What's your preferred way of implementing skill levels?

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

What's your baseline difficulty, and how do you go about balancing the others? 

Is it enough to place more health and ammo for lower skills? Do you remove done monsters? Or replace them with other, less threatening ones? What is your idea of how each difficulty should feel? 

 

For example, I like to make old school run-and-gun gameplay but encourage the player to move during encounters.

I'm starting with UV because most players go for that without even thinking about it, so I make that as rough as I like.

When that's thoroughly tested, I go for HNTR, and play with trackpoint instead of mouse. That's the little red nub on thinkpads. It's much harder to play with that, so I have to get a bunch more health and ammo around, and change the monsters around. Couple imps instead of a hell knight in incidental scenario. If there's a cliff with sniping revs on UV, it'll be probably a whole lot of imps or a couple HKs. It always needs to be tested. Even as a separate segment to see what's more fun. Maybe revs are the right call but less of them. Maybe you get an extra armour to deal with it. 

And HMP is something in between. With HMP, I prefer to give more health than on UV, instead of changing monsters around. 

 

So, how do you go about it? 

[Quill]

For me, Hurt Me Plenty is the intended skill level. Ultra-Violence is harder. Hey Not Too Rough is easier.

[yakfak]

speaking as someone insanely lazy, I have two modes of difficulty setting:

A: HNTR, HMP and UV are all completely different, not gradually increasing in difficulty but rather trying different placement approaches

 

B: HMP is UV but I placed a plasma gun at the beginning, HNTR is HMP but I placed a megasphere at the beginning lol

 

tbh, slowly adding additional enemies usually just results in in-fighting... even adding additional monsters of the same type to a fight doesn't really mean much unless yr testing movement space or ammo and everything's fine-tuned. large dramatic strokes are more fun than slightly bumping the headcount

[Xyzzу]

Depends on what kind of map I'm making, really; whatever certain gameplay style/gimmick or overarching theme I wanna make at the moment. No preference.

[Thelokk]

UV: the 'intended' trip. Not meant to be beaten blind.

HMP: fewer spawns, more powerups, same amount of ammo. A skilled player might beat blind.

HNTR: same as above, but more ammo and some spawn swap. Any player might beat blind.

[MFG38]

I rarely bother with implementing difficulty settings, but when I do, the way I like to go about it is primarily reducing enemy count. Ammo and health rebalancing around the new monster count/composition if needed.

[Naarok0fkor]

Twice as many monsters every level of difficulty. I hate to remove items to increase difficulty...

[Stupid Bunny]

In theory, I try to make HMP the standard for a first-time playthrough, where UV is more appropriate for repeat plays or an extra challenge and HNTR is for a novice player or someone in a casual mood. In practice, I’m not very good at Doom but conversely also not good at judging how hard an encounter will be for a first-time player who hasn’t had the chance to figure out where everything is and isn’t expecting everything in advance, so UV often comes out either too easy or just unfun.

 

As for the actual approach I take, I try to be more thoughtful than simply unchecking the Easy box on certain monsters. Like @yakfak said, most of the time adding or subtracting a few enemies isn’t going to make a huge difference in difficulty, or if it does it’s going to make the easier difficulties extremely boring for even inexperienced players which isn’t the intention. As such I tend to swap out certain enemy types in a given encounter, with a particular focus on higher-tier enemies where the replacement of even a couple can alter the gameplay experience drastically. It also depends on the monster’s context: reducing a revenant horde from 200 to 150 isn’t going to affect too much, but eliminating even a few turret revenants in a wide open outdoor map can make navigating it a lot safer if they’re not somewhere the player can dispatch them quickly.

 

I’ve also started giving more attention to health, ammo, powerups, and even weapon selection across difficulties, which can be an easier way of making an encounter easier without having to carefully retool the layout of the enemies as much. 
 

Overall the tweaks I make in difficulty tend to be little adjustments around the edges that (hopefully) add up to more than the sum of their parts. The truth is I still do almost all my testing in UV but that’s mostly because I don’t like sending something to playtesters that I don’t personally know is possible to do.

[aRottenKomquat]

I focus on Ultra-Violence. I try to balance it such that I can beat it, but I usually die a few times. I don't worry too much about lower difficulties and I just lower the monster count for those.

 

On cooperative, I add extra monsters and a lot more ammo, and I'll often upgrade Hell Knights to Barons of Hell.

