What do you want for Difficulties?

Doom 4 was just about incoming damage and I think most of us found that was pretty boring.  I hope it is more like classic and this is what I would propose:

1.  I'm too young to die 

Damage 50%- less, monster count low

2.  Hey not too rough

Damage normal, monster count low

3.  Hurt me plenty

damage normal, monster count medium

4.  Ultra-Violence

damage normal, monster count high

5.  Nightmare

damage 50%+ more, monster count high

6.  Ultra-Nightmare

damage 50%+ more, monster count high, one life to live

I'd like AI variance. On beginner difficulties enemies have poor tracking, rarely use special attacks, and fight each other more frequently than you. On higher ones they become more intelligent and cohesive until at top levels you get enemies expertly leading you and practically fighting in lockstep given how hard it is to have them infight.

Maximum difficulty should be SNK like, demons have a perfect ability to lead you and they literally drop everything to attack once you show up.

No enemy staggers on higher difficulty.

In higher difficulty monsters are supposed to have more attacks tokens to use in doom 2016. Not sure about anything else, but this is what the designers said.

6 hours ago, Rifle Infantry said:

I'd like AI variance. On beginner difficulties enemies have poor tracking, rarely use special attacks, and fight each other more frequently than you. On higher ones they become more intelligent and cohesive until at top levels you get enemies expertly leading you and practically fighting in lockstep given how hard it is to have them infight.

Pretty much, as well as changes to their placement and usage.

Game Journalist: The game literally plays itself for you.

Everyone Else: The game doesn't play itself for you.

/sarcasm

In all seriousness, I can't think of any specific wishes when it comes to difficulties. I'll happily take anything.

Something like what I did with the difficulties I wrote for my wad.

1: I Just Want to Kill

50% damage, 150% armor, 200% ammo, fewer monsters, keys marked on map.

2: Easy/I'm Too Young to Die

75% damage, 125% armor, 125% ammo, fewer monsters, keys marked on map.

3: Normal/Hey, Not Too Rough

100% damage, 100% armor, 100% ammo, normal monsters, slight aggressiveness increase

4: Difficult/Hurt Me Plenty

150% damage, 80% armor, 100% ammo, normal monsters, increased aggressiveness

5: Badass/Ultra-Violence

200% damage, 50% armor, 100% ammo, 150% monster health, more monsters, high aggressiveness

6: Ultra

300% damage, 50% armor, 200% ammo, 200% monster health, more monsters, -fast, no cheats, no pain/stagger

Naturally, that can choose whatever arbitrary names they want, but I think this might work. The numbers can be tweaked some to better work, but I think having six difficulties as opposed to four might be better.

And I wasn't a fan of Ultra-Nightmare, anyway.

32 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

keys marked on map.

Everything else sounds pretty good, except this. That would probably trivialize everything me thinks.

That's why they're placed only on skills 1 and 2. Did you notice that isn't a thing on skills 3-6?

The first two difficulties are as easy as they can get without being -nomonsters or 0 damage factor.

9 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

That's why they're placed only on skills 1 and 2. Did you notice that isn't a thing on skills 3-6?

Yes, considering I cut everything else from that post. Skill 1 and 2 would be pretty... stress-free that way I guess :v .

Don't Kill Me - Demons deal 30% less damage and move 20% slower

Hey There, Not So Hard - Demons deal 10% less damage and move 10% slower

Hit Me Harder! - Normal Difficulty

Man And A Half - Demons hit 15% harder and are more intelligent

Ultra Violence - Demons Hit 30% harder, 20% Faster, More Intelligent

Nightmare - Demons hit 45% harder, move 35% faster, have 50% more health, are more intelligent, and spawn more often. One Life, saves enabled

Polygon Mode (okay maybe not that but something similar): 25% damage taken, less enemies, double ammo, double HP/armour, dumb AI, increased weapon upgrade point rate

I'm Too Young To Die: 50% damage taken, less enemies, +50% HP/armour, dumb AI, increased weapon upgrade point rate

Hey, Not Too Rough: 75% damage taken, less enemies, normal HP/armour, normal AI

Hurt Me Plenty: Normal damage, normal enemies, normal HP/armour, normal AI

Ultra-Violence: 125% damage taken, more enemies, normal HP/armour, normal AI

Hellwalker: 200% damage taken, more enemies, -25% HP/armour, smarter AI, decreased weapon upgrade point rate

Nightmare: 300% damage taken, even more enemies, double ammo, -50% HP/armour, smarter AI, decreased weapon upgrade point rate. Unlocked by beating the game on UV or higher.

