Which difficulty do you play at [2018 Edition]

[galileo31dos01]

12 hours ago, xvertigox said:

Which difficulty do you play at?

 

It was HMP for almost everything, then switched to UV from Eternal Doom because it didn't have a spidey on lower skills. Nowadays, depends on what's recommended. 

 

12 hours ago, xvertigox said:

If you find a map tough do you lower the difficulty or grind until you can beat it?

 

Single maps, yes, maybe. Mapsets, never, it could be the case that both skills 3 and 4 don't have many important differences in difficulty, and so I upper it to 4. 

 

12 hours ago, xvertigox said:

Do you ever play with -fast? If so do you do it consistently?

 

No. Only Chex Quest and that's because it isn't violent at all. 

 

13 hours ago, xvertigox said:

Do you save often?

 

Yea, every 10 minutes, depending on the circumstances I might save earlier, or totally forget to save, and regret later :P

 

13 hours ago, xvertigox said:

Do you pistol start most, if not all, maps?

 

I play continuous but not the "usual" way... Let's say no, I legit don't pistol start for first times. I do later.

 

13 hours ago, xvertigox said:

I feel like the general consensus is UV is the default skill level, is this true for you?

 

Not at all, one can play however the hell they want, there is no default skill in general but one's own default skill. 

 

13 hours ago, xvertigox said:

Do you think UV should be the standard difficulty when it comes to level design or should it be quite punishing

 

To each their own. Best thing to do imo is to explain briefly what's the wad about and most importantly warn about the difficulty. Therefore, it's up to the players if to give it a try or avoid. 

 

13 hours ago, xvertigox said:

MTrop bought up an interesting point in an Evolution of the Wad episode where people complained that Hard difficulty was hard and they were dying often. He said yeah, the whole point of hard is for it to be hard. Does this ring true for you in Doom? If you were to play a new wad on UV and it was ruthlessly tough would you lower the difficulty to HMP or would you keep at it until you crack it?

 

I guess so, hard is hard, if you choose it while knowing you still aren't ready for it, you can only blame yourself. I would be smart and play it the recommended skill, or not play it yet until I feel like to. 

[[McD] James]

Usually Ultra Violence. I used to be of the "Ultra Violence or nothing" mentality, but there are some pretty hairy maps out there where I'll swallow my pride and play on HMP.

[SGS Man]

Ultra Violence, Pistol Starts, and Saveless, in general. If the map gets too hairy, I add saves to carry me through.

[CARRiON]

UV.

I think I've lowered the difficulty like twice on custom maps in all the years and years I've been playing DOOM.

I don't seek it out.

I usually save during key moments like finding a key, after a big battle, finding a super weapon or item, etc.

Nah.

[Pegleg]

• Which difficulty do you play at?

The first time I play a map (including my own), unless directed to otherwise (such as with DMP 2018), I'll play on I'm Too Young To Die. If it's my own map, I'll try it on higher difficulties. If it's another map, and I want more of a challenge, I'll try it on a higher level.

 

• If you find a map tough do you lower the difficulty or grind until you can beat it?

It depends on my mood. Obviously, if it's ITYTD, there is no lowering the difficulty.

 

• Do you ever play with -fast? If so do you do it consistently?

As a general rule, no.

 

• Do you save often?

Generally, yes. If it's a requirement of some kind of challenge that I decided to try, then no, but if I'm just playing for my own enjoyment, absolutely yes.

 

• Do you pistol start most, if not all, maps?

If it's a single map, yes. If it's a mapset that's continuous, no.

[GarrettChan]

Reality difficulty...

 

Seriously, why we should pick only one...

[joshthenesnerd]

when i first played doom, i played on HMP. that was actually how i first played through the official iwads and the first pwads i played. i need to go back and play doom 2 and final doom on UV. probably haven't beaten e4 and e3 on UV either yet. actually, only with brutal doom (don't get me started on brutal doom) did i play e4 on uv. i knew everyone played UV when i started, but i needed time to get used to the game in general.  and eventually i made the switch to UV. and comparing UV to HMP in the iwads is no contest. HMP feels so empty when you're comparing to UV. it's almost as if UV was the baseline when romero was making his maps and he decided what wasn't gonna be there on the lower difficulties after he did the UV placement. when i'm mapping i kinda decide all the difficulties at once, and it goes encounter by encounter, but since i play on UV it is "standard difficulty" when i'm doing enemy placement.

[Lila Feuer]

18 hours ago, xvertigox said:

• Which difficulty do you play at?
• If you find a map tough do you lower the difficulty or grind until you can beat it?
• Do you ever play with -fast? If so do you do it consistently?
• Do you save often?
• Do you pistol start most, if not all, maps?

Suppose I should further evaluate seeing as I was too focused on the title and poll of the thread and not answering these.

