DOOM Eternal Gameplay Reveal Impressions

[Catpho]

Thanks for the anlyazation of the reveal everyone! Sounds like this will be worth the wait. I personally liked the level design (tad flesh buildings) and the new airborn mechanics (heh) . 

[Deleted_Account]

Well I finally got around to watching the Doom Eternal gameplay reveal. It's difficult for me to string together the necessary words to form a sentence which will describe exactly how I feel. 

 

Woo Wee Woo Waa! Should suffice.

 

What can be said that hasn't already been said?

 

I am simply blown away. Doom 2016 was an overall solid game, I think Eternal will take it to the next level.

 

Twenty-five years later and Doom continues to live on.

 

I am pumped!

[MTF Sergeant]

Is this a prediction for Game of the Year 2019?

 

[Chezza]

In regards to the grappling hook and dodge function, it would appear they have taken inspiration from Dying Light.

[MrGlide]

tO MUCH HYPE RIGHT NOW. Son of a bitch that looks great. Looks like they're trying to address everyones complaints as well. Pretty damn impressive. I'm pumped.

[KillPixel]

The game should be called Doom Internal because I want it inside of me.

[Nine Inch Heels]

looks like it got some interesting stuff going on for mobility, so that's a plus in my book.

[Inno]

Ah, man. I don't even know what to add that's new. I'm extremely pleased with this reveal. This feels like everything a sequel to Doom 2016 should be, while also paying attention to the pleas for more classic-inspired stuff - not just visually, but in the gameplay as well. I'm rather excited for this, and id has shown that they truly know what they're doing now.

 

And mmmm, I can hardly wait to hear more of Mick Gordon's music.

[Touchdown]

I had to give it some time, let it sink in before commenting properly. I wrote a whole other message yesterday but it came off as a long judgemental rant and I thought it was too emotional to post so I scrapped it and started over. I still don't know if this one's good enough but it'll have to do.

Let me summarize my thoughts by saying this: DOOM Eternal seems to be exactly what Diablo III was.

If you're a Diablo fan you know what I'm talking about. If not: Diablo started out as a dark fantasy game. With Diablo II they expanded the world so it wasn't as heavy anymore but it was still a dark fantasy with a wonderful tone and atmosphere. Diablo III took a nosedive into a significantly more cartoony, light-hearted, fairy tale style that was borderline WarCraft in terms of its vibe. It was, to me as a huge fan of the franchise, absolutely amazing in terms of gameplay. But in terms of style and atmosphere it wasn't Diablo anymore.

And that's what DOOM Eternal looks like to me.

If you're interested in having a bit more background on my take on DOOM, I recommend reading my post about the tone of the game and if you have already, you can probably see where this is going.

I thought that DOOM4 managed to have a good balance between the stylized and realistic visuals. Environments looked great, enemies for the most part were realistic and there were really only a few infamous exceptions, like the damn Pinky Demon that looked like a toy. The animations were superb and felt real. Visually it expanded upon the realism of DOOM3 while making sure it's vibrant and interesting.

DOOM Eternal on the other hand took the few things I hated about DOOM4, silliness and cartoony designs, and made it into a whole game. All the new monsters look like toys. The Pain Elemental is particulary bad. Not only it looks like a dumb cartoon monster (literally!) but it's animations are absolutely abysmal. What the hell was that bouncy movement at 23:45 supposed to be? Is that a joke? Not to mention it's 'waaah' expression and the huge stupid eye looking to the sides when he got executed. I didn't think they could make a monster that's worse than the D4 Pinky but evidently I was wrong. And why exactly does ANYBODY think that a 100%-faithful direct recreation of 25 year old assets in a modern engine is a good idea? It's not. It looks stupid as hell. Funny thing is I knew it would happen. I called it, in the very thread I linked above. I knew they would make it even more silly.

And yet the teaser was so good... It was spot-on. The atmosphere, the visuals, everything was perfect. But in-game it looks terrible. Compare the Arachnotron, what a difference, what a massive downgrade. It looks so ominous in the teaser. But of course we need teh blue glowing eyes and cartoony animations!

