WAD Progression for Skill Improvement

Sooooo I'm really not that good at doom, and I don't have the skills or expertise to answer this on my own. How does Dark Tartarus stack up to wads like Italo doom and dimensions in terms of difficulty?

I would say Dark Tartarus is not as difficult as Italo Doom and Dimension.

It's always impressive starting in a room full of high class demons, like cybies and viles, but in D Tart, player has a big load of ammo and lots of supportive items to find around.

Plus, the fighting arenas are usually big enough to run around or escape.

3 hours ago, Beelzethoth said:

Sooooo I'm really not that good at doom, and I don't have the skills or expertise to answer this on my own. How does Dark Tartarus stack up to wads like Italo doom and dimensions in terms of difficulty?

Dark tartarus is less difficult than italo Doom in my opinion (tho not all italo maps are equally hard), and nowhere near dimensions.

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Dark tartarus is less difficult than italo Doom in my opinion (tho not all italo maps are equally hard).

I disagree with this, Italo doom maps are short and can be completed deathless in 30mins -1 hour of attemtps, doing that in dark tartarus, specially if you are trying to max, pretty much requires you to cheese encounters or do some outside the box thinking. And tartarus blind saveless is a no no, while it's fine for Italo (if you're good enough at the game ;).

1 minute ago, Ancalagon said:

I disagree with this, Italo doom maps are short and can be completed deathless in 30mins -1 hour of attemtps, doing that in dark tartarus, specially if you are trying to max, pretty much requires you to cheese encounters or do some outside the box thinking.

Yeah I was talking more about difficulty of fights overall, rather than "difficult by virtue of length".

And for the OP, there are non tas runs of all the dimensions maps, the example playthrough should be replaced with one of these as it's nice to see an actual human playing the maps, and my run is also faster than that lazy tas haha.

@Ancalagon Updated the OP with your map01 UV Max. The reason I choose the TAS run initially is because I wanted all the maps there in a playlist but hey, people know how to search so they can figure it out if needed.

20 hours ago, xvertigox said:

This is a thought I've had before. I think there will be a second version of the list with more concise progression order, I'll probably do that in the second post I have in the thread. I wondered about making a placeholder post so I could have the first two and in retrospect I definitely should have done so..

You are certainly welcome to my post, however that would work. If you change your second post I will put some kind of note in the top of mine.

I think your OP is a great starter, and if people want more info they can read the rest of the thread, which has also been great.

The only issue I see with a very long list as @Capellan mentioned is that you'd have much more to keep up with, but I think a reference for someone to say "I heard about [wad] and wonder how hard it is" and have it be in this list would be awesome. So the longer the better in my view.

39 minutes ago, DuckReconMajor said:

The only issue I see with a very long list as @Capellan mentioned is that you'd have much more to keep up with, but I think a reference for someone to say "I heard about [wad] and wonder how hard it is" and have it be in this list would be awesome. So the longer the better in my view.

Well as I said, I think it comes down to "what is the list for?".  If it's to provide a guideline of how hard a WAD is, compared to other WADs (at least in the subjective opinion of the person maintaining the list), then the more WADs you have on it, the better.

If the list is to provide a "list of WADs for players to improve their skill", as described in the OP, then I think a much more restricted list is appropriate, because you're not going to need to play all of the hundreds and hundreds of WADs the other list will have.

Another option is to divide the "full list" into 10 or 12 categories of difficulty, and then just organise WADs into those categories.  Then the "training" approach becomes "try something from the next category up".

1 minute ago, Capellan said:

Well as I said, I think it comes down to "what is the list for?".  If it's to provide a guideline of how hard a WAD is, compared to other WADs (at least in the subjective opinion of the person maintaining the list), then the more WADs you have on it, the better.

 

If the list is to provide a "list of WADs for players to improve their skill", as described in the OP, then I think a much more restricted list is appropriate, because you're not going to need to play all of the hundreds and hundreds of WADs the other list will have.

 

Another option is to divide the "full list" into 10 or 12 categories of difficulty, and then just organise WADs into those categories.  Then the "training" approach becomes "try something from the next category up".

 

I'd like to keep the list(s) consecutively ascended in (general) difficulty. I'll be adding a concise version with a limit of (8?) WADs. The reason I'm not inclined to have the WADs divided into pools is I like having it laid out so I know exactly what I'll be playing next - it makes it feel more structured. That's just my personal preference though. I will be adding notes advising of difficulty equivalency as is currently the case with AA and Valiant.

I must also admit to a morbid curiosity as to where people think Doom 404 sits in the list :)

On 6/26/2019 at 4:57 PM, Roofi said:

I want to propose Killing Adventure for beginners. I played this wad years ago but I remember that levels were short and fun with creative concepts. However I don't know how "Killing Adventure 2" , I just played the first level and it looked way harder.

