/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5491968
>putting the revenant back in the closet

yeah plutonia was pretty bullshitty

>>5491968
This has got to be up there with hardest commercially released games that are not hard because they are POS design, but intended to be extremely challenging.

I've never liked this game. I felt like the level design was way too boring.

>>5492045
TNT too had maps like Stronghold, that for many was thought to be impossible on Nightmare, due to the very high number of hitscanners.

As for Plutonia, the problem is not the number of monsters, actually there are fewer monsters in average than on Doom 2. What makes Plutonia difficult is monster type usage (chaingunner, revenant and archvile galore), and unfair placement.
>Grab soulsphere
>Chaingunner closet opens up behind you, backed by an archvile
>End up with less health than what you had before the soulsphere

>>5491968
Git Gud: The Game

>>5491968
Please explain exactly what the difference is between "artificial difficulty" and "real difficulty".

>>5491968

Fucking love it. In fact I love TNT better than Doom 2.

>>5491968
>Artificial Difficulty
You mean video games?

Plutonia is the best IWAD, you stupid motherfucker.

>>5492368

All yall niggas that beat Plutonia on UV pistol start say AYYYYY

All yall niggas that beat it UV pistol start with no midlevel saves say AYYYY YO

>>5492349
Usually if you feel like the difficulty is slowing you down more than it is forcing you to get better, you're in a fake difficulty game.

>>5492386
AYYY YO. One of the best experiences I had in gaming

Great example of why quality assurance is so important in games. Throwing about 24 random end-game enemies right at the start of the game is always a pretty good sign that you are playing a shit fan game.

>>5492394
>>5492386
i doubt either of you did.

AYYY YO

Here have more monsters The Game

>>5492450
Hell yeah I did. I pistol start no-save everything I play. And, like I said above, Plutonia is the best IWAD.

I used to do pistol start, no quicksave because I considered that the proper way to beat doom then I realized playing games were a pathetic waste of time now I play exclusively on god mode.

>>5492609
One retarded extreme to another, huh.
Pistol starters are truly sick people.

>>5492349
bullshit invisible bridges

>>5492386
AYYYY YO

I DIDN'T PLAY SHIT

>>5491968
>>5492045
>>5492092
Acquire skill.

>>5492086
Dario said that he designed his maps with the premise that they would give him a really hard time on Ultra-Violence, and would ramp up the difficulty if he found that it became too easy for him, likely this was how Milo approached it as well.

>>5492383
It's pretty good.

>>5492386
Working on that, except Pistol Start, I'm just not that kind of guy.

>>5494953
That section isn't perhaps crystal clear, but there is a clue for it.

>>5492398
They aren't random though, there's a thought with each encounter.

>>5491968
I missed this one. What was the problem?

>>5492609
pistol start is a meme and you've been memed

>>5496591
Final Doom was two full, standalone level packs (32+32=64) based on Doom 2.

It consists of TNT Evilution, which was one of the very first community megawads, full 32 levels, at the time, which was actually picked up and licensed as an official product by ID Software.
Plutonia was part of that licensing deal, they would deliver another full 32 level megawad to ID, and then the two megawads together was retailed as Final Doom.

Some argue that Final Doom is the most fun of the official classic Doom products, and I can see why. TNT Evilution was made by a ragtag group, and in spite of there being no real design directions or intended style, it manages to mostly have one. I'd say that it's slightly better than Doom 2, because they're a bit more creative with monster encounters and level design, and though TNT is pretty good for the first 20 or so levels, and starts just gradually rattling apart after that, its lows are seldom as low as Doom 2's lowest (but there IS one or two absolutely rotten levels).
Plutonia was made in like 8 weeks of nonstop hard work by Milo Casali and Dario Casali (who moved on to mapping for Valve Software) and is designed as a sort of ultimate challenge, for all those people who felt the previous games were too easy. There's a lot of stereotyping about its difficulty, some of it is true, some of it isn't.

If you're into Doom, it's definitely worth checking them out, TNT has some good atmosphere and music to it, and some pretty fun levels, where Plutonia provides some excellent challenge (it's not mandatory to play on Ultra-Violence, but it is the most fun), and plays with some pretty fun gimmicks. Final Doom, particularly Plutonia, is regarded as an important milestone in Doom mapping.

>>5496591
>>5496765
Final Doom was also released as a version of the Playstation port, which aside from its features and gimmicks, had new levels in a kind of lopsided pick from TNT, Plutonia, and The Master Levels, for some reason. I find this release is kind of weak, because though it has most of TNTs fun levels, it only has a couple of Plutonia's maps, and none of the really fun ones.

