DOOM Eternal Gameplay Reveal Impressions

[elarmadillo3]

6 hours ago, bigbossbalrog said:

Look at the like to dislike ratio genius. 

Yeah, it's not that obvious, genius.

[Duke of Pathoris]

10 minutes ago, Stale Meat said:

-The bits of story/how the Doomslayer is treated in the reveal is too silly or over the top

That's the best bit, especially when he walks onto the space station and the guards try to stop him. It's like if Master Chief were against the UNSC.

 

Also, it looks like some humans are trying to stop the demons. If I see a big battle between UAC marines and demons, I'll be a very happy man with a very fulfilled childhood.

10 minutes ago, Stale Meat said:

some prefer a darker and grimmer experience with a haunting soundtrack and a sense of surviving against the horrors of hell, and others want a cinematic and story driven adventure with cool looking places and enemies, with plenty of lore behind it all to give them more meaning and purpose.

That's what Doom³ was for. Common consensus is that it missed the mark for a doom game.

[elarmadillo3]

12 minutes ago, Stale Meat said:

Some people prefer intense and bombastic action and feeling like an unstoppable badass while listening to fast music, some prefer a darker and grimmer experience with a haunting soundtrack and a sense of surviving against the horrors of hell, and others want a cinematic and story driven adventure with cool looking places and enemies

I want all 3.

[SYS]

Similar to how one can feel about Doom 2:

This standalone expansion pack is going to be extremely high quality. Not as exciting as Doom 2016, but more Doom to play is a beautiful thing. And unlike the Doom 2 I expect them to raise the bar on level design. 

[Stale Meat]

20 minutes ago, Duke of Pathoris said:

That's the best bit, especially when he walks onto the space station and the guards try to stop him. It's like if Master Chief were against the UNSC.

 

Also, it looks like some humans are trying to stop the demons. If I see a big battle between UAC marines and demons, I'll be a very happy man with a very fulfilled childhood.

Same, the only bit from the scrapped Doom 4 that I kinda wanted to see was the UAC/Armies of Earth desperately fighting and losing against the encroaching forces of Hell. I am also glad that at least some of the UAC has enough sense to call bullshit on their cultist superiors and at least try to fight off the demon hordes rather than submitting. It would feel pretty good to actually curb stomp on Hell and have at least some people you can look back at as being saved, so I hope we see more of this in the game.

[[McD] James]

The music is still about as appealing as having a power drill going through my ear. Everything else looks fine. 

[antiriad]

5 hours ago, Shaviro said:

...but the point stands that to me Doom is much less about being a badass and finding 1ups and much more about surviving against a relentless enemy in a dark and intimidating world.

 

This. 

[pulkmees]

That bigass lightsword looked like it came from that green looking gargoyle environment. Which would make the Phobos mission take place later in the game.

 

OR they just added it in just to show it off.

[Stale Meat]

1 hour ago, pulkmees said:

That bigass lightsword looked like it came from that green looking gargoyle environment. Which would make the Phobos mission take place later in the game.

 

OR they just added it in just to show it off.

I think that sword might just be the Crucible as seen at the end of the last game. Although the blade looks exactly the same, it still raises a few questions. Why is the handle different, and how does Doomguy get it back from Hayden?

[jazzmaster9]

7 hours ago, elarmadillo3 said:

 

3. The level design is either just like an Invasion map or looks like it was made by a 2 year old

 

I thought this Thread was about Doom Eternal not TNT Evilution...

[Flesh420]

8 hours ago, Shaviro said:

 

Doom was anything but arcade-like when it came out.

I don't know where you got colorful = cartoon. It's cartoony because of certain animations and a host of other factors.

 

Yea.  It's annoying seeing everyone think Doom is all about being a bad ass and metal and all that dumb shit.  The whole premise of the 'Doom Slayer' is an actual slap in the face of the original Doom.

 

When Doom came out you didn't run, you walked.  And it actually felt like you were trying to make it out of the base alive against all odds.  It was scary, too. 

