Convince me that Brutal doom is Overrrated

The biggest reason Brutal Doom gets so much hate from anybody in the community is because it is often seen on the outside as "THE WAY to play Doom!!"

Often times you see gameplay videos of mapsets (ones that I have actually worked on!) played all the way through using brutal, and then you get complaints that it's too hard or imbalanced. Fuck that, why should we balance our wad for not Doom? It's already catered towards an actual Doom experience!

Essentially, I've got no problem with the mod itself -- people can play and enjoy whatever they want --, but it seems to be pervading every aspect of what everyone thinks Doom is all about. And it just isn't. Doom isn't a 13-year-old's mortal kombat hypergore power fantasy. It's a carefully balanced game of speed, skill, and level design that at its very best is perfectly complimented by its original design.

Brutal Doom doesn't enhance what Doom's core gameplay is already about, and it doesn't make it just a "better" version of Doom. It fundamentally changes Doom's gameplay, and in the process loses pretty much everything that makes Doom special in the first place. At least, I believe that.

So that's it. It's frustrating. Maybe it's silly to be so frustrated by it, since it really doesn't matter, but I'm human and I get frustrated. But it's a mod, go play it if you like it. Just remember that you aren't actually playing Doom.

BlackFish said:

Heh. I remember watching TotalBiscuit's video and he was like "They added x [zdoom feature] into Brutal Doom" and I was like "What!? No he didn't!". Surprised even him didn't do some simple research before producing a video.

A youtuber not do research? The HELL you say!

VGA said:

If you're gonna post something like that then state your reasons, if any.

Well what Blackfish pointed out was one reason, obviously.

Another is his attitude. I don't like it. It comes off as rather stuck up to me. Another is what he said when he didn't want to review that shitty Titan Souls game. Said due to the dev's actions that his opinion would be biased, but every opinion is biased. All opinions are subjective. They may be based on fact but in the end they are all opinions, and that's all a critic can really give. Even my opinion that TB is a twat is biased, because I don't like him much, but even then it would be even if I loved him otherwise.

Basically, it gives off an air that he thinks his opinion is normally always true, but due to circumstances it's been tainted by the author making fun of him and calling him a silly name like "Toiletbiscuit." Really seems more to me like he just got butthurt and needed a professional-sounding reason to 'boycott' if you will the dev's dumb game.

But that's just an opinion, yo.

VGA said:

For gameplay mods I suggest Smooth Doom with Gzdoom and Doom Forever with 3DGE.

Much muuuch better IMO.

As far as I know, Smooth Doom don't changes the gameplay (except the "fast demons" option). But yeah, it's my first choice when I think in aesthetic mods. The funny thing is that SD was idealized by Mark heh

edit: Doom Forever is very cool too. I tried 3DGE for the first time just to play it.

John Romero said it's good so everyone else thinks that everyone else at id wanted Doom to be Brutal Doom despite the fact Romero isn't everyone at id especially since he left after Quake.

Also the fact that Brutal Doom was the #1 mod on the entirety of ModDB around v20's release overshadowing #2 by miles. It does not deserve such a status for what it is and what it's done.

Nems said:

Other ones to check out are Zero Tolerance, Weapons of Saturn, WildWeasel's Terrorists!, Scalliano's 667 Shuffle (one of my favorite randomizer mods), QuakeStyle ZX (another fun randomizer mod), Psychic, Project MSX, Quake - Descent into Heresy (this is a Heretic mod but still good I think), OSCJ's Old Skool Mod, OSJC's Doom 3 Remix Mod, WildWeasel's Nazis!, Hunter's Moon (aka Quake III + some Doom 3 in GZDoom also holy shit Revilution makes some damn good eye candy maps to go with the mod), Hard Doom 6.9, EriGuns, Dark Doom, Colorful Hell (another randomizer mod that can get pretty tough real fast if RNGesus feels like playing rough), and 10x (there's like...I wanna say three different versions floating around the internet: CutmanMike's original, another by sonic_HD87 with support for almost all Doom engine games, and another by The Zombie Killer that has a sv_10xu_mul cvar to let you have more or less than 10x).

-------

-"game journalists" who gushed and creamed themselves over the mod while looking over and/or ignoring other mods (that other people may think are just as worthy of praise as BD, if not more so)

While it's personal taste, what gameplay mods do you find better than Brutal Doom? And is that list pretty much every gameplay mod you know of, or do you genuinely find them all to be really good?

I generally don't post negative stuff about things fans worked hard on, but... I tried Terrorists yesterday, and I didn't think it was very good. Didn't like the feel, the animations are bad... I tried it because it was on one of those lists hating on Brutal Doom saying hey here's the real deal. I think those lists are just trying to point at any other mod, even if Brutal Doom is much better.