1. UV, because my previous post.

2. I think I lowered the difficulty to HMP once but I can't remember what for or why. Honestly HMP is as low as I'd prefer to go as I consider that to be the default 'normal' difficulty whereas UV is regarded as hard or second hardest to NM. If I'm really forced to lower it to HNTR aka easy street then I'm questioning if this map set is even within my skill range at all. It's gonna have to sell me really hard else wise if I'm going to put it on that, be it absolutely beautiful looking maps or a really cool atmosphere. I refuse to go on ITYTD because that defeats the purpose of playing for me and it's just boring.

3. No, but I experimented with playing -fast on Doom 1, 6 years ago, and ran into the dreadful pinky demon speed bug when trying to reload a saved game so that kinda screwed everything up for me (was using Choco). I may try to do -fast again if I want a challenge, it's just too bad that apparently -fast isn't the same as NM's fast. Someone tech savvy around here back me up on that one?

4. In the IWAD maps, particularly id's, no, I save at the beginning of each level because I'm super comfortable playing D1 and D2, unless it's a known trouble spot (Doom II's MAP24 lost soul ledge run near the end that has a potential fail rate to completely screw you over). In Final Doom (particularly Plutonia), or PWADs I'm unfamiliar with it's wise to occasionally save, especially before and after tough fights, or getting a key.

5. I pistol started every D1 and D2 map once on UV, I may or may not of pistol started all of Final Doom too but I seriously can't remember, so maybe I didn't. I don't think I've pistol started any PWAD beyond the obvious MAP01 which doesn't count anyway.

[stochastic]

1. UV almost always, unless I'm doing a blind playthrough of a notoriously difficult WAD... in which case I drop it down to HMP.

2. Grind through the pain. Once I choose a difficultly, I'm not gonna change it mid-playthrough.

3. I will on the IWAD's for shits and gigs. Occasionally will on PWAD's I'm comfortable with.

4. Too damn much. Although, I never do while playing IWAD's. 

5. No. Continuous playthroughs every time. 

[xvertigox]

Looks like most people are of a similar mindset. I find this continues to pretty much every new single player FPS I play too, always default to hard.

 

On 4/7/2018 at 11:28 AM, cyan0s1s said:

it's just too bad that apparently -fast isn't the same as NM's fast. Someone tech savvy around here back me up on that one?

 

As per the wiki: "The fast monsters setting is automatically activated when playing using Nightmare! difficulty, although in this skill level they also attack immediately on sight, while in mere fast mode a couple of steps are usually evident before their first attack occurs."

 

Wonder if there's a flag you can use in prboom to emulate this or some DECORATE wad for ZDoom?

[Lila Feuer]

1. Normal (normal monster behavior)

2. Aggressive (-fast monster behavior)
3. Bloodthirsty (NM monster behavior)

That about sums it up accurately I think!

[leodoom85]

• UV all the way.
• Never changed the difficulty
• Not at all
• Yes, I save often, but when a challenge requires it, I do that saveless
• Sometimes I do pistol start (except forced pistol start) but I'm mostly in continuous way

[mrthejoshmon]

It's an odd one actually because it depends on what I'm playing.

 

If it's a megawad then I'll play on HNTR or HMP, if I like the megawad I'll then do a UV run.

 

If it's an old single map from the 90's, I'll run it UV standard and nothing lower.

 

If it's a "modern" standalone map then I run it either HMP or UV depending on how I'm feeling and if I plan on playing it for fun (HMP) or to give feedback (UV exclusively).

 

I'll save, yes, but I often forget to, I always save at the start of a new level though.

 

...and if it's a slaughter map I just don't play that shit!

[Malrionn]

* Which difficulty do you play at?

I generally play HMP. I play the IWADs, the maps and megawads that I know and like, and the Ironmans (prepared runs) in UV.

 

* If you find a map tough do you lower the difficulty or grind until you can beat it?

If the map is in the middle of a megawad, I will not lower the difficulty. I will grind the map if I like the map or the megawad, otherwise I just stop playing the megawad. If it's a single map, I will lower the difficulty if it's too hard. For tough megawad that I enjoy like Alien Vendetta, I will play from HNTR to UV.

 

* Do you ever play with -fast? If so do you do it consistently?

I never play with -fast and I'm not interested.

 

* Do you save often?

I save quite often when I play casually, except for Ironman where I save only at the beginning of each map if I'm doing a prepared run.

 

* Do you pistol start most, if not all, maps?

I will pistol start only the maps I really like, otherwise continuous play FTW.

[The Nate]

to be honest

 

if I'm playing a pwad

 

then I start on HNTR

 

then work my way up to UV

[Lila Feuer]

@Sgt Nate V That's one way to do it, actually. Ease your way into the ever increasing difficulty more naturally, with prior memorization of the map. I could maybe employ that someday for particularly unforgiving PWADs...

[The Unclassy German]

Most of the time i play UV and with -fast (with a shitton of saves)... as Nightmare is just too insane for me

[Kristian Nebula]

Always UV - completed all games (the Ultimate DOOM, DOOM 2, Evilution & Plutonia) on NM about 15 years ago and can't say I enjoyed it but took it as a challenge. UV is the way to go, lower skills are usually too easy for me. :)

[Lila Feuer]

Lol wonder if I'd ever be nuts enough to attempt a NM playthrough someday, seeing as I know the maps so well I could probably fly right through. I'm still contemplating about doing the IWADs allll over again just to say I did the whole game on -fast.

