The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

17 hours ago, chemo said:

If you don't like all the codex pages in Eternal... then just don't read them? Is it any wonder why they put them in the menus instead of shoving excessive amounts of exposition in your face? It's not even like reading them is required to not be completely lost.

 

If the vast lore doesn't get in the way of gameplay, then who cares?

The problem isn't that anyone is against lore, the problem is that having literal "lore cards" floating around looks silly, is lazy, and breaks immersion. Doom has always told it's story through it's maps. 2016 even did an okay job at that. An insinuation of plot told through the environment is much more immersive and evocative than having a bunch of cards floating around that you have to read on a menu. You can't even understand the majority of the story without having to stop and read, which doesn't bode well for a fast-paced first person shooter. It's the least creative and the most boring way of telling a story.

3 hours ago, Doom64hunter said:

The very last wave of the boss fight of Ancient Gods is the absolute culmination of all the bullshit the DLC has to offer:

 

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In short: You fight a Pain Elemental and a Dread Knight, both buffed by Spirits at the same time, while a Blood Maykr roams the arena and shoots at you occasionally. I played the game on Nightmare, so high difficulty is to be expected, but this one battle is just bullshit through and through.

 

Now the obvious first problem is that the buffed Pain Elemental has so much health that it could probably be the final boss on its own. It will survive two BFG shots or an entire volley of 60 Unmaykr blasts and still remain with 30% health left. You can target it with full ammo using the plasma beam and you won't kill it before you run out of ammo. Add onto that the fact that it does not take bonus damage from the Ballista and that it moves and shoots twice as fast, and you've got a nigh unkillable ball of death that can instakill you if you get unlucky.

 

Even if you do manage to kill it, you then need to kill the Spirit that spawns within 5-8 seconds or else it will just repossess the next Pain Elemental, which continuously respawns 5 seconds after the previous one died. And because of the ever-present ammo shortage in this game, you may very well be below 70 Plasma ammo, in which case you're fucked because then you have no way of killing the Spirit.

 

Trying to kill the Spirit forces you into tunnel vision and slows you down, denying you of any ability to deal with the Dread Knight or the Blood Maykr (or the 2 zombies in the area) that may very well be in the process of slicing your ass to pieces. If the Dread Knight is anywhere near you after you killed the Pain Elemental, then you're fucked because he too has an ungodly amount of health, cannot be stunned, and thus will prevent you from killing the Spirit.

 

Low on health? Tough shit because the only two enemies in the room which you can replenish health from reliably are the two zombies roaming the area, which are never where you need them to be, and give only 30 HP/ 30 Armor a pop anyways. You can theoretically restore ammo from the Blood Maykr, but you're hardly going to be focused enough to headshot the damn thing while a buffed Pain Elemental and Dread Knight are chasing your ass down.

 

Even once you finally kill the first spirit, you are given no reprieve because the Pain Elemental respawns immediately and will continue attacking you while trying to focus down the Dread Knight. Doing this the other way around is suicide because the rapid fire Lost Souls will instakill you when you are slowed down by the plasma beam.

 

Additional annoyances in this very arena:

• The Blood Maykr's ranged attacks slow you down. If you get hit by one of them, you will very likely get ravaged by the buffed enemies.
• The Blood Maykr also likes to hide behind corners and surprise you, or leap onto platforms. If this occurs and you can't get out of melee range in time, it will absolutely annihilate you, especially because it's invulnerable and you have no way of defending yourself.
• I regularly got stuck on random geometry while trying to jump around the arena, which gave ample opportunity for any of the enemies to obliterate me.
• And as if all that other bullshit wasn't enough yet, there's also laser grids moving around the area, just to piss you off some more.

I died more times in this one wave than in every other level of the game combined.

 

If the game had started the battle over from the beginning, the DLC might just be impossible to complete on Nightmare for 99.99% of all players -- mercifully however, the devs seem to have realized this, and you respawn at the start of the wave, instead of doing the entire boss battle over from the start. You'd need to be an absolute god to beat this on Ultra Nightmare though...

