thoughts on the combat design philosophy of doom eternal?

[nathanB404]

Doom eternal is a video game. that offers a tone of replay value in its combat system. there's a certain level of depth to it that feels satisfying. each of the ai demons has its own unique attack patterns that can be exploited when the time is right! the faltering system makes demons vulnerable for a second so that you can go in for the blood punch. weak points or grenades can cause a demon to falter during mid-attack. it's funny how they fumble. it almost has a rhythmic pattern to it. 

 

 

[Lippeth]

I always found the combat a bit mechanical and over designed, and at times closer to a music/rhythm game than a shooter. Nothing wrong with that because I do like a good rhythm game but in a shooter, the quazzi-real-time QTE requires very specific timed responses to each prompt which is only fun for so long. The combat is still the best aspect of the game, and I do enjoy it once in a while, it just doesn't take long to get tired of it again when combined with the exhausting plot and never ending upgrades.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Lippeth

[HadleyFlame]

Honestly, I love it, gives me adrenaline.

[TheFocus]

my thoughts? perfection. that's about it.

[Murdoch]

I have a love/hate relationship with it. When you're in the zone, it is satisfying. Get off, and it can be brutal and unforgiving, and I have little tolerance for annoyance in games. It feels like id tried too hard to design things that for you to use specific weapons and techniques, rather than letting the player chose their method of approach via trial and error. Not really sure I agree with that.

[chemo]

I strongly disagree that the combat is rigid/disallows creativity. There's plenty of ways to complete combat encounters, it's just that it's impractical to use one weapon all the time like you could in its predecessor.

 

Anyway, I fucking love it personally. It's like a character action title in FPS form.

[nathanB404]

On 12/24/2022 at 6:41 PM, TheFocus said:

my thoughts? perfection. that's about it.

Are there fps games that came out way before eternal that have a similar combat design to eternal? 

[TheFocus]

9 hours ago, nathanB404 said:

Are there fps games that came out way before eternal that have a similar combat design to eternal? 

depends. if you mean "push forward combat" design, i'd say any 90's shooter like OG Doom, Blood, Duke Nukem etc.

 

but if you mean actual core design, i'd say no. 2016 and Eternal kind of created an entire micro genre of FPS.

[whatup876]

It's interesting, because they knew it wasn't going to be like old Doom and still found ways to make it work.

 

The older Doom's are technically slower and are more about being in a maze and trying to escape while fighting enemies in the way.

They simply had enemies spread across a level and the enemies have basic AI at the time.

 

New Doom instead "splits" portions of the maps with arenas and traversal/exploration/platforming while enemies have more advanced AI and movement.

But they also have to spawn in and out of the maps.

And some enemies share certain attack concepts (like how Whiplash/Carcass/Tyrant can do the floor chasing fire thing; to be fair, old Doom also has "rehashes" in its roster and were more obvious) or don't carry certain concepts from before. (specially the Arch-vile due to both emphases on projectile avoidance (so no cover taking) or the absense of staying corpses)

Armor works differently and there are no "health/armor bonuses".

 

Lots of differences each with their own favors for their respective formula and not just because of limitations, but also from creative decisions.

Boss fights are also an improvement from the limitations in the old games, because i know there's attempts in some old FPS to make them mechanically interesting.

Though the "it's like a character action FPS" makes me think it'd be cool if a new Doom had a greater focus on melee like new attacks for a cool weapon.

 

Eternal elevated what 2016 but a part of me like to think there's still room for new ideas, even if nothing to major or stuff that some people would complain about. (still think the hate against the platforming is goofy)

[ApprihensivSoul]

Yeah, I wouldn't regard most 90s FPS in the "Push-Forward" camp. I wish that NuDoom would spend (significantly) more time on exploration, but hey, I'm a tnt fan, so my taste on that is probably biased.

That said, when it comes to combat itself, I don't hate Doom 2016, but it's falls into the same group most official doom campaigns do for me where it hits the "Sloppy implementation" zone, especially when it comes to all of it's new, good ideas. Doom Eternal fixed a ton of that for me, and I tend to find the combat more replayable/experimental/open-ended, as well as more rewarding. They're both punishing, Eternal far, far more so, but the punishment in 16 seemed often arbitrary and almost floaty (Cacodemon fireballs are a good example,) where Eternal felt like it was trying to teach me something (by bending me over with a rake.) 

When it comes to official Doom combat, it's probably my favorite since Plutonia or the second half of Knee Deep in the Dead, once you get to cut loose with the weapons. Not as good as alot of custom iwads for sure, but one of the best things id has ever done in that area.

[Stoltzmann]

On 12/26/2022 at 7:31 PM, TheFocus said:

 

but if you mean actual core design, i'd say no. 2016 and Eternal kind of created an entire micro genre of FPS.

