wind in that one outside sector. Exit is placed really weirdly, almost hidden. 6/10

* M5 - Hydratyr: Heretic's answer to Circle of Death, except much larger and more long-winded. Once you get the yellow key in the center portion of the map you never need to return to it, which seems a waste. Has a teleport-hub section which is a bit tiring. Monster placement is fairly impotent here - they're nearly all ghosts, so goodbye useful phoenix rod. 6/10

* M6 - Colonnade: Ridiculous progression - crucial doors activated by shooting, easily missable stashed-away switches, this level has it all. Has it all so wrong. 3/10

* M7 - Foetid Manse: Obtuse as fuck. You literally have to stumble around this map until things open up, starting with the opening drawbridge (why is it even lowered to begin with), and it only gets worse from there. 2/10

* M8 - Field of Judgement: Big dumb arena map hell yes let's barbecue some maulotaurs with all the items in the game. 9/10

* M9 - Skein of D'sparil: Not-quite-symmetrical, not-quite-asymmetrical layout. Also not quite fun. Big-ass maze with only one way out - pray you don't fall back into it while platform-hopping on the upper levels - and lots of crawling through blinking corridors picking off endless sabreclaws and ophidians. Best avoided. 3/10

 

 

Closing thoughts:

 

* I think E1 is the best - a pretty strong opening episode, but it's let down a fraction by some maps that outstay their welcome.
* E2 just feels unfinished in a lot of places. Though it does feature probably my favorite theme that Heretic does - hellish craters, lava rivers, etc.
* E3 is probably the filler episode - a lot of the maps in this one are just "decent". Some more nice themes included here, though, centering on the overarching underwater theme this time. 
* E4 starts out really quite strong, but it's got a lot of unjustifiably shit maps in its latter half, including the worst secret level I think I've encountered in any IWAD.
* E5 would be the strongest episode if many of its maps weren't torturously confusing messes.

 

Overall the maps are far from perfect. There's a few tropes that Heretic really could have done without doing at all, but does many many times over.

- Harshly blinking sector lights (E4M9, E5M9)

- Tight mazes (E4M8, E4M9, E5M9)

- Requiring the player to hump walls for "secrets" that may actually be part of mandatory progression (just about every map, but E3M6, E4M8, E5M1, E5M3)

- Hiding crucial switches away behind pillars or in dark corners (E1M6, E1M7, E1M9, E4M7, E5M6)

- Not using keys or switches effectively to telegraph where the play needs to go next (E4M9, E5M6)

- Linedef triggers in really unintuitive places like inside monster closets or just in front of locked doors (E4M4, E4M7, friggin' E4M8)

- Obfuscating progression with too many switches or walkover triggers (E2M4, E5M6, E5M7)

 

But really, it's not bad. By all means give it a shot if you have some free time. I don't know what my mean rating of everything would be taking each individual level into account but it feels about 6/10? I think that's what I'd give it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Jimmy

[antares031]

Episode 2 gets my thumbs-up, just because they decided to put never-melting ice on the freaking lava. I really want to use that concept someday.

[Xyzzу]

Heh, reading this I had actually forgotten how terrible Episode 4's boss level was! I fully agree with the thoughts on each episode as a whole.

Spoiler

 ̶E̶6̶M̶2̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶a̶v̶o̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶p̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶H̶e̶r̶e̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶,̶ ̶y̶e̶p̶.̶

 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Mostly agree; I think you were too harsh on Episode 3. It is the best of them all when replaying with wand start black plague runs. D'sparils fight is a bit too hectic for many people on skill 5, which honestly might as well be the real ultra-violence since it doesn't involve respawning monsters like doom and synergies with the projectile heavy gameplay. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Pegg

[whirledtsar]

The expansion episodes are definitely the worst IMO, all I remember is a slog without memorable level design, just boring mazes with endless hordes of bullet sponges. And E4M1 feels like Raven's answer to Doom's E4M1, except the difficulty derives from ammo starvation rather than clever encounter design.

[D.Vile]

Quote

Overall the maps are far from perfect. There's a few tropes that Heretic really could have done without doing at all, but does many many times over.

- Harshly blinking sector lights (E4M9, E5M9)

- Tight mazes (E4M8, E4M9, E5M9)

- Requiring the player to hump walls for "secrets" that may actually be part of mandatory progression (just about every map, but E3M6, E4M8, E5M1, E5M3)

- Hiding crucial switches away behind pillars or in dark corners (E1M6, E1M7, E1M9, E4M7, E5M6)

- Not using keys or switches effectively to telegraph where the play needs to go next (E4M9, E5M6)

- Linedef triggers in really unintuitive places like inside monster closets or just in front of locked doors (E4M4, E4M7, friggin' E4M8)

- Obfuscating progression with too many switches or walkover triggers (E2M4, E5M6, E5M7)

 

Funnily enough most of these would also describe Hexen's level design pretty accurately.

