HMP shouldn't be scoffed at

[resle]

Am I alone to think that HMP is the way Doom was intended to be played?

 

It can certainly feel "too easy" now that we've been playing and watching and analyzing the thing for 30 years, but that in my opinion it doesn't change the fact that - as the very middle difficulty level (if you factor Nightmare in), it's "doom as it was meant to be". The original vision. With higher and lower difficulties being mere derivatives.

 

Yet, I see that today most megawads are designed with UV in mind, and the rest as an afterthought of sorts.

 

I am sure this has been debated 9257 times already but,

thoughts?

 

[SiMpLeToNiUm]

Doom is meant to be played at whatever difficulty maximizes your enjoyment of the WAD you're playing, in whatever form that enjoyment takes, whether that be masochistic struggling or relaxed sightseeing. Default settings are just that, defaults. I, for one, don't find experiencing something purely on the basis of "manufacturer default" quite as fun as trying to toy around with the thing and see its other potential uses. If the original formula (or "vision", as you say) was never meant to be expanded in scope or meaning, we would not have had the rich almost 30-year history of Doom content creation and discussion that you mention in your OP. There is a prevailing mindset that just because something was, means that it always must be, and that idea seems to find itself a home in the community quite often. It is not a point of reverent observation that Doom is "best played" as it was out of the box or on its default values; that is only one possibility out of what should by now be understood as almost unlimited valid ways to play the game.

[Jiggahertz]

There's no way Doom was "intended" to be played

 

Don't be ridiculous

 

If you want to play pure vanilla on Chocolate Doom, then play that

 

If you want to play on GZDoom with Beautiful Doom and other mods etc., then play that

 

If you want to play on HMP then play that

 

If you want to play on UV then play that

 

If you want to pistol start, then play that

 

If you want to utilize as many saves as you want, then play that

[Murdoch]

29 minutes ago, resle said:

Am I alone to think that HMP is the way Doom was intended to be played?

 

OK there's another one of my "Trigger phrases". The way Doom is intended to be played is the way which makes you ENJOY THE GAME.

 

Some people like fun shooting romps and don't really want to deal with too much challenge or frustration. Some people are masochists and think that if they don't die 12 times a map it was too easy.

 

It's your game. You do you. Play it the way you enjoy it. No one should judge you for it (anyone that does, can you say overcompensation?) and you should not be looking for other people to justify the way you play it either.

[Nefelibeta]

I guess none of us are scoffing at HMP.

[Nikku4211]

No one should scoff at ITYTD either.

[sandwedge]

I scoff in your general direction!!

 

But seriously, what other people said, play how you like.  I think it's true that maybe too many consider UV to be a "default" and complain when things are too hard.  But I often feel like with UV I'm getting the "full" experience because you are getting all the monster spawns.  However I also find that it is often the sweet spot for me anyway.  I will turn it down if there are specific comments by the mapper or players saying UV is too crazy for most people (later episodes of Haste come to mind).

 

It's also a weird question because if you're talking about how the original iwads are supposed to be played, well ok maybe that was intended for first time players.  It is technically what might be called "normal" difficulty for many games.  This of course was back when most people were using a keyboard and had never even played an fps that elaborate before (wolfenstein is pretty one note in comparison).  And even then they admitted they messed up the difficulty curve by not testing for continuous play, thus making it "too easy" even to the designers.  So yeah, you can argue about what was intended but it doesn't really matter anyway, and once you get to community stuff it doubly doesn't matter because a mapper will often say what they consider intended.  If they don't, then play what feels right.  I played HMP a lot until I started getting better at the game, now I love UV.  Don't give in to any elitism about difficulty level, that's just dumb for any game but especially a single player game, lol.

[Doomkid]

There's a shitload of "UV or bust" mentality out there in the (non-Doomworld) classic doom scene, just to give a little justification to the OP's post.

 

I agree that HMP and other difficulties shouldn't be scoffed at, so much so that I've renamed the "Ultra-Violence" difficulty in a lot of my wads to "Expert", and HMP to "Hard", so that players maybe feel a little less emasculated when they pick HMP. (Although, "Hurt Me Plenty" was always a badass name, imo)

[Firedust]

i only play on uv and if mapmaker make level too hard i whine about it in thread and ask them to lower difficulty DOOM IS ONLY MEANT FOR UV DONT YOU GET IT

[sandwedge]

12 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

There's a shitload of "UV or bust" mentality out there in the (non-Doomworld) classic doom scene, just to give a little justification to the OP's post.

