LEGACY OF RUST - overall thoughts?

[famicommander]

The only reason you think Plutonia is easier is because Plutonia has been out since 1996. People have played it a billion times, there are known strategies, there is muscle memory, there is pattern recognition. 

 

Call me in 2040 and ask me how hard Legacy of Rust is. It's 16 maps you've never seen before with 2 weapons you've never used and 6 enemies you've never encountered.

[Gothic]

32 minutes ago, eyelid______ said:

Just telling the truth about things and bigger picture.

Is the statement "Legacy of Rust is way too hard" true in lower difficulties?

[Explorer of Time]

1 hour ago, Gothic said:

Is the statement "Legacy of Rust is way too hard" true in lower difficulties?

 

As someone who played it on ITYTD, no it is not. It is quite well-balanced for that difficulty, and, by extension, HNTR.

[Christopher Brown]

I found it balanced just fine on HMP.

[Manson]

As someone who just played both Plutonia and Legacy of Rust on UV for the first time in the past two months, Plutonia is much harder, imo. Legacy of Rust has 3-4 really hard maps, but the rest of it is more in line difficulty-wise with Sigil or E4 of Ultimate Doom. 

 

 

 

[Woolie Wool]

I played through most of the first episode on UV when it came out and I dialed it back to HMP for a repeat playthrough. I don't think the problem was that UV was too hard per se, but that I hate "The Coiled City" and I hate it no less when it's watered down. It's not just that it's hard (it is, but I've played a lot harder), it's that basically everything about it touches one of my pet peeves--the Vassagos and Shock Troopers you can't kill for most of the map but who can certainly kill you, and quickly, the forcing you to use the Incinerator but making all the encounters incredibly unfavorable to the Incinerator, the "The Chasm" style platforming while under attack from Vassagos and Shock Troopers, trying to puzzle your way through a cryptic layout with extremely abstract design and some staircase maze that is mostly unmarked on the automap and is laid out like manual transmissions fucking--and except while you're in the staircase maze, the aforementioned snipers are attacking you the whole time, while a loud and very demonstrative midi is trying to grab your attention for the whole level, the harsh contrasts in lighting and texturing leading to visual overstimulation, and more. Absolutely infuriating level and while I could accept it in a niche PWAD as something eccentric that I don't "get", it seems very strange to have such an aggressively unapproachable and obnoxious level in a commercial release, especially in the main sequence of levels.

[Maximum Matt]

Never played it.

[Gifty]

It's interesting to me how much the community expectation around something changes when a layer of official canonization is introduced. There's pretty much nothing in LoR that would tickle the toes of any seasoned community member, but for some reason as soon as the word "official" is introduced there's a whole consternation about what Doom's "true" difficulty should be. There was a similar discussion around both Sigils, which I would almost consider to be harder than LoR. Just some observation!

[DreadWanderer]

24 minutes ago, Gifty said:

It's interesting to me how much the community expectation around something changes when a layer of official canonization is introduced. There's pretty much nothing in LoR that would tickle the toes of any seasoned community member, but for some reason as soon as the word "official" is introduced there's a whole consternation about what Doom's "true" difficulty should be. There was a similar discussion around both Sigils, which I would almost consider to be harder than LoR. Just some observation!

 

Playing devil's advocate a bit here - I think the argument would run something like this: for casual players or people completely new to the game, there is a certain amount of moderation expected regarding difficulty in "canonical" wads because they're among the first pieces of content they consume. When I first started exploring PWADs seriously and committing more strongly to Doom about three years ago, I made the mistake of picking Sunlust and almost gave up entirely after about 7 maps. I'm not necessarily saying I agree with this line of thinking, but I can see how it's possible to scare people away. At the same time, if a new player has gone through Plutonia I guess they're ready for Legacy of Rust.

[Gifty]

I think it's extremely crucial that the rerelease orders the official wads the way that it does, roughly by order of difficulty--LoR or SIGIL are positioned at the bottom and meant to be ultra-advanced-level wads that a newcomer should play only AFTER they've mastered the original iwads, as with the expansion pack releases of old. Maybe in a modern era of endless equivalent content this perspective gets a bit lost, but I don't think LoR is meant to be anyone's intro to the Doom universe, and shouldn't be graded as such.

[DreadWanderer]

Just now, Gifty said:

I think it's essential to consider that the rerelease orders the official wads roughly in terms in difficulty--LoR or SIGIL are meant to be ultra-advanced-level wads that a newcomer should play only AFTER they've mastered the original iwads, as with the expansion pack releases of old. Maybe in a modern era of endless equivalent content this perspective gets a bit lost, but I don't think LoR is meant to be anyone's intro to the Doom universe, and shouldn't be graded as such.

