What makes you decide to play or skip a WAD?

[pcorf]

I like atmospheric classic-style maps with realism, vanilla, limit removing or boom compatible. The maps can have new textures and music, especially original music. I'm not a fan of crazy hot starts and cramped slaughtermaps, or areas where you get trapped and are forced to fight as the bars take forever to lower.

[Kyka]

Whatever takes my mood. Sometimes it will be a full featured ZDoom outing, with all the bells and whistles. Sometimes classic vanilla with minimalist details and classic layouts, sometimes slaughtermaps like Sunder.

 

But the one thing I do notice about my Dooming choices is that the wad needs to be aesthetically pleasing. Obviously this is very subjective and in my case, intuitive, but that is the place where I 'intuitively' decide what to play.

[TheFocus]

imma sound like a total douchebag, but if the WAD uses OG 90's textures predominately/exclusively, i'm out. default textures just bore me, and to be honest, i'm tired of looking at them.

[yakfak]

probably won't play:
megawad

 

probably will play:

poster is nice and doesn't hype the heck out of their work

 

edit: my focus has been elsewhere than Doom for a long time but when I dip in it's still easy to find engrossing work. i'm currently way less excited than I was about the elegant school of Doom - skillsaw, BTSX etc. - and favour messy, sprawling, personal works. dobu rules ribbiks rules lainos rules

Edited September 2, 2022 by yakfak

[Graf Zahl]

First thing I do: open the map in an editor. Bad layout immediately stands out so off that goes.

Second thing: Do a quick sampling of the map with idclip. This weeds out a large batch right away as well.

 

24 minutes ago, map11has2names said:

imma sound like a total douchebag, but if the WAD uses OG 90's textures predominately/exclusively, i'm out. default textures just bore me, and to be honest, i'm tired of looking at them.

 

I wouldn't go that far - but I feel that there's not many mappers that can do interesting things with the original textures. Most of the time I see typical vanilla Doom2 layout it goes to the bin right away. Of course sometimes standout mods like Archi-Tek happen that almost exclusively use stock textures and manage to do something really impressive with them. But these things are exceedingly rare.

 

If I feel a new project is a mere rehash of old community megawads or the IWADs I'm definitely out (an exception is made for KDITD clones.) I found these things unappealing in the late 90's and nothing has changed about it. I actually never completed any community made megawad in its entirely. That goes from the classics like Memento Mori or Requiem to more recent things. One thing I really want from a project is consistency and community megawads virtually never provide this.

 

I prefer to see interesting new things, both visually and gameplay wise, so projects whose entire focus is on being retro very rarely catch my interest.

 

[TheFocus]

9 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

First thing I do: open the map in an editor. Bad layout immediately stands out so off that goes.

Second thing: Do a quick sampling of the map with idclip. This weeds out a large batch right away as well.

 

 

I wouldn't go that far - but I feel that there's not many mappers that can do interesting things with the original textures. Most of the time I see typical vanilla Doom2 layout it goes to the bin right away. Of course sometimes standout mods like Archi-Tek happen that almost exclusively use stock textures and manage to do something really impressive with them. But these things are exceedingly rare.

 

If I feel a new project is a mere rehash of old community megawads or the IWADs I'm definitely out (an exception is made for KDITD clones.) I found these things unappealing in the late 90's and nothing has changed about it. I actually never completed any community made megawad in its entirely. That goes from the classics like Memento Mori or Requiem to more recent things. One thing I really want from a project is consistency and community megawads virtually never provide this.

 

I prefer to see interesting new things, both visually and gameplay wise, so projects whose entire focus is on being retro very rarely catch my interest.

 

you summed up my point better than i did.

[Nefelibeta]

23 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

we get to play as a Capybara?!?

Yet axolotl is still better :3

 

23 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

Maribo said it was cool 

lolololol

 

Seriously though, I would honestly recommend people to try out things despite their appearances/other stuff. I really like to scroll down wad section and a lot of times, I dug up gems. ;)

[Firedust]

I always skip speedmaps or levels with a self-imposed limit (like no more than x sectors, linedefs, monsters, etc.) The only exceptions to this are pcorf's Zone megawads, and the 1000 lines projects. Otherwise, those are an instant red flag to me.

 

Other than that, I generally give most things a fair go before deciding whether I should continue playing a mapset or not, but I do believe it's crucial for any wad to get off to a decent start if the creator wants the player to continue.

[Doomkid]

Vanilla wad that looks "half decent" or above?

