Which is harder, Wolfenstein 3D or Doom?

[xdarkmasterx]

1 hour ago, Maes said:

Heh, described in this way, Wolf3D really sounds more like a primitive and unrefined (even by early 1990s) 2D shooter engine, than a commercial game. Which, if you think about it, isn't far from the truth. The amazing thing is that we all sat and played through level after level of that primitive, brutal hitscan action. If it wasn't for the novelty of the texture-mapped 3D viewpoint and the far superior gameplay speed compared to e.g. vehicular/tank combat games with a similar setup, I don't think anyone would have bothered.

 

Comparing Wolf3D to Doom is a bit like comparing a Pong clone to a modern Tennis simulator/arcade game...if you set the Pong clone to a high difficulty (e.g. high ball speed, small paddle size), sure, it will be quite harder -or even nearly impossible- to play, on pure, technical, raw gameplay technicalities alone. The difference being that once you get *any* half-refined alternative to it, you wouldn't bother with it again. And Doom was well beyond "half-refined" compared to Wolf3D.

 

I don't think that's fair to Wolf. For certain, the repetitive gameplay can make it quite unbearable to play for a long period of time, but it still has a few things that Doom doesn't: I think hitscanners are a lot more fun to fight (they're deadly, but more consistent too), the weapons feel much more powerful (what happened to the chaingun in Doom is a tragedy, I say XD), and the combat pace is a bit faster since you can clear even large rooms in a few seconds.

 

I think that many of the levels really overstay their welcome (especially in the first episode), but it's still fun to play for a map or two.

[Pokemanic33]

Everyone has already mentioned the hitscan in Wolf3D, but I think the health economy plays a role in its difficulty as well. Health is harder to come by, so those tense moments where you're carefully peaking corners at 10 health are more frequent. Secrets are also significantly harder to find as well, so hidden caches with health in them are a lot more valuable.

[Andromeda]

5 hours ago, Coopersville said:

I find Wolf3D to be very easy with anything besides keyboard controls. When it was released to Xbox Live Arcade, I got the achievement for completing all episodes on "I Am Death Incarnate" with few restarts, and most levels after Episode 2 were a blind run.

Yeah the mutant infested episode 2 is the peak of Wolfenstein 3D's difficulty. All it takes is a mutant to sneak behind you and you're a goner in a split second.

[Doomkid]

Wolf3D’s damage being based more on distance than anything else is an interesting mechanic that’s more realistic than Doom’s infinite distance hitscans that are all about RNG. I don’t know which approach I like more, sneaking up behind a patrolling brown Nazi and one shotting him in the back with the beretta is very satisfying. The pistol and CG in Doom both feel like such dinky toys by comparison.

 

Which game’s formula is more challenging really depends more on which specific maps were comparing. E1 of Doom is way easier than E1 of Wolf because blue Nazis can end you in 1 second flat. However, truly difficult Doom maps are harder than anything I’ve come across in Wolf (granted I’ve spent 100x more time with Doom)

[Chip]

Wolf3D is like a semi-stealth game. You have to be cautious at all times, and know that the chances of a Nazi being behind a corner are high. While DOOM is run into the room, check out who you're fighting, grab a good gun, and shoot! Wolf you have to put more thought into, making it harder. For me at least.

[HombreSal]

Wolfenstein's layout is so confusing it took me like 4 hours to find my way out of the first 4 levels.

[bobstremglav]

- Mazes (and you don't have map)

- There's only one not-hitscan/not-shooting enemies - dogs

- Enemies can shoot through each other

- ALL OFFICERS MUST BURN IN HELL

- It's not possible to bind strafe left/right on specific buttons

- You have in fact only good one weapon - MP-40. Knife useless, and it's hard to hit with it; Pistol...em, it's pistol; Chaingun eats bullets fast as bois watermelons at summer

- 4-6 episodes unfairly hard, you also need find keys you need for beating levels...BEHIND SECRET DOORS

- Whole blandness of game morally kill you

- Just one simple fact: battles can become just frustrating and raging, because loading after death is much slower than in Doom - you need wait for screen fill with red, then open menu, go to loading screen, select file, and just then...load game. In Doom death itself much faster, so you can load game much faster, and I think at any moment you want; even not using hotkeys for save/load it's faster in Doom

 

And it was Wolfenstein 3D. Enjoy

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

26 minutes ago, bobstremglav said:

- 4-6 episodes unfairly hard, you also need find keys you need for beating levels...BEHIND SECRET DOORS

The game's manual specifically says that items required to beat the level will never be hidden behind secret doors.  I'm pretty sure the Mission packs for Spear of Destiny broke that "rule", though.

