is it ok to use heavily modded doom 2 levels?

ive been thinking of making a deathmatch wad inspired by dwango

and im wondering if i could do the thing that many dwango wads did and thats heavily modding some of the doom 2 levels to make them still look like modifications but arent the straight up original levels

so moral of the story: Will it be Illegal/Redistribution if i mod tf out of a doom 2 level and publish it for free without id's permission?

At best it's morally gray and not especially recommended. The less work is done to the maps, the more they resemble the originals, the less legal and less okay it is. Making original maps with similar aesthetics to the originals is fine, and maps where parts have similar dimensions is fine, but copying entire maps and just tweaking the edges is not.

For another thing, the Doom 2 maps were made for single-player first and are less ideal for map flow and item placement than specifically designed deathmatch maps. If your problem is you have no ideas how to create your own layouts, then play more user-created maps and get inspired by them.

7 hours ago, Stabbey said:

At best it's morally gray

Yes, it's certainly morally dubious to edit maps of a video game. /s

OP, you're fine. I think idgames doesn't accept them but id Software isn't going to care (they encouraged this thing at one point), so many community projects are also based on remixing IWAD or other official levels also.

Derividive modding, like it was done during the early days and exhibited on Shovelware discs, is greatly frowned upon

as plagiarize and unimaginative.

The level of modification is crucial.

On the other hand, something like kdizd_12 maps,

which are very loosely base on an original DOOM maps and barely recognizable as a modded DOOM.WAD map can be considered as original work.

Unless you just want to hone your mapping skills on your own, you are much better off to construct your own original work.