classic-doom

[bitter shoal]

how are you running the executable? Just dragging the .pk3 onto it?

[umbral tangle]

I drag the pk3 file in gzdoom executable

then the things that i mentioned happen

i even tried with CMD

[bitter shoal]

I'm not sure why that is happening then. Are you able to run other wads?

[umbral tangle]

Nope, but i tried to run GZdoom without anything, then.. same thing

[bitter shoal]

so it is probably a problem unrelated to myhouse then. Maybe change the renderer it uses at the startup prompt, that could help.

[umbral tangle]

It cant be a problem with the graphics tho, Im using an RTX 4060 so thats impossible

[bitter shoal]

I mean, Velkin is usually hit or miss for a lot of users it always seemed like

[umbral tangle]

I bought doom + doom II 2 hours ago 😔

Idk whats Velkin, i just bought DOOM today

[bitter shoal]

GZDOOM has Velkin as one of the renderer options but if it doesn't work then it might be better to go back to OpenGL

[umbral tangle]

I just want to play myhouse.pk3 since i watched a video on it, and it was cool :(

Why is it hard :(

[bitter shoal]

Are you not getting a menu that pops up when you start GZDOOM with various options and an IWAD picker?

[umbral tangle]

Yea, i am, and i Chose Doom II hell on earth

[bitter shoal]

There should also be another option for renderer IIRC

[umbral tangle]

I dont know whats IIRC, but let me see

[bitter shoal]

IIRC means "if I recall correctly"

[umbral tangle]

In the options tab?

[bitter shoal]

I think I'm using an older GZ DOOM that has a menu without tabs so possibly

[umbral tangle]

In options tab there is Rendering APIs

Vulkan

OpenGL

and OpenGL es

[bitter shoal]

Try changing which one you are using and see if it helps

[umbral tangle]

Alright

I tried OpenGL and it crashed ✌😔

[bitter shoal]

huh

[umbral tangle]

I used OpenGL ES and it worked

[bitter shoal]

awesome

[umbral tangle]

Yippe thanks for your help

[long moat]

Is it true that there are some kkk wads? Like the moon man one?

[stiff basalt]

🤦

[wanton peak]

U sound like my great great great grandpa

[long moat]

I just saw the video of the "the most pant pissing doom mod you’ll ever find" guy

[long moat]

…

[wanton peak]

Where did he go😭😭

Oh wait nvm I can kinda see him

[long moat]

[wanton peak]

[long moat]

[wanton peak]

No berserk powerup

Emoji

[halcyon willow]

What version of GZDoom

Oop, looks like you got it sorted

[native anchor]

The only “authentic” way I can think of for Doom 64 is playing the Nightdive release with the resolution set to 1440x1080 which is natively available, and using my 8BitDo Ultimate 2C since I don’t have any N64 style controller.

I could’ve gone with EX or EX Plus but neither have native controller support, I have to add the game into Steam and map everything with Steam Input. And in EX specifically, the mouse is very jittery.

[vast reef]

emulation isn't an option?

[woven swallow]

Or….playing it through Doom64 EX sourceport

[twin mortar]

Read the message below

[vast reef]

but reading is haaaardddddd :(

[native anchor]

EX is a glorified emulator.

[vast reef]

i mean surely a dedicated n64 emulator would have better controller support?

[slate bough]

Hi

[rare drum]

i was gonna show an epic fail of me dying on doom but i accidentally beat the icon of sin for the first time

[urban nymph]

i have a windows 95 pc with doom bundeled in

[wind cradle]

doom 95, sounds nice

[bitter shoal]

I got to arch violence. Wasn't sure how to start the level until I reached a section where there were monster impassible lines saving me.

Plutonia 2 levels take awhile for me so I am taking a break already

[native anchor]

Which Doom 64 port do you all prefer?

That is not Nightdive.

[stiff basalt]

Doom 64 for Doom II

[native anchor]

Is it still playing Doom 64 EX?

[fiery dagger]

Why do people hate nightdive

[native anchor]

I don't.

Some people just want their games to be as authentic as possible.

[fiery dagger]

Oh ok

[native anchor]

Although, the Nightdive release of Doom 64 is merely an updated version of EX. So it is a bit more vanilla friendly than the Nightdive version of Doom 1 and 2.

And I guess you can still get a more authentic in the Nightdive version if you use a 4:3 resolution (I go with 1440x1080), set the framerate to only 60 FPS since the N64 can only reach that, maybe turn interpolation off, and even using the 8BitDo 64 controller or any other N64 style controller that would work on PC.

All that you can still do in EX, although that doesn't have native controller compatibility. So you have to map everything via Steam Input.

[native anchor]

Something I feel odd about is many Doom 1-2 sourceports have the chainsaw walk animation be smooth instead of the original jittery animation. Crispy Doom has the jittery animation but only if you don't uncap the framerate. However, no single version of Doom 64 smoothens the chainsaw walking animation at all. It's jittery even in the Nightdive release.

[bitter shoal]

I assume DOOM II based conversions just use the default weapon weaving code.

bnut I'm not familiar with those ports

[wide beacon]

just beat legacy of rust on gzdoom

[native anchor]

I find it dumb that while Doom 64's Nightdive release has an FPS limiter, Doom 1 and 2's doesn't have that at all.

Though Doom 1 and 2 do have a widescreen option so you don't have to change the game resolution if you want to just play in 4:3.

Thankfully it does offer the ability to play at a lower refresh rate. So you can just play in 1080p60 if you still want that.

[finite crag]

How do you get Doom 95 working on Windows 11?

[native anchor]

Only way I can think of is someone recreating it in GZDOOM.

But even that doesn't seem super likely.

[bitter shoal]

Recreating in GZDOOM? What do you mean

[bitter shoal]

Virtual machine maybe

[little oar]

Found this on the wiki, trying it rn and I'll let you know if it works if you're still interested

[little oar]

What's the difference? DOOM 1 + 2 and DOOM 64 EX both use the KEX engine as a base do they not? Wouldn't they both be equally not-vanilla if the engine used is how you're judging it?

[little oar]

It works but the mouse patch is weird, I either keep slightly moving up or to the left. The patch is made for XP so I can't be too surprised it doesn't work perfectly on Win11
The game does run and open though, so there's that. DOOM95 in all its bare minimum glory

Just gotta dig through your system32 folder for the dplay.dll you need (unless you install it better than I did, the setup.exe wouldn't work so I just ripped the files straight from the disc by manually dragging them) though so I hope you know how to do that but beyond that it's playable when it works

[versed vortex]

tf u mean 71% secrets how many secrets even are there in toxic refinery

[finite crag]

Alright, thanks.

[little oar]

👍

[twin mortar]

DOOM 64 EX runs on Doom3D

[little oar]

Oh oops

[bitter shoal]

I beat a few Plutonia 2 levels today, more than I expected to do. Sadly didn't get the secret map because I already killed the archvile necessary to get it and already saved.

That means I beat Arch-violence. It is a better level than Hunted it is just, like a lot of Plutonia 2 levels, very long.

I like how halfway through this wad the map designers were reminded that they're making a Plutonia sequel and suddenly there are more chaingunners.

[fast marsh]

Hi guys

[woven swallow]

hello

[lone sequoia]

anyone know this? https://github.com/mborgerson/dc27-dooom

[granite salmon]

Killed the cyberdemon awhile back

[bitter shoal]

I decided to warp to the secret maps in Plutonia 2 from a new game. They're basically the same as the ones from regular Plutonia, except 32 is worse ||cause it has an Icon of Sin section :(||

[wanton peak]

Soup?

[halcyon willow]

Go4it is peak

[bitter shoal]

It was good.

[bitter shoal]

I wish the secret levels were more different though, especially since the other levels up to that point weren't exact copies of Plutonia. Even making Go4It based off a different starting map would have been cool.

[dense lake]

just finished both sigils and I think they're my favorite of OG doom

[bitter shoal]

Awesome, what difficulty?

[dense lake]

ultra violence on both I think

possibly nightmare for the second one... would have to check

[bitter shoal]

I'd think I would remember if I did a DOOM wad on Nightmare, it is significantly game changing

[dense lake]

I did the OG dooms on nightmare, lemme pull it up

[stiff basalt]

i completed sunlust nightmare blindfolded

one hand only

[wanton peak]

Was the other one in your pants?

[dense lake]

oh, it's hurt me plenty for sigil 2 lmao

well call me a silly willy!

[vestal flax]

[dense lake]

I know, very unimpressive

[vestal flax]

bro thought he played on nightmare 😭

no HMP is fine
it's just funny that you mixed it up with nightmare

[dense lake]

bro, there I was. Demons everywhere! I coulda died IRL.

[stiff basalt]

Nah it still impressive
Sigil 2 is kinda difficult

[dense lake]

I didn't have a problem except for the last map with the two cybers and one of those chaingun spoder things

[stiff basalt]

And it drags for too long

[wanton peak]

Oh I completed it on UV

I thought that was normal

[vestal flax]

don't get distracted from the fact that UV is the hard mode

and on a lot of maps it's really frickin hard

[dense lake]

UV on the base game is definitely different than sigil on UV, I say now an expert

[bitter shoal]

I did sigil 1 on HMP but I did SIGIL 2 on UV which was kind of wild

I should’ve done SIGIL 1 on UV I feel like I missed out on some spicy content

[vestal flax]

oh yeah

[bitter shoal]

SIGIL 2 is basically romero’s plutonia where he kept making it harder relative to his own skill just like the caslalis did

[dense lake]

I'll have to play it again

I really enjoyed the aesthetic

wondering how I could play it with brutal doom

[stiff basalt]

gzdoom?

[dense lake]

ye

[stiff basalt]

But now that I think about both sigils were made with gzdoom in mind

Especially sigil 2

[bitter shoal]

They were made with classic doom gameplay in mind, no free look or jumping and things like that but they were tested with z doom based source ports which causes a lot of technical problems that I saw on decino’s playthroughs

[dense lake]

I have free look turned on for it but I just can't with not being able to look up or down

[bitter shoal]

I play in vr which is like having free look

[dense lake]

surely you joke

[sharp wyvern]

sigil 2 on nightmare would be horrendous 😭

[median cloud]

Wonder if MtPain27 is just done with Doom

[cosmic pagoda]

I was under the impression, he's taking a break

pistol started through lurking fear 2nd time(with saves of course, I may be a masochist but even I have limits) because I missed that map

man is it good

and the midi... end is nigh is one of my all time favourite doom midis

[median cloud]

Hmm his upload schedule has been pretty bad for a while now

[bitter shoal]

whew, Map 17 of Plutonia 2, Nuclear Horror took awhile

[dense lake]

https://tenor.com/view/avenged-sevenfold-music-video-nightmare-gif-659982970874093385

[bitter shoal]

Apparently only one person had recorded evidence of beating SIGIL II on Nightmare.

