What is the WAD that made you get better significantly?

[Chernobog The Exalted]

Well, mine was Doom Zero, at first I thought it would be a moderate challenge, but the more I played the difficulties keep exceeding my expectations, that was where I truly matured in Doom as my movement was smoother, and I was no longer afraid of the revenant's homing missiles, I always thought that they were evil and unfair, well, not until recently. It's like the mediator between TNT:Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment, I'd place it beside Moonblood.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Edit: Fragport, too

Edited March 6 by ChernobogTheExalted : addition

[RHhe82]

It’s difficult to single out any wads with certainty, because they all improve my play somehow. However, if I had to guess, I think it was the DW Megawad club month with Microslaughter Community Project (which I played on HMP) and Haste (HNTR) that had me up my game the most. Either those, or the HMP run of Sunlust.

[Orii]

Slaughterfest 2012. Before playing this wad I had only played doom incredibly casually, lots of saves and cheats, not caring to single segment UVMax any maps or caring about improving as a player (Not to say any of that is the right or wrong way to play doom ofcourse!). One day this video (https://youtu.be/YcwUcQ17BXQ?si=8YwkoiCGDdK8AdA8) by skepticist of Map34 appeared in my youtube reccomended and I just knew I wanted to beat that map, so I started playing through the wad from map01 with the intention to single segment every single level so that I would be able to do the same for map34.

However, little did I know what I was in for as I had no idea how truly difficult some of the maps in the wad were, some notable ones being Map08, Map31, and then most notably, Map25 - Fourtress, Map30 - Anathema and ofcourse Map29 - Degrassi. They all forced me to learn how to play better in a variety of different ways, and I would not be the same player if not for those maps. Also I can't go without mentioning Map32 which required me to learn how to 2-shot cyberdemons with the BFG (Thanks ToD!)

 

[Chernobog The Exalted]

38 minutes ago, Orii said:

Slaughterfest 2012. Before playing this wad I had only played doom incredibly casually, lots of saves and cheats, not caring to single segment UVMax any maps or caring about improving as a player (Not to say any of that is the right or wrong way to play doom ofcourse!). One day this video (https://youtu.be/YcwUcQ17BXQ?si=8YwkoiCGDdK8AdA8) by skepticist of Map34 appeared in my youtube reccomended and I just knew I wanted to beat that map, so I started playing through the wad from map01 with the intention to single segment every single level so that I would be able to do the same for map34.

However, little did I know what I was in for as I had no idea how truly difficult some of the maps in the wad were, some notable ones being Map08, Map31, and then most notably, Map25 - Fourtress, Map30 - Anathema and ofcourse Map29 - Degrassi. They all forced me to learn how to play better in a variety of different ways, and I would not be the same player if not for those maps. Also I can't go without mentioning Map32 which required me to learn how to 2-shot cyberdemons with the BFG (Thanks ToD!)

 

I've heard of Slaughterfest, but how hard are they actually? Do you prepare for it by pistol starting plutonia on uv? If so, I better Get Going with Scythe (pun intended), and maybe I'll beat Valiant too! I have it on my computer - but it were actually too hard for my underdeveloped skills, speaking of which, how hard is Evilternity, Perdition's Gate and the Community Chest series? I just gobbled a bunch of wads because without playing it because I like to feel classy and decisive, sheesh!

[Chernobog The Exalted]

oh, I watched the video, shit, it's even harder than Valiant

Quote

 

 

[Mr. Alexander]

 

6 hours ago, ChernobogTheExalted said:

I've heard of Slaughterfest, but how hard are they actually? Do you prepare for it by pistol starting plutonia on uv? If so, I better Get Going with Scythe (pun intended), and maybe I'll beat Valiant too! I have it on my computer - but it were actually too hard for my underdeveloped skills, speaking of which, how hard is Evilternity, Perdition's Gate and the Community Chest series? I just gobbled a bunch of wads because without playing it because I like to feel classy and decisive, sheesh!

A while back, one of the mods, rd, I think, posted a good cogent comment about how "wad progression" threads provide a misleading view of how players improve their play: The important thing is really to pick a wad and play it until you can beat the fights consistently, both individually using saves and in sequence in saveless runs. It's not so much that you need to play Sunlust and Dimensions if you want to play Dance on the Water and newer challenge-sicko wads, more that you need to "get the reps in."

 

If you want to see how hard Slaughterfest 2012 is, just go play it. It's free.

[Stabbey]

Epic 2. It started out slow and sedate, but by the end it usually had at least one Cyberdemon a map (often ones which were difficult to handle) and many fights were full-on slaughtermap style with swarms of enemies which you had to manage strategically.

