Things Doom 2 is still doing better than most PWADs

[40oz]

Secrets

There's no shortage of secret areas in most PWADs, but the execution of secret areas and the rewards behind them vary. Secrets in Doom 2 often have a sort of hint. The mistextured wall is the most acute but it's often more fun to see an area with an item or where monsters are and wonder if there's a way to get there. The rewards in a secret don't always have to be a new weapon or powerup. Sometimes being able to explore the outside of the building in an otherwise completely indoor map can be a reward in itself. Or finding an alternate path or shortcut to the exit, or getting to approach an area from an an unusual angle. The variety in ways that Doom 2 presents oddities in the architecture or patterns in it's levels as clues to locate secret areas is another one of it's great strengths among most PWADs.

Monster Placement

Although there are plenty wads that execute monster placement very well, and sometimes much better than Doom 2, the way it presents new monsters, lures players into traps, and more importantly, the absence of monsters and the way it contributes to atmosphere are strong qualities in Doom 2 that are tough to rival. Doom 2 has a way of making less seem like more with it's peaks and valleys of gameplay intensity, especially in the middle and later episodes. It also often presents monsters clambering across varieties of architecture and through windows, across gaps and on ledges making a series of unique approaches to the same monster beastiary.

Sense of Narrative

While there were times where Doom 2 was often criticized for very poorly resembling real earthly locations, a wave of community projects and unique mappers created many wads and mapsets that have very little story-line continuity or connectivity. While Doom 2 was once described as a collection of weird gimmick maps, (which is partly true in many cases) I'd still argue it holds together much better than the many special maps that exist "just because" without any beleivable sense of storyline to give the player a sort of purpose or mission for being there outside of simply killing the monsters and moving on.

Deathmatch

Playing Deathmatch on levels designed for single player is a rare occurence, but many of the factors that contribute to a good deathmatch layout are sometimes equally as good for a single player map. In Doom 2, particularly in Romero's levels, there are secret shortcuts, windows, and many different paths that let you traverse across different poles of the level quickly and efficiently, which can be just as fun for flanking monsters. Considering the player's ability to move fast and fluidly throughout the map as if it were a deathmatch map

Contrast of Scale

Many of Doom 2's maps have an interesting overlooked quality in them that isn't often duplicated. Many of Doom 2's maps are remembered for their large grandiose spaces, such as in Industrial Zone, or Gotcha, or The Citadel. One of the important qualities of these maps is that they are also made up of buildings with very narrow hallways and compact rooms inside. The contrast between being in a cramped environment and exiting into a vast outdoor area rife with choices and directions to go contributes to the feeling of being "on earth," which has it's enclosed man-made structures as well as the open exposure of being in nature.

[Spectre01]

The best and most atmospheric e2 sky that creates the feeling of being in the middle of a large burning city despite the maps not looking the part. Most PWAD skies are kind of dry and do little to establish what's beyond the scope of the maps.

[ranhcase]

40oz said:

Contrast of Scale

Many of Doom 2's maps have an interesting overlooked quality in them that isn't often duplicated. Many of Doom 2's maps are remembered for their large grandiose spaces, such as in Industrial Zone, or Gotcha, or The Citadel. One of the important qualities of these maps is that they are also made up of buildings with very narrow hallways and compact rooms inside. The contrast between being in a cramped environment and exiting into a vast outdoor area rife with choices and directions to go contributes to the feeling of being "on earth," which has it's enclosed man-made structures as well as the open exposure of being in nature.

I really dislike huge open areas, big outdoor(or indoor) areas here and there aren't a problem to me and i like then, but giant levels with giant areas kinda annoys me, and it is one of the reasons why i like DooM I more than DooM II

[glenzinho]

Not having an author who talks too much shit on Doomworld certainly helps!

[mouldy]

One thing I think both the original dooms do better than a lot of PWADs is having less scripted settings. Most things in custom maps feel engineered to be purposeful and necessary to the intended experience, and you end up with the map driving the player rather than the player driving the map. If that makes sense.

[yakfak]

You could say that knowing the formula to get an efficient, good-looking vista out of Doom every time can get in the way of recreating the joyous whimsy of the IWADs, made when people were comparatively stumbling around in the dark, accidentally leading to the best texture clashes, props hung from the sky Daggerfall-style, the junk custom graphics of Final Doom, doors wallpapered with whatever came to hand at the time, etc... not to mention insane triangular lifts, unmarked shoot switches, hilarious anti-battles and so forth. I do appreciate the beauty people can now inject into Doom but screw consistency - I still long for the ugly, clunky and unformulaic at times..

