What makes a good player good?

[Cilian]

Just like the title asks, what makes a good player that plays through harder wads with less trouble good? What are the differences between a newer player more specific than more experience?

[Hawk of The Crystals]

Ah, now this is a question that is asked frequently; whether or not by you, or someone else. In general, a good player could be classified as someone who can get through difficult situations with ease, such as doom 1&2 as well as final doom. But that goodness can only go so far, mainly since custom wads can be extremely difficult in unfair, or just outlandish ways.

 

In many ways, we dogmatize people who are considered better at games, and the doom community is no different. But to get to the point, I think you and you alone can decide what a good player is, not only from gaining skill, but also from experience. But both of those things come naturally.

[Cilian]

4 minutes ago, CrystalHawk_Doom said:

Ah, now this is a question that is asked frequently; whether or not by you, or someone else.

Oh, is it asked that often? I thought it's something natural and obvious that I can't see.
 

4 minutes ago, CrystalHawk_Doom said:

But that goodness can only go so far, mainly since custom wads can be extremely difficult in unfair, or just outlandish ways.

Yeah, that's what made me think what a good player can do other than know what to expect from a wad. Doom seemed like a game about carefulness and attention.

[Hawk of The Crystals]

2 minutes ago, Cilian said:

Yeah, that's what made me think what a good player can do other than know what to expect from a wad.

It can be annoying going from the official stuff that you have memorized, to community-made wads. But with enough time and memorization, you probably can become pretty good at certain custom mapsets.

But I whole-heartedly recommend that you master the ID duology, and then final doom before trying to get into the more crazy stuff made by the community.

[GarrettChan]

There're many different angles for this. It's not discussed mostly, but good casual players and good speedrunners have really different skill sets. However, they like to be compared together, and also in speedrunners, people also like to compare different players without considering the main category they run.

 

Casually, you have good reflex to deal with weird situation, or you can take on a map with higher difficulty with good strategies, or even finish them without saving etc. will definitely be a good player. Also, you have basic understanding of enemy AIs and weird quirks in Doom etc.

 

For speedrunners, there are a lot more. Planning your route is one important skill, and execution is a bit of higher level from casual good players, they need to be fluent and precise, and sometimes you have to take risk to improve your time, so you would go for a harder execution for shorter time. Then for categories, some skills are used interchangeably, but they have different emphasis. Like movement is more important in NoMo, UV Speed; Accuracy and efficient weapon usage are more important in UV Max; Punching skill is more important in Tyson (:P), etc.

 

Mostly, speedrunners are a strict sub-set of good casual players.

 

I'm not a good casual player, so I can't be a speedrunner according to above, so I'm a slowwalker :P

[Csucskos]

Yeah, so I think the answer is: Precision when moving, knowledge of how to exploit Doom "features" and quick decision making. (Who to target in a fight and so on.)

[Cilian]

8 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

There're many different angles for this. It's not discussed mostly, but good casual players and good speedrunners have really different skill sets.

I was more interested about good casual players but I didn't know how you call a player like that.

8 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Casually, you have good reflex to deal with weird situation, or you can take on a map with higher difficulty with good strategies, or even finish them without saving etc. will definitely be a good player. Also, you have basic understanding of enemy AIs and weird quirks in Doom etc.

Basically experience, knowledge and speed?

[GarrettChan]

16 minutes ago, Cilian said:

I was more interested about good casual players but I didn't know how you call a player like that.

 

Basically experience, knowledge and speed?

The "casual" is basically not speedrunners, and it doesn't mean anything negative with it as not everybody has the time to play a game seriously enough to be a speedrunner heh.

 

Yeah, I guess, but sometimes it's hard to really separate these. Like 2-shot Cyber seems like a skill that's popular enough that a good enough casual player should know.

[Yumheart]

You're good at the game if you enjoy it and don't measure your self-worth through it.

