What do you think of saving the game every time you enter a new level to load upon dying?

[Gabrioco-chan]

So, i'm pretty new to the classics, with +- 30 hours total on both doom 1 and 2, my first doom experience was with DOOM 2016 on 2019 when i was at my brother's house, some years later i bought the classics bundle and then i finished the 1st doom episode on the oficial port, after the first episode, i watched some doom videos and then installed GZDoom, but after some days playing GZDoom, i didn't like it at all because it's not even close to the original doom with GZDoom default settings. So, GZDoom loads the last save when you die, at first i didn't like the idea of not pistol starting every time you die as it happens with the oficial port and the original doom, but i ended up getting used to it and then i started saving the game every time i entered a new level, even after going to Prboom+, which HAS pistol start, even then, i stil save and load my save from the beginning of the level. If some level has a part where i find it too hard for me, i end up saving it at that specific point. And now it got me thinking, i'm loosing some kind of unique doom experience by doing this, or it's just my way to play the game? Plus, i play at HMP, the game looks cakewalk at some points, but on others it is really hard, and UV looks insane on some levels, what do y'all think? It's just a newbie thing of it's fine to do that? 

(Ah, sorry for my bad english, i'm not good with big texts) :p

[LadyMistDragon]

I've never really thought too much about it to be honest. It literally said in the instruction manual you could save. Even though it also said that you start with your pistol when you die. Starting over seemed like a ridiculous lack of continuity so I played continuous for the longest time. It was only upon joining the doom community for good (maybe sort of) that I realized it might not be exactly beneficial for a multitude of reasons/

[dasho]

I will never understand why this remains a question people ask. I can understand emulators and save states/rewinds and whether or not that constitutes truly beating a game, but this is a feature that has always been present. There is no unique experience to lose out on, just an optional self restriction which has been blown out of proportion. Levels should be beatable from a pistol start for QA purposes, but it's really not special other than that.

[Lucius Wooding]

If you're just doing continuous play and want to save at the start to avoid replaying already beaten levels, I don't think it's much more of an advantage than continuous already is. It lets you take a few weapons and resources into a map, but depending what you're playing it might not matter a whole ton or it might make the map a joke if it's meant to be tight on supplies. It's also balanced out a bit since I assume you're doing this playing wads blind, which is a fairly big factor in difficulty. But people make wads in a very wide range of difficulty so a single player isn't going to be able to beat everything out there. For each set of maps the player has to decide for themselves and weigh the fun factor vs the challenge. 

 

Using saves mid map is probably the biggest advantage you can give yourself though. It can't be overstated how much easier maps become when you can rely on your best execution (and RNG) rather than how you can play consistently. It's a great tool for maps above your skill level, for practice and playtesting and to just steamroll them if you don't want to spend too long on them. It can give you a good experience playing various maps and make you a much better player in the long run. So I don't really have an issue with people who choose to use it as long as they don't pretend it's the same as playing single segment. Beating difficult, hour long maps is no joke. Personally I try to pistol start and play single segment for each map but I stay away from a lot of the longer and harder stuff and use saves or resurrect if I'm just trying to test the map out. I don't consider a map "beaten" unless I've beaten it pistol start UV max without saves. But there are a lot of maps I have no intention of doing that for now and I have used saves to experience it. Just my opinion.

 

 

 

 

[bofu]

Some people want to just experience the maps from start to finish. Their idea of completing the game is that they've cleared the levels, no matter how much they struggled to do so along the way. If it's a deliberately added game feature and isn't a cheat code, it's fair game.

 

Other people want to master the levels. They don't feel satisfied until they've beaten the map in the most grueling of self-imposed restrictions.

 

Other people aim for speed. They're not necessarily trying to "surmount" the level in a traditional sense. Maybe they're trying to find unintended shortcuts and see how optimized they can make their path through the level.

 

These are all valid ways to play. While I think it's a good idea to try a variety of different ways to see what brings you the most enjoyment, ultimately, the only person who should care how you play Doom is you, and anyone who tells you you're doing it wrong isn't someone you should be listening to.

