⬆️ Doomworld Community Top WADs of All Time (resurrected)

Sunlust - 7

Lost Civilization - 6
Counterattack - 6

Valiant - 4
Ancient Aliens - 4

Nihility - 4 
Stardate 20x6 - 4 

Back to Saturn X e2 - 4 
Back to Basics - 4 

JPCP - 4 

Ashes 2063 - 4 
Violence - 4 

Will just cycle around my top-25 for some of the later spots every time I update this.

On 5/17/2017 at 2:52 PM, StoneMason said:

10 - BTSX E2

5 - Alien Vendetta

5 - Ancient Aliens

5 - BTSX E1

5 - Icarus

5 - Kama Sutra

5 - Memento Mori

5 - Resurgence

5 - Speed of Doom

5 - Swift Death

I think I should update this.

As much as I have nostalgia for Memento Mori and Icarus, I think I have to admit that they're not nearly as strong as what has come after.

I also still like Swift Death, but I've found more wads I like over it.

Also gonna re-distribute the points a little, making sure it still totals to the 55 maximum.

10 - BTSX E2

7 - Ancient Aliens

7 - Sunlust

7 - Valiant

4 - Alien Vendetta

4 - BTSX E1

4 - Eviternity

4 - Kama Sutra

4 - Resurgence

4 - Speed of Doom

Updating mine too:

1. Struggle: Antaresian Legacy - 10
2. Eviternity - 9
3. Ancient Aliens - 8
5. Resurgence - 7
4. Valiant - 6
6. Scythe II - 5
7. Speed of Doom - 4
8. Alien Vendetta - 3
9.Scythe - 2 
10. Memento Mori II - 1

Damn, ten entries is very restrictive in retrospect. Well, it can't be helped when you have that much content content to work with, even a lot of really good stuff is going to have to lose. Potential replacements once I familiarize myself with them more: Epic 2, Unholy Realms, Going Down, Sunlust, Sunder, Death in Excess. Couldn't fit in: BTSX E1/E2, Hell Ground, Frozen Time, UAC Ultra, Sacrament,Scythe X, Lunatic, possibly some others I'm not thinking of right now.

Also, you can tell this thread's biggest activity boom were before Eviternity's release... I think we're due for a lot of updates.

23 minutes ago, Budoka said:

Damn, ten entries is very restrictive in retrospect.

On 10/8/2019 at 9:22 PM, m8f said:

Here you can vote for 10 to 20 of your favorite WADs

Yeah but I can't give them enough points. But that makes sense, I wasn't complaining or anything just to be clear. It's just a reflection and a consequence of just how much classic Doom mappers have accomplished.

rd, StoneMason, Budoka, thank you for updating your votes!

The tally in the OP has been updated.

6 points - Eviternity

6 points - Going Down

6 points - Extermination Day

6 points - Valiant

6 points - Alien Vendetta

5 points - UAC Ultra

5 points - Triton 2

5 points - Speed of Doom

5 points - Scythe

5 points - BTSX

behemoth_667,  thank you for voting! Your vote for BTSX is counted for BTSX E1. If you meant otherwise, please let me know.

The tally in the OP has been updated.

10- Speed of Doom

5- Equinox

5- Lunatic

7- Alien Vendetta

7- Ancient Aliens

5- JPCP

5- Eviternity

5- Scythe 2

3-Going Down

3- Hell Ground

Boy, thank you for voting!

The tally in the OP has been updated.

Update:

3 to Strange Aeons

4 to Action Doom 1

3 to Batman Reborn

4 to Harmony

4 to Doom Tribute

4 to Dawn of Reality

3 to Pleiades

3 to City Assault

4 to so called "City of DooM Part I BETA 1-11" (cod1-11.wad)

4 to Damned City 2

3 to Europe

4 to Neighborhood from Hell

3 to Return of The Triad
5 to Planisphere 2

4 to Robocop Doom

MM2 - 9

Darkening 2 - 8

Caverns of Darkness - 7

Brotherhood of Ruin - 6

Skepland - 5

Bauhaus - 4

Vrack3 - 3

Sunlust - 2

2002ADO - 1

Alfonzone - 1

Alien Vendetta - 1

Can't Run From Evil - 1

Community Chest 2 - 1

Eternal Doom - 1

Plutonia 2 - 1

Requiem - 1

4 Seasons of Doom - 1

Slayer - 1

Strain - 1

Please keep in mind that Brotherhood of Ruin and Brotherhood of Ruin: Lost Temple are not the same WAD. joepallai's points are wrongly attributed to the latter.

10 pts - TNT Revilution (because it seriously needs more love!)

