Wads without slaughtermaps?

[SugarKane21]

I have a feeling that this thread is not going to be very well received around here, but anyway, here i go. I extremely dislike Slaughtermaps. I'm not looking to be a pro at Doom or anything, i just want to have a nice challenge involving cool level design, interesting encounters, and so on. Even when the slaughtermaps are usually present in the latter part of the wad, i still find it very irritating to skip them and, somehow, leave the wad without finishing, because even if i'm not looking to be a pro, i still have my ocd issues. 

 

Considering there are some issues about what exactly is a slaughtermap, i clarify that i consider a slaughtermap anything resembling the latter maps from Alien Vendetta or Scythe II. That's exactly what i'm trying to avoid. Some people have defined Memento Mori as one of the first wads to include slaughtermaps, i have to say that i don't agree. For sure, MM has many "slaughtery" moments in it's maps, for which i have no issues at all, and i even consider a nice addition. I wouldn't even consider Showdown (Map23, made by Dario Casali) to be an actual slaughtermap. But i'm not really looking to start a debate (another one) about what is or isn't a slaughtermap. 

 

So i'm looking for wads that have 0 slaughtermaps. Maybe i can tolerate 1 or 2 but not more than that. I'm specially interested in wads that are somehow considered classics within the community (doesn't matter if they are oldies or modern classics), but if they are somehow more obscure, i'm fine as long as it has good gameplay. 

 

I couldn't find a thread asking about this exact same thing, but maybe i wasn't using the search engine properly. If there was another existent thread with this same matter, please link me to it. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

[xScavengerWolfx]

I don't know if this would be in your wheel house but i was apart of this community project. There is some Slaughter maps but it was going by theme but feel free to check it out if you want. 

[Andrea Rovenski]

Demonfear especially.

 

if you consider mm23 to *not* be a slaughtermap (i disagree, but its a great one regardless), ill recommend Anomaly Report, which has a similar map in size and density.

 

Nostalgia, another great pick. Has a couple maps lighter than mm23 but still kinda dense. 

 

this is all i got for now 

[Pseudonaut]

Crumpets contains only small maps, the most populated of which has 117 monsters.

[BigBoy91]

It's pretty easy to avoid slaughtermaps. Try any of the Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions WADs.

[MrGigglefingers]

The problem with this thread is that one man's definition of a slaughtermap can be completely different from everyone else's, and they would be completely valid cuz there's no real consensus. 

 

Imo I think it's really hard to do a compelling map set nowadays, especially a long one like a megawad, without occasionally veering into slaughter territory for the sake of variety.

[Yousuf Anik]

4 hours ago, Andrea Rovenski said:

Demonfear especially.

 

Surely, an easy one. Additionally, you can also try Zone 300. Good one!

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

7 hours ago, SugarKane21 said:

i just want to have a nice challenge involving cool level design, interesting encounters, and so on

Zone 300 and 400 are nice. 

But when you said nice challenge, and interesting encounters, my mind went to Cyberdreams. It's a genius megawad with 0 slaughter maps. Easily in my top 3 of 90s wads. 

[volleyvalley]

Try Requiem some time. All level are good, no doubt about it.

[Shepardus]

50 Monsters. It is fifty monsters per map as the title suggests, and it's very good.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I don't recall any true-blue slaughter in any of the 1000 Line series. Many of the DBP could fit the bill, but it's kind of a crapshoot.

 

Void and Rainbow is incredible with very mellow incidental encounters. Visually, it's my favorite wad. It requires a special version of GZ to work right due to visual tricks. Then you have more experimental things like Golden Souls. Are you averse to using GZ?

[Woolie Wool]

Unless you get into true challenge slaughter, a lot of "slaughter" in mainstream wads is nowhere near as hard as it initially appears. You can hold your own against a huge number of monsters if you simply don't panic.

[Graf Zahl]

11 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

Unless you get into true challenge slaughter, a lot of "slaughter" in mainstream wads is nowhere near as hard as it initially appears.

 

For some people it doesn't need to be hard to be annoying. It's like telling people who do not like action movies that 'xyz is still a great movie.' They won't care because of the genre.

