Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Good Doom/Heretic/Hexen WADs

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,471

Nirvana talking with skillsaw about Vanguard, Valiant, Ancient Aliens, Heartland, etc. for 2 hours.

Also, unrelated: Any recommendations for WADs that are similar to Sunlust and/or Fractured Worlds in terms of combat and difficulty? I've already played the Stardates. Need more.
 

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
Also, unrelated: Any recommendations for WADs that are similar to Sunlust and/or Fractured Worlds in terms of combat and difficulty? I've already played the Stardates. Need more.
Toilet of the gods. Also, speed of doom, resurgence and Deus Vult series, but I guess you've probably played those already. Bloodstain has gradual difficulty progression, but is hard in general, the later maps are "fuck you, lol" material.
 
Last edited:

toughasnails

Guest
It is very impressive that people have been able to get so much out of the Doom engine, expanding the basic Doom 2 engine into something that can be expanded with new effects and modern gameplay mechanics, but BOA makes it clear that the engine just does not play well with these.
Maybe it can be made to work better with more expanded scripts but I think modders would be better off by using a much more modern engine for that.
Yeah, I love the idea of a working and satisfying stealth mechanic in a doom engine wad, but it's not the Dark Engine. Some of these modders just stretch and stretch that ancient engine until its just a long string of sticky taffy that just breaks away and gets in your beard and sticks in your craw.
There was a gameplay mod called Sneaky Doom years ago that tried to mix Thief and Splinter Cell style stealth (so shadows, sound, movement speed) with Doom. Also Fortune's Run back when it was a GZDoom TC (it is now a commercial game running on a different engine) experimented with light and shadows based stealth, there was a playable demo that showcased their stealth mechanics. Both these projects are from almost a decade ago.
 

HansDampf

Arcane
Joined
Dec 15, 2015
Messages
1,471
Also, unrelated: Any recommendations for WADs that are similar to Sunlust and/or Fractured Worlds in terms of combat and difficulty? I've already played the Stardates. Need more.
Toilet of the gods. Also, speed of doom, resurgence and Deus Vult series, but I guess you've probably played those already. Bloodstain has gradual difficulty progression, but is hard in general, the later maps are "fuck you, lol" material.
:updatedmytxt:
Toilet of the Gods I always assumed to be some kind of pure slaughter WAD with troll difficulty and ignored it. Like Dimensions, which is a bit too much for me. What I like about Sunlust is that it's a good mix of (big) arena encounters and standard map exploration but with more strategic enemy placement. FW is similar but larger in scale, and there isn't too much annoying platforming.
I will take another look at it and also Speed of Doom.
 

The Dutch Ghost

Arbiter
Joined
May 26, 2016
Messages
681
It is very impressive that people have been able to get so much out of the Doom engine, expanding the basic Doom 2 engine into something that can be expanded with new effects and modern gameplay mechanics, but BOA makes it clear that the engine just does not play well with these.
Maybe it can be made to work better with more expanded scripts but I think modders would be better off by using a much more modern engine for that.
Yeah, I love the idea of a working and satisfying stealth mechanic in a doom engine wad, but it's not the Dark Engine. Some of these modders just stretch and stretch that ancient engine until its just a long string of sticky taffy that just breaks away and gets in your beard and sticks in your craw.
There was a gameplay mod called Sneaky Doom years ago that tried to mix Thief and Splinter Cell style stealth (so shadows, sound, movement speed) with Doom. Also Fortune's Run back when it was a GZDoom TC (it is now a commercial game running on a different engine) experimented with light and shadows based stealth, there was a playable demo that showcased their stealth mechanics. Both these projects are from almost a decade ago.
That would be an improvement over the current mechanic which is very broken. Triggers don't always work as they should and some bugs cause problems, even when one reloads an earlier save.
Personally I think it might have been better if this level had been cut or had been redesigned when the flaws became apparent.

I had also intended to write a bit about my experience with the campaign itself but that would be a big post and I don't have time right now for that.
But I just can't seem to get any 'feeling' for BOA despite that this should be my thing. Maybe it is because I am depressed or maybe I am just very jaded about FPS games, but I can just not feel the excitement that I had for RTCW and even Wolfenstein 2009 back when I played those games for the first time.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,270
Location
Massachusettes
I did notice something about "improved stealth" in the readme for BoA but I don't remember if that was for all 3 episodes and if the first 2 episodes got revisions or just for episode 3 so at least the author seemed aware of the issues. Since sneakling around and stealthy kills are among my favorite game mechanics, that would certainly be a big incentive for me to play the trilogy. Nothing in 45 years of gaming has ever given me the same thrill I had as the first time I played Wolf3D in 1993 or Duke3D a couple of years later. It's an age thing. Becoming jaded is inevitable, I think.
 
