What's the most you've handicapped yourself when playing Doom?

[SPG]

This question isn't just the usual "what's the hardest map you've played on the highest difficulty" but also what other conditions have you set yourself to make it harder on yourself? Some considerations: playing keyboard only, turning off "always run" (and only running when necessary for platforming/secrets), using mods to stack the odds against you such as changing RNG so you always deal the minimum damage and monsters deal the most damage, playing blindfolded, etc. The more unusual the handicap you set yourself, the more I want to hear about it!

[BaileyTW]

There's a challenge thread somewhere on the doom general, and I was challanged to beat Go2It keyboard only. Easy enough that's how I did it the first time (it was a long while before I played doom with a mouse), but without strafing, so just turning and forward and back. This is agony when dealing with the hallway cyberdemons. I remember not beating it at the time but some time when replacing my mouse I tried it again and got it but that was not worth it, do not do this.

[spineapple tea]

Not sure if this counts as a handicap exactly, but sometimes I've given myself the challenge of "if I die once, I'll do x amount of pushups". Sort of a good incentive to really try to not die as I'd also do it saveless and pistol-start. Went well for Scythe 2 for the first two episodes (this was a long while ago) but gave up to give my poor arms a break around the third when maps started getting longer and harder. Tried Plutonia too, doing five pushups per death. This had to come to an end when I looked at the paper I kept tallies on and realized I'd done somewhere in the ballpark of one thousand over the course of about two or so days (if you do the math it comes out to way too many deaths for a player like me).

 

As for more conventional handicaps though, I found myself exclusively playing pistol-start and saveless recently. I was inspired by a thread to start pistol-starting maps, but the saveless part weirdly just kinda happened. About a month after beginning the habit I suddenly realized "I haven't saved my game in weeks" and just kept up the streak until I built up a grudge against saving all together.

[SPG]

1 minute ago, Spineapple tea said:

Not sure if this counts as a handicap exactly, but sometimes I've given myself the challenge of "if I die once, I'll do x amount of pushups". Sort of a good incentive to really try to not die as I'd also do it saveless and pistol-start. Went well for Scythe 2 for the first two episodes (this was a long while ago) but gave up to give my poor arms a break around the third when maps started getting longer and harder. Tried Plutonia too, doing five pushups per death. This had to come to an end when I looked at the paper I kept tallies on and realized I'd done somewhere in the ballpark of one thousand over the course of about two or so days (if you do the math it comes out to way too many deaths for a player like me).

 

As for more conventional handicaps though, I found myself exclusively playing pistol-start and saveless recently. I was inspired by a thread to start pistol-starting maps, but the saveless part weirdly just kinda happened. About a month after beginning the habit I suddenly realized "I haven't saved my game in weeks" and just kept up the streak until I built up a grudge against saving all together.

I hadn't thought of a handicap like pushups, but it's fascinating to hear all the same! If I ever died more than once, I think I'd be in trouble! XD

[DoomGater]

In our old office we played one-handed only, because we needed the 2nd hand for the phone. Not si much fun, but...it works..:-)

[SilverMiner]

Handicapping yourself when playing games?

No, thanks

[Nightmare2989]

1 minute ago, SilverMiner said:

Handicapping yourself when playing games?

No, thanks

Agree why add more stress no need to lose your sanity over handicaps 

[Nightmare2989]

I think the best handicap are the one where you forbid yourself from using a certain gun like map 32 go 2 it completes that without BFG or dead simple just complete with ssg 

[Nightmare2989]

and if you count playing with a controller a handicap add that as well and if playing with brutal doom is another add that but i never had a issue playing with controller 

[xScavengerWolfx]

I think for me it would be "how far can i go without saving" I mean i don't believe in the whole save spamming, i like to get a far i can before saving. I ain't good enough to do save less.

[Nightmare2989]

2 minutes ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

I think for me it would be "how far can i go without saving" I mean i don't believe in the whole save spamming, i like to get a far i can before saving. I ain't good enough to do save less.

I tend to save spam if it helps my sanity if the map bullshit but i agree i tend to try and not save a much 

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

Sometimes I play with trackpoint instead of mouse. Mainly for testing ready difficulties in my maps. 

[Thelokk]

Me being me at Doom is enough of a handicap already. 

[yakfak]

i don't use speechcraft or daedric/glass gear and i put alchemy as one of my major skills so if i'm abusing it i get levelled too quickly to cope with the uh demons

[Murdoch]

When I first tried to play it on my family's 486DLC 40mhz with 4mb of RAM and no sound card.

