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RHhe82

I choose the impossible. I choose: Hurt me plenty.

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53 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

It'll be from Reddit.

 

Well, fuck Reddit, if I say it bluntly.

 

Anyway, people can use whatever difficulty they see fit. There's no shame in doing so. I do it occasionally too at some wads.

Wanna do it on UV-fast? Go ahead. Wanna use Nightmare instead? Be my guest. HMP? No problem, for practice or casual gameplay. Same for the easier difficulties.

Difficulties exist to accomodate those types of gameplay. Yes, I do like to play UV but I'm not going to dictate which difficulty is "recommended" or for "the better experience". 

 

Just, no.

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4 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

You're not "very, very used to playing doom on UV", you're very, very used to what the WADs you have beaten many times over do on UV. That's an important distinction.

 

Exactly. There's no relationship between skill level and the amount of challenge you will face. It just dictates what the map author thinks suits that skill level. An author could troll everybody and release a map with 20 enemies on Ultra Violence, 12 on Hurt Me Plenty, and 1000 on I'm Too Young to Die / Hey Not Too Rough. There's no formula.

 

2 hours ago, Dunn (& Dunn) said:

Pardon my bluntness, but can this "UV = default" and "UV = intended experience" mindset just fuck off already?

 

Heartily concur. This is a concept so utterly imbecilic it defies belief.


There is only one "intended experience" - HAVE. FUN. It's a GAME. Games are supposed to be fun, not a chore. If it's driving you nuts, you're doing it wrong. That this needs to be spelled out kind of baffles me. Start a map on UV. If it's too hard and you are not having fun, lower the skill setting. Volia. You are now having the intended experience.

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6 hours ago, PsychEyeball said:

I played Sunlust on HMP lately and I don't feel as if I've been robbed of anything. It still was the hardest WAD I had ever played and I felt drained once I finally managed to beat it. It just was a little more accessible than it would have been.

 

 

Currently playing through Sunlust on HMP as well and honestly I just don't think anything could convince me that this will somehow be more enjoyable or fun on UV. Are there older Wads, like those found in Compendium, that feel just about right or objectively fair on UV? Sure. Are Valiant and Eviternity and Struggle still quite accessible on UV. Absolutely. Did I really enjoy- to my very pleasant surprise- Slaughtermax 2012 on HMP, but have a feeling it would lose a good deal of balance on UV? Yes, but that could depend on the mapper.

Difficulty settings vary so much by Wads themselves that it's almost like comparing apples to oranges sometimes between UV and HMP across Wads, even Wads considered harder or easier within the greater community. I'm an HMP guy, I don't enjoy an extremely "hardcore" type of challenge, so for those sorts of Wads, I have no intention of playing them on UV at the start, and if I don't enjoy them well enough on HMP, maybe not at all.

Doom should be fun to play, not purely difficult, in my opinion, so properly balanced settings and finding the setting that works best for you are very important.

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The intended experience is the one that brings you the most fun. Play how you want to.

 

And for the mappers out there, if you want to be a good mapper? Implement difficulty settings. I think that's an important point to make as players can only use difficulty settings if they have been implemented. Good difficulty balancing will open up your work to a wider audience, and it will make you a better mapper. Can you make your fights still fun but not as punishing (or visa versa). Another string to your bow as it were.

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Most of the time, maps are more over the same under HMP or HNTR, with only the changes like monster placements and pickups. Even though you could change the level structure and add new fights for higher difficulty, it's not really common, unless you're playing some abstract ribbiks maps.

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I'm not entirely sure where the idea comes from, but all I know is that if it gets in the way of you playing something for fun (you do, don't you?), then it's definitely an artificial imposition you're placing on yourself. I would also say that whomever or the set of whomever's that began that line of thinking are long-gone as far as public visibility or relevance goes, and their ideas should be following them too. Video games aren't a genitalia-measuring contest. Never should've been. If you feel they are, look around at who really cares at the end of the day, and why it's silly to buy into the idea in the first place. It don't pay the bills, it doesn't raise your status in society at all, and it certainly doesn't make you feel better about yourself in the long run. The sentiment of eliminating toxicity from your mindset is a good one, and I think overall, lots of portions of society are starting to get on board with the idea that it's alright to bump things down a notch or get rid of the "balls to the wall or bust" mentality. Toxicity is a good word for it, and yes, I would agree that a lot of it is probably rooted in some strange masculine idealisms that really need challenging. Gaming needs to be embracing that change wherever it can be found, and if it's something you wanna change, I say go for it, wholeheartedly. You'll probably find it has a positive effect on more than you know.

