I now understand why I am addicted to Ultra-Nightmare.

Ițve finished the game about three times on Nightmare but it became stale so I was looking for new challenges. Ultra-Nightmare is brutally difficult. You need to know where each pickup is, memorize enemy attack patterns, choose the right upgrades. It feels very rewarding and it really gets the blood pumping but sometimes too punishing. One wrong move and you are dead meat. I got as far as Argent Facility (Destroyed) TWICE when I got killed by Cacodemons on each turn.

I came to the conclusion that I am seeking new challenges and experiences but because I lack the equivalents of high quality player mods such as Sunlust, Scythe 2 or Valiant so I have to play the original campaign on the hardest difficulty because I want more excitement. If only they at least they added continues or saved the game when you completed a quarter of the game. I am getting really sick of the early levels of the game and that is a big shame because I consider those to be the best ones.

What I would do? At the very least I would add continues or saves after each quarter of UN in a patch BUT ideally there would be a 7 map DLC in Hell that is made for players who know the game inside-out...like Thy Flesh Consumed.

Second chances kind of go against what UNM is all about.

Personally DOOM4 is too hard for me to beat NM without dying. I got to the surgical room in Lazarus once on UNM and I do have an active save in Argent Facility but I'm not too eager to continue it. Especially after they've added (months ago) an AI upgrade that makes enemies predict your position when you're moving - that's just too much.

Touchdown said:

Especially after they've added (months ago) an AI upgrade that makes enemies predict your position when you're moving - that's just too much.

What?!!

Isn't that the case? Initially (very early on) enemies would shoot like in the original games so you could just circle strafe. But then they've changed it in one of the updates. So when you're strafing left, Imps won't shoot directly at you, but to your left so that the fireball hits you if you continue strafing without changing direction (kind of like you shoot rockets in MP at moving targets). This means that when you're strafing and an Imp is preparing his fireball, you've gotta change direction at the right moment to avoid getting hit. It makes sense but with the amount of projectiles and the damage they do on NM it's kind of unfair to me.

You're right, Touchdown, since Free Update 4 (the arcade mode update) enemies now predict the player's movements making dodging incoming fireballs much, MUCH harder than before the update.

I quite enjoy that change though, it makes the game more challenging (NM was too easy for me before the patch, and perma-death is not my thing), and you have to be more conscious of your movement and react to the demons around you. No more just running in circles and taking zero damage.

The biggest challenge, is to play it on a controller.

ArchvileHunter said:

You're right, Touchdown, since Free Update 4 (the arcade mode update) enemies now predict the player's movements making dodging incoming fireballs much, MUCH harder than before the update.

I quite enjoy that change though, it makes the game more challenging (NM was too easy for me before the patch, and perma-death is not my thing), and you have to be more conscious of your movement and react to the demons around you. No more just running in circles and taking zero damage.

Not sure how I feel about it. Makes enemies too unpredictable and a degree of predictability is important in Doom.

So you can make no saves on ultra nightmare? 

On 1/3/2017 at 4:08 PM, Sig said:

The biggest challenge, is to play it on a controller.

playing on a controller is easy for me. iv'e been doing it ever since i got my xbox at 2-3 years old. its like second nature to me.

On 12/14/2018 at 1:19 AM, Can't play on Nightmare said:

So you can make no saves on ultra nightmare? 

It saves between levels, once you've completed a map but if you press "continue" instead of "save and exit" you need to complete the following map in order to be able to continue from the next save. So for practise, it's good to play one map at a time before attempting a full playthrough at once. I've completed the game on UNM two times now, 2nd playthrough was in two parts from UAC to Advanced Research Complex and from ARC until the end, about 3h each part.

On 12/29/2018 at 2:49 PM, Kristian Nebula said:

 

It saves between levels, once you've completed a map but if you press "continue" instead of "save and exit" you need to complete the following map in order to be able to continue from the next save. So for practise, it's good to play one map at a time before attempting a full playthrough at once. I've completed the game on UNM two times now, 2nd playthrough was in two parts from UAC to Advanced Research Complex and from ARC until the end, about 3h each part.

Which is more difficult to beat, the Plutonia Experiment on Nightmare or Doom 4 on Ultra Nightmare? The newest Doom game I played was Doom 3 (2004). I am an old fashioned person :D

I would say Plutonia because Nightmare! for original Doom games was to my understanding a kind of a joke in the first place, to make monsters shoot projectiles around three times faster in speed and in an insane frequency + respawning. At least it has the possibility to save, which usually turns into save-spamming when trying on Nightmare. And if you save in a bad situation you're pretty much done for. Can't remember if I've beaten Plutonia on Nightmare in the past. I've tried at least, and I know that it's possible if you know the levels really well.

DOOM 2016, on the other hand on Ultra Nightmare doesn't differ too much from Nightmare despite the fact that if you die, you go to the beginning. The monsters don't respawn but they do insane amount of damage if you get hit; getting beaten by a zombie can take up to 45% of health in one go alone. The monsters also try to predict the route you're moving throwing their fireballs in the direction you're most likely to move to, so you need to be really constantly moving to stay alive. If you stand still, it's almost instant death for sure. If you want to check my run, it can be found in two parts on my Twitch channel (first part linked): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/302013259

EDIT: I've also completed Doom 3 on Nightmare, which was interesting horror-wise because the health consistently dropped into 25% and you could only boost it through the health stations on walls if I remember correctly. There wasn't any health packs lying around. It was quite fun, actually!