The Ancient Gods -- review from someone who DIDN'T like it

[icecoldduke]

Just now, Super Mighty G said:

This has been said before, but if you participate in the gameplay loop you should not have ammo problems. Whether it's bad or not is subjective, but if you refuse to use your tools you will have a bad time.

There isn't enough information to show me at least what the "gameplay loop" is supposed to be. I just want to shoot the shit out of everything in my way, I don't want to have to play the game a certain way, that's not how I enjoy Doom.

[jazzmaster9]

Then you are going to have a bad time if you don't adapt to the games style.

Eternal's gamplay is different from 2016's or even classic Doom.

 

This is the same thing that happened to Souls players when playing Sekiro, they insisted trying to play it like Dark souls instead of playing by the Sekiro's style, and started blaming the game when it didn't allow them to do so.

 

I enjoy Soulsgames by Tanking with Heavy armor... but i won't call Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3 bad for not letting play like that.

[icecoldduke]

10 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

Then you are going to have a bad time if you don't adapt to the games style.

Now I don't, because I enabled the cheat engine, and enabled infinite ammo in the dev console. I'm saying give that an option in the menu, and not force me to download a 3rd party app. 

[jazzmaster9]

Or maybe play the game like it was indented instead of taking the easy way out with console cheats. You have to adapt to the game not the other way around. again going back to the people who refused to parry in Sekiro because "I never parry in Dark souls, why should i parry in Sekiro?"

Edited December 24, 2020 by jazzmaster9

[Super Mighty G]

50 minutes ago, icecoldduke said:

I just want to shoot the shit out of everything in my way, I don't want to have to play the game a certain way, that's not how I enjoy Doom.

Then Doom Eternal is not a game for you. Simple as that. It does not make the game bad because you don't like it. There are so many shooters you can play the way you described. Doom Eternal is not one of them and it doesn't try to be. 

[jazzmaster9]

1 minute ago, Super Mighty G said:

Then Doom Eternal is not a game for you. Simple as that. It does not make the game bad because you don't like it. There are so many shooters you can play the way you described. Doom Eternal is not one of them and it doesn't try to be. 

"ThE GaMe IsN'T GoOd JuSt BeCaUsE yOu LiKe iT" to play devil's advocate here for a bit.

 

But with that being said Doom Eternal is very clear with its gameplay loop and if you refused to play it that way, you only have yourself to blame for not succeeding.

[icecoldduke]

40 minutes ago, jazzmaster9 said:

Or maybe play the game like it was indented instead of taking the easy way out with console cheats. You have to adapt to the game not the other way around.

That is frankly the dumbest I've ever heard. I pay 59.99 to play a game, and if enabling debug cheats let me enjoy the game, than who cares? 

 

22 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

Then Doom Eternal is not a game for you. Simple as that. It does not make the game bad because you don't like it. There are so many shooters you can play the way you described. Doom Eternal is not one of them and it doesn't try to be. 

Enabling infinite ammo fixes a lot of the game for me, and its worth noting in feedback to the developer, that maybe exposing cheats in a more general way, is a good path forward for the product. You don't have to use it, so why do you guys care if cheats are more generally available to people that want it?

 

Doom used to be moddable, a lot of mods were basically cheats. You guys have this elitists' point of view with Eternal that doesn't make sense. 

Edited December 24, 2020 by icecoldduke

[jazzmaster9]

16 minutes ago, icecoldduke said:

if enabling debug cheats let me enjoy the game, than who cares? 

That's fair.

But don't blame the game for not allowing people to openly Trivialize their enemy encounters.

You can use console commands all you want but just know that is not the intended experience and just because you are having fun with does not mean the game is bad for not allowing you to play that way.

 

16 minutes ago, icecoldduke said:

You guys have this elitists' point of view with Eternal that doesn't make sense. 

using console commands to fit your play style is fine. But don't blame for being "Bad" just because it wasn't made the way you specifically wanted.

 

this is the same people who wanted to put an Easy mode on Sekiro. its just goes against what the developers intent, but its not gonna stop people from modding the game to  be easier. theres nothing wrong with that, equally theres nothing wrong with devs tailoring their game to force a specific playstyle that they designed.

Edited December 24, 2020 by jazzmaster9

[Super Mighty G]

24 minutes ago, icecoldduke said:

That is frankly the dumbest I've ever heard. I pay 59.99 to play a game, and if enabling debug cheats let me enjoy the game, than who cares? 

 

Enabling infinite ammo fixes a lot of the game for me, and its worth noting in feedback to the developer, that maybe exposing cheats in a more general way, is a good path forward for the product. You don't have to use it, so why do you guys care if cheats are more generally available to people that want it?

