Doom Eternal

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invzim
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Doom Eternal

Post by invzim »

Anyone else picked this up? So far I like it, new key-bindings are a little confusing and after getting a little frustrated I reverted back to I'm young to die :awe:
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arcnl
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by arcnl »

Haven't yet. Looks awesome. Still doubting because doom2016 was amazing too but gameplay-wise a bit more twitchy like quake and less mellow like the classic dooms.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by crunchywasp »

It’s the best game I’ve played since Doom 2016.
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Rossyra
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by Rossyra »

It gives me a double-barrelled super boner with meathook attached
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Dache
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by Dache »

Disappointed so far. Dropped in the middle with too many new mechanics introduced too quickly and very poorly explained, and not convinced about the combat changes so far. The UI is **** awful, some of the worst in videogames in years (and with how bad videogame UI regularly is, that's saying something). Sort of having fun with it, but nowhere near as much as I did with 2016. I think it's going to be one of the most divisive sequels on the internet in a long, long time.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by SuperPang »

I love everything about this except for the platforming, which unfortunately is quite a big part of the game.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by keropi »

Amazing game, loved it - finished it some days ago. Also enjoyed the lore.
Platforming is ok if you invest in the rune that helps with it.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by Dache »

I'm enjoying it more now. I think the start of the game is pretty bad - far too much introduced far too quickly without any time to get used to the last thing, and the state you're in without upgrades makes the game significantly less fun. Now I have a lot more ammo and a selection of mods, the combat is more enjoyable again and I'm running into less frustrations. I realise they want to force players into their ideal gunplay loop (forced to use all weapons -> run out of ammo -> chainsaw fodder to refill ammo -> repeat) because one of the things they felt they had to fix was people just beasting the first game with the super shotgun, but I'm not sure it has worked.

The creative director has said they want people to feel like they "earn" the right to do stuff like that. The example he's used was the Mancubus, where you now need to take out the arm cannons at range before you can get close to super shotgun him in the face - but the problem is that I don't feel like I'm earning it, but I feel like I'm being forced to perform in a combat loop I don't find enjoyable before I can do what I actually really love, which is simply super shotgunning demons in the face. Doom 2016 was delightfully simple and it feels like they've forgotten that and just piled more, more, more on top in a misguided attempt to "fix" stuff.

Weirdly, unlike the rest of the internet, I'm fine with the majority of the platforming so far. However, the UI continues to be **** atrocious, but that's a general videogame thing, it's like no one can **** do good UI in this industry.
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Rossyra
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by Rossyra »

Finished it at the weekend. Epic.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by crunchywasp »

Me too. It’s excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. I didn’t find the platforming too intrusive. There’s a couple of tricky jumps but nothing too taxing once I got used to the jump and dash. The corridors and large open space battles are pure Doom though and the weapon/character upgrade system’s great. Best game I’ve played in ages.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by mufunyo »

The first level where you get all the abilities and functions as sort of a tutorial level is absolutely awful - at times the tutorial stuff is downright condescending, at other times it just throws you into battles unprepared.

Basically all the new mechanics detract from the core experience. The difficulty curve goes down instead of up, which is a problem Doom 2016 had, but not nearly as bad as Doom Eternal. The game just gets easier and easier as you obtain more weapons and powerups, but it feels hollow instead of rewarding. The platforming feels like it's taken straight out of games like Guacamelee (right down to the pickup that resets your dashes) - except executed poorly. The dash mechanic doesn't translate well into the 3rd dimension and feels clunky. It's easy to accidentally dash sideways instead of forward, which means falling to your death and being reset with a health/armour deduction that makes retrying platform stages tedious as you keep having to reload to the last checkpoint when health dips too low.

