Do you care about getting good at Doom?

[Kwisior]

Do you try to push your skill level often, or are you mostly satisfied?

 

Personally, I like beating challenging stuff and pushing myself to the limit, since the satisfaction is great. I also don't mind more chilled-out WADs. My sweet spot is something that takes me more than a couple restarts, but doesn't make me angry.

However, my main goal is appreciating the talent and ingenuity of this community, and through getting good I can do that without too much frustration.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Kwisior

[Project H]

Not really, usually i end up with low HP while playing DooM 2 and I die a lot

[volleyvalley]

I do care about getting better at Doom, since then you can play and appreciate the harder .WAD's, especially since the most well-known and memorable levels are quite difficult, so it never hurts to get better at the game, since doing so you can uncover the beauty of those .WAD's.

[DSC]

Being a good player is kind of a pre-requisite for being a good mapper, so if you want to start making good levels there's a big incentive to increase your skill level.

[RHhe82]

I would say I don't care about getting good at Doom. I don't consciously push myself, and certainly I'm not insisting on restraints I don't enjoy and, most importantly, don't have time for. I don't stream, I don't make gameplay videos, and while I could do demos, I don't bother doing that in a competitive sense, because any pro doomer worth anything would out-do me in an instant. Doom is a fun pastime for me.

 

But there are a few things that drive me towards getting better. Too easy maps are not that exciting, and brute-forcing (basically abusing save system or using actual cheat codes) maps is neither.  So, while my playing is not hell-bent on pro sports practice, I'm still slowly getting better, whether I want it or not. And there's element of actually wanting it: because I want to be able to tackle on some harder wads, that look amazing and that will one day represent the optimal level of challenge that's not too easy nor does not frustrate or overwhelm.

[thiccyosh]

Nah

[Andrea Rovenski]

yeah i want to be the best player :)

[Mr. Freeze]

No.

[Trustanus]

I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch noobs is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Teach doomers to understand
The power that's inside

[mrthejoshmon]

Nah I ain't here to big myself up with my hardcore Sunder 1 hit = death playthrough.

Doom is a comfortable game for me, I play it to enjoy myself rather than set myself an arbitrary task to prove myself to... Who exactly?

[LadyMistDragon]

I'm fine where I'm at. Mostly because beating things like Dimension Map 01 saveless is not worth it too me because at that point it's just killing many things with overwhelming odds, and while things like Occula  and Swim with the Whales might have to be played thoroughly in the future, that's also probably a firm upper limit for me skill-wise.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I mean, I love playing on HMP for a reason. :l

[Grain of Salt]

Getting better: yes. Getting good: not really.

[Al-Faris M]

2 hours ago, Kwisior said:

Do you try to push your skill level often, or are you mostly satisfied?

Mostly satisfied about my skill level, I like hard non-grindy wads but not to an extent where I keep dying in the same area for 20+ times, however I would like to try grindy maps and slaughtermaps to upper my skill level.

 

58 minutes ago, Trustanus said:

I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch noobs is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Teach doomers to understand
The power that's inside

I wanna push it to the test
To separate myself from the rest

More or less: Beating Sunlust MAP30 is my quest

Deathmatch with the noobs from the east to the west

Edited June 5, 2023 by Al-Faris M

[Kwisior]

13 minutes ago, Al-Faris M said:

Mostly satisfied about my skill level, I like hard non-grindy wads but not to an extent where I keep dying in the same area for 20+ times, however I would like to try grindy maps and slaughtermaps to upper my skill level.

You can start with Hell Revealed (grindy) and Rush (slaughter).

Edited June 5, 2023 by Kwisior

[Bank]

After playing very casually for decades I was really taken by the current wave of super challenging, postmodern wads that appear impossible at first glance but train you (usually through frustration) to conquer them. Some niche stuff like extreme platforming still evades me a bit but I want to enjoy interesting stuff that is coming out so that has sorta forced me to git gud. There’s a new mapping vocabulary around skill and understanding mechanics that has really reinvigorated my love for this game/community.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Bank

[slowfade]

Whereas I'm happy to improve (slowly) it's not my goal as such. Fortunately we have a lot of great players that also record demos and videos so I get to understand how some of that crazier stuff is even beatable.

[BigBoy91]

I mean, yeah. It's a big hobby of mine. Not trying to be the slaughter king though. I have other shit to do with my day.

Edited June 5, 2023 by BigBoy91

[VoanHead]

Not necessarily. I try my best to enjoy what there is to offer, from the ez wads, to wads that are much tougher but equally fun to play. I wouldn't call myself a good doom player, but actually an experienced one at that.

[aboyes1989]

I really just like the explorative aspects of Doom more than anything else, particularly on the PS1 ports. So no desire to 'get good'.

