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unerxai

UV Continuous Play vs HMP All Pistol Start

Which one  

78 members have voted

  1. 1. Which one

    • UV Continuous Play
    • HMP All Pistol Start
    • UV All Pistol Start or gtfo
    • Other


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I think you get more out of a mapset if you pistol start every map even if you have to lower the difficulty. It can actually be harder that way since you won't be storing shitloads of rockets for the next level or starting the next level with 200/200. Then again some may say a well designed mapset should prevent such situations. Feel free to share your opinions or preferences.

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You are making a fatal error by assuming that those two skill levels are the only relevant ones.

The correct answer, as always, has to be: It depends on the map set what it is the best way to play it. It cannot simply be answered by multiple choice, much less by such a limited list. So I'm forced to choose "other".

 

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UV or HMP-continuous depending on what I am playing. In some instances even HNTR if it's something very strict with ammo and that setting is otherwise still quite challenging.

 

But I usually do pistol start a map if things become too easy or I finish the previous map with such poor results (<20% health and/or barely any ammo) that it's not worth the struggle. I do not feel that pistol starts are mandatory to experience something to the fullest, nor do I feel that continuous trivializes the experience or "UV is the only way to play Doom, die", at least not in modern wads which aren't always letting you blast everything to pieces without having to ever look in your inventory.

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Pistol start by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, All day.

 

I only play continuous when I'm farting around or if I'm playing early 90s wads. If I die in, say, a '95 wad I'll do a pistol start for that map then keep playing continuous.

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28 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

You are making a fatal error by assuming that those two skill levels are the only relevant ones.

The correct answer, as always, has to be: It depends on the map set what it is the best way to play it. It cannot simply be answered by multiple choice, much less by such a limited list. So I'm forced to choose "other".

 

I agree that it will always depend on the particular mapset. The discussion is more about if you're willing to lower the difficulty if you're struggling to beat each level from a pistol start, or if you see more accomplishment in playing at a higher difficulty but with the continuous play approach. Don't mind the poll too much.

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Some mapsets are made for pistol starts, others are not. And then even lowering the skill won't help much, because you can't acquire the needed inventory to finish the map.

 

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9 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Some mapsets are made for pistol starts, others are not. And then even lowering the skill won't help me much, because I fail to acquire the needed inventory to finish the map.

ftfy

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thats unfair - if a mapset is genuinely balanced for continuous play (which is difficult!) then losing, say, the rocket launcher by dying could be a significant issue if theres not one on the map.

of course i think thats a bad mapset, but they might exist - doesnt tnt have some maps with rocket ammo but no actual rl?

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2 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

thats unfair - if a mapset is genuinely balanced for continuous play (which is difficult!) then losing, say, the rocket launcher by dying could be a significant issue if theres not one on the map.

If it's actually a set that doesn't support pistol starts at all, not that there are that many to begin with, then saving regularly should go without saying. In case you can't beat later maps, and want/need to drop the difficulty, you can, more often than not, cheat your way to some weapons in the maps prior to make sure you can pick up pretty much where you got stopped, but on a lower difficulty setting. And of course there are also console commands in some ports to allow such a "recovery"

If anything, this is either a problem that needs to be solved on the player's end by working around the issue that doom usually doesn't support difficulty changes during a longer run, or the mapper needs to account for the possibility that people can actually die at some point, and at least provide a way for people to recover their runs somehow, even if that means not being able to kill every monster for a map or two.

I would like to think mappers are usually sensible enough to at least account for some mishaps, nevermind the possibility that people might even miss a weapon pickup.

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There's countless of mapsets that were designed for continuous gameplay and do not handle well with pistol starts.

 

Of course those who proudly look down on people not playing everything on UV with pistol starts only, would never EVER admit to it. >)

 

 

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If a wad says it is designed for continuous play and not for pistol starts, then I will play it continuous. These are probably best for episodes and shorter mapsets, not megawads, unless there are periodic death exits or other forced restarts. There's generally too much to try to predict over a long stretch of maps.

