What exactly do they mean by "meaningful choices" and "resource management"??

[DooM_RO]

From what I gathered from certain interviews, they said that they want to make each pickup meaningful such as each rocket and health pickup.

 

However, from what I have seen, they seem to function the same as in Doom 2016 as in they are just kind of "there". Now they were super useful, even mandatory on ultra nightmare but during normal gameplay what exactly is the point of these pickups if you can just get health, ammo and armor from special moves at the press of a button? What importance does the 50 armor pickup have if I can just get 60 from flaming some zombies? If I miss 3 rockets why does it matter if I can just get 15 from using 1 chainsaw fuel on a zombie? I just can't see the "meaningful" and "management" part, which I am glad they acknowledged but I just don't see it. It basically feels like you have infinite health, ammo and armor in these games. 

 

I have always stated that I like the glory kills. They fit Doom but they are way too powerful. Yes, I think there is such a think as "too much" in a Doom game. You shouldn't get more than 25 health from a GK.

 

In my maps if you miss 3 rockets you are not getting more but hey I'm rather stingy with ammo.

 

If they read this I really hope they adress this in an interview.

[Robo_Cola]

From what I can speculate glory kills/chainsaw attacks give back a little bit less health and ammo this time around.  Health pickups are useful when you're in a particularly bad situation surrounded by tough monsters without means to stagger them quickly.  So that, hitting weakspots like the arachnotrons gun, swinging by the monkey bars for better aim, etc. is what they mean by "meaningful choices" that can turn the tide in this game since death is right around the corner every second.

[DooM_RO]

4 hours ago, STILES said:

From what I can speculate glory kills/chainsaw attacks give back a little bit less health and ammo this time around.  Health pickups are useful when you're in a particularly bad situation surrounded by tough monsters without means to stagger them quickly.  So that, hitting weakspots like the arachnotrons gun, swinging by the monkey bars for better aim, etc. is what they mean by "meaningful choices" that can turn the tide in this game since death is right around the corner every second.

 

Nope, you get about the same as in Doom 2016, at least on medium difficulty. 

[whirledtsar]

Hm, where did you get the idea that theyre emphasizing pickups in the wild? In their panel today at Quakecon they explicitly stated that there are few of them, and the primary means of acquiring ammo/health/armor is killing.

 

I think what theyre referring to with phrases like "combat puzzle" and "meaninggul choices" is strategizing when to use your abilities (glory kills + blood punch, shoulder cannon, chainsaw) to get resources, what weapons to use on which enemies (eg. plasma explodes shields of enemies that have them), and what parts of the demons to target (since they have weak spots and certain destructible limbs/weapons). The combat looks a lot more deep than 2016.

[DooM_RO]

1 hour ago, whirledtsar said:

Hm, where did you get the idea that theyre emphasizing pickups in the wild? In their panel today at Quakecon they explicitly stated that there are few of them, and the primary means of acquiring ammo/health/armor is killing.

 

I think what theyre referring to with phrases like "combat puzzle" and "meaninggul choices" is strategizing when to use your abilities (glory kills + blood punch, shoulder cannon, chainsaw) to get resources, what weapons to use on which enemies (eg. plasma explodes shields of enemies that have them), and what parts of the demons to target (since they have weak spots and certain destructible limbs/weapons). The combat looks a lot more deep than 2016.

 

They said it twice. Once in an interview I forgot and once yesterday. So they seem to be contradicting themselves.

[DooM_RO]

I never really liked the idea of GKs being the primary source of health and ammo. Again, I like the mechanic but they should be more like supplements. So GKs should give max 25 health and health packs should give 50-75. If you make a mistake, you should feel it and more than a few seconds. Right now it seems that consequences for mistakes means going from 200 to 80 in one hit but getting all your health back after 5 seconds. For me one of the best Doom moments is when you have 50 health and just enough ammo to survive the monsters you hear beyond the walls. My point is that there should be more permanence. 

 

I also don't like how some super powerful pickups are so easy to find. They practically gave away that health upgrade. It should be a hard to find secret! I know they can do it because they already did. I want more exploration like in the Foundry and more secrets like the Yellow Keycard secret Plasma Gun room. That was really good and elegant level design.

[DooM_RO]

Here's an idea to make pickups more useful. When you pick something up, you get a speed boost.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

First of all, a lot can change between now and November 22 (in as far as small details). Secondly, if you look at the 2015 QuakeCon footage of DOOM (which showcased The Foundry level), and compare it to the same level in the final product, there are a lot of differences. Good differences. I mean, the QuakeCon footage didn't even remotely look non-linear, and The Foundry turned out to be the most non-linear map in the bunch, and all kinds of other, smaller changes. Some of which may have been influenced by public response, but at the same time, that QuakeCon demo clearly seemed to be tailored made for the showcase, and probably at a time when there were still several "tweaks" that they intended to make before release, anyways. I have no reason to think it will be any different with their "Mars Core" demo (of course, I could be wrong in my speculation).

