Difficulty options--important in wads?

[Epyo]

Just wondering how important difficulty options are to wad-players. Do you really care? Aren't we all just going to hit ultra violence anyway?

[Jello]

Well, I always just select ultra-violence, but there's a number of people out there who like playing on the lower difficulties. I think putting them in, while not completely necessary, is still a good idea.

[Naked Snake]

I usually start any new wad with I'm too young to get a feel for the designs of the levels, the gameplay, etc. but once I beat it I always go back on a harder skill.

[Erik]

If I know it's gonna be a tough wad I usually start on skill 2 or 3. I find that the skill levels in many wads are poorly balanced, often with the lower levels being pretty much as hard as skill 4.

[Graf Zahl]

Epyo said:

Aren't we all just going to hit ultra violence anyway?

No. It highly depends on the WAD. But if you decide to make the easy settings really easy chances are that it is indeed of little use. You have to find a good balance.

[The Flange Peddler]

I think having difficulty settings is important. I normally play on UV but I've been finding myself recently dropping down a bit. I think not having a mouse at the moment is part of that though.

Erik said:

I find that the skill levels in many wads are poorly balanced, often with the lower levels being pretty much as hard as skill 4.

I think you're right there, especially when it comes to ammo balance. My usual way to reduce difficulty is just to reduce the numbers of monsters. But I've found that I, without realising, disproportionally have monsters which don't drop ammo on the lower difficulty settings in comparison to those that do. A 'harder' level with 10 imps and 5 shotgun guys may well be harder than the 'easier' level which just has the imps.

[Draconio]

I tend to be a bit of a wimp and play on HMP, so yeah, I'd say they're important. Especially on really hard maps that I might not find enjoyable on the harder skills.

[DoomDan]

I generally play on Not too Rough or Hurt me Plenty to get use to the map.I get bored easily by Fragging 200 Monsters every corner[Ultra Violent].

[myk]

Epyo said:
Aren't we all just going to hit ultra violence anyway?

Given the wide range of player skills, and the different ways a map may be played (a couple of times, once with savegames, 20 times with perfected recordings, etc.) it's crucial to include difficulty levels. Although it might not matter that much in wads where the challenge of playing in itself is secondary (not that those don't suck, if you ask me.) Finally, the opinion of people who don't try lesser difficulty levels and then bitch about the difficulty is what's genuinely unimportant.

It's been over 10 years since the game's been released... it's about time we stopped being addicted to Ultra-Violence just to avoid seeming like we aren't skilled players. We all have our preferred difficulty standards, more or less, but the skill 4 in one wad doesn't correlate with another wad's skill 4, that might have a skill 2 or 3 that's more in tune with the former's highest skill level.

[TheDarkArchon]

E.G I'm Too Young To Die in Hell Revealed is equivelent to Nightmare in many other WAD's

[MasterOFDeath]

I only play UV. I don't really care if it has difficulties or not.

[Relica Religia]

Heh, exactly. I always play UV, and if I ever play on another level, it's ITYTD if I want to sail through the level one some mission other than just "beating" it.

All those middle skills have no use for me.

[Chronoteeth]

I generally stick to UV with fast monsters on.

[Graf Zahl]

And what do you all do if a WAD is too hard on UV?

IK think this attitude is idiotic. UV in one level can be something completely different than UV in another one. Some people overstuff UV to such a degree that the level is much more fun on a lower setting. What do you do in such a case? Dump the level because playing on HMP is too low for you cracks???

[Inferno]

It never hurts to have different difficulty settings in wads, because a lot of people make wads that contain ludacris levels with wrong items in the wrong spots... so lower difficulties can help you get used to the levels easier.

[Dutch Doomer]

I think its very important to have difficulty settings.
Because not every doomer likes too play on ultra violence.
And you can move monsters and items arround the map on easy settings.
So you will get a comletely different map every time.
I personally dont like wads that have only one setting,ill get bored in no time.
When i design wads i always use difficulty settings,i like it better that way.

[Relica Religia]

Graf Zahl said:

And what do you all do if a WAD is too hard on UV?

IK think this attitude is idiotic. UV in one level can be something completely different than UV in another one. Some people overstuff UV to such a degree that the level is much more fun on a lower setting. What do you do in such a case? Dump the level because playing on HMP is too low for you cracks???

Then I play on ITYTD. It's not like I'm on some power trip by playing on UV whenever I can. I like challenges and I like blowing shit away.

[wildweasel]

I always play on HMP, and I'll only ever turn the difficulty down to HNTR if I'm having trouble (because all ITYTD does is double your ammo pickups, really). If I still have trouble, I pick a more powerful weapon mod if such a thing exists.