Not that I didn't like Doom '16 (which after time has passed it was viewed as a good shooter because it was knee-deep in a genre of mediocre.  All the console crap they shoved in to appease a larger money-base just doesn't really work) because I did, but I haven't gone back to play it like I thought I would originally. 

 

Regardless, I'll be doing another major PC upgrade to play DE.

[RightField]

The original doom was not about being a badass but they discovered this direction in the last game and it was an incredible refreshing take on fps'es that made doom2016 unique. Also it was fun as hell. Of course they're gonna double down on this. 

[SYS]

1 hour ago, Flesh420 said:

 

When Doom came out you didn't run, you walked. 

To be fair when Doom came out hardware was really slow, and nobody knew they had to hold down the shift key. 

[jazzmaster9]

I notice some people's reason for for not liking Doom Eternal and Doom 2016 is  "Its not what doom should be" or "This isn't what doom is all about" as if that is something that is completely objective.

I can understand criticism about the Music and how Glory Kills break the action, but the "Its not what doom should be" argument sounds absolutely silly to me.

One person might believe that Doom is about exploration and the other about the Fastpace Combat. One person says Doom is horror while the other says Doom is Action packed.

 

I think we all need to understand is that UDoom/Doom2 are not the same game as Doom 16/Doom Eternal.

Just like how Symphony of the Night is not the same as CastleVania 1-3,

So we should look what it offers not what the older Doom games offer.

Edited August 12, 2018 by jazzmaster9

[dsm]

9 hours ago, Stale Meat said:

My take is that by "cartoony" they mean several things:

 

-The color pallet is too bright and vibrant, ending up looking more exaggerated than realistic looking

-The gunplay/gameplay is unconventional because of the weapon designs or the weapon mechanics

-The bits of story/how the Doomslayer is treated in the reveal is too silly or over the top

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, I think different people have different tastes and expectations in how they enjoy Doom. Some people prefer intense and bombastic action and feeling like an unstoppable badass while listening to fast music, some prefer a darker and grimmer experience with a haunting soundtrack and a sense of surviving against the horrors of hell, and others want a cinematic and story driven adventure with cool looking places and enemies, with plenty of lore behind it all to give them more meaning and purpose. Many of people like some overlap, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these ways to enjoy the franchise. The various games and much of its user made content has used these different kinds of directions and more as the foundation of their experience, and while it has led plenty of Doom fans who have quite different ideas as to what the ideal Doom experience would be, I don't think any of these are a bad or wrong ways to play or expect from future titles.

I had a feeling it might be something like that but I wasn't sure, thanks for clarifying.

 

I do respect that the new Doom series' tone is not for everyone. I'm well aware there's a lot of fans that consider the orginal Doom to be a scary game and as there is definitely merit to that statement, I respect it.

 

What I think is odd is that people react almost like Doom Eternal being silly, bright and colourful is unexpected or "totally unacceptable". Doom 2016 established a bright, colourful, silly tone about "being a massive badass" and that game was rather successful. I'd say it's a no-brainer that the sequel was going to be more of the same.

I also don't know where people get the notion that Doom Eternal is more cartoony (some of the sillier/funnier glory kills perhaps?). Doom 2016's Mars was a pretty bold orange with a bold yellow sky (among the first things I noticed when I first played the game and got out of the intro bunker), so it was definitely what these people apparently refer to as "cartoony". And you had glory kills like feeding a Mancubus its own heart and ripping out a Cacodemon's eye.

I can understand criticism about the Music and how Glory Kills break the action, but the "Its not what doom should be" argument sounds absolutely silly to me.

One person might believe that Doom is about exploration and the other about the Fastpace Combat. One person says Doom is horror while the other says Doom is Action packed.

 

I think we all need to understand is that UDoom/Doom2 are not the same game as Doom 16/Doom Eternal.

Just like how Symphony of the Night is not the same as CastleVania 1-3,

So we should look what it offers not what the older Doom games offer.

