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DOOM Eternal - the sequel to the 2016 reboot - now with The Ancient Gods DLC

RoSoDude

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Joined
Oct 1, 2016
Messages
727
I also dislike this sort of rubber banding, HL2 is scourge of FPS.

Ahh, the HL2 was bad meme. Been some months since I saw that one.
I just played it for the first time a month ago, and I was not impressed. HL2 was absolutely decline. Not a bad game or anything, but there's a lot of regression from the first game and its expansions, particularly in weapon variety, enemy types and behaviors, and level design. Most encounters are with hitscan enemies who shoot the player while strafing, encouraging a very boring style of play in combat (compare to the marines in HL1 which run or shoot and liberally use grenades, pushing the player to stay on the move to avoid getting cornered). The resource economy hurts this further, with dynamic replenishing of ammo for your basic weapons (SMG/Pulse Rifle/Shotgun) as well as health and armor, assuring that there's never any real tension going into encounters nor any reason to vary your combat strategies (the "rubber banding" Jaedar mentioned).

The game clearly isn't confident with this combat system either, as it is far more focused on its scripted sequences and light puzzle elements, which rarely require more than a half second of reasoning to work out. I breezed through the levels without really taking in their layout, a sharp contrast to HL1 or its predecessors in Doom/Quake. The only real challenge comes in the form of occasional swarms of the same banal hitscanning Combine soldiers, and I could tell my brain was half off while playing the game. Most of the variety comes from one-off mechanics like vehicles, physics gimmicks, human/antlion squads, or boring wave combat. Admittedly these are where most of the fun can be had (the floor is lava bit with the antlions wasn't bad), but compared to the thrill of classic FPS with expanding arsenals, mazelike level design, and increasingly hard encounter design or compared with something more cerebral and systems-driven like Deus Ex, I was not impressed. Highly, highly overrated game that is technically impressive but only okay in design.
 
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Unwanted

789456123

Unwanted
Joined
Jun 17, 2018
Messages
99
I have been playing Doom 2 with Smooth Doom mod with Alien Vendetta wad( www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/av ),is considered by many the best custom wad ever made yet,for me its a pretty good wad until map 25 where the maps start throwing thousands of monsters at you ! its start to drags alot.overall is a Good Wad until map 25,anyway I prefer weapons/monsters mods that does not change too much the gameplay like brutal doom and project brutality these mods gets boring after a while because sometimes brutal doom/project brutality and some others gameplay mods can make the game too easy or insane hard or just make the game run in slides when theres too much shit going on...

Anyway...Doom modding community is amazing ! there hundreds of custom wads (https://www.doomworld.com/idgames//index.php?dir=levels/doom2/megawads/&sort=rating&direction=desc) and mods (https://forum.zdoom.org/viewforum.php?f=43) so many that you can play Doom/Doom 2 with new wads/mods every time for you whole entire life.I Also notice despite being a very old game the Doom modding community got bigger and bigger every year,there any other old game like Doom(pre-2000)where the modding community got bigger and bigger as the time pass ? the only one i can think of is Age of Empires 2 most because of the HD release.

Anyway...the Doom modding community makes me respect the modding communities overall.
 
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DJOGamer PT

Arcane
Joined
Apr 8, 2015
Messages
7,354
Location
Lusitânia
For starter's you can't instantly kill an enemy.
That's irrelevant. The point is that the cinematic completely disrupts the flow of the game. It's shit and unexcusable. That and the fact that you're pretty much immortal because "huh oh, I need hp. Oh, no worries, there's this guy glowing blue to max out my hp!". Shit mechanic that doesn't belong in the game.