[Xymph]

DOOM1.WAD

:)

 

[dististik]

Alien Vendetta. I streamed my pistol start UV-Max clears (with saves) of the whole wad, it was late into the stream one night and I hit MAP26 and for the very first time all set long I had the sinking feeling of "Oh no, this might be too hard for me". I got a lot more quiet as I tried my hardest to figure it out and eventually called the stream on that map. After a good night's rest I looked up a few max demos of the map and with that assured myself it wasn't too hard; I could absolutely do this.

 

Since then nothing has felt truly impossible, I've just questioned whether or not I wanted to put in th effort to figure it out. 

[Orii]

15 hours ago, ChernobogTheExalted said:

I've heard of Slaughterfest, but how hard are they actually?

I think its hard to compare difficulties of wads as a lot of it depends on how you like to play. Furthermore, doom has a lot of different skill sets that people can get good at and so what might be hard for one person could be easy for another. Nonetheless, the best benchmark for SF2012 that I can give is that the hardest maps are much harder than anything in Sunlust or old Sunder.

 

15 hours ago, ChernobogTheExalted said:

Do you prepare for it by pistol starting plutonia on uv?

That being said, I really don't think the path to improvement is from banging your head against a brick wall until you break it, personally I believe that the first steps to becoming better are just being familiar with how doom works. Being comfortable with the enemies in a fight, learning how to analyse and then to prioritise the different parts of that fight are all necessary skills to improve, and those can only come from playing a variety of different wads and a variety of different fights, really just go play whatever looks interesting to you! Once you've built up those doom skills I think the idea of a "Doom skill ladder" isn't really helpful anymore, you don't need to beat X to be able to play Y, and instead its more about finding a wad you truly want to play and don't mind spending time on, then applying those fundamentals, especially through the way you practice a map and the fights within.

[EPICALLL]

Probably Scythe 2, my hardest maps at the beginning of my playthrough of that WAD compared to my hardest maps now are like comparing a pebble to mount everest.

[Cutman 999]

Plutonia 2.

 

Before completing that I've never pistol started a megawad. Plut 2 took me out of my comfort zone and nowadays i feel like I can't play doom without pistol starting.

[whybmonotacrab]

I think playing around with the editor helped my skill more than any particular wad. It more easily taught me the enemies, their strengths and limitations, and what an author could potentially be asking of me outside of "Shoot stuff."

 

 I don't necessarily think any particular wad helped me more than any other, I think it was cumulative knowledge. I used to hate slaughter and combat challenges, then one day it clicked because I'd gained the skills necessary to understand what was being asked of me and because I opened up an editor and saw how fun those scenarios were to come up with. 

 

 Also, don't worry about getting good. I found a long time ago that the subjective quality of a wad is what matters most. If I like it, I'll find a way to beat it. If it doesn't tickle my fancy I'm more likely to throw in the towel at the first sign of struggle. Just work out what you like and play that - and if something seems cool but is too hard either bang your head against it or lower the difficulty. I generally play most slaughter/challenge maps on HMP and only touch UV when I've finished them.

[HiMyNameIsChair]

Thats a tough one to answer, a lot of different WADS taught me different skills. I literally learned to pistol-start maps, for Speed of Doom because i enjoyed it so much. Alien Vendetta MAP27: Stench of Evil almost broke me, because it was so grindy, so long, and such an ammo famine it singlehandedly taught me how to deal with ammo deprivation. Disturbia taught me sometimes you gotta berserk punch an archvile... or 5.. or 10. Scythe 2's MAP25: Forbidden City and MAP26:Death felt like they forced me to unlock a mental barrier.

 

If i had to pick one over anything else... maybe Sunlust. I got through a good chunk of the set without too many bumps (mainly Inverti into Darkness, the Womb until i figured out what to do, and maybe Dying on Cue) But MAP25:Proxyon... *broke me*. Usually, if I hit a hard map I can figure out what to do or change my routing or approach and i can power through it. In MAP15: Strength and Anger i remember specifically hoarding cells, just so i could smash the U-shaped room. That.. was not gonna fly in Proxyon. Dann gives you borderline no room for experimentation. He says "These are your combat puzzles, there are specific solutions to them, and you WILL execute those solutions". Proxyon was the exact point where I finally hit a wall i couldn't just find my way around, i *just* had to play better.

Edited March 7 by HiMyNameIsChair

[Andrea Rovenski]

doing all 32 uv max demos for demonfear really helped me hone my short and quick skills. each map is around 30 to 90 seconds (with a few outliers) and each shot counts. Really fun stuff. A good alternative to "getting better" compared to playing conventionally "hard" sets regularly 

[Mr. Alexander]

I double-checked, and the comment I was thinking of was indeed by rd. It's more specifically about slaughter maps, and the metaphor about "getting the reps in" is supposed to cut against the idea of going to a gym to perform a discrete activity called "exercise," favoring instead just going out and playing ball, but I don't think I misrepresented the gist of the post.

