Wad/Map Difficulty Scaling

[ReaperAA]

About Alien Vendetta's Map14: Overwhelming Odds

On 8/27/2021 at 10:38 PM, Lewonx said:

Also you need to do an arch-vile jump to get a megasphere (it's not a secret, but good luck beating the map without it).

 

I used to think this myself, but it turns out that arch-vile jump is not needed. You can get to the megasphere using SR50

[Lewonx]

7 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

How about Moonblood? I'm playing that now.

Moonblood coming soon!

[Lewonx]

17 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

About Alien Vendetta's Map14: Overwhelming Odds

 

I used to think this myself, but it turns out that arch-vile jump is not needed. You can get to the megasphere using SR50

It's less dangerous, but would take more time and skill to pull off.

It's also possible to get it with a rocket jump, but that is both requires more skill and more dangerous than other methods.

 

Arch-vile jump seems like the least annoying option to me.

[ReaperAA]

1 minute ago, Lewonx said:

It's less dangerous, but would take more time and skill to pull off.

 

It actually doesn't need more than AV jump in my opinion. I used to try AV jump myself, but then I realised how easy it is to get it using SR50 when I watched the demo loop of the original 2001 release of Alien Vendetta.

[Jacek Bourne]

On 8/27/2021 at 12:38 PM, Lewonx said:

The Destination (Rush)

Considering that Rush map12 currently tops your chart I believe you should increase the rating system higher than 7. There are many challenge wads with maps significantly harder than rush map12 so if you want to cover challenge wads at some point then it would be a good idea to increase your scale for more accurate ranking at high difficulty maps. Personally I’d recommend increasing the maximum rating to 10 or 13. (Maybe higher)

[Lewonx]

3 hours ago, Jacek Bourne said:

Considering that Rush map12 currently tops your chart I believe you should increase the rating system higher than 7. There are many challenge wads with maps significantly harder than rush map12 so if you want to cover challenge wads at some point then it would be a good idea to increase your scale for more accurate ranking at high difficulty maps. Personally I’d recommend increasing the maximum rating to 10 or 13. (Maybe higher)

 

I know, that there are maps way harder, than Rush map 12. If I beat a map, that is way harder than The Destination, I will increase the scale.

[Jacek Bourne]

1 hour ago, Lewonx said:

 

I know, that there are maps way harder, than Rush map 12. If I beat a map, that is way harder than The Destination, I will increase the scale.

 

Excellent.

[Captain POLAND]

12 hours ago, Jacek Bourne said:

Considering that Rush map12 currently tops your chart I believe you should increase the rating system higher than 7. There are many challenge wads with maps significantly harder than rush map12 so if you want to cover challenge wads at some point then it would be a good idea to increase your scale for more accurate ranking at high difficulty maps. Personally I’d recommend increasing the maximum rating to 10 or 13. (Maybe higher)

 

I suggested an expanded scale on the first page. It goes to 14.

[Jacek Bourne]

10 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

 

I suggested an expanded scale on the first page. It goes to 14.

As did I.

[Lewonx]

Update:

- Added 3 new wads

1. DBP 1: Monuments of Mars

2. Moonblood

3. Zone 300

 

- Added Sewers to The Ultimate Doom

 

That was something. Moonblood turned out to be way harder than I was expecting. Then again, wads like these is one of the reasons, I started this whole project. Next update will be sort of a season finale, then I would take a big break. And no, it won't have a ridiculously hard map (I hope), The Destination has already fulfilled that quota for this season.

[Captain POLAND]

Are you going to do Plutonia 2? I'm going to try that next.

[Lewonx]

54 minutes ago, Captain POLAND said:

Are you going to do Plutonia 2? I'm going to try that next.

I'm going to do it, but not next, probably not even in this year.

[Lewonx]

Season 1 final update:

 

- Added 3 new wads:

1. Curvular

2. Hellevator

3. Knee Deep in Zdoom

 

- Reconsidered some of the map rankings

Pressure Point from Scythe goes down from 2.5 to 2

 

- Added overall maps beaten counter

 

Overall maps beaten this season - 1008!

 

Top 10 Hardest Maps of Season 1 and My Further Thoughts on Them:

Spoiler

10. Demonic Hordes from Alien Vendetta by Vincent Catlaa and Sam Woodman. Honestly, this map’s reputation is the scariest part about it. I heard horror stories about people giving up on this map even when playing with saves or taking many hours to complete it. And then I just beat it on my first attempt. Granted, I was crazy prepared, using safest strats and nearly died a few times anyway.

