repopened to rant about the plutoniosity in btsx e2

[osjclatchford]

so yeah this is something i've wanted to talk about regarding the whole: plutonia is hard/ no it isn't deal that seems to live in the doom community but have always been 'too late to the party' to comment on other threads so I've started my own...
its the old plutonia or tnt, which do yo prefer question mixed with the old plutonia is too hard, grr statements but hopefully in a non argumentative discussion of honest preferences and level design choices.

Firstly, Ive never sat and played plutonia from beginning to end in its entirety.
there, I said it!

Now I've heard the classic rant about plutonia's difficulty time and time again. I've even been one to do so with friends in the past and yeah, it can be hard as balls, but thats its design. thats why tnt is also in final doom to re-balance that equation.

Now, THAT BEING SAID; I personally loved and preferred tnt. I loved its techbase based designs that attempted well (well for '96 anyhow) to emulate realworld/realistic (ish) environments that actually looked like they could be what they are meant to be! I loved its soundtrack and custom graphics.
I enjoyed the level/difficulty progression and could happily play it even with just a keyboard back then (i know crazy to think of now eh?)

Originally (circa '96) plutonia was so far far above my level of play skill that I never made it through the first map.
the burgeoning polar opinions about plutonia were obvious.
it was considered too hard by many and many others would fan the flames of irritation to say 'its not hard for them at all' or that it was in fact 'easy!'
well, often I took this as a pinch of salt, wondering if this was just blowing hot air to bravdo-it-up somewhat, or perhaps they were the real doom-gods and i'm really a shitty doom player after-all...
this dented my ego, leading to cussed perseverance and several attempted replays over the years that one way of another led to more frustration, irritation, a sense of inadequacy and two broken keyboards.( )
not to mention a enormous hatred for revenants and archviles in a way I've never felt in any other doom wad...
I continually ended my sessions with capitulation, a rant, often cursing the sadistic designers choice of ridiculous overuse of tricks and traps and over-reliance on 'heavy' monsters... and an oftimes broken pledge to "never play it again"

several years have passed and I've just tried again. this time Ive got lud's custom difficulty mod loaded so i can tune it up and down if I got stymied and not have to compromise monster placement.
I got stuck in.
really enjoyed the first three maps. in playing with more years of dooming behind me I could keep ahead of the game a bit. this time i could enjoy the architecture a lot more. those initial maps are a lovely design. i actually really love the first map a lot more than I remembered. I mean really loved it! this was looking promising.
I played on. it was getting trickier as I went. ghost town got me twice, chaingunners first and the revenant ambush after the spidermastermind second. I slug on.
I'm enjoying the design aspects much more this time round. little touches like the use of custom textures to theme the maps within themselves solidly and the little things like the 'plutonia-template telepad' design are nice.
map 11? 'oh yeah', says i, 'this is where i threw the towel in on three of the last repeated replays...' not this time. made it through and actually enjoyed it.
map 12? I just get bored! in fact i bit the bullet and gave it up the campaign playthrough here.
loading up and perusing a few of the later maps on pistol start (out of whimsy I suppose) and I just felt overwhelmed by the monster placement and underwhelmed by the map design. all this praise for the amazing design i'd heard was nowhere to be seen by my eyes. some of the maps are just so damn abstract. what are these places even supposed to be? and worse still, several of the maps were just clear rehashes of old doom2 maps; i got, innermost den vibes from neurosphere, slayer felt like circle of death all over again (but loaded with painelementals) and not one but two other maps were just rehashes of the living end (antichrist & final frontier) this started to make it feel more like the fan-project it was rather than an official release at times...
then you get to map29 and all is forgiven. I personally feel that the last two maps in plutonia are the best official released doommaps ever made.
THAT is a finale.
Its no real sweat to pistolstart map29 either so I must say that playing through this city was a real treat. and the bossmap? excellent. real ending , nice work and actually feels like a gateway to hell should look, well fortified, super tough monster placement, but can be overcome with some deft footwork and good weapon use and its a real satisfying cinematic ending. an ending sorely missing from doom2 I might add...

