On being sucky at Doom

[RHhe82]

3 hours ago, Finnisher said:

 

The points they made about arch viles are good but if you want to play another mapset that is by the same mapper, still definitely challenging, but more manageable, play Sunlust.

 

It's a really great wad too! PS: Hurt Me Plenty and save often... just saying, lols

(and it gets positively brutal towards the end but the difficulty is really well paced imo).

I actually have played Sunlust on HMP, as I have played Stardate 20x6, too, on HMP, which is precisely why I wanted to play this one. Both were very enjoyable and good amount of challenge. 20x7 has been very doable on lower difficulties, it’s just that this map has a bug on non-UV difficulties resulting in a softlock. Otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted UV now…

 

EDIT: Got home from work and resumed playing with the map. Probably everyone guessed the next roadblock. The cyberdemon cramped arena was hard, but it felt something prior wads have prepared me better for. But then there's the staircase fight. I have yet to made (my best attempts had me clear roughly half of the revenants) -- but this fight feels different than the first fight. I know it's hard, I know I'm going to struggle with it, but it feels much more manageable than the first big fight of the map. (Also much more fun). The wall on the right side of the player as he exits the teleport corridor seems to serve as something that should be used to absorb revenant missiles. Also falling down and teleporting back distracts the missiles. The only problem is that missiles overwhelm me sooner or later, and even more problematic is that revenants close in on the teleport exit spot, yet at the same time it's difficult to keep them away from there.

 

In any case, this fight doesn't cause feelings of hopelessness. I might not be able to do it, but it is much easier to see that the fight can be done. I see the possibility of success, however slim.

 

 

EDIT 2: Fuck the first spawning revs, go up the stairs, try and thin their lines a bit, but most importantly: lure the bastards away from the bottom of the stairs. At best I can clear something like 40-50 of 'em on the best of tries.

Edited October 10, 2023 by RHhe82

[Flytrap]

19 hours ago, Finnisher said:

This. I hate how 100 % single segment deathless pistol start has somehow become the "norm".

I've pretty much been thinking this ever since i actually got into doom. If they want to play like that, i dont really care, but i have been feeling this vibe aswell extremely strongly, and it has been getting on my nerves severely aswell, and no amount of 'oh but you dont have to play like that if you dont want to!' is ever going to change that they act like its the norm, and when someone like me complains they say otherwise.


Its that whole 'talking out of the corner of your mouth thing' where you're acting a certain way and you say different things, with your words. Verbal and non-verbal communication clashing, impressions, vibes, that kinda thing.

[Flytrap]

On 10/9/2023 at 6:10 PM, RHhe82 said:

So I was playing this one map on UV despite me knowing that particular map would probably be too hard for me. But the lower difficulties didn't seem to function properly, the map is rendered uncompleteable by an oversight. That's beside the point, the point is I had to do it on UV, or I wouldn't do it at all. Slim chance is better than no chance at all.

 

Now, there is a difficult fight almost right at the start of the map. Tackling it head on, it was just a cluster*beep* of enemies and me surviving for a few seconds only. That's alright, that's what I expected to happen. I thought there'd be a strategy to find with which pros can survive the fight consistently. So, I watched this one Youtuber play the same map, and tried observing what they do on that fight. Right: plasma the pain elementals first, stand there, wait for archies, grab megasphere soon. I tried using the same strategy.

 

This is the feeling of not being good at Doom: I feel I'm doing what I'm supposed, but it still becomes a cluster*beep*, it truly feels as if enemies charge me more aggressively than they did for the Youtuber, I feel frustration crawling in fast. Ten attempts in, and I only survive a little bit longer than on my first attempts. Archviles don't seem to infight whereas Youtuber gets miraculous interventions in the form of revenant missiles hitting archviles, distracting them. I decide to quit before I get upset, and give up. The map is too hard, which was evident before any attempts, HNTR would have (in this case) been challenging enough.