In terms of gameplay it's an extension of DOOM4. It looks fun and I'm sure it'll be. The environments look absolutely beautiful, as expected. Weapons look great and somehow they've managed not to screw up the Plasma Rifle (even though its sound is horrible). Music was garbage and it's ironic that they have a literal 1-up extra life considering id removed 'lives' from the original DOOM because they thought it had to be more realistic. The damage system looks neat but it'd be better if they had persistent corpses because there won't be enough time to appreciate it otherwise. Can't help but notice that the physics are garbage, enemies fall down and fall apart in the most unrealistic ways possible, not to mention there's hardly any blood or guts when they get sliced with the blade.

Obviously I will play it. I'll give it a fair shot and I'll try to enjoy it for what it is. But I honestly can't say I share everyone's enthusiasm. The Pain Elemental alone ruined my otherwise positive impressions.

[doom_is_great]

I second Touchdown's impressions. Doom 2016 struck a good balance between realistic and cartoony aesthetics. This Doom unfortunately goes full cartoon. If anyone at id reads this, please take into consideration these concerns!

[Enforcer]

No more Rune trials since you can see in the video that the player simply found one in the level. I'm happy with that because I didn't really like rune trials in D16. I mean they were fun I guess but that loading from a level to the arena and back to the level killed all the pacing for me. Don't waste time on trials and no more classical levels that were considered secrets. And fuck action figures. They were so pointless. Focus only on exploration and combat. And on rewarding a smart player. Hide the Runes in the levels. Now that would be a secret. Imagine playing for the first time and finding a well hidden secret passage and instead of +50 armor you find a awesome and powerfull Rune. You would be like "Fuck yeah".

[bigbossbalrog]

21 minutes ago, Touchdown said:

I had to give it some time, let it sink in before commenting properly. I wrote a whole other message yesterday but it came off as a long judgemental rant and I thought it was too emotional to post so I scrapped it and started over. I still don't know if this one's good enough but it'll have to do.

Let me summarize my thoughts by saying this: DOOM Eternal seems to be exactly what Diablo III was.

If you're a Diablo fan you know what I'm talking about. If not: Diablo started out as a dark fantasy game. With Diablo II they expanded the world so it wasn't as heavy anymore but it was still a dark fantasy with a wonderful tone and atmosphere. Diablo III took a nosedive into a significantly more cartoony, light-hearted, fairy tale style that was borderline WarCraft in terms of its vibe. It was, to me as a huge fan of the franchise, absolutely amazing in terms of gameplay. But in terms of style and atmosphere it wasn't Diablo anymore.

And that's what DOOM Eternal looks like to me.

If you're interested in having a bit more background on my take on DOOM, I recommend reading my post about the tone of the game and if you have already, you can probably see where this is going.

I thought that DOOM4 managed to have a good balance between the stylized and realistic visuals. Environments looked great, enemies for the most part were realistic and there were really only a few infamous exceptions, like the damn Pinky Demon that looked like a toy. The animations were superb and felt real. Visually it expanded upon the realism of DOOM3 while making sure it's vibrant and interesting.

DOOM Eternal on the other hand took the few things I hated about DOOM4, silliness and cartoony designs, and made it into a whole game. All the new monsters look like toys. The Pain Elemental is particulary bad. Not only it looks like a dumb cartoon monster (literally!) but it's animations are absolutely abysmal. What the hell was that bouncy movement at 23:45 supposed to be? Is that a joke? Not to mention it's 'waaah' expression and the huge stupid eye looking to the sides when he got executed. I didn't think they could make a monster that's worse than the D4 Pinky but evidently I was wrong. And why exactly does ANYBODY think that a 100%-faithful direct recreation of 25 year old assets in a modern engine is a good idea? It's not. It looks stupid as hell. Funny thing is I knew it would happen. I called it, in the very thread I linked above. I knew they would make it even more silly.

And yet the teaser was so good... It was spot-on. The atmosphere, the visuals, everything was perfect. But in-game it looks terrible. Compare the Arachnotron, what a difference, what a massive downgrade. It looks so ominous in the teaser. But of course we need teh blue glowing eyes and cartoony animations!