[hexed escarp]

He has said he’s not done but he just needed a break

He said we can expect dean of doom to return late 2025 iirc

[white shale]

I've never run through the master levels before and... my goodness that black tower map lol

[cosmic pagoda]

oh you doing PL2? nice, you can find me gushing about map20: lurking fear just above 😄

[bitter shoal]

Nice I’ll look forward to it. It is a great map set

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah agreed

[cosmic pagoda]

oh my you seem to be correct, no nm demos submitted to dsda

https://dsdarchive.com/wads/sigil_ii_v1_0

[bitter shoal]

I also plan on playing plutonia revisited but not until I play the joke sequels to plutonia 3 first as a palette cleanser

And knowing I am not going to play 3 I fell asleep watching a playthrough of it last night and oh boy that is not a quality map set

[urban vortex]

This would be a kewl mod, I think: https://old.reddit.com/r/DoomMods/comments/1n5zo2y/mod_idea_for_zandronum_avatar_doom_youre_a

[mortal silo]

Tnt2 finally got it's rc1 🔥

[true urchin]

why do so many doom mappers have this obsessive fetish for perfectly spacing out hitscanners so that the moment you fire a single shot at all ever its just a neverending chain of zombies walking up behind you and getting these bullshit unavoidable 2 damage chipshots

it doesn't even make the map even fucking hard its just frustrating and unfun because i cant get a single fucking moment to breathe without there being a shotgunner riding my ass

doom core trilogy map 10 is probably the best example i can think of

it is genuinely borderline fucking unplayable unless you camp in your little cuckbox at the very start for 5 minutes straight while you pick off every stupid fucking dipshit that walks in from actoss the fucking map to get his free unavoidable 3 points of damage before i mash them into fucking paste

and this is a map with a bajillion health pickups, a free soulsphere and an easy to get megasphere so the map is still piss easy

it's not difficulty its fucking tedious monotony and punishing the player for not being literally omniscient and growing eyeballs out of the back of their fucking skull

why do mapmakers do this

do people enjoy playing maps like this???

[mortal silo]

Wut maps?

[bronze rune]

[true urchin]

i cant recall every map that's ever done this shit because usually the moment i see it i quit the map and never go back, but again if you need a good example, doom core trilogy, map 10

[mortal silo]

Doom is like the only game where you can mix hitscan with projectile
It creates for a really interesting dynamic especially with infighting

[true urchin]

DCT is a generally really good mappack and my go to for trying any new mod, but its got a couple of random levels that are just genuinely fucking awful, and map 10 stands out as a map that isnt even that hard it's just genuinely unfun to play

its this massive sprawling map where 80% of the enemies are concentrated in 20% of the area

[mortal silo]

Some people live chaingunners, some hate them. Personally think shotgunners are more threatening. Especially when you glance-stun them and they fire off a second volley

[true urchin]

and you have to run back and forth across the entire map multiple times to open the exit

[mortal silo]

Yeah that sounds fun 😊

[true urchin]

and again, the map throws so many items at you that its not even that challenging, its just fucking tedious

[halcyon willow]

There are 8 million doom wads at this point, play stuff you enjoy

[true urchin]

chaingunners can either be an engaging challenge or one of the worst fucking enemies ever concieved depending on how much the mapmaker wants to be an asshole

[halcyon willow]

I don't think Sunder has a single zombie man, go play that

[true urchin]

finding good maps is hard

[halcyon willow]

It does have infinite revenants though

[halcyon willow]

Not really

[true urchin]

it is for me

[wind cradle]

how?

[halcyon willow]

Start with the cacowards, or any of the top 100 voted maps, or play the classics like Scythe and Alien Vendetta

Or ask people

Or play something random of id/games

or

or

[true urchin]

i've played both and i didn't like either of them

[halcyon willow]

or

[mortal silo]

Valiant, eviternity 2, abscission, sinergy

[true urchin]

alien vendetta just throws in a random map 2 archvile because fuck you

[halcyon willow]

If you don't like AV then you don't like doom

[true urchin]

i dont remember much about scythe

[mortal silo]

Scythe 2 is great

[halcyon willow]

Scythe 2 slaps

[wind cradle]

do you immediately pick ultra violence to blind-play wads??

[halcyon willow]

Temple of Gaia

[true urchin]

is that... not what the default difficulty is

[wind cradle]

if so, thats not a good way to test maps, hmp is the best difficulty to try new wads and stuff

[true urchin]

i thought most maps were designed specifically around UV

[halcyon willow]

Plutonia has 2 map 01 archviles so that's not exactly what I'd call ultra difficult

[halcyon willow]

Nope

[true urchin]

oh

[halcyon willow]

Maps are designed around whatever the mapper designed it around

[true urchin]

am i just stupid

[halcyon willow]

Yes there are some with bad/no difficulty balancing

But something like Sunlust explicitly says that UV is only for people like pain

In the readme

[true urchin]

what's sunlust

[halcyon willow]

One of the best mapsets ever made

[mortal silo]

I use a controller. I only play uv if it's something I really like. Nobody on earth judges fun by the hardest difficulty.

[wind cradle]

this all reminds me of gmanlives and the sigil review

[true urchin]

i thought you were just supposed to play uv by default like that was just what every map was built around

[mortal silo]

That literally doesn't make sense

[true urchin]

well yeah i see that now

[halcyon willow]

It's a common misconception

Partly created by loud idiots who insist UV is the only way to play

[mortal silo]

Doom basically has 3 difficulties if you ignore the 2x ammo imyooyoungtodie. Enemy placement usually isn't that different between difficulties.

[halcyon willow]

I put a lot of effort into difficulty balancing my maps

And get all difficulties tested before release

[wind cradle]

i don't like when people do that, let people enjoy however they like

[true urchin]

you make maps?

[halcyon willow]

Based opinion

[halcyon willow]

I've made a couple

[true urchin]

any public?

[halcyon willow]

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Bridgeburner56

Might have a cacoward or 6 under my belt

[true urchin]

nice

[wind cradle]

what i usually do in my maps is change some enemies like example of the highest diff having a hell knight, and the lower ones having like a pinky or two

im a beginner modder tho so

[mortal silo]

Play on hurt me plenty. You'll miss out on a few imps and a couple archviles. Nothing serious.

If you enjoy a map set and want to play it again, then play UV

[halcyon willow]

Don't forget you can give the player more resources as well. Ammo, health, power weapons early on

One of the things I did for diffuclty balancing in Bastion of Chaos was give the backpack much earlier on lower difficulties. It made a surprisingly big difference to the difficulty of certain fights

[wind cradle]

ah! i think changing enemies also helps due to the player wasting less ammo on it, but honestly i should also learn to do this too!

[mortal silo]

I believe hitscanners have a faster react time on UV. Somewhat contentious claim but I believe Decino's findings support this.

You'll get shot 25% less by hitscanners on HMP... Afaik

[halcyon willow]

Having a more mixed enemy pool can lead to more infighting as well

Or slowing fast enemies down

100 revenants vs 80 revenants and 20 imps

80 revs is still a lot, but the imps will slow them down and cause them to infight just a bit. Which can make the fight much easier to smash down with a rocket launcher or BFG

You can also think about the difficulty of specific monsters. Fighting 20 imps is not gonna to need reduction on lower difficulties. 20 imps and 2 archviles is a whole lot harder for "less skilled" players to deal with. Archviles, pain elementals. revenant swarms, cyberdemons tend to be the enemies that kill more casual players. And anything in a tight set up/low ammo situation

Anyway, just keep messing round with stuff and you'll find what works for your combat style

[wind cradle]

this is some helpful advice, thank you!

[halcyon willow]

np

[bitter shoal]

I think there are two reasons UV is the target difficulty. First is that the map needs to be completable on that mode so it is the one that needs most scrutiny but also if you design at a lower difficulty first it might end up too tuned to the mapper’s own skill level and uncomfortable for other players

I have picked HMP for wads known to be harder than average before to compensate for my not being as experienced at the game

[azure nimbus]

The default on the original DOS release was HMP

[true urchin]

my brother in christ the original DOS release came out a decade before i was born

[stiff basalt]

So?

[bitter shoal]

HMP was default im pretty sure. Maybe people think it wasn’t because it didn’t use pictures and descriptions to make it clear UV is the hard mode like they did for wolf3d’s death incarnate

[vestal flax]

HMP is normal difficulty yeah

It was pretty obvious that ultra violence was the hard mode though

[azure nimbus]

So

[stiff basalt]

Literally every modern source port defaults to hmp

[dense lake]

2005 everyone point at the child

[cosmic pagoda]

plutonia throws in two map01 archviles, whats your point?

[bitter shoal]

To be fair Plutonia was designed with an evil dungeon master mindset, I actually found the first to maps harder than Go2It for that reason lol. But also I enjoyed the unapologetic hate and contempt for the player.

[cosmic pagoda]

oh go 2 it is not actually difficult, probably one of the easier maps of the iwad, due to how many megaspheres there are and you are constantly full on ammo

[true urchin]

my point is randomly fucking jumping you with super enemies in the first couple of levels because fuck you for even playing we hate you isn't fun or engaging game design, and that i hate playing shit like that, and i doubt many other people do either

[vestal flax]

super enemies are fine in early maps

[cosmic pagoda]

oh cmon, a vile isnt that bad, unless used very dickishly, sounds like a git gud issue

[vestal flax]

just so long as I have more than the basic shotgun lmao

[bitter shoal]

I played the secret maps first since going from Amalgoom Map 32 back to regular exploration maps (which led to secret maps being more versions of earlier levels) was very jarring.. so going from map 32 to map 1 was actually a difficulty progression

[bitter shoal]

it's like incredibly hard to use an archvile incorrectly too

as long as you have cover there is usually always a way to deal with them

[true urchin]

difficulty should (imo, opinion warning, warning opinions beyond this point) be focused on making the level more fun and engaging, not seeing how difficult you can make it to resist the urge to uninstall the fucking game

[vestal flax]

not giving you enough ammo is a pretty easy way to make an archvile unbearable

[bitter shoal]

that is true for anything though

[stiff basalt]

git gud in 2025

damn

[cosmic pagoda]

you have a skill setting

[vestal flax]

true
but obviously with respawning enemies it becomes doubly important

[cosmic pagoda]

just set it to itytd or hntr if you are struggling

[true urchin]

if i get randomly ganked by a random xd archvile closet 5 minutes in im not like "oh yeah this is so much fun i cant wait to respawn and try again" im like "damn i kinda dont want to play this shit anymore"

[cosmic pagoda]

casual

[bitter shoal]

You probably do need to play through Plutonia then, since it is undoubtedly easier than a lot of hard wads made afterward but would also teach you how to handle a lot of ambushes.

