Share your tips and tricks to help me (and probably someone else) get better at Doom.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

I'm tired of save scumming and I'm willing to pistol start maps without dying.

So what are your tips and tricks for getting better at playing Doom, other than keep practicing?

Spoiler

I mostly play on UV, sometimes HMP and NTR.

You can also suggest how to get better in PWADs too.

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by TheNoob_Gamer

[elend]

I'd also be interested in more strategies and tips on how to tackle Doom. The more obvious things I know are:

 

- Tap that Machine Gun trigger instead of holding it for more accurate sniping.

- Get rid of Archviles and Pain Elementals first (duh!).

- Do not use the Rocket Launcher in cramped areas or with a ton of Lost Souls around (duh!).

- Punch that Cyberdemon if you have to.

- Don't immediately grab every Medkit in sight (yes, I had to learn this first. T_T) but instead make sure you actually need it.

- Medkits before Health Potions (I guess?! Depends. I guess.)

- Don't try to be a pro gamer, if you are not one. Camping and sniping is okay at times. And if you can take out a whole room of enemies from afar or through a door, that's okay, too. In most cases it's the mapper's "fault" (or idea of level design)

[TheNoob_Gamer]

4 minutes ago, elend said:

Punch that Cyberdemon if you have to.

Cybs, Arachnatrons, Masterminds, Mancubis have weird melee hitboxes, IIRC, so there is almost no need to punch a cyberdemon.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Right... let's start with some of the bad advice that's been given so far:

- Get rid of Archviles and Pain Elementals first (duh!).

Actually, this isn't always the best course of action, and in particular higher difficulty maps/WADs will either make this very difficult, or unnecessary (like when a turreted vile can't revive anything). For conventional maps this works more often than not, but if you're looking at high-level maps, there's a reasonable chance that your time is better spent on killing something else every now and then.

 

- Do not use the Rocket Launcher in cramped areas or with a ton of Lost Souls around (duh!)

It turns out that being able to use the rocket launcher in tight quarters is a very valuable skill to have, that some mappers (like yours truly) actively check for. That aside, the RL is an amazing weapon to clear lost souls quickly and efficiently. Matter of fact, being good and flexible with the rocket launcher is just as important as mastering the BFG and its unique "quirks".

 

- Punch that Cyberdemon if you have to.

Cybies are unironically one of the easier monsters to punch, if you get the rhythm down. In most maps this will be a waste of time, however, and you're better off learning how to 2-shot cyberdemons with the BFG, which is a core slaughter and challenge-map skill. If you can 2-shot cybers reliably, you more or less get punching cybers "for free", or at least with close to no effort.

 

- Don't try to be a pro gamer, if you are not one. Camping and sniping is okay at times. And if you can take out a whole room of enemies from afar or through a door, that's okay, too. In most cases it's the mapper's "fault" (or idea of level design)

While it is true that putting yourself in harm's way deliberately can shorten your lifespan, you learn nothing when you're always playing "the easy way". If you wanna develop your skills, stop cheesing fights, and instead learn what these fights expect from you.

 

 

 

Now for some actual advice:

 

Wanna get better fast? Don't practice things you can do, and instead practice what you can't do.

Before beating a map deathless from pistol start, use saves, divide the map in segments. Only when you feel like you have a reasonable chance to beat the whole thing in one go, you'll commit to a full run. Don't be the idiot who plays a map's opening 20 times only to get wrecked by the next best ambush. Time is valuable, especially if you wanna get better.

 

This also means there's very little merit in sticking to the same kinds of map all the time. If you can beat for example valiant's last 5 maps relatively easily, it's time to move on to bigger challenges, or get into speedrunning/UVmaxing.

 

Play slaughter maps.

Yes, I know some people hate to hear it, but slaughtermaps are among the best ways to test yourself and your understanding of this game. Slaughtermaps won't necessarily teach you how to become a super fast speedrunner, in fact I don't remember when I last saw zero-master anywhere near a slaughtermap, but the simple (and often denied by the naysayers) truth is that slaughtermaps and challenge maps are where you'll learn very much everything that is necessary to beat basically every conventional map out there. It's for good reason that people who can beat slaughtermaps can also beat any conventional map, but people who can beat conventional maps can't necessarily beat slaughtermaps. Now you know why.

