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

[HansDampf]

I was going to read that wall of text until I opened the spoiler.

Despite hating the concept of glory kills I may give this game a shot anyway, once I have a better PC.

 

[Average Manatee]

When I have played FPS games in the past I can't say I ever sat there saying "man, I wish I had to constantly look for ammo and was forced to use weapons I don't like. That would be rad!" Not trying to sound like a Codex try-hard, I did overall enjoy the game and finish it, but I just can't understand why people like this stuff.

You don't really need to look for ammo since the chainsaw gives you it constantly. Combining flamethrower + chainsaw is a great combo to replenish ammo and armor, so unless you also never take damage you'll probably be doing that. Ammo is mostly ignorable unless you are the kind of player who wants to just use one weapon the whole fight. The fact that every ammo type has two weapons and by extension 4 secondaries means its very unlikely you'll be forced to use a weapon you don't like (once you've unlocked everything obviously). Certainly every ammo type has multiple effective uses. Well, except shotgun ammo.

The only issue here is that depending on the length of the Glory Kill animation, the burning status effect can end before the GK animation finishes (even with the Faster GK Rune) and so deny you your armor drops, which makes Meathooking into GKs for armor rather inconsistent. This could be easily fixed if the burning status effect didn’t decay during a GK.

Gotta say I never noticed this, and I never used the faster GK rune. You sure its a thing?

Also no comment on how the slo-mo trivializes sniping weak point targetting? You didn't really write much about runes at all. IMO while unlocking more, sooner, optionallyer was an improvement the fact was that you unlocked the 3 you wanted and then every further rune was basically useless since you could figure out roughly what you wanted and then went with that all game. Ideally something more interesting could have been done. Like, I dunno, have runes get a "losing charge" debuff and get weaker over time unless you swap them out or something.

 

[Durandal]

Gotta say I never noticed this, and I never used the faster GK rune. You sure its a thing?

Yeah:

Also no comment on how the slo-mo trivializes sniping weak point targetting? You didn't really write much about runes at all. IMO while unlocking more, sooner, optionallyer was an improvement the fact was that you unlocked the 3 you wanted and then every further rune was basically useless since you could figure out roughly what you wanted and then went with that all game. Ideally something more interesting could have been done. Like, I dunno, have runes get a "losing charge" debuff and get weaker over time unless you swap them out or something.

Runes are there to customize your playstyle rather than being tools that you have to switch between depending on the situations; that's what your guns are already for. I don't see the point in forcing the player to Runes they don't really want to use.

Normally I take issue with blatantly broken options being defended with "just don't use it then" when the game doesn't even give you a valid reason not to use it, enabling players to unintentionally worsen the experience for themselves because most players don't try to play with self-imposed restrictions or are even aware of the possibility of playing with self-imposed restrictions. I didn't mention the Chrono Strike rune because the limited amount of runes you can equip actually gives speed-focused players like me a valid reason not to use it, so it's not a huge problem (though I probably should have mentioned what I am about to say). I want to have Air Control/Faster GKs/Blood Fueled equipped at all times, and while Chrono Strike does make the game easier, being able to go fast is more important for my fun. If you think Chrono Strike is OP, then you can just switch it out for another Rune you like more, which is a more convincing trade-off than pretending Chrono Strike doesn't exist.

Even then Chrono Strike isn't as disgustingly broken as the Crucible/Lock-on Burst/BFG are, as having an aiming crutch doesn't really negatively affect the depth of the gameplay; the enemies aren't that hard to hit without the rune either way, so an aiming crutch doesn't make that much of a difference. It would be a problem if Weak Points worked like headshots in most other shooters where you can multiply the damage dealt, but since Weak Points just weaken enemies but don't outright kill them, you can't coast your way through fights with aimbot-tier aim alone.

