The Dean of Doom series (companion thread)

15 minutes ago, a.a.i. said:

As for Map 30, I don't know if I'll ever be able to beat it saveless on UV

The thing about 30 is that while the first 29 maps are pretty quick once you know what you're doing, 30 is always gonna be slow and gruelling on UV (unless, as rd said, you do the skip). It's a big departure from the rest of the megawad in terms of style, size, and difficulty. Probably why I've never been able to make myself sit down and beat it.

28 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

Well said, rd. Mind you, while I've personally used the term "save-scum" in a jovial manner, usually to just take the piss out of myself in my playthrough recordings, I'd never shame anyone for saving at any point.

Dean of Doom's video on this is pretty good, in my opinion. Really got me to stop being ashamed of using saves to enjoy myself. I've definitely seen a couple of "saveless or bust" types in the various Doom-related Discords, especially the larger ones.

On 4/2/2021 at 11:01 AM, DisgruntledPorcupine said:

Yeah the noxious machismo really is a big thing. You also see it with random people who insist UV is the only way to play anything in Doom even though, say, HMP is functionally the same at its core, with the differences being dictated wad to wad. I think there are just some who feel like they have to come into Doom with "something to prove", and are probably limiting their enjoyment by doing so. And hey, these are usually likely some of the first people to handwave away certain wads as "bullshit" if they prove to be too difficult for them. I don't know though, I probably just read the Youtube comments on Doom videos too much, haha.

yep, you nailed it. it's coming from the same place toxic masculinity comes from - the need to feel like you're better than others by purposely making yourself miserable.  if you do that, then you're stronger than the weaklings who aren't being complete dumbasses and are playing games to, y'know, have fun. and in order to make it known to everyone, they like to wave it around and shit on others who aren't as Cool and Tough™ as they are

it's pretty much just an unhealthy, abrasive way to deal with low self-esteems

11 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Well said, rd. Mind you, while I've personally used the term "save-scum" in a jovial manner, usually to just take the piss out of myself in my playthrough recordings, I'd never shame anyone for saving at any point. Not sure how well spread this problem really is since I've never experienced it myself or witnessed it first hand in my time with the community, I'd certainly call out anyone for pushing that kind of bullshit onto others. Perhaps I'm just naive or am simply not exploring the specific subforums where it can potentially happen, but I haven't seen even the tiniest shred of that kind of elitist nonsense on DW since I got here.

 

If such a thing is prevalent in the community, it's at least not around these parts as far as I can tell, which is nice. :^)

from what i've seen, dw doesn't have a big problem with it (at least, not anymore) cuz people who act that way tend to have their shit called out by everyone else. you see it a lot elsewhere tho

Honestly surprised I'm not the only person in existence who also dislikes Scythe. Always thought it was the most overrated 'classic' megawad.

Always seemed generic, easy and boring. I guess it's a good wad for newcomers, but for any experienced player it must be a bore for most of its levels, they're just too easy and chill, even on UV. There's maybe 4 or 5 levels, out of 32, where I had difficulty in. 'C' sounds like a fair grade for it.

9 minutes ago, Juza said:

Honestly surprised I'm not the only person in existence who also dislikes Scythe. Always thought it was the most overrated 'classic' megawad.

Always seemed generic, easy and boring. I guess it's a good wad for newcomers, but for any experienced player it must be a bore for most of its levels, they're just too easy and chill, even on UV. There's maybe 4 or 5 levels, out of 32, where I had difficulty in. 'C' sounds like a fair grade for it.

i think - i think - it's more deemed a classic due to the third episode rather than the first two

17 minutes ago, Juza said:

Honestly surprised I'm not the only person in existence who also dislikes Scythe. Always thought it was the most overrated 'classic' megawad.

Always seemed generic, easy and boring. I guess it's a good wad for newcomers, but for any experienced player it must be a bore for most of its levels, they're just too easy and chill, even on UV. There's maybe 4 or 5 levels, out of 32, where I had difficulty in. 'C' sounds like a fair grade for it.

Yeah, the first couple of episodes certainly aren't targeted at experienced Doomers. A lot of people I talk to say it was either their first or at least one of their first megawads, and I think that as a first megawad it's a great pick. I've always enjoyed the first two episodes of Scythe even as a decent player who isn't threatened by them because of Erik Alm's breezy and simplistic mapping style. It's like a quick snack in Doom form.

I agree that the first half of Scythe was mostly filler, but episode 2 had some neat ideas, 16-20 in particular

in my mind Scythe's map 30 is the hardest level I've ever beat lol, hard than any non-secret level in Valiant or Ancient Aliens.

But I played it in 2005 so my mind is probably messing up with me.

Not sure if the wad aged well, but at the time it was exactly what I was looking for, and beating the later maps, harder than anything in the IWADs, was a very accomplishing task. For an experienced doomer, though, the first two episodes might feel indeed a waste of time, but for me it was perfect and the slow difficulty curve is great for new doomers who want to keep testing their abilities.