 

Don't use gameplay mods:

Got any mods to make your life easier? Great! Now throw that shit away! If you wanna get better at the core gameplay, then mods that have any impact on the game in obvious or subtle ways don't help you in any capacity. Yes, I know somewhere out there is probably somebody who thinks they learned anything new once their weapons fired twice as fast as they normally would, but the reality is that even if that were true, they didn't learn anything they couldn't have learned otherwise just fine.

 

Learn to filter the noise and focus on what matters the most

Not only useful IRL, but also great when playing video games. If you don't know what you should be paying attention to, then chances are you're paying attention to the wrong thing, or you're getting plain overwhelmed. Identify what requires your attention, and also identify what you can do on "autopilot". In a way it's like multitasking, but instead of paying attention to several things, you're primarily paying attention to one thing. For example if there are revenants on a ledge raining fire down on you, and you have several arch-viles that are hunting you, focus on the viles and getting cover from them, while "auto-dodging" revenant rockets by way of moving at a certain speed at all times, or developing a proper movement-pattern.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Nine Inch Heels

[DynamiteKaitorn]

If you have both the chaingun and the plasma rifle, think about what and where the enemies are. Chaingun is better for sniping enemies or for clearing out hordes of weaker enemies like imps, demons or any of the three hitscanners (though BFG is better for chaingunners). Plasma rifle does more damage and can clear out the bigger enemies faster.

 

Remember the default shotgun doesn't spread vertically, making it somewhat viable even at medium range.

 

Don't pick up a green armour when your mega armour just dipped to like 80-90%. Save it. Green armours fill only to 100% and provides only 33% damage reduction whereas that mega armour still retains its 50% damage reduction.

[geo]

 - Bottleneck your foes.

 - Shoot once in a room, hide, wait for infighting.

 - Projectile enemies? Run. Hitscan enemies? Hide and snipe.

 - Punch melee enemies, then back up before they punch you. Rinse-wash-repeat.

 - Hide around corners, but don't back yourself into a corner.

 - Draw your own maps so you can remember where everything is!

 - Get armor, wait until medkits will are absolutely necessary. Like a large medkit recovers 25 health... get it when you need 25 health.

[baja blast rd.]

95%+ of maps can be beaten without too much trouble solely... 

 

(a) ...with reasonable mechanics and technique when fighting low numbers of monsters: 

 

Basically, when you fight mancubi or revenants or HKs one-on-one, are you taking damage for any other reason than 'my mind was elsewhere'. Can you kill a few imps with SG in a tight room without getting hit. Put a cyb in a medium-sized room and perched on a short ledge on one side -- do you ever eat rockets. Fight an AV with a 32-wide pillar (pretty big if all you are facing is one AV), do you eat blasts. 

 

 

I included this section, even though it seems pretty basic, because stuff like 'when I fight a revvy with the SSG in a tight space, I get hit a quarter of the time' is true for a lot of people and is low-hanging fruit that needs to be addressed. If that describes you, and you want to get better, spending some amount of time on basics like that will help.  

 

(b) ...and by using simple techniques of this sort when required:

 

- circle-strafing (or other basic movement patterns, like figure-8s and U-strafing);

- tap-strafing -- the effects of circle-strafing generalized to arbitrary vectors (look up the concept of bullet herding);

- find a safe/cover spot and use it, or find multiple and alternate or something (maps that aren't especially fine-tuned can be susceptible to having these even in lock-in fights);

- herd monsters to create a pocket of space and then go to the pocket of space and press the shoot button while there;

- prioritize something and kill it, repeat as many times as needed (important: it doesn't have to be the traditionally high priority monster, but 'kill something other than the AV to clear space, then kill the AV' is still basic imo). 

- etc. etc. etc. 

 

I'm just riffing; that isn't an exhaustive, or scientific, list.