 

If you want to save at the start of the level so that you don't have to pistol start if you die? I feel like that's a good middle ground between pistol start and saving normally. You still might lose significant amounts of progress if you die, but you also aren't losing your progress from before that level. I say if you have fun with that, keep doing that.

[Murdoch]

Why does this keep coming up?

 

Clearly, if you play the game incorrectly, you will be expelled from the Elite Doomers club and shunned forever more. Your children and your children's children will have scorn heaped upon them.

 

Or not.

 

Seriously, just play the game however suits you. Games are not a trial. They are supposed to be fun. Play it in the way you enjoy. You owe nobody any explanation of how you play your game. Saves were built into the game and intended to be used however suits you since day one. I save frequently, especially on big maps, cause I don't want to waste my time replaying a large chunk again due to one mistake. And I have been playing Doom since basically day one. And I absolutely positively could not give less of a shit what people think about this.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Murdoch

[pantheon]

I like to play continuously but accept each death and pistol restart. With what I've been playing, that usually amounts to getting an extended preview of the next level. If I can knock out a few "easy" levels in a row, well, there's more WADs out there to play than I'll ever have time for so why not. I feel like it's helped me improve and learn from mistakes and adds some tension. But as others have said, do whatever you actually enjoy the most. 

[Mr. Freeze]

Pistol Restart is the man's way to play tbh

[RHhe82]

8 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Why does this keep coming up?

 

I don't know either, but I can relate to OP's sentiments. I wonder if it's because the most prominent Doom content in YouTube is by the likes of Decino, who have the time and inclination to practice levels for show purposes, and viewer doesn't get to see the repetitions it takes to complete level, and the viewer might not realize they do it for (among other reasons) show purposes.

 

Or it may be because we get to see declarations that "I don't consider map beaten unless it's UV-MAX saveless pistol start". Then again, for some reason contrary declarations don't seem to count as much, so go figure.

 

For what it's worth, I consider level beaten if I've reached the end without exploiting glitches, bypassing most of the content. I only pistol start because most levels nowadays are designed around the concept. I try to save as seldom as possible, but only because constant saving breaks the immersion. Notice the word constant. I do use saves, because of limited amount of life left, there is other things in life than Doom, and there are a lot of really great wads I want to play instead of attempting 65535 times some level only because it's 1 hour long and ends with 128x128 room fight against two cyberdemons.

[Budoka]

1 hour ago, pantheon said:

I like to play continuously but accept each death and pistol restart. With what I've been playing, that usually amounts to getting an extended preview of the next level. If I can knock out a few "easy" levels in a row, well, there's more WADs out there to play than I'll ever have time for so why not. I feel like it's helped me improve and learn from mistakes and adds some tension. But as others have said, do whatever you actually enjoy the most. 

This is my preferred approach as well, dying is my form of checkpoint, which makes the whole thing so punishing that it essentially forces me into playing better. But it can certainly be outright discouraging depending on how much progress I lose as a result, and yeah, encounter setups like the example RHe82 gave can turn it all pretty obnoxious.

 

Anyway, saving is fine, it's when you reload a save until you get a perfect or near-perfect result, or just save every other minute that it becomes a problem. I mean, even a complete beginner at classic Doom could beat Dimensions like that if they brute force it for long enough, but... it doesn't mean anything.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Budoka

[retrogamer97]

I heard this thread topic many times. Save whenever a "checkpoint" presents itself. Like finding a key , hitting a switch or a starting a boss fight. Exceptions too like the map author has a crazy troll trap or the map is bugged. 

[Redneckerz]

Play the game the way you want to play it.

 

Nobody is going to shun you for your savescumming behavior.

 

People will shun you for asking if how you play the game is okay in the eyes of others.

[bulldawg8879]

im constantly savescumming and reloading.. never do pistol restarts either.. :/ I been playing off n on since the shareware version to

[Azuris]

 

7 hours ago, Gabrioco-chan said:

If some level has a part where i find it too hard for me, i end up saving it at that specific point. And now it got me thinking, i'm loosing some kind of unique doom experience by doing this.