 

Anyway, to answer the question in the OP, I'm not a very good player, but I think the wads that improved my play the most noticeably were Plutonia and Ancient Aliens. Plutonia isn't some god-like challenge: It's mostly just mean, but having those traps sprung on you over and over teaches you a fair measure of patience as you work out good ways to survive and disarm them. Ancient Aliens is much more accessible thanks to the beautiful music and architecture, but it also has a nice increasing difficulty curve that gets you used to a more modern "standard" level of difficulty as you go, and it ends on some fun slaughter maps.

 

I like RHhe82's suggestion of the Micro Slaughter Community Project, but I haven't finished that. It teaches you elementary slaughter tactics, even if it wasn't conceived as a tutorial for slaughter combat.

[idbeholdME]

-fast

 

Not a specific WAD. Now, I can't really go back to normal speed as the game just feels slow. Especially the snail speed enemy projectiles.

[D0M0]

I personally find that the Ribbiks WADs I have managed to play and complete have made me significantly better at doom (for references, Crumpets, Stardate20x6 and Swim with the Whales are some examples of the incredible art pieces made by Ribbiks).

 

A lot of the maps these WADs have to offer contain some really tricky maps, in which you need to plan thoroughly in order to get through it. It teaches you a lot about monster prioritisation, crowding enemies so you can manoeuvre easily, platforming, encouraging the use of infighting. You begin to see deeper meaning in the game’s mechanics and how you can manipulate that to your advantage. Therefore, it makes you better at strategising fights, planning your way through maps and even potentially being able to beat them in a single segment through enough practicing. 

 

Even though I speedrun through these maps after casual play through, i’ve noticed that after playing through some of these WADs that it has transformed my skills and has ultimately led me to become a better player at the game.

 

Even if Ribbiks WADs seem highly unapproachable on UV, I highly recommend if you wanna get better at the game that you try them out, even if it’s on lower difficulties.

[Doom-X-Machina]

Hell Revealed.

[Yousuf Anik]

For me it was Speed of Doom, Arxangels and Armadosia mainly I think. And some other WADs which include slaughter mapset too.

[rita remton]

oceanside. it smoothly introduced me to slaughter gameplay.

[ObserverOfTime]

NERF got me comfortable with playing on Nightmare and it does a really decent job of easing the player into the difficulty. If you die, you die fast and never really lose more than say, a minutes worth of progress. I never really messed around with nightmare before, but after finishing that wad I decided to tackle the IWADs on Nightmare, something I would have not ordinarily done otherwise. It is a surprising amount of fun even if it can be a little unfair at times. Getting past map03 of Doom II for example proved to be a deceptively huge challenge, lol.

[Andromeda]

At first Plutonia, then Hell Revealed.

[97th Century Fox]

Playing Junkfood two days ago changed my brain chemistry or something, it singlehandedly made me more comfortable with dealing with large hordes in tight spaces, and it led me to going back to another wad, Fractured Worlds (which I got frustrated with even on HMP) and I managed to beat the first two levels on UV! I'm happy to be getting more comfortable with crazier fights

[Akagi666]

Plutonia, Plutonia 2, Speed of Doom, Scythe 2. Each of these felt like a significant stepping stone that pushed me to get better.

[ChaingunChaCha]

Probably Scythe 2, Valiant and Tangerine Nightmare. Previously I'd just play the iwads with continuous play and lots of saves. But these wads taught me more about combat and movement.

 

More recently joining here and replaying wads/maps with pistol starts, reality, fast monsters, pacifist or combinations of these has helped me learn and enjoy the game too.

[PasokonDeacon]

Among the IWADs, it's Plutonia, no question. Beating the harder levels (Onslaught, Death Domain, Go 2 It) introduced me to pressure-cooker combat design and made me (relatively) comfortable. I used to save-scum through those maps and now I can do single-segment demos with enough prep. Even before that, however, I got exposed to a lot of community-era mapping tropes via Back to Saturn X E1, far from the hardest set out there. It still has some ball-busting moments peppered throughout, of course; MAP05's final battle is a real test of managing threats from all sides, to use an early example.

 

WRT releases I've been playing lately for exercise and inspiration, shout-outs to Kama Sutra on UV! I bounced off Hell Revealed quite hard (save the standout maps like Post Mortem, Resistance is Futile, and Afterlife), so it's awesome to play a later set that greatly improves that style of congestion and slaughter. Maps like Cow Face feel like a breeze now that my crowd herding skills have improved. Eventually I'll move on to HMP/UV for Combat Shock, Stardate xxxx, etc.

[wasm]

Scythe 2, Not only did it make me significantly better at the game, but it's pleasing design and layout really changed how I viewed doom maps, It was one of a kind back then.

[Zetetic-Astronomer]

The back half of scythe, while I didn’t play the last 10 saveless, beating Fire And Ice teaches you an incredible amount, even if you savescum through it. 

[june gloom]

Sunlust for sure. Really had to rethink how I approach Doom with that one.