I don't think it disrupts, they are very brief and you can end up dead if do them mindlessly. Also I have tolerance to them because I played RE4 when I was about 10/11. Besides like I said in my previous post the best action games since Devil May Cry have been doing this kind of mechanic in one way or the other and it just adds to their experience, it's the same for nu-DOOM.
As for the immortal statement, it's false because even if are with very low health and kill a big motherfucker like a Cacodemon you'll only receive enough to fill close to half of your health (in higher difficulties) - so you have to kill a lot more to fill it to the full (and don't forget the more health you have the less packs you'll receive). And those bastards and other enemies do more damage than the HP you regained - cocademons for example, if you get too close to them, they'll perform a bite attack that insta-kills you, so...
And if don't like to them simply don't do it. Success in the game doesn't revolve around this mechanic and like Durandal you still get HP packs if you kill an enemy with low HP (their quantity however won't be as great as if you glory kill them, so it even makes the game harder).
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
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Location
Ommadawn
so you have to kill a lot more to fill it to the full
And if don't like to them simply don't do it. Success in the game doesn't revolve around this mechanic and like Durandal you still get HP packs if you kill an enemy with low HP (their quantity however won't be as great as if you glory kill them, so it even makes the game harder).
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
Sorry, but no matter how much you contradict yourself and try to spin this as acceptable, it isn't. Even if it had no impact on gameplay (which it does, as per your own admittance), it still disrupts the fight every 5 seconds.
 

Dayyālu

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Shaper Crypt
I just played it for the first time a month ago, and I was not impressed. HL2 was absolutely decline.


Decline from what? That's the question. HL2 is probably the best game of its own generation, the last example of a traditional shooter 3d shooter before the deluge of CoD-clones and console-based FPS.If you are comparing it to previous gen 3d shooters only a handful can be defined as "better" in design (probably Quake and.... and.... and.... HL1 at its best and Unreal 1). Of its own generation, there is nothing as good in encounter design and variety (and it's telling that you had to compare it to games far older than it to find something better). I do agree that HL1 is as good if not better on its well-developed pieces, but I'd take a HL2+Episodes replay every day instead of playing again Xen levels, despite them being a valiant attempt. The only mentions of good FPS near the times of HL2 are the likes of Painkiller (that becomes quickly shit in its later levels) or FEAR (that became shit in its later games). Then it's literally a shooting gallery of unending mediocrity 'cause CoD and consoles.

Not a bad game or anything, but there's a lot of regression from the first game and its expansions, particularly in weapon variety, enemy types and behaviors, and level design.

Expansion. Or you are legit telling me that Blue Shift had better weapon selection and design than HL2? I like Blue Shift, but it's a butchered mess sent forth to showcase the new texture packs and little else. Design-wise, OpFor is a kitchen sink: some pieces are great and some are...uhrrr. Voltigore Sewers! I still remember them years later. OpFor's level design isn't that hot either if compared to HL1. Comparing HL1 and 2, yeah,, 1 is better but it's a given.


Most encounters are with hitscan enemies who shoot the player while strafing, encouraging a very boring style of play in combat (compare to the marines in HL1 which run or shoot and liberally use grenades, pushing the player to stay on the move to avoid getting cornered). The resource economy hurts this further, with dynamic replenishing of ammo for your basic weapons (SMG/Pulse Rifle/Shotgun) as well as health and armor, assuring that there's never any real tension going into encounters nor any reason to vary your combat strategies (the "rubber banding" Jaedar mentioned).

The overall encounter design of hitscan enemies in HL2 is damaged by the fact that many of the encounters, despite being very well thought, aren't in the same maze-like enviroment as HL1. Combine soldiers share many traits with Marines (or REPLICA soldiers from FEAR) making them interesting foes compared to the cardboard cutouts of cover-base shooting, and often they are sent from interesting locations and combined with mechanized foes. It's a pity to see that the Episodes approach, an improvement on the base HL2 thanks to Hunters, went the way of the dodo thanks to, well, Episodes. I don't exactly understand what's bad with the basic ammo refill, as it gives you the freedom of approaching basic encounters as you see fit or wasting valuable higher-tier ammunition. "Rubber banding"? It's not L4D with a Director giving you freebies if you suck enough: it's called level design and ammo management. Gunship encounters at higher levels would be flat-out unplayable with non-unlimited ammo considering how they work and given the fact they can shoot down your missiles quite easily if you aren't paying attention.


The game clearly isn't confident with this combat system either, as it is far more focused on its scripted sequences and light puzzle elements, which rarely require more than a half second of reasoning to work out. I breezed through the levels without really taking in their layout, a sharp contrast to HL1 or its predecessors in Doom/Quake.

