What are you playing now?

[chowbar]

10 minutes ago, Barefootstallion said:

 

Could you give me what these initials stand for?  I did a search on 'DTWID1' but came up empty.

 

Heh, sorry.  Haven't been around the community long enough to be able to learn the local initialization. :)

 

DTWID is an acronym for Doom the Way id Did, a project where Doomworld mappers would map in the style of each id level designer to create levels that are similar in philosophy, play, etc. to the original iwads. While not perfect they are a neat way of strolling down memory lane and are worth a download.

 

https://dtwid.herokuapp.com/

https://d2twid.herokuapp.com/

 

[Barefootstallion]

27 minutes ago, chowbar said:

 

DTWID is an acronym for Doom the Way id Did, a project where Doomworld mappers would map in the style of each id level designer to create levels that are similar in philosophy, play, etc. to the original iwads. While not perfect they are a neat way of strolling down memory lane and are worth a download.

 

https://dtwid.herokuapp.com/

https://d2twid.herokuapp.com/

 

 

Thanks, chowbar!  I'll give these a try.

[Barefootstallion]

Man, these are excellent maps!  I wasn't able to get to the second one, though.  The download link for it wasn't working.  But gosh.  Talk about a nostalgia trip - these maps are so reminiscent of the original Doom, that I know I'll be playing these for the weeks to come!

 

Thanks for turning me onto them, guys!  Truly!

[chowbar]

15 minutes ago, Barefootstallion said:

Man, these are excellent maps!  I wasn't able to get to the second one, though.  The download link for it wasn't working.

 

Try the idgames download then https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/d2twid

And yeah I agree its a very cool project that does a great job at reminding players why the iwads were so compelling

[chowbar]

Oh one more thing @Barefootstallion the DTWID team also recently released Ultimate Doom the Way id Did which is right here and already uploaded onto idgames

 

 

Enjoy!

[seed]

I would actually recommend Lunar Catastrophe instead of UDTWID. LC is a full UD replacement, but I found the gameplay and design much better than in UDTWID. It was just far too frustrating to think of any fun parts. Hitscanners sniping you from everywhere, extremely punishing or outright frustrating traps (in very dark and/or tight rooms or corridors), plenty of damaging floors in sight, confusion here and there, and so and so on. Play what you want, but keep in mind that UDTWID is very different from the other installments in the series, if you jump in expecting it to be just more of the same, you're in for a treat.

 

As about difficulty, like others have said before, "UV is the only way to get the full experience" might have been true, to some degree, in the past, but that's no longer a valid point nowadays. In fact, UV is targetted mainly at Doom gods and veterans these days, so if you don't fit in this category there's absolutely no reason to bother with that setting, you will not have any fun. You will only die and rage, that difficulty is incredibly frustrating. Thankfully authors generally explain the difficulty settings (if they are implemented), and particularly UV, so the players can get an idea about what difficulty would be most enjoyable for their level.

Edited April 12, 2019 by seed

[Barefootstallion]

1 hour ago, chowbar said:

Try the idgames download then

 

That one worked.  Thanks, chowbar!

 

I also snagged that UD one.  It looks like I have some enjoyable playing to do!

 

18 minutes ago, seed said:

I would actually recommend Lunar Catastrophe instead of UDTWID

 

I'll give this one a shot, too.  Thanks, seed!

[joepallai]

mostly playing the various akeldama levels in beta, though yesterday I played FORTDTH! which doesn't have an author template in the zip file so I can't give the correct link  :(   Anyways I highly recommend Fortdth!

[ReaperAA]

11 hours ago, seed said:

Play what you want, but keep in mind that UDTWID is very different from the other installments in the series, if you jump in expecting it to be just more of the same, you're in for a treat.

 

Agreed. I played UDTWID a few months back and I wasn't much impressed. The original DTWID and D2TWID are very much like vanilla Doom and Doom 2 respectively, whereas UDTWID felt quite different that "Thy Flesh Consumed". The levels aren't bad per se, but they didn't evoke the same feel. Also it is much more harder than vanilla E4 after the 2nd level. E4M4 of UDTWID can go f*ck itself.