 

Edit: Oh, and did I mention that the lock-on rockets kept targetting the Lost Souls instead of the Pain Elemental? That also pissed me off to no end.

I totally agree, the ghostly Summoners were a good addition but the health bonus that demons received when they are possessed is crazy! two shots of the BFG and they are still alive, what the hell? I also finished the dlc on Ultra Violence and I felt sometimes like I was playing on Nightmare. Don't get me wrong, the extra difficulty is welcome, I really liked that last arena in the first map with the two Marauders but some things feel very annoying or somewhat unbalanced.

Another thing I hate about the ghostly Summoners is that you can only kill them with the Microwave Beam mod, c'mon... At least you can kill Marauders or Blood Maykrs with a few more options. It really breaks the fast paced of the game for me.

1 hour ago, D88M3R said:

I am with you

1 hour ago, D88M3R said:

I have not played the DLC yet

1 hour ago, D88M3R said:

i have not replayed Eternal either

ha ha ha

4 hours ago, D88M3R said:

 The fact that these games are worse DIFFERENT than others released 25 years ago blows my mind 

Fixed that for you. thank me later.

I like how you've been copy pasting the same thing over and over for 7 months. Sigh.

Sorry, just because its not made the "exact" way you like, doesn't make it bad It just means "you dont like it". 

Its funny how the OP worded his opinion very well and Acknowledges the game has merits for others. then we get experts on the thread going. 

"Sux and cringy lol"

2 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

The problem isn't that anyone is against lore, the problem is that having literal "lore cards" floating around looks silly, is lazy, and breaks immersion. Doom has always told it's story through it's maps. 2016 even did an okay job at that. An insinuation of plot told through the environment is much more immersive and evocative than having a bunch of cards floating around that you have to read on a menu. You can't even understand the majority of the story without having to stop and read, which doesn't bode well for a fast-paced first person shooter. It's the least creative and the most boring way of telling a story.

Eternal doesn't have environmental storytelling? How could you look at the game's city levels while still saying that with a straight face? Even the Cultist and Doom Hunter Bases tell interesting tales within their levels despite perhaps also having the game's most abstract layouts and designs.

And like, I haven't bothered to read most of the codex entries myself, and I could understand what is necessary within the rest of the game. They're there for players who want to get into the nitty-gritty while not getting in the way of those who just want to shoot demons.

Besides, the other person I was replying to was complaining more about the mere presence of lore, rather than the ways it is told.

Wouldn't it have been neat if that intern didn't immediately explain away a certain moment immediately and that maybe certain intentions weren't revealed until the climax of the DLC

I've just completed the DLC. I played it on Nightmare and it kicked my arse many times. I'm glad I did play it on high difficulty as it was a rather short game.

I understand the ops point of view. The DLC feels more like a niche expansion directed to the hardcore players who frequently weapon swap and mastered the Doom dance. Fortunately I'm fine with playing by its rules however I do agree adding the Spirit that can only be destroyed by a particular gun mod is too specific. The Eye box Boss did drag a bit, but that could be due to how many times I died. By the end of it, I felt like my skill in Doom Eternal improved significantly lol.

Story didn't impress me, nor did Eternals. technically Doom 2016 didn't either but did create some intrigue. I don't play Doom for story though. I enjoyed the DLC but would be reluctant to recommend it to others. The further intensity and difficulty spike can turn people off.

Regarding story, I kinda don't care either way. It's easy enough to ignore (the codex isn't too in your face, and you can skip the cutscenes). I don't mind that they are trying to do something with the lore -- especially since the game is still very much gameplay focused -- but I also don't find it terribly interesting. I don't even think I could tell you what is going on besides the basic bullet points. I've read some of the codex but mainly for the demons and weapons. The story stuff isn't terribly compelling to me and it seems a little convoluted.

Has anyone out there played Hexen II? That game, for all its flaws, had you fight the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I would love to see a Doom game that goes full Revelation and the Four Horsemen are bosses, like in Hexen II, but with a Doom twist. Imagine unique attacks from each one. Like Famine sucks your energy away so you move slower and can't fire back as quickly, or lift heavy weapons like the BFG, and you need health to get back to normal. Perhaps Death could have an instakill, but give you an environment where you can hide. Or if Death instakills you, then you get a 2006 Prey (or Death Stranding) special arena battle to revive yourself. I also wouldn't mind if you collected the hearts or heads of each one after beating them (or some energy orbs; whatever!) and once you get all 4 you become powerful enough to fight Satan himself.