[bobstremglav]

1 minute ago, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

The game's manual specifically says that items required to beat the level will never be hidden behind secret doors.

No, I remember that there some such items, and even heard about it in one review

 

[Andromeda]

E4M5 hides the gold key, required to exit the level, inside a secret. I'm sure there's a couple other instances of hiding mandatory keys inside secrets that I'm not remembering right now in the two base games.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

I checked some YouTube videos, and yep, the key is behind a secret wall.  Wow, the manuals lied.  (I checked the manuals from both the Wolf3D and SoD boxes; they both make the claim that all the necessary items and elevators are located in the normal, non-hidden passages.)

[Scypek2]

30 minutes ago, TheUltimateDoomer666 said:

I checked some YouTube videos, and yep, the key is behind a secret wall.  Wow, the manuals lied.  (I checked the manuals from both the Wolf3D and SoD boxes; they both make the claim that all the necessary items and elevators are located in the normal, non-hidden passages.)

Oh, yeah... the one level that caused me to only meet Otto Giftmacher a decade or so after defeating every single other Wolf3d boss. @ella guro wrote a great article about that one.

 

18 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Wolf3D’s damage being based more on distance than anything else is an interesting mechanic that’s more realistic than Doom’s infinite distance hitscans that are all about RNG. I don’t know which approach I like more, sneaking up behind a patrolling brown Nazi and one shotting him in the back with the beretta is very satisfying. The pistol and CG in Doom both feel like such dinky toys by comparison.

 

Doom may be superior in many obvious ways, but Wolf3d has much more interesting hitscan mechanics. Aside from the distance-dependent damage, the enemies also miss their shots more often if you're in motion (another good idea, though coded in a simple way that makes speedrunners opt for vibrating in place), and the most fun thing, double damage from sneak attacks. With how randomized the damage is, for a long time I had no idea that's a thing at all, but it sure is. When you combine the sneak attack amplifier with the point blank damage amplifier, you can one-shot mutants.

 

This ties to one of many reasons why non-infighting hitscanners in Wolf3d aren't as much of a nightmare as they would've been in Doom:

1. The initial delay. In Doom, every single enemy reacts immediately upon seeing you. They have a (very slight) delay before actually shooting, but they begin moving immediately. In Wolf3d, the enemies need a moment to even register what's happening, and you can use that to your advantage.
2. The longer firing animation. In Doom it's just one really short aiming frame, even shorter than most projectile enemies' aiming frames for some reason. In Wolf3d, there's usually one frame for stopping and drawing a weapon, another frame for aiming, and only then shooting, and it all takes quite a while. The mutant is the one infamous exception with literally zero delay before shooting.
3. And finally, 100% pain chance for everyone! Besides bosses. That synergizes a lot with point #2, and can make even larger groups of enemies a lot more manageable if you're clever about it. That's why I made one of my Wolf3d maps begin with three SS in front of you and no cover. I also added a secret to be fair, but you better believe it's survivable with a pistol and 8 bullets.

19 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Which game’s formula is more challenging really depends more on which specific maps were comparing. E1 of Doom is way easier than E1 of Wolf because blue Nazis can end you in 1 second flat. However, truly difficult Doom maps are harder than anything I’ve come across in Wolf (granted I’ve spent 100x more time with Doom)

 

Having spent a decent amount of time making and playing Wolf3d maps, I can attest that they can get a lot harder than the original set while still remaining fair. One really good thing about Wolf3d mapping is that the grid-based pathfinding makes enemies better at either chasing down the player, or at least getting lost in more interesting ways. They're also competent at opening doors, so there's plenty of scenarios to be built on that. So good Wolf3d maps are a bit like good deathmaps - no wide open areas devoid of a place to hide (deadly with hitscanners, but pretty safe with Doom's projectile throwers), but also no linear bottlenecks with only one entrance.

[Pirx]

On 8/20/2020 at 2:22 PM, Gez said:

Wolf 3D, for the reasons everyone listed: all enemies are hitscan, they can shoot through each other so you can't use the same crowd control techniques as in Doom, the maps are confusing mazes and you don't have an automap, the controls are clunkier, your maximum ammo capacity is 99, you have no armor system, you don't have a rocket launcher for killing several enemies at once or getting indirect kills...

 

this. of all these issues, the controls are my biggest problem. compared to doom, it feels like driving a wheelchair. a fast one, but still a wheelchair. so yeah, that makes it more difficult than when you literally run circles around them in doom. solution: open door, step back, shoot them as they stumble in your direction. might take the chaingun to do it quick enough, which means you have to dash to the door and collect the dropped ammo. fascinating.

