Nightmare : Why it was NEVER meant to be played

[Skullhacker]

Doom is notoriously known as literally being difficult as hell. But then there's NIGHTMARE! mode. Everyone has played it at some point, and if you haven't, you have no life in you.

This thread will be about Doom's NIGHTMARE! mode and why it was never meant to be played.

I had a hard time playing E1M3 on NIGHTMARE. I spent 2 hours trying to beat it, only to fail. John Carmack must not have any pity for people who play on NIGHTMARE and say it's too hard.

)=/

[TheNoob_Gamer]

Simple.

It was a joke.

Edited January 19, 2020 by TheNoob_Gamer

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Well, according to the Doom fandom Wiki trivia page,

 

  Quote

Did you know that the Nightmare! skill level was added as a joke, in response to comments that the game was too easy?

Expand  

 

I have no idea if this is true, but, I could believe it.

[Maximum Matt]

It's there to shut down ANYBODY who claims that they are Doom lords and they can handle anything.

[Gaia74]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:37 AM, TheNoob_Gamer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Simple.

It was a joke.

 

 

Expand  

This

[Rainne]

Back when calling a difficulty level "Nightmare" meant something. When it wasn't even in the original game and thus wasn't really tested for playability: when you play on NM, you're entering a world that really wasn't designed with you in mind.

 

I've completed a few other games on their respective "Nightmare" modes. It's pretty much just "the hardest normal difficulty", and all they require is that you know what you're doing, and be at the peak of the game. Doom's Nightmare is something fundamentally different. It's like playing a data-corrupted version of the game; there's no guarantee it'll even work, let alone be fair. It's like dealing with a natural disaster; if a building collapses, it doesn't do so in an artful way that carefully ensures there's some way out.

 

There is no God in Nightmare.

[Man of Doom]

WELL ACKSHUALLY

 

Nightmare difficulty is literally a meme in that it was literally created to spite those who complain that Doom is too easy, and creates a whole new challenge:

 

You're no longer trying to kill everything like in an action movie; the game has suddenly become survival horror in that nothing stays dead and you’re left to conserve and manage your resources in order to survive.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Well, at least until the rise of advanced mechanics like straferunning and mouselook turned even Nightmare! into a cakewalk, at least on more advanced sourceports.

 

[Uncle 80]

Beat Doom Eps. 1-3 on Nightmare! back in the 1.2 exe days, but I never bothered to try Ep. 4 after i got the update. Doom 2 is close to unplayable on Nightmare! as well, at least for me. It's a novelty feature, people.

[jval]

I haven't played for a long time in Nightmare, it's a suicide mission.

[unerxai]

The Nightmare difficulty is there to remind you that you haven't truly mastered Doom yet, not even Knee deep in the Dead, and also to make you feel like you're wimping out for choosing UV.

 

Major respect for players who have beaten this mode. I haven't.

[seed]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:37 AM, TheNoob_Gamer said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Simple.

It was a joke.

 

 

Expand  

 

Basically.

 

Some people do very much play on Nightmare, but back when id added it, it was essentially to troll players who said Doom was too easy. id didn't envision it as a serious difficult setting, hence zero balance whatsoever to account for it.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:16 AM, Skullhacker said:

Doom is notoriously known as literally being difficult as hell.

)=/

Expand  

It Is not. The reason nightmare exists to begin with is a lot of people can autopilot the Iwads even on UV. 

[Castelia]

I'm still only just stumbling my way through Ultra-Violence. I'd get my ass torn to shreds on E1M1 in Nightmare mode.

Interesting how people turned Nightmare into a whole set of speedrun categories.

 

Side note, how do you get 100% kills in Nightmare? Does it end up with an overflowing percentage like the Icon of Sin fight usually does?

[TheNoob_Gamer]

  On 1/19/2020 at 12:29 PM, Castelia said:

Does it end up with an overflowing percentage like the Icon of Sin fight usually does?

Expand  

Yes it does

[cybdmn]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:38 AM, RonnieJamesDiner said:

Well, according to the Doom fandom Wiki trivia page,

 

 

I have no idea if this is true, but, I could believe it.

Expand  

 

More trivia: Did you know, that there is another, better maintained, and not bullshit-ads infested DoomWiki?

[TheNoob_Gamer]

  On 1/19/2020 at 12:38 PM, cybdmn said:

 

More trivia: Did you know, that there is another, better maintained, and not bullshit-ads infested DoomWiki?

Expand  

To be fair, some trivial facts on the outdated Doomwiki are nowhere to be found on the real one.

[seed]

  On 1/19/2020 at 12:41 PM, TheNoob_Gamer said:

To be fair, some trivial facts on the outdated Doomwiki are nowhere to be found on the real one.

Expand  

 

Yeah, ironically the Fandom one has some bits of info that are missing, I've added some bits myself not long ago.