[Kute]

1 hour ago, Cilian said:

Just like the title asks, what makes a good player that plays through harder wads with less trouble good? What are the differences between a newer player more specific than more experience?

 

IMHO, Awareness, strategy, and movement.

 

I don't think aiming is much important in Doom. But no game is so demanding on awareness and movement.

 

Honestly though, the main thing... the main thing is desire to play. If you keep trying, you will get better. I wish I had it in me to go hard for hours on end even on a tilt, you only learn when things are going badly/over your skill

[Stupid Bunny]

This question does elicit a slightly more interesting one, which is "How much do all 'good' players end up playing more or less the same?"  As in, if you're a n00b, or someone like me who's played for years and still sucks, there's a whole variety of mistakes you can make, whether you're too reckless, too slow and cautious, don't strafe, don't run, don't know when to use certain weapons or how, etc. etc., but one could imagine that there's an optimum set of strategies and tactics that you can learn, and that people who have mastered Doom would all play similarly.

 

My response to my own question, then, would be, no, I think people who are really "good" all still approach given situations in different ways.  You can play cautious, or reckless, or prefer to use shotguns or chainguns or even main your fist where possible and still be able to kick ass at Doom; with the caveat that, in each case, a skilled player will still have some sense of where to adjust their strategy/tactics to a given situation.  In this sense, being adaptable and able to think on your feet can be more useful than simply being able to move really fluidly.

 

As @GarrettChan pointed out, there's an additional dimension in that Doom offers objectives outside of merely blasting your way to the exit--it's part of the beauty of the game.  Some people get off on speedrunning and optimizing their path over all else, others love to probe for secrets and secret areas, and others like to make a point of killing everything even if it heightens the risk they're exposed to.  Each comes with its own skill set, and suits a different mentality and approach.

 

The most important thing perhaps is just to let practice come organically.  I've never tried to get good at speedrunning, for instance, because I love to explore and soak in the ambience of a map and I'm too easily distracted to be good at it anyway.  Play the game in a way that you enjoy and the skill will come on its own.  Rest assured that anyone who became a badass at playing Doom, got there because they just love the game and threw themselves into every new map with joy and enthusiasm.

[thiccyosh]

Practice. The more time you spend the more better you get at Doom.

[Senor Cacodemon]

I would say survivability because without it, the entire game you are either going to keep on dieing or you are going to be at 2 hp

[BoxY]

It's well known that your level of skill and achievement is completely determined by your e1m1 pacifist time, everything else is a mere detail.

[Daerik]

Sort of a difficult question to answer, there are multiple facets to skill that make it hard to identify one unifying trait all good players share.

 

One constant I do see across every competitive game I've played is the good players are usually the ones who know how to be aggressive. Instead of reacting to situations playing out passively, good players aggressively dictate the flow of a situation. This comes with the caveat that you need to have solid mechanics and intuition.

 

I'm not sure what the term for this is, but good mechanical skill is more than just your ability to react to projectiles and dodge them, you also need to have good movement that passively dodges damage without having to look, which requires an understanding of how all monster projectiles behave. Study how good combat players move in fights, pay attention to how quickly they move and when they deliberately slow down, pay attention to how often they change directions.

 

The biggest doom specific thing to learn is how to use the bfg. Decino's video on how it functions is a good primer, then just practice cyberdemon two-shots and maximizing the tracers in a variety of situations.

[DarkIceCyclone]

Good player isn't neccesserely a doomgod. A good player can be someone who just plays for fun on HMP difficulty while laughing his butt off. And there are some like this around here. They are just hard to find. 

 

A good player can be someone who plays insanely difficult wads with ease. Or someone who dies many times but still keeps beating the wads. (Decino comes to mind). 

 

There are also different categories of good

[Kute]

2 hours ago, DarkIceCyclone said:

Good player isn't neccesserely a doomgod. A good player can be someone who just plays for fun on HMP difficulty while laughing his butt off. And there are some like this around here. They are just hard to find. 

