Does anyone actually play at anything other then UV?

[C30N9]

I have the same feeling. In fact in everything I prefer UV.

Even when I playtest a map without monsters I put UV.

Or when I map, I map only for UV at first, then change the flags only for monsters depending on difficulty. Sometimes it gets unbalanced at HMP. You see, I'm a hard guy.

[purist]

40oz said:

I feel this is as good a time as ever to discuss how I plan to manipulate the skill levels in a project I'm currently working on.

I used skill levels to manipulate game play in my first uploaded map, which was otherwise pretty unremarkable.

[DuckReconMajor]

WildWeasel said:

I never play on skill 1, because as far as I can tell, all that does is double the ammo - ammo is never the reason I die.

You know you take half as much damage right? I'm not sure what you're saying here.

[Avoozl]

Always UV for me unless I want to have a quick playthrough when I have limited time on a lower difficulty.

[Tetzlaff]

I normally play in Hurt me Plenty.

edit: a poll about this would be interesting.

[Antroid]

I like to do fancy things with skill levels too. :) Sometimes i just move a monster on UV so it's harder to evade, for example there is a narrow tunnel where you fall and can't get back up and after a few turns there's a hell knight - on UV you will kill him with your back already to the wall, and on lower difficulties he's a bit farther to give you more room for error.
Also on one map there's an actor who is only not present on the easiest difficulty, and while you go through the map this actor inevidably goes through a one-use teleporter. So on easy that teleporter is still active for you, and on anything harder you can't ever use it. It's not locking the player out of any percentages though. In general by adding triggers to the monster rooms you can manipulate things like crushers or doors with a difficulty setting (if there's an action for a monster to activate a crusher)...

[GreyGhost]

I mainly play on HMP and assume difficulty levels have been implemented in the map.

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

ITYTD sucks, so I never play on it.
I played on HMP sometimes, but not now anymore since I want to do some challenges. But I will still look at monsters numbers by using HMP. And of course, I will do some NM Speed if I was boring.

[toxicfluff]

What a coincidence - I rarely check Doomworld, but just happened to be wondering about the spread of users in re to skill levels, so I put in 'doomworld does anyone play "on easy"' into Googs, and lo, a nice fresh thread on just the subject.

40oz said:I feel this is as good a time as ever to discuss how I plan to manipulate the skill levels in a project I'm currently working on. [alter item, not monster balance]

I really think this is the way to go. I was pissing around for ages balancing different monster counts/types for all skills with a level set I'm working on and then it suddenly occurred to me what a masochistic idiot I was being -- just place monsters for UV (my level) and keep the pickups flowing proportionally to the other skill levels. Surviving attacks and killing monsters is one of the core pleasures of the game, so why offer less to any set of players?

Though it's still tricky to judge skills you don't ordinarily play on. External play test is the way to go here, I guess.

[yellowmadness54]

I play on whatever I mode I wind up on.

Either I just skip through the menu really fast and start the game on easy-ish. Or as soon as I'm in the menu, use the console to skip to a certain level, putting me on a harder difficulty.

[fiend-o-hell]

I always play on UV for everything. I use lower difficulty settings similar to other here; when I'm stuck without a mouse.

[Foodles]

I usually enjoy a wad more if i play on HMP because I don't die so often and don't have to save and load. If I play on HMP I usually try and finish a map in one life. On UV I save and load a lot which isn't really how the game is meant to be played.

e.g. when I played Sunder on UV, it wasn't through skill that I completed it, but trial and error

[Grazza]

It's always a good idea to check if the text-file says anything about the skill levels. Some wad authors deliberately make UV very hard, with HMP intended as the best skill level to use if you don't have prior knowledge of the map.

A few wads have changed the menu graphics for the benefit of those who don't read the txt. This is a nice touch that authors might consider if they want to use some non-standard skill set-up.

Another idea is to make HNTR harder than HMP, which in turn is harder than UV. The idea behind that is to use all five skill levels in a more useful way, as ITYTD features a tougher monster/health regime, whereas in NM you have fewer/easier monsters and more power-ups to help counterbalance their extra speed. Of course, the problem then is that most players would play on UV anyway and complain that the wad is too easy. Altered menu graphics would be pretty much essential in this case.

