!!!Heavy Spoilers for Ancient Gods!!! Thoughts on Doom Eternal.

I've always had some nitpicks about the story and creative differences in Doom Eternal from 2016's Doom. Yes, I know blah blah story in a video game is porn blah blah, I don't care.

1. Doom 2016 to me had a perfect story and character design. Samuel Hayden was a CEO of a company trying to solve a power crisis, who may have gone a bit too far to get that energy. In Eternal, he knew almost everything about ancient cities and old wars. And then I'm Ancient Gods, surprise surprise he was a Seraphim. This was.. really lame tbh. Samuel Hayden's character in 2016 was way superior than in Eternal and the way his character was kind of just retconned really bummed me out.

2. In Doom 2016 Vega was an absolutely amazing AI character built into this absolutely rad looking computer thing. In doom eternal he turned out to be the father. I'm sorry but what the fuck? What would have happened if the Slayer didn't back up his data on to a micro SD card? Would the Father just cease to exist? Why would Samuel Hayden recommend deleting Vega in the first place if he knew who he was?

3. In Doom 2016 the Slayer had cooler armor. This isn't going to be a paragraph or anything, that's it. The praetor suit was way cooler.

4. I also disliked the renaming of the cyberdemon. It's not a tyrant. It's like saying Arkansas instead of Arkansas you can't convince me otherwise.

5. I miss the pistol. :(

6. Doom Eternal did have much better mechanics than in 2016. I loved the hook on the Super Shotgun and the Chainsaw having a use was fantastic.

7. Doom 2016's multiplayer got a lot of flak, but god damnit I miss it. It was good. And Battlemode just isn't that fun to me.

8. Eternal had much better enemies than in 2016. Although I miss the enemy design in Doom 2016. The edgier looking cacodemon looked creepy and weird, and the Doom Eternal one looks way too silly. Most of Doom Eternal was too silly to me. Which doesn't mean much, I'm just an edgy bitch.

This isn't all of my nitpicks, but it is most of them. I love this game so much, and Doom Eternal is my GOTY definitely, but I just wish it picked up more from Doom 2016.

1. Yeah I agree with that, though he did seem very desperate to have Father reincarnated. Why wasn't he this desperate when Doomguy picked him up from the ARC Complex, even though he was half dead. Can't help think that he had his own agenda still. 

2. Maybe Hayden had already uploaded Vega for himself or at least knew he could be brought back (Old Gods) 

3. Its similar but doesn't make much difference to me.

4. We know it's a Cyber really,  I'm just glad he was put in,  didn't care much for 2016s version.

5. Yeah it's sorely missed and perfect for picking off for fodder. However the beginning intro wouldn't of been quite the same with a pistol :D

6. I'd still rather pick up ammo as opposed to using the chainsaw, shame there's no option to turn it off and have ammo scattered more. 

7. Haven't touched it, doesn't appeal to me, if it was trad DM then I would of been all over it. 

8. I dunno, at least theres more variety with Eternal and its spread out well. 

Fun, challenging and a welcome addition into the Doom universe.  Like i said in the other thread, my biggest issue was the lack of new demons to kill.  Spirit was also a let down and more of a ambient gimmick than a new demon.

As much as I will defend to the end the goofiness and chosen tone of Eternal/ Ancient Gods, I will say this; no, I don't think the plot direction is particularly grand itself. In its efforts to be overblown and over the top (which I am absolutely in favor of for what it is), it's turned into a chaotic jumble that's more akin to someone making up random lines in parody of high fantasy, the end of which has no coherence. 

To wit; in the base game, I was under the distinct impression that the Maykers and Argenta only encountered Hell when the Slayer came over. Ancient Gods, however, puts the Maykers and their Father into the more traditional role of "Heaven vs. Hell", even though the Maykers are hardly angels in the real sense of the word and clearly had no idea what the hell the Slayer was on first glance (despite what Samur says).

I don't mind the chosen tone (as much as I liked the tone of Doom64 and Doom 3), but at this point, it's starting to seem like someone is just randomly typing stuff and saving it into the codex honestly. It doesn't ruin the game for me at all, it's just.... eh.

I think a lot of thought was put into the gameplay loop and the mechanics, at least for the base game. But they completely blew it regarding the story.

As you said, it makes no sense that Samuel would order the Doomslayer to destroy Vega if he knew that he was the Father. It furthermore also makes no sense for Samuel to send the Doomslayer away into god knows where, when the immediate next thing Samuel does is return to Earth and found the ARC, which is dedicated to fighting demons and the UAC. He never even used the crucible for rebuilding the UAC like he originally intended -- in fact, it's like between Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, Argent Energy became completely irrelevant for humanity.

Personally, I would have made Samuel be responsible for the invasion of Earth -- no hell priests, nor anything like that. Just simple human greed and hubris leading to their downfall. This would be much more in line with the general theme of Doom 2016. You could still have had the ARC being the resistance against the UAC, but Samuel should have remained a strictly human villain, rather than becoming a godlike being. Admittedly, it would be harder to fit the Maykrs and the Night Sentinels into this story, but Samuel as the head of the UAC causing the invasion should have remained the foundation for the story.

