Heretic and Hexen

[Xerge]

Do you people discuss these games here too? Is there an specific forum to discuss these games?

[scifista42]

Yes to the first option. Any commercial or non-commercial games running on the Doom engine or a derived/related one are frequently discussed here too.

[Gez]

Basically, they're treated as if they were Doom, so put Heretic/Hexen/Strife/etc. editing questions in Doom Editing, H/H/S/etc. wads in Wads & Mods, HHS multiplayer stuff in Doom Multiplayer, HHS ports in Source Ports, and everything else HHS-related in Doom General.

[SFoZ911]

Yes, they're both excellent games, especially Heretic.

[Avoozl]

I was always more fond of Hexen than Heretic, but I can say they are both good.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

I'll always wonder how hexen\blood would differ if the devs had a few more months to fully finish them. (no rushing)

[NaZa]

Heretic's 6th episode should be revived and completed imo. They had a great start, and E6M2 is a nice little map. Unfortunately E6M3 had no exit and it was a pastiche of idmap01.

[Danfun64]

I just wish that either of the had a counterpart of PrBoom-Plus. IE a port with special demo playback features like freecam.

[vadrig4r]

Danfun64 said:

I just wish that either of the had a counterpart of PrBoom-Plus. IE a port with special demo playback features like freecam.

Yep, they really deserve it. At least we have Chocolate/Crispy versions though.

[Pencil of Doom]

I played both these games from start to finish and i can say they were both enjoyable, although i'm not very fond of Hexen's hubs, they can be confusing, as for Heretic, if you are having trouble, just use the automap, it comes in real handy.

[vinnie245]

I always preferred Hexen, it actually felt like its own game with its own style unlike Heretic which just felt like a Doom TC.

[plums]

I like both games. Contrary to what my avatar suggests, I thought Heretic was the worst in the H/H series for a while, just because it indeed felt like a Doom TC as vinnie245 just said. But it grew on me. I do wish it had more variety of monsters; it's got more than Doom but a lot of them are mid-tier attackers that aren't too different from one another, at least compared to the Doom 2 bestiary.

Hexen really wowed me the first time I played it. In retrospect it's got a bunch of problems, but I still really like it. I think it feels very balanced and fun for the Fighter. The Cleric kind of sucks until you get Wraithverge, and then he's absurdly powerful to the point that it's too easy; The Mage's 2nd weapon is too weak, and so you spend a lot of time safely but boringly poking away at enemies with his starting weapon. Oh well! It's still a very fun game I think, and maybe my favourite of all the Doom-engine games as far as the base game (i.e. not counting any user-made content) is concerned.

[Clonehunter]

Both good games. Heretic had better boss encounters than Doom, imo. D'Sparil was far more interesting than the Spidermind, with two forms, teleport script, multple attacks, and the summoning ability. The Tomes of Power also make the weapons more interesting and give you more ways to combat enemies. Maulotaurs as common enemies was a fucking joke, though. Like Holy shit why.

[Jon]

Heretic could use a reimagining/remastering. Some of the texture and sound effects are too cartoony for my liking (the water texture(s) in particulary are just too blue imho). A DTWID-style rework would be interesting. Perhaps using Hexen engine features.

[scifista42]

I like Heretic's cartoonish-ness and that its gameplay is more action-oriented than atmosphere-oriented in comparison with Hexen. My ideal reimagining of Heretic would improve its combat balance and level design, not aesthetical style.

[printz]

Heretic is commonly played on Black Plague, because there is no respawning there and the monsters are slightly weaker in Smite Meister than in Doom Ultra Violence. This means that if you insert even the lowly Doom imps into Heretic, they will kick the ass of most Heretic monsters. Try the Hordes of Chaos megawad for some DoomHeretic fun.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

To be fair for the heretic monsters zdoom uses the values from the source code since the actors are usually confined to their original game anyway. And there isn't really a formula to fairly balance a monster to the new game it got teleported into. Well except for hexen, a lot of its monsters aren't well balanced even in it anyway!

[Tetzlaff]

I am actually on my first complete playthrough of Hexen and need some help. I am currently in the level Dungeons. I pressed some switches, opened up some rooms, made a second visit to the Effluvium level and came back. Now in Dungeons there is an asterisk shaped room with teleporters. For some reason Ettins started teleporting in. I killed them. More teleported in. I clobbered them to death to save my ammo. More teleported in. Meanwhile I killed 201 monsters in the level but still new Ettins teleport in. Will it ever stop? Did I miss something?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Tetzlaff said:

I am actually on my first complete playthrough of Hexen and need some help. I am currently in the level Dungeons. I pressed some switches, opened up some rooms, made a second visit to the Effluvium level and came back. Now in Dungeons there is an asterisk shaped room with teleporters. For some reason Ettins started teleporting in. I killed them. More teleported in. I clobbered them to death to save my ammo. More teleported in. Meanwhile I killed 201 monsters in the level but still new Ettins teleport in. Will it ever stop? Did I miss something?