but five or so good maps do not make an episode for me.


nowadays the feeling of the 'need to beat it' is long gone, my ego is not so fragile that I cant live with the perceived failure of not completing a game LOL thats a youth thing. and that feeling was a lot of hair ago...
at the end of the day final doom is a game and games are meant to be fun. plutonia is not fun for me. I do not enjoy plutonia.
I feel I want to, like really want to, but just can't, does that even make sense? as I say its not need to beat it anymore but a desire to see it how others do? i dunno...
perhaps its just down to fps player style.
I'm a conservative fps player. always have been. I hoard health and ammo and save rockets and plasma for tough situations. Im a door and pillar strafe-sniper. i like to fight from cover and tend to play-it-safe. plutonia is clearly not to be played this way. its a carnage fest of 80's movie style mow-downs and balls to the wall fast paced cqb...
much like doom eternal looks to be (I say looks to be as I've not played it. don't have the machine and to be honest dont think i could even think/react fast enough to do so...)

call it pure nostalgia for the old days of my personal gaming era but I guess I really do prefer tnt evilution over plutonia and I've found that not many share this opinion.

what say you?



keep it friendly guys...

[Ac!d]

Plutonia has always been a pain for me (specially in vanilla). This video of Civvie 11 describe some of the things that I would like to say, but with more details in motion.
He also share his experience with TNT at the beginning of this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorcX8Xp7uw

[Enjay]

I've found that not many share this opinion.

Sorry to disappoint but... I absolutely share this opinion.

Final Doom has always been a bit weird to me. The first time I played it, I didn't realise that, essentially, it was just a couple of third party megawads that were officially released rather than id products in the traditional sense. However, the different feel was apparent from the outset (both in good and bad ways). So that set up a feeling of confusion and disorientation for a while. Neither feel like either Doom or Doom2 IMO. That is neither good nor bad, it simply "is".

But, for me, TNT is far more fun to play. It is easier, no question, but the look, feel, type of battles, progression etc are all much better than in Plutonia IMO. It is harder than Doom2, so it would not have been suitable "as is" to be an alternative to Doom2 but some of the "real world" locations capture more of the "Hell on Earth" feeling than Doom2 ever did (story be damned).

Plutonia is well enough crafted and the additional resources (textures mostly) are generally nicely done etc but I generally don't "get" or really like the the setting. Far more problematic, however, is the difficulty; not because it's hard, but because of how it's hard. Almost from the outset, you are ambushed by chaingunners, and revenants, and that never really eases off. Throw excessive (IMO) use of archviles and I have really lost the will to continue playing. Plutonia strikes me as the kind of megawad that, it they were available, the authors would have used excessive numbers of stealth enemies from the outset.

Short version, I actually don't really like Plutonia. Every now and again I fire it up but I just end up quitting sooner rather than later simply because I don't find it fun. Playing it is a chore. It has too many lows and very few highs. I want to enjoy it, but I don't. And, for a game, that means (for me at least) it's fundamentally flawed.

TNT, on the other hand, I find fun to play. I don't play it that often, but, yeah, definitely the better of the two IMO. Plus it has a far more original soundtrack.

[sinisterseed]

Personally I always found Plutonia to be the highest quality IWAD all around. It has the best combat and also the most consistent levels in terms of design, likely, in no small part, due to its commitment to tacking a single theme across the entire megawad, unlike TNT did. Granted Doom also had multiple locations and themes, but they were also more consistently designed than TNT's. That being said Plutonia has its issues as well, the one aspect of it that always bothered me was how damaging floors were all over the place.

