What ruins Doom (1993)?

[ChestedArmor]

I thought about this question, when I replayed Doom (UV).

While playing, I wrote down some notes and with them came to the following conclusion:

 

Episode 1

 is perfectly fine, even if repetitive.

 

Episode 2

 is fun, even if map 2 is hard to navigate, but big as upside,

 until map 6 "Halls of the Dammed".

 Tight rooms, confusing layout and overall not fun

 Map 7 "Spawning Vats"

 just confusing

 Map 8 "Tower of Babel"

 Fun Bossfight

 

Episode 3

 fun and mildly challenging

 Map 5 "Unholy Cathedral" and Map 7 "Limbo" have the same problem:

 ~10% Combat and 90% finding the way forward.

 Map 6 is wierd, but alright.

 

 Episode 4

 Hard to say what's wrong, it's more challenging, so it being "too hard" is a silly complaint.

 

 

In conclusion

...

Nothing new to add really.

Everybody knows e2m6;e2m7;e3m5 and e3m7 sucks.

So...those maps ruin Doom(?)

 

Well, the question now would more be:

Can you say you've play through Doom, if you skipped those level?

Because I can't blame the people who would.

[Sergeant G]

You might prefer Bloodstain. It's much more straightforward and to the point. 

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/bstain

 

 

 

[Jayextee]

Nothing ruins DOOM (1993). How dare you besmirch the good name of my bae like this.

[Nine Inch Heels]

It's actually quite simple: No revenants, viles, mancs, trons, PEs HKs... and no SSG... So yeah, it's fine for what it is, but also very limited compared to doom II...

[galileo31dos01]

44 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

It's actually quite simple: No revenants, viles, mancs, trons, PEs HKs... and no SSG... So yeah, it's fine for what it is, but also very limited compared to doom II...

 

you forgot no stucco!!1!

[Mr. Freeze]

Nothing because Doom is a perfect game. 

[Yumheart]

"Ruins" is a strong word. I guess some of the level design doesn't hold up that well, but E1 & E4 are still great times, and the rest is a matter of taste.

 

Spoiler

But cmon, Halls of the Damned rocks.

 

[Apprentice]

I don't think it actually "ruins" the game but I do feel that the level design in Episode 2 and Episode 3 is somewhat lacking compared to the leveldesign utilized in Episode 1. For some reason, it just doesn't 'catch me' so to speak. Maybe it's the setting, maybe it was the level designers, maybe something else, I don't know . . .

[KubaloBlackMT]

1 minute ago, Apprentice said:

I don't think it actually "ruins" the game but I do feel that the level design in Episode 2 and Episode 3 is somewhat lacking compared to the leveldesign utilized in Episode 1. For some reason, it just doesn't 'catch me' so to speak. Maybe it's the setting, maybe it was the level designers, maybe something else, I don't know . . .

Definitely a designer thing, those levels were mostly made by Sandy Petersen, who isn't known for having the prettiest of maps. They are fun maps though and never found them confusing except for maybe E2M7 on my first playthrough.

[KubaloBlackMT]

Just now, KubaloBlackMT said:

Definitely a designer thing, those levels were mostly made by Sandy Petersen, who isn't known for having the prettiest of maps. They are fun maps though and never found them confusing except for maybe E2M7 on my first playthrough.

Also to add, even though Doom 2 is my favorite of all since it was my first anyways. I still think the overall map aesthetic of Episode 3's Hell is a bit better than Doom 2's Hell.

[El Juancho]

killing cacodemons and baron of hell with the normal shotgun.

[Roofi]

Even if the bestiary of Doom is limited, it should not be forgotten that it is possible to create various hazardous environments to increase their dangerousness: barrels, dead pits, crushers, darkness ...

 

 

[_bruce_]

Only thing that may have tainted it a bit is not having had Rom-ero as some kind of final quality control agent for all maps released. Quality Control as in refining and not just purging "weak" entries.

I really like the maps you mentioned as being bad, but they could have been way better with a few tweaks.

[ChestedArmor]

30 minutes ago, _bruce_ said:

Only thing that may have tainted it a bit is not having had Rom-ero as some kind of final quality control agent for all maps released. Quality Control as in refining and not just purging "weak" entries.

I really like the maps you mentioned as being bad, but they could have been way better with a few tweaks.

That's really intersting, because it's literally the first time I've heard somebody defending these maps.

I mean, Halls of the Dammed, I could understand,

but Spawning Vats, Unholy Cathedral and Limbo!?

I'd be really happy to hear what on these maps you liked.

