Do you feel embarrassed playing on the easiest difficulty?

[40oz]

As a level designer, players admitting they play on easier skill levels is relieving for me. Lets me know my time wasn't wasted implementing them.

[dugan]

I recall seeing a Usenet post where someone said that he finally finished level 24 of Hell Revealed on Ultra Violence after quickloading and saving hundreds of times. Haggay Niv replied and said "Playing with hundreds of saves isn't real playing. If Ultra Violence is too hard, try a lower difficulty level."

[CyberDreams]

As most people said in this thread, nope i do not feel embarrassed to play on easier difficulties. In Doom specifically the hardest i can play on is Hurt Me Plenty and even then i'll get into trouble sometimes (depending on the level or wad).

If it's another game, i usually just start off on normal since i like to just explore everything a game has to offer and not get pounded right away by playing on hard or expert or w/e the "higher difficulty" mode is.

If the game is really good and holds my attention after i beat it then i'll replay it on a higher difficulty.

Also i'm glad people implement other difficulty levels into Doom wads as i just cannot play on UV. I'm just not there yet skill wise and probably won't be for some time.

I usually cannot practice everyday either as i suffer from vestibular migraines and they can last upwards of 5 days with extreme dizziness so there goes trying to look at a monitor or tv screen.

[dobu gabu maru]

40oz said:

As a level designer, players admitting they play on easier skill levels is relieving for me. Lets me know my time wasn't wasted implementing them.

Same here! It's very refreshing to see especially since I feel my maps are played best on skill 3 or 2 for a player's first run.

[Deleted_Account]

I appreciate the effort by map makers who take the time and effort to implement different skill settings into their levels.

[hex11]

Well it's not like we're all even playing the same game anyway.
- vanilla gameplay vs. engine that gives you freelook, uncapped framerate, higher resolution, wider field of view
- mods with better defined sprites or even models
- different IWADs (Freedoom revenants blend in with dark background)
- other stuff (lighting? sound cues?)
- super-fast-extra-uber guns patch EKS-DDDDDD

I play the very basic (vanilla) games, without mouse. Just this keyboard setup:
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1661793
That makes a lot of modern maps overly challenging, because they're designed by & for people who use mouse+WASD scheme and probably also an advanced port with the above features.
So I just play on skill 3, or sometimes less.

[Aquanet]

I used to think no-save people were crazy, now I do it with easier levels. There are many many options in doom for increasing or decreasing tension and danger as needed.

[Six]

It's a strange mentality to think that playing a game on an easy difficulty would be shameful or embarrassing. If people like to take it easy then by all means, that choice is definitely yours to make and you should never feel bad about choosing it.

Some people might feel they have something to prove by selecting a hard difficulty, and sure it can grant you bragging rights, but at the end of the day that's all it gets you.

Some people feel it's more rewarding going balls to the walls, and that's fine too.

At the end of the day you play the game how you want to. It's all about getting maximum enjoyment from it and if you experience that then the game has delivered.

[Doomkid]

I'm in the "mapper who takes time to implement difficulty settings" camp. Why not provide more options to your players? Realistically, all that does is provide them more ways to enjoy your wad.

If you play my wads on HNTR or HMP, you're still getting the "full experience", just more accessible for players who aren't total Doom fanatics. I've never understood the "it's only full on UV" argument honestly. By that logic you could argue you're missing a lot when playing on UV because hidden BFGs, Megaspheres and other fun-to-find secret goodies aren't present nearly as often!

[Marcaek]

The problem with implementing skills is how do you judge good gameplay for players less or more skilled for yourself? A lot of people tend to treat UV as default and just water down encounters from there, which sucks.

[Rayziik]

You could always get people who play on lower skills to test your project. Apparently there's plenty of people here who play on less than UV already.

[baja blast rd.]

You should design lower difficulties for yourself too. They can just happen to be easier. E.g. UV might be fun for me in a way that is intense and demands consistent precise play; HMP might be fun for me in a way that is intense but quite a bit more forgiving; HNTR might be fun for me to blitz through very breezily, with some sharp dangerous moments scattered around.