 

10 hours ago, Barefootstallion said:

I'll give this one a shot, too.  Thanks, seed!

 

Another excellent UD megawad I would recommend is Deathless. I recommend playing Deathless on UV because it is only slightly harder than vanilla Doom 1. Just forget that last sentence. Play on any difficulty u like folks.

Edited April 12, 2019 by ReaperAA

[Deadwing]

@Barefootstallion I see, I believe you would enjoy more some IWAD difficulty level wads. (Thanks for Moonblood comments btw :D)

 

I also believe Ultimate Need More Detail might appeal you.

[Barefootstallion]

Well, that does it for Lunar Catastrophy.  I made it up to E1M6 and just had to quit.

 

It was an ammo-grind, a health grid, just fighting bunches after bunches of monsters.  At one point in the map, I almost ran out of ammo completely.  I averaged through it with around 30 health or less.  Armor out the wazoo, though.  I couldn't seem to get below 140.

 

Very poor balance.  "Let's just throw monsters at the player, to heck with trying to make it a fun challenge.  That's just too much work.  And we'll just throw a 10-spotter here and there, and if he wants that 25 health, he'll have to fight 2 pinkies and 4 imps for it.  And let's throw a couple of shotgunners in there for extra frustration."

 

I think I'll go back to trying to play the Way Id Did maps now.

[Deadwing]

You're expected to run out of ammo in some maps, though :P Some maps priorizes smart weapon usage and in-fighting so you can save more ammo than usual.

 

IMO, always keep your ammo count in check and be aware of which weapons are better for each situation. If you see beforehand that your ammo is going to drain out, you probably need to try a different strategy before it's too late. (Also Berserk packs can save a lot of ammo)

[seed]

Well, that didn't go as expected.

 

So, all the more reason to avoid UDTWID in this case. If you struggled with LC's E1... don't expect to get anywhere in UDTWID's E4 replacement.

[Barefootstallion]

1 hour ago, Deadwing said:

You're expected to run out of ammo in some maps, though :P Some maps priorizes smart weapon usage and in-fighting so you can save more ammo than usual.

 

IMO, always keep your ammo count in check and be aware of which weapons are better for each situation. If you see beforehand that your ammo is going to drain out, you probably need to try a different strategy before it's too late. (Also Berserk packs can save a lot of ammo)

 

Oh, this is something I get.  No worries there.  But in order for that kind of mindset to work, there has to already be a design strategy in place.  If there isn't one, it is up to the player to try and come up with their own.  However, when it's just a monster-grind, all one can do is fire and fire and fire and hope to make it through the level.

 

Also, no backpack all the way up through E1M6?  That exacerbated the ammo problem.  Maybe there were a few tucked away here and there, but they were probably in secrets.

 

...which is not sound development.

 

Sure, no backpack in maybe the first two maps, but there just needs to be one that's easy to find by the third level - maybe even the second if the developers want to throw in lots of monsters.  If not, then you're forcing the player to focus on something other than enjoying the game.

 

Babysitting their ammo counts.

 

Sure.  I get that some people enjoy a tough challenge.  My best friend can sit and work puzzles half the day.  He loves them.  You can't get me to sit in front of one for ten minutes without getting bored or annoyed with it.  Everybody has what they like to play.

 

For me, I look for play balance.  If I encounter lots of monsters, then I want to see clear methods for dealing with them.  Lure them close to barrels, under crushers and into infighting.  If these aren't available, then I want the ammo necessary to deal with them.

 

And the health needed for battles that size - especially if you're dealing with a lot of hit-scan enemies.  I don't care how quick and accurate you are, you're going to take hits from these monsters.  You have to have the health for them, especially if it is going to be a sustained or large battle.  This holds especially true if you're fighting hit-scan monsters at longer ranges.  If often takes two or more shotgun blasts for every monster at those ranges.  While you're fighting them, you're taking hits.