Pretty much this. Classic Doom still exists and is still playable, so let the new series do their thing.

 

To be honest, I did not really consider Doom 3 to be "what Doom should be", but I decided to accept that it was what "Doom 3 is" and rolled with it and it is my opinion that it worked in my favour, because I got a lot of enjoyment out of that game, even learned to appreciate "moody soundscape music" (which, up to that point, I considered "boring" and "repetitive") and atmosphere much better.

I would recommend that people being upset about NU Doom's direction to just "roll with it" if they can, because you might learn to appreciate it for what it is and you will be richer for it, but please keep in mind, that I'm not asking you to kiss Id Software's butt; your criticisms are still valid, but maybe try not to come across as entitled, because that will not serve you.

[Vermil]

5 hours ago, Flesh420 said:

 

Yea.  It's annoying seeing everyone think Doom is all about being a bad ass and metal and all that dumb shit.  The whole premise of the 'Doom Slayer' is an actual slap in the face of the original Doom.

 

When Doom came out you didn't run, you walked.  And it actually felt like you were trying to make it out of the base alive against all odds.  It was scary, too. 

Put it better than I could have. Serious Sam, Painkiller etc are great games, but aren't Doom-like.

[Touchdown]

I'll just speak for myself and I'll try to clarify it once and for all so that there's no confusion.

I absolutely love DOOM4. It took me 5min to get completely sold on the gameplay and even though I initially thought certain things were too arcade'y (Chainsaw kill give ammo, stuff falls out of enemies). The gameplay value of those features was vastly more important and it convinced me. I love the execution system which I think is extremely satisfying and helps the gameplay. I did think that the game should have had more darker and tense moments as opposed to non-stop super fast action. I also didn't like FEW elements such as silly hologram messages or the design of certain enemies. I thought that the enemy artstyle was inconsistent, ranging anywhere from gritty (Hellknight, Summoner) to cartoony/toy-like (Pinky). That's all. Those things did not ruin the game for me or prevent me from appreciating its other elements, I just didn't like them.

With DOOM Eternal I love pretty much everything except certain monster designs. Some people say that the original DOOM had cartoony monsters. I have already answered that argument in this thread. I'll also add that the environmnents in both DOOM4 and DE are by every account realistic. So pardon me for expecting consistency between the locations and the monster designs, which I personally think is not there. My criticism does not include every single element. It's about few specific things. For instance I don't think that when you have environments of such detail and such gritty realism it's a good idea to recreate a silly PE sprite from 25 years ago 1:1 and give it a retarded bouncy 'walking' animation even though it's floating.

Fair enough?

Edited August 12, 2018 by Touchdown

[dsm]

11 minutes ago, Touchdown said:

I did think that the game should have had more darker and tense moments as opposed to non-stop super fast action. I also didn't like FEW elements such as silly hologram messages or the design of certain enemies. I thought that the enemy artstyle was inconsistent, ranging anywhere from gritty (Hellknight, Summoner) to cartoony/toy-like (Pinky). That's all. Those things did not ruin the game for me or prevent me from appreciating its other elements, I just didn't like them.

With DOOM Eternal I love pretty much everything except certain monster designs. Some people say that the original DOOM had cartoony monsters. I have already answered that argument in this thread. I'll also add that the environmnents in both DOOM4 and DE are by every account realistic. So pardon me for expecting consistency between the locations and the monster designs, which I personally think is not there. My criticism does not include every single element. It's about few specific things. For instance I don't think that when you have environments of such detail and such gritty realism it's a good idea to recreate a silly PE sprite from 25 years ago 1:1 and give it a retarded bouncy 'walking' animation even though it's floating.

All valid criticisms. An excellent summary of issues that I'd agree are indeed present in the NU Doom series (they just don't bother me as much as they appear to bother you).