In more challenging stuff, by definition stuff like that doesn't auto-win. (One common 'new slaughter player' mistake I see is mindlessly tap-strafing around in encounters that have more nuanced demands or want you to micro-dodge stuff, etc.)

 

 

 

But anyway, that is just theory. My advice is to do something practical. Beat maps savelessly that are just outside of your current skill (rather than 'extremely far outside'). Keep pushing that boundary. Use saves to practice. Focus on practicing the parts that are hard for you. Route the map sensibly before spamming practice, because sometimes routing makes an order of magnitude difference in difficulty.

[Archi]

Watch someone's demo for hard map, analyze each situation, then try that map for yourself.

[maxmanium]

My biggest piece of advice (also being what I'm working on right now) is to really utilize infighting. It's not always necessary, but it helps to conserve ammo, as well as distracting monsters.

 

Also, there's no shame in saving when you need to do so. That said, I'd recommend saving after easy parts rather than the more difficult areas, as the more difficult areas are gonna be those which you need to practice. I tend to get burnt out really quickly if I have to repeat the easy parts over and over again just to be able to say that I did a map without saving.

[Cynical]

Predict, don't react.

 

A common scenario -- a beginner sees a Cyberdemon in a small-ish room, finds some cover, and plays peek-a-boo.  This is the wrong thing to do -- by doing this, you're betting on being able to react to the Cyberdemon firing a shot.  However, the Cyberdemon has a very predictable firing pattern, so there's no need to react to a damn thing -- you can just run an appropriate movement pattern and avoid his shots without having to react, which is infinitely easier than having to react to something.

 

With good analysis, this can be applied to many, many situations.  Analyze what you're fighting, come up with a movement pattern that counters it, do it, and stop trying to react.

[galileo31dos01]

10 hours ago, rdwpa said:

Basically, when you fight mancubi or revenants or HKs one-on-one, are you taking damage for any other reason than 'my mind was elsewhere'. Can you kill a few imps with SG in a tight room without getting hit. Put a cyb in a medium-sized room and perched on a short ledge on one side -- do you ever eat rockets. Fight an AV with a 32-wide pillar (pretty big if all you are facing is one AV), do you eat blasts. 

 

So it seems I'll be hugging my stuffed bunny tonight as I can tick all but the imps case :(

[GarrettChan]

Do some demos by yourself. No need to care about time if you don't want to. It's satisfying that posting some demos and you can see your improvement from time to time.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Write up what kills you most then practice them. Either make a test map or use zdoom cheats to recreate it. Die to mancubi? Time to practice dodging vs 3 as long as possible.  Baron in tight corridor spanked you? Time for revenge. 

 

Killed yourself with RL a lot? Time to beat an entire Iwad using only it. (no excuse. You can win pacifist in 1/2).

 

Of course the most important advice is keep practicing with intent to improve. Just playing will hit a plateau many times. 

[rampancy]

learn how to use the run button effectively. i prefer my xbone pad. but if you absolutely have to do as well as possible use a mouse and keyboard. strafe to line up your shots. prioritize your targets. learn when to get close and when to back off.

 

learn how to read the animation, stun the monsters with your weapons, and throw them off with your movement and the enviornment. timing is a big deal. get them fighting eachother if it makes sense. 

 

uv is not the same across the board. some maps are easy on uv, some are not. also, your will get good at a certain map, doesnt mean you will be as good on the next one you find. the great authors spend a lot of time balancing weapons, enemies, making sure you have the space you need to dodge, etc. 

 

 

[MadGuy]

"Dance" with enemy projectiles by strafing.

Try not to play it "one man army" play smart and try to get the enemy in disadvantage. 

Don't play only with one weapon, try to use what is more convenient to use.