[PsychoGoatee]

Good points, and may as well include Doom/Ultimate Doom in there too. Since I like those levels overall better than Doom 2, though Doom 2's standouts are some of the best.

I love lots of PWADs, but you gotta give kudos to Romero and co for how their work holds up (Sandy has his moments too etc).

[Hiram Abif]

I liked that the Doom 2 city levels weren't hyper-realistic. There was a surreal quality to the maps that made them oddly memorable. Then again, for the year and the game engine, it wasn't a bad representation of Earth.

[Uncle 80]

And, for better or worse, consistent quality between maps. Some, if not most megawads presents the player with a noticeable decrease/increase in quality from one map to the next, this does of course also affect immersion.

Also, maps that deviate from the 'norm'. So many user maps follow a strict set of unwritten rules, like no obligatory secrets, clear routes and objectives etc. Try telling that to The Citadel!

[ella guro]

one thing that's important to consider is the game designers at id had the bring people into the language of the game entirely by themselves. plus they were making a commercial game and were trying to distinguish themselves - not just with tech, but also with engaging design that could bring a lot of different types of people into its world. i like to think of classic Doom level designing as an extension of the days of designing dungeons for D&D - where there's an emphasis on playing with player expectation, devious traps, and encoding some kind of narrative about the place you're in. at the time this was advanced tech, and there were no rules for what you could do in a 3D-ish space. and the feeling of the textures/enemies was always a surreal hodgepodge, so the game plays into that. it's about the moment-to-moment of the design, and keeping the player guessing.

now i feel like there's too much interest in making everything aesthetically pleasing. there's a need to impress or overwhelm the player. i think a lot of this is about individual authors distinguishing themselves and trying to be memorable. and that's fine in the short term, but it gets old and just bogs you down after awhile. besides, good enemy placement is sort of like a puzzle - you have to be clever to adjust to it, not just move quickly and be patient. clever design always keeps you on your toes. and i am sad that most PWADS have turned away from that. and it's sad, because i think it should be even more of a challenge more people take on - how distinguish yourself and stand out by doing more with less even after 20+ years of Doom modding.

[dobu gabu maru]

mouldy said:

One thing I think both the original dooms do better than a lot of PWADs is having less scripted settings. Most things in custom maps feel engineered to be purposeful and necessary to the intended experience, and you end up with the map driving the player rather than the player driving the map. If that makes sense.

This is very true, and is a double edged sword in its own way. In one sense you let the player create their own encounters and tackle the map however they feel (Doom 2 MAP16 easily comes to mind), but a potential problem is that Doom isn't quite as enticing nowadays as when it was first released. Rarely can you fight pinkies, cacos, nobles, or even a cyberdemon in an open area and the combat be interesting (especially when the SSG/RL is withheld), whereas when Doom first came out nearly every enemy was fun to fight by their own merits. Nowadays it's a lot easier to see the author's handiwork in making deliberate encounters, but the trade off is that you no longer get sections where you're asking yourself "what the hell was the author thinking when they made this?"--an admittedly common thought in unconventional mapsets I've played like A.L.T.

And personally, monster placement, narrative, and sense of scale seem like bizarre things to hold over current mapsets--if anything, the narrative progression and sense of scale too closely resembles Doom 2 at times.

[Doomkid]

Pretty much everything I make (for SP anyway) tried to hit the "looks as good as E1, plays as good as D2" mark. Wether or not I hit that mark is a matter of opinion, but whenever I think "what kind of wad would I like to play?" that's what always comes to mind, even in the wake of all the fancy shit we've seen over the years.

mouldy said:

One thing I think both the original dooms do better than a lot of PWADs is having less scripted settings. Most things in custom maps feel engineered to be purposeful and necessary to the intended experience, and you end up with the map driving the player rather than the player driving the map. If that makes sense.

Pretty much this. Fancy visuals and an abundance of ZDoom effects can be used to great effect, but no amount of skin-deep beauty can make a map great on it's own, at least not to me - as it's been said, I want to feel like I'm exploring a place full of "organic" encounters, I want to see interesting monster placement and various forks in the road rather than "being taken on a tour" by a map to knock over the neatly lined up little toy soldiers. Not only secret areas, but open-ended design with plenty of non-mandatory areas really helps to achieve this. If a map has that and great visuals, that's truly an example of something special.

dobu gabu maru said:

Nowadays it's a lot easier to see the author's handiwork in making deliberate encounters, but the trade off is that you no longer get sections where you're asking yourself "what the hell was the author thinking when they made this?"--an admittedly common thought in unconventional mapsets I've played like A.L.T.

