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

[sullynathan]

I like what I've been playing but I'll say some of the criticism in this thread (outside of shitposters) has been fair enough. Ammo is really low, enemies are incredibly aggressive and do too much damage, platforming is numerous and might hurt second playthroughs, the constant looking for trash mobs to get health can be annoying, Having to constantly chainsaw > use all equipment > use all weapons as enemies keep respawning might get annoying but hasn't yet.

People who can't keep up will have a problem with the game. There's no easy way to change certain things in the game was made without fundamentally changing how the entire game was designed.

 

[DalekFlay]

I like what I've been playing but I'll say some of the criticism in this thread (outside of shitposters) has been fair enough. Ammo is really low, enemies are incredibly aggressive and do too much damage, platforming is numerous and might hurt second playthroughs, the constant looking for trash mobs to get health can be annoying, Having to constantly chainsaw > use all equipment > use all weapons as enemies keep respawning might get annoying but hasn't yet.

I'm not sure if these flaws fully tip the game over from being meh to bad, but after finishing it I definitely wouldn't say the game is "good" like I did Doom 2016.

 

[Lyric Suite]

At least it's still hard (i almost lost all my lives to that Doom Hunter duo at the end of the third level, fug), which is a fascinating turn considering how retardely easy and popamole shooters have been for so many years. I'm guessing this is the Dark Souls effect. Even the platforming is there precisely to keep the player on the edge even during down times. What they are doing is not random there's a precise logic in how everything in the game is designed to trip over the player in every possible way. It's just that they went so far with it that everything turns into a cluster fuck in the end where the best course of action is to simply run like an headless chicken (there's been a few occasions where i'm actually dancing around a big enemy, having a blast doing it only to get swarmed by zombies or imps which simply makes dodging pointless. You can't risk it) and even then it's still based on dumb luck whether you come out unscathed or not as you never know whether you gonna run into a big demon head on, which usually means instant death, at least on nightmare. Considering how popular this game is it shows you don't need to dumb shit down to make money, even dude bros can cope this idea of having to simplify everything to "reach a broader audience" was always retarded and counterproductive.

Honestly, you know what would have helped? Real level design. Make the down time last longer and start relying on smaller encounters and enemy placement and keep the big arenas farther apart. That way even if you keep the arenas as they are it would help reduce boredom as at least you get to experience different play styles instead of repeating the same routine over and over.

 

[Average Manatee]

At least it's still hard (i almost lost all my lives to that Doom Hunter duo at the end of the third level, fug), which is a fascinating turn considering how retardely easy and popamole shooters have been for so many years. I'm guessing this is the Dark Souls effect. Even the platforming is there precisely to keep the player on the edge even during down times. What they are doing is not random there's a precise logic in how everything in the game is designed to trip over the player in every possible way. It's just that they went so far with it that everything turns into a cluster fuck in the end where the best course of action is to simply run like an headless chicken (there's been a few occasions where i'm actually dancing around a big enemy, having a blast doing it only to get swarmed by zombies or imps which simply makes dodging pointless. You can't risk it) and even then it's still based on dumb luck whether you come out unscathed or not as you never know whether you gonna run into a big demon head on, which usually means instant death, at least on nightmare. Considering how popular this game is it shows you don't need to dumb shit down to make money, even dude bros can cope this idea of having to simplify everything to "reach a broader audience" was always retarded and counterproductive.

I dunno, have you tried the easiest difficulty (I haven't)? I'd expect its suitably dumbed down. Plus the game literally tells you what to do constantly even down to describing exactly the weakness of each boss. I don't think lack of difficulty is a problem in most games, its how badly difficulty is designed in most games. Doom 2020 is a somewhat different kind of difficulty, it's primarily about developing muscle memory to push 5 different buttons (dodge, flamer, grenade, grenade switch, jump) on 5 different cooldowns + memorizing spawns to instantly slaughter the biggest threat the moment it appears. Whether that's a good kind of difficulty is up to the player.

Honestly, you know what would have helped? Real level design. Make the down time last longer and start relying on smaller encounters and enemy placement and keep the big arenas farther apart. That way even if you keep the arenas as they are it would help reduce boredom as at least you get to experience different play styles instead of repeating the same routine over and over.

