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[UDMF][WIP][Heretic] Utter Heresy! - episode 2 released


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I never thought I'd see something like this for a long time, and I'm happy to see heretic getting love!, this is epic!, good job!

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  On 8/4/2022 at 8:04 PM, Not Jabba said:

This looks pretty neat! Are you planning to do all five episodes, or just the original three?

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I'll try and do all 5 if i can, I have rough ideas of what i wanna do for each episode. The next one is gonna be "fire and ice" - in the original game ice is introduced in episode 2, i wanna try and make the episode themed around that with a mix of typical fiery hellscapes and frigid permafrost areas (I don't have any screenshots yet).
Considering the first episode took months It'll probably take years to finish the whole thing though.

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Hey, I just played through a few levels and took a quick ravmap+quicken+kitty tour through the rest. This mapset is... Amazing! I will definitely keep playing through these! UDMF has been implemented with great success here! This episode feels like what I had wished Heretic II had been, a clear improvement built upon the original while still using the ID tech 1 engine! Great work!

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  • 1 month later...

I'll just "borrow" some of this stuff for my own mod, thank you very much.

 

Actually, I'll just wait for the Hell Staff and Firemace to get smooth animations, but they look so good on the other weapons. 

Edited by NaliSeed

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This is great, I just started, first map is such a banger! Atmosphere and visuals are amazing.

Decoration work make it feel like Heretic but with Build engine games level of detail.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see destructible props with gib physics.

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  On 10/11/2022 at 8:05 AM, Delfino Furioso said:

hey, the wadazine brought me here!

 

one question: could this work also as a standalone gameplay mod?

 

 

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Well it does replace the vanilla actors so yes it could, but right now only the episode 1 stuff has replacements.

I'll be making a resource only version of this mod (identical file just without the maps and mapinfo) when episode 3 comes out since at that point all the vanilla actors will be replaced. It'll be primarily targeted for mappers but it could double as a gameplay mod too.

episode 2 is about 60% done right now if anyones wondering, here's some more shots as proof:
 

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Can I steal some of the enemy enhancements? I can offer better sprites for the food decorations and maybe other stuff from my Hexen decoration pack that you find useful.

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  On 10/17/2022 at 10:29 AM, NeoWorm said:

Can I steal some of the enemy enhancements? I can offer better sprites for the food decorations and maybe other stuff from my Hexen decoration pack that you find useful.

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my wads are free to take from, go ahead.
I'd say the stock hexen decorations are good enough for me. I could use some better food sprites though, the current ones are kinda crusty.
(they're from realm667, rpg maker I think it said?)

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  On 10/19/2022 at 7:29 PM, Asbadagba said:

my wads are free to take from, go ahead.
I'd say the stock hexen decorations are good enough for me. I could use some better food sprites though, the current ones are kinda crusty.
(they're from realm667, rpg maker I think it said?)

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 Take a look here https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=66784 and plunder whatever you want. Credits should be in the code in comments. I made some more stuff since and I will update the resource probably quite soon.

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  • 3 months later...

Episode 2 is out! (updated the main post as well)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/24uufz6vggk8ten/utterheresy_v2.0.pk3?dl=0
changelog:

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Sorry it took so long, don't really have an excuse either, but I don't wanna just leave this project in the water.
I'm gonna be putting it on a hold for a while though, I'm a little busy with life (trying to find a job, i was unemployed when i made the first 2 episodes, i have clinical depression and doom modding is how i deal with it which is why this project is so extensive) and I'm also working on an unrelated boom wad that I would like to finish first, so episode 3 and onward will have to wait. (I'll still do bugfixes/tweaks for this if needed)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just finished episode 1. Man, this wad is GORGEOUS. I loved the way you reimagined the levels as actual locations you would find in the middle ages. The original layouts are totally recognizable but feel so fresh! And the amount of detail is just insane. I haven't played too much custom Heretic content, but this is by far the most good looking one I've ever seen :) 

 

I found all secrets but one (missed one in e1m2), I really like the fact that you kept the secrets fairly in the same location but the way to get them is not exactly the same, there's always a little twist hehe. The new enemies and upgraded abilities are great as well, none of them feels out of place. 