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I've noticed this a lot in the whole doom community, it's not just you that feels this way. I, as many others suffered from the same thoughts and afflictions that you have regarding this issue. And it's really simple to figure out and I'm sure you know the answer to this aswell by now.

 

Let me assure you, all the wads are just as fun on HMP as on UV. Why?

 

Because it's fun to play doom in general, it's fun to play mods and maps and wads and ETC! Why make yourself suffer from the start of an unknown mapset with a hard difficulty when you can just play through it, enjoy it, and have fun with it? And if you feel like you want a bit more of a challenge then just boost the difficulty up a notch after you've played through it once or twice.

Sure, fine, some maps have content hidden behind the difficulty settings. It's a thing but it's not a bad thing whatsoever. Why? Because if you like the mapset or mod enough you're going to get to it eventually and you will NOT miss out on any of the content. It's honestly a very strange fear to have but once you realize that it's an unnecessary fear of missing out on things, you jut have more fun with this whole amazing doom craze.

 

And the whole "I'm a man I play on UV how it should be" mindset is just stupid. Enjoy the game and have fun with it and don't let others pressure in to thinking that you're some "loser nobody" for playing on a lower dif. 

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Nothing wrong with HMP as a lot of maps are just plain ridiculous on UV, seemingly made to be a spectacle (or just to say "look at me I beat all that") instead of a legitimate challenge.

 

And it's always a good idea to prioritize your enjoyment when it comes to your hobbies. The hell else are they for?

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Lots of good discussion here! I’m posting on my mobile while at work, so I’ll have to be brief; I want to stress that my ill-advised inclination does not come from Doomworld or famous youtubers who play on UV saveless with fast monsters enabled; I don’t think I’ve seen anyone ridiculing others for playing on anything else than UV or NM. It’s a habit I picked from playing the IWADs ever since 1994. That, and some trait in my personality that is not competitive as such, but still exposes me to mentally unhealthy habits. ”UV or bust” is just another manifestation of this. (Other similar habit related to gaming was the time I got myself addicted to achievements. Boy, oh boy, what ”fun” times I had grinding some game for hours just to get some gamerscore. I burnt out there and haven’t played almost any Xbox game since april-may 2020).

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A thread about using lower difficulties where right off the bat OP states that he stopped being an insecure bitch and that he uses lower difficulties when levels get too hard to handle? Christmas came very damn early this year!

Spoiler

I swear to god the threads about dropping the difficulty from UV and about using saves on DW follow the same goddamn template where 80% of the posts are karma farmers something comforting and the rest are combating imaginary elitists who would ever talk shit about these only because user decided their own insecurity regarding these topics is that worthy of being talked about.

 

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21 minutes ago, Beginner said:

A thread about using lower difficulties where right off the bat OP states that he stopped being an insecure bitch and that he uses lower difficulties when levels get too hard to handle? Christmas came very damn early this year!

  Hide contents

I swear to god the threads about dropping the difficulty from UV and about using saves on DW follow the same goddamn template where 80% of the posts are karma farmers something comforting and the rest are combating imaginary elitists who would ever talk shit about these only because user decided their own insecurity regarding these topics is that worthy of being talked about.

 


At least I’m open about my insecurities :P But yeah, I was on the edge whether or not to post the thing after writing it, but I thought what the heck, I’ve seen sillier topics. Perhaps after this one there’s no need to have this conversation before next january :P

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17 hours ago, magicsofa said:

Also, the settings make a difference whether the mapper used the actor flags or not.

 

How? The only difference I can think of is ITYTD, which doubles ammo pickup amounts and halves all damage as opposed to the other difficulties. Or is that what you specifically meant?

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A selection* of txt files:

 

sunlust.txt:

Quote

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

 

sd20x7.txt:

Quote

*** PLAY ON HMP/HNTR ***

...

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.

...

*** PLAY ON HMP/HNTR ***

 

swtw.txt:

Quote

So I encourage even skilled players to start off on HMP.

...

