Should I play Valiant or Eviternity first?

[Cosmian]

I just finished playing The Plutonia Experiment, and TNT: Evilution and enjoyed both of them a ton (I also played Ultimate DOOM and DOOM II). The only two mods I've finished are Phobos: Anomaly Reborn and UAC Ultra.

 

Now I'm wondering do I play Valiant or Eviternity first? Any input would be appreciated :D.

 

BTW this is my first Doomworld post, I made an account to ask this question.

[P41R47]

Welcome aboard, pal!
Hope you have a nice time here ;)

 

About your question:

None of those.

Play the best.

Alien Vendetta is the one and only king.
:P

 

Jokes aside, is a serious recommendation.

Not only is the firs mapset that made a completely new era on mapping. It influence still resonate to these days, even on those mapset you want to play.

[D4NUK1]

Valiant it's more for my liking for the custom weapons, but both are pretty great!

[Cosmian]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm probably going to do Alien Vendetta or Eviternity. Making these decisions is really hard.

 

EDIT: I'm going to start with Alien Vendetta! Thanks again!

[P41R47]

Just now, minebolt said:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm probably going to do Alien Vendetta or Eviternity. Making these decisions is really hard.

hahaha don't strees it much.

There are a lot of good mapsets out there.

Whatever you play is alright. The only thing that matter is if you are enjoying it.

Nothing wrong on don't liking something.

So play whatever you feel like playing.

Check this list i recently made of all those mapsets that offer an interesting narrative experience.

There are a lot of amazing recommendations to play ;)

[Cosmian]

Thanks! I'll be sure to check out the other WADs on the list. I should mention that I have been binging Dean of Doom on YouTube. That's where I got the ideas for the next WAD to play.

[D4NUK1]

5 hours ago, minebolt said:

Thanks! I'll be sure to check out the other WADs on the list. I should mention that I have been binging Dean of Doom on YouTube. That's where I got the ideas for the next WAD to play.

That's a way cool to enter the wads, see first how other people play it, and if you like it, go for the full plate of food.

[GarrettChan]

TBH, these 2 doesn't really have a time order in anything. I probably would say it depends on you. You can try playing both of them together if you like switching around, but if you really want to focus on one of 2, probably just flip a coin :P

[BigBoy91]

2 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

just flip a coin :P

Definitely. Playing one before the other isn't gonna make you a better player or anything. Just dive in one of em bro!

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, P41R47 said:

 

Alien Vendetta is the one and only king.

 

For its time maybe, but both Valiant and Eviternity surpass it in quality. 😉

 

Between Eviternity and Valiant, i would say play Eviternity first because Valiant is a much harder wad and if you are new to Doom, Valiant might be too much to handle. 

[Yandere_Doomer]

if you want some challenging maps [that arent slaughtermaps] i recommend Sunlust, Ancient Aliens, 50 Shades of Graytall, or...... you could play them all in The Sentinels Lexicon! its in beta right now so they are planning on putting more maps in there.

[P41R47]

12 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

For its time maybe, but both Valiant and Eviternity surpass it in quality. 😉

 

They aren't even on the same compatibility setting, so talking about quality is redundant.

:/
The experience they offer is the only comparative point between all of them.

Beside that, as i made a subjetive comment, with some objetivity later, i enjoyed AV far more than Valiant and Eviternity, thats why i recommended it.

I have no problem with you liking Valiant and Eviternity more, so why preach for one or preach for other?

All of them are great mapsets that defined their respective times.
And all of them deserve the recognition they have.

Don't you think? :)

[whybmonotacrab]

Depends. I love them both for different reasons. Valiant is more consistently challenging and demanding than Eviternity, though Eviternity matches it in difficulty in it's later episodes. Valiant has more interesting and creative combat scenarios whereas Eviternity is mostly by the numbers Doom in that regard. Eviternity is extremely pretty though, and has a great sense of atmosphere and adventure. It has some of the most breathtaking architecture you'll see outside of more challenge oriented megawads like Sunder, Sunlust etc.

 

 Both, however, are extremely influenced by Scythe 2. Eviternity to me is Scythe 3 in a lot of ways. Both use the same episode structure (Eviternity even starts with a medieval setting like Scythe 2), both are fast paced run and gun style shooter, and like Scythe 2, both are awesome. 

 

AV is great, though it's not going to blow you away as a new player. It is a touch overrated and some of the maps are straight up fucking awful, whereas Valiant and Eviternity's worst maps are just kind of forgettable.

 

Alternatively, play a few levels of all of them and see which one grabs you because everyone likes different things.

 

[ReaperAA]

@P41R47 ok I'll admit that my comment sounded too objective rather than subjective.

 

What I should have said was that I like Valiant and Eviternity more because i feel they are more polished in terms of layout, combat and aesthetics.

 

Of course all 3 are great wads and OP can't go wrong with either.

 

And while we are at it, i would also recommend OP to check out Back to Saturn X wads.

