Worst Doom Level

[TheSlipgateStudios]

Ultimate Doom - E3M5 Cathedral

Doom 2 - Most city levels and the Chasm

TNT - Almost all second half levels

Plutonia - The Bunker

[Firedust]

Ultimate Doom - Limbo, no contest

Doom 2 - Barrels of fun

TNT - Habitat, obviously

Plutonia - Neurosphere

[xScavengerWolfx]

The city levels of doom 2

[Quill]

TNT Map25

[Yousuf Anik]

Map 11 - Hunted from Plutonia Experiment. No doubt I hate this map so much that the first time after I completed this map, I decided never to play it again. Done with it forever.

There are several maps I really don't like mainly because of their poor and dumb design that makes no sense (in TNT/Ultimate Doom) or very hard difficulty (in Plutonia), but they are a lot better than Hunted.

[Maximum Matt]

On 10/9/2022 at 6:57 PM, Firedust said:

Plutonia - Neurosphere

WHAT

[pcorf]

Ultimate Doom: E2M9, E3M7, E3M8, E4M4

Doom 2: MAP21

TNT: MAP21, MAP22, MAP25, MAP27

[phoo]

Habitat.

[THT]

On 10/8/2022 at 9:10 PM, RoastDoom said:

E3M1 - Hell Keep .  This for me is Sandy's worst map. Looks awful, gameplay is woefully unfun(pistoling a Caco at the start of the level?!). A terrible start to the worst episode of Doom 1.

I'm surprised to see so much hate for E3M1. I always thought it was iconic: you're not in some twisted space base anymore, but literally have to rise out of the hellscape and scramble for your life. I'm obsessed with "monster flow" when it comes to level design, and this one gives you an interesting choice: do you run past the Cacos and try for the shotgun, knowing that you'll probably have to face them in a narrow corridor, or do you opt to plink them with the pistol rounds in the open field? Either is pretty desperate, and if you choose to rush past them you still have to worry about them following you through the entire map. There's that bigish room after the caco hall that sort of messes this up as monsters can get stuck here, but overall I always liked the look and feel of this map as an intro to Hell itself.

E2M3 is another one people seem to hate because it has the interlude theme, but on SNES it uses E2M2's music and that REALLY suits it! Starting off in a weird room full of vines with the opening notes of "The Demons from Adrian's Pen" really sets this one off much, much more nicely than the intermission theme. I love the use of windows and corridors here, especially the nukage slatted hall and the creepy flashing hall through the Blue door. Being able to see the exit right there is also pretty cool. The whole thing gives you plenty of ways to approach it, whether you want to speedrun the main corridors, clear sections sequentially, or snipe enemies through long corridors and windows.

People seem to have come to their senses and generally recognized E2M2 as one of the best despite the hate it seems to have gotten historically. The layout doesn't require you to methodically go through the warehouse and kill everything, but you want to! This was a "new, shiny" level for me when I finally got PC Doom after my start on SNES and I always loved it.

For real shyte though? E4M1 is so badly designed it kills my desire to play that bastard Episode 4 at all. What the fuck could they have possibly been thinking making this one? It just feels like zero playtesting outside of the author themselves took place; "okay it's finally hard enough for ME" is why we get playtesters, because authors get up their own ass after playing it with tweaks hundreds of times! That and, like Sigil, it all just feels too small and cramped IMO. No fucking health = un-fucking playable. Never even tried beating this one with cheats!

Doom2 kinda sucks as far as most of its maps are concerned. Nothing about this game feels like a cohesive geographical journey so much as a trial of gimmicks, especially later on. Earth looks like Hell, and not in the way they intended! I'm gonna pick on Map02 because the genre-inappropriate elevator music (love the "Taco Bell music" mention upthread!) and it's as shit-dull-looking as anything else in this game. Honestly there are worse, but like a lot of Doom2 maps, it features these miserable little vertical gaps you're supposed to clear before entering, I guess, which is a poor match to Doom Engine's auto-aim and lack of mouselook. You're shooting semi-blindly hoping that auto-aim kicks in and you actually hit something. I think this is a big part of why I don't even bother with the Doom2 campaign: on top of everything else it's painfully vertical, did you ever notice that? I struggle to think of any instances in Doom1 where you need to shoot down into deep crevasses or up on tall pillars, whereas Doom2 has you shooting at all kinds of vertical stuff that barely shows on your screen. I'd rather play Limbo 10 times than plink stuff I can't see while my ass is totally exposed in the nukage-room in "The Tenements" at all.

