Beginner Megawad/Mappack recommendations

Hello guy's, I'm pretty new here and looking for some recommendations regarding mappacks. I am totally new to community made pwads. I recently watched the Dean of Doom series on youtube, sadly I'm afraid most of those levelpacks are way above my level of play.

I have played doom back then as a kid in the mid/late 90s and early 2000s, and recently finished the first three episodes of Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 on HMP difficulty. Right now I'm playing TNT Evilution (reached Map 10 so far) and Eviternity (hitting a wall on map 14, but I think I'll be able to beat it after watching some playthroughs) on HMP.

Can you guys recommend some beginner friendly wads? I'd really love to play through Scythe and Alien Vendetta, but i am pretty sure that's still way above my skill level. Maybe I should mention that I really prefer the modern approach seen in wads like Eviternity, BTSX, Valiant, Ancient Aliens etc...

Oh, and yes, I am willing to improve, so i will be able to play through those legendary wads like Alien Vendetta in some time. What about Memento Mori 1+2 or Whispers of Satan? I wasn't really able to find any information if those wads also get very hard towards the end.

If that matters: I am not using any fancy mods like brutal doom or whatever. I am using GzDoom just with Perkristians High res SFX and weapon animations. That's it, I'm trying to keep it as vanilla-like as possible, with some modern enhancements like OpenGL.

Thanks in advance!

This isn't really beginner but playing it on HNTR or ITYTD is way much much beginner friendly than most slaughter maps and its really fun Bastion of Chaos

Also this thread 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/107015-wad-progression-for-skill-improvement/?tab=comments#comment-2000459

Scythe is quite approachable, at least for the first 20 levels. Given what you've played so far I don't think you'd have a problem with it.

Deathless is fun and quite easy. Doom the Way id Did and Doom 2 the Way id Did are, as the name suggests, similar in style and difficulty to the original games. I've been playing through 25 Years on Earth lately and I think that's beginner-friendly too, maybe a little harder than Doom II but easier than Plutonia.

Also check that "WAD Progression for Skill Improvement" thread linked above, and remember that you can always try a lower skill level if you want to play a wad but feel like you aren't ready to tackle it on Ultraviolence yet.

I'd play through the rest of Final Doom (including Plutonia) at least, and after that Eviternity on HMP shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Freedoom, being an IWAD replacement, is meant to have a similar difficulty curve to the original IWADs, but later on the difficulty ramps up quite a bit. The Japanese Community Project is also pretty relaxed, save for a few difficult levels. Otherwise the easiest PWAD I have played is Perdition's Gate, although that isn't very modern in its design.

Thank you guys for your answers so far, i will have a look into the mentioned wads. Oh and yes, forgot to mention I already had a look into the first couple levels JPCP and Vanguard (Map 6), also on HMP. I found it challenging, but not too difficult. Maybe that can help so you guys get a better sense of my skill level.

One more question which could be imptortant in my case regarding the difficulty level: Is there any indication if a wad has different difficulty settings? Can I gather this information somewhere? Or do all of the "well known" wads have different difficulty settings (e.g. less/lower tier monsters on lower difficulties)?

2 minutes ago, entrywayy said:

Thank you guys for your answers so far, i will have a look into the mentioned wads.

 

One more question which could be imptortant in my case regarding the difficulty level: Is there any indication if a wad has different difficulty settings? Can I gather this information somewhere? Or do all of the "well known" wads have different difficulty settings (e.g. less/lower tier monsters on lower difficulties)?

Usually the text files have a line that begins with "Difficulty Settings:" - if it's Yes, then the mapper has taken difficulty into account.

do take note that difficulty only changes monster count per map, not damage taken or damage done.

-On ITYTD you have double ammo and monster count is the lowest.

-On HNTR you have the lowest monster count, same as YTYTD, but normal ammo.

-On HMP you have normal monster count and normal ammo.

-On UV you have the highest monster count and normal ammo.

-On NM you have the highest monster count, they are faster, they respawn but you have double ammo, too.

So, pretty much, every megawad from the last 26 years is beatable on the lower difficult settings without much hassle.

Don't be ashamed of playing on lower difficult settings, i play on HNTR all the time as i prefer a relaxing experience and not much frustration.

Moonblood (anything below UV), and Eviternity (maybe go HNTR if uncomfortable with HMP).  You could also try 180 Minutes Pour Vivre on HNTR, the later levels are really hard even on HMP (for me...)  Hell Revealed first ten maps should be pretty ok on HMP, and the rest will require more effort and frustration - but it's a classic for a reason...the level design is really good.

This thread is designed precisely taking into account the difficulty curve.

And this is a general guide I made a few months ago about more than 100 WADs with descriptions of each project, difficulty included.

38 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

-On ITYTD you have double ammo and monster count is the lowest.

You also take half damage on ITYTD, so it really does have a big impact compared to HNTR. But that's no bad thing if you're just trying to enjoy the level. 

1 hour ago, entrywayy said:

Maybe I should mention that I really prefer the modern approach seen in wads like Eviternity, BTSX, Valiant, Ancient Aliens etc...

Eviternity is a really solid first choice. The gameplay isn't too dissimilar to classic Doom levels, and it doesn't do any one thing too extreme. A playthrough on HNTR or HMP would see you well.

At some point you may hear about "slaughtermaps", like Bastion of Chaos mentioned above. These are probably not what you want to start out with, as you have to be really comfortable with handling the enemy AI en masse to beat them. But if you did want to try out levels like that, I recently hosted a community project specifically for newbie slaughtermap players: 

39 minutes ago, Bauul said:

You also take half damage on ITYTD, so it really does have a big impact compared to HNTR. But that's no bad thing if you're just trying to enjoy the level.

thanks for the correction, i wasn't sure about if you did double damage or recieved half of it.