It's Doom, so if you defeat the Devil, you can always just say Hell still exists and now various high tier demons are fighting for control. Maybe another demon takes Satan's place. Maybe you go multiverse and have unique Satans for each new universe. It's really not that important. There will always be more demons to kill...

That's a fair point of view. Now that the hype has died down I myself notice that Doom 2016 was in a very nice middle ground where it brought something new to the table, but didn't go too overboard with it. Eternal is very overwhelming with the strategy, which leads to fatigue unless you're a pro; and the "combat puzzle" angle does take a lot of freedom away from the player and this DLC looks like it takes that and shoots it through the stratosphere. That boss battle at the end drags on for a painfully long time too it seems.

As for the plot, I thought it didn't matter much since you could skip cutscenes unlike in Doom 2016, but you're also highly discouraged to do so since everything that happens in-game is so contextual (not to mention, Hugo seemed quite annoyed at that one speedrunner skipping story, which for me is a clear indication of the developer intent). I don't know how I feel about the relationship between Doom guy and the Maykrs. The angels are pretty manipulative which is interesting, but the way they wrote the friction between them and Doom guy just makes him seem like Kratos: part deux. Part of me wishes that Doom guy had no relation to them at all, and was just a wild card, like say, trying to stop them from waging war on the demons and ending humanity as collateral or something like that.

I don't dislike Eternal, and I did think it brought some interesting ideas to the table, but with the power of hindsight I got several mixed feelings about it now, and the way the DLC is presented isn't doing it any favors. I do hope they streamline the experience with future DLCs, but I also find that unlikely. I feel like if they do anything other than double down on what they're already doing the most people will be turned off.

11 minutes ago, HorrorMovieGuy said:

I don't dislike Eternal, and I did think it brought some interesting ideas to the table, but with the power of hindsight I got several mixed feelings about it now, and the way the DLC is presented isn't doing it any favors.

Agreed.

I actually just played the first level of Eternal again, and it's really great, and in many ways it *is* that middle ground. The arenas connect together in a fairly organic way and make it feel like a congruous level, the combat is fun without being overwhelmingly complex, and there are some really cool details in the background. The gulf between that level and The Ancient Gods is almost as great as the gulf between Doom 2016 and Eternal. They just took it too far in my opinion. It's now just endless arena combat with little player freedom in either exploration or combat style. Difficulty is fine, especially for a DLC, but cramped arenas connected by annoying platforming is tedious. Only Blood Swamps actually kinda felt like a real level and not just a string of combat arenas back-to-back-to-back.

My ideal modern Doom game would have open levels like the OG Dooms and some big cinematic moments with the skyscraper sized demons, but it would retain glory kills and the dash function and maybe add some randomized enemies or tiers of enemies like Complex Doom. And of course monster in-fighting that isn't scripted.

12 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

I really enjoy the spirit with the microwave beam actually. Because you're tied down when using it, it creates a cool dynamic where you have to decide whether or not to risk it and go for the beam. It prompts you to check your surroundings and make sure there are no enemies around to kill you while you are zapping it. If there are enemies around, there are different things you can do to allow you the freedom to kill the spirit. You can throw down an ice bomb for a breather moment, you can use a grenade to falter enemies if your ice bomb is not recharged for a shorter window, and then there's the option to leave the spirit for a little bit, kill enemies, then beam it again to refresh it's "repossession timer." Even though you have to use a certain mod against it, the restriction opens the door for more critical thinking on the player's part, which is what I love about it, and Eternal in general.

 

My thoughts pretty much exactly about the Spirit. I found myself looking for the window of opportunity to do it, and watch my surroundings carefully, becoming aware of what was happening behind the spot where I moved to plasma beam the thing. So the focus was keeping the beam on the Spirit, while in the same time trying to be aware of everything what's happening around me and moving to avoid fireballs etc. while simultaneously keeping the beam long enough. If it lost its target, a quick bit of crowd ctrl with a grenade and back to it! Great mechanic!

