Wad/Map Difficulty Scaling

31 minutes ago, Lewonx said:

I remember DSDA Doom having some major bugs when I was looking at it (worst being complevel 11 didn't working correctly). That was like over a year ago, so I hope, they fixed all the major issues. Still it's currently in version 0.something, isn't this means it's still in beta or something?

If there is anything that has to work correctly 100% of the time is complevels, so I'm surprised to hear that - almost all active speedrunners use DSDA-Doom, so if there was somehow an issue with a complevel not having the correct behaviour it would have been reported very quickly.

 

Regarding the unusual version numbering, the reason it's still in version 0.something is because the developers have set very ambitious goals for an eventual 1.0 release. That doesn't mean that the releases are beta versions (on the contrary), they are very thoroughly tested and in the last few major updates there was even a closed beta testing period to ensure that everything was up to speed before public release.

1 hour ago, Lewonx said:

worst being complevel 11 didn't working correctly

I mean it depends on the definition of cl11 working correctly.

 

If you wanted to make things consistent, then cl11 is working properly. However, if you want cl11 to emulate the "MBF having personal settings", then cl11 is not working properly... It's pretty funny that nobody actually fixes this, and people are tired of it, so cl21 is introduced, and in this time, the different settings for different maps are working properly.

 

Though, MBF has bugs in it (eg: the key bug), and I would say these are not cl11's fault since you have to emulate what's wrong with it as well :p

Think you're ready to tackle Community Chest 1, and Citadel at the Edge of Eternity? I'd really like to see how that one ranks.

 

4 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

Think you're ready to tackle Community Chest 1, and Citadel at the Edge of Eternity? I'd really like to see how that one ranks.

 

Not right now, I will do it later.

2023 Pre-holiday update:

- Added 6 new wads:

1. SIGIL II

2. 100 Line Christmas

3. Cold Front

4. DBP 7: The Merry Christmassy Doom Project

5. Whitemare

6. Winter's Fury

 

-Fixed some grammar

 

Winter's Fury was another mod in the "I wanted to do this one forever ago" category. Somehow it still gets updates 11 years after being released.

 

Cold Front and DBP 7 were fine. Except for the fact that a pillar with yellow key in DBP 7 map 3 wasn't lowering for me, but it's still possible to max the map without the key.

 

100 Line Christmas was very fun.

 

Whitemare is mostly really good. Except for map 16 (it's borderline unplayable, unless you cheese it and BFG the Romero Head from one of the mountains).

 

Speaking of Romero, SIGIL II was a last minute addition, since it came out like 10 days ago. It's fine, but relies way too much on finding obscure secrets.

 

Bonus: Hardest Map I've Beaten From Each Year.

 

Since the new year is soon, here is a recap of hardest map released in each year that I've beaten.

 

1993: House of Pain (The Ultimate Doom) – 2.5

1994: Serenity Forever (SERENITY II aka ETERNITY) – 5.5

1995: The Cleansing (Cleimos 2) – 5

1996: HELLRUN (HELLRUN) – 5.5

1997: Afterlife (Hell Revealed) – 6.5

1998: Hard Descent, Harder Climbings (Cyberdreams) – 4.5

1999: Bermuda Triangle (Bermuda Triangle) – 5

2000: TECH BASE: SECTOR 10 (10 Sectors) – 6

2001: Stench of Evil (Alien Vendetta) – 6

2002: De-Moon Side (2002 A Doom Odyssey) – 4.5

2003: Fire and Ice (Scythe) – 6.5

2004: The Mucus Flow (Community Chest 2) – 7

2005: WHISPERING WINDS (Scythe 2) – 6.5

2006: ?

2007: For We Are Many (Community Chest 3) – 5.5

2008: Ticket to Eternity (Plutonia 2) – 5.5

2009: DUST TO DUST (Scythe 2) – 5

2010: Skagway (UAC Ultra) – 3.5

2011: Launch Bay (Double Impact) – 6

2012: Frozen Time (Frozen Time) – 5

2013: Hyperborean (100 Lines) – 7

2014: The Destination (Rush) – 7

2015: Rocket Zone II (Valiant) – 5

2016: Sanctuary of Filth (No End in Sight) – 5.5

2017: Map 13 (Congestion 192) – 5.5

2018: For Zzul (1-Hour Speedmapping 2018) – 7

2019: The Chasm (NoReason’s Speedmaps) – 7.5 X!

2020: Death God’s Shrine (Rowdy Rudy II: POWERTRIP!) – 5.5

2021: Into Darkness (1 Bad Wad) – 7

2022: Curvular (Curvular) – 7

2023: Vengeance Unleashed (SIGIL II) – 4.5

 

Besides 1993, 1997 is the only year I'm sure I beat the actual hardest level from. 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2019 are also a possibility but I won't be surprised if there was a harder map from each of them.

