[Doomworld] "Defaulting to Ultra Violence is terrible..."
Jul 10, 2024 22:03:37 GMT -5
Post by TimeOfDeath on Jul 10, 2024 22:03:37 GMT -5
www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/146383-defaulting-to-ultra-violence-is-terrible-and-heres-why/
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?
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?
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?