As for my default skill level? UV, unless the txt indicates otherwise (and generally when playing "normally" I'm not too bothered about killing everything or finding all secrets; no saving, and each map played from a pistol start). For demos, my preferences are UV Pacifist or NM. If neither looks attractive, then UV Speed would be the next to consider, or Nomo if there is a nice idea to execute, and the monsters would only make the whole thing messy.

[Memfis]

I always choose UV, unless the *.txt says that it is "insanely hard/impossible". (e.g. NOCHANCE.WAD)
I also recorded one demo on 1st skill (Requiem map22 pacifist) because the task was impossible on skills 3-5.

[Graf Zahl]

I play maps on a skill I feel comfortable with. Normally I start on HMP and depending on that I go up or down as needed.

Only on E1-style maps I don't bother with it and go UV right away because those maps tend to be too easy most of the time.

[Phobus]

There are difficulty settings? :O



In all seriousness, I play on UV as a default and struggle through whatever because I know that I can usually beat it. If I'm finding something too hard then its probably not to my tastes more than anything else and thats fine. Lower difficulties tend to feel too empty for me and they rarely display the same level of thought and planning that UV does.

I make most of my maps with difficulty settings implemented quite lazily myself, taking the id route of removing/replacing some monsters and leaving everything else as-is, meaning the player ends up heavily overstocked. Every now and then I really think about it though and do a proper balanced job (ph_quik4.zip actually has just two difficulties that are completely different to eachother, for example).

[Dragonsbrethren]

NiuHaka said:

I always default to HMP and then switch it if the game gets too boring. One of the biggest reasons is balance. An extremely simple example would be e1m1. The shotgun secret is still satisfying to me even now but if I play with UV that secret is very underwhelming. Of course that mostly applies to secrets with shotgun ammo but I always feel like i'm missing the intended experience if I play in UV.

I never really considered this. I always just kind of assumed they made the maps on UV and then pulled out/replaced monsters for the lower difficulties. I don't think there are any other good examples of the map being designed with a specific difficulty in mind in the iwads, though.

[magicsofa]

40oz said:

But the main purpose is instead of watering down the maps with less monsters, the harder skill level you pick, the more difficult it will be to obtain weapons and sufficient ammo, armor and health.

Interesting...I tend to map the opposite way. I always map for UV first, and then lower the monster count. But, as a penalty, I also will remove some of the ammo and health available, and sometimes remove powerful weapons. I think I once had an invulnerability powerup on hard difficulty only, which would appear as a megasphere on HMP or easier.

I agree that just removing stuff doesn't fully cut it, although sometimes it does makes sense. For example, say I have some big wave of mosters teleport into the map. If I have this army of monsters balanced in a certain way, I might want to maintain that balance while making it easier. This can be done by keeping the ratios between monster types the same or similar. I might cut 20 imps led by 4 revenants down to 10 imps and 2 revenants.

On the other hand, sometimes it makes more sense to remove certain types of monsters, such as chaingunners.

Back on the real topic, I generally start on UV. I used to have a bad habit of quitting if it was too hard, but I've gotten better at trying lower difficulties. I would rather cheat on UV than play ITYTD though :D

[Pirx]

mostly UV, it's challenging but still enjoyable. i'm fond of berserking monsters whenever i can.

HMP is more fitting for my taste with slaughter wads, you have to know exactly what to do or you're down from 200/200 to 0 in a matter of seconds.

generally, i don't have much patience for finding routes, secrets etc.

the only nightmare i've ever played are about half of doom's levels and the first 5 from doom 2.

[Use]

40oz said:

But the main purpose is instead of watering down the maps with less monsters, the harder skill level you pick, the more difficult it will be to obtain weapons and sufficient ammo, armor and health.

I also like this method, especially useful for a strict vanilla project that needs to protect the savegame buffer, although that's usually not a high priority. I can see how just throwing more monsters in at UV would be the easiest approach to making a map more difficult, but limiting the supplies would probably force players with various playstyles into more varied combat tactics...pretty cool.

toxicfluff said:

Though it's still tricky to judge skills you don't ordinarily play on. External play test is the way to go here, I guess.