 

I was at first surprised that I haven't played anything from 2006, but the I looked at 2006 releases, and, as it turns out, almost nothing came out that year.

 

Also, I definitely need to play a harder wad from 2010.

 

Merry upcoming Christmas! Happy upcoming New Year! And Happy upcoming whatever else you'll celebrate!

Update:

-Added 2 new wads

1. Scythe X

2. Speed of Doom

 

Finally finished the Scythe series with Scythe X. Usually I don't do unfinished wads, but this one was abandoned 15 years ago, so it's very unlikely to get updates.

 

Speed of Doom is not as hard as its reputation suggests. It's often compared to Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta, but it's, honestly, not even close to them in terms of difficulty. With good strats its hardest maps aren't that hard, except map 32, the beginning of that one is insane. I really recommend Speed of Doom, if you just finished Iwads and want to get into the slaughter genre.

Edited February 16 by Lewonx : Fixed grammar

Cool.  Glad you finally got to play SOD.  Might I suggest as per your post before this last one that you try Epic 2 for your harder 2010 wad.  

2 hours ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

Cool.  Glad you finally got to play SOD.  Might I suggest as per your post before this last one that you try Epic 2 for your harder 2010 wad.  

Thanks! I won't be playing that much Doom in the near future, so Epic 2 isn't coming anytime soon, but I, maybe, do the first Epic this year.

Update

 

- Added 7 new wads:

1. Arrival

2. Epic

3. CHORD1

4. CHORD2

5. CHORD3

6. CHORDG

7. CHORD_NG

 

-Reconsidered some of the map rankings:

Processing Area from TNT: Evilution goes down from 3 to 2

Ice Cavern from Whitemare goes up from 4 to 4.5

Well of Fire from Cleimos 2 goes up from 3.5 to 4

 

Decided to play a little more Doom.

 

Maps in Arrival are long, but not as hard as I thought they would be.

 

Epic was fun. Still, don't expect me to cover Epic 2 anytime soon.

 

The Chord series was something. Chords 1, 2 and G are hard but manageable. Chord NG was a claustrophobic nightmare. But Chord 3 gave me flashbacks to DEATH from Scythe 2, probably because it's a direct inspiration for that map. It's not as hard, but it's close.

Have you considered playing platforming maps?

1 hour ago, Jacek Bourne said:

Have you considered playing platforming maps?

The current hardest map I've beaten is a mostly platforming level. I've done a few other platforming maps (Ice Riff from Whitemare, We Live in a Society from 1 Bad Wad) along with multiple maps that have instances of hard platforming (For Zzul from 1-Hour Speedmapping 2018, RGC Alpha from No End in Sight).

@Lewonx Just wanted to say, thanks for taking the time to do these write-ups. I always come back to this thread when looking for megawads to play. It's nice to to get a quick overview of what I'm getting into with certain wads, plus it's fun to see how you rank wads I've already played.

OP, could you please share the list in a format easier to add in an excel sheet?

16 hours ago, phaolo said:

OP, could you please share the list in a format easier to add in an excel sheet?

@phaolo Here is a Zip containing the word file with the rankings, no wad descriptions and no top hardest maps from each wad. This is probably easier to add in a sheet.

Doom difficulty levels.zip

On 3/8/2024 at 2:52 PM, Lewonx said:

@phaolo Here is a Zip containing the word file with the rankings, no wad descriptions and no top hardest maps from each wad. This is probably easier to add in a sheet.

Doom difficulty levels.zip

Thank you, I managed to create the spreadsheet.
I'll share it, even if it was made with an old localized Excel, so it will probably need some modifications (I imagine the decimal separator).

If you want to add map\wads in the future, you'll just need to fill in the green columns and extend the rest with the formulas. You can also sort them by wad and map_sort_id.

lewonx's doom maps difficulty list.zip

@phaolo Thank you! This is amazing!

 

Also, I just checked how much maps of each difficulty I've beaten:

 

Unlosable - 59

Easy - 158

Normal - 1115

Hard - 574

Very Hard - 332

Extremely Hard - 58

Very Low Kaizo - 21

Low Kaizo - 10

 

Normal levels dominating and hard levels being in second place is expected. Most people want to play stuff that isn't a cakewalk, but they still can beat.

 

Easy levels are way less common than I thought they would be. Early on, I was especially going for easier wads simply for quantity, and lots of wads have an easy map 1, and, often, easy map 2, but even then, I somehow encountered less than 200 of them.

 

The amount of very hard levels is also very surprising there is over twice as much of them as easy levels and over half as much as hard levels. This is the level, when most people can't beat it without saves, but can beat them with saves without too much trouble. These were especially common in the 2010s specifically, where they were becoming the standart. Nowdays, the challenge wads mostly have way harder levels, while wads that aren't going for difficulty scaled back on those kind of levels.