There's some reasons for this, for one, they felt they couldn't properly represent the Arch-Vile monster in the PSX versions, so they outright decided to not feature him at all, thus Plutonia's Map 11, Hunted, which is a claustrophobic maze populated by them (and one of my favorite gimmick maps), would be ruined, and some of the levels were too advanced and demanding for the console, to the point they felt that there would be no point to try to cut them down to make them fit.
So you get a bunch of TNT's levels without too much trimming, then you get a bunch of the Master Levels (which I never liked, and aren't any better here), and you get like the first five Plutonia levels, trimmed to work on PSX.
Playstation Final Doom added support for the PSX Mouse peripheral, which is neat, but ultimately it's only really kind of good for the TNT part, and then the rest of the game blueballs you. Oh yeah, and it's all the same music as the first PSX port.

>>5496783
what was the problem with porting the arch-vile on PSX ?

>>5496752
Pistol start is a kind of challenge.
It's not my cup of tea, but there's a rationale behind it.

Most levels are balanced and tested for pistol start (since going through the entire game in progressive play until you reach the level you're working on would be tedious and time consuming).
Further, in the original game (this is usually different in sourceports), when you die, you restart the level and you lose everything you had, beginning again with just 100hp and 50 bullets, thus it had to be possible to beat the levels in this situation.
However, the game lets you carry over items automatically between levels, you can save and load as much as you want (and the manual even encourages you to), and many sourceports autosaves at the start of the level, and loads your last save when you die, so a lot of people forget about the part where you could lose all your shit.

Because the original game is pretty easy even on UV, I can see why people would be attracted to this approach. Personally though, I prefer being able to keep nice things I find, like how in Doom 2's first level, you can find a secret rocket launcher (and you get a total of two rockets), but there's nothing in the level which is worth using it on, so saving it makes more sense to me, and it makes those secrets more valuable.
But then, on the second level you'll very soon find the Super Shotgun, which I think was a mistake, because it's almost rocket launcher tier, but uses very common and plentiful ammo, and it makes things a bit too easy.

Pistol Starting kind of just depends on what mapset you're playing, and what kind of guy you are.

>>5496790
He has the most frames of anything in the game (two different attacks, more animation frames, full rotations for everything), and apparently having dead monsters revive would be very memory intensive for how object handling is done in that particular port, because there's no Nightmare! either, and no Icon Of Sin (which could probably have been done in a different way, but certainly not as in the PC original, due to a whole bunch of different limitations)

They could cut half of the rotations I figure, some of the frames, and then remove his reviving ability, and I guess he would still be pretty mean, but if you look at the Revenant in the console ports, he's way slower than he's supposed to be, and his rockets aren't homing anymore (and I can't imagine that was done for performance reasons), so I almost wonder if they felt that the Revenant and the Arch-Vile would be too hard for the average player (whether that's actually true or not), and then nerfed one and outright cut the other. Perhaps they felt that the gamepad wasn't adequate enough to play with and made the game harder.

Ultimately, the Arch-Vile Thing in the PSX/Saturn port is replaced with a prop; a meathook on a chain hanging from the ceiling, with some blood on it, so in some levels you can see where an Arch-Vile would have been, and in some levels they place a Revenant where the Arch-Vile would have been. I think the PSX ports are mostly pretty good, but I always felt this was a big strike against it.

>>5496752
>>5494570
>>5496815
Levels that are designed with pistol start in mind (like all official releases of Doom) deliberately set up enemy encounters and how resources are doled out to compel the player into certain tactical challenges and induce feelings of tension and release.

For example, E4M9 starts you out immediately under fire from every direction, and you're forced to make a decision of where you can go. You're rushed by pinkies that you can't afford to fight with your pistol. You'll either run straight into the front door and take the shotgun, in which you'll be forced to fight imps with only a few shells, or you'll sprint to the left and kill the shotgunner and grab the shells along the wall, in which you'll be cornered and have to shoot it out against that mass of pinkies, blasting the barrels to try and catch them in the explosions and save ammo. From there you have to run around to gather more shells and resources while cacos chase you and fireballs and shots keep coming, and the level continues from there with telefragging the baron inside to save more ammo but throwing you right in the middle another melee that you need to escape to grab the rocket launcher, getting the plasma rifle and taking the fight back to them, etc.