 

But still, I have no idea, why people have so much trouble with this map. Yes, there are a lot of monsters and it’s a very long map, but there are lots of megaspheres and ammo. Like, even when getting face rocketed, or zapped by multiple arch-viles, you can still survive, retreat and fully recover.

 

It’s weird that I am talking about how easy this map is, despite it being in top 10 hardest maps I’ve beaten, but people really exaggerate its difficulty. It’s actually, a very, very hard map, but it’s not some sort of sadomasochistic monstrosity, because, spoiler alert, the map that I actually have a horror story about is at the other end of this list.

 

9. Dark Dome from Alien Vendetta by Anders Johnsen. This one I, honestly, don’t have much to say about. It’s like the previous map, except it doesn’t shower you with megaspheres and cells. You still get lots of health and ammo, but not an unlimited amount.

 

8. Map 13 from Congestion 192 by Zeberpal. WTF is this? This is the weirdest map I’ve ever played. Playing it reminded me of the times I stumbled upon some sort of really broken obscure Java phone/flash/fan game and tried to find a way to avoid game breaking glitches and beat it anyway (yes, this has happened to me many, many times and in most of them I was successful). Except, this isn’t broken and intended to play this way.

 

7. Launch Bay from Double Impact by Rottking and Ralphis. I have already said everything, I wanted to say about this map. But yeah, this is the map that will teach you to never underestimate cyberdemons.

 

6. Stench of Evil from Alien Vendetta by Anders Johnsen and Jan Endre Janses. I hate resource conservation maps, they completely unfriendly to blind playthroughs, often reliant on rng damage rolls, or waiting forever for infighting to start, but most of the time they aren’t even really that hard (Grosse from Doom 2 Redux came very close to making it on this list, but got knocked out by two unexpected new contenders).

But then there is Stench of Evil. Back when Alien Vendetta was still in development, there was way too many maps, lots of them were, obviously, scrapped, but Anders and Jan couldn’t decide, which of the three similar resource conservation maps to keep. Their solution? Combine the three maps into one. Imagine that at the end of a resource conservation map, instead of going to the exit, you go to the beginning of another one, and then do that again. And since this is map 27 of a (sort of) challenge wad, there is lots of though enemies and difficult fights, that could easily drain the little resources you have.

 

5. The Womb Floor from Hellevator by Dranyan. This map is like all the hardest moments from Going Down combined into one level, with a little bit of Sunlust thrown in. Nothing else to say.

 

4. Fire and Ice from Scythe by Eric Alm. This is an Infamous one. People say that it’s the map that separates top 1% of the best Doom players from the rest. I knew a lot about this map years before playing it, and I knew, that I definitely could beat it, but it definitely wasn’t an easy task. The day I beat this map was the day I convinced, that I definitely skilled enough to continue a topic like this.

 

3. Curvular by Jacek Bourne. Hi, Jacek. I guess, this could be considered a follower special. Somehow I stumbled onto Plats’s speedrun of your map and decided to try it. The speedrun made it look way easier than it actually is.

In the previous update I said, that I won’t do any ridiculously hard maps for the finale, but here we are with two of them.

 

2. For Zzul from 1-Hour Speedmapping 2018 by Archie. I have pretty much already said everything about this map, when I originally beat it. One thing I might add, is that this map pretty much completely normalized cyberdemon as an enemy to me (the process started with Launch Bay and Fire and Ice, but here it was finished).

It’s a map that came out of nowhere, from a wad that no one ever heard of, that I only got, because of a glitch. Randomly stumbling upon very obscure difficult stuff seems to be my special ability.

 

1. The Destination from Rush by Archie. Want to hear a horror story? This map took me more time to beat than the entirety of Alien Vendetta, and even then I feel like I got lucky, and could have easily spent a couple more weeks on it.

I thought I was prepared for this map, but none of my plans and theories worked. Then I decided to practice with saves and learned… that I can easily die in most of the fights, that there is a glitch at the end that could randomly softlock you, that the map is a chaotic mess with no definitive route and that you constantly have to gamble wheter or not take items and use stronger weapons for this fight or save it for later.

I couldn’t sleep for nights, thinking what to do and coming up with almost nothing.  I have died on this map over half an hour in so many times, that I don’t consider half an hour long levels long anymore. But in the end, I somehow beat it. And when I did it, it felt like the best thing ever.

I think I now get, why this map is out of place hard. Its purpose is to put in place people who just beat a bunch of “easy” slaughtermaps and think they are Doomgods. At least it showed me the massive gap between me and a Doomgod. But that’s just a theory.