Levels feel much more linear than Doom 2016 and memorable levels like Foundry and Argent Facility that could be explored and played in any order are completely absent in Eternal. There is one way to play, one path to take, one "correct" way of solving problems, and if you try to stray from that path, you are met with invisible walls, kill zones that reset your position, and sometimes even weird glitches. In Super Gore nest there is a 1-up on top of a pillar that is reachable two ways, one is the correct and intended way, and the other way is protected by an invisible wall: you can clearly jump and dash far enough to reach the pillar, even stand on an invisible ledge, but are unable to reach the top of the pillar because an invisible wall obstructs it. Similarly in Mars Core there is a platform with a sentinel battery that you are supposed to reach by following the linear path forward, if instead you backtrack and try to jump and dash into open air to reach it, you trigger an invisible kill zone that acts like falling to your death (resets position and deducts health/armour).

Level and game design in general feels sloppy and lacks attention to detail. You can watch demons fighting from afar, however you can do that all day as they won't actually do each other any damage until you enter the "arena" and the demons start attacking you. I'm not sure if this is meant to make the game feel more immersive, but for me it completely breaks any suspension of disbelief or immersion as I'm left wondering about game and level design choices that hit you in the face like a hammer. Levels have more detail in terms of polygons but lighting is much more flat and less atmospheric. Doom 2016 had an issue with its lighting that if you have gamma set to a value that makes the game look and feel cinematic (gamma 0.5 or 0.6), some secrets like the classic level levers were completely invisible, and raising the gamma to be able to see secrets clearly in the dark made the game look flat and dull. This is "fixed" in Doom Eternal: the game now looks flat and dull regardless of your gamma setting.

Secrets were most of the time fairly simple to find in Doom 2016 if you took the time to glance at the automap every so often, especially so if you purchased the Praetor suit powerup that automatically reveals secrets on the map. This was apparently not good enough for Doom Eternal - secrets are now gigantic bright question marks that are impossible to miss, although often you'll sometimes have to figure out some tedious hoop to jump through to reach them. After all, there is one correct way to play, and this also applies to reaching secret areas.

Personally, to me there was very little wrong with Doom 2016. It was a bit short, the difficulty curve was mostly downwards instead of upwards, the autosave system made backtracking tedious, and I would've liked the ability to skip cinematics as they were sometimes at the start of a battle. Seeing the first screenshots and teasers of Doom Eternal looked hopeful; there was the "hell on earth" theme we know and love from Doom II, more familiar enemies like the Arachnotron, and levels and battles looked bigger in scale. I would've loved to have seen basically Doom 2016 but with a fresh storyline, a bit more throwbacks to original Doom, more hectic battles, and the ability to save and load games whenever you want. I would've gobbled that up like a thirsty fanboy and raved about it online.

Instead we get a barely finished platform game that forces you into what the developers call "the fun zone" - i.e. the opposite of that, play in one predetermined linear fashion or risk being stranded without ammo or chainsaw fuel, jumping into invisible walls, or "falling" to your death. Before the launch of Doom Eternal I was replaying Doom 2016 on Nightmare difficulty after having played it (and 100%'ed) on Ultra-violence before, and it was hard, but hard in a way that makes you want to keep going and keep trying. I started playing Doom Eternal on Ultra-violence, got frustrated with being force-fed linear game design choices, and eventually ended up dropping down the difficulty to I'm Too Young to Die, just to breeze through the game like a sightseeing course, and marvelling at the lazy level design and downright awful gameplay.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by markedkiller78 »

Eternal is nails. Ive only played (and will only play) the campaign, I think it is a very worthy sequel / successor. It’s like a mash up of doom 2016 + quake arena
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by SuperPang »

Very much feeling the Quake vibes too.
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SuperPang
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by SuperPang »

Always reminds me of this guy when the music kicks in.

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SuperPang
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by SuperPang »

Forgot to say I finished it the other day. Some games you just want to complete and move on to the next, this is one I savoured. Huge campaign which is great to see these days. The whole armour/health/ammo system is a genius bit of game design. There's a satisfying weapon ( :hinthint: ) for every occasion, great enemies introduced as the game progresses, frenetic battles, gorgeous graphics. I even learnt to enjoy the jumpy bits. Best FPS I've played in years.
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Re: Doom Eternal

Post by crunchywasp »

Couldn’t agree more 8-)
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