Wow, Doom 1 episode 1 really isn't as hard as I had thought

As a chronic newbie who has played Doom for over 7 years in 1/8-player-damage mode (or godmode...lol), mostly at UV difficulty, I have always had the impression that "normal" gameplay is too hard to contemplate. ITYTD might be possible, but likely very scary and not much fun, while UV would probably reduce me to red goo in seconds. Well, I'm feeling adventurous today and for the first time tried to play Doom 1 E1 at UV in 1/2-damage and then normal mode, and to my great surprise, I actually beat the whole episode, and it was nowhere nearly as hard or scary as I had thought. I didn't die at all in the 1/2-damage run, and thanks to the well-known secrets my health rarely fell below 80%. In the "normal" run I died three or four times, IIRC in E1M1 (the shotgunners at the beginning can be a pain), E1M5 (the round area) and E1M8 (spectre + rocket), before finally finishing.

It felt quite different, of course. When playing modern levels in 1/8-damage mode, the main concern is to avoid getting surrounded, running out of ammo or health, or getting lost in case of NM difficulty. Dodging is necessary and it makes the gameplay interesting, but it doesn't matter too much if a few mistakes are made. If I fight a bunch of revenants in the wrong place and get hit three or four times, the cost is about 20% health+ammo, which is enough for a gentle reminder "try another strategy next time" but rarely fatal. Playing in normal mode requires me to be much more careful in finding cover, looking behind my back, etc., as a shotgunner is now as dangerous as a rocket guy in 1/8-damage mode, but the carefulness did not reduce the fun of the game as much as I had thought. It is just a different kind of fun.

As a comparison, it takes me about the same amount of effort to finish, in 1/8 damage mode, Doom 1 episode 1 at NM or most "modern" levels at UV. It is amazing how the difficulty of the average level has increased in these 15 years.

That's good! You've taken your first step into a larger world. /obi-wan

I understand being gun shy about this kind of thing. I've know players who would play through the same game at the same difficulty for years, and there's nothing wrong with that. Games are supposed to be fun. But it's good to step outside your comfort zone once in a while, try something ridiculous like Hell Revealed on Nightmare. Or this!

I should mention that NM skill is hard for pretty much everybody, though. The maps in Episode 1 of Doom are indeed a lot easier than most fan maps (and almost all of the rest of the official maps), but if you've been playing downloaded wads on Nightmare you'll get the impression that the gap is bigger than it really is.

Anyway, keep it up! Eps 1 - 3 of Doom have a pretty good difficulty curve, so it's not unreasonable for you to expect to be cleaning Spiderdemon guts off your boots before long.

Also, I'm curious what your control setup is (keyboard only, keyboard + mouse, gamepad...).

I haven't encountered 1/2 and 1/8 damage modes - are you playing a console port?

Splatter: Thank you for the encouragement. I use arrow keys for forward/backward motion and turning, Z and X for strafing. I have actually tried HR at NM, and even at 1/8 damage it is borderline between being fun and frustrating, though I did beat MAP01/02/04/06 after numerous saves. Also, the Youtube video is amazing!

GreyGhost: I simply hacked the P_DamageMobj() function in the source code to divide player damage by a certain factor, e.g. in ZDoom:

const unsigned divisor = 8;
int x = damage / divisor, y = damage % divisor;
int limit = y * 256 / divisor;
if (pr_damagemobj() < limit) x += 1;
damage = x;

Awesome. A "noob" who hacks his own build to make it easier to play. Congrats on raising the bar for noobs everywhere :)

It wasn't until a few years ago that I started playing on skill levels higher than 1 and occasionally 2. The main difference was that I switched from an arrow-keys keyboard-only setup to a WASD keyboard + mouse setup, and suddenly gained the ability to both strafe easily and actually aim at what I was trying to shoot.

