Who has completed Doom on Nightmare?

I'm thinking about giving it a shot after I finish up my playthrough of SoD on I am Death Incarnate!

But I imagine Nightmare is far more difficult than Wolfenstein 3D's hardest difficulty. Who has beaten Doom all the way through on Nightmare and what can I expect? Also, any tips?

One person who did was Drew DeVore in roughly 30 minutes. Here's the link to his speedrun:

http://www.doom.com.hr/public/doom2/demos/compet-n/doom2/movie/30nm2956.zip

Doomguy 2000 said:

One person who did was Drew DeVore in roughly 30 minutes. Here's the link to his speedrun:

http://www.doom.com.hr/public/doom2/demos/compet-n/doom2/movie/30nm2956.zip

That is nuts, I could probably spend 5 years working on that and not get as good as he is.

Maybe I'll just stick with Ultra-Violence lol, I think it's what the developers intended the hardest difficulty to be anyways.

With ludicrous save-scumming going on by about E1M6, I got through the Registered Doom IWAD back in 2001, during my end-of-year exams.

Didn't really feel like I'd achieved much by doing this to be honest. It gets to a point where you feel you want to push on and get to the end just for the purpose of some bragging rights, but you won't find yourself having much fun when those Quicksave/Quickload keys start getting some heavy use.

I tried Doom II shortly after (no way was I going to try E4M1) but by MAP08 it was beginning to feel like work that I really wasn't interested in doing anymore. I still have the savegames on a floppy disk (I would use them as 'proof' of my progress), but no floppy drive to load them now!

I played E1M1 through. I tried Doom64 with respawning monsters and items, but then at the end of the third map it got confused and didn't spawn the red key for the exit door, so I quit.

I beat eps 1-3 on Nightmare 'bout a decade ago. Yep, it's savegame abuse alright; although when it's at its best, Nightmare is about knowing the levels like the back of your hand and rushing like a mad bastard through the routes of least resistance, trying to mow down as many enemies as one can without stopping. Hitscanners become high-tier monsters, Barons become mobile turrets that aren't worth destroying.

Infighting is a lucky accident if it ever happens; there simply isn't enough time to run around invoking it or relying on it.

It would be novel to play a mapset that's designed with Nightmare in mind, though -- something with plenty of space and alternate routes.

Just Ultra-Violence...

I don't really do an honest playthrough of Doom on nightmare, I just think it's good for a fun adrenaline rush to load up a random Doom 2 map on Nightmare and see how long I can live for. My favorites are E1M3, E1M5, E1M6, E1M7 E2M4, E2M5, E3M5, E4M3, MAP03, MAP04, MAP05, MAP10, MAP12, MAP13, MAP17, MAP16, MAP22, TNT MAP11, PLUTONIA MAP01, and PLUTONIA MAP02.

Never really wanted to.

Never even considered it. I'm not sure if I've ever started a game on nightmare. I hate fast monsters.

But after all these years, even for a mediocre player like me, Ultra Violence is a little easy for most of the original levels. I'll still die a couple times in a playthrough but if I had the patience I wouldn't.

BuffGUh said:

That is nuts, I could probably spend 5 years working on that and not get as good as he is.

I don't think Drew could have spent 5 years working on it and got as good as he did. :p

Do bear in mind that the routes for these movie runs have been worked out and refined over a period of many years by a whole succession of players, with the strategies optimized and careful analysis of which shortcut ideas help give the best overall chance of success, and where you really have to spend time picking up armour, weapons, etc. Also, even from the early days (via fillup) there were ways players could practice individual maps on Nightmare, starting with the stats (health armour, weapons and ammo) that they are likely to have at that point in a movie run. So no one doing a 30nm run was making up their route as they went along or tackling the trickier parts unrehearsed. But no amount of practice could prepare them for all the random chaotic moments that inevitably occur in an NM run due to respawning. A good sense of "Nightmareability" is needed too, and that can only be built up by playing a lot of NM.

Enjay said:

Never really wanted to.

This. UV is my limit.

Nah. Nightmare is totally unfair and not really worth beating in my opinion. Fast monsters might on its own might have been fun, but the fact that they come back to life simply ruins it for me.

I play nightmare all the time but rarely get through either E1M2 or Map02 before I die. I usually do it just to see how far I get. Also, playing NM improves your skill in UV and in fast monsters settings in general. My typical setting is UV with fast monsters. I like to enable the health countdown in ZDoom too, for greater challenge, but only occasionally, as it rarely feels like Doom then.

Played NM up to about MAP10 or so in D2 before ditching it for other pwads.

It's really fun but I have never completed the game in Nightmare.

I love the mode, I always assumed it was impossible but watching that was really sweet.

I've gotten through hald of Knee Deep in Nightmare, didn't want to go further. Haven't even attempted Doom II, seeing I can't even do good on Ultra Violence for Doom II.