 

If a wad says it is designed for either continuous play or pistol starts, I will always play pistol starts. Personally, I don't think this is really an effective approach. Maps are generally going to have a positive net gain in supplies. You're not going to be able to prevent the continuous player from getting too far ahead of the pistol starter, so as you try to balance for both, you balance for neither. How many times have you been playing continuous and been happy to find an elusive secret, only to discover it was just a BFG, which you have had for five maps already? Now, I've not seen this approach even claimed much, let alone done well, so I'm open to correction via good examples.

 

And of course, if it says to pistol start, that's what I will do, and this is my default for anything that doesn't mention it.

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25 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

There's countless of mapsets that were designed for continuous gameplay and do not handle well with pistol starts.

 

Of course those who proudly look down on people not playing everything on UV with pistol starts only, would never EVER admit to it. >)

Would be nice if you provided a few examples of those "countless" mapsets that were designed to be played continuous only.  Quite telling that you provided none. As far as I can tell, most mappers basically simply "allow" both, and those who actively support continuous play usually do so by throwing in a few goodies for continuous players. Usually these goodies involve ammo for weapons not available in a map (see "estranged" by foodles), or some "end of map secrets" like soulspheres (see "atonement" by the mysterious moustachio).

Anyway, since there are supposed to be  c o u n t l e s s  mapsets designed for and balanced around continuous play only, I'm sure we can expect to get pointed towards a handful of those that you yourself have played.

Ah and wouldn't you believe it? Pistol starting is usually more difficult, but if maps can be beaten from pistol start, they aren't exclusively built for continuous play in the first place. So I guess there's your "point" flying straight out the window.

If there's anything I look down on it's people who try to force their idea of what constitutes a "good and balanced map" down people's throats like you do, and once met with resistance, try strawmanning their way around the actual argument just because their rectum got scorched.

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It would be cool to see some wads balanced towards nightmare. Its strange how you can make an ammo-draining map but on nightmare you need to add backpacks to account for all the double ammo and respawning enemies upon backtracking.

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8 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 if maps can be beaten from pistol start, they aren't exclusively built for continuous play in the first place. So I guess there's your "point" flying straight out the window.

 

'Built for continuous play' often boils down to 'medikits at map exit'.

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31 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

There's countless of mapsets that were designed for continuous gameplay and do not handle well with pistol starts.

 

Of course those who proudly look down on people not playing everything on UV with pistol starts only, would never EVER admit to it. >)

 

 

The problem here is, unless it's Hexen, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes if a megawad is designed for pistol starts or not until you actually play through some of it. Eventually, you'll be able to tell, and at that point, you have to decide to start over with pistol starts or continue on, or vice versa. Generally though, people tend to make maps for pistol starts since it's a bit harder to balance a multimap wad for continuous play.

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I asked in another thread but STRAIN was balanced for continuous play wasn't it? (I ask out of pure curiosity, not to enter any side of the debate.)

Though many a great Doom player have strong-fisted their way through each level on fist-start (the DEH takes away starting ammo afaik)

 

Anyway, I personally run the entire gamut:

 

UV pistol-start

UV continuous

ITYTD pistol-start

ITYTD continuous

Custom ZMAPINFO that combines UV things with double ammo/half health

ITYTD with a DeHackEd patch I made, giving 4x health and making weapons fire twice as fast

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As a (semi) side note - looking down at anyone for however they play Doom is silly. If they're playing Doom then it's all good, who cares. I know nobody has tried to gatekeep (bar the jokey poll option) in this thread but I feel like it is a sentiment that some people may hold.

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@UNERXAi

Personally, if the mapset has more than 1 map, I will play it continuous. And I prefer to play on ITYTD or HNTR, so for multi-map sets, I play on ITYTD continuous or HNTR continuous. Neither of those is an option, so mark me down for "Other."

 

While the maps in a mapset may not be designed for pistol start, even if the designer expects you to play continuously, any well-designed map will be beatable from pistol start (I never said it had to be easy to beat from pistol start, just possible). Otherwise, you are forcing the player to never die within the mapset, lest they get stuck and are never able to advance without cheating.