 

\

 

(Pretend there's like 8 reaction GIFs here to use up the bandwidth Maribo saved by not posting a GIF)

[Nine Inch Heels]

Not sure how much I can contribute, because most WADs, even ones that might cater to my personal preferences, are by default skips, because I just don't have enough time on my hands these days...

 

That said, one of the WADs I was very fond of was jump.WAD, because I like platforming, which means... that for the most part I like stuff most people seem to hate. So, if there's platforming, or some manner of interest movement-check involved, I'll try to get around to playing it

 

Slaughter/Challenge maps, I'll try to have a look when I can

 

Short set of maps built around interesting and unique mechanics, or "fresh concepts" (like for example a WAD designed for play on NM difficulty), I'll go ahead and have a look

 

Maps or sets which may be interesting to look at in a builder for "technical reasons" (ie interesting setups of voodoo closets, use of mikoveyors, "abuse of game mechanics" in some way), I'll check out in a builder, and I'll most likely play them, even if the gameplay itself might not be my cup of tea, because I want to see the machines in action, and what they produce, for that matter

 

If it's a ZDaemon rocket jump map, and a new one at that, ideally made by someone who seems "familiar" to me, I'll play immediately :P

 

 

 

With the aforementioned lack of time in mind, I tend to stay away from behemoth-sized maps, even if they're high quality in terms of gameplay and visuals. As much as I'm into slaughter, it took me a long time to get around to playing the new sunder maps, for example. All things considered, I'm not into "marathon endeavours", despite the fact that I can comfortably play for a couple hours straight. I just like it better when things are separated into more digestible, smaller chunks... Makes "putting the game away" a lot easier.

[Katamori]

I always look for some unique and interesting scenery. Sadly stock textures are more and more rarely enough for me, and simple maps, even if have good gameplay, turn me away at this point.

 

It's hard to describe though because it has no strict rules for me: Eternal Doom, REKKR, Hellbound, Claustrophobia 1024 and most @valkiriforce megawads are just as good for me.

 

In general I'm looking for a vanilla experience though. Most of recent skillsaw content was not exactly for me, nor Eviternity (which I tried though and was fun) so I need my stock bestiary for sure.

 

I also avoid slaughtermaps for most of the time. Sunder fits most criteria above but it's moot point for me if I can't even progress on a map. Same for Deus Vult, for instance, though the sequel had exciting moments.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Katamori

[ChopBlock223]

For outright giving up on a set, I've only done that a couple of times ever. Two which I simply did not have the patience for is NeoDoom, and Eternal Doom, the latter actually has a lot of strengths, but as it goes, it starts becoming obnoxiously cryptic. Some like that stuff, well hidden secrets mandatory for progression, but it was not for me.

 

A more recent example would be Hellbound, but not for any inherent qualities of its own, I REALLY enjoyed it, but I was playing with an early build of the GzDoom conversion of Shut Up And Bleed, a supremely atmospheric mod that provides an excellent horror tang to HB's massive realistic locales, but which leaves the player hopelessly ill equipped for handling slaughter gameplay. At around map 21, there's a big slaughter fight right out the gate, backed by at least one Spidermind, which in SUAB is replaced with a large flying nightmare that spews roided out Lost Soul creatures, overwhelming me in seconds no matter what.

 

Hitting that wall, I decide enough is enough and that I'll just have to come back to the set some other day, playing it another way.

[Devalaous]

I tend to avoid threads like these all over the world, as opinions seem to get more and more dangerous each year, but I'll bite, and likely get bitten in return.

 

with the wonderful Doom Launcher revolutionising my wad playing by tracking what ive done and what ive completed, ive gotten a hell of a lot more wads finished in the last year or two, which has in turn revealed some preferences.

 

