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supersunBRO

WAD Difficulty

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I would like to eventually get to making my own WADs, after having played a few custom ones. But first I have to start learning and make some practice maps. I'd like my first completed WAD to mimic Doom/Doom II difficulty wise, is that something that would detract potential players? I know the og games are rather easy, (until the Doom E4 and the final act of Doom II at least...)

 

Thoughts?

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Hi,

 

I dont think that would detract players. Projects such as Doom the Way Id Did and Doom Zero are around the original games difficulty wise and they have been huge successes.

 

One of the coolest things about the Doom community is that one can play the game any way you like it.  Want to play ultrahard slaugthermaps? Go ahead. Are short punchy plutonia map your preference? Someone has probably just released a megawad. Wanna play something chill and not too complicated? There were probably at least two big releases this year.

 

Each of these modes have their own niches. You probably wont satisfy everyone, but attempting that is a fools errand.

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By all means make it whatever difficulty you want. Difficulty is subjective and few WADS actually stay consistent the whole way through. Some like Scythe have a distinct difficulty curve that's intended to make them accessible to newer players. What's important is to be able to hit your goal, mainly that will come with practice and playtesting. Additionally, you should try and isolate and control exactly what makes your maps hard. Every mapper has their own personality and their fights have different flavors when they try to crank them up. You could do something like restricting movement space and supplies, limiting weapons, or using certain combinations of monsters or making them awkward to fight within the terrain and they'd all increase difficulty in different ways. Sometimes it's more interesting and appropriate to make that fight with 2 revenants play out a little bit different instead of just making it 10 revenants. Experiment with all of that and consider going ham from time to time to see what you can get away with.

 

Anything based on Doom 1/2 should be perfectly fine of course, and even Plutonia levels of difficulty are usually able to be played by most who are into custom maps. Anything in that range is going to satisfy your biggest target audience and you have some leeway if you make a fight unintentionally tricky for some reason. Not as many of us can kick Sunlust's ass as you might think; people will be a lot saltier from an overly difficult map than an easy one. Hard WADs appeal to me sometimes if the mood strikes me, but it has to be my expectation that I'm in for a challenge. Plus you might be putting off 90% of the overall audience that would struggle to beat it to please the 10%.

 

It should be no problem to pull punches, the thing I think new mappers should avoid is making something you can't beat yourself. Good players tend to understand combat much better and have an idea about how to attack different threats and what strategies can be pulled off consistently.

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There's a bigger audience for wads that are on the low-end of the difficulty scale. Hardc0r3 players can still play easy maps, but novice players can't really play hardc0r3 maps. As long as it's enjoyable, that's all that matters. A hard map isn't automatically fun, and there aren't as many godlike players in the community as some people seem to think. The whole thing about experienced Doomers only finding joy in insanely difficult maps is mostly just a meme. There are some people who are like that, but that's their problem!

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15 hours ago, Lucius Wooding said:

Some like Scythe have a distinct difficulty curve that's intended to make them accessible to newer players.

Except for MAP30

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Easy wads are underrated. And it's not like hardcore players can't enjoy such wads; speedrunning can make them interesting.

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I don't really see them pop up too much often, at least in modern days. And they're also the kind of WADs that most people can play and completed. So, in my opinion these will attract some players, both casual and those that can do SR70 blindfolded.

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The only megawads I've played all the way through this year are Anomaly Report and Nostalgia, both of which are relatively easy. Short and easy maps are easy to pick up and play at a moment's notice, making them ideal for a quick stress-reliever, while harder and/or longer ones take more investment.

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Doom being Doom, vanilla-style difficulty is easily upped up a notch by going into Nightmare or just using the -fast switch. And if that's not enough, there's always mods.

More importantly, the community is vast enough that there are players of all skills, styles and experiences. It's not all that unfrequent to get newcomers, too, who will certainly appreciate manageable difficulty. UV-Speed players might appreciate a less punishing but well designed map too, considering it's all about finding the most optimal routes for that specific group. And even tough as nails slaughter-map fans such as decino occasionally like a break from chewing fireballs and lead and spitting out rockets for breakfast.

Me point being, if things like HDoom find an audience ... I'm sure that maps similar in difficulty to Doom 2 will find an audience too.

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29 minutes ago, CFWMagic said:

Didn't know what Hdoom was, googled it... and now I know.

 

Also, yeah, I think if I can nail consistent mapping at some point, UV Speedruns could be very fun.

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17 minutes ago, supersunBRO said:

Didn't know what Hdoom was, googled it... and now I know.

 

Also, yeah, I think if I can nail consistent mapping at some point, UV Speedruns could be very fun.

Hah. You're welcome!

If I had any last recommendations to give, it would be to not only teach yourself how to map, but also frequently practice playing as well as watching Doom replays, or content creators who do Doom runs (Decino, Coincident and TatsurdCacoCaco are a good start). Try to examine the fights from a tactical and strategic standpoint. Decino is particularly good at breaking these down.

A good map is not necessarily complex or long. Doesn't need huge amounts of monsters. Doesn't need complicated geometry, or innovative designs which rival black magic when it comes to mapping. Certainly, these things help quite a bit, but they're not a necessity. Having engaging battles is what ultimately going to make or break a map. As an example of this, I invite you to check out this series:
 


Going down is the perfect representation of this. Of course, Cyriak is a very difficult standard to follow up. But Going Down exemplifies the core of what I mean perfectly. Most maps are minimalistic, in both size and monstercount. Yet each is memorable and engaging.

Good luck on your journey, and I'm excited to see your work!

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3 hours ago, supersunBRO said:

Didn't know what Hdoom was, googled it... and now I know.

 

Also, yeah, I think if I can nail consistent mapping at some point, UV Speedruns could be very fun.

Here's one way I found helped a bit:
Make one really detailed and well thought-out map, no matter how long it takes you.
That way, to some degree you will subconsciously develop a part of those things, which will overall generally at the very least make your maps less flawed.

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I would enjoy playing an easier Megawad made by all sorts people, so go ahead and make one! Sure, most people want a bigger challenge, but there are some of us that want to enjoy Doom on the easy side.

 

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On 11/17/2022 at 12:31 PM, supersunBRO said:

I would like to eventually get to making my own WADs, after having played a few custom ones. But first I have to start learning and make some practice maps. I'd like my first completed WAD to mimic Doom/Doom II difficulty wise, is that something that would detract potential players? I know the og games are rather easy, (until the Doom E4 and the final act of Doom II at least...)

 

Thoughts?

imo, uv level of maps usually corresponds directly with the mappers' gaming skills. perhaps it is best to implement multiple difficulty levels (itytd,hntr,hmp,uv) to cater a wider range of players? perhaps with itytd,hntr levels to imitate original doom gaming difficulties, while higher difficulties are based on the mapper's own gaming skills.

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