Are you a completionist when playing Doom casually?

I'm sure this must have been asked before but I can't find a recent thread on it. When playing Doom casually, do you go for everything 100%? Only go for the secrets/parts which you like or give easy benefits? Do you just try to get out of the level as fast as you can? Or does it just depend on your mood?

I think I'm mostly the second one. For example, in E1M2, I usually go to the outside secret to get an early hold on the chaingun, but I find the maze part annoying, so I usually skip it.

I try to get as many kills and secrets as I can. Though there are moments when there's a level so frustrating, I just say screw it and get this over with.

If I've played the level before, I'll do my best to get 100% on everything. If it's my first time playing it (or second time, sometimes) I usually just try to progress through the maps first and then go back and try to find everything.

I usually try for 100% kills and secrets, but if I can't find them all after searching for a while I usually just move on. I never really pay attention to the item percentage.

Edit: This is probably the fastest I've ever seen a thread grow on Doomworld.

Erm, no. When I see an exit switch and I don't think it's a trap, I just hit that damn switch.

I'm such a completionist, that I feel the irresistible urge to idclip to normally unreachable outdoors, voids, cages, ledges, alcoves etc. just to see what the rest of the level looks like from those points. Only then can I really be certain that I enjoyed a level to its fullest extent.

I'm an anti-completionist. I leave as many monsters alive and skip as much of the map as I can. (Heh, I do glides in FDAs.) If I can kill monsters without using ammo or weapons, I take some pleasure in that too.

But if a map calls for fighting just to stay alive, then sure, I'll grudgingly do so if playing casually. :p In a solidly built map with a fairly high monster population that you can't readily bypass, by the time I exit, most stuff will be dead. But I won't seek out stuff I don't need.

"It does not kill me, so why should I kill it?" - Steffen Winterfeldt in 30nm6520.txt

Dragonsbrethren said:

I usually try for 100% kills and secrets, but if I can't find them all after searching for a while I usually just move on. I never really pay attention to the item percentage.

This is me all over. I usually only play most .WADs once, so I try to get the most out of that first time by seeing everything I can. However, this same interest also drives me to ensure that I finish a map before I get bored of it, so if I can't find all of the secrets or the last monsters, I really don't mind leaving them behind.

I kill everything... Unless I get to a map where I end up dying one or two times to a trap (Doom 2: The Pit) or to a sniping chain-gunner somewhere (Plutonia: The Twilight). Then I just go to "Ugh, get this shit over with already..."

On a map I don't enjoy too much, I'll be flipping that exit switch at first sight. Otherwise, I'll shoot anything that moves if the fights are fun. Caveat to that: if I died a few times and feel I've "mastered" specific encounters, I won't necessarily do it all over again.

Secrets? If I find them, sure, but I don't tend to sit for minutes slowly looking for clues unless I'm desperate for ammo/health and see there are secrets (yes, I use alternate HUDs like the dirty evil cheater scumbag I am).

Tally screen, don't care.

I only kill something if it is a nuisance or if I have to kill it in order to move on. Otherwise, I don't kill it if I can get away with it. It feels more badass to just completely bypass opposition the author spent time laying out for you than to spend your own time facing it.

PRIMEVAL said:

I try to get as many kills and secrets as I can. Though there are moments when there's a level so frustrating, I just say screw it and get this over with.

This.

If I can't access a secret I alt-tab and look it up in DB.

I don't usually bother with any of that stuff, unless I'm playtesting a map. I like to find "new" secrets though, so if I'm replaying a map for the Nth time and I know there are still some areas I've never seen, I'll try to seek them out.

Phml said:

On a map I don't enjoy too much, I'll be flipping that exit switch at first sight.

Same. I played a couple of maps in PRCP yesterday which I found terrible, and I flipped the exit switch like I have never switched an exit switch before when I saw them just to get out of there.

On the other hand though, when I played map23 and map26, I checked the monster count when I saw the exit, and I ran around the maps to find the missing monster just because I liked the maps so much.

I go through DOOM while trying to get 100% everything. I search for all secrets, grab all goodies, and blast all monsters.