-fast is good enough for me. But I just rediscovered something I have not done in years, use save games. I always make demos when I play and never save or load. But on brutal maps with easy but precise 15+ minute lead-ups, I could die in seconds on a specific part.

So begins my practice save games. I save right before a brutal part and play it over and over until I can beat it almost every time. This saves vast amounts of time. So instead of dying every 30 minutes in same area, I die every 1-2 minutes constantly practicing only the part I fail at. Once I master the part, I fire up the old demo recorder.

I think it is really an adrenaline rush, whenever you play this game on Nightmare. You have absolutely no time to think at all or you will get pounded, so you have to play very focused. That is great!

I have completed both Doom and Doom 2 on Nightmare, but not on single segments like the demo which has been posted. I saved at beginning of every level and tried to come through. Most levels I beat on my very first attempt thanks to previous knowledge, but some levels are quite a challenge.

I beat E1 on NIGHTMARE! using ZDoom (mouselook, crouching, jumping, always run) and lots of saves. It's fun because it's so ridiculous, but I didn't fancy going any further with the game or indeed doing it ever again. The idea of making a map specifically for Nightmare is interesting.

Infinitely respawning monsters is the devil, as far as I'm concerned. It's unfortunate *this* is the one thing from Doom CoD-like shooters had to copy... ;)

I've completed the first doom on nightmare (as in the first 3 episodes, not ultimate doom)

Always dying on MAP02 :<

A few people here have said that they started of their NM experiences by trying E1. Probably not such a good choice, as it instantly becomes hitscan hell when you crank it up to NM.

Those who have done all four episodes on NM will tell you that E2 and E3 are easiest, followed by E1, with E4 as the hardest (due to E4M1, E4M2 and E4M6). Likewise, Doom2 has some of the tougher NM maps earlier on: notably map02, map04, map07 and map09.

Good point.

I am imagining a map designed for NM. It would probably be most fun with imps and cacodemons as primary ranged enemies, the occasional demon horde, and zombies only around in places intended to be extremely risky. Most of the higher level enemies (barons, mancubi, revenants, AVs) would need tons of high power ammo around to deal with them (plasma ERRYWHER), the BFG would actually be a tactically viable inclusion without being overpowered, and Pain Elementals would be HORRENDOUS ROVING DEATHSPAWNERS.

At least the Spider Mastermind would maintain his rightful place at the top of the monster hierarchy.

Never tried it, because I used to hate playing on nightmare. I should give it a try.

A map designed for NM? I'd like to see a whole WAD of them!

Of course, it would be amazing (and pretty difficult to do; though I'd wager it isn't impossible) to have them also good in UV and lower settings. There would be certain space/maneuverability considerations to make it work in NM that may make it easier on UV than most WADs these days, but that's what you'd get for aiming at Nightmare.

In before new "community" project. :P

that's a cool idea actually, a nightmare project

you should make it for us ComicMischief, you should make it now or face the consequences

I have been meaning to learn mapping but I doubt I'd be up for contributing to something like that without some basic "babby's first map" projects under my belt. Otherwise I'd be all over it.

Currently working on other things but... I suppose I've pushed myself beyond three projects at a time before. (hint: it never ended well)


What I can offer is my thoughts on level design: the comparison between UV and NM would be like flipflopping the game... for one, standard UV players probably try to 100%, which is obviously pointless on NM. That means you won't necessarily need to include enough ammo to kill every enemy, just enough to get past them - including enough ammo to kill every enemy, actually, would result in players having a boatload of ammo once they beat a level.

OTOH, that same low level of ammo would make the map impossible to play on UV, because again, everyone tries to get the best score on UV as opposed to simply surviving. I guess it boils down to attitude.


OTOH OTOH, hitscanners will be the absolute devil's work on NM. You could actually put enough ammo in the form of hitscanners who drop it, to beat UV 100%, while only putting enough naked "preplaced" ammo to get by in NM. Maybe the player will be killing the hitscanners, but he certainly won't be hanging around long enough to pick up a bunch of clips in a far off location. So, with that in mind, putting hitscanners in out of the way "sniping" areas where the player has to play the cover game would put the ammo in UV but keep it out of NM.

I suppose then with that philosophy you'd be designing around bullets and shotgun shells. But designing around bullets limits your ability to include big guys in NM, so you'd want shotgunners... but lots of shotgunners would be DEATH FOREVER in NM.

It's a conundrum!

Edit: Or wait... is there an NM only option for placeables? I don't know these things but last I checked I had thought that NM was merged into UV for placeables.

Nope, skill flags are 1-2, 3, 4-5.

E1-E3 are relatively easy. I started with E3 as it's the easiest with all the invuls. Then tried E1, M3 is a major hurdle and trying it on NM is what made me switch from keyboard only to keyboard+mouse. E2 was easy after that, M6 can be quite random though.

Never made any serious attempts at E4.

Doom 2 30nm is something I've always wanted to do but it just never happened with all the fun UV Maxes distracting me.