What are you playing now?

started playing heretic for the first time ever

Well, on the singleplayer end I'm trying to beat as many Ultimate Doom WADs as I can find before I go on to play Doom 2. Right now I'm playing through Deathless, and the map design and decoration might be my favourite from a custom mapset yet. As for multiplayer me and a buddy are going to start playing through Memento Mori soon, and I'm excited to see how that goes.

Speed of Doom. It's starting to get tough now but I really enjoy it
I'm also playing the first PRCP on the side. It really captures the plutonia style.

I'm doing Valiant, only ever playing as far as Dario Casali has videos uploaded. That way I can get the personal experience and a veteran Doomer's view on the same day. The maps have been pretty great so far, though with how it's been going so far, I might drop from HMP to HNTR for the third episode...

Some old wads from the '90s.

Lev21.wad and Lev23.wad by Unknown authors.

Skiso.wad by the french author Areny Patrick. A big and very funny one level for Doom II with more than 500 enemies.

Blakdeth.wad by D. Bates. 7 levels for Doom II

And I just finished temple.wad by Kruglov. Very good map.

Just dusted Alien Vendetta, which makes it the first 32 map megawad that I've ever actually sat down and completed. I wish I had've kept a journal of some sort as I played because, looking back, a lot of it runs together thanks to the sheer volume played in a relatively short amount of time - aside from the extremely positive or frustrating moments.

At the end of the trail, though, Hillside Siege stood out for me because I just plain like compact levels that wrap around themselves in that manner; Toxic Touch was an absolute joy; and, coming at the end of a very long play session, @Varis Alpha's new track kept me pushing through the fights of Nukefall regardless of how tired I was - sure sign of an absolute banger!

Misri Halek was an intriguing experience, too. It was a name I recalled having seen a lot, but going in I had no idea what it was other than "good". Such tricksy and claustrophobic levels are definitely not my bag, but I can see why it's so beloved. There's a fair bit of switch hunting, but never too far from what you just triggered; the progression is reasonably obvious, but not straight up linear; and the fights feel well weighted (on HMP at least). Again, a bit constrictive for my personal tastes, but it really felt like a "deathtrap dungeon" done right. And going from "grounded" tech-bases and medieval beast castles to suddenly ancient bloody Egypt actually helped to solidify the wad's exploratory vibe in my mind.

Dark Dome, though, damn near broke me. That was a real sudden jump in difficulty and intensity. I feel like it's the kind of level that more experienced players can kite for a while and strategise on the fly - what fights to contain, what fights to drag into other areas, who has got to infight with who. Whereas I was flailing around for the entire running time, not having fun, and genuinely wondering if I could finish the wad if the rest of the maps were going to be such ballbusters. Maybe I can come to love it after getting a little better at the game, but right now that one feels way above my current skill ceiling.

I did persevere, but, and thankfully the remaining levels weren't as nasty. And whilst I'm vendetta'd out for a bit, I definitely feel like this is something that I want to come back to and explore more fully: some of the levels in the middle blurred together a bit and I want to revisit them; and I especially want to try it at UV. Still not likely that I'll tear myself away from @Cammy and crew's revised MIDI Pack, though - absolute class.

Finished playing the demo of DoomwithaView's SIREN. I liked it, except for the invincible black cloud in the first level; They really should have made it slower.

The future Resident Evil and Dead Space vibes are strong with this one. And it had REALLY nice in-game ads.

Working through Doom Zero a bit at a time. I like it!

Also just started playing DOOM ZERO. I like it, though that new boss has some clipping issues that required me to set GZDoom to single core. Probably because of that: I keep wanting to call it DOOM CORE, as well, which is wrong.

Also played OOPS ALL TECH BASE for the first time. Had a lot of fun with that one. Great concept for a wad.

Need to finish Ozonia.

Before a situation with my computer that my entire Doom directory was a casualty of, I was making my way through Tarnsman's Projectile Hell.  With one map left to go.  It's tough, no kidding.  How do I get through?  Scouting ahead with cheats before coming back to do things legit, lots of saves and reloads, and every dirty trick I can pull out of the bag.  With the higher enemy aggression, even one unattended sniper can fill the space with stuff to dodge.