The only WAD I haven't played due to sheer difficulty is TNT:LE - even on skill 1 with Xaser's Overpower Weapons, I need God mode to stand a chance (those stupid Railgun zombies!)

[Graf Zahl]

WildWeasel said:

(because all ITYTD does is double your ammo pickups, really).

It also halves the damage from any attack on the player and that part has much more impact.

[Use]

Difficulty levels are part of good level design.

[Jello]

If a level is too difficult on Ultra Violence, I keep playing it anyways.

[Amaster]

I normally play on UV because Im perfectly accustomed to how much damage everything will do. This way I know what to expect. But it's still a good idea to include difficulty settings.

[Graf Zahl]

Amaster said:

I normally play on UV because Im perfectly accustomed to how much damage everything will do.

...which is exactly the same for HNTR, HMP and UV!

[The Flange Peddler]

WildWeasel said:

The only WAD I haven't played due to sheer difficulty is TNT:LE - even on skill 1 with Xaser's Overpower Weapons, I need God mode to stand a chance (those stupid Railgun zombies!)

And this is a very good example of why difficulty settings are important :oP

As I recall Tormenter doesn't ever bother implementing them.

[Chopkinsca]

Graf Zahl said:

Some people overstuff UV to such a degree that the level is much more fun on a lower setting. What do you do in such a case? Dump the level because playing on HMP is too low for you cracks???

Phocas.wad is a level which is like this.
I really don't like how UV was implemented in that particular level.

I usually expect that when dropping down to HMP or lower, that I will notice a difference between that skill and UV. I'm not always in the mood for a challenge when I am playing a level. Sometimes I enjoy a more easier run through a level.

[Deathmatcher]

To be honest: When I play custom wads or megawads, I almost always pick ITYTD. I consider myself a fairly skilled player, but I like to save my energy for "official game content". I just want to have a good time playing through all the custom made stuff and looking at what other map builders have created, rather than having a real challenge.
If the text file strongly suggests to pick UV because the wad is designed for challenging gameplay - that´s a different story.

As a map designer, I add difficulty levels to almost every map. I want to design a nice setting and that the player has a good time - with a customized difficulty level.

[5hfifty]

How about just making more health and ammo in easier skills but leaving the monsters? Or isn't that really effective.

[Kristian Ronge]

5hfifty said:
How about just making more health and ammo in easier skills but leaving the monsters? Or isn't that really effective.

Part of what makes a DooM player skilled (an integral part, I'd say) is monster handling: Knowing how/when to attack monsters of different types depending on weapons available, what weapons are best used against a certain type of monster, learning attack intervals of monsters such as the Arch-Vile, knowing how to provoke infighting properly, knowing how to avoid attacks properly (including positioning yourself or utilizing your surroundings to lessen the impact of those attacks) etc etc.

Therefore, IMHO reducing the monster count (or switching the *types* of monsters -- say, from a Baron to a Hell Knight, or a Hell Knight to an Imp) is essential to lessening the challenge. Remembering being a not-so-skilled keyboarder, and seeing other people who aren't very good play, I'd say it doesn't really matter if I get the BFG or not when I'm swamped with 20+ revenants, a Cyberdemon and loads of chaingunners at the same time. The BFG itself won't help me as much as good fighting tactics. If you don't know how to fight monsters properly or how to use your weapons efficiently, then no amount of ammo or health in the world is going to help you. So a good idea is probably to simply ease the opposition. Letting the player face the same hordes of monsters, but slightly better equipped health/ammo wise is, IMHO, the wrong way to go.

The slaughter map Memento Mori map 23 "Showdown" is an excellent example of a map that completely ignores difficulty settings and therefore creates problems for lower-skilled players. The only difference between HNTR and UV is a Spider Mastermind is missing, so the monster count is 302 instead of 303. It doesn't help an unskilled player that he/she gets a BFG and loads of BFG ammo on that map (and several invulnerability spheres), he/she will get his/her arse kicked anyway. Removing/replacing a few monsters would make a significant impact there.

Just my $0.02.

[Erik]

I tend to disagree with the "Same monsters but with different amount of ammo/health/weapons is equally hard". Ok, adding a few medikits and shells wont make a difference, but adding stuff like invuls, megaspheres and a few thousand cells+BFG makes any hard slaughter map (or any map) crap easy if you just add enough of it. It's a fun way to balance slaughter maps to be playable by your average joe player without losing the slaughter aspect of it all. (Try scythe map30 on skill 4 and then skill 2 if you don't believe me)

[skadoomer]

UV, because the intensity of batteling through more enemies with fewer items (provided the wad has the right balence of them) still makes my adrenaline rush.