Only thing I found a bit annoying was the last phase of the boss fight with the buffed PE and Dread Knight. Without any BFG ammo left I died way too many times on Nightmare on it and had eventually to turn on the Sentinel Armor to beat it. The rest of the campaign was pure perfection on Nightmare. It really pushed my Slayer skills to the maximum test.

6 hours ago, chemo said:

Eternal doesn't have environmental storytelling? How could you look at the game's city levels while still saying that with a straight face? Even the Cultist and Doom Hunter Bases tell interesting tales within their levels despite perhaps also having the game's most abstract layouts and designs.

 

And like, I haven't bothered to read most of the codex entries myself, and I could understand what is necessary within the rest of the game. They're there for players who want to get into the nitty-gritty while not getting in the way of those who just want to shoot demons.

 

Besides, the other person I was replying to was complaining more about the mere presence of lore, rather than the ways it is told.

I didn't say the game is absent of environmental storytelling, I'm saying it doesn't do good enough of a job at it. Lore cards are just a lame version of audiologs, which are the laziest way of communicating a plot. Very few games use them well. I don't find the world in Eternal to be atmospheric in any way, the hell maps are lame, and 2016 had a better atmosphere overall. Eternal looks like a cartoon. The lore cards look ridiculous and further detract from the game's atmosphere. The Blood Swamps is a slightly atmospheric area, but the rest of the DLC and most of the game feels totally inorganic. They couldn't find a graceful way of telling a story so they shoved a bunch of lore cards into it. A good story should be presented in a way that doesn't make you get "nitty-gritty" and have to stop your fast-paced FPS game every five minutes to read shit. Find a way to implement the plot into the game itself. I can say it with a straight face because it's my opinion, but good on you for being passive aggressively condescending.

Let me shoot demons and tell me a good story without making me stop to read a bunch of floating books, it's not impossible. Hell, use cutscenes if you have to, I'd rather watch a story in a video game than read one. Leave the books to Skyrim. The floating bullshit cards might not get in the way of the gameplay itself, but they get in the way of an absorbing atmosphere, which is my favorite thing about any Doom game, which limits my enjoyment of the game.

Honestly speaking, I agree with TheMagicMushroom. How can anyone with a straight face say that doom eternal levels have a high level on environmental storytelling when they are so arcade that even present super mario like sections? Doom 2016 had levels made with a purpose, that was recreating a credible environment. Argent tower is one of my favorite, because you do climb this thing in an arcadey way, but you can feel it has another purpose apart serving as exciting level for a game. 

Doom Eternal levels have no other purpose apart of being levels for a game (apart maybe Arc Complex and few others). The presence of the mario style fireball obstacles, the obviously placed monkey bars were they do not have any other reasons to exist than be there to facilitate the level navigation, the pillars of meat in gore nest, the extra lives... All these elements make it cleat you are in a game and you're playing a game. Doom 2016 was still more arcade (luckily) than any CoD, but had a more subtle way of communicating it. 

You can look at a doom level and say "this is just a game level", you can look at a doom 2016 level and see a story and a structure that could be credible outside of the game itself. 

Maybe this approach is more true to the 1993 classic (in style, not in intentions) but preferring one or another style is just a subjective matter. For me, it's doom 2016.

What I really liked about Doom 2016 was that it was easier to get into and easier to pick-up-and-play, going through the levels in Eternal just feels so mind-numbing, like going through a string of arenas connected with wacky platforming in between. another thing I really liked about 2016 was how the levels felt like lived in places and most of the items you found were part of the world, using a guy's hand for the hand scanner, slamming a guy's head on an eye scanner, picking up keycards and weapons from bodies. a small touch but really helped sell the idea of a credible place, felt like it lost a lot of the charm and atmosphere of the first game.