It took a few beats to realize what 50,000,000 SPF sunscreen was doing in one of the maps.  My attention went towards picking apart that particularly nasty map (with a look and some setups inspired by Sunlust's God Machine, regenerating chaingunners ow, ow, ow.  And the only spot I could find to not get filled with lead was in lava).  So I wasn't thinking about the premise at the time.  Do want to come back and finish that last map, using cheats to recreate my status from the end of E4M7 but not just yet.

Also played through Mutabor, which has been on my radar for a while and even downloaded but not played before said computer situation.  I've cleared enough of the map on HMP to reach the exit with about 60% kills and 31% secrets and am on the fence about continuing with the map and searching out more secrets or calling it complete.  Ammo balance is tight.  Even with as much infighting as I provoked, didn't reach the ammo cap for anything until more than halfway through.

Derped around with Augur-Zenith some though I do intend to come back for a more thorough playthrough.  Wasn't sure how the gritty, neon, cyberpunk would work out but it does live up to the hype on that front.  Plays well too from what I've sampled and I respect the experimental stuff even when it doesn't quite land.

MAP18: Suburbia from Community Chest 4...wth am I doing? Everything's locked off, there's six keys needed to finish, ran around for 23 minutes and had better luck finding 3 of the 15 secrets than I have figuring out the next logical step in progression. I cannot stand these kinds of Doom maps, doesn't matter if it needs six keys or it's very long or has 1000+ monsters, no, I simply hate cryptic progression and I beat Eternal Doom's puzzles with less than a handful of videos. There's just nothing to work with. I think I've consulted more videos for the CC series of maps than I care to count, and I groan every time I find out it was because of bad player direction. I last hit a switch behind a light pillar after traversing a lift and coming across bars that won't lower, so who knows what that switch did, ran back all around and nothing changed. Sigh, I think I need a break from Doom lol, didn't know the CC series of community megawads would be so weirdly exhausting at times. Maybe I shouldn't of played them back to back.

E: A quick glance at the Doomwiki says there's a number of shootables to progress, so guess that's my best bet. I also learn this map is by none other than our @Jimmy, sorry dude! I don't mean to be harsh, CC4 is a wonderful WAD but this is a real showstopper at only MAP18 haha.

Replaying and recording Stardate20x7 to prepare for a up-coming review video.

I've been replaying Heretic and Shadow of the Serpent Riders a few levels at a time over the past week and a half (that Doom vs Heretic thread was good timing!). It's been a while since I played it but it's been mostly enjoyable. I really like E1 and find that E1M1 is a great and quite memorable opener. I'm currently going through E4, which is always a bit of a drag, but I remember it getting better in E5. E4M1 and its ammo stinginess aside, my problem with SotSR is that progressions can get very obtuse, E4M9 is particularly bad with this. I remember liking E5 more, we'll see how I feel about it now.

I'm planning on going through some pwads after, I've made a small list and I don't think I've played most of them.

Tower In The Fountain Of Sparks is my favorite megawad of all time, but I was underwhelmed by my first experience with Back To Saturn X Episode 1. I've been replaying it recently and I'm not quite so down on it anymore. One thing I'll give it is that in nearly every revisit, I find new secrets & stuff I never knew was there before, and that's really cool.

Overall, I don't like the way it looks & sounds. But there are some exceptions: MAP12 (Underground Initiations) is one of my favorite maps of all time. I really like how many possibilities there are when contemplating the order in which you want to collect the three keys. Each of the three zones interconnects in interesting ways, and each contains extra colored-doors with useful bonuses for you to take advantage of if you've chosen to visit the zone later rather than sooner. Getting to try out a different build order every time I died & restarted kept things from getting monotonous, and I had a really good time working out a route for a saveless run.

The other level I enjoyed enough to want to put together a saveless run was MAP15 (Tricyclic Looper). I may not be a big fan of the E1 texture set, but I have to admit that Mechadon made some beautiful art out of it. I wondered if there was anything I could do about the instakill bullshit blocking the exit, and my investigation was rewarded: there was indeed a better way through, and uncovering it meant that I actually found Optical Hopscotch this time around! That level's a treat, and I'm glad I finally played it.