 

As far as what "meaningful choices" might indicate, I'm guessing they've simply intensified their "combat chess" and "push-forward-combat" formula, and kind of doubled down on it.

 

Obviously you and I had very different experiences with DOOM 2016, because on Nightmare, I felt the balance between what I was losing in combat vs. what I was gaining from GK's (both with and without the chainsaw) was absolutely perfect. Yeah, past the initial learning curve of the first 2-3 levels on Ultra-Violence, I found UV to be quite underwhelming and rather easy, but then I tried Nightmare, and suddenly everything just clicked and felt perfect. I mean, the Gore Nest battle on the second level (Res Ops) on Nightmare is an extremely demanding fight, and at no point did I feel like I had "infinite everything" just because of GK's and a chainsaw. That fight had me on the edge of my chair, white-knuckling my mouse.

 

From everything I've heard, they seem to be really stressing the point that Eternal will be much more difficult than 2016. If I had heard correctly, all the demos shown were on Medium difficulty - in my mind, that means there is still UV above that, and Nightmare above that still. If my experience of 2016 is anything to go on, I'll be going into Eternal under the impression that I'll be desperately clinging to life on the razors edge, when I play it on Nightmare - regardless of where my resources come from. If the mid-to-high tier demons smash every bit of armor out of me in a single blow on Nightmare, then I'll be damn glad to find a clump of zombies to flame belch... if my flame belch is off cooldown... if there's even any left for me to flame belch! Also, it's worth noting that the chainsaw fuel was strictly an environment pickup in DOOM 2016 - if they preserve that in Eternal, and environment pickups are fewer and farther between, choosing when to use the chainsaw might actually be a big deal. 

 

One more thing I want to note, is that there is a huge difference between PC and console. I have a lot of friends who bought DOOM 2016 for the Xbox or PS (simply because they're not PC people); even my brother has it for Xbox. Not a single person I know, who has played it on console, has beaten the game on Nightmare (I'm not talking Ultra-Nightmare, I mean Nightmare). The game is simply more challenging with a controller than it is with a mouse + keyboard (I'd argue that for any FPS, honestly). Mouse + keyboard just offer you so much more dexterity, reaction time, precision, it's endless. In fact, this really hit home for me when my brother and I compared the Arcade Mode leaderboards between Xbox and PC - the PC scores are leagues ahead of the Xbox scores. Do all the Xbox players just suck at DOOM? Maybe some do, but I'm sure it's not that disproportionate from those who suck at it on PC. I think the discrepancy comes from controller vs. mouse + keyboard.

 

So, the developer has 3 choices. (1) Tailor the difficulty for the console crowd, and push the PC players to the end of the spectrum. (2) Tailor the difficulty for the PC crowd, and push the console players to the other end of the spectrum. Or, (3) try their best to find some middle ground. And, from what I've heard over the years from both PC and console players (and what I've experienced myself), I'd say they did a pretty admirable job of riding that middle ground with the difficulty. I have faith that they'll do equal justice with Eternal, especially if they're already talking about a rise in the general difficulty.

Edited July 29, 2019 by RonnieJamesDiner

[Chezza]

I never took much heed on those comments. I view them as hype marketing phrases like when they say "and this is just scratching the surface oh what you're about to see".

 

I'm pretty sure I have a solid understanding of the expected experience and incoming content. Not every Boss or special location revealed sure, but I can draw conclusions.

[DooM_RO]

@RonnieJamesDiner

 

Yes, there are some extremely challenging fights on Nightmare, that fight near the lift in RESOps for example. I died quite a lot. 

I've been thinking about it and I think I know why it bothers me. As I said before, most of the time you go from 200 to 80 but then quickly recuperate health. Now yes, this is hard but what this takes out of the experience is the PERMANENCE of your actions, which in turn I also believe takes away from the diversity and improvisation of the fights. Also, it also takes away from items feeling valuable. I think some ammo should be easy to find but other kinds should be more valuable. Like you have lots of shells and bullets but you lack rockets for that Mancubus over there. You see an Arachnatron over there guarding 5 Rockets and you remember that you can shoot his tail off with the HAR Scope. Picking up something valuable makes you feel good, like finding revolver ammo in Resident Evil. I think Cells and Rockets are like revolver ammo in Doom, maybe not quite as valuable but you get the point. If you get too much of it too frequently they feel less valuable and so getting it feels less good. So every combat feature in the new games is cool and very Doom but I think overly tuned.