 

I will not discuss every one of your issues, because I recognize that it's down to personal taste, but I will talk a little about the monster designs and why I consider them valid despite the real flaws you described:

 

You consider the NU Doom pinky cartoony and silly looking, which I can't really argue with as it is a valid complaint, but personally, I greatly appreciate that it is instantly recognizable as a Doom pinky. Even before it even attacks, I can tell what it's supposed to be. By comparison, the Doom 3 pinky looks unrecognizable; I wouldn't know that thing was supposed to be the Pinky Demon if it weren't for the fact that it runs fast, is somewhat tanky and wants to eat my face. I can appreciate the creativity behind that design, but if I've learned anything from Doom 2016, it's that I far prefer the demons to be recognizable and to retain the "personality" of their original counterparts, rather than being taken very far in a different visual direction.

The NU Doom pinky walks on its hind legs, like the original, it has glowing, rage-filled eyes, like the original. It has short, stubby, yet slightly curved horns sticking out from the sides of its head, like the original. The functional mechanics are different, true, but I prefer that if the new mechanics stay true to the original's personality and the new mechanics aren't too broken (I do not consider them broken, they work well as far as I'm concerned.)

I'm pretty big on getting the sense that these are "the same Demons I fought back then".

 

I'd take "cartoony but immediately recognizable" any day and for me, the positives far outweigh the negatives in this case.

 

On the opposite spectrum, you have the Hell Knight, which retains its Doom 3 design, which I approve of because I like the Doom 3 Hell Knight a lot and that design works very well with the "personality" it exhibits in NU Doom (i.e. it's a melee bruiser that beats you silly, blindly rushing at you and with a natural "shield" to protect its eyes, while looking scary and disturbing to psychologically throw you off). I was never really a fan of the classic Doom II Hell Knight (didn't have any "Knightly" qualities to its looks and personality, but the new one certainly does), so taking the Doom 3 Hell Knight and dumping it in the new Doom series and giving it more of a melee focus, seems to me to be a case of "The best of two worlds".

 

While I can understand where you're coming from, it doesn't bother me, because I'm thinking that "Evil has many faces" and not every representation of Evil absolutely has to be a Walking, Disturbing Nightmare. You can have the straight-up "Raging Brutality" right alongside the aforementioned "Walking Horror" and even the "Silly-looking-but-takes-itself-way-serious". Again, I consider the positives to be firmly outweighing the negatives.

Fair enough?

Very fair, good Sir, and well said :)

[seed]

1 hour ago, Touchdown said:

a silly PE sprite from 25 years ago 1:1 and give it a retarded bouncy 'walking' animation even though it's floating.

 

I think that was one of the funniest and best parts of the footage. I'm actually glad they added some tongue in cheek humour, this PE is killer. After all the classics had plenty of it as well.

[DooM_RO]

The PE was kind of a goofball in the originals too.

[Kristian Nebula]

Anyone else noticed that the HK has eyes this time around?

[explorix]

So the word cartoony has been mentioned here quite often, I'll throw in my personal one: Childish.

 

Ever since DOOM 4 I have the feeling that the new DOOM games look really childish. Not only the art style but also the themes
have changed massively in the last years (Themes being this talk about hell-energy cmonBruh and the cring-worthy "demon" voice from
DOOM 4 that explained your story in the game).

 

Some people have mentioned, that if ID had the Technology of DOOM III when they created the original, the game would have looked
just like DOOM III. I'm on that boat as well. I'd even say, if they had the technology of Quake, the original would have looked much
more sinister and dark, rather than what we have today. Not in it's colors, Quake being different than DOOM, but more realistic and horrifying.

 

And this whole talk of DOOM's art design being a "Schoolbook cover of a 80's Heavy-Metal Teenager is nonsense. This Marty guy really has brainwashed
some people into believing that, since he was the first to ever say this when DOOM 4 was revealed, and the same questions about the art
were raised as they are now again with DOOM 5.

 

Clearly what many people missed in DOOM 4 was a Hell that was actually scary or at least unsettling. I think we can all agree on that.
The problem is that DOOM 5 will have nothing of that either. Again.
DOOM 4 had no meat textures, no hanging, moving or tortured corpses. It had no strange sights or focal points and no scary ambient sound.
Actually there were angels chanting... in Hell.