 

 

Some statistics:

Spoiler

Top 10 Longest maps:

 

10. Bermuda Triangle – 47 minutes

9. Penultimate Evil (Knee Deep in ZDoom) – 51 minutes

8. Misri Halek (Alien Vendetta) – 55 minutes

7. Stench of Evil (Alien Vendetta) – 56 minutes

6. Amalgamation 2: Cairo A.D. – 1 hour

5. Hellrun – 1 hour 5 minutes

4. Fire And Ice (Scythe) – 1 hour 15 minutes

3. Demonic Hordes (Alien Vendetta) – 1 hour 35 minutes

2. The Zdoom Community Map Project – 1 hour 37 minutes

1. The Destination (Rush) – 1 hour 45 minutes

 

Top 10 most populated maps:

 

10. Superstructure (Vanguard) – 824

9. Stench of Evil (Alien Vendetta) – 841

8. Dark Dome (Alien Vendetta) – 946

7. The Reality Binder (Atmospheric Extinction) – 1018

6. The ZDoom Community Map Project – 1038

5. Valley of Echoes (old version of Alien Vendetta) – 1039

4. Necropolis (Going Down) – 1145

3. The Destination (Rush) – 1238

2. Demonic Hordes (Alien Vendetta) – 1357

1. Cyberwar 7734 (Valiant) – 1599

 

Most of each monster type:

 

Imp – 671 (Rush map 12: The Destination)

Revenant – 375 (Scythe map 30: Fire and Ice)

Chaingunner – 301 (old version of Alien Vendetta map 25: Valley of Echoes)

Pistol Zombie – 217 (Valiant map 15: Screams Aren’t a Crime… yet)

Hell Knight – 198 (Rush map 10: Dark Corner)

Cacodemon – 162 (Rush map 10: Dark Corner)

Pinkie – 150 (Alien Vendetta map 14: Overwhelming Odds)

Shotgunner – 128 (Alien Vendetta map 25: Demonic Hordes)

Cyberdemon – 124 (Cyberdreams map 30: Resurrection)

Wolfenstein SS – 121 (Zone 300 map 33: Zerstörung)

Baron of Hell – 108 (Alien Vendetta map 25: Demonic Hordes)

Arch Vile – 100 (Going Down map 19: 200 Mega Hurts)

Pain Elemental – 100 (Going Down map 19: 200 Mega Hurts)

Mancubus – 89 (old version of Alien Vendetta map 25: Valley of Echoes)

Lost Soul – 63 (DBP 1: Monuments of Mars map 3: Ares Compound)

Spectre – 61 (Rush map 12: The Destination)

Arachnotron – 57 (Valiant map 31: Cyberwar 7734)

Commander Keen – 15 (Cyberdreams map 32: …From My Friend)

Spiderdemon – 12 (Alien Vendetta map 18: Lake Poison)

 

 

Here's as a bonus, what it would have looked like, if hardest map from each slot was combined into a single megawad:

Spoiler

 

The Ultimate Doom Version:

 

Lewonx’s Mild? Nightmare Var: 2 – 6 Int: 3.361

 

E1M1: Origwad (Origwad) – 3

E1M2: Toxin Refinery (Phobos Anomaly Reborn) – 3

E1M3: Research Complex (Double Impact) – 4.5

E1M9: Operations (Double Impact) – 3

E1M4: Railbender (Phobos Anomaly Reborn) – 3.5

E1M5: The Dig Site (Phobos Anomaly Reborn) – 2.5

E1M6: Subterra (Phobos Anomaly Reborn) – 5

E1M7: Waste Treatment (Double Impact) – 4.5

E1M8: Launch Bay (Double Impact) – 6 X!

E2M1: As for the Cowardly (No Sleep for the Dead) – 2.5

E2M2: Station Beta (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E2M3: The Lost Labs (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 2

E2M4: Shotgun Blues (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4

E2M9: Dungeon of Hate (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E2M5: Fortress of Fatalities (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E2M6: Between Demons n Insects (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3.5

E2M7: Puzzles to Solve (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E2M8: Tower of Babel (Phobos Anomaly Reborn) – 2.5

E3M1: A Warm Welcome (Serenity) – 2

E3M2: Caves of Bosnia (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4

E3M3: Stronghold of Damnation (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E3M4: Halls of Ebola (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 2.5

E3M5: De-moon Side (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4.5

E3M6: Obituary Written (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4

E3M9: Lake of Fire (Doom the Way id Did) – 2.5

E3M7: Big Time (Serenity) – 2

E3M8: Spider Temple (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 3

E4M1: Into the Grave (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 3

E4M2: Vile Affections (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 3

E4M9: Secret Wolfenstein Level (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 2

E4M3: Hell Unleashed (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4.5

E4M4: Unclean Spirits (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 4

E4M5: Doctrines of Devils (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 3

E4M6: Molten Gods (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 4

E4M7: Odious Ground (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4.5

E4M8: An End to Darkness (Ultimate Doom the Way id Did) – 4

 

I have done actual Doom 2 wads that are harder than this. The lack of arch-viles and revenants makes first Doom that much easier.