The plot just makes it worse, a weird ass story that rarely explains anything properly with a bunch of surface-level villains that you barely get to spend enough time with. in 2016 it felt like you were getting things done yourself, and the plot was straight forward and easy to grasp that it made you feel like you were the one making changes and progressing the story, rather than just watching some weirdos babbling about cult nonsense that the game doesn't care enough to at least try and explain properly through cutscenes, or at least more setpieces like those in Sentinel Prime. it leaves a lot to be desired and just makes me feel disconnected from the whole thing.

Okay, so all the monkey bars, fire chains, and floating codex pages are immersion breaking, but all the jump pads and floating, glowing orbs, plus the enemies that can explode into visible health and ammo pickups isn't? DOOM 2016 itself was filled with a ton of "arcadey" stuff.

You also have to keep in mind that the game largely takes place in alternate dimensions and a version of Earth ravaged by Hell. I think the suspension of disbelief can excuse some of the things seen in its levels.

4 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I didn't say the game is absent of environmental storytelling, I'm saying it doesn't do good enough of a job at it. Lore cards are just a lame version of audiologs, which are the laziest way of communicating a plot. Very few games use them well. I don't find the world in Eternal to be atmospheric in any way, the hell maps are lame, and 2016 had a better atmosphere overall. Eternal looks like a cartoon. The lore cards look ridiculous and further detract from the game's atmosphere. The Blood Swamps is a slightly atmospheric area, but the rest of the DLC and most of the game feels totally inorganic. They couldn't find a graceful way of telling a story so they shoved a bunch of lore cards into it. A good story should be presented in a way that doesn't make you get "nitty-gritty" and have to stop your fast-paced FPS game every five minutes to read shit. Find a way to implement the plot into the game itself. I can say it with a straight face because it's my opinion, but good on you for being passive aggressively condescending. 

 

Let me shoot demons and tell me a good story without making me stop to read a bunch of floating books, it's not impossible. Hell, use cutscenes if you have to, I'd rather watch a story in a video game than read one. Leave the books to Skyrim. The floating bullshit cards might not get in the way of the gameplay itself, but they get in the way of an absorbing atmosphere, which is my favorite thing about any Doom game, which limits my enjoyment of the game.

You didn't exactly communicate it clearly that Eternal didn't completely lack environmental storytelling, since you specifically said that it's something DOOM 2016 and Classic DOOM have. Can you elaborate why Eternal doesn't do a good enough job of it and lacks atmosphere besides the floating codex pickups and an extremely vague summary of it being "cartoony", anyway? I'm not seeing it when I'm finding, among many other examples, things like the abandoned hospital in the Super Gore Nest or even the ancient ruins in the Cultist and Doom Hunter Bases.

Besides, how else do you think they should convey some of this lore in a DOOM game other than text files? It's a general rule that excessive and frequent cutscenes and exposition don't belong in this series and gameplay should come first. Background details shouldn't be shoved down people's throats if they don't care. Maybe it wouldn't be the best storytelling device in some other games, but for DOOM, it makes sense. Not to mention, the codex is a holdover from DOOM 2016, anyway, except now you don't have to fidget around so much in the levels to pick some of the entries up.

By the way, I'm glad that things like the keycards and codex pages can just be run over to be picked up now. It keeps the game's pace up.

5 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Hell, use cutscenes if you have to, 

This is just gonna be even more fuel for the "nu-Doom isnt real Doom its Call of Duty lol" crowd, so no.

Eternal really did it well with using Codex and notes. It means that you can read through it at your own time and leisure and not have to watch Cutscenes which are even WORSE at breaking the flow.

5 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

Eternal really did it well with using Codex and notes. It means that you can read through it at your own time and leisure and not have to watch Cutscenes which are even WORSE at breaking the flow.

I like the Codex entries too and I hate cutscenes for the reason you mentioned

I find it funny how using Audio Logs and Notes is considered "Lazy" but  Cutscenes are okay somehow, when they actively take you out of the game without your control THEN Force Feed Information.

20 dollars for 3 levels is simply outrageous. I practically lost almost all interest on it when I heard of the short length, and this review just puts the final nail on the coffin.