 

[crusty_charlie]

- Bauhaus (4 levels with a high art-esque feel and atmosphere to them)
- Chainworm Kommando (10 thematically varied maps with a good sense of continuity and loads of doomcute if that's your jam)
- Grime (5 bite sized urban themed maps. Also try Urbanside, as it has a similar spirit but with more recognizably realistic locations)
- Doom II - Dark World (Beefier, hell-themed reimaginings of Doom II's first 11 maps)
- Violence (4 punchy levels with a purple wasteland theme and synthwave ost)
- @TheMagicMushroomMan mentioned Void, which is a map I absolutely love. Probably the best execution of the concept of a "psychedelic Doom map" I can think of.
- RAMP series (Several maps made by contributors with varying levels of experience, all connected by a hub system. The teleporters to the maps have little displays next to them that let you know what level difficulty and length the map will be. 1 is shortest/easiest, 5 is longest/hardest. Also try DUMP, the spiritual predecessor to this concept)

I think for what you're looking for, these examples should be a good start. Don't let the short length of a lot of these projects fool you, from my experience the maps themselves are a good challenge that doesn't rely on absurd crowds to kill you. I completely get where you're coming from about wanting WADs that feel challenging and interesting without just being straight up "hold a strafe key + mouse 1" level annoyance, hope ya like these.
 

Edited September 28, 2023 by crusty_charlie

[SugarKane21]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:24 PM, Andrea Rovenski said:

Demonfear especially.

 

if you consider mm23 to *not* be a slaughtermap (i disagree, but its a great one regardless), ill recommend Anomaly Report, which has a similar map in size and density.

 

Nostalgia, another great pick. Has a couple maps lighter than mm23 but still kinda dense. 

 

this is all i got for now 

 

Thanks, i'll check your recommendations. About mm23, to be fair, yes, i guess it still counts as a slaughtermap, but just as you said, is not near as dense as others, like the latter maps from AV or Scythe 2. It's probably the most doable slaughtermap for me. Go 2 It might be similar in some ways but to me, it's a lot harder. 

 

On 9/27/2023 at 12:46 AM, MrGigglefingers said:

The problem with this thread is that one man's definition of a slaughtermap can be completely different from everyone else's, and they would be completely valid cuz there's no real consensus. 

 

Imo I think it's really hard to do a compelling map set nowadays, especially a long one like a megawad, without occasionally veering into slaughter territory for the sake of variety.

 

Being aware of that problem, i gave examples of what i consider to be a slaughtermap in the second paragraph of my OP. Nevertheless, you might have a point about the impossibility of not falling into slaughter territory. In my opinion -and i know this might be an unpopular take- the problem lies in the extension of the Megawad itself. It's just way too long. Everytime i play shorter wads -No Rest for the Living and Pirate Doom comes to mind- they just feel like the perfect length. That's what i liked about the first Scythe: it managed pretty well to make the length shorter while still playing as a megawad. 

 

 

[Scyon]

You could start exploring this, if you still didn't yet.

 

Also right now I am playing Equinox. A classic PWAD containin 13 levels (I think) that you should give it a try and there is some slaughter at certain moments, but definitely not a slaughter map set. It is quite a challenging map set.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Scyon
Clarification

[SugarKane21]

13 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

Unless you get into true challenge slaughter, a lot of "slaughter" in mainstream wads is nowhere near as hard as it initially appears. You can hold your own against a huge number of monsters if you simply don't panic.

 

It's not about panic or difficulty. I simply don't like slaughtermaps in terms of gameplay. I don't like them methodologically. To beat a dense slaughtermap requires to follow a certain method, like studying the map, the enemy placement, it requires memorization, a strategy, and of course, tons of skill -which i don't have and i don't intend to have-. No mortal person can beat a map like Map 23 from Scythe II in just one sit. And honestly i don't care about practice or anything that requires to "get better", i just wanna have some fun killing demons.

 

13 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

For some people it doesn't need to be hard to be annoying. It's like telling people who do not like action movies that 'xyz is still a great movie.' They won't care because of the genre.

 

 

Just like this guy said. 

[Matthias]

Recently I released Pendulum and it received many complains about how it's not slaughter enough.

[Woolie Wool]

On 9/28/2023 at 8:33 AM, SugarKane21 said:

 

It's not about panic or difficulty. I simply don't like slaughtermaps in terms of gameplay. I don't like them methodologically. To beat a dense slaughtermap requires to follow a certain method, like studying the map, the enemy placement, it requires memorization, a strategy, and of course, tons of skill -which i don't have and i don't intend to have-. No mortal person can beat a map like Map 23 from Scythe II in just one sit. And honestly i don't care about practice or anything that requires to "get better", i just wanna have some fun killing demons.

Then "slaughter-lite" like skillsaw's work, Counterattack, Rush, and the later parts of Epic 2 might work for you, especially since it's "lite" slaughter that usually ends up towards the end of non-slaughter wads, not proper challenge slaughter. Most of these are far less strategically demanding, and can often be beaten with what I call the "NASCAR" strategy of finding a loop around the arena and following without stopping, reversing, or blundering into a monster (some crowdshaping may be required too). They also make you feel like an absolute boss when the last monster drops dead and you survey the sea of corpses.

 

Oh, and add Doom 64 for Doom II to the recommendation list.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Woolie Wool