[ChestedArmor]

2 hours ago, Sergeant G said:

You might prefer Bloodstain. It's much more straightforward and to the point. 

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/bstain

 

 

 

I just played through the first 3 level and have mixed feelings.

On one hand it was awesome and I had the fun of my live,

On the other does everyting I found good and I build myself look lazy, directionless and made by a tard.

But yes, it feels like Doom I, but better²

[Okej5722]

Doom 2 definitely ruins it in a lot of ways, but then again, I'm the kind of person who gets overhyped about doom 2's additions. It's still a decent game though.

[Omniarch]

The boss maps. Each one is progressively more disappointing and lazy than the last. This problem actually has a tendency to persist even into many OG Doom PWADS, including but not limited to: 2002ADO, Base Ganymede, Deathless, DTWiD, DTWiD:LE, Lunar Catastrophy and even my beloved No End In Sight. I'm not sure why this is, precisely.

 

There are examples of ExM8 maps that actually use their respective bossactions in interesting or at least engaging ways, like Sinergy and Return to Hadron's episode finales, as well as some M8s from the upcoming UDINO. Perhaps this habitual shortcoming has something to do with the backwards-looking nature of most OG Doom pwads?

 

Frankly, bosses and Doom do not mix. The game's mechanical strength lies mainly in its uniquely synergistic bestiary, so stripping that away is never going to yield good results. Individual enemies in Doom are too mechanically simple and predictable to allow for decent 1v1 encounters.

 

Though, to be clear, I am not counting potential (G)ZDoom bossfights, since, with Decorate and ACS involved, there is at least the possibility of mechanically engaging 1v1 encounters. I have yet to see any myself, but my understanding of that portion of Waddom is non-existant, so I can't say for sure.

[wallabra]

1 hour ago, _bruce_ said:

Quality Control as in refining and not just purging "weak" entries.

 

Silly, quality control means just purging "weak" entries. You're talking about creative direction. I.e., not all maps had Romero's creative direction.

 

Lay off the businessman buzzwords. You aren't losing synergy by acting naturally in a website about a video game from the 90s.

 

Sorry for the nitpick, just had to.

 

3 hours ago, ChestedArmor said:

So...those maps ruin Doom(?)

 

Wait, everyone already pointed out "ruined" is a strong word, but this sentence makes it feel like maybe you truly do dislike the entirety of Doom because of them.

 

So I request clarification, and I mean just for the sake of avoiding misunderstanding – do you think they ruin all of Doom, or that they're just bad parts of Doom? What precisely did you mean when you write that?

 

I take it English isn't your first language lol. It's not mine either. So don't feel too pressured if you fear people may misunderstand you. That's natural; misunderstanding is an inevitable part of language! 50% of being good at getting your point across is preventing misunderstanding; the other half is handling it with care when it actually, nay, inevitably, happens. :)

 

(If I sounded patronizing in the slightest there, I apologize! Do let me know and I'll fix it!)

[Mayomancer]

Not necessarily a flaw of the original Doom game, but after playing so much content for Doom 2 the limited roster of the first one does feel lacking.

 

Although, the episodic structure and actual distinct boss fights in the end of each episode is a strong point it has over Doom 2, imo. Even though the Cyb's and Spider mastermind's introductions were way too easy, for modern standards.

 

The way Doom 1 introduces the roster gradually is also pretty good, gives each episode it's own personality (on top of the visual themes). For example, Quake also has a limited roster, yet it introduces it's strongest enemy as soon as e1m3.

[Nikku4211]

Well, of course, anything from Doom can be explained with how revolutionary it was. With so many new things and new standards being set by Doom, there's bound to be plenty of mistakes and bad-faith compromises because there was no previous generally accepted mould for the revolutionary things Id was doing with Doom.

 

Ruined is obviously a strong word, I mean, Doom is still a fun game, especially when you take into account how old it is and how early of an FPS it is.

 

But there's quite a bit of stuff to look past, and I think talking about that's what this thread's for.

 

So anyways, what messes up Doom for me is the presence of flying enemies when height collision flat-out does not exist between solid sprites. So what ends up happening is that you'll often end up getting blocked by some flying enemy high up when you're on the ground.

It's also annoying the other way around when you're high up on a ledge and an enemy's on the ground, but the enemy is still able to attack you with melee attacks. Combine that with vanilla Doom's lack of looking up or down, and you'll be left wondering just what enemy's attacking you.

As cool as it is to see maps with high levels of verticality and flex on how it's not Wolfenstein 3D, stuff like this makes tall maps in vanilla/limit-removing/Boom/MBF/Fusion less practical.