 

In my opinion, if the mapper intended for all maps in a mapset to be played from a pistol start, then all the maps would end with death exits to force the matter.

 

15 minutes ago, xvertigox said:

 

'Built for continuous play' often boils down to 'medikits at map exit'.

 

Not necessarily and certainly not the only thing that would be meant by being balanced for continuous play. The thing that immediately leaps to mind is that the enemies, weapons, and ammo are set up so that the player doesn't exit the map with full or nearly full ammo in every weapon. For example, if you come in with 20 bullets, 10 shells, 2 rockets, 50 cells, 40% health, and 50% armor, and exit that map with 350 bullets, 90 shells, 95 rockets, 500 cells, 180% health, and 190% armor, it probably wasn't well-balanced for continuous play.

 

20 minutes ago, xvertigox said:

looking down at anyone for however they play Doom ... I feel like it is a sentiment that some people may hold.

 

"Looking down at" may be too strong a sentiment, but there are definitely those who only play on UV and assume that UV is the default difficulty that the game should be played at. I've talked to people who are genuinely surprised that anyone plays on any other difficulty than UV, usually because "UV is already easy" or some similar sentiment. There are also those in the community who think that the only way to experience the "true intent" of the mapper is to play all maps from pistol start--with the implication that to anything less is somehow not a genuine triumph.

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Answering the question directly, I always run continuous semi-saveless (saving only at the start of each level). In terms of skill setting, UV for the IWADs + No Rest for the Living and Master Levels, HNTR for all other PWADs, be it Fava Beans or Sunder, I'm a coherent fellow :P

 

Rambling a bit, I think a more important factor than skill setting is save frequency. I'd argue pistol-starting while save-scumming through a WAD on UV is easier than playing saveless continuous on HMP or even HNTR in most PWADs.

 

From my personal POV I used to do the former option, and while it allowed me to beat much more difficult scenarios, I didn't really feel like I achieved something, in fact I even got frustrated due to the sheer amount of times I had to reload the game! When I mostly stopped caring about playing in the highest difficulty setting is when I rediscovered how much I love Doom, and now when I die when playing on HNTR I just shrug and laugh while the current level save loads again.

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If a mapset includes ammo for weapons not included in the actual map or secret weapons near the end after everything is dead, I will assume it is designed for continuous play. Also dumb stuff like randomly omitting the SSG in later maps long after it's been introduced as a core weapon; see IWADs. Or including bullet ammo but no Chaingun in later maps; see SIGIL. Most difficult mapsets specify the "designed to be played from a pistol start" aspect. For more casual, loosely balanced sets, it doesn't matter all that much how you play. 

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9 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Would be nice if you provided a few examples of those "countless" mapsets that were designed to be played continuous only.  Quite telling that you provided none.

 

Maybe because I do not keep records? Do you really expect me to check out all the hundreds of mods I played over the years which in part I barely remember?

Ultimately, being pistol start compatible is not a metric I care much about to be able to pull a list out of my hat.

 


 

9 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If there's anything I look down on it's people who try to force their idea of what constitutes a "good and balanced map" down people's throats like you do, and once met with resistance, try strawmanning their way around the actual argument just because their rectum got scorched.

 

Yeah, whatever. I see someone felt addressed by what I said in the previous post and had to act defensively. :P

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2 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Do you really expect me to check out all the hundreds of mods I played over the years which in part I barely remember?

No, but I expect someone with several hundred sets worth of experience to be able to at least name a handful of those supposedly countless sets, because that should be easy enough. Not only that, it would also provide an interesting talking point. You didn't even provide an example of a set that stood out for the "right" or "wrong" reasons, let alone anything you played recently, which again is quite telling, and then there's this:

2 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Ultimately, being pistol start compatible is not a metric I care much about to be able to pull a list out of my hat.

You wouldn't even be able to tell which of the sets you have played were actually "pistol start compatible", by your own admission no less. Meanwhile you put out statements like lowering the difficulty doesn't help, because it's impossible to acquire the needed firepower to finish a map anyway. Not a good look for somebody who accuses the pistol-start aristocracy with their powdered wigs of being disingenious.