 

But anyway, yeah better stick to Doomwiki, it's much higher quality overall, actively updated, and also moderated by folks around here.

Edited January 19, 2020 by seed

[Optimus]

Nightmare seemed like a too sudden jump in difficulty. I would have preferred if there was an inbetween mode where the monsters are as fast as in NM but don't teleport again (I know there must be a fast monsters options somewhere).

[Allard]

Plutonia. Nightmare. Default keyboard-only controls.

Just imagine the sheer horror.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Allard

[Wereknight]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:16 AM, Skullhacker said:

Doom is notoriously known as literally being difficult as hell.

Expand  

*laughs so goddamn hard that throat hurts* Dude 90s are long time gone.

[Guest Unregistered account]

  On 1/19/2020 at 1:01 PM, Optimus said:

Nightmare seemed like a too sudden jump in difficulty. I would have preferred if there was an inbetween mode where the monsters are as fast as in NM but don't teleport again (I know there must be a fast monsters options somewhere).

Expand  

You can use the -fast parameter on startup. This has its own speedrunning category iirc, and some people play on UV with this setting. However, I don't think it fully replicates the Nightmare fast settings, since I don't think it makes monsters react any faster like they do in Nightmare.

 

There's also -respawn for other variations of Not-Quite-Nightmare

Edited January 19, 2020 by Unregistered account

[Nine Inch Heels]

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:16 AM, Skullhacker said:

Doom is notoriously known as literally being difficult as hell.

Expand  

[citation needed]
 

 

  On 1/19/2020 at 5:16 AM, Skullhacker said:

This thread will be about Doom's NIGHTMARE! mode and why it was never meant to be played.

Expand  

Says who?

 

Here's what the problem is: Back in the old days, when people didn't know how to play, NM was basically supposed to be unbeatable, or at least "nigh "unbeatable". As we've seen in recent past, that doesn't apply any more these days. People have figured out how to beat most conventional maps on nightmare difficulty settings, and there are even some pretty hard maps that have been beaten on NM successfully. Granted, some types of maps are impossible to beat on NM, like some slaughter maps out there, but in general nightmare is far from impossible.

Yes, id put it in as a """joke""" to scare away the "would-be-tough-guys", but time proved id wrong. Simple as that.

 

From the "I make maps perspective", nightmare is still a largely unexplored "design-space", waiting for determined mappers. The skill setting has unique traits, all of which could be used in order to facilitate new styles of encounters, with their own gameplay meta. That being said, people who claim "NM is just a meme", are wrong as far as I'm concerned.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Nine Inch Heels

[TheNoob_Gamer]

  On 1/19/2020 at 2:10 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

 in general nightmare is far from impossible.

Expand  

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Except I've never seen anyone doing NM-Max demos.

 

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

  On 1/19/2020 at 2:27 PM, TheNoob_Gamer said:

Except I've never seen anyone doing NM-Max demos.

Expand  

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1941994

That's because maxing a map isn't required to make it to the exit, also some maps actually have "NMmax" demos. In fact, I recorded one myself.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Nine Inch Heels

[Skullhacker]

  On 1/19/2020 at 6:58 AM, Rainne said:

It's like dealing with a natural disaster; if a building collapses, it doesn't do so in an artful way that carefully ensures there's some way out.

Expand  

It's like trying to play a casual game of Minecraft while set on fire.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

  On 1/19/2020 at 2:31 PM, Nine Inch Heels said:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/1941994

That's because maxing a map isn't required to make it to the exit, also some maps actually have "NMmax" demos. In fact, I recorded one myself.

Expand  

Oh yeah, thanks for cleaning up my mind about this.

Still, there are not that many NM-Max demos from what I've seen.

[Skullhacker]

  On 1/19/2020 at 12:26 PM, Pegg said:

It Is not. The reason nightmare exists to begin with is a lot of people can autopilot the Iwads even on UV. 

Expand  

Consider levels like E4M1, E4M2, E4M6 and E4M8. Also consider Tnt Evilution and Plutonia. Also consider stuff like Sunlust and Hell Revealed. I know that Doom is pretty easy if you've played it for a long time, but there are lots of popular megawads that defined Doom for us and gave it the reputation it deserves. Because of this, Doom is still one of the most brutal games ever.

[Skullhacker]

  On 1/19/2020 at 12:29 PM, Castelia said:

Side note, how do you get 100% kills in Nightmare? Does it end up with an overflowing percentage like the Icon of Sin fight usually does?

Expand  

I think so.

[Nine Inch Heels]

@Skullhacker consider using the multiquote feature, or mark the text you want to quote. That way you don't need to spam posts and instead have it all nice and tidy in a single post.

[Skullhacker]

  On 1/19/2020 at 1:53 PM, Wereknight said:

*laughs so goddamn hard that throat hurts* Dude 90s are long time gone.

Expand  

I know. But just look at Tnt and Plutonia. You don't need to personally attack me because of a stupid thing I said.