The New DOOM Thread (2016)

[shihonage]

I did a video about D44M

Great job, komrad.:mrpresident:

However, you were not hard enough on this piece of shit game.

There's also one major gameplay difference that was hard for me to quantify until now, but it is this: the agile/varied movement of enemies in Doom 4 is of great detriment to gameplay depth. In Doom1/2 they were both clustered and somewhat predictable, which allowed you to be strategic in choosing lines of fire and saving ammo by grouping the targets. It also allowed for strategy in cutting out a path for yourself.

In D44M you don't really need to worry about ammo, or health, or cutting out paths. It is such a superficial piece of shit on every possible level.

You point out that in originals, slow enemies were localized threats and thus placing them on levels was important, like it's a limitation of some kind. However, to the contrary, in Doom1/2 the levels and enemies were one. The levels were designed to hide the enemies' weaknesses and amplify their strengths. A cacodemon would be put in a narrow tunnel. Flying skulls would be put in an open space. Reverse this, and you weaken both.

The general design philosophy of the originals was that, due to your fast movement speed, the level was a porous shield between you and the enemies. You moved this shield strategically in front of you.

In D44M, your fire seems focused mostly on 1 enemy at a time. It's literally point-and-shoot. You point and shoot until you grind down the spawns and move to the next equally forgettable area which does not reward any player agency beyond jumping around like a Ferguson protester.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Right on. This faggot game doesn't even remotely approach the brilliance of the original. People are making it better than it is simply because it has some modicum of running and gunning compared to the rest of the dross that is made today, no more, no less. If this game was released back in the day it would have been panned worst than Quake 2.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I did a video about D44M

Mmmh, can't say i'm very fond of the argument older games were gud because of technical limitations. Dark Souls is old school good and is still a modern AAA title, so the argument is bunk. Old games had gud design because the designers knew what they were doing. End of story.

 

[Infinitron]

Mmmh, can't say i'm very fond of the argument older games were gud because of technical limitations.

the agile/varied movement of enemies in Doom 4 is of great detriment to gameplay depth. In Doom1/2 they were both clustered and somewhat predictable

Right on.

I'm afraid you just were.

shihonage, you do realize that sentence looks kind of weird, right? "agile/varied" sounds like a good thing. "predictable" sounds like a bad thing.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Don't see it, sorry.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Chess pieces are predictable. Is that a bad thing? I don't know how agile/varied the enemies in Doom 4 are, or whether this is a detriment to the game, but there are old school games with agile/varied enemies (Skaarj comes to mind), so perhaps it is just a case of context.

Personally, i would argue that the enemies in Doom are predictable in their variety, where as if i understood his argument right enemies in Doom 4 all move in the same erratic way. Is this correct? Because if this is the case i can see where the problem is.

 

[shihonage]

Mmmh, can't say i'm very fond of the argument older games were gud because of technical limitations.

the agile/varied movement of enemies in Doom 4 is of great detriment to gameplay depth. In Doom1/2 they were both clustered and somewhat predictable

Right on.

I'm afraid you just did.

shihonage, you do realize that sentence looks kind of weird, right? "agile/varied" sounds like a good thing. "predictable" sounds like a bad thing.

"My dog is too agile and knocks things over. His behavior is just too varied day-to-day, I can't keep up with him. I would prefer to have a dog who is more calm and predictable, so he wouldn't stress me out so much, and I could train him."

In other words, this assertion of yours is wrong. Those words, isolated, carry no inherent positive or negative meaning.

Your preceding claim is a pretty cheap attempt at a "gotcha", and a dubious one as well. It is largely based on you attributing inherent negativity to the words I used.

 

[Sodafish]

Almost brolapsed due to use of comic sans at the end.

 

[Infinitron]

"My dog is too agile and knocks things over. His behavior is just too varied day-to-day, I can't keep up with him. I would prefer to have a dog who is more calm and predictable, so he wouldn't stress me out so much, and I could train him."

In other words, this assertion of yours is wrong. Those words, isolated, carry no inherent positive or negative meaning.

They do carry positive meaning in an age of popamole Call of Duty enemies who predictably hide behind cover.

 

[shihonage]

"My dog is too agile and knocks things over. His behavior is just too varied day-to-day, I can't keep up with him. I would prefer to have a dog who is more calm and predictable, so he wouldn't stress me out so much, and I could train him."

In other words, this assertion of yours is wrong. Those words, isolated, carry no inherent positive or negative meaning.

Except that they do carry positive meaning in an age of popamole Call of Duty enemies who predictably hide behind cover.

Except I provided clear context to frame their meaning, which eliminates any default context that could be otherwise presumed.