I say this not having played Alien Vendetta

[vestal flax]

I'd rather it be 5 minutes in than at the end of the map after I forget to save lmao

[true urchin]

i know for a fact that i could drop the difficulty through the floor and plutonia would still be flat out unfun to play (for me specifically)

[cosmic pagoda]

most megawads these days assume you have gone through the iwads and gotten good, hence they ramp up the challenge

[true urchin]

its literally everything i DON'T find fun about playing this game

[cosmic pagoda]

https://tenor.com/view/skillissue-skill-issue-gif-22125481

[true urchin]

condensed down as much as possible so they can beat you over the head with it, repeatedly, for hours on end

[vestal flax]

how come

[bitter shoal]

It definitely does sound like you are inexperienced and need to learn and practice more, instead of expecting a wad meant to be difficult and challenge veteran players to be a comfortable experience for less experienced players.

[cosmic pagoda]

im not sure what you are talking about, have you even played it

[true urchin]

can you please stop you're actively dragging the conversation down every time you spam skill issue

[bitter shoal]

I would also argue that the least enjoyable parts of doom are also not difficult, like regular shotgunning Barons of Hell and stuff.

[vestal flax]

yeah this is what made a lot of E3 unenjoyable for me

lot of tanky enemies, a lot of just standing around and shotgunning them to death

[cosmic pagoda]

E3 is short tho

[bitter shoal]

I found it annoying in SIGIL 2 since there was so little rocket ammo.

though that could just be me not having found the secrets that could've helped

[vestal flax]

yeah but it's not particularly fun
big wide open maps with barely anything in them but long corridors and confusion

e3m7 is particularly egregious

not even 40 enemies and just damaging floor everywhere for no reason

[cosmic pagoda]

the game asks you for the difficulty setting in the beginning for a reason, you shouldnt be ashamed of turning it down from UV, if the wad seems too hard

heck itytd even gives you double ammo and halves the damage you take

[true urchin]

i don't WANT to spend hundreds of hours practicing to be able to beat swarms of revenants and chaingunners and archviles with nothing but a pistol and a chainsaw without ever taking a single point of damage since healthkits just dont exist

[cosmic pagoda]

sounds like you arent looking around enough, I dont know a single wad that makes you run around with the pistol

unless its a tyson map

[true urchin]

even if i sat down and grinded out plutonia attempts beating it wouldn't change the fact that i flat out don't enjoy having to play like that

[cosmic pagoda]

in which case you usually get berserk

[true urchin]

i play classic doom because i like NOT having to play like a fucking sweatlord just to get through a single level

that's why i stopped playing doom eternal

[bitter shoal]

I didn't say hundreds of hours of practicing but working your way up from easier wads and gradually being accustomed to various encounters that you'll have.

[vestal flax]

then drop the ego and lower the difficulty

[cosmic pagoda]

idk sounds like a you issue, not every game has to be approachable to every set of skills

if you are not willing to drop the difficulty level or git gud, then pick something easier

[bitter shoal]

I learned to appreciate the concept of ITYTD since it acts as kind of a failsafe to ensure that every wad has an easy mode even if the mapper neglects to change enemy placements on lower difficulties

[vestal flax]

I play modern doom games on nightmare, but I play pretty much all classic doom wads on HMP just because I kinda just want to relax and kill demons
it's not like you're forced to play on UV

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah thats great

also "classic" in the phrase classic doom refers to how long it has been around, most people have played it for decades and gotten good, the difficulty of wads at UV difficulty usually reflects that

[true urchin]

me getting better at the game isn't going to magically make me enjoy stuff that i flat out just dont find fun

[cosmic pagoda]

well then... dont

idk what are you trying to achieve by complaining

[true urchin]

i think i lost the point somewhere

[cosmic pagoda]

either way theres no shame in dropping difficulty, I did eviternity 2 on hmp as well, since UV got quite insane by the third episode

[true urchin]

im pretty sure the point i was trying to make was i don't like random "lmao gotcha" moments in maps that just kinda exist to get you killed once to something you can only play around by knowing it's there in the first place (and therefore by having died to it)

[bitter shoal]

Plutonia was clearly meant to be hard, the designer clearly stated as such so it makes sense that it filters out players. It was influential and spawned a lot of stuff like Alien Vendetta and whatnot since a lot of more casual FPS players were playing games that weren't DOOM so the community would have been very veteran focused. Obviously these things aren't going to be aimed at catering towards casual needs but less experienced players still have options and like Mr. Murk says you don't have to play on UV

[true urchin]

like hiding a chaingunner behind a doorway on ambush mode so there's literally no way to know

[cosmic pagoda]

unless you are playing on nightmare it takes the chaingunner quite a bit to start firing

[vestal flax]

yeah they have to take a few steps before firing

[cosmic pagoda]

you can hear it

[true urchin]

yup. and that's why i haven't played plutonia

[true urchin]

im like 99% sure they dont make a noise until they actually fire

[bitter shoal]

I think you should play it before something like Alien Vendetta though, if you want to move on to harder wads

[true urchin]

98%

[cosmic pagoda]

and you always should assume there are enemies at new undiscovered places, and be prepared

[vestal flax]

every ranged enemy has to move a certain distance before firing outside of nightmare
that's most of what makes nightmare so brutal

[cosmic pagoda]

that... and turbo pinkies

[true urchin]

it depends on how the map goes about being "harder" honestly

[cosmic pagoda]

also you know you can save, save often, save before triggering a new fight and save after you finish it

[vestal flax]

[true urchin]

because you can make a map "harder" by hiding chaingunners behind every doorway and locking you in tiny little monster closets every couple of feet but that's not really very fun imo

[vestal flax]

yeah going through a new map without saving frequently is just a bad idea

[bitter shoal]

Plutonia loves ambushes but it also isn't like ludicrously hard either. I am playing through Plutonia 2 and it has more of a "big fights with lots of enemies" style to it that makes it feel very different

[true urchin]

idk ive played hard maps which i really enjoy and ive played maps that aren't even that hard they're just fucking frustrating

[vestal flax]

do you just not like hitscanners or something lmao

[true urchin]

i like the big open fights with like cover to duck around maybe a hidden powerup or tWo

[cosmic pagoda]

flashback to when I was doing NM100 runs, should continue with em, e3m3 took like near 200 attempts, over half of them had to be restarted because the starting pinky didnt cooperate lol

[true urchin]

it depends on how they're used

[vestal flax]

god bless the super shotgun
the only reason pinkies are even somewhat bearable in doom 2 nightmare

[true urchin]

i always forget to quicksave bc im kinda stupid

[true urchin]

amen

🙏

[vestal flax]

skill issue

[true urchin]

i mean yeah technically

[bitter shoal]

This is far, but I still suggest you go through Plutonia at some point because it also still uses Arch Viles and Revenants frequently and you learn how to deal with those in wads that will also use them liberally.

The chaingunners are more of a meme than anything in Plutonia

[cosmic pagoda]

also to deal with close quarters cybies

[vestal flax]

yuck

[bitter shoal]

What maps had those? I only remember the Go2It ones

[vestal flax]

frickin splash damage off walls

[true urchin]

how???

[cosmic pagoda]

barons den

[bitter shoal]

oh that wasn't nearly as bad though

even the Go2It ones are sitting on megas too

[cosmic pagoda]

you can just hit them with tracers tho

[bitter shoal]

but yes general advice walls are not your friend vs cybers

[cosmic pagoda]

peekaboo tracers or peekaboo ssg

[bitter shoal]

on Go4It in Plutonia 2 I figured out that the Cybers don't like to fire as much because there were walls covering their faces lmao

[vestal flax]

speaking of close range cybers
I'm watchin a playthrough of sunlust map15
this shit is evil

[halcyon willow]

LOS from an actor is a vertical plane, it's not blocked by anything other than a zero height sector (eg a closed door)

[bitter shoal]

might've been placebo then

[halcyon willow]

They can be annoyingly reluctant to fire sometimes

[cosmic pagoda]

learn their firing pattern

doom is very much about learning enemy patterns much like soulslikes

[halcyon willow]

Learn the BFG 2-shot stutter

Learning how to 2 shot cybies makes so many wads much much easier

And just generally how to be efficient with the BFG

[cosmic pagoda]

cybies usually arent that big of a threat as long as theres nothing distracting you and you can keep your eyes on them at all times

[bitter shoal]

same for Archviles, their movement can be unpredictable but their attacks are not (and also letting them attack forces them to stop moving so there is that too)

[true urchin]

what is that

[halcyon willow]

It's more that they are an ammo sink, so being able to kill them with 80 cells is very useful

And any 'hard' wad uses them more than just in isolation

[vestal flax]

cybers fire their rockets in 3 shot salvos
so there's a delay in between salvos that allows you to fire off the bfg and get really really close to them, which lets all the tracers from the bfg hit them

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah fair enough

[halcyon willow]

Cyberdemons have a 3 shot pattern. You can jank and jive left and right around this with very minimal movement and time your bfg shot (start shooting around the 2nd rocket) to hit just as they finish firing point blank to their face

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah but usually also accompanied by cattle to infight with and get their health down

[halcyon willow]

Do this twice properly and you will kill a cyberdemon in 2 hits

[cosmic pagoda]

wasnt there a wad that was just for practising 2 shotting cybies

[halcyon willow]

There's been a couple but yeah

[vestal flax]

unless bfg rng decides to screw you

[true urchin]

thanks, i'll have to remember to try that

[halcyon willow]

It's incredibly consistent

To the point it's used in any speedrun

[bitter shoal]

at that point probably just switch to SSG to finsih it off

[vestal flax]

yeah I know
but mathematically it's still possible for it to not work

[cosmic pagoda]