 

A good player can be someone who plays insanely difficult wads with ease. Or someone who dies many times but still keeps beating the wads. (Decino comes to mind). 

 

There are also different categories of good

 

I don't really know what you mean. I don't think you would categorize a HMP player as being particularly good at the game. There's nothing wrong with playing at any level, the only real point is to be entertained. But "good" is clearly being used by the OP to signify a high level of skill, as noone asks how to be mediocre at something. 

[DarkIceCyclone]

3 hours ago, Kute said:

 

I don't really know what you mean. I don't think you would categorize a HMP player as being particularly good at the game. There's nothing wrong with playing at any level, the only real point is to be entertained. But "good" is clearly being used by the OP to signify a high level of skill, as noone asks how to be mediocre at something. 

I strongly disagree. 

[Maribo]

It's largely dependent on the wad in question for how HMP stacks up. Like, I increasingly come across wads that are starting to balance HMP along the lines of what they'd consider a UV difficulty, and using UV itself as a kind of "extra challenge" to the intended experience. It's not really unprecedented either, there's quite a few wads Ribbiks has done in the last few years that recommend HMP as the intended experience, with UV being "for those that want even more" or some similar sentiment. Like, HMP isn't a toothless difficulty, you know? And neither is HNTR in a lot of cases. It's entirely possible to be good at the game and not play on UV all the time, hell you'll probably find that you'll enjoy a fair number of wads more if you bump yourself down to HMP or HNTR for a casual playthrough.

[Cilian]

23 minutes ago, Maribo said:

It's largely dependent on the wad in question for how HMP stacks up. Like, I increasingly come across wads that are starting to balance HMP along the lines of what they'd consider a UV difficulty, and using UV itself as a kind of "extra challenge" to the intended experience. It's not really unprecedented either, there's quite a few wads Ribbiks has done in the last few years that recommend HMP as the intended experience, with UV being "for those that want even more" or some similar sentiment. Like, HMP isn't a toothless difficulty, you know? And neither is HNTR in a lot of cases. It's entirely possible to be good at the game and not play on UV all the time, hell you'll probably find that you'll enjoy a fair number of wads more if you bump yourself down to HMP or HNTR for a casual playthrough.

Oh interesting, when I started playing doom I went with HMP but it was too easy and I switched to UV. Since then I was always playing on UV assuming it was kind of default difficility, assuming everything below is easier than it should be and less enemies is boring.

[Biodegradable]

It's a cliche but only because it's true: practice makes perfect. Just keep playing and don't lose sight of your primary objective: having fun!

[P41R47]

4 hours ago, Kute said:

I don't really know what you mean. I don't think you would categorize a HMP player as being particularly good at the game. There's nothing wrong with playing at any level, the only real point is to be entertained. But "good" is clearly being used by the OP to signify a high level of skill, as noone asks how to be mediocre at something.

I am probably the best player on HNTR.
Completing the whole Plutonia and maxing it in just half an hour with no damage.

Probably i am a mediocre in you eyes just because i don't play on UV, right?

On the topic of the thread, @Ciliana good player is one that enjoys the game enough to complete it and know all the quircks of the engine.
A casual player is one that complete it and just forget it and doesn't come back, and when tries a community made mapset, even an average one, he goes away that the community play on kaizo mode all the time.
Don't confuse good player with high skilled player.
You can become a pretty high skilled player playing casually, being able to play most megawads out there blindly on UV without problem.
But thats totally a different kind of skill compared to speedrunners.

So probably all the regular members here are good doom players, yes.
Not all have the skillset to play on UV, and that doesn't made them bad players as the important is enjoy the game.

IF you want to become a pretty high skilled player, try speedrunning.
If you don't feel its for you, it doesn't matter, probably your time trying it surelly made you improve your skillset enough to play anything without much problem on high difficult settings.