Last edited:

Alphons

Cipher
Joined
Nov 20, 2019
Messages
2,557
The stealth mechanic was fine when it was optional, as you can stab 2 guys, disable an alarm and then massacre the rest with shotgun because they saw you in their wonky cones of view.

Making it mandatory for the entire level just showed the glaring holes that I'd otherwise ignore.
 

Curratum

Guest
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

5EtrARp.jpg


CRDovtt.jpg

VTvURok.jpg

JJfoRwh.jpg

uwDeyp1.jpg

GTMJE06.jpg

OObWFyy.jpg

ok5h4nj.jpg

bgcD23Z.jpg

No, it's just the Ashes 2063 addon I was working on that will never be finished because I lost the files in a dead hard drive
:dead:
 

Wereknight

Literate
Joined
Jul 31, 2022
Messages
6
Location
Your walls
I did notice something about "improved stealth" in the readme for BoA but I don't remember if that was for all 3 episodes and if the first 2 episodes got revisions or just for episode 3 so at least the author seemed aware of the issues. Since sneakling around and stealthy kills are among my favorite game mechanics, that would certainly be a big incentive for me to play the trilogy. Nothing in 45 years of gaming has ever given me the same thrill I had as the first time I played Wolf3D in 1993 or Duke3D a couple of years later. It's an age thing. Becoming jaded is inevitable, I think.
Last time I've played there was no proper stealth in Episode 2 and it's still not there,probably for the better.

But, yeah, I guess they have refined ep.2-3 stealth mechanics. That still will not save you from being owned in ep.3 secret level. Nobody is save.
 

MuffinBun

Educated
Joined
Jul 9, 2022
Messages
135
I'm playing Brutal Wolfenstein right now, and it's really good. I've beaten the first episode(with the Aryan 2000 boss), I don't think I'll go much further, as its a bit too gruesome for me, but its a lot of fun. Great gameplay loop. Despite that after an hour or two it became very clear to me why Carmack was wrong with his comment on story in games. This gameplay itself beats that from most of other games, but without anything else to look for, no characters, storylines, story secrets or such developments, its also very short lived. The older doom formula would be perfect when applied as gameplay in overall larger games, even rpg-likes. Unfortunately most of the copycats just use it in same ways.

Back to Wolfenstein: I really liked how each weapon forces its own playstyle. On normal you get enough ammo to mostly play the way you like, and it is fun to specialize, or even play pistol only for teh lulz; this echoes the feeling one gets by playing a specific build, but at the same time you can(and sometimes will be convinced to by level design) switch 'classes', so it does not get stale or too restrictive. You can play one level mostly as a sharpshooter with a trusty k98, and go into the next one blasting close quaters with mp40. Its the best of both worlds, between specialization and variety.

Most weapons fill a niche. The kar 98 is especially well designed - powerful, bolt action, with a specific gimmick that if you empty the whole magazine, the reload will be much faster (you're using a speedloader instead of inserting cartridges one by one). I really appreciate details like this and wish they were implemented for each gun. It slightly shakes up the playstyle.

Unlike in basic Doom most of the engagements will take place in doorways, which rises suspicion that it may get very repetitive. It did not, at least for me. I found that a really interesting formula that led to some memorable moments. It reminds me of the old swat games or ready or not room clearing. Aside from that there are some arena-like moments focused on movement and prioritization of enemies. The enemy design, straight out of the original game, is impressively clever - clear color coding and different function of each enemy, with no redundancy. Also unlike in Doom, the levels have some 'immersive' elements to it - you can sometimes figure out the function of the rooms or different sections of the map, they feel a bit more like real places, which adds a bit of that very much needed non-shooty content.

I had fun, and would recommend to anyone who has not tried it yet.
 

toughasnails

Guest
The first one is so-so, you can tell he was p much learning the ropes there, but the second one is great. His Lycanthorn 2 is p good too, simple but fun 3D take on classic Castlevania with overworld and multiple playable characters.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
Shrine 1 have cool music but simple gameplay and map layout. Not that difficult with the exception of final boss.
Sequel improved everything - lot of secrets, some required some work and twists, map layout changed for better, but music got way worse... wish they just copypasted music from the first game and call it a day.
 

ferratilis

Magister
Joined
Oct 23, 2019
Messages
2,224
Looks like classic Dooms were pulled from sale on Steam. Any guesses on what's going on?
They're consolidating the releases, it seems. When you buy Doom 2, you get Final Doom and Master Levels included. When you buy Doom 3, you get BFG Edition. At least it seems that way, for now.
 