 

I actually wanted only to vent my frustration here, but to have an excuse for such an attention- and consolation-seeking thread, I might just elaborate on the feeling of not being good enough for difficult wads. Sometimes hard maps present themselves in ways where you can easily see why you're having issues: the enemy placement is diabolical, there is resource starvation and you don't know how to (consistently) two-shot cybers. Many times one just might find enemy projectile patterns hard to dodge.

 

But in some extreme cases the whole mess starts to feel as if the odds are simply stacked against you. Suddenly damage rolls feel like they're always the high ones, or as if the enemies are just more hell-bent on killing you, unlike in that video you see where a doomtuber calmly and methodically takes care of the arena you don't see a chance of surviving. When the screen turns red and you're left a desolate, hopeless feeling, you find it hard to even fathom such a mental state where player can prevail and not be catching their breath in awe that they survived such a pressure cooker.

 

It's disheartening. I actually don't consider myself a bad player despite the harsh word I lay on myself here; something like "advanced casual player" that can survive most wads on UV, Sunlusts on HMP and designed-to-challenge-you wads on HNTR and meme-difficult wads on ITYTD. Or at least I thought so.

I would like to remind you that the only reason they are 'winning' is because they are grinding the levels off-camera and they are showing you the attempt where they succeeded. And this is leading you into thinking that the gap between you and them, and their game and your game, are bigger than it actually is.

This is also why i never understood the appeal of ultrahard wads. If you need to keep trying over and over again to beat a wad, its not you getting better, its your luck.

[baja blast rd.]

8 hours ago, Flytrap said:

I would like to remind you that the only reason they are 'winning' is because they are grinding the levels off-camera and they are showing you the attempt where they succeeded. And this is leading you into thinking that the gap between you and them, and their game and your game, are bigger than it actually is.

This is also why i never understood the appeal of ultrahard wads. If you need to keep trying over and over again to beat a wad, its not you getting better, its your luck.

I mean this is all going too far and full of misleading ideas. No one is being fooled into thinking that's his only attempt. Being able to beat this map one in 30, 50, even 100+ times would still be very impressive and a skill -- most people would have no chance to get a single success over that time. Instead of putting hands over one's ears and denying it like a kid, it's healthier to admit someone is a lot better and then put it in perspective: which is that it's a game, and it's not a big deal if someone is much better than you at it. 
 

The second point is wrong because the "getting better" part is improving from a 0% chance at beating something to 0.5%, to 1%, to 2% ... to 50%+. Doom has RNG so outcomes are not deterministic in practical play and you can't win every time unless a map is easy, but more skilled players will beat harder maps more consistently and with less stress involved. And if someone improves in the course of attempting a run, they'll find that their later attempts have a much higher chance than their earlier ones. 

[DeafPixel]

I'm so sorry that people used my comment to claim theres an evil cabal of people tricking others into thinking that hard WADs are fun.
 

2 hours ago, Flytrap said:

This is also why i never understood the appeal of ultrahard wads. If you need to keep trying over and over again to beat a wad, its not you getting better, its your luck.

The point of strategy is to reduce the amount of luck required to win, this is the most absurd comment I've heard ever

[ebrl]

4 hours ago, Flytrap said:

I've pretty much been thinking this ever since i actually got into doom. If they want to play like that, i dont really care, but i have been feeling this vibe aswell extremely strongly, and it has been getting on my nerves severely aswell, and no amount of 'oh but you dont have to play like that if you dont want to!' is ever going to change that they act like its the norm, and when someone like me complains they say otherwise.


Its that whole 'talking out of the corner of your mouth thing' where you're acting a certain way and you say different things, with your words. Verbal and non-verbal communication clashing, impressions, vibes, that kinda thing.

Watch that attitude, stop assuming things, and don't make baseless accusations at imaginary targets. This is way out of line.

 

4 hours ago, Flytrap said:

I would like to remind you that the only reason they are 'winning' is because they are grinding the levels off-camera and they are showing you the attempt where they succeeded. And this is leading you into thinking that the gap between you and them, and their game and your game, are bigger than it actually is.

This is also why i never understood the appeal of ultrahard wads. If you need to keep trying over and over again to beat a wad, its not you getting better, its your luck.