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In addition, I've recently wrapped up a UV-Continuous playthrough of KINDa. It has its moments, but overall feels like a first draft. TheMightyWhoosh has a knack for stock texture use and for tastefully-done secret concealment - while I can't recommend the megawad as a whole, I'm pleased to see that the final text screen indicates that the author's gonna keep practicing and iterating. I'm now curious to see if something a little tighter and more focused arrives in the future.

Just got into Eviternity new to doing wads and such and this was the first one I've tried, was loving it but m32 and m19 with those 950+ monster counts so close to each other in comparison to the average of 250-450 per level. Really threw off the pacing feel IMHO, its understandably a lot more forgivable on m32 since it's obviously a secret level but dehydration, man dehydration just kept going. I loved the great mapping concept with the whole leaking reactor and water plant style tech-base, but man just felt like it overstayed its welcome.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I had also ran through 1-2-Plutonia UV-Continuous as a refresher before starting on wads, is this a pretty normal sentiment or are these longer form levels the preferred style 

Sorry if very newbie question just seemed like those longer form levels were super monotonous endurance runs with cyberbaron tele jumpscares to wipe your hour of progress for "falling asleep at the wheel" so to say

Plutonia 1 and scythe 2

Just finished Community Chest for the first time yesterday and I thought MAP29 was a real banger.

MAP20 in CC4 was really really cool, onto the last stretch now, glad to see Woof! supports warping to the bonus MAP35 when I'm done.

I'm Currently Playing Scythe 1 with Corruption Cards and currently completed the second episode

Update: I Beat Map16, 17, 18, 19, 20. (MS Futura was Super Easy, Starport took some time)

MAP21 of CC4 was even cooler damn, @lupinx-Kassman reminds me of HacX with the cyberspace but much more aesthetically pleasing.

Doom.

BTSX2 and Ozonia. Both royally kicking my ass.

Making a 9 level wad all by myself

Playing a lots of wads, but primarily TNT: Revilution. Started out great, but by the second secret level it starts a series of dull levels, at least for my tastes, until it picked up again with MAP21: Bloody Garden (or something like that). Reached MAP25 yesterday.

Also having surprisingly fun with Doom 2 Only in Spain! On MAP11 there.

Just finished SIGIL on UV and i'm very satisfied. Short, fairly confined, but intricate maps... it's a breath of fresh air. The atmosphere is fantastic too. Not long ago i re-played Thy Flesh Consumed and the two maps that Jonh Romero designed for it, feel very SIGIL-ish (or the other way around), so it's good to see that good old Romero hasn't changed much in the last 27 years. SIGIL made me want to play more classic stuff, and i'll be looking for some 90's WADs to play now... probably for Doom 2 this time, because i miss the super shotgun. 

Did MAP21-26 today of CC4, this is easily going into my all-time favorites! Such a nice and diverse texture set and so many good offerings from the 2012 community.

Playing Alien Vendetta, actually. I remember loving it but haven’t actually touched it since Middle School.

MAP04 of UAC Ultra, haven't seen this one since...well, when it was new. I remember being glued to the seat and just beating the whole thing in one sitting one afternoon. Can't really do that anymore, though lol.

I´m playing Epic, and having a blast currently... I think i found my kind of wad

Just completed TNT: Revilution. I still owe Evilution one more playthrough, but if I didn't, I'd rather swap Evilution for Revilution in the Final Doom IWAD-set. Some of the levels in the mapset are a bit too long for my apparent tastes, but mostly even the long levels are worth it. The only complaint is an occasion of annoying maps - every mapset has them - and that many of them were stringed together starting from MAP32 (Duality) and ending with MAP20 (can't remember the name), whereas MAP21 onwards the maps are B+ to A-grade stuff. I didn't care for the special turret enemies of MAP30, but as far as IoS maps go, Malignata is one of the better least obnoxious ones I've seen (had trouble with the cramped quarters panic fight with mancubi, chaingunners and hell knights, even on HMP).

So, I have a couple of wads in the middle of a playthrough; some of them just started, and some as far as MAP15. I think I'll concentrate on Ancient Aliens next - first 10 maps have been fun, and have Doom 2 in Spain Only as my secondary playthrough. Megawad club is playing Doom the Way iD Did, so that's on my plate too, although I have played it before.