what's a wad that you'd recommend to a newbie?

[roadworx]

i have this friend that's recently been playing some doom, and he wants some suggestions as to what to play in terms of custom-made maps. anybody have some suggestions?

 

please nothing too hard, like alien vendetta or hell revealed. i think the difficulty of those would really turn him away from the game.

[42PercentHealth]

I started with Scythe, which really isn't too hard, as far as custom WADs go. Just the last 10 levels.... I even liked most of these, though, because the difficulty made it feel all the more satisfying when I finally won.

 

Maybe you could also rope him in with something attractive, like Ancient Aliens if it's not too hard.

[Not Jabba]

Revolution! and Somewhere in Time are some of the best easy mapsets. Both have very classic vibe. If you want something that looks like Sunlust but plays like Doom 2, you're probably SOL.

 

EDIT: If you really want to give your friend a sense of what the Doom community is capable of without giving them something too hard, you might try some of the player-made iwads -- Harmony, Adventures of Square, Shadow of the Wool Ball, or Chex Quest 3. They might even really like Blade of Agony.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Valiant is a great place to start. It's a bit more forgiving than AA, has some nice custom weapons and monsters, along with a delightful soundtrack. A quality wad all throughout.

 

If that's a bit too much, I guess you can alway try something like estranged, which starts off fairly tame. KMX has a review of that on his page.

 

I wouldn't recommend AA, because the first levels are kind of centered around low ammo supplies, and m01 of AA already fields a cybie. ;-)

 

Not sure about scythe though, never liked those all that much, but maybe your friends' taste is spot on for this.

 

If you want to drill your friend into hectic stuff a bit earlier, might as well grab speed of doom.

[NecrumWarrior]

59 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I wouldn't recommend AA, because the first levels are kind of centered around low ammo supplies, and m01 of AA already fields a cybie. ;-)

HNTR has a Mancubus instead. Nothing wrong with a nub taking on lower difficulties of harder WADs, and it is a must play. 

 

I think the Serenity trilogy is a pretty good set of maps for someone just getting into Doom. They still have a strong classic Doom sensibility to them and are only one episode each. 

[NuMetalManiak]

Both Memento Moris or Jenesis

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Fava Beans is pretty easy and is (was at least?) considered fairly good, but it's oldschooler stuff so I dunno.

[axdoomer]

1 hour ago, roadworx said:

please nothing too hard, like alien vendetta or hell revealed. i think the difficulty of those would really turn him away from the game.

Would playing on the lowest skill level be good? "I'm too young to die!" should be reasonable on WADs which implement skill levels. 

[7hm]

BTSX.  It's incredibly polished and a great demonstration of what Doom can really achieve and how pretty the game can be.  Valiant would also be good for this I think.  

 

Probably on HNTR depending on how comfortable they are with FPSs.

[leodoom85]

Moonblood for a recent one...fairly easy. The PSX Doom TC is also a good start for getting the hang of it

[NecrumWarrior]

Oh, Doom the Way Id Did is also a good one for some classic style Doom action. Should be an easy transition from the Iwads. If your friend is looking for easy, Heretic might be good for a whirl. Before they get jaded by harder Doom stuff. 

[leodoom85]

2 minutes ago, NecrumWarrior said:

Oh, Doom the Way Id Did is also a good one for some classic style Doom action. Should be an easy transition from the Iwads. If your friend is looking for easy, Heretic might be good for a whirl. Before they get jaded by harder Doom stuff. 

That megawad is good too for starters...

[Nevander]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Valiant is a great place to start. It's a bit more forgiving than AA, has some nice custom weapons and monsters, along with a delightful soundtrack. A quality wad all throughout.

Another vote for Valiant, then again I'm a Valiant superfan so anything Valiant I give the +1.

[Spie812]

Definitely DTWID and D2TWID for their quality levels and for their difficulty curve being similar to the original games.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Many of those wads support hurt me plenty and lower skills. Tell him he shouldn't default to UV unless a wad is too easy for now, then things like Plutonia become easy ;P. NeoDoom is good unless he won't like the occasional Vixen killing him in a second.

[dew]

T.V.'s Revolution is easy, fun and cute. One of the best entry-level mapsets!

[Cynical]

Demonfear.

 

All of you Valiant supporters should be championing Vanguard instead.  It's better, and it's a better intro since it doesn't have the silly revamped monsters.

[The Nate]

Do IWADs count? Because FreeDoom.

[Impie]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Valiant is a great place to start.

The hell it is. Certainly not for a newbie!

 

I'd recommend Wonderful Doom and Brotherhood of Ruin. The former basically remakes the original Doom, providing four original episodes done in a similar style to the original maps. The latter is a great Doom 2 mapset with a mesoamerican setting: it's challenging, but not balls-bustingly hard like a lot of the more recent releases.

[Deleted_Account]

Threshold of Pain

[leodoom85]

Even the recreations of Doom 64 are easy to progress and great to learn the mechanics of the game, starting in the medium difficulty...

[Nine Inch Heels]

23 minutes ago, Impie said:

The hell it is. Certainly not for a newbie!

You do realize that it comes with pretty well made difficulty settings? I mean, it's possible that Valiant is a bit more difficult than I give it credit for, on the other hand I don't see why valiant would be a bad place to start on HNTR. Not to mention that maybe there's some upfront FPS experience involved. It's not like we're given a lot of information on the supposed player's level of "general expertise", mind you.

[leodoom85]

1 minute ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

You do realize that it comes with pretty well made difficulty settings? I mean, it's possible that Valiant is a bit more difficult than I give it credit for, on the other hand I don't see why valiant would be a bad place to start on HNTR. Not to mention that maybe there's some upfront FPS experience involved. It's not like we're given a lot of information on the supposed player's level of "general expertise", mind you.

It does depend of the player's skill. Even some players that are not used to the mechanics of the game can still die a lot, like falling to an acid pit or something

[Cynical]

All this talk of "don't hurt the newbies with difficulty!" is dumb.  My first exposure to Doom in my adult life was through HR2 and AV.

 

Hard as an allure all of its own.

[StoneMason]

2002 A Doom Odyssey, and Whispers of Satan. Those two seem easy enough. 

[Camahueto]

Appart from waht has been said in the thread (especially Scythe and Fava Beans; both great for begginers), show him Mordeth. That way he will know why we still hope/joke about its sequel.

[NecrumWarrior]

56 minutes ago, Cynical said:

All this talk of "don't hurt the newbies with difficulty!" is dumb.  My first exposure to Doom in my adult life was through HR2 and AV.

 

Hard as an allure all of its own.

Except that the op specifically calls for nothing that's too hard, so as to not put this player off. 

[galileo31dos01]

The Lost Episodes of Doom are quite easy. Both Doom The Way Id Did and its sequel are good options, Requiem too. 

 

 

[joepallai]

The Darkening 1 & 2

Back to Basics

Demonfear

TVR!

Osiris

Reverie

MM1 and MM2

Eternal Doom

 

all of those are good choices for someone who has beaten the game and wants to explore more of what Dooming is all about.   10 Years of Doom has some excellent choices as well, especially through '99 for newer players

[R1ck]

Try valiant in lower difficulty. I tried the wad in UV but I nope the shit out after I encountered about 10  arcvhilles (forgot which map it was)

 

Map of chaos is also beginner friendly imo.