IIRC you have like 70% chance of 2 shotting a cybie

[bitter shoal]

percentage is probably way higher if there is infighting

[halcyon willow]

If you're in true vanilla oyu can also get screwed by the block map

[halcyon willow]

It's waaaaaaay higher than that

[vestal flax]

ok actually if you hit all tracers you're guaranteed to two shot a cyber

[true urchin]

tbh ive always assumed fighting cybies in super close range is like fighting mass capital ships in RTS games: the counter is to simply never get into that situation, and if you're already in that situation it means you fucked up somewhere

[halcyon willow]

As long as you're point blank, and the cyberdemon is in the middle of the tracer cone, 2 shotting is very likely

[vestal flax]

I thought there was actually a chance of not killing, but the minimum damage of a bfg with all tracers is 2060 damage

[true urchin]

so you have to be PERFECT

[halcyon willow]

minimum damage

[cosmic pagoda]

the most likely way to get killed by a cybie is to either get blocked dodging or even more likely not noticing it has fired a rocket from a far

[halcyon willow]

This is also something relatively easy to perfect

[true urchin]

damanage

[halcyon willow]

It's also fun

[vestal flax]

minimum, not average
so even if you miss a few tracers the odds are astronomically small of it not working

[halcyon willow]

Very satisfying

[true urchin]

or get splashed off a wall (or enemy i guess)

[vestal flax]

yeah I usually just lose track of how close I am to a wall behind me and get hit with splash damage

[halcyon willow]

I'm colour blind so I find the rockets hard to see on the background a lot of the time

[cosmic pagoda]

thats rarely fatal tho

[halcyon willow]

Suddenly rocket to the face

[vestal flax]

yeah
just really annoying

[true urchin]

how much damage does the splash do because i feel like every time it either kills me or leaves me with 3 hp and a dream

[cosmic pagoda]

you need to get directly hit to get deleted usually, and even then a megasphere allows you to tank one hit

[halcyon willow]

Rocket splash is up to 128 iirc

[vestal flax]

max splash damage is 120

[cosmic pagoda]

rocket damage depends on how far you are from epicenter

[true urchin]

that's it??

[vestal flax]

so you basically never take all 120 damage

[halcyon willow]

Each rocket does 20-160 points of damage, in round multiples of 20, plus a blast radius of 128 units (taking a direct hit automatically incurs the full 128 additional points).

[true urchin]

maybe im just thinking of those times where i walk into it like a fuckin moron and get obliterated

[halcyon willow]

148 - 288 for a direct hit

[true urchin]

(im not very good at this game tbh)

[vestal flax]

decino you lied to me
you said it was 120 splash damage

[cosmic pagoda]

the usual way to die to a cybie is to assume its busy infighting, when it suddenly isnt

[vestal flax]

and then have a split second of oh shit when you see the rocket heading towards your face

[true urchin]

honestly i kinda like fighting cybies

[bitter shoal]

I was watching a stream of a community mapset (I forget what it was called) where there was a pacifist map where you had to survive cybers fighting imps right in front of the start and you can't attack or archviles will nuke you... of course it looked like a poorly thought out concept because Cybers stop fighting imps and shoot at you because they immediately kill them and the streamer understandably skipped the level.

[halcyon willow]

That's a perfectly fine thought out concept

[bitter shoal]

Archviles aren't that much different really, you jsut have to figure out how to get to safety if there is a gotcha ambush that happens

[true urchin]

until they close the door behind you

[halcyon willow]

ARcvhiles are different, they will instantly retarget on even a single point of damage, even mid attack

No other enemy does this

[true urchin]

i hate it when they do that

[halcyon willow]

All other doom monsters have a chance to retarget on taking damage

[cosmic pagoda]

enemies cant close doors

they can open them

[vestal flax]

99% of archvile encounters in pretty much all maps you'll play have cover in them

[halcyon willow]

Which is why it can be hard to get things to infight if you've already shot them

[halcyon willow]

Neither can doom guy

[cosmic pagoda]

if the door is marked as openable by monsters

[true urchin]

it short circuits my brain for a moment bc now i have to figure out where is safe while im being shot at

[bitter shoal]

Be mindful of doors then I guess, sometimes you are intended to find safety or an opening to fight the enemies another way

[halcyon willow]

Actually, door_close is an action, it's just not used very often

[cosmic pagoda]

oh fair point

[true urchin]

no i mean like sometimes in maps ive seen you walk into an ambush and they lock the door

or trap you some other way

[halcyon willow]

Doors just close on a timer 99% of the time

[cosmic pagoda]

well yeah classic arena fight

[halcyon willow]

That's the mapper, showing you a good time

[true urchin]

every time they do it it just fuckin short circuits my brain for a few seconds idk why

[cosmic pagoda]

unless its those god damn weird doors on one of the Plutonia 2 maps, hate the guts of them

[bitter shoal]

Well I didn't say finding safety meant running out the last door you used was the only option.

[true urchin]

maybe its just an adhd moment

[cosmic pagoda]

you know the ones, that have a closing linedef in front

[bitter shoal]

(I wasn't even th inking doors when I said that)

[true urchin]

but suddenly its like i have to completely rewire my brain meanwhile im being shot at

[bitter shoal]

Archvile attacks break with line of sight so usually it is finding cover of some kind even if it is the same room

[cosmic pagoda]

the "ambushes" are usually easy to see coming from miles away, encountering one is where you hit quicksave

[true urchin]

no they keep going

[cosmic pagoda]

and then see if you can do the fight first time

[true urchin]

you have to stay behind cover until they're done

otherwise you still get hit

[vestal flax]

well yeah

[bitter shoal]

well yeah

[cosmic pagoda]

theres only one frame that actually damages from archvile zap

you can get 3 ssg shots off if you time it perfect, but usually safe to go with 2

[vestal flax]

you can actually afford to duck behind cover pretty late yeah

[true urchin]

idk man usually when you break line of sight they stop fuckin shooting at you

[vestal flax]

archviles are just built different man

[bitter shoal]

I wait until the sound stops playing to know I can pop back in and yeah it is such a delayed attack you have a lot of time to damage it if cover is close enough by. Also enough time to BFG it if ammo isn't a problem

[cosmic pagoda]

well yeah, you duck into cover before the zap hits, then you pop out, shoot it more

[true urchin]

i always default to hiding early because i've seen the game get REAL pedantic about what technically counts as "line of sight" and died bc of it

[bitter shoal]

obviously this is all easier said than done but after playing a bunch of maps that love using Arch-viles you learn to understand them

[true urchin]

and sometimes i just get shoved out of the way

[cosmic pagoda]

I mean unless its spawned into a bunch of other monsters in a fight, a bfg is usually waste on a vile, just 4 rockets or 4 ssg blasts will do the trick

[bitter shoal]

there is no pedantry here, you can tell if line of sight breaks because the fire gets caught on the game's geometry (or generally just stops appearing on top of you)

it is a weird quirk but it is helpful

[cosmic pagoda]

bfg for viles is reasonable if say you are in an arena and its a nice slaughtery type fight and they spawn in in multiples, can take care of them really quick, because then they are time critical

[true urchin]

that's not the easiest thing to keep track of when there's bullets flying and demons hollering and im panicking bc i got a fight sprung on me at 32 hp

[vestal flax]

there can literally be a single pixel-width wall between you and the archvile, and if it's centered then the attack won't hit lmao

[true urchin]

how the fuck do you line that up in the middle of a firefight

[vestal flax]

if you can't see his hands clasped, he can't hit you, simple as that

[bitter shoal]

You probably want cover from all of those other projectiles either way (and also be wary of progressing to new parts of the map if you are low on health)

[halcyon willow]

Fun fact about the archviles attack, you can block all of the blast damage (which is 90% of the damage) by standing behind a 32 mu high pillar

[cosmic pagoda]

well you should expect these fights, see that very juicy powerup in the middle of the room? oh theres a key just standing there? guaranteed trap

[true urchin]

i ran outta health packs

[vestal flax]

all I'm saying is that it's very easy to avoid archvile attacks

[halcyon willow]

You don't need full cover to prevent most of the archvile attack damage

[bitter shoal]

oh that is a cool tip nice

[halcyon willow]

Technically you can do it with a 24 mu high pillar but doom guy can step up that height so it gets tricky to stay in the right spot

[cosmic pagoda]

you just need a blocking linedef between your and the viles center

[true urchin]

ok that i will try

idk i got a c- in geometry dawg perfectly lining myself up in the heat of the moment isn't always easy

and ive died bc i was BARELY off before

like fuckin pixels away

[cosmic pagoda]

doom wouldnt be the same without arch viles, they are so versatile and can be used in so many fun ways

[true urchin]

-# ive also died to mistiming things and running out literal frames before they're done but thats a skill issue so it doesn't count

[cosmic pagoda]

they are often a great way to make things time critical to force the player

[bitter shoal]

They are probably the most versatile enemy in the game. Their actual intended use is probably the least common one due to how versatile they are.

