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[Evilpotatoe]

Wow, nice compilation.  Thanks for all this work.

I just discovered 0.9.9.8 and completed my first game (UV, kept my 0.9.9.7 player.wad)


Most suggestions I've seen here looked relevant to me.
After reading most of this thread (but about nothing else yet), here's my 2cts hot-feedback, for you to consider/inculde/ignore :)
note : While I notice the improvements, I rarely send flowers about what's good.  What I focus on is always the issues.

First : after grabbing all I could from my old configs, there's a few things I'm really missing, and which I didn't see adressed here :

• No quick selection keys anymore for weapons is extremely painful.
  My usual run uses no more than shotgun/chainsaw(scythe)/plasma(laser) rifle/tac RL.  I don't want to bind them manually every game, which even seems to need de-equipping them first so they are in invertory.
  The old system where every weapon could have its quick key (and I did bind every one of them) was MUCH more efficient.  Its only issue was quick-keying did give a movement-cost reduction, which was nonsense and shouldn't be paired with what is just a UI feature.
  

• Additionnaly, asking to switch to a weapon currently in my offhand tells me "I'm already using it", even if my current weapon is rocket launcher.  So every time I wanna switch & fire, I gotta check it actually did the switch I asked ?
  Tell me this is already reported/fixed, please ! Checked 0.9.9.9B7 : it is
  
• Is keybindings.lua not meant to come back ?  I also had some bindings to use items.  Especially both medkit and phase devices.  Having to open inventory for this is an annoyance
• And a BIG annoyance, since I now also have to scroll manually to item slots.  I've read that for some technical reason, inventory bindings would be complex to keep (I wonder why, yet), but remain surprised by such sacrifices.  I think this will hamper playability too much for me and while I'll try a few more games, may very well end-up sticking with 0.9.9.7 if UI remains like this in the future.
• Oh, and having to press space to go downstairs feels weird.  First roguelike I play where I can't press > for it.
  I can deal with this, but knowing I'll someday mistakenly go downstairs because I accidentally pressed spacebar is a bit more annoying.  Secondary for sure, but a small loss remains a loss.
  
• +targetting's new colors (Blue, I think ?) make it really hard to see while berserk.  Used to be green from what I see in my 0.9.9.7

---


Now, some feedback about feedbacks :

• Shoudl'nt "blood boots" be "Butcher's boots" ? Could even pair for a set with some cleaver ♥)

• Maybe a guaranteed combat pistol somewhere would be nice, like in Phobos lab.

  
  This would be very strong for Pistol builds and worthless for every other build; special level rewards should avoid only benefiting a small amount of builds, the guaranteed Combat Shotgun is a far better reward in Phobos Lab and Military Base (being an invaluable utility weapon for every build in the game and not just benefiting Shotgun builds).
  Additionally, the suggestion for a new stronger common Pistol already does cover Pistol builds being handicapped by the lack of a guaranteed upgrade (first point in the equipment section of the New Content post).

  
  
  
  Phobos lab might be too early, or maybe we need some more ego pistols and get a random one. (Lack of variety is a bit sad here).
  Thing is : the issue is more how pistols work than the drop itself.  Guaranteed or not, CP is always useless unless you're a pistol freak.
  Pistols are ALL specific to pistol builds and useless for anyone else (save Trigun). I see this as arguable game design... but on the other hands, making pistol as good as "real rifles" wouldn't seem very consistent... so putting the difference in the skills somehow makes perfect sense.
  Why give shotguns and a chainsaw but not a peashooter ? Playing angel of pew-pew without finding any cool pistol just sucks
  Alternatively, some rewards (pistols or other) could depend on picked skills.  E.G. you could get a guaranteed pistol in HA if you skilled at least SOG2.
  As a side note, I never pick-up a combat shotgun anymore. And I always play mostly shotgun all game long (unless I get a nano for my plasma rifle).
  I genuinely think regular shotgun with SOB2+ and/or P mods is MUCH more powerful. Hence, I don't agree with it being of any more use than a pistol.
  ... except maybe for the 5 ammo I salvage from it :)
  

• [ ] Disallow nukes from being activated in Hell Fortress altogether. Additionally have any active powerups get turned off when entering Hell Fortress, so you cannot take an Invulnerability or Berserk stack into Hell Fortress to trivialize it. 1
  