 

Doom 2 version:

 

Lewonx’s Horrible Nightmare (32 maps) Var: 3.5 – 7 Int: 5.0625

 

Map 1: Curvular (Curvular) – 7

Map 2: Goop Juice (1-Hour Speedmapping 2018) – 4

Map 3: Icky Vicky (1-Hour Speedmapping 2018) – 5

Map 4: White Fields (Rush) – 3.5

Map 5: Mortar For Martyrs (DBP 1: Monuments of Mars) – 4.5

Map 6: Steel Militia (DBP 1: Monuments of Mars) – 4

Map 7: Geothermal Gymnastics (DBP 1: Monuments of Mars) – 4.5

Map 8: Land of the Demons (Rush) – 4.5

Map 9: The Pit (Doom 2 Redux) – 5

Map 10: Trip Switch (Going Down) – 4.5

Map 11: Emission of Hate (Rush) – 5

Map 12: The Destination (Rush) – 7 X!

Map 13: Map 13 (Congestion 192) – 5.5

Map 14: Overwhelming Odds (Alien Vendetta) – 5

Map 15: Twilight (The Plutonia Experiment) – 4.5

Map 16: Mutual Destruction (Alien Vendetta) – 4.5

Map 17: Rest in Pieces (Going Down) – 5

Map 18: Crush Depth (Valiant) – 4.5

Map 19: Smallfry (1-Hour Speedmapping 2018) – 4.5

Map 20: Swept Into Immolation (Valiant) – 4.5

Map 21: The Abyss (Moonblood) – 4.5

Map 22: Despair (Scythe) – 4.5

Map 23: Demonology (Going Down) – 5

Map 24: The Cracked Floor (Hellevator) – 5

Map 25: Demonic Hordes (Alien Vendetta) – 5.5

Map 26: Dark Dome (Alien Vendetta) – 5.5

Map 27: Stench of Evil (Alien Vendetta) – 6

Map 28: The Womb Floor (Hellevator) – 6.5

Map 29: Moonblood Ritual Site (Moonblood) – 5

Map 30: Fire and Ice (Scythe) – 6.5

Map 31: Stair Crazy (Going Down) – 4.5

Map 32: For Zzul (1-Hour Speedmapping 2018) – 7

 

That's horrifying, imagine an actual wad like this. Sunlust

 

 

List of wads, maps from which were in the top 100 hardest at one point, but not anymore:

Spoiler

 

Alkylation

Area 51

Citadel of Sorrow

Doom II

Icarus: Alien Vanguard

No Sleep for the Dead

Origwad

Pirate Doom

Rowdy Rudy’s Revenge

The Ultimate Doom

The Ultimate Doom the Way id Did

UAC Ultra

 

 

This was a lot. I myself surprised at how much I accomplished. And now, I definitely need to take a big break.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Lewonx

[Captain POLAND]

I love the stats. Any chance (lol) you'll try Nochance?

[Lewonx]

9 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

I love the stats. Any chance (lol) you'll try Nochance?

I will try it, when I'm ready for it.

[Lewonx]

1 year anniversary update:

 

- Added 6 new wads:

1. Doom Zero

2. 1 Monster Megawad

3. CH Retro Episode

4. Community Chest 3

5. Ray Mohawk's Manic Monday

6. Switcheroom

 

- Partially added No Reason's Speedmaps (a couple levels are just way too much for me)

 

- Added full game/episode scaling and ranking (thanks to this being last minute addition, the only episodes scaled are the first three episodes of original Doom)

 

Reconsidering some rankings:

- Hellrun goes up from 5 to 5.5

- Overwhelming odds from Alien Vendetta goes from 5 to 5.5

- Misri Halek from Alien Vendetta goes from 4 to 4.5

- The Pit from Doom 2 Redux goes from 5 to 5.5

[Captain POLAND]

Keep up the great work here!

 

EDIT: Plutonia 2 like I suggested before could be a good next one, the maps are not but not super hard, and based on what you've done already I think you could handle them without much trouble. I'd like to see where they rank.

 

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Captain POLAND

[PKr]

I noticed that for the most part your rankings are being based on encounter difficulty levels, mechanical skills required to beat them, etc. I wonder though how would you rate some Eternal Doom maps... Especially map30 and Jim Flynn maps.