The problem with smaller encounters is that they become effectively pointless thanks to how all your shit recharges and you can farm resources from the last enemy or two of each encounter. It would be better yes but it would also mean a fundamental redesign or removal of a lot of the core systems. I do agree though. The enemies generally work well in the small groups you encounter when just fought normally even without relying on dash/grenades/etc.

It's almost like id put all of the cooldown and farming mechanics in the game in order abdicate any responsibility for properly balancing the map and encounters with the right quantity and distribution of pickups. Basically the same reason devs put regenerating health in games.

 

[DalekFlay]

I dunno, have you tried the easiest difficulty (I haven't)? I'd expect its suitably dumbed down. I don't think lack of difficulty is a problem in most games, its how badly difficulty is designed in most games. Doom 2020 is a somewhat different kind of difficulty, it's primarily about developing muscle memory to push 5 different buttons (dodge, flamer, grenade, grenade switch, jump) on 5 different cooldowns + memorizing spawns to instantly slaughter the biggest threat the moment it appears. Whether that's a good kind of difficulty is up to the player.

I put it down to default when I realized I didn't like the game that much, and it still required running around like crazy and using all the cooldown abilities and whatnot to survive. I've seen complaints on random forums about default difficulty too. I'd guess easy is super easy though, as I remember the menu saying something about 80% nerfs. Still... the game makes you stay engaged and can kill you on normal, which isn't how games usually work. Usually normal is actually stupidly easy and doesn't make you use special abilities to survive.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Honestly, there's one obvious way to make it better and that's to make it more like Doom, but it seems that ship as sailed for good. When looking at it as its own thing i can respect their commitment to making the combat as challenging as possible (the area you have to do to get the super shotgun was classic Dark Souls material. You have a big arena fight in a tiny cramped square area with those lizard things and two big Mancubus guys at the end and nowhere to run and on top of it you have to watch where you are walking because of those fire traps on the floor. I just can't help be impressed by that level of rape) but i'm still disappointed as i just prefer Doom to this arcade stuff. Even the graphics don't seem impressive because my brain just refuses to look at the levels as "real". I'm not really immersed in the environments because my brains knows it's just background stuff. They are like glorified backdrops to a side scroller. They may look nice but you just ignore them because you know you are not going to interact with anything and it's the same here. In other games i always try to explore and see where i can go but not here. You know exactly where you can go and you know that you simply cannot deviate from the path the developers laid out for you. That ledge that you should logically be able to jump on top of? Can't reach it because the devs didn't want you do go there. I hate it.

 

[A horse of course]

Comments section is full of "git gud" or "didn't play it right" comments. nuDoom fanbase have very quickly become the most cancerous retards of 2020.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

The people in that comment section would get assraped in Final Doom and sent home in a shopping cart.

 

[Junmarko]

And not only that, there are less maps here than ever. There's something like... 12 missions? One of them doesn't even count because you just walk through some place to get lore-porned and then thrown into a boss fight. Doom, Hell, 12 levels. Couldn't stretch your megaminds for the broody "13" levels, huh?

IS THERE A SPIDER MASTERMIND IN IT? Nope

Season Pass $50 please.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

Even the graphics don't seem impressive because my brain just refuses to look at the levels as "real". I'm not really immersed in the environments because my brains knows it's just background stuff. They are like glorified backdrops to a side scroller. They may look nice but you just ignore them because you know you are not going to interact with anything and it's the same here. In other games i always try to explore and see where i can go but not here. You know exactly where you can go and you know that you simply cannot deviate from the path the developers laid out for you. That ledge that you should logically be able to jump on top of? Can't reach it because the devs didn't want you do go there. I hate it.

This is the biggest problem with the game and the reason why real exploration is crucial for atmosphere. Real exploration makes the level feel less like a roller coaster or movie set. I looked at the giant robots in the distance and while they were cool I constantly thought that they didn't really add much to the game itself. What if there was a secret teleporter to one of those and you could scale it to find a secret weapon? In Doom something is real only if you can interact or explore it because Doom is defined by its gameplay and if it doesn't serve the gameplay it's not really real. Those ramparts in the beginning of the hell level looked pretty cool. I wanted to go up there. All those locked doors are lost opportunities. There were cool secrets such as the cool jump pad secret on the bridge of the second hell level, which was cleverly hidden and actually provided a large chunk of the level just to that secret but this is the exception rather than the rule.

