Anyone here who has tried Ultra NM? Do you play... way worse?

[Kute]

I'm finally giving this damn mode a go. I've beaten the game a few times on NM without dying, without using any kind of superweapon or buff or killing aid, so I thought it's time to have a go at it.

 

And yet I just had to log off in disgust after the first marauder fight, after being forced to heal up on the fodder zombies, and being forced to use that berserk powerup in that big room where the elevator falls through like 60% into the game or so. I don't feel nervous or anything - but I just can't play. This is crazy that I've had to back off like 5 or 6 fights already and this is content I usually laugh through. is this normal am I psyching myself out? I just want to get this over with because if I'm honest, I don't find this game mode very enticing. I played Diablo 2 HC exclusively as a kid where there's alot more time on the line, but I don't care about that kind of shit anymore. I just want that nice gold armour

[dyshoria]

I never play on ultra nightmare it just seems like its more tedious than fun.

[BGreener]

It hasn’t made me play worse, it did reveal all the cracks in my playstyle and encouraged me to play more mindfully while utilizing more of the mechanics. Regular Nightmare had me seeing how little I could use for each encounter: I would rarely flamebelch, I would never quickscope, never use the chaingun, never knew what the big deal was with those hallway tentacles…There wasn’t much consequence. I’d die but so what? It saved before every encounter, big deal, and I’d get another go at the game’s fun combat.

 

Ultra Nightmare spun me right around and had me 180 on all that. Now it’s give me that armor, chaingun shield GO, quickscoping into other weapons, and oh fuck I missed that tentacle and lost a chunk of armor/health.

 

One thing that helped tremendously was having a go at the master levels on UNM first: Goofing up wasn’t as devastating because it’s restarting a level, and it gave me an edge for the campaign UNM gauntlet.

Edited March 11, 2022 by BGrieber

[Kute]

On 3/11/2022 at 1:25 PM, BGrieber said:

It hasn’t made me play worse, it did reveal all the cracks in my playstyle and encouraged me to play more mindfully while utilizing more of the mechanics. Regular Nightmare had me seeing how little I could use for each encounter: I would rarely flamebelch, I would never quickscope, never use the chaingun, never knew what the big deal was with those hallway tentacles…There wasn’t much consequence. I’d die but so what? It saved before every encounter, big deal, and I’d get another go at the game’s fun combat.

 

Ultra Nightmare spun me right around and had me 180 on all that. Now it’s give me that armor, chaingun shield GO, quickscoping into other weapons, and oh fuck I missed that tentacle and lost a chunk of armor/health.

 

One thing that helped tremendously was having a go at the master levels on UNM first: Goofing up wasn’t as devastating because it’s restarting a level, and it gave me an edge for the campaign UNM gauntlet.

That's pretty slick. I like that. 

It's definitely showing me that I don't shield enough. I will when I take a big hit and I think about it for a moment as I start to panic, but not productively or in a way that matters.

 

But it's absolutely crazy how terrible I am playing. I'm no champ but it's pretty rare that I get in trouble in normal doom eternal, and I am not being a gabby gabberson about such a trivial thing but this is crazy to me, every fight I am making a mess of. The gladiator guy had me at like 50 hp... in both phases. I don't even know. Both marauders in immora made me peace out and heal - which is shocking to me, I wouldn't have thought I could mess up a marauder fight at this point that badly if I wanted to. 

 

I'll try and finish it tomorrow, it really isn't enjoyable for me to play with this condition on. I know noone gets it on their first try, but if I die now in the last few lvls it's gonna kill my desire to do this for a bit. It seriously screws up my subconscious decision making or maybe it just adds a layer of thought that slows things down just a smidge.

 

It's weird if I watch like Decino's unm run, who didn't play the game very much, he looks so slow and his damage is so low. Man the icon of sin he didn't shoot for like the first 2 minutes of the fight! And the game just fell over and died for him. I know he had everything planned out as clearly he just wanted to get the run done and get back to his bread and butter of Doom2, but it's pretty interesting how understated his playstyle was, and he didn't even do PB - well he would but just as its own static thing, not as part of the rotation  

 

edit: k it's taking forever but for me to play an hour and a half a day is pretty good here in my late 30s. It's tough. I did uhh the 2 nekrovol levels - I'm actually a bit nervous for the khan makyr and icon fights, 90% of the time the bosses are comically easy but then once in a while they just demolish you in like one instant attack that doesn't seem to have any warnings they are coming that I can see, but I readily admit I don't know them very well and I can tunnel vision with the best of them

Edited March 13, 2022 by Kute

[Kute]

For the love of baby jesus asleep in his manger I died at that last arena before the khan makyr

 

Because I hadn't played in a couple days, I went on another save and pounded out that level real quick - effortless, felt good, real terminator. But then I log onto the UNM mode and immediately start mucking things up, and yea on the last arena I was actually having no problems, but to show you how unprepared for this mode I was I died without using up the cheat death once passive thing, with a full set of bfg and crucible ammo, and I'm pretty sure frost bomb off cd

 

I think I didn't notice the second cacodemon in that arena and it unloaded into my back =( 

Really lame way to die. Fuck why didn't I hit tab and put that passive on and clear it with bfg

That's a real kick in the noggin I reckon

 

[SteelPH]

After several attempts, I beat the first level and I am terrified to ever touch that save ever again. Hah.

[BGreener]

@Kute Ouch, I feel ya. A caco ended my run in front of the Icon of Sin, one moment of being unaware had me stupidly taking a jump pad right into its face.