 

Especially map30... Without guides and tips. :)

[Lewonx]

7 minutes ago, PKr said:

I noticed that for the most part your rankings are being based on encounter difficulty levels, mechanical skills required to beat them, etc. I wonder though how would you rate some Eternal Doom maps... Especially map30 and Jim Flynn maps.

 

Especially map30... Without guides and tips. :)

In my rankings I assume that the player knows map layout.

 

I've seen a couple clips of Coincident playing Eternal Doom, and I don't even want to think about beating it without guides and tips. I guess it would be 6 or 7. I mean, after hours of pressing and shooting everything you will eventually find a way to progress, maybe.

[PKr]

10 minutes ago, Lewonx said:

In my rankings I assume that the player knows map layout.

 

I've seen a couple clips of Coincident playing Eternal Doom, and I don't even want to think about beating it without guides and tips. I guess it would be 6 or 7. I mean, after hours of pressing and shooting everything you will eventually find a way to progress, maybe.

Not sure... :D Eternal Doom is one of my favorite wads, but map 30 took me around 5 or 6 years to beat. I dropped it so many times in early 2000s. Eventually I used guides to "beat it". But in all honesty map 30 beat me, and not the vice versa.

[Lewonx]

Mini update:

- added 1 Bad Wad

- finished No Reason's Speedmaps

- added full game completion to Congestion 64, Congestion 384 and Fava Beans.

- added full episode 2 completion to Alkylation

 

So, I finished No Reason's Speedmaps and it's a long story. It all started in may or april, I think, when I'm stumbled upon a bunch of UV-maxes of maps from NOSP 2 and 3. These maps were gigantic slaughtermaps with thousands of monsters, but most of them weren't that hard. I then asked myself, if there is NOSP 2 and 3, where is NOSP 1. I found a couple videos of it and it kind of looked like 2 and 3, except with vanilla textures and way smaller. This was also around the time, when my top 100 hardest maps list became kind of stale with a ton of samey tier 4.5 levels at the bottom, so in June, I decided to play NOSP 1. I expected to beat a few short and fun tier 5 maps, maybe a couple tier 6 ones and shake up my list a little.

 

I really underestimated this wad. I spent the next month trying to take out 10+ stupidly hard levels 1 by 1. I got to 10 levels remaining,  then to 6, then to 5, 4, and finally 3: Entryway, The Citadel and The Chasm. These 3 looked impossible. I've seen a walktrough of Entryway, tried to use similar strat, but the luck required seemed unbelievable, I couldn't even get through with saves. In Citadel, you just didn't have enough health to deal with everything, and there was no walkthrough for this one. But the worst of them was The f*cking Chasm, it was like No Reason took Dimensions map 2, made the platforming there even harder, then watched Karl Jobst's Chasm documentary and decided to force the player to love these ledges to the point of straferunning on them, and then added more on top of that. My practice run took me hundreds of saves, needles to say, I gave up on that map.

 

In July I revisited these 3 levels and found a somewhat consistent strat for The Citadel, but came up with nothing for the other 2. I tried them again in august, but still, no progress was made.

 

Shortly after my anniversary update I had nothing to do and decided to try beating Entryway again. I then won the RNG lottery and beat the map in like three attempts. I then decided to try The Chasm, since I still had nothing to do. I expected it to go to nowhere, but I somehow maged to make it all the way to the thin ledges part, but then my luck run out and I fell off into the pit. I tried more on that day and on the next day, but didn't even get close. 

 

I was about to give up, but then I remembered something. Since 2019 on Deviantart I started doing my yearly recaps of hardest stuff I've beaten. Back in 2018 I got from scratching the bottom of tier 4 to beating tier 6. In 2019 I've got further into tier 6, in 2020 I reached tier 7, but in 2021 I stayed the same, and this entire year I saw almost no improvement. Why?

 

It all goes back to 2017, back when the first speedrunning documentaries appeared I was inspired by them, I started to seriously try stuff that I thought was too much for me before. At first, when I started to succeed, I thought that I will soon reach the levels of guys like PerfectAce, Zero Master and Darbian, but as I became better, the chasm between me and them paradoxically started to look bigger and bigger. The Dunning Kruger effect started to catch up to me. I started to understand more and more. Gone are the Lewonx that thought about getting Duel PA 8 in Perfect Dark or beating a TAS only SMW hack without TAS, he was replaced by Lewonx, who understanded and calculated the amount of time and level of precision required to do a level and just gave up instantly. It got to the point, that I became afraid of doing stuff, that I knew, I can do. I literally spend more time thinking about beating The Destination, than doing it. I spent more time thinking about how hard it would be to beat Alien Vendetta, than doing it. I stopped trying to improve, because I knew, how hard it would be. And The Chasm is gigantic, it's hundreds of times bigger than what I could jump over. It's infinite, endless, uncrossable. I started to came up with more excuses, these speedrunners are just better from the start, they are born better, they were better as kids, than me in my twenties, I reached my limit, I don't have potential, I don't have time, I don't have luck, I'm not destined to beat The Chasm.

