sucked in more than one aspect, the only thing better compared to MOHAA was the turned down accuracy on the snipers. 

Daz: Interesting. I've been using the "always adjustable" skill setting in the DS demo occasionally, depending how bored I am.

UWF: Well done for missing the point.

Gilt: Some nice points there. With new games I choose fairly low skills as I need to explore and experience them more than I need to be challenged. I think there is sometimes - or often - a skewed balance towards challenge rather than fun or creativity or whatever (perhaps to cover up for a lack of the latters).

Scraggy - Good second point there.

Speedy: Well personally I can't speak for people who whine. But as you noticed my entire post was pretty much about the first point you raised. Well done for repeating it. As for the last part of what you posted, once again you've completely missed the point. Picking a few counter-examples to RPG02 is completely pointless (and factually wrong in the case of the IKSPQ maps, remember they are a series). Yes there are a FEW harder, but the vast majority are easier. Anyway that's irrelevant.

Spentron: Don't understand what you're trying to say, but clearly ALL add-ons REQUIRE skill settings otherwise they will make the whole issue I am highlighting much much worse. 

Warning, long ramble, but that's what this is for right?

Shambler, one of my points is that add-ons have less need for skill settings than an original game -- because it is a reasonable assumption players have played the original game. In some cases that's not true, for example if you made a RPG that ran on Quake, some RPG fans would play it (hopefully) without playing Quake. On the other hand, if you're making plain-old Quake level #1439, it's a safe assumption almost no one will be playing that hasn't played at least 100 other add-on maps before. In this case, the only reason to include a true easy setting is to cater to those who want to play tourist mode.

I have to add that in the case of Quake, I think of the maps with no really good skill settings (usually all too easy), more of them implement skill settings than not.

In the case of a new-yet-old game, there is a question raised if one should assume the player has already experience in the genre. If someone comes out with a new FPS in 2010, it's not reasonable to say "play Quake first." On the other hand, most players will find a Quake-easy-equivalent useless. There's certainly genres right now I'd have trouble with playing the average new release (though I probably don't care).

I'm slightly unsure what your "whole issue I am highlighting" actually is, I think you're just talking about variation in skill settings.

My other point was that, since add-ons are unpredicatable, it's preferable that they let you know what you're getting into right away. A graduated skill can make sense as part of an original game, especially at the easiest setting -- for example if the end on easy is about the same as the beginning on normal. I think a few games have had too much a sudden increase, though, for example about the 5th level of Duke3D or the Valley of the Jaguar in SS:SE after the first level being a cakewalk. The player then has to choose whether to start over, get up to speed (mainly what I did), or keep playing on too high a skill level. ...And these are professionally made games, where you presume they know what they're doing -- fortunately they mostly did, and it didn't get that much harder on the next level too. If a user level doubles in difficulty at the 4th room, what's the player to expect of the 8th room?

Now on to what I wanted to talk about... I think there is some absolute reference with regards to skill. A mapper should know how to play his level best, obviously. Therefore, "reference" occurs when even the mapper starts to have serious problems completing the level. There is some dependence even here on playing skill, but for most mappers this ranges from decent to just short of amazing, and I'd hope they have some idea of where they stand. I'd say this is the more precise part. The imprecise part is taking this reference level and detuning it to make it easier for mass consumption (possibly needed even for the hardest skill). Then one gets more into the area of estimation. I don't know if anyone else uses this method of tuning, but I've been moving towards it.

Another issue is what's we're aiming at. Personally, I like FPS games to be as follows: most of it isn't burdensomely difficult where you want to reload a savegame every time you get hit or miss a shot. If you screw up bad, yeah, reload, maybe even once or twice you need to go into careful mode for a scenario or two to get caught back up, but that's it. There's some room for variation, but mainly the difficulty needs to be kept between boringly easy and boringly difficult. On the other hand, there's major battles and finales. There should be some cue that hints the player it's probably a good idea to save before such a scene. It can be fun to retry such a scene over and over until you beat it, but that doesn't mean you want whole games to be that hard. It's also no coincidence that such scenes tend to be finales, because some players just won't make it past.

There is another side to my "let you know what you're getting into right away" though, in that it becomes problematic when the gameplay is made unconventional. Some players will decide the difficulty is just too high instead of grasping that they need to adapt to the terms of the level or game (if they'd even be willing to do so if they knew what to do). Yes, I'm talking about my own levels here ;) . 

When can we expect Cliffs Notes to release a summary? 

 

Maybe a bit cheap, but there is something like accuracy of the weapons, like 99%. Changing it to 100 could levitate the skill setting.
Another thing could be minimaze the bboxes for enemies, although that would be really cheating. 

Good bump. 

Hard maps are shit in quake. 

If you're going for brutal gameplay then the map should at least be interesting. Encounters/obstacles should be cool. Dying over and over in a cardboard box is nobodies idea of fun. 

Just chiming in: more monsters != more hard 

people shouldn't be scared of giving the player big weapons fairly early on in a standalone map. I'm a bit tired of wading through 40 minutes of ogres and hellknights with nothing beefier than a DBS to be honest.