This is so hilariously wrong on so many levels that I'm not surprised about your previous outburst. Of course it's perfectly ok to be bad at Doom but it's not really ok to be this defensive about it.

 

edit: "bad" is rather relative btw, 20X7 is actually pretty fucking hard

Edited October 11, 2023 by ebrl

[RataUnderground]

I think a lot of people get too hung up on other people's standards. No one needs to measure themselves by what is considered playing Doom well or poorly. Play how you enjoy the experience the most, and above all, play maps that are enjoyable for you. You don't have to subject yourself to torture just because the community thinks Sunlust is very good.
My maps are easy. I personally enjoy the maps I'm able to play the most without having to load game ten times before each fight, and I express that preference in my designs. I don't want to kill the player, I want them to enjoy an affordable challenge.

[Finnisher]

22 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

I actually have played Sunlust on HMP, as I have played Stardate 20x6, too, on HMP, which is precisely why I wanted to play this one. Both were very enjoyable and good amount of challenge. 20x7 has been very doable on lower difficulties, it’s just that this map has a bug on non-UV difficulties resulting in a softlock. Otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted UV now…

 

EDIT: Got home from work and resumed playing with the map. Probably everyone guessed the next roadblock. The cyberdemon cramped arena was hard, but it felt something prior wads have prepared me better for. But then there's the staircase fight. I have yet to made (my best attempts had me clear roughly half of the revenants) -- but this fight feels different than the first fight. I know it's hard, I know I'm going to struggle with it, but it feels much more manageable than the first big fight of the map. (Also much more fun). The wall on the right side of the player as he exits the teleport corridor seems to serve as something that should be used to absorb revenant missiles. Also falling down and teleporting back distracts the missiles. The only problem is that missiles overwhelm me sooner or later, and even more problematic is that revenants close in on the teleport exit spot, yet at the same time it's difficult to keep them away from there.

 

In any case, this fight doesn't cause feelings of hopelessness. I might not be able to do it, but it is much easier to see that the fight can be done. I see the possibility of success, however slim.

 

 

EDIT 2: Fuck the first spawning revs, go up the stairs, try and thin their lines a bit, but most importantly: lure the bastards away from the bottom of the stairs. At best I can clear something like 40-50 of 'em on the best of tries.

 

It just occurred to me that if the map has a bug that does not spawn a progress critical item on difficulties below UV, well, that's super easy to fix in an editor yourself.

 

Open the wad in for example ultimate doom builder, select map 6, game configuration Boom, go to Things mode by pressing T, find the item on the map and right click on it and add the missing Medium / Easy ticks, OK and save.

 

Just a thought. I mean it's not like your editing the wad to break it but fix a bug.

[RHhe82]

30 minutes ago, Finnisher said:

 

It just occurred to me that if the map has a bug that does not spawn a progress critical item on difficulties below UV, well, that's super easy to fix in an editor yourself.

 

Open the wad in for example ultimate doom builder, select map 6, game configuration Boom, go to Things mode by pressing T, find the item on the map and right click on it and add the missing Medium / Easy ticks, OK and save.

 

Just a thought. I mean it's not like your editing the wad to break it but fix a bug.

The problem here is that on lower difficulties the final fight consists of flying monsters that are waken up in advance, and they will activate a one-time switch that’s supposed to be activated by the player. Premature activation by monster makes it so that the actual fight never commences and the map hits a softblock.

 

I suppose I could edit the switch so it’s repeatable, but at this point I have only the final fight, it should be doable.

[baja blast rd.]

Here's a detailed explanation of the bug because I got curious. 

 

These cacodemons and PEs in this teleport closet are on HNTR/HMP and it is possible for them to fly over the barrier in this teleport closet prematurely and enter the map and hit a S1 teleport switch.

 

 

That's because the floor of that sector is 32 units high and the ceiling is 128 units high, which leaves a big enough gap for them to fly through. They have to filter past the enemies in front of them to do it, which seems easy on HNTR.