[Fonze]

rdwpa said:

You should design lower difficulties for yourself too. They can just happen to be easier. E.g. UV might be fun for me in a way that is intense and demands consistent precise play; HMP might be fun for me in a way that is intense but quite a bit more forgiving; HNTR might be fun for me to blitz through very breezily, with some sharp dangerous moments scattered around.

I like this.

As an evil alternative, you could just make them all equally tough with different monster/weapon/(really anything) sets, which would actually make for an interesting, highly replayable map, though only for a select group of people. I often dream of making maps in which all weapons are replaced with RLs, ammo rockets, and all enemies to PEs for easy mode only (which would also make sense since ITYTD could make that less-frustrating for players who aren't as big of fans of rockets and PEs as I am, hehe).

On a more realistic note, I read somebody's post at one point saying they tested the lower difficulties using KB-only to reduce their coordination. I find this to be a good idea until you remember how to play Doom with the KB, heh, but I'll still say I'm much more proficient with the mouse than without, so it does make for a decent handicap. Alternatively, you can impose other handicaps on yourself to even things out, like not grabbing any health pickups, or playing without taking damage/taking over x%. You could even increase the speed of the game (PrBoom+) and not run. There was also a really terrible mod I remember downloading a while back that made the game really tough and frustrating; assuming you could stomach it, it does make for a fairly good way to test easy mode.

I love to hear that many people play on the lower difficulties; there is no shame in it whatsoever and as stated before in this thread: it makes me happy to know the effort to design them didn't go to waste). That said, I think people should treat HMP as the default difficulty; "normal." UV is really the most that the map has to offer in terms of difficulty, so there's no reason to try to knock everything out on the first playthrough; if you like it enough, you will replay it anyway. Ramp the difficulty up then. Also, you have a better chance of being surprised on a second run going from HNTR/HMP to UV than from UV to HNTR/HMP.

[Ribbiks]

Fonze said:

I think people should treat HMP as the default difficulty; "normal." UV is really the most that the map has to offer in terms of difficulty, so there's no reason to try to knock everything out on the first playthrough; if you like it enough, you will replay it anyway. Ramp the difficulty up then. Also, you have a better chance of being surprised on a second run going from HNTR/HMP to UV than from UV to HNTR/HMP.

yeeeup. I like this as well. When it comes to replaying my own maps I pretty much operate on "given that I know the map, I want this to be easy" and "I need every inch of my body to be in pain", so pretty much a lightly nerfed lower end, and a "bonus" masochism upper end. The intended setting for everyone else ofc is somewhere in the middle, getting the most attention while mapping/testing (and thus the least interesting for the author to replay :p). I envision 3 ways of going about it:

1.) make hntr/hmp/uv as normal, leave hard-mode to --solo-net
---- pro: normal players unaffected
---- con: solo-net is kludgy, blegh.
2.) design around hmp as standard, make uv balls-hard
---- pro: the cake is there, but you gotta take the right slice...
---- con: hntr gets pruned in place of the "new hmp", players accustomed to normal skill 2 are left cold.
---- con: the silent majority of uv-only players that may or may not exist will probably dismiss the mapset rather quickly. "it's just RNG."
3.) design around uv as intended, hmp as slightly easier, hntr as secret hardmode
---- pro: normal players (aside from the skill 2 crowd) unaffected
---- con: prunes hntr, same as (2)
---- con: con-con-convoluted

re OP question: +1 to other comments. It's a game, have fun. What that means for you with respect to difficulty settings is going to vary by author/mapset/etc. A player willing to bump settings up or down as the situation demands is setting themselves up for a much better time than someone sticking to a particular setting out of principle. YMMV (and a thousand other usual disclaimers).

