Terra Incognita. (Needs more Love)

[FireSeraphim]

This is what happens when I decide to work on a heretic mod for over a month and now it's finished.

The story so far:
(My intend with the plot is for it to take place after Heretic 2 and all)
Corvus has been asked by the Sidhean council to investigate and locate the source of the unusually violent storms in the southern seas, since it's affecting the kingdom of Pathoris's ability to trade with a neighbouring kingdom in the
southern seas. Much later on as Corvus sails on the southern seas a freak storm strikes his ship and sinks it, causing Corvus to wash up on an island that's not on any known sea chart....

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And here's the download link:
http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/file ... .0.wad.zip

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0.4.0

• Got rid of the "credits" option because it was a beta idea I had that didn't look good in execution and I meant to completely get rid of it earlier but I forgot to check the MENUDEF to make sure I completely got it.

0.3.9

• Fixed a small DECORATE bug

0.3.8

• Nerfed the Baron of Hell
• and buffed D'sparil

0.3.7

• Intial Release

[ChronoSeth]

I know it's not fair to judge the maps based on it, but the Doom monsters really don't fit.

[FireSeraphim]

I fail to see any stylistic clash, especially since I didn't use any of the monsters that had cybernetic parts. and the Heretic monsters are basicly the same art style as the ones from Doom.

[Enjay]

I don't think they clash hugely. The cacodemon is based on a D&D monster anyway, the lost soul is a horned flaming skull (pretty generic fantasy stuff there) and the hell knight is a reasonably classic demon-styled enemy. The art style and colouring in Heretic is a little more high-fantasy and vivd than in Doom but as far as the basic design of the enemies is concerned, they look acceptable to me. The caco especially is OK IMO. I think the main problem is that we all recognise the Doom enemies and are very familiar with them in the Doom setting.

[ChronoSeth]

I fail to see any stylistic clash, especially since I didn't use any of the monsters that had cybernetic parts. and the Heretic monsters are basicly the same art style as the ones from Doom.

It's not just their sprites; it's the way they're designed.

Heretic balanced the power of monsters and weapons differently. For example, Disciples are quite damaging, but go down quite easy. The closest thing Doom has to this type of monster is the Revenant, but they're still quite tough.

The Hell Knight is basically a non-flying, tougher and more damaging Cacodemon, and the Baron of Hell is even tougher (while still having near-identical behavior). Heretic's monsters all have unique traits, and there are no monsters which are direct-upgrades to less-powerful cousins (excepting Fire Gargoyles and Nitrogolems, but those only gain ranged attacks).

The enemies in Doom have much more health than their Heretic counterparts, but in Doom you also get more powerful weapons. Sure, the Phoenix Rod and Rocket Launcher have the same stats, but you can carry more than twice as much ammo for the latter. Thus, mixing Heretic weapons with Doom enemies or vice-versa usually doesn't work well.

Then again, it all depends on how you used them. I'll have to actually play this.

[Enjay]

Then again, it all depends on how you used them.

Heh, as I read your post I was formulating exactly that reply.

There is nothing insurmountable in the way of balance when putting Doom enemies into Heretic. You just have to make sure that the player has a fair chance against them. Many of the points where you say "Heretic doesn't have anything like that" made me think that perhaps it needs them then.

Just as a point of personal interpretation, rather than see the hell knight as a non-flying caco-like monster (though there is nothing wrong with that interpretation), to me he has always been a tougher alternative to an imp where you might want to use fewer enemies than an imp assault or just have something that can put up more of a fight than an imp but you don't want to unleash tougher bad guys (like the baron). I think the HK nicely fills the "medium toughness but quite hard hitting" niche. The caco does that too of course, but in a different way.

[ChronoSeth]

Just as a point of personal interpretation, rather than see the hell knight as a non-flying caco-like monster (though there is nothing wrong with that interpretation), to me he has always been a tougher alternative to an imp where you might want to use fewer enemies than an imp assault or just have something that can put up more of a fight than an imp but you don't want to unleash tougher bad guys (like the baron). I think the HK nicely fills the "medium toughness but quite hard hitting" niche.

Personally, I've always seen them as a direct progression: Imp -> Cacodemon -> Hell Knight -> Baron of Hell -> Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon and Cacodemon have special abilities (flight and splash damage), but they're rarely used to their best effect anyway - even in vanilla maps. It's one of the few things I hate about Doom.
Besides, the way their health and damage are balanced clashes quite a bit with the monsters in Heretic.
Edit: I have the same problem with, say, putting Strife enemies into Doom without changing their behavior.

Anyway, I like the maps for the most part, but the inclusion of Barons of Hell seems quite forced. It takes forever to take them down with the weapons you're given, and it's a minimum of effort to evade their attacks. The Lost Souls also seem unnecessary; they're rarely seen and Gargoyles fit the same niche anyway.

The fight with D'Sparil is horribly anticlimactic if you use the tomed Super-Crossbow. It took maybe a couple of seconds to kill his serpent. Maybe buff his health a bit? You should also add some more claw orbs or something to the Baron/Iron Lich fight on the second map; I ran out of ammo extremely quickly and had to kill a quarter of them with the wand.

I really like the architecture and mood, though.

[hugoroy]

This looks great! Can't wait to try it out.

[FireSeraphim]

@hugoroy: It is finished, why don't you click the download link and play it.

[Enjay]

Well, I've played it through now and I really enjoyed it. It's a very well put together map set that is fun to play and it looks very nice too. It used modern features very well and felt quite "fantasy" right the way through.

I didn't have a problem with Doom and Hexen enemies being in the mix. In fact, I thought it came off pretty well. They didn't give me any balance problems. In fact, for me, the most jarring things were the non-cyberdemon attack frame looking a bit underwhelming, the ability to jump being like that of an astronaut on the moon and those heavily leaning palm trees changing the angle they are leaning at as you walk around them. None of those are major problems. Even the pinky, who is (to me) a very characteristic Doom enemy was fine and quite suited his new colours.

[Tormentor667]

Awesome stuff

[neoworm]

It always seems off to me when there are DooM monster in Hexen/Heretic map but not the other way around. Either way, this looks good and I am goind to play it now.

[Mr.Rocket]

Downloading!

[Ravick]

Seems very beautiful and funny! Also, awesome "Latin" name!

Downloading! [2]

[FireSeraphim]

@Everyone: Thank you, I put alot of time into this. especially the final level where I got the first part done over a week or two ago, took a break and then got back to work. @Tormentor667: Any chance of a review on Realm667.com?