 

[DraQ]

SSG is generally as good or better than the SG in everything but lone imp/zombiemen. When you look at ammo efficiency it starts to become more efficient than the SG pretty quickly actually.

Again, any argument based on SSG efficiency assumes it's fired at point blank range. SG has much less spread and, due to technical limitations at the time of DOOM1 it only spreads horizontally. Doom hitboxes may stretch to infinity vertically, but floors and usually ceilings aren't located at infinity so with increasing distance more and more pellets stray not just to the sides but also start hitting floors and ceilings in front of the intended target, so not only does SSG have much quicker damage falloff (due to spread) but it's falloff is quadratic as opposed to SG's linear. And while horizontal spread can actually be put to good use when targeting a group of weak enemies, vertical spread just wastes pellets.
So yeah, SSG rocks as long as you can stick your left and right barrels up monster's respective nostrils before you squeeze the trigger. In other cases it's generally inferior to SG which may not be as much of a CQB beast, but it holds its own up close, and up to mid-far range, against clustered weak enemies, against lone strong ones, against lone weak ones, and so on.

SG is DOOM's AR, a workhorse weapon. SSG is not.
If you are not sure what to pull out, chances are SG will be a good choice. SSG might well be not.

Plasma rifle is generally ignored because the BFG is simply better. Plasma rifle's better DPS over chaingun is not needed (if they are at range killing them quickly isn't an issue) and BFG is a lifesaver and hugely efficient at crowds. Though I do like using the plasma rifle against pain elementals.

BFG may be strictly more powerful, but it doesn't mean it's better. You can't really control ammo consumption of BFG and if I remember anything about BFG's mechanics, it works wonders both against lone, powerful monsters up close and spread out groups in the distance, but throw a deep, tightly clustered groups of somewhat stronger monsters at it, or isolated monster(s) at distance and it will just waste all your ammo because most traces will either miss or get absorbed and BFG doesn't do true AoE damage that can propagate regardless of whether it kills targets in its path.
Like with SG and SSG, but even more so, BFG might be impressive and (far) more powerful in the ideal conditions, but you'd probably be better off if barred from using BFG than PG.

 

[Morgoth]

Next rape-stop: Quake

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Brace yourself indeed.

 

[Astral Rag]

Next rape-stop: Quake

 

[Infinitron]

Some people have said that this game was actually Quake.

 

[Kingston]

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

So, AAA industry is moving backwards and rewrites the history of games by raping good games/franchises through remakes? Oboi, just imagine the opportunities the new players will have! Everyone would enjoy a faithful remake of their favorite game with improved graphics and some fixes, right?

"Right!", they'll say, and we'll get:

Darklands with hack'n'slash combat.
Dark Heart of Uukrul as a JRPG.
GOLD BOX GAMES WITH RTWP COMBAT

 

[DraQ]

agile (...) knocks things over

 

[Caim]

Some people have said that this game was actually Quake.

So if Wolvenstein was more Doom-like than Doom, and if Doom is more Quake-like than Quake...

Will Quake be more like Rage? Or Commander Keen?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

More like Hovertank 3D.

 

[Average Manatee]

SSG is generally as good or better than the SG in everything but lone imp/zombiemen. When you look at ammo efficiency it starts to become more efficient than the SG pretty quickly actually.

Again, any argument based on SSG efficiency assumes it's fired at point blank range. SG has much less spread and, due to technical limitations at the time of DOOM1 it only spreads horizontally. Doom hitboxes may stretch to infinity vertically, but floors and usually ceilings aren't located at infinity so with increasing distance more and more pellets stray not just to the sides but also start hitting floors and ceilings in front of the intended target, so not only does SSG have much quicker damage falloff (due to spread) but it's falloff is quadratic as opposed to SG's linear. And while horizontal spread can actually be put to good use when targeting a group of weak enemies, vertical spread just wastes pellets.
So yeah, SSG rocks as long as you can stick your left and right barrels up monster's respective nostrils before you squeeze the trigger. In other cases it's generally inferior to SG which may not be as much of a CQB beast, but it holds its own up close, and up to mid-far range, against clustered weak enemies, against lone strong ones, against lone weak ones, and so on.

SG is DOOM's AR, a workhorse weapon. SSG is not.
If you are not sure what to pull out, chances are SG will be a good choice. SSG might well be not.

Doom is a game heavily based on movement though. Enemies far away aren't dangerous, and easily give you enough time to either pull out a SG or charge with the SSG for quicker damage and higher efficiency. Enemies that start close don't give you time to switch your weapon.

Bear in mind that more than 1/3rd of the hitscans need to miss to make the SSG a bad option.