That's why the collectible secrets really pissed me off this time. In 2016, those toys gave you weapon points, the fact that they were cool toys was just a bonus. Here they do nothing so the reward from secrets is devalued, which in turn devalues the secret, which in turn devalues the feel of the level, making it feel less real and more like a movie set. It's all tied together. It doesn't seem like a lot but small balance changes have huge domino effects in Doom games. Imagine what a profound impact it would have on the game if 1 chainsaw fuel didn't refill every 15 seconds or if in classic Doom a shotgunner took two shotgun shells to kill instead of one.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yes. It's like with Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. The visuals may have been nice but you never felt like you were traversing real places so you didn't really feel all that immersed.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

Yes. It's like with Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. The visuals may have been nice but you never felt like you were traversing real places so you didn't really feel all that immersed.

Funny that you mention Quake 3 since this feels a bit like a Single Player Quake 3.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Yes. It's like with Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. The visuals may have been nice but you never felt like you were traversing real places so you didn't really feel all that immersed.

To be fair it was the same thing with Doom.
I never felt particulary immersed or that I was travessing an actual place and always looked at it as gamey location. And that's fine because Doom wasn't trying to be like System Shock.
It's level design quite clearly doesn't care for enviromental storytelling but rather the challenge it presents, how it enchances the game and how it distincts itself from the other levels while at the same time remaing faithful to the core experience and it's episode's motif.

 

[DalekFlay]

This one triples-down on looking like a video game though. In 2016 for example you removed key cards and upgrades from other suits, while in Eternal they're glowing and floating items. They want for a much more "video ass videogame" approach, for better or worse.

 

[Wunderbar]

Damn, the sound mixing in DE is even worse than in Doom 2016. Just listen to this shit - even crisp classic sound effects are almost inaudible, SSG's reload is louder than gunshots.

 

[Junmarko]

Yes. It's like with Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament. The visuals may have been nice but you never felt like you were traversing real places so you didn't really feel all that immersed.

Funny that you mention Quake 3 since this feels a bit like a Single Player Quake 3.

My thoughts exactly, this is the biggest problem with Doom Eternal. It feels like some long lost Quake 3 single player campaign. Here, rather than have typical labyrinthine level design, they've gone for linear gauntlet-style maps - covered with platforming battle-arenas. Every map is forgettable and feels like a complete chore to get through. They at least made an effort with Doom 2016 to keep the maps interesting. This is pathetic.

 

[502]

Finished the campaign on UV and I've been replaying the first few maps on Nightmare with the upgrades unlocked. Frankly I quite liked the gunplay including this "combat loop" as they call it. All weapons feel useful even though I find myself defaulting to the SSG.

Platforming feels a lot less torturous in replays because you know exactly where to go. Of course in the end it's just a shitty mechanic you merely learn to tolerate. There's nothing rewarding or satisfying about it. If they ever release more single player content for this, platforming should be kept to a minimum. Like, fucking zero. Nada.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Even public masturbator and legendary lolcow DSP goes full fucking auto and calls this game out to the dismay of its imp-like fanboys making them seethe with rage and BLOOD PUNCHING their monitors:

 

[normie]

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Todd Howard on the genesis of the "glory kill" mechanic and Doom development:

"So I was there in the trucker's diner at 2 AM and getting a blowjob from a gay biker from the Leather Hearts MC and somewhere between the ten seconds I was about to ejaculate it hit me: us Bethesda overlords have done a lot to irreversibly fuck up these new Doom games but it didn't feel quite 'there' yet, y'know? Like... imagine a kid's Lego set. He has spent hours, days of his life even to build something he enjoys and you, as the daddy, go in there and you know... you gotta vacuum and the little squirt is at school so you start to take it apart Lego brick by Lego brick. But as you're doing it this evil, borderline Satanic thought enters your mind: well what if I destroy it, but I still leave it intact so when he gets home he'll know I made the effort and try as he may he won't be able to fully restore it to its former glory. Because I threw out the instructions and box. And it hit me at about the same time I cum so hard into this mountain bearded stranger's mouth with my gremlin cock, the glory kill. This was perfect. You get cinematic flair, you get some great visual feedback, you suffocate your game in all this forced bullshit and you tie something vital to it... like, ammo and health or something. You make the player like it and if they don't like it? Hey, look, I'm Todd Howard, I get clandestine blowjobs in a bathroom off I-95, I can afford to pay some people to go around and pretend to like it. Git gud scrub, and all that goofy shit people born after 2001 say these days.