What game of HL2's gen had even so much as a "layout"? You are comparing the three best games of the previous generations with HL2. Apples and oranges. HL2's focus is combat encounters, not mazelike level design. If you consider good designs having to hunt for cardkeys to proceed, good for ye. HL2 has excellent encounters, particularly with non-human enemies (the Gunship encounters, Striders, Hunters, Antlion Guards) in opposition to the often bothersome HL1's encounters with big alien thingies. Soldiering forward the hardest HL2's encounters quickly becomes a problem if you don't manage your health, non-renewable.


The only real challenge comes in the form of occasional swarms of the same banal hitscanning Combine soldiers, and I could tell my brain was half off while playing the game.

I do wonder how you play the game if the basic grunt swarms are giving you grief. This is the only flat-out wrong thing you said, methinks. Combine soldiers are the chaff to keep on your toes and surprise you, not the hard-hitting encounters.

Most of the variety comes from one-off mechanics like vehicles, physics gimmicks, human/antlion squads, or boring wave combat. Admittedly these are where most of the fun can be had (the floor is lava bit with the antlions wasn't bad),

Good, we're on something, aren't we? HL2 is good in variety. You are very rarely doing the same thing in the same location. The amount of setpieces variety is staggering, and most of them are very well designed without recurring to the scourge of CoD-likes of making you do cool stuff in a scripted sequence or QTEs. In HL2 you are always doing something different, something new, up until to the last level and the Gravgun's rampage. It's a feat none of its contemporaries and even few of its predecessors managed well (well, nothing can be compared to that honestly).

but compared to the thrill of classic FPS with expanding arsenals, mazelike level design, and increasingly hard encounter design or compared with something more cerebral and systems-driven like Deus Ex, I was not impressed. Highly, highly overrated game that is technically impressive but only okay in design.

Deus Ex has flat-out bad combat, but that's not a problem because it's a hybrid. Likewise SS2. Apples and Oranges. HL2 has both an expanding arsenal and increasingly hard encounter designs, but it lacks indeed basic excellent level design: I do think it's 'cause the same "realism focus" than HL1 had (seriously, can you remember the layout of HL1's arenas compared to Quake or Doom?). Point is, HL2 is not decline: because there wasn't a thing to decline from. It's the last, and seriously excellent remnant of a different style of shooter (3d based, realistic enviroments, puzzles, avoidance of cover both for you and your enemies, enemy variety) that was torpedoed and killed through mismanagement (Episodes) and market tendencies. If only more games like HL2 got out, the dark and shitty 2000 for FPS games would have been a tad less shitty. Most of the critiques about HL2 are foggy and typically Codexian (it's bad because I think it's bad, BAD) but your post was spot-on in several point, thus pardon my rant.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Messages
56,164
Half Life 2 was a pile of shit. Traditional shooter lmao. And Xen levels were infinitely better than anything in Fag Life 2.

The game has one going for it: art direction, which has bamboozled morons who are incapable of looking beyond the surface into believing the game is a masterpiece. There's actually no content in that fucker at all. It's all fluff and pretend gameplay.

"But, but, muh story".

The story was a pile of shit too.
 
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Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,421
Simple, make glory kills via Dukes kick that you have to aim at the thing you want to kill. Or any kind of kill when they are in that vulnerable state rewards the player with extra ammo and hp, no canned animation trash. Removing control from the player is one great big fucking sin in modern gaming. If you make your game less interactive, I will watch it on a stream or lets play.
 

Dayyālu

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Messages
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Shaper Crypt
Half Life 2 was a pile of shit. Traditional shooter lmao. And Xen levels were infinitely better than anything in Fag Life 2.

Xen levels are a misguided experiment. They have many things going for them (it's a valiant attempt to change the industrial\desert look of HL1's earlier levels) and a frankly amusing amount of small little things (you knew that some Xen levels support stealth playthrough? I didn't know either). It's a failure because the high-tier alien Xen alien beasties aren't as fun to fight as HECU grunts, in the end, and the level layouts are often confusing.