 

They’re giant red and floating puffballs that can die so easily yet they’re so sneaky!

[Kute]

Yea and I swear they do sooo much damage.

 

99% of the time they are just a free trip up into the air + some armor, but like once every 40 fights I forget one exists and it kills me up.

 

And I really dislike the icon fights where caco/pe's are the spawn. When it's like any normal speed ground enemy I can honestly ignore them more or less but those ones float in from above

 

But that was a hard choke. I had everything left.

 

I'll never understand how those speedrunners with like base stats can just stand in lategame arenas PBing anything that moves and never dying. I know they are outputting alot of damage but they are always on the edge of dying and it never happens

[Kute]

3 hours ago, SteelPH said:

After several attempts, I beat the first level and I am terrified to ever touch that save ever again. Hah.

lol I totally understand this. I want the damn armour so I guess I'm gonna work at it.

 

After that first death today, I actually died again at the very first mancubus, so now on the 3rd attempt im back to gore nest

 

I think dying actually made it less annoying though tbh, feels like there's less pressure. If I die a couple times now though I have a feeling it owuld kill my motivation to do this in a hurry

[Kute]

Jesus christ I died again, to another cacodemon, the first one in mars core. I can't believe this. I don't think I've ever died on mars core in my entire life. Not even that first NM run where I was dying to some fights like 12 times. IDK why I'm forgetting these floating fuckfaces. I meathooked into the uhh carcass?, popped into the air to ballista him, turned slightly to kill the arachnotron and then heard the chomp and was at super low hp but thought I'd fight it out and died a split second later.

 

again cheat death passive and all my grenades were all unused. I'm really bad at this mode, I need to learn to press tab when I'm in a terrible spot and put on the stupid passive. Though it'd be early for that here anyways

 

I'm just... idk. I said I wouldn't grind this mode so IDK. I really dislike the dark apartment buildings level vought industries or arc industries whatever it is.

 

Fuck that's annoying. At least I don't lose months(years tbh) of gear like in diablo 2. Hurts your pride more than anything

My last like 4 runs before trying this were like, 4 deaths, 2 deaths, 0 deaths, 0 deaths. 

[BerserkerNoir]

You end playing worse because of the worry of dying during the campaign, because when I play Normal Nightmare and I play Better.

 

Edited March 16, 2022 by BerserkerNoir

[Kute]

Allright lads, Icon of Sin time. I have every CD left and all that jazz. Choke time.

[Kute]

I FUJCKING DIED ON THE SECOND PHASE

 

I'm so unbelievably annoyed.

I have never seen him summon mobs like he did in that phase. I had like 6 caco demons and 3 mancubus following me around at all times, I could not stop fighting the fucking demons. He was at like 10% and I could not stop throwing everything I had at this fucking infinite supply of cacos. By the end I was just running around looking for ammo. I'm in shock.

 

I have done that fight like 40 times while I was learning it and all that jazz - not fucking ONCE did I see this kind of shit. Not ONCE. I'm done with that. That's so stupid. I haven't died to the second phase of that boss fight in like IDK. It's a non factor fight. I didn't even think that could happen. I feel like I look like a liar right now, but I swear, I'd wipe a wave of his like 5 cacos, 2 mancubi, 2 pinkys, turn to him to take a shot, and there'd be a caco hitting me. 

 

I can't make any sense of this. 

[Kute]

Sorry this particular post right here was redundant, my apologies.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Kute

[Kute]

Was so peeved about that death I pumped the game out again - I swear on me gram, I've never seen anything like that bizarre never-ending caco cloud before in the last run. But without such buggy shenanigans, it was as easy as expected. In any event I am pleased, I did not find playing this mode particularly enjoyable but I felt like I had to get it over with.

 

Glad I can go back to playing purely for amusement. You play like shit in there.

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Kute

[Kute]

ps I did use a BFG shot outside of the icon fight, in that last arena with the 2 PE's and marauder and archvile, which I never do - but I really just wanted to get it done with

[Kute]

I gotta say, about that death I had before I got it - where I had this mass of cacos following me on icon phase 2

 

I do final sin every few days as like a 15 minute warm up, I like the fights for just teeing off on shit. I've probably killed him 20 times since I beat it on UNM. And the way I do it now for fun is just to see how fast I can kill him without using the BFG or crucible, I actually wonder if it's easier to just completely ignore the spawns and just run around the map shooting as you go - I literally never touch the spawns. I mean a limb only takes 3-4 seconds to kill with PB-SSG from the front, and the rest you can just pb-rocket while running around in the back, it's fun. But anyways...

 

 Still have not seen anything like that situation I found myself in. At most I'll get 1 or 2 cacos on my tail which are completely irrelevant, with maybe 2 or 3 fodder wandering around their spawn area and 1 or 2 random melee mobs somewhere about.. Infact the only mob that is really annoying is pain elementals and maybe normal mancubus - both of which were spawning on top of the cacos. It's not like I'm salty about it. Maybe a little. But still. It's so bizarre to me. Like I remember killing a couple with normal stuff, then suddenly there was enough to dblade a pack of like 5 of them, and as soon as I finished I was being charged by a pinky with a mancubus shooting at me - which got my cheat death - so I kill them and heal up a bit off it, and suddenly there's another wave of cacos coming at me with more mancubus shooting at me - It's just bizarre. That many demons just don't spawn, ever. What I wouldn't give to have had a recording of that particular fight. I missed a couple BFG shots, but like I said, I don't use the bfg on him the last like 10 kills and it's not like it allows some mass of demons to build up.