And you know this is beautiful, I called up this idea, I pushed hard for it. Pushpushpushpush! [laughs] Like when I pushed my dick down whatever decency Fallout had left, and lo-behold it's getting 10s, it's getting 9s, awards, praise, everyone is having so much FUN with the new Doom games and because the original and groundbreaking Doom games were released when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and the dodo bird was in season, guess what? The zoomey fucks today BUY this shit. They'll see their Bethesda influenced Lego set and actually go, "yeah this is what I wanted all along. This is what DOOM is!" [laughs, taking a sip of water] God, I tell you... I love these kids today. Back in the '90s you had to actually release games with vision and passion, today you can just put shit into early access and pay some guys on Twitch in Skyrim merchandise to shill it and the masses will consume.

I actually watched John Romero play this and it was real cute, wasn't it? He'd scan all around the levels at first, hitting every wall and such, thinking we're that clever or give that much of a shit to hide secrets around the map. Then he'd try to veer off the linear path and BUZZ! [robotic voice] Access denied. Haha, love it. You could hear the 1992 John Romero in him beg to be let out but guess what? Streamers can't talk bad on other streamers or else ya get banned! Sorry, Johnnycakes.

By now Doom Eternal has sold more than Doom, Doom II and Final Doom combined and then some. It's a smashing success, it's being heralded as the Second Coming and all we had to do was take everything you THOUGHT you liked about the old Doom and unload a laxative induced shit over it. Press 'E' on those nuts, boomers."

 

[Jezal_k23]

Finished the game on Nightmare. The new combat is great overall, although maybe they could loosen ammo restrictions a bit. Love the new bestiary for the most part, except for the fact that they were too conservative with Arch-Viles and other ultra heavies, because you can just cut through them with the Crucible later on.

Almost everything else is inferior to Doom 2016 unfortunately. The new story feels disjointed at best, the cutscenes are really lame, the level design is even more simplified and just consists of entirely linear paths with platforming sessions in between arenas. Really boring in that sense...

I also dislike how many times they have characters in the game keep talking about just how badass Doomguy is. That was consistently really weird.

The Unmaykr is disappointing and there is no reason to use it instead of the BFG as far as I can tell.

Overall, I think I prefer Doom 2016 in general. A more solid, cohesive game. But the combat in Eternal is really good at least.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Even public masturbator and legendary lolcow DSP

What he had to bump the game all the way down to "I'm too young to die" to be able to get past the first level?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Wow, the challenge arena in Arc Complex was pretty fucking intense. Had to redo it more than half a dozen times. I just wish things weren't so random. At one point i actually jumped over a ledge at the exact moment that big fire Hell Knight was stomping on that exact spot. It's just impossible to predict that kind of shit. Also the Demon Hunter gets the award for the most annoying monster in the game. Gotta take down the shield with the plasma rifle but you gotta watch for a dozen imps and zombies that spawn just so you can refill health and ammo. That means you have to keep circling the fucking thing until there's no imps or zombies in sight and then try to take the bastard off the flying scooter, but half the time the imps show up the second you try to take the shield off so you have to make another round and try again. Took me WAY too long to kill it.

Also, first time the Cyberdemon wannabe guys showed up, before they were introduced in the actual game. They kinda of suck.

 

[karoliner]

The difficulty is really uneven, the remaining Slayer gates are much easier instead of harder.

 

[J1M]

taviow Lyric Suite

I got bored of Doom Eternal and didn't finish it, but I'm curious if you guys invested in ammo capacity with whatever the skill points are called because it seemed very clear to me in both Doom 2016 and Eternal that ammo capacity was strictly superior to a health bump.