In terms of gameplay it's an extension of DOOM4. It looks fun and I'm sure it'll be. The environments look absolutely beautiful, as expected. Weapons look great and somehow they've managed not to screw up the Plasma Rifle (even though its sound is horrible). Music was garbage and it's ironic that they have a literal 1-up extra life considering id removed 'lives' from the original DOOM because they thought it had to be more realistic. The damage system looks neat but it'd be better if they had persistent corpses because there won't be enough time to appreciate it otherwise. Can't help but notice that the physics are garbage, enemies fall down and fall apart in the most unrealistic ways possible, not to mention there's hardly any blood or guts when they get sliced with the blade.

Obviously I will play it. I'll give it a fair shot and I'll try to enjoy it for what it is. But I honestly can't say I share everyone's enthusiasm. The Pain Elemental alone ruined my otherwise positive impressions.

What a load of hyperbolic tripe. A very poor opinion. It's nothing like Diablo 3, and I say that as a twenty year veteran of ARPG's (including Diablo)  

11 minutes ago, doom_is_great said:

I second Touchdown's impressions. Doom 2016 struck a good balance between realistic and cartoony aesthetics. This Doom unfortunately goes full cartoon. If anyone at id reads this, please take into consideration these concerns!

Yes because ID is going to listen to two people on a forum that's infamous for hating anything new. 

[VertigoOne]

I think Eternal will be a straight improvement. That said:

 

+GRAPPLING HOOKS. The first game lacked the movement techs to give skilled players more of an avenue to go faster, but with grappling hooks combined with doublejumps and dashes you already have a lot of potential.

+EXPOSED ARMS

+Dashing. Your movement speed in D16 never felt that high, but having access to limited short burst of speed on top actually complements a lower speed nicely, like in Unreal Tournament.

+Things look less sci-fi military gunk. Visuals are more colorful, more standout, and take more after the originals, which I can only consider a good thing. Doom Slayer starts looking more like Guts (HUGE) from Berserk. It doesn't look like the game will take itself so embarrasingly seriously (LET ME LOCK YOU IN A ROOM UNTIL I'M DONE TALKING AND UNIRONICALLY HARP ON ABOUT HOW WE NEED ARGENT ENERGY FROM HELL AND HOW I DID LITERALLY NOTHING WRONG)

+No upgrade points (for what little we saw). Instead you just find upgrades in the field which directly give you a new abikity, no sifting through menus or whatever.

+Arena design appears to be less restrictive and more open

+Throwing equipment replaced with a shoulder-mounted cannon. I think they wanted to keep the Slayer's hands free, so this makes perfect sense. Stuff like being able to fire flamethrowers which makes enemies drop armor shards and gives you more of a reason to use it in conjunction with everything else

+The HUD doesn't look completely bland now

+Poles for extending jumps and platforming. Can't really say no to that.

+The Combat Shotgun seems like it's actually going to be more useful lategame, now that the Charged Burst has been replaced with a straight up full-auto mode, and you can fire three Explosive Shells before it needs to reload. I don't fully grasp the new sticky property of the explosive shells, though.

+Your pitiful riflebutt melee attack is now replaced with a proper punch or slice with the wristblade.

+Even higher-level enemies seem to be be flinchable with a melee attack, so it's more useful this time around

+Air control available by default?

+More enemy variants? I think I saw a flying imp.

+Classic plasma rifle is back, and it no longer sounds as wimpy as the one in D16. I love the *pop* effect when overloading an enemy with plasma. It still sounds like wank, though

+Glory Kills are less of a noobtrap now that doing one supercharges your next melee hit with this upgrade

+Exploitable weak points on enemies (making a Cacodemon eat a grenade)

 

=Dark Souls invasions? At least I can turn that stuff off. 

=Wallclimbing doesn't really seem to add much to movement or combat.

=Why can't I Glory Kill by dashing into things, just as I could in VFR?

