If you have played a first person shooter that was released between 2004 and today, you will know of the choices in difficulty. Call of Duty is probably the most famous with veteran, the hardest single player difficulty. When some people say it is next to impossible, they don't exaggerate. About two to three shots and you're dead. Some games try to cheapen the experience by adding more damage required to kill an enemy like Duke Nukem Forever. If there is one game that did hard difficulty justice, it was Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.
Id Software knew how to deal with making a game worthy of picking up and playing, as well as making it a challenge without ruining the experience. What helped them with their early efforts was that there was no need to double an enemy's health or require more shots put into them. Taking down an imp with one shot from a shotgun will always be one shot. Or two depending on how far you are. There was always a strategy on how to defeat them and find a way to get through it unscathed. There was no cheap shots to them and you know what you were getting into.
It's a philosophy that has been largely ignored for a long time in favor of going the Call of Duty and Halo route of a couple shots and you're gone. Even Goldeneye, which came out long before those two, had that kind of cheap difficulty combined with a few other cheap factors. The closest to what Doom did was the early Medal of Honor games up until Frontline, Duke Nukem 3D, and maybe Half Life. At least that's what I can think of. Third person games kind of have that same mentality of Halo and Call of Duty, but they are not as bad as those two. And I say that as someone that has beaten a handful of the Call of Duty games on Veteran, and those have a lot of very cheap moments.
If developers want to know how to be pleasing to all audiences, Id's early games are a good indicator. There's a reason Wolfenstein 3D and Doom are considered some of the greatest games ever.
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