Does anyone actually play the easier difficulties?

[zen4040]

when working on maps I first place all entities for ultra voilence and then start removing monters for lower difficulties, I'm pretty sure quite a few people play with hurt me plenty but when I was removing some monsters for my last map for the lower difficulties, I started wondering if anyone would even care.

Don't want to mock anyone for it but is anyone out there who prefers the easier mode?

Edited July 6, 2019 by ([zen3001])

[seed]

Uh, yes? Why is this even a question honestly?

 

People who assume everyone plays on UV or that it's the only way to experience Doom are making a grave mistake.

 

Although the way mappers balance their maps is very much their own business (and so is the way people choose to play the game), the point is yes, people do care about difficulty settings. I myself play on UV or HMP, depending on the wad, but I sometimes go for HNTR as well if it's something super difficult or very tight on resources.

[HAK3180]

You've actually asked two significantly different questions. The first is answered very easily: Yes, people do play the easier difficulties.

 

But the second question you've asked is whether anyone prefers the easier mode. I think it's hard to get away from the mentality of "Ultra-Violence is the intended/true experience." Look at the way you yourself implement difficulty levels. You make the Ultra-Violence experience and then you start getting rid of stuff for the easier ones. I think a lot of people use a similar approach. It also seems to be, in general, what the iwads did (for example, very rarely does a key move based on difficulty). So if the perception is that Ultra-Violence was created and then some monsters were subtracted and some health added for easy and medium, then it follows that many players will prefer Ultra-Violence, and strive to play on that difficulty (eventually).

 

If you look at the monster counts between easy and hard in the iwads, easy is frequently in the 1/3 range as compared to hard. E1M5, as a more extreme example, has 24 enemies on easy, 131 on hard. With the fact that the space is exactly the same, how can easy not feel like it's watered down or "not the true experience"? Now, there are plenty of mappers who specifically strive to make each difficulty engaging and even somewhat unique by doing a lot more than simply deleting some monsters. I think one simple, but often overlooked way of making every difficulty engaging, is significant differences in health and armor. For example, if E1M5 on easy still has 131 monsters, but you start with a megaarmor and soulsphere plus all health pickups are doubled, then it's probably still engaging and still easy. 

 

Basically, some mappers use difficulty settings a lot more effectively than others. If you're making custom Doom maps in 2019, I wouldn't advise Id's maps as examples of how to implement difficulty settings. I think very few would prefer easy on maps whose difficulty levels are implemented in similar ways.

[DagothKronk]

You know, recently I played through Quake and it seemed to me that much of the game was built around the Normal difficulty, with Hard being somewhat above the baseline by adding a ridiculous (for Quake) number of tough enemies in earlier levels. For example, Shamblers, the spongiest enemy, appear as kind of a mini-boss in E1M6 and the secret level on Normal, but on Hard will appear as early as E1M3. Quake has a lot of interesting differences from Doom with regards to formula, much of which is down to the rushed development and haphazard balancing of weapons, but I think that the ideology of working from the middle difficulty as the baseline (Quake) vs. the hardest difficulty as a baseline (Doom) is an interesting idea. It would essentially mean the barrier for entry would be lower, but the skill ceiling would be higher - many Doomers can sleep-walk through KDITD on UV at this point specifically because id probably built the game around UV first and foremost.

 

Plus most difficulty adjustments in PWADs/IWADs are, like HAK said, monster-related. I think that Sandy Petersen had a good idea with how his levels are more conservative with ammo generally vs. Romero's levels. Like HNTR could do with more monsters AND more health and ammo, while UV would benefit from just being a little more difficult all-around, with HMP being the perfect middle by virtue of being the base from which HNTR and UV would add or subtract. Basically, not many people outright prefer Doom's lower difficulties because the scale of Doom's difficulty is designed to feel less rewarding on lower difficulties, essentially.

 

I'd love to see more level designers experiment with placing keys in different locations depending on difficulty. Like, earlier difficulties even going so far as to have areas that can be entirely bypassed on lower difficulties perhaps?

[Doomkid]

To expand on what HAK3180 said, I fucked up big time on Rowdy Rudy's Revenge in terms of difficulty settings despite being happy with the wad overall. I followed too closely to the iwad's examples where some maps have far, far too many enemies removed in addition to many more powerups and ammo boxes being placed around. This was made worse by the fact that I had already done it right 6 years earlier with TheDevilzWork, where I didn't alter enemy counts at all and simply added far more supplies for easy, and a bit more supplies for medium. One mapper to another, please implement difficulty settings, but don't make them too drastic or your wad may end up too easy and even boring for the silent masses who all play on HMP!

