Good Doom/Heretic/Hexen WADs

[illuknisaa]

I miss the days when you could shoot enemies into flesh giblets and then shoot the flesh giblets into smaller flesh giblets. Just hearing monsters screaming in agony as I chop them up gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Games these days are just so just impersonal soulless loot box generators.

Also:

Spoiler

 

[Average Manatee]

My rule: episodes or megawads only. Why? Less frequent searching, downloading and fucking around with files, and more importantly there's steady progression through the weapons and enemies, and long term strategy (e.g ammo conservation. Secret discovery) matters more.
Maybe when I get through all the good episodes and megawads I'll fall back on single maps.

I like megawads but pistol start has its merits.

Megawads without a pseudo-episode structure that start you over get tedious and uninsteresting. 5-10 levels to ramp up to a crescendo is best. I think DOOM 1/2 proved this. At least for me I can't really remember half of 2's levels while I could easily tell any of 1's levels from a screenshot and probably draw half of them from memory.

Single maps also kind of annoy me. Aside from not having multi-map progression, it involves a lot more blind shots at maps (with wildly varying quality) while if you find a good megawad you like you'll have fun for a week.

 

[lightbane]

And now, for something different, High Noon Drifter got patched with new stuff! However, the modder is still human, and with human I mean a petty dramawhore capable of doing this:

Spoiler

; ;

Nothing remotely related to Brutal Doom works, from the Ketchup mini-mod or even Project Brutality, with Terminus' stuff.

 

[nodar]

So? People have a right to limit the ways in which THEIR OWN CREATION can be experienced.
Not to mention that the author of Brutal Doom is himself a legendary drama whore, as well as alt-right tard par excellence. both, especially the latter, are good enough justifications for the way in which his colleagues have been treating him and his mod.

 

[unfairlight]

Nodar is a faggot but he's right on the fact that Brutal Doom is shit and so is Sgt_Huezilian.

 

[Bigg Boss]

And now, for something different, High Noon Drifter got patched with new stuff! However, the modder is still human, and with human I mean a petty dramawhore capable of doing this:

Spoiler

; ;

Nothing remotely related to Brutal Doom works, from the Ketchup mini-mod or even Project Brutality, with Terminus' stuff.

I should patch that out and release it.

 

[nodar]

And now, for something different, High Noon Drifter got patched with new stuff! However, the modder is still human, and with human I mean a petty dramawhore capable of doing this:

Spoiler

; ;

Nothing remotely related to Brutal Doom works, from the Ketchup mini-mod or even Project Brutality, with Terminus' stuff.

I should patch that out and release it.

You are free to do it for your own use, but it would be dickish to release modified version of other guy's mod without his express permission.

 

[Bigg Boss]

And now, for something different, High Noon Drifter got patched with new stuff! However, the modder is still human, and with human I mean a petty dramawhore capable of doing this:

Spoiler

; ;

Nothing remotely related to Brutal Doom works, from the Ketchup mini-mod or even Project Brutality, with Terminus' stuff.

I should patch that out and release it.

You are free to do it for your own use, but it would be dickish to release modified version of other guy's mod without his express permission.

It is absurd for people to not be able to modify mods for their (and their friends) own use. It simply has to do with the ego of the mod author in thinking they own free content. Often times it is so simple to edit shit like that out it is almost a crime to not help out those who are too dense to figure it out. Depriving others of something because you are a douche imo gives that person little room to complain when their bullshit is edited out.

Besides I am a dick.

 

[lightbane]

I should patch that out and release it.

Please do tell. What are you talking about: The skeletons thing? The "censorship" for the Drifter mod? All of them at once?
I would like to play High Noon Drifter with Project Brutality without having to suffer through any bullshit.

 

[Dayyālu]

Ironically enough, that clique of Doom modders is holding an eternal grudge against Brutal Doom because they helped quite a bit Sarge, and they felt "betrayed" afterwards (without adding that Sarge is quite the Codexian personality). For example, the infamous guy behind H-Doom did both menu art and pixel art for Brutal Doom.

Dunnow. High Noon Drifter bored me quite a bit, while DemonSteele is one of my favourites (being cheesy as fuck helps). If only the guy properly finished it instead of jumping on new projects all the time, but whatever, it's kinda common with modders and I'm not paying so I can't complain.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I should patch that out and release it.

Please do tell. What are you talking about: The skeletons thing? The "censorship" for the Drifter mod? All of them at once?
I would like to play High Noon Drifter with Project Brutality without having to suffer through any bullshit.

For sure the skeleton thing. Not sure what censorship you are talking about, but any spiteful script that is used to make a potential downloaders experience shitty for no good reason should be removed.

Ironically enough, that clique of Doom modders is holding an eternal grudge against Brutal Doom because they helped quite a bit Sarge, and they felt "betrayed" afterwards (without adding that Sarge is quite the Codexian personality). For example, the infamous guy behind H-Doom did both menu art and pixel art for Brutal Doom.

