What is the worst official Doom/Doom II/Final Doom level?

[JustCallMeKaito]

If we're counting the Xbox port, then that's an easy one since two maps with the quality of myhouse.wad were shoed in.

 

Ultimate Doom: E1M10. A hideous, thematic mess filled with awkward tunnels that are incredibly cramped, large rooms with barely anything in them, and an entire segment where someone just started spam clicking in several places and called it a day.

 

Doom II: Betray. An entire level that's nothing but a switch hunt in a bland, rectangular sewer like area filled with teleporters.

 

 

If we're only counting the original, then:

 

Ultimate Doom: E4M1 due to the sheer number of barons you have to kill with limited resources if you want that shiny 100%.

 

Doom II: The Chasm. Ridiculously small ledges that the player has to navigate above inescapable pits of nukage that the play will have to wait to slowly die in, topped by one big pit at the end of the level as a special "fuck you". Easily Sandy's worst idea, tops E2M9 by a mile.

 

TNT: Everything past Map20. The lazy design of Mt. Pain is especially awful with the rectangular corridors of sludge.

 

Plutonia: Hunted. It's a gimmick that has long since lost any charm it had. A new player might go "Oh shit, archviles are everywhere?!", but any time after that, you'll quickly realize that the archviles are just walls with health that can't damage you due to the sheer amount of cover.

Edited July 6, 2020 by JustCallMeKaito

[The_SloVinator]

3 hours ago, silentzorah said:

Do Master Levels for Doom II count?  If so, then TEETH2.

TEETH 1 or Map 31 is so annoying with the elevator constantly going up & down. Very tedious.

I often found myself rolling my eyes in frustration.

[Xe588]

MAP13 is terrible. They had to put an arrow in it to show you where to go and I still had a hard time navigating it.

[Labryx]

Ultimate Doom - Tie between E3M5: Unholy Cathedral and E3M7: Limbo (always get lost in this map no matter how many playthroughs I do); either way both are extremely boring.

 

Doom 2 - Map24: The Chasm; Looks really cool, plays like crap with its obnoxious catwalks, lost soul swarms, and that damn invulnerability tease.

 

TNT - Map27: Mount Pain; in other news, the sky is blue (in our world at least)

 

Plutonia - Map27: Anti-Christ (Two Map27's in a row! :O) - Was never really a huge fan of map styles similar to MAP29: Final Frontier; this one definitely takes the cake as my least favorite. Never want to play this from a pistol start ever again.

 

Bonus non-iwad crap to complain about:

 

Master Levels - Teeth.wad; Tedium with a capital "T," the concept was cool but just really not fun to play.

 

Doom 64 - MAP32: Hectic; this one was actually a tough choice because I really enjoy all of Doom 64's maps and there isn't really any obvious stinkers compared to the classic 4 iwads. Had to go with Hectic because it does really lose some of its "WOW" factor after the first play-through, its basically a smaller and meaner version of MAP08: Tricks and Traps from Doom 2. 

[Faceman2000]

Ultimate Doom: E2M4 (I will die on this hill).

Doom II: I can’t decide if I hate Map21 or Map24 more; I guess I’ll go with Map21 cuz at least Chasm tried to do something interesting.

TNT: Lol, I dunno, all of them. Map21 really pissed me off when I played through it.

Plutonia: Probably Map15. That inaccessible Archvile/immortal Chaingunner trick was most viciously abused here, plus there were some really nasty traps. This is the level I remember getting most frustrated with when I played through last.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Faceman2000

[P41R47]

The worst map?

Well you know, i don't remember the name...

...its that map from Plutonia...

...the one with a lot of chaingunners, Revenants and Arch-Viles.

Edited July 6, 2020 by P41R47

[cu2]

17 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

The wors maps?

Well you know, i don't remember the name...

...its that map from Plutonia...

...the one with a lot of chaingunners, Revenants and Arch-Viles.

Oh yeah! That one... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[VanaheimRanger]

Habitat

[Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur]

Most of E1 bores me to tears.

 

E4M1 and M3

 

the one in E3 with the horrible random teleporter puzzle.

 

*most of the city levels in DooM II* 

 

pretty much all of TNT after the 10 or so maps.

 

That city level in Plutonia and Go 2 it.

 

Go 2 it is one thee most boring maps I have ever played. 

[Doomkid]

I have a theory that people rarely ever mention E4M4 when these types of threads show up because it's so bland that it may as well not exist. Forgettable to the point that people don't even remember it when asked what the most forgettable maps are!

 

Map21 and E2M9 at the very least stuck with me for being "so shitty that I remember them clearly", so maybe there's a so bad they're good argument to be made there. Every mapper who's spent more than an hour fucking around in Doom Builder has made something better, more fun and more thought provoking than E4M4. When someone looks up "phoned-in filler maps", there should just be a screenshot of the starting area of E4M4.

 

The Wolf3D maps often get brought up too, but I loved those as a kid. Maybe just because I was (well, still am) a big time Wolf3D fan. I thought it was better than Doom1's secret maps which just felt like "well, these are too shitty for the normal campaign, make them secret maps".

Edited July 7, 2020 by Doomkid

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I have a theory that no one ever mentions E4M4 when these types of threads show up because it's so bland and may as well not exist. Forgettable to the point that people don't even remember it when asked what the most forgettable maps are!

