Unpopular Doom Opinions

1 hour ago, Nefelibeta said:

-Every wad need to make UV its additional setting. People always care about players with less skill, but what about players that are willing to face some worthy challenges? Just ignore stupid people who insist on playing on UV, step out of the comfort zone and make something you find very challenging.

Stuff like Dimensions and Stardate 20x7 are supposed to be that, but that doesn't stop people from treating UV as the default. =P

Some WADs use coop thing placements to that effect. I personally enjoy seeing crazy coop-exclusive monsters and attempting to take them on in solo-net, though I wonder what people who actually play coop think of that.

2 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

Some WADs use coop thing placements to that effect. I personally enjoy seeing crazy coop-exclusive monsters and attempting to take them on in solo-net, though I wonder what people who actually play coop think of that.

I remember seeing a review of PRCP based on coop gameplay (That means double the players, double the reviews ha)

It's quite interesting to read actually, not sure if I can find it again.

I really wish you can make monsters disappear exclusively in coop, otherwise its ability is really limited.

3 minutes ago, Nefelibeta said:

I really wish you can make monsters disappear exclusively in coop, otherwise its ability is really limited.

You can in Boom format, but unfortunately not in vanilla.

On 7/18/2020 at 6:51 AM, Graf Zahl said:

 

I can only endure Doom 2 when using an alternative soundtrack made out of Doom 1 music and some early PWAD tracks for most levels. Too many of its tracks were utter stinkers.

 

 

i fucking LOVE Doom 2's soundtrack. in fact Doom 2's soundtrack>Doom 1. that's my hot take.

Can I say that I don't like both Doom I&II soundtrack, but probably due to how they are used in pwads though. Altering hearing them over and over again it will get old some day.

I prefer the bugged midi version of TNT level 2 over the properly working one. Probably because I heard it first, but the normal one just gives me a headache.

I think lost souls aren't too bad 

3 hours ago, gwain said:

I think lost souls aren't too bad 

They are not too bad if you're playing on a source port that disables infinte height. Would you insist about them not being that bad if you're playing a vanilla Doom PWAD and get stuck by out of sight lost souls while under attack by several more dangerous monsters?

OT: I guess since Heretic is based on the Doom engine and we'll eventually run out of Doom related opinions, this might apply; The regular Gargoyle from Heretic is a far better monster than any of Doom's flying monsters.

2 hours ago, Solmyr said:

They are not too bad if you're playing on a source port that disables infinte height. Would you insist about them not being that bad if you're playing a vanilla Doom PWAD and get stuck by out of sight lost souls while under attack by several more dangerous monsters?

 

I do

Inferno is trash through-and-through. I can think of two maps that are even okay, those being E3M2 and E3M6. It's the worst episode in Ultimate Doom by a long shot.

Doom 2 and TNT are full of boring levels that make me feel nothing but apathy. There's some pretty good maps, but most of them are extremely "meh".

Go 2 It is not the hardest level in Plutonia. I honestly think that honor goes to MAP27 or even MAP15. Maybe that's just because I've played it so many damn times, though.

Odyssey of Noises is ridiculously overrated. It's decent, and a hell of a lot better than Downtown, but it suffers from quite a few of the same problems.

Scythe is, in hindsight, pretty mediocre. It was certainly an important WAD, but it's definitely not great. I like some of the maps, like the last 5 or so, and there are a few gems sprinkled throughout the mediocrity, but overall it's just kind of okay.

Back to Saturn X Episode 2 is far worse than Episode 1. I still think E2 is great but it doesn't really hit the spot for me as E1 does.

Sandy Peterson made the best maps ever, and genuinely made maps that spooked me so much as a kid that they unironically made me consider converting to full-on Evangelical Christianity because the depiction of Hell Peterson made is some spooky shit that cannot be topped

On 6/6/2022 at 2:47 PM, Nefelibeta said:

Tried to resurrect the thread again and see people are only talking about iwads. Oh wow.

  Reveal hidden contents

lol guess that’s also an unpopular opinion 

I genuinely despise mapping rules and “Things in maps that annoy you” type of threads. Jesus Christ, there are countless maps that have inescapable pits, cryptic progressions, too many arch-viles and cyberdemons, 200 revenants in a tight arena, ledge walking and stuff, yet there are still fans of them. Are those people all retarded? Well absolutely no. Found it a bit weird if you can just ignore the map sets that you don’t like and stop complaining about them instead of ranting like a bitch. Nobody make maps just for you, dumb dumb. 

I would say, this issue is pretty complicated. On one hand, most really fun maps do not begin with a list of "Unfun things not to do". They start with a list of "Fun things to do". And the most creative mapping achievemants often walk right on the edge of "this is really cool" and "this is really obnoxious".

