The worst DOOM levels ever?

[Rare Hatchiama]

Slough of Despair is absolute garbage.

 

"OoOoohhHhHhhh the map looks like an outstretched hand!"

 

No.

[Mengo]

Fortress of mystery

WHATS THE POINT ITS LITERALLY A WASTE OF TIME

[JustCallMeKaito]

Since Habitat was already mentioned, Mt. Pain from TNT. Why does it exist? Was there a shortage of mile long corridors smeared with shit the year it was released?

[Matthias]

On 11/16/2019 at 9:03 PM, magicsofa said:

You know, "joke wad" doesn't have to mean "shit maps submitted just for the fun of clogging the database." But since that requires almost no effort, there's a lot more of those than actual good, creative, thoughtful, funny jokewads. I think they should actually be renamed "shitwads" for accuracy.

Basically your idea is similar to a comedian going on stage and purposely telling jokes that aren't funny. Sure, anti-humor is a thing, but that's not the same as just willfully sucking at humor. In conclusion, your proposal is hereby rejected by the high court of judgy forum assholes.

 

Actually I respectfully disagree.

 

I remember reading one old post here about "things you absolutely hate in maps" and there were many design things the players hate.

 

While making bad maps on purpose, like one room with 5 cyberdemons around you is easy and you do it in a minute.

 

But making the map really evil and frustrating while implementing all the things players hate together requires so much effort as making a good map actually. It's mostly because the things players hate were expected to be good ideas by mappers... at least originally, like various kinds of ambushes and so on, but eventually it doesn't work as expected in theory. 

Edited December 4, 2019 by Matthias
typos

[magicsofa]

Perhaps but it seems like a pretty horrible waste of time to me. Why put effort into creating something that everyone will despise and refuse to play? Would it even be fun for the creator?

I'd say part of the effort involved in making a GOOD map involves taking a step back from your wild ideas and thinking critically about what is actually needed and appropriate. Of course there's a ton of wiggle room but, it's easy to go overboard and make levels that have too many monsters, too many weapons, too many ambushes, too many stupid slime pits, and so on. It's much harder to have just the right amount of those things, so that the map is challenging but also fair and fun to play. Sure it takes "effort" to draw sectors in the map editor, but if you're just throwing balance/fairness out the window in favor of endless annoying ambushes, maybe you're just not willing to put in the "effort" of critical thinking.

[boris]

On 11/16/2019 at 6:45 PM, seed said:

But, look no further than TNT's Habitat.

 

I never really bothered with Final Doom, so I played that level for the first time just now. And it's bad. Really bad. How did it make it into a commercial release? Did they get it from a shovelware CD?

[Gez]

13 hours ago, Mengo said:

Fortress of mystery

WHATS THE POINT ITS LITERALLY A WASTE OF TIME

The point is instigating infighting in a relatively tight space.

 

You've gotta remember that 1) it's a secret map, they're supposed to be different, 2) it's literally one of the first maps made for Doom (like the other E1-to-E3 maps), and 3) its author had to crank out 18 maps in a few weeks, with no previous experience of making maps for Doom.

 

It's easy to say it's a bad map in 2019, but we have gotten 26 years to refine our collective understanding and expectations of Doom map design.

[Mengo]

4 minutes ago, Gez said:

The point is instigating infighting in a relatively tight space.

 

The problem is enemies can't infight others of the same species, and nobody is going to try wall hugging or looking at the map to find the secret way to progress until the barons are out of the picture, not to mention the fact that it's genuinely the most rushed looking map ever, as if there was a chart made before levels were made and the designer just put 3 keys at the end, like how someone just reiterates the same point 3 times in an essay because they forgot to start working on it until 2 days before it's due.

[reflex17]

 

[Gez]

11 minutes ago, Mengo said:

The problem is enemies can't infight others of the same species, and nobody is going to try wall hugging or looking at the map to find the secret way to progress until the barons are out of the picture

I didn't have a problem with it back in the 1990s.

 

I mean, first try I got creamed by the baron, second try I just attempted to run past them, third try I succeeded in running past them and reaching the caco room.

[Pegleg]

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

Perhaps but it seems like a pretty horrible waste of time to me. Why put effort into creating something that everyone will despise and refuse to play? Would it even be fun for the creator?

 

I have one word for you: terrywads. Apparently, yes, that sort of thing is fun for the creator. And not just because Aquarius199 plays them all the time.

