Showstoppers

[glenzinho]

When playing either Doom 2 or any of the Ultimate Doom episodes from the start with the aim of completing the game, which is the map that gives you the dread? The map where you just can't face going on anymore. For me, it's either Map 05 or 06 from Doom 2 and E2M4 from Doom.

[SFoZ911]

Like you, I can't pass MAP05, I don't know why. The map itself is not bad at all, something about the starting room makes yawn and either skip it or quit entirely. In doom 1, E3M4 is a showstopper for me.

[Graf Zahl]

In Doom 2 it's MAP08 and MAP09. Those are the first two for me where the design just makes me want to quit.

[scifista42]

E3M2 or M5
MAP09 or 12/13/19
and E4M1

[BaronOfStuff]

With Doom II, it really depends. If I'm testing a weapon mod or whatever, I usually have a decent enough impression of how things will pan out by MAP05, so I stop there (unless I'm really enjoying it in which case I'll at least get to MAP09).

With Ultimate Doom, I'll invariably see KDITD all the way through because it's short, sweet and takes little time to complete. E2/3/4 will usually see me get through 2 or 3 maps before I save with no real intention of ever actually resuming. I just feel like I haven't wasted time if I save my progress.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Scifista: So when you load up e4 to play, you take one look at the start room of e4m1 and you've already had enough?

The same thing happens to me in map05 sometimes.

[scifista42]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Scifista: So when you load up e4 to play, you take one look at the start room of e4m1 and you've already had enough?

Not in the start room, but in one of the rooms after, where I get perforated and turned to shreds.

[Maes]

Pretty much any map in Doom 2 is a showstopper unless you're determined to plough away at it -except MAP01, which at least is short.

Maybe it's just me, but compared to Doom 1, most of Doom 2's maps are chaotic and ugly -or at least unappealing. Definitively not for casual play or to be faced with a "let's just go in and kick some butt" attitude.

TNT and Plutonia are much better, in this respect.

[NuMetalManiak]

I stop at MAP30

[RichardDS90]

I rarely tend to stop a playthrough, but there are a few maps that kinda make me wanna do so.

Doom: Usually play all the way through, but Unholy Cathedral does kinda feel boring at times.

Doom 2: Againm, usually play all the way through. Waste Tunnels, if not, then usually The Pit.

TNT: Well well well, the dragfest of an IWAD. I'm gonna say at least around Mill, but Central Processing and Administration Centre tend to really make me wanna quit.

Plutonia: I honestly can't think of a time where it's ever dragged on, I enjoyed it a lot.

[Phml]

MAP06. That early part with the lifts and the spiderMM. Up until that point you can run through the maps at full speed, but this situation requires a precise jump, and I play Doom with mittens. After I fall down and inevitably end up half a tic too late to ride the elevator back up, it makes for this long long wait, which I guess gets me to realise I'd rather do something else.

It's funny, I never thought about it before this thread. I must have stopped the game dozens of time at this specific point. After a while I started quitting right after picking up the megasphere and killing the first few monsters, right in front of the life. Now I quit as I enter map06. All at a completely unconscious level until now.

[Never_Again]

Graf Zahl said:

In Doom 2 it's MAP08 and MAP09. Those are the first two for me where the design just makes me want to quit.

This + E2M9 from D1. I don't think I have touched that last one since mid-90s. Its gimmickery is so dire that even in those days when I simply ate up stuff like FOREST.WAD and DARKHELL.WAD I could not consider Fortress of Mystery anything else but a joke.

[Deleted_Account]

The show stops at Map 03: The Gantlet.

[Clonehunter]

I usually stop after I'm done with Refueling Base. I like that one, but I don't usually feel inclined to continue after that, though I tend to ignore The Pit sometimes, too. MAP06 is another one whenever I play UV on Doom 2, because I hate how tedious the whole Spidermind part is, and so early in the game. It's not too difficult, but it slows down the gameplay for me. In fact, I rarely play Doom II on UV because of it.

I really like Tricks and Traps though, if only for weapon mod testing, since you basically get fuck up every monster in the game save a few.

[MFG38]

For me, those would be E3M7 and MAP15 respectively.

[Maes]

D_RUNNIN

[Inkie]

map12: The Factory is usually where it ends of at

[joe-ilya]

MAP24.
Yep, I like MAP08, 09, 10, 15, 31, 19. But MAP24? Fuck that.

[RUSH]

Doom 1? Nothing. Every map is fantastic.

Doom 2? Basically the whole game is a showstopper.

[scifista42]

In addition to what I said before:
TNT showstopper: MAP03, or 04, or 07 at the very last
Plutonia showstopper: MAP01, or 02, or 03 at the very last

[Xaser]

Hmm, I dunno what exactly qualifies for me, since I -warp around a lot when mucking about.

