Is it just me or does doom eternal not seem like doom at all?

[Ziad EL Zein]

Doom Eternal is not DOOM … 

It is a good game that puts all the focus on combat.

Gameplay suffered badly, although an extraordinary effort was put to create the environments and it shows … it looks much better than the environments in Doom 2016. Hell is more creative and darker than Doom 2016… still Doom 3 had a better Hell…  in terms of level design and feel

The Gameplay flow goes like this:  arena opens, kill demons arena closes repeat….  This is NOT DOOM.

 

In the originals, the Level design was more abstract, had brilliant puzzle-solving, and rewarded exploration in a more meaningful way.  This is what I miss in the original… Eternal tried its best to replicate many elements in the environment and bring in the bright and Doom Like colors and feel to the items and the space it created, and it was brilliant… but sadly with the combat-focused system and movement mechanics adopted it couldn’t be as expansive and deep in terms of gameplay and level design like the originals were…

 

The originals are able to make you feel afraid at times, DOOM Eternal can’t …..

The originals are able to play on the scarcity of ammo and resources where you have to double think your next step save your ammo…The originals can leave you wondering about the effect of the switch you turned…and the fear of the upcoming demons you unleashed somewhere in the level although you can’t see that yet, or maybe the secret resources that you unlocked or the alternative route than could lead you to a new secret level or area … Eternal can’t… The originals can make you smile when you see a health pack after a fierce battle Eternal can’t…

I mean the pool of possibilities and situations that the originals put you in, is bigger and better than Eternal ….

Eternal added so many items and classical design elements to its assets to make you feel that this is DOOM … but to those who know, it is not.

I loved the game it is an evolution when compared to DOOM 2016 and both are really good but DOOM remains unmatched …

I didn’t like some elements in the story:  Demons are supposed to be demons … you know the ones we learned about as kids the Hell beings that scared the shit out of us….not this.

[Chezza]

Doom use to be cool. Doom changed man...

 

"I've grown up" Doom says, well I remember the good old times. I LIVE THOSE DAYS. The world has changed and I don't like it...

[AtimZarr1]

1 hour ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

and rewarded exploration in a more meaningful way.

 

Doom Eternal exploration rewards:

 

1. Modbots

2. Praetor Tokens

3. Runes

4. Sentinel Crystals

5. Sentinel Batteries

6. Extra Lives

7. Codex pages

8. Collectible figures

9. Collectible music tracks

10. Collectible cheat codes

11. Slayer Keys for Slayer Gates (which can unlock a secret weapon)

12. Secret Encounters

13. Secret Armor / Soul Spheres / Mega-Armor / Power-Ups

 

Based on the variety of secrets, it seems id Software wants exploration to be a meaningful part of Doom Eternal.

 

1 hour ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

the Level design was more abstract

The funny thing about this is that there was another thread where some people were saying Doom Eternal's levels are too abstract compared to Doom 2016's more realistic environments.

 

1 hour ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

had brilliant puzzle-solving

 

An FPS series like Half-Life is known for its puzzle-solving. Doom's "puzzle-solving" mostly amounted to just collecting key cards or switch-hunting. Doom isn't known for its puzzles.

 

1 hour ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

The originals are able to make you feel afraid at times, DOOM Eternal can’t ….. 

 

Doom Eternal can't because it's not trying to.

 

1 hour ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

The Gameplay flow goes like this:  arena opens, kill demons arena closes repeat….  This is NOT DOOM. 

 

That's a bit of an unfair way to describe the game. In comparison to Doom 2016, the arena fights are designed to feel less structured (no more Gore Nests for main fights or "lockdown-in-effect" PA messages), the arenas have a lot more open space and are often outdoors to feel less closed-in, the environmental visuals usually changes level to level so that arenas don't feel or look similar, there is more platforming between fights to break the monotony, there are more Secrets to collect to encourage exploration, and there are more incidental and "natural" fights within levels that can be skipped outright.