Things I like and will likely take a look at a wad for

• Favoured mapping names is a no-brainer: I will play *anything* from Soundblock or NaturalTvventy for example
• 'if you liked this work from me, try my other stuff' A lot of the time I'll get an appreciation for a certain mapper in a community megawad and seek out more by them. In this case, I'd name Mechadon, as his big adventure maps appeal to me in ways others dont, and I plan on exploring his other work
• A narrative journey. Things like A.L.T. and Hell to Pay/Perdition's Gate resonate with me, a clear journey across 20 or so maps with the maps themselves telling a faint story. Ideally with xINFO disabling the dumb story intermissions at hardcoded points, since people either leave them default or have to squeeze in a certain amount of writing into a small space that HAS to appear only after certain maps.
• '94/'95 styled wads. Maximum Doom has been mostly a pleasure actually, seeing what people came up with before 'modern standards' began to funnel everyone down similar paths, and ive greatly enjoyed Valkiriforce's wads based on these times
• Pre-2010s era content: In general, the kind of stuff from Doomworld's pre-cacowards, ie the 'top 100' era
• Episodes for Doom 1 or Doom 2. Its a lot easier to get through a smaller chunk of maps than it is 32 maps, and a lot more likely I'll not get bored and play something else to wind down from fatigue
• Ultimate Doom content in general. Its refreshing not having to deal with Revenants and Chaingunners, and not over-relying on the SSG.
• Eternal Doom/Jim Flynn/Bob Evans styled 'puzzle' maps. I absolutely loved the two Titan levels in the Master Levels, and went on to play his entire body of work, aside from his Eternal Doom maps, which I am working on, on and off (I need a good chunk of my day free to grind out another map or two of Eternal Doom)

Things im 'eh' about and will make me put off a wad till another day

• The wad author being a control freak and trying to tell me EXACTLY how to play, right down to sneaking settings inside the wad that try to override my own. Don't do this. Say what it was designed for in the text file and agree to disagree when others play counter to what you intended. Don't try to take it into your own hands! Once I know a wad tries to control how I play, from that point on, my trust in the mapper is tarnished and I look inside each further wad for signs of control.
• 'Magnum Opus Syndrome' mapsets like BTSX and Community Chest. The more modern ones are generally too clean and structured for my 'classic era Doom' tastes, and BTSX E1 is well known to 'run together' at some point. On top of that, when much of a wad is competing mapping stars outdoing each other in grand scale with huge adventure after huge adventure, I feel fatigued very very quickly. Don't get me wrong, as I mentioned above, I love giant narrative adventure maps, but they require so much of a timesink that I feel drained after just one or two maps. CC1 sent me to bed early after playing Use3D's double feature, the later maps by Sphagne(?) ate much of a day to the point that a Gene Bird map was a relaxing palette cleanser (poor guy gets dunked on constantly, but I'll be honest, I had fun with all his CC1 maps, especially AFTER the giant ones) and Citadel at the Edge of Eternity literally took me a whole day to complete. I don't want to sound too negative here, I do like these maps, but if I know im in for 20+ giant adventures, thats one big groan and a 'I'll play this later when my schedule is free'
• TNT mapsets. 'WHAT!?' says the community, given I am one of three founders of TNT Revilution. Truth be told, while TNT Evilution IS my favourite iwad and very dear to my heart, all the dramas over TNT2 that I had to deal with, and the guilt I always felt over having to leave Revilution's development for a career in videogame development, a position explicitly offered BECAUSE of my work here on Doomworld, has soured the TNT name for me. I haven't played Revilution. I havent played Devilution's beta. I was invited to take part in Convilution/Forever's development, and it was great seeing Kyka's development drive back in full swing again, but I never actually ended up playing a single build in the short time I was there. The damage to the TNT 'brand' in my subconscious is just too strong and I am jealous that in some other reality, there's a version of me that got to play TNT R/D/C with a fresh innocent pair of eyes.
• Plutonia mapsets. Expected, given my love of TNT Evilution. This half of Final Doom never gripped me like it did the majority of the community here, and as such its many many sequels hold little weight for me. I'll play them one day, probably before a TNT sequel due to the above stigma, but right now its just 'eh, I could do without Rev/CG/AV spam' everytime I think about playing it.
• Ultrahard mapsets. Stuff like Ribbiks and Joshy's work. Its not really my thing, and the only one I really 'intend' on beating someday is Hell Revealed, just because its practically a right of passage. Ive been getting better and better at Doom over each year, so one day I'll likely be able to go toe to toe with these sets, and if I do, it'll be for the sights and the 'badge of honour' of having gotten through such a thing. Er- *smacked* Tristan has been wanting me to play Resurgence for a long time, but I know my skill limits and I know I'd just have a terrible time as I am now.