  I strongly disagree with arbitrarly disabling powerups: Messing with normal flow of the game in ways requiring to die-and-retry is painful.
  Phobos lab's exception is terrible-enough already, we don't need more of this !  Isn't anyone fighting an apostle berserk and already steamrolling anyway ?
  Plus, these edge cases need specific roguelike luck.  From what I see, you currently can't activate a thermobomb in this level ?  Well, remove this then.  I already lost more than one character due to supid exceptions of this kind in several games --which might include this case--, and unless the game tells you in advance, this shit is just frustrating.  Game should just follow the rules, not require you to parse the wiki/forums or die until you know every surprise trap.
  Also, this kind of vicious additions removes some tactical play, like fast-diving through 4 levels because you just found 3 invu globes in Hell4 and wanna try some fun ending.  Love diversity, let players use rare cool cases instead of inciting them to rely on a generic safe strat !  THIS . IS . ROGUELIIIIIIIIIKE !
  
• Previous case reminds me of my first visit to UC.  There should definitely be some warning telling you you can't shoot when entering.  It could be as simple as a lone lost soul facing you 3 squares away...
  

• *Have dying to John Carmack count as a normal death instead of as a partial win.

  I'm not sure. I think killing Carmack shuld be more rewarding for this to make sense.
  A lot of players probably play it like I do, and just routinely kill it because "100%".  The notion of partial wins seems enough to me : it's a fun notion when reading your stats.
  We could imagine something bigger (Like what JH has near the end), but it looks decent to me in its current form.
  If I wanted a rework, I'd say boss fights after anomaly could be made more interesting (I now always berserk into Cyber and nuke/berserk for ending...  yeah, these could definitely use some rework :p)
  
• Have less restrictions on Dual Angel combinations
  Yes, but please, make them a separate category for medals.
  There's a small bunch of badges/medals like N! shotty I only got because I Angel-of-overconfidence'd into Dis, probably relying on some luck (be it invu, berserks, or any other great drops trivializing the ending)
  This feels absolutely lame, and wayyyyy less deserved than the badges I got for winning say, my first nightmare games (which were also conqueror 8)).
  I'm sure medals for dual angels can make sense too, but as long as an angel challenge gives any positive counterpart, we probably need to make them specific.
  An alternative could be to note for every badge what were the winning conditions : Soldier class, challenges... could even be linked to mortem.  (and with a properly seeded game to the full replay -- Yeah, I'm going a bit further... but I think replays in these kind of games should always be available.  They don't just help us boost our ego, they also help making tutorials or reporting/understanding bugs !)
  

[Omega Tyrant]

Wow, nice compilation.  Thanks for all this work.

I just discovered 0.9.9.8 and completed my first game (UV, kept my 0.9.9.7 player.wad)


Most suggestions I've seen here looked relevant to me.
After reading most of this thread (but about nothing else yet), here's my 2cts hot-feedback, for you to consider/inculde/ignore :)
note : While I notice the improvements, I rarely send flowers about what's good.  What I focus on is always the issues.

Nice to see you back, and any feedback is welcome! I'll also note that 0.9.9.9 is on the horizon, and we have active beta tests going for it if you're interested (check out the #doomrl-testing in the Jupiter Hell Discord server).

No quick selection keys anymore for weapons is extremely painful.
My usual run uses no more than shotgun/chainsaw(scythe)/plasma(laser) rifle/tac RL.  I don't want to bind them manually every game, which even seems to need de-equipping them first so they are in invertory.
The old system where every weapon could have its quick key (and I did bind every one of them) was MUCH more efficient.  Its only issue was quick-keying did give a movement-cost reduction, which was nonsense and shouldn't be paired with what is just a UI feature.

I find the manual ingame quickkey binding to be very quick and second nature once you get used to it, and for people like me that used to frequently change the quickkey weapons manually to use them with exotics/uniques, I've found this to be a very welcome change. Perhaps though an optional setting could be added that automatically sets the quickkeys to the old defaults, would have to ask Kornel if that is possible to implement.

