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AtimZarr1

The Ancient Gods 2 - Impressions and Story Spoilers

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(Reposting here since I put it in the wrong thread a moment ago)

 

So here's a story question regarding TAG 2;

 

The whole point of "Reclaimed Earth" is that it has the one and only portal rout to the center of Hell.

 

...so uh...how the hell did that huge Sentinel army even get there, much less on time?

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I've come back from the dead to rant about how dogshit of a boss fight Davoth/Dark Lord/Satan/whatever the fuck he is.

 

MAN, I've never felt so unsatisfied for a final boss this hard.

It's not the fact that this is suppose to be the BIG ULTIMATE "ALL OF REALITY DEPENDS ON THIS FIGHT," boiling down to man vs armored man.

It's not the fact that so much lore bullshit was redone, rewritten, remade, and regurgitated for this to happen.

It's not the fact that just getting to the mythical "heart of hell" area being underwhelming as sin to get there.

It's not the fact that SO MUCH FUCKING LOOSE ENDS WAS LEFT after beating the fucking thing, that killing him was unsatisfying.

HELL, it's not even the fact that this boss is just a Marauder 2.0 with shit lifesteal sprinkled in to drag a 5 minute boss fight to a 50 minute slog.

 

I am so goddamn pissed at this boss fight for it's just doesn't let me have freedom to fight it however i want it.

 

You know what was a good boss fight? Cyberdemon from Doom 2016. What's an even better boss fight, that's also a final boss? Icon of Sin of DE. I can just list so many fun boss battles in the Doom franchise, and practically all of them share the sentiment that you can kill them however you please. Doom 1's Cyberdemon/Spidermastermind can be laughed at with a barrage of plasma or BFG shots. Doom 64's Mother can be trolled to death with a full powered Unmaker. Hell, Icon of Sin could be destroyed with a non-stop barrage of every single gun in your arsenal. Cause you had the freedom to do so. You can mention however many bosses in the doom franchise and how fun they were, for you can approach them however you please. They all would share the sentiment that you can kill them with whatever you got. Just shoot at it until it dies. The only notable stinker boss battles in the franchise would probably share the same flaw that "you have to kill it this way," and no others are present.

 

It's that ol' testament everyone adores Doom Eternal (and to some extend, the franchise) for; being an FPS chess battle of sorts. You got all this shit you can approach fights with, and the situations made for you to go ham on. There's 3 barons; you can either Unmakyr them to oblivion, Mobile Turret them to mincemeat, Triple Rocket them to the floor, or FUCK IT, Crucible all 3 each for the hell of it. There's optimal ways to approach the fight, sure. But there's always going to be better ways to approach situations in all games. Its better to do X with Y, than with Z. It's just letting you having the option to do so is what makes the best FPSes, and the challenge orchestrated to make the options allowed at their greatest. DE (campaign only) stands as a very damn refinement of FPS mechanics for giving loads (maybe too many) of options to play with, and the heart-pounding intensity to gratify it (adjustable difficulty included).

 

The DLCs started making this freedom, this FPS chess battle worse, for FORCING you to approach things in specific ways. This is why I love the Icon of Sin battle, and UTTERLY LOATH THIS FUCK of a final boss fight of the entire DE series. For being the absolute king of demons, the DARK LORD OF DARKNESS IN THE DARK PLACE OF DARK, being a goddamn stringent fight that you HAVE TO APPROACH in so few ways to win it. Can't just unload your entire arsenal of weaponry at it; he fucking HEALS BACK THE DAMAGE YOU DO if you time it wrongly. Can't have no other laid-back means of dodging his attacks except super-reactionary, else he heals it back if he gets a hit at you. Can't even just STUN HIM AND FIRE AWAY, LIKE YOU WOULD ANY DAMN MARAUDER. No, you HAVE to use the Sentinel Hammer to keep the stunlock for longer. Then and ONLY THEN... you have that faint sliver of "freedom" to hit him with whatever you got. BETTER DO IT QUICK BEFORE YOU DO THIS SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN. And FUCK YOU for even DARING to get hit or shooting at him at the wrong time. What cap this boss fight as a shitpile is those mistakes you do in the fight results in "time wasted." No other boss fight in DE has so much "time-wasting" mechanic as blatant as this bastard is.

 

I've had my beef with Doom Eternal in other places, but its gameplay was something I can respect and love messing with. I just REALLY hate that this is how all of D2016 and DE ends at; a boss fight that is an antithesis of what made both modern Doom games so loved by many; the "freedom of approaching combat however you please." If this final boss fight was comparable to "chess," it would be having to battle 5 Queens with only a Rook and a Knight. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

 

Fuck this DLC. Thank Christ i got it for free.

Edited by Potatoguy : Added text for emphasis.

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I think the Dark Lord boss fight is not so hard once you learned the mechanics. I actually think it's one of the better boss fights in Eternal, maybe a mix of Khan Maykr and Trial of Maligog. 