 

Things I do not like and will make me not download it, or only play it out of a misguided 'play all cacoward winners someday' or somesuch

• 'Slaughter' focused gameplay; I know this is a broad term that creates many fights on this forum, but for me its defined as thick monsters plopped down as 'gameplay' without feeling like a place is actually real; it really irks me when I see 100 imps stuffed in a box, or 50 barons stuffed in a room, and its basically a gameplay puzzle to be solved with a certain dance with a BFG. I'm a very narrative-driven player, it takes away my immersion when the monsters and environments are laid thick in ways that doesnt even remotely feel like im fighting a horde of evil in Hell, at that point it becomes 'video game challenge'. I can tolerate this kind of thing in a secret level, but it ruined the middle section of 50 Shades of Graytall for me.
• Memes. Ive never been a big meme type of guy, and mapsets focused on that put me right off. As the One Man Doom blog guy said for Spacia, my ability to 'choke down puerile shit' is low. Its one of the reasons I never bothered with Deus Vult, theres a lot of strange stuff in there. The only mapper I know that can be silly in wads and not scare me right off is pcorf, for some reason.
• High concept experimental wads. 'only use x monsters and x textures while restricting x and x and enforcing x' projects never get my attention. I get that breeding creativity is fun, but its not the Doom I know and love. The one exception to this was Hadephobia, as the goal aligned with my tastes: creating a narrative driven mapset that tells a story and feels like a journey of sorts. I will always reject the idea of 'Doom as a bunch of levels in a game'. If I do get shoehorned into playing some of these experimental maps, I may indeed come to realise its more fun than expected, as was the case with 10 Sectors, but I wont be actively trying to play any of these kinds of projects.
• Multiplayer-focused maps. Memento Mori infuriated me multiple times over the first half, with several maps having large areas of the map that you wont see if your a singleplayer scrub, and even a whole secret level locked off, to which I said 'IDCLIP' and explored the other areas anyway. The 'big three' multiplayer ports all lack in some way for me personally, and my friends who would consider playing Doom with me, they all HATE those ports as they are unwieldly and unmodern (They are not native Doom players, so something easy and userfriendly is what they want). The only way I'll ever get to see Memento Mori's coop stuff as intended, is via the Unity Port's splitscreen, using my custom port of it that I haven't released. My brother wont play any other way, official or bust.
• I'm going to be hanged, crucified or drawn and quartered for this one, but, Eternity-exclusive mapsets. See, I have tried Eternity multiple times, over many multiple versions, and it never feels right for me. Its always seemingly smack dab in the middle of multiple competing port focuses, stretching itself thin trying to meet two different sides of the community, and for me personally, its UI has always been clunky beyond belief and aggravating. A friend whos decidely a non-Doomer but looked into playing some mods tried Eternity, and he was so put off that he refuses to use anything but the Unity port now. In my custom quality of life patches ive been making, ive been supporting as many big ports as I can, and again, Eternity is the one that makes me scream the most. Ive opened other wads and studied both the wiki, the forums and others examples, and still, EMAPINFO breaks the most out of the things ive written for. I just...don't want to bother anymore. I'm sorry, but Heartland will not be enough. I'll watch the Dean of Doom's run of it maybe, and wish the port was better suited to my tastes, but its just..not for me. I'm a Crispy, Unity and GZDoom guy.
• Gameplay mods. I love Doom as it is, and I have no desire to reinvent the IWADs with stuff like Brutal Doom. The absolute maximum deviation I tolerate is Doom Expanded, as its modern enough to breathe life into shit from Maximum Doom, but also doesnt entirely violate that original balance.

My carpal tunnel has been triggered by writing so much so im going to close off here, and likely make a few new enemies for 'hot takes'. I apologise if ive ruffled anyones feathers sufficiently for that, but this just my own personal Doom wad tastes, and we'll have to agree to disagree on things.

[RHhe82]

I've been meaning to reply to this thread for some time, but I always end up thinking there's no point of making anyone feel bad. But what the heck.

 

I think someone already said something in a very similar vein here, but I skip everything by default. Doom is basically the only game I've played in the past year, and even so my time is a bit limited. There is simply not enough time to scour idGames and DW forums for new stuff to play, because there is enough backlog as it is.

 

Basically I add to that backlog from recommendations I pick from places: Decino's playthroughs, Dean of Doom episodes, random Doom videos I just stumble on in Youtube. That's about it: canon and hearsay. There are a few mappers I'm on lookout for new releases that get automatically picked. I was very excited to realize Mouldy released a new wad (and I still haven't touched it, waiting for idGames release and rummaging thru the aforementioned backlog :P).

 

I do prefer stuff that run on DSDA-Doom -- I love Doom as it is (although I don't mind custom assets on the other hand, as long as they fit). I'm also very accustomed to DSDA feel to gameplay, which is why I still haven't touched that much Eternity Engine; I can't get it to feel right. (Pity about Heartland, though; Skillsaw is another mapper whose creations I'd wanna play without any hesitation unless other factors kick in).