I'm not even a hardcore Brutal Doom fan, played it for the first time a few weeks ago. It just to me seems head and shoulders above the competition.

SavageCorona said:

Also the fact that Brutal Doom was the #1 mod on the entirety of ModDB around v20's release overshadowing #2 by miles. It does not deserve such a status for what it is and what it's done.

I genuinely don't see the logic in that. It's #1 because lots of people download it. Apparently lots of people are interested, people with different taste than yourself. What does deserve have to do with it? But that said, what are your fav gameplay mods?

Pavera said:

Just remember that you aren't actually playing Doom.

They're playing Brutal Doom. A Doom mod, here on the WADS & Mods forum. I do agree with you that it's odd how some expect every WAD to be balanced for that particular mod.

I've taken a look at videos of lots of weapon mods for example, and a lot of them don't appeal to me. For the record my favorite mod ever is Action Half-Life. Any Doom mods that give you say badass dual pistols to use with the iwads, and stuff like that?

A lot of the weapon mods like Demonsteele are impressive looking, but ultimately I'm not interested in slashing Doom gameplay. And some of these mods are "overkill" for me, pun intended. And Overkill is one of my favorite bands.

It IS harder to masturbate to mods that aren't Brutal Doom. Definite plus for Sarge.

I've tried brutal doom 3 times. All 3 times I get to underhalls, and stop playing. Brutal Doom destroys the weapon and monster balance I'm used to and slows everything down for some nice gibs and monster deaths. If I wanted that I'd play a more modern game.

Demonsteele actually reinforces my 'kill lots of monsters up close' playstyle despite how bad melee works in doom, with the power behind the sword, iron maiden mode, and the short invincibility phase after a hit. I'd give it a try before settling on brutal doom.

Captain Ventris said:

It IS harder to masturbate to mods that aren't Brutal Doom. Definite plus for Sarge.

Ah, the ol' vague snarky internet reply that doesn't really talk to anybody in particular or have a purpose.

I agree the Quake 3 character Sarge is a classic badass though.

I think the fatalities and Doom Comic quotes are kinda funny. But I can't be bothered to play it myself, I just watch vids on Youtube.

I did find it amusing that the Zdoom forums have banned Brutal Doom discussion, but the first five pages of their projects forum is all weapon mods, by people hoping to make the next Brutal Doom. Are there any mappers left?

ArmouredBlood said:

Demonsteele actually reinforces my 'kill lots of monsters up close' playstyle despite how bad melee works in doom, with the power behind the sword, iron maiden mode, and the short invincibility phase after a hit.

I got through so many maps by just running at monsters and mashing mouse in Demonsteele it's not even fucking funny. Also, the katana takes fucking forever to kill an enemy and the sounds are so cartoonish that it feels more like you're hitting them with a rubber chicken than a sword.

No thanks, yo.

Jaxxoon R said:

and the sounds are so cartoonish that it feels more like you're hitting them with a rubber chicken than a sword.

Brb alternate weapon skin.

I kind of lost interest in the Brutal Doom series. I did play the latest version (V_20) and the only thing I really liked about it was the duel wielding of weapons. That's really it. Everything else is just meh.

PsychoGoatee said:

I generally don't post negative stuff about things fans worked hard on, but... I tried Terrorists yesterday, and I didn't think it was very good. Didn't like the feel, the animations are bad...

Which animations? If they're the enemy animations, then that's more or less by design, because I used the enemy sprites from William Shatner's TekWar to make it look and feel like an early-1990s light-gun shooter, a la Lethal Enforcers. The "photo-sourced" look is essential to its cheesiness.

If you mean the weapon animations...well, dammit, I worked hard on those. =P

I'm not upset that you didn't like the mod. Clearly, you have your own tastes that just don't match up with my own, and I respect that.

o lawd, this topic...

I dislike BD. It's just a load of unnecessarily obnoxious shit mashed together with little or no attention paid to keeping a level of difficulty balance which doesn't completely fuck up most existing mapsets. Some features would work well, if the mod itself wasn't largely one big bloated clusterfuck of stuff that's in there for the sake of being in there. Long-winded (and laughably animated) fatalities? Giving the finger? Taunting Hellspawn?

The fuck are you, 12 years old?

It panders to kids and retards with short attention-spans. I don't just dislike it. I can't fucking stand it.

Speaking about Brutal Doom, these might interest you: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=47229
And this: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=37865

I used to only play Brutal Doom. But then it got old for me.