In some levels slime is damaging, in others it isn't, and this happens sometimes even in the same map multiple times, areas with both damaging and harmless slime, in addition to blue water, out of all things, being occasionally damaging too. But it ultimately still shines in my book simply because it's very well designed. No, it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea because of the noticeable difficulty bump from both Doom 2 and TNT, but the enemy usage is very strategic and puts great emphasis on the player's skills, after all, it was specifically designed for the seasoned Doomer/veterans of the time, and was not intended to be a casual experience. That being said, it does have some very gimmicky levels, that being, obviously, none other than Hunted, that's as gimmicky as the IWADs ever get, with a dumb door mechanism and the player literally being a rat in a maze with nothing but AVs.

TNT has its fair share of good maps, the first 20 or so, but it tries to approach too many styles and themes for its own good as that comes with very mixed results later on, with the likes of Habitat, easily the most infamous IWAD level due to its mediocre level design, complete lack of polish, horrible combat, and bad map flow, there's no wonder you can immediately even skip the whole level, the alternative exit is accessible right off the bat. TNT is great when it does what it knows it does best, namely techbases as this is where is really shines, but the execution is quite flawed for everything else. It's a very mixed bag in my book, and while its highs are higher than Doom 2, its lows are also much, much lower. It has great music however, although the balance is off for some tracks. Either way, that would be another strong point since Plutonia out of all IWADs didn't have one, it re-used Doom and Doom 2 music exclusively, bringing nothing new to the table when it comes to this in the process.

In retrospect, although PSX Final Doom features only a few TNT and Plutonia maps, the rest of them being Master Levels, it helps a lot that it has many of the decent to greatest maps from the original package, and just like the Master Levels, the PSX rendition makes them even better, the definitive edition in my opinion. Plutonia not so much due to the drastic reduction of monster counts, absence of enemies, much slower pace, and its jungle theme simply did not translate well once the PSX treatment was applied.

[osjclatchford]

@enjay
no disappointment!
not at all!
its so refreshing to find that someone shares the exact identical opinion of plutonia as I do!
yeah my love of tnt is probably higher than most but its nice to hear that you get what I mean about wanting to enjoy plutonia but not enjoying it...
its odd though. what i don't get is why does it seem matter that we don't enjoy it as much? why do we want to enjoy it when we find it so grueling? why do we persist with it? is it just because its such a solid piece of doom lore/legend?

@Ac!d
gotta love cv11!

@lowskill
lots of people refer to plutonia's design theme being consistent. i ask, what is its theme because I just don't see/get it?
imho, yeah, the first 3 maps are of a theme but from there on its all over the place, hellstuff, abstract, doom2map remakes, cities, archvile labyrinths... lol I cant tell where I'm supposed to even be...

another thing got me thinking. how do you, the community think that plutonia ranks against other megawads like btsx-gooms? or even doom64 i play those with very little hardship but ive heard some people say they're equally as hard as plutonia. you guys think this is even remotely true?
I mean yeah, d64 is hard ON the d64 because of the limited controll but on the pc its a great experiance.
this thoughttrain is what made me wonder if its my expectation of a bad experience from my past playthroughs thats colouring my recent playtrhoughs. this (and civvies plutonia vid) is what made me play plutonia again just before i started this thread in the first place to see if i could play it without prejudice. just give it a go clean-like... yeah that failed but, you know...

[Enjay]

I certainly get the appreciation for the architectural aspects of Plutonia (though I too don't see a theme). There are some very well made maps in there. But, for me, the play experience is, as I said, just a chore - a slog, boring, dull. For me, there is no point in playing it. Clearly it has a lot of support though (the fact that Plutonia 2 and other fan tributes to it exist is testament to that). So I'm happy that people can get something out of it.

For me, however, I find it disappointing enough that to have it as the final instalment of the original official releases almost tarnishes the whole continuum of official IWADs for me. For me, it's Doom's version of Scrubs Season 9. Much like that, (along with Thy Flesh Consumed) I like to pretend that it simply doesn't exist. Then when people start talking about it, it kind of takes me by surprise "oh yeah, Plutonia was a thing wasn't it. Not very good though, right?"

