WAD order for new players?

[Logamuffin]

Ok, so imagine you’re a complete Doom newbie who has just completed Doom 1 and 2 (like me 2 months ago). What do you play next? 
 

Basically what I’m asking here is what community WADs would you recommend a new player fresh out of the IWADs play and what order would you put them in. These can be ordered by difficulty to ease the player into harder maps or classics put chronologically to build up to the gameplay of modern megawads. It’s up to you.

 

So for example, a list would be something like: 

1. Nostalgia

2. Plutonia

3. Scythe

4. Alien Vendetta

etc, etc

[princetontiger]

Check out the cacoawards list...

 

You can't go wrong with the classics like Scythe (2003) or Alien Vendetta (2001). I'd also add Hell Revealed (1997) to the list. You'll get a good feel for the first decade of modding by playing these.

 

Check this page out: https://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/ 

Edited June 17, 2023 by princetontiger

[Gravepicker]

I'd say you're basically looking for this thread. Have fun dooming :)

[Logamuffin]

5 minutes ago, Gravepicker said:

I'd say you're basically looking for this thread. Have fun dooming :)

Well yeah, but I’m asking for more personal orders or recommendations… not just one order based on difficulty

Edited June 17, 2023 by Logamuffin

[princetontiger]

9 minutes ago, Logamuffin said:

Well yeah, but I’m asking for more personal orders or recommendations… not just one order based on difficulty

 

Everyone has their own opinions. There's countless threads on this.

Start with the top 100 + cacowards list from my link. Browse and play whatever you think it's interesting. If you want my advice, I'd give a bunch of techbase maps, but you might prefer other mapping themes like hell or horror maps.

Edited June 17, 2023 by princetontiger

[Gravepicker]

Given that you've started playing recently, I guess you don't really know what you're looking for in a map/mapset. As in do you want mostly combat, mostly puzzles and exploration, a mix of both? Do you like small maps or do you prefer bigger maps? As @princetontiger mentioned, do you have a favourite theme(s)?

 

If you do have preferences already, then that would make it easier to give recommendations. I don't know that much of the output of the community, but I'll contribute what I can.

 

If you don't, other than the resources already provided, maybe you'll want to check out this to get a feeling of the kinds of directions the community has gone with it's creativity.

[Logamuffin]

4 minutes ago, Gravepicker said:

Given that you've started playing recently, I guess you don't really know what you're looking for in a map/mapset. As in do you want mostly combat, mostly puzzles and exploration, a mix of both? Do you like small maps or do you prefer bigger maps? As @princetontiger mentioned, do you have a favourite theme(s)?

 

If you do have preferences already, then that would make it easier to give recommendations. I don't know that much of the output of the community, but I'll contribute what I can.

 

If you don't, other than the resources already provided, maybe you'll want to check out this to get a feeling of the kinds of directions the community has gone with it's creativity.

 

Sorry, I wasn’t asking for recommendations tailored to my preferences. I was asking for what people’s orders for new players would be based on *their* preferences.

[indigotyrian]

There's no canonical order or reading list or whatever. Look around at WADs. See something cool? Play it! It's that simple. Cacowards are decent starting points for this but there's so much more to Doom than what wins the Cacowards. Check out what Doom youtubers are playing, check out what people mention. There's this real weird attitude that exists where you have to have played Plutonia or Alien Vendetta or whatever other WADs because you can truly appreciate the new stuff and that's dumb.

[Gravepicker]

1 minute ago, Logamuffin said:

 

Sorry, I wasn’t asking for recommendations tailored to my preferences. I was asking for what people’s orders for new players would be based on *their* preferences.

Oh, my mistake then. If it's up to my (and everyone else's) preferences, go play Going Down, Eviternity and Epic 2. Oh, and Eternal Doom. Pretty disparate bunch, but all of the highest quality at least to my tastes.

[DJVCardMaster]

I would certainly not recommend Alien Vendetta or Hell Revealed to any new Doomer, novice players will struggle a lot with those ones. Play the first Scythe, it has one of the best difficulty curves for new players, reaching a really hard difficulty at the end, but just enough to make the jump to AV or similar mapsets. The Memento Mori couples are good wads if you want a stale difficulty curve though. 

[Individualised]

I'd add that it's probably best to atleast experience some of all of the official Doom games even if it's just a few levels before diving into PWADs; this includes Plutonia.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Individualised

[Pseudonaut]

TNT, then Plutonia, then Scythe. Worked well for me.

[baja blast rd.]

I'll imagine that someone wants to post video playthroughs on YouTube, sort of like the new wave of Decino-inspired creators (SoBad and Vytaan come to mind). As good as all these channels are, there is a tendency for certain wads to be really common choices, but we still need some of those mixed in, so here's a mix of choices that are: popular A-tier obligatory DoomTube content, well known but not A-tier obligatory DoomTube content, and more off the beaten path.

 

The reason I'm using that frame is because I wouldn't really care what anyone plays if they weren't making video; because part of the fun is that "pick a random wad" works too. Oh for order, just randomize; I can't find a frame to care about that because I feel it's not really how playlists work in Doom. 

 

Back to Basics and Suspended in Dusk

Japanese Community Project

Vanguard
Invasion 2: Upper Decks

Speed of Doom

Sacrament

Demonastery, Steep Town, Celeste, Shovelware Adventure, UAC_DEAD, The Warlock's Hearth, Controlled System, Continue, Miasma, Altitude (all single maps)

Syringe and Arrival

Doomworld Mega Project 2015a (the vanilla maps)

4 Seasons of Doom

All Hell is Breaking Loose

Phocas Island 2

Valiant

THT: Threnody

STRAIN

Khorus' Speedy Shit

RTC-3057 

Shotgun Symphony

Interception

Putrefier

Winter's Fury

Lost Civilization

[Hebonky]

I think the best order is, doom 1, Fava beans, doom 2, TNT, Nostalgia, SIGIL, and Plutonia. From there do whatever.