Since I started using PrBoom+ I played through a total of over 700 WADs (that's a little over 2.5 years of playing classic Doom, I believe) some of which were episode replacements, a good amount of megaWADs, and of course plenty single map releases or just smaller sets of maps. Guess what? There's not a single "continuous only WAD" in that folder. I can pick any of these WADs at random, IDCLEV to where I want to start playing, and I know it'll be a map that provides all the necessary pickups to make it through.

Literally the only set I have played that I would respect as continuous is intended is "Shadows of the Nightmare Realm", and that sentiment rests entirely on the way it transitions from exiting a map into intermission screen story-telling and back into a map, but it certainly isn't "continuous only" because the maps reset your weapons on startup every single time, so there's no direct gameplay benefit to playing continuous, it's simply for the immersion since it goes hand in hand with the story-telling. And there's no other set I've played that does things like that either. So where are these elusive WADs I wonder?

 

3 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Yeah, whatever. I see someone felt addressed by what I said in the previous post and had to act defensively. :P

If I didn't know you're "coding for moneyz" I'd bet a considerable amount of cash that you're working in a movie theatre. That's how hard you're projecting.

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If this is for mapper mapsets then others. No two mappers balance the same way so it is absolutely pointless to make a default.

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I usually play it continuous for almost all wads out there. But, the player can choose how to play the wad...continuous or pistol start...play how you want it.

Heck, if the wad say it's explicitly continuous but you wanna do it pistol start for a challenge no matter what, go ahead and do it. It's all player's preference.

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I think you experience a map better when pistol starting but I usually do UV continuous (or HMP if very difficult lol) on a first playthrough. Was watching Lingyan203 play Swift Death a couple weeks ago and it occurred to me that it might actually be easier pistol starting hard mapsets like than, or slaughtermaps, rather than starting with 10% health and almost everything.

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Gotta pistol start on whatever difficulty is best, which can personally change even on a single map depending on if I'm looking for a challenge or not.

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On 6/21/2019 at 6:37 PM, Andromeda said:

From my personal POV I used to do the former option, and while it allowed me to beat much more difficult scenarios, I didn't really feel like I achieved something, in fact I even got frustrated due to the sheer amount of times I had to reload the game! When I mostly stopped caring about playing in the highest difficulty setting is when I rediscovered how much I love Doom, and now when I die when playing on HNTR I just shrug and laugh while the current level save loads again.

 

Yeah this is me too. Half the time I'm just too damn lazy to save-scum lol.

 

I've always wanted a Braid-style rewind for Doom and other games. I found the NES emulator I was using actually had it, though buggy, so i pushed through Zelda 2 with that.

I actually beat Zelda 2 legit back in the day but no way I'm going through that again hahaha

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I recently played what I think is an example of designed for continuous play.

 

There were a couple maps in Eternity (Serenity II) that I thought were basically impossible with pistol-start. However, I made it through to the start of the last level. In some cases I did this by having to dodge and not kill some monsters in order to either conserve ammo or because I didn't have enough anyway.

 

Up until the last level I thought 'wow this is a really challenging map set with pistol start'. Then I attempted the last level, over and over again, and came to the realization that I think this set was designed for continuous play. There were just too many high powered monsters and no guns or ammo for this last level to be played from a pistol start.

 

I dunno if it's an affect of being a very early episode wad from '94, but it has given me some pause before jumping into a map set doing pistol starts.

 

Although reading through some of the comments in this thread already, pistol start compatibility is perhaps more common than my experience was with some of these early 90s wads?

 

Obviously it's much easier as a level designer to create and balance for a pistol start since that's generally how you play it as you build and test a level in an editor.

 

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This thread is nuts. If you enjoy playing Doom in HNTR/continuous or even IDDQD, then play it that way. Just have fun, and don't bother what the self proclaimed elitists think of what normal is. The 12 who voted the gtfo option should gtfo.

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