I think it's unfair to the Archvile for being compared to the Marauder.
The Archvile has an unique attack that can hit you even if you try to hide behind a group of other monsters, and he is just a bit more bullet-spongy than a Cacodemon, dispatching him  without a BFG usually doesn't takes more than 4 or 6 seconds if you have a SSG or Rocket Launcher.
The Marauder isn't the equivalent of an Archvile, it's the equivalent of placing a Cyberdemon in a huge room and forcing the player to fight it with a shotgun. It's not hard, it's just a boring bullet sponge that takes forever to die, but can be killed with no problems if you pay attention to it's attack sequences.

I had no issues with the Marauder on the base game for it being a rare encounter, but knowing it's being overused just to please the meme-makers who thinks "Doom Eternal is the most hardc0re game ever!!!!1", then he becomes a problem.

Quote

super mario like sections?

Man didn't people ever play any other side-scrollers besides Super Mario?

DLC1 doubles down on all of the aspects of Doom Eternal I liked the least. At a moment when I expected the story to start wrapping up loose ends instead it's getting even more incoherent. (They had to introduce The Intern because they literally ran out of characters to talk to Doomguy, and I dare you to go back and explain the plot of Doom 2016 in light of new information.) The new enemies require hitting weak points or waiting for a moment of vulnerability, making the gameplay loop even more complex and stuffed with variables than it already was. Empowered Demons, which were originally touted as an invasion-style mechanic, are basically a joke now and are the lowliest of the three - THREE! - entirely distinct monster buffs that now exist in the game and get layered into arena battles with increasing baroqueness.

I also dislike how the reactive gameplay tuning necessitated by Battlemode balancing is making its way into the single player game - most infamously by nerfing the ice grenade tactic against the marauder, but also things like the ballista apparently being coded to be especially weak against possessed enemies (although it's unclear if that made it into the final release or if it was something Hugo mentioned they were toying with). Being unable to break the weak points of possessed enemies also seems like an admission on the part of the developers that they had accidentally designed a system that was too easily exploited by highly skilled players. In general the DLC feels like we're witnessing "power creep" in a Doom game and it's unclear how much further they can push it before things get entirely unmanageable by mere mortal players.

If the DLC was advertised as being like the "Master Levels" I would probably like it more - except Doom Eternal is already supposed to have a bunch of Master Levels, and that feature has been severely delayed if not quietly dropped. Also the need for an official id-made slaughter set is somewhat undercut by the work of PC modders who have invented stuff like the ersatz "Horde Mode" that has already been maxing out the insanity.

47 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Man didn't people ever play any other side-scrollers besides Super Mario?

Those rotating fire thingies are dintictly mario-like.

2 hours ago, chemo said:

Okay, so all the monkey bars, fire chains, and floating codex pages are immersion breaking, but all the jump pads and floating, glowing orbs, plus the enemies that can explode into visible health and ammo pickups isn't? DOOM 2016 itself was filled with a ton of "arcadey" stuff.

That crap was bad even in 2016, it just wasn cranked up to 11 and showed down your throat all the time. And the arcade glowing vomit pickups are made thousand time worse in Eternal by making it rainbow colored and forcing you to use the chainsaw constantly.

17 hours ago, Archvile Hunter said:

Just because you personally found it unmanagably difficult does not make it "bullshit".

I have another reason why this particular wave is completely unfair to the player: It deprives him of all the usual ways the player normally replenishes health with.

Doom Eternal's basic gameplay loop expects you to replenish health and ammo from the enemies you damage or kill. Killing fodder with the chainsaw is the ideal way to replenish ammo. Killing larger demons with a glory kill replenishes most of your health. Shooting enemies with the meathook + Super Shotgun provides you with armor for extra survivability, same with the flame belch. The Ice Grenade and Blood Punch can give you extra HP even when hitting low tier enemies with it. This is how I was able to survive most of the expansion without much of a problem, even the Spirit Tyrant encounter, because in all these battles, you can freely move around the area, skillfully avoiding damage by dashing and killing lots of fodder or the occasional heavy enemy to replenish your resources.

