This is a DHT4 exam file. Its place is in the doom/dht-exams
directory.
The DOOM Honorific Titles
Created by Frank Stajano on 1994 05 01
Jonathan Hoof hereby conquers the title of DOOM 1 Incubis.
Exam file name: D1I-JRH.ZIP
Title conquered: DOOM 1 Incubus
Author: Jonathan Hoof
Completion date: 1995 Apr 30
Game and version used: DOOM I v. 1.9
Log entry:
CHAL: D1I JRH Jonathan "Hunter" Hoof 36 39 15 FFL-LFF-LRR
: Jonathan Hoof <
[email protected]>
Substitutions? Replaced E1M5 with E3M5 rated as a medium
Expansion level: E3M2 Rated as a hard.
System used: 486DX/2 66Mhz with Hercules Dynamite VLB
Controls used: keyboard + Logitech trackball with keyboard redefined:
a : speed on
e : forward
d : backward
s : left (strafing left, I use trackball only for direction control)
f : right (strafing)
all other keys same
middle mouse button: strafe
right mouse button : forward
Free interpretation: E1M3, nightmare, 25 attempts in 10 minutes, all failures.
Another description: A day in hell for the Marine dude, or one of his/her
nightmares.
Comments: My last advanced title. This makes all titles for Doom I except
Hacker and Swartz (I can't spell the whole thing).
As Doom says, this difficulty level isn't even remotely fair. Fortunately
you don't have to do anything outrageous, like get 100% kills or something,
you just have to make it to the end, alive, in one piece (similar to
Speedy Gonzales or Lightning). Strategy changes as a result, and the
easiest levels are those where can bypass the most (like E3M6), while
the most difficult levels are those you have to kill nearly all the baddies
(like E1M5, where on a "normal" UV level, you have to kill a minimum 70%).
E3M6: Piece of cake. Can do three ways two to the secret, and one to the
regular exit. I chose to do it the "Legit, Id intended" way via
Rocket blast into the Blue Box to hit the secret. Thought I'd try some
variation (normally I hit it from outside the box, thru the wall).
Normally I just beeline to the blue box. Or one can run to the Invuln.
by the wall, grab the rocket launcher, and charge into the grey building
to rocket across to the teleporter (this is the method I did for Incubus).
E3M9: Easy. Dodge the initial guys, shoot the Imps after the shotgun,
do the dance, shoot the Pinkies, shoot the Imps in the pillar room,
and grab the invuln. Run from there (you'll need the 2nd invuln to
make it all the way with the lovely invisibles, fortunately you can use
the rocket launcher).
E3M2: Speed and a clear pathway laid out in your mind are key. Manoever
to get the Green Armor, and beeline to the Plasma. Do the dance
(very quickly, or baddies start chomping), run to the blue, run past the
cacos, lower the Flaming Heads wall, blast your way to the end. Takes
a few tries.
E3M5: E1M5 is impossible (in my opinion), so I did E3M5 instead. This one
requires a fair bit of luck. Avoid all until you are Invuln, Beserked, and
invisible. Then punch only what you must, grab the blue key, and make
a break for it. Hopefully the Imps, Pinkies and Flaming Heads don't get
ya on the home stretch.
E1M3: A valient attempt at this Hard-rated level.
The other two Doom I Incubus title holders both got this one, and
substituted it, and I felt it was necessary to demonstrate it's extreme
difficulty, and possible impossibility. I got as far as the blue key in
one run, but mostly never got out of the first area. Unfortunately, the
recording that had the blue key in it was done with the wrong dance. This
level, and all Episode levels E1M4-E1M7 suffer the same problem: Too much
to kill in too short a time with too little firepower, and nowhere to rest.
For example, with respawn regenerating previous groups after killing current
ones, you have 8-9 groups of mixed fast monsters to get to the secret, 10
for the regular exit. Basically, you finish one set of monsters, and
turn to the next, only to have that last group rematerialize and kill
you from behind. Plus the shotgun charlies are hell. Plus way too little
health and no time to pick it up (the classic wasting more to get a benefit
than the benefit provides apply). These levels were hell on Lightning,
Nightmare asks you to do them faster (to avoid respawn), at 2x monster
speed.