=HUD lists shots remaining instead of ammo remaining for people who can't into math, but it's confused others by making them think there's separate ammo pools between more of the weapons, would be more helpful if there was a HUD option for letting you choose between shots/ammo remaining

=Extra lives? Seems like they're just going to be secret auto-revives considering you start out with no lives anyways

=Muh doom universe lmao

=When I saw the BFG10K level, I was half believing that you had to periodically stand under a piece of cover to avoid the radiation blastwaves when it fired, I'm kind of disappointed you don't, would have made for an interesting level by placing enemies like Mancubi in the safespots

 

-Looks like there's still going to be unskippable first-person cutscenes

-Chainsaw is still present to make ammo management a joke, maybe they nerfed it but it's hard to say

-The new enemies at display don't seem to add much, Arachnotrons can climb on ceilings but appear to be supercharged Imps in function (though I noticed them firing two streams of bullets from left and right which turn outwards in order to constrict you between both streams, which I'd consider a good thing) and the Pain Elemental doesn't appear to be that dangerous (it's "walking" animation looks hilarious however), enemy prioritization still feels non-existent

-Arena design still doesn't seem like it'll affect how combat plays out noticeably

-Sounds like Mick Gordon is running out of ideas and that the soundtrack in Eternal will barely stand out from the previous game

-You still have to press a button to switch between mods instead of being able to use both at once

 

I can hardly imagine Eternal being worse in any significant way. The new additions look great and toned down upgrades make it infinitely more appealing to me. But my beef still very largely lies with the core it inherited from the previous game. That is, a lack of enemy prioritization and resource management, unvaried level design which weakly affects combat, excessive downtime between fights, and a repetitive combat loop with nothing to really shake you out of your rut. We've only seen a little, maybe later enemies and levels prove to make a bigger difference, but I don't really expect that. It's shaping up to be an improvement, but it's not going as far as I would have liked.

Edited August 11, 2018 by VertigoOne : adding a negative

[Zemini]

Well Classic Doom was pretty much full cartoon in art style, so I am fine with it.  Better to not take itself too seriously or else you won't please even more people.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Zemini

[bigbossbalrog]

And it's complete disingenuous and utterly laughable (do you know anything of the franchise?!) to call this serious. 

You say your previous response was rambling nonsense, your current one is as well. 

[MTF Sergeant]

Man, who else is on ultra hype mode right now? I am watching the gameplay on REPEAT!

[Enforcer]

There are a couple of things that I don't like so far. Blood doesn't splatter on walls and on the floor like in D16 but they will probably include this later on. And the other thing is monsters appearing out of thin air. If you want to quickly spawn a demon just make him teleport. Don't even include roaring animations. Wham! And he's already on the battlefield. Just add the affects around him and don't brake the immersion. 

[MTF Sergeant]

Got a fun wallpaper for ya'll!

 

 

[MTF Sergeant]

This one HAS to be my most favourite part of the reveal!

 

THE DOOMSLAYER TAKES SHIT FROM NOBODY!!!!!

[Grain of Salt]

 

Glad they brought back glukkons, despite their game-breaking ability to summon sligs.

[Kristian Nebula]

I'm just simply in love with it! So amazing on so many levels! Looking forward to it like crazy, it's just what a modern DOOM2 should be. Expanding the original '16 in exactly how DOOM2 expanded the classic DOOM. Bravo!!! (gonna watch it for the 2nd time now) x)

[BLλZING_DUST]

I absolutely love it. If you ask me, id outdid themselves with this one. The only thing that concerns me is the lives system - are they really going to bring it back, or does it act as a checkpoint of some sort?

[dsm]

Ok, now that I've had time to mull things over, I'd like to give my detailed thoughts:

 

- The Doom Slayer still has the Praetor suit and it appears upgraded, but he lost the sleeves for some reason. I'm happy the Praetor Suit hasn't been ditched, but I'm hoping the story/lore provides a reason why he ditched the sleeves. He does look a bit beefier in the concept sketch now - almost too beefy, but that's a nitpick.

