Somewhat easy wads?

[OnionTaco22]

Anyone got any good wads that aren't hard but you also can't just blaze through?

[smeghammer]

Very subjective question, but...

 

Armadosia

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/amdosia

 

It's a big megawad but very approachable.

 

Breach

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/breach

 

Big single map, does get harder as you go, but really good.

Have fun!

[BeachThunder]

Jimmy's Deathless is a relatively breezy Ultimate Doom megawad: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/Ports/megawads/deathless. You can also find it in the Doom Unity port.

[Insaneprophet]

Ray Mohawk 2! Really though depending on the exact level of difficulty/ease you are looking for, most everything in Doomkid's multiverse should fit the bill.

[Gothic]

Vae Victus 2. It's like a free sample of Vrack, Alien Vendetta and Deus Vult.

[Matthias]

People keep telling me my wads are very easy and they are disappointed that I don't do Sunlust style :D

[Bauul]

I'd expect almost any of the more famous wads have fully implemented difficulty settings.

 

Just pick whatever takes your fancy, check it has difficulty settings, and then just play on a lower one. 

[spineapple tea]

This thread hasn't been updated by the OP in a while but for the most part I'd say everything before Alien Vendetta should be manageable to more novice players (with some exceptions of course; Plutonia has quite a few especially rough maps for beginners, later maps in Scythe take a drastic step up in difficulty, Sigil can be fairly unforgiving at times, etc). Of course, like Bauul said, you can always step down in difficulty if a fun WAD you're playing suddenly gets a bit too difficult to reasonable progress through.

[Redneckerz]

Demonfear, as always.

[WASFDDDDD]

On 7/3/2024 at 3:52 PM, Matthias said:

People keep telling me my wads are very easy and they are disappointed that I don't do Sunlust style :D

EDIT: The following post was a reply to the above post. It was basically me complaining about a perceived "difficulty = quality" mentality in the Doom community

 

The reason I made the post was factually wrong, but I'm still gonna keep it up because a lot of the substance is valid

You can find the original post in the spoiler below:

 

Spoiler

 

I never really understood the "difficulty = quality" mentality. Like, if I just threw together a big arena with 30 cyberdemons, an army of archviles, and one pillar for cover, and then I gave the player a regular, pump-action shotgun to deal with them all, does that make for a good map? Would that be satisfying?

 

Brutally difficult maps have their place in the community, but so do fun, little maps. And I'm getting real sick of people who pretend that they don't

 

 

Edited July 9 by WASFDDDDD

[CravenCoyote]

13 hours ago, WASFDDDDD said:

I never really understood the "difficulty = quality" mentality. Like, if I just threw together a big arena with 30 cyberdemons, an army of archviles, and one pillar for cover, and then I gave the player a regular, pump-action shotgun to deal with them all, does that make for a good map? Would that be satisfying?

 

Brutally difficult maps have their place in the community, but so do fun, little maps. And I'm getting real sick of people who pretend that they don't

 

I don't think there's a "difficulty = quality" mentality in the community. I think it's more "challenge + flow = quality", and that isn't a bad thing.

 

People who are very good at the game will find easier releases almost boring because it doesn't challenge them at all. Others will find overly challenging releases unenjoyable because they can't get anywhere with them. The key, I feel, is finding the sweet spot for each, and why I think implementing difficulties and careful flow is always helpful.

 

Can a small map still give a suitable challenge? Yes, it's just a shorter one. Can a larger map still give a suitable challenge? Yes, it just takes longer. Length/size doesn't really impact the enjoyability so long as the flow is kept reasonable and does not over-stay, and the challenge remains acceptable.

 

An arena with 30 cyberdemons and an army of archviles with a single pillar for cover wouldn't interest myself, but it might interest a specific demographic that enjoy that flow and challenge.

Likewise, a small, detailed arena with a few shotgunners probably wouldn't interest me, but another demographic might enjoy the slow flow and atmosphere provided.

 

I guess some Doom map releases are almost like an art - they will not always appeal to everyone, but the ones they do appeal to will appreciate them.

[Naarok0fkor]

My WAD is probably too hard at levels 3 & 4 but at level 1, it should be easy enough...

https://www.moddb.com/mods/guntoberfest/downloads/naarok0fkor-fusion-war-2024

[WASFDDDDD]

3 hours ago, CravenCoyote said:

 

I don't think there's a "difficulty = quality" mentality in the community. I think it's more "challenge + flow = quality", and that isn't a bad thing.

 

People who are very good at the game will find easier releases almost boring because it doesn't challenge them at all. Others will find overly challenging releases unenjoyable because they can't get anywhere with them. The key, I feel, is finding the sweet spot for each, and why I think implementing difficulties and careful flow is always helpful.