[true urchin]

oh they definitely do that for sure

[cosmic pagoda]

either by doing too much resurrecting or just quickly surrounding

[true urchin]

every time i see one it feels like they're a fuckin ticking time bomb

like if i dont kill them in the next 10 seconds im just gonna die

[cosmic pagoda]

thats rarely the case if you have cover tho

[bitter shoal]

One fun irony is that even when they can revive enemies there is a trade off that they can get hit by enemy projectiles and they will attack those enemies with splash damage (they can't hurt cybers but it is cool for a lot of other enemies)

said infighting also means they aren't targeting you though you have to be careful since it is very easy to steal attention back and they target you again

[vestal flax]

I believe they can hurt cybers
their attack is 20 direct + 70 splash so the cybers still take the direct damage

[cosmic pagoda]

if they are in low tier enemies usually safest bet is to drill directly to the vile with rockets

[bitter shoal]

oh I thought they didn't do direct damage at all, okay then

[cosmic pagoda]

if theres like 4 or 8 suddenly spawning into the chaos probably better to reach for the bfg

oh yeah viles still do 20 damage with zap without blast damage

[bitter shoal]

20 damage is very low though, might be why it doesn't steal Cyberdemon attention often

wait it isn't based on damage number

it's such an infrequent attack would be why

[cosmic pagoda]

but nah, mappers who put viles in are doing their job, now mappers who put pain elementals into their caco clouds are sadists

if the cybie is already focused on you once you damaged it, it wont refocus until it has taken a bunch of steps

[true urchin]

pain elementals wouldn't be so awful if lost souls weren't so god awful to fight

[cosmic pagoda]

ssg takes care of them

[true urchin]

they're still annoying as shit

[cosmic pagoda]

the problem with pain elementals among other monsters is it makes using rockets very risky

[true urchin]

they're not even that impactful they just piss me off

[cosmic pagoda]

if they are within reach just go hug them

[true urchin]

they're mosquitos with knives

[vestal flax]

no they're very impactful

[cosmic pagoda]

and they are harmless

[bitter shoal]

Yeah Pain Elementals are basically a rocket deterrent though I still see other players use rockets on them anyway

[true urchin]

well they can be i mainly mean i rarely ever die to them

[bitter shoal]

BFG is also good especially since they are usually paired with other enemies in their most dangerous uses

[cosmic pagoda]

I usually fire off a volley when they are still far and hope for the best and then switch to something safer

[true urchin]

maybe they weren't nearly as bad in 1994 but i play with mouselook since not having access to the y axis just feels wrong

and that makes them a massive pain in the ass

[cosmic pagoda]

oh yeah elementals are a food use for these cells yo ukeep saving up for critical moments, bfg em

[bitter shoal]

You can also do yourself a favor and turn on lost soul limit in compatability options if your source port has that, I like to keep it on since I like to think it was something the devs consciously implemented and it is the mappers that are wrong

[true urchin]

what is that

[bitter shoal]

If there are 24 or more lost souls present then pain elementals can't spawn more

[vestal flax]

wait it's turned off by default?

[bitter shoal]

I found out it was the other day yeah

[cosmic pagoda]

I just keep it on/off depending what complevel the wad is, if its boom, I run it with boom complevel and thus limit off etc

[true urchin]

its uncapped by default???? what the fuck

[cosmic pagoda]

this also ensures the balance stays as the mapper wanted it to be

[true urchin]

yeah well sometimes it lowkey feels like the mapper didnt want it to be balanced

[cosmic pagoda]

no its not, or well depends on the sourceport

[bitter shoal]

Also when I say "the mapper is wrong" iw as referring ot TNT. I saw that video fo Decino showing off pain elementals unable to do anything because there wer ealready enough lost souls on the map lol

[cosmic pagoda]

the pit elementals are also just there for the hugs in doom2

well TNT is ... questionable anyway

[bitter shoal]

DOOM has such a high ceiling of what a mapper can do that is still possible for the player to overcome, the game can be incredibly "imbalanced" but still achievable.

[halcyon willow]

That's got nothing to do with the mapper, that's in the base game code

[cosmic pagoda]

TNT is about a third good maps, third passable maps and third is just garbage

[halcyon willow]

If anything it's the player's fault for not killing the lost souls quick

[bitter shoal]

What I meant was that the mapper seemed unaware of that oversight

[halcyon willow]

One pain elemental or 20 pain elementals can hit that limit

It just depends how long you leave them alive for

[cosmic pagoda]

does mbf complevel have limit on btw

[halcyon willow]

I believe yes

Zdoom ports can remove the limit

I'm not sure about prboom and dsdadoom actually

[cosmic pagoda]

dsdadoom just allows you to pick the complevel

[halcyon willow]

All ports do

[cosmic pagoda]

https://i.imgur.com/gPxVXPx.png

[halcyon willow]

But that doesn't mean the lost soul limit doesn't exist

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah, but I thought its tied to complevel

[halcyon willow]

Possibly

[cosmic pagoda]

boom has no limit, doom 2 and final doom complevels have it on not sure about the modern ones

it has to, because it has to make proper demos for dsda and the limit is an important setting to make them work properly

love the port too, has such neat features, keybinds for various things etc

and works great with all complevels except for the zdoom/gzdoom specific stuff

binding pgup and pgdn for changing map and home for restarting map are for example very neat

[woven swallow]

excuse me what!? have you not touched a single custom doom map in your life?

[bitter shoal]

Pain Elementals are either harmless or a serious annoyance, he probably only encountered the former >_>

[bitter shoal]

Plutonia 2 manages to make them annoying in a couple of spots, MAP 15 particularly

[wind cradle]

if theres only pain or smth literally just hug them, they can't spawn anymore.

[bitter shoal]

I really liked Map 19 of Plutonia 2 ||I was like "oh last enemy is probably t he obligatory exit archvile" NOPE it is a Cyber a bit before it which was way cooler. I managed to two tap it which was satisfying.||

[true urchin]

i mean i personally have never seen a lost soul ever really be a serious threat outside of distracting me from the actual problems or occasionally eating an explosive attack at point blank

[halcyon willow]

That says more about the maps you've played than anything else

[true urchin]

-# unless it's doom 64 where some genius thought it would be REALLY funny to give them basically zero attack cooldown

[halcyon willow]

Also "distracting me from the actual problems or occasionally eating an explosive attack at point blank" is a threat that you have to manage

[bitter shoal]

support roles being downplayed as usual smh

[true urchin]

yeah but my point is i never die to the lost soul specifically

[halcyon willow]

[vestal flax]

Idk about you but face rocketing myself feels like a serious threat to me lmao

[true urchin]

the lost soul is an annoying ass inconvenience that occasionally gives other, better demons a window to kill me

[halcyon willow]

Anyway, go play map 10 of Abandon

[true urchin]

i mean yeah but did you know there's a 100% reliable counter to that called "just dont shoot rockets near lost souls"

[bitter shoal]

You will probably take a lot of damage to them at some point, they actually have very high DPS in cramped spaces. Ironically I think I felt this more in I think it was SIGIL(II) maps that didn't have Pain Elementals and the lost souls were just optimally and numerously placed instead

[true urchin]

well ok 98%

[halcyon willow]

Except the RL is the best weapon to fight lost souls and pain elementals

[true urchin]

sometimes they just fly in front of you for no reason

[vestal flax]

[halcyon willow]

Splash damage is king

And it's fun to send them scattering like bowling pins

[true urchin]

i mean yes but usually if you just keep shooting at them knockback or hitstun prevents them from getting more than one, maybe 2 hits in

[halcyon willow]

Memes aside, the rocket launcher is genuinely the best way to fight hordes of pain elementals outside of the bfg. Just takes skill and hairy cahones

Anything else and they spawn lost souls faster than you can kill them

[true urchin]

genuinely the best way until a lost soul gets in your face and you die

[bitter shoal]

I've seen people use rockets on Pain Elementals and I wish I did it more. I guess side step the lost souls

[true urchin]

this i won't deny

lost soul bowling is very funny

[bitter shoal]

Most situations that are dangerous are never just a single thing or a type of thing in a vacuum.

[halcyon willow]

Skill issue

Like, actually. It's something you need to practise

[true urchin]

yes but we're talking about fighting them in hallways

[bitter shoal]

We are?

Lemme scroll up chat to see

[true urchin]

i thought we were at least

[bitter shoal]

Even if we were, lost souls or pain elementals in hallways aren't the only places you see them in a lot of maps. They're commonly used with cacodemons in open areas.

Or lost souls in conjunction with other enemies in smaller spaces

[true urchin]

well then you just press a or d on your keyboard and then they cant hit you

unless there's like a bajillion of them

idk maybe plutonia uv gives them all built in rocket launchers or some shit but personally i cant remember a single fight where lost souls specifically were anywhere near the biggest threat in the room

-# unless i'm playing one of those mods that just buffs the shit out of them for no reason

[bitter shoal]

the point of them isn't to be the biggest threat, what they typically do if they can is occupy spaces that would normally be safe usually and also make it harder to hit other monsters

[true urchin]

i mean yeah that's my point they're there to be annoying not to kill you

and inconvenient

[bitter shoal]

but they can kill you (or rather take off a decent chunk of health) as well with good placement, like I said they actually have very high DPS if you have very limited places where you can move

but the support role aspect is when they are in cacodemon clouds and whatnot

I'm thinking like SIGIL levels that don't like to give too much armor and have very tight indoor areas, where lost souls end up having such high DPS, and it is the custom wads where pain elementals play a support role for other monsters

[halcyon willow]

You're at the very bottom of the difficulty curve on what is possible. Once you've actually played something actually tough then you can start making sweeping statements (you'll still be wrong though)

People new to classic doom don't seem to realise that Plutonia is baby mode compared to what has been made since

[true urchin]

yeah that's why i specifically use language like "personally" and "in my experience" and "from what ive seen"

im stating my opinion based on my limited experience with the game not trying to make declarations of objective fact

[bitter shoal]

That is why I’m explaining what I’ve seen that you might not have… and that is what IVE seen, I’m sure others here have seen pain elemental or lost soul uses that are unfamiliar to me but still effective

[true urchin]

yes i know, doom mappers have a fetish for difficulty for difficulty's sake fun factor be dammed bc the intended audience for 99.9% of classic doom content is people who have to beat nuts.wad on nightmare difficulty fists only no damage controller only blindfolded just to feel something i know i understand i get it

[bitter shoal]

I mean I know zero master did that but seems like a generalization

(Nuts.wad is also a joke wad)

[true urchin]

it was the easiest example i could think of for a map with a genuinely bullshit amount of enemies

[bitter shoal]

Like nobody is saying you have to play slaughter maps, a lot of stuff I’ve been talking about have been in exploration based stages.

