Real Talk: Do people use difficulty settings?

[Bauul]

Gez said:

Usually I play UV on the assumption that it's the "normal" difficulty setting; and the very few times I found it too hard and sought to play at an easier setting I found out that they just weren't implemented and every thing in the map appeared on all skill settings.

Really this is the heart of it.

As long as players continue to presume UV is "normal" mappers will continue to create wads where UV is considered "normal".

Effectively, UV is "normal", HMP is "easier" and HNTR is "easiest".

This all happened because that is what it feels like to play the IWADs with a modern K+M approach (because the IWADs were calibrated to a pure keyboard approach). And people just continue that presumption with modern maps.

[SFoZ911]

I play UV by default. I rarely find a wad too hard on UV unless it's a challenge-based wads so I'm prepared to hit the floor a few times. I enjoy hard difficulty in Doom and UV usually offers the maximum kill count that the map has to offer.

[Ancalagon]

Count651 said:

I hate playing wads where the mappers provide no room for error and you have to save and load multiple times in just one minute. For me gameplay like this is just tedious and makes me irritable.

Yes, blame the wad for being hard, good job.

[Solarn]

Bauul said:

Really this is the heart of it.

As long as players continue to presume UV is "normal" mappers will continue to create wads where UV is considered "normal".

Effectively, UV is "normal", HMP is "easier" and HNTR is "easiest".

This all happened because that is what it feels like to play the IWADs with a modern K+M approach (because the IWADs were calibrated to a pure keyboard approach). And people just continue that presumption with modern maps.

Try not to say so much bullshit. I still play less-than-ZDoom compatible maps in their proper compatibility with only a keyboard and I have no problem with most slaughtermaps.

The reason many mappers balance for UV and many players play on UV is because these are people who have been playing the game for 10-20 years and have gotten really good at it.

[Bauul]

Solarn said:

Try not to say so much bullshit. I still play less-than-ZDoom compatible maps in their proper compatibility with only a keyboard and I have no problem with most slaughtermaps.

The reason many mappers balance for UV and many players play on UV is because these are people who have been playing the game for 10-20 years and have gotten really good at it.

You can really beat most slaughtermaps without a mouse? That's pretty amazing! I sincerely doubt many people could match your talents though.

I don't really agree with your comment though. It's true the standard of Doom playing is much better than it used to be, but the point is people still calibrate their maps to the IWADs, which just aren't a good indication of modern abilities.

Whenever people do calibrate them to more modern standards, as others have noted here, you just get people complaining the map is too hard but refuse to drop the difficulty down. That's the weird situation we've found ourselves in.

[The_SloVinator]

HMP always unless the wad is worth a second play or it's too easy on HMP.

[Solarn]

Bauul said:

You can really beat most slaughtermaps without a mouse? That's pretty amazing! I sincerely doubt many people could match your talents though.

It's not that rare. It's just perseverance and patience. I still die a lot while playing slaughtermaps or other hard maps, but I do complete them eventually. And again, I've been playing Doom since it came out 23 years ago, and I've been playing games on a computer since like 1990, when there was nothing to play them with but a keyboard in most cases. It's something you can very easily get used to, most people nowadays just don't bother with it.

As for other people, well, I could point you to everyone who records demos and Youtube playthroughs of those maps, most of whom are much better than me. I still can't beat anything beyond map 6 of Sunder without saves.

[Kotzugi]

Bauul said:

I also wonder if people naturally gravitate to UV because they worry if they pick something lower they are essentially missing out on content.

Generally the difference between easy, medium and hard is more enemies, so if you don't pick UV you're basically skipping stuff in the level. You're not seeing the "full experience" as it were.

I've a playthrough of my last map on YouTube on HMP (which I consider "normal"), and I had more than one comment around asking to see it on UV. People clearly felt they weren't seeing the true level somehow.

Interesting thoughts, but you could just as well say that playing UV also misses out on content because of the extra items that are usually available on lower difficulty settings. So I just see it as a different dimension of game play.

As for myself, in over a decade the only WAD I remember playing on HMP and not UV (because it was too hard) is Disturbia. I sometimes grind myself to dust trying to finish a tough WAD on UV, but usually manage.

[Spectre01]

Bauul said:

You can really beat most slaughtermaps without a mouse? That's pretty amazing! I sincerely doubt many people could match your talents though.

I believe gggmork played keyboard-only and was a very good player with some cool demos. It's possible to play really well on the keys with enough practice.

[Doomkid]

I can't believe people are still tossing around that "not the full experience" line for easier difficulties. I made damn sure that HMP and HNTR were just as "full" (whatever that means) and fun as UV, just for less skilled players.

I will always call BS on that line

Edit: Idea for mappers - rather than removing enemies for lower skills, default to adding more health and ammo. With that, there's well and truly no way someone can call the experience "less full".

[Four Loko Is Gross]

I like to play on "I'm too young to die".