HMP  - Probably the most enjoyable experience. Enough powerups and ammo
       to forgive a few mistakes, encounters are challenging but not
       overly harsh.

 

crumpets.txt:

Quote

UV is designed for experts, so I encourage most players to start off on HMP.

 

stardate20x6.txt:

Quote

Most time was spent balancing UV play, but I also implemented HMP. HNTR is pretty much the same as HMP, but with a few slight changes. so I recommend playing ITYTD if HMP is too rough.

 

dmnsns.txt:

Quote

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.

 

Breathless.txt:

Quote

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

 

nochance.txt:

Quote

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.

 

skePLand.txt:

Quote

It's not recommended to play these maps FDA-style on Ultra-Violence. Otherwise, expect a lot of dying due to a tight ammo & health balance. Use HMP for FDA instead; it will provide a far more comfortable experience, while still being fairly hard.

 

wormwood_EU.txt:

Quote

==== HMP is the recommended difficulty setting

 

wormwood3.txt:

Quote

-=| DIFF |=- HMP IS THE RECOMMENDED SETTING.

 

*okay, most of these are from Ribbiks' works, but some aren't! I just grepped for "HMP" across my folder of WADs so I'm sure I missed stuff.

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For me, the "intended experience" stuff came less from a place of insecurity (I was six and didn't give a shit) but from how difficulty was implemented in Doom/Doom 2.wad.

 

I wanted to play UV because it felt like the "full amount" of enemies, instead of some submaximal, "partial" experience.  Lower difficulties felt more empty, even if I wasn't up to UV as a 6yo playing keys only.

 

Had the difficulties been more about numbers or possibly just aggression, I wouldn't have felt that way.

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17 minutes ago, ZethXM said:

For me, the "intended experience" stuff came less from a place of insecurity (I was six and didn't give a shit) but from how difficulty was implemented in Doom/Doom 2.wad.

 

I wanted to play UV because it felt like the "full amount" of enemies, instead of some submaximal, "partial" experience.  Lower difficulties felt more empty, even if I wasn't up to UV as a 6yo playing keys only.

 

Had the difficulties been more about numbers or possibly just aggression, I wouldn't have felt that way.

 

That's my feeling too. Since there are typically more demons on UV, I felt like playing on lower difficulty levels would make me miss out on killing some of them.

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I think a small part of the mindset that Ultra-Violence, or even Hurt Me Plenty are the only viable difficulties comes from the names themselves, with the lowest two almost bullying the player into not wanting to choose them. As someone with comically terrible RNG luck, and a preference for not playing too cautiously, I'm Too Young To Die is the only way I can enjoy 90% of the major wads released from the past few years. I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out because I tend to actually play more maps than if I tried to annoy myself with either savescumming or restarting until I'm over it.

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1 hour ago, ZethXM said:

 

I wanted to play UV because it felt like the "full amount" of enemies, instead of some submaximal, "partial" experience


This is also a part of it most definitely: the feeling that the most devilishly spectacular traps are ”diluted” on lower difficulties. Fear of missing out. This is where it is easy to forget that subsequent frustration counters any enjoyment and fun, if the map is beyond one’s skills.

 

This is also where one would need to remember that wad can be replayed later, if it is good enough (meaning: fit for you) anyway. I have limited time, so that cuts off many decent mapset with regards to second or third etc. playthroughs, but that’s just one more thing to accept. I should be able to live with that just fine.

 

It occurred to me that there is one more obsessive habit that needs re-evalution, and that’s the need to UV-MAX (or HMP-MAX or whatever-MAX) everything. Undiscovered secrets can be left for replays just as well. However, this is not a habit that gets too much in the way, it just prolongs play time, 20 minute maps take 25 and/or a peek to a wiki page cataloguing all secrets that would have been useful to find before you butchered every monster and reached the exit.

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18 hours ago, Xaser said:

At this point, I'm not even sure where the "UV or bust" mindset even comes from -- certainly not from Doomworld. Every time a thread like this pops up, the overwhelming majority of replies are folks saying "hell naw, play the difficulty you're comfortable at and have fun; it's not a compromise", which is awesome and how it should be.

 

I guess what I'm getting at is: if you're feeling uncomfortable about lowering the difficulty, rest assured that the hardcore Doom geeks of the community got your back.

