Brutal or Vanilla: Which do you prefer?

I prefer vanilla over adding gameplay mods really, as nice and fun and impressive as they are.
I know it's a bit absurd but I feel like I'm cheating the wad author out of the experience they intended to convey when I load up anything that alters the gameplay drastically. The other thing personally is having to draw a line on graphic enhancements, not get used to fancy features from one mod and then have to adjust or dismiss a map set because they are incompatible somehow.

 

1 hour ago, Gifty said:

 

Who are you and why did you steal my face

I was hoping you'd show up ;)

7 hours ago, jamondemarnatural said:

It's the most popular Doom wad ever, so always will have people talking about it. 

“Yup, you young whipper snappers didn’t see what it used to be like around here. This whole community was orange groves Alien Vendetta, Memento Mori and Dwango5 servers as far as the eye could see. We didn’t have your fancy “Gee Zee Dooms” and your newfangled “Brutal” and “Complex” mods. The biggest modifiers we had were DeHackEd patches and poorly made skin packs - and we liked it that way!”

5 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

“Yup, you young whipper snappers didn’t see what it used to be like around here. This whole community was orange groves Alien Vendetta, Memento Mori and Dwango5 servers as far as the eye could see. We didn’t have your fancy “Gee Zee Dooms” and your newfangled “Brutal” and “Complex” mods. The biggest modifiers we had were DeHackEd patches and poorly made skin packs - and we liked it that way!”

Recommend me some skin packs!

Preferably not poor ones. I love skin packs! Check Gothic Doom!

Here are some!

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/150-Skins-Doomguy-Variants

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/9755fb979f49f3fdd07332b8c90eb32d

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/125-Skins

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/Monster-Skins-1

https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/Hunter-Skins

That's just the tip of the icerberg, there's loads on WadArchive if you want to hunt around yourself:

https://www.wad-archive.com/search?q=skins

Also check out the Epidermis Emporium for some funny old crusty skins.

10 hours ago, silentzorah said:

Neither.  Half the fun of Doom is making your own shit.  So I just do that.

Id say... the fun with modern doom is to have a big cauldron... throw good shit in there and finish the doom stew with your own shit :D

brutal doom and oher wads are often able to play well with other stuff... & if not then quick compat wads can often be made

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

“Yup, you young whipper snappers didn’t see what it used to be like around here. This whole community was orange groves Alien Vendetta, Memento Mori and Dwango5 servers as far as the eye could see. We didn’t have your fancy “Gee Zee Dooms” and your newfangled “Brutal” and “Complex” mods. The biggest modifiers we had were DeHackEd patches and poorly made skin packs - and we liked it that way!”

While oldschool deathmatches WERE fun... Im still Thankfull for gzdoom :D :D

10 hours ago, Armaetus said:

it made some custom maps unplayable due to the balancing or voodoo doll bullshittery.

How does BD affect/change voodoo doll behaviour?

5 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

How does BD affect/change voodoo doll behaviour?

It is mentioned by this poster's long hidden image under the spoiler tag. You'll have to increase magnification with your browser to see it better without putting your face closer to your screen.

6 hours ago, Sir Hattington said:

Brutal Doom sucks more dick than the demons in H-Doom.

 

i dont like it

Firstly, "Sucks more dick than demons in H-doom" killed me. Sick burn.

Now to answer the OP's question, I play Brutal Doom or Project Brutality from time to time, like maybe a handful of times a year and it's super fun... for the first few maps. Then it just starts to get boring. So I mostly play vanilla. I don't know what it is about Brutal Doom and Project Brutality but for all the new shiny bits it adds to Doom, it feels like a less complex and watered-down version of doom rather than an expanded version of Doom. I don't know what it is but vanilla Doom feels more advanced and intricate with what it has more than BD. So I play vanilla most of time. Well... that's not entirely true. I play Doom without gameplay mods but with the extra features that ZDoom adds like free look, removal of infinite height and crouching so I guess it's not really vanilla. For gameplay mods, I like Complex Doom (BUT NOT the legendary complex addons or clusterfuck. If Brutal Doom sucks dick then LCA is the king of sucking dick) and, my favorite mod, Doom Hack (I think it's a mod anyway). Again I like Brutal Doom but I just get bored with it really quickly.

I am not satisfied with the question wording itself. If we consider these two things in the context of modding, then Brutal is just a mod (one in a hundreds) and Vanilla is just the basis for them. I got bored of Brutal Doom about five years ago, but I got bored of Vanilla much earlier. And I don't plan to limit myself with a primitive choice like "Brutal or Vanilla".

Smooth Doom

i've touched brutal doom like several year ago, well it's not my taste, i usually tend to play only complex in online games whitout much add-ons btw. Because today you see some complex server with like, 10 or 20 other pk3!? it's insane, lca is already ok but only, or the new version since it's whitout mods (yet).

but offline the thing is diferent, i just play mostly vanilla, like 90% vanilla 10% with ocasional lithium

It depends for me. I prefer vanilla with the retail release usually as Brutal Doom has several design quirks that go against Doom's core design and gameplay loop, but if the map or megawad is designed around Brutal Doom than using BD is a fun time

Imagine if these were ice cream flavors. Do you prefer Chocolate, Vanilla, Rocky Road, Neapolitan, or Brutal?

Vanilla with a coat of paint, mapsets that were made with Vanilla Balance in mind with a high monster count might break with BD.
Slaughterwads are an example.