 

I agree that HMP and other difficulties shouldn't be scoffed at, so much so that I've renamed the "Ultra-Violence" difficulty in a lot of my wads to "Expert", and HMP to "Hard", so that players maybe feel a little less emasculated when they pick HMP. (Although, "Hurt Me Plenty" was always a badass name, imo)

 

You forgot to mention my favourite names for difficulty levels in ray mohawk: HMP is something like "playing for fun" and UV is "seeking validation". 😂  I found that so funny when I first saw it, and sometimes it's so true.  But I didn't mind wanting to ultimately play stuff on UV because it sort of motivated me to get a bit better at the game, which ultimately gives me more fun in trying more maps and overcoming more difficult situations.

[Murdoch]

Just now, sandwedge said:

seeking validation

 

Bahahah oh that is gold.

[Steveb1000]

I agree with the view difficulty levels are just one of the any ways you can have different doom experiences to suit yourself. 

 

And one of the ways I enjoy Doom is to play levels where I have a slim chance of completing a level blind first time, and for me I often get that experience with HMP.

[Xim]

40 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

There's a shitload of "UV or bust" mentality out there in the (non-Doomworld) classic doom scene, just to give a little justification to the OP's post.

 

I agree that HMP and other difficulties shouldn't be scoffed at, so much so that I've renamed the "Ultra-Violence" difficulty in a lot of my wads to "Expert", and HMP to "Hard", so that players maybe feel a little less emasculated when they pick HMP. (Although, "Hurt Me Plenty" was always a badass name, imo)

 

I agree with HMP being Hard and UV being Expert, while Nightmare is well, Nightmare!

I didn't mind Doom 3's difficulties being called Marine and Veteran. Marine sounds like it offers a good challenge, and Veteran sounds like it's for people who've mastered the game.

[Zulk RS]

3 hours ago, resle said:

Am I alone to think that HMP is the way Doom was intended to be played?

 

It can certainly feel "too easy" now that we've been playing and watching and analyzing the thing for 30 years, but that in my opinion it doesn't change the fact that - as the very middle difficulty level (if you factor Nightmare in), it's "doom as it was meant to be". The original vision. With higher and lower difficulties being mere derivatives.

 

Yet, I see that today most megawads are designed with UV in mind, and the rest as an afterthought of sorts.

 

I am sure this has been debated 9257 times already but,

thoughts?

 

 

No I agree. I do think Doom was balanced around HMP. That is the default.

 

Also to those saying that Doom is intended to be played how you enjoy it, I agree and disagree. I think games, not just Doom, have an intended way of playing and that intended way of playing is not what's the most fun. The intended way of playing a game is playing it how the Devs designed for the game to be played. That is how I define "Intended way of playing". This intended way of playing does not necessarily mean the way you should play. I feel that those arguing Doom is intended to be played however you want, define "Intended way to play a game" and "How you should play" as the same thing (Which is also a valid definition). Again I'm sure many people define "How you should play a game" as playing it in the most optimized way with the best builds and/or with the highest settings and whatnot and they would disagree with me (and that is also valid). 

 

To me, how you should be playing a game is whatever is the most fun for you. The Intended way of playing a game is how the original devs designed the game to be played. If you have fun playing something like Dark Souls by modding it so you have the speed of Doom Guy and a Super Shotgun and the OST replaced with Anime Openings in Nightcore, that is how you should play Dark Souls. That is not the intended way. Sometimes the "Intended" way can be a really bad way to play a game but it still doesn't change the fact that that's what was the dev intended way. I'm sure most scummy games filled with Micro-transactions and loot boxes "Intend" for you to spend your life savings on that game via micro-transactions. That's not something you should do.

 

So yeah, that's why I think HMP with everything being as close to vanilla as possible being the Intended way to play Doom. Is that how I or you SHOULD play Doom? NO! I play with savescumming and GZDoom Freelook and crouching and jumping (to avoid projectiles. Not to skip levels). This is how I have the most fun. That is how I should play Doom.

[resle]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

There's a shitload of "UV or bust" mentality out there in the (non-Doomworld) classic doom scene, just to give a little justification to the OP's post.

 

Exactly, that's all I was in fact referring to. The "UV or bust" thing.

 

Also, the way it was intended blah blah to me just means "default settings", nothing more.

The stuff someone at ID must have started from, to scale difficulty up and down from that initial configuration.

Of course to each his own and there is no official, sacred way to play.

 

Christ I feel like I accidentally choked on the communion host and the whole church gasped in horror.