[Capellan]

Not in the slightest.  I play computer games to relax and enjoy myself, and very rarely have much interest in "getting good" at them.  I did work a bit on getting better at Civilization IV, back in the day, but that was very much the exception (and even then, I only ever got to solidly-Monarch-level player, which is difficulty level 5 of 7, IIRC).  I play Doom WADs on HMP and if they're too difficult to be fun for me then I play something else.  It's not like I am short on options.

 

On the other hand, other people find "getting good" to be fun, and that's just as valid a form of enjoyment.

[baja blast rd.]

There's a lot of "getting better" that isn't rooted in the skills people think of, such as:  

 

- Mental game and mindset, not getting frustrated or angry

 

- Playing in a stylish enjoyable way (even if that results in a few more deaths sometimes)

 

- Enjoying wads that would be "too easy for you" and boring by engaging with them on their own terms rather than playing in a really safe, survival-first way

 

- Being able to adopt different play styles or play modes depending on the circumstance (I have several+ playstyles depending on what I'm playing) 

 

- Choosing the right play settings

 

- Being able to choose what you engage with depending on the type of the map you're playing

 

- Managing your play routines to play more without burning out or getting tired of the game

 

- Being more observant and better at criticism, and practices that help that (like post-session note-taking)

 

- Managing your saves to avoid catastrophic "your fault" events like saving into an unwinnable position with no backups

 

- Being good at choosing and finding "frame activities" to boost the fun you have (such as video/clip recording, club-style activities, review and critique, arbitrary play constraints, scavenger hunts for interesting observations, playing to learn and run experiments, playtesting)

 

- Being able to gracefully quit/DNF 

 

- Avoiding toxic practices (like if you notice that backlogs are bad for you -- I never have a backlog at all despite playing many wads a year)

 

- Trying new things and being open-minded (like, this year I'm going to dabble in doing something I haven't really done much before, which is playing sample maps of sets I otherwise would not have the time to play at all)

 

Sometimes people have the mindset that fun is simply something what you're doing should be on its own, and entirely the responsibility of the work you're trying to enjoy -- but I have found this an unhelpful mindset and that enjoying yourself more is a skill like anything else. Compared to 2016-2017 I'm basically impossible to make even slightly upset in casual play, and I found that is obviously a huge positive. You're the manager of your own hobbies and it's up to you to get the most out of them. 

[Borg]

Sometimes I go on a mission trying to get better. Then I think that maybe I have gotten better. Then I watch Zeromaster play the same level. Mission aborted.

[Wyrmwood]

No, although I had to improve just to be able to play many pwads. Just got better naturally through playing though, to begin with I didn't make it past 5-6 maps into many mapsets but eventually improved until I could finish some, initially I was jumping around been wads a lot. For the most part these days I can finish a reasonable amount of wads I try although there's still plenty of stuff above my skill level.

 

I still play mostly on HMP, only pick UV for stuff I re-play.  

Edited June 5, 2023 by Wyrmwood

[enigma101]

Not really. If I was playing it to show to people then I would, but otherwise I just play it for fun whilst getting better as well.

[Anarkzie]

I'm actually pretty decent but I don't see the point in setting a goal of getting better at Doom. It's not really a competitive game so if I were to become the best what would I do with these skills?

 

Tekken is the only game that I actually put effort into becoming better.

[houston]

As a dignified computer user, I feel like I ought to be able to put up a pretty good deathmatch, remember the layout and secrets of the most iconic levels, beat at least the first episode in under par time, etc. If I can't do that, then what have I even spent all of this time on Doom for?

[Murdoch]

Not remotely. I have been playing it for nearly 30 years, so I think I am as good as I am likely to get. I have one objective when playing games - fun. If I find myself getting pissed off too much, I stop and move on. I have many better things to do than get angry at something that's supposed to be fun.

[Chezza]

Missed opportunity for a poll, I think.

 

Honestly I don't care. I like my difficulties to match Hurt Me Plenty in Doom and Doom 2 when playing with Brutal Doom or Project Brutality mod.

 

I prefer difficulty to be slow paced as well, for example, I'd rather count my last 12 shells while in low health and pop out a corner to blast a couple fodder demons - leaving me with 10 shells but excited for the box of plasma cells and medkit behind them. Instead of say, 6 cyber demons appear in a large wall opening, with just a couple pillars behind me for cover as I dodge, trying to pick up a bfg sitting just infront of them.

[ChocolateFitz]

I am slowly getting into Nightmare! And I mostly want a fun and challenging experience. I do not care too much about getting good anymore as I am losing motor skills as we typically do when we grow older, but anything can be beaten with some perseverance.