 

As a side note, I think the "only playing on UV" thing is a lot of talk and chest-pounding from many players. Everyone talks about how UV is the standard, but only the skilled Doomers actually pick it - a whole bunch of Doomers are secretly and quietly selecting HMP behind closed doors!! *adjusts tinfoil hat*

 

edit

Quote

I'd love to see more level designers experiment with placing keys in different locations depending on difficulty. Like, earlier difficulties even going so far as to have areas that can be entirely bypassed on lower difficulties perhaps?

I think this is a brilliant idea, and iirc Fonze has actually talked about doing this before as well.

 

It's not quite the same, but one thing I did in a super old release of mine called UAC Rebellion was have two exits on certain maps, usually hard ones. If you took the early exit while there were still 50 or so monsters running around, it would take you to a whole other optional map. If you took the later exit, the path leading to it would be a lot tougher to get through, but you would skip the optional map entirely. By the end of the set, you could have played as many as 15 or as few as 10 maps depending on which route you took.

 

Forgive me for making a post where I keep talking about my own wads, it's just that I hope some other (better) mappers out there see these ideas and take them as inspiration and also use them to avoid some mistakes I've made.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Doomkid

[DoomSpud]

9 hours ago, ([zen3001]) said:

when working on maps I first place all entities for ultra voilence and then start removing monters for lower difficulties, I#m pretty sure quite a few people play with hurt me plenty but when I was removing some monsters for my last map, I started wondering if anyone would even care.

Don't want to mock anyone for it but is anyone out there who prefers the easier mode?

 

I personally don't play on any difficulty lower than Ultra-Violence and haven't done for more than 20 years. I actually can't even remember the last FPS game that I played on any lower than it's hardest setting... Quake 2 maybe? Soldier Of Fortune?
 

9 hours ago, seed said:

People who assume everyone plays on UV or that it's the only way to experience Doom are making a grave mistake.

 

I stand by that unpopular opinion. Sorry, but what's the point of even playing if you're going to remove half the enemies and have enough health and ammo to never die? What challenge is there in that? It's no different to putting on God Mode if you're going to tip the whole game in the players favour (which the lower difficulties do). Hell, why not just use "-nomonsters" and walk around on your own? I hear that helps with not dying...

To me it totally defeats the whole purpose of even playing...

[Doomkid]

That's kind of silly. That's like saying "Why play Underhalls, it has less than half as many monsters as The Living End!" Removing a select few enemies and increasing ammo count is great for players who aren't that good at Doom and still need to warm up, but don't want to resort to cheating. Gatekeeping and elitism is a good way to limit your playerbase, from the development perspective.

 

I also don't see how less enemies is at all the same as god mode and idkfa, why instead of having to fight enemies, you can't die. Come on man, that's just ridiculous. I'm saying this as someone who usually picks UV, too. Sometimes a casual experience is fun, sometimes hardcore is fun. More choice = Good.

[seed]

1 hour ago, DoomSpud said:

I stand by that unpopular opinion. Sorry, but what's the point of even playing if you're going to remove half the enemies and have enough health and ammo to never die? What challenge is there in that? It's no different to putting on God Mode if you're going to tip the whole game in the players favour (which the lower difficulties do). Hell, why not just use "-nomonsters" and walk around on your own? I hear that helps with not dying...

To me it totally defeats the whole purpose of even playing...

 

Because modern wads are not like that at all?

 

They're usually exponentially more difficult, so even if they sometimes end up cutting many enemies in an attempt to make the game easier for people, it still very much delivers a challenge. The IWADs might be perceived as if UV is the only one delivering the full experience because the maps tend to feel empty or too easy otherwise, but that is likely also because there were no standards back then. Had Doom be made 10yrs later or something like that, the settings would have likely been very different.

 

Either way, I suppose there's no point in arguing about this, to each his own, even if it's an opinion that makes no sense and is pointlessly "elitistic" from my POV (also, comparing easy difficulties with cheating or -no monsters? Is that supposed to be a joke? It definitely is to me). People can play the game however they want, and not implementing settings can also easily result in preventing a wider audience from playing a wad/mapset as they can't handle the max difficulty, but that's at the mapper's discretion.