I guess maybe Plut MAP03, since if I finish the first two maps in a nonserious playtest session, I generally either quit there or warp somewhere else (MAP23 usually :P ). Aztec is silly.

[Da Werecat]

I miss the times when I viewed Doom 1 through the nostalgia goggles.

Although I probably still do. I'm finding it harder to tolerate the maps that were absent from the port I've played. Or maybe they were cut for actually being shittier, hard to say.

When I'm trying out a gameplay mod, I usually stop around The Gantlet. I'm getting the chaingun legitimately and typing IDFA shortly afterwards. If I really like the mod, I can play up to Trick And Traps. I don't remember any gameplay mods that would hold my attention beyond that.

[Mithran Denizen]

I don't see any maps as 'showstoppers', since I usually just skip the ones I don't feel like replaying. I can't recall the last time I played through E1M4 or E1M6 without skipping, and I actually like both of those maps! I could live the rest of my life happily without ever playing through E2 or E3 again, as well, save one or two levels perhaps. Nostalgia does most of those maps better justice then replaying them actually does.

While I have a soft spot for most of Thy Flesh Consumed, if Perfect Hatred was the only map left in E4, I could live with that, too.

A new game in Doom 2 tends to drag around MAP05, I think, but I'd even skip MAP01 and MAP03 if they weren't so quick to rush through. Overall, I think my replays tend to skip around a third of the levels in Doom 2, (vs ~two thirds of Doom 1).

TNT is cool, but having played it already, there are so many maps I want to skip (starting right from Human BBQ) that it's not really worth replaying anymore.

I found myself on a real Plutonia kick lately, though. I used to skip past about half the levels, but for the last few playthroughs, I did the full 32 without feeling fatigued or bored at all. Plutonia for president most stimulating IWAD to revisit!

[joe-ilya]

SFoZ911 said:

In doom 1, E3M4 is a showstopper for me.

Same.

[Clonehunter]

Inkie said:

map12: The Factory is usually where it ends of at

I hate The Factory. I hate it a lot. Suburbs is boss, though.

[Enjay]

Add me to the "MAP05 is my showstopper" contingent.

I regularly test out mods in Doom2 but there is something about MAP05 that, when I get there, I just have a feeling of "OK, can't be bothered with this one" and I quit.

I don't think it is necessarily a bad map, but there is something about MAP05 that makes me not want to continue. Perhaps it's because when I'm playing like that, it's in a fairly casual way and, perhaps, MAP05 requires me to engage with it a bit more as a player than the previous 4 maps.

I don't really have a Doom 1 showstopper. If I'm playing an episode, I usually see it through to the end. That being said, I almost never play the add-on Episode (Ep 4).

[FireFish]

i recently finished doom and doom 2 again (after many years) and half way trough both it felt like a chore, forcing myself trough maps which i realy can not describe as having anything fun to play trough... and i probably wil not do that again any time soon.

To me the show stopper for Doom is anyhing beyond the first episode, and for Doom 2 anything beyond the first four maps.

[geekmarine]

Basically all of Episode 4 from Ultimate Doom. I honestly don't think I've ever beaten it legitimately. Even E4M1 scares the crap out of me, though I know I can get through it. For Doom II, let's see... MAP24 I can beat no problem, but ugh, I have a fear of heights and those narrow walkways really put me on edge. MAP28 is friggin' brutal (so is MAP29, but MAP28 just feels like a war of attrition), and I absolutely hate MAP08 because of those platforms that you have to run over to get to the exit. Otherwise it's okay, but I hate the fact that if you screw up on those platforms, you're dropped into a pit of death and they don't come back even if you do manage to avoid falling into the slime pit - so you only have one shot at it.

[scifista42]

geekmarine said:

and they don't come back even if you do manage to avoid falling into the slime pit - so you only have one shot at it.

When the very first platform descends, it also opens a teleporter in the neighboring Cacodemon room, that will take you right to the exit room. It's possible to trigger the platform, quickly step back and safely take the teleporter.

[geekmarine]

scifista42 said:

When the very first platform descends, it also opens a teleporter in the neighboring Cacodemon room, that will take you right to the exit room. It's possible to trigger the platform, quickly step back and safely take the teleporter.

Wait, what? My God, this changes everything. All my life, I was convinced MAP08 was just unbeatable if you screwed up on the sinking platforms. Every time I had accidentally triggered the platforms without reaching the exit, I'd just restart the level because I thought there was no other way to the exit. Granted, that hasn't happened very often where I triggered the platforms without sinking into the slime, but there have been a few times where I managed to get back to safety, and I was just totally convinced there was no way to the exit now.