 

Also, meager possibilities for infighting in these situations are far too haphazard to be effective.  If you have say, a dozen shotgunners and former humans halfway across the map on a ledge, then there's just too small a chance for them to hit each other.  It isn't a sound strategy to try and rely on infighting.  You have to blaze away at them and hope to get good hits.  Meanwhile, you're taking hits from them.  It makes for a frustrating fight unless you have the health and ammo to cope.

 

Just my two cents, anyway.  I actually went back to Lunar Catastrophy for a while.  I was able to complete the first mission.  I just took a breath and decided to approach it with some patience to see how far I'd get.  I was able to finish it.  I then went onto the second mission.  It seems fairly well done so far.

 

Either way, I just have a preference for balance and for developers who put thought into making their maps.  There have to be clear elements one can use or sufficient ammo and health for me to be able to enjoy playing it.

[Deadwing]

Everyone looks for balance one way or another, but a "balanced" or even a relaxing map for a higher skilled player can be much harder than one for a player that isn't much skilled.

 

Health balance or ammo can be either strict or safe, and neither of them are remotely wrong, it's just different styles of balancing (which isn't directly related to difficulty, btw) and it enforces some range of playstyles. You're also forgetting one way of dealing with monsters that is quite useful: Skipping them. Doom is all about tactics, and you would be impressed with how many different ways you could deal with some group of monsters in a determinated situation. Also that includes hitscanners, which forces the player to think about positioning and being aware of the surroundings in a different way than projectile monsters, so health/ammo/armor can be saved.

 

Backpacks are by no means a mandatory item, quite the contrary, modern mapsets are even much more aware of its ruining potencial for continuous play. Imo, the regular load amount is already high, especially 300 cells and 50 rockets :P

[Barefootstallion]

12 minutes ago, Deadwing said:

You're also forgetting one way of dealing with monsters that is quite useful: Skipping them.

 

Hah! That goes against my anal-retentive nature!  I look for 100% scores on every map!

 

But either way, you do enter into an interesting school of thought.  I suppose every map is a favorite of somebody's.  And that has been pretty much the thrust of my whole discussion.  For me.  What I look for in maps.  What it turns out I may love, 90% of the rest of community might think is rubbish, and vice-versa.  It's all about personal preference and playstyle.

 

For instance, your mapset, Moonblood.  For myself, I didn't much care for it, but I also saw the accolades it received from other players.  From a lot of players.

 

I guess I am just difficult to please in that regard.  But by the same token, I go back and play Knee Deep in the Dead again and again.  I love it.  That sentiment is shared by the majority of members here.  So I am given to think that there might be something to my arguments.   That mapset is superbly thought out and well balanced.  It isn't overly difficult but it does present the player with a decent challenge.

 

That is the sort of thing I look for.

 

As to backpacks... heh.

 

If I am like most other players, I don't use rockets or plasma that often.  I tend to conserve them - for like, when I run into an especially nasty encounter.  So then, the backpack is mainly for those players who tend to rely upon the shotgun and chaingun the most.  Lots of ammo.  Plasma and rockets seldom entering into the picture for most combats for most players.  Besides, using rockets can be dangerous.  Heh.

 

Anyway, I digress.  I'll just keep looking for mapsets that meet my preferences.  I am a fairly skilled Doom player.  I can slog through most any map, regardless of how it plays.  I just know what I like, and the playstyles I prefer in maps.

[seed]

7 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Another excellent UD megawad I would recommend is Deathless. I recommend playing Deathless on UV because it is only slightly harder than vanilla Doom 1.

 

This actually looks pretty interesting. Thanks for mentioning it, goes on my list of wads to play.

[Deadwing]

@Barefootstallion You can do both, though. You can skip enemies and then kill them later on, when you feel confident you can do it. :P

 

Anyway, it feels you're really looking for something close to KDITD, so most custom material won't indeed fit in your likings (as they don't for myself too, tbh :P)

[ReaperAA]

8 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

I recommend playing Deathless on UV because it is only slightly harder than vanilla Doom 1.

 

@Barefootstallion Well after reading that u find Doom1's E2,E3 and E4 difficult, I retract from this statement. For Deathless, u can give UV a try but in case u find it too difficult, don't hesitate to play it on HMP.