-----
NOTE: All relavent info is above. What follows is an analysis of the
Incubus situation as of this writing.
-----
I feel that Incubus level title are maxed out for DOOM I, with the
possibility for one more title (using E2M5/E2M4 expansion). Thanks to
the Hard set being impossible (E1M3-see Free LMP for demo, E1M5 has one
of the longest gauntlet runs there is, respawn's not a good idea if
survival is a consideration), titles have to be done adding 2 levels to
the base set at a time. With my two, this leaves E1M8, E1M9, E2M3, E2M4,
E2M5, E2M6, E2M7, E3M3, E3M4, E3M7 left.
Below is a rather technical description of why each is near-impossible, let
alone doing 2 to substitute E1M3/E1M5.
E1M8 Swarming Pinkies and Invisible Pinkies render this an impossibility.
Also, you must have both Barons dead at the same time to lower the walls.
Not easy with chaingun/shotgun, especially with Invisibles chomping and
respawning.
E1M9 Too many groups of monsters to kill. Need to kill a shotgun charlie
to get a shotgun, and you'll never get one isolated, so you'll take
damage. Then you need to blow away more of them to get to Yellow key (or
face the wrath of their 1/4 second reloading shotguns), then onto the Red,
and the blue... well, you get the idea.
E2M3 Easy to get to the Plasma gun. Do the dance in the grey horseshoe area.
Then you have to kill the two/three Pinkies by the Blue key, and charge
to the end. You need about 80-100 more cell rounds to do it, and trying
to kill a caco with a shotgun while pinkies and imps are chewing up your
flank doesn't work too well.
E2M4 This one might actually be possible with lots of luck. Need to charge
to the Baron by the blue key, distract him with an imp, grab the key, jump
down, run the imp-fireball gauntlet to the blue door, grab the yellow key,
go to the plasma gun, blast your way to the teleporter, and finish it.
Every time I did it I died in fireball alley, either the first or second
time I charged through in a run.
E2M5 This one's the only relatively easy one left.
Secret exit is out. 15 flaming skulls on steroids rip you to shreds the
moment you materialize. Going for the regular exit is possible. I did
it first try (I'd recorded E3M2/E3M5 first, so I used them in my exam
instead). Just gotta keep moving, like in lightning...
E2M6 The longest Doom I level (timewise). Red key area is hell. Same
problem as in E1M3-E1M7, except for the shotgun charlies. And who
wants that baron from outside the door coming back in the dark areas
(as the red key area monsters rematerialize?). There's 6:00 minute PAR
time (I did it in about 4:30, with equipment from previous levels, in
my Lightning Exam), giving the potential for 12 respawns (with those
oh-so-fun Pinkies around the Blue key). I haven't run this to be sure,
but I think attrition and sheer numbers keep this from being a possibility.
E2M7 Swarming Pinkies from Hell (or Doom). Enough said.
E3M3 The route to the blue key is exceedingly difficult due to pinkies,
close confined passages, and very little suitable hardware. Beyond this
it's easy street (if you can grab a shotgun or something), but those
5-chomp-a-second pinkies will probably never let you test that theory.
E3M4 If the monsters weren't fast, you could do it via the two invulns.
But swarming pinkies do you in again in Nightmare, since they'll get
you surrounded, and make you waste your valuable invuln time generating
a passage, and the level's impossible without invuln's protection
(too much firepower to cope with, and it all comes back).
E3M7 Very long level, but I suppose it's doable if you can keep the pinkies
from trapping you. Considering you have to pass through the west passage
to the big central area at least 4 times, this doesn't seem a likely event.
Sad to say, but at least a third of the Base level is impossible (in my
opinion). If there are LMP's of these created during the base-generation,
I'd love to see them (especially e1m3/e1m5 from the Hard set), but I don't
know of a strategy to avoid the lethal attrition loss that the monsters
give you in these. I would rate this as THE hardest title, after the
E2M4/E2M5 combo goes, with the exception of Swartz (which is 27 of these
levels in a row). As far as the original base goes, this title's wasn't
too bad, but the easy ones are as gone as that Doom I Lightning title.