But you see, the problem in this area is that the 3 heavy enemies you face cannot be killed reliably to replenish your health and the only other source source of HP are two zombies shambling around. As I already mentioned, the Pain Elemental has an insane amount of health, it will survive two direct BFG blast and an entire full volley of Unmaykr Shots, and thanks to the Spirit it cannot be faltered or take extra damage from the Ballista. Futhermore, its lost souls will attack you even if you stun it with the Plasma Gun. The Dread Knight also has a very large amount of health, is also extremely dangerous to face up close, and his increased speed will likely leave you unable to dash away properly before he lands a hit on you. Trying to use the meathook on them is pretty much suicide because they cannot be faltered by it. The flame belch could thoeretically work, but once again, you need to get up close to an enemy that cannot be stunned.

The Blood Maykr is invulnerable 90% of the time, and even if you do headshot it, it will drop the same amount of HP as the Zombies, which does not really help you with the fight against the buffed enemies. Ammo isn't really a problem because chainsawing a single zombie or headshotting the Blood Maykr will provide you with plenty, but health and armor is a massive bitch to obtain. Did I mention that you also cannot freeze or chainsaw the buffed enemies?

The way I eventually got more HP was by blood punching the zombies, but good luck if you started the wave without charges. If the fight wasn't a set of corridors in which enemies can block you easily, and if it had more fodder enemies you could replenish health from, that would make the fight a lot less bullshit and more in line with all the other battles in the game. As it stands however, if you enter this wave with 0 lives and 100 HP like I did, you're going to die over and over and over again until you get lucky and somehow manage to brute-force your way through.

EDIT: Ironically, the Spirit wave before this one is actually incredibly easy, because all you have to do is stunlock the Hellknight with the Plasma Gun, shoot him with a rocket volley and then kill the Spirit. The buffed Mancubus is too slow to waddle his way towards you so he cannot interrupt you while doing this (unlike the Pain Elemental later), and furthermore there is no other enemies to disturb you either. The arena is also flat which allows you to manouver properly.

Enviromental storytelling in Eternal is horrible. It doesn't tell a story, it just shows you something that probably should mean something and if you want to understand even fraction of it you HAVE to read the codex. Also the levels have exactly none flow from one to another storywise. It literally teleports you around randomly. And it does that even in the middle of the level. That is exact opposite of enviromental storytelling.
Take a second level - you switch between 2 environments meet two NPCs and acquite some random artifact and NONE of those you understand unless you read through twenty codex pages. Also NONE of those characters or artifacts are part of the story after this level.
DooM 2016 had exactly 2 characters that were part of the game from second one to the end and single artifact that seemed like random gizmo untill the villain showed that it's actually a weapon! And it ends on nice cliffhnager.
That's nice, intiguing, awesome! Give me more! Oh, cliffhanger is handwaved off, Villain is effectively dead, the weapon is effectively retconed into battery and instead you get hundred codex entries with some edgy teen fanfiction. That's just pitiful.
 

14 hours ago, chemo said:

Eternal doesn't have environmental storytelling? How could you look at the game's city levels while still saying that with a straight face? Even the Cultist and Doom Hunter Bases tell interesting tales within their levels despite perhaps also having the game's most abstract layouts and designs.

Hard disagree on that.

Doom 2016 had very distinct locations that all had its purpose in-universe. The Foundry, the Argent Tower, the Lazarus Labs, Vega Core. All of these locations tell you a part of the story about what happened at the UAC -- the Argent Tower is how they extracted the Hell Energy and beamed it to Earth, the Lazarus Labs is where Olivia performed her fucked up experiments, Advanced Research Complex is where the BFG was prototyped and developed, Vega Core is where the artificial intelligence operates from. Even the hell levels involve storytelling -- the holograms detailing the journey of Hayden and UAC marines through hell, how he found the Doomslayer, the Doomslayer's past battles with Titans, and finally Argent d'Nur, the world hell assimilated.

What kind of locations on the other hand, are Cultist and Doom Hunter Base supposed to be? I'd probably have to look it up inside some lore tablet, because right now, from what I can remember these are just snowy game levels where you get introduced to the Doomhunter boss, and where the second hell priest is hiding. I legitimately do not remember the in-universe reason for their existence.

