Strategy:Hey, Not Too Rough

Hey, Not Too Rough is trivial for DoomRL veterans, who will be able to win a standard game at this difficulty virtually every time no matter their build, unless they're playing some hard challenge. Make no mistake though, the jump from I'm Too Young to Die to HNTR isn't an easy one, and most newer players who jump to it after conquering ITYTD will get stomped at least their first few times (and those who claim otherwise are probably lying). Aside from more enemies, all those bonuses you had on ITYTD are gone; no more doubled ammo pickups, no more inaccurate enemies, no more half damaging fluids, Small medkits and Small Health Globes no longer heal double, time-based powerups no longer have twice the duration, and you get a lot less EXP from each kill. Special levels additionally will be tougher; Phobos Anomaly in particular is the most notorious example, as while you just had a straight fight with the Bruiser brothers on ITYTD, you will now have to deal with a nasty Lost soul ambush that will assuredly wreck players their first time through. While you could get away with running around guns blazing on ITYTD thanks to all that extra ammo, health, and longer powerups, HNTR will kick your teeth in for doing the same and will make you learn the ropes of the game. If you find yourself struggling to get over the first hump for new players that is HNTR, here are some pointers that will help you out:

• First and foremost, minimizing damage you take is important! With small health sources healing half what they did in ITYTD and enemies now hitting your more often, you can't just shrug off hits so easily anymore and will find yourself running out of health fast if you keep trying to tank hits.

• Have you been Corner shooting, Radar shooting, and Gift dropping? These are vital survival techniques that will go a very long way in minimizing the damage you take, and are absolutely necessary to learn if you ever want to try taking on the difficulties beyond HNTR. If you don't know what those techniques are, go read their respective pages right now (if corner shooting still doesn't have a page by the time you read this, check out the strategy page for The Wall instead to get a good primer on how to corner shoot).

• Pick your traits with a plan, picking traits at essentially random or whatever you think sounds cool at that moment will kneecap your attempts to overcome HNTR. If for example for your first five levels you went; Son of a Gun -> Badass -> Brute -> Reloader -> Son of a Bitch; you'll be barely any stronger than you were when you first entered Phobos Base Entry and not be able to use any weapon particularly well, while now being at the point you're about to enter Phobos Anomaly and Deimos, where you will start regularly fighting enemies stronger than the measly formers and Imps. If you don't have a strong grasp on the build you're going for and what traits will best facilitate your desired build, you should just plan a master trait you want from the outset and strictly only pick the traits that build to it to get your mastery as quick as possible, while then experimenting with other traits once you get your mastery. The optimal way to invest in traits doesn't necessarily require immediately gunning your mastery, plenty of high level DoomRL players have even claimed that going with no mastery is the most optimal build of all, but for newer players who don't yet fully understand the advantages of each trait, when most masteries generally require traits that facilitate their build and will largely block traits that would only serve as diversions, sticking to their mastery path will steer such players from picking the wrong traits and get them a fairly competent build.

• You will have to start considering the risk/reward of entering special levels, and in turn recognize when you will have to pass up on entering a special level as you don't have the resources to realistically beat it, instead of just blindly going down every set of red stairs you see. One perk of "graduating" to HNTR is that you can encounter all those special levels that didn't show up on ITYTD, but this exemplifies even more that special levels will not always be beatable. Unholy Cathedral and The Mortuary/Limbo are the most notorious examples, as players will have many runs that just will not have what it takes to beat those levels by the time they appear, and trying to do so will ensure a grisly demise. You will also have to recognize when you can only partially clear out a special level and be willing to cut your losses if things get too dicey. E.g. did you clear out Deimos Lab and just have the Shamblers left, but you got no medkits left nor even a healthy Blue armor? You best not hit the switches to release them and just leave with what you got, unless you want to kiss your run goodbye.

• Learn the assemblies! Assemblies can get you some very good equipment that doesn't rely on you getting lucky with an exotic or unique drops, and equipment can do more to power you up than just traits will. Tactical boots and Fireproof armor (particularly on Red armor) are two basic assemblies in particular that are easy to make every run and will be very helpful to about any build, if you haven't been building them start doing so. The Tactical shotgun is another very good basic assembly that's not only vital for shotgun builds, but will be very useful to any other build that keeps a shotgun handy for their utility purposes and corner shooting, as long as they can spare the mods for it. Be sure to check each assembly's strategy page for more helpful information on how they're best utilized, though be sure to try experimenting with them yourself, just building the aforementioned three basic assemblies will do a lot of heavy lifting.

• Be mindful of your ammo consumption. You shouldn't be struggling for ammo on HNTR, but still if you are just shooting blindly at everything and making no effort to stockpile ammo, you may find the reduced ammo pickups to start stinging you a bit. Try to carry at least a few stacks of ammo for your build's primary weapon, and if you're a shotgun build, try to make that four or five before you enter Hell. Also pay attention to the enemies that are in a level and try to actively utilize weapons they will replenish. Are there Former sergeants abound? Go loose with your shotguns. Former captains? Rev up your pistols or chaingun. Revenants and Mancubi? Get some use out of your rocket launcher. Are Former commandos lurking or a bunch of Arachnotrons stomping around? Get less stingy with your plasma weapons.

• Don't immediately grab powerups the instant you see them. Find a salivating Berserk Pack or Invulnerability Globe, but you're in good shape as is and most of the enemies on the level are already dead? Leave them, mop up the rest of the level, and then grab them right before you go to the next level; you will carry powerup effects with you into the next level, and often the immediate beginning of a level can be the hardest part, as DoomRL loves to spawn you in a room full of baddies (which becomes progressively more common the higher the difficulty). Conversely, don't try to hoard powerups too much; if you're getting your ass kicked in a level or there's a nasty situation coming up, go retreat to your powerups and get them ASAP, those powerups can't help you if you died before you could even use them.

• On a related note, try to avoid hoarding your items and actually use them in the moments that they're needed. It might sting to have to "waste" a Large medkit when you're at only 50% health, as you may have wanted to save it for when you're on the brink of death to get more mileage out of it, but it is often better to be safe than sorry when you got enemies around who can suddenly wipe out half your health. Don't end up like the countless players who died with an inventory full of medkits.

• Have you learned what running is and utilized it yet? Have you also learned rocket jumping? These are vital abilities that will save your ass in countless runs, and getting the hang of how to utilize them is absolutely necessary if you're gonna ever try playing the difficulties above HNTR.

That should cover much of the basics. Before long, you should get a broader understanding of how to play Doom the Roguelike and be able to conquer Hey, Not Too Rough, but don't feel bad if it takes you several runs to get your first victory, every failed run is a learning experience. Once you do get a handle on HNTR and the standard game is no longer much of a challenge, you can try the various Angel Challenges, which you wouldn't have been able to play before on ITYTD, and then you can start thinking of making the next step to Hurt Me Plenty. Omega Tyrant (talk) 08:49, 8 July 2023 (UTC)