WADs that get progressively easier as they go on.

[Chip]

Ho man! I've been posting a lot recently, haven't I? I should take a break soon, just so I don't start creating crappy topics (today I had the idea of a topic where I would ask if the demons were famous people who would they be [Revenant is Mick Jagger obviously]? So that just shows how low I'm going). But, I thought this topic was pretty interesting to bring up. There are a lot of maps that get harder and harder the more you play. Like BTSX's level 1 of Ep. 1 compared to later maps. But, are there WADs that actually get easier as you progress. As in you are OP with all the weapons, or the design fades to something easier (like more obvious enemy placement). 

 

I thought the first level of Plutonia was hard AF. I had only crappy weapons, and I was getting chaingun sniped like crazy. But, when I reached level 4, I realized it wasn't actually that bad. Of course, I know Plutonia gets much more difficult as you go on, but for the first 3 levels, it felt pretty easier than I expected (not to say that I didn't have trouble in the other maps, because level 2 I died a bunch of times). So, what other WADs have you played that get much easier as you progress through them?

[Tony_Danza_the_boss]

Not technically a WAD, but I would without a doubt say Thy Flesh Consumed starts off balls to the walls hard, then really ramps down in difficulty by the end. Hell Beneath, Perfect Hatred and Sever the Wicked still remain the some of the 3 toughest levels in Doom 1, and regardless of whether you're pistol starting or not they are a definite challenge 

[galileo31dos01]

"Revolution!" by TVR

 

It's not that it grows easier, but that it doesn't ramp up from the third map til the end, with the very subtle "oh shit" moments in between. This is from a UV pistol start experience, though playing on continuous I can only imagine it getting proactively more of a breeze.

[Final Verdict]

Bah @Tony_Danza_the_boss beat me to it, I was going to say the exact same thing.

 

I can't actually think of any WAD's that get easier as you play, but that's mostly because after awhile they start to blend into each other. That and I generally don't go looking for that kind of thing. I can't even think of one example but I'm sure some exist, I just don't know about them.

 

It's like asking someone who doesn't play slaughter WAD's to name you some examples. That's the excuse I'm going with anyway.

[Aaron Blain]

If you aren't pistol starting, the answer is "most of them". At least through the first leg of a mapset before things start escalating beyond a certain point.

 

Are there any megawads balanced specifically for continuous play? It would be interesting if, say, the supershotgun appeared in every map only after map03, the RL after map05, etc.

[El Juancho]

Plutonia

[PasokonDeacon]

29 minutes ago, Aaron Blain said:

If you aren't pistol starting, the answer is "most of them". At least through the first leg of a mapset before things start escalating beyond a certain point.

 

Are there any megawads balanced specifically for continuous play? It would be interesting if, say, the supershotgun appeared in every map only after map03, the RL after map05, etc.

Some older sets like Obituary, the -enity WADs from Bjorn Hermanns and Holger Natharath, and The Rebirth greatly favor continuous players, often by denying weapon pickups in a lot of maps which hurts pistol-starters. I can't think of any set released in separate continuous and pistol-start forms, but that'd be an interesting if unpopular concept for a map set.

WRT the topic, all I'll add is that puzzle maps like The Given become easier to grok, even as later puzzles get harder, once you've already cleared out the earlier parts.

[Andromeda]

Requiem, it has its spikes (MAP23 & 24 are easily the hardest) but overall it seemed to get progressively easier.

[GarrettChan]

On 9/7/2020 at 1:36 PM, JuanchoES said:

Plutonia

Are you.... sure...?

[BoxY]

6 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Are you.... sure...?

 

It's been a while now since I played through Plutonia properly, but I generally remember the more difficult and annoying fights being heavily frontloaded into the first 15 or so maps, with a couple of exceptions. The maps definitely are longer and more complex in the later slots, but room-to-room difficulty also goes down significantly.

[seed]

43 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Are you.... sure...?

 

I would argue that yes, actually.

 

Many of the early levels tend to have pretty nasty traps in places that can catch you off guard when not expecting them, like the infamous Soul Bridge, but after the second episode that stops, the player gets more powerful, and the difficulty mostly goes down.

Edited October 5, 2020 by seed

[P41R47]

Also the better maps of Plutonia appeard on the second and third chapter.
Well for me at least.
I greatly enjoyed Plutonia after Haunted, having a great ramp up on quality on map12: speed, and then onward.
Before it, its greatly bores me with it stupid traps.