 

- SSG grappling hook along with the added movement appears to work well and could add new layers to both combat and exploration. I like.

 

- I love the environments. I mostly stand by what I said earlier that Hell on Earth looks like it should, with some surprises (the good kind of surprises, where you almost wish you'd thought of it yourself).

The only beef I could have so far, is that very little in the city ruins jumps out at me as being "really high tech and futuristic"; there's some glowy pillars and flashy billboards, but on closer inspection, that mostly looks like stuff you could see today. At least the car wrecks don't look like cars from the 1980s.

 

- Classic redesigns (monsters and some items). Not sure what I think. The Classic 1990s Doom fan in me has a massive nostalgia-boner, but the Doom 2016 fan in me is a little annoyed they apparently ditched what I thought were fresh and good-looking redesigns in the Doom 2016 title.

The new(/old) Mancubus seems like a completely different demon from the 2016 Mancubus (but with the exact same behavior/abilities) and I find that rather jarring. I can only hope that the game's lore provides a good reason for the sudden, massive change in appearance.

I have similar thoughts about the new Possessed Soldiers, who at first glance look redesigned just for the sake of nostalgia-pleasing (although I do like them a lot), but seeing as the 2016 counterparts were created from what the game called a "Lazarus wave", the new possessed could have become possessed through different means and that would be a good explanation (though it doesn't explain why these guys are out of uniform; that is why they forgot their helmets...).

I will say though, that I like the redesigned civilian possessed; they found a neat way to have civilian enemies that are easily identifiable without having to do a million different models for different clothing and such to make them more confusing to pick out from the crowd - this is essential in a fast-paced shooter like this.

I like the classic-looking medkits and health potions, but again find it weird that the perfectly functional and good-looking argent stim-pack designs of 2016 have been ditched. Again hoping for some lore explanations.

 

- New monsters. I quite like the monsters seen in-game, the look of them at least. The winged gargoyle-thingies don't strike me as out of place. I haven't seen any attacks or behaviors that strike me as game-changers though. The gargoyles seem mostly to function like Scrags from Quake 1 (i.e. Cacodemons, except these are squishier).

The Arachnotron seem to be lobbing plasma-based mortar projectiles (I don't know what's supposed to be special about those, but they might have some yet unidentified qualities that make them special), and I'm not sure I'm completely sold on it's lack of "laying-down-walls-of-plasma", but who knows how it's new behavior will actually affect gameplay in the final release? I do like its spidery movement animations and its ability to cling to ceilings and walls. Yes please.

The most interesting things about the Pain Elemental so far is that the Lost Souls it spawns hovers around it like a shield of sorts and that it will occasionally grab one and toss it at the player (but the classic "spit-it-at-the-player" attack also seems to be there). The Lost Souls don't appear to home in on the player though. Could be a good thing, but it could also make the PE feel more like "just another cacodemon", which I'm not so sure about.

I did not like the concept sketches of some of the new monsters - they look out of place and not very Doomy (referring to the "floating hover-tank skeletal Demon thing with a chainsaw hand" and the "Hell Knight thingie with an SSG").

 

Glory kills and other special attacks. They reused some animations, though on closer inspection, some of them have the minor change that they incorporate the Slayer's new wrist blade, which makes it a bit more ok. I did notice that there was an Imp glory kill that appeared to be exactly the same as in Doom 2016 without usage of the blade. Still slightly disappointed about the re-used animations. Fortunately, there seems to be quite a few new kill animations to along with the existing ones.

I do like that you can apparently do stuff like cause a Cacodemon to swallow a grenade, that's pretty sweet.

It took me a while to figure this out, but it appears that equipment items are launched from the Doom Slayer's Predator-styled shoulder cannon, which is nice. I was surprised to find that I liked the flamethrower-attack a lot, as I've never been a fan of the idea of a flame-thrower weapon in a Doom game (not sure how to explain why - something about it perhaps occupying the plasma rifle's particular niche and me just not been feeling it), but it works as an "equipment item" that "stuns" enemies, allowing you to finish them off with regular weapons; it's always awesome when a developer manages to implement a concept I'm not a fan of, but do it in a way that I can totally get behind, while pleasing those I disagree with.