 

DOOM 5 goes in the same direction, and cements that with a first hand look in the reveal. Why did nobody in this thread ever mention
that the organic flesh growth in the trailer looked gross? Or actually mention it at all? Why has nobody cited the concept art of the
new hell levels looking like "WTF?" or "I didn't want to go there"?

 

It's my opinion that things have changed. Changed from an adult game to a kids FPS. I wouldn't be surprised if DOOM 5 actually got a Teen Rating.

 

For some people DOOM is about fast gameplay, for others there's ALSO the aspect of the environments.
And in my opinion they lack about everything that the old ID games had. ID's old games never appealed to the 0815 gamer, they were for people
who liked gore, unsettling and even disturbing stuff. NU DOOM has none of that. It's so focused on jump-n-gun gameplay, that the spirit of
the environments in the old ID games has been completely ignored. All old ID games had focal points in the levels which made you say
Wow. Tim Willits called this one of the most important principles of a level designer. Yet the NU DOOM games are lacking this.
They look boring, clean and uninspired to be honest. And that brings me to my final conclusion:

 

DOOM has gone mainstream.

 

Call me a hater, whatever. I wouldn't mind the new games so much, IF they only had full mod support, so that talented people
could (re)create what ID's games always meant to me: Fast-paced action in a hellish/disturbing/unsettling and well designed sci-fi environment.

Here are my pluses though:

 

+New DOOM game in 2019
+More variety in levels
+Good graphics I guess?

 

But:

 

-Recycle of DOOM 4; animations, Glory kills, game design, being the most noticable.

[Tuskin38]

I don’t see how this game looks mainstream at all. 

 

Cacodemons have blue blood again. That makes me happy.

 

[Tuskin38]

1 hour ago, explorix said:

I wouldn't be surprised if DOOM 5 actually got a Teen Rating.

Lmao what? Please tell me you’re not serious.

 

even Halo 1 2 and 3 got an M ratings just because because of the Flood, and they were not as gory as this.

 

Nothing in this game looks childish, I wouldn’t let anyone under the age of 18 play this.

[jazzmaster9]

 

1 hour ago, explorix said:

So the word cartoony has been mentioned here quite often, I'll throw in my personal one: Childish.

 

Ever since DOOM 4 I have the feeling that the new DOOM games look really childish. Not only the art style but also the themes
have changed massively in the last years (Themes being this talk about hell-energy cmonBruh and the cring-worthy "demon" voice from
DOOM 4 that explained your story in the game).

 

Some people have mentioned, that if ID had the Technology of DOOM III when they created the original, the game would have looked
just like DOOM III. I'm on that boat as well. I'd even say, if they had the technology of Quake, the original would have looked much
more sinister and dark, rather than what we have today. Not in it's colors, Quake being different than DOOM, but more realistic and horrifying.

 

And this whole talk of DOOM's art design being a "Schoolbook cover of a 80's Heavy-Metal Teenager is nonsense. This Marty guy really has brainwashed
some people into believing that, since he was the first to ever say this when DOOM 4 was revealed, and the same questions about the art
were raised as they are now again with DOOM 5.

 

Clearly what many people missed in DOOM 4 was a Hell that was actually scary or at least unsettling. I think we can all agree on that.
The problem is that DOOM 5 will have nothing of that either. Again.
DOOM 4 had no meat textures, no hanging, moving or tortured corpses. It had no strange sights or focal points and no scary ambient sound.
Actually there were angels chanting... in Hell.

 

DOOM 5 goes in the same direction, and cements that with a first hand look in the reveal. Why did nobody in this thread ever mention
that the organic flesh growth in the trailer looked gross? Or actually mention it at all? Why has nobody cited the concept art of the
new hell levels looking like "WTF?" or "I didn't want to go there"?

 

It's my opinion that things have changed. Changed from an adult game to a kids FPS. I wouldn't be surprised if DOOM 5 actually got a Teen Rating.

