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Ah, too bad! I've played through the maps using cheats to see the sights and there's no hope a lower difficulty would help me any -- pretty much all those tactics are beyond me... Even though I'm not an expert, at all, I felt it was more challenging than Sunder (which it probably is, considering there are UV-maxes of each Sunder map by more than one person and none of most of these). But one day there might be something more, maybe even by the end of this year, as the skill level just seems to keep rising.

I'll check the source, though I wasn't able to make much sense of the parts that handled all the intermission/fluff stuff last time. Weird that it doesn't even show the text screen on lower difficulties, I would have expected it to at least show you that (considering it literally tells you to play the next episode to continue playing) before kicking you. Then again I don't understand why they locked the episodes to skill levels in the first place. I wonder if anyone way back thought their game was busted because of that, imagine buying Doom only to get what seems to be the shareware version because the game just abruptly ends after E1M8.

Played it on UV. Got 94% kills and 3 secrets (Passageway to Panel to lower crates/Blue armor/Chainsaw...I'm pretty bad at finding secrets). I actually couldn't get to the lowered crates in time though. I kept hitting walls slowing myself down (tried it several times). I enjoyed it overall and liked the look and texture variety. I also liked the interweaving of the upper and lower sections of the base and how they all connect and open up the level by the end. The last couple fights were pretty tough for me, and I kind of had to save scum my way through to the end, but that's probably more my overall skill level then the actual balance of the map itself. Ammo was pretty tight at the beginning of the map for me, but got more plentiful towards the middle/end sections. Overall, a fun map. Will probably play it again and try and get all the kills (and more secrets if I kind find 'em)

I always found it interesting how the game actually punishes you to an extent if you don't play on the highest setting, as not only do the enemies' shots not register sometimes, but neither do yours, so it works both ways, you're not doing yourself much of a favor to play on lower skill settings in this series.

I think the very 90s trend of giving the lower difficulty levels insulting names probably contributes to this feeling. Not that HMP is saying that you're a wimp, but it's saying that ITYTD and HNTR are, and if those ones are for weaklings, then the highest difficulty (that isn't a "joke" difficulty) must be for ~real men~. If I ever put out a WAD I'm renaming skill 1 to "chill dude mode" because it's the mode people who want to relax with some chill doomage play.

HMP, never been a particularly great player and would rather spend my free time mapping or getting through as many levels as possible instead of honing my skill. When I map, I make the level fun for myself on HMP and then seek feedback on UV and lower skill settings; though lately I've been toying with the idea of having a guest mapper or two for Skill 1-2 and UV. I think that would be interesting for me to play.

@thelamp Thank you for playing this project - I was waiting for full playthrough of this mapset. In hindsight, this project could be toned down and given more clues how to navigate, but as almost year passed since release, I don't want bother anymore, unless I'll decide do some remaster of sorts. I applaud your courage keeping ultra violence skill, even if you could lower skills, especially on map05. In map02, I placed bfg in mind to ease fight that one fight, but of course I don't mind if people have other strategies and ways to continue on or get in area other ways than intended. Map03 was the newest in rotation, map01-map02 are oldest ones. Anyway, I hope you had some fun, despite some harsh encounters in levels. If you have some questions about my design stuff or why I did this or that, feel free to ping me.

Counterattack maps 4/5 are 'easy' slaughter on UV plus the whole wad is incredibly impressive to boot. Obligatory Rush mention too. I'd also seriously recommend playing top quality wads on lower skill settings - off the top of my head Combat Shock 2, Sunlust, Stardate 20x6, Swim with the Whales, Entropy; they will probably fit the bill for you on easy or medium difficulty.

UV for everything. Maybe I'm a masochist or something but it makes everything so rewarding. At points it can be infuriating but man you learn so much about Doomin just playing on a harder skill. For harder wads it's a pain n the ass I won't lie I won't pretend I'm that good of a player. However, it better familiarizes me with the set of levels I'm playing. I personally could never find myself playing on anything lower or higher for some regular wads or the og doom trilogy up into Final Doom. I feel like I'm missing out on HMP because it removes or drastically alters things that can make it not what I would call an easier experience but a more accessible experience. The amount of enemies in UV is perfect (most of the time). I will say tho playing episode 4 on UV when I was very new kicked my ass back to the stone age, I had to push thro that lol.

