What do the difficulties mean to you?

[RichardDS90]

Hurt Me Plenty to me is "the difficulty between UV and ITYTD/HMTR" Never saw it as anything else, it's either ITYTD or UV, nothing else.

[yakfak]

I usually play a map set first time on HNTR, and replay on UV if I thought the levels were interesting - not interesting in terms of combat because I don't care but in terms of mapper quirks, whether the music suited it, if there was anything to actually do on the map other than fight and travel to the next fight, etc. I probably don't see a lot of hardcore encounters for this reason

[mouldy]

Difficulty settings are like the volume slider on a music player, there is no default level, you adjust it to how loud you want to play.

Consider that i make doom maps that are comfortable for me to play on UV, but then I play with saves. If I decide to play without saves then I can dial it down to HMP. If I decide I want to play the whole megawad in an hour or so, or use a mod that makes it too hard then I can dial it down again. If i want to prove I am the best of the best then I can put it up to UV and record a demo in a different source port. Everyone plays differently and however the hell they want, difficulty is just a tool to make that easier.

[BrainMuncher]

The way I see it, HMP is the default skill, and this difficulty is how the creator of the map intended the map to be played.

Then if you like it enough, for subsequent play-throughs UV is there to add a little extra challenge.


If you always go UV then slogging through the maps you end up not liking takes twice as long. Playing on an easier skill first lets you spend more time in the maps you like.

[T-Rex]

The difficulty levels in Doom have always been this to me.

I'm Too Young To Die - Easiest (for kids or the easily scared)
Hey, Not Too Rough - Easy (for rookie players)
Hurt Me Plenty - Medium (for casual players)
Ultra-Violence - Hard (for experienced players or those looking for a challenge)
Nightmare - Hardest (experts only)

However, wads like Plutonia and HR take the difficulty curve up to ridiculous heights, with ITYTD/HNTR feeling like UV on Doom 2/TNT, HMP being very hard, UV being outright insane, and then NM, heh, truly impossible for most of us.

[june gloom]

HMP is the default difficulty. Period. It's the "normal" difficulty. HNTR is easy, UV is hard. Once you get those three nailed down, the final two become obvious. ITYTD, with its double ammo on top of having the same monster counts as HNTR, is for FPS beginners. Nightmare is a joke put in because of people like "UV is the real game" freaks measuring your e-penises and claiming the game wasn't hard enough -- not hard like your e-penises anyway. That being said, it's literally UV with some extra rules.

[baja blast rd.]

People who insist on playing all wads on UV no matter what don't get to complain (publicly, at least) when they encounter a level that is too hard for them. This is the sign of a very selfish player, one who is essentially saying, "design UV for MEEEEEEEE, I don't care that better players exist and have fun playing maps that are much harder than what I can handle; I don't even care that you, the mapper, the person who is investing dozens of hours in the maps that you design, are a better player who wants to design maps that you maximally enjoy; UV should be for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." These people are worse than Hitler and should be treated accordingly.

Nightmare does not lie on the usual difficulty continuum -- it's a different thing altogether because it changes the mechanics so much. The same is true of variants like UV -fast.

[VGamingJunkie]

If you can't beat a map on UV, either pump down the difficulty or suck it up and git gud, don't take it out on the map designer. Unless it's BS difficulty like teleporting you in the middle of chaingun commandos or something.

[NuMetalManiak]

As someone who tests maps on multiple settings, I have to say that I always start out small with ITYTD/HNTR with maps I'm unfamiliar with, then when I replay it, bump it up more. the best maps are the ones that are comfortable on all skill settings, Nightmare may or may not be included. the constant demand for everything to be hard, hard, hard, UV only, just annoys the crap out of me.

[Budoka]

This guy knows what they mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfcbLWgQAo

Nevermind, he's babbling total nonsense.

Anyway, I trust whatever the .txt file of a given WAD says about the difficulty levels, although I tend to play on UV anyway.

[Silverforte]

I only play on UV, not because I'm all elite or all that, but because I want to get the full enemy experience. Nothing wrong with the other difficulties though.

[TheMightyHeracross]

^
Basically this.

[Hoodie]

I used to only play on UV, but I've been playing on HMP this year and really enjoying Doom a lot more. Like I'm playing iwads and pwads together on HMP and just having an overall better experience. Maybe it's cause it's something new but still the maps I like, I mean I've played this game so much on UV that maybe shooting forever seems like the norm. On HMP I really just enjoy the map design more.

[scifista42]

ITYTD = Intended for players who don't have skill to play this game and who want it easy.
HNTR = Intended for players who don't have skill to play this game and who don't want it entirely easy.
HMP = Intended for players who have skill to play this game and who want it easy.
UV = Intended for players who have skill to play this game and who don't want it entirely easy.
NM = Intended for brief entertainment of any players with momentary masochistic needs.

[Spectre01]

I recently replayed Scythe for which the text file recommends playing the first 20 maps on UV-fast for good players. It certainly made the maps harder but overall the -fast gameplay just doesn't feel well balanced or as enjoyable.

[Frisky]

Ultra-Violence is the one I see most people playing, and the one I recommend for the hardcore players.
Anybody playing Nightmare will die instantly.