[BedrockCastle]

Pretty much every map in TNT with like 3 exceptions

[fai1025]

E3M2 for lack of ammo and bunch of lost soul, and Gaunlet for count down to death, and Icon of sin of course.

[PeterMoro]

E4M1 can FO

 

Edit: actually I've just remembered that I really hate E3M2: Slough of Despair.

Edited November 4, 2022 by PeterMoro

[PsychEyeball]

Let's be fancy and do it game by game.

 

Ultimate Doom: E3M7 - Limbo. I wouldn't mind the maze-like structure of the level as much if wading through the maze didn't involve going through 10% damage hurtfloors the whole time. You better go through the gates in the correct order before your rad suits run out, or else! It's one of those rare levels where finding the secrets is easier than finding your actual way to beat the level and that won't do it for me.

 

Honorable mention: E4M1 - Hell Beneath. Shotgunners shooting you through fake walls in a level with almost no health pickups, a should-be secret rocket launcher (which again, requires you to wade through hurtfloors) that is mandatory to even hope to win... it doesn't matter how small the map is, you better take this one at 1 MPH, otherwise you'll die. 

 

Doom 2: MAP12 - The Factory. This one is so boring, big and mostly empty. Was it really necessary to repeat that ceiling tile puzzle from E2M2 to pad things out? What about possibly misleading the player with a door that seems like it needs a red key to open, but it actually HAS the red key in it? Finally, let's cap it off with the most annoying end room with the cacodemons, elevators and 500 switches you must press to exit the level.

 

Honorable mention: MAP23 - Barrels o' Fun. The beginning makes it feel as if it'll be some gimmick level involving barrels, but more than half the map doesn't follow the theme anyway. The room with multiple pain elementals might be one of the worst in the game, moreso if you play the level on a pistol start. I hope you enjoy punching pain elementals and lost souls, sucker! Too bad, because the barrel rooms are actually kinda fun. 

 

TNT Evilution: MAP25 - Baron's Den. Just like The Factory, but even more featureless. As much as I dislike The Factory, I can remember parts from it. What does this map even have going for it? There's caves and hallways maybe? One room in the map kinda looks nice? Hello?

 

Honorable mention: MAP21 - Administration Center. Habitat is too easy of a pick, and at least that level is mostly harmless in its ineptitude. Administration Center, on the other hand, is extremely bloated, mostly non interesting and the starting corridors laden with chaingunner window dressing is a drag. The only thing I kinda like in this level is the end, where you briefly see for one instant the link between Map 20 and 21. Even then, how did you get this deep in the building only to get out anyway?

 

Plutonia Experiment: MAP11 - Hunted. I really like the premise of the level, but I hate the way the doors work. If you're gonna make your level a maze to begin with, don't make the doors also complicated to use for no reason. Also it would have been fun to use something else than the super shotgun to kill arch-viles, because if you pistol start, that's about all you'll get.

 

Honorable mention: MAP15 - The Twilight. I hate the tiny corridors and I hate the 50 something chaingunners the map throws at you. Also why is one of the doors just a gap that can soft lock you into oblivion? Most of its ambushes don't feel fair at all given the no space you're given to work with.

[Herr Dethnout]

Underhalls

[Sonikkumania]

Plutonia MAP11 Hunted.