 

I have personally not played Lunar Catastrophe yet. But If u r finding it too hard on UV, don't feel ashamed to drop the difficulty.

When I *started playing doom around 2015-ish, I had the similar "UV or go home" mentality. I played the official IWADs and DTWID wad on UV and didn't find them to hard. But then I played Valiant on UV which was my very first non-commercial AND non-TWID megawad. Needless to say I had my ass handed to me as I was much less skilled back then. Then I toned down the difficuly to HNTR and it felt like the best decision I made.

 

 

*Actually I used to play doom as a child from 2002-2004. But then I stopped playing it and only started playing doom again around 2015.

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by ReaperAA

[seed]

35 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

@Barefootstallion 

*Actually I used to play doom as a child from 2002-2004. But then I stopped playing it and only started playing doom again around 2015.

 

Funny, that's me as well. I first played Doom II on a Windows 98 machine (given to me by a family friend who also installed a bunch on games on it) when I was only 5 or 6, way back in late 2002 or early 2003, but after I got a modern PC in 2007 due to the old one dying I just stopped caring about the series for some reason.

 

It might have had something to do with learning that the original game didn't work on any Windows version newer than XP (and despite XP being the last one capable of running the original executable, it was glitchy), as I was using Vista (which shipped with the PC) and did not know about the existence of source ports, thus Doom's status getting relegated to "childhood memory". Eventually, I came back to Doom sometime in 2015 after watching BigMacDavis' walkthrough series. As he was using ZDoom at the time and I was learning about source ports I replayed the IWADs through it too, but with zero faithful settings (freelook, jumping, no complevels set up, etc.)

[Noiser]

On 4/11/2019 at 2:14 PM, Barefootstallion said:

 I prefer playing in Ultra Violence because that is typically the skill at which the most monsters are encountered.

To be honest, you can't play on hard and don't expect to be hard (yes, Ultra-Violence is the hardest difficulty. People who think it's a default skill are out of their senses, since Nightmare was made just as a joke... I mean, unless you're a DOOM GOD like Zero Master).

I recommend to give a chance to the other difficulties. Moonblood for example is very fun on HMP. If you are playing a good mapset, they will not be worse in terms of balance, level design or monster placement. At least it's what I can say from my experience (I always play on Hurt Me Plenty, or even ITYTD\HNTR for mods like Sunlust). 
 

Quote

As to my level of skill, while I am not a hardcore Doomer, I am a fairly competent player.  I can play all of Knee Deep in the Dead on Ultra Violence without once needing to save, and without dying once. 

Be aware that the official maps should not be compared with the custom ones (in terms of skill levels). The officials were made to teach players who never played Doom before, so they will be naturally easier than the maps made by the community (except for E4. E4 is a mess). 
 

I think it's safe to assume that "Ultra Violence" in Doom 1\Doom 2 is more or less equivalent to "Hurt Me Plenty" in most of the custom maps, and Ultra Violence will be one step above anything you ever played before. Of course, I'm not counting the ones that are know for be extra-difficult like Sunder, Sunlust or Stardate 20X7.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Noiser

[Archanhell]

Lately, I've been doing playthroughs of various WADs/Mods with Project Brutality 3.0, playing in Man And A Half and above Difficulties with different ways and such.

Just finished HellCore 2.0, dropped Hadesphobia.

 

Annie Episode 1

ZAERO 1

Eviternity

The Darkening 2 (Done)

MMDCXIV (Almost done, had to drop because enormous and inescapable lagspike on the end.)

 

I'm still searching good Cyberpunk/Sci-Fi/Tech/Urban WADs (7+ Maps) or MegaWads (21+ Maps) but no real luck lol.

[ReaperAA]

45 minutes ago, seed said:

Funny, that's me as well. I first played Doom II on a Windows 98 machine (given to me by a family friend who also installed a bunch on games on it) when I was only 5 or 6, way back in late 2002 or early 2003, but after I got a modern PC in 2007 due to the old one dying I just stopped caring about the series for some reason.

