[Doomworld] "Defaulting to Ultra Violence is terrible..."

[TimeOfDeath]

www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/146383-defaulting-to-ultra-violence-is-terrible-and-heres-why/

Yes, sorry, we're doing this.

Over the years I've made a bunch of maps, and watched lots of demos and videos with or without commentary. One thing I see so often is somebody staring the wad they don't know on UV, die a couple times and then skip to the next map. Or beat their head against the difficulty that's clearly too high, quicksaving every five seconds only to survive. Don't get me wrong, i have nothing against saving during the map but if you're not not having fun, why are you doing this? Why not simply start the map again on HMP, and actually enjoy the challenge that matches your skill level?

People often talk about whether or not they're ready for Sunlust but only consider Ultra Violence a valid option, What's going on here? Why is that?

You may say that ultra violence is the difficulty mappers spend most time and effort balancing but that's a circular issue. People generally see ultra violence as the main difficulty, so they play that most, and mappers know people play it most so they put most their attention to ultra violence. Because mappers put so much attention to ultra violence, that must be because they want people to play it most. And on and on it goes, the uroboros of baseless assumptions, the snake sniffing its own farts.

Note that I have also no issues with "grinding." Running attempt after attempt to overcome a difficult challenge. That can be satisfying in its own right, even if it doesn't end up with success. I've noticed people seem to fall in two broad categories when it comes to challenge that's just out of their grasp. Some enjoy the challenge and even seek it because the satisfaction of overcoming it gets all the sweeter the harder it is too achieve. And the other group who don't think it's worth spending the amount of time and energy trying to beat their head against the wall over and over again. I make the distinction here in the middle of the post to see how many will not bother reading and make an argument i already discussed, anyway. Of course, people can oscillate or fall somewhere between the two categories but who I'm taking about in this post is the second group. Having a great difficulty with a map/mapset, yet refusing to step away from ultra violence.

I make maps, and seeing somebody struggling and having a terrible time with my map kinda sucks. But that's fine, that's why i balance all the difficulties. When it gets frustrating is when people struggle and have a terrible time but insist on playing ultra violence. That makes me want to scream. That makes me want to say that the map is intended for HMP and then fill the entire map with cyberdemons on ultra violence.

So why, why are people doing this? And most importantly, what can we do to stop this madness? Why is UV seen as the one and only difficulty by just about everyone here? I have that backed up with data btw. The number of people who gave me feedback on anything else than UV could be counted on fingers of one hand. And I've been doing this for a while.

Why should mappers even bother balancing for difficulties so few people consider viable?

This is the type of doomworld thread I would normally post in, but can't anymore after being banned. Taking his last sentence "Why should mappers even bother balancing for difficulties so few people consider viable?", my response would be that they SHOULDN'T bother. imo adding difficulty settings is a total waste of time and so I rarely ever do it. What's the point if I'm only going to play it on UV? How do you guys feel about difficulty settings?

[CittyKat112]

Adding difficulties is always a wasted effort. Only like 3 people use them.

[killer5]

This is something I have always implemented in the past but is something I go back and forth on upon implementing my maps. For ideas I have I am my own target audience so whether or not I implement these, or at least spend a lot of time on them, depends on whether or not I will use them. As an aside - I wasn't like this as much as in the past but now-a-days I can't imagine catering my projects to other people because I will end up making something which plays like everything else. Doom is a completely selfish enterprise for me now as far as mapping is considered.

For a wad like Zzul Bases I rushed the difficulties pretty heavily. I am not very happy with them, but, that is because I just never play them because there is no need for me to do so. For harder wads difficulties really come into their own imo. For things like Dimensions 2, especially, I am very happy that I decided to make the decision to implement the difficulties because skill 4 is basically a completely different map difficulty wise. My mood isn't the same each day so some days I will play a lower difficulty and still have just as much fun as if I was to play the map on skill 4. Very hard maps really lend themselves well to difficulties because lower difficulties have meaning in that they will generally become completely different experiences compared to higher difficulties. You only have three choices so skill 4 might be an 11/10 in difficulty and skill 2 might be a 5/10 in difficulty for example. Unfortunately hard maps take forever to implement difficulties well because you might need to rework entire areas to make them work with different monster compositions (more on this later).

Easier wads imo don't lend themselves too well to difficulties because there is just no point in playing anything less than skill 4 for me. If I was to implement maps for a project with other people involved I would, and have, implement them for the maps I submit.