Ultra-Nightmare: Same as Nightmare but with one life. All failed attempts are displayed to the player when running through the level just like in '16. Unlocked by beating the game on Nightmare.

Unleashed: 'Just for fun' gamemode - maximum amount of enemies, but 4x HP/armour and all weapons are replaced with superpowered equivalents. Unlocked by beating the game on any difficulty.

A dream come true would be to have different enemy lineups on various difficulty levels. Not just more monsters but more dangerous, more tricky groups to deal with. Another option would be to adjust various enemy stats - let's say enemies are slightly faster, have faster reaction times, maybe they're less predictable or use more dangerous attacks more often on higher levels?

But let's be honest, we're probably only getting a different damage modifier + more active enemies at the time like in DOOM4.

23 hours ago, Zemini said:

Doom 4 was just about incoming damage and I think most of us found that was pretty boring.  I hope it is more like classic and this is what I would propose:

 

1.  I'm too young to die 

Damage 50%- less, monster count low

 

2.  Hey not too rough

Damage normal, monster count low

 

3.  Hurt me plenty

damage normal, monster count medium

 

4.  Ultra-Violence

damage normal, monster count high

 

5.  Nightmare

damage 50%+ more, monster count high

 

6.  Ultra-Nightmare

damage 50%+ more, monster count high, one life to live

Can't do that unless you sacrifice the ability to change difficulty in-game. It should also change ammo pickup values.

I really dislike when difficulties mean 'taking more damage from projectiles', classic doom didn't had this problem and it relied on enemy and item placement, but sadly those thing are mostly incompatible with the new doom gameplay style. I would rather have more monsters on screen and have them be more cunning with their abilities for a high difficulty rather than just increase the damage that each projectile does.

One thing i did liked it's that the higher difficulty is, more monsters attack you at once and they have less chance of infighting with themselves, so i hope they expand this for the new game since this was a cool gameplay concept

1 hour ago, Duke of Pathoris said:

Can't do that unless you sacrifice the ability to change difficulty in-game. It should also change ammo pickup values.

Which I am sure most people would be completely fine with.

I just wanna see Ultra-Nightmare being hard enough to make Zero-Master sweat. The rest I don't care about.

Maybe a 'one hit and you're dead'-mode could be a plausible challenge in Doom Eternal? No perma-death on top of that though, that would be next to impossible.

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I just wanna see Ultra-Nightmare being hard enough to make Zero-Master sweat. The rest I don't care about.

"Zero-Master's sweat" sounds like a good souvenir or collectible for a Doom fan to have.

7 hours ago, Archvile Hunter said:

Maybe a 'one hit and you're dead'-mode could be a plausible challenge in Doom Eternal? No perma-death on top of that though, that would be next to impossible.

No, no,  I disagree with that. Dusk did that with its final difficulty and it's just nonsense. The result is that people keep asking for an in-between difficulty because they want something harder than Cero Miedo but not ridiculous like DUSKMARE.

I'm sure somebody would like to see that but in general I think games should let you make mistakes and redeem yourself from them. And the higher the difficulty the less opportunities you have to get back on track.

Unless of course it's a game specifically designed with that in mind like Hotline Miami. But if it's tacked on I feel like it would be way too punishing.

Now I wonder if some kind of gameplay modifiers would work though. Something like the Second Wave options in the new XCOM games or more recently Arkane's Prey (after the patch) where on top of the difficulty you can select a few options to make the game more difficult.

7 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

I just wanna see Ultra-Nightmare being hard enough to make Zero-Master sweat. The rest I don't care about.

You know, there are people for whom UNM is already too easy and they're coming up with challenges to make it harder. There's a guy called Byte Me on YT that does 100% UNM runs (all upgrades maxed out, all challenges, all runes upgraded, etc) and his record is like 2h 45min.

What about monster regenerating health for Ultra Nightmare? If monsters can't respawn that's a good method.

I hope they don't give monsters more health, immunity frames or regeneration. All of them are annoying as hell to deal with. Rather have super fast monsters and projectiles over dealing with meatshields and bulletsponges. Stuff like Iron Man shouldn't be in a main-difficulty, they should be a separate checkbox imo. Idk about the Doom 16 nightmare but the 2% completion rate it has seems about right for hard modes\games.