Noclip: "Designing DOOM Eternal's New & Classic Demons"

12 hours ago, Rainne said:

In the video, he refers to most of the demons, including new ones being introduced for Doom Eternal (such as the Marauder), as "he", and thus not sexless. Any objection to that?

 

Most of the demons throughout the series are male-coded; the Baron / Hell Knight have distinctly masculine physiques for example. All zombies / former-human type enemies are male. Aside from the Spider Mastermind (itself a "sexless abomination" but referred to with feminine pronouns when not referred to as "it"), the scene where you meet Theresa Chazar in Doom 3 is the first time in the Doom series that its world became distinguishable from a world in which women and womanhood literally don't exist. No one would take the design of the Doom/3/4 worlds as implying men and masculinity don't exist. The demons might be "it" and might not have dicks and might not be officially male but no one would think it's an androgynous, sexless world or that masculinity has no influence or place in it.

 

Masculinity is not gender-neutral.

I've always accepted that people will refer to demons with male pronouns since that's kind of an incontestable staple of gaming culture (almost everyone will refer to almost any mob in any game as "he" unless they actually have breasts/etc.) and I've been content with my view (and on that strain, kinda allows my headcanon to work until they explicitly state that there are male and female monsters) - again, this isn't something that bothers me but it is how I feel about it.

And it's not like more than half of the original monster roster rocks a bodybuilder physique or other masculine-coded qualities (except firearms? Question mark?) - only the Hell nobles and Cyberdemon. Maybe it's a me problem and I'm not looking deeply enough into how most people perceive it but that's how I've always seen it and I get the impression there's the suggestion of sexism in your reply

7 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

I got the complete opposite take away from the video.

It looks like each monster has attacks that fit their specific role with whiplash being the monster that keeps you on your toes with its sudden position changes, the arachnophobia being the projectile vomit turret and the Pain elemental being... a pain elemental.

 

Painkiller is mostly backpedal and press shoot, this is not the case with Eternal with how the monsters have specific movement that can surround you.

They have some specific attacks, but all of them are for close to mid range combat and all of them are kinda similar and kinda without an edge. Revenant shots hardly track you, Arachnotrons don't create walls of plasma projectiles, Pain elementals don't flood the level with lost souls. They all have some kind of basic projectile attack and maybe something little bit different that they do sometimes. Difference between Caco and Pain elemental seems to be in amount of health more than anything else. Difference between Arachnotron and Mancubus is that Arachnotron can occasionally walk on ceiling. They made the monster more universal, removed their edge, making them more interchangable and thus kinda boring. Maybe it plays better, but from the videos it seems like it will be the case.

And Painkiller was mainly get the checkpoint, kill everything in the arena, wait for door to open and repeat. This seems like the same thing only slightly better disguised.

6 hours ago, NeoWorm said:

Arachnotrons don't create walls of plasma projectiles,

What am I looking at here then?

Okay, that's fair. First time seeing this location and some good placement of monsters in enviroment in DooM Eternal. More places like that, where the monsters can shine and it won't be that bad after all.

I think we need to keep in mind that all this press release stuff is crafted specifically to market the game i.e. Action packed encounterd filled with monsters to show maximum action and carnage to attract people.

The actual release of the game may give the monsters more chance to shine.

I agree. The majority of footage has been the arena fights. We've barely seen any of the in between. 

First off, awesome link. Thanks for the clip!

Second, to everyone poking holes in the "first female demon" statement, keep in mind, he said "our first female demon", not "The first female demon ever in  Doom". Fairly sure he just means for the current iD team. Though yes, it is a bit odd that Summoner is being thought of as he, despite its rather feminine shape and movements. Could have fooled me at any rate... 

End of the day though, it hardly matters. The fact that the demon on the other end of my shotgun is a he or a she makes no difference to the fact that it wants me dead, much as I want it sent hurtling back to the hell hole it crawled out of. 