[Pixel Fiend]

How long did it take you to finish Plutonia and TNT? I'd say play Eviternity first because it's the best mapset definitely worth finishing. It's worth to experience each level of Eviternity before you switch your interest to something else than Doom because each Eviternity level is a memorable masterpiece. Before you start, also take into consideration if you have found the playstyle and graphics that suit you most. I am playing Eviternity as well and my loadout is such:

 

GZDoom / VirtualMidiSynth / 320x200 Hardware / Unfiltered Textures / Transparency Vanilla / Light Sector Software / Blood Fixer / Precise Crosshair / Xhairs / Brightmaps Plus V1.72 / SBrightmaps / Footsteps V5 / Pistol Start / Musical Silencer

 

Playstyle: finishing a map as quickly as possible on Hurt Me Plenty difficulty, tapping caps lock to quicksave along the way.

 

PS Valiant (Vaccinated) is fun to try with the DN3DOOM mod.

[whybmonotacrab]

3 minutes ago, <<Rewind said:

PS Valiant (Vaccinated) is fun to try with the DN3DOOM mod.

I would definitely recommend Valiant be played straight before vaccinated with mods. Skillsaw went to a lot of work creating custom enemies and tweaking the loadout to encourage a certain playstyle and a lot of that is lost with the vaccinated edition. Those changes are core to the identity of the megawad in a way that it's not in something like Eviternity, and you'd be missing out on A LOT if you played the vaccinated version.

[sapphics]

Valiant, Alien Vendetta, and Eviternity are all solid choices, i wouldn't worry too much about what you go for. 

 

However, personally i would go with Eviternity just from the the awesome MIDI's alone. Especially Jimmy's tracks. They're so catchy. (Looking at you Gemstones, Motion Machine.)

[Silhouette 03]

I’m probably late to the party, but I’d recommend starting with Eviternity first since it has really good difficulty progression.

 

Welcome to Doomworld, friend!

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, whybmonotacrab said:

I would definitely recommend Valiant be played straight before vaccinated with mods. Skillsaw went to a lot of work creating custom enemies and tweaking the loadout to encourage a certain playstyle and a lot of that is lost with the vaccinated edition.

 

This pretty much. If/when OP decides to play Valiant, I recommend them to play the original Valiant first (with its custom monsters/weapons). They are big part of Valiant's identity. Some of the encounters just wouldn't be the same without them.

 

The vaccinated edition is mostly meant for mod compatibility.

[Crusader No Regret]

I suppose that asking the internet when faced with two equally appealing choices is as good a method as any to deal with  indecision.

 

Eviternity

[DooM Bear]

Valiant first I would say as Eviternity is harder and better!

 

I’m one of those people that always saves the best parts for last though :-P

 

Either way both are great so you can’t go wrong with whichever one you pick :-D

 

Ps glad to have you aboard and look forward to hearing what you think of them both!

[ReaperAA]

31 minutes ago, DooM Bear said:

Eviternity is harder

 

Eviternity is easier than Valiant (atleast on UV). Only the last few levels get near Valiant in terms of difficulty.

[DOEL]

You should play Alien Vendetta first, an amazing WAD, to greater appreciate these newer WADs!

[DooM Bear]

5 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Eviternity is easier than Valiant (atleast on UV). Only the last few levels get near Valiant in terms of difficulty.

 

Whaaat?!? I found it the other way round XD I did play Eviternity first though (and I think I played sunlust in between the two) so maybe it was just my skill level and expectation of difficulty changed between playing the two :-)

 

All I can remember from Eviternity are those bloody super caco’s being the bane of my existence and maps 32 and 19 though so you might be right about the difficulty in the rest of the WAD :-P

 

Oh I also just remembered I struggled with secret hunting in Eviternity too so that could have been a factor too :-P

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by DooM Bear

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, DooM Bear said:

(and I think I played sunlust in between the two) so maybe it was just my skill level and expectation of difficulty changed between playing the two :-)

 

Probably Sunlust battle-hardened you and made you a better player :)

[TheMightyHeracross]

6 hours ago, DOEL said:

You should play Alien Vendetta first, an amazing WAD, to greater appreciate these newer WADs!

While I practically worship AV, I question the idea that players should feel obligated to start with the old stuff just for the sake of it.

[0o0[ULTIM4TE]L1FE[F0RM]0o0]

Hey, I'm a new player too but I've played The Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 first, after that I went to the Hellbound Wad straight and it was an awesome and very impressive experience so personally I'd say play the Hellbould Wad, it's really awesome! Also you can play Hellbound with the Project Brutality mod if you want, it works very well together with the Hellbound wad, it's an awesome challenging but still fair experience!

[Cosmian]

I'm really enjoying AV right now (currently on MAP07)! I'll probably play Eviternity once I finish this one. Thanks again for all the feedback you guys gave, there are just so many great mods for DOOM and its really hard picking one to play and finish.

[Midnight_00]

I think they're both relatively easy by PWAD standards. You could play a few maps from each and then see which one you feel like continuing with more.

[smeghammer]

17 hours ago, minebolt said:

Phobos: Anomaly Reborn and UAC Ultra

 

Good taste dude! I love those two mapsets. P:AR for the HUUUUGE detailed levels and UAC Ultra because of the very different feel - and excellent gameplay - they have.

 

Regarding your OP - having dipped into both, I think I preferred Eviternity - purely for its aesthetics really - over Valiant. It's a personal thing though I guess. As to which? As others above have said - try both and play the one you prefer. They are both excellent.