I personally don't have any trouble with quickscoping Weak Points across the arena, so it's not like I need the aiming crutch anyways. If anything the slo-mo just gets in the way because you can't avoid activating it when using your alt. fire mid-air. In the same way you have people who like playing without Faster Glory Kills because they prefer the extra breather moment they get during a GK to decide on their next move. Having those Runes be optional satisfies the most people. On the other hand I believe Runes like Air Control and Equipment Fiend should have been part of your core toolkit and replaced with other new Runes, because they make gameplay more interesting without having any trade-offs (I can think of) that would make one not want to use it.[/QUOTE]

 

[Average Manatee]

I guess I never really did glory kills off the meathook then, only shooting. Most of the time I want armor and my health isn't damaged. If you want to cross space to glory kill then double dash and/or use the range boost.

Is Chainsaw just quick enough that you generally always get armor + ammo?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Glory kills make the game real time with pause lmao. Really the only reason to do them once you are fully upgraded is to stop the game for a second so you can reorient yourself.

 

[smaug]

Haven't played a Doom game before, might plan to play the first one before this one, but holy hell that soundtrack though...

 

[Ash]

That's like the only listenable track in the entire game. And even then it's not amazing.

Wait, what?

Haven't played a Doom game before

 

[smaug]

That's like the only listenable track in the entire game. And even then it's not amazing.

Wait, what?

Haven't played a Doom game before

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

 

[Ivan]

That's like the only listenable track in the entire game. And even then it's not amazing.

Wait, what?

Haven't played a Doom game before

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

On the one hand, great you have so much to enjoyment to look forward to, on the other, come the fuck on.

 

[DalekFlay]

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

Doom 2 and Duke Nukem 3D are still probably my favorites from that specific era and style. Quake is very good but feels like a transition to a different era, along with Unreal. Quake 2 I've always been meh on. If you want story or deeper mechanics than shooting shit though, you probably won't get much out of them. What's a shooter you really love from recent times? If you want to say Far Cry 3 or Bioshock, then don't expect the same kind of thing at all.

 

[smaug]

I'm not that monocled, so I like the music quite a bit. Never played Doom before or any classical shooter for that matter. I assume I should start with Doom, Quake and SS, maybe I am missing more?

Doom 2 and Duke Nukem 3D are still probably my favorites from that specific era and style. Quake is very good but feels like a transition to a different era, along with Unreal. Quake 2 I've always been meh on. If you want story or deeper mechanics than shooting shit though, you probably won't get much out of them. What's a shooter you really love from recent times? If you want to say Far Cry 3 or Bioshock, then don't expect the same kind of thing at all.

I like mechanics and shooting things, don't give a shit about story. Played CoD multiplayer when I was young and started playing CSGO a couple of years ago, I have no other experience with any shooter, never played a single-player shooter proper.

 

[DalekFlay]

I like mechanics and shooting things, don't give a shit about story. Played CoD multiplayer when I was young and started playing CSGO a couple of years ago, I have no other experience with any shooter, never played a single-player shooter proper.

Well if you want to avoid story, I'd definitely go with the old school stuff. Or arena stuff like Painkiller and Serious Sam. If you want something modern, Doom 2016 might the best you can get.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

The story is good. The way it's told is the problem. Too much Tell and not enough Show. They should have gone the Dark Souls route have told the story through the environments. That mural with the angel giving Argent Energy tells you everything you need to know. They could have cut a lot of fat and there was no need for so many codex entries.

In fact, this philosophy extends to the gameplay too, like the developers suddenly don't trust you to figure out the game on your own. The game tells you what the weak points are, where the secrets are, the secrets are more trivial than in 2016, with mostly cosmetic rewards instead of tools for your survival, the levels more linear and finally, the story is spoon-fed to you. I liked the story of how Argent Energy a lot but it would have been infinitely more interesting if the player could have pieced what was going on by himself, just like how in the old games and even 2016 you were supposed to look for clues, misaligned textures, observe the pain states of enemies and so on.

The story in Dark Souls is really simple, but because of how details are obscured and omitted, the game is shrowded in mystery. It was the same with Classic Doom. That's what secrets did too, they gave the levels a bit of mystery, an additional layer of complexity, made them feel more like "real" spaces instead of movie sets, that the walls behind you might hide something interesting, both from a visual and gameplay POV. Eternal lacked mystery and opted for in your face saturday morning cartoon vibe. It was pretty good but not quite what I was expecting.