DaniJ said:

Awesome. A "noob" who hacks his own build to make it easier to play. Congrats on raising the bar for noobs everywhere :)

I guess I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Even back in the days when I played vanilla with arrow keys + ctrl and space bar, E1M1 was easier for me in ultra violence. Because of shotguns very early.

When I was a young keyboarder I would play on UV but always with god-mode on, and I was terrified by the thought of turning it off. However, I would also play through the Heretic shareware episode quite often, without god-mode (because I didn't know the cheat code) and after getting used to those big, scary guys that throw axes it didn't scare me at all. So, eventually, I connected the dots and figured: hey, maybe Doom isn't that bad either. I've played without god-mode ever since.

More recently than that, I switched to the standard WASD + mouse setup, and after about half an hour I was a better Doomer than ever before. I would recommend you give this a try as well. You say that Doom 1 is easier than you thought, and you're only half right. It's way easier than you thought.

when i used to play doom a huge amount a year and a half ago, i was strictly keyboard. i managed to beat deus vult with no cheats and pretty much any level i played enough was completable. however, when i switched to the classic mouse/keyboard setup i found it much easier and my precision and skill increased.

Back in the days when I was little, I used to play with god mode always on and enjoy watching the monsters fight. Then I thought I'd actually try to play it the way it's supposed to be played (started on skill 0), and slowly I got better with my aim, my reaction to monsters, and my ability to conserve (under the right conditions, I am able to flawlessly punch a Baron of Hell).

Now I can play on UV (but I'd have to save a lot too - I still got improvements to make). It's like the game that Splatter posted (god how did he beat that); the better you get = harder levels being beaten.


Here's a great source port: zdoom.org. This source port has a cheat code that enables you to resurrect yourself if you die (you go to the console and type resurrect), rather than simply pressing space to restart the level. Eventually you won't need the resurrect command anymore, and will be able to play normally (though it may prove useful in levels such as Holy Hell!)

Pure Hellspawn said:

Here's a great source port: zdoom.org. This source port has a cheat code that enables you to resurrect yourself if you die (you go to the console and type resurrect), rather than simply pressing space to restart the level. Eventually you won't need the resurrect command anymore, and will be able to play normally (though it may prove useful in levels such as Holy Hell!)

You know, you could always play a 1-player coop game in vanilla or pretty much any source port to achieve a similar effect.

Eternity Engine also has the resurrect console command. :)

esselfortium said:

Eternity Engine also has the resurrect console command.

About four years ago I added a similar thing to EDGE (an idlazarus cheat code). But I found it way too tempting to use it, and without a real threat of dying you're not really playing the same game anymore, hence it was removed after a while.

Back on topic: A reduced-damage mode (cheat) is a nice idea, some source ports could easily snap that idea up...

ZDoom already has reduced (or increased!) damage as a possibility for custom skill levels. You can make a godmode skill with a damagefactor of 0, or an instadeath skill with a damagefactor of 10000. :)

I'm playing Doom on my laptop while commuting, and playing with a touchpad is quite difficult! I've skilled myself with the keyboard, and played all the way through episodes 1, 2 and 3 on UV without dieing once! And then I had to turn on God Mode in E4M1 and again in E4M2... I only use the touchpad for better aiming. But I have to be able to stop, aim, fire. Aiming while walking is impossible :)

When I have a mouse, I play Doom with a normal WASD + Mouse config like all FPSes, but I have a different layout for keyboard play, because using the touchpad is just horrendeous.

It's WASD + Arrows, so I still have access to strafe. Up arrow is fire, back arrow is jump (For ST, etc,) and side arrows are turn. Q is next weapon, and E is use/open. If you're not liking your keyboard bindings, I suggest trying it out.

I just discovered that HR MAP02 is easier for me at HMP-with-full-damage than at NM-with-1/8-damage. In the former case I finished the level in the first attempt with nearly 100% health, while I haven't yet beaten the latter without saving. The ultra-fast and respawning demons at NM keep getting me surrounded.

I still use keyboard only and I see no need for the n00bery of reducing damage.