 

Destiny, is it unbeatable? But then, I remebered, I remebered everything. How was I from 2018 improving so much? I didn't care about destiny, logic, time and etc. I then remembered more stories of people overcoming their limits or stuff going not how it logically supposed to.

 

And on that day I said: f*ck logic, f*ck destiny, f*ck time, f*ck limits, f*ck The Chasm, I'm going all out, and I don't care.

 

First off, I need new strats, the ones I'm using are horribly inconsistent, it's time to take logic and make it my b*tch. I then tried hundreds of different strats everywhere, improving my chances of beating this level little by little. I found going back away from imp fireballs strat and consistent set up for it, I found a consistent way to get up the miniscule platforms, I found a way to get over the big gap between two of these platforms, without SR40 and then a somewhat consistent set up for it, I even found away to back off from the first thin ledge, if the RNG gets bad, cutting the RNG in half. These new strats knocked down this level from tier 8 to 7.5 (more like 7.8 or 7.9)

 

Second, I need practice. I practiced every difficult section, until I could beat it twice in a row.

 

Thirdly, I now need to play this level non-stop, until it's f*cking done.

 

Days passed I got better and better, yet The Chasm started to look bigger and bigger, like always, but I stopped to care, about what I'm seeing. Then I got through all the platforming, but got killed by cybedemons. Logic started to calculate and tell me, how much time I would need to get to that point again and how big are my chances to just die to cyberdemons again, how The Chasm got bigger than ever. But this time I answered. Shut up, b*tch, I'm doing this no matter what.

 

And then, it happened, the last cyberdemon exploded, I was standing there, on the other side of The Chasm, beyond limits, logic and fate. I then reached the exit and transcended to the next level.

 

And now, for more detailed description of the map itself:

 

The Chasm:

 

Uhm…I… Let’s start from the beginning, it starts with a somewhat difficult platforming section with imps. Falling means death. It’s not that bad, unless some imps fall off, then you pretty much have to restart (it’s possible to know, if an imp fell, by watching kill count at certain points). You then fight some hitscanners, platform some more and then fight a horde of cyberdemons. This isn’t that hard, since you are given a ton of megaspheres and BFG ammo. After that you fight a horde of arachnotrons. Then the level truly begins.

 

There is a horrible platforming section with a few small doomguy sized platforms and a ton of less than doomguy’s foot sized platforms. On the other end of a platforming sequence are 35 imps that hurl fireballs of you. Can’t you just snipe the imps from safe distance? “No” – answers the autoaim. You have to platform to the last two doomguy sized platforms for autoaim to work (you can sometimes shoot from the edge of third to last platform, but it’s really not worth it). Falling means death. Being pushed to the abyss by imp fireballs means death. When you are on the last “big” platform, you can sort off line up yourself orienting by the next platform and move backwards to safety to grab stuff and escape too much imp fireballs. Failing to orient properly means death.

 

After all the imps are dead, you can proceed to platform on platforms smaller than doomguy’s foot. Falling means death. Going too fast means death. Going too slow means death. You have to do a super tiny jump and then cancel your speed by pressing backwards button, before you slide off. Sliding off means death. Pressing backward too little means death. Pressing backwards too much means death.

 

The gaps between all the tiny platforms are really small, except one of them. When you are on a platform, before the platform, before the big gap, you need to move in a way, so you get to the edge of the next platform. Do I need to explain, what failing to perfectly do that means? Then you need to run and jump on the next platform and cancel your momentum immediately. Do I need to explain, what failing to perfectly do that means, again? Oh, and even if you do that, you could land on that platform in a way that when you try to go to next platform, you fall anyway, which means guess what? Then you platform a little more and get to the ground.

 

If you think that the level is over and it couldn’t get much worse, no, it gets much worse. Next is a section, where you have to go across the narrow ledges from the original chasm and do 90 degrees turns on them, while being shot by 14 cyberdemons. Falling means death. Jump on the first ledge, go to the end of it, stop and hope, that you won’t die, while you are turning, jump onto another ledge, and hope, that you won’t get hit, then run, switch to SR40, while doing a 90 degrees turn, and hope that the RNG god smiles upon you. Jump to the ledge with cyberdemons, and then fight 14 cyberdemons. There are less megaspheres this time around, and less space, and you can easily get hit by multiple rockets at once, and the rockets could knock you off the ledge to your death. Death. Death. Death.