[BaileyTW]

Guess i handicapped myself today in speedrunning Scythe's map 26 while having covid again. Yup, definitely an intentional handicap.

 

Actually stopped a bit early on it yesterday when my heart was racing just a but too much. Felt it was probably unhealthy for that to be going on even if 2nd time around wasnt as bad as the first.

Edited October 20, 2022 by BaileyTW

[Shepardus]

I've played Doom with mouse only (no keyboard). I didn't stick with it for long, but Roofi's played through all of the original three episodes that way:

 

[BaileyTW]

18 minutes ago, Shepardus said:

I've played Doom with mouse only (no keyboard).

 

A dark horse has entered the "was doom designed with mouse and keyboard mainly in mind" debate.

[baja blast rd.]

Aside from sillly mouse-only play, probably playing without running.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SiFi270]

Playing the Mac version before SheepShaver could handle mouse movement in FPS games. Doom in particular only has a handful of control presets, and the closest one to WASD is IJKL, with J and L stuck as turning keys and U and O used for strafing instead. You CAN choose a firing button, but ctrl is out of the question, so I picked Z instead.

[ReaperAA]

Probably my best handicapped achievement would be that some time ago, I beat all of Valiant's maps (UV and without saves or continuous) on my laptop without mouse (so using keys and laptop's trackpad).

[RHhe82]

2 hours ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

I think for me it would be "how far can i go without saving" I mean i don't believe in the whole save spamming, i like to get a far i can before saving. I ain't good enough to do save less.

This is also as far as I go. Save as seldom as possible. And that leaves a lot of wiggling room for whenever I attempt harder wads on whatever difficulty.

 

Fancy mods might be fun, but playing with a guitar hero controller, blindfolded on Nightmare pistol starts isn’t something I particularly desire to achieve in this life or the next.

[smeghammer]

This...

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/omdo-is-what-happens-when-you-turn-doom-into-a-magic-eye-puzzle/

 

Deliberately crossing your eyes to try and see the Entryway in 3D was - er- a challenge...

 

It bloody works though! Unplayable mind you.

[Nightmare2989]

2 hours ago, BaileyTW said:

Guess i handicapped myself today in speedrunning Scythe's map 26 while having covid again. Yup, definitely an intentional handicap.

 

Actually stopped a bit early on it yesterday when my heart was racing just a but too much. Felt it was probably unhealthy for that to be going on even if 2nd time around wasnt as bad as the first.

Hope you feel better soon mate and scythe good wad

[HorseJockey]

My handicap is that I only play Lilith.pk3. In all seriousness though, I enjoy pistol starts with a weapon randomizer, and I add a rouge lite rule where if I die once I start over. Mostly just do runs of Doom and Doom II this way as I know the maps and enemies. The weapon randomizer doesn't add new weapons, it just randomizes all the weapon and ammo spawns. So you could start a new map and all the spawns could be switched to pistols and clips, I have it set up so I will never get "ooops, all BFG" levels as that would take the challenge out of it. All rockets is actually interesting, especially on the more claustrophobic maps.

[HorseJockey]

1 hour ago, smeghammer said:

This...

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/omdo-is-what-happens-when-you-turn-doom-into-a-magic-eye-puzzle/

 

Deliberately crossing your eyes to try and see the Entryway in 3D was - er- a challenge...

 

It bloody works though! Unplayable mind you.

I loved magic eye books as a kid. I had never heard of this, it's awesome! Meant to put this in the edit for my first post, sorry about the double. Poor form.

Edited October 20, 2022 by HorseJockey
double post

[Zero Master's Clone]

I have played DOOM 1 with my eyes closed.

 

oh, and another one is I played multiple wads (I don't remember which ones) with keyboard only on nightmare with my fingers tied together with not so stretchy rubber bands.

 

keyboard only is not part of the handicap.

 

I have done some other things but I did them when I was a little kid so I don't know if I will remember what I did.

I should write these things down.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Zero Master's Clone

[Clippy]

 

 

[TheCarsEdge]

beating doom with a single joycon and on nightmare difficulty

not the nightmare difficulty but more the fact that on a single joycon controls suck

[Nightmare2989]

11 minutes ago, TheCarsEdge said:

beating doom with a single joycon and on nightmare difficulty

not the nightmare difficulty but more the fact that on a single joycon controls suck

Guessing the joycon for the switch it can't be anywhere as bad a the N64 Controller