[InfernalMonsoon]

For me it has to be The Ultimate Doom E4M6, Against Thee Wickedly. It looks great but I find the gameplay to be a really tedious slog, fighting the cyberdemon at the end in such a tiny area is just awful imo. No matter how many times I've played this map it is always the only official classic Doom level I end up flat out hating. Even the worst levels in TNT and Plutonia have something cool going on with them that gives me some enjoyment.

[YANDOR04]

doom 2 map 24: the chasm, definitively the worst map, doom is a frenetic FPS and that level makes the game too slow and boring

[Nightmare2989]

The secret maps from xbox doom lol betrayal and sewers lol biggest pile of shit

Edited November 3, 2022 by Nightmare2989

[invalidlain]

All of the master levels, definitively.

[yakfak]

all doom levels are incredible! i think there are some mods that make you into a cop and i would call those the worst doom content possible? why would you want doomguy to be a cop

[PeterMoro]

On 11/3/2022 at 9:34 AM, Herr Dethnout said:

Underhalls

Are you kidding? It's one of the best IMO.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

4 minutes ago, PeterMoro said:

Are you kidding? It's one of the best IMO.

Definitely agree, Underhalls is the best. Love the layout and visual design. The SSG is awesome as well.

[Kor]

Ultimate Doom:  "Gate to Limbo" mainly because of its teleport maze.  I really don't like those.  When there are a bunch of teleporters in a teleport puzzle I have trouble remembering where they go.  Though I think this level looks all right.  Unholy Cathedral and Mount Erebus are other levels I don't like.

 

Doom 2:  Hard to say, so I won't say anything.

 

TNT: "Mt Pain."  Its texturing is horrendous and a lot of it is plain corridors.  Nothing less interesting in a Doom map than a long, winding, plain corridor.  Other levels I don't care for are Central Processing and Administration Center.  They just look horrible.

 

Plutonia:  "Hunted"  For a while I liked this level.  Now?  I don't like it anymore.  It's just a bunch of passages that look the same, and finding out what line triggers what door is annoying.  And the fact the final switches (activated with keys) open doors on the other side of a locked door is also annoying, because you have to navigate through the maze all over again.  There really aren't any other levels in Plutonia I don't like, as it is a pretty solid set of maps.

[Thelokk]

UD: Containment area aka idiotic crate maze. Sewer levels >>>>>> crate mazes.

 

D2: Suburbs. Bunch of blocks thrown at random.

 

TNT: Dead Zone.

 

Plutonia: I don't really vibe with most of it to be honest. Probably one of the early, boring as fuck maps in the 01-10 range.

[SleepyVelvet]

1 hour ago, Thelokk said:

UD: Containment area aka idiotic crate maze. Sewer levels >>>>>> crate mazes.

 

D2: Suburbs. Bunch of blocks thrown at random.

 

TNT: Dead Zone.

 

Plutonia: I don't really vibe with most of it to be honest. Probably one of the early, boring as fuck maps in the 01-10 range.

You chose all the best maps on purpose :<

[D0M0]

Abandoned mines (Doom II) is easily my least favourite. The secrets imo are just annoying to get, the level itself is pretty forgetful and the fact there’s too many cacodemons annoys me

[Thelokk]

1 hour ago, NoisyVelvet said:

You chose all the best maps on purpose :<

 

You can't be for real tell me it ain't so

[Wilster_Wonkels]

"Put Me in the Wiki" by @sandwedge

[Kuro_mahoh]

MAP13, Downtown

I'd rather play habitat than that map

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Let's see

 

UDoom: None, really like that one

Doom2: Map28, the music is good but I don't understand the map.

 

Master Levels: That one that starts with ME, 'nuff said.

TNT: Map 21, I honestly love TNT Evilution but this map really isn't that good. At least other maps, for example Mount Pain, have something remarkable to them other than just being insanely large. Honorable mention to Map15, I really don't get what people see of this map, it's boring as heck and the secrets are a pain in the butt to get, at least it's short so it can be easily skipped

 

Plutonia: Most of them, they're all pretty much the same in regards to the bs difficulty, the only ones I actually like are Map04, Map15 and probably the Sewers.