Is Doom 1 even beatable on Nightmare?

[Maverick]

I’m talking about by normal people like (hopefully) you and me, not the no lifers on youtube.

[Space Detective]

Depends on your patience and willingness to git gud?
I mean, I don't know what to tell you if you're discounting people who are good at DOOM as "no lifers". Assuming you aren't trying to troll.

[Space Detective]

Is Dark Souls even beatable?

I’m talking about by normal people like (hopefully) you and me, not the no lifers on youtube.

[Maverick]

Wow, my post REALLY offended you. So much for “normal”.

[angstlicht]

doom's nightmare mode was not playtested or designed around and in fact was added in specifically to make the game too hard to be beaten conventionally by the actual level designers.

you absolutely can beat the levels on nightmare, and it isn't even particularly difficult for most of them. it just also generally isn't very fun, because the game isn't tuned for it and it feels like a weird debugging mode to see what would crash the engine.

there's a similar situation with quake 1, where its nightmare mode is arguably easier than its hard mode due to id just doing things that 'seemed' hard like having monsters spam attacks more often. some people argue that this ruins shamblers and makes the ogres extremely easy to deal with and play on hard instead. it's just not really the best way to see the game design.

hilariously the best classic id nightmare setting is probably quake 2's hard+, but you had to console command that into the game in the original versions.

[Myno]

Who wants to be "normal"? Ironically, the "normal" people are the ones with "no life". They are boring cookie-cutter products. So boring, in fact, they have to make forum threads where they deride others for being better than them at something, and where they actually hope for an echo chamber of same-y copies of themselves to "talk" to. How boring, how pathetic, how ... "normal".

And yes, of course it's possible to beat Nightmare in Doom 1. Duh.

[Maverick]

Originally posted by Myno:

Who wants to be "normal"? Ironically, the "normal" people are the ones with "no life". They are boring cookie-cutter products. So boring, in fact, they have to make forum threads where they deride others for being better than them at something, and where they actually hope for an echo chamber of same-y copies of themselves to "talk" to. How boring, how pathetic, how ... "normal".

And yes, of course it's possible to beat Nightmare in Doom 1. Duh.

You guys in the Doom community really need to chill tf out and touch some grass. It was a harmless conversation post. I didn’t insult your mothers. So far, angstlicht is the only sane person here.

[Maverick]

You guys getting so upset about the harmless “no lifer” comment are basically outing yourselves as one. Why else would it hit a nerve so deeply? Anyway. I’m unsubscribing. I don’t have time for this nonsense. Thank you angstlicht for your levelheaded and helpful response. Stay sane, bro.

[Seamus]

Interesting way to admit you phrased your post as bait.

[angstlicht]

Originally posted by Myno:

Who wants to be "normal"?

let's see
-those recovering from illness or injury
-those who prioritize altruism over ego
-those not wanting to suffer one of the least good ways to play a game from 1993 because even if you were to make doom into your hobby, you still probably would not want to play on nightmare

if you can make bad decisions, you can probably imagine someone who didn't make those bad decisions, and you could realize that there's a lot of those people.

they deride others for being better than them at something

when the something in question isn't actually laudable, you can't be too surprised.

games that tie objectives to difficulty like goldeneye 64 and thief, you probably should play those on the top difficulties if you like them, just to get the most out of their designs.

games like doom where the highest difficulty setting is an afterthought and the levels don't even have unique placements for that setting... it's a bit more questionable. like, is a player who's great at UV-Max but hardly ever touches nightmare, worse than a hypothetical player who generally plays on nightmare but kinda sucks at the game? do doom fan wads use archviles who respawn dead mobs so much because it's a protracted effort to slowly get people dedicated to UV to switch over to the nightmare respawn clocks?

imho, the only skills being tested by nightmare have nothing to do with the specific game of doom, and much to do with the category of 'video games that respawn the enemies regularly', in which case people who have no patience for that kind of thing are probably better off starting with a game actually designed around it to get over the aversion.

you could also argue that nightmare makes classic doom play a bit more like a typical looter shooter or horde rush game, and maybe some people enjoy that. maybe nightmare was the normie cooties mode all along?

[Space Detective]

Originally posted by Maverick:

Wow, my post REALLY offended you. So much for “normal”.

For someone calling people no-lifers, you really can't take a joke, huh?

[AWMonopolyMan]

Originally posted by angstlicht:

the game isn't tuned for it

Yet the devs were kind enough to give you double ammo anyways, if you added the nightmare specific Respawn and Fast Monsters to lower difficulties (especially UV), those are much less tuned for Nightmare styled gameplay since without the extra ammo, getting through levels is a pain in the behind to say the least.

[Heathen]

As someone who is a little curious to learn how to beat Nightmare, has anyone put together a guide for it?

Or I'll just share my own problem, which are ironically Pinkies / Specters. I don't think fast projectiles and hitscans are very easy (depending on layout avoiding respawns is often whatever), but also not my issue.