 

Death, this whole level it’s close, it’s always standing there, down below in a pit, always ready for you, and you know that, and you need to do some of the most precise platforming ever seen in Doom, while knowing that.

 

Kill the last cyberdemon, turn around and look in awe at the chasm for the last time, then go to the exit and finish the level. Smile, drink some tea and be happy that you are alive.

 

So, yeah, I got from like 7.4 to at least 7.8 in about a week, that was like the biggest improvement I had since 2018. I then decided to go play 1 Bad Wad as filler, but the opposite of my insane luck from a week ago happened and I was stuck for two days, beating the surprising third hardest level I've ever played.

 

I'm exhausted and have a bunch of other things than Doom to worry about. I'm not going to do anything Doom related until the end of this year, except maybe some holiday updates. As for anyone requesting Plutonia 2, I'm saving it for season 2 finale.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Lewonx
Grammar fixes

[Captain POLAND]

In platforming sections like that I usually just save scum my way through.

 

Although wouldn't the level still be an 8 in difficulty, it's just that you now improved enough that you can beat an 8?

[Lewonx]

12 minutes ago, Captain POLAND said:

In platforming sections like that I usually just save scum my way through.

 

Although wouldn't the level still be an 8 in difficulty, it's just that you now improved enough that you can beat an 8?

I'm honestly not shure. With the original strats that I was using in june it's definitely would have been an 8, but after I found a safer way to do everything, I don't know. Maybe it's an 8 and The Destination is 7.5 then (I did consider giving it a 7.5 multiple times). I would need to play more stuff on a similar level to those two, to be confident in what tier everything is.

[Lewonx]

Spooky update:

 

Added 7 new wads:

- Sigil

- Syringe

- Anomaly Report

- Aliens TC

- Cleimos

- Overboard

- The Thing You Can't Defeat

 

Reconsidered some of the map rankings:

 

- The Junction from Doom Zero goes from 3 to 3.5

- The Rematch from Doom Zero goes from 2 to 2.5

- The Combine from Master levels goes from 2 to 2.5

- Bloodsea Keep from Master levels goes from 2 to 2.5

- Minos’s Judegement from Master levels goes from 2 to 2.5

- Subterra from Master levels goes from 2 to 2.5

- Titan Manor from Master Levels goes from 2.5 to 3

- The Netweaver from Valiant goes from 3.5 to 4

- The Factory from NoSp goes from 4 to 3.5

- Refueling Base from Congestion 64 goes from 0 to 0.5

- Suburbs from Congestion 384 go from 2.5 to 3

- Amethyst from 1 Bad Wad goes from 3 to 3.5

 

- Added full episode completion to The Thing You Can't Defeat

 

I originally wanted to make a Halloween update, but most of the horror wads are either too hard for my mood right now (Wormwood, Tangerine Nightmare, Ghoul's Forest) or so out there in their gameplay modification that I simply have no idea, how to rank them (Unloved, Lillith.pk3).

 

I did Aliens TC and faced the horrors of trying to make 1994 software run on a modern laptop. Then I did Syringe, because the last map is kind of creepy, but this wad is more just slightly weird than anything. Surprisingly I beat the wad in two days, I expected to die way more on maps that hard. I then played Sigil, because I wanted to knock out another official addon and did it in just a day. I did Cleimos then, it's another weird wad with absolutely insane story in a text file. Then I played The Thing You Can't Defeat. That was actually a creepy wad. Then Overboard, it's like the most popular wad currently, so why not? And I beat it in a day. Yeah, after NoSp I kind of became so good that I'm just steamrolling through these Plutonia tier wads. Finally, I did Anomaly Report, just to get another official wad out of the way.

 

Yeah, so in the end, I did one scary wad, five weird ones and one normal.

[Lewonx]

The real Halloween Update:

 

- Added Hell Revealed

 

Reconsidered some of the map rankings:

 

- Cyberswat from 1 Monster Megawad goes from 4 to 4.5

- The Nameless Installation from Alkylation goes from 3 to 3.5

 

I randomly got in the mood to play Hell Revealed, and then somehow beat it in 6 days. That was really unexpected, back in like 2016 I played this wad on I am too Young to Die continuous and got my ass kicked. After that I didn't want to even think about playing it on UV. But now I just kind of steamrolled through it. I obviously used guides (especially Decino's playthrough), so that helped a lot. The only maps that gave me trouble are Judgement Day (I got bad luck, and some of Decino's strats here were actually awful) and Afterlife (the hardest map in the wad). I somehow beat City in the Clouds on my first attempt, Ascending to the Stars on my second attempt and Post Mortem on my first attempt that made it past the start. Am I slowly becoming a doom god? Maybe.