 

I agree, Doom 2016, eternal and ultrakill create a micro genre of "very fast paced shooters". I would even go further and in my opinion Ultrakill makes a micro subgenre on its own where the emphasis is put on movement/dodging/parrying so "very fast paced movement shooter"

[TheFocus]

21 hours ago, Stoltzmann said:

 

I agree, Doom 2016, eternal and ultrakill create a micro genre of "very fast paced shooters". I would even go further and in my opinion Ultrakill makes a micro subgenre on its own where the emphasis is put on movement/dodging/parrying so "very fast paced movement shooter"

i forgot about Ultrakill, definitely worth mentioning!

[nathanB404]

10 hours ago, TheFocus said:

i forgot about Ultrakill, definitely worth mentioning!

yeah as much as i like doom eternal. i can't lie that ultra kill is just better

[Ui4]

5 hours ago, nathanB404 said:

yeah as much as i like doom eternal. i can't lie that ultra kill is just better

And why is he better?  Structurally, it all boils down to high dps through combos.  For me, even the complex system of the whole game is weaker there than in Doom Eternal, because the emphasis is on combinations, and not on the entire structure of the battle

[Eurisko]

I may have said this somewhere after my initial play through of Doom Eternal but I felt that Eternal, as fast and frantic as it is, took away your freedom of combat due to the Flame for armour, glory for health and saw for ammo system. 
You play eternal in a way that IT wants you to not how you’d individually go about dealing with situations. 
Though It is a lot of fun…….I would like some of that restraint taken away for the next game. 

 

[Ui4]

6 minutes ago, Eurisko said:

I may have said this somewhere after my initial play through of Doom Eternal but I felt that Eternal, as fast and frantic as it is, took away your freedom of combat due to the Flame for armour, glory for health and saw for ammo system. 
You play eternal in a way that IT wants you to not how you’d individually go about dealing with situations. 
Though It is a lot of fun…….I would like some of that restraint taken away for the next game. 

 

"the freedom of action".  In games, by definition, there is no freedom, because any game has its own rules.  What you mean is the principle of any game.  There is an enemy in the game > the enemy must be killed in order to go further.  Regardless of how you kill, there is no freedom of choice, there are just ways, that is, the game, by definition, forces you to do what is required of you.  All these are just differences in the methods of killing, and the very device of the game makes you do what she wants

[TheFocus]

3 hours ago, Ui4 said:

"the freedom of action".  In games, by definition, there is no freedom, because any game has its own rules.  What you mean is the principle of any game.  There is an enemy in the game > the enemy must be killed in order to go further.  Regardless of how you kill, there is no freedom of choice, there are just ways, that is, the game, by definition, forces you to do what is required of you.  All these are just differences in the methods of killing, and the very device of the game makes you do what she wants

and some people don't understand this very simple concept. 

[chemo]

5 hours ago, Ui4 said:

"the freedom of action".  In games, by definition, there is no freedom, because any game has its own rules.  What you mean is the principle of any game.  There is an enemy in the game > the enemy must be killed in order to go further.  Regardless of how you kill, there is no freedom of choice, there are just ways, that is, the game, by definition, forces you to do what is required of you.  All these are just differences in the methods of killing, and the very device of the game makes you do what she wants

Besides, how is the "kill enemies for health/ammo/armor" method more restrictive than the traditional pickups in prior games?

 

If anything, you actually have more "freedom" in Eternal because 1: since enemies are always around, resources are practically unlimited and thus you're much less at the mercy of a level's item placement and 2: there's still environmental pickups in the levels that complement the standard gameplay loop.

[Cynical]

It's a glaring example of "fake depth".  Because of the need to keep resources up, about 90% of the combat comes down to rotating cooldowns, as though it's a DOTA game instead of an action game.  There's basically no actual decision making; "which special isn't on cooldown?  Use that one." is basically the whole game.  Vanquish (which Doom Eternal is not-at-all shy about ripping off) does the "shooter combined with character action" thing far better than Doom Eternal could ever dream of.

 

7 hours ago, Ui4 said:

"the freedom of action".  In games, by definition, there is no freedom, because any game has its own rules.  What you mean is the principle of any game.  There is an enemy in the game > the enemy must be killed in order to go further.  Regardless of how you kill, there is no freedom of choice, there are just ways, that is, the game, by definition, forces you to do what is required of you.  All these are just differences in the methods of killing, and the very device of the game makes you do what she wants

What about games (such as the classic Doom games) where you don't have to kill every enemy to progress?  Where resource management decisions actually exist because you can carry more than two seconds worth of resources?  Where your choices on what ability to use are greater than "the one that isn't on cooldown?"