33 minutes ago, Deadwing said:

in my mind Scythe's map 30 is the hardest level I've ever beat lol, hard than any non-secret level in Valiant or Ancient Aliens.

But I played it in 2005 so my mind is probably messing up with me.

no, your mind isn't. it's a long, difficult slog, and is honestly one of the hardest levels i've ever beaten as well

The latest Dean of Doom episode is on Heartland. 

Interesting to see MtPain focus on a newly released mapset. Not too much personally to add, other than this continues to be a really professionally put-together series of videos.

Hadn't heard of this guy before seeing this thread, but watching the first few episodes, I'm already a fan. Definitely gonna catch up and follow along.

Haven't watched the whole video but here is the newest video

Looking forward to the Scythe II one when that happens 

I'm very happy to see more attention brought to NRFTL and especially the extremely underrated midi pack for it :D

I really love MtPain's content, since I haven't played doom for 10+ years it was a very good guideline regarding pwads for me. I missed out on so much, but now i have an idea which of those wads i could like.

Oh and @rd., no offense at all, but you really should review your video quality, I barely can't see anything on the vid you posted. Maybe some very low bitrate or something? 

10 minutes ago, entrywayy said:

Oh and @rd., no offense at all, but you really should review your video quality, I barely can't see anything on the vid you posted. Maybe some very low bitrate or something? 

I don't want to switch over to my video recording setup for brief clips made on a whim, and given that it's just a brief clip, I thought the gist was enough.

It should be viewable at least, though, enough to see more than "barely anything" -- so I'm guessing YT might be only displaying the lowest quality option for you. 

On 4/14/2021 at 5:43 PM, Bauul said:

The latest Dean of Doom episode is on Heartland. 

 

Interesting to see MtPain focus on a newly released mapset. Not too much personally to add, other than this continues to be a really professionally put-together series of videos.

indeed, i was surprised by its quality.

A new episode on No Rest For The Living was released recently. Thoughts?

All I have to say is that the new episode makes me want to replay NRFTL again, even though I didn't like it the first time around.

Quote

-snip- 

I'm kinda tired of people just hating on things on DW lately without the least bit of analysis or specificity behind it, so this grated on me and I deleted it. 

Not doing that to defend MtPain specifically -- people are obviously allowed to voice criticism here. But please keep it constructive.  "Can't stand that dude's voice and the way he talks" is just an insult. 

Try again tomorrow maybe. 

10 hours ago, northivanastan said:

All I have to say is that the new episode makes me want to replay NRFTL again, even though I didn't like it the first time around.

Really? The midis might improve a few maps(Earth Base and Vivisector in particular), but it doesn't change how certain maps are just too big for their own good and the visuals were largely unspetacular. There were some great fights though (the yellow key ambush in Map 01, for instance.),

1 hour ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Really? The midis might improve a few maps(Earth Base and Vivisector in particular), but it doesn't change how certain maps are just too big for their own good and the visuals were largely unspetacular. There were some great fights though (the yellow key ambush in Map 01, for instance.),

I think I didn't give it a fair shake last time, partly because I was playing on Doomsday with freelook, and partly because I wasn't very skilled. Plus the original MIDI choices in NRFTL were not particularly good, so new music does change things.

Opinions are such a funny thing in how varied they can be.. To me, growing up with and loving the stock standard campaigns of Doom 1 and 2, in addition to an assortment of wads from the 90s (many of which I still consider good enough to recommend to other Doomers), I found NRFTL to be one of the most gorgeous examples of vanilla texture usage I’ve ever seen.. and I still think so!

I agree that NRFTL is a great-looking map set. I also thought it was pretty good to play, although the ending was a bit underwhelming!

 Dean of Doom is a great series, although it does have the odd distinction for me in that I’m actually hoping my work doesn’t feature, as I think his preferences, love of good MIDI and favouring of skillsaw’s work wouldn’t do me any favours...

 I’ll be watching keenly for when he’s covered most of the most popular releases, though, as his insight will be pretty valuable off of the beaten track for people looking for something a bit less mainstream to play!

I love Pain's videos so much, as indicated by the obnoxious bloviations I've left on several of his videos to now, haha. DoD is professional, entertaining, funny, honest, and thorough, basically the whole package that I could ask for in any given game review. He motivated me to finally get around to Eviternity, which was great, and he made it clear TNT Revilution was a must-play for a TNT apologist such as myself, and now it's one of my top five megawads. Even when I don't always agree with him, he at least makes me consider the upsides of works I didn't like. I've thought for awhile Alien Vendetta was overrated, but after viewing his praise on it, I really want to give the wad another playthrough... playing it vanilla this time, which I did not do previously. His digression on the Valiant video made me appreciate playing levels vanilla and realized I can't fairly judge most of them unless I do that. 