Is keybindings.lua not meant to come back ?  I also had some bindings to use items.  Especially both medkit and phase devices.  Having to open inventory for this is an annoyance

The settings.lua file keeps the information for your settings, including keybindings (you can modify settings ingame, but you can also still modify them in this lua file, or copy it over to other versions to not to have readjust your settings ingame again). I'll also note that you can still set the quickkeys to items ingame.

And a BIG annoyance, since I now also have to scroll manually to item slots.  I've read that for some technical reason, inventory bindings would be complex to keep (I wonder why, yet), but remain surprised by such sacrifices.  I think this will hamper playability too much for me and while I'll try a few more games, may very well end-up sticking with 0.9.9.7 if UI remains like this in the future.

I personally hated the old inventory system, as far too often I would misclick some random key on the inventory screen and end up wasting a medkit or worse (I also use a mouse for faster item selection). If you do really want the legacy inventory system or at least the technical explanation, you'll have to take it up with Kornel directly (alternatively, if you got the programming skills, you could try your hand at implementing it, DRL and the latest beta are open sourced, and additional programming help would be appreciated).

Oh, and having to press space to go downstairs feels weird.  First roguelike I play where I can't press > for it.
I can deal with this, but knowing I'll someday mistakenly go downstairs because I accidentally pressed spacebar is a bit more annoying.  Secondary for sure, but a small loss remains a loss.

From experience, it was weird at first but I got used to it. If you want a workaround, you could set the general action key to ">". Otherwise, you can see if Kornel can add a dedicated key for descending to the "legacy" keybindings (where some other old inputs like opening/closing doors and saving were added).

Shoudl'nt "blood boots" be "Butcher's boots" ? Could even pair for a set with some cleaver ♥)

The Blood Boots were added without any specific inspiration, to give a rare means to obtaining immunity from the new blood fluid. I would like more sets and so would be fine with this if a good idea comes up for what the set will do (maybe it'll let you ignore the fluid-slowing mechanic in blood, useful though a bit mundane).

Phobos lab might be too early, or maybe we need some more ego pistols and get a random one. (Lack of variety is a bit sad here).
Thing is : the issue is more how pistols work than the drop itself.  Guaranteed or not, CP is always useless unless you're a pistol freak.

SoG has been changed to +3 damage/-10% firing time, and even the basic Pistol will be outputting serious power (at the expense of weaker DPS in the lategame), so a stronger more commonly available pistol isn't really needed anymore.

Alternatively, some rewards (pistols or other) could depend on picked skills.  E.G. you could get a guaranteed pistol in HA if you skilled at least SOG2.

Hell's Arena already has challenge-specific rewards, so it should be possible that Phobos Lab/Military Base have the Combat Shotgun replaced in AoB/AoMr, or Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab could have two of the weapons in the weapon cache be guaranteed to be pistois or shotguns if you're playing AoMr or AoSh respectively (making all four be pistols or shotguns may be a bit much though, since that would give you great odds at multiple exotic/unique pistols/shotguns).

As a side note, I never pick-up a combat shotgun anymore. And I always play mostly shotgun all game long (unless I get a nano for my plasma rifle).
I genuinely think regular shotgun with SOB2+ and/or P mods is MUCH more powerful. Hence, I don't agree with it being of any more use than a pistol.
... except maybe for the 5 ammo I salvage from it :)

I strongly disagree with this, but this isn't the place for arguments on tactical differences :p

I strongly disagree with arbitrarly disabling powerups: Messing with normal flow of the game in ways requiring to die-and-retry is painful.
Phobos lab's exception is terrible-enough already, we don't need more of this !  Isn't anyone fighting an apostle berserk and already steamrolling anyway ?
Plus, these edge cases need specific roguelike luck.  From what I see, you currently can't activate a thermobomb in this level ?  Well, remove this then.  I already lost more than one character due to supid exceptions of this kind in several games --which might include this case--, and unless the game tells you in advance, this shit is just frustrating.  Game should just follow the rules, not require you to parse the wiki/forums or die until you know every surprise trap.
Also, this kind of vicious additions removes some tactical play, like fast-diving through 4 levels because you just found 3 invu globes in Hell4 and wanna try some fun ending.  Love diversity, let players use rare cool cases instead of inciting them to rely on a generic safe strat !  THIS . IS . ROGUELIIIIIIIIIKE !