Those pinkies though? As someone who can almost but not quite punch down groups on UV without taking bites, and can level groups with Berserk, they just beast mode me on pistol starts and I get pinned or driven into LOS of hitscan and other enemy types without really knowing how to live long enough to unload my ammo. Could just be basic movement issues but I'm also pretty good at keeping up sprint speed in open areas.

In the meantime I know how to reproduce the previous UV Max+ or whatever it's called with pistol start and fast monsters (if not respawns, which are kind of annoying but probably should have still made it into the game options in the new port). The problem there is the wild variation in the philosophy of how mappers change maps for multiplayer and coop, often filling them with goodies.

[angstlicht]

Originally posted by Heathen:

As someone who is a little curious to learn how to beat Nightmare, has anyone put together a guide for it?

i think the modern youtuber that people are glibly referring to is decino, who uploads lots of granular id tech 1 analysis and videos doing all the classic games on nightmare.

Those pinkies though? As someone who can almost but not quite punch down groups on UV without taking bites, and can level groups with Berserk, they just beast mode me on pistol starts and I get pinned or driven into LOS of hitscan and other enemy types without really knowing how to live long enough to unload my ammo. Could just be basic movement issues but I'm also pretty good at keeping up sprint speed in open areas.

generally speaking i wanna say you can just stunlock them with the chaingun. melee against them is just messed up when they're fast, imho.

https://youtu.be/ZAaNE12atyY

when i say things are 'do-able but not tuned', this is what i mean. you can solve a lot of things in old games, but the fun may just not be there. there's quite a few melee systems in 90s first person games, and i think half life opposing force's wrench alt attack is actually fun to use. doom's berserk against fast pinkies, not so much.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Heathen:

As someone who is a little curious to learn how to beat Nightmare, has anyone put together a guide for it?

Or I'll just share my own problem, which are ironically Pinkies / Specters. I don't think fast projectiles and hitscans are very easy (depending on layout avoiding respawns is often whatever), but also not my issue.

Those pinkies though? As someone who can almost but not quite punch down groups on UV without taking bites, and can level groups with Berserk, they just beast mode me on pistol starts and I get pinned or driven into LOS of hitscan and other enemy types without really knowing how to live long enough to unload my ammo. Could just be basic movement issues but I'm also pretty good at keeping up sprint speed in open areas.

In the meantime I know how to reproduce the previous UV Max+ or whatever it's called with pistol start and fast monsters (if not respawns, which are kind of annoying but probably should have still made it into the game options in the new port). The problem there is the wild variation in the philosophy of how mappers change maps for multiplayer and coop, often filling them with goodies.

Which map is giving you a hard time?

It's easier to get answers if you have specific problem sections in mind.

The general strategy, is dodge around them if possible.

It's more important to know the maps inside and out to know which enemies are coming rather than play Nightmare off rip.

If you know the quickest/safest route to the exit, and you know when to stop and shoot and when to dodge, you'll prevent most of the respawning. Save your 5/6/7 weapons for hordes of enemies.

1 Pinky forced fight general strategy, back up 1 step with the right timing, and the bite will miss, and he will stop where he bites. Shooting him usually makes a momentary stunlock. You can pistol them if you need to with this in mind. It's slow and annoying but most maps have weapons somewhere near the start whether out in the open or in a nearby secret.

2+ Pinkies general strategy, funnel them, step away when necessary and shoot. Be quick about it.

Hordes of pinkies: rockets/plasma/close range bfg or stunlock them individually with chaingun while backing up if you don't have those weapons. You'll need to quickly go back and forth between pinkies to stunlock them to create space until you can kill them all or make enough space to avoid the rest, run ahead and progress in the map.

But each map and strategy is dependent on which weapons you have, how much health and ammo you have, along with whatever items you can grab along the way, and what you need to be prepared for going forward.

Don't rocket yourself.

If you hold back while using the chainsaw, you'll get bit a lot less. Not optimal because you can get bit, but in a pinch and with some good health works.

Search Youtube:

"Doom E3M3 Nightmare speedrun"
"Doom E3M7 Nightmare speedrun"
"Doom E4M4 Nightmare Unruly Evil Decino"

Decino has probably pistol started every map nightmare, or close to it. And he talks you through his videos. So if you're gonna search something on youtube, type in Decino at the end and it'll probably be the best guide. Zero Master is a better player, but he doesn't use his mic or present it as an instructional walkthrough. Decino always talks you through the whole thing.

https://youtu.be/kXGE_iF_L20

E4M1, E4M2 and E4M6 are generally considered the hardest maps in Doom so here's Decino walking you through them on Nightmare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeofvFTmkM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRGUDAwj4wQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSQo_hfi9GE

[Heathen]

Originally posted by Rocket:

Which map is giving you a hard time?

It's easier to get answers if you have specific problem sections in mind.

Thank you for this! Appreciate both the pinkies advice and the resources. I'm going to look up the Decino vids since I'm looking for talkthrough, or at least go back and find the examples where I'm running into my death troubles (E4M2 came to mind but not because of the pinkies, E4M2 would just be rough with the respawning main room and E3M2 comes to mind on the original levels, just something about those tight spaces and the first few pinkies at the start). I'll match up the tough spots with what they do and go from there.