 

For some people DOOM is about fast gameplay, for others there's ALSO the aspect of the environments.
And in my opinion they lack about everything that the old ID games had. ID's old games never appealed to the 0815 gamer, they were for people
who liked gore, unsettling and even disturbing stuff. NU DOOM has none of that. It's so focused on jump-n-gun gameplay, that the spirit of
the environments in the old ID games has been completely ignored. All old ID games had focal points in the levels which made you say
Wow. Tim Willits called this one of the most important principles of a level designer. Yet the NU DOOM games are lacking this.
They look boring, clean and uninspired to be honest. And that brings me to my final conclusion:

 

DOOM has gone mainstream.

 

Call me a hater, whatever. I wouldn't mind the new games so much, IF they only had full mod support, so that talented people
could (re)create what ID's games always meant to me: Fast-paced action in a hellish/disturbing/unsettling and well designed sci-fi environment.

Here are my pluses though:

 

+New DOOM game in 2019
+More variety in levels
+Good graphics I guess?

 

But:

 

-Recycle of DOOM 4; animations, Glory kills, game design, being the most noticable.

Id software sold out man, they want mainstream kiddie games with Blood and Colorful Level design now. They dont care about us TRV FANZ anymore... 

They need to be more adult with their Brown Filters and Gritty realism and real story with cutscenes.

 

This commen tho, just no. If this is considered Childish then Black Ops 4 must be for the elderly.

 

Most of the criticsm here is, once again,  "this is not what Doom should be because i know 100% what doom is about." Not 

"what merits and cons does this game have as a standalone"

Which sounds silly and self centered.

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by jazzmaster9

[mammajamma]

I sort of disagree with the people who say how Doom's current direction isn't faithful to how it originally was. It isn't, in tone, for sure, but current id isn't basing doom on how the game was, but how the game itself has evolved.

 

People were scared shitless for sure when Doom came out, but the game itself was incredibly popular from for a solid 2.5 years from the moment it came out to the moment quake did. As they played more of it the scariness factor wore off, and as user WADs took off, barely anybody was creating anything meant to be scary, per se. Very few of the "Doom clones" that were being made at that point were aiming for horror either.

 

The growing popularity of WASD+mouse as a control scheme basically made the vanilla game somewhat trivial to beat, so user WADs compensated by adding more monsters and having trickier placements. The original levels themselves had collection stats an a completion time to beat, giving players the impression they should try to complete the level as fast as possible. When Masters of Doom was published in 2005, it described in great detail how id would remove mechanics or even entire design documents if they felt it would slow the gameplay down. (This explains how Doom is seen as "go fast while killing hordes of demons"; the book is also the basis for the "heavy metal teenage art direction" take, since it talked about the various devs' love of metal, D&D, and in Romero's case, juvenile gross-out drawings involving gore.)

 

The community itself never really took the scariness aspect too seriously either, through constant memes and in-jokes involving mechanics and monsters, in fact the community itself is probably to blame for the whole "Doomslayer is a badass" angle. Either from how most WADs are generally played through, or legions of people getting into nasty comment wars in Youtube videos about whether Doomguy could beat Master Chief.

[Tuskin38]

4 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

Id software sold out man, they want mainstream kiddie games with Blood and Colorful Level design now.

yeah no

 

If they wanted to be mainstream they would have stuck with the original Doom 4 concept, the call of duty clone.

[jazzmaster9]

2 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

yeah no

 

If they wanted mainstream they would have stuck with the original Doom 4, the call of duty clone.

I was being sarcastic... iD didnt sell out, but I guess making a game they dont like is considered selling out now

[Tuskin38]

Just now, jazzmaster9 said:

I was being sarcastic... iD didnt sell out, but I guess making a game they dont like is considered selling out now

My bad, I just woke up.

[crylon]

I do miss the feel of doomguy being a badass but still a relatively normal human. Though, I still felt some tension in DOOM 2016 because of how intense the combat and enemies were.