Let's talk difficulty (Not a rant)

[deepthaw]

I finished Doom 2016 on UV and while it was rough at the start, I felt like I was able to handle it all the way through the end.

 

Started up Eternal on UV. Holy shit. Died multiple times in the first level. Even grunts do sizable damage. I fumble at my keys for an instant and I'm dead.

 

I'm sticking with it though, but it's taking me an embarassing number of tries. Like, I'm in the cultist base in the battle that starts with a Mancubus and then adds revenant, cacos, more revenants, hell knights, etc. may have approached ten attempts so far.

 

But I feel like I'm learning. Early on a single Arachnotron was a threat. Now I know exactly how to deal with them while thinking ahead to everything else around me. It's brutal but ... fair? It's like I'm gitting gud. I beat my head against the same arena encounter multiple times, but I don't stop enjoying it and the rush when I finally win is amazing. The fact that battles reload in a matter of seconds on my SSD helps there I suspect.

 

How's everybody else doing? Am I just not as good as other people, or are we feeling the same way?

[Deleted_Account]

I’m getting my ass handed to me on Hurt Me Plenty! I literally just finished Super Gore Nest and I am sweating embryos. 

[Neubulae]

It gave me quite a few flash backs to how did I play doom back then, I plan my ammo, I plan my movement, I learn enemies' behavior and I group them and kill them——This is certainly a game that requires thinking and practicing. Blindly rushing into the enemies will never work anywhere isn't it?

I'm glad this is a good DOOM game.

[Novaseer]

i'm a masochist and decided to play on Nightmare, the first proper boss killed me about 20-30 times

[AFallingObject]

Doom Eternal on UV is as hard as Doom 2016 on nightmare.  There, I said it.  I finished the latter about a week ago during my personal hype train prior to Eternal coming out.  The new game still throttled me.  I still had a good time, except it's more of the Sunlust-esque "we kill you and you like it" fun.  I beat the game on UV earlier today without touching the difficulty.  I had extra lives on by accident.  When I realized what it did, I started trying to avoid collecting them.  That's not Doom!

 

Tactical spoilers for those who are struggling:

Spoiler

Arachnotrons become easier to deal with once you get the gau- I mean the ballista.  One shot from anywhere takes down the cannon.

 

Marauders suck.  Try grenades and proximity explosives.  Run away if below 75% health.

 

Invest in ammo early.  Management can be tough early on with only chainsaw kills dropping bullets and the regenerating gas canister only being enough to kill trash demons.  I found myself in a lot of situations where I was dry on ammo and being chased by skeletons and the like that I couldn't chainsaw.  Don't be me.

 

[deepthaw]

2 minutes ago, AFallingObject said:

Doom Eternal on UV is as hard as Doom 2016 on nightmare.  There, I said it.  I finished the latter about a week ago during my personal hype train prior to Eternal coming out.  The new game still throttled me.  I still had a good time, except it's more of the Sunlust-esque "we kill you and you like it" fun.  I beat the game on UV earlier today without touching the difficulty.  I had extra lives on by accident.  When I realized what it did, I started trying to avoid collecting them.  That's not Doom!

  

Tactical spoilers for those who are struggling:

  Hide contents

Arachnotrons become easier to deal with once you get the gau- I mean the ballista.  One shot from anywhere takes down the cannon.

 

Marauders suck.  Try grenades and proximity explosives.  Run away if below 75% health.

 

Invest in ammo early.  Management can be tough early on with only chainsaw kills dropping bullets and the regenerating gas canister only being enough to kill trash demons.  I found myself in a lot of situations where I was dry on ammo and being chased by skeletons and the like that I couldn't chainsaw.  Don't be me.

 

 

The first ... whatever type of upgrade it was I took was the one that lets you go into slowmo while in the air. I use that to pinpoint weakspots with the shotgun grenade. It's working well.

[Heejyhorang]

All I know is I beat the first slayer gate on my first try and scared the shit out of my wife because I screamed a victorious, toxicly masculine scream. 

 

I had 1 health for like 20 seconds and somehow survived. This was all on HMP haha. I beat doom 16 on UV first time no sweat. This game is harder and better.

[wallabra]

The new Doom's skill settings can give men menstruation. Beware. /s

[Egg Boy]

Been playing Doom Eternal on UV, really fun, after I got the hang of it, the only thing that gives me trouble are Marauders. Boy, these guys are fucking assholes. You can't be too close or too far away, but I feel like the perfect distance is so specific if you take a step further from him he'll get his dog out or throw his axe, and if you take a step closer, he'll pelt you with buckshot. I'm pretty close to the end of the game, so I've encountered this guy about 5 times, and I get so nervous whenever its at the end of a big fight, because I'm usually fucked the first time. 

[thewormofautumn]

I’m on the last level now. Boy oh boy there are a lot of big arena fights here. I’m not looking forward to the final fight, I have a feeling it’ll be one giant clusterfuck of an arena fight paired with fighting the 

Spoiler

IoS

 

[Flesh420]

1 hour ago, Egg Boy said:

Been playing Doom Eternal on UV, really fun, after I got the hang of it, the only thing that gives me trouble are Marauders. Boy, these guys are fucking assholes. You can't be too close or too far away, but I feel like the perfect distance is so specific if you take a step further from him he'll get his dog out or throw his axe, and if you take a step closer, he'll pelt you with buckshot. I'm pretty close to the end of the game, so I've encountered this guy about 5 times, and I get so nervous whenever its at the end of a big fight, because I'm usually fucked the first time. 