[Shawny]

The Citadel map is THE best map ever created in the classic engine IMO. When I played it (quite a long time ago, like a decade and some) for the first time I was really amazed.

 

I still like the third episode the most, the maps are varied from great to alright.

I am also a sucker for the water/underwater theme maps/games (even though I can´t swim).

 

E4 and 5 are like Blood 2... they dont´t exist in my mind.

 

Now I want to play Heretic again... huh...

Edited March 29, 2019 by Shawny
My engrish

[Dark Pulse]

I'm kind of disappointed in Heretic as a whole. I liked Hexen quite a lot, but Heretic felt like a medieval Doom reskin and I could never fully get into it.

 

I know it did some stuff that was markedly different, but the ideas that changed the gameplay didn't really outweigh the gameplay feeling so similar to Doom.

[kb1]

Looking back, I tend to confuse Heretic and Hexen, and I'm a sucker for the medieval concept - probably stems from D&D obsession. D&D-like upgradable player stats might have been interesting. I would have liked some more sophisticated puzzle-like elements, but I don't know what that would look like, or how it could be implemented in a non-cheesy way. Something a bit more than hit switch, find key, etc. Hexen did a bit of this, but I thought Hexen concentrated too heavily on the hub design.

 

Major pros: monsters, weapons, the inventory system, the artifacts, free look.

Some cons: Not enough textures, making a lot of levels look same-y. Far too few PWADs for both games.

 

The fairly-recent resource addition/replacement PWADs are looking very promising and encouraging. More source ports should get better Raven game support.

[leodoom85]

@Jimmy
For E1M6, I always find the secret exit first than the normal exit...which is funny.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Yea that map is the worst map in the entire game (Maybe after Labyrinth). Deserves a 2 or 0 since many better maps have a 4.

Edited March 30, 2019 by Pegg

[Caffeine Freak]

On 3/29/2019 at 11:07 AM, Jimmy said:

* M8 - D'sparil's Keep: Pretty underwhelming closer. D'sparil isn't that fun to fight in such a huge open space, and like with E1M8 you're given a massive excess of items that just wind up going to waste since it's the final map. 4/10

 

 

Hmm... what difficulty did you play on? Because on the last two, D'Sparil is one of the harder 90's FPS bosses I've ever played.

 

Totally agreed about E4M9. I've played through this entire game many times since my teenage years. I'd say every few years or so, I give it another playthrough, from start to finish. And that map *always* frustrates me. 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

D'sparil on skill 5 wand start can give people a run for their money. He is much harder than all other Doom\Hexen bosses and one of the few that might dead end people's run if they don't know what tomed weapons to use and when. 

Edited March 31, 2019 by Pegg

[unerxai]

One time I was playing E3M8 (black plague) through DOSBox and the fight went on for so long, there was a shitload of disciples on the screen. The game crashed to the DOS prompt with an error code or something but with a 320x200 resolution so the text was huge. Scary stuff.

 

To this day I find it a difficult fight on black plague compared to the Doom bosses.

[Caffeine Freak]

Yeah, that fight is a bit easier for me every time I play through the game again, but even so, I usually die at least half a dozen times because of how he's basically spamming in Disciples towards the end.

[leodoom85]

3 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Hmm... what difficulty did you play on? Because on the last two, D'Sparil is one of the harder 90's FPS bosses I've ever played

He played on Smite-meister difficulty

Edited March 31, 2019 by leodoom85

[ReaperAA]

D'Sparil is easy up till skill 4. But he is a entirely different beast on skill 5. On skill 5, he is probably the hardest 90's fps boss. He spams disciples at a rate that would put Doom 2's IoS to shame.

[printz]

Not only that, but his abilities seem made to counter player's speed and awareness advantages.

 

@Jimmy You seem to be complaining about hidden switches. Are you aware that the switches, as designed by Raven, are visible in the automap? I dislike how /idgames PWAD authors were mostly unaware of this convention.

 

Also, pretty sure all secret doors are marked with clues.