[Graf Zahl]

2 hours ago, seed said:

Either way, I suppose there's no point in arguing about this, to each his own, even if it's an opinion that makes no sense and is pointlessly "elitistic" from my POV (also, comparing easy difficulties with cheating or -no monsters? Is that supposed to be a joke? It definitely is to me). People can play the game however they want, and not implementing settings can also easily result in preventing a wider audience from playing a wad/mapset as they can't handle the max difficulty, but that's at the mapper's discretion. 

 

Not only were there no standards - people back then had to get used to how such a game handles, the low res screen sizes also made it very hard to make things out, so the easier settings were needed to get people used to the game.

 

On the other hand, I think many mappers today are a bit too conservative when scaling down from UV, I think a lot more mods would fare better if what's ITYTD was made for HNTR and then adding an easier setting for people that don't enjoy the kind of hard gameplay that seems to have become popular.

[DoomSpud]

3 hours ago, seed said:

Either way, I suppose there's no point in arguing about this, to each his own, even if it's an opinion that makes no sense and is pointlessly "elitistic" from my POV

So... seeking to better my skills as a player by always throwing myself into the hardest challenge is "elitistic"?
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

[ReaperAA]

5 hours ago, DoomSpud said:

I stand by that unpopular opinion. Sorry, but what's the point of even playing if you're going to remove half the enemies and have enough health and ammo to never die? What challenge is there in that? It's no different to putting on God Mode if you're going to tip the whole game in the players favour (which the lower difficulties do). Hell, why not just use "-nomonsters" and walk around on your own? I hear that helps with not dying...

 

DoomSpud (aka Mr. Elitist), "UV is the only way to play doom. Anyone else who plays on lower difficulties is a total noob and he/she is not playing the way it should be played"

 

If u are so hardcore, try beating something like Chillax or Holy Hell on UV without dying or using saves

[DoomSpud]

4 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

DoomSpud (aka Mr. Elitist), "UV is the only way to play doom. Anyone else who plays on lower difficulties is a total noob and he/she is not playing the way it should be played"

 

If u are so hardcore, try beating something like Chillax or Holy Hell on UV without dying or using saves

 

Nice deliberate paraphrasing to twist my actual quote to suit your differing opinion. Good on you.
Not once did I say ANYTHING about OTHER players being noobs and/or playing the game wrong.

In fact, I haven't said ANYTHING AT ALL about how OTHER people play, I merely commented on MY approach to the game which is the whole point of the thread: "Does anyone actually play the easier difficulties". I merely stated that I MYSELF do not play on lower difficulties because I desire a challenge when I play and I feel that the lower difficulties take that challenge away and tip the game too far to the player's favour. In no way have I made out that I am more elite than anyone else or that anyone else is wrong. I offered MY opinion about MY play approach and MY reasons for it. Not once did I mention ANYONE else. Don't be a dick.

 

[ReaperAA]

6 minutes ago, DoomSpud said:

In fact, I haven't said ANYTHING AT ALL about how OTHER people play, I merely commented on MY approach to the game which is the whole point of the thread: "Does anyone actually play the easier difficulties". I merely stated that I MYSELF do not play on lower difficulties because I desire a challenge when I play and I feel that the lower difficulties take that challenge away and tip the game too far to the player's favour. In no way have I made out that I am more elite than anyone else or that anyone else is wrong. I offered MY opinion about MY play approach and MY reasons for it. Not once did I mention ANYONE else. Don't be a dick.

 

 

Even if u did not directly said anything about others, the message was clear that u consider anything below UV to be equivalent of cheating.

5 hours ago, DoomSpud said:

Sorry, but what's the point of even playing if you're going to remove half the enemies and have enough health and ammo to never die? What challenge is there in that? It's no different to putting on God Mode if you're going to tip the whole game in the players favour

 

So do u consider such people to be equivalent of cheaters?

Look there is nothing wrong in always trying to play on UV (and I myself also mostly play on UV). But lower difficulties exist for a reason and your comment seemed to be really discouraging for such people who don't play on UV.

 

[DoomSpud]

Just now, ReaperAA said:

your comment seemed to be really discouraging

 

I am not responsible for YOUR misinterpretation of what I wrote.
I will reiterate that I gave my personal opinion of my play preference and my reason for it and not once said anything about ANYONE else.