 

Lowering the ceiling to anywhere between 64-87 units high would prevent the flying enemies from moving past it before the floor lowers, while still keeping the ceiling high enough for enemies to move past it after the floor lowers. 

 

@RHhe82 On HMP, there are 10 additional revenants in front of all the HNTR/HMP HKs and barons, and two of those revenants are stuck until the teleport closet opens. Those extra enemies create more of a barrier, so this bug is probably not as easy to run into on HMP. Can't say it's not possible, but watching the way the enemies move in the teleport closet, it looks like it would take a lot longer for a flier to filter out if it can, and far fewer would make it out if any did. It's really unlikely that the bug would affect HMP because that's the main difficulty Ribbiks designed everything around, which might also be why it went undetected. 

 

Extra trivia: The bug also happens because

 

Spoiler

there is an invisible ceiling-high floor in front of the teleport switch.

 

 

But oddly the way it works is this lets the flying enemies (who come from the left side) press the switch when they hit that wall. I tested the setup and that only happens when the barrier is as high as the ceiling, otherwise the flying enemies don't interact with the switch when they are above it.

 

The weird part about this is that this barrier doesn't appear to serve a purpose. The floor insta-lowers when you enter this area anyway, which means it doesn't stop ground-based enemies from hitting the switch (you really have to go out of your way to get one to hit the switch though). And there are monster-block lines around the whole staircase that prevent flying enemies from the main map from drifting over there, so the barrier doesn't do that either.

 

I got curious about this part because I've used monster teleporting switches intentionally before and was wondering why a flying enemy would even hit the switch from behind, since that's normally not possible.

This is all just icing on the cake though, since the fliers being able to leave the closet early is the root cause.

 

Bonus strategy: On HNTR, the bug is 100% reliably avoidable by pacifisting the map up to that point lmao. 

[Xaser]

20x7 has been out for a while so this may not apply to it, but definitely report these sorts of softlocks and other bugs to the map authors if you run into them. Sometimes things like these accidentally sneak in towards the end of development, after skill settings get tested, and it's easy for them to slip through the cracks.

[TheCarsEdge]

tbh this is more of a general thing when i play doom, but i like to play on hurt me plenty or i'm too young to die

genuinely, when i'm playing i want to relax, not ragequit 

[RHhe82]

On 10/11/2023 at 4:04 PM, baja blast rd. said:

Bonus strategy: On HNTR, the bug is 100% reliably avoidable by pacifisting the map up to that point lmao.

 

A short follow-up before the thread (the point of which I feel never actually caught wind) gets too old to bump; I was randomly watching A1s's D2ALL of sd20x7, and it dawned on me the suggestion to pacifist the first part of the map wasn't a joke. I never could do the revenant stairs on UV, and had already put sd20x7 in my "On hold for the time being"-folder, but now I tried playing HNTR pacifist up until doing the full circle from the start to the first arena, to the stairs and back to the starting area. From there, easy (if a bit cheesy) 100% kills and secrets finish. This will do for now, and I can get along with the wad. I feel the stairs section would have been perfectly doable on HNTR "the intended way", and some of the clean-up would even have been easier, because with the cheese strategy pain elementals get to do their stuff unhindered for a while.

Edited October 19, 2023 by RHhe82

[OniriA]

I used to play with a friend who was so good at Doom, you could easily call him a Doom master for that matter. It was the type of player who could survive against all odds and in maps that would seem impossible. I on the other hand, while agile wasn't on that level obviously. Far from it. He usually saw it as his mission to protect me from dying in hard maps or atleast make me survive as long as possible.

 

It made for a really interesting dynamic and a lot of funny situations, as I was usually the one who made things more difficult or troublesome by accidentally triggering a closet or horde like the goofball I am.

 

Oh god, the things I made him go through, haha. I love thinking about all the games we had. 🖤

Edited October 19, 2023 by OniriA

[Fonze]

Folks, folks, let's all calm down. Being good at doom only exists as an ironic thing 🙃😋 🚀💥🫠

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Fonze

[Xaser]

Related:

 

[plums]

If you haven't rocketed yourself in the face for no reason can you even call yourself a true Doom fan?