[Maribo]

44 minutes ago, Cilian said:

Oh interesting, when I started playing doom I went with HMP but it was too easy and I switched to UV. Since then I was always playing on UV assuming it was kind of default difficility, assuming everything below is easier than it should be and less enemies is boring.

 

Yeah, the difficulty of the IWADs and a lot of older pwads is a different kind of ball game than stuff that people make now.

Here's some snippets of some wad descriptions that have what I was talking about, if you're curious:

Spoiler

From Stardate 20x7:

Spoiler

These maps are really god damn hard. I put most of my time and effort into making HMP the intended difficulty setting, it's by far the most fun and balanced. Think of Stardate20x7's HMP as everyone else's UV. Similarly, HNTR was balanced to be comparable to other challenging mapsets on HMP. UV is NOT the intended way to play the levels on a first playthrough, but rather was intended to be a "bonus" setting reserved for hardcore sadomasochists that are already familiar with the maps and want pure challenge.

From Breathless Remastered

Spoiler

It is designed to be hard on Ultra Violence -consider it close to SWTW map 3 for reference- and is balanced mainly for this mode. HMP and HNTR are both implemented with the former tested a decent amount (not as rigorously as UV) and the latter given some quick runs. Hurt Me Plenty is fun to play and I can Max it fairly consistently without too much trouble; I would suggest playing on this difficulty first, as UV is punishing. Don't say you weren't warned :D

From Swim With the Whales

Spoiler

The dynamic range of the difficulty is wider than my previous releases. That is, UV is harder and HMP / HNTR are both a bit easier. So I encourage even skilled players to start off on HMP.

From Sunlust

Spoiler

UV is designed primarily for ubermensch doom-gods, thus we encourage most players to start off on HMP or lower.

From Flotsam

Spoiler

Difficulties are implemented. I suggest you use them.

From The Event Horizon

Spoiler

Difficulties are implemented. Recommended to play HMP/HNTR. UV assumes foreknowledge.

From Dimensions

Spoiler

Play on HNTR or HMP. I spent the vast majority of time working on HNTR and HMP for maps 01-03. UV is an extra special difficulty that most likely only I will find fun.

From No Chance

Spoiler

The only incentive for playing this map on UV is purely for the sake of the challenge and to see if you can complete a seemingly impossible task, as this map is otherwise completely unplayable or fun for any other reason. If you want a fairly upbeat, but managable challenge, play HMP. If you want a more casual run, play ITYTD or NTR.

From Mayan Mishap

Spoiler

If you typically play maps on UV, I would definitely recommend HMP for your first playthrough to avoid any potential frustration. Similarly, if you usually play on HMP by default, dropping the difficulty down to HNTR would probably be a good idea. UV is certainly doable on a first playthrough though, if you fancy yourself a challenge.

From Wormwood: Expanded Universe

Spoiler

==== HMP is the recommended difficulty setting

 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Maribo : leftover link cleanup

[Senor Cacodemon]

Survivability: I'd rather be a good player than can actually stay alive than a bad player who has no survivability

[Nine Inch Heels]

Without getting into specific scenarios too much, I think good players ask the right questions when they die, whereas others might just tell themselves they got screwed by poor RNG (sometimes true, but nowhere near as often as most people claim) or that a fight was unfair (also always demonstrably false when somebody else can beat the same fight consistently). Rather than thinking "I could have lived here if the rev rocket didn't deal 80 damage", you should be thinking "I could have lived here, because I should have avoided that rev rocket"... And instead of thinking "I could beat this map if it wasn't for this unfair fight that I hate" you should be asking yourself how you can best deal with the fight that is giving you trouble.

 

Other than that, and less obvious to most people, what makes good players really good is a very effective practice routine. Good players get good fast not because they have some super-natural talent, but because they're damn good at practising the right way...