Any map that is forgettable is already much better than disasterpieces like habitat, which you don't forget but wish you could :P

[Uni]

E3M1 Hell Keep period. I adore Sandy's mapping, I really do but this one was clearly either one of his very first attempts at mapping or a rushed disaster. Aside from the poor layout, the technical mess featured in the map from the lack of proper skyboxing to an actual missing ceiling textures to poor use of ceiling height is honestly offensive to me, not to the mention the dull and slow gameplay and I think it should've been 86'd from the very first draft. Fucking Shawn Green could've made something better. The only good thing about that map is the somewhat cool "collapsing bridge" idea and the existence of its sister map E3M9: Warrens which is quite unique idea of taking a regular map and adding a couple of "surprises", a decent first-time experience.

 

I don't think E4M4 is as bad as people say it is. Yes it's plain but it's not boring to me. I kinda like the usage of BROWNHUG and the last room with the sky exit was always a standout to me. It gets a pass from me.

[seed]

UDoom - E2M9. Complete filler map.

Doom 2 - Downtown or Barrels O' Fun (the latter simply because it is a fully gimmick map, not because the level is bad by any means). Also all people saying The Chasm are dead to me.

Plutonia - Hunted, easily, another fully gimmick map, but this time around with some dumb ideas like the trigger doors.

TNT - Habitat, obviously.

Doom 64 - Maybe Hectic, because it's a troll map that only grants access to bonus maps, and most power ups are impossible to grab, the sole exceptions being a Soulsphere, and, I think, an armor. Other than that, there are bad maps in D64?! Not on my watch.

[Eurisko]

Slough of Despair can always fuck off.

[Aku]

Unpopular opinion- mt erebus e3m6 is an absolutely ugly map that brings me no joy.

[Final Verdict]

E4M4. I loved the episode but really didn't like that map. It's just bland. The only reason I even remember it is because of how plain it was. I always rush that map.

[Final Verdict]

5 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I have a theory that people rarely ever mention E4M4 when these types of threads show up because it's so bland that it may as well not exist. Forgettable to the point that people don't even remember it when asked what the most forgettable maps are!

 

Edit: Finally, someone who understands!

[Faceman2000]

5 hours ago, Uni said:

I don't think E4M4 is as bad as people say it is. Yes it's plain but it's not boring to me. I kinda like the usage of BROWNHUG and the last room with the sky exit was always a standout to me. It gets a pass from me.

Someone who understands haha. I think it’s wonderfully atmospheric, if simplistic.

[I_Punch_Demons]

Hands down E4M2 for me. Granted I pistol started it. That or Tricks and Traps from a pistol start. Or the "city" maps. I hate Chasm as well, but I would actually argue its a good map. But to me E4M2 was a map designed out of hate. That beginning is brutal with all the caco's and the forced pain sectors suck. Not to mention the trick secret to get passed the cyberdemon. 

[unerxai]

E4M1 for me. If you've tried to kill everything on UV you might know why (ammo).

[Can't play on Nightmare]

13 hours ago, unerxai said:

E4M1 for me. If you've tried to kill everything on UV you might know why (ammo).

That baron of hell is annoying but still very beatable. Especially on normal UV, which is far easier than UV Fast.

[unerxai]

20 minutes ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

That baron of hell is annoying but still very beatable. Especially on normal UV, which is far easier than UV Fast.

It's actually a pretty easy map compared to other official maps, just not very fun for me.

[Can't play on Nightmare]

2 minutes ago, unerxai said:

It's actually a pretty easy map compared to other official maps, just not very fun for me.

 

E4 M2 is harder.

[Faceman2000]

10 hours ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

That baron of hell is annoying but still very beatable. Especially on normal UV, which is far easier than UV Fast.

Pretty sure he’s referring to the other three or four that show up when you trigger the NIN trap.

 

And for that trap and the utter lack of health pickups I have to agree that it’s tougher than E4M2.

[unerxai]

17 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

Pretty sure he’s referring to the other three or four that show up when you trigger the NIN trap.

 

And for that trap and the utter lack of health pickups I have to agree that it’s tougher than E4M2.

Exactly. I was talking about 100% kills.

[SchwTrdLeenW]

For me personally, art that is utterly bland and forgettable is far worse than art that is offensively bad. The latter one at least provokes a response from the individual consuming it and forces it to reflect, which art is supposed to do. Consequently, i can't vote for maps like E3M1, Habitat or Hunted, because while they may be pretty bad, they at least make me feel something and are memorable in its own right.

Instead, i'm just gonna nominate most of TNTs latter half, as i can't remember a single thing about every map besides Habitat, Mount Pain and that one Casali map. The only thing that stuck with me is just how bland, boring, and unfun it was.

Edit.: Of course, it's up to the individual what exactly classifies as "forgettable" and "offensively bad".

Edited July 9, 2020 by SchwTrdLeenW

[CacoMaster64]

By my opinion, I would say E3M2.

[Wagi]

E4M4 would be considered acceptable if it was an early Doom2 level instead of an E4 level.

[SirJuicyLemon]

On 7/6/2020 at 4:48 AM, Can't play on Nightmare said:

 

E2M9 is actually the best secret level in Ultimate Doom.

 

At least for me.

Can't say the same

In any case, it's more about what other people said when this question was asked multiple times before. It's no particular bad map for me, but I've seen several answers saying E2M9 is one of the worst maps and the worst secret map.

[SilverMiner]

IMO:

E2M9 and E3M1 of Doom

Map12 and 21 of Doom 2

Map08 and almost every map after map20 of TNT Evilution except Habitat

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by SilverMiner