 

Also, reference Cappelan's comment in another thread about things in maps that annoy people: "And there'll also be someone who loves that "shit" pretty much all the time." No matter how bad and despicable whatever you make (with the possible exception of levels that infect the player's computer with a BIOS-melting virus), there will probably be a group of players that enjoy it. For example:

 

Mapper: "Mandatory SR50 platforming over inescapable lava pits while being targeted by archviles and revenants? And you're at 1% health? Ha! No one will enjoy that!"

One week later, this map becomes the new favorite map for some small group of reality aficionados.

 

 

On 11/17/2019 at 8:39 AM, bfredric said:

Oh come on I think the op is being very creative. A wad that makes the lamest doom levels even worse in a satirical way could be really funny. It reminds me of sharknado or scary movie! I guess the so bad its good movie isn’t funny for some people but I love it

 

Sharknado is a great series of movies, especially the further it's gone into the series. I have yet to see Sharknado 6, but from the other 5 movies, the dialogue is spot on, the plotting is suitably epic, and the cameos (especially those with pop culture references) are perfect. The writers that penned the Sharknado movies didn't get paid nearly enough.

[seed]

2 hours ago, boris said:

I never really bothered with Final Doom, so I played that level for the first time just now. And it's bad. Really bad. How did it make it into a commercial release? Did they get it from a shovelware CD?

 

Prolly to fill the 32-level requirement or I dunno.

 

It should also be noted that TNT was originally not going to be a commercial expansion, but since that was a last minute decision, they likely didn't have enough time to change things around, or in this case, make more drastic changes, so we got... what we got.

 

TNT is quite alright up until MAP20 or so, but after that it goes downhill really fast. It should have been 20-22 (if counting secret maps too) maps long, quality over quantity. I wonder what kind of standards had to be met at the time tbh, since Plutonia was far superior from all points of view. Then again, Master Levels weren't great either.

[spineapple tea]

The fucking Spirit World.

[Scorpius]

I'm rather surprised no one has mentioned Halls of the Damned yet.

 

F U C K   T H A T   L E V E L

[Gokuma]

Spirit World, Halls of the Damned, and Fortress of Mystery are great.   Just hate that sneaky crusher in Halls.   I can't remember not luring the Barons and Cacos into fighting each other in E2M9, even back when I played keyboard only.  If you have a problem with that, you just need to get better at Doom.

[magicsofa]

9 hours ago, Pegleg said:

 

I have one word for you: terrywads. Apparently, yes, that sort of thing is fun for the creator.

 

Fair enough. I also gain sadistic joy when I RIP AND TEAR wads in reviews... and the OP has elected to attempt this project so I won't try and stop them any longer! GOOD LUCK

[Matthias]

 

19 hours ago, magicsofa said:

Perhaps but it seems like a pretty horrible waste of time to me. Why put effort into creating something that everyone will despise and refuse to play? Would it even be fun for the creator?

 

Actually I think it could be a good challenge. Let say you make a really horrible and bad map. Not in terry sense, when it's just a crap, but really... very frustrating and evil map. Someone could find it fun to play.

 

On youtube, there are many crazy things.. people playing insane, crazy and evil mods of many games - Half-Life, Doom, Portal, Sonic and it seems to be fun.

 

My point - putting in the map things the player hates doesn't automatically means it's a bad map :) For example Hell Revealed contains everything I personally hate, but I play it many times despite of that :D

[Maximum Matt]

16 hours ago, Pegleg said:

Sharknado is a great series of movies, especially the further it's gone into the series. I have yet to see Sharknado 6, but from the other 5 movies, the dialogue is spot on, the plotting is suitably epic, and the cameos (especially those with pop culture references) are perfect. The writers that penned the Sharknado movies didn't get paid nearly enough.

Aw HELL no

[MassiveEdgelord]

E1M4 and most of the shit in DOOM 2.

[DRM-MAN]

All of episode 4 and probably the entire half of the plutonia experiment.

[pcorf]

On 11/17/2019 at 5:38 PM, Cursed Lemon said:

Any level that doesn't have "Mouth For War" playing over it.

 

BWAWK BWAWK BWAWK

 

It's pretty good on the SNES though.

[Synthdrm]

I liked Dead Simple tbh.

 

 

[Spectre01]

The original Dead Simple is a great map, with its high-impact introduction of two new, powerful enemies. It gets a bad rep because of the sheer quantity of copycat maps that do little besides rehashing the original. I would say something similar about the Icon of Sin, but the original is not a map I enjoy.