And if you are using a controller, try to check and see how sensitive are the sticks and try to calibrate them.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Just correcting/adding a few things:

To begin with, you can't beat keyboard + mouse in Doom. It doesn't matter how amazing some keyboard only speedruns are, or how difficult they might be to beat, or how deep you've fallen into the "nostalgia-trap" that doom was originally played KB only way back when (which by the way has already been proven false). Mouse + Keyboard is unbeatable when it comes to speed and precision. If you choose to voluntarily "gimp" yourself by way of using an inferior control method, then don't be surprised if eventually you'll come across a map where it'll bite you in the ass hard. Everything said previously is also true for controllers vs KB+mouse, the latter being the obviously better input method. Yes, by all means, have your preferences and suit yourself, but playing an FPS like Doom with a mouse is just objectively better, deal with it.

 

There is close to no merit in "learning to use the run button". The simple reality is that most sourceports out there have an "always run toggle", which most of the sensible players out there have ON by default. There are a few exceptions, as usual, but "always run" is the way to go. If you wanna move slower, either tap the keys, or press "shift" to walk at lower speeds.

 

Shoot, hide, and wait for infighting. No, just no. Nothing will infight when the player isn't visible. Monsters have no inclination to shoot one another out of sheer boredom. Getting infights going demands that players be "visible" for the monsters, so you might as well spend some time shooting the assholes while you're at it, instead of employing some "coward protocol" that deprives you of an opportunity to learn something new. Also, unless you're playing slaughter/challenge maps, infighting is rarely impactful enough to justify playing a waiting game with uncertain benefit. Your time is usually spent better by way of actively participating in combat, if the goal is to hone your skills.

 

Draw your own maps, so you remember where stuff is. Okay, if your short term memory has more holes than swiss cheese, by all means, use pen and paper. Otherwise you're better off training your memory as well. Most maps in doom aren't so complex that they might be too difficult to remember anyway, and even if you forget something on occasion it isn't the end of the world. By the time you've drawn half your map on a napkin, you've already backtracked and found what you were looking for. Don't use a crutch where none is needed. More often than not maps are so straight forward that a sense of orientation is easily maintained by simply remembering less than a handful of steps in the map's progression.

 

Getting good at one map doesn't mean you can also beat the next. Partially correct, I'll give it that, but there is something I'll call "synergy skills". If you managed to herd a flock of hell knights in one map, chances are herding a flock of revenants in the next map won't be as much of an obstacle anymore, because the same fundamental principles apply there as well. There is nothing wrong with developing certain routines which are easily transferable while playing one map, so long as you don't end up with a rigid doctrine like "kill X first, and Y second", because that'll also bite you in the ass eventually.

 

Watch demos for hard maps, made by good players. Yes, good advice. I like that one. I will add, however, that optimized speedruns, as well as UVmax runs, deliberately take risks that might not be apparent to the unwitting spectator. Trying to simply "emulate" what you see happen in a demo can be a fast way down into the valley of utter frustration and self-doubt. So take anything you see in an optimized demo with a grain of salt, because there may be heavy dice rolling involved in some places.

 

Record your own demos and watch them. Also good advice. During my active Starcraft : Broodwar times I spent some time studying replays of matches I had, to see where I made less than ideal plays. Learning from your own mistakes is easier when you've got some "distance" between you, and what's happening on screen. Having said that, showing your demo to a better player and asking for advice will usually net you several suggestions as to what you could/should improve, or where your approach may have been flawed.

[rampancy]

there is a reason that there is a run button. leaving it on all the time is just making it harder to aim and easier to miss visual cues. use the run button to dodge and evade. 

 

doomguys speed is your main advantage, but it will work against you if youre thoughtless. 

[MaxRideWizardLord]

W+M1 SSG 24/7

[TheNoob_Gamer]

42 minutes ago, MaxRideWizardLord said:

W+M1 SSG 24/7

That is a bad advice and shells aren't always abundant.

 

Spoiler

I know this is sarcasm, but whatever.

 

Edited October 6, 2019 by TheNoob_Gamer

[Z0k]

>>> Things obstacles as those marble pillars with skulls, floor lamps, solid corpses (the ones you cant get trough) or trees are the bane of monsters that use projectile attacks, the only monster that jump this rule is the cyberdemon due the rocket splash. Dont use this tactic agaisnt hitscanner monsters (pistol zombies, shotgunners, chaingunners) neither with archviles.

