Ultra Nightmare sucks.

[Dillweed]

this is more of a vent post than actual feedback. it IS feedback but it's being fueled by my hatred from my recent UN attempts on console. i know enough of you won't read the damn post so FYI i already did UN, i'm only here to complain about why UN is just not fun to me

Here's the thing. No-Death modes and challenges are not inherently terrible, a lot of games do "Don't Die" challenges incredibly well, and Doom Eternal is among my favourite games of all time.

Ultra Nightmare is an example of a really bad No-Death mode.
You get one chance, and if you slip up at all, you have to play the entire game again, my claim is that "Playing the entire game all over again is redundant and disheartening, and makes any flaws in the game abundantly clear."
Say you've gotten to, Taras Nabad. At that point in the game, you have your entire arsenal, you've spent upwards of anywhere from 4-6 hours getting there, and you're not doing so bad, but you're a little fatigued. In the heat of a battle, you slip up and, say, forget where and when a certain demon spawns, and it catches you off guard. DOOM Eternal is a very unforgiving and extremely punishing game, so for this mistake, you just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ die. Remember, 5 hours, and it's all just gone with nothing to show for it. You don't get to continue on Nightmare, you don't go back to a certain other level, your entire save is just gone and you have to start all over again.

To most people on this board, you're likely saying "Shut up you lame-o little coward and get good" but I've already done the mode, if you really are good enough and get a good dice roll, this IS completely possible, I'm just saying it's not fun or actually rewarding. I don't need crazy new content but the return on investment is extremely tiny and not worth your time. You don't get anything other than an acknowledgement that you wasted your time and the Gold Suit, which looks cool but, it's a suit. A cosmetic, among other cosmetics that have their own special unique animations.

Let's take other games. A horror adjacent one, in fact. Dead Space 2.
DS2's Hardcore mode is a pretty good "Don't Die" challenge. You get up to 3 saves with zero checkpoints. You can save at any point, but after your 3rd save, that's it. From that final save point, you cannot turn the game off without losing progress, you MUST beat the rest of the game from there. This essentially turns the game into a marathon, granted it's not too horrifically hard but in the rules of the game this is still pretty damn brutal, but it's fair and brutal, and it grants you access to one of the best joke weapons.

Or, ULTRAKILL.
In ULTRAKILL, there's the Ranking system on top of the normal difficulties. If you meet the main 3 ranking criteria WITHOUT DYING, instead of an S rank, you get a P rank. If you do die, you just restart the level instead of, say, dying on 5-3 and starting all over from the Prologue.

Even CRASH 4 does no-deaths better.
Crash 4, known for it's completely ridiculous and awful 100% completion requirements, does no-deaths better because it ALSO decides to just let you play the same level over again if you die.

What's the downside to forcing me to play the same level over again compared to the entire ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game? It's not as hard?? It's no harder making me do the whole thing all over again, I've already proven I can get from there to here without dying, why is it that when I die HERE I HAVE to play every single level up to this one JUST to get another chance??? I really hate it, honestly, and I hope this is better made in TDA (it won't be though, watch).
This was the same in DOOM 2016, but it's excusable there because that was post-game content that does not give you anything at all, therefore is ONLY bragging rights. Yes i'm legitimately arguing that giving me only a suit is worse than giving me nothing, because the slightest incentive beyond saying "yay i did it" means there's reason to invest time into it that isn't just to say "yay i did it" even if it's a terrible reason, to me doing something for no reason is better than doing so for a bad reason when it comes to video games.

idk that's my ted talk feel free to get angry at me for being bad at video games or whatever.

[Grampire]

I'll say this and you can take it however you want:

If you are still dying regularly on the campaign then you arent ready for UN.

The game stops feeling stressful and tiring and you just enter a state where you reflexively and immediately respond. That is when you're ready.

If it feels stressful or like it's a "dice-roll" then you're not there yet, and I'm not talking about developing cyborg skill. Knowing the game inside and out is 90% of it. The outcome of every fight in this game is well within your control with the tools given.

Keep going - you'll get there.

[Sar]

Just don’t play on UN when tired?

[Healing God Ω]

Cool essay, it's supposed to suck btw.

[maksim1quan]

the only one who sucks is you, git gud

[Dillweed]

Originally posted by maksim1quan:

the only one who sucks is you, git gud

i don't even know who you are and yet i somehow read you like a book. i doubt you even read the post in full, you just saw "Ultra Nightmare sucks" and got all defensive and mean over your favorite game getting critiqued.
i said in full that i've already done this, i regularly play on nightmare and have done ultra nightmare for both base game and TAG1 already (i don't care to do it for TAG2), it's honestly not an impressive feat because the game is old enough, if you finish UN, well congratulations, nobody cares it's been 5 years.

i just have my own reservations regarding how UN should not make you play the ENTIRE GAME again, and hope that Dark Ages doesn't do SPECIFICALLY that.