 

Can a small map still give a suitable challenge? Yes, it's just a shorter one. Can a larger map still give a suitable challenge? Yes, it just takes longer. Length/size doesn't really impact the enjoyability so long as the flow is kept reasonable and does not over-stay, and the challenge remains acceptable.

 

An arena with 30 cyberdemons and an army of archviles with a single pillar for cover wouldn't interest myself, but it might interest a specific demographic that enjoy that flow and challenge.

Likewise, a small, detailed arena with a few shotgunners probably wouldn't interest me, but another demographic might enjoy the slow flow and atmosphere provided.

 

I guess some Doom map releases are almost like an art - they will not always appeal to everyone, but the ones they do appeal to will appreciate them.

Yeah I realize I did overstate the presence that mentality has in the Doom community in particular. But I will say that is an undertone in the gaming community as a whole, especially among those with absolutely nothing better to do

 

 

 

As for all your other points: I agree. Like I wasn't trying to diss really big maps or really difficult maps or anything, that would completely contradict my main claim. All I was trying to say was that there should never be arbitrary rules set for what all Doom maps are allowed to be, because that just pointlessly limits creativity, and alienates people from the community

[CravenCoyote]

4 hours ago, WASFDDDDD said:

Yeah I realize I did overstate the presence that mentality has in the Doom community in particular. But I will say that is an undertone in the gaming community as a whole, especially among those with absolutely nothing better to do

 

As for all your other points: I agree. Like I wasn't trying to diss really big maps or really difficult maps or anything, that would completely contradict my main claim. All I was trying to say was that there should never be arbitrary rules set for what all Doom maps are allowed to be, because that just pointlessly limits creativity, and alienates people from the community

 

I wasn't arguing or anything, and I do agree with you - there shouldn't be arbitrary rules for anything.

It's unfortunate that my skill level prevents me from playing through a number of wads because the difficulty is just too much for me. I can imagine some newcomers feeling a bit overwhelmed with how difficult some of them can be, but want to play them because they're held in good regard.

[RichardDS90]

I would say Revolution is pretty tame. It's also on the Unity Port.

[Egg Boy]

Doom 2 the Way Id Did is an easier set since it aims to emulate Doom 2. 
 

Scientist 2023 

 

Doom Zero

[Li'l devil]

A lot of the 90s wads are easy/manageable, although maps can very significantly in difficulty, as well as how they implement skill levels. From my experience, an average 90s wad is much easier than an average 2010s wad, so I suggest trying some of those (just look at Top 100 wads from 1994-2003 list on the wiki to find the notable ones). The notable exception is Hell Revealed. Not sure about Plutonia though. It's not easy, but by modern standards it seems easier than the norm.

 

On 7/3/2024 at 11:28 AM, smeghammer said:

Armadosia

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/amdosia

I played Armadosia recently, and while it became one of my favorites (sadly, haven't finished it yet), I think it's actually not an easy wad, at least depending on how you play. Playing it from pistol starts will often result in resource starvation. Playing it with no saving during the maps requires a lot of patience because the maps are really long. And playing it with no saves from pistol starts and especially on UV is honestly just really hard.

[baja blast rd.]

Cold Front, El Viaje de Diciembre 

 

On 7/4/2024 at 8:00 AM, CravenCoyote said:

I don't think there's a "difficulty = quality" mentality in the community. 

 

I agree and think it's important to understand that when people complain about low difficulty it's usually a roundabout way of saying "I didn't find this exciting/engaging." So the root preference those comments is not a problem with low difficulty. Violence (another recommendation) is one of the most universally popular wads on Doomworld and it's not hard at all, but no one really calls it "too easy" because it's good at being exciting and surprising.

[Grain of Salt]

Just picking out stuff from my wad folder:

• both 1024clau megawads (1024clau.wad and 1024cla2.wad)
• Bauhaus
• Cyberdreams (some bits are kinda tough, including the first level imo, but every map is so short and many of them are really easy)
• Danne's E1 (dannE1.wad)
• Dimensions of Time (dot.wad)
• Icarus
• Khorus' Speedy Shit (kssht.wad)
• Kuchitsu
• Memento Mori 1 and 2 and/or Requiem (possibly verging on too hard?)
• Revolution (TVR!.wad)

It's not that "difficulty=quality" imo, it's just that it's pretty hard to make something easy but also fun, especially if you're playing it yourself multiple times as you work on it, and especially if you've been playing the base game for multiple decades.

[WASFDDDDD]

On 7/4/2024 at 10:12 PM, CravenCoyote said:

 

I wasn't arguing or anything, and I do agree with you - there shouldn't be arbitrary rules for anything.

