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Terra-jin

Experiences with Nightmare!

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After years of playing AV and HR with UV -fast, I've finally picked up the courage to try Nightmare! I had tried it a few times before, but was toasted instantly. I'm generally capable of finishing any level at UV -fast, but Nightmare! requires a different approach altogether...

My style of playing was always to carefully pick fights and take my time to weed out all the monsters in the map. This doesn't work as well on Nightmare...
I've been trying out new styles of play and I can manage the three original episodes of DOOM. It's incredible how this not even remotely fair skill level can turn DOOM into a whole new game!

Anyway, the purpose of this thread is to find out what your views/tactics are on Nightmare. Especially E4 & DOOM 2, let alone Plutonia, AV etc... how do people survive those wads on Nightmare??

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Terra-jin said:

... how do people survive those wads on Nightmare??


Wait, wait, wait. Are you implying that people can actually live through a Nightmare playthrough of these wads?

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It would help if health/ammo would respawn after some time (60-90s) to make things even...but that's my thoughts.

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Note that in Nightmare! demos what you see is the final attempt. You can bet the Doomer who recorded it has tried the level a lot until succeeding.

This is how I see Nightmare! myself: you try and err, until you find the correct (safest) route to the exit. It's satisfying to actually make use of Doom's less used tactics (such as luring monsters to a safe spot instead of killing them), but having to plan every move for each level makes it look like a stage play or electrical engineering homework.

If one could survive Nightmare! no matter what, without having to plan routes, and killing whichever sergeant comes, then that would be good gameplay.

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I saw on youtube about a year ago a vid of a nightmare speedrun of Doom2 start to finish. It blew my mind. I had never seen anything like it. Up til then, I had no idea it could be done, or ever had been done. I couldn't say now whether it was TA or not, but it was still mighty impressive either way.

Even tho I was totally new to the whole concept, I could still tell that every level was planned down to very small details, exactly which monsters to kill and which ones to leave to allow you to get through areas quickly enough, especially if you had to pass through them again.

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printz said:

If one could survive Nightmare! no matter what

... then the point of Nightmare would be lost.

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Kyka said:

I saw on youtube about a year ago a vid of a nightmare speedrun of Doom2 start to finish. It blew my mind. I had never seen anything like it. Up til then, I had no idea it could be done, or ever had been done. I couldn't say now whether it was TA or not, but it was still mighty impressive either way.

Haha yeah, I remember a quote from Romero about such a speedrun: "It's just gotta be impossible..."!

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Knee deep in the dead is pretty fun on nightmare. Usually it can be fun to play wads with respawn, or fast monsters. One or the other. Both of them is insane.

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Gez said:

... then the point of Nightmare would be lost.

No. Not everyone would survive no matter what, but only those with fast reflexes (and good speakers :) ) who'll notice the respawns in no time and re-kill them before they do serious damage. On the first try of a newly found PWAD.

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Some months ago I gave a try.
I elapsed Episode 1 and 2 of Ultimate Doom in less than a week. But I couldnt finish E3M2.

My tatic was rush into the zombies with the chaingun and shotgun (Nightmare has double ammo.) giving a higher priority to kill sarges, and never waste time with demons and imps when possible. Very funny :)

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printz said:
Note that in Nightmare! demos what you see is the final attempt. You can bet the Doomer who recorded it has tried the level a lot until succeeding.

A "first attempt" demo on an unfamiliar level should be possible on NM mode. It would show all the deaths up until the player reaches the exit.

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I've beaten Doom 2 on Nightmare a while ago, saving at the beginning of every level; there were several maps that took a billion tries to pass, I think the hardest was MAP29 (and beat 30 1st time right afterwards lol)
I've also beaten Doom 1 on NM, but I haven't been able to pass E4M1, not fully equipped even with the RL and too many cheap shotgunners to worry about.

To me it felt like I was trying to speedrun the game: plan the optimal routes and use certain weps and hope you get lucky on some of the harder respawn encounters.
Some levels are too hard for me with pistol-start (damn you MAP04!) while I've been able to beat levels with stuff at the start like MAP07 & 30.

stx-vile's run is insane, that's all I have to say about that :)

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what is inspirational to me being a UV only player is to see that one play through (yes I'll have to find it) of a guy who went to UNF he beat Plutonia on Nightmare i believe the whole vid was about 50 minutes long..i saw the vid once shook the guys hand and went back to my room feeling woefully newb since i was getting my rear handed to me on HMP.

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40oz said:

Knee deep in the dead is pretty fun on nightmare.


Yes. Being only a marginally talented Doomer, just beating the first episode on NM is enough of an accomplishment for me. After that it gets too scripted. Playing something over and over and over again until I get it right isn't very fun to me. Not even the WHAT NOW BITCH? feeling when you finally beat it is enough of a reward, but that's just me.