Dunnow. High Noon Drifter bored me quite a bit, while DemonSteele is one of my favourites (being cheesy as fuck helps). If only the guy properly finished it instead of jumping on new projects all the time, but whatever, it's kinda common with modders and I'm not paying so I can't complain.

Right. They are butthurt because they helped to make him famous. H-Doomguy, sorry the art in Brutal Doom sucks, your visual novel system is copied from other people, and you are too interested in nifty animations to finish the interesting part of the mod.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Based on ghostdog recommendation, I gave the "Hellbound" wad a try.

When I play Doom I have three simple rules:

# See the sights
# Spot the secrets
# Kill every last motherfucking demon

Hellbound is the first wad where I abandon these rules.

It starts out nice enough. Earth-like planets, demon infestation about, move through a cityscape to eventually get to a lab that is MAP06. By that time I had a complete arsenal of weapons, which was a subtle clue that I would lose all my gear by the next map... which I did, after a swell fragfest of demons pouring out of a portal. I wasn't bothered much at first, there's still plenty of maps to go.

Except it happens again on MAP12.
And MAP19.
And MAP20. (!)

MAP14 and MAP16 (both large urban outdoor maps) were my favorites, though I also liked MAP17 and MAP18 for having references to classic Doom levels thrown in.

MAP19 is a bit too much, shoving two Spiderbosses, a couple of Arch-Viles and 200 of their friends into my face before I even get a chance to reclaim most of my gear. By the time I'm at the exit and the second Cyberdemon of the map appeared, I just ran for the exit and left it to stomp about on its own. MAP20 and onwards is all Hell maps, but even though they look cool and all, they were just too much. Playing through them felt like a chore (except for that one Hell map with the cityscape) so I started skipping the skippable fights.

Then I reached MAP29 and it all turned into a slog.

The highest enemy number on a map prior to MAP29 was 650. MAP29 has over 1800 of them.

My system started lagging right away and it got worse and worse until the first swarm of Cacodemons, Pain Elementals and Lost Souls joined in at about the second left turn. That killed the framerate, and was where I gave up, so to say.

But I was genuinely curious about what the rest was like, so I IDDQD'd and pressed on.

I don't think I've seen so many Cyberdemons in a single 'serious' map. They must have been close to 30. And the map ends on an arena fight with three Spiderbosses, a couple of Cyberdemons and dozens of their friends.

Then there's MAP30. I love the idea behind this one, you're trying to stop the demons invading Earth, by coming up behind them as they're marching through a portal back to Earth, then going through the portal and killing the Icon of Sin there. But the execution is atrocious. I spent 20 minutes just trying to figure out how to reach the Icon of Sin. And that eventually leads to a timed arena fight with four Cyberdemons and constantly-spawning demons all-around. Ugh.

I'd love to try playing the last two maps using the 'Aeons of Death'-mod, but I think it would kill my system... and I've played AoD with maps close to 3000 enemies!

I also ran into a strange bug where Revenants occasionally would become unkillable. Not cool.

Finally, the author sure loves his Hell Knights and Mancubi. I must have killed over 2000 of each in this megawad alone. By comparison Arachnotrons were never in large numbers and are as good as gone once you reach the Hell levels.

My rating? 'Caveat Ludius' - let the player beware.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Stopped caring at 30 cyberdemons. Silly.

 

[Average Manatee]

This is the first time you've seen shit go full nuts around MAP28 or so? Here I thought there was some kind of universally understood rule around megawad makers that only maps made for casual scum didn't start off with a dozen active cyberdemons and a near-1k monster count by that point.

 

[ghostdog]

lol Yeah I think it took me more than a month to finish Hellbound, basically one map each day. That shit was uneven, IIRC it also lagged on me too on a couple of maps due to the enemy numbers and vast architecture. It had some pretty frustrating moments with overpowering enemies, but I think the cool thing is that it had few actual slaughterfests and it was more of a classic doom play but with vast maps and big amounts of enemies. When things got crazy with big cyber-bosses... they got pretty damn crazy though . Anyway, IMO it's a megawad people should check out because aside from its problems it has some great maps and some great moments and overall the whole thing is just damn impressive.


Right now I'm playing through Jenesis. It starts kinda weak, with a somewhat confusing first level, but it gets better and provides some p.good maps with solid gameplay.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

This is the first time you've seen shit go full nuts around MAP28 or so? Here I thought there was some kind of universally understood rule around megawad makers that only maps made for casual scum didn't start off with a dozen active cyberdemons and a near-1k monster count by that point.

As stated both in the post (and previous posts I've made in this very thread) you'd know the answer to this if you'd bother to read.

Other wads have managed to put a lid on their maps so that they don't chug so much. (Using the Aeons of Death-mod adds plenty of lag in large, monster-heavy maps, to the point that sometimes the game doesn't even render an image for seconds at a time.)

