Good newcomer/newbie wads?

Let's imagine a person who doesn't know how to play Doom: No knowledge on how weapons & monsters operate (besides common sense of course), no ability to read mappers' exploration cues besides obvious ones and no knowledge of gimmicks like tag 666. What would you sugget to such person, besides the IWADs?

Some points to consider:

1) Does the wad introduce its gameplay gradually?

2) Does the wad have a smooth difficulty curve and does it ever get a bit too hot?

3) How much do the maps rely on player's prior knowledge of Doom's mechanics?

The only things that come to my mind are Scythe and Freedoom. But I'm sure out of thousands of wads made there should be more!

Nostalgia by Myolden

No Sleep for the Dead and other E1 replacements would be a good idea. Ones that aim for more of that vanilla/Romero E1 vibe without going too crazy.

Both Doom 1-2 The Way id Did would be good too. I think both did a good job feeling around the same level of difficulty as the main games.

I honestly think if one levels up to UV TNT and especially Plutonia, they kind of graduate to be ready for a lot of wads out there.

[oceanside]. the wad of 3 maps gradually introduced me to the slaughter genre without me even realising it :)

Some that I thought look more accessible:

- 25 Years on Earth (Doom 2)

- Deathless (Doom)

- Mass Extinction

- Lost Civilization

- Back to Saturn X Ep 1

For GZDoom wads:

- Neodoom

Common question with a lot of good choices present and past. The net for stuff suitable for newcomers might be pretty wide, but I dunno if I can be a good judge for that considering I got into Doom playing Uac Ultra and Going Down using Brutal Doom on UV. You could say Uac Ultra had mostly simplistic monster placement with lots of front facing and simple combos so it worked with gameplay mods (although I did remember breaking a level or two), but Going Down had a lot more horde scenarios and I got up to level 20 modded (before it broke 21 I think and I had to switch to vanilla, and never looked back). I don't remember how I got into slaughter, but some people here got into the game via Sunder so that's not out of the cards. Guess playing whatever looked interesting in the Cacowards tends to be a safe bet.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/guntoberfest/downloads/naarok0fkors-winter-slayride-2023

Thanks for the advices !

I downloaded Nostalgia and Oceanside and started Nostalgia on UV.
At first I was surprised, I supposed the name Nostalgia stood for being nostalgic of the first doom game and this first floor seemed to me pretty well detailed… hitscanners, lots of them… ok… a revenant… a mancubus… an archvile ! Disturbingly not what I expected… but managed to survive.
A door opens, two zombiemen… another mancubus ! OOH he is not alone ! 12 mancubi ! And hell knights… and a horde of cacodemons, all at once !
…
And my first death.
I became suspicious but wanted to do the job.
After MANY attempts I finally beat it… (more revenants, arch-vile, pinkies, one cyber).
Very satisfied but perplex ! Man, these gamers are crazy !
I did heard about Nostalgia but I also learned to beware of other players advices since they have a tendency to consider very easy things I sometimes find challenging.
Ok.
Stopped after that and went doing exercises while watching Dean of Doom episode about Nostalgia with the firm conviction I wouldn’t watch his stuff again If he didn’t give at least a B+ on difficulty for this map.
Video started, introduction, first map… Not at all the same map !?
…
…
You saw it coming : I launched Oceanside !
It’s another level of « not realizing it » compared to Rita remton !
Anyway ! I beat my first « photo-slaughter » map on UV ! Thanks Rita !

in general:

- anything that's trying to emulate the vanilla maps in terms of design is going to also emulate the difficulty

- early wads (90's, early 2000's) are generally easier

- alot of mid difficulty wads should be fairly playable for newcomers on hey not too rough or i'm too young to die

aside from the vanilla maps (doom 1,2,tnt,plutonia,no rest for the living):

doom 1/2 the way id did

doom 1/2/tnt/plutonia the way we remember it

freedoom 1/2 (if you don't mind the sprite/sound replacements)

e1 contest

ch retro episode

deathless and earthless

revolution!

2002 a doom odyssey

double impact

scientist 2

doom zero

obituary

requiem

momento mori 1/2

1994tu (boom)

titan (zdoom)
i also remember playing one of the inspirations (i think?) for dtwid from the 2000's, that kinda had the same premise and would fit in this list, but i don't remember the name and can't find it...

Anomaly Report is very beginner-friendly.

On 1/4/2024 at 5:48 PM, MoiraHeart said:

Let's imagine a person who doesn't know how to play Doom: No knowledge on how weapons & monsters operate (besides common sense of course), no ability to read mappers' exploration cues besides obvious ones and no knowledge of gimmicks like tag 666. What would you sugget to such person, besides the IWADs?

If there isn't already a tutorial.wad that explains all of this in a playful manner, then maybe someone should make one. Kind of like what Learn 2 Kaizo and Kaizo Kindergarten do for SMW Kaizo hacks. Could focus on one thing per map (weapons, monster behavior, infighting, secret hunting, platforming, common strategies, etc.) with simple examples and optional challenges.