I played these in advance earlier in the month, sometimes in a fit of rage. Played on skill 1 MAP20 - skill 1 It's probably just me but this map stands out as being very aesthetically ugly, something very rare for this mapset. The Gotcha! fight and the caves immediately after were enjoyable though. MAP21 - skill 1 Loved this one. Wide open spaces, good view of the sky. MAP22 - skill 1 Another good one. The caco room with the sp_face was great. I did get lost thinking i was done with the middle area MAP23 - skill 1 Big memorable and nice-looking map that's marred a bit by some frustrating navigation issues. MAP24 - skill 1 Right off the bat a map that inspires intense anger upon finding secrets when all you want to do is move forward. The lift that lowers behind you in the control room is something that should be a secret, and has no business being required for progression. Then at the end I consulted Doom builder again as I had no idea some pillar came down to reveal a teleporter. MAP25 - skill 1 Very pretty map that seemed engineered just for me to get lost. By that I mean idk why i missed that blue key i wasnt running around that side of the map i guess. The crusher room is magnificent. MAP26 Big and glorious, this map earned its runtime to me as it was lengthened by epic scope rather than annoying switch hunts. gigantic mess of videos open at your own risk

*laughs in elitism* But I agree, if it's too hard just lower the difficulty or try something else if it proves to be unenjoyable. Forcing yourself to play on a skill level you can't handle doesn't give bonus cool points.

I started playing on easier difficulties for 2 years and changed to UV since 1999 and never stopped using that difficulty (however, there are times that I play with lower skills, like testing my maps or from others). Although, there's no shame to use lesser difficulties to see how differently it behaves....you know, it might be interesting.

lower the difficulty, when you beat the wad, then jump to the next difficulty level. There is no shortcut, experience will teach, test what are the best weapons on specific situations, learn to react to the odds while being calm. Don't be ashamed on lowering the difficulty, some mapsets are for really experienced players, and there is no way to obtain the skill needed to beat them without practice. Also, don't feel ashamed if you can't. There are a lot of persons that get really frustrated for don't having the skill to beat a mapset. This is a game, and there is only a way to win it. Having fun! If you don't have fun while playing, there is no way to improve.

Nice mapset! Haven't finished yet, but i fell in love quickly with map02 (Beautiful tribute to Crumpets). Played on HMP, and i can say that it was already quite tough on that difficulty, but really fun (It felt like i had plenty of opportunities to waste ammo and recover health, which is nice for lower difficulties). Visuals are nice, and from what i can see, they change every map and tend to have a clean look which makes arenas really stand out. Also thank you for choosing the Requiem status bar, brings me some nostalgia (It was the first pwad i ever play). Anyways, i recorded some demos, with a very clutch and fun moment on map02. (Recorded with dsda doom using saves and loads, skill 3) cocktails_dash_hmp.zip Lastly, a tiny note:

If Mt.Pain harps on about how tough the map is to pistol start, and gives it a C, I think the proper reaction is not to say, "MtPain shouldn't be playing the WAD that way, it's supposed to be played continuous", it's "He gave it a C for the rough pistol start, so I'd probably enjoy it at a B or B- level if I ever play through this set continuously." Besides, if you're just watching the review and haven't played the mapset, him complaining about the rough pistol start is the only way you'll know that the map has a rough pistol start, which may affect how you decide to play the mapset for yourself. If he complains about a WAD being really grindy on UV, the audience takeaway should be either "I'm better at Doom than him, so I'd probably enjoy this WAD more on UV than his grade suggests" or "I'm about the same level of player (or lower) as him, so I'll play on a lower skill level to have more fun." Copy and paste this same argument for "monster window dressing". I never saw MtPain's grades as something you're just supposed to accept at face value - but they provide a useful baseline for calibrating your own, hypothetical grade for the WAD, based on how his preferences differ from yours. And I think he goes out of his way to cultivate that "baseline" quality by playing every WAD the same way, even if that means a mapset gets "unfairly" dinged for one reason or another. Maybe some people do take his grades at face value, but that's their fault.

