The Beginning

Yesterday, I completed Doom's first episode on nightmare difficulty for the first time ever! I originally thought it would still be moderately easy, since episode one on "Ultra-violence" is a total breeze. The I found that it was quite a doozy, and for a couple years I would attempt it sporadically. Ultimately, I failed at E1M3, where it just seemed like too many monsters in tactical configurations made for an improbable task.

I finally beat the third level with two strategies. First of all, I realized the need to run past monsters whenever it would benefit my resulting amount of health. Secondly, I had to use the chain of secrets leading to the secret exit.

I must say it feels good to have completed -something- on nightmare. I don't know if I will tackle episodes two and three yet, because I haven't quite mastered them on UV. Still, I have to try and beat E1M3 without going to the secret exit!

Those who have done all four episodes on NM tend to say that Ep4 is the hardest, Ep1 the second hardest, with Ep2 and Ep3 easier.

As you have noticed, hitscan enemies can create a big leap in difficulty from UV to NM, and Ep1 has lots of them, and relatively few big power-ups.

E1M3 is hard even on UV with -respawn. They don't have to be fast to prove a hard test there.

Demons are also horrific. At least they make E2M6 and E2M7 tough to finish. I dare say they're deadlier than hitscanners.

Have you completed E1 by saving or not? Plain Doom has monsters forget you after reloading the game.

Glad that episode 4 wins at something, still. Being the toughest nightmare episode makes it finally worthy for being dubbed "never-before-seen" and all that by the blurbs on the back of the Doom box. I believe nobody's made an E4 movie so far.

As I suggested in that "E1 is not as hard as I thought" topic, actually only two (M3 and M7) or three (include optional M9) can be taken as 'very hard'. The rest require relatively less skill and are quite fun to go through.

printz said:
I believe nobody's made an E4 movie so far.

Universal tried, but The Rock was busy doing some Disney movie and Karl Urban was into something about Vikings and Indians, so they forgot about it.

http://www.doom2.net/~compet-n/database/cn.cgi?map:udoom:e4+2005:7

Looks like I'm behind the times o_O

On the hard levels like E1M3 I started saving after completing tricky sections, but not to make the monsters forget about me :D

I actually found the secret level to be rather easy because there is room to run around and a relatively low number of shotgunners (I think?). I kinda just grabbed the keys and got out of there ASAP. E1M7 was really difficult, but also really fun because of the map's interesting layout.

I wish people made wads that can be beaten on Nightmare difficulty more often. Seems like once in a blue moon you find a map that could feasibly be beaten on it. Most maps these days have 10 times more monsters than original Doom UV levels and they are impossible to play on NM.

That sounds like neat idea for a community project. I suppose someone would need to be a die-hard nightmare fan to find out what would make a good nightmare map, list their thoughts, and organize a megawad or episode for it. I would assume it would mean short maps that include several bits of backtracking so that previously killed monsters would be recycled.

That could work really well in cooperative mode...

What I like about nightmare is that every second counts, and it forces you to make real tough decisions about whether to kill or run. Of course, the double-speed monsters are brutal. While levels that are loaded with enemies can be hard on UV, nightmare can make small groups of bad guys difficult to dispatch. Too many monsters and you can't even kill them any faster than they respawn. It's the chaos and unending supply of demons that gives it extra suspense.

Sigvatr, I'd suggest turning on fast and respawning monsters while on lower difficulties. It still keeps you on edge but modern pwads won't be rendered quite as impossible.

magicsofa said:

Sigvatr, I'd suggest turning on fast and respawning monsters while on lower difficulties. It still keeps you on edge but modern pwads won't be rendered quite as impossible.

Yeah but nightmare also doubles ammunition.

A nightmare wadmaking project is not very difficult to pull up. All the mapper has to do is make it easy for ultra-violence.

There are tons of WADs playable in NM mode on the archive. Harder ones are also often playable, at least on a per-level basis, because they often have shortcuts to avoid having to meet all the monsters. Some of these are more obvious, some are more obscure. If it's hard to play through them as a series of levels in nightmare, it's probably also taxing or hard to max them out in UV as a whole.

printz said:
Yeah but nightmare also doubles ammunition.

Easily solved, and that's if the WAD isn't already generous on ammo on skills 2 and 3.

All the mapper has to do is make it easy for ultra-violence.

Which is the problem, as it disrupts the possibility of a more challenging play in UV.