The Extra Life Feature could use some work...

So I just beat Doom Eternal on Ultra Violence. Yes, it was very hard. And Yes, my first few Marauder fights took more than a few Replays (and a few walk away from the PC moments). I've seen lots of complaints on here about Platforming, Ammo, Marauders, etc. But what I haven't heard people talking about are the Extra Lifes. I actually think the idea behind them is solid. It gives you a chance to keep going during a really hard fight. The problem is, I don't think they are implemented well.

I think my biggest issue with them is that they are automatically used. I mean, the number of times I make a stupid mistake in a small battle and die, only to have my extra life used immediately is frustrating. I really didn't want to use it because of a moronic mistake. I want to save them. I've lost some lives in really embarassing ways only to have none when a Marauder fight comes up. 

This could easily be remedied by giving a choice when you die whether you want to use your extra life or return to a checkpoint. That way you can stock pile some saves for the really bad fights. I mean, there was one fight on the last level (not the boss fight) that was so hard, all I wanted was an extra life or two. But no, the game auto used them during some previous fights I would have rather just redone. That means the hardest fight in the game I did with no extra lives. 

What are your guys thoughts?

I mean sure, since I was doing most of the hardest fights without extra lives, it could easily be argued that they should just be removed from the game. And to a degree, I do agree with that. Since I did most of the hard battles without extra lives, I could have easily gone the whole game without them. But my point is, if they have them in the game, It would be nice if they made them more useful?

I think the game would probably be too easy if you could decide when they get used, since the best strategy would be to always cheese it.

You can already stockpile them and even go back to previous levels to farm them all over again, not like there is a shortage of them even if you lose them in dumb situations.

9 hours ago, CptFishStick said:

I think my biggest issue with them is that they are automatically used. I mean, the number of times I make a stupid mistake in a small battle and die, only to have my extra life used immediately is frustrating. I really didn't want to use it because of a moronic mistake. I want to save them. I've lost some lives in really embarassing ways only to have none when a Marauder fight comes up.

I was going to comment on EXACTLY this myself. Yes, it is frustrating when a 1-Up you have tried so hard to obtain has suddenly been used up in the middle of a hectic battle, and the only clue is a small message and the screen going black & white for a moment, but I too would've preferred to have them used some other way.

I think id did it this way so that the flow of combat would be unhindered and the ballet of death could continue uninterrupted.

I don't want the way extra lives work to be changed, especially in Extra Life mode. You can restart the level and reset the number of lives to the number you had at the beginning of the level but reloading to checkpoint won't restore your lives, which in my opinion is perfect. This way the punishment for restarting the level is losing level progress so there is no need for punishing you even more with losing the extra lives, reloading to checkpoint on the other hand doesn't lose any significant level progress so taking away your lives is justified as a punishment. Giving players the option to choose when they want their extra lives to be used can be abused, which would then make the whole extra life mechanic pointless.

38 minutes ago, Hofmann said:

make the whole extra life mechanic pointless.

Which it technically already is.

When I was progressing through the game "normally", the 1-ups I collected had a distressing tendency to evaporate in the next big fight. But then when I started going back to previous levels to pick up stuff I missed before heading off to Nekroval, I discovered that I could basically farm the things. I'm not sure but I think you can do the same with BFG ammo and Crucible charges as well.

It's not that difficult to pick up 20-30 1-ups in this fashion. That should be more than enough that you can afford to throw away some of them on stupid mistakes. As for why they couldn't be used more at the player's discretion, well they are bonuses rather than a core gameplay element.

1 hour ago, Foebane72 said:

 

Which it technically already is.

 

No, obviously it isn't.

9 minutes ago, Hofmann said:

No, obviously it isn't.

It is if it's used automatically, with no choice or input into the matter. Just saying.

2 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

 

It is if it's used automatically, with no choice or input into the matter. Just saying.

 

I don't find it pointless. If I burn a 1-up during a fight, I usually take that as an indication that whatever I was doing then wasn't really working, while also relieving me of the bother of loading a checkpoint.

I don't quite understand this "1-Up farming" aspect. Could someone please explain it to me?

Just now, Foebane72 said:

I don't quite understand this "1-Up farming" aspect. Could someone please explain it to me?

 

The very fact that you and other people need them for something makes them not pointless. Just saying.

15 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

I don't quite understand this "1-Up farming" aspect. Could someone please explain it to me?

 

When you go back to previous missions using Mission Select, the 1-ups can be picked up again. You can do this as many times as you want in the standard game mode.

15 minutes ago, Hofmann said:

 

The very fact that you and other people need them for something makes them not pointless. Just saying.

I don't need them, I could always just die and load a checkpoint. But they are convenient.

1 minute ago, NoXion said:

I don't need them, I could always just die and load a checkpoint. But they are convenient.

I agree.

I see them as being less cheesing and more for pacing reasons. It reduces checkpoints/continues.

38 minutes ago, NoXion said:

When you go back to previous missions using Mission Select, the 1-ups can be picked up again. You can do this as many times as you want in the standard game mode.

Some expert DE player called Decino has 34 extra lives by the time he does his walkthrough Urdak video, so is that what he did? Or is he just damn good at the game?

2 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

 

Some expert DE player called Decino has 34 extra lives by the time he does his walkthrough Urdak video, so is that what he did? Or is he just damn good at the game?

 

Having seen decino play, I'd definitely say that it's because he's damn good. I think he plays much better than I do. I've not watched his Doom Eternal play through in full, so I couldn't tell you if he got those extra lives through farming or not. But given that I managed to build up quite a few at one point before pissing them all away in a number of ill-considered scraps, I could easily imagine that he didn't need to farm those.

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

Having seen decino play, I'd definitely say that it's because he's damn good. I think he plays much better than I do. I've not watched his Doom Eternal play through in full, so I couldn't tell you if he got those extra lives through farming or not. But given that I managed to build up quite a few at one point before pissing them all away in a number of ill-considered scraps, I could easily imagine that he didn't need to farm those.

I love the way he made short work of his first Marauder, after sarcastically saying how deadly others consider them to be. :)

Really good idea, it drops you back into the combat with the game frozen for like 5 seconds while you prepare mentally to go back into combat

Just like a prep time

I think one should still choose when to use it, however if they turn it off dying still removes a life but reloads your last check point.  Therefore you wouldn't burn through them all in one run.

They should have been left in the ''extra life'' mode.They do feel a bit redundant and out of place in normal difficulties. The idea that they left them in these to reduce the amount of load times is an interesting one. Or maybe it was to lean their locations and prepare. I did an extra life run on too young for the phobos skin but plan on doing one on Hurt me plenty and maybe one day UV( UV is my go to diff in this game and i die often).