 

There is also way more unlosable levels than I though. Almost half of them come from jokewads, but even then it's a lot.

 

Extremely hard levels are somewhat rare, this is the difficulty level right above the Iwads, lots of Doom 2 megawads will have one of those as the ultimate challenge, possibly two of those.

 

Kaizo tier stuff is super rare. And from this point, the harder you go, the rarer it becomes.

Very interesting thoughts and findings! I suspect that as the skill ceiling of the collective community has risen but stabilized, easy maps have become less frequent. Super hard maps are probably rare simply because they tend to be massive works that take months or years to produce for a very small subset of players, but that's just my theory.

 

This makes me curious about where some of my own more difficult levels compare, as my own perspective would be skewed as the map creator.

Plutonia 3 Update:

- Added Plutonia 3: Going to Surface

 

What a very faithful and definitely not absolutely insane continuation of Plutonia series.

Update:

- Added 3 new wads:

1. The Trooper's Playground

2. Base Ganymede

3. Scientist 2023

 

-Added Betray to Doom 2

 

More official stuff. The Trooper 's Playground is fine, except when it overuses death pits and damaging floors. A wad this old becoming an official add-on is very surprising. Then again, Betray is even older, the fact that it became an official map is even more surprising, especially considering all the problems it has.

 

Base Ganymede is one of the most requested wads for me to cover. I have no idea, why? It's a good wad, but it's nothing special.

 

Scientist 2023 is an updated version of The Scientist II, which was an updated version of The Scientist. It's an interesting wad with good visuals, decent combat and not so good new weapons.

 

I was asked to rank the wads I beat on quality, so here is the quality ratings:

 

Betray - 4/10

The Trooper's Playground - 6/10

Base Ganymede - 7/10

Scientist 2023 - 7/10

 

Also, here is an updated Excel table per @phaolo's request:

 

lewonx's doom maps difficulty list.zip

Update:

- Added 2 new wads:

1. Harmony

2. REKKR

 

Here come the total conversions that became official add-ons.

 

Harmony was way harder than I thought it would be. The enemies and weapons got rebalanced in a way that you are constantly scrambling for health and ammo, while any enemy encounter is dangerous.

 

REKKR on the other hand is very fun. It's the least Doom-like wad I've played so far, and it felt more, like playing a great new game.

 

These two pretty much border between Doom mods and different games on the Doom engine. Harmony pretty much started as it's own game and got turned into a Doom wad, while the opposite happened to REKKR, where it started as a Doom wad and later became its own game.

 

Quality rankings:

 

Harmony - 6/10

REKKR - 8.5/10

 

Two more official add-ons done, and since I'm not doing Earthless: Prelude because it's a preview of an unfinished wad still in development, only one last add-on left for me to cover. But the one left is the biggest, longest and, possibly, the hardest. BtSX 2 coming next.

 

Also, updated Excel document:

 

lewonx's doom maps difficulty list.zip

Anniversary 2024 update:

- Added 2 new wads:

1. Back to Saturn X Episode 2: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks

2. Tetanus

 

- Reconsidered some of the map rankings:

Silent Hour from Speed of Doom goes up from 4 to 4.5

 

Finally, after 5 years, I'm done with the official add-ons (except that Legacy of Rust recently got released, but I don't have time for it right now). If you want to know my further opinion on all of them, here is my review and ranking of them.

 

Updated Excel document:

 

lewonx's doom maps difficulty list.zip

I like your descriptions of the really hard maps.

 

Any chance you can do Hell Revealed 2 any time soon? That's the one I'm currently playing through.

 

 

9 hours ago, Captain POLAND said:

I like your descriptions of the really hard maps.

 

Any chance you can do Hell Revealed 2 any time soon? That's the one I'm currently playing through.

 

 

I plan doing Hell Revealed 2 next year, I don't have time for a wad this hard right now.

10 hours ago, Lewonx said:

I plan doing Hell Revealed 2 next year, I don't have time for a wad this hard right now.

 

I'm not finding it that hard so far, but I play with liberal saves and unlimited pickup, so my opinion probably doesn't mean that much.

 

 

Spooky update:

Added 3 new wads:

Into Sandy's Cities

Wormwood: Expanded Universe

Halloween DOOM

 

Into Sandy's Cities is the probably the most accurate attempt at emulating id mapping. For the most part it's fun and on par with original Doom II levels. Unfortunately it also emulates bad stuff and sometimes even goes to being worse than anything in Peterson's Doom II maps.

 

Wormwood: Expanded Universe - this one is way harder than it looks. I knew that the cyberdemon pit fight before the yellow skull in map 4 was hard, but I had no idea, how hard it was. Not counting practice, I played that map for 10 hours and got past this fight only 3 times. Honestly, I was kind of lucky to beat the final fight the second time I got to it, considering how random it is. At least, it's easier than map 2 from the first Wormwood. Also, the bonus maps are no joke either, but after map 4, even they felt like a breeze.