I LOVE the enhanced attacks and faster projectiles. I love the lighting enhancements. But it doesn't tickle my nostalgia the way that the original doom does.

WildWeasel said:

Which animations? If they're the enemy animations, then that's more or less by design, because I used the enemy sprites from William Shatner's TekWar to make it look and feel like an early-1990s light-gun shooter, a la Lethal Enforcers. The "photo-sourced" look is essential to its cheesiness.

If you mean the weapon animations...well, dammit, I worked hard on those. =P

I'm not upset that you didn't like the mod. Clearly, you have your own tastes that just don't match up with my own, and I respect that.

I did mean the enemy animations, but I really like Lethal Enforcers so I'm not against the style. It's hard to describe, just overall the "feel" didn't work for me. And while it's cool that you don't mind feedback, this is why I generally don't say anything negative. Very tight community.

I've been working for weeks on a map for a game just wanting stuff like windows and doors to work properly, and it hasn't been pretty. So I try not to say negative stuff about user mods. Just in this context, had to pick an example to show why I find Brutal Doom is doing some things in my opinion particularly well, in relation to other mods.

The feel of the weapons are great, the animations all around are great, etc. But can't beat classic gameplay. (Well, classic-ish, I mean with mouse aiming in GZDoom.)

Hdoom is better

Convince me that this thread won't turn to shit.

@ Nems

Nems said:

DoomRL Arsenal and/or DoomRPG a shot if you want more stats and RNGesus in your gameplay experience.

This has my interest. Thanks for the suggestion!

Nems said:

Other ones to check out are Zero Tolerance, Weapons of Saturn, WildWeasel's Terrorists!, Scalliano's 667 Shuffle (one of my favorite randomizer mods), QuakeStyle ZX (another fun randomizer mod), Psychic, Project MSX, Quake - Descent into Heresy (this is a Heretic mod but still good I think), OSCJ's Old Skool Mod, OSJC's Doom 3 Remix Mod, WildWeasel's Nazis!, Hunter's Moon (aka Quake III + some Doom 3 in GZDoom also holy shit Revilution makes some damn good eye candy maps to go with the mod), Hard Doom 6.9, EriGuns, Dark Doom, Colorful Hell (another randomizer mod that can get pretty tough real fast if RNGesus feels like playing rough), and 10x (there's like...I wanna say three different versions floating around the internet: CutmanMike's original, another by sonic_HD87 with support for almost all Doom engine games, and another by The Zombie Killer that has a sv_10xu_mul cvar to let you have more or less than 10x).

What a huge list. I'm not sure what to try first. But I do believe I may have tried a couple of them. I find myself to be fussy with most custom wads. But I will be looking for those awarded by the Cacoawards.

Nems said:

As I said before, people claiming that BD is "Doom the way it's meant to be" likely has a lot to do with people's dislike of it. Other reasons include:

-asking/demanding(?) that BD be made compatible with certain mapsets and other mods
-BD fanboys shitting all over other mods
-Sgt. Mark's less-than-pleasant behavior, attitude, and ego that got him banned from most Doom communities
-"game journalists" who gushed and creamed themselves over the mod while looking over and/or ignoring other mods (that other people may think are just as worthy of praise as BD, if not more so)
-increased feature bloat as BD development went along

I'm likely echoing what other people have already said. However, there you have it.

Thanks for the direct answers.

Seriously a shame when it comes to sgt_Mark's attitude. I will admit I was suspicious of his character when it came to his comments on Doom 4, his BD Taunts, middle finger feature and Demon Ball kicking. However I didn't want to believe it. But I want to be involved with the community and felt it necessary to know what's the story behind a Wad I quite like.

I think it goes without saying that if he was humble, modest, gave more credit to others, a bit more subtle on the features and just more friendly his Wads would of been far more respected by the Doom Communities. But he put it on himself.

@ Pavera

Pavera said:

The biggest reason Brutal Doom gets so much hate from anybody in the community is because it is often seen on the outside as "THE WAY to play Doom!!"

Often times you see gameplay videos of mapsets (ones that I have actually worked on!) played all the way through using brutal, and then you get complaints that it's too hard or imbalanced. Fuck that, why should we balance our wad for not Doom? It's already catered towards an actual Doom experience!

Essentially, I've got no problem with the mod itself -- people can play and enjoy whatever they want --, but it seems to be pervading every aspect of what everyone thinks Doom is all about. And it just isn't. Doom isn't a 13-year-old's mortal kombat hypergore power fantasy. It's a carefully balanced game of speed, skill, and level design that at its very best is perfectly complimented by its original design.