[Devalaous]

Most definitely Wolfenstein 3D. Goddamn mutants drove me mad in Spear of Destiny in my recent playthrough. Im not even up to the task of playing the extra mission packs yet :D

[Lila Feuer]

@Devalaous The FormGen Spear games are fucking terrible and you should probably avoid them. Actually bad level design compared to anything in id's games. Return to Danger is especially awful. Also, the new graphics and audio are reused quite a bit in custom addons so you aren't missing anything.

[Scypek2]

17 hours ago, Pirx said:

 

this. of all these issues, the controls are my biggest problem. compared to doom, it feels like driving a wheelchair. a fast one, but still a wheelchair. so yeah, that makes it more difficult than when you literally run circles around them in doom. solution: open door, step back, shoot them as they stumble in your direction. might take the chaingun to do it quick enough, which means you have to dash to the door and collect the dropped ammo. fascinating.

 

The controls are clunky when you're not used to moving with the mouse, instead of just using it to look around. Having a separate strafe key instead of two strafe left and right keys means that you can use the mouse to move in all four directions. Combined with Wolf3d's sharper movement, it makes for some really swift dodging. It's not as simple as running in circles (not that it'd help against hitscanners...), but it sure is more fun.

 

 

[unerxai]

Wolf3D is harder overall. Limited number of lives if you play saveless and bad mouse control for turning are my main reasons.

[Gerardo194]

If you play these games like me, with no saving during the levels, Wolf 3D is harder than Doom

[scalliano]

Wolf3D. Hitscan enemies, limited lives and some truly bullshit level design.

[Gunstar Green]

On 9/4/2020 at 9:45 PM, Lila Feuer said:

@Devalaous The FormGen Spear games are fucking terrible and you should probably avoid them. Actually bad level design compared to anything in id's games. Return to Danger is especially awful. Also, the new graphics and audio are reused quite a bit in custom addons so you aren't missing anything.

 

This. It feels like they just slapped together the packs using their level randomizer because they're just absolutely abysmal.

 

I also think the new graphics and audio suck but that's more of an opinion. They're maybe worth looking at for a few minutes just as a curiosity but completing them is more of a job for sadists. You're probably better off playing Blake Stone if you want more Wolf-3D.

[Andromeda]

I've made the mistake of maxing both Formgen expansions on IADI, all I can say is never again...

[Raleigh]

Doom is for pussies compared to Wolf3D in dificulty

[AinuTheTaken]

Just a thought. If Wolfenstein 3D is tougher as a lot of people are saying, why does it have 6 episodes? It just seems like they would have realized down at Id that people would get frustrated playing such a long, difficult game.

[DNSKILL5]

I don’t see how the amount of levels and difficulty really go together. Spear of Destiny is only 21 levels and is considered by many to be harder than Wolfenstein 3D. Also, 60 maps wasn’t the initial amount of levels for the game. It was sold as two 30 level sets spanning 6 episodes, 3 episodes in each set, including the first episode which was the 10 level shareware. Also, the game has episodes and a save feature, did you know that? You don’t have to play each level one after the other in one sitting. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Gerolf : typo

[Andromeda]

Yeah, the main reason Wolfenstein 3D has 60 levels is because the game's amazingly simple to map for. Oversimplifying here, but the mapping process is vaguely similar to pixel art.

[DoomedPerson]

Wolf3d. The hitscanners, they are everywere! Not to mention you have less weapons.

[Teo Slayer]

Wolfenstein 3D

 

Every enemy is a hitscan, their bullets go through enemies instead of causing infighting, the maps are confusing and you can lose health very fast if you aren't careful

[Maes]

What others said so far -plus, IMO, Wolf3D is much more of a "raw" video game than Doom. The core gameplay, all things considered, is very basic and incredibly repetitive. If it wasn't for the semi-novel visuals, it could very well be an Atari 2600 game.

[Chip]

I actually commented twice on this thread already, but after playing Wolfenstein a bit more, in its defense of it being an easier game, the level layouts are easier to remember. like in DOOM, enemy attacks are kind of random and are difficult to predict, so you might die in the same section over and over again. In Wolfenstein, it's sort of easy to remember where enemies were placed and how they will attack, making them less likely to kill you on your second playthrough. 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Wolf3D by a long shot. Doom is more fair to the player than that hellscan hell. And everything blends together after a while in that mazey hell. Not to mention Doom was balanced around pistol starting. Wolf3D is balanced around throwing your monitor out of the window. Your ears will also bleed after a while from the sound effects..