[sinisterseed]

Plutonia's theme always hit me as "jungle" - green, natural-looking levels, although later on it changes a bit to more urban settings as seen in Odyssey of Noises.

As for how it fares compared to other top-tier community wads and D64... well honestly even nowadays Plutonia is still really solid due to being so high quality and ahead of its time. It definitely taught modders a lot of things about map flow and combat, and it pretty much birthed the slaughter genre before the term was even a thing - yes, Go 2 It has by all means all the rights to, rightfully, be considered the first slaughter map ever. And a good one no less. While obviously the community has been pumping out insanely good stuff that makes it pale in comparison, even for a pure vanilla mapset it's still very good. And personally, this being no biased talk, I don't think the community sequels like PRCP and Plutonia 2 surpass the original.

The comparison with D64 is not exactly valid insofar as Plutonia has an entirely different gameplay style, features the full Doom 2 bestiary, and a completely different atmosphere from it, so this is more like comparing apples with oranges. They're just different beasts. As about D64's difficulty, no, that's a gross overestimation, in no way D64 is as difficult as Plutonia, D64's equivalent of UV aka Watch Me Die is at most somewhere between Doom 2 and TNT, but I say it's easier than even Doom 2. Of course, if you play that game with an N64 then yeah, your day will probably suck, I've heard many times that it sucks when played with one, the N64 controller was just not great for shooters. D64 was remastered and released both on PC and on console recently, I take it you haven't played it yet. You should really get it then, D64 is a very solid entry in the series, available on Xbox, PS4, Switch, and PC via Steam, GOG, and Bethesda's own distribution service.

[osjclatchford]

Jungle eh? I've always felt that that's a bit of a stretch as Jungle fits up to you get to map04, then it's all over the place from thereon in...

D64, Oh yeah I've played it. second game I got on the N64, after q2...Can't really have an opinion unless you've tried it can you. Lol... No I love d64 it's my favourite of all the official dooms by far. Atmosphere in droves. Good solid gameplay. One tarnish is the absurdity of the complecation of the secrets. How would anyone even find them originally? Madness. But it is still my favourite nonetheless. I use nevanders gzdoom conversion (with a few tweaks of my own for visual stuff) I think it's the most accessible way for zdoomers to play it and enjoy it...

It's odd too cos I don't tend towards hellmaps I generally prefer techbases and d64 is three-quarters hellmaps... Just done well I suppose...

As for slaughter maps? I just don't understand the interest... Its just Arcady silliness to me. Even more gimmicky than an archvile maze... Lols... I think that's it with Plutonia. It's like an arcade version of doom where the game is almost stripped down into setpieces of arcade style gameplay in wave after wave of stuff instead of the paced and flowing predecessors formulas...

Like a comparison of doom2016 to eternal I read online... Two very different beasts. I feel that going too arcade breaks the forth wall too much for me. Ruining the experience. I know dooms never been 100% realistic but I prefer a more realized world with a sense of adventure/exploration to my game. Otherwise might have just stuck to wolf3d gameplay imo... That's what it reminds me of now I think of it... Ok that might be doing it a bit of a disservice but you can get what I mean..?

[Enjay]

Ah, slaughter maps. I despise slaughter maps. I don't get why people find that type of gameplay enjoyable at all. As far as I'm concerned it's boring, boring, boring with a healthy dose of festering, frustrating tedium on top. I guess it's a gameplay style in itself but, as far as I'm concerned, slaughter throws out just about every aspect of gameplay that I find fun and replaces it with a tedious, never-ending wall of enemies. What's the point?

If I'm ever looking for something new to play and browsing the text files in /newstuff, if I see "slaughtermap" I am very thankful to the author for putting that in their text file because it means that I can skip right past it. I have zero interest in playing maps like that. Another red flag (if it isn't in the text file) is easily obtainable mega-powerups and top-tier weapons. To me that actually lets me know that many slaughter map authors know that the style is inherently screwed up by nature. If you have to make the player into Superman off the bat just to give him a chance, gameplay is already completely messed up IMO.

