History YMMV / DOOM

--->'''Sarge:''' '''''SEMPER FI, MOTHERFUCKER!'''''

* TheInverseLawOfFandomLevity: The game series is about a SpaceMarine's eternal struggle against the LegionsOfHell in defense of humanity, with lots of blood and gory violence and, later on, a very convoluted lore. The fanbase is famous for making silly memes and jokes like "DOOT" and "Pogodemon", making cute and wholesome crossovers with other franchises like ''Franchise/AnimalCrossing'', and making Doomguy himself an over-the-top MemeticBadass.

** Ultra-Violence is largely treated as the "standard" difficulty despite it originally being designed as the original game's hardest difficulty, and so many players will just refuse to play any other difficulty. While this works fine for ''Ultimate Doom'' and ''Doom II'' since they're not hard games even on UV difficulty, it does become an issue when one ventures into [=WADs=], where many players end up frustrated when they're unable to beat [=WADs=] designed to be much harder than the original games because they won't try a lower difficulty. This isn't helped by many map makers only making a token effort at implementing the lower difficulties or literally changing nothing at all for them in their [=WADs=]. It's so bad that some map makers like Ribbiks actually withheld the UV version of their maps until players proved they could handle the HMP difficulty on them, so that they didn't have to deal with people complaining their maps were too hard after only playing on UV. There is a vocal contingent in the community though pushing back against the "UV or bust" mentality, encouraging map makers to take advantage of the lower difficulty settings so their [=WADs=] can be enjoyed by a greater variety of skill levels, while chiding players that complain a WAD is too hard after only playing on UV.

* [[AwesomeBosses/VideoGames Best Boss Ever]]: The original fight with the Cyberdemon. It's a gigantic demon with a rocket launcher for an arm and loads of bionics. It's in a stage where it's the only enemy besides a few Lost Souls, and you're handed a rocket launcher and tons of ammo to fight it on even terms. It explodes when killed because the ammunition inside it cooks off and detonates, reducing it to a pair of stubs where its legs were.
* BestLevelEver:

