Wads you like (love)/dislike (hate) that others dislike/like

[Veinen]

There is a thread similar to this on Doomworld. I thought it would be worth getting this topic up here as well.

What wads do you run counter to the overall public opinion on? Either most people dislike (hate) the wad and you like (love) it, or you dislike (hate) a wad most people like (love).

Any wad is fair game for discussion, but the main focus is intended to be episodes/megawads. They can be from any timeframe/year.

You could also specify wads that got Cacowards when you don't think they should have, and wads that didn't get one you think they deserved. That's just an option, mainly if you can't think of a lot of stuff on your own - but still in a way it's similar to the question at hand.

I'll go with the Cacowards method and for now (mainly to just have a somewhat organized post, as any year is perfectly fair game) I'll just concentrate on the last couple years of Cacowards (2012-2014), listing five wads in each direction:

Not worthy of Caco: Plasmaplant, Urban Brawl Dead of Winter, D2TWID (D1TWID is fine), 5til L1 Complex, Reelism
Should have been a Caco winner (runner up does NOT count as an actual winner): Bauhaus, Coffee Break E1, Concerned, Incineration, Flashback to Hell

A prediction for 2015: I believe Oblivion, Doomed Space Wars, and Monument will not get a Cacoward, but I think they should.

Again if you can just think of wads on your own rather than using Cacowards as a base, feel free to do so, all the better.

[Reactor]

Well, here's my opinion as a starter.

Which wads do I like? The first Doom add-on I ever played was Doom 3 - Mr. Smiley Head's safari. It was kinda poor, foolish and had a collection of various errors, but I actually enjoyed it very much, and still play it once per year, if I'm feeling nostalgic, and wish to mourn my lost youth. Mind you, I got this mod before "da Intarnetz" broke into the mainstream, so there was no /idgames database or anything else, from where you could obtain thousands of WADs with a few clicks.
Other great wads are: The Tei-Tenga incident, Laundromat (by Sgt. Shivers), Wolfenstein-themed modifications and TiberiumSoul's works.

Now for the opposite side. The wads I hate.

- wow.wad - I don't think I have to comment this one. The biggest pile of turd EVER created for Doom in the known universe. The best part of the wad is when you actually delete it and pretend it does not exist.

- mattpack.wad - The infamous mattbratt11's pathetic attempt of getting famous. He stole several levels from other mods, removed all traces and references of the previous author, made 28 more maps with bland rooms and tons of monsters inside, and uploaded the whole reeking pile of crud as the next best thing since sliced bread was invented. When the community discovered the truth, they gave mattbratt real hell, so he ragequitted (and was banned afterwards).

- UAC military nightmare - A Terrywad filled with juveline humour and buttrape jokes. If you're hell-bent on playing this WAD, you better staple your ass shut. Or even better, do not play it at all!

[wildweasel]

Wait, I suspect you've misread the question as far as the "dislikes" go - do people actually like those? I don't think your dislike of them is anything unusual.

[Reactor]

Hm. Good question. Well, some people may enjoy them (not wow.wad of course), but not too many. I weren't really following or paying attention on Cacowards before, so you might say I don't really follow the public opinions.
Speaking of Cacowards, I'd nominate "Grezzo 2" as the worst. Geez, I almost forgot about it...

[Oberron]

The good side: Dark7 and the Mission Pack, along with DSV 3: War.

Bad side: WOW.wad. Piece of crud, along with NUTS series. NUTS is computer intensive, due to the enemy amount. The second is even worse.

[JudgeGroovy]

I prediction for 2015: I believe Oblivion, Doomed Space Wars, and Monument will not get a Cacoward, but I think they should.

Again if you can just think of wads on your own rather than using Cacowards as a base, feel free to do so, all the better.

I haven't played these yet, they're all on my to-play list for sure though. Monument at the very least sounds like a shoe-in, 17 years of Doom in one new package, I could see somebody writing a paragraph or two about that.

I've only gotten into the user made maps scene recently and been playing catchup, so I don't have many controversial opinions to share just yet. I'm not a big fan of Master Levels of Doom 2 overall, maybe that counts.

[XCVG]

Can't think of any I like that aren't well-regarded in general at the moment.

Most of the classic, definitive megawads I find rather boring and dull. To me, they're basically more Doom, but when I look for a WAD, I'm usually looking for something different.

[Veinen]

Can't think of any I like that aren't well-regarded in general at the moment.

Most of the classic, definitive megawads I find rather boring and dull. To me, they're basically more Doom, but when I look for a WAD, I'm usually looking for something different.

I generally like megawads the best of they keep the core Doom gameplay 'spirit' in mind. That is, killing stuff and finding switches/keys to progress. I like wads that go for a different level 'style' than the originals (basically, the author's own style) because that still doesn't stop the core gameplay from being the same (hey even within the original Doom games the style is not always the same). But I also like the occasional strongly authentic style, DTWID-style project as well (including DTWID itself). Especially the Doom I wads/episodes built on the premise (D2TWID more hit and miss IMO, and there aren't as many 'knockoffs').

That's not to say I don't like total and partial conversions though. Adventures of Square E1 is probably the best currently out there. It's literally marketed as its own game - no more like Doom than Heretic or Hexen, i.e. nothing from Doom is left but the engine and the old school gameplay formula - and that's precisely what you get, but unlike other Doom 'clones' it's all in one free package! Action Doom II and Harmony have a lot of positives but there are a few more faults too. Older stuff like Batman Doom, I think the level design is becoming more and more dated.

An aside, I don't care for Sunlust on UV. Too hard/too many really rough or just unfair moments. (I don't care for Sunder at all either.) But I'm fully open to give Sunlust its mileage on HMP still, it behaves like other hard megawads on UV. HNTR is actually easier than it should be, though. I don't know exactly what happened, my best guess would only be that they wanted to mimic the traditional hard UV megawad with HMP, which is fine, but HNTR shouldn't suddenly be no harder than other megawad on HNTR. It's too sharp a drop in difficulty. Should have just made HNTR harder, and then if you can't play most hard-ish megawads at least on HMP it's just not a wad for you. It's not necessary IMO to make an ultra-hard megawad and yet still feel obliged to fully accommodate those who like their Doom easy and casual.

[4thcharacter]

TNT's Plutonia. I dislike it a little, not because I hate chaingunners but I love some monster variety. The map design was neat though.

[TheBadHustlex]

I enjoyed playing Grezzo2. Yes, it's technically shit. And a big middle-finger to doom-content-creators. However, I still remember having a fun time with this, at least for the first time playing it. But more the "bloody-mindless-stupid-rampage"-type of fun.