 

No, you are loosing nothing, save as much as you want :)

 

4 hours ago, dasho said:

I will never understand why this remains a question people ask. I can understand emulators and save states/rewinds and whether or not that constitutes truly beating a game, but this is a feature that has always been present. There is no unique experience to lose out on, just an optional self restriction which has been blown out of proportion. Levels should be beatable from a pistol start for QA purposes, but it's really not special other than that.

 

This.

It is normal Feature that is there from the Beginning.
Keeping your Weapons is a normal Thing through Progression, Pistol Start is Challange Players make up for themselfs.

Don't make yourself crazy because of some "Elitists".

Before the upcoming of modern Consoles (ps3/xbox360) saving at any Point and as often as you wish was a normal Thing in PC Gaming.
Many Games even have F5 for Quicksave and F9 for Quickload, just because it was normal to reload quickly at hard Points.
Checkpoints is something they implemented because of the Limitations of Consoles.

[baja blast rd.]

Saving / no-saving is bourgeois casual vs. hardcore talk. 

 

Real Hardcore Gamers instead talk about...

 

Quote

Why does this keep coming up?

 

No but in all seriousness, threads fixated on saving and no-saving seems to dominate because it's an obvious thing that people know about. 

 

But it's not obvious that saving vs. no-saving map to casual vs. hardcore in any regular way. 

 

If I cared about Doom improvement, now that DSDA-Doom is out, I'd probably have thousands of saves and cycle through them to practice. I'd also save in several slots any single time I play one map so that I could easily jump around during revisits. That might read as "hardcore." 

 

But when I play Doom to chill, it's often going to be in some easy-enough-for-me map and I'll just not save because I don't really have to (and I like the feeling of dying deep into a map when it actually happens, and if I choose maps well to no-save in, this happens rarely enough that I don't mind the time loss). 

 

Imo someone who makes a big deal about no saving being hardcore would be a pseudo-elitist that can get called out by the Real Elites. :> 
 

To me way more meaningful distinctions are, like, "when you reach a hard fight, do you by default think of it as something you just want to get past, or do you want to understand it and master it?" Or, "what methods are in your conceptual toolkit?" Or, "what is your internal image of absurdly skilled play -- is it "someone beats encounter while taking no damage and wasting no ammo" or is it "someone reduces a very difficult encounter to how it might look as if a regular player were playing a moderate-difficulty encounter, but still makes 'blemishes' in that context?" 

 

Not that I care about those either. But those actually would matter in that context, and are more interesting discussions theoretically, but saves vs. no saves is pretty surface-level. 

 

 

That said, it doesn't actually look like the OP is overly focused on the casual-hardcore part of the equation like these threads often are. It looks more akin to "What settings should I use for a good experience?" So in that case the real answer is turn off texture filtering. ;) 

[Gabrioco-chan]

13 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

That said, it doesn't actually look like the OP is overly focused on the casual-hardcore part of the equation like these threads often are. It looks more akin to "What settings should I use for a good experience?" So in that case the real answer is turn off texture filtering. ;) 

 

EWWW, that was the first thing i did on the source port ngl, texture filtering is so weird lmao. I wonder why almost every retro game has it enabled by default, it just make the perfect sprites blurry.

And yea, you got me right, i am indeed searching for the best experience, both on original and custom wads :D

[Steveb1000]

Play it how you enjoy playing it.

 

 

[Majin]

no thoughts one way or the other

[Stupid Bunny]

If you’re not playing UV from forced pistol start using keyboard only at 320x200 resolution with capped framerate and never saving or pausing even to go shit then you are ruining the gameplay experience

 

No but please don’t give yourself headaches over how to play Doom the “right” way, for your own happiness. Saving is there for your convenience and enjoyment. I know because I went through a long phase where I, too, was like “I will not be doing it right if I save mid-level”, as if someone was watching (they weren’t) and cared a lot where and when I saved (no one does). Like others have said, saves aren’t a cheat, they are right there in the menu and if you want to use them at any time, go for it. If you want to play saveless, or only saving at the beginnings of levels, then do that. Do whatever makes it fun for you. Anybody who tries to sell you on the One True Way to play Doom is not a fun or interesting person and you shouldn’t worry about trying to impress them.