 

[Melcar]

When I play these type of games, I mute all the sound and play some metal or heavy industrial music in the background. Never knew these things had a "story".

 

[orcinator]

Durandal was able to write that wall of text before the devs released any significant DLC despite selling a 30burger season pass.
Think about that.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Haven't played a Doom game before, might plan to play the first one before this one, but holy hell that soundtrack though...

Don't worry. The sound track in both games (2016 and Eternal) is butchered by retarded dynamic audio shit so you'll never get to hear a whole song in its entirety and you'll be treated by random bits and pieces that never amount to anything coherent. Modern gayming lul, fixing what was never broken.

 

[GhostCow]

Until they add the promised ray tracing I don't give a shit. I can see why people liked the last one but I didn't enjoy it enough to beat it.

 

[Zeriel]

Haven't played a Doom game before, might plan to play the first one before this one, but holy hell that soundtrack though...

Don't worry. The sound track in both games (2016 and Eternal) is butchered by retarded dynamic audio shit so you'll never get to hear a whole song in its entirety and you'll be treated by random bits and pieces that never amount to anything coherent. Modern gayming lul, fixing what was never broken.

To be fair, that goes back many years. Planescape Torment did it. I agree that it sucks, though.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Until they add the promised ray tracing I don't give a shit. I can see why people liked the last one but I didn't enjoy it enough to beat it.

One of the best things about the game is that it runs at 144+ FPS without an itch even on mid-range cards. Why would you want ray tracing?

 

[GhostCow]

Until they add the promised ray tracing I don't give a shit. I can see why people liked the last one but I didn't enjoy it enough to beat it.

One of the best things about the game is that it runs at 144+ FPS without an itch even on mid-range cards. Why would you want ray tracing?

Because that would be the only thing about the game interesting enough to check it out and I want more games to screw around with the features of my 3080 than just Minecraft and Cyberpunk. Single player fps games haven't been fun to me since Postal 2.

 

[Zeriel]

The problem is FPS games have forgotten why they were fun. Doom 2016 already had this problem where they wouldn't just let you go around shooting, you had to melee and chainsaw. It's totally on rails. Then Eternal went even further in that direction. But I'd say the last FPS I played that felt "pure" was Painkiller, and that was decades ago. I guess the Far Cry games, while creatively bankrupt in every way still let you go around and do nothing but shoot. I'd appreciate them a lot more if they let you turn off the constant spam of story and cutscenes, though. Nothing modern comes close to the "now you're in the game, just go around shooting stuff" feel of Painkiller and original Doom era games.

 

[sullynathan]

Eternal is significantly better than 2016 in every way, and that's coming from playing 2016 again right after Eternal.

 

[DalekFlay]

The story is good. The way it's told is the problem. Too much Tell and not enough Show. They should have gone the Dark Souls route have told the story through the environments. That mural with the angel giving Argent Energy tells you everything you need to know. They could have cut a lot of fat and there was no need for so many codex entries.

I don't even like "show" really... games should focus on "experience." There's a lot of notes in Dishonored, sure, but most of them are short and minor worldbuilding. There are cutscenes, but they're not endless and they're mostly from the same perspective as gameplay. Most of the storytelling is through overheard dialog, environmental discovery and general art and mood. That's what videogames are best at. Even a wordy RPG like Fallout, it's better when you're learning about the world through interactive dialog and not long plot dumps. I found the endless lore notes in Doom Eternal to be insufferable, and stopped reading them pretty quickly.

 

[4249]

I have no idea why people are gushing over the bassdrop-wubwubwubwub-jumpdafuckup-djentshit soundtrack. Or calling it metal, Jesus H Christ. Sounds like a Korn album with recent retardation sprinkled on top. It's the same (new) shit as the DA:O trailer with Marilyn fucking Manson was.

 

[Infinitron]