[true urchin]

by the way i went and tried playing sunlust (on hmp), quit in the middle of map 2 after the game spawned a fuckload of hitscanners behind me for the 10th consecutive time

i remember the specific point i just gave up

there was a button i had to hit, so i quicksaved and then hit the button

[bitter shoal]

I just went to that chat message and the one above it references a text file saying uv was for people that wanted pain so I think that was supposed to be an example of how you should pick your battles and adjust difficulty accordingly

[true urchin]

i wasn't playing on uv

[bitter shoal]

Well picking the right wad is part of it too

I was suggesting that you’d want to use plutonia as a stepping stone before all of the much harder stuff

Or stick with more casual wads

[true urchin]

bro literally said "its the best wad ever made"

[true urchin]

yes i love chaingunners spawning in behind me and instant killing me i love revenant spam i love archvile closets and point blank cybie fights please god let me play 30 consecutive maps of exclusively all of that im sure that would be very enjoyable

[bitter shoal]

I mean that does not make a map bad

I have not played Sunkist so it might be better for me to let others talk about it

[true urchin]

i love maps that are explicitly advertised as cramming in as many "lmao gotcha get fucked xd" instant kill trap that are only avoidable by having already died to them as they possibly can

[wanton peak]

Soup

[true urchin]

i love maps that exist solely to beat me over the fucking head for having the audacity to even install them

[bitter shoal]

I will argue that failure is a part of getting better and learning a game, even if it seems mean spirited

[wanton peak]

Beans

[true urchin]

dying to random xd unreactable instant kill traps that you have to know about before hand or you're guaranteed to die doesn't make you get better at the game

nor is it fun or engaging or entertaining in any way

if im playing doom id like to at least pretend im having a good time

but you know maybe that's presumptuous of me

you know i gotta like earn my fun by slogging through the intentionally unfun stuff first

bc it makes me a better Gamer™ and makes my opinions more valuable

[bitter shoal]

It does, you learn about that part of the level and have to think about what you should do to minimize damage

[true urchin]

wow you're so right dude dying to chaingunners teleporting on top of me and instantkilling me makes me such a better Gamer™

man im gaming so hard rn

everyone knows the more miserable you are while playing the game the more of a Gamer™ you are and the more valuable your opinions are

[dense lake]

No offense but you kind of sound like a little bitch. But, that's ok you can just turn down the difficulty.

[finite crag]

Just finished ashes 2063 started dead man walking. I have so much content to get through. I'm on the second episode of doom 1 like the 3rd part and there's so many enemies that are strong.

Also I'm using brutal doom platinum cus project brutality wasn't downloading

Doom is like the perfect mobile game with a good controller attachment

[alpine kindle]

ngl based, those parts of classic doom were very unenjoyable. traps aren't skillful or fun

[halcyon willow]

Everything in doom is a trap

If you knew every monster placement ahead of time it would be boring as fuck

[cosmic pagoda]

let me know how your experience with map20 goes

its a memorable experience

and brutally ball busting

also best midi of the wad hands down

it sounds a bit weird on the default windows midi, dsda doom renders it nicely tho

to that end, heres audio captured from dsda doom, where it sounds nice and proper https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/634517968578936842/1412688426737860608/end_is_nigh.mp3?ex=68b9341f&is=68b7e29f&hm=87586d08957761b8f7cf2858229b5dd0c8f4b42c5dbc0af174a0fbd91bce1317&

huh no embed

[wind cradle]

you must LOATHE tricks and trap (map08)

[bitter shoal]

I will admit there is trial and error, that is what quicksaving is for (and I guarantee you good players do that playing a level blind unless they are doing Ironman/permadeath challenges) but the skill comes from analyzing the failure and figuring out the best way to take back control based on that part of the level

[bitter shoal]

I hadn’t figured out how to get past the entrance (but it was super late and i needed to sleep) but that opening is indeed peak cinema.

I wish the opening part of the level was more detailed though, harder to take seriously when it is the one part of the game that looks like plutonia 3 >_>

That obviously isn’t plutonia 2’s fault

[true urchin]

i dont mind traps i mind instant death traps (or near instant)

[alpine kindle]

ya

[true urchin]

the kind of shit you will always die to unless you've already died to it and know where it is

traps themselves aren't bad, in fact they can be fun to play around sometimes

[lean karma]

Would yall recommend playing Doom’s Sigil DLC’s

[bitter shoal]

yes

[dense lake]

idk, games are supposed to be at least challenging on some level

even if it's memorizing where the chaingunners pop out insane style

I also like in brutal doom how you can set it up to randomize the spawning so you don't know where they are

[bitter shoal]

I just finished it. It was probably the best map of the set so far.

[cosmic pagoda]

nice

I also love it most from PL2

[bitter shoal]

A dozen or so revenants that teleport in for just a second then go away just to fire a single barrage at you is such a cool way to do an ambush

[cosmic pagoda]

yeah they spook you by briefly teleporting in in a secret too

or was it regular area, near the secret

where the soulsphere is IIRC

[bitter shoal]

And teasing you with a cyberdemon telefrag only to lock it up later once the cyberdemon is actually in position is so insanely mean

MAP21: Assassin is the twenty-first map of Plutonia 2. It was designed by Pavel Tvrzník (Pipicz), and uses the music track "I will chop Mariah Carey's head off with a Chainsaw" by Paul Corfiatis
What did Mariah Carey do lmao

[shell remnant]

All seven sins

[azure nimbus]

Sometimes. Though some maps telegraph an encounter. They'll show the lineup of monsters before you trigger them to attack.

[bitter shoal]

My body is a machine that turns 15-30 minute maps into 3 hour infighting adventures

[true urchin]

bro had to work retail during christmas 😔

[bitter shoal]

I just started watching Dario's videos on TNT and he just gave a good take on this whole difficulty design debate: "We wanted to make what we wanted to play." in regards to Plutonia.

And since most people aren't selling their maps as products and don't need to have mass appeal, you'll see that philosophy a lot.

[white shale]

DOOM Master levels are kinda meh lol

[bitter shoal]

So I heard. I don't own them anyway so I don't plan on playing them

It is also wild to me that they published Maximum DOOM

[white shale]

I never tried em and now have them with the new DOOM + DOOM II game package. There's some cool maps but others are just kinda boring to go through.

[keen birch]

Missing one pickup in Sigil Map 9. I’ve scoured the map up and down and i dunno where it is, anyone here know? (Pls @ reply do u dont have to dig thru chat)

nvm i figured it out

[mighty star]

Titan Manor made me quit altogether. Horrendous level.

[sharp wyvern]

I didn’t mind that one tbh

Some of them are pretty fucking dire though

But the Cabal series is always fun IMO

[wise notch]

Nightmare is obviously a joke difficulty but in my opinion it could be made balanced with a very simple change: health bonuses and medkits respawning
Just like how the monsters respawn, health regaining items should as well. This wouldn't count in powerups like the soulsphere because it's a powerup rather than an item. If, every (however much time it takes for the monsters to respawn on average) seconds medkits/bonuses respawned, that would create a regenerating health source that you can collect while backtracking. Which would make your chances of survival a bit higher. Just my thoughts anyways while playing Underhalls on Nightmare

[bitter shoal]

On the other hand I like that there is a blatantly imbalanced and untested difficulty that does something unique, and it is justified by having a warning telling you such. More games should have that IMO

[wise notch]

Even though, it is pretty fun to figure out the proper routing that lets you finish a stage without dying, though if you end one with low health you'll start the next one with low health giving you practically no chances of survival there. Oh well

[wise notch]

I actually got further than I expected myself to get, beat Dead Simple and in Tricks and Traps with really good health. I think Doom II is somehow way more fair on Nightmare than Doom 1 is

Tricks and Traps was a breeze damn I forgot just how easy this level was

[bitter shoal]

I didn't mention t his yesterday when I did it, but Plutonia 2 Map 22 was a straight up slaughter map! That was neat. Map 23 also had its moments but I primarily saw it as an infighting playground for the most part and the beginning could be surgically done.

[bitter shoal]

Map 23 probably sucks for UV Max runs ||Its big slaughter encounter takes place over damaging floor, I'm surprised most of the enemies on it died for me sometime after I left.||

[white shale]

Haha that's where I'm at now. Not my favorite. I liked Black Tower and have been kinda bummed by some of the following levels

[white shale]

Hah, express elevator to hell was a fun master level map. i figured out the secrets to the keys too late tho. rip

[bitter shoal]

Oh shoot I just realized I typed just plutonia earlier, not plutonia 2

Plutonia 2 is very good but definitely a different flavor

[white shale]

I need to try out Plutonia 2. I keep seeing yall talk about it. I love Plutonia 1 lol

TNT is fun to me for nostalgia sake but Plutonia is where the quality is at!

[sharp wyvern]

i quite like that one lol

[white shale]

Yeah, I had a blast on it lol

[sharp wyvern]

that one and black tower are both part of the Cabal series which is mostly notably better than the rest of the MLs

though Mephisto's Mausoleum is also part of Cabal so they can't all be winners

(MM has some really nice environmental design for early doom wads though so it's not the worst)

[white shale]

I almost figured out how to get the keys but i was stuck for a minute after getting them all and looked it up and realized I needed the archviles I already defeated haha

I'ma go back to that one

I've read about Mephisto's Mausoleum. I'm weirdly excited to see it haha

[white shale]

Hah, just beat Mephisto's Mausoleum. I actually didn't mind it compared to maps like Titan Manor LOL

[sharp wyvern]

i think it has quite nice environmental design

like the coffin is pretty genius

[white shale]

Loved the coffin. I also liked the archvile throne in the previous level.

[bitter shoal]

I just saw an old level that had a decoration that reminded me of a coffin in it, but the coffin itself didn't do anything and it was cross shaped so it might not have been a coffin just wood textured

[bitter shoal]

Map 24 of Plutonia 2 had a lot of devious moments, it was like an early game Plutonia 1 level but it was lategame. Might be one of my favorites actually but that could be recency bias. Map 25 Black Ice was freaking insane that opening room is absolute murder. I found some cheese with the enemies that spawn in the macubus cages though, that was goofy.

Oooh

no wonder I liked Map 24 so much, it was made by the person that made Scythe! My favorite wad (maybe until I play Scythe 2?)

Gusta is almost solo carrying Plutonia 2 though, I might have to play Kama Sutra at some point as well

[covert nacelle]

Hi. Is there any further support planned for DOOM + DOOM II Remaster? It would be really cool to see an Update 4!

[dense lake]

yeah they're adding in Rudy Guliani as a boss fight

[bitter shoal]

Plutonia 2 maps 26 and 27 were nice easy breathers but they had really good layouts and interesting encounters still. Map 28’s opening is cinema

[nova shale]

i like duke nukem 3d

[azure nimbus]

My body is a machine that turns 15 min into 900 s

[bitter shoal]

ooh nice

[bitter shoal]

Finally beat Plutonia 2! I like how the last few maps started to have nods to regular Plutonia, Map 29 was basically a city level but in Hell. It also had over 500 monsters it took me all day.

Great levels, many of them are very long though.

I'd say a lot of the encounter design is closer to like the late game maps of Scythe but it is the whole wad.