 

12 hours ago, Gabrioco-chan said:

it's just my way to play the game? Plus, i play at HMP, the game looks cakewalk at some points, but on others it is really hard, and UV looks insane on some levels

Yes exactly this :) it is your way to play the game. Simple as that 

 

Having said all this, my personal preference is to play smaller maps without mid-level saves, and larger maps with them. I’ll do pistol restarts if I’m one-offing maps or doing a short set, and reload restarts if it’s a megawad or, again, a set of larger maps. All of this is subject to adjustment depending on my patience, mood and how much free time I have

[Dark Pulse]

3 hours ago, Gabrioco-chan said:

EWWW, that was the first thing i did on the source port ngl, texture filtering is so weird lmao. I wonder why almost every retro game has it enabled by default, it just make the perfect sprites blurry.

Because today's kids grew up with 4xMSAA polygons right out of the gate, and so seeing some blocky pixels looks fugly to them.

 

There are definitely some nice pixel filtering algorithms (HQx/xBRZ are still kinda the gold standards there), but obviously it's got the same limits any pixel filtering algorithm does - there's only so much data in the original, and thus, there's only so much you can do with that data.

[Gregor]

4 hours ago, Gabrioco-chan said:

 

EWWW, that was the first thing i did on the source port ngl, texture filtering is so weird lmao. I wonder why almost every retro game has it enabled by default, it just make the perfect sprites blurry.

And yea, you got me right, i am indeed searching for the best experience, both on original and custom wads :D

 

The reason GZDoom starts out with mouselook and texture filtering ON plus the scaled down status bar is probably because that's how Graf Zahl, the designer of the port, likes his Doom; hence the name - Graf Zahl Doom.

 

 

It does make sense to make pistolstarts your default way of playing if you're going to play lots of pwads. That way there is no big difficulty spike when you suddenly decide to switch over to it for a specific mapset (for most modern custom wads UV pistolstarts is the intended experience). But if you just started out with Doom, don't worry about how you play or on what difficulty.

 

And don't let people in this thread make you feel bad about asking; it's a perfectly valid question. There's nothing elitist about doing UV pistolstarts. It's how Doom generally plays the best since that way you experience all the encounters in a map with the tools the map maker intended you to have in these moments. A lot of the subtle designs of enemy encounters in a map simply break or at least are heavily diluted if you're going into them fully equipped, so it makes sense to start from zero for each new level and let the map give you what it intends you to have. If it doesn't play well on pistolstarts, it's simply not a well-designed map. This is as true now as it was in the 90s.

 

Whether or not you're going for saveless runs is a completely different matter. That's when you are getting into challenge territory. Something to aspire to perhaps but not mandatory in any way. 

 

So my advice would be: go for pistolstarts as your default way of playing, switch to UV whenever you're ready (but don't feel bad about switching back to HMP for certain maps), and don't worry about playing saveless unless you want the challenge.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gregor

[heliumlamb]

you are, and always have, been able save if you want, wherever you want in the dooms (except in doom 64/most pre-2005ish console ports).

i do have some long-withheld, generalized thoughts about saving in video games:

i have run into some instances in other games where having the ability to save freely ends up detracting from my enjoyment.
either: due to "compulsive saving before each door" becoming a habit that begins to take some life out of the level design. or making a save, thinking "yeah i'll pick this back up no problem", then months-sometimes years pass and the razor sharp memory&focus i had at the time of making that save is completely gone in a "what was even going on?" sort of way. the ability to save wherever and whenever should not be taken for granted in any game that includes it. it is entirely possible to end up with a "bad save", but what constitutes as such differs from person to person, and from game to game.