[Horus]

Things I currently do:

- Monster substitution (higher tier for lower tier, e.g. hell knights rather than barons)

- Extra health, armour, powerups (e.g. more radsuits on lower difficulties)

- Reduce monster count

- Increase ammo (in cases where I am not notably reducing/substituting monsters)

- Different monster placements (i.e. same monster, but placed differently in the map to provide more or less of a challenge to the player, e.g. turreted vs non-turreted, further back in an arena to provide more space, etc)

- Ambush flag (e.g. have freely roaming archviles on higher difficulties, line of sight trigger on lower difficulties)

- Provide higher power weaponry earlier on lower difficulties 

 

Things I’d like to experiment with:

- Different player start locations

- Different teleport destinations for players and/or monsters

- Different usage of barrels (e.g. more barrels might give the player a headstart against monsters on lower difficulties, or if in a tight space potentially work against the player)

- Different damaging floor placement (e.g. covers more of an arena on harder difficulties) or even different damage amount

- Increased or reduced amounts of cover or space

- Make a 3-in-1 map where the map is basically completely different in each difficulty. Because why not :P

 

Honestly, with voodoo dolls, the possibilities for difficulty implementation are practically endless.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Horus

[Mayomancer]

I feel like doing UV first, and then for easier levels adding extra resources and swapping higher tier monsters for easier ones (say, baron -> hell knight, chaingunner -> shotgunner, etc.) is very effective. I don't like it a lot when games just give a flat hp and damage buff across the board for enemies, though it can work depending on the combat system. When everything is a bullet sponge it becomes kind of a chore.

[magicsofa]

Just mechanically, I find it easier to place things will all 3 flags set and then cull them later. Otherwise you have to take into account the editor remembering the flags you had on the previous thing, or remember that you un-checked that option... in either case I am nearly guaranteed to get mixed up and then have to go hunting for things with the wrong flags.

So, I mainly build and test in UV world and then cut monsters for the other difficulties in one big selection. Then while testing lower difficulties I try to look for more specific adjustments, such as monster type changes. I've actually found that sometimes less ammo and health on the lower difficulties (given lower monster count) makes for a level that still feels balanced while lowering the pressure. But that really depends on the monster count/composition so I save it for last.

[Pezl]

I rarely set difficulty settings,

but i prefer doing UV (harder than hmp), HMP (normal), ITYTD/HNTR (easier than hmp)

[Salmon]

For my maps, HMP tries to preserve the intensity of UV while reducing the difficulty.  HMP is generally the same as UV in monster composition but has better pickups and/or earlier weapons, stuff like that.  Maybe some large groups have a few monsters shaved off.  The general idea is that HMP gives you an idea of what UV will be like, both to act as training wheels for UV but also so people who play HMP don't feel like they're missing out by not playing UV.

 

Ideally in HNTR I'll completely redesign the experience to reduce both the difficulty and intensity of combat without the map feeling empty.  So different monsters in different amounts in addition to different weapons and items.  But honestly I rarely have the desire to implement this as fully as I'd like.  It's something I should work on since I think the three core difficulties deserve equal attention.

 

Difficulty implementation is definitely a lot trickier than I thought it would be when I first started mapping.  It's (understandably) hard to get feedback on all difficulties in any given map so a lot of it is guesswork.

[Gougaru]

Basically just UV because of my stupid pride 

[Jacek Bourne]

Nightmare (Nothing to see here.)

UV (Hard Mode. I will make you suffer. (most of you))

 

HMP (Medium. The intended and most fun way to play)

 

HNTR (Easy Mode.)

 

ITYTD (Even Easier Mode.)

 

This is the design philosophy for any maps I will end up making soon. 
 

The way the fights are designed may be either preserved between difficulties or changed to something completely different based on my mood at the time.

[Csucskos]

I start with UV and try to make every fight a challenge if you know the intended strategy. Not too frustrating but not a cakewalk.

 

I tried removing enemies on lower difficulties but it does not at all feel satisfying. So the approach is more health, better armor!, maybe a backpack if I feel generous. And downgrading enemies. (Arch vile->Revenant. Baron->Hell knight. Hell knight->Imp. Chain gunner->Shotgun guy and so on.) I play Doom for the slaughter, so if there were less enemies I'd have less fun.

[TheHambourgeois]

This is actually something I struggle with, so I am appreciating getting everyone else's approach. I tend to map initially  for skill 4, since that's what I assume everyone is playing on by default. I try to balance that so that, with map knowledge it still thrashes my ass about half the time bc I am a pretty mediocre player. Then my approach for the other difficulties is basically kind of dependent on context.

Big scary monsters (cybers, spider demons, arch viles): I tend to reduce numbers of these on the lower skills if there are more than 1, sometimes I will replace, say, an archvile with a revenant for the easy difficulties.

 

Single projectile monsters: Still vary numbers but do more substitution here. In doom: Baron > HK > Caco (unless there's ample room to fly) > Imps

Spammy monsters (i.e. mancubus and arachnotron): More situational here, but I tend to just vary numbers and placement, don't really sub these guys out, even for each other.

 

Hitscan monsters: Substitution all day baby. Might place them to instigate infighting on easier skills.

 

Resources: I tend to keep HMP and UV about the same, other than health items. Give way more of everything on easy.

 

Heretic is a bit of a different beast for me because a) there aren't really any individually threatening monsters other than the maulotaur, and b) the monsters have more of an implied "setting" so to speak, so I tend to do a lot more numbers variation than substitution. Golems and gargoyles are the main exception since they have projectile variants, though with Golems they tend to fill a very different role. Occasionally a ghost substitution makes sense. Heretic works best with hordes of monsters, even in the IWAD it feels like the monster count is a lot higher than Doom.