[seed]

8 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

Also the better maps of Plutonia appeard on the second and third chapter.
Well for me at least.
I greatly enjoyed Plutonia after Haunted, having a great ramp up on quality on map12: speed, and then onward.
Before it, its greatly bores me with it stupid traps.

 

The thing is that early on, Plutonia makes it explicitly clear that it wants the player to be done for, and fast, but after the second episode commences, the obsession stops, and returns to focusing on pure gameplay without random, dick-ish traps in who knows what places.

[Chip]

1 hour ago, GarrettChan said:

Are you.... sure...?

I would say no, except some maps between like 11 and 16 (I don't know which ones, but certainly the Arch-vile maze). After that it is harder than the first 10 levels, and gets harder, but those levels in the middle were the hardest, IMO.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

scythe2.wad

[BoxY]

1 minute ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

scythe2.wad

 

No.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

17 minutes ago, BoxY said:

 

No.

Git gud.

 

Scythe 2 is a perfect example. You get your ass reamed, I mean totally REAMED on map01. By the time you get to map23, it's all child's play.

 

PROOF

 

The first image is for map01. The second one is map23. The six (SIX! Can you believe that shit? Erik Alm is a fucking PSYCHOPATH) sergeants wandering around map01 serve as a more than adequate warmup for the 243 revenants in map23.

 

Notice how Erik totally understands how ITYTD works, evidenced by the fact that he cuts eight revenants from map23 compared to UV.

 

 

The answer OP is looking for is Scythe 2. Close the thread.

Edited October 5, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[GarrettChan]

2 hours ago, BoxY said:

It's been a while now since I played through Plutonia properly, but I generally remember the more difficult and annoying fights being heavily frontloaded into the first 15 or so maps, with a couple of exceptions. The maps definitely are longer and more complex in the later slots, but room-to-room difficulty also goes down significantly.

 

2 hours ago, seed said:

Many of the early levels tend to have pretty nasty traps in places that can catch you off guard when not expecting them, like the infamous Soul Bridge, but after the second episode that stops, the player gets more powerful, and the difficulty mostly goes down.

 

I think probably we are talking on different context? For pistol start, later maps are necessary not easier than the early maps. Besides this, on some of the maps, you still need to know what to do even you have the weapons. I would say things like Map24, Map25 and Map27 still have their own type of difficulty, but not those kind of weird difficulty from invisible bridges like seed mentioned. Of course, that's just my feeling, and I can't say for sure.

 

On the other hand, the post above about Scythe 2 is pure BS. Scythe 2 is definitely harder in the later levels.

[seed]

No, I heavily disagree with that assessment, Scythe and Scythe 2 both get progressively more difficult but each in their own way, while Scythe 2 turns into slaughter by the time the 20th map is reached and a grindy kind no less. Sometimes, shit felt impenetrable and rather tedious.

 

Not to mention that the Plasma Marines become frequent enemies by that time, and they're notorious cunts, although easy to deal with - if you know they're coming.

 

I'm glad the innovations brought by Scythe 2 saw further improvements. The Plasma Marines were interesting but overpowered since they could quite literally kill the player instantly or in mere moments if all shots connected, and the Afrit, boss enemy or not, was a textbook example of a bullet sponge. Both enemies have since seen better balanced incarnations, and also better usage and placement. Scythe 2 was great and fun but it's definitely not without its issues.

 

It has better map design than the first Scythe overall, but it was less fun to play because it could turn into a boring grind fest on occasion.

[GarrettChan]

5 minutes ago, seed said:

I'm glad the innovations brought by Scythe 2 got further improved.

That's why I always call the 200X a transitional era where people won't know what's wrong with that until they actually try it out. Even though I personally don't like Scythe 2 as the feeling of suddenly killed by a plasma dude haunts you constantly after Map31 or Map16, which will lead to a poor blind play experience, I do admit Scythe 2 has a lot of meaningful influence to other WADs and early maps are quite good.

 

Interestingly enough, Resurgence uses the same 2 type of custom monsters, but they are toned down to a reasonable level and I like Resurgence a lot more than Scythe 2.

 

Spoiler

Now I think about it. He probably wasn't trying to actually recommend something, but somehow was salty about OP opening too many threads.

 

[seed]

10 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

That's why I always call the 200X a transitional era where people won't know what's wrong with that until they actually try it out. Even though I personally don't like Scythe 2 as the feeling of suddenly killed by a plasma dude haunts you constantly after Map31 or Map16, which will lead to a poor blind play experience, I do admit Scythe 2 has a lot of meaningful influence to other WADs and early maps are quite good.