The problem with this map in particular is that it's one large open area, split up into smaller sections and forming a spiral path towards the top without using doors. There's not a single proper door in the entire map. I would love to test my skill against the hordes of demons, but instead I'm forced to test my patience vs the lag. That's a no-no.

 

[nodar]

You aren't too familiar with the modern Doom mapping, cuz you are describing typical slaughtermap fare. Mapper behind that wad isn't a fan of slaughter gameplay himself, but he felt obliged to include it because that is what is popular these days and has been so for ages. Hence those maps being such a slog. And even with that, people were complaining that his megawad has boring and old-fashioned gameplay, and even that year's cacowards described it as simply boring. I don't remember if there was any drama about it, but he disapeared from the community afterwards... Still, Hellbound proved to be significantly popular than any other megawad released that year, just going by the number of votes on archive and how often it is mentioned. It just shows that people are hungry for anything that isn't constant arena slaughterfest (even though their e-peens wont let them admit that, because everyone thinks that complaining about salughtermaps implies that they are too hard for player in question).

 

[Dayyālu]

Yeap, it's a matter of tastes. Some love slaughtermaps, some don't. Like me. Goddammit, even Scythe 2 degenerates into a boring slog in the last levels: at least DTWID had the decency of making slaughtermaps secret maps.

I want to relax, not to melt my laptop and get annoyed at 4k gazillion enemies. Even if I have to admit that sometimes tactical placement of several Cyberdemons can make for interesting gameplay.

Right. They are butthurt because they helped to make him famous. H-Doomguy, sorry the art in Brutal Doom sucks, your visual novel system is copied from other people, and you are too interested in nifty animations to finish the interesting part of the mod.

Dunnow. When I've seen something not Doom-modded from 'em, it has been.... middling at best. Nocturne in Yellow was stock 90ies shooter tier, and the Monster Thing whatever porn thing HDoomguy is doing is again "nice animations if you are a dweeb but the gameplay is lacking".

Well, the boss fight of the Mansion map is at least adequate from the design standpoint.

 

[Jazz_]

I hated the few slaughter-centric wads I tried, I tried ''Going Down'' recently and even though some levels are pretty impressive (in particular the map that turns seamlessly into a hell map when you press a switch was a stroke of genius) the sheer number of monsters in restricted spaces makes the gameplay retarded often but mostly the shitty framerate kills it for me.

 

[lightbane]

Ironically enough, that clique of Doom modders is holding an eternal grudge against Brutal Doom because they helped quite a bit Sarge, and they felt "betrayed" afterwards (without adding that Sarge is quite the Codexian personality). For example, the infamous guy behind H-Doom did both menu art and pixel art for Brutal Doom.

Dunnow. High Noon Drifter bored me quite a bit, while DemonSteele is one of my favourites (being cheesy as fuck helps). If only the guy properly finished it instead of jumping on new projects all the time, but whatever, it's kinda common with modders and I'm not paying so I can't complain.

HND is fully playable and complete though. If future updates add more content, that's something else though. As for the modders being envious for Sarge's success, that explains a lot.

Also, I didn't know that Sarge is Brazillian. I guess that explains his love of violence.

For sure the skeleton thing. Not sure what censorship you are talking about, but any spiteful script that is used to make a potential downloaders experience shitty for no good reason should be removed.

I mean the stuff like the screen-blocking guts shooting out from your gun in High Noon Drifter whenever you try to combine it with BD and related mods. So yeah, butthurt scripts mostly.

Dunnow. When I've seen something not Doom-modded from 'em, it has been.... middling at best. Nocturne in Yellow was stock 90ies shooter tier, and the Monster Thing whatever porn thing HDoomguy is doing is again "nice animations if you are a dweeb but the gameplay is lacking".

Well, the boss fight of the Mansion map is at least adequate from the design standpoint.

Nocturne in Yellow was okay IMO, although levels were obviously done by a beginner.

I wasn't aware that HDoom actually had custom maps though.

 

[Dayyālu]

Nocturne in Yellow was okay IMO, although levels were obviously done by a beginner.

I wasn't aware that HDoom actually had custom maps though.

It's not HDoom, it's another of his snowflake projects MGQ3D, inspired from a porn VN about monsters. While I can admire the skill, it seems kind of a waste to , well, waste time on a barely-legal Japanese thing that an exceedingly small number of people are gonna stomach. He did a shitton of sprite work and even maps, though they are all kinda amateurish, bar the final boss fight that shows a tad of brilliance in design.

Just a tad.

 

[ghostdog]

Most modders are drama queens and the doom modding scene is going full throttle for 24 goddamn years, it's a given that you'll get ridiculous spikes of drama from these guys.

 

[Astral Rag]

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...-ii-tc-for-doom-zandronum-online-in-progress/

 

[Bigg Boss]

4 years of work. Nice.

 

[newtmonkey]

went in expecting autism, got AWEtism