Brutal Doom doesn't enhance what Doom's core gameplay is already about, and it doesn't make it just a "better" version of Doom. It fundamentally changes Doom's gameplay, and in the process loses pretty much everything that makes Doom special in the first place. At least, I believe that.

So that's it. It's frustrating. Maybe it's silly to be so frustrated by it, since it really doesn't matter, but I'm human and I get frustrated. But it's a mod, go play it if you like it. Just remember that you aren't actually playing Doom.

It definitely seems to be one of the major points behind the infamous Wad. Not only am I learning about Sgt_Marks attitude but now almost all other Wads are being either ignored or 'needs' to be catered towards BD.

I understand and totally appreciate the rationale behind your frustration. your time, effort and imagination invested into your wads are essentially super-seeded or credited to Brutal Doom because ignorant fans, particular the Shepard's of the herd (youtube celebrities) use your Wads to promote BD and literally leave you out to dry. And to add Salt on the wound the fans pop on these communities and push it onto you.

Yeah, I would feel the same.


@ J.B.R

J.B.R said:

Speaking about Brutal Doom, these might interest you: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=47229
And this: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=37865

Hey thanks for the links and updates. Although I do find v20 of BD to be too bloated of features even for my liking and the persons Wad is taking it further. Although, I do want the extra fatalities haha.

Truer to Vanilla Doom, BD Wad eh? That's pretty good. It's also interesting to see some fans correcting sgt_marks bugs far more quickly than he can develop any content or fixes.

@ SYS

SYS said:

Convince me that this thread won't turn to shit.

Actually it's going quite well. This thread is surprisingly civil with valid points getting across. There are only a few snide comments like yours.

It's not overrated. But I find a lot of people hate it for some bazaar reason.

i do like brutal doom, i just dislike some attitudes and actions that mark had in the past (wich i dont know if he still holds). i think thats the position that most people have here. also like a lot of people id like to see maps that are balanced specifically for the mod

that said, my fave mod is by far demonsteele, wich i find insanely fun
i think a lot of people here prefer project msx, wich is also pretty good

as for mods that dont affect gameplay, smoothdoom + droplets is pure gold

raymoohawk said:

i think a lot of people here prefer project msx, wich is also pretty good

That one's probably my favorite, next to the Space Pirate of course.

PsychoGoatee said:

While it's personal taste, what gameplay mods do you find better than Brutal Doom? And is that list pretty much every gameplay mod you know of, or do you genuinely find them all to be really good?

Those are all mods I have played and saved in my GZDoom folder. I generally don't keep a mod if I don't have fun with it. :P

Personally if I had to choose a mod I found better it would be DoomRL Arsenal and DoomRPG. They don't break most level sets in terms of functionality (gameplay balance, on the other hand, is questionable) and the gameplay feels like it compliments and extends vanilla gameplay without changing it drastically.

I'd also recommend Scalliano's 667 shuffle. You're still at the mercy of RNGesus like with any randomizer mod but this one is (in my opinion) a lot more coherent and consistent in terms of its selection of monsters and weapons versus AEOD.

Chezza said:

Thanks for the direct answers.

Anytime man. Glad I could help. :)

Nems said:

Personally if I had to choose a mod I found better it would be DoomRL Arsenal and DoomRPG.

In regards to DoomRL Arsenal - These weapons all seem to reload (I like that) but I'm guessing they don't have Iron Sights yeah? Just confirming.

You know if the monsters died in multiple forms that would really tickle my fancy.

A good mod combo is using Weapons of Saturn or Faspons with the Random Decorations and Deaths, which results in a very satisfing and improved experience.
WoS:http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36821
Faspons:http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=48985
RDND:http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=45723
Just remember, you need to load the weapons mod before RDND and make sure it dosen't replace monsters if you are using other weapon mods.

VGA said:

If you're gonna post something like that then state your reasons, if any.

A bit late to the party but all I can say is:

Framerate Police.

Hey, I also don't want to convince you to stop playing and enjoying a mod simply because I (or anyone else) said they don't like it. Please don't let anyone tell you to do anything that you don't want to do. :)

Pavera said:

The biggest reason Brutal Doom gets so much hate from anybody in the community is because it is often seen on the outside as "THE WAY to play Doom!!"

Yup. I love things that are tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top like Brutal Doom, but for some reason lots of people (including the author) take it deadly serious, as if it was how "Doom was always supposed to be."

On top of that, I've seen far too many "why won't this mapset run work with Brutal Doom" inquiries... which is fine until they then blame the mapset as if Brutal Doom compatability is something that should be required of every mapset because "Brutal Doom IS Doom".