Normally I only bother to go for 100% if I know the map well and/or like it, but only just recently I actually wanted to try for 100% in all Ultimate Doom episodes for once.

I always finish every maps with 100% kills and secrets except for speedrun. But I am not a completionist, I only hope for a good and smooth run.

When I see an exit switch and I don't think it's a trap, I just hit that damn switch.

I just realized it has to be due to no scoring system. In Wolf3D I was very much of a completionist (when I got Mapedit, I even tried to get 100% secrets in that penultimate second episode map with hundreds of secrets), as well as in many other games in which "maximum" was attainable. Not sure if you could get a higher score in Wolf3D by speedrunning rather than maxing.

Generally, I'm not a completionist on the first playthrough of a map. I feel that if a map isn't enjoyable enough to have a second go-round, I'm not going to waste my time trying to find every nook and cranny there is to explore. I prefer taking a map as straight-forward as I can, as that's generally how I wind up enjoying Doom the most.

I think I might have worded the question a bit badly. What I meant more is like running through Episode 1 for the 100th time. Something you've already been through before but just are playing again for fun. Still, the answers given have been interesting.

I feel obligated to kill all the monsters that are a threat but that's about it. A friend I play coop with is really only interested in completing the levels so it usually leaves him with him doing anything and me cleaning up after him.

Definitely a completionist here. I get really annoyed when I press the exit switch of a level I have completed a million times before, and see that I've forgotten one secret, or left a monster alive.

Another thing I tend to do is that I always try to exit the level with the maximum health and armor level possible. For instance, if a level has a soulsphere and a blue armor, I will first finish the level and only then go back for the sphere and armor so that I can finish the level with 200/200 health/armor. Early versions of doom shareware, where you could get more than 200% armor by picking up armor helmets were hell for me :D

I think a good motivator to make the player a completionist is to make an episode with one or more secret levels, and not tell which levels lead to them. Or give them a clear reward, like in KDiZD. It worked. It felt like averaging exam grades, but it worked.

DuckReconMajor said:

I think I'm mostly the second one. For example, in E1M2, I usually go to the outside secret to get an early hold on the chaingun, but I find the maze part annoying, so I usually skip it.

depends, if i want to play the episode as a whole, i might grab that backpack from the maze, as twice the ammo comes handy. if i'm playing each map from scratch, then i avoid that maze.

same if there's little ammo, but a bunch of annoying ammo eaters, like barons. however, if there's a berserk pack available, i have to beat everything to death, especially imps.

but overall, i'm a completionist.

When I play the IWAD levels or any that I've played loads of times before I just rush recklessly through as fast as I can and only bother with secrets if they help me beat the level faster. I do kill most monsters in my path unless they're behind bars or on a ledge and are likely to take a while to kill.

For new maps I'm a bit more thorough but I still don't obsessively search secrets and hunt down wandering monsters.

Can't say I really am, though certain levels can be so engrossing that I'll happily spend some extra time searching around.

janvknn said:

Definitely a completionist here. I get really annoyed when I press the exit switch of a level I have completed a million times before, and see that I've forgotten one secret, or left a monster alive.

Another thing I tend to do is that I always try to exit the level with the maximum health and armor level possible. For instance, if a level has a soulsphere and a blue armor, I will first finish the level and only then go back for the sphere and armor so that I can finish the level with 200/200 health/armor.

This, especially with commercially-released Doom games. Sometimes also with good third-party PWADs.
I also try to leave with maxxed weapons/ammo if I'm expecting a bigger fight later on.

Pirx said:

depends, if i want to play the episode as a whole, i might grab that backpack from the maze, as twice the ammo comes handy. if i'm playing each map from scratch, then i avoid that maze.

What about the one where the switch that opens the door to outside is? I usually grab that one.

sure, i get that soulsphere and the chaingun, as it handles those zombiemen in the maze faster than the shotgun. the maze itself... well, it's a maze, and thus boring, so i prefer to skip it.

one i have to play again and again for warming up is e2m2, i like to hunt down the imps hiding between those crates and beat the shit out of them.

generally i like to pick up every bit of health and ammo and check secret areas even if i don't need them. that might stem from wolf3d where you got a bonus for every category you finished with 100%, so you needed those to get maximum points...