Unpopular Doom Opinions

Some of the Master Levels are OK (Sverre's Black Tower is the magnum opus of the collection imho) and there's a lot of good authors attached to what's on offer, but half of the issue is there's better works by them for free, and the way these levels are setup is very lazy (continuous play is impossible without modern packaging methods) resulting in the player getting weapons near the end they'll never get to use because the authors weren't informed that their maps were going to be single level affairs iirc.

Here's a hot take that will shock you all:

even as a Doom boomer I find Doom Eternal the best game in the series!

My opinion is that almost every IoS map I've played could have been replaced with something better. Even the good IoS maps. Every time I get to the end of a wad and see that it's an IoS fight, I get disappointed. I don't think it's that interesting of a concept, and no matter how creative the fight is set up and choreographed I always feel that something better could have been done. I'm not counting maps like the IoS fight in Golden Souls 2 or Brutal Doom where the boss is heavily modified and just resembles the IoS.

Killing the IoS rarely feels like an epic grand finale. Sometimes it just feels like "okay, this is the last map so it has to be an IoS fight". It feels obligatory. I'd much rather have an epic climb up a tower, a descent into hell, something climactic. Every time I get to a final map and hear Romero's voice, it feels silly and robs the map of its atmosphere. It kills the immersion for me. A "shoot the rocket into the hole" boss is the same thing as a "hit the obvious weak spot" boss, and I think that stuff works better in other games, not Doom. At least modify the boss to look different and say something different. I feel like the reasoning for a lot of IoS fights is along the lines of "we all know the original IoS fight sucks, but we can make it better". But that's not saying much considering thay we all know the original IoS fight sucks (except for you, because you're a contrarian hipster - I read your mind like Psycho Mantis). Even if you make a good IoS fight, I think you can make something else that is better.

5 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

"shoot the rocket into the hole"

There should definately be an alternative gimmick, like a crusher which you can only activate after commiting action X.

On 9/12/2023 at 8:40 PM, Matt Mello said:

Doom 64 is overrated and both halves of Final Doom are exponentially better than it.

Also, I'm sick to death of so many WAD's nowadays ending with a slaughter map. Everyone talks shit about Icon of Sin maps and how every WAD back in the 90's and early 2000's ended with an IoS battle, but nowadays the Map 30 slot is always just an over the top slaughterfest instead. It feels a lot more overdone, IMHO.

 

Also, I've mentioned it before but I like the Icon of Sin as a concept and I even like a lot of Icon of Sin maps themselves. I really do think the reason they get such a bad rep is because the very first IoS map from Doom II actually did kinda suck. Doom II made a bad first impression and everyone now just dismisses the Icon of Sin automatically.

Even within the four core IWAD's, both TNT and Plutonia have much better IoS maps. TNT has the platform puzzle challenge and the short map before the fight with the Demon-Spitter and Plutonia's final map really feels like "Icon of Sin: Good Version" with its more manageable platform to take down the Gatekeeper with and also having a Cyberdemon boss battle as well.

The exact opposite, Doom 64 is an amazing game and is actually fun.

But both final dooms are better.

1 minute ago, Sonikkumania said:

There should definately be an alternative gimmick, like a crusher which you can only activate after commiting action X.

That's a good idea and a good example of what I'm talking about. There are a lot of different ways to "evolve" the fight, for lack of a better term, past its relatively primitive idea. There have been times where I've seen people compliment an IoS map as being creative, and then when I play it it's still the same "shoot the hole" concept, but this time the map is better and you shoot the hole from a more thought-out vantage point. That can still be a good map on a technical level, don't get me wrong. But I think it's a little boring to end a good wad with the same act of shooting a rocket through a hole and then watching a very short and unsatisfying explosion before the screen melts and shows you your stats. It feels really abrupt and off-putting to me. It's like someone put their finger on the record while it was still spinning and stopped the music.

The amount of maps having a hardcoded limit (Don't actually know if that's true, but it seems to be) seems to incentivize well meaning P and I WAD creators to make overly long maps to deliver the most bang for the limited buck.

I like short maps, and would rather play twice of them than one amount of slogmaps.