 

you cant believe how many times i cheesed monsters such as arachnotrons, hell knights etc by just stading behind a tree and  SSG shooting trough it. its even better when they are near.

[[McD] James]

4 hours ago, rampancy said:

there is a reason that there is a run button. leaving it on all the time is just making it harder to aim and easier to miss visual cues. use the run button to dodge and evade. 

 

doomguys speed is your main advantage, but it will work against you if youre thoughtless. 

 

I don't agree with most of this. There are times when it's better to be moving slower, but for the vast majority of the time, it's best to have the autorun feature switched on. I also fail to see how having cl_run enabled makes aiming in any way more difficult.  

[Noiser]

On 10/5/2019 at 12:10 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

To begin with, you can't beat keyboard + mouse in Doom. It doesn't matter how amazing some keyboard only speedruns are, or how difficult they might be to beat, or how deep you've fallen into the "nostalgia-trap" that doom was originally played KB only way back when (which by the way has already been proven false).

Actually, a lot of people played keyboard-only back then and probably was a lot more popular than using a mouse. What has been proven false is the statement that the original Doom doesn't had mouse support or it was the only "intended" way of playing.

I agree it's a lot easier and smooth to play with a mouse anyway. No doubt about it.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Noiser

[reflex17]

I remember when MDK came out I resisted using the mouse because it was strange and different. There's accurate sniping required in that game so it made sense to eventually get used to it. Mouse support has been in ID games since at least Wolf3D.

[Nine Inch Heels]

8 hours ago, rampancy said:

there is a reason that there is a run button. leaving it on all the time is just making it harder to aim and easier to miss visual cues. use the run button to dodge and evade. 

 

doomguys speed is your main advantage, but it will work against you if youre thoughtless. 

The only times the run button would affect aiming is when not playing with mouse and keyboard. And since we're past the stone age of PC-gaming it's highly unlikely that somebody who wants to get better at the game is willing to settle with an inferior input method. There are tons of FPS out there that need to be played with a mouse these days anyway, so you might as well play doom with a mouse, too.

 

It's nice that you wanna help and all, but it would also be nice if you didn't give "tips" that made it seem like you assume that the people reading this are playing the game for the first time, or are like 90+ years old

.

 

Besides, when speed is your main advantage, then you want as much of it as possible, ideally at all times. And again, if you wanna move slower, just tap, or press the run button to move slower when you need to in case you have "always run ON".

 

4 hours ago, Z0k said:

>>> Things obstacles as those marble pillars with skulls, floor lamps, solid corpses (the ones you cant get trough) or trees are the bane of monsters that use projectile attacks, the only monster that jump this rule is the cyberdemon due the rocket splash. Dont use this tactic agaisnt hitscanner monsters (pistol zombies, shotgunners, chaingunners) neither with archviles.

 

you cant believe how many times i cheesed monsters such as arachnotrons, hell knights etc by just stading behind a tree and  SSG shooting trough it. its even better when they are near.

 

This isn't how the game originally behaves, and it only occurs in ports like GZDoom where the hitboxes of things like lamps and pillars have gotten size adjustments. As such, this "advice" is not only very limited in its application by way of souce port used, but it's also very limited by way of where/if these things are placed to begin with. Also cheesing doesn't make you better at the game, which is what the OP was asking for.

[Killer5]

If you want to get better immediately then do the following:

- Learn how the bfg works: https://www.zdaemon.org/starterguide/BFG.htm I see people simply circle strafing all of the time or shooting the ball and then hiding on streams a lot. Let the tracers do the work not the ball.

- When avoiding rev rockets avoid them on whatever side is closest to a wall (so if there is a wall to your left and a homing rocket is inc avoid the rocket so it flies into the wall). I see people running around unable to rid themselves of rev rockets all the time on streams and dying because of it. You can use the sections just after the ysk door in map05 of this wad to practice avoiding rev rockets (you are good when you can beat these sections with some consistency but realistically you should never die to these bits): 

 

- Stop counting on stuns when killing viles when there is obvious cover all over. This is something else I see a lot of on streams.