On the other hand, annoying things do exist. Shooting barons with SSG is widely considred one of them, for example. And if the mapmaker wants to add some SSG vs barons encounter - it is a good idea for them to ask themselves first:

1) Does my map really need such a fight?

2) If the fight is needed, then how can I make such a battle less boring?

For more subjective example, take inescapable pits. Personally, I do not mind their use. They are a fair part of doom. However, they can be very annoying if they appear without warning and proceed to ruin a good run late in the map. I was very upset when I discovered that Map16 of Speed of Doom has inescapable mud pits. The map is about fights, not platforming! And the pits are placed away from the main action! Falling into such a pit after completing all the enemy waves felt anticlimatic and dumb! Yeah, that was my error, but it still felt pointless and dissapointing. If those pits were escapable - the map would seemingly lose nothing, and the player (me) would be happier. So "Should those particular inescapable pits be there?" is a pretty reasonable question for the mapmaker to ask, in my opinion at least.

On 6/6/2022 at 7:47 AM, Nefelibeta said:

Tried to resurrect the thread again and see people are only talking about iwads. Oh wow.

  Reveal hidden contents

lol guess that’s also an unpopular opinion 

I genuinely despise mapping rules and “Things in maps that annoy you” type of threads. Jesus Christ, there are countless maps that have inescapable pits, cryptic progressions, too many arch-viles and cyberdemons, 200 revenants in a tight arena, ledge walking and stuff, yet there are still fans of them. Are those people all retarded? Well absolutely no. Found it a bit weird if you can just ignore the map sets that you don’t like and stop complaining about them instead of ranting like a bitch. Nobody make maps just for you, dumb dumb.

I think too many players end up seeing design choices as "getting in the way of their fun" when those aspects might be positive elements of other people's fun. And the possible preference and design space is so big that it's impossible to please everyone at once, so you're going to have clashes like that all the time. People just have to understand how big Doom's design space is. A lot of critical discussion these days is self-centered and uncreative in its self-centeredness.

9 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

A lot of critical discussion these days is self-centered and uncreative in its self-centeredness.

Not trying to tie you up in semantics - just a newcomer taking a passing interest in critical analysis across the history of community-produced content, here - but "these days" implies that critical discussion wasn't always this way. At what point would you say it was more author-directed and (for lack of a better term) more considerate? And what do you think would have precipitated a pivot towards the current situation?

On 3/13/2022 at 4:21 AM, BedrockCastle said:

Go 2 It is not the hardest level in Plutonia. I honestly think that honor goes to MAP27 or even MAP15. Maybe that's just because I've played it so many damn times, though.

 

Odyssey of Noises is ridiculously overrated. It's decent, and a hell of a lot better than Downtown, but it suffers from quite a few of the same problems.

Agree. MAP15 was spicy, especially without secrets, Go2It just has too much ammo and Megaspheres. And MAP29 IMO doesn't hold a candle to DooMII's MAP16 (which itself is like a 3/5).

Imma throw some shit opinions here:

-I really like ZDoom, but I generally dislike GZDoom. This goes to the point where I search up specifically ZDoom compatible maps and play them in ZDoom.

-I dislike GZDoom maps that underutilize UDMF. If I'm going to play a GZDoom map I want to see slopes, 3D-floors, particle effects, ambiet lighting, ambient sounds, polyobjects and scripting. Just leave the cutscenes out, please. (This also aplies to ZDoom maps)

-I absolutely loathe additional logoscreens in sourceports. I literally never use the Unity port only for this reason, I like it otherwise. I also stopped using Doom Retro for this reason (to be fair the lack of levelstats during gameplay was the bigger problem).

-I like infinite hight, especially in flying monsters. All of the flying monsters would be a lot tamer without it.

-I generally prefere unescapable pits over escapable ones. I think the preference comes from tonal difference.

-There are way too few platforming heavy/pure platforming maps/wads. I originally downloaded nosp2 just for the map 31, I was so desperate.

-I like cryptic maps. I like Hexeny progression.

-E4M2 and E4M6 are the only great maps in Iwads. There are other ones that I like and think are good, these are the only ones that I love.

-Ultimate Doom is my favourite Iwad.

-I like hard maps, but I don't really vibe with Plutonia. (Although I haven't played it in a while, prolly gonna revisit soon)

I threw some hyperbole to some of these statements to better fit into this threads, but I do stand behind all of them.

I'm going to do the same thing the guy above me did:

-PSX Final Doom is chad

-I use GZDoom to play vanilla Doom

-I love Thy Flesh Consumed

-The Lost Episodes for Doom is acceptable

-Doom 3 chad

-No Rest For The Living is an incredible expansion, but Master Levels Chad

-I prefer DOOM 2016 than DOOM Eternal, but sadly the game is not in PC Game Pass

^{That's it}

On 6/9/2022 at 5:49 AM, Daytime Waitress said:

Not trying to tie you up in semantics - just a newcomer taking a passing interest in critical analysis across the history of community-produced content, here - but "these days" implies that critical discussion wasn't always this way. At what point would you say it was more author-directed and (for lack of a better term) more considerate? And what do you think would have precipitated a pivot towards the current situation?