[prfunky]

4 hours ago, DJVCardMaster said:

I would certainly not recommend Alien Vendetta or Hell Revealed to any new Doomer, novice players will struggle a lot with those ones...

 

4 hours ago, Gravepicker said:

... Oh, and Eternal Doom. Pretty disparate bunch, but all of the highest quality at least to my tastes.

 

Gotta agree with Gravepicker and disagree with DJVCardMaster. Alien Vendetta and

Hell Revealed were some of the first replacement wads I'd played back in the day and

they're both excellent. So what if you get your butt kicked! Hit spacebar and live (and

fight) again. Eternal Doom III is really good, especially Sverre Kvernmo's Time Gate.

 

Other stuff:

Icarus: Alien Vanguard

Demonfear

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by prfunky
bad formatting/spelling errors

[DJVCardMaster]

1 minute ago, prfunky said:

 

 

Gotta agree with Gravepicker and disagree with DJVCardMaster. Alien Vendetta and

Hell Revealed were some of the first replacement wads I'd played back in the day and

they're both excellent. So what if you get you but kicked! Hit spacebar and live (and

fight) again. Eternal Doom III is really good, especially Sverre Kvernmo's Time Gate.

 

Other stuff:

Icarus: Alien Vanguard

Demonfear

 

I'm not saying they are not going to like it, I'm saying they are going to struggle with their difficulty, unless they play on lower ones, I had to skip some of those when younger until I was good at Doom, personally.

[prfunky]

5 minutes ago, DJVCardMaster said:

I'm not saying they are not going to like it, I'm saying they are going to struggle with their difficulty, unless they play on lower ones, I had to skip some of those when younger until I was good at Doom, personally.

 

Heh; well, for an easier time with it, they could always play Chap Deathmatch 3

or Yavin's Clone. They actually play in single-player, not just deathmatch...

[netcurse2000]

Doom 1, Fava beans, Stickney Installation, Doom 2, TNT, Scythe, Vanguard... 

[Celestin]

Playing older wads helped me a lot early on. Stuff like Memento Mori, Strain, Requiem or Icarus. They felt like a natural step from iwads, intended for a player that had completed Doom 2, understood the mechanics and could be challenged with something more difficult.

 

As for more recent works, BTSX E1 has a very gentle learning curve that builds up to Tough Skin River.

[BedrockCastle]

I'd check out SIGIL and BTSX E1.

[lunchlunch]

Plutonia

Haste

Sunder

 

The "git gud" fast track

 

[prfunky]

3 hours ago, Celestin said:

Playing older wads helped me a lot early on. Stuff like Memento Mori, Strain, Requiem or Icarus. They felt like a natural step from iwads, intended for a player that had completed Doom 2, understood the mechanics and could be challenged with something more difficult.

 

As for more recent works, BTSX E1 has a very gentle learning curve that builds up to Tough Skin River.

 

2 hours ago, BedrockCastle said:

I'd check out SIGIL and BTSX E1.

 

Ooh, I forgot about Requiem ! That's alot of fun!!

Yah, I don't think I've finished Back to Saturn X E1: Get Out Of My Stations yet. Maybe

I left off at the 6th or 7th level? Absolutely love the custom job with blues in the palette.

Really, it's almost like a new, improved Doom. That's something I prefer to any new tech

id titles with the name of Doom in them. To me, if it's going to change the engine to

something else, it should be a different game (like Quake was!). So, I'll give an enthusiastic

ditto to playing BTSX E1.

 

[ReaperAA]

For someone who just recently completed the iwads and want something with Final Doom's level of difficulty, I absolutely recommend to check out Bri's wads:

• Attack on IO
• Vow of Vengeance
• Elysium's Curse
• Hydrosphere
• Fallen Leaves
• Scorn

Older Skillsaw stuff like Lunatic and Vanguard are also solid choices for stuff that on Final Doom's difficulty level. If you are hungry for more Skillsaw's stuff, you could check out his later releases like Valiant, Ancient Aliens and Heartland. But do note that those 3 are definitely quite a step up from the iwads

 

Back to Saturn X (BTSX) E1 and E2 are a bit above Plutonia on the difficulty side (there are big spikes here and there, like Map19 in E1 and especially the secret Map of E2), but are otherwise fairly good recommendations. Also keep an eye on BTSX E3, which is in development.

 

On a similar note to BTSX E1 and E2, Eviternity is also a solid recommendation for something around or a little above Plutonia.

[prfunky]

15 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

For someone who just recently completed the iwads and want something with Final Doom's level of difficulty, I absolutely recommend to check out Bri's wads:

• Attack on IO

 

Hey! Never heard of this one before. This is pretty kickass! I got

41 dead monsters before revenant rocket nailed me. Thanks!! :-)
 

[Sena]

I've seen plenty of infographics that manage to address this and provide a starting point for new players, but they all seem to consist of stuff like AA, Scythe and all the other accepted 'best' WADs, when a flow-chart design that goes into detail would probably be more valuable in that regard. 

Granted there is the option of finding levels that either come highly recommended or just look interesting and using that as a basis to find which styles of mapping you like and which ones you don't.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Sena

[Celestin]

On 6/19/2023 at 8:34 AM, ReaperAA said:

For someone who just recently completed the iwads and want something with Final Doom's level of difficulty, I absolutely recommend to check out Bri's wads:

• Attack on IO
• Vow of Vengeance
• Elysium's Curse
• Hydrosphere
• Fallen Leaves
• Scorn

After playing Attack on IO and Hydrosphere over the weekend, I wholeheartedly agree. Those wads are fast, explosive, but also accessible.