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40oz

Nightmare Mode

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I decided to have a run at this on Doom 1 Episode 1 cooperative with some people today.

Shit was awesome! There is no doubt in my mind that playing Doom 1 on Nightmare mode with some buddies is Doom at its finest. Monsters have never been so dangerous. There's never a dull moment. You always have to be alert of your surroundings. We had to really communicate our strategies to complete each map. Usually we'd designate some players to be the "defense" and hold off the respawning monsters in the main areas and in front of locked doors, while the other players; the "offense" have to rush in and get keys.

Fast monsters is awesome. Having the option to make monsters ruthless and do everything in their power to bring you down is awesome. And the respawning monsters just makes sure each map never has a dull moment. There's shit flying at you from any and every direction. In addition to that, all the zombiemen and shotgun guys are a constant fountain of ammo.

Unfortunately Nightmare isn't totally compatible with every wad. In fact, Doom 1 Episodes 2 and 3 were hardly playable do to the lack of zombies which made ammo very scarce early on, despite the double ammo per pickup. Somehow Knee Deep in the Dead pulls through for being the best example of good doom mapping ever created for being ideal in yet another game mode. I'm going to have to find some good short Doom maps that are relatively easy on UV to play Nightmare mode on. I've found a new love for this skill level.

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Yes, Episode 2 is manageable, and Episode 3 is downright laughable. But good luck with Episode 4, which is harder than E1.

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We managed to complete the whole episode on Skulltag Survival Coop. Granted we had a pretty good amount of people. Also we had the dmflag where we started with shotguns with 8 shells. We had to use just about every secret in the maps. I've never had to use Doom's environment so tactically in my life.

E1M3 was a tough one. Everyone made a run for the blue key while one guy stayed in the starting area to keep the hallway after the first door and the starting area clear of shotgun guys.

E1M4 wasn't too tough. Just go through the middle hallway from the starting area because it only has two zombie men in it. There's a chaingun in the blue key area which kinda makes the rest of the map a breeze. Did I mention that you will never love the chaingun so much as you do when you're playing on nightmare mode? Anyway, the tight hallways after the blue door were tough with all the demons in them. I had someone else camp at the nukage fall area where you can snipe the imps and demons guarding the yellow key from a window which made things much easier.

E1M5 was brutal. So many shotgun guys an spectres! We had two people on defense, one keeping the spectres down in the starting room, and one guy in the window to take out shotgun guys in the main courtyard where they yellow door is. Once people got the yellow key, they ran toward the rocket launcher secret. Once they yellow door is open, they launch a volley of rockets to take out the demons immediately in front of it. If you don't have more than one player alive at this point, it's pretty much impossible. One person has to run and hit the switch while one other has to keep at least one of the routes back to the main room clear, which is really difficult given the respawning spectres and shotgun guys. If you have another guy alive, he should be keeping the main courtyard clear of shotgun guys. We didn't really have a plan for the rest of the map. Just don't stop shooting and make a run for the exit.

E1M6 was pretty rough. The red key area is torture. Fortunately there's a chaingun in there. Get the key an get out! Monster block lines keep all the spectres from invading the starting area. Meanwhile keep some people to keep the computer room with all the yellow doors clear of demons and spectres while others run for the blue key. We had to use a secret I didn't know about until yesterday to get to the yellow key easily. After that the area beyond the yellow door was murder. Lots of zombiemen an shotgunguys and tons of windows of which you can get sniped from. From this point on it's pretty impossible with just one person unless the person enters with at least a little bit over 100% health or a partial invisibility.

No real plan for E1M7, people who were familiar with the map had to run for the keys. New guys who would get lost just patrolled the main area keeping the colored doors clear of hard monsters. All the windows in this map were especially helpful as you could help buddies that were in trouble without actually needing to make the trek up there, which would get yourself into trouble and most likely not make in time to rescue em either. Knee Deep in the Dead maps are so awesome.

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I played Doom 2 in Nightmare Co-Op before. I remember Tricks and Traps being difficult because of the respawning Barons.

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Fuck it, I just started a nightmare mode run of Doom 1.

So far, got up to E1M6.

That dark maze almost made me cry.... I can't believe I'm still scared of that part after fourteen years o.o

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HOLY SHIT I did it! I actually beat E1 on nightmare! =D

Man, E1M7 was hard as hell (pun intended?) with all those hitscanners. I half wanted to pull my hair out.

Is E2 and E3 worth running? I hear they're easy on Nightmare...

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I did E1 solo on Nightmare using ZDoom and mouselook a few months ago, knowing that I was never that good on just-keyboard controls. I found it just turned into a load of I Want To Be The Guy style save/load spamming encounters as I ran myself into corners and trial and error'd my way back out again - worst case of that being E1M9 where I found myself having to get the run through from the blue key to the blue door perfect in one streak with very low health (the next part was easier to get right, but ended up much the same). A test of patience followed by a sense of achievement rather than an awesome experience - much like my usual experience of any and all well designed slaughter wads on UV. Speed of Doom MAP32 was a perfect example of this for me.

E2 and E3 would definitely be easier due to the lower hitscanners. Wouldn't want to give E4 or Doom2 a go as they are a notable step-up in difficulty anyway. Tried one or two of my own shorter maps and there's definitely a certain style of mapping that makes it work. As monsters pretty much become turrets except for Demons, it needs reasonably tight spaces for the most part, with plenty of flow for maneuverability. A lot of health helps too. I did fancy trying some nightmare-oriented mapping, but I've not gotten round to it. A passing fancy as I did quite enjoy the E1 playthrough at the time.