You can activate nukes in Hell Fortress against Carmack, only when you're fighting the Apostle that you're unable to activate nukes. As for carrying powerups into Hell Fortress, I feel you shouldn't be able to trivialize Carmack because of lucky invulns, and going for full wins is supposed to be something extra with enhanced risk and difficulty to it. This isn't a suggestion I feel too strongly for though, and I just realized that it could apply to the Dragonslayer's permanent berserk if a specific exception isn't programmed in, which would be catastrophic if you're fighting the Apostle and don't have Berserker (but at least definitely don't let people nuke Carmack anymore).

Previous case reminds me of my first visit to UC.  There should definitely be some warning telling you you can't shoot when entering.  It could be as simple as a lone lost soul facing you 3 squares away...

Having a more direct way of letting you know you can't shoot in the Cathedral for the newbies seems no brainer to me, and one of Kornel's goals with DRL's renewed development is making it more newb-friendly.

I'm not sure. I think killing Carmack shuld be more rewarding for this to make sense. A lot of players probably play it like I do, and just routinely kill it because "100%".  The notion of partial wins seems enough to me : it's a fun notion when reading your stats.
We could imagine something bigger (Like what JH has near the end), but it looks decent to me in its current form.
If I wanted a rework, I'd say boss fights after anomaly could be made more interesting (I now always berserk into Cyber and nuke/berserk for ending...  yeah, these could definitely use some rework :p)

My problem is that there's currently no real risk with going for the full win, as you'll still be rewarded any badges/medals for winning unless it requires a full win in the first place (I'm reminded of this mortem by apalapan, where he died to Carmack but was still rewarded the Hunter Diamond badge). It also doesn't make much sense to me to get killed by Carmack and the mortem acts like you won; fun fact, there's a unique death message for dying to Carmack ("[Player] was pwned by John Carmack"), but you'll never see it ingame because dying to him counts as a partial win and thus you get the partial win message ("[Player] sacrificed himself to kill the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress"). I wouldn't be opposed to making the boss fights more elaborate, but boss changes would need a lot of consideration, because it could make the hardest badges unreasonable or outright impossible (for example if the Cyberdemon fight got spruced up and made harder, it may no longer be possible to beat him in Archangel Of Humanity without nuking him with invuln).

Have less restrictions on Dual Angel combinations
Yes, but please, make them a separate category for medals.
There's a small bunch of badges/medals like N! shotty I only got because I Angel-of-overconfidence'd into Dis, probably relying on some luck (be it invu, berserks, or any other great drops trivializing the ending)
This feels absolutely lame, and wayyyyy less deserved than the badges I got for winning say, my first nightmare games (which were also conqueror 8)).
I'm sure medals for dual angels can make sense too, but as long as an angel challenge gives any positive counterpart, we probably need to make them specific.
An alternative could be to note for every badge what were the winning conditions : Soldier class, challenges... could even be linked to mortem.

I strongly agree with finding Sereging to be extremely cheesy and to not be in the spirit of the achievement the badges represent (while also finding it annoying when looking through the Badge Hunters thread for strategies used and seeing most of the Diamonds were gotten with a lame AoOC stairdive and pray or with AoMC), and so I did support disqualifying Dual Angels from earning badges that don't explicitly require a specific Dual Angel combination, but I have wavered on pushing for it. Aside from limiting creativity in winning badges, we would miss out on cool ways to earn badges like Tormuse winning Everyman Diamond by combining AoH with A100. Creating new badges/medals to account for these Dual Angel runs instead sounds excessive though, so I'm not sure that's doable either. I did come up with a compromise of sorts in the new Badge Hunters thread, where I note if each mortem won a badge purely or by mixing it with another challenge in a Dual Angel, so those looking for mortems that didn't Sereg a badge or whatever criteria can find them without having to check each individual mortem.

and with a properly seeded game to the full replay -- Yeah, I'm going a bit further... but I think replays in these kind of games should always be available.  They don't just help us boost our ego, they also help making tutorials or reporting/understanding bugs !)

A replay system would be great, especially as a means of proof for people that don't have the means to record their runs (and would help safeguard against another 2Dev situation happening). it's probably too late for 0.9.9.9, but I'll add it to the OP anyway.