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So I finally got to experience TAG2 in its entirety. And now I should be able to address the more… controversial aspects of this DLC.

 

The Dark Lord fight:

Spoiler

Yeah, I honestly got what they were trying to go for (that is, like trying to fight an evil Slayer). As for the actual difficulty, I’d say he’s more difficult then all of the base game’s bosses including the Icon of Sin, but not as excruciatingly difficult as Samur (so more or less slightly harder than the Trial of Maligog).

The only thing is that the window to hit him when he flashes green is much smaller than expected, and if he manages to tag you, he can easily just air juggle you and even outright kill you with just one quick sword combo.

 

Just hope to RNGesus that he doesn’t BS you, and once you have a solid handle on how he works, you should be good. It’s more like the Gladiator fight but with an extra hint of unpredictability.

 

What the Dark Lord actually is and the Slayer’s role:

Spoiler

 

So regarding that one Plot Twist, I’m not going to lie, that is something that’s quite out of left field. And I honestly hope there’s some kind of good explanation for it in a future livestream from Hugo.

That being said, it’s not as bad as people are making it out to be.

 

The thing is, the Dark Lord just facilitated the creation of the Divinity Machine, that’s it. Doomguy just so happened to fit the bill of being the Destroyer.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that in the Codex, there’s this back-and-forth on which version of events actually happened between the Maykr texts and UAC cultist texts so something like this was already being hinted at.

 

Not only that, the entire concept of “humanizing Hell” isn’t exactly a novel concept, for when it comes to the precedent of several IRL religions, something like this is more of a feature rather than a bug (a fallen creator creating Hell).


I think the reason people are so up in arms about this particular point is because given that Hell is pretty much the one constant in a sea of multiverses, we’ve seen so many different versions of Doomguy’s rogue’s gallery and different areas of it (from the traditional fire and brimstone to castles made of flesh to piercing black voids).

I think what people wanted from Hell was this Lovecraftian dimension of unknowable alien terror (and people have argued that something like this was more suited for Quake).

 


The nerfed difficulty:

Spoiler

 

Yeah, TAG2 is much easier, and I’m not all that pleased with TAG1 being nerfed. Then it turned out that UAC Atlantica was the only level that really got nerfed to hell and back, whereas the Blood Swamps and the Holt only had a few minor adjustments and that’s it.

That said, I actually appreciate the Blood Maykr being nerfed because it was really *this* close to being on the brink of legit BS. Though it kind of helps (or doesn’t help) that with that second version of the Holt Slayer gate that I went from “dying over and over literally dozens of times” to “not even dying once”.

 

It’s worth noting that Master Levels of both parts of TAG will be coming sooner rather than later, according to Hugo.

 

 

To take away from all this, I’m just sad that not only are people no longer excited for future Doom titles, people have actually been calling for TAG2 if not TAG1 and even the entirety of base Doom Eternal to be retconned out of existence if not outright decanonized.

 

I mean, people have been comparing TAG2 to the last season of Game of Thrones or The Rise of Skywalker, and I honestly don’t think it’s that bad.

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21 hours ago, Taurus Daggerknight said:

So here's a story question regarding TAG 2;

 

The whole point of "Reclaimed Earth" is that it has the one and only portal rout to the center of Hell.

 

...so uh...how the hell did that huge Sentinel army even get there, much less on time?

Maybe other portals got enabled when opening the main one? But I'm not sure.

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I personally don't get how people think the final battle is hard, but it's probably just me. I'm not really good at the game, just really cautious and conservative, so I approached the battle the same way as I usually do whenever I've been in a new situation: using the Chaingun shield. I noticed that, hilariously, it completely negates everything the Dark Lord does, so I stuck to it, and it was a piece of cake. This being on Ultra-Violence.

 

Other than that, it's such a disappointment, not only as a poorly-designed battle, but also from a conceptual standpoint. I get he's an ancient god and the creator of all things, but all he does is fight in a mech suit and then he gets stabbed? It's pretty stupid. I too, like many people was expecting the armor to go off at one point, and then have a one-on-one fight against him, and I thought that'd be awesome. But that's not what we got, and it was a huge disappointment, poorly executed, and took away basically everything the game supposedly stood for, namely the absolute freedom of combat with all the mechanics and tools the player is given. You basically get robbed from all of that to face a boss that's pretty literally invulnerable until he decides to give you an opening, whenever the RNG feels like it.

