Did you understand what each difficulty means when you played Ultimate Doom for the first time by just reading the name of the difficulty?

[Cauã Godinho]

I dont remember pretty much of my first time playing doom and seeing the names of difficulties and I asked the same question in the reddit but i want to know more experiences of other people so, and by the way, this is my first time (really) making a question or publication in a forum, so i dont know a lot of things, so yeah.
 

so I'm asking for ya guys.
 

do ya think the name of the difficulties are self explanatory or do ya need a guide or a outside explanation to understand what they means?

[Edward850]

I was 4 at the time but I'm sure I understood the concept of "wimpy names are easy, hardcore names are hard".

[JustHeziel]

I was 4-5 years old. Didn't know how to read yet, even less when it wasn't my native language, but I could grasp the concept of easier levels are first and harder difficulties come later. So, yes, kinda.

[Plerb]

no, i thought "Ultra Violence" meant the level of violence that would ensue when id software comes to your door for playing an easy difficulty,

[vanilla_d00m]

I remember it like this, I thought the marine was taunting the monsters.  Like if you picked a difficulty setting, the marine would say it on the messages spot.  Like a war cry.  Man was I off by a mile, as a kid.. I didn’t see it as a way to play the game on hard or easy.

Adding a exclamation “!” mark at the difficulty text did not help either.

Edited June 13 by vanilla_d00m

[No-Man Baugh]

No, I also recognized the relative difficulty of each option by it's placement on the menu alongside the names (In my case: I knew for a fact that the middle-most option was probably going to be medium difficultly)

[Austrian Oak]

YES! Of course, I’m a Terminator. 

[BerserkerNoir]

Well, It goes from 1 to 5 and the last gave away it was the hardest with that Font.

[Eurisko]

Yes. Self explanatory 

[Doomy__Doom]

"by just reading the name" is a no. English, like any other non-native language, was gibberish to me when I was ~5 y.o. I did get the concept though - my father introduced me to Wolfenstein 3D first, so different hero faces were actually relevant.

[mrthejoshmon]

It was easy to piece together that each difficulty corresponded to how extreme the title was, also my dad explaining what they said and meant helped so I basically cheated this exam.

 

I was way too young (to die) and often I think about how my only memories as a child included Doom existing in some capacity, wonder what effect early exposure had on me.

Edited June 13 by mrthejoshmon

[RataUnderground]

I obviously didn't know that IATYTD doubled ammo, split damage and had the same monsters as HNTR, and that HMP and UV only differed from the previous ones in that they had more monsters, and that N doubled ammo and monsters and these were faster. But when you see a difficulty selection you know that the first option is the easier one and the last is the harder one, there was no confusion on that aspect.

[aboyes1989]

3 hours ago, Edward850 said:

I was 4 at the time but I'm sure I understood the concept of "wimpy names are easy, hardcore names are hard".

 

Yeah, whilst I didn't know the intricate gameplay differences between difficulty levels at 6, it was obvious what the names were alluding to.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I didn't know any English first time I played it, and i figured out that the first is easiest and it gets harder each step down. All games i knew had it the same way. 

[Wahrnehmungskrieg]

Never played Ultra-Violence until mid-adolescence because I thought all the game's text would be in Nadsat on that difficulty

[BeachThunder]

15 minutes ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

I didn't know any English first time I played it, and i figured out that the first is easiest and it gets harder each step down. All games i knew had it the same way. 

Terrible mod idea: The difficulties are all the same, but the order they're listed is randomised every time you start a new game. Can't just rely on your expectations / muscle memory, you have to actually read which difficulty you're selecting.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

31 minutes ago, BeachThunder said:

Terrible mod idea: The difficulties are all the same, but the order they're listed is randomised every time you start a new game. Can't just rely on your expectations / muscle memory, you have to actually read which difficulty you're selecting.

There's a source port called ponky-doom that changes the order of menu items every time they're displayed. Among many other shenanigans. 

Youtube

[Daytime Waitress]

1 hour ago, Wahrnehmungskrieg said:

Never played Ultra-Violence until mid-adolescence because I thought all the game's text would be in Nadsat on that difficulty

 

Golf clap for that one.

I better not be disappointed when I go looking for a mod that must surely have been produced in the intervening three decades.

[GreenAnime]

Back when i was a dumb child and first played doom i hated reading for some reason since there's alot of text, so i just buzz through into action.

[MFG38]

Let's be real, we as gamers have been conditioned over the years to being able to decipher which difficulties are easy and which ones are hard even if they have non-standard names. Why is that? Because every game does it the same way. The further down the list you go, the harder the difficulties become. I have yet to hear of a game that does the opposite.

[Lila Feuer]

id had the best naming convention for difficulty titles. Even when I was 10 and on ITYTD the moment I discovered cheats I would IDDQD because I was too scared. 😂

[Cauã Godinho]

6 hours ago, Austrian Oak said:

YES! Of course, I’m a Terminator. 

I’’ll be back

[Cauã Godinho]

6 hours ago, vanilla_d00m said:

I remember it like this, I thought the marine was taunting the monsters.  Like if you picked a difficulty setting, the marine would say it on the messages spot.  Like a war cry.  Man was I off by a mile, as a kid.. I didn’t see it as a way to play the game on hard or easy.

Adding a exclamation “!” mark at the difficulty text did not help either.

Hahahahahaha, this is really funny, sadly i dont remember how was my reaction of my first time seeing the names of difficulties, but i am sure i just pick a randomly one (and no, was not nightmare, because if was, i would not be here today hahahahaha)

[Shepardus]

I didn't have any problem understanding Doom's skill levels, obviously I didn't know the specifics but I just chose the middle/default option. But even being experienced with Doom, Hexen's skill levels still managed to confuse me - reading titles like "knight," "warrior," and "berserker," I think of class names (even though this is after the class selection) or even subclasses, not difficulty selection. It doesn't help that the skill names are different for each class.

Edited June 13 by Shepardus

[storm123321]

Yup as doom vids got me into doom

[Amaruψ]

"Are you sure? This difficulty isn't even remotely fair."

 

That pretty much clears it up that as the levels go lower, things are going to get harder.

[OniriA]

I've had played Wolfenstein 3D before which next to the difficulty mode also gives you the face of the main character. The higher the difficulty the more bloody the face and the lower the more babyer. Next to that that alot of games had difficulty modes like that so it was easy to know. 

 

 

[Andrea Rovenski]

I played this first, so I got the gist

 

[LVENdead]

I was 7 when I got my hands on Doom shareware. I do remember understanding the difficulty settings - I played it on ITYTD while my dad played on HMP, and we were aware he was playing on "hard mode".

[magicsofa]

13 hours ago, Cauã Godinho said:

do ya think the name of the difficulties are self explanatory or do ya need a guide or a outside explanation to understand what they means?

 

Other than Easy -> Hard, no, absolutely nothing meaningful is contained in the names. They might as well be named Skill 1, Skill 2, Skill 3 and you would have the same amount of information.