What was the first wad you played where you realized you had bit off way more than you can chew?

I started playing PWADS for the first time in 2015, and then I picked Valiant, the first episode was manageable, the next ones were a bit too hard for me.

 

E4M1 got me real good. Tough map. 

stardate 20x7

1 hour ago, PeterMoro said:

E4M1 got me real good. Tough map. 

Yeah I definitively wanted to reply that xD you have no fucking health at your disposition, this map is a living nightmare 

But If I may quote a WAD It would be Sunlust, it was the first slaugthermap I played... And I didn't even knew what "slaugthermaps" means at the time, I was a perfect doom noob, if only I had known what Sunlust really was...

Alien Vendetta back in the early 2000s. Didn't think it would be much different from Memento Mori or Requiem or Icarus or any other megaWAD I had played up until then. 

Truthfully, I still haven't gotten back around to it. One day I will. I've only been catching up with Doom stuff for the past few years, so I'll eventually get around to it. 

Probably Hell Revealed. At first I thought it would be another 90's classic style megawad but that wasn't true.

scythe's third episode destroyed me

Go2It from Plutonia.

My first experience with slaughter-ish gameplay.

I only played continous with no mid-level saves and I got destroyed.

Hundreds of attempts and then I had t9 break my no save rule before the final fight with 3 Cyberdemons.

As a punishment I made myself play the rest of Plutonia pistol-start with no saves.

I had a lot of fun, got into pistol starting and became much better at the game.

To recall, I first played Doom in June 2020. All the IWADs in about a week (still in school at the time). Shortly after, I would discover Sunlust, which became my primary inspiration and learning tool for my mapping career.

But even when you're challenge's big admirer and you're recognized as a sadistic mapper sometimes, you still have your limits.

For me, it was everything the speedrunning community loves most. Dimensions, Frog and Toad, Poogers, some of Ribbiks' releases on the highest difficulties, and more.

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On this subject, I do consider myself lucky that I took a liking to the more niche and difficult type of Doom maps out there. Primarily due to how they put together interesting combat scenarios with the use of monsters and ease of modern source ports. As opposed to what most people would consider "normal", which is just incidental combat - fodder enemies here and there with no interesting and memorable setpieces. I wouldn't be playing Doom to this day if it weren't for people like @Insane_Gazebo and Ribbiks who have helped bring new things to the table and keep Doom's gameplay fresh, no matter how "ball-crushing" it may be.

It saddens me when I see people wrinkle their noses when there's more than 10 monsters on the screen. I always feel like there's more than what meets the eye in the more difficult/niche genre of maps out there. But then again, I hate when people are stubborn - biting off more than they can chew, and forcing it down their throat.

It's okay to admire things from a distance. You don't need to prove yourself.

20 minutes ago, KeaganDunn said:

 

 

It saddens me when I see people wrinkle their noses when there's more than 10 monsters on the screen. I always feel like there's more than what meets the eye in the more difficult/niche genre of maps out there. But then again, I hate when people are stubborn - biting off more than they can chew, and forcing it down their throat.

 

I'm very confused. Why should it? you are you, they are them. It probably saddens them to see people wrinkle their nose at people wrinkling their nose when there's more than 10 monsters on the screen. The latter half of the post comes across like a bit of nearly off-topic venting, to be honest.

Back on the actual topic of the thread, I have one more to add. Doom 2 map10, Refueling Base. Pretty big roadblock when I first approached the IWADS ages ago. 

One time I was exploring some wads to play and review for newstuff Chronicles. I wanted to smash a wad in a day. There was was available in the queue called Valiant. Didn't read much into it but and decided to go ahead.

I had no idea I was playing some masterpiece megawad that kicked my arse haha

For me, Slaughterfest 2012. I heard the midi for map 24 and I thought to myself "I have to play this wad!". Needless to say, I couldn't even finish the beginning of the first map, it was just too much for me at the time. I had only really played BTSX before then, so I wasn't quite ready. I revisited the wad fairly recently and to my pleasant surprise I was able to beat the map with ease, and finally played the other maps. It was a great experience to show how much I had improved since that first exposure. 

Context; I play on either hmp or uv, pistol starts with saves (sometimes saves mid fight). (Ps no apologies, it's how I enjoy the game the most).

- Miasma, and Sunlust.

(Specifically, Inverti in Darkness with the rocket launcher/vile area by the start, and Proxyron, with the imps from both sides on the stairs. I thought that I had reached fights where even with saves I simply could not get through them.)

The one I quit because of difficulty was the okuplok slaughter map. Reached the Revenant-Cyberdemon area after hundreds of saves and loads and then instantly noped outta there. Still, I consider it an achievement as I was playing keyboard only :P

Other than that, can't really think of any.

Eviternity actually. I had only recently started playing Doom when Eviternity came out. I saw decino play through the first few maps at the time, and i thought i'd give it a go. Got my ass handed to me at the beginning of chapter 2 and realized that i was nowhere near the level required to play this on UV. Tried out Valiant next with similar results.