 

Also, retcons out of the ass. I too found it hilarious how the Dark Lord is supposed to want to destroy the Maykrs, but he yells "NOOO" when the Khan Maykr dies. I also hate that Hugo Martin mentioned in a livestream that he considered the "then" upcoming Dark Lord fight to be basically the best boss fight they have ever designed. I don't know what he was smoking, or if it probably was that he was required to hype it up due to contractual obligations, or he just genuinely thought it was epic and badass; but the truth is that it's really just poorly designed and written. You can't have epic stakes if you don't set up the audience to be invested in them. It was just "epic" with big quotation marks, and only because they tried making it look like so. I remember one interview where Hugo mentioned how the development of Doom 2016 was such a huge success, because Bethesda put so many hurdles for them, that they had to get creative in how they would approach development; basically you make a good game by having limitations to overcome, because having total freedom basically ruins any creative intent you have. Bit them in the ass IMO.

 

It also bothers me that a lot of the things regarding the story and universe have to be explained by him during livestreams. In my opinion, if you're an author and have to explain things that aren't really mentioned in the work itself, or they're ambiguous, then your explanations are immediately irrelevant because the work was already published with the ambiguity included. You can't go back and change it after the fact.

 

It's sad that Doom Eternal has to end in such an underwhelming way. And underwhelming in all the possible ways you can think of lol: the gameplay is simplistic, with simplistic and easier combat, and no secrets to find; the new enemies aren't really used effectively in a way that makes you think strategically, with the Stone Imp being a joke if you ever decide to Shield Dash, and the Cursed Prowler never really used in situations that can get you in a pickle if they touch you; the story is obviously written at the last possible minute, without thought if it possibly contradicted major prior plot elements; the final boss was easier than even the damn Gladiator from the base game.. et cetera.

 

EDIT: I didn't even mention how absurd it is that this DLC also nerfed the previous one, and it's now unplayable for me because of how insultingly easy certain encounters became.

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3 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

even the entirety of base Doom Eternal to be retconned out of existence if not outright decanonized.

 

next game, doom eternal reboot: "Doom 2016 2"

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1 hour ago, hfc2x said:

basically you make a good game by having limitations to overcome, because having total freedom basically ruins any creative intent you have.

 

Exactly.

That's my mantra.

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1 hour ago, hfc2x said:

I personally don't get how people think the final battle is hard, but it's probably just me. I'm not really good at the game, just really cautious and conservative, so I approached the battle the same way as I usually do whenever I've been in a new situation: using the Chaingun shield. I noticed that, hilariously, it completely negates everything the Dark Lord does, so I stuck to it, and it was a piece of cake. This being on Ultra-Violence.

 

 

 

Why take your word for it, lets look at this Ruthless Beast, Breaker of Games, Destroyer of Enjoyment in action:

 

 

 

If you get on the horn real quick I think id software are looking for Game Dervelerpers. Apply now!

 

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Honestly, for all the flaws part 2 has, i'm not sure if they have to actually update stuff to change it.

Like directly changing the DL in a lot of ways than just simple tweaks of AI or other numbers.

I feel like if they ever make another Doom game, they could build upon what didn't work in TAG 2 and make it work, at least in terms of gameplay.

In terms of fixing the lore, maybe another reboot (even if it's a spin off) that just has its own story and does things differently.

 

Because i know there's people that expected more from some stuff and maybe i'm saying this in a "historical revisionism" kinda way.

Maybe they might make a patch but who knows if it will be like tha TAG 1 update.

With the current times and situation, id doesn't have it easy.

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I just beat TAG 2 a few minutes ago on UV and I'm a bit torn, to be honest.  I loved some things, but felt others were a swing and a miss.

 

- First off: the new soundtrack does an excellent job keeping pace with the original game and DLC 1.  Mick Gordon isn't really missed at all as far as I'm concerned.  Andrew Hulshult and David Levy are killing it.

 

- I loved the new bestiary overall.  The Armored Barons are just so cool, and executed really well.  I like that the Stone Imps finally make the full-auto shotgun mod essential.  The Screechers are also a fun way to make battles even more intense, since they're effectively explosive barrels that you DO NOT want to explode!  I kind of like the idea of the Cursed Prowlers on paper, but in practice I didn't think it was very fun and I'm glad they were used very sparingly (there were what, roughly 3 of them throughout the entire DLC?).

 

- The Sentinel Hammer is a fantastic addition to an already stupidly-large arsenal, and somehow feels like it fits right in even though at this point there are so many weapons/gadgets it almost makes one's head spin (especially in the middle of a hellish fight).  I love that it isn't just a one-dimensional AOE attack, and actually has some depth to it.  And best of all, it allows you to take Marauders out of the picture VERY quickly if used correctly.

 

- The Meat Hook grapple points work so well and are such a natural extension of the game's traversal mechanics, I'm honestly surprised they weren't in the base game.  I just wish they were put to use in more creative ways and complex environments, speaking of which...

 

- The level design was painfully linear and mostly forgettable: move in a straight line, fight it out in an arena, rinse--repeat.  I don't recall a single branching path, and there certainly wasn't a keycard in sight.  At least TAG 1 had both of those things.  The secret areas were a complete joke, too--almost impossible to miss, and rarely rewarding to discover.  I really wish we'd see larger levels with a greater emphasis on exploration just to mix things up a bit (see Foundry and Argent Facility from the 2016 game).  I do understand this is DLC, though, and it probably takes much more time to construct such levels.  But still:  I want to do more than just move in a straight line and fight!