Hell On Earth starts you right in the middle of a wooden structure with very little rhyme or reason as to why -- you don't know why the Doomguy is going there, or what happened since the previous game. You kill some dude after blowing up a bunch of imps, then jump down and a huge demon emerges. Why is it there, why doesn't it kill you? Who knows! Gotta read the lore to get that information.

Mars Core is also a total mystery to me looking back. Why are there UAC employees on Phobos? What are they doing there? What is the BFG 10K shooting at? Are they fighting the demons or helping them? Did the UAC go back to Mars? How did they do that without the help of Hayden and Argent Energy? The list goes on.

1 hour ago, Linguica said:

but also things like the ballista apparently being coded to be especially weak against possessed enemies (although it's unclear if that made it into the final release or if it was something Hugo mentioned they were toying with)

The Doom Modding Discord server found the file containing information about how spirit possessed demons behave. Interestingly, the buff affects different demons in slightly different ways. For example, a possessed Hell Knight moves 50% faster, while a possessed Whiplash moves 75% faster. Each demon also has specific resistances against certain weapons, not just the ballista. Some examples:

Hell Knight

Baron of Hell

4 minutes ago, Archvile Hunter said:

The Doom Modding Discord server found the file containing information about how spirit possessed demons behave. Interestingly, the buff affects different demons in slightly different ways. For example, a possessed Hell Knight moves 50% faster, while a possessed Whiplash moves 75% faster. Each demon also has specific resistances against certain weapons, not just the ballista. Some examples:

 

Hell Knight

  Hide contents

Ballista: 80% damage reduction
SSG: 75% damage reduction
Chaingun: 67% damage reduction
Everything else: 50% damage reduction

 

Baron of Hell

  Hide contents

RL Lock-on: 43% damage reduction

Chaingun : 50% damage reduction

Everything else: 60% damage reduction

 

This just raises the question of how the player is supposed to know what enemy is resistant against what damage types because there is zero indication of how much damage you are doing to them.

15 minutes ago, Doom64hunter said:

Hard disagree on that.

 

Doom 2016 had very distinct locations that all had its purpose in-universe. The Foundry, the Argent Tower, the Lazarus Labs, Vega Core. All of these locations tell you a part of the story about what happened at the UAC -- the Argent Tower is how they extracted the Hell Energy and beamed it to Earth, the Lazarus Labs is where Olivia performed her fucked up experiments, Advanced Research Complex is where the BFG was prototyped and developed, Vega Core is where the artificial intelligence operates from. Even the hell levels involve storytelling -- the holograms detailing the journey of Hayden and UAC marines through hell, how he found the Doomslayer, the Doomslayer's past battles with Titans, and finally Argent d'Nur, the world hell assimilated.

 

What kind of locations on the other hand, are Cultist and Doom Hunter Base supposed to be? I'd probably have to look it up inside some lore tablet, because right now, from what I can remember these are just snowy game levels where you get introduced to the Doomhunter boss, and where the second hell priest is hiding. I legitimately do not remember the in-universe reason for their existence.

 

Hell On Earth starts you right in the middle of a wooden structure with very little rhyme or reason as to why -- you don't know why the Doomguy is going there, or what happened since the previous game. You kill some dude after blowing up a bunch of imps, then jump down and a huge demon emerges. Why is it there, why doesn't it kill you? Who knows! Gotta read the lore to get that information.

 

Mars Core is also a total mystery to me looking back. Why are there UAC employees on Phobos? What are they doing there? What is the BFG 10K shooting at? Are they fighting the demons or helping them? Did the UAC go back to Mars? How did they do that without the help of Hayden and Argent Energy? The list goes on.

Where does Doom 2 fit into this categorization btw?

26 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

Where does Doom 2 fit into this categorization btw?

DooM 2 didn't tried to tell epic story with hudreds of pages of lore. Eternal wants to do that and completely fails at it. It would be signifcntly better if Eternal didn't have ANY story just the levels and gameplay. Than I wouldn't have to cringe every time that some B grade villain tries to mock me like a middleschooler every 5 minutes.