I would personally split things into two different categories: "skills" and "advantages" and call map knowledge as an advantage. Skills are, as you listed some of them, your personal individual abilities to do things better than average person who does not have experience with the game. Advantages are outside factors, which give you better chances when competing with a person who has exactly same personal skills as you. So to distinguish them: - If you previously have played a specific map or megawad, this is an advantage. - How much and how well you can remember from the map or megawad you played in past, is a skill (the qualities of your memory and memorization ability). Another examples of advantages: - quality of your physical equipment (mouse, keyboard, monitor), playing on lower difficulty level than your competitor, mods and hacks (aimbot etc.), knowing about game's internal workings and bugs and how to exploit them

The more skill levels are implemented in your map, the wider audience might be able to beat your map. There are a lot of folks here that only play certains difficulty levels like HMP or UV depending on how much skilled they are. If for example someone that only plays HMP gets killed multiple times and wants to lower the difficulty, the only difference will be a damage reduction and nothing else (more ammo if you go to ITYTD), which might frustrate that player and quit playing your map. Have in mind that you can also play with the monster placement, like for example moving a chaingunner that is supposed to ambush the player from behind in UV and place it in the middle of the room so the player can spot him easily in lower difficulties, and place some extra ammo and health as well.

Actually a big character roster can help. More likely to there be character for everyone and having matches with randomized characters with non fighting playing people can be fun for everybody involved, I have experience from it. Also grooves and ism are less of a problem if making even a special move on purpose isn't happening at this time. And yeah, I am probably talking about couple levels lower version of casual play than you. But in general it seems to be that your idea of a casual play worries way too much about things in the game that are still unknown to the player. I feel like players that go all serious against lower skilled players aren't being very smart. I always adjust my play when against less experienced player to make playing more fun for them and to have some fun myself. It's great time for trying some silly stuff, showcase what can be done in the game and baiting them to figure out something new about the game. It even seems foreign to me in general that winning or losing would matter in casual play and if you are facing opponent that literally doesn't chance against you, it's best to give them hope and keep them motivated. And most of the time it isn't even letting them to win because much of it is you just playing extremely sloppily. Character designs of some parts of Third Strike roster are not the greatest. SF2 roster is more normal and easier to understand. SFA3 and CVS2 have greatly expanded rosters with alot of colorful characters to explore, and most of them are nothing like the freaks of SF3.

Not enough choices, mine would've been "Any setting that is fun for the wad I am currently playing". That's usually HMP though. The UV-only mindset is extremely silly to me, just to be nice about it. And I don't feel like I'm missing anything when playing on lower skills, or the Full Experience™.

Scythe is quite approachable, at least for the first 20 levels. Given what you've played so far I don't think you'd have a problem with it. Deathless is fun and quite easy. Doom the Way id Did and Doom 2 the Way id Did are, as the name suggests, similar in style and difficulty to the original games. I've been playing through 25 Years on Earth lately and I think that's beginner-friendly too, maybe a little harder than Doom II but easier than Plutonia. Also check that "WAD Progression for Skill Improvement" thread linked above, and remember that you can always try a lower skill level if you want to play a wad but feel like you aren't ready to tackle it on Ultraviolence yet.

I forgot to include Ironman for Other, which iirc means once you die the entire run is over? Which would be pretty harsh for megawads but that sounds like an awesome challenge. I'm not below lowering to HMP or HNTR if there are maps that are especially evil or the author warns you that UV is balanced for psychopaths e.g Erik Alm wads. I haven't had to restart and reduce the difficulty to actually finish a wad that was outside of my skill range but I expect to eventually meet my match down the line. I'm also not shy of slaughter maps, but I'm still pretty "new" to them, having only played Hell Revealed 1 and 2 a couple times each.

I feel that what makes a WAD fun on different difficulties has a lot more to do with the designer's approach to difficulty than it has to do with much else. Some people make easier difficulties as an afterthought and it is very noticeable, while on the other hand people will make UV have a very steep rise in difficulty compared to lower ones to the point it is near unplayable. So I think the idea that you HAVE to play on UV is silly. Just play on what you want. Look, playing SP does take skills, sure, but anyone who thinks that playing on anything less than UV makes you less of a player should stop running their mouths and see how quick their skills are shattered in Deathmatch. Ultra Violence isn't going to prepare you for being SSGned point blank in the back, or being berserk fisted into a pile of goo, or being rippled with bullets by a maniac who's chaingun fire is dead-on accurate because they know some trick or two you don't. That takes a whole different skill set and it doesn't make a bit of difference what difficulty you play on SP. I imagine if more of these elitist would quit hiding from DM they'd become quite humbled and maybe tone themselves down a bit. Just my opinion anyways.

