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

[sullynathan]

DOOM Eternal Artbook spoilers for those who are interested.

 

[Durandal]

New gameplay that shows off the Maurauder, Archvile and Doom Hunter. TRIGGER WARNING: Played by loud obnoxious streamerman.

Maurauder will block everything (including Ice Bombs and BFGs) if you try to shoot it, and can only be damaged while its eyes glow green for when he's about to attack (though he's also shown to be damageable outside that, so who knows how exactly this works). Up close he'll do a hitscan attack with his shotgun, and he can also summon a wolf to attack you. He's also an aggressive motherfucker and can teleport around.
Archvile can also buff nearby demons.
The range of the acid pools on the Cyber-Mancubi is much larger now, and actually noticeable this time around.
The Doom Hunter can also cloak itself.
The BFG is still disgustingly overpowered.

 

[DalekFlay]

The BFG is still disgustingly overpowered.

As it should be.

 

[Jenkem]

This game is going to be incredible.

 

[Durandal]

The BFG is still disgustingly overpowered.

As it should be.

I know that the BFG is meant to be the Ultimate Fuck You weapon, but for some reason people think that it should be so powerful that it can skip entire encounters with the press of a button, like it did in nuDoom. olDoom's BFG had a very interesting implementation where it functioned like a shotgun with a massive horizontal spread, meaning if you fired it point-blank into tanky enemies they would crumble instantly; two point-blank BFG shots are the quickest way to kill a Cyberdemon save for a telefrag. But you could also hit many weaker enemies at once with the BFG if you positioned yourself in the open so your hitscan tracers would hit as many enemies as possible. Both use cases encouraged a lot of aggressive play, and made the BFG an interesting weapon to use, which is especially apparent in modern WADs that are heavily designed around tactical BFG deployment.

In nuDoom, it just fires an orb that insta-kills every nearby demon with the press of a button. There's no skill to it, there's no satisfaction to it, and the arenas in nuDoom are rarely THAT overwhelming to warrant something as powerful as this. To top it off, you're given three charges for it, and arenas will contain several additional BFG ammo pick-ups in the open so you can cheese shit some more. It literally deletes the fun, and if you want a good challenge you should never use it. The Serious Bombs in Serious Sam served a similar function, but at least they were super rare, and their power was actually warranted when you are fighting hundreds of enemies at once.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

The BFG is still disgustingly overpowered.

As it should be.

I know that the BFG is meant to be the Ultimate Fuck You weapon, but for some reason people think that it should be so powerful that it can skip entire encounters with the press of a button, like it did in nuDoom. olDoom's BFG had a very interesting implementation where it functioned like a shotgun with a massive horizontal spread, meaning if you fired it point-blank into tanky enemies they would crumble instantly; two point-blank BFG shots are the quickest way to kill a Cyberdemon save for a telefrag. But you could also hit many weaker enemies at once with the BFG if you positioned yourself in the open so your hitscan tracers would hit as many enemies as possible. Both use cases encouraged a lot of aggressive play, and made the BFG an interesting weapon to use, which is especially apparent in modern WADs that are heavily designed around tactical BFG deployment.

In nuDoom, it just fires an orb that insta-kills every nearby demon with the press of a button. There's no skill to it, there's no satisfaction to it, and the arenas in nuDoom are rarely THAT overwhelming to warrant something as powerful as this. To top it off, you're given three charges for it, and arenas will contain several additional BFG ammo pick-ups in the open so you can cheese shit some more. It literally deletes the fun, and if you want a good challenge you should never use it. The Serious Bombs in Serious Sam served a similar function, but at least they were super rare, and their power was actually warranted when you are fighting hundreds of enemies at once.

Don't forget that it has a one second delay, which is plenty of time to be mowed down by a lone chaingunner. That was missing in 2016. They could still balance it by putting a lot less ammo for it.

What do you guys think of Battlemode?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-yhAly8Dk&t=457s

 

[Belegarsson]

Battlemode looks good but then again I like gimmicky multiplayer modes like the traitor/undercover cop mechanic in Kane & Lynch 2, SC Blacklist's modern take on Spies vs Mercs and Watch Dogs' invade system. It looks like id values balance in Battlemode which I'm not sure if it should be a big priority because asymmetrical plays best when things go wild and players figure out stuffs by themselves instead of relying on intended mechanics, but if the game runs way too loose then you get grossly boring and banal shit like Evolve.

Versus in L4D/L4D2 is still the gold standard in asymmetrical pvp followed by Spies vs Mercs IMO. As long as they don't try to make it competitive or put way too many mechanics in, it should be fine.

 

[DalekFlay]

In nuDoom, it just fires an orb that insta-kills every nearby demon with the press of a button. There's no skill to it, there's no satisfaction to it, and the arenas in nuDoom are rarely THAT overwhelming to warrant something as powerful as this. To top it off, you're given three charges for it, and arenas will contain several additional BFG ammo pick-ups in the open so you can cheese shit some more. It literally deletes the fun, and if you want a good challenge you should never use it. The Serious Bombs in Serious Sam served a similar function, but at least they were super rare, and their power was actually warranted when you are fighting hundreds of enemies at once.

You had to somewhat aim it, iirc. Also I think the way to limit it is with ammo, not by weakening it. It's fun to kill everything at once with an ultimate fuck you, as long as you can't do it a lot. It's not like Doom 2016 on harder modes lacks challenge.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

In nuDoom, it just fires an orb that insta-kills every nearby demon with the press of a button. There's no skill to it, there's no satisfaction to it, and the arenas in nuDoom are rarely THAT overwhelming to warrant something as powerful as this. To top it off, you're given three charges for it, and arenas will contain several additional BFG ammo pick-ups in the open so you can cheese shit some more. It literally deletes the fun, and if you want a good challenge you should never use it. The Serious Bombs in Serious Sam served a similar function, but at least they were super rare, and their power was actually warranted when you are fighting hundreds of enemies at once.