Thus, "Hardcoded map limits hold back the game"

Edit:
Oh, I think it is unfortunate that tagged secrets are the default and not an optional thing for vanilla Doom.

On one hand: Satisfying sound effect when finding it.

On the other hand: If the secrets are too obtuse, they can frustrate on the intermission screen by tanking the totals.

1 hour ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

My opinion is that almost every IoS map I've played could have been replaced with something better. Even the good IoS maps. Every time I get to the end of a wad and see that it's an IoS fight, I get disappointed. I don't think it's that interesting of a concept, and no matter how creative the fight is set up and choreographed I always feel that something better could have been done. I'm not counting maps like the IoS fight in Golden Souls 2 or Brutal Doom where the boss is heavily modified and just resembles the IoS.

 

Killing the IoS rarely feels like an epic grand finale. Sometimes it just feels like "okay, this is the last map so it has to be an IoS fight". It feels obligatory. I'd much rather have an epic climb up a tower, a descent into hell, something climactic. Every time I get to a final map and hear Romero's voice, it feels silly and robs the map of its atmosphere. It kills the immersion for me. A "shoot the rocket into the hole" boss is the same thing as a "hit the obvious weak spot" boss, and I think that stuff works better in other games, not Doom. At least modify the boss to look different and say something different. I feel like the reasoning for a lot of IoS fights is along the lines of "we all know the original IoS fight sucks, but we can make it better". But that's not saying much considering thay we all know the original IoS fight sucks (except for you, because you're a contrarian hipster - I read your mind like Psycho Mantis). Even if you make a good IoS fight, I think you can make something else that is better.

I agree actually. To the point I prefer if there's no IoS but something else.

My fav spins on IoS have been in Anomaly Report and Doom Zero so far.

AR makes it much more interesting and intertwined with the other fights whereas as DZ has a while simple but cool respin on it.

5 hours ago, zokum said:

To me Maximum Doom was a bit meh

Say what??

8 hours ago, zokum said:

To me Maximum Doom was a bit meh, I don't think I ever saw it in shops here in Norway. It's not as bad as Final Doom is, value for money wise, but it's still fairly meh.

Did you mix up the names or do you really think that a shovelware collection is better than Final Doom?

^^ Now THAT'S an unpopular opinion!!!

Old-timey id Software was pretty bad at designing "combat" bosses, they preferred "puzzle" bosses. Quite often the bosses live in places where there's a completely gratuitous boss-killing device that you just need to use instead of actually fighting the boss.

In Commander Keen you shot a chain to make a weight fall on the vorticon commander. Entering the arena while he was alive was a sure-fire way to get a gameover, no amount of gitting gud would let you win in "normal" combat.

In Doom there's the gratuitous elevator to nowhere that's loaded with a ton of rocket ammo. That elevator doesn't even try to pretend it has a purpose other than letting you ride it to shoot the brain hole.

In Quake they had Chthon who had an electrocution system installed in his bathtub, and Shubby who had a bespoke flying teleport destination going through her regularly.

Each time it was a mechanic that was basically used for the boss and only the boss.

Wolf 3D had only combat bosses, but they're kinda boring too. There's hitscan boss and then there's missile boss, and there's even a hitscan+missile boss, too! Other than that, they all have the same IA or walking around randomly while always looking at you since they don't have rotations.

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Old-timey id Software was pretty bad at designing "combat" bosses, they preferred "puzzle" bosses. Quite often the bosses live in places where there's a completely gratuitous boss-killing device that you just need to use instead of actually fighting the boss.

I think it's definitely their weak point, with Quake's final boss being even more disappointing (to me) than the Icon of Sin. Hell, even the original Doom has a laughable final battle. Even regardless of the difficulty, it just isn't a cool fight to end the game on. I'm glad that the Spider Mastermind exists because pwads, but in terms of the game itself, on its own, they could have done something so much better by creating a climactic encounter using the existing enemies instead of an obligatory boss fight. Because the Mastermind is just a shit battle in OG Doom. id's attempts at boss fights are just at odds with their gameplay/engine tech in general. I guess the Cyberdemon comes closest, but I never even considered that or the E1 ending battle to be actual boss fights. But they're still better than the E3 ending, IoS, or Quake.