Thankyou.

[seed]

1 hour ago, DoomSpud said:

So... seeking to better my skills as a player by always throwing myself into the hardest challenge is "elitistic"?
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

 

Not at all.

 

That was directed at your apparent stigma for non-UV play by comparing it to cheating, God Mode, -nomonsters, and claiming that "it defeats the point of even playing".

 

27 minutes ago, DoomSpud said:

I am not responsible for YOUR misinterpretation of what I wrote.

 

Well, I'm glad you clarified what you meant to actually say in the other posts, but your first reply to me was indeed fairly easy to misinterpret, particularly due to your strange comparisons. There's nothing wrong with trying to beat everything on UV if one so chooses because they don't feel like getting the full experience otherwise, but your initial phrasing was pretty poor.

[Test Tickle]

Yea

[Novaseer]

I, for one, play most WADs on HMP (though I generally play the IWADs on UV because they're easy for the most part).

 

When making my levels, I generally balance around HMP. HNTR and UV are just subtractions and additions to that base level.

[nicolas monti]

UV only, if the map's too hard I keep pushing myself until I succeed or quit if I get bored. Lower difficulties feels like watching other people having sex while eating a sandwich.

[Graf Zahl]

Somebody really should do a mod where difficulties are swapped around to fool the UV junkies... :P

 

[NuMetalManiak]

Always have played on ITYTD for two reasons, one is when I'm feeling speedy and the other is when I decide to check out the things that people often erroneously leave out for lower settings. Quite a few maps from major wads seem to make the mistake of not flagging something important for all difficulties (say, a key, like D2INO MAP27 does with the yellow key, or a teleporter like Ksutra MAP16).

[zen4040]

15 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Somebody really should do a mod where difficulties are swapped around to fool the UV junkies... :P

 

I think that fools the easy players way more than the uv players.

[Pure Hellspawn]

20 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Somebody really should do a mod where difficulties are swapped around to fool the UV junkies... :P

 

 

how would that affect HMP? it's medium and would still be medium!

[The Nate]

I do whenever I play a new map or mapset. Sometimes I then replay it on higher difficulties.

47 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Somebody really should do a mod where difficulties are swapped around to fool the UV junkies... :P

Reminds me of one of the earliest threads in Freedoom's development, in one where they were trying to think of difficulty names, and someone suggested the ITYTD be labeled as if it was the hardest and NM labeled as if it was the easiest.

[wolfmcbeard]

I've only done Ultra Violence on the vanilla games and a small handful of wads, I play Hurt Me Plenty for most wads out there, if I just want to peruse a map or two to play later but I don't have time at the immediate moment to fully enjoy a map, I'll play on I'm Too Young To Die, but that's as rare as playing a map on Nightmare for me.

[unpleasantmarine]

yes i mostly play hntr cause i suck at doom

[Kronecker–Capelli]

For doom, no. I know it, as engine, pretty well, know what expect from it and how it handle different situations, i.e. I used to it and play on UV as maximum "legal" difficulty.
Besides, there are available cheats/zscript/acs/source code so event nightmare not a problem.

But in general, I try all new games on easy/medium, just to see what it can offer to me, i.e. is it worth try to playing it on higher difficulties.
Spoiler, most of the games dont.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Required field : typo

[Barry Burton]

It depends on the WAD for me personally. I can't play Unloved or BTSX on UV lol.

[hardcore_gamer]

Tbh this is a troublesome subject matter. For many custom wads UV is either considered the normal difficulty while HMP is too easy, or they consider HMP to be the default while making UV super hard. As a result you never really know what you are getting yourself into with either difficulty.

[Graf Zahl]

You do not know that with any difficulty. Some modern mods like Valiant and Ancient Aliens are magnitudes harder on HNTR than most other mods on HMP and older stuff on UV.

 

There's also a few mods which may not be too hard on UV, but due to the high amount of monsters devolve into a grindfest, so in some of those cases I choose a lower skill just to shorten playtime.

 

[Spectre01]

3 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

As a result you never really know what you are getting yourself into with either difficulty.

Ideally, the mapper specifies how difficulty settings work in their wad, what the recommended difficulty is for new players, and whether UV is the default or for those seeking an extra challenge. I know Ribbiks did that with some of his releases, e.g. Stardate 20x7.