 

- The final boss battle was exhausting and fairly disappointing.  It was essentially just a giant Marauder with a humongous health bar.  I didn't really feel like I had to figure anything out, and I certainly didn't have much fun fighting him.  Although it was far more tolerable than the finale of TAG 1, I just wish the showdown with the Dark Lord himself had something more unique/surprising to offer.  Considering the hellish onslaught we had to endure to reach that point, we deserved better.

 

- I don't think I can put into words just how much I despise nuDoom's lore at this point.  2016 showed promise, but Eternal's lore as a whole--from the base game through this DLC--is utterly dreadful in my opinion.  I'll take a simple-but-captivating tale over this convoluted bullshit any day of the week.

 

The last few points might make it sound like I didn't enjoy the DLC, but I honestly did.  Although I was disappointed with the level design and finale, TAG 2's combat is bar none the best the genre has ever seen and it ain't even close.  Not one weapon or gadget goes unutilized for long, and the sheer variety of enemies means you're constantly on your toes, either adapting to the situation at hand or getting ravaged for being sloppy or complacent.  It's totally worth playing through the DLC just for the additions to the combat alone.  I just can't help but wonder how amazing an experience we'd have on our hands if the supercharged combat were paired with levels that had more to offer than mostly straight shots from one arena to the next.

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8 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

So I finally got to experience TAG2 in its entirety. And now I should be able to address the more… controversial aspects of this DLC.

 

The Dark Lord fight:

  Reveal hidden contents

Yeah, I honestly got what they were trying to go for (that is, like trying to fight an evil Slayer). As for the actual difficulty, I’d say he’s more difficult then all of the base game’s bosses including the Icon of Sin, but not as excruciatingly difficult as Samur (so more or less slightly harder than the Trial of Maligog).

The only thing is that the window to hit him when he flashes green is much smaller than expected, and if he manages to tag you, he can easily just air juggle you and even outright kill you with just one quick sword combo.

 

Just hope to RNGesus that he doesn’t BS you, and once you have a solid handle on how he works, you should be good. It’s more like the Gladiator fight but with an extra hint of unpredictability.

 

What the Dark Lord actually is and the Slayer’s role:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So regarding that one Plot Twist, I’m not going to lie, that is something that’s quite out of left field. And I honestly hope there’s some kind of good explanation for it in a future livestream from Hugo.

That being said, it’s not as bad as people are making it out to be.

 

The thing is, the Dark Lord just facilitated the creation of the Divinity Machine, that’s it. Doomguy just so happened to fit the bill of being the Destroyer.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that in the Codex, there’s this back-and-forth on which version of events actually happened between the Maykr texts and UAC cultist texts so something like this was already being hinted at.

 

Not only that, the entire concept of “humanizing Hell” isn’t exactly a novel concept, for when it comes to the precedent of several IRL religions, something like this is more of a feature rather than a bug (a fallen creator creating Hell).


I think the reason people are so up in arms about this particular point is because given that Hell is pretty much the one constant in a sea of multiverses, we’ve seen so many different versions of Doomguy’s rogue’s gallery and different areas of it (from the traditional fire and brimstone to castles made of flesh to piercing black voids).

I think what people wanted from Hell was this Lovecraftian dimension of unknowable alien terror (and people have argued that something like this was more suited for Quake).

 


The nerfed difficulty:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah, TAG2 is much easier, and I’m not all that pleased with TAG1 being nerfed. Then it turned out that UAC Atlantica was the only level that really got nerfed to hell and back, whereas the Blood Swamps and the Holt only had a few minor adjustments and that’s it.

That said, I actually appreciate the Blood Maykr being nerfed because it was really *this* close to being on the brink of legit BS. Though it kind of helps (or doesn’t help) that with that second version of the Holt Slayer gate that I went from “dying over and over literally dozens of times” to “not even dying once”.

 

It’s worth noting that Master Levels of both parts of TAG will be coming sooner rather than later, according to Hugo.

 

 

To take away from all this, I’m just sad that not only are people no longer excited for future Doom titles, people have actually been calling for TAG2 if not TAG1 and even the entirety of base Doom Eternal to be retconned out of existence if not outright decanonized.

 

I mean, people have been comparing TAG2 to the last season of Game of Thrones or The Rise of Skywalker, and I honestly don’t think it’s that bad.

Personally speaking even if I don't like the ending of TAG2 or that the Dark Lord is god. I'm still excited for more DooM but will say I'm dissapointed that Hugo, someone who wants to build his own Doom-verse out right misses the opportunity to incorporate Doom 3(soul cube and martian race) or even confirm quakes connection with Doom through slipgates or quad-damage and the like. He'll Davoth could have some connection to the gods from Quake or even have Quake be one of the levels of hell itself.