Don't want to sound like an "old man yells at cloud" elitist, but I believe this is just a symptom of the divide between the fans of classic and new Doom. The fans of the latter are mostly on the younger side and as such have tendencies to be a bit more immature. Meanwhile, the classic Doom community has been going strong since 1994. Most of us here have just realized with the experience given by the years that life is just too short to care about this crap, and many play mostly for fun or even just to admire the artistry.

 

Not only that, I think even the means of communication play a role too. New fans mostly use things like Reddit and such, and we all like to crap on Reddit, myself included, its already a bit of a joke, but its true that damn site is absolute hell for engaging in serious discussion thanks to the karma system. Same for Twitter. Shorter and more concise the better. There is a reason low-effort memes are so popular there. We, however, still use the ages old forums, which favor longer, more well-thought out posts. And like I said, most of us are more mature and have developed longer attentions spans. 

 

Just my 2 cents. Again this is not universal, I'm a pretty young bloke myself, DW isn't exactly the School of Athens 100% of the time, and new Doom is, well, newer, so it can't be blamed at all for having an younger fanbase. Besides that, there was a recent very interesting post by Kid where he talked about how the new fandom has even started to split itself! Its just a very interesting topic to look at.

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3 hours ago, MFG38 said:

How? The only difference I can think of is ITYTD, which doubles ammo pickup amounts and halves all damage as opposed to the other difficulties. Or is that what you specifically meant?


Crap, that is what I meant, but for some reason I have this bug in my brain that tells me HNTR has lower damage as well, which is totally wrong. I've forgotten and looked this up multiple times now... and also playtested my own maps on EZ mode... wtf?

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19 hours ago, Edward850 said:

It'll be from Reddit.

 


The one time I poked my head into there, one of the front page posts was a picture of an Eternal save screen confirming the completion of the second DLC. Couple thousand upvotes, medals - and the difficulty was ITYTD. So, I guess it depends on the time of day/week…? (It’s otherwise not a very fun place, I like the Quake reddit more).

 

Anyways! The point of multiple difficulties is so people can play how they want. And if someone gets a kick out of a level on a low difficulty they have the option able to play it again on a higher one, increasing the replay value. “UV-only” bros just get Nightmare and occasionally “multiplayer monsters”.

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29 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

Crap, that is what I meant, but for some reason I have this bug in my brain that tells me HNTR has lower damage as well, which is totally wrong. I've forgotten and looked this up multiple times now... and also playtested my own maps on EZ mode... wtf?

There's actually a very tiny difference between HNTR and HMP/UV, IoS firing rate is halved.

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I get the purpose of this thread. But some posts here actually seem to shame people who prefer to play on UV and grind until they "git gud" instead of dropping to lower difficulties. Just like there's nothing wrong to play on lower difficulty, there's also nothing "insecure" or "elitist" about preferring to grind on UV until you make it. It's a personal choice that everyone has to make for themselves.

 

It's a shame that some people always have the tendency to go from one extreme to the other.  It's either the "git gud or git lost"-kind of attitude or you're an "elitist scumbag", "insecure bitch" if you dare play on UV even though you're not a Doom God. 

How about each to his own and don't shame others either way?

 

That also means, that if a map maker designed the maps around UV and calls that the "intended experience", it's something you should just accept; there's nothing wrong with it. Play it on HMP if it's too hard, you don't have to follow their "directions" but don't say there's something wrong with it just because it wasn't designed for your skill level. That's just as bad as the other extreme.

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20 minutes ago, Gregor said:

But some posts here actually seem to shame people who prefer to play on UV and grind until they "git gud"

 

You are not implying it, but for posterity: that is also not my intent. I would very much like to be as good as any Doom god, but I probably won't ever be, not with the time and inclination for it. My only gripe is my own misguided demands I have been placing on myself for no good reason. (Besides, I still regard Dark Souls one of the very best 2010s video game industry produced, I very much have gitten gud before and found it most rewarding. But I started in the Undead Asylum and Undead Burg, not at chasm-like rooftops with diabolical archers followed by Ornstein and Smough, the golden metaphors for modern wads).

 

And to clear one other possible misunderstanding some might have had: when I talk about intended experience in the OP, I'm talking only about my assumption that stems from being accustomed to choosing UV whenever I'd play IWADs. This is a exercise in severing the link between one chosen difficulty level and map designers' or iD Software's intentions.

