Really easy maps that you've overwise loved?

I'm interested in some multi-level wads that people have really liked (design, gameplay) but have otherwise been stupidly easy. For me, vile flesh was one (or it might have been vile core)

kuchitsu by Memfis is one of those small episodes that I liked. Simplistic visuals and good gameplay throughout.

OP: Do you mean on UV? If not, play any average+ mapset on ITYTD.

scifista42 said:

OP: Do you mean on UV? If not, play any average+ mapset on ITYTD.

On any difficulty. I thought a lot of mappers didn't bother to adjust difficulty for anything lower than HMP players.

I don't know why mappers don't make other difficulties. However Scifista you are 100% right. All my maps are the absolute easiest things ever on ITYTD. Difficulty is implemented like this:

Okay there are 20 monsters here....
*Highlights 15 of them*
I'll take the Easy flag off these
*Highlights 5 of them*
I'll take the medium flag off these
DONE!

I almost never test on Easy because it's boring but I like to think someone has to play on the lower difficulties so I keep it anyway haha.

TheNerdTurtle2 said:

I don't know why mappers don't make other difficulties. However Scifista you are 100% right. All my maps are the absolute easiest things ever on ITYTD. Difficulty is implemented like this:

Okay there are 20 monsters here....
*Highlights 15 of them*
I'll take the Easy flag off these
*Highlights 5 of them*
I'll take the medium flag off these
DONE!

I almost never test on Easy because it's boring but I like to think someone has to play on the lower difficulties so I keep it anyway haha.

One of the biggest problems with the Doom Community is everyone constantly loses their crap over difficulty. Mostly because no one will play below UV because nothing is balanced below UV because people just do what you're saying. So the lower difficulties are empty voids not worth touching.

Dimensions of Time by Matt Tropiano has some nice maps and it's overall easy.

Return to Techbase and Transmission from Deimos by Sgt. Shivers are both solid episodes, with a fairly gentle difficulty curve (though the first level of Deimos can get a little hairy).

MAP01 of any megawad.

Jimmy said:

MAP01 of any megawad.

back in the day I died a ton on the first maps of Plutonia and Icarus =P

In answer to teh OP, I'd say ALT Map 02. A really haunting and exposed plane crash site mostly populated by basic zombiemen with a handful of Hell Knights and mid-tier creeps mixed in... the mood, the shadows and the slight strangeness of the route to the exit makes it my type of masterpiece. ALT goes on to be challenging but this map sticks with me for other reasons.

Tarnsman said:

no one will play below UV because nothing is balanced below UV because people just do what you're saying. So the lower difficulties are empty voids not worth touching.

I'm hoping more authors eventually adopt the strategy of having HMP be the "main" difficulty (i.e. the one that receives the most balance and fine-tuning to be enjoyable), letting HNTR and UV be slightly 'unbalanced' in the easy/hard directions, respectively. there's a nice freedom that comes with designing UV to be balls-hard and justifying it with "well, you asked for it by picking this setting" :p

There was this one town styled map for some "x number of lines" challenge, it was so small and compact but I just can't remember what it was titled.

The first episode of Requiem.

Secretdoom: The Green Machine by CyberDemon531 - simple maps, but with great exploratory factor. The wad has a precedessor Disrepair, which I've found less appealing, though.

I never dislike a well made map if it's too easy. Too easy will not piss me off. Too hard will.

Ribbiks said:

I'm hoping more authors eventually adopt the strategy of having HMP be the "main" difficulty (i.e. the one that receives the most balance and fine-tuning to be enjoyable), letting HNTR and UV be slightly 'unbalanced' in the easy/hard directions, respectively. there's a nice freedom that comes with designing UV to be balls-hard and justifying it with "well, you asked for it by picking this setting" :p

People have forgotten that UV is hard, not default. HMP is default/medium. Personally, I've stopped playing everything on UV, just as I've stopped playing new games on the highest possible difficulty. It's stupid. If I feel it's too easy, I can always turn it up.

The main reason I would play UV is for the most enemies in a map, if there was an alternative UV mode with the same amount of enemies but reduced damage to the player like the first few difficulty levels then that would be good.

@Avoozl: You can make your own simple mod with a custom MAPINFO / Skill definition to achieve just what you wanted, and use it with regular wads.

at least one of my maps in Pcorf Community Project 2 is very easy to beat.

generally, if a map is too hard on ITYTD then it's not a good map at all.