Mainly because I almost never play the same PWAD twice, and if I do, it'll be years later because I forgot I played it, and I figure I might as well enjoy the map as much as possible without having to worry about getting 100% kills, secrets, and items.

If I really like the map(s), I'll play it again on progressively more difficult settings until I get bored or I ragequit and never look at the PWAD again for a couple years.

[Devalaous]

I play UV only. I mastered the original Doom and Doom 2 by playing it again and again on higher skill levels until I was perfectly comfortable with UV (And craved the bloodier battles no less), and then moved onto TNT and mastered that too. It felt wrong to lower the difficulty for Plutonia, so I tried it, couldnt do it, and put it on hold till I was good enough to play Plutonia on UV, rather than water down the experience and similarly my first memories of it.

These days, this philosophy still holds true, if I cant beat a mapset im interested in, I will put it on hold till my skill improves higher. Im tempted to give Hell Revealed another try; its been 10 years since I beat a lot of it on HNTR (Where I felt the wad was gimped and not kicking my ass enough). Ive beaten stuff with difficulty levels I never thought I would have beaten since then, like some Sunder maps, and the slaughtermaps of Graytall, stuff I never would have done in the past, so I think I can handle HR and AV today in their full glory.

Amusingly, the "play on UV" thing bled into Wolf 3D and its sequels, I always choose skill 4 instinctively.

[rehelekretep]

good luck with AV from 20 onwards D:

[Argent Agent]

I only play UV, UV +Fast, or Nightmare.

I think Sunlust had the right idea of placing a Cyberdemon at the spawn in Skill 1. :^) Too bad that's only in multiplayer on the first map...

[T-Rex]

Ragnor said:

I play UV only. I mastered the original Doom and Doom 2 by playing it again and again on higher skill levels until I was perfectly comfortable with UV (And craved the bloodier battles no less), and then moved onto TNT and mastered that too. It felt wrong to lower the difficulty for Plutonia, so I tried it, couldnt do it, and put it on hold till I was good enough to play Plutonia on UV, rather than water down the experience and similarly my first memories of it.

These days, this philosophy still holds true, if I cant beat a mapset im interested in, I will put it on hold till my skill improves higher. Im tempted to give Hell Revealed another try; its been 10 years since I beat a lot of it on HNTR (Where I felt the wad was gimped and not kicking my ass enough). Ive beaten stuff with difficulty levels I never thought I would have beaten since then, like some Sunder maps, and the slaughtermaps of Graytall, stuff I never would have done in the past, so I think I can handle HR and AV today in their full glory.

Amusingly, the "play on UV" thing bled into Wolf 3D and its sequels, I always choose skill 4 instinctively.

Personally, I don't find it wrong to lower the difficulty on Plutonia since it's a relentless, sadistic bastard. I prefer to stick with HMP or HNTR with wads like Plutonia, HR, and AV if I wanted a more relaxing journey through them, though they're still as relentless, just not as much as in UV. I suggest starting with HR if you can handle Plutonia on UV, then move up to Scythe, Alien Vendetta, Kama Sutra, the Plutonia sequels, Scythe 2, and Speed of Doom before tackling on the bigger boys like Resurgence, Urania, Sunder, Sunlust, etc. At least with HR and Alien Vendetta, they have somewhat of a difficulty curve that gets pretty brutal later on, whereas in Plutonia, it's a difficulty wall that starts pounding you with squads of chaingunners, clusters of revenants, commonplace arch-viles, and more groups of heavyweights right from the very first level.

[belandino]

Default UV (99.999% of the times), rarely played on NMR for IWADs (E4 is a no-no!) or extremely easy map sets. I've only played on UV-fast once, I guess.

Today I've completed Chex Quest episode 1 on "Super Slimey!" and I found it extremely easy.

[leodoom85]

Always play or test the maps on UV, because I can...

[belandino]

On 12/2/2017 at 8:39 PM, Solarn said:

I still play less-than-ZDoom compatible maps in their proper compatibility with only a keyboard and I have no problem with most slaughtermaps.
 

Awesome indeed! I used to be a keyboard-only player as well, but then I switched to K+M in 2004 or so, when I started to play online on ZDaemon. I am perfectly fine with that even when I play vanilla wads on DOSBox thanks to Novert.

Doom 3 was the last game I completed with keyboard only. 

[galileo31dos01]

HMP for almost everything as a standard difficulty, and I still have troubles with some wads. UV only for Speed of Doom, Ultimate Doom PSX, and casual random map of a casual random pwad. I'm still not sure about choosing UV as the standard, my skills are getting better but very far from excellent.

I think that years ago I used to choose easier difficulties, it's not something I clearly remember...

 

Everyone has the right to choose whatever difficulty that best suits them. And I agree that is stupid that someone bashes a wad because they just don't understand that they're not obligated to play on harder difficulties. There's a reason why there exist "ITYTD" and "HNTR", and if they can't enjoy the game, stop playing and try later, anger can make you say shit about something you could have enjoyed.