Okuplok, of course!

2 hours ago, Li'l devil said:

Okuplok, of course!

I said wads for people who are new to Doom, not for people who are seeing a videogame for the first time.

I wonder if Scythe is really a good option… the difficulty curve is funny towards the final third. On the other hand the first two thirds are great for newcomers.

2 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

I wonder if Scythe is really a good option… the difficulty curve is funny towards the final third. On the other hand the first two thirds are great for newcomers.

Not gonna lie, I gave up on Fire and Ice my first time around (Scythe was my first custom wad), but it set a good expectation of Hell maps being mean.

On 1/7/2024 at 2:36 PM, Asbadagba said:

obituary

uhhhh no. as much as i'm a fan of it, obituary can be particularly dickish at times and is very much not for everyone. i don't think it's a good beginner wad

1 hour ago, MoiraHeart said:

Not gonna lie, I gave up on Fire and Ice my first time around (Scythe was my first custom wad), but it set a good expectation of Hell maps being mean.

For me, too. Between Fire & Ice and that immediately precedes it I had to take several months break other wads that start far more difficult than Scythe, but are still easier than F&I.

On 1/8/2024 at 8:16 AM, treulosetomate said:

 

If there isn't already a tutorial.wad that explains all of this in a playful manner, then maybe someone should make one. Kind of like what Learn 2 Kaizo and Kaizo Kindergarten do for SMW Kaizo hacks. Could focus on one thing per map (weapons, monster behavior, infighting, secret hunting, platforming, common strategies, etc.) with simple examples and optional challenges.

Funny there is something of a tutorial megawad specifically for Doom platforming in Hopscotch by LunchLunch. It's even the first and easiest wad listed in the Platforming wad progression for skill improvement thread

Atmospheric Extinction is another fairly accessible one as well

That's a nice topic since I picked up Doom again, where I previously played it around when I was 16–18 years old. I've been playing a bit of complex doom with a friend of mine who introduced me to it. I wanted to improve my vanilla doom skills and came across this old topic.

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/107015-wad-progression-for-skill-improvement/

I've played the first four wads in UV, saving only at the start of the level. So far, it's been okay, with a couple deaths here and there, mostly in TNT, especially in Map 32 Caribbean. What I noticed is that I can't handle it well when there are a lot of monsters, like at the end of map 32.

https://youtu.be/wKshJh6lZMI?si=HKvACly5oKWfJCOV&t=481

Now I'm playing through Base Ganymede, currently at episode 2, and looking forward to try Sigil once I'm done with Base Ganymede. Now my guess is that I'll get stuck the moment I end up playing those slaughtermaps as I'm not entirely familiar with them and I expect a lot of monsters at once.

Seconding Anomaly Report and my personal opinion is that once you've played the IWADs (I recommend NRFTL and SIGIL before Final Doom) you can pretty much go on ahead playing *most* of the cacoward winners at your own pace. Make a list of what you would personally want to play, don't be afraid to use saves or play on a lower difficulty. I used to have UV-only brainrot until I realized "hey, maybe playing on a lower difficulty would actually be more fun!" and now I play pretty much exclusively on HNTR unless I'm testing my own stuff. Not all custom maps have difficulty settings implemented, in which case you might want to play on "I'm too young to die" as that gives you a ton of buffs against hard monster placement regardless of if it's been altered or not.

I find that if you actually want to get good at the game, there are various skill improvement threads on this site that fit the bill pretty good. Watching youtubers like Decino and Coincident made me better at the game on top of being entertaining, and I'll throw my own hat in the ring and say that Skillsaw wads ala Vanguard, Valiant and Ancient Aliens were a huge turning point in my skill curve on top of being extremely fun to play. 

Scythe 2 is probably better for beginners IMO because the difficulty curve is a lot more lenient and it's more polished. Yeah yeah Mr. X and all that but that's another good lesson in teaching gameplay. 

I dunno, 90s wads maybe? Just pick what sounds fun and don't be afraid to play how you want, even if that said way is with a billion gameplay mods and with saves. You'll get better, it's like a rhythm game or any other hobby really. More time you put in, better you get.

I'll second everything bioshockfan90 said, and I also had this very nice link !

1 hour ago, bioshockfan90 said:

Scythe 2 is probably better for beginners IMO

Hard no. You could make a case for the early episodes and probably up to at least Map 19, but Episode 5 and beyond leave no survivors. I beat Scythe's Fire and Ice twice, yet MAP 23 was such insanity it made me quit the WAD. And even then, things only get harder from there.

I feel Scythe has a less steep cutoff point for newer players and I could imagine less skilled players making it at least to MAP 28. But they're definitely not gonna "run from it" successfully. 

and also, linked to ptrdoom's link and what bioshockfan90 told about watching youtubers, you have this nice youtube channel :

https://www.youtube.com/@improversgaming/playlists

1 hour ago, PsychEyeball said:

Hard no

Fair points, I guess it's been a bit since I played the WAD so I'll pin the blame on myself not having played it in a while. For me personally, Scythe 1 just has such a brutal ending with Fire and Ice that it kinda takes away from the whole experience and made me feel less like I accomplished something, whereas in Scythe 2 I feel it's a more fair challenge, until, like you said the last third of the WAD. I dunno, preference I suppose but you're probably right. 