Also crappy platforming. There's a good reason why Xen is considered mediocre. Also Nihilanth is a "good enough" boss fight, but that is shared with Quake's endgame, so I can't complain too much.

The game has one going for it: art direction, which has bamboozled morons who are incapable of looking beyond the surface into believing the game is a masterpiece.

Your pathetic attempt made me remember that yes, HL2 has also an excellent graphic design. Sure, if you like post-Soviet industrial cities: but I do like abandoned places and thus HL2 is a definite plus. The Combines are also well designed, even if I do prefer their non-human forces.

There's actually no content in that fucker at all. It's all fluff and pretend gameplay.

Are we talking about Crysis or CoD here? Because HL2 has for sure gameplay. Also at the time a somewhat good MP scene. Define "pretend gameplay", then. What are you doing in HL2? Fake shooting? The best example of "fake gameplay" (if I can try to enter in your Mickey Mouse style definitions) would be CoD: nothing you do in Cod has particular impact on the fight bar reaching the pre-determined "stop enemy spawns" point. The game plays by itself when you have allies.

"But, but, muh story".

The story was a pile of shit too.

It's telling that no one has ever referred to HL2's story in any form before you started crying. Who cares about the story. One of the weakest points of HL2's Episodes was the misguided attempts to force feed the player a waifu experience (Bioshock Infinite here I come). I can imagine what happened at Valve:

"hey, people liked Barneys and Scientists a lot in HL1! Some madmen even tried their hardest to keep 'em alive. OCD is one hell of a drug."
"let's give them disposable team mates in HL2, then. Some basic squad management, the player can force 'em to switch weapons and with Medics you can heal them!" (oh shit I forgot about medics here my "limited health on HL2" goes out of the window for some levels)
"What if we gave 'em a waifu? I mean, let's design some sort of nerd wank material"
"Kk. Half black for starters, and nerdy and strong and decisive but at the same time demure and strong-willed."
"And we're going to force the players to suffer her through the majority of the Episodes! Also DRAMATIC SETPIECE TO SAVE HER LIFE because they care! GENIUS!"

I'm one of those OCD fucks that tried his best to save the guards in HL1, but Alyx is simply an insufferable piece of design. She's invincible and she's there literally just as waifu material. And not good waifu material either. Easily one of the worst points of HL2.

But again, isn't this thread about DOOM?
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I think the devs genuinely had good intention when they designed the execution mechanic, the animations give player a moment of safety before committing to the next gunfight which really shows in high difficulty. Also they help build up the brutal Doom Slayer™ image, everyone remember those moments when he stomps on a demon's head.

However, I also found it bizarre that id completely replaced melee with executions - hey look at all these fucking metal as fuck demon ripping action? We're making you witness 10 of these within 15 seconds. For people who like it, the novelty disappears when they watch too much of it. For people who dislike it, they will get annoyed more. Executions should have stayed as a special move which only triggers occasionally, like make only the very last demon executable or only blink when player's at extremely low health so they know they need that sweet hp.

There's also an easy way to implement melee without sacrificing execution that appeals to both crowds: press F to finish off enemy by a classic punch/kick/headbutt/gunbutt, i don't care as long as it doesn't take more than 5 frames and still drop health and ammo. Hold F to trigger execution animation. Simple as that.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Messages
56,164
Xen levels are a misguided experiment.

They are not. They are meant to fit the theme perfectly. It's a frikking alien world, of course everything is weird and wayward.

Meanwhile, Half Life 2's citadel was the most boring fucking shit they could have possibly come up with.

Are we talking about Crysis or CoD here? Because HL2 has for sure gameplay.

Pretend gameplay you mean.

Don't really feel discussing this shit since we have already talked about it to death. Hurr durr obligatory etc etc:



The annoying thing about Half Life 2 is that there's an entire generation of console retards who grew up on it who are absolutely convinced it is some kind of cerebral masterpiece and gaming milestone, even though it was decline in almost every respect. It's the same thing with Skyrim. Console kiddies who don't know any better thinking they have sophisticated taste for liking this shit just because it isn't Call of Duty.
 