9 pts - Ancient Aliens (very unoriginal choice for my absolute favorite megawad ever, but the Hell with it)

8 pts - Eviternity (what can I say, it's a major trip and revitalized my interest in Doom)

7 pts - Valiant (it might not need the points but I'm a huge Skillsaw mark)

6 pts - The Adventures of Square (possibly the greatest TC, can't wait for episode 3)

5 pts - Going Down (very tough, but very creative and dedicated to its theme)

4 pts - Back to Saturn X Episode 2 (I honestly liked it more than the first episode...)

3 pts - Back to Saturn X Episode 1 (... but the first was still a rocking good time)

2 pts - Pirate Doom (another great TC, never thought Monkey Island would work as a Doom game)

1 pt - Japanese Community Project (one of the best collaborative projects of which I know)

@ax34, thanks for the update! Did I get the right Tribute? Did you mean this or this?

vdgg, thanks for voting and for the heads up!

Sotenga, thanks for voting!

@m8f, this

I'm probably going to change this a lot, since I've finished barely enough WADs to be able to vote here. There are some WADs I've already started playing that I'm sure will belong on this list when I am done, but I want to finish them before making a judgement.

Nonetheless, here are my votes:

9 points to Eviternity. Amazing map design, amazing music, amazing visuals. If it's not my favorite it's certainly the most well-made megaWAD I have ever finished.

9 points to JPCP. Might be my favorite WAD. Full of levels that are uniquely artistic, with some of the most charming graphics I have seen in a Doom WAD.

8 pts to Valiant. Best combat I have ever seen, and great music. It's just pure fun to play. I think I'd love the visuals too, had I not been spoiled by Eviternity and JPCP.

7 points to Going Down. It's more notable for how well the levels fit together into a whole than for any individual level, but some of the levels (20, 26) are also masterpieces of Doom horror.

6 points to Sigil. Platforming is hard, but I still enjoy Sigil and consider it a worthy E5. It can equally be read as a celebration of classic Doom, or as John Romero's take on Sandy Petersen's hell maps.

5 points to Freedom: Phase 1. Everyone seems to like Phase 2, but I found Phase 1 to be more fun for some reason. I think it might have something to do with how easy Doom 1's enemies are to mow down. That said, I never beat E4M8 without cheating. Too many Assault Tripods (Cyberdemons) and not enough cover.

4 points to The Plutonia Experiment. Just an all-around good set of maps, with some of the most well thought out combat setpieces in commercial Doom. I can easily see why so many mappers took inspiration from it.

3 points to Freedom Phase 2. Though not as fun for me as Phase 1, its maps are quite high in quality.

2 points to Water Spirit. I played this 3-level PWAD because I liked burabojunior's JPCP maps. I debated including this one, and I'm likely to remove it later, but its three maps are some of the prettiest I have ever seen in the Doom engine, so that has to count for something.

2 points to Plutonia MIDI Pack. I originally had TNT Evilution here, but then I remembered I could include the Plutonia MIDI Pack. These compositions massively elevate the levels they were written for and certainly contributed to my enjoyment of Plutonia.

northivanastan, thank you for voting!

thanks for voting!

m8f, would you be interested in making a separate topic for DW community top wads but with restarted ratings? I feel like the original topic updated by you can be less accurate because of the time when the topic was started (2016). The wads released pre-2016 have a little of advantage. Most of the voters haven't updated their votes, thus the post-2016 wads can struggle to climb up the list. The idea I want to suggest to create a new topic without the previous votes. The users would vote again only for a week or so, then voting would be stopped. And we would get a clean semi-objective top wads list. The tally would be updated annualy from scratch, restarting all votes from the previous update. This helps new wads to be placed in a better position.

I don't think it would fix the issue. Old WADs have more points not because of voters from 2016, it's because people continue to vote for them. Here is a clear example: the top of points since October 9, 2019. As you can see, people still actively vote for WADs from 2000-2010. Maybe the fact of people voting for those old WADs means that those WADs are still good, maybe it's because those WADs just have the advantage of more time to become known.

Making a topic each year defeats the purpose of "Top WADs of All Time". What can be done instead - it's that I add a row for a voting date, filter by year, and create tallies for each year using the same data. It requires quite a bit of work to scan forum posts for their post date for 146 voters, but it's doable.

That said, the tally could use some fresh votes. For this, I'd suggest new WAD authors ask their fans to vote. There is nothing wrong with it because the rules require to vote also for something else, therefore it benefits everybody. Also, I'd like to state that it is socially acceptable to not vote for the current top - everybody already knows that those WADs are great. Most of them have Cacowards, Doomwiki entries, reviews, playthroughs, etc, meaning that they already got their share of visibility.

12 hours ago, dmslr said:

The wads released pre-2016 have a little of advantage. Most of the voters haven't updated their votes, thus the post-2016 wads can struggle to climb up the list.