 

i find it much easier to return to a game that has "save points", like the marathon trilogy, resident evil, king's field, demon's darks or even cruelty squad. all of these have some sort of predetermined structure to where and how and even if you might be able to save. some might call this practice "Artificial Difficulty", i say whatever and just play the games instead.

back to doom:

so if one does choose to save in doom, what sort of structure might be applied?

 

saving at the start of the level is always the easiest structure to set. playing a mapset continuously without mid level saves is definitely my preference, it's like the final dash of seasoning on a map, and has the potential to elevate my enjoyment of a given map thru thorough repetition. the start of the level is the closest doom has to a predefined "save point".

but like seasoning, going without mid level saves might become "too much", there is always the potential for it to detract from enjoyment. if my overall time spent playing a map starts to get too long(*), and i keep dying about 30+ minutes into a map, i'll begin to consider saving mid level. This is where the arbitrary nature of both map design and your ability to save intersect. my structure for saving in is whenever i'm safe after getting a key or overcoming a similar progression barrier. usually no more than 5 times a map in most cases. saving before each room has only been fun for me in one other fps game, and it certainly wasn't doom.

i'll only really do pistol start without saves if i'm playing a single map in isolation or feeling masochistic.

in short, enjoy your dooming! however you enjoy it, enjoy it.

edit: potentially unnecessary clarification
(*) this applies to long maps, usually ones that could take upwards of like 40 minutes to complete.

Edited August 24, 2022 by heliumlamb
potential clarification

[MTrop]

Many, many moons ago, I started playing Doom with cheats on because I liked BFG'ing monsters in the face. Now, I'm a middle-tier map designer!

 

Play Doom the way you want and let the dorks who flex their saving habits eat each other.

[Rymante]

I tend to get quickly bored & frustrated when I have to repeat sections I've already beaten because I died at a difficult section later on in the map, so if I know or suspect something tough is coming up I'm very grateful for the ability to save whenever I like.

[durian]

I hear Jesus saves, so it's probably okay.

[thiccyosh]

I think you should just enjoy the game. Save whenever you want.

[out_of_service]

Save to your hearts content my main man!

[Garlichead]

I play continuous, and normally save at the beginning of each level. 

 

Once i feel that a pwad starts getting slightly harder, i will start saving on a different slot after finding a a key and being on a safe spot. I like doing it this way as it means i wont have to start from scratch if i die and gives me some leeway to try different strategies or look for secrets when something bad happens.

 

If a map starts to get particularly hard, or if the maps relies too much on traps I tend to use quick saves to avoid the frustration of clearing sections over and over again.

 

I have noticed that when i am replaying a pwad i save less frequently as i already have an idea of where the traps may be. When i first played D2TWID i used to follow this strategy, but when i replayed it a couple of months ago i noticed i could beat most stages on a single run when saving at the beginning of the stage, even if i was now not doing an exercise to master the wad memorization kicks in and you develop vague ideas of where the nasty bits may be.

[Alex S.]

I entirely support saving as needed. If the developers didn't encourage this as a part of normal gameplay, they wouldn't have allowed it. I think shaming a player for "save-scumming" is ridiculous.

[Gregor]

1 hour ago, Alex S. said:

I entirely support saving as needed. If the developers didn't encourage this as a part of normal gameplay, they wouldn't have allowed it. I think shaming a player for "save-scumming" is ridiculous.

Doom has gone way beyond what the original developers intended. You can be sure for instance that they never expected people to continue to make mods for it long after Quake was released. The design and gameplay philosophies of Doom 1&2 have been changed and expanded upon by the community in numerous ways over the last three decades.

 

Therefore the argument "if Doom 1&2 did it, it's the right thing to do now" isn't necessarily valid anymore. Also, just because a feature is included doesn't mean excessive use of it is encouraged by the developers. That's what is meant by save-scumming. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with saving when you feel you need to. It's up to you how much challenge you want when playing Doom and what feels comfortable.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gregor