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[Robsoie]

Would it be a good idea to enable the "I dont want to die" difficulty in the challenge modes ?
But only to be considered as a training kind of thing, meaning that a victory at such difficulty level would not count at all in giving any kind of medals/unlocks/whatever else, only starting at the correct level of difficuty would have a victory really count.

[thelaptop]

Would it be a good idea to enable the "I dont want to die" difficulty in the challenge modes ?
But only to be considered as a training kind of thing, meaning that a victory at such difficulty level would not count at all in giving any kind of medals/unlocks/whatever else, only starting at the correct level of difficuty would have a victory really count.

No for several reasons:

• Special levels are generated differently on ITYTD, so even if it is for "training", it will not serve its purpose.
• Power up durations are completely different in ITYTD, so you don't really develop a good sense of the limits of your power-ups when playing in the "real" challenge modes.
• Why would it be enticing to a player to plow through a full run in "training" mode and then not gain any of the medals/unlocks etc?  Wouldn't it be a better investment of time to just run the challenge mode on HNTR directly?  Because what I can foresee is this: people will start to complain about how the cool stuff they could have unlocked in ITYTD challenge mode are not used to advance their player achievements.
• At the risk of alienating some of the newer players, this is a rogue-like, so part of the learning process is to go through the live-fire situations and figuring out how best to do it.  It develops better habits than the "watered down" versions that impose additional constraints that are absent.

[Matt_S]

Do you object to the idea of allowing ITYTD on challenges, or just to the idea of treating it like a training mode without any rewards?

I think using ITYTD for the bronze medals of the challenges is a good idea.  Getting rewarded for beating it on a lower difficulty seems better than getting rewarded for dying after a certain point.

[thelaptop]

Do you object to the idea of allowing ITYTD on challenges, or just to the idea of treating it like a training mode without any rewards?

I was answering the main question of ITYTD on challenges, and refuting why the reason of using it like a training mode is sound.

[Robsoie]

Not advocating more about the idea, as it's not that important, as i can understand the reasonning on your first 2 first points as indeed if the challenge are designed with a specifc set of monsters, item and special levels availabilty in mind TYTD would be inappropriate considering it block some special levels and do not spawn the same kind of monster at specific depth.

The 3rd is just a matter of how a player would take the game, playing without achievements given is indeed strange for some people, but i don't see the relevance of your 4th argument in that matter.

At the risk of alienating some of the newer players, this is a rogue-like, so part of the learning process is to go through the live-fire situations and figuring out how best to do it.  It develops better habits than the "watered down" versions that impose additional constraints that are absent.

Because by this logic, "Hey not too rought", "Hurt me plenty", "Ultraviolence" are watered down in comparison to "Nightmare" in term of difficulty.

And more importantly, there's a very important gameplay difference between Nightmare and every other levels that impact the way the player must act : the enemy is able to respawn, leading a player using the tactics he learned from every other difficulties to get into lot of YASD from playing like this, leading by the same logic as those less than "Nightmare" difficulties developping bad habits.

[Matt_S]

If you all will forgive me, I'd like to give a short story about my initial experiences with DoomRL.

I don't remember a lot of the details, but when I first started playing, I was awful.  On HNTR I couldn't get more than a couple of levels in.  ITYTD was the only mode where I could be remotely competent.  Looking back, it seems I got my first win (on ITYTD) on May 1, 2010.  I guess I took a large break from playing, because in March 2011 I posted a YASD also on ITYTD difficulty with only a few more deaths on my profile.  What's important to realize at this point is that I had AoMr and AoB already unlocked, but I still struggled to win on ITYTD.  I had meddled with AoMr a bit even before I had any victories, but without being able to win not much came out of it.

In September 2011 I joined here and started working for my first HNTR win, which I achieved in October.  At this point I also had AoSh unlocked for a while I think, and after you, thelaptop, suggested trying for a challenge win, I went on to win AoSh.  Then I did a melee run on ITYTD, which was training for my future AoB attempts, and it was also the point when I discovered the power of melee firsthand.  What followed was wins in AoH and AoMr and AoB, and this was pretty much the point where I discovered that challenge modes were kind of fun, and shortly afterwards I worked to get all the bronze medals.

It's not a very interesting story, but the important points relate to challenge modes and the ITYTD difficulty.  ITYTD was the only reason I kept playing DoomRL, so I have a lot of love for the difficulty despite not playing on it anymore.  And before I was even good enough to get HNTR wins, I had some challenges unlocked that I might have played more back then if they were available on ITYTD.  To drive the point home: the reward for dying past level 10 on ITYTD is challenge modes that are only available on HNTR and above.