[Evilpotatoe]

Thanks for the detailed answer. (Btw, I tried 0.9.9.9b7 yesterday, and joined the Discord. I'm "Balmipour" out there)

Not the place to discuss, I guess, but I got some new feedbacks after testing 0.9.9.9b7... and it looks like here's the best place to put them:
(Maybe I'll moves bugs, yet)

• I love the idea of ennemies getting enraged with time, but I think it needs a visual indicator for the player, like a progress bar.
  Clearing game as UV conqueror, I think the only level where level name went purple was the Mortuary, so timer looks right to me.  Makes me think I was scout, yet
• I strongly want to disable the pop-ups in Hell's arena. I agree it's a much more clean system than small messages in the corner, but please Kornel, let me skip to the only actual question : continue ? Yes/No.  Texts are really cool, once.  Then, i wanna check some "don't bother me again" box, like I did for skipping intro or naming my guy.
• (bug) View re-centering on player after every shot when targetting off screen is very annoying (using mouse targetting & moved viewport a bit with mouse on screen's edge)
      Note : I don't like using mouse for this, but I don't recall having a keyboard alternative. Ctrl-left right or something like this to move viewport could be cool). I remember a point about this is already in the OP's list, but wanna say I support the idea
• (bug) shooting the last 4 ammo with my plasma gun gives me 65k ammo via some overflow.  Cool (and works the same with a chain-fired chaingun), but needs fix :D.  I've read about it on Discord too, but it looked 100% reproducible to me. Even got saves if necessary
• The new "use mod" menu is nice, but I wish w/a/b were bound to the 3 common choices.
      Would avoid breaking our habits and keep in line with having a good usability and direct keys rather than having to parse interface elements to do simple actions.
• (Accessibility) Visual item animations (cell pack, etc.) are nice, but I'd love to disable them.  Maybe even fluids. A per-item setting in a LUA (or easy modding access) would be perfect.  I just wish I could somehow.
• I'd also wish I could disable the glowing red eyes on enemies.  Makes differenciating them harder (and looks ugly to me)
• I think my suggestion of adding a lone lost soul facing you a few squares away when entering UC is decent-enough to be added to the list.
      Any veteran will just enter and stomp it even before it wakes-up, but it would help every noobie trying to shoot it, which is valuable
• And unless I forgot a point, reworking boss fight looks quite relevant to keep in the "TO-DO list" as well. I must say JC's fight being a dummy one and this poor spider being nuked every time we meet it is a bit sad.  Complex point, I must agree... but worth a thought.
• (unrelated to version, but useful) : have a "rename character" command !  Reading about Tormuse's AoHu badge did remind me how I tanked the mortuary (Went for a survivalist marine --0996 or 0997 survivalist--), since my scouts were all dying to a clumsy-moves-into-lava with their 10hp.  Had to manually rename my guy in the mortem (possibly screwing checksum xD) because I wanted my hero to be "Homer simpson"

And finally,
I just tried to play a 2nd 0.9.9.9b7 game.
Since I had beaten UV, I did dare going HNTR this time, and tried to make it fast.  2 things about this :

Well, first, I ended-up rage-quitting because pressing 3 didn't switch to shotgun and my character shot himself a rocket in melee in the CC, destroying both zerk packs and the chainsaw.
... so I'll insist : I definitely hope using a good old inventory where each letter is statically bound to a slot will go back as an option.
I don't care for dynamic remapping and genuinely don't even understand what it's good for (maybe for your 2/3 weapons ? What else ???) when it costs many more keystrokes (or using mouse) for basic actions like using a medkit.
I sometime misuse items too (and did with this version, because it's still one misclick away).  I just think the right fix would be to propose confirmations for using items (like we have, e.g. in Angband, via an horrible (auto-)inscription system).
In 0.9.9.7, with medkits, phase device and weapons all having a direct keybind, I think I only opened inventory for dropping ammo, switching armor or using a skull