** With its modding community having been active for close to 30 years by now, it's only natural that quite a lot of fanmade content has fallen to this as well. Older mods which were once well-acclaimed can seem downright primitive nowadays, between evolving mapper skill and the introduction of increasingly-user-friendly mod tools which make it easier to add fine detailing, custom textures, and what have you, and as maps get more recent it becomes less common to see maps that don't make use of several custom textures or soundtrack, to the point that seeing heavy use of the default textures and/or music usually means it's the wad's primary gimmick, mostly seen in map packs aiming to replicate the style of original ''Doom'' developers (a-la "the way Id did").
*** ''Memento Mori'' was one of the very first full 32-level megawads ever released, releasing back in December 1995, a good seven months before ''Final Doom'', and at its time was considered one of the absolute best [=WADs=]. It was so revered that not only was it at the top spot for 1996[[note]]despite releasing in 1995; '96 was when its final version released[[/note]] in Doomworld's "[[https://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/ Top 100 WADs of All Time]]" list that preceded the now-annual Cacowards, it was the first of the very few [=WADs=] that Compet-N ran speedrun leaderboards for. In the modern day however, it reeks of many mid-90s design philosophies that have long since fallen out of favor, with its maps looking drab or outright ugly, using mapping exploits to the detriment of gameplay.
*** ''Eternal Doom'' had message boards chatting when it was released in 1996 and there are levels that stand out visually even by today's standards (impressive, considering that the [=WAD=] had to be compatible with the barebones engine in the days before limit-removing source ports existed). However, its switch-hunt gameplay feels dated and is especially puzzling due to how complex the maps tend to be, to the point that even in 1996, there were frequent messages [[GuideDangIt asking for help]]. The level styling is also all over the board, with the first 12 levels being perhaps the most visually refined and consistent, compared with the ''Eternal Doom 2'' mapset that was added to fill out the remaining map slots in an update.
*** ''Hell Revealed'', released in May '97, was a landmark megawad, being the first ultra-hard megawad made for those who thought Plutonia was too easy, and would serve as the standard at which the difficulty of hard [=WADs=] was measured against, while like the aforementioned Memento Mori, also being venerated enough to have Compet-N run speedrun leaderboards for it. Aside from its difficulty having since been well exceeded by other [=WADs=], [[FakeDifficulty the means with which it achieved that difficulty]] are scorned by modern players, with its maps relying on having clairvoyance to survive without saves or looking up a guide, a lot of times its difficulty coming down to sheer tedium, as well as traps being so unfair that they can veer into LuckBasedMission for even the best players. Its maps are also considered ugly by today standards, and Hell Revealed offers little else aside from difficulty. Players nowadays looking for an ultra hard mapset are more likely to be recommended more modern megawads which have more restrained difficulty. While ''Hell Revealed'' is still played online by many, most do it only in order to see how far Doom mapping has evolved.
*** ''Community Chest'' and ''Community Chest 2'', released in 2003 and 2004 respectively, were among the earliest high-profile megawads created by a public community collaborative effort and would popularize the trend of community projects, which remain popular with Doom mappers and players to this day. [=CC2=] would even win one of the first Cacowards. However, while they do have a couple maps that are still held up as gems ('''The Mucus Flow''' from [=CC2=] in particular is one of the most revered Doom maps of all time, placing third in 2018's list of the top 100 most memorable maps), they're emblematic of the problems that often afflict community projects; with a lack of proper oversight and quality control, the two megawads are extremely inconsistent in map design, quality, and [[SchizophrenicDifficulty difficulty]] (with the maps ranging in difficulty from as easy as Doom 2 to stuff only the most hardcore players could ever beat saveless), while also containing a lot of blatant filler maps (with some even being old maps reused for the project) and maps so overtly grandiose that were clearly not reigned in by the project leads ('''Citadel At The End Of Eternity''' from [=CC1=] is particularly notorious, with its UV-max speedrun being ''nearly as long as the entirety of Doom 2's''). Naturally, ''Community Chest 3'' and ''4'' would iterate on the community grabbag megawad idea in a more refined manner, a characteristic also present in the ''Nova'' series afterh the first, and most project designers are much more strict on the mapping rules, like forcing a specific theme[[note]]a good example being the various Doomer Boards Project [=WADs=], each of which revolves around one theme and one theme alone -- {{Cyberpunk}}, FilmNoir, WildWest, a recreation of ''VideoGame/Doom3'', you name it[[/note]] or only allowing mappers who don't have a lot of experience.
*** ''Knee-Deep in [=ZDoom=]'' was groundbreaking when it released in 2007, being a remake of the first episode of ''Doom'' that showed off a number of [=ZDoom's=] new features like skyboxes, custom monsters, and scripted events; nowadays, it's considered to be average at best, between its new monsters being [[DemonicSpiders unbalanced]], its levels being [[MarathonLevel huge, sprawling mazes]] that are easy to get lost in and often overdetailed to the point that it's hard to see any resemblance to the original level, and following on from a legitimate battle against new and improved versions of the Barons of Hell that ended the original first episode with a new FinalBoss that [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere comes right out of left field]]. Even the writer of [[https://www.doomworld.com/14years/best2.php the 2007 Cacowards]], where ''[=KDiZD=]'' won, admits as much when returning to the mod [[https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/2022/best3/ 15 years later]] in the form of ''Knee-Deep in Knee-Deep in [=ZDoom=]'', a wholly-vanilla-compatible joke re/demake presented InTheStyleOf a Creator/TheHistoryChannel-style [[TakeThat loose retelling]] of the original episode, which won more for its technical wizardry than the gameplay of the maps.
*** [=ZDoom=]'s features in and of themselves have fallen to this in a lot of mods made around when they were added, because a lot of mapmakers did what anyone does with a new toy and played with them to the point of overindulgence, resulting in a lot of older [=ZDoom=]-specific mods being a chore to play at best and actively unable to be completed at worst, depending on how your source port of choice has been updated since the mod released and/or what other mods you run alongside it, and sometimes a specific mechanic showing up ''at all'' can date a map. ''[[Franchise/JamesBond 007]]: Licence to Spell [=DooM=]'' is another good example from 2002: when it released, it was so highly-regarded that it made it onto the "Top 100 [=WADs=] of All Time" list, but with twenty years of hindsight it's readily apparent that it was made less as a full map set than it was an experiment in messing around with as many of [=ZDoom=]'s features as possible, even when they actively hinder the gameplay by making navigation a chore or increasing the difficulty [[FakeDifficulty in ways that are simply not fair]]. Nowadays, many people prefer (and are even suggested) to start off mapping with either classic or Boom format before tackling [=ZDoom=]'s features.