[nxGangrel]

On a Bullshit hard wad like Plutonia; no. Not at all.
(But if it came down to that, I wouldn't play the damn thing in the first place)

[Spectre01]

nxGangrel said:

On a Bullshit hard wad like Plutonia; no. Not at all.
(But if it came down to that, I wouldn't play the damn thing in the first place)

Wait, Plutonia is still "bullshit hard"? Is such a thing even possible when we've got Italo Doom these days? Not dissing the latter as even one of the map titles states that it's Fair and Balanced™.

[Rayziik]

Lolwut, Plutonia isn't even hard.

[nxGangrel]

^^ ^ It was an (exaggerated) example. Sure not the best example, but an example nonetheless. I was being a little sarcastic too. I suck at being sarcastic.

[ranhcase]

I don't think that playing on lower difficulties is bad or a embarrassement, to me, you should play a game on normal(or easy, doesn't really matter) and them increase the difficulty on another playthough, although i don't do that if i'm familarized with the genre of the game (if it is an FPS, for exemple).

[Torturephile]

Absolutely not. It ain't like anyone is watching me play.

[Koko Ricky]

I get into this weird competitive mood when playing. I want to feel like the game doesn't "own" me and that I'm perfectly capable of taking the often grueling path of the Ultra Violence player. Problem is this sometimes means the mod is a bit too challenging, and I'm apt to ragequit if it gets too hairy, rather than lower the damn difficulty like a sane person.

[Rathori]

I always felt that UV was the way Doom was meant to be played, and playing on anything lower feels like playing a cut-down version of the game. So I only play on UV.

I don't think it's embarrassing to play on a lower difficulty if it's too hard, though, but I myself have always felt embarrassed for not beating Doom on Nightmare.

[Paul977]

No. Speaking of doom I generally play on UV everything but if a map is really too difficult on skill 4 and I like it a lot I lower to skill 3, I don't loose to play a wonderful level like, for example, The Mucus Flow just because I can't beat it on UV.

@Ribbiks:

Among the options that you propose I would choose 2 if I were you

[marxr]

Every time.

[TwinBeast]

I'd feel bored. Usually I play on the second hardest... if hardest is the secret difficulty level. I guess I could play UV+fast in Doom sometimes. I'll use saves if it's some really difficult level. If I play it again, I'll try to use less saves on the next time. Maybe some non fps games I've played on some medium difficulty.

[Can't play on Nightmare]

First and second difficulties are good when you wanna finish the game quickly. As of Hurt Me Plenty, the game starts feeling kind of difficult and I die from time to time and it takes me longer to finish the game. Ultra Violence is the best difficulty but it takes much longer time to go to the next map. At times, you may want to make a change choosing the lower difficulties to have a quick game. It doesn't mean you can't play on Ultra Violence. Making a change at times is good.

 

Ultra Violence is the best difficult for the Ultimate Doom, Doom 2 and TNT Evolition but for The Plutonia Experiment? I am not sure. The Plutonia Experiment feels like Ultra Violence even on the first difficulty. I finished the first 3 on Ultra Violence a lot of times.

 

As for Nightmare, I stay the hell away from it. I couldn't even finish the first episode of Doom 1 on Nightmare. It is stupidly difficult just like they said "not  remotely fair"

Edited December 16, 2018 by Can't play on Nightmare

[AnimeAzule]

Honestly, I've thought of the easiest difficulty as for people who want to have fun without the challenge, and heck, I used to play Doom on UV with iddqd because I had shitloads of fun with it. When I started playing GZDoom more, over time I was able to play UV without cheats. It's all down to preference imo.

[GarrettChan]

Spoiler

Best bump

 

I though I've left something in a topic like this, and then I looked at the date, and I haven't even joined Doomworld back then. LOL

[leodoom85]

nice bump and for answer, no

[seed]

Huh, a 2016 thread got bumped. 

 

Well, since I'm here no I don't, in fact back when I was a kind I would often play games on the easiest difficulty and still have fun, but nowadays I feel that it's sometimes a bit too easy. But I'm not always playing Doom on UV either, particularly when running into hard wads/maps. 

Edited December 17, 2018 by Agent6