@whatup876 Yeah, succubi would really not work here. It's bad enough that every RPG that uses them just reduces them to "melee mob in sexy bikini", rather than actual temptress's or corrupter. It would be down right stupid to see that in a Doom game, in which the monsters have always been designed to be objects of sheer hostility and malice, not "sexy" or "cool" in any way besides "neat...lets kill it!". 

I have very vague plans on trying to make sprites for Golgotha from Mutant chronicles. I think it's a design that would work well in DooM.

5 hours ago, Super Mighty G said:

I agree. The majority of footage has been the arena fights. We've barely seen any of the in between. 

There's plenty of in-between. As someone who played the Quakecon 2019 demo, which was specifically designed to teleport/usher you from arena to arena, there were still moments where you could slow down and explore areas with monsters wandering around. They seem to speed past this aspect even in the live demos they streamed of this exact gameplay demo.

If the edited down 30 minute or so demo I played had exploration, I can only assume the full game will have far more in-between areas with small encounters.

I still have my doubts. I bet the game is still going to be majority Painkiller style arena fights. When you have an UI element specifically designed to track ehm... "Combat encounters" you already failed to break the arena fights flow. At least the DooM 2016 had the excuse of weird base designed to lock down when demons appear, in Eternal I saw only magical barriers, magically locked doors and portals so far...

Arena fights aren't objectively bad though, again it all comes down to how monsters are going to be placed in said arenas. I doubt its going to be the Serious Sam  "move backawards and shoot" and more smart monster placement

I feel like the new enemies are gonna shake up the meta, for sure!

There’s so much strategy wise we can unpack from this video, especially for an Ultra-Nightmare/challenge run perspective.

I put all my thoughts into this video, like I mentioned, this interview covers a lot of the “why” of enemy design, and how I feel the enemies should be handled in game, plus their impact!

I Love the new enemies and the added depth in combat ... can't wait to play it 

A brilliant level up when compared to 2016  

I really miss the old excellent level design of the originals and the wads that came afterward... & I don't really like the focus on Arena Combat. 

In an ideal remake of Doom:  Arena combat can stay as an option but not as a basic mechanic of progression... 

Still, I am gonna try this out and I feel excited enough to beat it on Nightmare like I did 2016 ...

19 minutes ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

I Love the new enemies and the added depth in combat ... can't wait to play it 

A brilliant level up when compared to 2016  

I really miss the old excellent level design of the originals and the wads that came afterward... & I don't really like the focus on Arena Combat. 

In an ideal remake of Doom:  Arena combat can stay as an option but not as a basic mechanic of progression... 

Still, I am gonna try this out and I feel excited enough to beat it on Nightmare like I did 2016 ...

Hugo has said in places, including the interview I linked, that they hope to make the arena combat better and the areas in between more fun (paraphrasing)

3 hours ago, NeoWorm said:

I still have my doubts. I bet the game is still going to be majority Painkiller style arena fights. When you have an UI element specifically designed to track ehm... "Combat encounters" you already failed to break the arena fights flow. At least the DooM 2016 had the excuse of weird base designed to lock down when demons appear, in Eternal I saw only magical barriers, magically locked doors and portals so far...

14 minutes ago, Allstin said:

Hugo has said in places, including the interview I linked, that they hope to make the arena combat better and the areas in between more fun (paraphrasing)

Something he said when talking about the tentacle sounded iffy. He almost made it sound as if they're just putting more random junk in between "the big fights". In 2016 it was mainly zombies and occasionally one or two mobs just appearing in your path in a very straightforward way. And now they're populating the areas "between the big fights" with more shit so you have to shoot more often or something. The division of the levels into "big fights" still kinda says to me they haven't gotten far enough away from the "little deathmatch arenas connected by corridors" structure. I have however avoided watching most of the gameplay footage that's spilling out recently so I could be wrong. Here's hoping.