 

---

 

It's difficult to define what is Doom because it means different things to different people. For some people, Doom is dark and creepy. For other people, Doom is fast-paced and colorful. The original game is ambiguous enough that people can derive any meaning they want from it. You can get "horror"-inspired interpretations like Doom 64 or Doom 3. Or you can get "action"-inspired interpretations like Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal. The most important thing is that a game series should be willing to try new things to innovate or keep things fresh. A game series defined by modding like Doom should understand the value of change better than anyone.

[Super Mighty G]

12 hours ago, Ziad EL Zein said:

brilliant puzzle-solving

I can't help but laugh at this.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

17 minutes ago, Super Mighty G said:

I can't help but laugh at this.

"I hit the switch and it did something! But what did it do?"

 

Thirty minutes later:

"It opened a door on the other side of the map! Brilliant!"

[RoamingMaster]

"new doom doesn't make me feel like I am playing og doom"

 

God forbid me from being such a boomer.

 

Let's hope ID doesn't listen to this hardcore doom fans who can't see anything beyond doom 1 and doom 2 and whose mindset stuck in the 90's due to nostalgia.

[Robot_Joe]

Eternal (to me) feels more like a Flying Wild Hog game that managed to snag itself a big budget than it does a classic Id software title. 

 

my brains are addled with nostalgia and I am probably wrong in this feeling.

 

 

[MemeMind]

Doom Eternal is the same idea of Doom of combat puzzles,knowing levels,and knowing what strategies and times that by 10.

[BunnyWithBeans]

On 11/15/2020 at 5:10 PM, whatup876 said:

Speaking of the Mancubus, his original mechanic of shooting 2 fireballs at the same time could have had an upgrade in the new games, where vertical aiming would be involved.

So he could have some more different firing patterns where one fireball goes directly to the front but the other is slightly above or even below.

 

Didn't he get nerfed into a short-range flamethrower enemy in 2016?

[seed]

1 hour ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

Didn't he get nerfed into a short-range flamethrower enemy in 2016?

 

Not if I remember correctly, he just shoots some plasma in 2016 but he's mechanically pretty much the same as he was in classic Doom.

[whatup876]

I mean the massive fireballs in classic Doom, where he:

* Shoots 2 of them at the same time

* Does it in a row of three shots

* And has some variation in the angles/direction of where they're being shot at

In some way, the original Mancubus was a strong case for Doom's gameplay involving movement and avoiding projectile, you could even think of Dead Simple/map 07 as something that predates the arena combat in 2016 and so on.

You get the feeling he was there to mess with the player's movement/strafing and one fireball would be at your current spot while the other at your possible next position.

 

In the new games, his fireballs are smaller and shoots one at a time: from one cannon and next from another one.

I think it's been this way since 3 and it's weird because the original Mancubus might as well fit in the new core gameplay.

The Blood Maykr sometimes shoots huge projectiles in a pair of two and even the Prowler can shoot three very fast projectiles. (Samur even has an attack that shoots three fireballs similar to the Prowler's but slower if i recall)

Even one of the Hell Guards in 2016 would hit some energy ball to split into three orbs as an attack and the multiplayer's Harvester was able to shoot 5.

[xdarkmasterx]

7 hours ago, BunnyWithBeans said:

 

Didn't he get nerfed into a short-range flamethrower enemy in 2016?

 

It was pretty much the same enemy as Eternal but with a shockwave attack he uses if you're close to him.

[Korozive]

On 11/13/2020 at 12:16 PM, HLRaven said:

I like the new style they are going for the newer games, the way it focuses on movement and what not, that and it also is inspired by Quake

We need a new Quake 1.

[Serum]

Disregarding the hyperbolic title, I recommend you watch this, OP. It explains a shit load regarding the evolution and exactly what you're talking about from the mouth of Hugo Martin himself.

