Ways to make Doom harder without changing anything about the level/monsters/weapons

Basically, changing the way you play to make things harder and hopefully more fun.

My friend came up with using only fist/chainsaw.

There are two demo categories closely related to this:
Tyson: kill everything (and exit) using only weapons 1 and 2 (fist, chainsaw or pistol)
Lewis: kill as much as you can (and exit) using only weapon 1 (fist or chainsaw)

Tyson is a standard category; I haven't seen too many "Lewis" demos though.

My favourite category is Pacifist (exit the map without harming the monsters). Another way to make things more challenging is Reality (exit the map without taking any damage). And there are plenty of others, though it really depends on the map what is feasible, and what makes it more of a challenge.

Grazza said:

Another way to make things more challenging is Reality (exit the map without taking any damage).

There's more to it: you may not use the plasma gun or the BFG9000, and IIRC you are not allowed to fall too far (all these are pretty ridiculous, though).

The fact that they are somewhat ridiculous has led to something of a consensus that they are not requirements for Reality, with the term "Real Reality" (coined by Opulent) reserved for Panter's original rules.

I will have to try some of these out one day...

Heh, wonder how you would do a reality demo... in heretic :P

I got it. Use only the Staff WITHOUT the TOP.

the ultimate impossible level would be the Doom: Forever MOD and then set the skill to Nightmare.

turbo 1

Disable strafing and running. This makes many easy maps, e.g. E2M6, a nightmare.

Kristian Ronge said:

Disable strafing and running. This makes many easy maps, e.g. E2M6, a nightmare.

I remember my idea that got made into a COMPET-N contest: "strolling" which involves no running, no strafing, and playing Pacifist style all at once. My idea was to make a demo that looks like the player is so good he just doesn't give a shit.

That reminds me that Sedlo did map01 with -turbo 3 (in the entries for the same compet-n contest, IIRC). He did permit himself to fire though.

BTW, the game interprets -turbo 1, -turbo 3, etc., all as -turbo 10.

Play without savegames.

Grazza said:

That reminds me that Sedlo did map01 with -turbo 3 (in the entries for the same compet-n contest, IIRC). He did permit himself to fire though.

BTW, the game interprets -turbo 1, -turbo 3, etc., all as -turbo 10.

ah, so you're basically at 10% of the doom marine's speed, that's about what a normal human loaded with weapons would run?

ouch, those imps are so fast... :D

Hmm...Ultra-violence, fast-monsters, turbo 50, no Plasma or BFG. I'll have to try Episode 1 like this sometime.

Kristian Ronge said:

Disable strafing and running. This makes many easy maps, e.g. E2M6, a nightmare.

I used to never strafe when I played Vanilla Doom, but that was a long time ago.

Keyboard only.

Play without using the backwards key.

WildWeasel said:

Hmm...Ultra-violence, fast-monsters, turbo 50, no Plasma or BFG. I'll have to try Episode 1 like this sometime.

There's no plasma or BFG in episode 1 anyway :)

Ryback said:

Play without using the backwards key.

The control setup I use doesn't have a backwards key. However, I go back with the mouse (novert isn't active of course), just it's not very convenient. In deathmatch it becomes a problem.

Without using backward movements at all, the game really would get a lot harder.

Go play different genres of games than FPSs and don't touch Doom for about half a year. Then come back to Doom and see your FPS skills greatly reduced.

Donce said:

There's no plasma or BFG in episode 1 anyway :)

Unless you cheat ololol!

dsm said:

Go play different genres of games than FPSs and don't touch Doom for about half a year. Then come back to Doom and see your FPS skills greatly reduced.

Hmmz... I didn't touch Doom at all from May till a few weeks ago... Noticed no changes, as if I had left just for a few days. It's like a bicycle - once you learn to ride it, you may stay away from it for 10 years, and then just go and ride again at once.

I wonder if anyone's ever tried playing Doom without using the forward key.

Lizardcommando said:

I wonder if anyone's ever tried playing Doom without using the forward key.

I bet you could write a util to convert a normal demo to a totally backwards-running demo.

Lizardcommando said:

I wonder if anyone's ever tried playing Doom without using the forward key.

Yes. There was a COMPET-N contest IIRC, forbidding the use of forward movements. I can't connect to the page right now, I'll check it later (or someone else will).

dsm said:

Go play different genres of games than FPSs and don't touch Doom for about half a year. Then come back to Doom and see your FPS skills greatly reduced.

i've played doom since 2000 or even longer only using source ports with mouselook and jumping enabled (first legacy, later jdoom and zdoomgl).

it felt so strange when i tried some classic doom gameplay again (no vertical mouse, no jumping) after watching some demos ;)

but it's like riding a bike, control comes back quickly.

A good source to look for this kind of idea is the old DHT archives - when you submitted a DHT entry you were allowed (in fact, obliged, though it could be *anything*) to submit a free interpretation demo, i.e., do anything you like, and people got quite creative with that.

Two things I remember doing - I completed the whole of episode 1 as a single-segment tyson run, once, that's in compet-n misc somewhere. The other one was a DHT misc demo I did, playing through episode 1 using only one hand. I think I died somewhere in E1M5, my memory is hazy. It's an interesting thing to do actually, especially if you don't change your config at all; I kept having to take my hand off the mouse to open doors and hit switches...

Albert Valls has done a few no-keyboard demos, which he calls "Cervantes". This search locates references to them at DSDA.

Ahhh, so many ways to play our beloved Doom. :D
I tried playing and using only the chainsaw. Learned alot about correctly using that sucker. :P

footman said:

Ahhh, so many ways to play our beloved Doom. :D
I tried playing and using only the chainsaw. Learned alot about correctly using that sucker. :P

it's often better than the fist against cacos, since it stops them from firing back, but it sucks when it gets stuck in a baron.

cervantes: cause it's like a fight with a windmill? link doesn't work, i'll look for valls' demos. just because i played about like that when i broke my right hand a few years ago, i couldn't strafe, so i threw the mouse around using my left hand. surprisingly, other players found i was rather hard to hit because of my weird movements.

Torr Samaho said:

link doesn't work

Weird - it worked earlier (obviously). I've modified it so it isn't restricted to sda, and it seems to work once more, albeit with a couple of false positives.