 

When playing vanilla Heretic, my skill level of choice is always Black Plagues, but here... boy, I got my ass kicked haha. It would have been manageable with more ammo, but damn! Ammo is tight. Same thing when playing in Smite-Meister. That's actually my only gripe with the wad, I really think ammo needs some balancing. I'm very good at ammo management, if I may so myself (I'm one of those guys that switches to the wand if a golem doesn't die with 1 crossbow shot), and despite weapons being more powerful, I kept running out of ammo the whole time (note that I wand-started all levels). Some maps were barely manageable, like e1m7-8-9. I think part of the issue is that monsters' ammo drop rate seems to be significantly lower. 

 

In any case, amazing job! I really can't wait to play episode 2 :D

 

Found only one small visual bug in e1m7:

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And I also noticed that bosses seem to be pushed back really hard when hit by weapons, I don't imagine that's intended :P (I was playing with GZDoom, in case that's relevant)

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  On 1/27/2023 at 4:14 PM, Asbadagba said:

Sorry it took so long, don't really have an excuse either, but I don't wanna just leave this project in the water.
I'm gonna be putting it on a hold for a while though, I'm a little busy with life (trying to find a job, i was unemployed when i made the first 2 episodes, i have clinical depression and doom modding is how i deal with it which is why this project is so extensive) and I'm also working on an unrelated boom wad that I would like to finish first, so episode 3 and onward will have to wait. (I'll still do bugfixes/tweaks for this if needed)

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I'm very sorry to hear that. I really hope things improve soon for you :)

Edited by Fernito

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glad to hear you enjoyed it!

yeah the bosses are supposed to be immune to knockback, in gzdoom there's a flag for that, but in zd2.8.1/zandro the only way to do it is by setting their mass really high. i set it to 0xffffffff thinking it was the 32 bit integer (2,147,483,647, the highest mass can be), 0xffffffff is actually the unsigned 32 bit integer (4,294,967,295), vintage zdoom just interprets 2,147,483,647 and above as the same thing, but in modern gzdoom i guess it overflows or something. i'll just set it to 0x7fffffff (2,147,483,647) as i should've.

the ammo situation is just bad habits from me, my maps are usually very tight on resources, i also didn't have anyone playtest besides me which results in me perceiving the maps to be easier than they actually are because ive been playing them over and over, episode 2 is even tighter from what i remember...
this mod is supposed to be more challenging than vanilla, but i don't want it to be unfair.
and yes the drop rates are lower, maybe i should just revert them to what they were...

i'll do a run through the existing maps some time and add more ammo in a patch, i'll also try and find some playtesters when i get back to making episodes for this.

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But let's then do the following: let me playtest all of your maps and I'll post here a playthrough for everyone of them :) I'll start with ep2 and after I'm finished I'll go back to ep1 and record those as well. That will give you a better idea of the current item/ammo balance. I'll also include written commentary when necessary.

 

 

 

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Played the first 2 levels, amazing stuff! Here are the playthroughs :)

 

EDIT: I've been playing more levels and I'm adding all videos in this post. In general, all levels have a very very tough start, ammo is so tight it makes you deeply regret every single shot you miss :P 

 

E2M1

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E2M2

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E2M3:

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E2M4:

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E2M9:

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E2M5:

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E2M6:

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E2M7:

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Edited by Fernito
add videos

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awesome job with this mod. it feels like a new game. like a few have already said, its nice to see heretic getting some attention. absolutely one of the classics from the glory days of the 90's fps :)

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here's v2.01, a patch with bugfixes/tweaks (mostly mapping related)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/snh692jj6f2gh04/utterheresy_v2.01.pk3?dl=0

changelog:

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  On 2/6/2023 at 7:23 PM, Fernito said:

Played the first 2 levels, amazing stuff! Here are the playthroughs :)

 

EDIT: I've been playing more levels and I'm adding all videos in this post. In general, all levels have a very very tough start, ammo is so tight it makes you deeply regret every single shot you miss :P 

 

E2M1

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E2M2

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E2M3:

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E2M4:

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E2M9:

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E2M5:

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E2M6:

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E2M7:

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Thanks for the playthroughs! alot of the fixes here were noticed here.
As for the ammo, I've noticed in your videos you tend to kill everything on sight, whereas when i was testing the maps I usually run past enemies when I don't have  the ammo, which results in alot of them damaging/killing each other and thus there is seemingly less need for ammo.
I did add some extra arrows/orbs to some of the maps though, different people with different playstyles...

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Yeah, as a general rule I think a map should always have enough ammo to kill every single monster on your own not having to rely on infighting to beat it 100%. My personal opinion anyway :)

 

I'll replay the updated E1 again and record my playthroughs if that's useful.

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