If it's the room I'm thinking of, there's a switch right outside that room (near the lava pit near the start). Moon shaped. Hit it a bunch of times, each time spawns a Slaughtaur in one of the rooms. You have to spawn them all in (and the switch will stop working), then you can progress.

[40oz]

Heretic has some of the most attractive looking level designs.

E3-E5 especially has some really cool looking automaps.

[Xerge]

My intention is actually this; I want to show everyone this game because it's supposed to be inspired by Heretic and with the new Doom coming out and all I wanted to read your thoughts about an idea.

While it's not exactly like Heretic and I wouldn't even consider this to be a modern version of Heretic, it seems to point in the right direction if the point is bringing back Heretic adapting old school gameplay to more modern game design, I mean I can totally imagine a new Heretic game being something like this, with much better level design and a more realistic approach while still mantaining a reasonable amount of miedival fantasy.

How many of you would like to see Heretic and Hexen make a comeback if the new Doom is a success? I can totally imagine Hexen being as brutal as the new Doom, imagine the big bulked Hexen warrior making glory kills dismembering enemies like that.

[printz]

I love Heretic because it's much easier to control your survival there than in Doom. Monsters do less damage per shot and you have healing potions. This is unlike Doom where a revenant hits you for 80% health and you can only hope there is still a medikit stashed somewhere that isn't guarded by former marines. Hard Doom maps require too much forethought, and that means you may have to replay and rely on saving and loading.

[Tetzlaff]

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

If it's the room I'm thinking of, there's a switch right outside that room (near the lava pit near the start). Moon shaped. Hit it a bunch of times, each time spawns a Slaughtaur in one of the rooms. You have to spawn them all in (and the switch will stop working), then you can progress.

Yes, it is that room were the Slaughtaurs spawned, but I already pressed that moon button several times before and killed all the slaughtaurs. The button is now inactive. But now wave after wave of Ettins spawns. I alreday unlocked the previously sealed areas in the level, I think. I explored all the small rooms and caves arround the torture chamber, thats were I found the second entrance to the Effluvium.

Here are screenshots of my location:

[Quasar]

Xerge said:

My intention is actually this; I want to show everyone this game because it's supposed to be inspired by Heretic and with the new Doom coming out and all I wanted to read your thoughts about an idea.

While it's not exactly like Heretic and I wouldn't even consider this to be a modern version of Heretic, it seems to point in the right direction if the point is bringing back Heretic adapting old school gameplay to more modern game design, I mean I can totally imagine a new Heretic game being something like this, with much better level design and a more realistic approach while still mantaining a reasonable amount of miedival fantasy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKE1w-rdGtY

How many of you would like to see Heretic and Hexen make a comeback if the new Doom is a success? I can totally imagine Hexen being as brutal as the new Doom, imagine the big bulked Hexen warrior making glory kills dismembering enemies like that.

Too bad Raven Software is too busy churning out CODs to even acknowledge Hexen's 20th anniversary. The chance of that happening is zero IMHO.

[Xerge]

Quasar said:

Too bad Raven Software is too busy churning out CODs to even acknowledge Hexen's 20th anniversary. The chance of that happening is zero IMHO.

Yeah, actually I'm not sure if leaving it in the hands of Raven software is a good idea now, some other studio should get a license and make that happen.

[Hoodie]

Not a big enough fanbase for someone to buy the license and make a new one. I mean look at the Shadow Warrior remake.

[LkMax]

Heretic is a damn fine game. It lacks a bit of variety on textures though.

Hoodie said:

I mean look at the Shadow Warrior remake.

I don't want to look at that heresy ever again.
Hard Reset with an oriental paint on top, nothing like the original game.

[plums]

Is there even anyone at Raven left who worked on Heretic anymore? I know a bunch of the founders took off when they got bought by Activision and went to form Human Head.

[Decay]

I first played Hexen on the N64. The remastered soundtrack is far superior IMO (I mean, check out shadow wood's theme), but damn was that game unwieldy as fuck and darker than dark oh man. I revisited it last year and found after the first hub the game is really quite nice in terms of atmosphere and architectural ideas. There are a lot of downsides to the game already acknowledged here (crazy switch hunts, weak weapons, non-intimidating enemies that make the game a trudge), but that being said I'd love to see it re-done. I always play as mage but the weapons man... I haven't gotten around to HexDD.wad, but apparently it's more of the same, which I'm not to enthused about, I'd rather play what people around these parts have made.

[Jon]

The Heretic/Hexen Lore was never particularly engaging for me, and I don't think the IP is particularly valuable, so I don't think we'll ever see an official sequel or follow-up.

To some extent, games like Morrowwind are the spiritual successors, in the sense that they're a natural continuation of inserting more and more RPG elements into the FPS (although I realise they have their own history and evolution from a different root)

I did see Ziggurat, which looked interesting, but a bit too shiny for my liking. Is there any blood in it?