challenging pistol-start levels (doom2)

[w M w]

I love trying to beat some original doom2 levels starting only with the pistol (using idclev to go to that level with only the pistol) and without saving on ultra violence. My favorite pistol starting level is almost definately "refueling base" (level 10). That level is insane and friggin challenging to play this way (other favorites are "the pit", and level 7 with all the mancabuses). In doom2, the huge number of monsters interact chaoticly which means every time you play the level it will be unique. It's almost like 3d smash tv this way (depending on how the level is designed of course).

I played double dragon 2 (nes) after playing doom2 for a long while and the former just seems so linear and dull, relatively. Every time you play that game it's the same. Just like Goldeneye the first person shooter for N64... the guards are few and always in the same positions when you find them, they don't interact chaoticly like in doom2. Doom2 is seriously the most fun I've ever had in my life, including sex. Oh wait, ...I've never had any of that. I could play it 12 hours a day. What a beautifully twisted place to escape reality. I actually wonder if doom3 will be more linear and less chaotic since it has fewer monsters (i remember reading that anyway).

[Torn]

Wasn't something like this for your blog?.
hmm...

[The Ultimate DooMer]

[blog]w M w[/blog]

Anyway, I love doing that with DooM 2 (map 13 is one of the best for that). In fact, I've just finished doing that with Heretic.... (with ZDoom and fast monsters)

[Ichor]

Trying to finish Heretic E4M1 with enough ammo to kill everything, including the Maulotaur is seriously difficult. Here's a hint: Use the crusher and if possible, use your staff against the Sabreclaws near the yellow key.

As for Doom, most of the maps are fairly easy to beat like that, but some maps in Doom 2 are a lot harder. For instance, maps 23, 27, 28, and 29. Map 30 is easy, since you wind up with just about everything in the first room anyway. The Pit is actually sort of easy when you remember that those Pain Elementals won't shoot anything at you and are completely harmless for the first half of the map.

[VinceDSS]

i see u r speaking of heretic, maybe you could record some demos
for my site ... geocities.com/peroxyd2s
everything about the rules is explained in the rules.
If u need help or more details, just mail me.

[Ichor]

I don't record demos very often, but I know of someone who would. Try sending DooMBoy a private message.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Ichor said:

Trying to finish Heretic E4M1 with enough ammo to kill everything, including the Maulotaur is seriously difficult. Here's a hint: Use the crusher and if possible, use your staff against the Sabreclaws near the yellow key.

It's worth shafting the gargoyles as well if you can.

[Ichor]

Yes, but not the fire gargoyles, since they can shoot back. It's best to let the crusher or other monsters get them until you get the Gauntlets.

[Graf Zahl]

Ichor said:

The Pit is actually sort of easy when you remember that those Pain Elementals won't shoot anything at you and are completely harmless for the first half of the map.

I wonder whether this is by design or not. This level becomes nearly unbeatable when you don't kill the PE's first because you most likely run out of ammo. This happened to me all the time. I was really surprised how easy this level became once I started killing the PE's first. Since a lot of Lost Souls are in one of the first parts of the map it is easy to kill them too early and make one's life a lot harder...

[Opulent]

VinceDSS said:

i see u r speaking of heretic, maybe you could record some demos
for my site ... geocities.com/peroxyd2s
everything about the rules is explained in the rules.
If u need help or more details, just mail me.

OMG! Vince lives! :)

[w M w]

oh yeah, 13 is a great one. I'm going through them all again in order (havn't played in awhile). I actually thought there was some glitch with my copy since the pain elementals shot blanks on the pit level. Interesting that it happens to u guys too, i guess it's a bug in the game. They do shoot correctly in legacy's windows version though. this level is fresh in my mind since i just beat it. The best strategy I found is to start out heading toward that big main circle area with mancabuses, then run around in circles untill a lot of them kill eachother due to misfires. Eventually go inside the circle above the lava and get the bfg hidden in that wall in there. You only have ammo for 3 shots of this so use it 1) on the 2 pain elementals near there 2) on the other 2 pain elementals farther away 3) on all those chain gunners in that big ass trap near the rocket launcher.

This is cool being able to talk about these levels with people who know them by heart, heh heh.

[Lüt]

w M w said:

I actually thought there was some glitch with my copy since the pain elementals shot blanks on the pit level. Interesting that it happens to u guys too, i guess it's a bug in the game. They do shoot correctly in legacy's windows version though.

It's not a "bug", it's a "feature" :P

Seriously, Pain Elementals are coded so that if there is a certain amount of Lost Souls already in the level (I believe the number is 20), then they won't spawn any more until that number drops.

[Grazza]

It's fair to assume id playtested map09 on UV (it's only UV where it happens - on HMP there aren't enough lost souls for it to happen, or at least they will spit out some lost souls before the limit comes into play), so that would suggest it was a deliberate feature, or at least a limitation of the game that they didn't mind being displayed for all to see.