Edit: Also, in terms of story, the demons kinda became a complete sideshow compared to the Night Sentinels and the Maykrs. There should have been a much greater focus on the rulers of hell and their ulterior motives.

1 hour ago, Taurus Daggerknight said:

To wit; in the base game, I was under the distinct impression that the Maykers and Argenta only encountered Hell when the Slayer came over. Ancient Gods, however, puts the Maykers and their Father into the more traditional role of "Heaven vs. Hell", even though the Maykers are hardly angels in the real sense of the word and clearly had no idea what the hell the Slayer was on first glance (despite what Samur says).

Yeah, I also wondered about that. In Doom Hunter Base the 2nd Hell Priest said: "Was it not the Slayer who brought the demons to us? The Khan Maykr has to thank you for the gift of Argent Energy".

The whole plot of Ancient Gods Part 1 kind of doesn't fit.

My guess is, they just expanded the lore in each iteration (2016 -> Eternal -> DLC 1) and didn't really check whether it fits to the existing cut scenes and codex entries.

thinking that the father never told his children in urdak what hell really was, so they had to rediscover it for themselves after he left them.

Didn't really pay too much attention to the story, I understood the plot, but just figured the game was giving me excuses to go kill demons in interesting places (and I did). In terms of gameplay and design, I kind of feel like 2016 was a transitionary game. In a few years it will be looked at as the game between Doom 3 and Doom Eternal. I was playing it just the other day and realized a lot of the mechanics that would go on to be crucial in Doom Eternal are unimportant in Doom 2016, almost like Id was scared to push their new ideas on the player (something they clearly got over with Doom Eternal). It is kind of hard to play when you've played Eternal what with its airdashes and blood punch. I'd say, for me at least, Doom Eternal succeeds as a game on nearly every level, and once I got to the DLC (which is much harder than the base game) I realized, you know, marauder's aren't so bad (because spirits showed up). Also Doom Eternal's shotgun >>>>>> Doom 2016's shotgun.

12 hours ago, ZeMystic said:

8. Eternal had much better enemies than in 2016. Although I miss the enemy design in Doom 2016. The edgier looking cacodemon looked creepy and weird, and the Doom Eternal one looks way too silly. Most of Doom Eternal was too silly to me. Which doesn't mean much, I'm just an edgy bitch.

I personally find it weird to see 2016's designs as more serious or scary, when they share this particual aesthetic you can find in some MMORPG's or MOBAS.

Even something like Zavok from Sonic Lost World comes to mind.

To make a very odd and unrelated comparison, it's kinda like how Harley Quinn from Batman started the way she did because she was what Bruce Timm himself thought was attractive.

The modern Harley is like someone making something that comes off as "you guys think this is hot, right?".

Basically, it feels like a matter of "this is cool" vs "this could be considered cool by someone else".

Even if 2016 looked grittier than Eternal, it felt like it was planting the seeds for what would end up in Eternal.

The designs aren't bad, but i guess to me, i feel something different about the art style i guess.

23 hours ago, ZeMystic said:

1. Doom 2016 to me had a perfect story and character design. Samuel Hayden was a CEO of a company trying to solve a power crisis, who may have gone a bit too far to get that energy. In Eternal, he knew almost everything about ancient cities and old wars. And then I'm Ancient Gods, surprise surprise he was a Seraphim. This was.. really lame tbh. Samuel Hayden's character in 2016 was way superior than in Eternal and the way his character was kind of just retconned really bummed me out. 

 

2. In Doom 2016 Vega was an absolutely amazing AI character built into this absolutely rad looking computer thing. In doom eternal he turned out to be the father. I'm sorry but what the fuck? What would have happened if the Slayer didn't back up his data on to a micro SD card? Would the Father just cease to exist? Why would Samuel Hayden recommend deleting Vega in the first place if he knew who he was? 

I must agree, none of Hayden's actions in 2016 or Eternal make sense after being revealed as the Seraphim in Ancient Gods 1.

I had a theory, that Samur was a makyr in contest with Khan Makyr, somehow exiled to the mortal realm or perhaps also trying to usurp the Father. I thought Samur (as Hayden) developing Argent energy on Mars in D2016 was basically stealing power from Urdak. When the operation got out of his hands, he woke the Slayer to resolve the crisis - then as soon as the invasion was stopped (so he thought) he sent the Slayer away so as not to interfere with his further plots to exploit humanity. Then in Eternal, Hayden helps the Slayer take out the Khan and stop the Icon of Sin from destroying Earth (his body is on Earth as we see in AG1). As soon as that crises is resolved, he sends the Slayer to retrieve his body and then tries to get him to hand over the Father's lifesphere while acting sus as hekk.

It would have made sense to me if he was just another jackass makyr false-god tying to make himself king shit. Instead we got... ???

EDIT: Still loved the levels and combat encounters in Ancient Gods 1 tho, very challenging but satisfying.