RoSoDude

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Messages
727
Dayyālu All fair points. I am certainly only calling HL2 declined compared to its direct predecessors rather than its contemporaries, following the general trend of the FPS in the first decade of the millennium that you identify. I also agree that I'd rather have a dozen HL2-quality games over the countless military target practice/latter-day console shooters we've gotten since. I also understand, conceptually, why it was so well-regarded at its time, as it is exceptionally well executed and is fun enough to play thanks to the things you/I mentioned... But man, I just can't shake the feeling that it's deeply overrated. I've done most of my "proper" gaming over the last five years, and I was looking forward to something as great as HL1 if certainly not Doom/Quake and the dissonance between my feeling for the comparison vs that of the supposedly high-minded PC community made me legitimately question my own mental state. I should have had my expectations tempered by the broader context you've laid out, but I still managed to be surprised by how bored I was at parts.

I totally disagree on Xen, though. I adored HL1's platforming, was one of its strongest elements if you ask me. Having the longjump at the end was awesome, and the alien factory section was a highlight of the whole game for me. The only part I really dislike is the Nihilanth.

Well, I'll cut it off there, as this thread is about Doom 5. Meh, looks okay. New movement tools look cool but lacking a bit in a feeling of inertia, plasma gun looks way better, enemies seem mildly more aggressive (?) and based around movement and weak points, level design looks maybe less arena-focused, sound design is utterly contaminated by reverb, and I still dislike glory kills. Worth paying attention to, but I'm not really excited or anything.
 

Deakul

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Anyone that thinks the glory kills ruin Doom 4's combat flow most likely haven't even played the game, many of us were worried that they would break the flow but they're quick, satisfying, and turn enemies into loot pinatas... they don't hurt a damn thing, they actually KEEP you in the combat flow.

Nevermind that there's actually runes that mod the glory kills to be faster, give you further reach, make enemies drop armor too, and give you a speed boost upon performing them.
 

Master

Arbiter
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Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
they don't hurt a damn thing, they actually KEEP you in the combat flow.
Dont see how they KEEP you in the combat flow... So if they werent there, something would be stopping the flow? Huh?
If you could actually just punch the demons with your fists or boot kick them, that would be nice. As it is its the same thing as in AVP 2010 except, there you could actually get killed while performing these "glory kills". While in this i guess everyone just stands still waiting their turn.
 

Ash

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Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
The annoying thing about Half Life 2 is that there's an entire generation of console retards who grew up on it who are absolutely convinced it is some kind of cerebral masterpiece and gaming milestone, even though it was decline in almost every respect. It's the same thing with Skyrim. Console kiddies who don't know any better thinking they have sophisticated taste for liking this shit just because it isn't Call of Duty.

Citation needed. Most tards I see sucking Valve/HL2 dong are PC gamers. Skyrim definitely is more a dumbfuck new generation console gamer thing though, yet again it has no shortage of PC gaming fans.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Messages
56,164
Console retards play games on PC too you know.

They are a special case because they have no frame of reference. If you never played any shooter besides Halo, Half Life 2 might seem like an art house work of genius by comparison. Coming at the heel of all the greatest shooters of yore, Half Life 2 just fails to impress from the get go, and that's before you realize just how boring and insipid the game actually is.

And the fanboys are just the fucking worst:



Check the comment by the Frost's Workshop moron, who is as typical an Half Life 2 fanboy as it gets. "You don't like the game because you are just used to play Call of Duty lul. Half Life 2 has, liek, a story".
 

Dayyālu

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Shaper Crypt


This is the last post I'll waste on the subject, because I have already said everything I can say on the subject. Plus it's a DOOM 5 thread.

But what you think? Posting Youtube videos where other people say things isn't a good way to make any points. What's your opinion bar "it's shit because Youtube videos says so"? "pretend gameplay"? Are you making up words?

Feel free to link other threads if you prefer not to repeat yourself. I'm legit curious, because you haven't made a single solid point bar: GAME BAD GAME BAD IS FAKE GAME GAME BAD. ALSO CONSOLES.