 

That's a perfectly reasonable point of view to take, which is why I'm not willing to die on the hill of "LoR will frighten casuals". That being said, the views of more experienced players are already "tainted" by hundreds of hours of gameplay so their views on difficulty and player resilience will invariably be informed by that experience.

[DSC]

On 10/7/2024 at 1:15 AM, Woolie Wool said:

trying to puzzle your way through a cryptic layout with extremely abstract design and some staircase maze that is mostly unmarked on the automap and is laid out like manual transmissions fucking--and except while you're in the staircase maze, the aforementioned snipers are attacking you the whole time, while a loud and very demonstrative midi is trying to grab your attention for the whole level, the harsh contrasts in lighting and texturing leading to visual overstimulation, and more.

Just sounds to me like you're not familiar with the kind of modern mapping the community has been making for awhile. I take it you're more of a vanilla style fan. Nothing wrong with that, but I personally love it when artists keep pushing the envelope and don't play it safe, always taking the concept of Doom and elevating it to reaches far beyond the stuff people first saw in 1993. If Doom was nothing but simple and straightforward all the time it would stagnate very, very quickly. (Also, in before Jimmy comes in and calls you out for disliking the MIDIs like he did before lol)

[scalliano]

59 minutes ago, Gifty said:

It's interesting to me how much the community expectation around something changes when a layer of official canonization is introduced. There's pretty much nothing in LoR that would tickle the toes of any seasoned community member, but for some reason as soon as the word "official" is introduced there's a whole consternation about what Doom's "true" difficulty should be. There was a similar discussion around both Sigils, which I would almost consider to be harder than LoR. Just some observation!

I found Sigil to be much easier than LoR. It certainly had its fair share of cheap bullshit, but LoR is almost nothing but.

 

Can't speak on Sigil II yet.

[Jayextee]

Hey don't tar us vanilla fans with the brush of people who see the smallest amount of walkway-hopping and yell "THIS IS JUST LIKE CHASM".

[eyelid______]

1 hour ago, scalliano said:

I found Sigil to be much easier than LoR. It certainly had its fair share of cheap bullshit, but LoR is almost nothing but.

 

Can't speak on Sigil II yet.

Sigil II is definetly out of the question to be included to official wads. Way 2 hard. It could be official style of difficulty with all these cyberdemons in every level, but looks like that idea were rajected early on the development. But yeah whatever opinion I am gonna state here, perhaps just the opposite will happen and Sigil II will be included to official menu in next patch to ruin my life. _Hehe.....Whatever. I think it's easy to see the difficulty curve, battles, ammo and healthpacks during the old iwads and how LoR is more like HC customwad which required walkthrough and 100% secrets to have a change of completion, but whatever. Doom Scene goes where it wants and will go without my input.

[DreadWanderer]

47 minutes ago, eyelid______ said:

Sigil II is definetly out of the question to be included to official wads. Way 2 hard. It could be official style of difficulty with all these cyberdemons in every level, but looks like that idea were rajected early on the development. But yeah whatever opinion I am gonna state here, perhaps just the opposite will happen and Sigil II will be included to official menu in next patch to ruin my life. _Hehe.....Whatever. I think it's easy to see the difficulty curve, battles, ammo and healthpacks during the old iwads and how LoR is more like HC customwad which required walkthrough and 100% secrets to have a change of completion, but whatever. Doom Scene goes where it wants and will go without my input.

 

Maybe the real problem is defaulting to UV, surely this statement is uncontroversial 😅. Sigil II is still hard on HMP but at least one does not have to deal with a cyberdemon in every single level. The silver lining here is the expectation that someone new to the game will go for HMP and not UV. 

[Andromeda]

3 hours ago, DSC said:

Just sounds to me like you're not familiar with the kind of modern mapping the community has been making for awhile.

He has reviewed a fair amount of modern stuff in his review thread.

[Woolie Wool]

5 hours ago, DSC said:

Just sounds to me like you're not familiar with the kind of modern mapping the community has been making for awhile. I take it you're more of a vanilla style fan. Nothing wrong with that, but I personally love it when artists keep pushing the envelope and don't play it safe, always taking the concept of Doom and elevating it to reaches far beyond the stuff people first saw in 1993. If Doom was nothing but simple and straightforward all the time it would stagnate very, very quickly. (Also, in before Jimmy comes in and calls you out for disliking the MIDIs like he did before lol)

I've been playing through Eviternity 2, loved Heartland and Tetanus, and recently reviewed Man on the Moon, all modern wads, so I don't know what you're talking about. Also I would expect a commercial release to play it safer than a community pwad, kind of for the same reason a radio rock band plays things safer than a technical death metal band. Subjecting non-Doomer normies to "The Coiled City" seems a bit of a stretch to say the least. But your presumptuous condescension is duly noted.

[Zero Denied]

On 8/11/2024 at 12:09 AM, Captain Keen said:

and ID24 will become a new standard,

I hope not.