I think I've played the IWADs too much, sigh.

[KVELLER]

• Which difficulty do you play at?

Hurt Me Plenty, unless the author says something like "Only UV was tested". I don't want to play an unbalanced map. The only exceptions to my "HMP rule" are the IWADs, since I know them like the back of my hand.

• If you find a map tough do you lower the difficulty or grind until you can beat it?

I grind. I'm not going to run away from whatever difficulty I chose. If it gets too hard (which is usually the point where I stop having fun) then I'll probably just go play something else.

• Do you ever play with -fast? If so do you do it consistently?

I've played with -fast on a couple maps where the author stated that you could use it for additional challenge, but I don't do it normally.

• Do you save often?

Yes, A LOT. Doing the same thing over and over isn't fun IMO.

• Do you pistol start most, if not all, maps?

Yes, I always play with pistol starts unless the author explicitly states that the maps are balanced for continuous play. Again, I don't want to break the balancing.

[Bauul]

I am extremely encouraged to see quite so many people select HMP.  As a mapper, I always put a lot of effort into making sure the difficulty settings are all supported, so it annoys me when I see people skimp on them because "everyone just plays UV".

 

I'm going to be bookmarking this thread to prove to people that people do, in fact, use difficulty settings.

[Cant delete my DW account]

Well...depends.

On stock maps,I play on HMP (what I voted),on weapon mod steroids,UV,when on hard megawads that are hard because of type of opposition,HNTR,on megawads with lot of monsters,welp,IDWTD.

 

[geo]

As I probably pointed out in the last thread like this, I'm an old man who plays Too Young to Die. In my younger years it was Ultra Violence all the way with frequent saves. I'm just too lazy to go through Ultra Violence. At some point Doom / Doom 2 were my only PC games and even when I had more PC games they were still the only games I'd play I needed that challenge to make it last.

[KVELLER]

On 6/4/2018 at 12:28 AM, xvertigox said:

I feel like the general consensus is UV is the default skill level, is this true for you?

 

No, it's HMP. If you think otherwise you're objectively wrong :P

 

On 6/4/2018 at 12:28 AM, xvertigox said:

Do you think UV should be the standard difficulty when it comes to level design or should it be quite punishing. MTrop bought up an interesting point in an Evolution of the Wad episode where people complained that Hard difficulty was hard and they were dying often. He said yeah, the whole point of hard is for it to be hard. Does this ring true for you in Doom?

 

Again, HMP should be considered the "not too though, but not too easy" skill. If you're going to play on UV you should expect to get your ass kicked, ffs.

[kmxexii]

I play almost exclusively on UV.

I grind until I can beat levels.

i don't use -fast.

I save. I don't do it constantly but I'm still pretty far from my hardcore age. That stopped at the end of Hell Revealed's first episode.

I pistol start almost exclusively with common sense exceptions.

[Suitepee]

Mainly on UV, lowering the difficulty for exceptions and/or when recommended by the mapper themselves with good reason.

[MTF Sergeant]

On 4/6/2018 at 6:22 PM, beast said:

Usually HMP or UV depending on a combination of the day of week, the alignment of the planets and how blood thirsty I feel. I save when after I redo a section for the nth time.

Same. But I mostly play on HMP. I play on UV for like, a day or two.

[zodiac]

This will be pretty conditional; answering as a data point for any mappers looking.

 

1. Always start on UV unless forewarned by the readme/post. I'm middling player, so Ribbicks-UV is beyond me.

2. Depends. If I'm making progress with repeat attempts, no harm no foul - in fact I prefer this level of challenge. But true grind? I loathe it. If I'm getting nowhere after a dozen wipes, if I'm wasting minutes on end mopping up trash like 100 Hell Knights in a big arena, or the traps feel positively unfair, I'll either skip the map or go down a level (repeat as needed). If there are multiple levels in the wad and no readme warning I always skip ahead first to check if it's a fluke or a trend.

3. Depends. In Doom PWADs I almost never use UV -fast. On the id IWADs I sometimes play Nightmare. In Heretic I play almost exclusively on Black Plague, which is only marginally harder than UV -fast thanks to no respawns.

4. I prefer not to save, but on large or hard maps I do after each encounter unless I forget. If I'm stuck on a hard part, I want to retry right from there while it's fresh in my mind, not after 5 minutes of easier stuff.

5. I play continuous if I like the wad progression. If it's a megawad and I don't like the current level I'll usually warp until I find one that looks interesting and pistol start that. On replays I warp to specific levels fairly often, pistol starting by default.

 

Takeaways: I greatly appreciate hard maps with thoughtful difficulty levels, especially if UV is made for uber-Doomers. On the other hand I'm pretty skip-happy, so feel free to put a few crazy levels in a big wad.

[Teabλg_Johnson]

Ultra Violence. Though, I use custom difficulties because DOOM's normal difficulties are easy.