[Captain POLAND]

3 hours ago, Lewonx said:

The real Halloween Update:

 

- Added Hell Revealed

 

Reconsidered some of the map rankings:

 

- Cyberswat from 1 Monster Megawad goes from 4 to 4.5

- The Nameless Installation from Alkylation goes from 3 to 3.5

 

I randomly got in the mood to play Hell Revealed, and then somehow beat it in 6 days. That was really unexpected, back in like 2016 I played this wad on I am too Young to Die continuous and got my ass kicked. After that I didn't want to even think about playing it on UV. But now I just kind of steamrolled through it. I obviously used guides (especially Decino's playthrough), so that helped a lot. The only maps that gave me trouble are Judgement Day (I got bad luck, and some of Decino's strats here were actually awful) and Afterlife (the hardest map in the wad). I somehow beat City in the Clouds on my first attempt, Ascending to the Stars on my second attempt and Post Mortem on my first attempt that made it past the start. Am I slowly becoming a doom god? Maybe.

 

Next step: Chillax on Nightmare, pistol start every level

[Lewonx]

8 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

 

Next step: Chillax on Nightmare, pistol start every level

Lol.

 

Actually, beating it on nightmare might be easier than UV maxing. I haven't played Chillax, but, from what I heard, some of the biggest difficulties in it is lack of ammo and absurd level length. On nightmare you can just run past everything, so neither ammo nor time are really a problem.

[Lewonx]

Update:

Added 5 new wads:

1. Galaxia

2. Return to Phobos

3. SERENITY II aka ETERNITY

4. Slaughter Until Death

5. The Evil Unleashed

 

Realised that I have beaten half of the Doomworld's Best Maps of 1994, so decided to do the other half. These 1994 wads are nothing like I expected. I thought there would be a bunch of easy to normal, small to medium very simplistic maps, but instead got a bunch of normal to hard (and in some cases very hard), medium to large convoluted maps. If I were to give further opinion on these best wads of 94 and rank them:

 

10. Slaughter Until Death - a bunch of passable to bad maps.

9. The Evil Unleashed - same as the previous one, except slightly better.

8. Crossing Acheron - if you want another ok Master Level, this is it. At least, it looks better that SUD/TEU.

7. Aliens TC - from modding perspective, great achievement for 1994. From level design perspective it's really uneven. I get, that it's supposed to be low on resources survival horror, but the  fact that you will often need to punch out xenomorphs with the fist kind of ruins the whole horror part. And trying to make this thing run properly today is just the worst thing ever.

6. SERENITY - a bunch of 90s weirdness, fun, decent levels. Nothing else to say.

5. SERENITY II aka ETERNITY - this wad is hard, it's unfair, it's cheap, and it's weirdly enjoyable. Usually I would hate a wad like this, but it is kind of fun in the same ways those unfair rage games are.

4. Trinity College - interesting attempt at making a real place in Doom. Looks good, plays good.

3. Return to Phobos - this is the weirdest wad I've ever played. The levels are stupidly cryptic, overly complex and convoluted, have insane geometry and just look plain weird. This is more of an experience than a wad. E1M5 in praticular needs to be seen to be believed, it's like backrooms in Doom, except feels even more liminal.

2. The Doomsday of UAC - really good large map, holds up well even today.

1. Galaxia - how is this even exists? There are two maps, one is decent and one is among the best maps I've ever played. It got cool gimmicks, good looks, balanced combat and nice sense of progression. It really reminds me of maps from Community Chest 3 (one of my favorite wads), and that was a wad from 2007.

[BedrockCastle]

On 8/27/2021 at 10:38 AM, Lewonx said:

5. Stronghold - hitscan hell. 300 hitscanners, and the map isn't generous with health.

 

I heavily disagree. I suck at Doom, and can barely scrape my way through Doom 2 saveless, but the other day I still managed to beat Stronghold saveless on my first attempt. There's a nasty ambush or two, but I certainly wouldn't call it one of the hardest maps in TNT.

[Stabbey]

I have started doing pistol starts on megawads now that I feel like my skill level has improved. But I absolutely refuse to play without saves, because lots of maps are huge and many have some very nasty traps, and I'm not getting to 300 kills in a 600 monster map and WHOOPS surprise 5 Archviles teleport in around you, start from the beginning again! I also always have mouselook on and autoaim off, because I'm too used to that quality-of-life feature, and because "sorry, you can't reliably shoot at that monster you can plainly see" is artificial difficulty.