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
7,044
Location
Elevator Of Love
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'm playing Brutal Wolfenstein right now, and it's really good.

When it comes to weapons, original was really weak in that department, and you just used chaingun for most of the time.
BW gives a lot of new toys to play with, and with added gore system levels felt fresh again for me. The ability to destroy pillars with grenades made some of them easier as well. Being able to have double lugers or machine gun also makes killing way easier. Kar 98 is also great, if you time your attacks well in less populated areas, you can quickly one shot every enemy without taking a hit. Just like in Rise of The Triad, soldiers beg for mercy occasionally. Going back to vanilla version seems pointless for me now.
 

Kruno

Arcane
Patron
Village Idiot Zionist Agent Shitposter
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
11,478
While this isn't a WAD, I feel that this is so insane that it should be shared with Doom lovers.



Zero Master is a true gaming legend.
 

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
Joined
May 3, 2020
Messages
24,569
Location
Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
This guy is annoying, better to link the source instead



"Nuts by B.P.R.D contains 10617 monsters in two rooms and is almost unplayable as a result. It is featured in Doomworld’s Top 10 Infamous WADs and also in their Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, placing 4th."
Pain. I started working on this 4 months ago...
This video is in 2 segments for reasons explained below, the second part starts at 17:16.
This is the first true UV-Max completion of this level, where 100% kills and 100% secrets (0 out of 0 in this case) is achieved. The issue with maxing this level is that even with really good infighting and perfect ammo management you are left with roughly 800 cyberdemons at 4000 health each and nothing besides your fists, which deals 2-20 damage per hit, to kill them with.
The monsters can do some damage to the cyberdemons through infighting, most notably the arch-viles, but eventually they get destroyed by the splash damage.
Any monster on the upper area that attacks the cyberdemons are also quickly killed off, so there is only one solution: gather up enough homing revenant rockets to tear through all the cyberdemons. So how many do we need exactly? 850 cyberdemon at 4000 health where revenants rockets do an average of 45 damage, that means we need to simply gather up at least 70000 rockets, great! ... There's just one more problem, while this is an incredibly easy task to do, it should take roughly 5 hours of circling revenants before you've got enough.
5 hours isn't too bad, sure, but that's in game time, unfortunately the game runs a bit slower once the rockets start to pile up... to the point where you are moving 0.5 seconds every minute!
So in real time it takes about 23 days to gather the rockets, which would be extremely boring to do. Luckily the upper area is really large, so what I did was take a segment where I circle the area, copy the inputs and insert them multiple times into the demo so that it's nearly 6 hours long and then simply let my laptop play through the demo for 23 days before I then take control! So nobody, including myself, have actually seen what happens between 30 minutes and 340 minutes.
Then of course the fun part begins, where you are moving 4 frames every 14 seconds to guide the rockets to the cyberdemons. There's a few places where I do some weird things like take damage for no reason, which is because of just horrible controls (I can't even move backwards) and doing it over again takes at least 30 minutes, so I left it like that. I would have tried to make it a bit better looking, but putting in effort to do that would have driven me mad, so it'll have to do. It took roughly 20 hours to do 10 minutes, needless to say that is just an awful experience. Then there was another 25 days or so of waiting to create the video.
At the start you have to help the revenants out by killing the barons, as the barons would win easily. The part between roughly 14:55 to 16:10 is repeated/copied until I have enough projectiles.
This can be done non-TAS, you just need an actual super computer optimized to play doom and about 6 hours.
What an absolute waste of my time this has been, hopefully you'll enjoy this more than I did.

MarphitimusBlackimus


My favorite part was the part with the Revenants. It just a shame the map author put in so few Revenants forcing you to take so long to summon 70,000 missiles. I can think of at least one other map where it would take much less time to achieve 70k Revenant rockets.

:lol:
 

toughasnails

Guest
Nash has his own commercial GZDoom FPS coming up, this one is much more Quake inspired

I have no idea if his Silent Hill 2 inspired survival horror game is still in development or if he dumped it for this, it looked considerably more interesting to me (although I remember the people here not being too impressed).
 
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
7,044
Location
Elevator Of Love
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Nostalgia

map26.png.c434ca9dc172e636087f2a203be8f9d8.png


Great wad that I finished in two sittings. It feels like original Doom 2, when it comes to difficulty, but has some nice design ideas that would fit to more modern ones. Carefully placed traps, moderate number of enemies per map. Plus we loose all of our weapons two times as well. Secret level named "Powerslave" is a great tribute to that FPS.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom