"Ultra-Violence is the real way to play Doom"

[Job]

NM pacifist or go home. 

 

The degree of seriousness in that statement reflects my attitude towards the premise of this thread. 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Standing still while imps bounce all over you? :P

 

[galileo31dos01]

Quote

"Ultra-Violence is the real way to play Doom"

Nah

[Reisal]

That phrase is just as bad as the people saying Brutal Doom is the real way to play Doom.

[AdirBlaz]

I myself like to make a mix of UV+Nightmare, like a sweet in-between. It's just UV with fast monsters though. Stuff's too slow for me otherwise.

 

But seriously, difficulty is difficulty. People play what they wanna play. Hell, get a mod that replaces everything with cyberdemons if you want--One that replaces even items, and try to play that if you want.

[Gifty]

UV is simply the easiest way to retain a sense of challenge as a keyboard/mouse user. I think the other difficulty settings made a lot more sense on older setups.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Nothing like independent strafe\turning keys and no auto run to keep the game difficult. 

 

Edit : Rip whatever hand that has the horrible fate of holding the shift key.

[galileo31dos01]

I've read people bash this or that map/wad for its difficulty, when they also claim to play always on UV-max regardless of what the author might have recommended. Ironic, don't u think?

[Blastfrog]

When it comes to just the base IWADs, UV is the way to get the most out of the experience. The way id implemented skill levels, it seems they made the hardest version of the map first and then diluted it for the lower skill levels. And what was considered "hard" for people in 1993 in a newly emerging genre is actually rather average by today's standards.

 

Bobby Prince even described his first experience with the game saying that he almost felt like he was going to fall backward, that's how awkward FPS games were back then, because the entire general public were still novices. In the years since, people have gotten very used to controlling first person characters to the point where it's second nature.

 

The way I see it, UV is "100% of the game" and lower skill settings are more diluted. In the case of mapsets that are harder than the base IWADs (obviously not counting Plutonia here), lower skill levels are more of a necessity there than in maps with a standard '93/'94 level of difficulty.

[TDRR]

Doom 1 is that one game i can go through on UV without much problem, but Doom 2 i really can't play well on HMP or higher, only HNTR or ITYTD, and i can't even get past Plutonia.

[MarsHappyNation]

It really depends on the person. For the base game and wads I'm most familiar with, I normally go UV just to mix things up. When I'm trying out a new mapset or something, HMP is always my first choice.

[Erick]

For older wads and the likes, UV is my go to difficulty I suppose. However, newer mods and levels have gotten more difficult over the years so I am not shy om playing HMP (Or the normal difficulty on mods) as honestly I rather have a comfortable experience rather than boiling my blood with frustration.

[Impie]

I've seen people who only play on UV, and do so with my map sets, then are amazed when the maps kick the living shit out of them. Kind of annoying, but they're doing it to themselves.

[Suitepee]

20 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

youre not talking about sweet-p again are you?

I have since embraced the mentality of playing on HMP with some wads (thanks Alfonzo!), taking each wad I play through on a case-by-case basis. If UV is deemed an unwise choice or proves to be too difficult, then I bump the difficulty down to HMP.

[rehelekretep]

no offence intended Suitepee, i was just seeing if people were still 'calling you out' for some of your historic streams on hard wads!

[Voros]

Enter
Enter
Enter
Done.

UV's great and all, but since HMP is the default skill, I'll stick with that. Playing in UV definitely makes it more challenging, but most of the time, I'm not in the mood for a challenge. I just want to play.

[rehelekretep]

not if you change it on prboom+ (¬‿¬)

[Jayextee]

Hurt Me Plenty is de facto the way the game is supposed to be played.

 

Exhibit A:

As Voros outlined, you mash the enter key enough and the game will take you to the first level on HMP (I know you can set PRBoom+ to default to UV or something else, but I'm talking the original game here). I read somewhere that the original design brief stipulated that players should be able to get into the action "as quick as possible".

 

Exhibit B:

E1M1 HMP is designed in such a way that new players will not find anything threatening in front of them until they've shown some familiarity with the controls; at the very least, moving and opening doors. UV dumps shotgunners; an actually-threatening low-tier enemy no matter what skill level; in the room adjacent the start. Not exactly newbie-friendly, although seemingly well-considered for those who want to return post-completion with a higher challenge perhaps.

 

Exhibit C:
The original 3-episode DOOM has stuck monsters on UV, making it appear an afterthought (off the top of my head; E1M6 exit room spectre, E2M6 demons in rooms off the main hall that open later). Or at the very least, not well-tested on the setting.

 

It's basically normal difficulty, and should be treated as such. It does appear the developer-intended setting, which would be the closest to any 'real' way to play the game.

 

(even if, fuck it, you do you innit)

[Voros]

Believe it or not, I did set UV as the default skill in PrBoom+ :D

[GaussMaster987]

For Classic Doom, I have to agree with this.  Only UV and Nightmare have the maximum number of enemies.  Classic Doom's HMP feels incomplete with the reduced number of enemies.  Doom 2016's "double damage" UV doesn't bother me either, but the reduced value health and armor pickups are a dealbreaker for me.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Doom 2's UV feels way better designed than the one in Doom 1. Much more thought out monster replacement instead of adding more of the same shit.

 

Edit : Comparing Doom 1 to Doom2, Not UDoom's extra episode.

[The Nate]

I honestly feel that something's off if the cursor is on HMP.

[Blastfrog]

31 minutes ago, Sgt Jack V said:

I honestly feel that something's off if the cursor is on HMP.

1 hour ago, GaussMaster987 said:

Only UV and Nightmare have the maximum number of enemies.  Classic Doom's HMP feels incomplete with the reduced number of enemies.

I feel the same.

 

It makes sense to set it up the way they did in 1993, and I realize that we're playing and talking about a 1993 game, but it's not 1993 anymore and the FPS genre is well established, it's not disorienting and complex to people the way it was when 2D games were what people mostly played and had any familiarity with.

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Hurt Me Plenty is de facto the way the game is supposed to be played. ... It's basically normal difficulty, and should be treated as such. It does appear the developer-intended setting, which would be the closest to any 'real' way to play the game.

For back then, at least. These days, it's silly IMO to play on HMP or lower in Doom 1/2 (especially 1). The game is simply far too easy on HMP by today's standards, and it's not nearly as exciting.

 

I'm not arguing that HMP wasn't the intended default for the general playerbase (it most certainly was), but that the lower difficulty in general and the increase in player skill has made UV the de facto standard within today's playerbase.

 

I don't think UV has much in the way of "extra," rather, it's that all the lower skills are cut down versions of the "full experience."

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

E1M1 HMP is designed in such a way that new players will not find anything threatening in front of them until they've shown some familiarity with the controls; at the very least, moving and opening doors

Something that is mostly irrelevant today for the vast majority of players, even if they've never played Doom in particular. I'll admit that the extra shotgunners at the start are a bit much for novices, but it's still pretty easy when you already know how to dodge their attacks and take them down.

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

The original 3-episode DOOM has stuck monsters on UV, making it appear an afterthought (off the top of my head; E1M6 exit room spectre, E2M6 demons in rooms off the main hall that open later). Or at the very least, not well-tested on the setting.

I'm sure some amount of extras were added, but through analysis of the alpha maps vs. the final game, this doesn't appear to be the case for the most part. The alpha maps already have UV levels of monsters (in the more complete maps, anyhow, not talking about the super-unfinished ones). It appears they put all the monsters and pickups in as a basis, and worked their way down from there when assigning flags (reversing the trend when it comes to pickups).

[TootsyBowl]

Instead of UV being the full experience and HMP being a dumbed down version, we could alternatively think of HMP as being the full experience, with the lower difficulties being dumbed down and UV being the full experience with extra shit slapped on.

[Jayextee]

Tootsy hits the nail on the head IMO. There's nothing wrong with preferring UV, but those stuck monsters especially reinforce the idea that the setting is 'extra'.

 

Also (and I am talking about the original DOOM episodes here) since UV is often not as much tougher as it is just more grind (E2M6 again, more Barons in these halls; and that enemy hasn't been a challenge for anyone since about 1996 right? :P) HMP isn't too much a 'loss' per se as it is just keeping the clutter down.

 

Doom 2 on the other hand, may well have been designed with UV in mind. I don't have anything to suggest so or otherwise; at that point it's clear perceived player ability had risen -- and the new bestiary makes 'more' not necessarily equate to heightened grind.

I do nonetheless still play Doom 2 on HMP because it's the 'normal' setting, and I'm not really missing out on much save a Mastermind that's no real threat in The Crusher, a few more Dead Simple Mancubuses, et cetera.

[Blastfrog]

Seems like the point I made was ignored, so I reiterate; it's extremely likely that id started with a full object set and cut down pickups in higher skills and cut down monsters on lower. They're not "extra," they're simply not missing, is all.

 

I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, see for yourself; compare the 0.5 alpha maps to the final maps. While obviously it's not 1:1 (some extras were indeed added), for the most part they simply cut monsters down.

[Jayextee]

1 minute ago, Blastfrog said:

Did you guys miss the part where I said it's pretty clear that id started with a full object set and cut down pickups in higher skills and cut down monsters on lower? They're not "extra," they're simply not missing is all.

 

Nope. But it is also "pretty clear" that UV wasn't thoroughly tested because of those stuck monsters. Ergo even early on I think they were "added for challenge" rather than "part of the design in mind".

Then again, Doom 2 has stuck monsters on all settings but I'm of the opinion maybe that game was rushed for the retail release or something.

[Blastfrog]

Worth noting that my theory only necessarily applies to maps from that era of development. Who knows how Romero or Petersen handled this later on.

[DeathevokatioN]

Only ultraviolence is real, nothing more, nothing less... and if someone makes a wad that's too hard on ultraviolence then leave a 1/5 review saying the wad is too hard/mindless.

[Deleted_Account]

Real men play on I'm too young to die.