** Edge magazine's infamous [[https://web.archive.org/web/20120104155012/http:/www.next-gen.biz/reviews/doom-review "If only you could talk to the demons"]] review of the first ''Doom'' came out only a month after ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'', the fourth game [[Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei in a series]] where you can, as the reviewer wished, talk to the demons and form alliances. However the lack of global internet at the time meaning that very few knew the existence of the game. For additional hilarity, 2019 saw the release of ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTBBHnHf3o8 Mr. Friendly]]'', a LighterAndSofter fan mod which not only allows the player to interact and talk with demons, but also do silly quests for them.

** The official Platform/MicrosoftWindows port, [=Doom95=], introduced many problems that weren't in the original DOS version, such as the demo recording feature does not work when launching an IWAD directly from the launcher, running the port in any resolution above 320x240 causes severe rendering bugs in the automap (e.g. using map markers causes the automap to freak out and don't display in the correct coordinates), the player's weapon sprites are misaligned and appear shorter than in the original version, the intermission screen for the Thy Flesh Consumed episode in ''The Ultimate Doom'' somehow reuses the one from Knee-Deep in the Dead, broken partial invisibility effects on certain video cards and versions of [=DirectX=] (see SpecialEffectsFailure below), and the screen is slightly stretched horizontally, making the game's enemies looking shorter and explosion effects appearing as an oval shape instead. Mouse controls when running [=Doom95=] on newer versions of Windows were also rendered useless due to the port using a driver file type that became obsolete on Windows 2000 and later. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Doom95 also misspells E1M1: Hangar in as "Hanger" (the name for a TNT: Evilution map).]] It's no wonder why many players on PC would rather play the game through [=DOSBox=] or one of its many source ports.

** Al Weaver's role as The Kid predates a handful of things to his role as [[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 Rex]] 12 years later, which would be the ParentalAbandonment, showing goodwill here and there, and [[spoiler:ultimately dying for defying orders,]] except [[spoiler:Rex's death is at the beginning of the game, was a result of him not having enough time to process an order rather than actively defying it, and he is revived soon after, and his parents are revealed to have died when he was very young.]] A few fans have joked about how [[spoiler:The Rock kills Rex]] upon making the connections.

** The Nightmare! skill level is broadly disliked for its modifications (monsters move and attack faster, and have a chance to respawn after dying) falling into FakeDifficulty that makes speedruns and 100% completion much more down to chance. It's telling that among the hardcore playerbase of ''Doom'', Ultra-Violence is heavily preferred as the default difficulty for completing maps, with Nightmare generally relegated to niche challenge categories or maps that are specifically designed around it. It's worth noting that Nightmare! was not present in the game on release and was actually added as a joke in response to players who complained that Ultra-Violence is too easy. John Romero has stated that id deliberately made Nightmare! as stupidly difficult as possible to the point where not even Romero himself could beat it.

*** In the Super Nintendo port, the BFG manages to be even more powerful thanks to how simplified the mechanics are here. It's effectively fire and forget here and there's less effort needed to position yourself right. Any big fight gets reduced to a joke as the the BFG fireball detonates even faster.

** The Shotgun in the SNES port is this thanks to how simplistic the weapon is, working more like a pump-action rifle than a shotgun. With the ability to chip away at monsters from relative safety and do so with surprising accuracy, the "Shotgun" is even more of a work horse here than before.