[baja blast rd.]

 

[RHhe82]

Doom-messiahs facerocket so they can be resurrected and elevated to doom-godhood? To rule over the living and the dead and so forth.

[Xaser]

3 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

<high skill play.mp4>

 

Task succeeded failfully.

[HeatedChocolate]

4 hours ago, plums said:

If you haven't rocketed yourself in the face for no reason can you even call yourself a true Doom fan?

What about dying because of the rocket launcher's safety catch? I think it's killed me more times than it has saved me.

[plums]

Had a thought and figure I'd post it in this thread: how many people that normally play on HMP play from pistol start? Does anyone play HNTR pistol start?

 

If I'm playing UV PS and it gets too hard I'll usually drop down to HMP PS instead of switching to continuous, but it depends. Usually when I play continuous it's because I know the wad was designed for it.

[RHhe82]

3 hours ago, plums said:

Had a thought and figure I'd post it in this thread: how many people that normally play on HMP play from pistol start? Does anyone play HNTR pistol start?

 

If I'm playing UV PS and it gets too hard I'll usually drop down to HMP PS instead of switching to continuous, but it depends. Usually when I play continuous it's because I know the wad was designed for it.

I’m not sure you meant people like me, because I default to UV pistol starts. But if the situation demands it, and I lower the difficulty, I still do pistol starts. And some of the wads I know to be harder than usual, I might skip trying UV altogether (just like with Sd20x7 or Fractured Worlds or Haste etc), choose lower diff from the get-go, but still pistol start each map. Exceptions are made only when the wad is designed for continuous play.

 

But perhaps indeed you asked specifically people who do HMP by default?

[plums]

1 hour ago, RHhe82 said:

But perhaps indeed you asked specifically people who do HMP by default?

That was more what I was curious about, but I appreciate you answering nonetheless.

 

Often when I playtest wads for people that have more than one level, I'm not sure how to look at HMP. There are often times when a later map feels like it's harder than it should be, but I'm usually pistol-starting still, and so it's hard to judge.

[Finnisher]

On 10/19/2023 at 9:27 PM, plums said:

If you haven't rocketed yourself in the face for no reason can you even call yourself a true Doom fan?

 

No you can't it's the rite of passage.

 

On 10/20/2023 at 1:51 AM, HeatedChocolate said:

What about dying because of the rocket launcher's safety catch? I think it's killed me more times than it has saved me.

 

Amen!

Especially when you wanna rocket a swarm of pinkies and the delay makes them get too close.

 

Then you are left with either rite of passage or swap weapon whilst the pinkies feast on your buttocks.

[Finnisher]

13 hours ago, RHhe82 said:

I’m not sure you meant people like me, because I default to UV pistol starts. But if the situation demands it, and I lower the difficulty, I still do pistol starts. And some of the wads I know to be harder than usual, I might skip trying UV altogether (just like with Sd20x7 or Fractured Worlds or Haste etc), choose lower diff from the get-go, but still pistol start each map. Exceptions are made only when the wad is designed for continuous play.

 

But perhaps indeed you asked specifically people who do HMP by default?

 

I sincerely recommend playing tougher wads continuous first. It eases you in vs pistol starting blind and adds the element of resource management from level to level.

 

I know eg Sunlust is balanced for pistol starts but playing continuous does not remove the challenge of it.

Episode transitions are forced pistol starts anyway.

 

I know you played Sunlust already but as an example. Balanced for pistol starts does not explicitly mean "breaks in continuous" always, if ever. Balanced for pistol starts just means they are doable.

[baja blast rd.]

Related

 

 

[Lila Feuer]

"Why I think explosive barrels don't belong in Doom and are an absurd concept to begin with; a thread 1/32"

[tomas7777]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned getting hit by a stray Cyberdemon rocket you didn't expect.

[baja blast rd.]

18 minutes ago, tomas7777 said:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned getting hit by a stray Cyberdemon rocket you didn't expect.

 

I'm confused. What would be the prompt or relevant context that would make that anything other than a random non-sequitur?