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Nightmare always triggers super-nostalgia for me. Nothing like getting turned into swiss cheese by some well placed Shotgun Guys with a couple buddies.

EDIT: trying to get past the yellow key room trap in e1m5 was absolute hell on Nightmare...

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

A zombie-filled wad intended for nightmare only would be epic.


Lol quite a few already exist if you check out the /idgames archives.

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AveryMaurice said:

Lol quite a few already exist if you check out the /idgames archives.


I think the real trouble in that is that a big part of beating a wad on nightmare skill is knowing the map well and where all the secrets are. I swear if we were expected to figure out where to go without already knowing the maps inside and out, we'd be fucked.

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I remember playing nightmare mode on the super nintendo, I made it to E1m4 I think and I had a heap of fun with it. Is this the only console port with nightmare mode?

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A lot of ports have nightmare mode but AFAIK it's the hardest on the PC. I know Doom on GBA, nightmare mode is the same as UV. Also I know XBLA Doom portrays Nightmare accurately except for that the Demons don't run faster and fireballs don't fly faster either. Everything else is accurate though.

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AveryMaurice said:

Should totally try NUTS.WAD

Still easy on Nightmare. Even I can do it. Intercepts overflows are likely though (temporarily turn off intercepts overflow emulation if you want to watch the demo).

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I think people should play Plutonia on Nightmare, if only to see how far they can get before hammering in IDDQD as fast as possible before that Revenant fireball hits. ;)

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Nightmare isn't as fun in E2 and E3. Or in Doom 2. or in a lot of wads for that matter.

After playing on nightmare a lot on a fair number of maps, I've made some notes:

- You have to be familiar with the maps. Knowing the secrets and hiding spaces is a huge advantage.

- Having special goals and objectives is awesome. Reaching switches in congested rooms, getting keys, protecting areas from getting overcrowded, and having to backtrack toward places you've already been is awesome.

- Hard monsters suck. This is the main reason why E1 is so great and Doom 2 is a piece of shit in nightmare. Monsters with too much health respawn in less time than it takes to kill them. AND the only reward is having less ammo and probably less health. Zombies, Imps, Demons, and Lost souls go down easy, but they're just as dangerous as the rest of the monsters if you leave them alive.

- You'll never be as thankful to have a chaingun, partial invisibility, and light amplification visors as you do when you're playing on nightmare. They will SAVE YOUR ASS. You really start to see the benefits of these typically useless powerups.

I think I may be able to use this knowledge to create a mapset made specificially for play in nightmare mode.

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kittytaymar said:

I think people should play Plutonia on Nightmare, if only to see how far they can get before hammering in IDDQD as fast as possible before that Revenant fireball hits. ;)


...and then realizing with horror that cheats are disabled on Nightmare. :P

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Well, actually I was using "doom95.exe -basewad plutonia.wad -file kittysfx.wad -fast -respawn -nowarn -nodm -loadgame 4". Exactly the same effect as Nightmare, but you can still cheat...

I wonder who else thought of doing it this way? Makes things much easier when it's just you against Hell.

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kittytaymar said:

I think people should play Plutonia on Nightmare, if only to see how far they can get before hammering in IDDQD as fast as possible before that Revenant fireball hits. ;)


You'll be hammering IDDQD over and over then suddenly after typing it ten times in a row, you realize that you cannot cheat in Nightmare!

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UV -fast -respawn means no double ammo. I'd prefer NM.

As for demos going out of sync, since there's not as much ammo as in nightmare, the demos will desync regardless.

When fast monsters are enabled (either by -fast or NM) they will attack multiple times in a row, rather than firing waiting and continuing.

The monsters spawn with no reaction time in nightmare mode. On other modes, they all have a reaction time of 8 tics which is just 228ms (unless changed by DeHackEd).

Monsters won't fire if they have a non-zero reaction time, chasing something reduces that time.

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Fast monsters is a great challenge, but in my opinion respawning is just a clusterfuck.

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Abyssalstudios1 said:

Alternatively, make a demo of you playing UAC Ultra on Nightmare.


Maps are too tight in various places to be feasible. At least for me. Map07 almost makes it, but due to arachnotrons respawning and accidentally dying to mancs, it's very hit and miss to kill all the mancs before one gets stuck in its box. map11 might be possible ... maybe.

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Never_Again said:
Equating -fast -respawn with NM is a popular misconception. The two are not the same. In NM monstars attack on sight, in -fast -respawn they take their time.

You can easily see the difference for yourself by changing three bytes in the demo header with a hex editor. Take any NM demo

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae34/tpoppins/001.png
(note that skill levels are counted from zero here, so 0x04 = NM)


change its header to UV -fast -respawn

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae34/tpoppins/002.png


and watch the run go quickly out of sync.

Adding a DeHackEd patch with doubled ammo pick-ups and an edited reaction time for each monster might do the trick... I think this was discussed once on a thread. At least it would deliver a very similar experience.

I never really understood why the engine writes varied values for respawn and fast instead of just 1 ("true"). If you change the values, nothing changes as long as they are between 01 and FF. But the values seem to depend on something, as every demo I just recorded put a 5 in the respawn or fast byte, and 5 and 6 respectively when both were applied. Only using different command line instructions changed the values, but made them specific to that command line setup, like moving -skill back and forth or omitting it (thus playing on skill 3 instead of 4.) The values are also written into nightmare demos, if any of the parameters are used, but have no effect then. Setting them manually to 00, or vice versa if the parameters weren't used, won't affect behavior.

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