So the question must be asked: what are GOOD examples of boss battles in mid '90's FPS games?  The one in Duke Nukem 64?? That giant four armed guy in Serious Sam?

1 hour ago, Maximum Matt said:

So the question must be asked: what are GOOD examples of boss battles in mid '90's FPS games?  The one in Duke Nukem 64?? That giant four armed guy in Serious Sam?

Don't forget the incredible bosses in Blood and Shadow Warrior. I'd say Heretic did them best, but they're still not anything great either.

I think even new ID struggles with it a bit.

Doom 2016 had pretty great bossfights though but by contrast many in Eternal are gimmicky.

Especially Dark Lord. Bigger Marauder who can heal and has 5 phases, yay, lol.

There's a mod that makes him vulnerable outside his stun window but also more aggressive. It makes the fight so much better.

18 hours ago, Lofwyr said:

The amount of maps having a hardcoded limit (Don't actually know if that's true, but it seems to be) seems to incentivize well meaning P and I WAD creators to make overly long maps to deliver the most bang for the limited buck.

 

I like short maps, and would rather play twice of them than one amount of slogmaps.

 

Thus, "Hardcoded map limits hold back the game"

 

Edit:
Oh, I think it is unfortunate that tagged secrets are the default and not an optional thing for vanilla Doom.

On one hand: Satisfying sound effect when finding it.

On the other hand: If the secrets are too obtuse, they can frustrate on the intermission screen by tanking the totals.

Short maps Are great. Have you played 10 line genocide?

My unpopular Doom opinion is that after some time analyzing the map authors, I've come to realize that I really like Sandy Petersen's mapping. Too bad he doesn't feel like making a comeback like Romero did.

Cacodemons are boring to fight and often annoy me more than barons as bullet sponges simply because barons are super rare in modern wads and only used when they 100% will work.

7 minutes ago, Antiquated said:

Cacodemons are boring to fight and often annoy me more than barons as bullet sponges simply because barons are super rare in modern wads and only used when they 100% will work.

Depends on the situation. A horde of cacos is really annoying, but two or three hovering around while you fight lots of ground enemies can actually be interesting.

7 minutes ago, DoomGappy said:

Depends on the situation. A horde of cacos is really annoying, but two or three hovering around while you fight lots of ground enemies can actually be interesting.

Of course, that's cool. My opinion is probably tainted a bit from having just played through cliffside siege from SoD.

Reminds me of MAP30 of NOVA III, which just DESTROYS an arena with Cacodemons, just an AVALANCHE of Cacos. It was honestly more funny than hard but it was really unexpected.

Another one: I actually like how Brutal Doom and its variants change some of the behaviours of enemies. It makes the experience completely different from what vanilla is. The only downside is that it's generally a gorefest. I would totally play a mod that replaces some of the behaviors of enemies but remains mostly vanilla in relation to the levels of gore and other things like that. It is one of the things that got me into Doom, admittedly. Ah, to be young again!

Tim Willits' maps are far worst than Sandy Petersen's. 

2 minutes ago, DoomGappy said:

Another one: I actually like how Brutal Doom and its variants change some of the behaviours of enemies. It makes the experience completely different from what vanilla is. The only downside is that it's generally a gorefest. I would totally play a mod that replaces some of the behaviors of enemies but remains mostly vanilla in relation to the levels of gore and other things like that. It is one of the things that got me into Doom, admittedly. Ah, to be young again!

Doesn't it allow to reduce the amount of gore in the settings? Haven't played it in a good while, so I can't remember.

1 minute ago, Amaruψ said:

 

Doesn't it allow to reduce the amount of gore in the settings? Haven't played it in a good while, so I can't remember.

I don't know, I haven't played it either, but it's gotten pretty bloated with lots of custom weapons and enemies and different patterns of attack. It was a very important and influential mod, and it certainly contributed to the popularity of the franchise in recent years, the way I see it, but it's not something I feel the same fun playing now as I did back then. I'd wish for something more conservative and middle ground. 