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Okay...skin of my teeth, FINALLY got through that irritating as all heck final boss.....

 

...and got to see the ending that I had avoided reading about.....

 

...WHAT THE ACTUAL F***?!

 

Are you f***ng serious?!

 

REALLY?!

 

Th- THAT'S the ending we get after the single worst boss fight I have ever had to slough through?! That's the ending we get for all that build up?!

 

I....have to be honest. That's left a pretty damn sour taste. I'd been enjoying the gameplay in Eternal all the way up to this boss, give or take one or two points in TAG 1 that felt slightly cheap, but this just feels like...ugh. I don't want to say "slap in the face" over a game and all that, but honestly, nothing else is coming to mind. 


Good grief, that was awful.... 

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5 hours ago, Use said:

 

Why take your word for it, lets look at this Ruthless Beast, Breaker of Games, Destroyer of Enjoyment in action:

 

 

 

That's funny but I know it's only phase 1, to warm the player up to the Dark Lord's vulnerability.

 

When he starts launching grenades and summoning hordes of ghostly super heavies, you gotta move.

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Ok, so there’s been a couple of developments since the last time I posted here.

 

First off, I managed to pull off a successful Ultra Nightmare run (on the first try, no less).

And honestly it’s not just that the expansion as a whole is easier than AG1, it’s that the Dark Lord fight actually isn’t too bad as long as you know what you’re doing.

That said, while the Dark Lord may end up summoning the ghostly super heavies whenever he feels like it (even when you don’t have the hammer charges) but at the very least they have around half the health of their regular counterparts.

 

Second, it turns out that the nerfs to TAG1 were actually deliberate but not for the reasons expected. Namely, to make said expansion more accessible to more players while they work on creating Master Levels for both parts of the DLC and the base campaign (possibly even full-blown Master Campaigns):

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Man of Doom said:

Master Campaigns

 

I've heard comments that they waited with the master levels because Id wanted to include new demons in them. So if this is true we should expect master levels dropping faster than one per year lol.

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To me, it just sounds like Hugo Martin is salty people didn't like his version of Warhammer 40000 and the wrong decisions regarding the difficulty drop for the first DLC, and he's just trying to justify why we don't know what we're talking about. But in a friendly manner, you know what I'm saying? lol.

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46 minutes ago, hfc2x said:

To me, it just sounds like Hugo Martin is salty people didn't like his version of Warhammer 40000 and the wrong decisions regarding the difficulty drop for the first DLC, and he's just trying to justify why we don't know what we're talking about. But in a friendly manner, you know what I'm saying? lol.

lots of projecting going on here.  But it's pretty much accepted and considered fact here that Hugo is a horrible person and that's how it will forever be.

 

It was a misstep for them to nerf the the levels before the master levels were released, but none of what was said i would considered salty here.

 

I think the explanations given are very  justified. With the amount of people saying thats "lol they made it like dark souls, not everthing needs to be dark souls" I would understand the amount of nerfs done. but im guessing the Master Levels are gonna be another rude awakening.

 

also future buffs and rebalances are NEVER out of the question.

 

Edited by jazzmaster9

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9 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

It was a misstep for them to nerf the the levels before the master levels were released, but none of what was said i would considered salty here.

 

I think the explanations given are very  justified. With the amount of people saying thats "lol they made it like dark souls, not everthing needs to be dark souls" I would understand the amount of nerfs done. but im guessing the Master Levels are gonna be another rude awakening.

 

also future buffs and rebalances are NEVER out of the question. But it's pretty much accepted here that Hugo is a horrible person so im just talking to think air at this point. 

Lots of projection going on here. No one has said he's a horrible person, just that he made the wrong calls with the latest update, but he's basically saying "it's not a problem, actually, and you'll notice we made the right choice if you play everything again from the beginning". It just ticks me the wrong way that he pretty much doesn't want to admit he made mistakes with how they handled this. At the very least I'm glad he said they'll look into it.

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12 minutes ago, hfc2x said:

Lots of projection going on here. No one has said he's a horrible person,

no projection, just calling it how i see it. I've seen alot of people say that he is somehow egotistical and salty for adding a mech and dragon in DLC2. 

 

Nothing that ive seen of him indicates any of that. But does show how much of a scramble it was to balance the DLCs in such a small period of time. mistakes were made, but the amount of utter distain and hatred looks silly to me.

Edited by jazzmaster9

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I haven't seen anyone hate him on this forum, anyway. No idea about the cesspool that is Reddit and Twitter can die in a fire (there's some real hate right there).

 

But nothing wrong with calling out the mistakes we think he's made. 

