Which map is harder, E4M1 Hell Beneath or E4M2 Perfect Hatred?

I heard that a lot of Doom players say E4M2 is harder than E4M1 due to the powerfull monsters there, but some other players think E4M1 is harder. So which is harder, in your opinion?

For me, E4M2 is harder than E4M1 due to everything tricky and complicated, even with the George Bell BFG Grab or Steffen Winterfeldt Jump. Would you support or oppose with that difficulty of Perfect Hatred > difficulty of Hell Beneath?

Both of them are a pain in the ass.

E4M6 :P

Both are sort of easy for me now, especially the BFG grab for E4M2. Winterfeldt jump doesn't really change the difficulty if you're going for max. If you're talking about blind playthrough, E4M2 is definitely harder because it forces you to go fast.

If played properly the E4M1 is a bit harder than E4M2 because you can have the ammo from the previous map. However, I haven't tried E4M2 with pistol start.

1 minute ago, leodoom85 said:

If played properly the E4M1 is a bit harder than E4M2 because you can have the ammo from the previous map. However, I haven't tried E4M2 with pistol start.

If you have a lot of experience from later WADs, you'll probably feel nothing if you know what's going on E4M2, especially having a bunch of powerful weapons on this map.

Yeah, that's why I'll try E4M2 with pistol start and give a proper opinion for both maps.

Just now, leodoom85 said:

Yeah, that's why I'll try E4M2 with pistol start and give a proper opinion for both maps.

Try no BFG grab, no Winterfeldt jump and max it within 5 min ;P

First of all, what's the Winterfeldt jump?

Just now, leodoom85 said:

First of all, what's the Winterfeldt jump?

You can strafe run to get pass a bar requires a key (probably Blue Skull, I forgot) on the BFG grab platform. If you're going for max, this doesn't really matter.

AH....never knew of that nor did that jump ever.

In case you don't know what's a Winterfeldt Jump, this should be it. It's a speedrun trick to get pass the level quick. It's used together with the BFG bump in the shown platform. I don't know whether I'm correct though ;P

I see. I'll do some practice someday with that map by doing UV-Max in the fastest way possible

As mentioned above, I find e4m2 more difficult because it forces you to play fast and the environment is very unfriendly. Meanwhile e4m1 becomes much easier with slow and careful play.

E4M1. E4M2 is a fucking cake walk.

E4M2 is a beast when it comes to challenge.

e4m2 can go back to Hell from whens it came.

The reality is that both maps are objectively hard, no matter how advanced you are. Even if you know both maps like the back of your hand, it doesn't make them easy per se, but easier for yourself. 

I've just tried them both and aside from dying three times in each map, at the end both are equally hard for me, the first one because of the shotgunners and barely no health supplies, and the second one because of the lava, it's the thing most pressure gave me. They sure will be much easier from now on, I suppose, I haven't played them back since last year. 

E4M2 is harder for me, though I also find it more fun. Both maps have their merits though, and when I did Doom 1 pistol starts a few months back I found them to be the some of the most fun maps of Doom 1.

E4M1 has some difficulty spikes in higher skill levels, and it's totally worrying in UV because of no health supplies, and insane in NM because you can't even tell now teleports from respawning.

I used to cope with E4M1 because I was lucky to find the rocket launcher. I wouldn't imagine myself dealing with that baron (why is there a baron in the first level?!) with just the shotgun. Also, that torch trap is evil. Great way of punishing me for looking for secrets! Also totally disproportionate. This level is a nightmare. It probably doesn't qualify as the hardest, because it's small.

E4M2 is a classic legend of sorts. It appears in the demos. It's the first level after you see the twisted non-mapped intermission (which spells that things are no longer calm). And you start ambushed by lots of cacos, for which the shell ammo barely counts (and I used to die at the beginning to restore health). And nearly every encounter has a baron. But what I like about this level is that you get consistently rewarded every time. I also really like its new design stuff, unseen so far in Doom 1, such as locked switches or multi-destination teleporters (to return more heavily in E4M6).

Both levels are challenging, but the first one is less forgiving. It's not a problem because it's small and restarting doesn't waste much time. Second level's purpose is to help you progress, only to give you tougher challenges.

It's only by level 3 when the difficulty lowers, even though the density of enemies is still higher than in first three Doom 1 episodes. I think id felt like you somehow "passed the test" of first two levels. Level six is an exception however, which is just as hard as m1 and m2, albeit in more of a puzzle sort of way, though the boss battle is fierce anyway.

Anyway, the entire episode 4 has memorable levels with a great dark fantasy theme. I dislike thinking they take place on Earth; they look more to me like Hexen or Quake.

E4M1, you can't kill everything and you're always hurting and running low on supplies by the time you get to the second map, always on UV.

Actually you can kill everything, even the nightmare trap. But you need to use the environment to your advantage. Successful demos shall show the solution, but try to figure it out yourself first.

E4M1 is harder due to tight spaces.

1 hour ago, cyan0s1s said:

E4M1, you can't kill everything

Interesting, I always get 100% kills.

E4M1 for me. I didn't like the lack of ammo in it and the 5000 Barons that can be found inside the level (ok, they are not that many).

I also had some trouble with E4M2 in the beginning, but when I came up with a plan, the map became really fun and it is one of my favourites from this episode. And this map is luckily a training course for E4M6 (as far as lava goes), which is a big plus. 

If going for 100% kills, definitely M1. The Baron trap requires you to save as much ammo as possible and forces you to squeeze as much value as you can out of the few rockets you get, maximizing the splash damage. The only level in the entire Doom, where it is a big deal if you miss even a single shotgun shell and actually have to manage ammo strictly. Makes for one of the best levels of Doom 1.

M2 was hard, but only on the first playthrough of the map I ever did many years ago. Once you know what to do there, it becomes relatively easy whereas M1 is always a nice challenge.

I have no trouble at all with M1 from pistol start, where as M2 gets me now and again even to this day. Falling into the lava a second time = buh-bye. E4M1 becomes piss easy if you just take it slow. Wake up the shotgunners then pop them off around the corner from the start room.

If you're going for 100/100/100, maybe M1 is harder. Not totally sure since I've never really played for max scores, I just want to reach the exit in one piece.

While I've managed both on keyboard on UV (I've only just started playing with keyboard+mouse; it really is better!), E4M2 takes it for me, and is easily the hardest map in Ultimate Doom.

Personally I barely see how this is even a comparison. E4M1 can slaughter you right at the beginning, but if you make it past that, it comes down to a handful of simple steps; it's a short starting map. E4M2 is much longer, has platforming and plenty of inconvenient monsters, and a lot more has to go right. Its beginning is also hellacious, whether you're continuing on hurt from M1 or pistol starting.

That's just to finish both; I'm willing to believe E4M1 is harder if you're going for 100%, but then it just comes down to forcing an extra Baron fight on you at the end with its limited resources, and that's kind of lame.

On 8/9/2017 at 4:36 AM, Xyzzy01 said:

E4M6 :P

Harder doesn't justify it enough lol.

In my opinion, the hardest official level for doing a legit UV 100%/100%/100% run from pistol start is actually Hell Keep for console releases. Health is very scarce, armor is non-existent and ammo is extremely scarce. In fact, there is no enough ammo to kill all enemies and there is no chainsaw or berserk pack. Just to make things worse, neither the map layout nor the enemies layout are good for instigating in-fights.

Personally, when I play Doom in my real PS console and I want to warp to this level via a password, I need to do so via one generated password (9N1X95Z111) with 50 extra bullets, 20 shells and 100 cells, so that this level becomes, more or less, playable and completable.