;)

We actually had this exact thread just a few days ago!

On 4/9/2021 at 5:46 PM, Doomkid said:

Some great suggestions in this thread already, but two I haven't seen yet (unless I'm blind) are The Far Side of Phobos and Operation BIOWAR are two old faves of mine that are really easy by modern standards. I also tried to make Ray Mohawk and the first Rowdy Rudy pretty darn easy and accessible.

Thanks for all the advice and especially the links to the WAD related topics such as the skill improvement one. Already reading through all of those. I just started a casual AV playthrough on HNTR, because I'm so curious how this masterpiece plays (nope, I'm not afraid of dropping the difficulty setting in hard wads, I'm pretty much beginner). Let's see how it goes and if I can beat it. Having a blast so far, what a nice, classic levelpack.

20 hours ago, entrywayy said:

• BTSX
• Alien Vendetta
• Memento Mori 1+2

Out of these wads Alien Vendetta is the hardest, but on HNTR it remains relatively accessible until MAP26.

MM/MM2 are the easiest, the first one is more varied difficulty wise (albeit its hardest levels are nowhere near AV MAP26, for instance) while the second is more consistent. Both are about on level with TNT.

BTSX (assuming E1) is somewhere between AV and MM/MM2.

Hope this helps!

Icarus: Alien Vanguard 

38 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

 

Out of these wads Alien Vendetta is the hardest, but on HNTR it remains relatively accessible until MAP26.

MM/MM2 are the easiest, the first one is more varied difficulty wise (albeit its hardest levels are nowhere near AV MAP26, for instance) while the second is more consistent. Both are about on level with TNT.

BTSX (assuming E1) is somewhere between AV and MM/MM2.

 

Hope this helps!

This in fact helps a lot, was really curious about MM/MM2 since its also a classic as far as i understand.

So on my list for now are:

• TNT (Map 10 right now, have to finish til end)
• Eviternity (Paused playthrough at Map 14)
• Memento Mori 1+2
• Alien Vendetta (HNTR for now, just to have a feeling for the Maps, just played Map 6 and holy shit that's a tough one on UV I guess)
• Scythe
• BTSX E1
• Plutonia (Don't think I'm capable of beating this on UV, so will have to tune down difficulty)
• Valiant, Ancient Aliens (I guess after I improved my skill)
• BTSX E2
• Speed of Doom
• Maybe TNT Revilution and Plutonia 2

I think that's more than enough for now, and i also want to look into the mentioned Wads I didn't know yet.

On 4/13/2021 at 2:02 PM, entrywayy said:

This in fact helps a lot, was really curious about MM/MM2 since its also a classic as far as i understand.

 

So on my list for now are:

 

• TNT (Map 10 right now, have to finish til end)
• Eviternity (Paused playthrough at Map 14)
• Memento Mori 1+2
• Alien Vendetta (HNTR for now, just to have a feeling for the Maps, just played Map 6 and holy shit that's a tough one on UV I guess)
• Scythe
• BTSX E1
• Plutonia (Don't think I'm capable of beating this on UV, so will have to tune down difficulty)
• Valiant, Ancient Aliens (I guess after I improved my skill)
• BTSX E2
• Speed of Doom
• Maybe TNT Revilution and Plutonia 2

 

I think that's more than enough for now, and i also want to look into the mentioned Wads I didn't know yet.

I honestly wouldn't even bother playing through TNT

Dimensions...

For real though, if you want to get into slaughter then play rush.

Other recommendations:

If you want very easy wads by modern standards then play memento mori and requiem.

Despite your reservations about scythe, I would also recommend that because only the last map is high difficulty. The rest should be fine if you’ve played through all the Iwads. I mean, it was for me when I started playing non Iwads, scythe being my first pwad.

Honestly I don’t know many other easy pwads because they aren’t what I look for however I hope I’ve proved somewhat helpful to your cause.

On 4/13/2021 at 2:02 PM, entrywayy said:

Alien Vendetta (HNTR for now, just to have a feeling for the Maps, just played Map 6 and holy shit that's a tough one on UV I guess)

yyyyep. that's the one that always kicks the ass of people just starting out lol

i have to agree with the memento mori series and, as @Doomkid said, operation biowar. requiem is also good (even if i'm not a big fan of it), but you might wanna skip map23

other than that, there's demonfear and revolution!, which are both pretty short and very good

Best beginner megawads to go with are:

- Icarus: Alien Vanguard

- Demonfear

- Revolution!

- The Twilight Zone

- Project X

- Perdition's Gate

- Dimensions of Time

- DTWID/D2TWID

For slightly more challenging yet accessible megawads, here are the following:

- TNT Evilution

- Memento Mori 1 & 2

- Requiem

- STRAIN

- Eternal Doom

- 2002: A Doom Odyssey

- Doom Core

- Reverie

- Jenesis

Now, if you're going to tackle the more difficult megawads, I recommend these ones, but only on HNTR:

- Plutonia

- Hell Revealed

- Alien Vendetta

- Scythe (least for the hell episode since the first two are really easy)

- Whispers of Satan

- TNT Revilution

- And maybe Kama Sutra

I noticed you have Speed of Doom and Plutonia 2, I won't suggest playing those yet as they're harder than the hard ones I listed.

try Scythe (at least until episode 3), and maybe TNT if you have patience