 

It might have had something to do with learning that the original game didn't work on any Windows version newer than XP (and despite XP being the last one capable of running the original executable, it was glitchy), as I was using Vista (which shipped with the PC) and did not know about the existence of source ports, thus Doom's status getting relegated to "childhood memory". Eventually, I came back to Doom sometime in 2015 after watching BigMacDavis' walkthrough series. As he was using ZDoom at the time and I was learning about source ports I replayed the IWADs through it too, but with zero faithful settings (freelook, jumping, no complevels set up, etc.)

 

Ur story is similar to mine. Around 2002-ish is when I started playing doom after watching my dad play it on the then-new windows XP PC. I too had no idea about source ports or even custom wads at that time. Only played IWADs and they were good enough challenge for me. Back then, I never even dared touched Plutonia (too scared 😂) and even TNT was pretty brutal for me. Ultimately with the passage of time, I lost interest in Doom and stopped playing around 2004.

 

Around 2014-ish is when I discovered the capabilities of modding. I started finding mods for various games (notably C&C Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2). I started visiting moddb. And on moddb, I discovered "Brutal Doom" (forgive me doomers for mentioning this mod 😂).

 

My initial reaction was "Wait a second, is that Doom? IS THAT THE GAME I PLAYED IN MY CHILDHOOD? HOLY HELL!!!". I decided to get to play Brutal Doom and from there on, I discovered that it requires a "Source Port" called "GZdoom". I learned about source ports, Zdoom family and plethora of other doom ports. Also I discovered other mods and wads.

 

I played Brutal Doom for sometime but ultimately I gave up on it (it used to lag like hell on my PC). I then started playing the IWADS unmodded on GZdoom and ultimately got to beat them again (and Plutonia for the very first time around 2015) but with zero faithful settings of course.

 

I started using PrBoom+ around 2016-ish. The reason was that some maps of Valiant used to lag on badly GZdoom (I had a potato PC) and I wanted to find a port to be able to run them smoothly. Upon using PrBoom+ and messing with its settings is when I learned about complevels, demo compatibilty and other similar stuff.

 

[seed]

Finished Deathless and checked out Verdant Citadel by @exl today. Both were pretty damn good, but I really wish Deathless wouldn't have had maps with pitch black rooms, those really weren't much fun to play, but otherwise good enough.

 

I'm going to play Pirate Doom next, after that Griefless or Rush.

[galileo31dos01]

6 hours ago, seed said:

Griefless

 

It's included in Deathless :p

[seed]

8 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

It's included in Deathless :p

 

Ah yes, I remember now oops. I got confused after seeing it as a separate download.

[loveless]

Summer of 69 and Mayhem 1500. Currently on old map 24, realizing I've tried to exit with half the map alive and no bfg explains a lot from my last session.  

  

Mayhem is easier going and more relaxing to play. Forgot which map I was on and decided to start over.

[CyberDreams]

About to finish up Eternity on UV via GZDoom 4.0.0 with Doom (Strict) compat. No pistol starts though as i don't really know how to do that in GZDoom except by turning of the autosave system (not to mention i suck ass at pistol starts). It's a little harder then Serenity was imo. E2M2 "The Fat Imp Sings Your Blues" was sort of a bitch with all of the damaging floors and no rad suit.

 

After that i plan on playing Infinity which is the last one in the Serenity trilogy.

[galileo31dos01]

@CyberDreams "idclev X Y" where X is episode number and Y is map number, in Doom I of course. Or else "map EXMX" in the console. As far as I can tell there is no way to bind a key to restart a map in GZDoom like "Home" is in PRB+, but you can use a mod that automatically makes you pistol start each map, DyingCamel uses his own, maybe you could ask him about it. 

[captain crunchy]

Close to finishing E3 of Lunar Catastrophe. Absolutely great WAD. While it has some rough edges (inescapable pits, clunky-looking aesthetics), the gameplay is rock solid and feels very true to classic Doom while kicking the difficulty up a few notches. So many Barons.

 

Also finally getting around to No End In Sight. Only on E1 but the level design is just out of this world. It's hard to make vanilla textures look pretty but Xaser and NT acquit themselves well. The challenge is very welcome too- you're not sleeping through any of these maps.