I will however agree with NeoWorm about the monsters being "interchangeable" in a way. It annoyed me in 2016 and it's likely not that much better in Eternal. The demons have pretty much full mobility. (Though it seems the arachnotron likes to stay and shower you in balls, at least.) A big part of the original dooms' combat is that the enemies are largely confined to their areas, shooting at you with all their different kinds of attacks. In 2016 everyone is able to rather quickly get in your face and there's not much difference between some of them after that. I'm hoping the Eternal monsters find their own niches better.

 

 

 

 

51 minutes ago, Allstin said:

Hugo has said in places, including the interview I linked, that they hope to make the arena combat better and the areas in between more fun (paraphrasing)

Yes, I understood that but I don't want the level progression to be based on Arena combat it just dumbs down the experience ... 

I feel that the Developers are saying:  here put some empty hallways (Wait ! populate them with a few monsters ...)  to make the players move from one Arena fight to another ...

On 1/27/2020 at 6:00 AM, Gez said:

it's not even accurate to say the whiplash is the first female demon, since the 2016 version of the Spider Mastermind is Olivia Pierce turned into a demon. (Also something something Vagary something something Doom 3 lost souls.)

Are... Are imps not female?

^{(also lol at them using some random 10 year old footage from Soundwave04)}

5 hours ago, Antroid said:

And now they're populating the areas "between the big fights" with more shit so you have to shoot more often or something.

Shooting stuff in an FPS? SACRILEGE 

Point is people seem to be assuming the worst scenario and the game isn't even out. Did Doom 2016 really inspire this much unrest?

EDIT:

This video shows mostly inbetween areas. One in particular has multiple areas of interest to investigate. 

42 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

Did Doom 2016 really inspire this much unrest?

Well, while it's a great game and I love it, it definitely didn't capture many of the things that are important for me in the old Dooms. One of the biggest being the overall approach to combat scenarios and enemy positioning and such. I'm not assuming the worst about Eternal, since improvements in that area have been brought up, but I'm also not expecting them to turn a complete 180 and make levels that function like the true oldschool FPS ones. But this doesn't mean I won't love the game, it's just a somewhat different kind of game now.

1 hour ago, Super Mighty G said:

This video shows mostly inbetween areas. One in particular has multiple areas of interest to investigate. 

That video shows almost nothing but combat arenas. There is ultralinear jumping "puzzle" and little bit of base on the ship. Everything else is one arena after another. When somebody shows me how you can skip any of the combat by cleverly moving through the level or shows different path through the level than maybe, but this video is prime example of arena combat I loathe so much.

Basically since the can only have a couple handful monsters active at once, the gameplay is focused on arena combat because that's what the engine does well. As a result, the any% speedruns for 2016 are all about getting out of bounds so you can bypass the arenas and their triggers entirely, and it'll most probably be the same thing for Eternal.

1 hour ago, NeoWorm said:

 

That video shows almost nothing but combat arenas. There is ultralinear jumping "puzzle" and little bit of base on the ship. Everything else is one arena after another. When somebody shows me how you can skip any of the combat by cleverly moving through the level or shows different path through the level than maybe, but this video is prime example of arena combat I loathe so much.

This makes zero sense to me. A hallway with few or no enemies is a combat arena? Now linearity is the problem? There are parts with seemingly optional enemies and it's still wrong? I don't understand. 

I love how some demons have multiple forms and change their attack patterns depending on what you disable on them. I can tell Horizon Zero Dawn inspired that mechanic.

4 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

This makes zero sense to me. A hallway with few or no enemies is a combat arena? Now linearity is the problem? There are parts with seemingly optional enemies and it's still wrong? I don't understand. 