But I'll aslo ask whether the difficulties have been reworked.
The reason I try UV before HNTR is because it feels much easier to me !
HNTR gives little XP (and stuff), and I often ended-up with stupid death, because I was lacking things (be it traits, mods, or even a common plasma rifle).  None of these is necessary, of course, but I don't think lesser difficulties feeling harder than higher ones is a good thing.  Doom or quake never felt like this to me.
I'd suggest giving an XP boost to balance for the lack of enemies in these difficulties, but slightly better items drops would probably be a good thing too.
Might be the occasion to give back some accuracy to enemies in these skill levels.
I remember reading a post... probably a JH update from Kornel, where he told easy difficulties were reworked because they didn't help us learning to play properly and gave bad habits to players.
I don't know much whether this applies to DoomRL, but one thing I can remember is I didn't know about cornershooting for quite some time when discovering the game, and could go "quite far" despite this. (I'm sure I did die to the shambler.  Probably even to Cybie)
I think slightly more dangerous enemies but much more dangerous doomguy might help against this. Such discussions would need a separate thread, though. (Sorry for dumping my ideas as they go, I feel a bit guilty of cluttering here :ashamed:)

[Omega Tyrant]

Thanks for the detailed answer. (Btw, I tried 0.9.9.9b7 yesterday, and joined the Discord. I'm "Balmipour" out there

Ah I didn't recognize you there, since Kornel already responded to some of your stuff in the Discord, I'll respond to the stuff he didn't.

(bug) shooting the last 4 ammo with my plasma gun gives me 65k ammo via some overflow.  Cool (and works the same with a chain-fired chaingun), but needs fix :D.  I've read about it on Discord too, but it looked 100% reproducible to me. Even got saves if necessary

Yeah it's a simple underflow bug whenever you shoot a burst that would deplete more ammo than you have in your clip remaining, but it has been already fixed for the next beta (if you want some broken fun though in the meantime, try exploiting it with a Jackhammer or full-auto GCB :p).

I think my suggestion of adding a lone lost soul facing you a few squares away when entering UC is decent-enough to be added to the list.
Any veteran will just enter and stomp it even before it wakes-up, but it would help every noobie trying to shoot it, which is valuable

Done

And unless I forgot a point, reworking boss fight looks quite relevant to keep in the "TO-DO list" as well. I must say JC's fight being a dummy one and this poor spider being nuked every time we meet it is a bit sad.  Complex point, I must agree... but worth a thought.

Maybe when we get to making the compilation list for the next version (1.0.0.0 or 0.9.9.9.1?) and some good ideas are brought up, but this is something that definitely isn't going to be possible for 0.9.9.9 when we're currently in the cutting room floor for it (I will note that Carmack did get buffed in 0.9.9.9, as spawned enemies now "wake up" faster, his spawns infighting each other neuters it at the moment though but that could be fixed if the proposal to disable infighting in boss levels is added. The Mastermind also got AI tweaks if you actually fight it and so it shouldn't be getting stuck anymore, but I haven't really experimented with its AI yet).

(unrelated to version, but useful) : have a "rename character" command !  Reading about Tormuse's AoHu badge did remind me how I tanked the mortuary (Went for a survivalist marine --0996 or 0997 survivalist--), since my scouts were all dying to a clumsy-moves-into-lava with their 10hp.  Had to manually rename my guy in the mortem (possibly screwing checksum xD) because I wanted my hero to be "Homer simpson"

Like the time display suggestion, this is something I personally don't see much use in but also no harm, maybe it could mess with the game's data recording but otherwise it would be up to Kornel to decide if it's worth programming or not.

But I'll aslo ask whether the difficulties have been reworked.
The reason I try UV before HNTR is because it feels much easier to me !
HNTR gives little XP (and stuff), and I often ended-up with stupid death, because I was lacking things (be it traits, mods, or even a common plasma rifle).  None of these is necessary, of course, but I don't think lesser difficulties feeling harder than higher ones is a good thing.  Doom or quake never felt like this to me.
I'd suggest giving an XP boost to balance for the lack of enemies in these difficulties, but slightly better items drops would probably be a good thing too.
Might be the occasion to give back some accuracy to enemies in these skill levels.