 

After playing Doom 2, I can't help but feel the SSG is missing from Doom 1. I know Doom 1's IWAD doesn't have the super shotgun sprites or sounds, and I know the executable's disabled the ability to select the SSG after you switch from it when it is in Doom 1 mode(if you're using Doom 2's IWAD as a PWAD), but man, I can definitely tell I need an SSG, something stronger than the regular shotgun but doesn't have the blast radius of rockets and doesn't affect how many BFG shots you can do. Especially when there's cacos and barons.

 

Honestly, the limited roster of the 1st game makes sense for the weapons you get. I feel like when Doom 2 enemies come into play here, an SSG is desperately needed.

 

Also, slime trails are a bit annoying, though they're such a minor visual glitch anyway it doesn't matter too much. It's more annoying for the artist and art critic in me, though.

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, ChestedArmor said:

but Spawning Vats, Unholy Cathedral and Limbo!?

I'd be really happy to hear what on these maps you liked.

Spawning Vats is one of my favourite maps.
It has everything i seek on an Ultimate Doom map:
-Exploration? Check

-sense of place? Check

-Atmosphere and mood? Check

-texture work that combines with the sky when it is displayed? Check

-Hint of actual story? Check

-Multiple routes? Check

To be clear, E2 is for me, far better than E1 that is in fact is my least liked episode of Ultimate Doom.
Maybe i played it too many times...
Or maybe i'm just tired of the aethetic repeated ad-infinitum.

 

Limbo is easy once you know the thrill. Easy even on UV.
first southwestern area, then northeastern area, you have two of the three keys by now, then southeastern area, then north western area and thats it.

Unholy Cathedral gives the illusion of non linearity, but all the path lead to the same core area.
You only need to acces the four teleporter of the central area but from the inside, and it is solved.
Its mostly a chore than an actual bad map, same as Limbo.

E4 is just there to show that one can actually make hard maps for Ultimate Doom with just a good design.
The name of the episode foreshadows how to achieve it.
How you makes good map designs?
You practice until Thy Flesh Consumes
:P

[xdarkmasterx]

2 hours ago, Omniarch said:

The boss maps. Each one is progressively more disappointing and lazy than the last.

 

 

I'd say that's entirely the fault of the bosses and their weak, easy to dodge attacks, and not the map itself. I'd rather that on a boss map the focus be on the fight itself, and not anything else.

 

I've said this numerous times on the Eternal subforum, but I don't want to get to a boss level only to see a lot of idiots running around between me and my opponent. You've got the entire rest of the game for that, do something new for once will ya? :p

[P41R47]

16 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

 

I'd say that's entirely the fault of the bosses and their weak, easy to dodge attacks, and not the map itself. I'd rather that on a boss map the focus be on the fight itself, and not anything else.

 

I've said this numerous times on the Eternal subforum, but I don't want to get to a boss level only to see a lot of idiots running around between me and my opponent. You've got the entire rest of the game for that, do something new for once will ya? :p

I find a little built up before the proper boss to be entertaining.
Like Valiant final boss fight.
Also, when the map itself is a threat to the player, that makes things a little more interesting.

DTWID E3M8 is somewhat good at it, for example.
Or Wonderful Doom E2M8.

Edited August 28, 2021 by P41R47

[KubaloBlackMT]

Coming back here, I want to point out something interesting I've noticed. I've always had constantly switching moods about the map design of Doom and Doom 2. This thread made me realize why I may have thought that way.

 

If you're playing the game on Gzdoom in a 320x320 video mode or whatever resolution that makes the game very pixelated and similar to dos in any way. The map design may look ok to you (not saying everyone thinks this but I know I did).

 

Suddenly you switch back to the "normal" videomode or any videomode that takes away that pixelated look and makes it full HD and clean and all that, you'll start to see the texture misalignments and the weird decisions with certain textures (ie: using half of a border texture for some design) and the overall blockiness of the levels.

 

The thing is, when this game was being developed, using half of a texture for a cool-looking tech design, and all other things were done because of the pixelated resolution removing the cutoff look that misaligned textures can have. Here's Mt. Erebus (a pretty weird looking open map) with two resolutions: 320x320 mimicking the likely resolution for Doom (as far as my research went I think that was it, correct me if I'm a dumbass), and the "Normal" Gzdoom videomode. 

320x320

mondo normal mode!

 

You can see how the maps in the Normal videomode look like Roblox construction now. Note how the brick textures connected with the fireblu looks really weird now.

 

Should've taken a 320x320 image of this just to test. But anyway, look at this glorious texture misalignment that I never noticed until now.