Xen is alien: I do admit it's kinda nice from a enviromental design standpoint (but most of HL1 is amazing in that regard), but ... it doesn't flow. For me at least. I dislike first person platforming and Alien Grunts and Controllers are worse opponents than the variety we get in Black Mesa.

Citation needed. Most tards I see sucking Valve/HL2 dong are PC gamers. Skyrim definitely is more a dumbfuck new generation console gamer thing though, yet again it has no shortage of PC gaming fans.

There's no particular need to be a Valve fan to appreciate HL2: everyone who worked on HL1&2 and had shooter design expertise left the company ages ago. Valve is a shell. There's a reason they didn't make a HL3: they cannot longer make it. No people, no skills, no ideas.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Anyone that thinks the glory kills ruin Doom 4's combat flow most likely haven't even played the game, many of us were worried that they would break the flow but they're quick, satisfying, and turn enemies into loot pinatas... they don't hurt a damn thing, they actually KEEP you in the combat flow.

When I perform a Glory Kill, my vision is focused for a moment on this poor sod I'm brutalizing.

During this moment, I am unable to tell what is going on around me. I don't know how the enemies around me have repositioned themselves, I don't know whether I'm even being attacked to begin with, and I don't know how long the i-frames will carry me. The enemies are cheeky buggers and will keep running circles around my field of vision. I have to constantly keep track of them so I don't get a nasty surprise in my back.

After this moment, I have to reorient. I have to look around and check where the enemies have moved to, where I can move to, where the incoming projectiles are, and what to do next. In an isometric or third-person game, this wouldn't have been as much of a problem. I could still see what's happening around me while performing an execution, and reach a decision on what to do based on what I see before the execution animation even ends. This is impossible in a first-person game because your FoV is limited, you're working off incomplete information, and the enemies are certainly not sitting there twiddling their thumbs until you're done.

In a more reasonable situation, I could rely on my hearing to gauge the situation outside my FoV. Unfortunately, the audio mix in nuDoom is such utter trash that makes it impossible to pinpoint the direction of a sound made by an enemy. To make matters worse, performing a Glory Kill fades out the music and all other sound to focus on the sound of the bone-breaking impact, at the expense of turning you deaf to everything else for a moment, even though that everything else may have held important information key to my survival.

This lapse in time also tends to make me vulnerable to attacks the moment the Glory Kill animation ends alongside my state of invincibility. According to the developers, no new attacks will be initiated while you are performing a Glory Kill (I call bullshit). But this means that attacks with more wind-up, such as the Imp's charge fireball or slower arcing fireball instead might hit me the moment I regain control. Other enemies could be huffing my ass while I am performing a Glory Kill, and follow up with a melee swipe the moment the Glory Kill ends, leaving me with unavoidable damage. If the i-frames extended for a second after I regain control of my character, this may not have been as much of a problem.

A sensible response to this would be that you shouldn't use Glory Kills when you're completely surrounded. But then it brings up the question of when it's the right time to Glory Kill. Because arena design is so open, you're always bound to be in the line of fire of an Imp or something. It's often more sensible to Glory Kill lone enemies in remote parts of the arena where you are less likely to suffer 50HP of unavoidable damage (on Nightmare), but that goes against the intended purpose of using it to be more aggressive when you're better off only using it in safer situations. You may get lucky and not get hit, but this makes the success of a Glory Kill only more uncertain and unnecessarily random.

The rewards behind Glory Kills also play a factor in when to use it. On normal health, they drop around +5-10HP depending on the enemy. On critical health, this can go up to +50HP. Basically, there's no point to using Glory Kills when on high health, when you get a measly award at the risk of losing ten times as much health. Health drops can't exceed your base health cap like health bonuses in the originals could, so why bother? You can save ammo for doing so, but ammo management is a joke once you get the chainsaw anyways. Ninja Gaiden 2 did something more interesting by making almost-dead enemies which had to be executed with a special execution move even more lethal wben almost-dead than they would normally be, turning them into a high priority target. In nuDoom they just stand there waiting to get killed.

You should only be using Glory Kills when on low health. But enemies will already drop extra health on any kind of death if you are critical. Performing Glory Kills will probably drop more, but generally it's not worth the risk of losing 50HP and situational awareness, so continuing to kill enemies the regular way should be able to sustain you alongside regular placed health items.