But if you come in with the BFG and full cells from E4M2, then none of that matters because you can just shit out a bunch of blasts and kill everything without even thinking about it. It completely flatlines the emotional peaks and valleys and turns it into a single note of "keep shooting til they all die."

There's tension when you have to cut and run, and a sense of release when you get the gear to fight back against those enemies that once overwhelmed you. Secrets become godsends, and high level weapons feel powerful again when you finally do get your hands on one. All of those thrills are lost when you can just carry over an SSG with 50 shells or always have a rocket launcher ready when it gets a little too hot.

>>5492349
It's hard not because it required skill, but because it's cheap, for example there's no real way to ever get good at guessing where monsters will pop out, or how to avoid traps with no clue they're there.
Not retro but Doom 3 had it too, often when you walk into a room a monster teleports behind you, there's no way to ever get good at knowing when it will happen, the only way to avoid it is turn around every time you walk into a room.

>>5497176
They really should have made Pistol Start a toggleable setting for that reason.
I like the episode division of the the first game like that too (and mapsets that have them or emulate them with death exits), because there's progressive play, but you're reset every 8 or 9 levels, so you can have a short ramp up and then begin that over again.

Progressive play can almost make the early maps of E4 harder though, like how E4M1 starves you bad for health and ammo, and then you get to E4M2, which starts you immediately with a bunch of monsters barreling towards you, and a bunch of monsters right next to you which will alert as soon as you start shooting at the advancing monsters, now imagine you've come from E4M1, you're hurt bad, you have like 12 bullets, 3 shells, an empty rocket launcher, and no armor.

>>5497190
>Progressive play can almost make the early maps of E4 harder though, like how E4M1 starves you bad for health and ammo, and then you get to E4M2, which starts you immediately with a bunch of monsters barreling towards you, and a bunch of monsters right next to you which will alert as soon as you start shooting at the advancing monsters, now imagine you've come from E4M1, you're hurt bad, you have like 12 bullets, 3 shells, an empty rocket launcher, and no armor.
I admit that part of what I like about pistol starting is just that - if you can just get your hand on that end level button, then it's all over. Whether you cross the finish with 200/200 and a full load or make it like pic related, a win is a win. The flipside too is that it makes bolder plays more plausible - if you know that you're not keeping that BFG in the next level, you might as well blow all that ammo instead of trying to ration out your cells for the chance to possibly cheese out a tough fight six maps down the line.

>>5497245
>if you can just get your hand on that end level button, then it's all over
I can see that, but I also like how things can escalate in coming levels, so if I finish a map in a hurt and ammo starved state, that's added challenge for the coming map.

I personally get enjoyment out of scrounging and being as 'topped off' as I can before I leave a level (as well as killing all them monsters I can and finding all the secrets). I guess I'm just very methodical in my play style, but the risk of finishing a level while imperfect can affect the other levels.

>The flipside too is that it makes bolder plays more plausible - if you know that you're not keeping that BFG in the next level, you might as well blow all that ammo instead of trying to ration out your cells for the chance to possibly cheese out a tough fight six maps down the line.
I do suppose there's that. I sort of get that feel with episodic play, or short mapsets.

>>5496879
>if you look at the Revenant in the console ports, he's way slower than he's supposed to be, and his rockets aren't homing anymore
You got the facts wrong. In the PSX port, the Revenant's rockets are always homing, but move slower. The moving speed of the Revenant itself wasn't changed.

>>5497373
Ah, that was it.
That they randomly home or don't home in the original was an oversight (it depends on if the rocket spawns at an even or odd tic), and I guess they caught that when porting it and decided to fix it.

Still, I dislike that they made him slower, he's supposed to be pretty fast and that's part of the danger.

>>5497385
wew lad

>>5492349
They don't even know they like to talk out of their asses but I'll enlighten you
Artificial difficult is nothing but raising numbers. Make enemies more resistant and give them more life so they take longer to kill. Like diablo2 nightmare and forward
Some games when you raise the difficult level it actually makes the enemies behave differently, bosses get new patterns and so on.

>>5491968
I'm Bad: The OP

>>5497591
I think you misspelled Gay.

>>5497180
>for example there's no real way to ever get good at guessing where monsters will pop out, or how to avoid traps with no clue they're there.
Most traps in Plutonia are setup in a way that makes them easy to predict, though.

>>5497245
This is the main reason I never really found pistol starts to be that much of a challenge. It is different, sure, and it can be potentially harder based on the level. But there is also quite a number of levels where resources are provided for you, the knowledge that nothing matters in the next map means you end up being able to spam powerful resources that you normally would. It all depends on your general playstyle.