1 hour ago, m8f said:

I don't think it would fix the issue. Old WADs have more points not because of voters from 2016, it's because people continue to vote for them. Here is a clear example: the top of points since October 9, 2019. As you can see, people still actively vote for WADs from 2000-2010. Maybe the fact of people voting for those old WADs means that those WADs are still good, maybe it's because those WADs just have the advantage of more time to become known.

I think it is a bit of both actually. Post-2017 (2017 is when savagegrant first started the original thread) wads are definitely at a disadvantage when people don't update their votes. But then newer voters are also voting for older wads because they are well known. Eviternity is only post-2017 wad in the top 20 and the next 2017 wad (TNT: Revilution) is at 31.

I personally think that we should clean slate after every 5-ish years (Annual is a bit too soon in my opinion). Since the original tally was started in 2017, maybe we can reset the tally in 2022, then in 2027 and so on. That way, newer wads will have a chance to rank higher.

Also with that being said, I will update my own list:

10: Eviternity

9: Faithless/ Faithless Trilogy

8: TNT: Revilution

7: Alien Vendetta

6: Valiant

5: Ancient Aliens

4: Doom Zero

3: No Rest For The Living

2: Deathless

1: Doom 2 The Way id Did (D2TWiD)

My older votes

Quote

10: Eviternity

9: Valiant

8: Ancient Aliens

7: Extermination Day (Formerly BD: Hell on Earth Starter Pack)

6: No Rest For The Living

5: Deathless

4: The Ultimate Torment and Torture

3: Scythe

2: Doom 2 The Way id Did (D2TWiD)

1: Doom The Way id Did (DTWID)

4 hours ago, m8f said:

Making a topic each year defeats the purpose of "Top WADs of All Time"

why though? People will still vote for Alien Vendetta, for example. Nobody's going to "forget" old wads; they are popular and are played till today.

Had to put them in a spoiler because my list is very long.

3 hours ago, AvadaKedavraWithQuadDamage said:

Had to put them in a spoiler because my list is very long.

Please, trim your list. Rules: vote for 10 to 20 of your favorite WADs, up to 55 points total.

4 hours ago, dmslr said:

why though? People will still vote for Alien Vendetta, for example. Nobody's going to "forget" old wads; they are popular and are played till today.

I misinterpreted your idea, I thought you proposed so people can only vote for a certain year's WADs. If people will still vote for Alien Vendetta and other classics, then there is high chance of tally ranks staying mostly the same.

I found that I didn't answer your question directly. No, I wouldn't be interested in making a separate topic. This is because I believe that more global data set has more meaning than separated sets and that it shows the wider picture.

The most I may be willing to do is adding dates to votes and compiling separate ranks for different years, like "Most voted in 2019". This solution would be not perfect because the data for the updated votes isn't counted, but I think it would be good enough.

Ideally, there would be a sort of poll with everything listed like in the OP but with dropdown buttons for ratings. We could rate as many wads as we want anytime, like voting for albums on rateyourmusic.com. Wouldn't it be possible for some programming wizards from Doomworld to come up with such thing?

Something similar is already here:

https://www.doomworld.com/files/category/138-megawads/?sortby=file_rating&sortdirection=desc

In my relatively short time of playing PWADs i realized i have sampled A LOT of WADs and developed a distinct taste, so it's not out of place any longer for me to post my list for this, coz it's not gonna get any better :P

Si6il - 8

Moonblood - 7

Hellish Rogues - 7

Serenity - 7 (i'll only include that from the trilogy...)

Scythe - 6

Alien Vendetta - 5

Kama Sutra - 5

Eternal Doom - 4

Doom the Way ID Did - 4

Hell Revealed - 2

damn, people really like ancient aliens, don't they?

i'mma update my ratings

alien vendetta: 10

scythe 2: 6

memento mori 2: 6

scythe: 5

jenesis: 4

demonfear: 4

going down: 4

reverie: 4

polygon base: 3

memento mori: 2

akeldama: 2

ancient aliens: 2

vrack 3: 2

operation BIOWAR: 1

ReaperAA, roadworx, thank you for updating your votes!

dei_eldren, thanks for voting!

@AvadaKedavraWithQuadDamage, your votes haven't been counted because they exceed the max number of WADs and points.

The tally in the OP has been updated.

If anyone wants to play with statistics, the spreadsheet is here.

Hey @m8f, I know that my list isn't counted, I'm gonna update it sometime! Not now, because I'm on my phone and copy-pasting the original list is PITA.

Alright, let's get some underrated wads higher on this list, shall we? I'm really bad at ranking things, so most of these just get 5 from me:

STRAIN: 10

Nihility: 5

rf1024: 5

Faithless: 5

Incineration: 5

No End In Sight: 5

Unwelcome: 5

Dimension of the Boomed: 5

Doom the Way id Did - The Lost Episodes: 5

Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea: 5