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The comparison with Dark Souls is very fitting. I remember a couple of years ago when Sekiro came out how even seasoned Darks Souls vets claimed that Sekiro was just too hard and needed a lower difficulty setting; that there was something fundamentally WRONG with the game, etc.

Fact is, Sekiro is just significantly harder than the way most people played Dark Soul because there is not leveling, no coop, no summons and no fancy armour or OP weapons to farm. As a result, fewer people played the game and even fewer managed to finish it. But that is a design choice Fromsoft made and they were obviously happy with it. And a lot of people love them for that. Now, i love Dark Souls, i think it's one of the best games ever made along with Demon's Souls and Bloodborne but i have yet to play Sekiro. Maybe one day i will, maybe i won't. But i respect them for having the balls to come out and make the game they wanted to make even though it meant frustrating parts of the community. The same could be said about Sunder. I have never played it. Maybe i never will. But i respect insane_gazebo and his design choices. It doesn't always have to be for everyone. Ultimately, like you said, it comes down to how much time and effort you are willing to invest into overcoming a challenge that is in the end of day entirely optional and not at all necessary. There's nothing wrong with getting good. It can be very rewarding. The moment the grind becomes self-torture is the moment you should stop. But only you yourself can tell when that point is reached. You don't owe anyone else an explanation.

Edited by Gregor

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4 hours ago, BGrieber said:

The one time I poked my head into there, one of the front page posts was a picture of an Eternal save screen confirming the completion of the second DLC. Couple thousand upvotes, medals - and the difficulty was ITYTD. So, I guess it depends on the time of day/week…? (It’s otherwise not a very fun place, I like the Quake reddit more).

 

Yeah I think the doom reddit hate is a tad overblown. I've definitely seen toxic tryhard behavior on there but it doesn't seem to be the default. Like any fanbase that skews younger there's kids being assholes trying to prove themselves. But overall there's tons of good discussion on both sites. It's a huge generational shift that will even out in time.

This is all still odd to me though as Reddit still feels like an old folks site to me lol.

 

1 hour ago, Gregor said:

I get the purpose of this thread. But some posts here actually seem to shame people who prefer to play on UV and grind until they "git gud" instead of dropping to lower difficulties. Just like there's nothing wrong to play on lower difficulty, there's also nothing "insecure" or "elitist" about preferring to grind on UV until you make it. It's a personal choice that everyone has to make for themselves.

 

It's a shame that some people always have the tendency to go from one extreme to the other.  It's either the "git gud or git lost"-kind of attitude or you're an "elitist scumbag", "insecure bitch" if you dare play on UV even though you're not a Doom God. 

How about each to his own and don't shame others either way?

 

The distinction to me is "I enjoy rising to the challenge and getting better at the game makes me feel a sense of accomplishment"

vs "I'm not a real man/gamer/whatever if I don't play at the hard/'intended' difficulty."

I think discussions like this are a good reminder to people to examine their motivations a bit and see if maybe they'd have a bit more fun dropping the skill for a while.

I get the frustration and I hope you don't take the discussion as an attack against you or people who love challenge in general.

There are WADs I try to grind on UV because I love them. There are others I just want to have a look around on Skill 1.

The reason I think this end of the discussion is talked about more than the opposite end is you see plenty of times "this WAD is too hard on skill 4!!!" and rarely (if ever) do you see "this WAD is too easy on skill 2!!!"

 

1 hour ago, Gregor said:

That also means, that if a map maker designed the maps around UV and calls that the "intended experience", it's something you should just accept; there's nothing wrong with it. Play it on HMP if it's too hard, you don't have to follow their "directions" but don't say there's something wrong with it just because it wasn't designed for your skill level. That's just as bad as the other extreme.

 

I've said in the past I'm not a huge fan of how Doom does difficulty. I do think it lends itself to propagating the "UV=intended", especially with the way you place things in most editors (lends itself to a subtractive mindset, all 3 skills are checked until you change that)

Yes, there are many fantastic mapsets that carefully curate each difficulty, but I personally don't think every map maker should be held to that standard.

Especially when we have tools like dehacked/mods/skill1 and even cheats we can tune our own experience to what we like.

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