I really don't understand what is irking him, either. I didn't get it.

i guess what ppl need to understand is doom eternal is exactly to d2016 what doom2 was to doom1. Literally an expansion big enough to be a new game, but not changing the core mechanics, if anything just adding small things. Thats it. If you didn't enjoy d16 then its a safe bet you wont enjoy DE. Because now we are close to release we have seen lots of footage and can easily tell its still basically puzzles and small explorations with 'skateparks' in between, no matter how hard id might have tried its hard to deviate from that because then how do you make the arenas meaningful? There's lots of action regardless, and you get a little break while looking for lore and secrets. I rly don't understand the issue, better than having ten mobs in your face while looking for a secret.

10 minutes ago, Urdak5891 said:

There's lots of action regardless, and you get a little break while looking for lore and secrets. I rly don't understand the issue, better than having ten mobs in your face while looking for a secret.

Personally, the issue is that it clearly divides the levels into the "skateparks" and the "inbetween" whereas originally the levels used to be a cohesive whole. It's kind of like the complaints fans of Silent Hill games had against Shattered Memories, where you were only in danger in very specifically defined areas, and nothing could ever happen to you outside of the icy chase scenes.

In the original dooms or custom levels for them you didn't know what would happen at any point, predict what sort of encounter you'd face. You could try running away or through and get yourself into an even bigger mess because there'd be monsters there too. You could navigate the entire level and approach a difficult spot from the other side or something. There was way less predictability (apart from the fact that you'd probably be getting an ambush when you pick up a key and such).

In the new game(s), it's less engaging because you get into a "skatepark" and you know that you're gonna have a fight with many demon varieties spawning everywhere with no rhyme or reason (but it doesn't matter because they can navigate the entire place), a fight you're guaranteed to be prepared for no matter what, and one you'll have to complete to leave the "skatepark", and between "skateparks" you knew you were mostly safe and nothing surprising was gonna happen. The most dangerous thing they'd throw at you was a few lost souls. Things like this, where you play and think in game design terms instead of knowing to expect anything from anywhere, make games way more boring for me. Being able to tell what the game/level designers would and wouldn't do with such precision is terrible for engagement.

Also, you could always get breaks in the original dooms by killing everyone in the area anyway.

I'm happy they are doing their own thing instead of trying to be exactly like classic Doom. Hugo and his team are very talented and know how to take inspirations and add their own flavor to it. The movement and feedback is all done very well and it just looks like an absolute blast to play.

This game is going to look and play so good (on my 2080). Shooter of the generation right here.

7 minutes ago, Antroid said:

you're gonna have a fight with many demon varieties spawning everywhere with no rhyme or reason

I think this is a gross simplification of the enemy dynamics. 

When it comes down to it I don't see the difference between Eternal and mapsets like Sunlust. The levels may vary in how they are built but the combat behaves much in the same way. You know there are going to be hoards of enemies to deal with during key points, then there are low pressure parts in between.  I honestly do not see the difference. 

6 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

When it comes down to it I don't see the difference between Eternal and mapsets like Sunlust. The levels may vary in how they are built but the combat behaves much in the same way. You know there are going to be hoards of enemies to deal with during key points, then there are low pressure parts in between.  I honestly do not see the difference. 

Well then it's a good thing not every mapset is like Sunlust then, eh :) (and neither are the original games). Also, from what little I played of Sunlust, it was pretty different from 2016 in those regards. Just because there are bigger fights in some places and only small incidental enemies between those places doesn't make it similar at all. THAT is a darn simplification if I've ever seen one.

Oh man those VG247 guys talking over the gameplay are so awkward. Lots of "ehhhs" and "umms".

And that "Noclip interview ANALYZED!" video seems in bad taste. Using someone else's content as a springboard for your own videos is a pretty lazy way to create content for your channel.

11 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

When it comes down to it I don't see the difference between Eternal and mapsets like Sunlust. The levels may vary in how they are built but the combat behaves much in the same way. You know there are going to be hoards of enemies to deal with during key points, then there are low pressure parts in between.  I honestly do not see the difference.  

Well then.

Sunlust:

Doom 2016:

There should be a very blatant difference that should be readily apparent very soon in both videos. And I don't mean the graphics.