Playing cautiously and methodically, while boring, makes the game much easier than running and gunning

[Decay]

Doom's greatest strength is allowing/enabling a variety of playstyles, where you can be cautious and take it slow, or be aggressive and slam through everything, or a mix in between. This flexibility is certainly a core design philosophy that works so well in Doom's favour, being able to pick and choose your battles, when to run, when to fight, how to fight. There's always a certain amount of cautiousness when first playing because you don't know what's coming, but after that it falls to preference.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Strafing is boring, it makes combat too easy.

[Spectre01]

I generally take the survivalist approach and play in a way that minimizes risk and damage I take. Which is why you'll rarely see me complaining about hitscanners etc. I disagree with the notion that Doom needs to be played fast all the time or it's boring.

[Rytrik]

Yes. It's absolutely cheating. Any use of ingame mechanics in the way you desire to use them is cheating. 100%.

 

Fucking cheaters!

 

/s

Edited March 10, 2021 by Rytrik

[LadyMistDragon]

I always try to play cautiously, unless I have little choice, and that's usually mid-fight save time, say, when Cyberdemons are involved. Then I just unload, ammo permitting of course.

 

[Doomkid]

Decay said it perfectly.

 

To add onto that, there are some setups where slow, thoughtful play is the best means of survival, but others where running is necessary to avoid damage.

[Pirx]

12 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

Decay said it perfectly.

 

To add onto that, there are some setups where slow, thoughtful play is the best means of survival, but others where running is necessary to avoid damage.

 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

 

and it goes the same for knowing when to play fast or slow. 

just because one has made it so far playing carefully doesn't mean he won't get overrun for failing at crowd control, or for not making a dash for the bfg.

 

 

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

If I'm not particularly invested in a wad then I'm a dummy who shamelessly iddqds his way out of encounters so I don't have to stop playing way more recklessly than I should 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Marn

[Optimus]

Of course it's not cheating. Why people think it's cheating if you play Doom that way, since you use normal means and didn't type any cheat codes?

There is always the myth that Doom is run and gun, so you are not supposed to hide, that you must play in only one way.

I'll go slowly, I'll snipe with chaingun enemies from afar, will use choke-doors to let them come in few, will backtrack a lot the moment I see trouble and try to find a vantage point to make things easier.

[VoanHead]

12 hours ago, Silhou3tte said:

 

I have no idea where the idea that using cover is cheating came from. Many of dooms enemies DEMAND that you use cover, such as hit-scanners and the Arch-vile.

 

 

Never heard of it as a form of cheating before, but I've always heard from various boomer shooter enthusiasts that cover based shooters=bad and fps w/ fast paced, balls to the wall gameplay=good when Doom sometimes has you door fighting or taking cover like you said.

[Chezza]

If the game is easily won because the player is cautious, it's either the intention or a massive oversight from the developers.

 

We've already had many discussions about Doom's pacing whether it's fast paced action or slow horror etc. It's generally optional or the level design will determine the pacing, such as traps and slaughtermaps.

 

If Doom didn't allow for both slower and faster pace action, it would probably recieve the same criticism as Doom Eternal gets. There is no Journalist difficulty setting in that game. You play its way, and it's fast.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Chezza

[ReaperAA]

7 hours ago, Spectre01 said:

I generally take the survivalist approach and play in a way that minimizes risk and damage I take. Which is why you'll rarely see me complaining about hitscanners etc. I disagree with the notion that Doom needs to be played fast all the time or it's boring.

 

Same here (especially when I am playing a wad for the first time or doing an Ironman)

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Running in guns ablaze is how you get yourself killed by zombies, viles and arachnotrons on your first playthrough.

[yakfak]

even within the team that made Doom there were arcadey players and cautious players!

 

check out how MAP10 plays on a continuous playthrough vs how it plays as a pistol start, too, sometimes the game lets you know that too much valor will get you game over'd.

 

I don't really think of door-fighting as an exploit or what have you, but it looks bad in a demo and on stream and its that kinda meta-trend that defines how things get played

 

[Zulk RS]

On 3/11/2021 at 12:31 AM, Decay said:

Doom's greatest strength is allowing/enabling a variety of playstyles, where you can be cautious and take it slow, or be aggressive and slam through everything, or a mix in between. This flexibility is certainly a core design philosophy that works so well in Doom's favour, being able to pick and choose your battles, when to run, when to fight, how to fight. There's always a certain amount of cautiousness when first playing because you don't know what's coming, but after that it falls to preference.

 

This! This is why Doom is my favorite game. It makes me feel like I can actually play however I want without having to worry about my way being "Less Viable/optimal" in the long run. Yeah, I'm no Doom god by any stretch of the imagination but I never felt that my "badness" at Doom was due to my preference for cover, cowardly, methodical and "Boring" style of play (except for a bunch of Plutonia Maps) but rather due to my own lower skill level. I always felt that if I tried/practiced more, I could become a Doom god (not likely to happen in reality. Just saying in theory) without needed to change my way of playing the way I do. 

 

Also take this next part with whole sack of salt because now I'm going into stuff where I really don't know what I'm talking about. I feel like DOOM 2016 and Doom Eternal kinda missed this point. Now I may be completely wrong here because I have not played DOOM 2016 and Doom Eternal so honestly, I don't know what I'm talking about. The reason I feel this way is because, I have watched gameplay videos of Doom Eternal and DOOM 2016 and with how all the videos I've watched had the player zip-zoomin around the map, changing weapons 3 times per second, going one shot with rockets, one shot with shotgun, one grenade, 0.5 seconds of chaingun switch to chainsaw etc. etc; I feel like the new games just don't support methodical and slow play at all. Like the Devs went all in on the "Doom means big aggresion and much speed RAAAAA" aspect and forgot all about the fact that Classic Doom swings both ways. Even Brutal Doom lets you be methodical if you want. On the instances I do boot up Brutal Doom, I find myself rarely doing "Fatalities" or dual wielding weapons etc. and instead pushing the "aim alt. fire" to its very limit to take pot-shots at enemies from halfway across the map.