Broadening my Doom horizons

[ImproversGaming]

So, I have pretty narrow vision for things I do in life and in doom. For instance, if I enjoy a book or movie I will read/watch all ones from that series and then read/watch them again and again. I guess I am not natural to trying things in different ways at times and enjoy the standard (safe) ways I am familiar with.

 

In Doom there are so many things I have not done. I have been pretty rigid to my standard MO (single segment, all kills and secrets, pistol start, traditional style wads). For instance, I have never played: nightmare; fast; wads with major new enemies, mechanics or weapons; slaughter maps; speed-running; pacifist; with freelook, jump or crouch; deathmatch; any games of the franchise beyond Doom I or II; mapping; midi composition; etc.; etc.; etc.

I watched a Dwars livestream recently where they hit the “random file” link on he idgames page and played whatever it threw back. This made me think more about broadening my horizons.

 

So, I guess there are two questions that I would be interested to hear your thoughts on:

1)      What things have you have tried in Doom (maybe reluctantly) that were unexpectedly better than you would have thought and that you now really enjoy?

2)      Do you have any specific strategies you like that broaden your exposure to new things in Doom?

 

Note: This is obviously subjective, which is cool (we can all like different things and I know that my standard MO will not be for everyone). Lets focus on the positives; this is all about hearing from you about things you stumbled onto that turned out to be really fun, which is what Doom is all about to me.

[ImproversGaming]

Ok. To get us started this is my modest response to my own query:

1)      I am starting to enjoy listing to MIDIs – even listening to them outside of Doom (it was common for me to play with little to no music volume). Was not expecting this as I am not really a music person…but there are some great MIDIs that have emerged

2)      Joining DW and reading the experiences of others

 

Not much so far, but it is a work in progress!

[Womp the Cat]

I didn't think I would like alterations to gameplay like new weapons and monsters, but changed my mind after playing Valiant which managed to maintain an overall classic feel with the changes.

[LadyMistDragon]

The style of gameplay that Going Down pioneered. I don't really like claustrphobic wads, and I don't even like playing through Going Down, but that combat is excellent when utilized correctly.

[Nefelibeta]

The first time I played a pwad, valiant. it just impressed me with its combat and visual designs. (And actually I realized that valiant is pretty tough imo, compared to doom2 and plutonia)

 

I also think I fell in love with stardate20x7 when I replayed it. In my first play through it felt like a complete nightmare but after that it became really replayable. Color purple <3

[BedrockCastle]

Well, I'll answer the first one. My first exposure to Plutonia was... not good. I had just finished Doom 1 and thought: "hey, this seems cool and I don't want to start Doom 2 yet for some reason, so I'll try this!" I got my ass whooped in MAP01 but persisted, until that stupid invisible bridge sequence towards the end of MAP02. I didn't return to Plutonia for a while, but I begrudgingly went back to it and enjoyed the shit out of it.

[Jiggahertz]

On 3/17/2022 at 6:14 AM, ImproversGaming said:

So, I guess there are two questions that I would be interested to hear your thoughts on:

1)      What things have you have tried in Doom (maybe reluctantly) that were unexpectedly better than you would have thought and that you now really enjoy?

There's 2 things

 

1: I didn't think I would enjoy playing with freelook and a crosshair, but it ended up being my actual preferred way to play

 

2: I didn't think I would be playing all of my WADs on Ultra-Violence. When I first beat Doom 1 and Doom 2 and when I replayed them I always did them on either Hey Not Too Rough or Hurt Me Plenty. I was initially not going to play Plutonia or TNT, especially not Plutonia because of its difficulty/reputation or whatever. It all started when my friend challenged both of us to do Plutonia on Ultra-Violence just as a fun challenge or whatever, and I was like sure, sounds like it's gonna be an experience for sure. Eventually me and him both ended up finishing all of Plutonia on Ultra-Violence including its secret levels, and that made me realize that Ultra-Violence is not that bad and that if I managed to do Plutonia on Ultra-Violence I can do anything on Ultra-Violence. I didn't end up getting into community WADs until a decent amount of time later, but when I did, I played and beat all of them on Ultra-Violence, including Sunlust, Stardate 20x6, etc.