 

New weapons/weapon makeovers: In the end, I'm pleased to see that we won't be using the same pump-action shotgun we did in Doom 2016 (gives me a reason to still go back and play Doom 2016 even when this shiny new Doom game out).

They're keeping the classic Doom gun concepts, but you're still using different ones and with mostly new, or at least improved, alt-fire modes. Like the Doom 2016 arsenal, the visual designs are a toss-up; some I think are really cool, some I currently think are a bit silly (Hell Rocket Launcher? Hand-held ballista?). The sillier designs might grow on me - after all, it's Doom, it's supposed to have a healthy dose of silly.

The new Plasma Rifle is a superb re-interpretation of the Classic Doom weapon, but I could nitpick that its design has the same weakness as the classic weapon: it does not look very practical. I do like that this version is bigger and bulkier like a massive general purpose machinegun type weapon and not so much an assault rifle (I like the assault rifle design a lot, but change is nice as well).

They appear to have addressed the issue of the Doom 2016 Plasma Rifle where it's primary fire became next to worthless late game, as this new one appears to have sort of an accumulated electrical field effect. I don't know exactly what it does, but it looks a bit like it creates some splash damage area-of-effect and does a bit of extra damage or something. I approve.

 

"Story elements": I like that they kept the silly holographic UAC representative spouting insane propaganda and it's nice that they made it female this time (for the sake of change and distinctiveness). The propaganda is in-keeping with the tone of the 2016 game, while still eliciting a few grins from me. Also, the UAC appears to have gone so far out insane that they actually wish to "terraform" ("Helliform"?) Earth to bring their "Mortally challenged Friends" over for a big party.

I was surprised to find that I was pleased to see other living, fully Human NPCs in the game (considering how well their absence worked in Doom 2016), but the scene where the Doom slayer walks through a control room with UAC employees who react to his presence currently strikes me as superb - I only hope that if this scene is in the final release, it will at least allow the player to directly control the Doom Slayer in this scene. If not, at least it's not too long and it is rather rewatchable.

I like that there's a BFG 10k in the game and it comes in the form of a gigantic, Quake 2-styled "Big Gun" turret cannon and that the Doom Slayer is on a mission involving it somehow.

I noticed that the Automap has a "Demonic Corruption" bar and I'm guessing it ties into how many Demons are present. It's a small thing, but I like that a lot. The simple idea that the Doom Slayer is slowly beating back Hell's corrupting influence on the environment by removing the Demonic Presence, while also providing sort of a classic-type tally of how many enemies are in the level. *Approval*.

 

Other observations: A lot of the item pickups appear a bit too cartoonish looking. I'm hoping that's only because the art is incomplete, because I find it rather reduces the sense of "I'm playing a CGI movie" that was present in Doom 2016. Shotgun ammo seems more inspired by the classic "4 shotgun shells" pickup sprite as opposed to the "Quake 2 style shell boxes" in Doom 2016. I like that.

 

tl;dr: - but with a few reservations about some jarring changes.

Edited August 11, 2018 by dsm

[Enforcer]

Ok. Can somebody explain to me what +1 Life actually does? :) I can see how it can work if you are playing on Ultra Nightmare. But other than that I have no ideas. Maybe it has something to do with PvP? But what if you are playing offline? Your thoughts.  

[qdash]

Everything about gameplay and art design is amazing, mindblowing e t.c. I'm really, really happy about it. No altars - nice! Hook and dodges - AWESOME, faster movement is that Doom really needs. Blade works fine too - I hope they will not add pistol in Doom Eternal by this reason. Basic enemies dying by two bullets and awesome headshots - F*** yeah! Thank you Hugo Martin.

 

At another hand no multiplayer content, it's main thing I looking for, because I wanna play a hundreds or THOUSANDS hours in this game!

[DoctorObviously]

3 hours ago, Touchdown said:

I had to give it some time, let it sink in before commenting properly. I wrote a whole other message yesterday but it came off as a long judgemental rant and I thought it was too emotional to post so I scrapped it and started over. I still don't know if this one's good enough but it'll have to do.