Plasma rifle is generally ignored because the BFG is simply better. Plasma rifle's better DPS over chaingun is not needed (if they are at range killing them quickly isn't an issue) and BFG is a lifesaver and hugely efficient at crowds. Though I do like using the plasma rifle against pain elementals.

BFG may be strictly more powerful, but it doesn't mean it's better. You can't really control ammo consumption of BFG and if I remember anything about BFG's mechanics, it works wonders both against lone, powerful monsters up close and spread out groups in the distance, but throw a deep, tightly clustered groups of somewhat stronger monsters at it, or isolated monster(s) at distance and it will just waste all your ammo because most traces will either miss or get absorbed and BFG doesn't do true AoE damage that can propagate regardless of whether it kills targets in its path.
Like with SG and SSG, but even more so, BFG might be impressive and (far) more powerful in the ideal conditions, but you'd probably be better off if barred from using BFG than PG.

Again, close up monsters are deadly, far away monsters are pretty much ignorable. The value of the BFG is that it's a mass close-range killer, as opposed to the rocket launcher which is not. It's the only gun in the game that services this essential niche. If enemies are far away, the rocket launcher is almost always significantly better and more efficient at handling them than a plasma rifle. OTOH when you are at close range you don't have time for either.

BFG's tracers are basically like a wide area shotgun blast, with vertical autoaiming. If they damage something enough to go through, they'll hit what's behind it. On average the damage per energy cell for the BFG exceeds that of the plasma gun by a factor of 4, it only has less energy efficiency if more than around 80% of the tracers miss.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

There's also one major gameplay difference that was hard for me to quantify until now, but it is this: the agile/varied movement of enemies in Doom 4 is of great detriment to gameplay depth. In Doom1/2 they were both clustered and somewhat predictable, which allowed you to be strategic in choosing lines of fire and saving ammo by grouping the targets. It also allowed for strategy in cutting out a path for yourself.

In D44M you don't really need to worry about ammo, or health, or cutting out paths. It is such a superficial piece of shit on every possible level.

You point out that in originals, slow enemies were localized threats and thus placing them on levels was important, like it's a limitation of some kind. However, to the contrary, in Doom1/2 the levels and enemies were one. The levels were designed to hide the enemies' weaknesses and amplify their strengths. A cacodemon would be put in a narrow tunnel. Flying skulls would be put in an open space. Reverse this, and you weaken both.

The general design philosophy of the originals was that, due to your fast movement speed, the level was a porous shield between you and the enemies. You moved this shield strategically in front of you.

In D44M, your fire seems focused mostly on 1 enemy at a time. It's literally point-and-shoot. You point and shoot until you grind down the spawns and move to the next equally forgettable area which does not reward any player agency beyond jumping around like a Ferguson protester.

Right. And that's the result of them trying to marry two gameplay styles. Instead of doing either complex level design with clever monster placement OR open arenas with lots of monsters that you have to tackle at once, they did arenas where mostly you just tackle one two or two monsters at a time and after that you move to another one or two monsters. Arenas seem more complex than just an empty areas, but their design mostly provides obstacles that facilitate that kind of segmented encounters.

 

[praetor]

fun as hell (and totally brainless)

to me, these 2 concepts don't go hand in hand at all. they're antithetical. and it's why i think SSam is total garbage. it indeed is totally brainless, which to me is not fun at all. modern shooters are brainless as well, except you kill less brainless trash mobs. i really wanted to do my patriotic duty and like SSam, but i just... can't (i get bored after 30mins of Painkiller as well)

 

[BelisariuS.F]

fun as hell (and totally brainless)

to me, these 2 concepts don't go hand in hand at all. they're antithetical. and it's why i think SSam is total garbage. it indeed is totally brainless

It seems we've played different Serious Sam games. In FE and SE a proper large encounter where you are being attacked by horders of various monsters is far from brainless. If you just shoot randomly without consideration for the enemies' strength and weaknesses, particular enemy location in the horde at every moment, your weapons' strengths and weaknesses, ammo, powerup location and proper circle strafing (you may find yourself in a though spot if you are strafing in a wrong direction) then your mistakes are adding up until you die.
Let's not fool ourselves here - even in more complex shooters you are making simple decisions. Those shooters may seem smart when you compare them to the modern shooters that reduced gameplay to a simple alghorithm "pop out of cover, shoot, cover, repeat several times, find new cover, repeat", but you're not exactly devising and executing plans to conquer Soviet Union with San Marino. Serious Sam just takes those simple decisions and trades variety for quantity (of decisions and challenges) and intensity.

 

[Multidirectional]

Brace yourself indeed.

Though dude who made this video actually loves new Doom.



It does seem like a game I might genuinely enjoy. But hell, I had plenty of fun with Serious Sam games and even Painkiller too so I guess my bar isn't so high.