 

 

[Andromeda]

I don't map, but I've always thought about implementing skill levels as such since I haven't seen it elsewhere:

• HMP would be the "intended experience"^TM.
• UV would be the easy mode.
• HNTR would be the hard mode.

The idea would be to balance ITYTD/NM to be roughly on par with HMP in terms of difficulty, but playing vastly different due to the nature of those skill levels. That would make them much more interesting than the "even easier"/"even harder" role they occupy currently, while still keeping the traditional options intact (albeit switched around).

[Stupid Bunny]

@Andromeda that is an incredibly cool idea that I am now sort of tempted to experiment with myself. ITYTD and N! get neglected a lot due to their excessive easiness and cruelty, respectively, and I know for sure most mappers don’t even pretend to design for Nightmare compatibility. I’d considered trying a map where Nightmare is the “intended” play mode but your idea is so much more interesting. 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

7 hours ago, Andromeda said:

I don't map, but I've always thought about implementing skill levels as such since I haven't seen it elsewhere:

• HMP would be the "intended experience"^TM.
• UV would be the easy mode.
• HNTR would be the hard mode.

The idea would be to balance ITYTD/NM to be roughly on par with HMP in terms of difficulty, but playing vastly different due to the nature of those skill levels. That would make them much more interesting than the "even easier"/"even harder" role they occupy currently, while still keeping the traditional options intact (albeit switched around).

If I remember correctly, Ribbiks talked about this on the Evening with Nirvana podcast. Because he's got a beef with UV being the default for majority of the community. And he said that making UV not being the actual UV is one way to deter people from going for UV without thinking. But that would badly mess with the players who don't know. You get beaten on UV so you step it down to HMP and get beaten even harder. And you can explain everything in BIG LETTERS in the textfile but who reads those..

MajorArlene also said (when talking to Bridge at some point) that she made very clear in a forum post that her wad intended experience is HMP and still got tons of messages saying that UV is too hard.

[Andromeda]

8 hours ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

If I remember correctly, Ribbiks talked about this on the Evening with Nirvana podcast. Because he's got a beef with UV being the default for majority of the community. And he said that making UV not being the actual UV is one way to deter people from going for UV without thinking. But that would badly mess with the players who don't know. You get beaten on UV so you step it down to HMP and get beaten even harder. And you can explain everything in BIG LETTERS in the textfile but who reads those..

MajorArlene also said (when talking to Bridge at some point) that she made very clear in a forum post that her wad intended experience is HMP and still got tons of messages saying that UV is too hard.

To me it seems a problem easily fixed by renaming the skill levels appropriately.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

16 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

To me it seems a problem easily fixed by renaming the skill levels appropriately.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying to put UV into place of HNTR and then rename HNTR to UV? 

[Andromeda]

3 minutes ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying to put UV into place of HNTR and then rename HNTR to UV? 

That would be one solution, although thinking about it a bit more such a change would be easy to miss. Perhaps colour-coding them would work better, something like this maybe:

 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

10 minutes ago, Andromeda said:

That would be one solution, although thinking about it a bit more such a change would be easy to miss. Perhaps colour-coding them would work better, something like this maybe:

 

You know what, I like that. This way you'd have nightmare made from the easy difficulty, that sounds interesting. That could make nightmare beatable by mere mortals, and relatively easy to implement. 

 

Edit: also, skill 1 would be the hard difficulty, except with half damage and double pickups...

[baja blast rd.]

It's worth thinking about the difference between moderate difficulty wads (that is on UV) to high difficulty wads (on UV). 

 

It seems like people can handle basic intensity quite well. A good example would be wads like Struggle: Antaresian Legacy that are on UV imo, every bit as "intense" as wads like Sunlust, except that they are also very intuitive to play, and rarely require tactics more advanced than rapid movement, target prioritization, and using resources well. Everyone learns that stuff, so wads like Struggle are felt to be pretty accessible. 

 

But meanwhile, wads like the Sunlusts and Stardates are perceived as hard. The conventional understanding is that these wads require "highly specific strategies" -- but imo that element is massively overstated and my experience is that many, many strategies work. A more accurate way of thinking about it is that these wads require a deeper pool of models for thinking about the game, and the basic ones are pretty insufficient. For example "target prioritization"-centered thinking reveals itself to be a giant noobtrap (which imo it is, like, in general) in wads like that.  

 

But this difference points at a way of handling difficulty settings that maintains as much as the intensity and heft of maps as needed (so that we don't have that "lower difficulties are empty" feeling that causes some people to shy away from them), but lowers the obscurity of thinking required.

 

HNTR: somewhat less intense, and less frequently intense, than HMP and UV; a lot more permissive; basic tactics/models mostly work even when not used all that well
HMP: somewhat more intense than HNTR; basic tactics/models need to be used well
UV: slightly more intense than HMP; you regularly need to call upon less obvious patterns/heuristics

[Makedounia]

More health and ammo on lower skill levels and replacing stronger enemies with weaker ones.

[volleyvalley]

That's easy, I don't. (not at least now)