What do you think of saving the game every time you enter a new level to load upon dying?

[DuckReconMajor]

14 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Pistol Restart is the man's way to play tbh

 

Real Men Love Jesus, and

 

6 hours ago, durian said:

I hear Jesus saves, so it's probably okay.

 

@OP:

I definitely understand where these questions come from, when people go on about "this fight in [wad:map] with the archviles" and you played on a different difficulty with no archviles, or you played continuous so that wasn't as stressful. It can feel like you missed out on something special.

I like to posit the opposite though. There's some great stuff that hardcore players avoid because the gameplay isn't up to snuff. But with some extra help you can have fun with, whether it be with some cheats or just a bunch of saves. We all have experiences with art that can't be reproduced for everyone, that's just the nature of it.

[magicsofa]

8 hours ago, Gabrioco-chan said:

And yea, you got me right, i am indeed searching for the best experience, both on original and custom wads :D

 

I would recommend first trying the IWADs without saves (except when you are actually done playing and need to save your progress), and without pistol starting. You will definitely have a lot of ammo at times but that's okay, it wasn't really made to be a tight resource management game. If you get killed, you'll have to start with the pistol. Also, continuous play introduces something that pistol starters miss out on: Entering a new level with less than 100% health. It might not happen a lot but it can be interesting to face a level with plenty of weapons but low health.

If that seems too easy for you, then you can try pistol starts for a little bit more challenge.

Custom wads are usually going to be more difficult overall than the original levels, but on the other hand most are now designed with pistol starting in mind and will hand you one or two weapons right at the start. You will have to experiment to find the right difficulty/saving allowance/pistol starting combo for the maps you are playing. Many people do include information in the text file about how they recommend you play their maps, so be sure to check for that.

[ImproversGaming]

If you want to play competitively against others (in a league, speed running, etc.) then there are rules and guidance to follow.

If it is just you against the game you can do whatever you want - there is no concept of "cheating" - throw on god mode and stock with all the ammo and weapons you want and just go for it. Similarly for saves, its up to you.

I recommend you explore what you enjoy by trying different options, then focus on what you enjoy most. Revisit this periodically as your preferences may change! Enjoy!

[Nine Inch Heels]

Asking what people think about saving/loading is like asking what people think about BBQ sauce...

 

Does BBQ sauce taste nice on spareribs..? Probably. Does it taste nice on a sliced banana..? Maybe not so much...

 

Point being: How good or useful something is depends on how that function or feature is applied, and contrary to popular belief, it's disturbingly easy to save oneself into a corner, which can cause a lot of grief, if the supposed player isn't aware of the disaster they subjected themselves to.

 

If there is some hard fight, that happens to be beyond the player's capabilities, I maintain that it is a very good idea to save beforehand, in order to figure the fight out step by step -  but it is a very bad idea to save in the midst of said fight in hopes of "save-load-lucking" one's way through. If you spam save and load with the latter goal in mind, you might as well be honest with yourself and punch in IDDQD to get it over with...

Edited August 24, 2022 by Nine Inch Heels

[Stupid Bunny]

19 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If you spam save and load with the latter goal in mind, you might as well be honest to yourself and punch in IDDQD to get it over with...

I realized this years ago after I beat MAP30 of Scythe without cheating, but by savescumming to the point that I would log a save between individual revenant kills, second by second. It took hours and was such an absurdity that it was basically another much more tedious and stupid form of cheating and if I had stepped back and realized that I would’ve either just said “screw it” and iddqd’d through the vexsome bits, or just conceded victory to Scythe’s final map and figured I’d made it plenty far enough.

[Shanoa]

As it's been stated multiple times there's no "right way to play DOOM". I've been playing continuous for the past 25 years only in recent time did I try pistol-start but thats because a recent released project forces pistol start on you and it was kinda fun! Perhaps I'll try it again with other mapsets, there's always many ways you can challenge yourself.

 

That said there is one, crucial, rule you must follow else you're in for a spanking: Just play DOOM!

[Gougaru]

Saves are fantastic for practice runs. Absolutely important. Especially practicing a fight. Outside of that I feel it takes alot away from experiencing a map

[The_SloVinator]

I started doing just that. Save at the start of the level & loading it if I die.

But if the map is long, I tend to save at every key I pick up.

 

Sometimes it does suck having to repeat some sections but it's quite beneficial that way as you learn from each death.

[Grimosaur]

I always save after parts of a map which I know I can beat every time without fail. It just feels like a needless punishment having to restart the whole map just so you can retry the part you actually died to.

 

Maybe for an endurance kind of map which is hard all the way through would it make sense to want to beat it without saving, but for a map that is just easy gameplay up until the hard fight at the very end, it just doesn't make any sense to me having to replay all the easy stuff just to get to the hard bit which actually challenges you.

 

I suppose it does give you the thrill of playing "in the moment", making you pay more attention to what you're doing, take less risks etc. but you can still train yourself to play like that while saving. And the trade-off for playing without saving only stays in your favour up until you die, where then the dissatisfaction of you going "Arrrggh! Why didn't I just save, now I have to play through the whole level again, this first part is so easy"  outweighs the satisfaction you got from playing the level before you died, and now that dissatisfaction won't go away until you beat the whole map in one sitting, instead of breaking it up into only the hard sections themselves like you do while saving.

 

[Kokoro Hane]

I forgot that originally you pistol started at the beginning after you die lol. I'm used to saving a lot, not just at the beginning of every level, but any time I get past what I feel is a major obstacle I save. GZDoom quickly loading it up for me is simply a bonus quality of life feature, otherwise I'd just open my load screen like most games and start from where I last saved anyway. So it doesn't matter to me either way since I'd load up my last save manually xD

[idbeholdME]

I don't need to replay an easy 20 minute part of a level all the time just because there's a tough fight near the end of it or I randomly fell into an inescapable death pit. Nothing but an exercise in tedium that doesn't do anything to make me better as a player. You get better by trying parts that are giving you trouble, not by doing the thing you can already beat easily over and over.

 

So I save whenever and wherever feel like it. Though I generally avoid saving mid-fights and accept the results as long as I survive. Did I just get ambushed by a Cyberdemon and went from 200 - 200 to 20 - 20? Create a new save slot and continue playing, leaving the previous save as a fallback point in case the level would be impossible to finish from that state. Saving often is not save-scumming. To me, it's constantly loading, even when not necessary, to always get the perfect results.

[RHhe82]

4 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

. Saving often is not save-scumming. To me, it's constantly loading, even when not necessary, to always get the perfect results

Precisely this.

[TheRevenant212]

I honestly don't see all that much of a problem. There's nothing wrong about wanting to keep all your weapons from the previous levels. Because, let's face it, standard pistol sucks.

[Gougaru]

I've mentioned this before but this is absolutely fine especially if you're doing practice runs 

[LUISDooM]

I save a lot, and always use G/LZDoom's autosave feature at the start of the map as a backup, I never pistol start (I used to do it with PSX Doom when I was a kid, I don't have the patience I had then), It helps to keep the game fun for me. I don't want to train to be "teh best Doom Player" or feel the game as a chore, I just want to have fun with it XD