[Dillweed]

Originally posted by Grampire:

I'll say this and you can take it however you want:

If you are still dying regularly on the campaign then you arent ready for UN.

The game stops feeling stressful and tiring and you just enter a state where you reflexively and immediately respond. That is when you're ready.

If it feels stressful or like it's a "dice-roll" then you're not there yet, and I'm not talking about developing cyborg skill. Knowing the game inside and out is 90% of it. The outcome of every fight in this game is well within your control with the tools given.

Keep going - you'll get there.

the ONLY reply here that's ACTUALLY informational. regardless of how well it genuinely helps, it's a million times better than "well then don't play" or literally just another "git gud" COMIN' STRAIGHT OUTTA REDDIT, BABY!!!
i don't particularly WANT advice? i just came to ♥♥♥♥♥, i know i CAN do it i'm just really mad that THIS is how UN works.

[Ben]

the comments about don't play it, eh

I mean back off from UN for a bit or even the campaign too, but not giving up, a mentality I used that helped me with UN was, I stopped trying to UN certain content I was trying to do at the time (I have UN everything in Eternal now) instead I just played any content really to get my fundamental skills so high that I didn't need as much "ultra nightmare nerve control" I will call it, I done it playing battle mode and randomizers (mods) mostly, as the mindset I had was if I died in either of those, there is zero progress lost, it is not even loading a checkpoint as the arena or match i just lost in is gone forever I cannot try again, I can vs same human players but the human players and the randomized spawns you do not know for sure what is going to happen so your fundamental skills improve faster having to adjust on the spot, of course just throwing yourself at the content you are trying to UN over and over will be faster (fewer hours played) because you will remember the spawns and can pick of consistent tactics so wont need as much skill developed but might be more frustration due to lost progress when failing. And honestly the improved fundamentals will increase your game overall more imo rather than mastering whatever part you want to UN even by naturally remembering spawns by playing it a lot.

also, I do not take away from anyone doing in early and gritting over and over until you win, in order to beat UN at a lower amount of play time as well, I respect that, I have to it is one of my worst qualities as a gamer, the instant i see rogue, I do not even give it a chance lol

edit I feel I am still saying git gud :/ , but giving an example of a less frustrating way.

[Furious Fap]

It cant just be restarting the level because that wouldnt really be hard. it's extremely easy to simply not die for one level, LOL

also if it's not worth it for you, dont do it. It's not really about the suit, bro. Its largely about the journey, including not just failed runs but the practice required to get to the point of being able to attempt UN in the first place. I dont even use my UN skins, except the TAG1 podium. if an ugly skin is enough of an incentive for you to force yourself to endure tens to potentially hundreds of hours of displeasure even though you yourself see this as a bad reward that is not worth it, then that is a "you" problem. maybe you should re-evaluate your relationship with gaming/achievements. Because to me UN is/was fun. I redo the master levels on UN somewhat regularly for fun even though I already did em all.

As far as "forgetting where one demon spawns" nothing can oneshot you and you can save yourself from a lot of really bad situations if you just stay calm and use things like grenades, ice bomb, chaingun shield, flame belch, blood punch, and glory kills to stay alive. So this shouldnt be a problem. you dont have to remember where every demon spawns.

You can do UN by memorizing every spawn and trying to have one specific perfect strategy for every single part and one or two ways to kill each demon etc. and probably take a bunch of attempts still... but you can also spend more time having fun on nightmare & post campaign content to practice and get to a point where you can better react to unexpected situations, better recover from mistakes, and more effectively respond to each demon on sight rather than by memorizing the spawns and planning ahead.

I agree that replaying the first 3-4 levels sucks pretty bad, though. for this reason UN for the DLCs and MLs is actually kind of easier even though it's more intense (except dlc2 which is a joke and I did on UN for the first time drunk). The thing is, once you are at a certain level of skill, really the only hard part of the whole campaign is Cultist Base and the Gladiator. there's still some risk of death at any moment obviously but once you reach/clear Super Gore Nest the game is a lot easier even though theres more strong demons. This is because you have enough weapons and upgrades to wreck everything like you're used to late game. This is especially true if you are already accustomed to DLCs, MLs, and/or Horde. It is pretty annoying how its only hard because you dont have enough of your stuff yet in early game, but if you only had to get past cultist base without dying once that would dramatically reduce the challenge of UN so much its not even funny.

[Ace]

It's all about practice, it took me about 2 weeks of playing nightmare before i tried UN (they're pretty much the same) & after a few goes i cleared on stream & it was great.

Keep at it.