 

Another thing that makes good players good is what Daerik pointed out. The ability to "auto-pilot" lots of things, which leaves enough "headspace" to observe and react to what's most important in that moment. We all know the "mancubus dance" dodging from side to side, that's one of those habits we cultivate, albeit a very simple example of one...

 

Speaking of paying attention to what matters the most, good players can understand some key pieces of even the hardest fights out there immediately... That doesn't mean they'll beat the fight right away, but it does mean they're able to come up with a strategy much faster than somebody who is overwhelmed and panics at the sight of an arch vile...

 

Next on the "good at doom" list is knowing the game's intricacies, like for example how the BFG works, or that arch viles have "target amnesia", or having a feeling for the distance towards a revenant that will force it to try and use its melee attack instead of projectiles... That sort of stuff...

 

There's probably also something to be said about understanding the difference between tactics (shoot the vile first, idiot <- actually not even necessarily the right thing to do in hard maps) and strategy (which components of this hard fight should I focus on to make it the least threatening, and in which order?)

 

And then, of course, there's hours upon hours of experience...

 

 

To summarize:

-Don't blame the RNG when you died to something you could have avoided or dealt with

-Practice what you can't do, and don't practice what you can do

-Develop useful habits, so you can pay attention to the most pressing threats in a fight

-Wrap your head around "exploitable" game mechanics

-Understand that if your usual tactics fail, you need a better overarching strategy

-Play the game a lot

Edited November 27, 2021 by Nine Inch Heels

[slugger]

 

 

It might seem like a joke but this video is legitimately full of useful tips. I don't think any map has taught me more Doom skill in less time. I wouldn't have figured out a lot of this stuff on my own, and it totally changes the game when you understand there are simple strategies to dodge or mitigate every single enemy. Before then, I was a very weak player who would always run when I should've been pushing forward.

 

Priority is also a super important skill that beginners haven't developed yet. If a bunch of different monsters appear, you don't just want to shoot the ones that are closest to you. You want to examine the environment and decide each group's ratio of threat vs. vulnerability. Sometimes you have to put up with a threatening monster because it's not vulnerable. Sometimes you counter-intuitively want to leave monsters alive because they'll block projectiles for you, or start infighting greater threats, or simply because it's not worth it to use up ammo on pinkies when there are chaingunners and archviles afoot. (Unless the pinkies are surrounding you and the chaingunners are helping you kill them and the archviles are distracted with something else - see, it's complicated!) Easy WADs give you a lot of wiggle-room on priority. The harder-than-hard ultra-WADs with impossible-seeming situations expect you to make elaborate priority judgments with future scenarios in mind.

[Cilian]

8 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Without getting into specific scenarios too much, I think good players ask the right questions when they die, whereas others might just tell themselves they got screwed by poor RNG (sometimes true, but nowhere near as often as most people claim) or that a fight was unfair (also always demonstrably false when somebody else can beat the same fight consistently). Rather than thinking "I could have lived here if the rev rocket didn't deal 80 damage", you should be thinking "I could have lived here, because I should have avoided that rev rocket"... And instead of thinking "I could beat this map if it wasn't for this unfair fight that I hate" you should be asking yourself how you can best deal with the fight that is giving you trouble. 

That applies to a lot of games tbh, if you get good at one game it's probably going to be easier to get better at another because you have experience with practice. The biggest problem while using this is trying to understand what you do wrong and what you should do, it's not always obvious or any intuitive

[Kute]

It's just easiest to discuss things if there's a baseline. I think speedrunning is its own thing

I would think a good Doom player is one who can go into most wads and make good progress on ultra violence, pistol start, no-mid level saving. Having a standard baseline means alot for gauging skill. When there's no reliable baseline, people delude themselves heavily. I've seen it in a million games.

 That's all, just make progress. Anything else becomes a bit either obscure, repetitive, niche, etc.

 

 

[Steveb1000]

Mastery of the rocket launcher, especially combined with crowd control.

[MTrop]

Not dying a lot.