This is something I strongly disagree with (and seeing how many people got their shit pushed in when making the jump to UV and asked here and on the Discord for help dealing with UV, it being easier is a very fringe opinion). True you don't get as much EXP (even though you do have a 1.2x EXP multiplier in HNTR), and you probably won't get a Plasma Rifle until Deimos because Commandos no longer spawn in Phobos unless you find one in a vault, however you're overlooking some very important things that are much more meaningful:

*Enemy counts are increasingly smaller on the easier difficulties, the difference in enemy density on floors between HNTR and UV is huge, especially so when high weight enemies are involved (Hell floors in particular can become pretty empty on difficulties below UV).

*Stronger enemies show up much later. For example, UV is infamous for its floor 3 Hell Knights, while on HNTR, they don't start showing up until floor 9. While you don't get EXP as fast, you will still be at a higher level when you start fighting Hell Knights on HNTR (level 6 or 5 if you 100%ed everything prior and didn't skip the special levels) than you would be on UV (only level 3 if you completed Hell's Arena, even lower if you skipped Arena). You'll also have much better equipment by that time too (item generation is not difficulty dependent, more floors means more chances at finding good stuff, and nearly all special level rewards are not difficulty-dependent, with the only major exceptions being the Scythe, Dragonslayer, and Berserker Armor). When you start fighting Hell Knights in HNTR, you should at minimum have Red Armor and multiple Blue Armors, a Combat or Tactical Shotgun, several mods for your equipment, a Shell/Ammochain box or two, and a stash of Large Medkits, whereas in UV, most of the time you'll be fighting them with only a basic Shotgun or Chaingun or unmodified Pistol, a Rocket Launcher with very limited rockets and a single Blue Armor if you completed Hell's Arena, Green Armors that don't do anything against their plasma balls, and only a single Large Medkit on hand and a few small ones.

*The special levels themselves see big jumps in their enemy loadouts between difficulties, and some even farther tweaks on higher difficulties (such as the flood being faster in Halls Of Carnage or Lava Pits/Erebus taking away Radsuits). Phobos Lab on HNTR is not remotely comparable to Phobos Lab on UV.

*Enemies having that universal +2 accuracy boost on UV does matter. For example, Arachnotrons have +3 accuracy normally, which works out to them hitting 84% of their plasma bolts at point blank and 62% at edge of vision. On with the UV boost, they now hit 95% of their bolts at point blank, and 84% at edge of vision, seriously improving their effective damage output. This is why you take so much more damage on Spider's Lair in UV than on HMP, despite UV only adding two more Arachnotrons to it.

*Level types and level events also get nastier the higher the difficulty, for example nuke events get a smaller timer, deadly air events drain health faster, flood events are faster (and if on UV or N, can flood as fast as Halls Of Carnage), or some stuff won't even appear below UV (such as boss-only levels or blood caves in the standard game).

I think the only thing I would maybe change here is giving UV a slightly lower EXP multiplier (maybe x0.95?), particularly to account for the new special level pair that is being added on floor 4, and some new more EXP-heavy enemies being added to special levels.

EDIT: I did a standard HNTR run just because it has been so long since I did one and was thinking maybe I underrated the impact of getting less levels... and nah, beating it was completely mindless. No Hell Knights and nothing else bigger than them in Phobos made it a breeze to run through with no caution, and like I said, by the time I did have to fight them, I already had pretty good equipment to handle them. Then Deimos levels never had more than a few of the bigger baddies, I didn't even encounter an Archvile until Hell 3, and speaking of empty Hell levels, I spawned near an Archvile + Revenants group on the penultimate floor, where after dispatching them, the enemy reveal activated as there were only three enemies left on the entire rest of the floor. The special levels were also all way easier, the only speedbump was Cathedral because I couldn't get Brute nor Finesse 3 before reaching it (lacking the latter made my Chainsaw not quite fast enough to where he sometimes got hits in during my timing trick), but since he had so much less health, I was able to outlast him without much trouble (and kill him before getting any warnings about the Enraged Timer). Only ended up missing out on the Conqueror because the levers on Erebus are currently bugged and I didn't have the Scythe to fallback on to kill the unreachable enemies.

The only real annoying thing with gaining levels at a slower pace on HNTR was that I couldn't get Whizkid until over halfway into the game, while the game gave me a ton of mods. But since the difficulty was so light, I could get away with having my inventory being halfway full with mods and running around with a single Large medkit in reserve without ever being in real danger.