I fucking hate them.  Them and their meddlin' dogs.

[Deleted_Account]

I just finished battling the first Marauder. I fought him with the super shotgun and ballista. There was also a lot of running and screaming but I finally zapped him.

[Art3mis Jinx]

I agree, it's definitely harder if you're used to Doom 2016. Takes some getting used to, as you have to move constantly, as you'll get killed pretty easily if you stop for a second. Especially one ultra violence and up.

[Egg Boy]

54 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

I fucking hate them.  Them and their meddlin' dogs.

I'm getting better at fighting them, but god forbid another heavy monster be in the area. The marauder follows you so relentlessly its almost impossible to do anything about the other monster lest you get your ass cooked. When the marauder is in the arena, he requires your undivided attention. I actually love all the other new monsters, the makyr drones, the whiplash, the Doom Hunter, they're all really fun to fight, but the marauder... oh man...

[Sitting on a cornflake]

Related question—can you kill the marauder’s dog?  How are you supposed to deal with it?

[Super Mighty G]

1 hour ago, Sitting on a cornflake said:

Related question—can you kill the marauder’s dog?  How are you supposed to deal with it?

Yes you can. I killed it with plasma. 

 

The difficulty curve is higher than 2016, but when it starts clicking you feel so much more satisfaction when you clear a wave. 

[RaikohZX]

I still finished HMP at over 30 lives, mostly because you can stock them up via mission select and my completion runs didn't have my skipping them if they were in the way, but yeah, the game kinda goes apeshit. Way more enemies on the field at once and consistently compared to 2016, all of them gunning for you. The Mancubus got buffed to insane projectile speeds and tracking, Cyber-Manucbi have super-obnoxious area denial at any range, Whiplashes are plain assholes, and Marauders are super nightmares. I can see why they added Extra Lives, you soak up so much damage in a matter of seconds on the game's equivalent of a normal difficulty that you can end up trapped and dead in seconds; of the official Doom games, it's probably easily the hardest installment if you were to go on a single life run.

 

That's not to say you're at a complete disadvantage all the time, by late game you're so potentially overpowered that you can mitigate a lot of the difficulty with plain skill and hard counters for each enemy type to the point that aside from 2016's Rich Get Richer, you easily outstrip that game's redonkulous scaling. But it's also a necessity because the devs absolutely went postal with how aggressive enemies are. 2016 only had projectile tracking for player movement on Ultra-Violence and up for example, but here every enemy that isn't spraying randomly is insanely accurate now and very good at predicting where you're gonna go, regardless of difficulty. Everything attacks more often, rushes more often, and pressures more often. Half the time in the end game I ate so much damage between my glory kills to survive that if the game tracked damage taken i'd probably be in the tens of thousands.

 

If you learn how the game wants to be played, it can be a chaotic and brutal dance of destruction and mayhem. If you try to play it just like 2016, you're in for a bruising.

[Taurus Daggerknight]

I started on UV, but by the early half of Cultist Base, I absolutely had to tone it down to Hurt Me Plenty. This game is hard, even on HMP. I'm not the greatest FPS player out there, but I've been shooting since the 90's, and finished Doom 2016 on UV. Having a ball so far though! The challenge RARELY feels like the game is being cheap (there were...one or two parts, specifically involving arachnotrons and that purple sludge). 

 

I did just get done with the first Marauder fight, and HOLY FUCKING BALLS THAT GUY IS HARD. Had to burn through three or four extra lives before I took him down....

[Egg Boy]

1 minute ago, Taurus Daggerknight said:

I did just get done with the first Marauder fight, and HOLY FUCKING BALLS THAT GUY IS HARD. Had to burn through three or four extra lives before I took him down....

Have fun late game when you have to fight one after a decently long arena fight haha. You'll get the hang of it eventually, that doesn't make it easy, you just get used to dying lmao

[Kristian Nebula]

I just completed the game on UV. It was great for a first run. I died around 10 times in the campaign, if extra lives aren't counted (I lost around 15 of them I think). The newly added mechanics bring a lot of possibilities, and looting the demons constantly is key to survival. First date with the Marauder cost me two extra lives and it was well worth it. I found the Ballista to be the best thing against him, and sometimes grabbing him with the meathook to toss myself around him. Dash also super important :D

However, I think Nightmare will punish me much more. I'm soon about to find out :) 

[holaareola]

I'm enjoying the difficulty. I found Doom 2016 too easy on UV and too hard on nightmare.  DE on UV is perfect: other than a few crappy deaths early on due to ammo starvation I feel like every death has been fair and due to mistakes on my part.

 

One balance issue for me is how much stronger the rocket launcher lock-on alt is than any other attack. It feels like it delivers about 50% more damage and doesn't impair movement. I'd be having a much tougher time without that. It takes out arachs in 2 shots, mancs and revs in 1 I think.

 

No idea how difficulty is on controller though.