 

Doom used to be moddable, a lot of mods were basically cheats. You guys have this elitists' point of view with Eternal that doesn't make sense. 

You can use cheats all you want. I don't care. But it does not objectively make the game better to integrate those kinds of things into the core game design. Your point of view is good for you. It is not good for the game as whole in my opinion.

[icecoldduke]

3 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

You can use cheats all you want. I don't care. But it does not objectively make the game better to integrate those kinds of things into the core game design. Your point of view is good for you. It is not good for the game as whole in my opinion.

And I disagree with you, and we’ll see who’s view is more dominant in the community, when the next Doom game comes out, that survey was probably sent out to answer this very question.

[Super Mighty G]

I guess we will. But I wouldn't hold your breath. 

[D4NUK1]

6 hours ago, icecoldduke said:

Enabling infinite ammo fixes a lot of the game for me, and its worth noting in feedback to the developer, that maybe exposing cheats in a more general way, is a good path forward for the product. You don't have to use it, so why do you guys care if cheats are more generally available to people that want it?

 

Why bother with cheats, when it's possible to be a difficulty option, where the less difficulty the game have, the more ammo drops it's gets.

I mean, Doom 1 and 2 have this, why not have but will all difficultys with diferent values. That's will help more with the slow aproach or run and shoot without taking note of the weakpoints more enjoyable to play. IMO.

[icecoldduke]

52 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

I guess we will. But I wouldn't hold your breath. 

I'm holding my breath on this one :)

[CivilianM91]

I had zero issues understanding the loop I was supposed to participate in first play through. I don’t understand the dislike for Eternal’s core mechanics. I appreciate the fact it’s a more tactical approach to my demon Slayin’ because once you hit a groove on UV and you’re just grappling around the battlefield with your flaming SSG in slow-mo things just click. It was immensely rewarding when I finally started conquering the mechanics and it’s added a ton of replay value to me. It feels like I actually have to (I’m so sorry for this) get good instead of just memorize enemy placement and monster traps through trial and error.

[scalliano]

So, I finally played the "nEw AnD iMpRoVeD" Holt Slayer Gate and FUCK ME if that wasn't the single most brutal, unbalanced, unfair, bullshit exercise in negative reinforcement I have ever had the misfortune to endure in all of my 30-odd years of gaming.

 

I was learning to love the DLC with more practice, but then my single biggest complaint is quintupled-down on in this absolute three-lane motorway pile-up of a segment. Three Archies? Fine, annoying but not a problem. Three Blood Maykrs? Get fucked. Given that EVERY SINGLE NEW ENEMY in the DLC has an attack which slows the player to a crawl (and the effect stacks meaning I can't move at all) this is just fucking unbearable. Add to this the fact that it seems like every other fucker in the arena is jumping in front of them while I'm trying to line up a shot to take them out and all I can do is watch as I die over and over again.

 

And then, the finale, a possessed Marauder. Great. Cue TWENTY MINUTES of constant backpedalling, trying desperately to inflict some kind of splash damage on this bastard because nothing else works, with barely any fodder around for me to chainsaw ammo from, resulting in this bizarre extended Benny Hill sketch where I'm just constantly running for my life with HP in the single digits and no way to restore any of my resources.

 

And THEN, the blue Marauder finally keels over without me noticing, and by the time I do notice I'm surrounded by a dozen force fields so I can't even deal with the Spirit, who promptly takes control of one of the Carcasses, leaving me to deal with the final regular Marauder with little to nothing of anything and constant blue walls blocking my every move because fuck if I'm releasing the Spirit again while the Marauder is still on the board.

 

At last, finally, the second Marauder is down, and I'm able to take on the rest of the trash mobs and deal with the Carcass. Seven lives I spent on this shit, not counting the two I was able to retrieve. I initially hated the Marauder before I got gud, but this? This is my "thou shalt not pass" moment. This was just painful.

 

"Fun Zone" my arse.

[Quasar]

My opinion of Eternal in general, and TAG in particular, continues to cycle up and down. There are things about it that just irritate me. A big one of those is the continual micro-tweaking and nerfing going on in patches and updates. This is, at some level, betraying a total lack of confidence in the game design. First it was the marauder ice bomb trick, then you couldn't even use the crucible with the infinite ammo cheat, and now the Unmaykr, which was literally only useful while you had the Overdrive powerup, is no longer affected by it. The weekly challenges are now including Nightmare and even ULTRA Nightmare only completion requirements, which is way the fuck overboard.