So, yes, a big part of my dislike for Plutonia is the fact that the maps are often slaughter-like in style. For me, Plutonia is not "still really solid" because it is built around what I see as flawed gameplay. The fact that Plutonia is regarded as the first slaughter WAD, and the one that spawned the rest, makes me think even less highly of it. To me, it never was really solid and, with gameplay like that, it can't be. It has some nice maps but they are utterly wasted (IMO of course) by a a type of gameplay that I regard as pointless garbage.

[sinisterseed]

So, yes, a big part of my dislike for Plutonia is the fact that the maps are often slaughter-like in style. For me, Plutonia is not "still really solid" because it is built around what I see as flawed gameplay. The fact that Plutonia is regarded as the first slaughter WAD, and the one that spawned the rest, makes me think even less highly of it. To me, it never was really solid and, with gameplay like that, it can't be. It has some nice maps but they are utterly wasted (IMO of course) by a a type of gameplay that I regard as pointless garbage.

Well, that's just, your opinion man, I guess. I love slaughter even though I'm by no means part of the targeted demographic.

But your understanding of what slaughter maps represent is fundamentally flawed if that's your view on them. I find no problem in having different preferences, or even demand that you should be more respectful towards something you utterly despise - I'm not hypocrite after all -, so I won't argue about why you should like or even care about them because obviously, that's both a fruitless and pointless endeavor, after all this isn't DW is it now, there's no-one here interested in defending slaughter maps hardcore style . I've played quite a few slaughter wads myself, even fucking Sunder, and still am, and I used to hold the same views, but they eventually grew up on me the more I played them, despite the occasional abominable grindfests they sometimes end up becoming, but that's a rare occurrence.

This is probably a bad parallel but whatever, I was never brilliant at drawing them. To me, slaughter maps are very much like extreme metal and other genres that are not friendly to the casual music listener, insofar as they are both very much an acquired taste and only certain people are drawn to them, all for their own reasons, so they will never be something "for everyone" for sure. That being said, as a more familiar but casual consumer of slaughterwads, I absolutely must point a flaw in your reasoning - that Plutonia is "slaughter-like". It simply isn't, and comparing it to real slaughter wads shows a deep lack of understanding of the concept. The only "slaughter-like" level in the entire Plutonia is "Go 2 It", ever was, and will ever be, no other map is even remotely reminiscent of even the slightest and most far-removed "slaughter gameplay" style.

We should change the topic now though, I have a feeling that if this slaughter discussion continues this topic will eventually see the Hall of Unpleasantness - not because any of us will get into an argument over it - I most certainly won't -, but because experience tells me even the sole existence of the word "slaughter map" in a topic is a bad omen... 90% of the time.

[osjclatchford]

Re. Slaughter maps and controversy, I'll say one last thing and let that be it, if it can't be kept cordial (though I see no reason why it can't) ;
I guess I feel the same as enjay regarding them but I must agree with lowskill. that Plutonia is not an exclusive slaughtermapfest. Although it has its moments...It's its own thing. Almost like its own genre within the doom genre That's why folks made plutonia2! And the Plutonia simulator mod! It has love and must just hit something with a particular demographic and satisfy deeply. Just as for enjay , myself and others (I assume that exist) tnt's gameplay does the same to satisfy. In point if fact if this truly is the case then tnt and Plutonia being paired in the final doom package is a monumental stroke of genius. It's like id could see the polarization in the doom community before it even emerged and set out to please both parties...

Or on the other hand it could all just be a massive coincidence... Although in my experience there's no such thing...

I mean. I know the history of both wads and the publication of final doom but it's all good food for thought nonetheless...

[Enjay]

Well, that's just, your opinion man, I guess.