I find games not made for pistol starts are far more brutal. For example, Quake appears to be made with more of an episodic focus, almost all Episodes have one instance of each weapon and usually don't include any weapons on the final map of an episode. Trying to play E3M6 from a shotgun start feels rougher than pistol starts in Doom, probably due to the balance differences.

>>5497910
Unless you come in with less than 100 health and only a pistol with less than 50 bullets, pistol starting is objectively harder than continuous because any resources that are provided for pistol starters are provided for continuous players too. If the level starts you out in a room with a shotgun and a box of shells, and you come in already carrying a shotgun and even three shells, you will be three shells richer than the pistol starter, which can make the difference between killing a pinky or running away from one.

You are right though that you're compelled to blow out your ammo at the end of a level as opposed to holding on to your good ammo for as long as you can to bust it out against a worthy enemy multiple maps down the line. This is where personal tastes come in - I find the big blowout the climax of the narrative arc in a level where you finally get the chance to confidently turn the tables on the enemies that had been rentlessly pressuring you when you were weaker earlier in the map.
But someone like >>5497263 likes the feeling of scrounging a level for every advantage he can get for the possible future.

PS vs Cont is sorta like arcade design vs RPG design: a PS sees the game as a series of self-contained challenges based around doing everything in your power to make it to the end akin to games like Robotron. Continuous sees the game as essentially "leveling up" over a series of maps by getting equipment and powerups so that you can keep up with the increasing difficulty and hopefully be strong enough and well equipped enough by the end to feel on equal footing with the final challenge. My tastes tend toward the former than the latter, so I ended up loving pistol starts.

Your point about Quake being actively balanced around continuous is a good one though, and it does all end up coming down to design. Doom was tested and balanced through pistol starting, so that's a big part of why I feel justified in doing so there.

>>5497789
Having played Doom for years now, it feels like I've developed a sense for when a trap is about to happen, like I mean in maps I haven't played, and I just get this feeling "There should be a trap or a surprise right about now."

Sometimes, I'm wrong, and there's nothing, and I actually feel disappointed. Perdition's Gate did this to me a lot, what an absolute blueballer of a mapset.

>>5492386
AYYYYYY
no midlevel saves? fuck that shit lmao

>>5496879
Where can I find the sprite replacing the arch-vile?

You post the wrong picture.

>>5491968
Am I the only one who thinks tnt has good ost?

>>5501049
Soundtrack's only good thing about TNT

>>5491968
>artificial difficulty meme
Back to your containment board >>>/v/

>>5492386
AYYYYY...no
Although recently I've started playing Doom levels with no saves/pistol start and its crazy how much more fun it is that way. That said whenever a secret chaingunner pops up and just kills you in five seconds it makes it feel like the game was designed with mid-level saves in mind, but I feel like that takes any sense of consequence out of the game.

>>5501014
Right here, broseph.

>>5501580
I've had people get pissed at me for saying that pistol starting is the best way to play, saying that I should just let people play how they want. But the reason I always push it is because it's the most fun I ever had with Doom, and I wish people had told me earlier so I could have always been playing like it.

>>5501781
How bizarre

>>5491968
wait wait wait. wait a minute. what do I play first? TNT or Plutonia?

>>5502112
On PC, whichever you feel like. Plutonia is the hard one so I would recommend saving it for last.

>>5501781
>>5502110
i guess they thought it was easier to replace the actors instead of removing them from every map

>>5502439
I assume also maybe they wanted another decoration to put in the maps.
One of the secret exclusive maps has a dark room with a damaging floor, full of these hooks, you get teleported there for taking the wrong step on a teleport puzzle.

>>5502094
Probably because it's a subjective thing. Do spread the good word of the pistol start, but mind it's just not everyone's preferred flavor.
Some people also like slaughter maps, but they're a very acquired taste which isn't for everyone.

>>5492045
G I T
U
D

>>5492092
>TNT too had maps like Stronghold, that for many was thought to be impossible on Nightmare, due to the very high number of hitscanners.
It's a real bitch of a level on Nightmare, and I figure that's gotta be one of those levels which guys like Zeromaster probably rehearsed a lot.

>>5502094
>pistol start on boss maps

get a load of this fucking guy

>>5504845
It works.

Are any of the Master Levels worth it?

>>5505567
The master levels has two components: a compilation of commissioned levels, and a shovelware-like compilation of amateur Doom wads from the internet. The former is worth playing, certainly one of the better 90s level packs.