 

I guess these are the most common things I see in streams which can be fixed rather quickly. Other posts in this thread already address getting better in general.

[rampancy]

the speed you are traveling at has a direct impact on reaction time, regardless of input device or caffine consumption.  

 

its economy of motion. run when you need to run. take your time and line up your shots when you can. the faster you kill demons, the less ammo you burn through, the better. 

[Spectre01]

7 minutes ago, rampancy said:

its economy of motion. run when you need to run. take your time and line up your shots when you can. the faster you kill demons, the less ammo you burn through, the better. 

Are these suggestions for Doom or Counter-Strike? Classic Doom has very generous hitboxes and aggressive autoaim that makes hitting enemies trivial compared to most other FPS. You don't need to slow down to tap-fire headshot enemies. If you want to slow down then you can do so by tapping movement keys or simply stop, shoot, and continue dodging or moving.

[3saster]

1 hour ago, rampancy said:

the speed you are traveling at has a direct impact on reaction time, regardless of input device or caffine consumption.  

 

its economy of motion. run when you need to run. take your time and line up your shots when you can. the faster you kill demons, the less ammo you burn through, the better. 

I'd even go so far as to argue that this would make you a worse player. Movement is very important in Doom, and being able to fire accurately enough while moving fast is one of the most fundamental skills you can develop in Doom, especially with the BFG. This is especially true in more challenging maps; if you slow down to shoot an enemy, even for a moment, that cloud of revenant projectiles is gonna come and insta-kill you. As Spectre01 said, accuracy isn't that important in Doom compared to movement, so focus on the latter. From my experience, the ONLY time I ever need to walk in Doom is for weird "tightrope" secrets; in those rare events, you can simply hold shift or use mouse movement.

 

As for the actual topic, the most important thing I can recommend is to find what mapsets are just at the edge of your skill level, and use those to improve. Try to complete these maps without saving (or if they are large, save infrequently). This thread is not a bad place to get started if you have no idea, though it does have some bizarre choices (why is Deus Vult II above Sunder????). Most of the Doom skills mentioned above, IMO, can be learned through experience, and are best learned through "trial-by-fire", so to speak.

 

That being said, there is one skill I would recommend you practice specifically: 2-shotting a Cyber with a BFG. This isn't really something you learn naturally imo, and the best way to learn it is to watch someone else do it (here's one for example, I'm sure Nine Inch Heels can recommend 3 dozen more), and try and do it yourself. GZDoom is good for this; type "give all" and "summon cyberdemon" on an open map and practice, repeatedly spawning more cybers/ammo as necessary. When you feel more comfortable with this, you can start incorporating it into your gameplay on maps. This sounds like a niche skill, but on some maps it is essential (TimeOfDeath maps in particular are infamous for this), and on others it is a very useful skill to kill cybers fast/save BFG ammo.

 

A less important skill, but still useful skill that can be neglected, is berserk punching stuff. Learning how to punch a cyber to death isn't really a useful skill (unless you want that xbox cheevo lol), but learning how to punch Revenants, Hell Knights/Barons, and Archviles specifically are useful skills that also let you practice good movement. These are best practiced on "berserk" maps where you are forced to do this to some extent; The Chord Series, Speed of Doom MAP21, and Scythe 2 MAP26 are some good examples I can think of (although that last one is especially brutal).

 

Also, as said earlier, (well-made) slaughtermaps really are the best way to improve, they are the maps that enforce all the skills you need in Doom (except perhaps the aformentioned berserk punching). If you are totally new to slaughtermaps, Rush is perfect for you; once you find Rush easy, I would probably say Newgothic Movement is the next step up (skip MAP03 though, and note that MAP01 is bizarely harder than the next 9 maps...).

Edited October 7, 2019 by 3saster : Added comment on Slaughtermaps

[rampancy]

i dont get how having run on all the time and tapping the movement keys makes more sense than moving all the time and tapping the run key but im over it. 

[idbeholdME]

Turn on -fast and never turn it off. That will force you to get better in no time. The moment I did it, I never looked back