You had to somewhat aim it, iirc. Also I think the way to limit it is with ammo, not by weakening it. It's fun to kill everything at once with an ultimate fuck you, as long as you can't do it a lot. It's not like Doom 2016 on harder modes lacks challenge.

The BFG in 2016 is based on how people who played the game in the 90s remember the gun and not how it actually functions. I rarely use it because of the delay. I prefer the Plasma Gun.

 

[Biscotti]

NuDoom BFG would've been fine in how ridiculously powerful it is if the game was more conservative with ammo pickups. I remember I kept running into BFG ammo I didn't need because I used it only once every couple of fights to quickly clear out a bunch of powerful demons. So basically what Dalek said, it's fine to have an ultimate fuck you weapon but ammo for it should be so rare the player feels inclined to use it only very sparingly.

 

[Jezal_k23]

New gameplay that shows off the Maurauder, Archvile and Doom Hunter. TRIGGER WARNING: Played by loud obnoxious streamerman.

Maurauder will block everything (including Ice Bombs and BFGs) if you try to shoot it, and can only be damaged while its eyes glow green for when he's about to attack (though he's also shown to be damageable outside that, so who knows how exactly this works). Up close he'll do a hitscan attack with his shotgun, and he can also summon a wolf to attack you. He's also an aggressive motherfucker and can teleport around.
Archvile can also buff nearby demons.
The range of the acid pools on the Cyber-Mancubi is much larger now, and actually noticeable this time around.
The Doom Hunter can also cloak itself.
The BFG is still disgustingly overpowered.

Well, I wanted footage of someone dying over and over, and I got it. Marauder seems to be a huge dick, constantly blocking damage from everything.

 

[Biscotti]

Why exactly do you want footage of someone dying over and over when it's a direct result of them being trash at FPS games?

 

[Jezal_k23]

It tells me the game won't rescue those players from defeat.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

It tells me the game won't rescue those players from defeat.

I have mixed feelings about that. In the infamous Takahashi video, he went from 20 to 100 in a single GK, though he probably played on ITYTD. I guess we'll see.

 

[abija]

I just hope you can disable/lower a lot of visual "effects". Way too much warping/motion blur/shaking/camera distort and vivid color effects with little to no transparency.

 

[Haba]

The most annoying part for me was the god damn ping pong sound that goes on and on all the fucking time.

 

[Durandal]

The most annoying part for me was the god damn ping pong sound that goes on and on all the fucking time.

It's supposed to signify when you've destroyed a Weak Spot, which is at least informative.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

The most annoying part for me was the god damn ping pong sound that goes on and on all the fucking time.

It's supposed to signify when you've destroyed a Weak Spot, which is at least informative.

They should have used the Quake 3 ping instead.

 

[vortex]

In the end they were asked about Quake reboot but alas no plans.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

In the end they were asked about Quake reboot but alas no plans.

But Hugo's favorite Doom game is Doom 64 (as is mine) so he is a man of culture.

 

[sullynathan]

 

[Jezal_k23]

They're spreading out spoilers like they're candy, and like a month from release.

 

[DalekFlay]

They're spreading out spoilers like they're candy, and like a month from release.

Stop watching, you know if you want it on day one by now.

 

[Multidirectional]

Oh no they gonna spoil the story.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I finally decided to give this shit a spin (Doom 2016). I always rage quit at the caption at the very beginning for being SOOOO fucking try hard but this time i tried to push myself.

Opinions after clearing the first level:

1) Visuals are actually nice, despite the annoying color palette (then again, shit color palette is like a trademark of id soft games at this point).
2) Because of the above, the "arcade" facade of the game works AGAINST the game rather than for it, for you cannot really immerse yourself in the environments because of all the times the game wants to remind you this is an arcade and not actually an escapist fantasy. The rebuttal, that the story is fucking shit and the less you see of it the better is counteracted by the try hard, dude bro retardation the game throws at you, where i can say in all honesty that i preferred the approach Doom 3 took, where it tried to be realistic despite the shit writing as opposed to the game braking the fourth wall at every opportunity. I have a feeling Doom Eternal will just combine the worst of both attitude. You'll be forced to endure a shit story on top of the game braking immersion in different ways.
3) The sound is fucking SHIT. Everything just feels weak and distant, music included which is basically non-existent as far as i can tell.
4) Enemies are too samey. Same color palette, same colored attacks, same sounds, can't tell where they are coming from, how far or close they are, and every battle just feels like a clusterfuck where i'm running around in a circle killing the first shit i see and picking up ammo along the way.
5) Playing on nightmare difficulty and the game is actually hard. Couple of hits and you are dead, and so far i had to reload a bunch of times. This is actually the first big positive i found so far, even though i suspect the game would become a whole lot easier if the Doom guy was able to move just a bit faster. There were some attacks i wasn't able to dodge just become the projectile moved faster than my character did, all though it seems for some of those attacks you can actually move out of the way before they shoot it.
6) Level design, is, predictably, non-existent. Corridor, arena, corridor, arena. Bleh. I knew this from the videos i watched, but to experience it was still disappointing.

I'll report when i finish the game. All i can say is that so far i'm not seeing Doom Eternal improving on any of those things, just doubling down on what Doom 2016 already offered, which i guess makes sense given how much success they had with it among the zoomers.