How do you tackle playing the secret maps in Doom pwads?

[VoanHead]

So yeah, how do you guys typically go about playing the secret maps when they come around eventually in your playthroughs? Do you just jump straight into it when you find the secret exit, or depending on your mood do you just save the maps as a post-megawad/episode completion celebration? Or do you just say "fuck it" and just not bother playing them since you maybe consider them as a side dish to the main course of the pwad?

[RHhe82]

Usually play them in natural sequence — although I’ve been contemplating the idea of playing maps out of sequence, especially when I’m familiar with the mapset. Secret maps are natural candidates for that, and if I know they differ remarkably from the main sequence of maps (either by being considerably longer and harder, or by being very gimmicky), I just might reserve them for last.

 

I posted in some thread about playing actual main sequence maps out of order - did that with Resurgence. I sometimes get exhausted by megawads, when they reserve the hardest and longest maps for last, so the idea of playing harder maps in advance so I can still have some breathers left to unwind, is appealing to me. On the other hand, with unfamiliar maps I have no idea just how the mapper (or the person who arranged maps) has accounted for player exhaustion; or megawad fatigue. That is to say: only done this once, and would probably do so only on familiar wads.

[Plerb]

I skip them maybe 50% of the time. It mostly comes down to how much I feel like hunting down a secret exit in a given moment, sometimes it can also depend on how interesting the secret maps sound from prior knowledge. Sometimes in a given megawad I'll play MAP31 and then not bother finding the exit to MAP32. I didn't play any of the secret maps in my first playthroughs of Doom 1 and TNT, but I did for Doom 2 and Plutonia.

[Devalaous]

I always play them in the natural order, given that everyone knows where the secret maps will be thanks to hardcoded BS ruining any and all surprise. If a mapset has a Map 33 or other such hidden bonus level and its a normal non-gimmick level, I'll use GZDoom's changemap command to warp there with my inventory intact, complete it, then warp to Map 16 and pretend the reward for beating the supersecrt level was *another* secret level. My QoL patches for such wads have an optional mode to do this without immersion-breaking user input, I don't make it the default option though.

[Murdoch]

If I find them, I play them. If I don't, I don't. Really don't much care for being a completionist. No time for that.

[roadworx]

i don't, unless people reeeeally want me to play them

[Napeyear]

I try to find them and play them as I discover them, but If I end up finishing the WAD and didn't get to them, I usually do another playthrough of the level that has the secret exit/super secret exit or just IDCLEV to the corresponding map slot they occupy. I like secret levels, but I suck at finding them (and secrets in general) so usually the latter ends up being the case for me.

[VoanHead]

Huh, guess I'm part of the outlier here who likes to play the secret maps right after I finish the megawad/episode

I would say it's more 50/50: sometimes I'll go out of my way to find the secret exit on Map 15 or whatever on Ultimate Doom pwads and play the secret levels and decide that's enough Doom for me today. But the other half of me also decides not to do the secret maps until right after depending on my mood or how much patience I have for the day. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for something traditional instead of a big challenge map that resides in secrets or whatever gimmick is hiding in those secret maps, I think MtPain27 made a video about em that he explains them better than I do. Thx to everybody who uhh voted on this poll over a question I was curious on.

[june gloom]

I'm a die-hard continuous player. If you put secret maps in front of me I'm going to look at the mod in SLADE so I know which map to look for the exit in.

[Deadwing]

Usually I skip them, 30 regular maps is a lot for me to take in

[DoomPlayer00]

If I find the secret exit I'll access the secret maps from where I'm supposed to. Otherwise I'll play them after finishing the main stages.