 

There's way too much emphasis going on over the "skill factor". The response to people who don't like things such as the marauder having totally bullshit character-shield-level invulnerability (can't be damaged at all by the Unmaykr, are you fucking with us or what, Hugo?), or not liking having to pin-point-accurate shoot at weak points, has been doubling down repeatedly on all of it to the point where it's becoming purely obnoxious. To me, it seems like they are killing the widespread appeal of Doom, which anybody could get into and enjoy, in pursuit of a tiny audience of hardcore, "hard game" macho-man streamers that will eventually decide the game has had its time in the sun and move on anyways. It's really bizarre.

 

It takes a multiple page spreadsheet to totally explain how the various weapons interact with the base monsters and their ever-increasing list of buffed variations, and absolutely none of the things going on in it are justified gameplay mechanics. For example, some buffed demons just mysteriously acquire more resistance to the SSG. Why? Because Hugo doesn't like people using the SSG apparently, that's the only reason it makes sense. It's extremely "meta" and that is something that was absolutely never a part of Doom before - things were consistent and predictable and at least semi-grounded in the ideas of real-world firearms or scifi weaponry, where shooting a bullet or plasma bolt does something approximately the same to any given target unless that target has an obvious reason to resist it (more armor, or energy shielding). The designer just not liking how people are playing, and fretting over every microscopic detail that can have a number assigned to it, is not a valid reason by comparison. Leave us alone already. The contract of game design is you make the game, then people figure out how best to play it. By continually interrupting that with these goddamn balance tweaks, it's invalidating OUR half of the process.

[scalliano]

Wow, turns out I'm not alone.

[Chezza]

Based on what @Quasar was saying, perhaps leaving most of the difficulty tweaking exclusive to the Nightmare difficulties would be ideal, especially when Hugo brings up "black belts" often into his thinking.

 

It shouldn't harm the game by allowing super weapons to remain super in all situations for first time or more easy going players. If they want to ramp up th challenge they can do so in the menu, which can describe the changes in the process.

 

As for difficult achievements, I say leave them as they are. They aren't participation awards, they are unique and rarer items of recognition for great accomplishments.

[Quasar]

4 minutes ago, Chezza said:

It shouldn't harm the game by allowing super weapons to remain super in all situations for first time or more easy going players. If they want to ramp up th challenge they can do so in the menu, which can describe the changes in the process.

Yeah, seriously.

 

The Unmaykr was supposed to be your reward for finishing all of the Slayer Gates, the more challenging optional parts of the game. But what kind of reward is it, really? It's nigh useless. The game has a very strong tendency to lose sight of its own goals before achieving their execution.

[NoXion]

As someone who's only played on Hurt Me Plenty so far, I definitely think the DLC is harder than the main campaign. Dealing with the buffed Marauder for the first time made me put the down the game. I must be getting better at it though, because I got him on my first try when I picked it up again.

 

I must admit I like the way the DLC has kept upping the ante, although that opinion might change if I play the Holt Slayer Gate. A possessed Marauder? Jesus. That fight sounds like a right arse. In Allstin's video about the Holt Slayer Gate there looked to be plenty of room to run about, although he didn't seem to be hurting for fodder in order to keep his health, armour and ammo topped up. Which is funny, because one of the things that made me put down the game for a bit was the fact that during the fight with the buffed Marauder, those fucking Mecha-Zombies kept spawning in and killing my groove.

I've gotten a bit more sophisticated in dealing with Marauders, I now know how to give them the old 1-2 with a SSG+Ballista combo, but I can't seem to do it fast enough to get three hits in, even though I've seen it done on YouTube loads of times. Are they using weapon selection keys instead? The weapon swap button seems a little slow.

 

In one of the developer commentary streams, Hugo talked about possible adjustments to make things like the arachnotron's turret have less punishing accuracy on the easiest difficulty setting. I approve of such changes. But I also think that certain changes, like excluding the Crucible and the BFG/Unmaykr from the Infinite Ammo cheat, are completely wrong-headed. Cheats are not supposed to be balanced, otherwise they are not cheats!

[whatup876]

I do wonder if id is aware of these threads, because i thought r/Doom and even FaceBook may be more priorities in comparison to here.

[AtimZarr1]

1 minute ago, whatup876 said:

I do wonder if id is aware of these threads, because i thought r/Doom and even FaceBook may be more priorities in comparison to here.

 

Marty Stratton did call out DoomWorld during the 2016 Game Awards and Mick Gordon had a DoomWorld tab apparently open on one of his livestreams, so it's quite likely they are aware of these threads.

