/vr/ - Retro Games

For the uninitiated: Pistol Starting means killing yourself every level you begin, so that you always start with only the Pistol and 100 Health.

For me, most of the dificulty of the game comes from strategizing the level and knowing where to go first, and who to kill first. I can't possibly beat any room using reflexes alone, so I end up memorizing every level before I can beat them, and planning accordingly.
It's really fun to develop a strategy for basically every enemy encounter, but I'm wondering if all this planning ahead is what every player does, or if I only have to go through with it because I'm not very good at fps's.

>>10899842
If you’re not playing on nightmare then you’re not playing the real game

>>10899867
well nightmare isn't really that much harder, it's just different. Monsters respawn, so you can't really go for the completionist "100% kills" thing, you just speedrun the level, and there's double ammo to help. It's different. Monsters are Fast of course, but I'm playing with Fast Monsters already on UV

>>10899871
You’re not playing the real game

>>10899879
>the novelty feature that was added as a meme is the real game

ok, we get it. you have a lot to add to the discussion.

>>10899884
Yes, I have. You’re welcome.

>>10899854
As you keep getting better you'll be able to draw from experience of many many encounters to come up with a decent plan on the spot whenever you come across it.

>>10899884
It pretty much had to be added to provide something that would actually make Doom hard. It's pretty weird that for such an acclaimed 'hardcore' game, you have to go pretty far out in terms of self imposed challenge to cripple yourself to the point where the game is actually difficult.

Like, obviously there should be some official difficulty between UV and Nightmare that results in a solidly challenging, but instead there are just several variations of baby difficulty, UV is 'normal' and Nightmare is "what the fuck is this shit".

>>10899915
Yeah, agreed. What's really weird to me is how they didn't think of pistol start as a game mode, or part of a dificulty, since the level designs clearly support it for the most part.

>>10899867
I'm just gonna enjoy the game however I want
and there is nothing you can do about it
how does that make you feel?

>>10900192
I feel like you didn’t play the real game

>>10900202
I played it on the default difficulty once on PSX and left it at that because I have things to do.

>>10900219
Sounds like you didn’t play the real game

>>10899842
Stay in the containment thread, autismo.

>>10899842
>How hard/easy is it to actually beat every Doom and Doom2 level on these settings?
Hard.

>Can you do it? Have you tried?
Right now? No. Is it possible for me to, maybe. I don't exactly enjoy that kind of abuse training for it.

Pistol starts is the hardest part of that. Then kills and secrets since you need to remember basically fucking everything. Along with routing for weapons and what to duck and dive... realistically most pistol start nightmare runs with respawn even don't go for 100% kills or secrets, they just go speedrun end times.

I have the technical ability myself to fight against UV fast monsters without much problem insofar as the natural progression goes - but pistol starting shit, that's brutal and requires taking hits and really knowing the levels and doing it in one sitting, that's rough as fuck.

Also, you never specified port and settings - for example you have HD resolution and what looks like gzdoom or something - which makes specters infinitely easier to deal with than chocolate doom. Plus there's monster movement fuckery and shit - like you can get shredded from 40 feet in the air from the ground level in vanilla/chocolate doom and you can't look down to see that shit either. If you're playing Vanilla Doom, in DOSBOX version 1.666 or whatever the fuck - you can get WASD setup that's okay, but it's got some snag on it. Even Chocolate Doom fixes this making it fully functional and improves play-ability for it.
All that being said - it'd still be a fucking a massive pain in the ass on any port with your run settings.

To be honest, I don't think I even know 100% secrets either. Oh, also I'm pretty sure some versions of the Doom Wad change some things - at least one secret in e1m1 for Doom 1 is missing in one of the wads if I recall, I don't recall if it's just shareware or a specific version of shareware, but the ceiling tunnel in the waste room doesn't exist in every version.

Afaik, that challenge is doable.. GL with it though.

>>10900282
I will grant, the 100% secrets is very complimentary to the pistol run completion. Since, that's gonna help A LOT knowing where secrets are for the upgrades per level.