But Pain raised so much interest in Doom that DoD finally got me to start posting on here. I think what he's doing is really enriching the community and encouraging discussion on what does and does not make great level design. If there's anyone here who has not watched Dean of Doom yet, do yourself a favor and jump right into it. I'd even recommend starting at the beginning, which was another factor that got me interested, since the VERY FIRST thing he covered was TNT Evilution, which Civvie-11 has flatly refused to cover. I was ticked at Civvie for that, but Pain made up in spades with an informative look that showed the upsides of Final Doom's more underrated half. He had twelve episodes by the time I noticed DoD existed, but I started at the very beginning and was glad to catch up. He does noticeably seem a bit more shy in his early videos, but he's definitely grown more confident over time. I think he gets his full grasp around episode eight, done on my favorite dang megawad of all time, Ancient Aliens. 

Ugh, I'm fanboying out. Just watch Dean of Doom if you haven't, that's all I can really say!

2 hours ago, Sotenga said:

I love Pain's videos so much, as indicated by the obnoxious bloviations I've left on several of his videos to now, haha. DoD is professional, entertaining, funny, honest, and thorough, basically the whole package that I could ask for in any given game review. He motivated me to finally get around to Eviternity, which was great, and he made it clear TNT Revilution was a must-play for a TNT apologist such as myself, and now it's one of my top five megawads. Even when I don't always agree with him, he at least makes me consider the upsides of works I didn't like. I've thought for awhile Alien Vendetta was overrated, but after viewing his praise on it, I really want to give the wad another playthrough... playing it vanilla this time, which I did not do previously. His digression on the Valiant video made me appreciate playing levels vanilla and realized I can't fairly judge most of them unless I do that. 

 

But Pain raised so much interest in Doom that DoD finally got me to start posting on here. I think what he's doing is really enriching the community and encouraging discussion on what does and does not make great level design. If there's anyone here who has not watched Dean of Doom yet, do yourself a favor and jump right into it. I'd even recommend starting at the beginning, which was another factor that got me interested, since the VERY FIRST thing he covered was TNT Evilution, which Civvie-11 has flatly refused to cover. I was ticked at Civvie for that, but Pain made up in spades with an informative look that showed the upsides of Final Doom's more underrated half. He had twelve episodes by the time I noticed DoD existed, but I started at the very beginning and was glad to catch up. He does noticeably seem a bit more shy in his early videos, but he's definitely grown more confident over time. I think he gets his full grasp around episode eight, done on my favorite dang megawad of all time, Ancient Aliens. 

 

Ugh, I'm fanboying out. Just watch Dean of Doom if you haven't, that's all I can really say!

Your story and mine is very similar. While I'm not quite a TNT apologist because I believe contemporary wads to it like Memento Mori, Icarus, and perhaps Eternal Doom are just overall better, the debated highlights in TNT (Mill, Storage Facility(or Map 11), Dead Zone, Prison and I could go on)  are much better  I was part of a Doom Facebook group and played wads on a moderately decent occasion when somebody posted a link to one of his videos a few days after he uploaded the Thy Flesh Consumed episode. After that I watched parts of some his videos (Ancient Aliens, Sigil, Scythe, and Eviternity) I realized there might be some modern WADs actually worth playing, even if they have large slaughter sections that I'm...not necessarily indifferent too, but I just keep thinking there should be more projects like Akeldama in development where the slaughter is about as constrained as Revilution at least, I need to play both of those, lol). That doesn't matter though, because I am now back BIG into Doom, and eventually plan to play through Going Down, Ancient Aliens, and Alien Vendetta at the very least, though the latter will likely be with a companion mod because of the last 5 maps sound very difficult, even by the standards of Stardate 20x6 and other shit I genuine don't see myself playing. I would use 180 Minutes Pour de Vivre as a comparison point, but I'm not sure if you've played it, and perhaps you shouldn't because the last 3 maps particularly on UV.....let's just say I haven't played the last few yet because I know how long it would take, and I know I'll have to drop to HMP at some point because I had to get through a trap on Map 19, but things worked out otherwise).

Glad to have any TNT fans around, LMD! I agree it's an uneven wad, but the highs are really high. And yes, GD and AA are very worth playing. I want to give AV another fair shake sometime myself, but yes, maps 25 through 28 are highly excruciating and may break the spirit of anyone not expecting what they have in store. 

And I haven't played 180 Minutes yet, I'm afraid, but I've heard a lot of good about it, even if it is really hard. Though I'm not sure it gets much harder nowadays than Ribbiks. I tried to take on Stardate 20X6 with Combine Kegan's Space Hunter, and I couldn't even swing that. I highly respect Ribbiks as much as I curse him, lol. Random sidebar, but yeah.

I just wonder what else is worth my time, difficult or no. I trust Pain to tell us what's recommended, because MAN, TNT Revilution was a blast-and-a-half to play. I might not have if he didn't praise it as much as he did!

16 minutes ago, Sotenga said:

TNT fans

I am so fan of TNT: Evilution that my nickname happens to be its Castilian translation.

New video kids!

Was waiting the whole day for this

Judging by the comment at the end... is Scythe 2 (maybe Hell Revealed 2) going to be the first X-difficulty WAD on the show?