Real is so easy it's kind of bizarre, but also kind of cute. It is almost entirely populated by weak monsters, and it basically treats mid-level Doom monsters as bosses -- I think on UV there's one pain elemental, three arachnotrons, and a final showdown with one arch-vile (in a 6-level episode).

I truly dont care what people think of these, but they are multi level and not that hard because i like them simple but fun ;

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/71843-delusion-of-eternity-ex-scareware/
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/68160-tech-dead-with-lead-e1-bug-fix-1/

Excuse me for posting my own maps, but i do not upload to idgames (yet).

Gravity.

Fava Beans.

I still think this is the only E1 clone that really understood and managed to replicate the design philosophy behind the original maps - despite not slavishly sticking to E1's resources.

E2M4 Redux. I like the atmosphere.

(It's technically spread across two maps so...)

Dmonfear

Revolution!

I quite like easy maps. There's a definite skill to creating low challenge encounters that remain engaging.

yakfak said:

In answer to teh OP, I'd say ALT Map 02. A really haunting and exposed plane crash site mostly populated by basic zombiemen with a handful of Hell Knights and mid-tier creeps mixed in... the mood, the shadows and the slight strangeness of the route to the exit makes it my type of masterpiece. ALT goes on to be challenging but this map sticks with me for other reasons.

i'm a big fan of this map as well.

honestly i like several of the early levels from older wads like Memento Mori 1/2 and Requiem because they're more focused on the design and maybe having a few tricky bits, but mostly moving along pretty nicely. i like the challenge to be a little spread out, not all-encompassing, i guess. i also like how those maps are shorter and to the point - they get less bloated with their ideas and instead try on focus to sticking to a mood or concept and then finishing when it's done. or the difficulty is about navigating interesting traps instead of just surviving sheer amounts of enemies.

in general, i like trickiness and cleverness in the design but i'm usually not really a fan of "hard", esp "Doom hard". and most of the time i feel a lot more positive about when something's too easy than when it's too hard, as long as it gets its ideas across anyway.

also - if a map is too boring on ITYTD, it doesn't exactly convince me that it's that great of a map.

Appropriate application of difficulty settings is hard to do. I don't bitch about difficulty often because I'm a very persistent player, but it is annoying enough when a map has kicked my ass so much that switching to lesser difficulty does too little or too much. Oh great there's one extra stimpack, that'll really come in handy for the archvile spam around the corner that keeps destroying me. Btw thanks for that extra box of rockets for the launcher I don't have. Or otoh, you get stuck on this one trap closet with a ton of revenants, then play on hmp and POOF they're all gone!

Difficulty is tricky and it does depend on people being aware on what makes their map harder than others. In most cases just giving the player his super shotgun or berserk pack early alleviates most of the trouble. But simply adding ammo here and there or deleting half the monsters is a half-assed way to do it.

In most cases, changing harder monsters to their easier counterparts on lesser difficulties is the way to go. Chaingun guys into shotgun guys, shotgun guys into imps, revenants into hell knights, hell knights into cacodemons, mancubi into hell barons, pain elementals into a few lost souls, lost souls into pinky demons, spectres into pinky demons, etc. (disclosure: more health doesn't mean harder)

Access to armor, powerups, and weapons much earlier will fix a lot of difficulty problems, where you'd be a vulnerable mess with no armor shotgunning and chaingunning everything on hard.

Its also considerate to modify the functionality of traps. If you've got a bunch of monster closets that open up when you pick up a key, try adding a couple extras monsters to all of them, while taking all the monsters out of one of the closets, giving the player a place to retreat and have his back against a wall while he mows down the crowd. If you have monsters teleport in front and behind you in a hallway, remove one of the teleport destinations so monsters only teleport in front, giving the player less multitasking to do and more freedom of movement.

Favorite easy maps of all time -- Fava Beans. I worship this mapset. Too bad about E1M8, though.

I think removing armour on harder difficulties is a fairly profound change. Doom usually plays like this knock-about game where you soak up large amounts of damage in exchange for the freedom to move like a maniac, so exchanging that type of gameplay by force for more snipy, safety-net-less action isn't a change in difficulty so much as a change in approach altogether.

is it just me? the original E4M1 bugs me on UV precisely because you can't fuck around at all =P