If the gist is to know when to perform a certain move which locks you in place and leaves you vulnerable to attacks when the move ends (like throws in a beat 'em up) based on the situation around you, then the first-person perspective is a bad fit. Good positional audio design and suitable enemy design could alleviate this (else why would you suppose none of the enemies in Devil Daggers are projectile-based?), but evidently that was not the intent.

On lower difficulties Glory Kills are always useful when the amount of attacks happening at once is lower on top of attacks dealing less damage, but on higher difficulties things veer into "unavoidable damage" territory, making Glory Kills essentially a noobtrap you're better off not using at all outside the learning stages. The problem is that the game never treats Glory Kills as a crutch, so people believe it is an essential mechanic up until Nightmare when they realize Glory Kills are actually holding them back.

Considering the constraints of a first-person game, I keep saying that being able to perform Glory Kills through a dash move (which Eternal will incidentally feature) and then dashing into enemies to ram them for more health would be a more elegant way of doing this since it wouldn't lock your position or vision in one place and actually literally preserve momentum. Doom VFR did something identical, replacing having to press F for Glory Kills by just telefragging staggered enemies.

Nevermind that there's actually runes that mod the glory kills to be faster, give you further reach, make enemies drop armor too, and give you a speed boost upon performing them.
Man, if only these were features enabled by default instead of being locked behind upgrades to maintain the illusion of having a greater amount of content than the game actually does.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9301I met Tapatalk
 

Jezal_k23

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During this moment, I am unable to tell what is going on around me. I don't know how the enemies around me have repositioned themselves, I don't know whether I'm even being attacked to begin with, and I don't know how long the i-frames will carry me. The enemies are cheeky buggers and will keep running circles around my field of vision. I have to constantly keep track of them so I don't get a nasty surprise in my back.

After this moment, I have to reorient. I have to look around and check where the enemies have moved to, where I can move to, where the incoming projectiles are, and what to do next.

That is true. It's a good reason not to use them all the time.

According to the developers, no new attacks will be initiated while you are performing a Glory Kill (I call bullshit).

No new attacks can be initiated during the glory kill animation but if there's a projectile going toward you when you start the glory kill then it won't stop, meaning it could hit you as soon as you're released from the glory kill animation. On Nightmare this means death because you don't even have time to grab the health pick ups.

BTW If you look at footage from the best players they don't use a lot of glory kills during intense battles. I can give you an example:

 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Anyone that thinks the glory kills ruin Doom 4's combat flow most likely haven't even played the game, many of us were worried that they would break the flow but they're quick, satisfying, and turn enemies into loot pinatas... they don't hurt a damn thing, they actually KEEP you in the combat flow.

When I perform a Glory Kill, my vision is focused for a moment on this poor sod I'm brutalizing.

During this moment, I am unable to tell what is going on around me. I don't know how the enemies around me have repositioned themselves, I don't know whether I'm even being attacked to begin with, and I don't know how long the i-frames will carry me. The enemies are cheeky buggers and will keep running circles around my field of vision. I have to constantly keep track of them so I don't get a nasty surprise in my back.

After this moment, I have to reorient. I have to look around and check where the enemies have moved to, where I can move to, where the incoming projectiles are, and what to do next. In an isometric or third-person game, this wouldn't have been as much of a problem. I could still see what's happening around me while performing an execution, and reach a decision on what to do based on what I see before the execution animation even ends. This is impossible in a first-person game because your FoV is limited, you're working off incomplete information, and the enemies are certainly not sitting there twiddling their thumbs until you're done.

In a more reasonable situation, I could rely on my hearing to gauge the situation outside my FoV. Unfortunately, the audio mix in nuDoom is such utter trash that makes it impossible to pinpoint the direction of a sound made by an enemy. To make matters worse, performing a Glory Kill fades out the music and all other sound to focus on the sound of the bone-breaking impact, at the expense of turning you deaf to everything else for a moment, even though that everything else may have held important information key to my survival.