Let me summarize my thoughts by saying this: DOOM Eternal seems to be exactly what Diablo III was.

If you're a Diablo fan you know what I'm talking about. If not: Diablo started out as a dark fantasy game. With Diablo II they expanded the world so it wasn't as heavy anymore but it was still a dark fantasy with a wonderful tone and atmosphere. Diablo III took a nosedive into a significantly more cartoony, light-hearted, fairy tale style that was borderline WarCraft in terms of its vibe. It was, to me as a huge fan of the franchise, absolutely amazing in terms of gameplay. But in terms of style and atmosphere it wasn't Diablo anymore.

And that's what DOOM Eternal looks like to me.

If you're interested in having a bit more background on my take on DOOM, I recommend reading my post about the tone of the game and if you have already, you can probably see where this is going.

I thought that DOOM4 managed to have a good balance between the stylized and realistic visuals. Environments looked great, enemies for the most part were realistic and there were really only a few infamous exceptions, like the damn Pinky Demon that looked like a toy. The animations were superb and felt real. Visually it expanded upon the realism of DOOM3 while making sure it's vibrant and interesting.

DOOM Eternal on the other hand took the few things I hated about DOOM4, silliness and cartoony designs, and made it into a whole game. All the new monsters look like toys. The Pain Elemental is particulary bad. Not only it looks like a dumb cartoon monster (literally!) but it's animations are absolutely abysmal. What the hell was that bouncy movement at 23:45 supposed to be? Is that a joke? Not to mention it's 'waaah' expression and the huge stupid eye looking to the sides when he got executed. I didn't think they could make a monster that's worse than the D4 Pinky but evidently I was wrong. And why exactly does ANYBODY think that a 100%-faithful direct recreation of 25 year old assets in a modern engine is a good idea? It's not. It looks stupid as hell. Funny thing is I knew it would happen. I called it, in the very thread I linked above. I knew they would make it even more silly.

And yet the teaser was so good... It was spot-on. The atmosphere, the visuals, everything was perfect. But in-game it looks terrible. Compare the Arachnotron, what a difference, what a massive downgrade. It looks so ominous in the teaser. But of course we need teh blue glowing eyes and cartoony animations!

In terms of gameplay it's an extension of DOOM4. It looks fun and I'm sure it'll be. The environments look absolutely beautiful, as expected. Weapons look great and somehow they've managed not to screw up the Plasma Rifle (even though its sound is horrible). Music was garbage and it's ironic that they have a literal 1-up extra life considering id removed 'lives' from the original DOOM because they thought it had to be more realistic. The damage system looks neat but it'd be better if they had persistent corpses because there won't be enough time to appreciate it otherwise. Can't help but notice that the physics are garbage, enemies fall down and fall apart in the most unrealistic ways possible, not to mention there's hardly any blood or guts when they get sliced with the blade.

Obviously I will play it. I'll give it a fair shot and I'll try to enjoy it for what it is. But I honestly can't say I share everyone's enthusiasm. The Pain Elemental alone ruined my otherwise positive impressions.

 

I'm actually very glad to finally read somebody who isn't licking this new Doom. No matter how unpopular an opinion on a game, there's always somebody out there who agrees with yours. 

 

I've never had the thought: "It's yet another Doom game. It's a brand now, gotta make lotsa sequels." but with this one I did. Even saying that I was dissapointed isn't accurately describing it. They took the whiff of sarcasm and sillyness that DOOM 2016 had, and let it spill over everything, from the goofy looking demons to the stupid Darksiders-esque looking weapons with the rocket / sphere launcher being the absolute worst example of this, with the weapon being entirely skull-themed. It looks fucking retarded, like something that could come straight from some overpriced roguelite indie game on Steam. And while it's very early to judge the music right now, even that seems worse. 