 

Halloween DOOM is hilarious. If it wasn't for MS paint like graphics and loud sound replacements, this would have been a very forgettable map, but now it's a so bad it's good masterpiece.

 

Quality rankings:

 

Into Sandy's Cities - 7/10

Wormwood: Expanded Universe - 6/10

Halloween DOOM - 3/10

 

Updated Excel document:

WinRAR ZIP archive.zip

@Lewonx

Thank you for making this thread, I visit it often to find what to torture myself with.

 

I've almost finished Scythe, just one map to go. Fire & Ice wasn't as bad. Sure, it is long, has awkward cyberdemons and lots of stuff that can kill you quickly but  there are no really difficult or random fights. Lots of things can be cheesed. And yet I cannot for the life of me beat map 28 :D. Difficulty is subjective even when rules of comparison are clear.

 

That said... Scythe 2: map 22 is 5.5? Marines can cheesed and everything else is straight forward. Other Scythe 2 maps seem a bit overrated as well, I still struggle with level 5 maps in other wads but can single-segment any map 23 onwards (with lots of practice). Did you perhaps play Scythe 2 long time ago so it felt harder then it would be if you had to grade it today?

7 hours ago, idclip said:

@Lewonx

Thank you for making this thread, I visit it often to find what to torture myself with.

 

I've almost finished Scythe, just one map to go. Fire & Ice wasn't as bad. Sure, it is long, has awkward cyberdemons and lots of stuff that can kill you quickly but  there are no really difficult or random fights. Lots of things can be cheesed. And yet I cannot for the life of me beat map 28 :D. Difficulty is subjective even when rules of comparison are clear.

 

That said... Scythe 2: map 22 is 5.5? Marines can cheesed and everything else is straight forward. Other Scythe 2 maps seem a bit overrated as well, I still struggle with level 5 maps in other wads but can single-segment any map 23 onwards (with lots of practice). Did you perhaps play Scythe 2 long time ago so it felt harder then it would be if you had to grade it today?

 

I played Scythe 2 year and a half after starting this thread, so it wasn't really that long ago. I, honestly, myself was surprised at how much trouble I had with with map 22. I was constantly low on health and ammo. This map is also really cramped and hard to move in, while trying to punch out enemies, I just kept getting stuck and killed.

 

As for Scythe map 28, It plays nothing, like any other map. It's basically a speedrun. I always liked speedrunning short levels in different games, so this level is was very fun and not that hard for me. You need to practice SR40 movement and, maybe, increase your mouse sensitivity, if you need to get through that one.

 

Also, just out of curiosity, what's the hardest map I rated, that you managed to single segment?

On 11/5/2024 at 7:35 PM, Lewonx said:

Also, just out of curiosity, what's the hardest map I rated, that you managed to single segment?

Fire & Ice based on your ratings but as I said it felt relatively straight forward. I struggled quite a bit with scythe 2 map 27 (that mountain fight is hard and is very late in the map). Not sure if this is the hardest but close to it. SoD maps 32 and 23 were a pain as well. Going Down map 17 is not necessarily the hardest but every run is so different because of those archviles. In contrast Demonology was fairly easy.

I haven't beaten TNT Revilution map 30 yet, but don't remember why I struggled so much. Will have to revisit it at some point.

 

On 11/5/2024 at 7:35 PM, Lewonx said:

 

I played Scythe 2 year and a half after starting this thread, so it wasn't really that long ago. I, honestly, myself was surprised at how much trouble I had with with map 22. I was constantly low on health and ammo. This map is also really cramped and hard to move in, while trying to punch out enemies, I just kept getting stuck and killed.

It is a semi-tyson level with limited health pick ups but, for example, map 29 felt way way harder even with good strategy.

 

Example of a (very bad) run. If anything it shows the margins aren't as thin there :).

 

10s - first fight. Kill shotgunners, let baron kill everything else. Don't pick berserk until the end.
2m  - berserk two revenants, shoot mancubus with a pistol (because why not?), leave two cacos for later to save ammo
3:30 - mancubus room. Probably hardest fight of the map.
6:30 - plasma gun area. Quite easy, but I got wrecked there for absolutely no reason.
10:10 - ... and because of that had to play safe with the archvile and use up my plasma. Normally I use it for two revs blocking the corridor after that.
11:55 - Cheesing marines

 

EDIT: OK, now I see why I struggled with TNT: Revilution Map 30. Part of it is overthinking it, penultimate fight is not that hard if you just blast everything with plasma. Fight with hell knights and chaingunners on a ledge is still very mean, almost Sunlust level of meanness.

Edited November 7 by idclip