When I first played, It was obviously with default controls. spacebar opens doors, ctrl shoots, left and right arrow keys turn, up and down moves forward and back.

Currently I decided to combine WASD and arrow keys in a manner similar to a PS2 or Xbox controller. WASD is strictly for moving forward and back and left and right arrow keys are for turning left and right. Spacebar (which I press with my thumb) is what I use to fire. These controls make doom pretty fun.

Honestly though, I'd really prefer a .deh that gives some monsters slightly less health so that they are easier to kill with weapons that typically kill them in a certain amount of shots given your aim is 100% accurate.

chaingunner needs 5 less hit points so I can waste him with a shotgun in one shot.

Cacos and PEs need like 20 less hp so I can waste em with 2 SSG shots.

Mancubus needs like 20 less HP so I can waste him with 3 SSG shots.

It's just these monsters in particular that bother the hell outta me.

I consider that unpredictability as a plus of those monsters. That unpredictability can be carried a bit far, though - I wish weapon damage in Heretic was just a little bit more consistent.

Creaphis said:

I wish weapon damage in Heretic was just a little bit more consistent.

You ain't kidding. I consider the ethereal crossbow to be a sort of parallel to Doom's single barrel shotgun (in terms of how often it ends up being the workhorse of the player's arsenal), but unlike Doom's shotgun, I can never seem to get it to reliably kill a monster in the same amount of shots every single time. May be a hitscan weapon versus projectile weapon behavior thing.

Shaikoten said:It's WASD + Arrows, so I still have access to strafe. Up arrow is fire, back arrow is jump (For ST, etc,) and side arrows are turn. Q is next weapon, and E is use/open. If you're not liking your keyboard bindings, I suggest trying it out. [/B]

I might have to try that out, the next time I'm playing ZDoom on my laptop. Of course I wouldn't be able to play WWHC-Diaz very effectively on account of the recoil, but...

I recently did something similar.

I had only ever played through both games once on ITYTD, and had just used IDDQD for most pwads, to 'sightsee'.

One day recently, when I was death matching with a friend using Legacy, I decided to test my skills.

Cranked up E1 on UV, and did a playthrough. I'm much better then I thought, and boy is it fun!

Doom on UV is the most fun experience I've ever encountered, and a good reason as to why its possibly the best FPS ever made.

Guys, I have a confession. I've never played through any of the iwads in single-player mode without cheats.

Well then. Someone has some work gaming ahead of them.

Enjoy.

Heh, probably several years ago, my default skill level was ITYTD. For some reason I decided to bump it up to UV, so I can see what WADs look like on the highest skill setting. Sometimes, especially for those notoriously difficult WADs, I have to crank it down a notch to HMP, but looking back, ITYTD was a joke. I guess I hated losing. :P

Shit I just realized that Shaikoten already has the same controls as I do. (Or at least really close)

exp(x) said:

Guys, I have a confession. I've never played through any of the iwads in single-player mode without cheats.

I've never played all the way through Doom II.

I started using UV very early on because it fascinated me to face many monsters. I used saves often to progress at the beginning, but eventually started doing E1 regularly from start to finish without saves (keyboard only). This was already before I had an internet connection and any access to source ports or exposure to "community experience". I would also play the levels I had on a couple of compilation CDs without cheats. Occasionally I think I used saves, when I was really eager to check up the whole WAD and it was otherwise very long or difficult.

When I got an Internet connection I got more familiar with demo recording (COMPET-N, demo packs, or deathmatch recordings) which demands playing without any sort of help or cheating. Later online play also made additional demands on my skills, where you need to improve or get your ass kicked badly.

Nowadays I'll only use saves to progress if I'm losing interest and want to check out later parts of a WAD, but to be honest, I generally just dump a WAD if that's the case. It's either fun enough to play though "by the rules" or garbage. To just check architecture, one can use no-monsters or some means to disable the monsters (notarget in some source ports, or a zombie-player hack in other engines).