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Ultraboy94 said:

I dont try a level on nightmare to see if i can beat it. I try a level on nightmare to see HOW LONG i can survive on it.




Good point :)

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On the lighter side, on many levels it should be easy to survive indefinitely. Just hide in an unpopulated (perhaps secret) area monsters can't reach and wait there! Not to mention the many levels that start off without alerting any monsters. Your task in those would be to stay there and avoid shooting :p

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Airman266 said:

Yes. Being only a marginally talented Doomer, just beating the first episode on NM is enough of an accomplishment for me. After that it gets too scripted. Playing something over and over and over again until I get it right isn't very fun to me. Not even the WHAT NOW BITCH? feeling when you finally beat it is enough of a reward, but that's just me.


Actually, I have to say E1 is the hardest (Well, next to E4) episode to nightmare run of the original doom, because of all the hitscanners. I've only managed the first episode twice in Nightmare, but the second and third episodes I've done many times in nightmare.

I don't play episode 4, because I never liked the maps.

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I think he's a pretty alright guy overall. Some problems in the past, but he's contributed a lot to the community and he's been here pretty much forever.

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I remember me and my brother attempted playing cooperatively through Nightmare on episode 1 many years ago. I think we made it to e1m3, then just quit after about our 30th respawn near the beginning. I wonder if I would fare any better now.

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I've rarely bother with Nightmare since I find that skill level too troublesome for my tastes(I don't like monsters respawning :P) although I have at least once play through ep1 on NM with saves.

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I still remember my first Nightmare experience. I finally managed to take down all those Sergeants in the armor room in E1M1. Bloody and beaten, my jaw drops as another Sergeant spawns in one of the biggest WTF moments in gaming.

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I'll pop in Nightmare or UV once in a while just to see how much better I've gotten.

I managed Doom E1 on UV and got to E1M3 on NM. I have much training to do.

Also, I almost got to Map07 in DoomII on UV.

I've never done Final Doom on anything higher than HMP, but managed to get to Baron's Lair in Plutonia on HMP. Yeah I somewhat suck at Doom now. I should hone my skillz moar.

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Kagemaru_H said:

I'll pop in Nightmare or UV once in a while just to see how much better I've gotten.

I managed Doom E1 on UV and got to E1M3 on NM. I have much training to do.

Also, I almost got to Map07 in DoomII on UV.

I've never done Final Doom on anything higher than HMP, but managed to get to Baron's Lair in Plutonia on HMP. Yeah I somewhat suck at Doom now. I should hone my skillz moar.


You know what strafing is right? And that's totally not meant to be insulting, because when I was younger I didn't know about strafing and I could barely make it through E1 and always got killed by the Barons. It makes a HUGE difference in gameplay. If you use strafing and are still having such problems, you must have the reflexes of a glacier. Blame mom and dad

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Airman266 said:

You know what strafing is right? And that's totally not meant to be insulting, because when I was younger I didn't know about strafing and I could barely make it through E1 and always got killed by the Barons. It makes a HUGE difference in gameplay. If you use strafing and are still having such problems, you must have the reflexes of a glacier. Blame mom and dad


Haha, I remember the day I discovered strafing. I used to get destroyed by E1M2 prior to it, and then the next day I was basically able to tackle UV. If you keyboard + mouse and strafe UV is a breeze for most maps.

And then after a few months of playing UV, you think you're all badass, and pop on nightmare thinking "I got this! Rip and tear!" and you just get smoked within the first few minutes.

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eargosedown said:

Actually, I have to say E1 is the hardest (Well, next to E4) episode to nightmare run of the original doom, because of all the hitscanners. I've only managed the first episode twice in Nightmare, but the second and third episodes I've done many times in nightmare.

Agreed, I've tried E1 but I haven't succeeded yet, whereas I can pretty much survive indefinitely in some maps of E2 and E3.

It's the hitscanners, indeed, that make it difficult. Then again, the zombies do provide you with an eternal ammo source.

Another factor is the sound sectors. By this I mean the area in which monsters will notice your sound, separated by closed doors or sound blocking linedefs. If these areas are big, they'll all come looking for you. There's some maps where this becomes a real problem.

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Airman266 said:

You know what strafing is right? And that's totally not meant to be insulting, because when I was younger I didn't know about strafing and I could barely make it through E1 and always got killed by the Barons. It makes a HUGE difference in gameplay. If you use strafing and are still having such problems, you must have the reflexes of a glacier. Blame mom and dad


LOL I beat e1m1 on NM by going into that secret area opened at the armor room (grabbed a shotgun off a sergeant). I'm actually just so used to HMP that I use similar tactics which might not be suitable for the difficulty. I'll have to try some more.

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Back in 1995 I would do Nightmare knowing I'd lose. When I played on Ultra Violence it became an issue where it caused me pain to lose. Nightmare was fun for me at the time, because losing was expected, so it was still fun to lose.

I could always get up to level 5 on Nightmare.

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