I think in this day and age difficulties should be implemented for any project unless you just don't have time to do it (we all have a life outside of Doom). I imagine responsible leads of any project are making sure they are present anyways.

Regarding actually implementing difficulties. There is no cut and dry way of making them good. I have seen people making arbitrary statements like skill 2 = Plutonia on skill 4 for harder maps (Doomworld Megawad Club Sunlust thread) as well as people reducing monsters by thirds or something.. this might be Steve D or something I can't remember who exactly. I have rejected these strategies entirely. IMO difficulties only make sense when they are providing a similar experience to the original design goals of the map. This means that effective difficulties make sense on a map by map basis (or I guess a wad if you have multiple maps present and going for a cohesive experience). This means that shooting for Plutonia never made sense for me in Dimensions, for example, because when people play Dimensions I want them to be able to play it but still feel like maps are designed such that they are oriented towards a challenge wad perspective. Dimensions 1 and 2 are sets of maps designed to kill the player so the difficulties should still provide that feeling to players who aren't as skilled but are still playing on skill 1, 2, or 3.

You also can't use some strategy like reducing monsters by a percentage. Sometimes encounters work differently by adding a cyberdemon on skill 2 or 3 to help with infighting (tired example but it is a good one). Monsters need to be placed in such a way that they make sense for the map. For easier maps I think it would be more interesting now to maybe make some bizarre experience on lower difficulties instead. When you are dealing with a map which is a 1/10 or 2/10 in difficulty it sucks to give an experience which is simply a .5/10.. it would be more interesting to give a completely different experience all together (similar to what tourniquet did in Mutabor).

Meh just my 2 cents off the cuff.

[shibainumaster]

I'm not reading all that shit from the Doomworld post; But this non-issue is easily solved by saving and not being a bitch.

[stodgyayatollah]

I could see difficulty being useful if wanting to make something really ballbusting but still let low skill players play the map or changing a bunch of stuff like key placements or using voodoo closets to change a bunch of things in boom or something to make a fairly different experience. Or trolling by making the easier difficulties harder. Outside of novelty stuff like that I'd say there's not much point. I'd assume people who use the lower skills don't play much and probably won't be long term. Could be wrong but that's the sense I get.

[bugothecat]

Out of tradition, because the original Doom maps did it too, I would always use difficulty settings for my maps, like easy=add a zombie soldier, medium add 2 zombie soldiers, hard=1 imp and 2 zomb
I just liked to do it. But now I realize maybe I shouldn't bother. Cause 1) it takes more time, 2) most people will play high difficulty, 3) I don't put much thought on enemy placement, 4) It might be iconic that an area had 4 imps and a Caco, so if played at different levels of difficulty things change. I recently played something you have to run through pillars with Mancubi which is very iconic and annoying, and the easiest difficulty replaced them with imps and other easier monsters chasing you behind. I realized the iconic chase (it was in some Deus Vult 2 map I played) alters entirely, like playing too different games. So I have to rethink when I make a map, it will both save my time and let me place the exact idea of monsters where I want for all. Easier difficulty will just give you less damage and more ammo which is fine. Afterall my maps are not slaughter, they are pretty easy.

[VICE]

Some ideas for more interesting use of lower difficulties:

1. Decorations. Add decorations near secrets, like placing a small candle near a mismatched texture wall secret to draw attention to it.
Or add projectile blocking decorations for more cover.

2. Another (kinda obvious) one is to swap out monsters 1 for 1 with functionally similar mooks like
baron > knight > imp
Or
chaingunner > shotgunner > zombieman

3. Use the exact same monsters but in less advantagous positions.
e.g an imp hiding behind a corner on hard would be only partially hidden on medium and in plain sight on easy.
Flyers like cacodemons would be further away giving the player more time to react.

4. Reposition monster teleports with the same idea in mind as the above point.

[Bob Page]

I always add difficulty levels. I never did it in my earlier levels, but at one point I got backlash for not doing it, so I started implementing them in every level I did thereafter. I think there are people who use them, and perhaps they are a silent minority, but the way I figure it is that it doesn't take too long to implement difficulty levels, so why not?

[stodgyayatollah]

                 

[RastaManGames]

Playing unknown map on UV w/o saves is brave yet not wise idea, IMHO.
Many Doomer comrades were burnt out very bad on this one.
Personally, I am considering UV as option, not mandatory.