 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

In the grim darkness of the future ...

there is only ultra-violence

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I love when mappers make explicit statements that HMP is the intended way to play their map. I think it breaks the UV-by-default mentality really well

[Doomkid]

46 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

To me, how you should be playing a game is whatever is the most fun for you. The Intended way of playing a game is how the original devs designed the game to be played.

[...]

So yeah, that's why I think HMP with everything being as close to vanilla as possible being the Intended way to play Doom. Is that how I or you SHOULD play Doom? NO! I play with savescumming and GZDoom Freelook and crouching and jumping (to avoid projectiles. Not to skip levels). This is how I have the most fun. That is how I should play Doom.

I totally agree with this distinction.

 

There's no harm in saying "Super Mario Bros was intended to be played holding an NES controller, sitting down in front of the TV" because that's objectively true in the same way that "Doom was meant to be played on a 486 running DOS" is true - it is absolutely what the developers had in mind while creating the game. It's when people act like "the intended way = the ONLY way" that it gets a bit annoying!

 

46 minutes ago, resle said:

Christ I feel like I accidentally choked on the communion host and the whole church gasped in horror.

LOL

[Mr Masker]

I've noticed a pattern over time that there needs to be a thread all the time of "the intended way to play doom" or "is it okay to play the way I do" 

 

You can play how you want. It's an offline game with alot of level mods and source ports, "intended playthroughs" kind of got thrown out the window at that point.

[resle]

9 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I totally agree with this distinction.

(...)

It's when people act like "the intended way = the ONLY way" that it gets a bit annoying!

 

Once again, precisely.

 

There's no "Only way".

But there was certainly a "default way".

 

I guess there are games that are now designed from the ground up with the idea that there is no default way of playing them,

to the point where the developers themselves don't have complete control over how the game plays, procedural generation and whatnot,

but certainly that wasn't the case back in those golden, SHIMMERING YEARS OF SIMPLICity ok you get the point.

[sandwedge]

Yeah all this stuff about the intended way to play based on Id's design also only really applies to the iwads.  And like, how much are you really replaying the iwads these days?  Every new map made is now "intended" to be played the way the mapper says it is.  So if they say they intended it to be played in GZDoom with freelook and jumping/crouch enabled, that's now the intended way and often I will play it that way.  If they say the intended or default difficulty is HMP, I will consider playing that way if they say UV is really insane.  Some people don't put difficulty levels at all.  Whatever Id designed has little to do with it.  Which is why talking about Id's original vision won't really persuade those "UV or bust" types (not that you need to convince them of anything lol).

[Doomkid]

19 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

You can play how you want. It's an offline game

 

 

Doom is an "OFFLINE GAME"?! I am HIGHLY offended by this statement! Doom was intended to be played/is the MOST FUN in Deathmatch mode, so sayeth the doomgod Romero himself (and I couldn't agree more)!!

[Jaccident]

4 hours ago, Murdoch said:

there's another one of my "Trigger phrases"

There've been a few of these recently, haven't there?

[Solmyr]

Eh, no one really scoffs at any difficulty setting and the actual intended way to play the game is to shoot at everything that isn't you, and sometimes yourself too (read: E3M6 secret exit).

 

 

[Murdoch]

2 hours ago, Jaccident said:

There've been a few of these recently, haven't there?

 

We're up to two. If we hit three look out, I shall have to break out my Stern Waggin' Finger.

[Frost-Core]

I'm way better at Doom in HMP than UV.

though i still declare myself bad at the game.

[Mr Masker]

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

 

 

Doom is an "OFFLINE GAME"?! I am HIGHLY offended by this statement! Doom was intended to be played/is the MOST FUN in Deathmatch mode, so sayeth the doomgod Romero himself (and I couldn't agree more)!!

I don't play multiplayer that much, I kinda forgot it was a thing for a second.

[Doomkid]

Damn, I was just joking in the first post of course, but the fact that most Doomers forget multiplayer Doom is even a thing is genuinely heart breaking. (mainly because it means I have less targets in DM servers, but still.)

[Zulk RS]

I miss playing Doom Multiplayer. I don't enjoy Deathmatch very much, more of a co-op guy. Too bad I can't play right now because when I try to play now, the ping is atrocious. Maybe I should give it another try some day.

[Jayextee]

12 hours ago, resle said:

Am I alone to think that HMP is the way Doom was intended to be played?

Certainly not. Although the amount of 'stuck' UV-only enemies in the stock DOOM (1993) maps would seem to support this position.