Something I neglected to mention in my first post is that speedrunning the Unity port is a surprisingly fun way to experience the game for newcomers, as it is on speedrun.com and doesn't abide by the "you HAVE to get the record" DSDA rules making for gradual improvement, not to mention runs can be done on the easiest difficulty and SR50 is the default strafe on that port. In general, the Unity port is really good for beginners. Has a lot of great PWADs as free addons and the port is surprisingly tight if you don't feel like fussing about with source ports. 

1 hour ago, PsychEyeball said:

Hard no. You could make a case for the early episodes and probably up to at least Map 19, but Episode 5 and beyond leave no survivors. I beat Scythe's Fire and Ice twice, yet MAP 23 was such insanity it made me quit the WAD. And even then, things only get harder from there.

 

I feel Scythe has a less steep cutoff point for newer players and I could imagine less skilled players making it at least to MAP 28. But they're definitely not gonna "run from it" successfully. 

Gave up in map 23 as well lol

Scythe 2 is insane in the later maps

It's really difficult since most wads are made with the expectation that people have been playing this game for a while. Even stuff we consider easy like BTSX is around Plutonia's difficulty.

If I had to pick I'd go with Eviternity. It has a great difficulty curve and it shows off what the game can be visually. It was also my first and I think it did a reasonable job getting me acclimated.

gotta admit that when I played Scythe back in the elden times I thought the last six maps were a cruel joke and same with the second half of AV (actually I thought map 06 was only just within the limits of possibility...) although I can credit those level packs with forcing me to work out how to watch demos, so in a sense they still had a newb onboarding effect

edit: 2. there's enough easy doom 1 work that, if you realize you just don't LIKE high-pressure difficulty stuff, you don't need to force yourself to level up; just stay comfy and if you feel like branching out, play intimidating-looking stuff on ITYTD til you find a level or set you'd like to practise then slowly turn the dial

I'm gonna come in with a bit of a different take on this. Everything is relative, and when you learn a skill, barring any previous experience with similar skills, you have no concept over what is hard, or what is easy. If your goal is to get better at a thing, you should pick an assortment of wads which are not all easy; you want wads which require differing skill levels to complete (comfortably). And difficulty levels are a thing! We as humans naturally consciously and subconsciously play up/down to our competition and if we only play easy things, easy things will become our norm. Playing stuff that's too easy is a great way to develop bad habits which can make plateaus appear more frequently and more insurmountably as one's learned behaviors come back to spell consistent doom. It's easy to say I haven't learned this yet, how do I do it, but much more difficult to analyze what one has learned to be good and helpful, but which is actually harmful.

Additionally, playing stuff that varies in difficulty level and coming across something which is too hard for now is a great way to set up internalized progression checks: where you can come back to something later and see your improvement, not from collecting more upgrades but directly from one's own greater understanding of doing the thing. It also breaks up the monotony to switch things up, keeping the skill grind from feeling so much like work.

Theres more that I'm not saying, but on that note and for the sake of brevity, my recommendation for good newbie friendly wads would be:

1: Wads which have had a great influence on others' works, such as the iwads, given that all our creations are off the back of them.

2: Wads which show off fun and interesting things in doom, to keep the imagination flowing and excitement for exploration alive.

3: Wads which test the player's knowledge and generalized skills. Don't shy away from these, but also don't be afraid to skip them and come back as a means of noting progression. Seeing one's own progression can be motivating and exciting.

If the newbie's goal is to just casually play, then all of the above but on itytd. There's no shame in using that difficulty and some maps are just more fun with it... and fun is the overall name of the game so all of this has to be compared against what the goals of the new player are and what they find fun, though there should be some goal to get to a point where the average map is playable, so the new player won't be so limited on their choices for what to have fun with. 

On the Scythe series: Each wad can be pretty cleanly divied up into episodes (Scythe 1 for example followes Doom 2's vanilla format of techbase>city>hell) and each episode is meant to be harder than the last. I think that when presented with that framing; newcomers will probably have an easier time knowing where the actually easy levels end off and pick up the later episodes when they get better

I definitly recommend Devalaous' patches for this, which mostly include widescreen stuff and the text screens from the txt file. If there were ever wads that were designed for Doom 1 style episodes but never had them: it's Scythe (unless you count Ancient Aliens and Valiant which actually do play in an episodic format but only in ZDoom ports and need a patch like this for Boom-based ports)

On 6/30/2023 at 4:34 AM, Devalaous said:

Scythe

Widescreen assets, optional episodic version

 

Scythe 2

Widescreen assets, intermission texts, optional episodic version (Eternity has issues with the episodic version; use the standard patch instead)

 

Scythe X

General QoL updates, episodes are now selectable