>>10899842
>How hard/easy is it to actually beat every Doom and Doom2 level on these settings?
depends on the level, in average it's hard but some levels becomes frustratingly difficult like Perfect Hatred in Doom 1 and Barrels o' Fun from Doom 2, it turns some levels to a puzzle that need to be finished in a certain way.
if anything it makes you appreciate the game and the level design even more.
one thing to note is some secrets are very well hidden, you might find it harder to 100% the secrets than 100% the kills.
>Can you do it? Have you tried?
already done it with all the doom games and their expansions except for Sigil 2.
Pistol starting Doom 64 turned it from a good game to a very good game.

>>10899842
pistol start is actually THE MOST FUN you can have because it really makes you appreciate level and item design this much more since all stages were designed to be beatable

>>10900282
>Also, you never specified port and settings
I'm on GZDoom. the clearer graphics themselves already make it easier to learn the maps compared to chocolateDoom. But I don't have vertical aiming enabled - I have mouselook on, but I can't look up or down.

>>10900231
but you wouldn't bump the thread for me if I posted there

I haven't done every map with a pistol start, but I will say that doing later levels that way makes you really appreciate some of their designs a lot more.

Doing all of Doom 1 and 2 this way is a slog, but I would recommend trying it with Knee Deep in the Dead, first on UV, then on Nightmare.

If you're like me, you'll really enjoy it, but you won't want to do it again for a while.

>>10901013
Mouselook left/right is fine - vanilla doom let's you do that - though you have to kill MouseY sense and shit so it doesn't move you since that axis with the mouse will typically move you forward/back. And you can do that to get WASD + Mouse controls. That fact eludes a lot of people and surprises others - but it was kinda advanced for it's time in that regard and it's mouse input is smoother than other games as well like Duke Nukem 3D as well which seems to have pixel skipping in the vanilla game (and even the eduke32 port unless they fixed it).

One of the interesting things is... just watch the demo play feature - they were using a mouse to move around and it's pretty evident in retrospect. I didn't even start using mouse until Quake 2. I used keyboard only for Doom back in the day. But there were a handful of deathmatch demos where people are clearly using a mouse and they just shred. I suppose some people also learned off mouse in Wolf3D, but that felt like shit to use because you couldn't strafe with single buttons and couldn't kill Y sensitivity to wasd. Doesn't mean you couldn't play crazy good - just means you had to learn to play in a very different way from what we do now.

>>10899842
When you learn strategy it's not difficult. Doom2 gets a little tough 3/4's way through if you trying for a low time

I wouldn't rate it as a difficult game compared to contra or ghosts and goblins though

I didn't go for 100% completion, but I beat both Doom games on UV, pistol start, and fast monsters. Everything except for Thy Flesh Consumed, that is. I got as far as E4M2.

>>10899854
You can also use the stage select cheat, since it leaves you with your default stats and weapons too and it's faster than trying to kill yourself without rockets.

>>10899854
>not very good at fps's
That might be true; maybe I'm better at them than I think I am, but I can beat pretty much any level without too much trouble on a pistol start (which is the only satisfying way to play, I think, the single best change you can make to improve your experience). I have never used Fast Monsters actually, I should try it, though usually I come back to Doom and give a new wad a try instead.
>100% secrets
I think this is annoying unless you know about them all in advance. Some of the secrets are behind doors that close within a set amount of time from the map start, which IMO is total bullshit from a completionist perspective. More like an easter egg at that point.
>>10899994
One thing that's always annoyed me is that, at least the last time I played, the source ports (gzdoom certainly) had no support for auto-pistol start. I had to make my own script/hotkey to do a restart on each new level. I have no idea how it isn't a built-in game option when, to my knowledge, many people play this way and even many third-party wads are designed with it in mind.

>>10903605
To be fair, the timed one happens only on one map of Doom II so it's a rare occurrence. Also someone has to be aware of the few levels with glitched secrets so they don't go crazy at not finding them, like that one which you could trigger with the help of a pain elemental.

>>10903678
My bad, I thought it was used in a couple Doom levels as well. I still think it's a bad design. If anything, it's even worse that one secret out of a hundred works using a mechanic not otherwise apparent anywhere else in the game, and that this is opaque to the player unless they happen to be lucky or bored enough to stumble across it.
Even if I had replayed this level a dozen times back-to-back, I would have assumed that I was somehow causing the door to close by walking over a certain linedef somewhere, and would have done a bunch of experimentation to try and find the "intended" safe approach to it.