I'm not crazy about external playtesting so I'm always looking for advice for implementing lower skill levels.

[Nomad]

I usually play on Normal in any game, so I believe that means Hurt Me Plenty in Doom.

[40oz]

magicsofa said:

I think I once had an invulnerability powerup on hard difficulty only, which would appear as a megasphere on HMP or easier.

I'd definitely prefer a megasphere or soulsphere in a large battle over an invulnerability sphere. Entering a battle with 7% health and an inv sphere is nowhere near as helpful as a megasphere is. I think you made the right decision

[TwinBeast]

I usually play with UV (or equivalent in other games).

Maps I've made I've simply used this kind of method for the difficulty levels: 1 monster on easy, 2 monsters on medium and 3 monsters on hard.. the monster types don't have to be the same though, and it's not always 1, 2, 3. Sometimes I put an easier monster on easy and harder monster on hard, but monster amount then the same.

Ammo and health I've had the same for all difficulties, but seeing my brother play my map on easy, all that ammo and health was necessary for him to survive.. and for me on hard, there was plenty of ammo to waste.

So I guess people who play on hard skill are more accurate and possibly a missed shot can hit someone else behind the intended target.

[negke]

I'm surprised to see how many of you play on HMP instead of UV. I do it as well ever since I started playing Doom again after a few years of hiatus expecting custom maps to be as beatable as the iwads on UV and got my asses handed to me properly. Most maps are still challenging on HMP but keep the grind level bearable. Of course there are also some maps that are just stupidly hard even on the low skill settings because the author didn't realize the different skill settings are there for a reason and not every player has years of experience (I kind of fell into that trap myself before).

40oz's approach sounds good indeed, at least for some maps. Another possible option, maybe not exclusively in terms of difficulty adjustment but also for making the level more varied/replayable, would be to open/block off certain routes/areas on the different skill levels and change the way the player progresses through the map. For example, on Easy the player can bypass the slime pit entirely, while on Hard he has to cross it and deal with the damage. Or a straight-forward progression on Easy and a tricky puzzle-based one on Hard.

[Face23785]

I pretty much exclusively play on UV, even on maps or wads that are supposed to be super hard. I just keep playing until I beat it. I don't think I'm a super gamer, but I don't see how anyone can think the Iwads are too hard on UV and would therefore play down. The only place in the Iwads that really give me a hard time are the first 2 maps of Thy Flesh Consumed.

[magicsofa]

One of the problems with mapping for different difficulties is that your actual skill level will remain the same - what I mean is, it's awesome to have someone who is pretty bad at doom to playtest easier settings. I've tried to mimic this by playing keyboard only and being purposely clumsy (like running straight into fireballs and holding down the fire button more than necessary).

[printz]

40oz said:

I'd definitely prefer a megasphere or soulsphere in a large battle over an invulnerability sphere. Entering a battle with 7% health and an inv sphere is nowhere near as helpful as a megasphere is. I think you made the right decision

What about this alternation: Blur sphere on easy and medium, blue armor on skill 4? Motivation? Armor not needed on lesser skills.

[ReFracture]

When I start a new game, it's muscle memory to press the down arrow once before hitting enter again. That's why in PrBoom-Plus I had to set the default skill back to HMP, otherwise I'd find myself wondering why it asks me if I'm sure I want to play on nightmare.

I was tempted to drop down to HMP a few times when playing through Hell Revealed II, but I powered through it and finished in UV. Some of those levels were just stupidly hard..

[RjY]

I generally try UV first and drop to HNTR if UV is obviously too much. Rarely I'll try HMP.

If I find HNTR too hard, for me that is a bug. :-)

I guess that's because I feel ITYTD is itself broken, since the ammo-doubling property unbalances everything and means you end up wasting most of what you pick up. It might be better if ITYTD didn't double ammunition, or doubled your ammunition capacity as well, or something.

[DLRArchangel]

I play on nightmare. But, otherwise it would be UV.