Slaughter or Famine?

[MrGlide]

When playing a difficult mapset would you rather play something slaughtery with high amounts of monsters and usually room to move and infight?

Or would you rather play map like E4M1 or the chord series? Limiting space to move often, stingy ammo values forcing you to be ammo effecient?

[loveless]

Depends on what I'm in the mood for, I'm okay with whatever so long as it's engaging.

[baja blast rd.]

The thread title presents a false dichotomy; either category can subsume the other, and often do (q.v. Ribbiks' smaller hard maps in Sunlust).

But as a response to the body of your post, I'd prefer the former. Assuming equal difficulty is an important detail. Most exemplars of the "famine" style can be intimidating but aren't really so hard simply as a function of having a short running time and fewer moving pieces to puzzle out. But the truly hard small-scale stuff crosses the line into "obnoxious" sooner than their equally tuned larger-scaled counterparts, because difficult combat in tight spaces carries awkwardness as a byproduct and is traditionally paired with asceticism wrt "pleasurable combat for pleasure's sake", seemingly for reasons other than there being no physical space for it.

[Empyre]

I hate running out of ammo, and I hate being afraid to shoot my weapon for fear that I will run out of ammo.

[VGamingJunkie]

That depends, Cyberdreams could qualify as a Famine map but only because you're not supposed to be engaging with them directly, you're supposed to utilize puzzles to do the work for you.

[40oz]

I like when I'm fully equipped with good weapons, armor, and plenty ammunition, and still having to play my best to stay alive.

[vladeK]

I'm okay with both, but I prefer the former, since lack of ammo and limited space to maneuver feel like an artificial way to add difficulty.

[LordShadowZ]

I'm not really a fan of slaughter maps, though I also suck in ammo starved situations. Really, neither situation is particularly fun for me because I don't much patience to deal with them

[MrGlide]

This is a lot more one sided then I thought it would be.

@MetroidJunkie- I would consider CyberDreams to be a Puzzle wad personally.

[yakfak]

i like chainsawing cacos more than BFGing them tbh

[GoodyGood]

Don't wanna throw truisms at you, but it really depends on the overall feel of the map. But I do agree that the former isn't as artificial in most contexts.

[scifista42]

I can enjoy either type of gameplay, but I generally prefer having too little ammo against a reasonable amount of monsters over having a reasonable amount of ammo against too many monsters.

[nxGangrel]

The Last one. It makes things more interesting, and I don't feel ridiculous.
Plus, I don't appreciate a fuck ton of monsters thrown at me because that's the mapper's idea of making a level difficult. (Unless it's done well of course)

[Zulk RS]

Neither.
I actually like a balance between the two.

[Job]

Famine. I want every click of the left mouse button to require deep introspection and philosophical debate.

[noshutdown]

i prefer famine aswell.