Quite a few vanilla pwads make deliberate use of this feature, so if you play them in Legacy you will not experience the gameplay as intended, and in some cases this will make the map more or less unplayable. I wouldn't like to tackle map09 on NM or UV -fast in Legacy, for instance.

I remember it being stated that the actual limit is 21 lost souls (i.e. if the number of lost souls is no more than 20, a PE will spit them out).

Funnily enough, I watched a few compet-n demos on map09 a few hours ago. In the Max runs (UV Max and UV -fast Max), they used the berserk to kill the PEs near the starting area, and then used 3 of the BFG shots to kill the six remaining PEs (in the UV -fast, the other two BFG shots were used on a pack of demons near the yellow key, and the hoarde of lost souls). [Presumably you missed some plasma somewhere if you only got 3 BFG shots.]

[Graf Zahl]

Grazza said:

Quite a few vanilla pwads make deliberate use of this feature, so if you play them in Legacy you will not experience the gameplay as intended, and in some cases this will make the map more or less unplayable. I wouldn't like to tackle map09 on NM or UV -fast in Legacy, for instance.

Map09 is the only map so far where I ran into the PE/LS limit. That's why I have the limit turned on in the source ports I use (another reason not to use Legacy - it ruins original gameplay in too many places) I also think this limit was deliberately introduced, not for performance but for gameplay reasons so removing it as nearly all source ports have done does not make any sense, IMHO.

For all who are interested, I ran Map09 through a statistics tool. Here are the results:

                                          Easy Medi Hard  

Monsters
----------------------------------------------------------
Trooper                                      4    8    8  
Sergeant                                    17   27   38  
Imp                                         25   60  103  
Demon                                        0    6    9  
Spectre                                      0    3    5  
Lost Soul                                    5   18   33  
Cacodemon                                    0    5    6  
Chaingunner                                  2    8   17  
Mancubus                                     0    1    5  
Hell Knight                                  0    2    4  
Pain Elemental                               2    3   10  
Total                                       55  141  238  

So, in HMP there is room for 3 more Lost Souls (The LS check aborts when there are more than 20 Lost Souls in the level so the limit is indeed 21, as Grazza said.)

[SmellyOgre]

Oh yes, back in the days when we beat the game with a pistol, how fun. BTW level 10 on Doom II is awesome to play with pistol:)

[w M w]

Wow, you guys are more hard core doomers than me! ;)

Of course, most of the wads people make like in maximum doom were designed as pistol starting levels. I want to try that heretic level now...

[The Ultimate DooMer]

w M w said:

I want to try that heretic level now...

Try them all - it's more fun than doing it in DooM. The staff and the wand don't get forgotten (you need them), you've got the items (which make it interesting and tactical), and it never plays the same twice (due to the monsters dropping ammo at random).

[Igor9]

I found E3M1-Hell Keep on Ultraviolent+fast very challenging. In fact, I found it impossible :( Had to play it on Hurt me Plenty+fast, kind of an ego deflater after the first two episode.

[Little Faith]

One of my first really funny pistol starts were E3M3 on UV.

You started there with a clear view of a shotgun just in front of you.
Going after it would mean certain demise, however, as a horde of angry demons would corner me and chew me up (4 shells only last that far). Next try I went right and did a mad dash for the secret area with the berserk pack gathering a following of a baron and a horde of imps and demons.

After grabbing the berserk pack (and punching out a wayward cacodemon I had then mustered the strength to go after the shotgun that I now needed to get rid of the two barons following me.


Good point to level makers: Giving the player a bit of a chase in the start is a good move, but only if the level is non-linear in nature.

[Vile1011]

I actually only play wads with just the pistol at the start. I believe you should earn weapons, and having everything at your disposal the second you walk in is almost like cheating. Even in megawads, I don't play the levels in order. I idclev to a random level and start from there. I also don't save(except on superhard maps like Vrack2), and wind up dying a lot because of that.

[Use]

Vile1011 said:

I idclev to a random level and start from there. I also don't save(except on superhard maps like Vrack2), and wind up dying a lot because of that.

You would love Community Chest megawad then. Go download it if you haven't already!

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Vile1011 said:

Even in megawads, I don't play the levels in order. I idclev to a random level and start from there.

Note: some megawads (and episodes) are story-based, and warping to a random map would probably spoil the experience a bit, as all the maps follow on from each other.

And of course, hub-based wads must be played in the right order, or they will mess up.

[Vile1011]

Use3D said:

You would love Community Chest megawad then. Go download it if you haven't already!

I'd love to, but I can't find it anywhere in the archives! Where is it and what's the filename?

[Ichor]

Try here.

[deldelda]

I think that as the enemies appear in the same places in the level every time you play it in Goldeneye, the enemies appear in the same places in the level every time you play it in Doom also.