 

DOOM 16 found the perfect balance between making you feel incredibly aggressive and mighty, utterly brutal combat, incredibly destructive guns, great lore, and an atmosphere that feels real, with a tinge of insanity, like cosmic horror. Mortals are utterly incapable of battling this threat. The Revenant pulling off your arms or the Baron pulling off your legs feels dramatic and humiliating, and when I watched the Quakecon demo I just couldn't take anything seriously.

 

It's like every new decision that was made for Eternal seems wrong, in every single facet of it. The developers often claim that, if it doesn't feel DOOM enough, they don't include it in their game, but nothing in Eternal feels very DOOM at all. The only thing I liked from what was shown was the BFG10K sequence, but that goodness quickly ended when the elevator reached it's destination, and the DOOMSLAYER clumsily lumbered around, killing all sorts of demons with a single plasma rifle. How come the worst players in the world always get to show off a brand new FPS game? 

Edited August 11, 2018 by DoctorObviously

[RightField]

Oof, I guess I can always count on doomworld for negative pessimistic opinions on pretty much everything, including what looks like to be the best new fps this decade. It looks like they made everything more fun, and I like fun, so I'll love this.

[eharper256]

Generally happy with the trailer.

 

Hell on Earth is a good interpretation.

 

Personally, I'm ambivalent about the wristblade. I felt the glory kills were more visceral when Doomguy was punching and kicking everything. Same with the newold plasma rifle. Its only really a classic design because of its 'boing!' noise.

 

I had an 'oh fuck no!' when invasions were announced. Fortunately, they calmed me by saying its optional, unlike Darksouls, where you have to deliberately play with your internet disconnected. IMHO, its the worst kind of multiplayer 'feature' to ever smear its way across the gaming scene, due to how it griefs your singleplayer experience.

 

Strolling through Phobos was another nudge to establishing how badass Doomguy is; and was an excellent scene.

 

I did think the person playing was pretty awful though, they were just leaping around with no real care for clearing the area, wasting the plasma rifle on chump change, psychotically changing weapons for no reason and having no real focus. If I recall, the same thing was the case on the D2016 trailer though, and I understand its for the attempt to show off more stuff, but even so.

 

A bit sad that the Gauss and HAR and RL have changed/gone. The Ballistae is dumb. I mean, it would be fine if they literally had a pneumatic stake firing thing, but its a bit silly to have the tensile string just because. I suppose the 'I backstab with a ballista!' gamers meme will live again though.

 

I actually didn't notice Pain Elementals firing any lost souls to begin with; had to go back and pause to notice them. I'm guessing that spamming the level with them is not going to be possible in the new engine.

 

Same with the Arachnotron; I was waiting in anticipation for them to vomit plasma everywhere but it never happened.

 

The Archie reveal was nice, though I didn't recognise it as being an Archie until it took on 'the pose' as he's way too buff and armoured compared to a classic Archie.

 

Overall, good, with reservations. Doubtlessly I will still enjoy it immensely, and its a solid trailer overall.

[Kaos]

Well I think it depends on what is doom for you. For some people is doom 3, all doom and gloom and scary, for others is classic doom, with his colorful palette, silly demons and over the top environment design. 

To be honest if I want scary, I'm not going to play doom. I'll play dead space (the first 2 at least) instead.

Doom in my heart is fast, furious and badass. I don't like much some of the new designs, I think the health pack is silly and some monsters failed to impress, but the gameplay is all good. Not sure about the 1 up power up, since I don't see much point in it. It's a bit too platform. 

I think several stuff presented are still in a concept state. The rocket launcher wasn't too impressing and I'm sure some weapons will be different and feel different. About the ammo management, I think the best way to not make a weapon feel obsolete is to employ various type of enemies with different vulnerabilities. If a meat mass demon is vulnerable to the shotgun pellets, a high armoured one should instead shrug them like fresh rain and you should need to hit him with something with more penetrating power.

 

I don't think we should take anything we saw as final (that calssic medpack looked more like a Easter egg than a final design) but so far I think it looks good.

[Gideon020]

Honestly, after seeing that gameplay reveal, I would have bought Doom Eternal even if it sucked. Nice touch that the BFG10k is basically the Strogg's Big Gun though.