 

I don't think there is any type of map I would steer clear of. Mapsets that are designed to be difficult I might not play, but only because I'm not good enough. That doesn't mean I don't want to play them. I'm very anxiously looking forward to the day I can survive at least the lower difficulties. But I do guess some sort of meme-mapsets don't interest me that much. I've seen a lot of Poogers material, and I believe that's not a mapset for me. Some of the maps are without a doubt very well made, but on the other hand it looks to be way above my skillgrade, and on the other feels like something a group of friends made for each others' amusement (I'm sure this is a misconception, but somehow I do feel that way).

 

Naturally I don't play low- or zero-effort wads and terrywads, but they are already excluded due to the way I find wads to play.

[Andromeda]

10 hours ago, Devalaous said:

Multiplayer-focused maps. Memento Mori infuriated me multiple times over the first half, with several maps having large areas of the map that you wont see if your a singleplayer scrub, and even a whole secret level locked off, to which I said 'IDCLIP' and explored the other areas anyway.

The super secret level is not locked off in singleplayer, you can access the part of the level that unlocks it by doing the jump at 6:04 in this video:

 

[Nems]

As I've gotten older and have less time to devote to Doom thanks to my job, my own tastes in what I play have changed. These are some of the things I look for:

 

-Number of maps: I love lengthy Doom adventures so I'm always looking for megawads. As long as a mapset has at least 6 maps in it, I'm willing to give it a shot (though there are some map(set)s with less maps that are impressive enough for me to make an exception).

-Mod compatibility: I consider myself a gameplay mod enthusiast so anything that lets me plug in mods is very much welcomed. As such, I'm really fickle about how Dehacked is used. If it's used for map names, that's fine. If it's used to replace the SS Nazi, Keen, or unused assets to implement new monsters (like the dead Lost Soul), I can deal with that. If the Dehacked actually touches the monsters in any way and/or modifies the weapons, I'll most likely skip it. There are exceptions to this, of course (like Avactor. I love what it does with the monsters, I can use weapon mods with it, there are some monster mods I can use with it - namely LegenDoom Lite and Corruption Cards, and the level design is top notch so it gets a pass).

-Continuous playthroughs: I like to be able to carry my arsenal and inventory throughout my entire playthrough of a mapset, only losing it and starting over if I die. If I come across a death exit, I won't hesitate to get around it by invoking IDDQD or using mods that let me get through it unscathed. If a mapset uses ResetInventory, I'll quit and move onto something else that doesn't use it. I don't like the idea of punishing the player for doing well but I realize this is probably a "me" thing.

-Id-like flow: By this I mean killing barons lowers stuff in e1m8, killing arachnatrons and mancubi does the things in map 07, map 15 has a secret exit to map 31 which has a super secret exit to map 32, etc. Essentially anything that plays and flows like an IWAD. Anything that deviates from that flow tends to sour the wad for me. For example, I'm not a big fan of the episode structure used in Doom 2 by Valiant and Eviternity. I'm also not a big fan of map 07 slots doing something beyond killing mancubi and arachnatrons. Examples of this are Valiant's map 07 where you have to keep the Mancubus alive, Interception 2's map 07 where you have to repeatedly kill a Mancubus to lower multiple walls to exit, Slaughtermax's map 07 arachnatron shenanigans, Skulltiverse's map 07 where you have to keep an Arachnatron alive, and the entirety of Dark Scythe (I still don't know why/how monster mods break Boom maps that utilize tag 666/667 outside of map 07 but oh well). Finally, I'm not really a fan of secret exits being in levels other than their intended one. Lunar Catastrophe's secret exits not being on their usually expected levels is an example of this.

 

Admittedly I'm not really a fan of puzzle maps either and I'm picky about slaughter maps and hot starts. I don't mind slaughter maps and hot starts so long as the player has the gear to deal with it. Therefore, I prefer them to show up in later levels of multilevel WADs. Pistol starting a sizable mob - especially if they start alerted to my presence - is a real motivation deflater.

 

I know I have strange tastes when it comes to WADs. :V

 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Nems
Added stuff I didn't get to add earlier. Also more words.

[bofu]

On 9/2/2022 at 2:00 AM, map11has2names said:

imma sound like a total douchebag, but if the WAD uses OG 90's textures predominately/exclusively, i'm out. default textures just bore me, and to be honest, i'm tired of looking at them.

I'm the opposite. I'm sick and tired of seeing OTEX in everything.

 

It's very possible to do interesting things with the stock textures if you're willing to put in some effort.