 

- GKs shouldn't give more than 25 health, instead you they should be supplements, something that keeps you alive until the next medikit. That, or they could take the Fuel mechanic and replace health packs with Argent Packs that let you get health from demons. If you don't have any you can (SLOWLY!) generate one by killing monsters. And of course they should not be overflowing the level.

 

- There is too much fuel throughout the levels. There should be a LOT less of it, and at least half of it should be in secret areas and not in plain sight. The chainsaw, like GKs should not be the primary way of getting ammo, they should just give you enough till the next pickup. Each point of fuel should restore 5% ammo at MOST. 

 

- Remember how valuable the Armor Pickups felt on Ultra Nightmare? I think more pickups should feel like that.

 

- The flame thrower should give 10 armor AT MOST. If I can get 50 armor from flaming a bunch of weak zombies then how is the big armor pickup still valuable? They were very valuable in Ultra Nightmare. 

 

In the old games, you fight quite differently if you have 50 or 200 health. If you have low health and ammo in classic Doom you don't run away, as the developers seem to think, instead you turn to agressive-defensive mode, a tactical retreat. What they got right is that if you try to run away or if you try to stand in one place you DIE but that is only half-true.

 

Make difficulty settings for casual players and for hardcore players like myself, and allow me to play the hardest difficulty from the start. So for example on Ultra Violence you get less GK health and ammo and harder enemies spawn in earlier levels. I often wondered what would it be like to fight two Hell Knights in the final arena of the first level in Doom 2016. That way the lady who couldn't get past the tutorial and I could both have fun. Just like in the original Doom.

 

So yeah, push-forward combat is Doom but the way they did it in the new games is kind of a one-trick pony. 

 

 

[RonnieJamesDiner]

@DooM_RO

 

The point I was trying to make with my first paragraph was, as was the case with the Foundry showcase during the 2015 QuakeCon (with how different the level, and the game for that matter, seemed to play in comparison), I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that what we're seeing right now, may not be an accurate representation of what we'll be playing and how we'll be feeling on November 22.

 

The point (I believe) is to showcase the general nature of the gameplay, the combat, the mechanics, the many smaller, critical game elements and details. I'm convinced that a lot of what we've seen in the demo is, more than anything else, carefully crafted to simply...

 

(1) communicate to the audience what the "new" things are, from gameplay mechanics, to bad guys, to pick-ups, and so on... 

(2) to just give a good show, making sure the game "looks" like it should, according to their mantra (fast paced, big guns, badass demons, combat chess, etc.) 

 

For all we know, in the final product, environment pick-ups might be far more scarce. Power-ups might be super well hidden. The extra lives might be extremely challenging to get (if they're even there in the higher difficulties). I totally agree with what you're saying about the value of items, and how playing fast and loose with resources can hugely diminish the impact that items could or should have on the player, but all I'm saying is - at this juncture - we don't really know how the final product is going to play.

 

I see where you're coming from about the permanency of resources, though. In classic Doom, there was a strong sense of "I have my fixed, finite pool of resources scattered around the level, and that's it", which directly influenced the "dance" of the combat chess. It added another depth of strategy, one which certainly felt removed from DOOM 2016. Every new fight in the new DOOM felt like a fresh start, thanks to glory kills, which was obviously the intent. In a weird way, I almost looked at GK's as a pro-active version of the seemingly standardised health-regen system of FPS's now. Push-forward-combat in essence being a very nice way of saying, "as long as you keep killing things, you have a health-regen system". Does this gameplay mechanic have its merits? Sure. I can safely say that DOOM 2016 was incredibly fast paced, had fantastic energy to it, and I certainly enjoyed my time throughout the campaign (for the most part). That said, does "combat chess" alone offer up as much nuance and strategy as they seem to think? No... not really.

 

I understand why they chose that direction (at least, I think I understand), because I genuinely found the game fun. And I honestly think I'll have just as much, if not more fun with Eternal. Is it ultimately as fulfilling as classic Doom...? Not by a long shot, and I think the razor focus on "combat chess" is probably the biggest factor in that. But, I think if I was personally tasked with realizing a modern take on Doom, I couldn't really ask for a better outcome than what we're being given at the moment. It's not perfect, but hey... neither was classic Doom. (I know I know... I'll show myself to the door...)  

Edited July 29, 2019 by RonnieJamesDiner

[DooM_RO]

@RonnieJamesDiner

 

Exactly what I thought!

 

Yes, most fights in 2016 felt like small, self-contained levels with a fresh start. Depending on how you look at it, it can be both good and bad. The good is that each fight is very intense but the bad part is that because they are self contained it doesn't have much relation to the rest of the level even if you manage to get back to 100 health or a respectable amount of ammo because the resources are finite. If you make a big mistake in classic Doom, you will probably feel that for the rest of the level, which ultimately influences your playstyle and further enhances the improvisational nature of the combat. That's what's missing in the new games, what you do outside the fights does not really have much relation to the big fights, except the upgrades but that's different from managing resources. 