 

Is it true that LoR is unfinished?

[Gez]

42 minutes ago, Zero Denied said:

I hope not.

I don't think all of the ID24 specs will be adopted; but some parts of it are already getting implemented into source ports.

42 minutes ago, Zero Denied said:

Is it true that LoR is unfinished?

You'd have to define "unfinished" because it's pretty much a finished product. There are two episodes of 7+1 levels, complete with an original soundtrack, end of episode text screens, intermission maps, and a whole lot of textures. It's certainly possible the developers would have liked to have more, and that there would have been more if not for deadlines, but that's how it goes in professional development. At some point you've got to go to release what you have.

 

In the absence of anything blatantly missing, I don't see how it could be called unfinished.

[Zero Denied]

28 minutes ago, Gez said:

I don't think all of the ID24 specs will be adopted; but some parts of it are already getting implemented into source ports.

You'd have to define "unfinished" because it's pretty much a finished product. There are two episodes of 7+1 levels, complete with an original soundtrack, end of episode text screens, intermission maps, and a whole lot of textures. It's certainly possible the developers would have liked to have more, and that there would have been more if not for deadlines, but that's how it goes in professional development. At some point you've got to go to release what you have.

 

In the absence of anything blatantly missing, I don't see how it could be called unfinished.

It was said that aspects of ID24 weren't fully implemented into Rust.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

I don't think all of the ID24 specs will be adopted; but some parts of it are already getting implemented into source ports. 

Odamex is implementing the whole thing.

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Zero Denied said:

It was said that aspects of ID24 weren't fully implemented into Rust.

Sure, but that only makes LOR unfinished if fully implementing all aspects of ID24 was part of its mission statement, which I don't think it was.

[Jayextee]

Didn't you know? You absolutely must use every feature! After all, ID24 was made for LOR and LOR was made for ID24. Clearly. After all, why would they be released at the same time?

I'm not being serious; this is what the thinking here looks like to me.

[nobleflame]

I must say I don't think I've enjoyed a single one of these maps. I'm on map 12 and have UVMAXed all of them apart from the last two. They're not partularly difficult, just intensely annoying and cheap. Not a fan of the new enemies or the new weapons, particularly levels that rely on the flame thrower weapon.

 

I think it's that we're so spoilt with excellent, creative and ground-breaking wads these days that something like Legacy of Rust doesn't quite cut it anymore. Actually struggling to get through the last two maps.

[Captain Keen]

Are there plans to update or change Legacy of Rust, or is the wad itself pretty much set in stone now? I’ve currently deleted the new KEX port from Steam, so I’m using that Legacy of Rust version with the new GZDoom. If there’s an update for the wad itself I’d definitely want to pick it up.

[ALilGrayBoi]

Legacy of Rust is the best (OFFICAL) Doom related thing ive played so far and im willing to die on that hill

[Tembry-Glintstone]

had fun with episode 1 right up until e1m6. One of the few times that i felt it was getting very truly mean with the weapon choice. hurt yourself to progress seems like a good idea on paper, but i cant see past all this red. will report Back on episode 2 later.

[wons]

I finished it few days ago. First episode was great, map 6 was kinda mean like Tembry said, map 7 had weird navigation around itself tbf XP
Episode 2 was not so great until the last 2 levels. e2m6 and e2m7 were total bangers, however, most maps were bland visually, e2m4 uses too much brown textures, the only non-brown texture i could find was blood used as the floor in some places. Also e2m1's small ammo distrubition was brutal, the level looked awesome and the track was a total banger so i didn't mind it that much.

The enemies are dope. Even if all of them (except vassago) are just resprites/old recycled sprites but i don't mind it, except for the mind weaver, i can't tell apart from arachnotrons. My only complaint is the fact that Vassago's fire traps are larger than their sprite :( But i love those guys the most honestly. Maybe i'll make some simple maps just to mess with them, idk.

The weapons feel great, unique, a bit gimmicky but in a good way, still filling the "missing" place of plasma/bfg but, again, in a different way. I kinda wish i could use the incinerator more, but that's just a nitpick

Overall the expansion was great but most Episode 2 maps were forgettable to me, sadly. Most if not all tracks are bangers ("Rainining with a chance of spiders" my beloved). The enemies are cool, the weapons are dope. Me likey :)

[Nate42]

I played Rust on HMP. I struggled in a few places, and definitely used plenty of saves. But I didn't find it to be frustratingly difficult. I can still breeze through original D1/D2 on Ultra Violence (been doing it since the 90s after all) but I play most modern wads on HMP these days. I'm old, my skill ain't what it used to be, and my time/patience is limited also. I find HMP more fun, and I didn't find Rust to be out of line with modern wads. I just used the new port as an excuse to replay the IWADS, and I struggled the most on UV with frickin E4M1.