This is more of a personal thing, but unless it's absolutely appallingly tedious, I love moments where the author throws a kind of confusing, unconventional curveball at me. It's nice being forced to play deliberately in an unexpected encounter/setup as opposed to playing through a map and being like "Ah yes, universally applied mapping tenet #3214: Always put 8 shells in your room with 8 imps" or whatever. Playing a map and thinking "I would never have thought to have an encounter that plays out this way" = a good feeling!

[ella guro]

dobu gabu maru said:

This is very true, and is a double edged sword in its own way. In one sense you let the player create their own encounters and tackle the map however they feel (Doom 2 MAP16 easily comes to mind), but a potential problem is that Doom isn't quite as enticing nowadays as when it was first released. Rarely can you fight pinkies, cacos, nobles, or even a cyberdemon in an open area and the combat be interesting (especially when the SSG/RL is withheld), whereas when Doom first came out nearly every enemy was fun to fight by their own merits. Nowadays it's a lot easier to see the author's handiwork in making deliberate encounters, but the trade off is that you no longer get sections where you're asking yourself "what the hell was the author thinking when they made this?"--an admittedly common thought in unconventional mapsets I've played like A.L.T.

from my perspective that "what the fuck" feeling IS Doom. it so much defines what i liked about the game. the strange hell levels or combo of techbase/hell in episode 2. or the teleporters. or the bizarre architecture. the idea of Doom to me echoes this sense of the mystery or the ineffable, like there's something there that i will never fully know. and that's why i like mapsets like ALT - they feel like a truer continuation of that idea than other ones i've played. ALT in particular because it's still manages to be fun and exciting to play in most parts while also being strange.

the comment 40z made about Doom 2's space is a really good one too. oftentimes one of my biggest complaints with newer wads is how poorly letting spaces breathe and be themselves is handled. like, you walk into one room and a bunch of new monsters appear. then you walk into another, a bunch of monsters. there are so many points in the original doom where you'll wander around a space with not much there - they're like safe zones that help give you get your bearings and establish a sense of the environment before the game starts throwing monsters at you. you can still make a map difficult with less encounters. in actuality, less encounters makes those encounters you do have feel significant and memorable as part of the experience of playing the level, rather than just some low-level annoyance you keep having to deal with. monsters are a part of the environment after all - and too often people give no thought to how they might fit in or be a part of that environment. like, let people enjoy the environments you've made before making them run around like crazy in them.

[massivefanofdoom]

I love doom2. In some parts it seems like a mish mash of gimmick maps as someone else noted. Specifically from level 20 onwards, there is no more consistency like there was in the earth and starport levels. Each map seems to be a 'test' for some theme that gets abandoned immediately in the next level. Still love the spirit world though, what a great level that is. As for monster condo - libraries in hell? huh?

It's weird and it's surreal and it all comes together so fantastic, except .... when you realise Gotcha is probably a more hellish feeling level than the last 10 maps.

But i still love it.

I hope someone here can understand me, or even feels the exact same way as i do. It's a love-hate thing, but mostly I love it.

PS I don't like most pwad's, especially those were you have a 1000000 revenants and barons and cybies everywhere .... and your survival depends on using megaspheres and invulns at the right time. Some people think skill and timing is involved, and it may well be so, but I think it just becomes ridiculous at that point. Go2It is still ok, but I mean .... i think it was hell revealed 2 or something, as well as levels from scythe and scythe 2 and a wad called nochance, these are all ridiculous levels that just lose the whole point of it all to me. WHen you don't have memorable monster placement and action intervals where a sudden lull leads back to an adrenaline scare, it loses all the feeling of doom to me. THis is what doom 2016 still managed to capture again for me, despite the critcism of the arenas layout.

[7hm]

I think a lot of the things being talked about that the IWADs do better (consistency, open ended design, secrets, narrative, and monster placement) are only applicable if you restrict yourselves to a very particular type of PWAD. Luckily there are thousands of them out there, and for any individual thing Doom does, there is almost certainly a PWAD that does it better.

What the IWADs do best is play on my sense of nostalgia.