OMG I just realized this is that Ruba wad from forever ago (or killdave.wad as I affectionately called it). I really need to play it again.

edit: Episode 2 is here. I always forget how terrifying Halls of the Damned is. I am already struggling lol.

edit2: E3!

"Dark Resolution 2008" had some hard maps at the end.  Really good little set too.  

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/dr2008v2

Where would the slaughterfests and other large community projects go?  Some of the community chests have some very difficult maps in them.

Alexander "Eternal" S. made some pretty hard slaughter wads too like Belial's Bad Brain, and Generator of Evil. 

Edit: Also there are Erik Alm's two lesser known wads oneweek.wad and bldnight.wad 

Sooo... I kept quiet at first until I went to re-play them, but I actually agreed with your original decision to list Ultimate Doom Episode 4 later on in the progression. I got most of the way through and quit and went to Fava Beans for now. Some compare E4 to Plutonia and I don't know if it should rate that high but I think it's certainly closer to that than it is to E1-E3 and Fava Beans.

I added flotsam and c-shock 2. Can anyone validate their positions? I'll be adding Dark Tartarus too.

@DuckReconMajor I might move Thy Flesh to it's own entry again. I'll see how it goes.

In regards to my own playthrough - I'm on map29 of Scythe 2 and will probably jump to Stardate 20X6 next.

Thanks for the list. I've been playing doom since 1996, but I've never been good at it. I used to play the original IWads, and I never got to finish Plutonia. I'm definitely going to try the wads on your list. Just curious, how do the Master Levels for Doom 2 fare on this list. Are those on par with Doom 2, or are those harder?

2 hours ago, DavitosanX said:

Thanks for the list. I've been playing doom since 1996, but I've never been good at it. I used to play the original IWads, and I never got to finish Plutonia. I'm definitely going to try the wads on your list. Just curious, how do the Master Levels for Doom 2 fare on this list. Are those on par with Doom 2, or are those harder?

Most of those are challenge maps. I'd say they're pretty hard. Not as hard as Plutonia but still pretty difficult.

On 7/3/2019 at 9:53 PM, xvertigox said:

I added flotsam and c-shock 2. Can anyone validate their positions? I'll be adding Dark Tartarus too.

@DuckReconMajor I might move Thy Flesh to it's own entry again. I'll see how it goes.

 

In regards to my own playthrough - I'm on map29 of Scythe 2 and will probably jump to Stardate 20X6 next.

Ignoring minutia, Sunlust should be moved down to above DVII, and Stardate 20x6 and Flotsam moved up a couple (additional) spots. Finer ordering is possible but that puts them in their appropriate 'tiers'. Similarly, CS2 is in the right ballpark, can be a spot higher.

Scythe 2 is above Speed of Doom in difficulty

Thanks guys, list has been updated.

1 hour ago, xvertigox said:

Thanks guys, list has been updated.

Re Sunlust, above as in, a spot higher in the difficulty hierarchy. 

Why is Sunder so high? Assuming we're talking old Sunder, there is nothing there harder than Combat Shock 2 as far as encounters are concerned, IMO. And even then, none of them reach the difficulty peak of the tightly tuned fights in Stardate or Sunlust. Not to mention all the cheesy ways to handle some setups. Is it all the inescapable pits?

22 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

Why is Sunder so high? Assuming we're talking old Sunder, there is nothing there harder than Combat Shock 2 as far as encounters are concerned, IMO. And even then, none of them reach the difficulty peak of the tightly tuned fights in Stardate or Sunlust. Not to mention all the cheesy ways to handle some setups. Is it all the inescapable pits?

I personally am finding Sunder harder than Sunlust... But I did play Sunlust on HMP so that does tone it down quite a bit. Even some of the HMP encounters were very nasty though.

Am I the only one who thinks Going Down was more difficult than Scythe 2?

Going Down is harder than the first 20 maps of Scythe 2 but not the final 10. The maps are also quite short in comparison.

I'll definitely agree with the first 20 maps bit. Having just finished both very recently for the first time, Going Down just felt like it had me on my toes far more in those last 5-6 maps (excluding 29 and 30) compared to Scythe 2's last 10. It almost doesn't make sense considering the average enemy count difference but that was the case.

Personally I would put Ancient Aliens above Valiant in terms of difficulty.

very nice thread i like it ; because i have the entire ftp folder of doom wads downloaded (using filezilla handy program) so i can pick up any wad listed here based on difficulty :D

20 hours ago, Lucretius said:

very nice thread i like it ; because i have the entire ftp folder of doom wads downloaded (using filezilla handy program) so i can pick up any wad listed here based on difficulty :D

Doom Launcher has idgames integration which makes it very easy to download wads too.

On 7/29/2019 at 6:50 AM, ReaperAA said:

Personally I would put Ancient Aliens above Valiant in terms of difficulty.

Same. Glancing at the list, Moonblood should be at least above Memento Mori. It's roughly Plutonia-difficulty.