Memorable fights you have overcome

[Astro X]

As a doomer, both a player and a person who watches Doom content on YT, I sure have ever since improved as a demon slayer over the years.

 

I think most of us have been through a point in time where we faced a truly difficult fight or map that challenged us in a very memorable and special way. And when we conquered said demon horde, that was when we realized we'd raised the bar.

 

My somewhat recent experiences after joining DW and playing through players' wads, one of the most memorable ones was after I said to myself I'd beat one specific map, saveless on UV: Esperpento's MAP02 Acid (miniwad). It was really difficult and took me a lot of tries. One death more punishing than the other. But at the end of the day, I made it. At that point I noticed I had improved as a Doom player, significantly.

 

If you feel like sharing one similar story you have experienced, either a crazy creative fight, a tough map or an entire famous megawad, go ahead.

[Clippy]

This will probably be my greatest accomplishment ever lol 

 

 

 

[Borg]

My stopper is always Bloodstain map 25. I have only beat that map (legit) 2 or 3 times out of 20 or so.

Great wad btw.

[Pseudonaut]

 

This map is such bullshit, lmao. For the beginning in particular, I'm sure there are other ways of doing it that aren't so ludicrous, but they're much slower and probably still not consistent, so it was worth it even if it brought the attempt count up to 122.

 

Another example:

 

This map is where Sunlust starts getting hard for me, and the final fight in particular (11:20 in the video) requires a well thought-out plan with little room for error. I needed over 100 attempts to do it saveless and was still salty about it when I wrote the video description.

[Astro X]

@Clippy I have watched it but I still have to give it a try. Looks like a short and sweet challenge!

 

@Borg I didn't know about that one, I'm gonna take a look at it.

 

@Pseudonaut Blood geometry is one of my favorite maps of all time. I never beat it saveless though, I should give it a try! This map was inspiration for two maps of my Astroverse mapset: map 15 got the name from it and in map 19 I came up with a unique fight, but the initial idea behind it was inspiration from this map.

 

[Maribo]

Here's a handful that came to my mind first, after reading the other posts in this thread:

 

No Chance (HMP)

This was my first long-ish term goal when I started really playing Doom again this year (for context: I played a lot of stuff ~4-5 years ago and then took quite a break inbetween) was that I wanted to do a max demo of No Chance on skill 3, because No Chance really was probably the map that unlocked slaughter in my brain, probably thanks to playing it for rd's DWMiniwad Club... before that I was very tentative on slaughter, clung a lot to DTWID-style maps. I still like those (sometimes, it waxes and wanes), but I've gotten a lot more into slaughter as a result of that, I think. I grinded this a lot, and I think it was the experience that made me actually sit down and focus on refining combat mechanics. I'm obviously nowhere near someone like Ancalagon or Zzul, but I do think it forced me to improve... And really, going from the initial 17 minute PB to beating BK's time was super satisfying, it was the first time I truly worked on a demo that required both endurance and a decent amount of skill. I just love the map, it's really easily my favorite single-map wad ever, and I think that memory of really starting to understand slaughter is what makes it so special in my Doom memories.

 

Wormwood MAP02: Revenge of Demon House

Ohhh man, the final fight in this map.... It's so fucked, it is the sole reason I've not put up a demo on DSDA for this map. There's an incredible commentary on this map by koren, I really suggest it if you haven't seen it, but pretty much: Slaughter fight in this arena where there are 4 turret cybers inside transparent tree pedastals in the center, meaty enemies teleport in, and there's a wall of Archviles on one side. Then you have to press three switches that will release the Archviles + a final Cyber, while the turret cybers can easily shoot you since the switch spots are so hard to get out from. Yeah. It's a lot. And it was really satisfying to cap off the sick experience of Wormwood with it, as fucked as it is.

 

The Mucus Flow

I don't think I need to write much about the Mucus Flow, if you've ever seen me talk about it or any of the things that take inspiration (both gameplay and aesthetic-wise) from it. I'll get to Disturbia soon.

 

Haste MAP05: Firebug

This is my favorite Haste map, I think, but I'm not really sure if I know how to phrase why... I think the aesthetic and the compact but open-ended-ness really makes it stick out in my mind. I spent a lot of time dying to the viles before something in my brain clicked, and I just got it.

[Astronomical]

Scythe Map 30 on UV, Fire and ice when not using the yellow key shortcut is a tough map, but such a great one still.

[head_cannon]

This takes me back to my first steps into the game, to my playthrough of Doom 2 The Way id Did. When the Continuous campaign was complete, it was time to take things to the next level and investigate what the WAD's pistol start setups were like. And, for the most part, it was a lot of fun to start off underpowered and end up overpowered just like in the base game. The more you learn, the better each run becomes as you get a handle on where the weapons are & where the powerups are - starting off outmatched and overcoming that adversity with a little persistence made for a consistently gratifying ride.

 

That changed with MAP29 - The Mortal Coil. It pulled no punches: you were given a Plasma Gun for free(!) and charged with pushing forward through quite a marathon. I had been able to brute-force my way through bit-by-bit when I'd played it with saves, but there was no such luck at getting everything to go right when making saveless attempts at the level. I feared that this map was going to be the one "DNF"; the one black mark on my record.

 

So, when I tired of beating my head against the brick wall of the main route, I instead started exploring & looking for secrets to help even the odds. The discovery of an Invulnerability tucked away at the start opened the door to progression, and the discovery of another secret across the lava floor, way on the other side of the level, cemented a route where I'd skipped enough monsters & gathered enough resources to have a real shot at reaching the finish line.

 

(My favorite part of these skips is when I got to steal the SuperShotgun right out from under this guy's nose without alerting him.)