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With TAG1&2 being part of a "One Year Pass" I'm wondering if id were obligated to release TAG2 before the one year anniversary of Eternal's release? If that's the case then they only had 5 months after TAG1, with a holiday season, compared to 7 months for TAG1. I don't know if the story would have been any different but the gameplay definitely feels unfinished. The new enemy variants are cool but the screechers and stone imps seemed to be the only ones that were used in ways where there was an idea at play. The hammer needs a pretty big nerf, like glory kill 3 heavies or 1 super heavy to recharge, no recharge on breaking weakpoints either. There were a decent amount of memorable moments throughout, but also a lot of places where it felt like more could have been done.

 

I actually liked the Dark Lord fight. I see people calling BS for him healing when you shoot him at the wrong time but I think that's exactly the point, you aren't allowed to just shoot at him when he does something and hope to stun him. I understand the other complaints like him healing when he hits you or all 5 stages are the same or he's just a big marauder and they're pretty legitimate. But I didn't care, I liked fighting him.

 

I'm guessing id is now going to work on master levels. I hope they decide to make new levels though. There doesn't need to be any story in them, just levels. Good, fun, challenging levels, with all the things that make a good Doom level.

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3 hours ago, thewormofautumn said:

But nothing wrong with calling out the mistakes we think he's made. 

Correct, nothing wrong with providing criticism. Even I have shared my utter distain for Cursed Prowlers, Purple Sludge and Blood Makyrs.

 

But there have been a few times in this thread where the developers were accused of making decisions to simply piss of players or that Hugo has some kind of Ego because he dares put mechs and dragons in the game. I feel like people took these mistakes too personally, which I understand to some extent.

Edited by jazzmaster9

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I just want them to return nightmare the way it was. I don't want to play a set of Master levels, I want to play the campaign from beginning to end including DLC, shotgun start with no upgrades and upgrading as I progress. Also with cutscenes, maybe I would like to watch them again as I play. I don't want nightmare to be Super Gore Nest Master level either, just good old nightmare the way it was, it can't be that hard to revert for NM/UN. Not just return removed enemies in TAG1 but also restore the Arachnatron and Marauder to the way they were before TAG2. The Marauder falter window is too long and the Arachnatron is fucking retarded. 

 

I finished nightmare TAG1 on a controller, so it can't be too hard on lower difficulties. Sure it took a while, but that was part of the fun for me, I loved the challenge. It was much more satisfying when I unlocked a skin or watched a badass cutscene after an earned victory in a big fight. The only problem in TAG1 for me was The Holt Slayer Gate, that one took me like at least a hundred tries, it took me days. I'm OK with needing it a bit, like removing the second Marauder and not spawning three Blood Maykrs all at once.

 

Regarding TAG2, the first level is definitely easier than UAC Atlantica Facility. Despite better pacing in Worlds Spear, I liked the opening of UAC Atlantica Facility more, because of how unexpectedly hard it kicked my ass at the very start. I'm not expecting them to significantly alter TAG2 to be more like TAG1 in terms of challenge because it would be too much work, but I will wait a bit before I continue playing, maybe something works out.

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I personally enjoyed TAG2. It did feel a bit underwhelming at times, namely for a difficulty spike that never came (I played it on UV right after finishing TAG1 on nightmare before the 18th), the final parts feeling rushed and the boss being extremely tedious. I also don't like the cursed prowlers (never got hit since I always tunnel visioned on eliminating them as soon as I noticed something green moving, but I think the concept isn't great) and the "chaingunner" was a bit of a disappointment.

 

I believe most of the rushed parts (and I guess you could include the "reskinned" monsters) are due to the deadline for the 20th of March (year 1 season pass), I'm pretty sure that if more time was available things would have felt much better - I personally expect the pace of the DLC to pick up with a patch or two.

 

The story? Uuuuh, yeah, I don't mind it, it kinda works here and there, even if TAG2 really dropped the ball. I felt 2016's more restrained approach was an amazing sweet spot so the plot of eternal kinda lost me halfway through. Can't say I care too much either, although I must admit it kinda stings to say "I like the game, just not that part".

 

Some people are (somewhat understandably) concerned/angry at the lowered difficulty on TAG1 but I feel ok with it. Most of the "big fights" are exactly the same AFAIK, with most nerfs being applied to the smaller skirmishes that lead to them. This isn't DOOM I or II where ammo conservation is a thing, so I think improving the flow and accessibility (UAC Atlantica's completion achievement is sitting at an astonishing 10% on Steam) is fine, especially if it's paving the way to amazing master levels such as Super Gore Nest.

 

The soundtrack is a banger... although, I must admit, it feels a bit more "samey" as opposed to TAG1. Oh well.