[Boaby Kenobi]

46 minutes ago, NoXion said:

I've gotten a bit more sophisticated in dealing with Marauders, I now know how to give them the old 1-2 with a SSG+Ballista combo, but I can't seem to do it fast enough to get three hits in, even though I've seen it done on YouTube loads of times. Are they using weapon selection keys instead? The weapon swap button seems a little slow.

 

You need to have either the SSG or ballista selected and swap between the two at least once, then you press the Q button to change between them both quickly without having to use either the number keys or the weapon wheel. Of course this is for PCs not consoles.

[thewormofautumn]

48 minutes ago, NoXion said:

I must admit I like the way the DLC has kept upping the ante, although that opinion might change if I play the Holt Slayer Gate. A possessed Marauder? Jesus. That fight sounds like a right arse.
I've gotten a bit more sophisticated in dealing with Marauders, I now know how to give them the old 1-2 with a SSG+Ballista combo, but I can't seem to do it fast enough to get three hits in, even though I've seen it done on YouTube loads of times. Are they using weapon selection keys instead? The weapon swap button seems a little slow.!

 

Sometimes you get two... if you don't kill the Spirit fast enough. It's horrible.

But that said, remember possessed enemies have high resistance to the Balista. So try SSG+any other weapon and absolutely don't forget the grenades. Being able to launch two of them at the Marauder will help you end the fight quicker. On a non-possessed Marauder, you can take him down in one or two combo rounds with grenades staggering him all the time

[NoXion]

7 minutes ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

 

You need to have either the SSG or ballista selected and swap between the two at least once, then you press the Q button to change between them both quickly without having to use either the number keys or the weapon wheel. Of course this is for PCs not consoles.

That's exactly what I've been doing, but for some reason I can only do one ballista-shotgun cycle before the bastard brings up his shield, not the ballista-shotgun-ballista combo I've seen done. It's like there this little delay when hitting Q, very annoying.

[NoXion]

3 minutes ago, thewormofautumn said:

 

Sometimes you get two... if you don't kill the Spirit fast enough. It's horrible.

But that said, remember possessed enemies have high resistance to the Balista. So try SSG+any other weapon and absolutely don't forget the grenades. Being able to launch two of them at the Marauder will help you end the fight quicker. On a non-possessed Marauder, you can take him down in one or two combo rounds with grenades staggering him all the time

Sorry, didn't make myself clear, I haven't fought the possessed Marauder yet. I was just talking about how I deal with the ordinary ones.

[Boaby Kenobi]

3 hours ago, NoXion said:

That's exactly what I've been doing, but for some reason I can only do one ballista-shotgun cycle before the bastard brings up his shield, not the ballista-shotgun-ballista combo I've seen done. It's like there this little delay when hitting Q, very annoying.

 

Those advanced players are probably using a mouse that has extras buttons on it and they have reconfigured the weapon selection buttons to be able to switch so quickly.

[chemo]

I haven't been paying attention all that much attention to the game's campaign balance tweaks (the only one I'm fully aware of is the Marauder Ice Bomb exploit, which TBH I don't miss all that much because it was a bizarre oversight that doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a logical standpoint), but the infinite ammo cheat does currently give infinite BFG/Unmaykr ammo. The Crucible still has limited charges, but I doubt that's intentional given how things stand.

 

By the way, the Unmaykr can deal a good amount of damage to the Marauder, you just need to falter it with a different weapon first (or a frag grenade, which, as I've recently discovered, makes them vulnerable, even if their eyes aren't flashing).

 

4 hours ago, Quasar said:

Yeah, seriously.

 

The Unmaykr was supposed to be your reward for finishing all of the Slayer Gates, the more challenging optional parts of the game. But what kind of reward is it, really? It's nigh useless. The game has a very strong tendency to lose sight of its own goals before achieving their execution.

The Unmaykr can be more ammo efficient if you're just going for singular targets, which by themselves sometimes take two BFG shots to kill (in comparison to less than 30 ammo units from the Unmaykr).

 

Besides, I don't think the Unmaykr's utility (or lack thereof, as you insist) is necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise, it'd lock less-skilled players out of an essential weapon and/or give better players an advantage they don't need.

[Quasar]

5 minutes ago, chemo said:

Besides, I don't think the Unmaykr's utility (or lack thereof, as you insist) is necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise, it'd lock less-skilled players out of an essential weapon and/or give better players an advantage they don't need.

Then it shouldn't exist.

[chemo]

11 minutes ago, Quasar said:

Then it shouldn't exist.

Hey, I don't see why not. Even if it were just a bragging rights reward, there's no real disadvantage to having it in the game.

 

If anything, I think it's fun to pull out every once in a while if I have cheats on, using that aforementioned strategy, or if I'm just bored of the BFG. I don't think it's completely worthless.