* GameBreaker: The BFG. It fires a big green orb that deals a lot of damage, and upon colliding with something, the player (not the orb) emits 40 damaging rays in a spread pattern pointed in the direction the player was facing when they fired.
** In single-player, the BFG is unparalleled in its ability to both mow down swathes of fodder, and take out major targets as quickly as possible. With good aim and a bit of luck, you can take out even a Cyberdemon in only two shots or a Spider Mastermind in just one; without those things, you just need another shot or maybe a few shotgun blasts to finish the job. The only balancing factors are its high ammo cost (40 cells per blast) and the fact that it's only found late in the game, but once you do get it, not much in the game can survive more than two shots. The ammo cost isn't even that bad if you consider the benefits of wiping out most of an encounter for just 40-80 cells.
** In multiplayer, you can fire off a shot in one room, run over to another player, and then use the tracers to frag them instantly without them even knowing what hit them. They could even kill you first, and ''still'' get nailed by the hit-scan!

** The Nightmare! skill level is broadly disliked for its modifications (monsters move and attack faster, and have a chance to respawn after dying) falling into FakeDifficulty that makes speedruns and 100% completion much more down to chance. It's telling that among the hardcore playerbase of ''Doom'', Ultra-Violence is heavily preferred as the default difficulty for completing maps, with Nightmare generally relegated to niche challenge categories or maps that are specifically designed around it.

** The all new sound effects in the PSX port and Doom 64 also get this, with some thinking they're more intimidating, impactful, and higher quality, while some others think they're cheesy, too echoey, and that the PC sounds are higher quality. Generally, the preference comes down to if one's first experience with Doom was the PC original or with the PSX port and Doom 64, with people having nostalgia for whichever sounds they first became familiar with. Some may also TakeAThirdOption and think some sounds were done better in PSX Doom/Doom 64 while thinking some other sounds were done better in the PC original.

** With its modding community having been active for close to 30 years by now, it's only natural that several mods have fallen to this as well. Older mods which were once well-acclaimed can seem downright primitive nowadays, between evolving mapper skill and the introduction of increasingly-user-friendly mod tools which make it easier to add fine detailing, custom textures, and what have you, and as maps get more recent it becomes less common to see maps that don't make use of several custom textures, to the point that seeing heavy use of the default textures usually means it's the wad's primary gimmick.

** The chainsaw is iconic, but as a weapon it's pretty damn bad. First being a melee weapon, running in to saw an enemy to death leaves you way more vulnerable than just keeping your distance and shooting them, and if you're trying to stunlock an enemy to death the chaingun has the same rate of fire and the same DPS as the chainsaw but doesn't require you to get in an enemy's face to hit them. Then you can't really use the chainsaw on anything bigger than Cacodemon; due to buggy hit detection in vanilla Doom the chainsaw fails to properly latch onto wide enemies like Arachnotrons, while Revenants' and Mancubi's pain chance are low enough that you can't reliably stunlock them with the chainsaw without them hitting through, then you have no chance to stunlock Hell Knights, Barons, and Archviles with their especially low pain chances, and trying to chainsaw a Cyberdemon and Mastermind is flat-out suicidal. The only real practical use of the chainsaw is to save you some ammo against Pinkies and maybe the occasional solitary Caco, but as an ammo saver the chainsaw is outclassed by the Berserk Fist, which once you learn how to safely weave in and time your punches with your weaves, you can use it much more safely against those bigger enemies that the chainsaw can't safely stunlock, and kill enemies faster than the Chainsaw can too. It's especially useless on Nightmare mode or with fast monsters enabled, as besides it being a lot more difficult to get close enough to an enemy to melee them when they're constantly firing at you, the Chainsaw loses its one niche of being useful against Pinkies/Spectres, as due to their attack speed being twice as fast and their pain state being reduced to half the duration on Nightmare/with fast monsters, they cannot be reliably stunlocked and will usually bite through the Chainsaw, making it suicidal to try Chainsawing a horde of them like you could on lower difficulties.

** Oddly enough, people have started shipping Doomguy with Charlie from [[WebAnimation/HazbinHotel Hazbin Hotel]]. Nobody is really sure where that came from, especially when you consider how different they treat demons, but a lot of people seem to like it. The general premise being that he gains a soft spot for her, due to her being the only good-natured demon in Hell, as well as that she's the only person that could stop him from doing more damage than the purges. [[https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/426/145/392.jpg As seen here]]. Probably counts as CrackPairing as well.