My own short stint at making Doom2 speedruns.

[godfist]

Well for awhile I tried making my own "speed runs" in Doom2. Actually calling them speed runs does them too much justice. They were more like max runs 'cause I suck so bad...

All of these were on ultra-violence mode obviously. Anyone can do the whole thing on easiest skill or 2nd easiest. You get into hurt me plenty and on and that's where the skill comes in, imo. Actually after some trial and error I found that the biggest jump in difficulty comes between Hey not too rough and Hurt me plenty. That's in my humble opinion, feel free to differ.

Anyway the hardest levels that I actually completed were 9,11 and 12. Obviously level 9 is hard 'cause you go into that circular room with the mancubi on the outside and the lift with the lava in the center with all the hell knights plus imps/zombies/shotgun guys and very little ammo. I circle the room until most of the weaker enemies are killed and then proceed to try and survive killing the remaning hell knights/cacos/manubi with my shotgun. It only took me like 30 times to finally get past that room. The rest of the level is pretty easy. Level 11 is tough at the very beginning 'cause of enemies everywhere and the 1st room with the hidden soul sphere and cacos with only a shotgun to fight with.

Level 12 was tough with the mancubi mostly. I tried level 13 and couldn't even get past the first room! Even if I had the skills to survive, I wouldn't want to finish 13/14/15 because they're so nonlinear and mazey. 16/17 aren't too bad but 18 is hella hard with all those monsters in the open court yard. 19 is another long mazey map and so is 20. 21 is pretty easy but there are so many monsters everywhere. The only maps that I think I could finish are 28, maybe 30, 31, and 32. Yeah I know maybe I'm hella lazy. But even after watching compet-n speed runs of all the levels like 20x apiece I still have trouble remembering where to go.

Now that I've dug up this old experience I think I might try just doing all the levels on skill 1 just so I can get the routes down in my head and then go from there...

[Opulent]

godfist said:

the biggest jump in difficulty comes between Hey not too rough and Hurt me plenty. That's in my humble opinion, feel free to differ.

Anyway the hardest levels that I actually completed were 9,11 and 12.

As you stated, watching Compet-N/Pdang runs of the maps or episodes is a good idea. Most of the maps don't have hard routes to remember or play.
Also as you said, you could try nomonsters first.
and you are right about skill 2 to skill 3 is a bigger jump in difficulty that skill 3 to skill 4(unless you really are a skill 1 player who needs the extra ammo). Obviously, nightmare is much harder than UV.

practice, practice, practice. Episode runs or PlanetAdam(trademark) smoothness doesn't happen overnight. (or even on the 30000th try for some of us ;)

[Torn]

or just play some deathmatch with some highskilled players does help too. :P