Skill level

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Revision as of 20:43, 16 March 2007 by TheDarkArchon (talk | contribs) (Doom 3 Skill Levels: Missed a bracket)


Skill level determines the overall difficulty of a game: for instance, how many weapons and powerups are encountered, how much ammo various items give, and monster populations and behavior. There are five settings.

Doom skill levels

Level Name Class1 Modifiers
1 I'm Too Young To Die easy 2 × ammo2, player(s) take half normal damage
2 Hey, Not Too Rough easy
3 Hurt Me Plenty medium
4 Ultra-Violence hard
5 Nightmare! hard 2 × ammo, respawning3 & fast4 monsters, no cheats5 (in vanilla Doom)
  1. Skill levels of the same class have the same number and same types of monsters and items. The difference mainly amounts to larger and tougher comportments of monsters on the harder skill levels, but not always; for example, in E3M6: Mt. Erebus the blue key is located in different places depending on the skill level.
  2. Ammo pickups give twice as much ammunition as they do on other skill levels.
  3. Killed monsters (apart from the ones spawned by the spawn shooter) respawn at their original starting point where possible. This happens after a randomized time delay (roughly 8 seconds to 5 minutes). Respawned monsters are instantly aroused and advance on the player. The respawn modifier can be used with any skill level using the -respawn command line parameter. See also (0,0) respawning bug.
  4. All monsters attack more often, Demons and Spectres move and attack 2 × faster, Imp fireballs are 50% faster, and Cacodemon, Hell Knight, and Baron of Hell projectiles are 33% faster. This modifier can be used with any skill level using the -fast command line parameter. See also IDCLEV idiosyncrasies.
  5. All cheat codes except idclev and iddt are disabled.

Heretic skill levels

Level Name Class Modifiers
1 Thou needeth a wet-nurse easy 50% more ammo, player(s) take half damage, number of monsters decreased, number of items and powerups increased.
2 Yellowbellies-r-us easy Number of powerups and items increased, number of monsters decreased.
3 Bringest them oneth medium
4 Thou art a smite-meister hard Number of monsters increased, number of items and powerups decreased.
5 Black plague possesses thee hard 50% more ammo, number of monsters increased, number of items and powerups decreased, 3 × monster move and attack speed, 3 × enemy projectile speed, cheats disabled.

Hexen skill levels

Level Name
(Fighter)
Name
(Cleric)
Name
(Mage)
Class Modifers
1 Squire Altar Boy Apprentice easy Damage is lessened
2 Knight Acolyte Enchanter easy
3 Warrior Priest Sorceror medium
4 Berserker Cardinal Warlock hard
5 Titan Pope Archimage hard Cheats are disabled and all monsters move faster and attack more often.

Doom 3 Skill Levels

Level Name Class1 Modifiers
1 Recruit easy
2 Marine medium
3 Veteran hard
4 Nightmare hard The players health steadily drains until it's 25 or below: Starts with the Soul Cube (All Artifact powers in Resurrection of Evil.) Has to be unlocked by first completing the game on any skill level

Notes

In addition to the five Doom standard skill levels, in vanilla Doom a skill level of 0 can also be specified, from the command line only. Doing this empties maps of all things apart from the player starts. This does not work in many source ports.

The "I'm Too Young To Die" skill level was re-named "I am a wimp" for some console ports.

In the Doom alphas, "I'm too Young to Die" was called "I Just Want to Kill", hence the name M_JKILL for the graphic for skill 1.

Early versions of Doom did not support Nightmare mode. The initial mail-order releases were version 1.1 and only included the first four skill levels. Version 1.2 added Nightmare mode support; most shareware versions of Doom distributed were version 1.2 and so included Nightmare mode. Nightmare was added as a joke, in response to comments that the game was too easy.[citation needed] After selecting Nightmare from the main menu, the player is asked "Are you sure? This skill level isn't even remotely fair." The player must confirm that he wants to play on Nightmare mode, a step which is unique to this skill level.

The name of the fourth skill level, "Ultra-Violence", comes from a phrase in Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, via Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film version.

Some skilled players have created new challenges by defining custom rules, such as pacifist (not hurting monsters) and Tyson (fists, pistol, and chainsaw only).