Interestingly enough, Resurgence uses the same 2 type of custom monsters, but they are toned down to a reasonable level and I like Resurgence a lot more than Scythe 2.

 

Yeah, pretty much. The 2000s saw tons of crazy shit but in hindsight, the classics from that era sure had their flaws which are very noticeable when going back to them now.

 

As you said, other wads feature these enemies, but with much needed adjustments and overall much better usage. It is no fun playing a wad blind only to get killed by an enemy capable of putting the player out of their misery almost instantly. Stuff like this makes people salty, but for a good reason. There's better ways to design good combat with a sense of impeding doom without feeling cheap, as we've seen since, and continue to do.

[AinuTheTaken]

Are you feeling ok, TheMagicMushroomMan?

[Andromeda]

Scythe 2 grindy slaughter? Hard disagree. As someone who tends to dislike "slaughter" setups, I found the last two episodes of Scythe 2 very fun to play, especially when compared to the extreme grind found in some of the later levels in HR/HR2 (not dissing those wads as I enjoy them regardless). ^{I'll probably regret opening this can of worms}

[GarrettChan]

7 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

Scythe 2 grindy slaughter? Hard disagree. As someone who tends to dislike "slaughter" setups, I found the last two episodes of Scythe 2 very fun to play, especially when compared to the extreme grind found in some of the later levels in HR/HR2 (not dissing those wads as I enjoy them regardless). ^{I'll probably regret opening this can of worms}

Heh, except having negative views on custom monsters, I do think the fights in Scythe 2 is fine mostly.

 

As I just finished HR, I would say HR suffers from a problem that many maps want to you SG/SSG a lot of meat, which is not fun on my book. Of course, some of them are designed properly and you need to think about it, but more of them aren't.

[Gez]

17 minutes ago, AinuTheTaken said:

Are you feeling ok, TheMagicMushroomMan?

He cannot possibly feel ok, look at these screen captures! He's been on the bad wiki, and is probably now full of malware as a result.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I was being sarcastic.

 

"The first image is for map01. The second one is map23. The six (SIX! Can you believe that shit? Erik Alm is a fucking PSYCHOPATH) sergeants wandering around map01 serve as a more than adequate warmup for the 243 revenants in map23.

 

Notice how Erik totally understands how ITYTD works, evidenced by the fact that he cuts eight revenants from map23 compared to UV."

 

 

 

Scythe 2's biggest failing is that lowering the difficulty does next to nothing. Having 235 revenants instead of 243 makes no difference. The first half is easy enough that anyone can beat it. The latter sections are tedious and grindy, like @seed said. And the plasma trooper is the most annoying custom enemy I've ever seen. The Afrit isn't much better, and works better in wads the lower his health. map23 is the worst, with the sea of revenants at the end. And map27 made for a better finale than the map30 that was added later.

Edited October 5, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 minute ago, Gez said:

He cannot possibly feel ok, look at these screen captures! He's been on the bad wiki, and is probably now full of malware as a result.

Malware on the Doom Wiki?!

 

The Fortnite ads sure are annoying as shit anyway.

[P41R47]

32 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Malware on the Doom Wiki?!

 

The Fortnite ads sure are annoying as shit anyway.

No, maybe you couldn't grasp that what Gez said and most of us here adhere, is that we have a proper Doom Wiki, and you used insted, the wikia/fandom page.
Again, maybe you don't know, but to put you in cause, well we kinda are against the wikia/fandom because when we separate ways backthen with them, they stole our information, and they add info that not necessarely shows the true. They literally are copypasting it.

Read here to be more informed, and the link the little OP here also linked on this thred will explain a lot of things to you.

You are not doing anything wrong, so don't take the bad joke in a serious manner.
;)

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

2 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

No, maybe you couldn't grasp that what Gez said and most of us here adhere, is that we have a proper Doom Wiki, and you used insted, the wikia/fandom page.
Again, maybe you don't know, but to put you in cause, well we kinda are against the wikia/fandom because when we separate ways backthen with them, they stole our information, and they add info that not necessarely shows the true. And not only that, they stole information from our wiki, literally copypasting it.

Read here to be more informed, and the link the little OP here also linked on this thred will explain a lot of things to you.

You are not doing anything wrong, so don't take the bad joke in a serious manner.
;)

 

Did not know this. I was just trying to get a quick chart with the enemy counts in Scythe 2. Thanks for the info!

[Chip]

wow! this topic has become really popular all of a sudden. Strange that it isn't on the hot topic list.