All your points against ITYTD except the total lack of rewards apply just as well for the standard game.  But I didn't play on ITYTD for the rewards, I just played to get a win.  I wouldn't be posting here today if ITYTD didn't give me a good reason to keep playing DoomRL.  It was a huge achievement for me just to win, and it was an even bigger achievement when I finally won on HNTR.  That period of time was a relatively large fraction of my history; because challenges weren't available on ITYTD, I very, very rarely played any challenges before then.

This post wasn't as short as I expected it to be.  I believe new players need ITYTD as a stepping stone, and I don't think we should deny them the ability to use it as a stepping stone for challenges.  If they didn't have ITYTD in the standard game they would probably give up; I know I would have.  (I'm repeating myself a lot now, but I think it's a very important point, so I'll repeat it again.  Without that "watered down difficulty" I wouldn't be a DoomRL player and supporter today.)  For the same reason, I avoided challenges when I was a new player because of their difficulty restriction and I imagine I wasn't the only one.  DoomRL is still the only roguelike I've ever recorded a win in, and now I've even won on HMP.  I do believe that winning on ITYTD serves as better training that dying over and over on HNTR, and it's also a lot more motivating.

[HexaDoken]

A few rather random ideas.

Angel of Explosives
You can use only your fists and explosive weapons. By "explosive" I do not mean all damage with radius attack, but rather all weapons that can damage YOU. So, BFG9000 is unusable on this challenge, as it can't damage you. To help, your fists do double damage, you start with a rocket launcher, whatever ammo is spawned are rockets, and weapons are more likely to be explosive(they are NOT ALWAYS explosive, tho). Also, monsters than normally shrug off explosives don't do so.

Angel of Massacre
Your weapons do double damage. Monsters spawn rate doubled. Health of bosses(arena master, shambler, bruiser brother, etc.) is doubled. Special levels hold twice as much non boss monsters, too.

Angel of Uniques(could make use of better title)
All unique/exotic items that you discovered in normal games are ten times as likely to spawn. Assembles you know are also likely to just lie on the floor. All unique/exotic items you haven't discovered in normal games are still spawnable, but with normal chance. Tougher monsters are more likely to spawn, random levels can hold monsters that are impossible to be located there otherwise(for example, HK's on Phobos, Mancubi on Deimos, goddamn shamblers on later levels of Hell)

[Klear]

Angel of Marksmanship... oh, wait... we already have one of those, right?

In that case, Angel of Sharpshooting

Every time you shoot and your shot doesn't damage any enemies, you actually shot yourself in the foot, taking whatever damage your weapon deals. Better invest heavily in eagle eye and forget about radio shooting.

[ZicherCZ]

Angel of Marksmanship... oh, wait... we already have one of those, right?

In that case, Angel of Sharpshooting

Every time you shoot and your shot doesn't damage any enemies, you actually shot yourself in the foot, taking whatever damage your weapon deals. Better invest heavily in eagle eye and forget about radio shooting.

Shotgun + Int2 challenge?

[Klear]

I was actually thinking about banning shotguns since that's hardly a weapon for a sharpshooter, but forgot to write it in my post. Still, I suppose melee builds would be mostly unaffected.

[ZicherCZ]

I was actually thinking about banning shotguns since that's hardly a weapon for a sharpshooter, but forgot to write it in my post. Still, I suppose melee builds would be mostly unaffected.

Well, under that reasoning you may as well ban many other weapons and you end up with pistols only. And, personally, for me a "sharpshooter" is associated more with rifles, which are non-existant in DoomRL.
Anyway, your description gave me a brief hilarious mental image of hitting yourself in your foot with a Butcher's Cleaver ;).

[bardysya]

Angel of Massacre
Your weapons do double damage. Monsters spawn rate doubled. Health of bosses(arena master, shambler, bruiser brother, etc.) is doubled. Special levels hold twice as much non boss monsters, too.

That sound great, specially on UV! More monsters - more exp - more fun! But I think it needs more balance. Maybe, decrease exp gain?

[HexaDoken]

That sound great, specially on UV! More monsters - more exp - more fun! But I think it needs more balance. Maybe, decrease exp gain?

Whatever. Perhaps, dividing the exp gain by 1.5 will do.
Primary reason why I suggested that is because I want to be ever able to launch a bfg shot in random direction and get a ludicrous kill. Everything else doesn't really matter.
The mortuary will be... interesting.

[spacedust]

Whatever. Perhaps, dividing the exp gain by 1.5 will do.
Primary reason why I suggested that is because I want to be ever able to launch a bfg shot in random direction and get a ludicrous kill. Everything else doesn't really matter.
The mortuary will be... interesting.

Actually, I really like the idea. Sometimes you really just want to wipe out hordes of monsters without thinking too hard. Some of my most satisfying encounters are when I spawn really near a vile-former pack and wipe out 90% of it in one blast.

[Pricklyman]

Only problem I see is that your stats would be padded so badly... (With so many kills of course)