 

 

I for one love the direction it took. Being forced into one play-style and having freedom taken away is not always a bad thing. Have trust in the developers and realize that, once you subscribe and practice this play-style, the feeling of tearing through the game on nightmare is a cathartic experience. This is one of the reasons that Blood is also revered by many as one of the best FPS games of all time.

[NoXion]

5 hours ago, Serum said:

I for one love the direction it took. Being forced into one play-style and having freedom taken away is not always a bad thing. Have trust in the developers and realize that, once you subscribe and practice this play-style, the feeling of tearing through the game on nightmare is a cathartic experience. This is one of the reasons that Blood is also revered by many as one of the best FPS games of all time.

This is all true and good, except that Doom Eternal doesn't force you into a particular play-style (I believe UnderTheMayo also says this, in a different video I think). There are multiple ways to neutralise weak points. Having watched footage of people playing, I notice that some of them make heavy use of the Blood Punch, while others do not. The extra movement options and more vertical combat make for more choices in terms of approach. Hell, there are even points in the game when you can do a bit of sniping with the Heavy Cannon before wading straight in, if that's your choice.

What the game does do is make you think about every move you make, and on the higher difficulties being able to think a couple of steps ahead becomes even more important. It's one of the reasons why I usually have to play the game one mission at a time, as I find it quite demanding.

[Serum]

8 hours ago, NoXion said:

.

 

You are correct that it's not completely restrictive, just much more so... I mean the play-style of "earning your power fantasy" as the video says. Comparable to 2016, the onus of resource management falls onto you and your tools way more, and each demon is more weak than ever to/requires the whole variety of specific weapons, and their aggressiveness (especially on higher difficulties) forces you to utilize jump-pads and bars, stuff like that... Ergo, you chainsaw, switch weapons, fly around, etc. a lot more. This algorithm pushes you hard into looking and feeling like a badass... You were capable of doing this badassery in 2016, but didn't really have to. Lord knows I didn't on my first 2016 run-through. I'm glad Id forced me to with Eternal

[Shawny]

As someone who bought deluxe edition that includes the season pass (DLC) and I can´t be bothered to play that after palying the main campaing...

I would say, mostly yes to your question.

Personaly I don´t really like the "evolution, reinvention (and other similiar words)".

If the design of the game as it is now was only on nightmare (or ultra nightmare ? - the last one) it would have been a great addition IMO.

 

The secrets are not very exciting, the secret encounters are 95% garbage/supplies check, the chainsaw AND crucibal mechanics feel like they were accidentally swapped, some of the overmechanized enemies designs seem more like a Quake thing, very few powerups, map are build around the notion you will teleport back to complete secret hunting rather than naturally loop back (mostly), the question marks in secrets are forgotten placeholders (yes, I truly believe that), constanly respawning enemies (that tie to the chainsaw mechanics) are just annoying and go againts the instinct to kill the weak enemies first to get some breathing room (instead we have the ability to dash around and run from our problems), the story telling is kind meh to be honest (especially compared to Doom2016), most of the jumping puzzles (that are straight from infernal version of Takeshi´s castle) are super distracting.

 

That being said, it is still a great technical achievement with amazing art direction, great map design (*with the caveats listed above), meaty combat with superb boss fights.

 

It just doesn´t click for me personally.

[A Nobody]

It's a lot more like Doom compared to Doom 3 really.

[Maes]

On 11/16/2020 at 12:13 PM, Ziad EL Zein said:

The Gameplay flow goes like this:  arena opens, kill demons arena closes repeat….  This is NOT DOOM.

 

A few thousands of hardcore ZDaemon Chillax, LA Worlds Survival & FCT players would like a word with you :-)

[OxalaiaQuilombensis]

On 11/13/2020 at 11:28 AM, The BMFG said:

personally i love both doom eternal and classic doom only if i had the pc to run eternal i have a crappy intel laptop lol

Same.

[A Nobody]

Why not set the graphical settings and resolution to very low?

[seed]

Because when you don't meet the system requirements that's not going to help anyway...