E3M6, I first played it on the SNES port of Doom, and SNES Doom has this mechanic where you can only play the later episodes on the harder skill levels. E3M6 has a Blue Key, and its location depends on the skill level, on the easy skill levels, the key is out in the open and easy to find, it's much harder to find on the harder skill levels (requires opening a hidden door and jumping into a box to teleport into the building). I was stuck on this level for seemingly months and I actually ended up finding the secret exit by mistake, before I even found the Blue Key. When I jumped into the blue box that contains the secret exit switch, I thought hitting that switch would just lower the box and allow you to get out, the fact that it would exit the level was the last thing I expected it to do. And this was in the early 2000s, where there wasn't much on the internet to help out, no YouTube, and the FAQs available on GameFAQs at the time made no mention of how to get this key (the Key FAQ was extremely vague about it, just saying it's in the "Y-shaped structure", with no explanation on how to get into said structure). Runner-up goes to E3M7, took me forever to find the Red Key, when I entered that lava maze after going through the Blue Door, I didn't know there was an entrance on the left you could take (it eventually leads you to the Red Key area), I always went right to that BFG area that's actually marked as a secret.

It's kind of like how everyone who fondly reminisces on the 90s remembers every show as being good. It isn't that hard wads look good, it's that wads that stick out look good, but the ones that are hard stick out more. I have had multiple very hard wads pointed out, that don't look amazing, Dimensions isn't a looker, Itallo doom looks fine, Nosp3 looks good for a set of speedmaps, but they aren't as good as the big boys everyone mentions. Also E3 of Scythe is about as good looking as scythe. Most difficult wads support lower skills, just check out any of those wads on lower difficulties. If you are super new, just play Skillsaws extended library of maps but I assume you know who he is.

The best approach is probably the one that fits your mind and way of thinking. Good designers know about all the tool and how they can be used and selectively use the ones that can do a quicker or better job. When it comes to Doom mapping, it's mostly about doing things faster and to reduce user errors. One interesting approach I have seen in a large Doom project was to have one person do the map, place out a few key monsters for specific situations, but otherwise let another designer do the monster placement. The monster placement guy might be placing monsters in a large amount of the maps, so that the difficulty curve can be fairly smooth. It's one thing to make the UV balanced, but you also want easier skills to be balanced and maybe you want nightmare to be possible as well. Monster placement can drastically change how viable a map is on nm, but not matter that much on uv max or uv speed. Properly implementing all the skill levels is probably an aspect many mappers ignore. One common trick is to balance skill 3 about the same level of difficulty as doom 2 on skill 4. Skill 1,2 as slightly easier than doom 2 skill 3, but not quite as easy as the original skill 1 and 2. Then you can pile on the monsters you like and if people just want a Doom 2-like experience, they can play on skill 3. Coop is a whole different ball. Some balance the map around the classic up to 4 players, extra monsters and ammo style. Other balance around respawning players and respawning ammo. That can make the maps seem brutally unfair when skilled players play as they keep running out of ammo and have to backtrack, or in some cases suicide in order to get ammo from the earlier parts. Anders J introduced me to the concept of adding teleports and other helpful items in the start area to avoid having to do the 2 minute weapon run when you respawn. As you reach key points where you pick up a weapon, you also make the same weapon available in the start area, but only in multiplayer. That along with keyed doors that stay open make maps a lot more fun in coop. You could also include the keys in the start area. A few simple tweaks make the maps a lot more enjoyable in coop, especially the first time when you are likely to die more if you have extra boss monsters etc. I think people are more likely to enjoy the maps when you remove the boring parts :). I dislike when you can return an area that you have opened up earlier, but then have to backtrack because you need the key once more. Ideally keys should only be put on doors where you can reach all other doors of the same key color without keys. Avoid putting two keyed door of the same color after each other. It's perfectly fine if it is a shortcut, but if it is mandatory, it is a a design weakness. You can after all have a key open up all the keyed doors in the area with the same switch. Or you can do something ala doom 2 map17 where you need a key to open up a door to lower bars. You could remove all the bars to that area, but provide multiple locations to do it from. It doesn't matter if the bars lower to 8 units above lowest neigh. floor multiple times.