 

Good point on the regenerating health analogy. Glad to see I am not the only one who sees it like that. 

[whatup876]

How does anyone feel about the fact that armor kinda works like a second health bar?

Because the way how that works could have been an upgrade instead.

[DooM_RO]

1 hour ago, whatup876 said:

How does anyone feel about the fact that armor kinda works like a second health bar?

Because the way how that works could have been an upgrade instead.

 

I never liked that. It should work like in the old games.

[Mk7_Centipede]

if doom 1 wasnt perfect, we wouldnt be comparing newfangled doom to it.  Nobody compares Halo to Marathon; nobody compares starcraft 2 to warcraft 2; Nobody compares Mortal Kombat 1 to MK11.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Mk7_Centipede

[Chezza]

Ok watching the Doom Eternal Demo based on QuakeCon, now I understand what they were referring to some more.

 

Every major enemy has weaknesses where you should aim for. For example, you want to leave your plasma ammo to destroy shield enemies quickly and rocket launcher for either blowing big enemies weak spots / weapons apart of crowd control. etc etc

 

There will be more tactical choices than there were in 2016.

[MrHofmann]

1 hour ago, Chezza said:

Every major enemy has weaknesses where you should aim for. For example, you want to leave your plasma ammo to destroy shield enemies quickly and rocket launcher for either blowing big enemies weak spots / weapons apart of crowd control. etc etc

 

There will be more tactical choices than there were in 2016.

 

Exactly. You are going to "agressively manage your resources" by shooting enemie's weak spots in order to lower the chance of them hitting you (save health/armor) by disabling their primary attack like shooting of the guns of the Arachnotron or Mancubus or in order to kill them faster (save ammo) by disabling their defense like shooting a granade inside a Cacodemons mouth or shooting the shield of the possesed guy. For each weak spot there is a weapon which is more suited against it, like the plasma gun for the shield. Introducing these "meaningful choices" adds another level of strategic decision making.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Hofmann

[Super Mighty G]

Guess what. Classic Doom uses this same idea of strategy in combat. This is actually not a new concept.

[whatup876]

I remember the mod Hellforged having an enemy that attacks the player's health without affecting the armor.

Maybe they could make a spirit/ghost enemy like that, one that can even go through the player or even other enemies.

[Robo_Cola]

2 hours ago, Super Mighty G said:

Guess what. Classic Doom uses this same idea of strategy in combat. This is actually not a new concept.

Exactly, the wad Going Down map 31 "Stair Crazy" is a great example of this.  You're on the stairs going up to the ceiling roof with a plasma rifle having to stunlock hordes of hellknights and revenants in massive droves.  Use any other weapon and they'll surround you.

[DefilerPhil47]

After playing the demo, i think they mean that pickups are meaningful because ammo pickups were very stringent.  If you don't pick up the ammo around in the world, you will run out quickly.  That's the conclusion I came to.

[DooM_RO]

21 hours ago, StainlessSteel said:

After playing the demo, i think they mean that pickups are meaningful because ammo pickups were very stringent.  If you don't pick up the ammo around in the world, you will run out quickly.  That's the conclusion I came to.

 

So you played it?

 

It does not seem like you will run out. Especially with all the chainsaw ammo.

[DefilerPhil47]

13 minutes ago, DooM_RO said:

 

So you played it?

 

It does not seem like you will run out. Especially with all the chainsaw ammo.

 

It depends who you save the chainsaw for.  If you waste it on big guys for a quick easy kill you will run out of ammo quicker than using it on smaller guys.

[whatup876]

On 8/5/2019 at 6:30 PM, StainlessSteel said:

 

It depends who you save the chainsaw for.  If you waste it on big guys for a quick easy kill you will run out of ammo quicker than using it on smaller guys.

 

That's another thing to remember: chainsaw's use of fuel depends of the enemy.

[DooM_RO]

5 hours ago, whatup876 said:

 

That's another thing to remember: chainsaw's use of fuel depends of the enemy.

 

But it doesn't really matter if each arena has two or more canisters...

[Chezza]

But does it?

[DoomSpud]

What exactly do they mean by "meaningful choices" and "resource management"??

Sounds 100% clear to me... you really need these things explained?

[DooM_RO]

49 minutes ago, DoomSpud said:

What exactly do they mean by "meaningful choices" and "resource management"??

Sounds 100% clear to me... you really need these things explained?

 

Did you read my post at all?

[DoomSpud]

14 hours ago, DooM_RO said:

 

Did you read my post at all?

 

Yes.

[MrGlide]

sounds cool to me, I love resource management as  it's quite an intelligent layer to games that utilize this and I personally feel enriches the meaning of combat. There are many custom wads that use this very well, as for official think e4m1.