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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 enemies have a bit more mass.
-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.
Last edited by Not Jabba on Sun Apr 24, 2022 8:57 pm, edited 10 times in total.
"Designed for software rendering."
Being as I've always used the OpenGL rendering in GZDoom, if I did with this mod then would I be getting undesirable or unintentional effects?
Korell wrote:"Designed for software rendering."
Being as I've always used the OpenGL rendering in GZDoom, if I did with this mod then would I be getting undesirable or unintentional effects?
There's some minor visual glitching with the pseudo-brightmaps used for the weapon pickups in OpenGL; I'm looking into ways to solve this. Otherwise, GL should be fine -- I just can't vouch for all the brightness levels and such looking as optimal as I'd like. If you actively prefer GL, you'll probably be happiest playing it in GL.
Played the first 2 maps, and the level design is very nice! And I enjoy the subtle QOL improvements to the gameplay. Like golems making a noise before firing (now all they need is a different sprite...) Here's a couple things I noticed (both on E1M2): https://imgur.com/a/c4HnNct
1. This texture looks odd with the switch repeated twice. The switch could use a little barrier floor around it that doesnt lower to hide it.
2. This golem is stuck in this position for some reason.
Also, the crossbow spread is so wide, it feels too unreliable outside of melee range.
fluffyshambler wrote:Played the first 2 maps, and the level design is very nice! And I enjoy the subtle QOL improvements to the gameplay. Like golems making a noise before firing (now all they need is a different sprite...) Here's a couple things I noticed (both on E1M2): https://imgur.com/a/c4HnNct
1. This texture looks odd with the switch repeated twice. The switch could use a little barrier floor around it that doesnt lower to hide it.
2. This golem is stuck in this position for some reason.
Also, the crossbow spread is so wide, it feels too unreliable outside of melee range.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, and hope you have fun with the rest of the maps too.
The Crossbow spread is definitely intentional to give the weapon a distinct niche with strengths and weaknesses. If you only hit enemies with the middle bolt, it's the same as vanilla; if you hit enemies with the middle plus the inner two side bolts, it's a bit better than vanilla; and if you hit with all bolts, it's almost twice as powerful as vanilla. If you have the opportunity, rushing in point blank is the best way to use it (this will usually one-shot Nitrogolems, for instance), but it's a fairly versatile weapon and it depends on the situation.
I'll see what I can do about that water-lowering switch in M2. I avoided a lip because I didn't want the player to be able to stand on it when the water lowered, but I might be able to make something narrow enough to prevent that problem. I've gotten one other similar report about a stuck enemy in that other fight, but it may be a teleportation-related bug that only happens with certain versions of GZDoom, as I don't think anybody's been able to replicate it a second time and I've never witnessed it myself.
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!
"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!"
This is a VERY good news, i like a lot these gameplay changes and im looking forward to play original Heretic levels with these mod. I have a few suggestions:
-reduce gargoyle knockback, we dont need another cacodemon mechanic
-increase speed of nitrogolems because they should be a threat
-reduce sabreclaw healts slightly maybe?
-increase accuracy\maybe increase dmg of elven staff, i know its a starting weapon but it should be a more viable sniping weapon