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First post here, so I hope I don't sound like an idiot

 

Gameplay wise, I have to agree with what everyone else has been saying. The first DLC was fucking nuts, and not in a good way. I seriously think I spent like, 4 hours on each level and ended up totally exhausted each time. I guess the one good thing about it was the fact that I didn't breeze through, so I got my money's worth??? But in part 2, the levels seemed way shorter. At least, the first two levels seemed about the same, maybe just a little shorter. But Immora felt really short. Size wize it didn't seem that bad; it just felt a little empty. To be honest, I may have just been remembering DLC 1 as being way longer than it was, and that made the others seem shorter by comparison. But I have to say it was actually a bit of a relief to have the levels be not as awfully long as I remembered them being in Part 1.

 

As for the boss fight,  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  would probably be the best way of describing my reaction to it. I hated that boss fight so fucking much. It was good nobody else was home, because I kept yelling every time that motherfucker stole health from me. I can kinda get why they did it, since the health absorption is something we can do, so it makes sense that he would be able to do it as well. I just feel like he was waaaayyyy too eager to refill himself at every single thing you did wrong. Him hitting you should have been the extent of it, but he gets health just because you shoot him at the wrong time? Thats so stupid. And the stupid time window to hit him also sucked. The fact that he telegraphed his attack before he flashed green should have been helpful, but it isn't because he has a bunch of other melee sword attacks that he also telegraphs, so you have to memorize the exact way he prepares for the attack. And you could say that that's ok, because it adds a little more skill in, but then what is the point of adding in his eyes flashing green? I also find it funny that they say at the start of the fight something along the lines of "you can use the Sentinel Hammer to stun the Dark Lord to extend the time to attack him!" when in reality, you have to do it or else you have like a millisecond of time to damage him. Some thing else I was expecting was that later on in the fight, he would have shed his armor and gone into a totally different style of fighting, That would have made it more refreshing instead of having to fight 5 phases of the same frustrating thing for what seemed like hours. Additionally, it would have just made more sense story wise. At the end of the fight, the Dark Lord is still in his suit, but his body looks totally unscathed, so it doesn't make sense that he just puts away his sword and is all like "haha ok come kill me now."

 

For the music, I have so say, it was there. That's it. It was just there. I honestly can't remember any of the songs. The same goes for DLC Part 1. I don't want to be mean to Andrew Hulshult, and I think he did great in Dusk, but this isn't Dusk.

 

Story wise, I was also less than impressed. So I don't want to be that guy, but I'm not really a fan of the whole "heheh God is bad lol" trope that's so common in a lot of media about killing demons. Like, you'd think that the logical progression from "you are a guy who likes killing demons" would be "you are friends with the angels and stuff" but so much stuff goes with the super-edgy "haha kill everything! They are all bad!!1!" angle. It really seems like every time someone does it, they realize what the logical progression would be, and they assume that everyone has done it, so they decide to be edgy and unique, without realizing that that's the same thought process everyone has had. We've gotten some variation of the "Angels/God are bad" thing in stuff like Shin Megami Tensei, Bayonetta, Supernatural, Darksiders, Preacher, Spawn, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Golden Compass. Again I don't want to sound like somebody's offended religious grandma, but I just think it's a bit overused at this point. Especially since Doom has always had a simple premise, it would make sense to follow it by doing the typical "you and angels team up to kill demons" thing. Not asking for religious propaganda, since that would obviously be annoying for fans of Doom who aren't religious. But to go too far in the other direction is surely annoying to fans who are religious.

 

Regardless of wether people are annoyed by the story for personal belief reasons, a lot of its issues are unrelated to that. There is so much shit that comes out of nowhere, and is later retconned, that I can't possibly imagine they weren't making it up as they went. And there is a lot of stuff that was kinda just left off. What is up with the World Spear? What ever happened to the Wraiths? Where is Samur/Samuel (I refuse to use the term "Seraphim" as a singular noun)? What is everyone doing now that they won? Is Urdak just gone forever now? Who are The Ancient Gods? You know, the floating guys the DLC was apparently named after? They seem to want to explain every single little detail, but in doing so they throw in a bunch more stuff that just adds more confusion.

 

Overall, I'm not a big fan. The base game was cool, but it would have been even greater to get some more stuff like 2016. I feel like calling for a retcon is a bit dramatic, but retcons can sometimes be deserved when the thing it is retconning is a retcon itself (and a bad one at that). I don't want to be one of those "You RRRRUINED it for me!!!" type of people, but I really feel like if I go back to play any other Doom games, I'll have a hard time enjoying them knowing the implications of this story are stretched over to them.

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17 hours ago, Magnum Dongus said:

First post here, so I hope I don't sound like an idiot

 

Gameplay wise, I have to agree with what everyone else has been saying. The first DLC was fucking nuts, and not in a good way. I seriously think I spent like, 4 hours on each level and ended up totally exhausted each time. I guess the one good thing about it was the fact that I didn't breeze through, so I got my money's worth??? But in part 2, the levels seemed way shorter. At least, the first two levels seemed about the same, maybe just a little shorter. But Immora felt really short. Size wize it didn't seem that bad; it just felt a little empty. To be honest, I may have just been remembering DLC 1 as being way longer than it was, and that made the others seem shorter by comparison. But I have to say it was actually a bit of a relief to have the levels be not as awfully long as I remembered them being in Part 1.