[white shale]

What's the consensus favorite DOOM game or map pack?

talking classic doom ofc

[bitter shoal]

Maybe Sunder

Or Sunlust I forget which

[woven swallow]

Eviternity 2, absolute peak

[astral nexus]

what is the HARDEST doom wad

[mighty star]

ancient aliens

[woven swallow]

oversaturation map04

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/m-o/oversat

[zenith berry]

No Chance

[stark ibex]

I've been playing Brutal doom 2, it's easiest difficulty is equivalent to normal dooms medium

[bitter shoal]

That on its own wouldn’t be anywhere near the hardest wad, see above suggestions

[vestal flax]

okuplok and profane promiseland are enormous slaughtermaps that are absurdly difficult
but if you're talking more of a traditional map pack, I'm not too familiar with what's considered the hardest, per se, but sunder and sunlust are both extremely difficult

[bitter shoal]

I think Alien Vendetta is considered a difficult traditional map pack as well? I hadn't tried playing it in years so I don't remember

[azure nimbus]

It's challenging but vulnerable to cheese

[native anchor]

I tend to never use the Plasma Gun in Classic.

Almost everything the Plasma Gun can do, the BFG can do better.

[bitter shoal]

It is good as a weapon for when you don't know what you're going to encounter next in smaller spaces, and it is good enough for things like revenants for barons but not too overkill for hitscanners

[stark ibex]

I usually alternate between the shotgun, chaingun, and rocket launcher

Pistol is good if you wanna take out a single demon thats far away

[white shale]

Neat thanks for the suggestions!

I tend to lean hard on the super shotty with the rocket launcher and plasma gun as my more used “oh shit” or damage dealers. I like the chain gun for large groups of zombie and imps. I usually save the BFG for the big baddies or just an insane room I need cleared.

I do like the chainsaw for close quarters with zombies and imps too but that’s kinda rare for me when I have super shotty ammo

[edgy hinge]

Hi

[bitter shoal]

Berserk is better than chainsaw as well if you have it but maps that don’t provide it probably won’t provide a chainsaw either

[edgy hinge]

Im new in server

[bitter shoal]

Hello

[native anchor]

E2M2 has a Berserker near the start, but no chainsaw AFAIK.

[bitter shoal]

Ah yeah I mean for newer stuff. Usually there is a berserk pack over chainsaw for pistol starters and as an upgrade over the chainsaw but sometimes maps just don’t have either (like I think it takes forever to find either in SIGIL 1 & 2 maps?)

[white shale]

Berserk is fun

[bitter shoal]

Currently watching Vytaan go for UV-Max D2All Eviternity II. He is on the secret map 36 right now and from what I understand final map is next.

[bitter shoal]

oh one more level I am guessing from I assume the hub zone

[azure nimbus]

continuous fire for stuns(eh), range. Pretty much yeah

[stark ibex]

Till you run out of ammo

[bitter shoal]

and he did it

9 hour run without dying or saving

[woven swallow]

Hello welcome

[lofty dirge]

Hey guys I'm new

[bitter shoal]

hello

[lofty dirge]

I play Doom on my phone using delta touch okay?

[bitter shoal]

If it works for you I don't see why not.

[lofty dirge]

Oh

[crystal hill]

as in, community pick or personal?

The community seems to like Skillsaw's two megawads most. Personally, Auger Zenith if that counts. If not, Plutonia 2 or Going Down

[crystal hill]

that's assuming you can get a BFG. Sometimes all you have is the plasma, and you need to use it to not die early

[vestal flax]

the bfg is very RNG-dependent
sure, if you have multiple bfg shots you can clear a whole room easily, but there's no guarantee that one bfg shot will actually take care of what you want it to
and 40 cells is a lot

[bitter shoal]

It is very map design dependent I think. Plasma is great for, like I said earlier, ambush heavy maps in small spaces but maps that tend to have big fights in more open zones BFG or rockets are usually better. Plasma also does the same damage at any range if you can consistently hit the enemy so if you are willing to pay the ammo cost you can kill cybers in places where you can hit them but they can’t hit you

[crystal hill]

That last part is really underrated. The BFG is great at killing cybers if you're confident and can get in close, way more ammo efficient - but the plasma can be a lot safer in certain places, neutering a lot of challenging parts of maps

[halcyon willow]

Alien Vendetta consistently tops voting polls for best doom wad

Not necessarily because it's lots of people's favourite wad, but it's almost always in someone's top 5-10 wads

Consistently highly rated

[azure nimbus]

Not true. Since the BFG rolls so many RNG calls, it ends up normalizing by the law of large numbers. It's extremely predictable in terms of its damage

Flip a coin once. You'll get 100 % heads or 0 % heads. Flip a coin 40 x 15 + 1 times and you'll get about 50 %.

[vestal flax]

Yeah, if you use it extremely close to a single enemy

Hence why you can always two shot cybers if you’re close enough

[azure nimbus]

This is where plasma has a bit of an advantage, simply if you can't ever justify a full 40 cells

[azure nimbus]

That has nothing to do with the RNG. That's just a range and accuracy thing

[vestal flax]

Are the angle offsets of the tracers also not determined by rng?

[azure nimbus]

They are not

It's a set fan with equal angles between each tracer. It's not a random spread around a single point like the shotguns

[vestal flax]

Ok, so not rng then
But still luck based

[azure nimbus]

How

[vestal flax]

You’ve got 40 tracers at something like a 45 degree offset without auto aim

That’s how

And said tracers don’t even guarantee a one hit kill on an imp

So one bfg shot is far from a consistent thing when it comes to taking out multiple enemies, unless they’re at very close range
Obviously two or three is much more reliable

[digital bloom]

I asked this in the regular chat but the answer here isn’t SUPER clear to me. If I buy the doom anthology today, do I still have access to the free update to the Nightdive remaster for 1 and 2

[vestal flax]

you should

what's in the doom anthology?

[bitter shoal]

I think usually people refer to luck in terms of rng rather than circumstantial luck

I guess the rng in this case is enemy movement

[vestal flax]

Yeah I thought the BFG tracers had a random offset in their 45 degree cone, hence why I called it RNG dependent

But I suppose the rng isn’t with the tracers themselves but the behavior and position of the enemy AI

[bitter shoal]

and yeah while the damage of the tracers are random the minimum and maximum values are close enough together that it isn’t too wildly varied

[white shale]

I was just curious in general. Either are fine responses.

[vestal flax]

Yeah the tracers actually have refreshingly low variance

Meanwhile the plasma rifle dealing 5-40 damage on every shot

[vestal flax]

Sunlust is amazingly designed but brutally difficult
Sunder is also really hard and has a really eerie ambience and possibly the best custom enemy in classic doom (not gonna spoil it for you)

[bitter shoal]

I listed sunlust and sunder as community favorites but my personal favorite is scythe and I would consider more accessible to newcomers while still becoming challenging towards the end

Scythe has a lot of tight short maps which makes it a good recommendation

[white shale]

Gonna give those a try! Thanks for the recs

[halcyon willow]

The threshold for this is surprsingly low. Pretty much any enemy pack larger than a single baron of hell is more efficient to use the bfg than the plasma rifle

[halcyon willow]

This is where it becomes skill. Player positioning relative to enemy movement, picking the firing angle to envelope the most enemies possible (this is locked at the start of the firing cycle), and then in the case of 2 shotting cyberdemons it's all player skill.

The single best thing to practise order to get better at harder doom wads is bfg usage

Get more efficient with your bfg usage and so many fights get much easier

[azure nimbus]

but there's no randomness

[azure nimbus]

It is hard to find those circumstances for sure

[azure nimbus]

They don't. The offset is not random

[vestal flax]

jesus
could you actually read my messages properly before mass pinging me

[azure nimbus]

They do have vertical autoaim. Each tracer has its own independent autoaim

[vestal flax]

I'm referring to horizontal auto aim
every projectile in doom has vertical auto aim

[azure nimbus]

Would you want horizontal autoaim?

If there's anything in doom to criticize, it's the unecesary horizontal autoaim that makes it all but impossible to lead shots with projectiles

[crystal hill]

For a 2001 wad, it holds up really well today

[bitter shoal]

ooh it turned out the GZDOOM version I was using for VR was outdated and didn't have complevel commandline support. I can play Rust Jaws of the Earth with it now (and I also get better laser sight)

I'm probably gonna start Plutonia Revisited tomorrow though, I hadn't downloaded it yet

[solemn socket]

what if one day you wake up and you're in plutonia

[bitter shoal]

"Help! I've been hit by the TNT Sector Truck and Isekai'd into Plutonia Map 07 as a Chaingunner hidden in a secret near the exit!"

[solemn socket]

also, why does doomguy have an 24 map unit staircase sidecut in the doom 2 TITLEPIC?

[bitter shoal]

I am guessing it was Adrian Carmack's idea. He has the same haircut in DOOM 1 Episode 4's ending

[solemn socket]

i see then

[woven swallow]

i'll get instantly killed by chaingunners

[rare drum]

death by 50 chaingunners, 12 revenants and 6 archviles

[umbral fern]

That’s not enough chaingunners

[bitter shoal]

Trust me the casalis were highly efficient with just half a dozen chaingunners at times

[umbral fern]

Catacombs anybody??

[dense lake]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhLpF_bMxG4&ab_channel=DrAmazing

didn't know this was a thing

[stiff basalt]

flynn taggart

[bitter shoal]

I'm continuing through Plutonia Revisited, now I understand the title more since it genuinely does revisit a lot of the map ideas. Just went through Ghost Town 2.0

The larger number of map authors is also going to make for interesting contrast, map 2 was very tame compared to the others

[solemn socket]

what if one day you wake up and you're in <your house>

[storm hull]

welp

ill be having a crisis if the walls become brutalist

and the cerberus from Blood shows up

[twin mortar]

Use a hyperlink

[crystal hill]

Plutonia Revisited is a very disappointing mixed bag. Some of the maps do justice to the name Plutonia, others make me question my life choices

[crystal hill]

Only in map 10

I have no idea what possessed the Casalis to spawn you in with a chaingunner literally right behind you

[median cloud]

hatred I assume

I always thought Onslaught had a cyberdemon but thats a psx doom exclusive

or mp spawn

[crystal hill]

I think its PSX exclusive because thats the final level of Final Doom as a whole

Speaking of, what the hell possessed Williams (I think they made it) to take only 6 levels from Plutonia, and have one of them be Onslaught? Thats akin to a warcrime

[median cloud]

Final doom psx was a bit dissappointing yeah

13 master levels theres no need for that

10 master levels 10 tnt and 10 plutonia would be better.