This lapse in time also tends to make me vulnerable to attacks the moment the Glory Kill animation ends alongside my state of invincibility. According to the developers, no new attacks will be initiated while you are performing a Glory Kill (I call bullshit). But this means that attacks with more wind-up, such as the Imp's charge fireball or slower arcing fireball instead might hit me the moment I regain control. Other enemies could be huffing my ass while I am performing a Glory Kill, and follow up with a melee swipe the moment the Glory Kill ends, leaving me with unavoidable damage. If the i-frames extended for a second after I regain control of my character, this may not have been as much of a problem.

A sensible response to this would be that you shouldn't use Glory Kills when you're completely surrounded. But then it brings up the question of when it's the right time to Glory Kill. Because arena design is so open, you're always bound to be in the line of fire of an Imp or something. It's often more sensible to Glory Kill lone enemies in remote parts of the arena where you are less likely to suffer 50HP of unavoidable damage (on Nightmare), but that goes against the intended purpose of using it to be more aggressive when you're better off only using it in safer situations. You may get lucky and not get hit, but this makes the success of a Glory Kill only more uncertain and unnecessarily random.

The rewards behind Glory Kills also play a factor in when to use it. On normal health, they drop around +5-10HP depending on the enemy. On critical health, this can go up to +50HP. Basically, there's no point to using Glory Kills when on high health, when you get a measly award at the risk of losing ten times as much health. Health drops can't exceed your base health cap like health bonuses in the originals could, so why bother? You can save ammo for doing so, but ammo management is a joke once you get the chainsaw anyways. Ninja Gaiden 2 did something more interesting by making almost-dead enemies which had to be executed with a special execution move even more lethal wben almost-dead than they would normally be, turning them into a high priority target. In nuDoom they just stand there waiting to get killed.

You should only be using Glory Kills when on low health. But enemies will already drop extra health on any kind of death if you are critical. Performing Glory Kills will probably drop more, but generally it's not worth the risk of losing 50HP and situational awareness, so continuing to kill enemies the regular way should be able to sustain you alongside regular placed health items.

If the gist is to know when to perform a certain move which locks you in place and leaves you vulnerable to attacks when the move ends (like throws in a beat 'em up) based on the situation around you, then the first-person perspective is a bad fit. Good positional audio design and suitable enemy design could alleviate this (else why would you suppose none of the enemies in Devil Daggers are projectile-based?), but evidently that was not the intent.

On lower difficulties Glory Kills are always useful when the amount of attacks happening at once is lower on top of attacks dealing less damage, but on higher difficulties things veer into "unavoidable damage" territory, making Glory Kills essentially a noobtrap you're better off not using at all outside the learning stages. The problem is that the game never treats Glory Kills as a crutch, so people believe it is an essential mechanic up until Nightmare when they realize Glory Kills are actually holding them back.

Considering the constraints of a first-person game, I keep saying that being able to perform Glory Kills through a dash move (which Eternal will incidentally feature) and then dashing into enemies to ram them for more health would be a more elegant way of doing this since it wouldn't lock your position or vision in one place and actually literally preserve momentum. Doom VFR did something identical, replacing having to press F for Glory Kills by just telefragging staggered enemies.

Nevermind that there's actually runes that mod the glory kills to be faster, give you further reach, make enemies drop armor too, and give you a speed boost upon performing them.
Man, if only these were features enabled by default instead of being locked behind upgrades to maintain the illusion of having a greater amount of content than the game actually does.

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The implementation was bound to fail because their reasons for putting that shit in there are bogus in the first place.
 

Deakul

Augur
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
417
Location
Taxachusetts
That's a whole lot of words that ultimately tell me nothing that hasn't already been regurgitated thrice fold.

I'll only agree that having yourself locked into the .005 second long glory kill animation can be shitty but that's why you don't spam it like crazy, you do a quick area assessment to determine whether or not it's safe to do so, you have to be smart about it.
 

TheHeroOfTime

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Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
The way it ruins the gameplay is only part of the reason. The retardation behind the idea is extremely grating in itself. It's eye rolling inducing. The idea you are supposed to feel cool and awesome for performing that shit makes me cringe to no end.
 

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