It's unfortunate that my skill level prevents me from playing through a number of wads because the difficulty is just too much for me. I can imagine some newcomers feeling a bit overwhelmed with how difficult some of them can be, but want to play them because they're held in good regard.

Don't worry, I wasn't trying to argue either, I was just clarifying mostly

 

Either way, one mod that could be useful for new players who want to get into some more difficult mapsets is GD Echidna. That mod's whole purpose is to make the game easier, and that's exactly what it does; but it still remains interesting due to the complexity of Echidna's moveset, and the sheer amount of polish going into the mod itself

It does require GZDoom or Zandronum tho, so that might be a turnoff for players who care about compatability

[ducon]

I remember a Doom for kids WAD but I think that I lost it.

[Warboss_Gegguz]

If you're looking for easier, a good rule of thumb is to look at vanilla comp stuff since that sort of restriction prevents a lot of slaughter-esque mapping decisions in most cases. There are exceptions obviously like BTSX and projects deliberately pushing vanilla as far as possible, but it's usually true.

 

The whole "the way id did" series is usually my go-to recommendation for people who are looking for a casual experience or are fresh to Doom, since the difficulty and progression is as close to vanilla as possible.

 

Classic Episodes 1 & 2

The Serenity Series

Double Impact

Eternal Doom

1994tu

Earthless

BF_Thud

 

... I admit it's kind of hard for me because I'm one of those UV-only people (even when the author advises against it) searching for validation, so my scale and understanding of difficulty is completely screwed at this point. But I think those should be fitting for newcomers.

[Warboss_Gegguz]

3 hours ago, WASFDDDDD said:

It does require GZDoom or Zandronum tho, so that might be a turnoff for players who care about compatability

 

From my experience, concerns with compatibility is mostly a "Doom-vet" sort of thing. 90% of people outside of Doomworld and DSDA are content using GZDoom and not even touching the compatibility options. Likewise, outside of people who speedrun or are active in the community, I can't think of any streamers that play on anything but GZDoom.

 

Point being: if they're new to doom they're probably already using GZDoom. And if they aren't new to doom, they probably have a copy of GZDoom for the exact purpose of running pk3s, maps, and mods specific to GZDoom... like most of us probably do.

[knifeworld]

On 7/3/2024 at 11:57 PM, WASFDDDDD said:

I never really understood the "difficulty = quality" mentality. Like, if I just threw together a big arena with 30 cyberdemons, an army of archviles, and one pillar for cover, and then I gave the player a regular, pump-action shotgun to deal with them all, does that make for a good map? Would that be satisfying?

 

Brutally difficult maps have their place in the community, but so do fun, little maps. And I'm getting real sick of people who pretend that they don't

I doubt even die hard slaughter enjoyers would say "difficulty = quality" to be fair, or praise a map that's just a box with said 30 cyberdemons and trillion archviles.
A map like that would likely only appear in some spammy joke wad or an unserious grind wad, but I could be wrong.
I also don't really think anyone is saying small and easy maps don't have a place in the community, if someone actually posted that I feel that it would rightfully get shot down by just about every corner of DW, including from slaughter wad players and mappers.

 

2 hours ago, Warboss_Gegguz said:

 

From my experience, concerns with compatibility is mostly a "Doom-vet" sort of thing. 90% of people outside of Doomworld and DSDA are content using GZDoom and not even touching the compatibility options. Likewise, outside of people who speedrun or are active in the community, I can't think of any streamers that play on anything but GZDoom.

 

Point being: if they're new to doom they're probably already using GZDoom. And if they aren't new to doom, they probably have a copy of GZDoom for the exact purpose of running pk3s, maps, and mods specific to GZDoom... like most of us probably do.

I don't know if I'd call it a doom vet thing, personally, and I don't think anyone can just say anything to the effect of "most people use gzdoom", that much either.
I've seen tons of people use a variety of ports depending on what they want to play at any given moment.
Most streamers I've watched or have seen that they're streaming on YT or Twitch seem to use ports like Dsda-doom or Woof if they're playing an MBF21 or Boom wad, or are speedrunning.
Or there's players using GZdoom if they're playing something that goes heavy on UDMF features, or uses mods, or the player just isn't aware of using complevels or other ports yet.
A fair amount of others use Crispy or even Chocolate Doom, because they like more classic vanilla style maps, or they probably like ensuring/knowing that the maps behave as expected and were tested in a port that is more strict in compatibility (can apply to Boom and MBF21 wads too), or maybe they like looking at a grand total of 7 pixels /s :P.