That aside I really love the PSX port of Doom, might be my favorited way of playing through the old doom

[crystal hill]

I know the more horror-y and atmospheric tone clicks with people, but I've never really enjoyed it. That, or Doom 64's

Doom's always felt more like a power fantasy to me, and I've played it far too many times to be afraid of it

[median cloud]

I enjoy both. I enjoy Doom 3 but also enjoy the newer Dooms

[crystal hill]

I've gained an appreciation for Doom 3 on my most recent playthrough (especially Resurrection of Evil), but its still the black sheep of the family for me, in terms of how much I like it. Still above Doom 64 though

[median cloud]

It's just a different type of game, it's not a power fantasy but more of a survival horror game where you're more on an even playing field with the enemy.
Doom levels the playing field in your favor and most survival horrors give the edge to the enemy

[crystal hill]

Sure, I get that. But thats quite unlike what I'm looking for in Doom also the shotgun is still a travesty

[bitter shoal]

Doom 3 was also yelled at on release because of how dark it was, criticizing its actual ability to be a graphics showcase if you can’t actually see anything but nobody cares about that nowadays so time was kind to doom 3 in that regard

Or maybe not I heard bfg edition looks worse

[bitter shoal]

And also probably to add some kind of extra danger to the level because PSX doom doesn’t have archviles

[crystal hill]

absolute garbage

[crystal hill]

I've never played BFG, because I was told it was way easier than the OG, and because the flashlight being a part of your suit, while convenient, ruins part of the atmosphere the game is going for

it is a very important mechanic in Doom 3, choosing between having a flashlight out and seeing down a dark corridor, or having a gun and being able to adequately defend yourself in said corridor

[wide beacon]

brutal doom in vr is so fucking fun

[bitter shoal]

Oh I just found some Doomworld posts talking about a beta version of PL2 that had different levels

I doubt the server will let me post links

[solemn socket]

what if one day you wake up and you hideously destruct knee deep into the dead?

[crystal hill]

I'd be interested if you have it

[solemn socket]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1090377996822663290/1415636889087639622/IMG_7676.png?ex=68c3ee17&is=68c29c97&hm=a31a8d0e5fabd0826f2a7257045afd8415ec6e127efac8b46250f3cd59223202&

ex fucking cuse me who needs that many

[twin mortar]

That HUD is... something

[solemn socket]

thats hideous destructor default

[twin mortar]

I think they put more into the "hideous" part than the "destructor" part

Okay I'm being too rough on it, it's a pretty nice minimalist HUD, I just want to see all the juicy info laid out for me in the OG HUD

[storm hull]

have you tried flexihud?

[twin mortar]

Nope, but just looked it up, looks quite modern, would work for modded gameplay but for base campaign I'd rather stick to the OG

[solemn socket]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1090377996822663290/1415740242035740812/IMG_7688.png?ex=68c44e58&is=68c2fcd8&hm=d3d4d1b0968a76d827b32146d6b9efabe32f0ce572a5fb132a6410bbfa54699e&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=550&height=254 I think this screenshot will do better.

[bitter shoal]

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/128173-known-lost-wads-of-our-history/?page=6&tab=comments#comment-2557272

[tropic walrus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgev29eBfew

[crystal hill]

thank you kindly. This is very intruiging to a Plut 2 fanboy such as myself

[slate gyro]

Yo guys, I've finally tried a Doom wad and it was Harmony. I'm on level 6 and my opinion is very positive. Are community wads usually this good? Nothing was too easy or too hard besides the level I'm currently in, where there's a ton of bullet sponge enemies

I just watched some gameplay of the first level and was like "might as well give it a shot" and wasn't expecting much, but as you can see I'm mind blown

[bitter shoal]

Lot of good wads out there, sounds like I should be playing Harmony though

[slate gyro]

I think it's really cool. The set pieces are pretty unique and the soundtrack ranges from "good" to "banging"

[halcyon willow]

Are community wads usually this good?

Projects from the doom community range from better than anything made by a commercial games company to unplayable trash

With almost infinite variety in between

[bitter shoal]

People usually don’t talk about the shovelware unless it is specifically about that and topics like preservation though, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out what people like

[crystal hill]

Its pretty easy to discover what people like, yeah

Harmony, at least for me, is a diamond in the rough. It plays quite well for the most part and the levels are generally designed well. But a few exceptions drag the experience down somewhat

If you think this is stellar, you're gonna have a great time with other community wads

[slate gyro]

Damn, that honestly hypes me up! I hope the other fan expansions aren't too hardcore, as I'm pretty casual and play on "Hurt me plenty". I can totally see what you mean with the "diamond in the rough" part, as the level I'm currently at is a slog, while the prior ones were really fun and memorable from my point of view. Just hoping there aren't many more levels that spam Cyberdemon equivalents left and right without giving you much ammo

[slate gyro]

Ah, yes, like that illegal compilation of 1000 levels that some people are still trying to beat and upload to YouTube. I guess I'll just play top rated mods that aren't way too challenging for my taste (or feature excessive amounts of bs design)

[woven swallow]

“Are community wads this good?” Of course, have you checked out Eviternity 2?

[royal chasm]

Why is it illegal?

[royal chasm]

Try the Doom Wolfenstein mod

Wolfenstein: Blade of Agony

[woven swallow]

Isn’t that a little too extreme to someone who just started playing custom maps?

[royal chasm]

Youre right

[slate gyro]

It was sold in stores by a company that wasn't id using stolen levels made by the community. Everything about it is plain wrong

[royal chasm]

But you Just have to try brutal Doom and Project brutality

[royal chasm]

Ah ok

[woven swallow]

I’d suggest playing something that is more vanilla, then work your up to boom, then mbf, to mbf21, and then some GZdoom mods

[royal chasm]

I started with gz doom

And then the mods

[slate gyro]

Are they on Doom + Doom 2? I'm a console player, as my laptop is exclusively reserved for high school work

And I just don't have the money or space for a gaming PC

[royal chasm]

Well, you can Play an old Version of brutal Doom on ps4

[royal chasm]

You dont need a gaming PC for those

[woven swallow]

Zdoom mods won’t work for console sadly

[royal chasm]

I used a Laptop with a uhd 620

Now i have a pc

[slate gyro]

I mean that I don't have a PC or laptop to play games on, I play on a PS5 and a Switch a friend of mine let me borrow

[royal chasm]

Ok. But Like i said you can Play an early version of brutal Doom on ps

[woven swallow]

Huh?

[royal chasm]

It makes it way more fun for me

[woven swallow]

What

How? Zdoom mods won’t work for doom + doom2, not even old versions

[royal chasm]

But that brutal Doom Version only works with Doom 1 for some reason. If you start Doom 2, final doom or Other episodes it sends you straight Back to Doom 1

[woven swallow]

You can still play a crushing majority of custom content on a ps5 so, it’s ight, I can suggest a lot that are beginner friendly

[woven swallow]

Can you send a me a link?

[royal chasm]

It in the game

But you need a Bethesda acc

I think

[vast reef]

ew

[slate gyro]

I'm open to suggestions. I have a preference for fan content that includes new weapons or enemies, but I'm willing to try more "vanilla" stuff as long as it isn't too hardcore or simply unfair by design

[woven swallow]

Struggle: Antaresian legacy is very good

new enemies and also re worked the arsenal

Also not too challenging

[slate gyro]

Alright, it's going first on my "to play" list. Just made a Google doc to keep track of good finds

Thanks for the recommendation! If anyone has a piece of fan content they want to recommend me, you can DM at any time (or post the message here so more people can see it, I guess)

I find it funny that one of my friends has a negative opinion of the Doom community, while I think think the majority of it is really cool and dedicated, which is always great to see

[crystal hill]

those are all 1994/95 levels, avoid them like the plague

[bitter shoal]

I just want to point out that one of those shovelware compilations was actually released by iD themselves, ironically.

They used to be willing to skirt the limits of what they could do copyright wise (by that I mean supposedly some of the levels have copyrighted sounds, I don't know if they lifted any levels without permission)

[slate gyro]

Really? I thought their response to those compilations was the Master Levels (most of which I don't really like due to the excessive complexity of the map, that makes me feel completely lost in the worst sense)

[bitter shoal]

Maximum Doom was bundled with Master Levels apparently

[twin mortar]

The Master Levels also came bundled with Maximum DOOM

Funnily enough they made the MLs to combat WizardWorks, a company they later worked with

[slate gyro]

I didn't know since my first classic Doom was the Unity port

[slate gyro]

Damn, what did they do together?

[bitter shoal]

they obviosuly aren't going to re-release MAximum DOOM again. Master Levels was at least something they curated properly even if from what I understand they did not make the best level choices

[twin mortar]

id (or maybe GT?) authorized a map pack they made named Q!ZONE

[slate gyro]

Is it Quake related? Due to the whole "Q" thing

[twin mortar]

Yes

[bitter shoal]

oh I just remembered Maximum DOOM has levels that literally break and show off graphical corruption beyond even hall of mirrors because of vertices being put in wrong locations

[slate gyro]

Someone once said that most of the master levels looked as if the mappers wanted to brag about making a complex map instead of making it fun. I totally agree, as some maps while interesting in concept like the mansion one, are a pain for me to play, and I'm forced to either use a guide or keep wondering what to do now for the next 30 minutes

I like Express Elevator to Hell, tho

[bitter shoal]

I hadn't played Master Levels since I don't own it

Just play Plutonia if you are going to play something old

it was done in 6 months by two brothers newish to mapping and its quality dwarfs so much of what was out at the time

[crystal hill]

I presume custom WADs are fair game for ID (or I guess now Bethesda/Microsoft) to just take and use as their own, legally

since they're fanworks of THEIR IP

[bitter shoal]

the wiki says some of the levels have copyrighted sounds though, which is what I mean

iD be committing the same sins as Skunny

and I fully believe it since the glitched levels prove they didn't curate the package

[crystal hill]

ooooh. Thats unfortunate

but I assume no one will have their asses over this in 2025

when the master levels was an individual game on steam, it didnt include maximum doom (obviously, most of those levels would have been utter trash)

[thorny nest]

Interesting though as a consumer, the illegal (?) shovelware discs might have been some people’s only way to get a lot of custom mods, especially with poor or no internet

[slate gyro]

I already played Plutonia. Some levels I really like, while others are very annoying. The final boss could have also been better, but it's not like classic Doom is full of quality boss fights (at least official ones)

[crystal hill]

oh yes. That's why there was a market for them