>>10899842
Doom 1 is easy enough to get through (once you know your way around) but the final boss - the Master Spider Brain Demon thing, or whatever its called, is v. hard to beat. Even if you lure the other demons into attacking.
There's just not enough pick-up weapons or armour to keep you alive.

>>10899842
>posts on /vr/
>posts a screenshot of the unity release
ngmi

>>10903821
I actually beat Doom1 on UV with fast monsters, spiderdemon is a cakewalk. Now 100% kills on that level, thats pretty tough because the level ends when you kill the boss, so you have to kill everything else first.

>>10899867
Isn't nightmare a joke mode added to spite a playtester who said it was too easy?

>>10904848
I think it was to shut up kids on the internet who complained it was too easy, but yeah its supposed to be a meme.

>>10903605
>maybe I'm better at them
>never used Fast Monsters actually

I will have to ask you to pick one, man. Fast Monsters is another thing entirely.

>>10899842
>no saves
Not even between levels(the only place God intended you to save)? Probably pretty hard, you can die in stupid ways at any moment and need to repeat the whole episode. Assuming you're not a cheater you should have to start from e1m1 either game. I prefer just restarting the level if I die.

>>10899842
I beat d2 and plutonia on uv without quicksaves, just the regular autosaves at the start of each level. I personally consider that combination of difficulty and saves the optimum. I tried doing the same for plutonia 2 but only got up to 20 and for some reason never finished it. never tried d1 since I consider it the worst doom. level design is bad and being constantly in ammo starvation mode is boring.

>>10905350
>you can die in stupid ways at any moment and need to repeat the whole episode
The original game would reset the level on death, not go back to your last save.

>>10905350
Yeah, I meant no saves mid-level. If you die, you replay the level. Beating every level in one seating, not dieing once, is crazy talk.

>>10904785
I only play original doom on Dosbox.
Spider Demon is easy with weapons accumulated from previous levels, much easier than the Cyberdemon boss.
You can take it out with the BFG in just a few shots.
But with a pistol, and no armour?
It instant hits you with its machine guns while your running around the edge of the map trying to get the few weapons and ammo in the game. If you drop directly into the arena you can bait it into fighting the few other demons hanging around, but the only weapon pick up is the plasma rifle in the centre and that doesn't have enough ammo to finish the boss.
I don't know UV.

>>10899867
based

>>10905919
There's rockets and a rocket launcher. You're supposed to use other enemies to shield yourself from her machinegun fire. It really is not that hard. I might record myself killing her later today, just because.

>>10899842
I've completed every Doom IWAD like this. It honestly makes the game more fun than just spamming the SSG, like I do in continuous. Plutonia was especially fun, but for Doom I and II it isn't too hard, secret hunting may be annoying though.

>>10899854
>For the uninitiated: Pistol Starting means killing yourself every level you begin, so that you always start with only the Pistol and 100 Health.
That sounds boring and shitty, pass.

>>10907838
It's fun. The game is too easy when you just have every gun for the entire game.

>>10899842
>Fast Monsters

This is the hardest part. The rest is really not THAT difficult.

>>10909857
I don't mind starting over from scratch, but that starting pistol is fucking abysmal.

>>10910218
That's your encouragement to find a new gun.

I think I did this for episodes 1-3 of Doom, but gave up on 4-2.

>>10910226
Yeah. I get that, but it still doesn't change the fact it's fucking woefully bad. Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior had better starting weapons, though of course those came after Doom.

>>10910242
The pistol is perfectly serviceable for Imps and Zombies, and you almost always get a shotgun early on in a map.

bump

>>10899842
>Pistol start
>100% kills and secrets
It is pretty hard but also tedious because you need to properly route every single room on the map. Said that, didn't Romero say that they designed all the original Doom levels (so not 2 or The Flesh Consumed levels) to be beatable with a pistol start? I guess that then is fine to beat all the first three chapters that way but beyond that is just a meme challenge

>>10912295
It was Sandy, and every map was designed to be beaten from a pistol start because you lose all your guns when you die and they didn't want you to have to replay huge chunks of the game if you had a bad save somewhere.

THERE IS NO DOOM GENERAL

>>10912692
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I'd make one, but I'm phone posting.

>>10912761
I'd make one but i'm a terminal brainlet