After that, i went back to Doom 2 and focused on learning to do pistolstarts. Upgraded to Plutonia afterwards and then Hell Revealed, which is where i hit another big road block for some time (Maps 13 & 14...). But when i eventually got through that one and returned to Eviternity and Valiant, i realized i had come a long way and could now play mapsets like that on UV with pistolstarts and still have fun.

Since i am not a very good player it is not unusual for me to get destroyed by some of the community content. However, there are three particular wads i would like to mention.

Around 2006 i rediscovered Doom through the gba port. After beating the game I went online and looked for other ports (thinking of finding console ports) and discovered the wonderful world of source-ports and iwads. I asked on the gamefaqs forum and got Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed and Icarus the Alien Vanguard as recommendations

You can imagine how that went haha. I had completely forgotten about Hell Revealed until i saw Mtpain video recently and reminded that it was "that" mod.

I have been playing doom on and off since then.

Early during the Covid Pandemic i built a pc and started playing online with some friends, we mostly played L4D, rocket league and some other coop games. By my suggestion we gave Doom a try and beat the original campaigns and some other wads. 

While looking for something to play with them i stumbled upon Super Mayhem 17. It was a Mario theme wad, i was expecting something easy and fun. We got destroyed and it was an eye opener on how hard some of the community content could be.

Hell Revealed fucked me up pretty bad, and I thought I was half-way decent at doom.

Plutonia 2. Tried to play it immediately after finishing Plutonia, did not have the skill (and was also playing on the Doomsday Engine, which was a horrible idea). It beat my ass again several months later, on Crispy Doom, when I thought I had the experience for it but didn't really.

Idem for Plutonia 2, i had purged that on my mind until i read that name again, trying that without mouse was really a pain.

Hellbound. Less so because of difficulty, but moreso because of length. Every level feels like a journey in it's own right, occasionally to the point of exhaustion, haha.

Still love Hellbound though <3

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

The one I quit because of difficulty was the okuplok slaughter map. Reached the Revenant-Cyberdemon area after hundreds of saves and loads and then instantly noped outta there. Still, I consider it an achievement as I was playing keyboard only :P

 

Other than that, can't really think of any.

It took me dozens of tries to even get past the platforms at the beginning, despite save scumming. But I kept trying. Once I got past the first room I think I started getting better. It took me almost a year of playing with continuous save scumming to get to the end, but I did it. Then I played it with Russian Overkill, just to feel better.

Sunlust. more specifically, God Machine on Ultra-Violence. the only reason i played it was through a dare from a friend (i hadn't heard of Sunlust by that point). good times, good fucking times.

Dark Tartarus.

Yeahhh... Sunlust.

Looks beautiful and loads of rave reviews etc. Started it and thought - hmm yes, absolutely stunning level design. Oh!! FUUUUUCKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>dead<<

I'm definitely not a slaughtermap player...

Honestly, Sunlust. UVMAXED it single segment, pistol start around six months ago. Also, credit to A1s and Decino for the strats for Sunlust. Couldn't have done it without ya.

Currently working on Stardate 20x6 right now - on map 07. Map 06 was pretty annoying to be honest. I feel that the later maps of Stardate 20x6 are a bit too long for my liking. I much prefer maps to be around the 15 - 20 min mark. It's very frustrating when you've beaten several high profile fights that rely on RNG (infighting mostly) and you die to a final battle. 

When I was just a wee lad......after beating Plutonia, I thought I could handle Scythe. The whole last episode (esp map 30 holy FUCK) humbled me like I was never humbled before. 

when I was early into doom community wads I saw Going Down recommended a lot and I liked the concept so I tried it... with Brutal Doom.  Ok that was way too much.  Then I tried it again, prob on HMP, and I got to the level where tons of revenants stream down the stairs infront of a spidermastermind... needless to say I felt a bit too overwhelmed at the time and quit, lol.  It's a fairly difficult and chaotic wad after all.  I don't even think I had always run on, which later made me much better at the game.  Thankfully I returned recently and have been having a great time on stream on UV so this story had a good ending :)

Scythe 2 on UV blind, it taught me not to play on UV unless i knew the maps beforehand on lower difficulties

2 hours ago, i suck at nicknames said:

When I was just a wee lad......after beating Plutonia, I thought I could handle Scythe. The whole last episode (esp map 30 holy FUCK) humbled me like I was never humbled before. 

The first time I tried playing Scythe the difficulty spike of the red hell levels punched me in the guts a thousand times over, and that was when I was using GZdoom with the (I assume) default diffuculty of HMP.

For me since i got into doom from the xbox 360 port then later on the xbox one edition with the add ons. I would have to say for me. All of ep. 4 of Doom 1, No rest for the living, Plutonia (which now i'm making a mini plutonia ep. wad as we speak lol), and i can't remember the last one.