[stochastic]

Doom 2 Reloaded comes to mind: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/d2reload

 

It's got a few stinker maps (unfortunately one of those being Map 1) but overall it's pretty fun, not very difficult, and definitely worth a play through.

[Warboss_Gegguz]

2 hours ago, knifeworld said:

I doubt even die hard slaughter enjoyers would say "difficulty = quality" to be fair, or praise a map that's just a box with said 30 cyberdemons and trillion archviles.
A map like that would likely only appear in some spammy joke wad or an unserious grind wad, but I could be wrong.

As a slaughter enjoyer, I love super intricate and thought out maps like Sunlust, Occula, Newgothic, Hell Revealed (obviously), Sunder, Flotsam... but I'd be lying if I didn't say most slaughter maps are closer to Ludicrium than they are to those. Hell, Deus Vult is closer to Ludicrium than it is to those.

 

2 hours ago, knifeworld said:

I don't know if I'd call it a doom vet thing, personally, and I don't think anyone can just say anything to the effect of "most people use gzdoom", that much either.
I've seen tons of people use a variety of ports depending on what they want to play at any given moment.
Most streamers I've watched or have seen that they're streaming on YT or Twitch seem to use ports like Dsda-doom or Woof if they're playing an MBF21 or Boom wad, or are speedrunning.

I'm talking like normy mostly non-doom streamers and casual players. The kind of people that play stuff like myhouse.wad, brutal doom, and maybe Sigil and some other mods, but not much else. Looking more for convenience and modernity than accuracy.

Also speaking from experience, as when I got into doom initially as a babi I mainly used G/ZDoom. Granted, back then the only real options were ZDoom, Eternity, Prboom, and Chocolate. Retro, Crispy, Woof!, and Helion didn't exist until a few years later. Hell, Skulltag was still a thing (fuck I'm old now ;_; ).

Not that my 12 yo ass cared since I just wanted gore mods and mods that were highly game-altering.

 

GZDoom is the most popular source port is accurate in general, just not really within the "real doom community". Because what they all see as features or don't even notice about GZDoom, we freak out over. But we're weirdos to the broader internet and gaming communities.

 

No shade towards Graf, mind. GZDoom evolving from a source port to a legit 3D engine for indie devs is insane and it's one of the easiest ways to play Doom today. It's just not my preferred way to play Doom.

My favorites are actually Crispy, Retro, and Woof!, but I use DSDA for compatibility. If DSDA had more vanilla visual options it'd be my goto, but that's not really the focus of the engine unfortunately.

 

Anyways... easy maps.

None of the ones I listed above, lol. Like, the polar opposite of this threads intention. Sorry.

[Gothic]

Mapgame for Doom 1. I'd say it's on par with episode 2 when it comes to difficulty.

[Lizardcommando]

I feel like some of the maps I've made during the past year lean towards on the easy difficulty, especially if you play on the lower difficulty settings.

 

Keep in mind that playing in "Hey Not Too Rough" and "I'm Too Young To Die" will have no monsters in this level specifically.

 

 

[Grain of Salt]

Tangent

 

Back in like 2008, an exchange I saw a few times in similar conversations to this was: an opener along the lines of "I don't know why people keep making overly hard wads", to which someone would respond "well, I've been playing doom since 1993 and I don't really walk into walls anymore".

 

And I've never understood this comment. Because I was walking into walls in 2008 and I still walk into walls. And walls in doom are not an easily mastered creature. Walls in doom will sometimes, like, bat you across the room if you walk past them in the wrong way. Especially if you're playing something with a bunch of 8x8 metal bars, like all hard wads in 2008 were.

[Warboss_Gegguz]

1 hour ago, Grain of Salt said:

Tangent

 

Back in like 2008, an exchange I saw a few times in similar conversations to this was: an opener along the lines of "I don't know why people keep making overly hard wads", to which someone would respond "well, I've been playing doom since 1993 and I don't really walk into walls anymore".

 

And I've never understood this comment. Because I was walking into walls in 2008 and I still walk into walls. And walls in doom are not an easily mastered creature. Walls in doom will sometimes, like, bat you across the room if you walk past them in the wrong way. Especially if you're playing something with a bunch of 8x8 metal bars, like all hard wads in 2008 were.

 

That's the most bizarre response to someone saying the game is hard I've ever heard. For one, idk the context, but that's a weird flex. But further more, that's not the end all of difficulty. And yeah, I've been doing this for 13 years (about as long as that dude) and walls still fuck me up sometimes. Namely in mods that showcase complex architecture and/or slaughter wads where moving backwards and such is pretty important.

 

Not to mention depending on the port/compatibility walls behave differently. Pretty famously so. https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Elastic_collisions_with_walls