 

I want to note here that it's not all of the maps that look like this. A lot of maps look really good and it seems it's mainly the maps that people will bring up for being the uglier maps that have these weird looks on different resolutions. I should taken a screenshot for an example of using half a texture to create what seems like a cool design for lower resolutions but oh well.

 

Also, I don't know if resolution is the right term, I'm more comfortable calling it videomode instead but yeah.

[P41R47]

@KubaloBlackMT emmm no man, missalignment is something that looks bad on low resolution or high resolution.
Only moment it doesn't look bad is when you do it on purpose, but those cases are somewhat strange and hard to find.
Most of the top 100 mapsets of the 90's have a thumbs-up because the authors took the time to proper align the textures, when DoomBuilder wasn't even around and you had to do it, manually.
So go figure!

About the blocky look, well... monster modern hit Minecraft want to have a talk with you, i think ;)

and 320x320 will always look bad as it is a very bad ratio to use.

The proper Doom ratio of Doom was 320x200

Edited August 28, 2021 by P41R47

[KubaloBlackMT]

3 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

@KubaloBlackMT emmm no man, missalignment is something that looks bad on low resolution or high resolution.
Only moment it doesn't look bad is when you do it on purpose, but those cases are somewhat strange and hard to find.
Most of the top 100 mapsets of the 90's have a thumbs-up because the authors took the time to proper align the textures, when DoomBuilder wasn't even around and you had to do it, manually.
So go figure!

Oh wow, I don't know shit then lol.

 

In my own experiences I've always found the super crisp resolution to look a little weird. The lower resolutions make it difficult for me to spot them until I switch. Also, that "half texture" thing, that's honestly just me throwing out about something I never personally liked. Whenever I randomly use the map editor I tend to put borders on anything that I think doesn't look right, so if I ever actually post one they'll probably be everywhere!

[7Mahonin]

The pistol could’ve been a bit faster shooting, still slower than the chaingun, and would’ve made it a far better “last resort” weapon. Even the Wolfenstein 3D pistol is better than the one in Doom as a starting pistol, and that one has it where you have to press fire each time to shoot, and yet still felt more punchy and faster shooting than the one in Doom. 

[garu32]

Something that ruins Doom 1993 is that you don't have the super shotgun

[KubaloBlackMT]

46 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

About the blocky look, well... monster modern hit Minecraft want to have a talk with you, i think ;)

and 320x320 will always look bad as it is a very bad ratio to use.

The proper Doom ratio of Doom was 320x200

I don't have a problem with the blocky look, I'm just saying it looks a bit weird when on higher resolutions, which in it of itself isn't a problem since it is a primitive game. I'll admit I didn't elaborate on the "roblox construction" remark that I made, which wasn't meant to sound like an offense but rather a comparison off the top of my head.

 

I will also say here and not leave out the fact that this was on a more primitive editor and so texturing and such was different. Still, I was only talking about how I'd constantly switch between thinking a map looks good to thinking a map looks a bit off. Which I think play be a teeny tiny part in how people view and criticize the designs of maps.

 

Also, I actually never said 320x320 was a bad resolution, I like the resolution and use it often. Thanks for the reminder though that the proper Doom ratio was 320x200. No hate toward you at all or anything cause I feel the way it's typed makes it sound like a hateful complaint (there's usually no emotional context in a written comment), I totally forgot about the fact that the game was made with the editor they had for some reason when I made the observations too.

[P41R47]

6 minutes ago, KubaloBlackMT said:

I don't have a problem with the blocky look, I'm just saying it looks a bit weird when on higher resolutions, which in it of itself isn't a problem since it is a primitive game. I'll admit I didn't elaborate on the "roblox construction" remark that I made, which wasn't meant to sound like an offense but rather a comparison off the top of my head.

 

I will also say here and not leave out the fact that this was on a more primitive editor and so texturing and such was different. Still, I was only talking about how I'd constantly switch between thinking a map looks good to thinking a map looks a bit off. Which I think play be a teeny tiny part in how people view and criticize the designs of maps.

 

Also, I actually never said 320x320 was a bad resolution, I like the resolution and use it often. Thanks for the reminder though that the proper Doom ratio was 320x200. No hate toward you at all or anything cause I feel the way it's typed makes it sound like a hateful complaint (there's usually no emotional context in a written comment), I totally forgot about the fact that the game was made with the editor they had for some reason when I made the observations too.

just leave it there, pal!
you are a overthinking it a little as there was no ill intention at all.
320x320 was in fact a joke, because if the game could be played at that resolution it would look really awful, really really awfull.