 

As for the boss fight,  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  would probably be the best way of describing my reaction to it. I hated that boss fight so fucking much. It was good nobody else was home, because I kept yelling every time that motherfucker stole health from me. I can kinda get why they did it, since the health absorption is something we can do, so it makes sense that he would be able to do it as well. I just feel like he was waaaayyyy too eager to refill himself at every single thing you did wrong. Him hitting you should have been the extent of it, but he gets health just because you shoot him at the wrong time? Thats so stupid. And the stupid time window to hit him also sucked. The fact that he telegraphed his attack before he flashed green should have been helpful, but it isn't because he has a bunch of other melee sword attacks that he also telegraphs, so you have to memorize the exact way he prepares for the attack. And you could say that that's ok, because it adds a little more skill in, but then what is the point of adding in his eyes flashing green? I also find it funny that they say at the start of the fight something along the lines of "you can use the Sentinel Hammer to stun the Dark Lord to extend the time to attack him!" when in reality, you have to do it or else you have like a millisecond of time to damage him. Some thing else I was expecting was that later on in the fight, he would have shed his armor and gone into a totally different style of fighting, That would have made it more refreshing instead of having to fight 5 phases of the same frustrating thing for what seemed like hours. Additionally, it would have just made more sense story wise. At the end of the fight, the Dark Lord is still in his suit, but his body looks totally unscathed, so it doesn't make sense that he just puts away his sword and is all like "haha ok come kill me now."

 

For the music, I have so say, it was there. That's it. It was just there. I honestly can't remember any of the songs. The same goes for DLC Part 1. I don't want to be mean to Andrew Hulshult, and I think he did great in Dusk, but this isn't Dusk.

 

Story wise, I was also less than impressed. So I don't want to be that guy, but I'm not really a fan of the whole "heheh God is bad lol" trope that's so common in a lot of media about killing demons. Like, you'd think that the logical progression from "you are a guy who likes killing demons" would be "you are friends with the angels and stuff" but so much stuff goes with the super-edgy "haha kill everything! They are all bad!!1!" angle. It really seems like every time someone does it, they realize what the logical progression would be, and they assume that everyone has done it, so they decide to be edgy and unique, without realizing that that's the same thought process everyone has had. We've gotten some variation of the "Angels/God are bad" thing in stuff like Shin Megami Tensei, Bayonetta, Supernatural, Darksiders, Preacher, Spawn, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Golden Compass. Again I don't want to sound like somebody's offended religious grandma, but I just think it's a bit overused at this point. Especially since Doom has always had a simple premise, it would make sense to follow it by doing the typical "you and angels team up to kill demons" thing. Not asking for religious propaganda, since that would obviously be annoying for fans of Doom who aren't religious. But to go too far in the other direction is surely annoying to fans who are religious.

 

Regardless of wether people are annoyed by the story for personal belief reasons, a lot of its issues are unrelated to that. There is so much shit that comes out of nowhere, and is later retconned, that I can't possibly imagine they weren't making it up as they went. And there is a lot of stuff that was kinda just left off. What is up with the World Spear? What ever happened to the Wraiths? Where is Samur/Samuel (I refuse to use the term "Seraphim" as a singular noun)? What is everyone doing now that they won? Is Urdak just gone forever now? Who are The Ancient Gods? You know, the floating guys the DLC was apparently named after? They seem to want to explain every single little detail, but in doing so they throw in a bunch more stuff that just adds more confusion.

 

Overall, I'm not a big fan. The base game was cool, but it would have been even greater to get some more stuff like 2016. I feel like calling for a retcon is a bit dramatic, but retcons can sometimes be deserved when the thing it is retconning is a retcon itself (and a bad one at that). I don't want to be one of those "You RRRRUINED it for me!!!" type of people, but I really feel like if I go back to play any other Doom games, I'll have a hard time enjoying them knowing the implications of this story are stretched over to them.

 

First off; Welcome to Doom World :D

 

Pretty much agree with what you've covered here, especially the rather tired trope of "Heaven is also nasty". It works in some games/ shows, for sure (Supernatural has that tone from day one), but it really doesn't fit here IMO. 

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TAG 2 was meh. I liked meathook traversal and first two maps looked great. Cursed Prowler is completely unfair and needs to be changed. Immora was boring looking. Absolutely terrible dark lord fight. He regens health every time he hits me despite him missing sometimes. So I just gave up. His health regen felt unfair and unbalanced. ID needs to look into it. DLC 1 & 2 were both so average to me. Disappointing considering I really love the base game. I expected DLCs to be an improvement on the base game, not worse. I lost excitement for future doom games cause of the year one pass expansions and enemies where I have to wait until they do an action for them to be hittable.

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