 

I find it peculiar how E2 (one of the weaker in my opinion) is the only one with ice. Also notice how in E4 and E5 Raven segregated the monsters into undead areas and beast areas (all of them controlled by disciples). E3 is the best episode with the best flow. I'd love to see a megawad with the same quality and balance (i.e. with difficulty not easy, but not too hard if you use your inventory), probably there are some already ( @kristus episode's difficulty spikes badly at level 4).

 

I like to think that E4M9 is inspired on real mausoleums (just not detailed, and full of killer monsters). I consider E5M8 to be a crap, depressing finale to the entire series, after enduring E3M8 -- all those maulotaurs are too easy if you circlestrafe, they're no match for D'sparil "ever the brave warrior", and the design is too basic (here are your powerups, defeat these bosses). I don't consider E4M8 to be a serious boss ending, just a chapter ending in the middle.

 

What does "skein of D'sparil" mean anyway? Do you get to visit the late serpent rider's tailor shop?

Edited March 31, 2019 by printz

[Cruduxy Pegg]

I wonder how long did it take to map E5M8. From concept to final version. Probably less time than it took to write a few posts in this thread.

[xdarkmasterx]

There is only one time where D'sparil has ever died by my hand. every other fight, he has died from his minions shooting at him. it is so hard to hit him when teleports that much and has such many enemies which steal your autoaim X)

 

 

Spoiler

I consider E5M8 to be a crap, depressing finale to the entire series, after enduring E3M8 -- all those maulotaurs are too easy if you circlestrafe,

 

i think that is problem with most of the boss fights in this game (and with most FPS boss fights, unfortunately). They have multiple different attacks, but because the arena is not suited to them, the manner in which player avoids them is exactly the same: run in a circle, or just sidestep back and forth.

 

in my opinion, the best boss enemy use is the maulotaur at e5m4 (courtyard), there is not much room to get around him so you must be some mindful of which attack he is doing, and each attack demand a different way of avoidance to the player, his fireballs attack now takes more precise strafing to fit between two fireballs (because you might not have the space to run around the whole lot), and the "fire snake" controls the space you have to move in by lingering ont he ground.

 

IIRC there is invulnerability secret that lets you cheese the fight, and you can just back out of the room and shoot him through the doorway. but this sort of fight highlights how enemies with multiple attacks can be wasted by simply placing them in a huge space, when they don't have any abilities that let them hit somebody who is circle strafing.

[printz]

26 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

IIRC there is invulnerability secret that lets you cheese the fight,

I think that's the only reliable way to defeat the E5M4 maulotaur: finding the ring of invulnerability. Otherwise it's too hard to survive the floor fire. This is why I love E5M4, it's a fiendishly hard (but simple looking) map, fitting for the last episode.

[SOSU]

Get's phoenix rod in a twist >:(
Cool review man can't wait for your Hexen one :) (will you review Deathkings too in that?)

[Not Jabba]

I just finished a full run through the game as well, and don't have much to argue with. I agree that E1M4 and E1M5 are among the best maps in the game. I also liked E2M9's layout and the cool opening area with the stair. Overall I liked E3 best as an episode, but also thought some of the combination of slidey and damaging floors was a pretty good gimmick for a lot of E2 maps, and the weaker enemy set and generally decent map design works well for E1. I thought some of E4 and E5 were pretty solid, particularly blasting through all the Nitrogolem and Gargoyle hordes in Colonnade -- but I was playing modded, so every map moved more smoothly than it would have playing the vanilla game. E4M1 is still the most ridiculous map though.

 

A lot of the progression was indeed messy, especially in E4 and E5. If Foetid Manse had a clearer progression, I think it might be my favorite map in the game -- it has a lot of the things I love in Heretic pwads, a strong sense of place and of adventure, a big open layout where you can just kind of ramble around, but distinct areas within that layout. 

 

I also feel like mentioning E6M2, which is the only one of the three bonus maps that feels like a true single-player experience. Disciples are my favorite enemy in Heretic, so a whole map mostly themed around them is really cool imo -- though again, more fun due to playing modded. This map also has a really nice take on the "cathedral with pews" idea, with significant height changes and some of the pews molding around the altar/central structure. E6M1 made me laugh with the Doomcute bathrooms. Who can resist Doomcute bathrooms? Apparently not Raven Software.

 

A lot of pwads have done Heretic better than Heretic did, but the game has always captured my imagination as much as Doom, and I love the fantasy setting and the enemies and items, even if they feel like an incomplete selection. Overall, a pretty neat game.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Not Jabba

[Magicana]

This post inspired me into finishing off E4 and E5 for the first time.

 

Hard to argue with any of your points. I still love Heretic, but there is a lot of weakness in the map construction particularly in the later episodes.