This is a good question and not semantics at all. 

Idk, I don't think anyone's character has gotten worse as much as the Doom scene has grown (it would certainly be the opposite shift if any :P). It's more than the circumstances have gotten "tougher" for a good understanding of wads; there are zillions of wads these days, all specializing in an even wider range of things than ever before.

Part of it is that there's no real critical language, so that everyone has to invent taxonomy and categorization around themselves as a center. For example, I've read a very respected critic lament about how most modern wads focus on combat -- but if you ask a dedicated slaughter player, you'd find that most modern wads focus on aesthetics and ignore combat. 

It's sort of as if TV had no genres or sense of it whatsoever because the language and framework didn't exist, and you had people who were sports diehards complaining about how 95% of shows lack proper organized athletic physical activity. Which obviously sounds ridiculous, but a lot of Doom criticism reads as more or less like that to me. There's a lot of conflation of approach and quality, but not in a neat and tidy way where people reliably distinguish "this isn't my sort of thing" from "this isn't very good" (unless it's something super obvious, like, idk slaughter).  

And that's just...one example. 

Of course games in general are a very new area when it comes to criticism, so it's hard to expect a lot out of just one niche game community. 

I actually find that with stuff like the DWMC, and with feedback in general, the culture is very author-directed as is. It's more the language and framework that lacks. Idk what the solution is other than someone doing a Roots of Mapping Pt. 2 and fleshing out more of a modern taxonomy of wads :P

On 6/17/2022 at 3:57 PM, Alaxzandarz said:

-There are way too few platforming heavy/pure platforming maps/wads. I originally downloaded nosp2 just for the map 31, I was so desperate.

-I like cryptic maps. I like Hexeny progression.

You might like Frog, Toad, and Frog & Toad for the first; and Finely Crafted Fetish Film for the second. Both are Boom mapsets by Ribbiks, one of the most famed and innovative creators of this community if you don't know him already. Many have followed in his footsteps with these styles of mapping, including the Twitch speedrunning community.

On 6/19/2022 at 2:10 AM, Roofi said:

I prefer playing Doom without autorun. 

Madness.

I think I'll probably be ostracised from the village for this opinion but I don't think many music tracks made for maps actually suit the gameplay or the Doom 'world'.  That's not to say that I don't enjoy a lot of the MIDI's made as music in their own right but I just don't feel like a lot of the synthy or melodic stuff fits with a gun-wielding protagonist running through worlds overrun by the hordes of hell.

It's probably because my first exposure to the FPS genre was on the Amiga and none of the games had energetic music (AB3D, Gloom, Fears, Genetic Species et cetera) and when I did finally get to play Doom it was through the ADoom source port and I never got the music running.

Still, that's now how I feel.  I much prefer dark ambient or something else equally spooky and/or ethereal.  Cryo Chamber on Bandcamp is my best friend for that stuff. :)

DISCLAIMER:  I mean no offense to any Doom MIDI composer.  Like I said, I like to listen to the music on its own, that's all. :)  

On 7/17/2020 at 6:49 AM, Good-Old said:

Jimmy > Andrew Hulshult.

Yeah.

Your god damn right

Doom Eternal's SSG is actually better than Doom 2's.

Doom 2016 had the worst weapons in any Doom game.

I prefer Andrew Hulshult's music to Mick Gordon's (Mick Gordon is a living legend, i just like Andrew's style more)

I really dislike the introduction of what I call "a-hole" design in Doom 2. You know, taking an elevator down only to be surrounded by enemies on all sides and being unable to move or tons of hidden closets opening up with high level enemies in them. I dislike how that design went on to influence tons of wads as well. I don't mind some of it but too much of it gets tiring for me.

On 6/20/2022 at 3:36 PM, Megalyth said:

 

Madness.

I think all keyboard only players do this so that you have somewhere to rest your fingers (SHIFT). It's much more comfortable lifting them only when you need to walk instead having to have them lifted all the time.

And either way, even if I was playing WSAD + mouse, I would still play without autorun. It's just a set rule for me in FPS games. Default - walk, SHIFT - run.

Doom 64 would've sold better if it was called Doom 3.

But what about the actual Doom 3? Since it's basically a reboot of Doom why not just call it Doom?

Wait, shit...

'Respect the player's time' is nonsense. All pits should be inescapable and deadly, long maps are fine and so are puzzles that involve backtracking. 

13 hours ago, Thelokk said:

All pits should be inescapable and deadly

What if I want to hide a secret in said pit?