>>5505567
Eeeeeeeh

>>5505567
Play it as an episode. There is a good mod for that. I use the official map order from the PS3 release https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169466324

People shit on it for both good and bad reason but the 'bad' maps themselves arent any worse than the last third of TNT. I really like it. Black Tower is pretty sick

>>5505607
>>5505781
Thanks.
Is there any way to get No Rest for the Living without buying the whole BFG edition? I already have the other games separately.

>>5506080
Look for nerve.wad

You can probably get it from the OP of the retro FPS general

>>5497180
One of Doom 3's core flaws is that it tries to surprise the player way too much.
>Haha! This wall next to you just opened and there's monsters inside!
>Haha! There's zombies lurking in this dark server room, surprise!
>Muhahaha! A spider monster crawls out from behind this computer monitor when you're looking at it!
>Aha! An imp jumped out from a ventilation shaft!
>Those dead bodies weren't dead at all!
>PSSSSSSH! This pipe will leak steam now!
>This machine will make really loud hydralic noises now!

It does this shit all the fucking time, initially the surprises startle you, but about an hour into the game you're now used to it and expect it around every corner, so:
>Boo!
>AAH!
turns into:
>Boo!
>"Fuck off already."
or just no reaction at all, because it constantly happens and isn't surprising anymore.

I don't even hate Doom 3, it's a decent shooter ultimately, but it thinks its a horror game and that part is so bad. I love the chainsaw though.

>>5501049
It has great music that fits the maps perfectly.
Classic Doom always had a kind of lived in future aspect to it, and I feel TNT Evilution captures that aspect the strongest with its dirty and rusty industrial aesthetics and atmosphere, which the music really helps build.
I'm really glad TNT is getting some recognition these days, and people are making some megawads for it.

>>5501079
The first 20ish maps are mostly good or even great, it's not until the last third you start seeing really bad maps like Habitat, and by then you've passed all the peaks.

>>5496879
That makes me wonder just how the Pain Elemental works in that port.

>>5491968

>>5508638
This only applies to straight men. ;)

>>5508641
Wrong, you will fail to please a gay man too if you're bad with FPS.
He will just not be satisfied.

>>5492386
AYYY YO
No saves is a BITCH on Abbattoire

>>5509935
I had to look up what map that was again, and the moment I saw the opening shot, memories fucking flooded back to me. That ending is such a ballbuster and it just comes out of fucking nowhere. I remember falling into the pit after I already killed everything and was just going to the exit. I said fuck it and just noclipped out.

>>5491968
I actually liked TNT, save for a couple of levels.

>>5509935
>>5510556
Abbattoire is such a, well, abbatoire (Plutonia had some great level names).
Seeing someone speedrun that level on Nightmare! is something else, Nightmare! speedrunning is so different, because the fast monsters basically force you to stay and fight, frequently, and you can't just run past them all like normal speedruns (and they keep coming back to life too). It's some of the most high speed fighting I've seen in a first person shooter, outside of maybe Quake Deathmatch with the most elite of players.

>>5510853
TNT isn't bad at all, just a bit uneven. Most of the levels are decent or good, and there's some maybe not as fun ones, with only two outright rotten ones.
It's almost like it was in a glass jar and the good stuff settled on the bottom (except then you'd reach it last, so maybe the pickled .wad jar was stored upside down).
It gets a lot of points for style alone, but I think it overall is a little better and more consistent than Doom 2 (which I don't think is bad).

>>5491968
the only criticism i had about plutoina was that it could've been shorter. alot of those levels feel like the just drag on longer than that need to be.

>>5511036
maybe you'd like Plutynia

>>5510556
>falling into the pit after I already killed everything and was just going to the exit
I had that happened to me too maybe more than once, but I was always too prideful and forced myself to take the L.

Play it with Brutal Doom. That mod add an automatic shotgun which fixes everything.
That way it's actually FUN when 20 monsters spawn. Put on Into the Beast's Belly and don't come back until you have hearing damage.

>>5492349
Forced damage and overwhelming numbers as opposed to tests of skill.

>>5514775
>overwhelming numbers
>not a test of skill
;)

>>5511036
Most Plutonia levels aren't long, though.

>>5501023
Only DS2 could really be argued as "Artificial" when it comes to hitboxes, but then again, a lot of aspects about that game also make things easier than the other games, like enemies no longer spawning after they died a dozen or so times.
Also not retro.

>>5514654
Brutal Doom is gay and makes the game too easy.

>>5514654
Project Brutality is better, and has way more guns.