 

And besides, not all of us are interested in playing games in the lowest setting possible and still reach some 20fps, no, that shit isn't playable.

[Maes]

38 minutes ago, seed said:

And besides, not all of us are interested in playing games in the lowest setting possible and still reach some 20fps, no, that shit isn't playable.

:`( That's how many of us old farts played Doom back in the day. And the graphical settings weren't always the bottleneck, so setting stuff ultra-low and stamp-sized didn't really help as much as you'd think.

[seed]

4 minutes ago, Maes said:

:`( That's how many of us old farts played Doom back in the day. And the graphical settings weren't always the bottleneck, so setting stuff ultra-low and stamp-sized didn't really help as much as you'd think.

 

That's also how I've gamed in the last 10 years, and it wasn't fun. Sometimes, nothing at all is indeed better.

 

I know they don't always help, that was precisely my point.

[Dr. Crowley]

On 11/24/2020 at 8:16 AM, The Strife Commando said:

Why not set the graphical settings and resolution to very low?

Because sometimes it makes the game even less playable. I tried to play Prodeus several days ago and found out that my laptop is way too weak for this game. Of cource I messed with graphical setting for a little, but unfortunately it's not fun to be unable to see anything in that pixelated 320x200 limbo (I wonder how I was able to play DOS games back then, haha).

[seed]

32 minutes ago, Dr. Crowley said:

Because sometimes it makes the game even less playable. I tried to play Prodeus several days ago and found out that my laptop is way too weak for this game. Of cource I messed with graphical setting for a little, but unfortunately it's not fun to be unable to see anything in that pixelated 320x200 limbo (I wonder how I was able to play DOS games back then, haha).

 

You probably played on a CRT if I am going to guess. 320x200 doesn't look so bad on one, but on a flat panel it just turns in a pixelated mess that's hard to stomach. I can't stand it either, 640x400 is the lowest I can take, but it still is nowhere near ideal for me.

[Lafuente]

On 11/13/2020 at 10:28 PM, The BMFG said:

personally i love both doom eternal and classic doom only if i had the pc to run eternal i have a crappy intel laptop lol

Finally someone I can relate with. I want to play Doom Eternal and win on UV but since I only have a laptop, and my laptop's too much of a potato, I just stick to playing on both GZDoom and Zandronum. To try and get as close to the feeling of playing the modern doom games as possible, I play Death 4 Told by dbthanathos 

[NoXion]

59 minutes ago, Lafuente said:

Finally someone I can relate with. I want to play Doom Eternal and win on UV but since I only have a laptop, and my laptop's too much of a potato, I just stick to playing on both GZDoom and Zandronum. To try and get as close to the feeling of playing the modern doom games as possible, I play Death 4 Told by dbthanathos 

I've got a PC good enough to run Doom Eternal, but I've always wanted to play a classic Doom mod that backports some of that newer game's features. There are plenty of Doom 2016 mods to choose from, but I haven't seen an Eternal one yet.

[Lafuente]

4 minutes ago, NoXion said:

I've got a PC good enough to run Doom Eternal, but I've always wanted to play a classic Doom mod that backports some of that newer game's features. There are plenty of Doom 2016 mods to choose from, but I haven't seen an Eternal one yet.

Just wait for dthanathos, he's working on a Classic Doom mod with Doom Eternal's features. It's called Doom: Kar En Tuk, and you can check out his Youtube channel for updates: https://www.youtube.com/user/dbthanatos

Here's one of his videos: 

It may not be a total gameplay mechanic conversion because for one, there'll be no monkey-roping and wall-climbing, and 2, dbthanathos has decided to make some small changes that are different from the mechanics of Doom Eternal, like the chainsaw fuel usage is based on the remaining health of a demon instead of their class, and not having classic weapon view. 

[NoXion]

That looks pretty damn good! I would never expect a one-to-one conversion, but that looks worth downloading when it gets released.