Well, I did try to stress that with a fair smattering of "IMO", "to me" and "as far as I'm concerned" in my post.

But your understanding of what slaughter maps represent is fundamentally flawed if that's your view on them.

It's my take away impression of all of the ones I've played. I can accept, however, that I may not be the best judge because if a map starts to play too slaughtery, me quitting (or just killing everything from the console and having a quick wander around to see if there is anything interesting in the map, and then quitting) won't be far behind. So I rarely play one to its conclusion.

I will agree with you that the vast majority of Plutonia maps are not particularly slaughter-like (so my generalisation was too sweeping in that regard). They just have the enemy placement/type selection choices that I identified in my earlier post that make the gameplay not fun for me. As I said, it's not that it's hard that causes me problems, it's the way in which it's hard and that, unfortunately, does leave me with the same bad taste as playing a slaughter map does.

[Enjay]

You should really get it then, D64 is a very solid entry in the series, available on Xbox, PS4, Switch, and PC via Steam, GOG, and Bethesda's own distribution service.

Is it definitely available on GoG? I can't see it on there.

[osjclatchford]

As I said, it's not that it's hard that causes me problems, it's the way in which it's hard...

That's the nail on the head that is...
That's what I was clumsily trying to say. Plutonia is it's own niche thing, this says it so much more succinctly. It's a unique quality that for now will be called plutoniosity...

God that's a terrible name but I secretly hope it sticks...

Perhaps plutoniosity is something you either have or don't...

You know, I've played maps that gave some people pulling their hair out. Map27 of tnt for example. People say they hate it because of all the hitscanners make it too hard. I love this map. Ive never had that much of a terrible experience on it. Yeah it can kill ya. But it's just a bit of attrition. Just camp up. And snipe those badboys. And be more of a corridor stalker. Don't try and go in all guns blazing! So I guess it plays to my strengths... And not to the others.

[sinisterseed]

Indeed, it is ultimately just a matter of preference, after all, everything has its own audience and fans, and I personally enjoy playing slaughterwads in general despite getting utterly destroyed sometimes. But I just come back for more, since they have grown on me.

I am glad for once a discussion on them doesn't turn into a flame war though, which is rare since they tend to have some... staunch defendants, but it's really just the way they tend to get criticized sometimes, unfairly so, that tends to rub a lot of fans the wrong way. I mean, if the first thing you're going to tell someone that what they enjoy is "unnecessary, pointless arcade garbage", or worse, "luck based shit", then honestly you should not be surprised that they won't take that kindly. You can have an opinion without being rude as heck .

This reminds me of an anecdote. On DW last year or so, someone made a topic and literally the first thing they asked, which was also in the title itself, was if there "are any modern wads out there that aren't savescumming piles of shit". I think you know what was the outcome of that, and rightfully so, for very obvious reason. Long story short, as it turned out, the man not only that was insisting on playing everything on UV and was advised to try other skill settings, to which he simply replied with "I am not playing on baby difficulties", he was also playing with gameplay mods that completely messed up the balance of the wad. Oh man, that whole spectacle was amazing when people literally started making even casual demos to prove him that what he had over there fucked things up completely and the map in question wasn't that hard to begin with.

Plutonia did inspire many things, for better or worse, it's the natural outcome really, nothing will ever please or be for everyone. In general they inspired a harder kind of gameplay that emphasized skill, which will not be to everyone's liking if all they want to do is sit down and relax with some Doom. It is also very difficult to criticize something for being "hard" since "hard" is too broad and open to interpretation in general, not to mention that it's almost entirely subjective. What is difficult to someone will not be difficult to the next person since people have vastly different skill levels.

But seriously now, please stop calling Plutonia "slaughter-like", the only "moments" when it is that is Go 2 It, nothing more nothing else. That statement is factually incorrect. As for GOG D64, oops, mea culpa there, I thought it was available on GOG too but I just checked and no, it isn't there.