 

The second half of the map begins with you being teleported into the middle of a big ol' battlefield, but rather than "the level is done playing around and is now getting serious", my reaction was instead, "Hooray! Full health and armor! I've GOT this."

 

All together, it took nearly two hours of attempts to explore the possibilities and gradually settle on an optimal route. But what a relief it was when the map was finally done. It felt like a weight had been lifted; I know I put it there in the first place, but it still felt fantastic to be free of it.

[Summer Deep]

2 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

 

 

Another example:

 

This map is where Sunlust starts getting hard for me, and the final fight in particular (11:20 in the video) requires a well thought-out plan with little room for error. I needed over 100 attempts to do it saveless and was still salty about it when I wrote the video description.

 

Against all my expectations, I actually managed to get as far as MAP29 in Sunlust (admittedly on HMP difficulty), but just couldn't get past that moving wall bit. Really annoying, as it's essentially a gimmick, which I utterly I loathe in Doom wads. I wouldn't have minded if I'd been beaten by half a dozen Cyberdemons in a small room, but that sort of thing I find very difficult to accept, LOL....

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Summer Deep

[Summer Deep]

I've beaten quite a lot of slaughterish encounters over the past couple of years, the likes of which would probably have been beyond my capabilities a few years ago. Just the other week, I got through this ludicrous Revenant and Archvile encounter in MAP20 of 1000 Lines CP 2, from 14:20 onwards (playing in UV), though I did save once in the process. It amused me that Adam Windsor (Capellan) resorted to cheating when playing this on HMP in the YouTube video below!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Summer Deep

[Mr. Freeze]

Beating Hell Revealed 2 on UV without cheats is my biggest fight. HR1 was manageable, HR2 is just agonizing at points. 

[Summer Deep]

I 'beat' HR2, though I used the Doom64 Extended Weapons Pack mod. Having the Devastator weapon and the Flamethrower does give you some sort of edge in this situation.....

[galileo31dos01]

Would say, while completing L'agonie Finale saveless wasn't the most difficult task ever, if you add an awful, impossible to ignore, pain in the lower back, that has you twitching your body and breathing heavily for the 30 minutes that endured, then that is a memorable outcome, so to say. 

 

 

Never again, learned the lesson...

[N0T_dead]

Dark tartarus maps 1 and 2

[BaileyTW]

Scythe was the first fanmade wad I played so before that Plutonia and some parts of Sigil were the hardest I had dealt with. Every map of the last act was a milestone for me, but by god Map 30, Fire and Ice, pistol start, saveless, and UVmaxed was just a milestone exponentially above the others. I've definitely beat harder maps since then but I don't think I've played a map harder for the level of skill I was compared to how hard the map is since then. I should have reasonably just put the wad down and said "the difficulty of this map along with this midi seems like an obvious joke", but instead I grinded on the map for a few days and it was the first map that took me over an hour to beat. Nothing has felt as difficult to do since then.

[akolai]

That one fight in frog and toad map 4 took about an hour to pin down once:
 

Spoiler

 

 

[Thelokk]

The day I finally finished a Sunder map (MAP5 and above) without savescumming. Still don't know how I managed.

 

Scythe UV map30 without the shortcut. No savescumming but it did take me forever.

 

Sunlust on HMP. Consider I'm the guy that still dies in TNT UV at times. 

Edited January 8, 2022 by Thelokk

[BetelgeuseSupergiant]

Final and Pre-final fights on TNT: Revilution MAP29 'Across The Blood Sea'.

It's be really epic, but not so hard, because that was my 3rd walkthrough of TNTR

[TuomasGaming]

Uh, how do I delete a reply/post?

Edited January 12, 2022 by TuomasGaming
previous topic was bad

[beast]

Mine would be the moment I realized herding meaty monsters while berzerk punching them. Up to that point I just took the power up as a 100% health boost. Now it is a new class of weapon for me.

[WaKa]

When I started my Doom journey I told myself that I will always try to play in UV, Saveless and with pistol starts. Starting with the ultimate doom I had some trouble here and there, but overall it was a great journey. That was until of course, Thy Flesh Consumed happened. E4M1 was a wake-up call and E4M2 and E4M6 were my personal hell. I managed to beat E4M1 with a lot of retries and a bit of luck, but the other two forced me to use saves. It really sucks to get far only die to die a rocket to the face. It was only after a year or so later, with more experience under my belt, that I decided to try again this time saveless. It was still difficult but a lot more manageable, but it was more like a personal victory than anything else, to prove myself that I could do it, that I improved a lot.

On that note, after beating the ultimate doom I went and I tried to beat some of the maps in that old list of "Top 100 Doom wads of all time". I had an easier time and it was a lot of fun, that is until I reached H2H-Xmas. In retrospect that wad sucks lol, but at the time it was the hardest challenge I've faced yet and I felt so good once I managed to beat all of the maps. IIRC the hardest map for me was MAP12.

[MoreMending]

Killing my first Arch-vile on map 1 of the plutonia experiment without using a mouse.

It taught me to get in cover asap when dealing with an Arch-vile, and that you can't just dodge that little shit's screen-covering fire like you can with projectiles by just strafing to the side. I already knew to get in to cover, but having to actually face an Arch-vile (instead of watching doom videos with Arch-viles) just hammered it in for me.

 

I like that memory, but I do not like how many times I died to get it.

[Nefelibeta]

Many of the tough fights that I implemented in my own maps, most of the time I just kept struggling with that one fight that seems to be doable for almost an hour or two, and eventually decided to make it easier(reluctantly)

 

Believe it or not, almost every map of Stardate20x7 contains a fight that will give you heart attack.

If you feel that you haven't experience enough memorable fights, give it a go.