Is DOOM 2 meant to be played continuously?

[Scorpinax]

I think the reason so many people make maps pistol startable is that its just easier as the designer. Otherwise when testing you'd need to play through the other maps up to that map and figure out *roughly* how much ammo the player would have, then spawn that in and go from there.

[Yousuf Anik]

52 minutes ago, Scypek2 said:

 

Or Nightmare. You get double ammo there too.

Right. But that is way too difficult and I would not recommend it :(

[Jack9955]

I personally hate the open levels (MAP13, MAP15, etc.)

[erzboesewicht]

Doom 2 has some quite harsh pistol starts, considering the generally low difficulty level. Often it doesn't become clear where to search for the good weapons, so a bit of trial and error is necessary (before you know the maps well). I've just played MAP04, it's not one of the difficult ones, but yes, the hitscanners at the start are slightly tricky, its easy to die if you tackle them too aggressively. Opening and closing the door fastly to make hitscanners infight is a trick I've seen to do this map even pacifist :)

 

One I struggle regularly with to do without saving and pistol starting is MAP23 (Barrels o' fun) which was already mentioned, and Lewonx (who categorized maps per difficulty) has categorized it as the most difficult pistol start, however when you get past the pain elementals and know where to jump in that open pit with chaingunners & AV you've essentially won, even if you don't find the megasphere. But also MAP24, MAP25 and MAP29 are tricky and keep you on your toes until you find the first major ammo/health caches, and in MAP08, MAP19 and MAP28 (which have nonlinear elements) you may run into the wrong direction and run out of ammo.

[Mystic 256]

I'd say its meant to be play continuously however the individual maps themselves must be possible via pistol start

[Wyrmwood]

Probably, but I pistol start anyway.

 

Tried both but pistol starting is liberating, not having to worry about stockpiling or leaving behind health to top up before the exit. Give's the game more of a survival horror aspect I enjoy too.

[Murdoch]

I think there's a difference between intended to be played continuous versus allowing for possible pistol starts. Clearly continuous play was the primary aim, because no saviour of humanity is going to leave an area and go "Eh, best I give the demons a fighting chance" and toss all his gear in the bin before moving on. Also, they could remove all your gear if they wanted to, but they didn't. No game has ever done that except for story points like Half-Life where Gordon gets dumped in the trash compactor. That said, they did allow for pistol starts due to the nature of the design as someone said above, to allow for people wanting to restart a map cause they died and didn't save for a bit.

 

 

So is it possible to pistol start? Sure. Is it possible for you to pistol start? Maybe not. Everyone approaches fights in different ways with different skill levels. So I think you're probably overthinking this a bit.

 

[houston]

On 6/5/2023 at 1:18 PM, Maximum Matt said:

how much better Doom II would've been if it had carried over the episodic structure from Doom I - it would've forced pistol starts at least three times in the game, and c'mon, who wouldn't like starting from scratch and fighting to get back all your weapons again multiple times??

Absolutely. Clearly you're meant to die at least once or twice through the game and lose it all at SOME point, but the sheer number of maps and that alluring possibility of being completely stocked up on all ammunition types at all times encourages players to instead go through the tedium of quicksaving on the start of every level instead. Given that this is the way most players are going to try playing through the game (unless they start off a level with simply too little HP), I think it would be much better for the game to pace the players like that. I don't tend to make saves in general too, so remembering the last map I did to idclev too would personally be easier for me if the game were split into episodic chunks.

 

On 6/5/2023 at 8:03 PM, Roofi said:

idclev xx is a cheat code before everything else.

I wouldn't say that much, I think it's basically just a way of accessing the "-warp" argument inside of the game. It's an indispensible tool for any repeat playthrough, and personally I think it can hardly be considered a cheat when pistol-starting is usually more difficult than keeping stuff from previous levels.

[peach freak]

How far along do you get in the level before you run out of ammo? There's a secret fairly early on that contains a Super Shotgun and plenty of Shotgun shells, enough to get you through the rest of the level, also the Shotguns you can pick up from the Shotgun Guys behind the opening/closing windows at the start provide a decent amount of ammo.

[Pechudin]

On 6/3/2023 at 11:48 PM, RataUnderground said:

In fact, there is a well-known anecdote that many Doom 2 maps are easier than they should be because most are balanced for Pistol Start. 
 

I would not call them 'balanced' for pistol-start, more like 'doable'. Which for some people (I would count myself amongst them) is balanced provided you know the maps well.

[RataUnderground]

7 minutes ago, Pechudin said:

I would not call them 'balanced' for pistol-start, more like 'doable'. Which for some people (I would count myself amongst them) is balanced provided you know the maps well.

Sandy (and I imagine the rest of the IDs as well) made their maps and tested them doing pistol start. He didn't even test them in continuous runs (imagine what a nightmare) and it wasn't even clear in what order the maps were going to appear. Also keep in mind that in 1993 the philosophy regarding difficulty in video games was somewhat different than it is now. In today's games, the public perceives frustrating elements and unfair difficulty as bad design. Back then, it was the norm. "You've been killed for the tenth time in a bullshit trap? Well, that's life." 
 It's ironic that today, the original Doom games are perceived as easy wads.

Edited June 9, 2023 by RataUnderground

[Gentlepoke]

On 6/5/2023 at 5:30 PM, Jack9955 said:

I personally hate the open levels (MAP13, MAP15, etc.)

I gave this a crack (Pistol Start UV) on each map, and I've found that MAP13 / MAP15 aren't that bad. It's the MAP09 / MAP10 double-header which causes far more stress.

[cybdmn]

On 6/3/2023 at 10:56 PM, Skerbergs said:

Am I missing something?

 

Yes. If Doom II were created for continuous play, id Software would change the sky in continuous play.

[Gez]

Is Doom II meant to be played continuously? Given that it's the default behavior of the game (finish a map, go to the next, with all your inventory kept), the answer is yes.

 

But there's another question you could ask, which is different: Are the Doom II maps meant to be playable from a pistol start? The answer is also yes. This is how they were playtested, and it's also a default part of the game: if you die in a level, you restart it with your inventory reset.

 

Finally, there's a third question you can ask, given that "restart upon death" thing: are you meant to savescum the levels so that you don't die and can be massively overpowered at the end? Once again, since the game by default features a fully working (okay, there's a few bugs, obviously) save and load system that you can use at any point at your own discretion, the answer is still yes.

 

In conclusion, play the game however the Hell you want to play it. It's all good.