4 hours ago, Antiquated said:

Cacodemons are boring to fight and often annoy me more than barons as bullet sponges simply because barons are super rare in modern wads and only used when they 100% will work.

I'd agree with both you and @DoomGappy here. Perfect Hatred honestly ruined my outlook for the Cacodemons, given how sudden a large horde is thrown at you. Even in death, they find a way to annoy you by being a massive heap of gore to obscure incoming projectiles. 

Painful flying tomatoes indeed.

Just now, DoomGappy said:

I don't know, I haven't played it either, but it's gotten pretty bloated with lots of custom weapons and enemies and different patterns of attack. It was a very important and influential mod, and it certainly contributed to the popularity of the franchise in recent years, the way I see it, but it's not something I feel the same fun playing now as I did back then. I'd wish for something more conservative and middle ground. 

Oh I know that feeling. Worst that came out of this was Project Brutality which is... even worst when it comes to bloating the game with weapons and enemies. I recall even on my decent laptop it caused GZDoom to slow down to a crawl at times, due to the sheer amount of unnecessary animations and stuff loading about. 

But yea, Brutal Doom does indeed allow a vanilla option, now that I remember. Gore can be reduced significantly in the settings and having vanilla weapons is also a thing, while keeping the new enemy behavior. Not that I'd play BD again (because I've recently for whatever reason got a bigger appreciation for the original game).

6 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

 

Oh I know that feeling. Worst that came out of this was Project Brutality which is... even worst when it comes to bloating the game with weapons and enemies. I recall even on my decent laptop it caused GZDoom to slow down to a crawl at times, due to the sheer amount of unnecessary animations and stuff loading about. 

 

But yea, Brutal Doom does indeed allow a vanilla option, now that I remember. Gore can be reduced significantly in the settings and having vanilla weapons is also a thing, while keeping the new enemy behavior. Not that I'd play BD again (because I've recently for whatever reason got a bigger appreciation for the original game).

Damn, I might have to give it a spin. I don't remember a lot about, but I too have grown fonder of the original game and the way it was desigend. I guess it comes with playing it a lot more, and seeing just how amazing the original Doom already was, even without any modding involved. Greatest game of all time.

I'm sure someone has said this before, but felt like contributing anyway.  

Maps with, I'm not sure the right vocabulary, with "hard starts"  

Maps where as soon as it loads monsters are aware of you, and you have to try and find weapons while every corner you turn wakes more monsters up.  Majority of the time it feels more frustrating than fun.  Most of the levels I've had issues with aren't set up to make infighting a good strategy either.  Cramped areas, perched Revs or chaingunners everyhwere etc.  I like Maps that require Infighting but those type of starts specifically not my thing.

I quite like Habitat from TNT, I even decided to write a shit ton about my experiences in the map, enjoy.

"Also I can say it's not that unfun to play, sure the sewers are kinda eh, but they weren't that bad to find my way through, I did play on UV by the way, and at the start I had an awful health and ammo deficiency (at one point I had only 11 health and literally nothing for ammo, and I decided, fuck it, lets punch out a very damaged baron without berserk, which I proceed to do). The sewers were at first somewhat painful having only an ssg with 4 shells and ofc 11%, but then as soon as I got into the first of the side areas, it got way easier. Other than that, the only parts that gave me at least a bit of trouble were any times that archviles showed up, but in particular, the last fight gave me some trouble, thanks to the fucking mancubi fireballs going through the walls. 

The map visually isn't actually that bad, and some areas look quite cool, such as the room with the yellow key (this is before it goes dark), the sludge pouring into the water, and even the sewers and it's matching side tunnels look kinda cool. Of course, texture alignment in quite a few areas is practically non-existent, but oh well. The map as a whole feels quite newbie in a similar vein as Map 16, although I'd describe Habitat as the creation of an overly ambitious newbie, which is partially helped by the big rooms with not much in them."

If I had to give this map a MtPain style rating it'd be:

Or so.

I even UV-Maxed it, and I also managed to do a BMD and get all items. (With saves though).

Don't believe me? Here you go:

There.