[BGreener]

7 hours ago, Ui4 said:

"the freedom of action".  In games, by definition, there is no freedom, because any game has its own rules.  What you mean is the principle of any game.  There is an enemy in the game > the enemy must be killed in order to go further.  Regardless of how you kill, there is no freedom of choice, there are just ways, that is, the game, by definition, forces you to do what is required of you.  All these are just differences in the methods of killing, and the very device of the game makes you do what she wants

 

This is why I'm so intrigued with the reception I've ran into regarding Eternal's combat direction. I've enjoyed it immensely, but it's not a been a rare sentiment to see some regard the combat to be "restricting" compared to the previous. If it's a sentiment shared by Id, how can they make it more appealing to those concerned while keeping the "depth"?

[chemo]

2 hours ago, Cynical said:

It's a glaring example of "fake depth".  Because of the need to keep resources up, about 90% of the combat comes down to rotating cooldowns, as though it's a DOTA game instead of an action game.  There's basically no actual decision making; "which special isn't on cooldown?  Use that one." is basically the whole game.  Vanquish (which Doom Eternal is not-at-all shy about ripping off) does the "shooter combined with character action" thing far better than Doom Eternal could ever dream of.

 

What about games (such as the classic Doom games) where you don't have to kill every enemy to progress?  Where resource management decisions actually exist because you can carry more than two seconds worth of resources?  Where your choices on what ability to use are greater than "the one that isn't on cooldown?"

God, where do I even begin to explain how much this post misrepresents DOOM Eternal?

 

First of all, to say that the game's meta is all about cooldowns is like, just plain wrong lmao. Skills including (but not limited to) target prioritization, aiming, weapon swapping, and movement like other shooters are still absolutely essential in playing Eternal well, probably even moreso than many other games in its genre. Look at gameplay videos from people like Zero Master and I dare you to tell me with a straight face that it resembles an MMO more than it does an action game.

 

Second, using the strategy of just using whatever ability or weapon you have a charge/ammo for is very impractical. Like yeah, go ahead, waste the ice bomb on a singular Imp instead of a group of high-tier enemies you might have trouble with seconds later. See if you get more armor from flame-belching a full-health Cyberdemon/Tyrant rather than a group of fodder demons. If you don't use shit indiscriminately you won't even be thinking about the cooldowns.

 

Lastly, don't games like classic DOOM have their own sets of rules and restrictions as well? You've already claimed that the older games have "resource management decisions" so doesn't that imply that those games have limits on what the player can use and carry? What about the lack of jumping and other movement options that makes it more difficult to maneuver in certain circumstances? Those games aren't worse because of the rules in place, so why is Eternal different? What make something like the arena lock-downs insufferable in comparison?

 

What truly matters is how the decision-making works within the confines of the restrictions in place, and Eternal is much more diverse in its options than you're making out to be. Sure, I could blow the arm-cannons off a Mancubus, but I could also pelt it with a barrage of rockets. I could use my single charge of chainsaw fuel to kill a fodder demon, or I can save up on fuel to use on a heavy demon later on (the ammo caps and pickups available make this more than possible, shut up about how you only have "two seconds worth of resources"). Oh, and I can use my movement options like the double jump, dash, and meathook to get past a horde of demons in order to prioritize an enemy farther back; can you do that in classic DOOM?

 

By the way, DOOM Eternal and Vanquish hardly play anything alike. Sure, both can be considered "character action shooters" but they're different takes on the same concept. Devil May Cry and Bayonetta aren't completely interchangeable just because both are character action hack and slash games (and even those have a lot more in common than DOOM Eternal and Vanquish do). I think it's entirely possible that Eternal took some degree of influence from Vanquish, but what the fuck is wrong with that?

[nathanB404]

8 hours ago, Cynical said:

It's a glaring example of "fake depth".  Because of the need to keep resources up, about 90% of the combat comes down to rotating cooldowns, as though it's a DOTA game instead of an action game.  There's basically no actual decision making; "which special isn't on cooldown?  Use that one." is basically the whole game.  Vanquish (which Doom Eternal is not-at-all shy about ripping off) does the "shooter combined with character action" thing far better than Doom Eternal could ever dream of.

 

 

[Gifty]

Deternal's combat is interesting to me in the way that it tackles the issue of health and resource management in level design. From the 2000s console-shooter era and onwards it's become popular to give the player regenerating health or other "dynamically" generated resources as a way of offsetting the increasing complexity and expense of level design. It's no longer popular to let a single designer lovingly craft a whole level down to every last item placement, mostly because this takes way, way more time and money than it used to; the constant, iterative balancing this requires is also harder to fit into the giant bureaucracy of modern game development where deadlines and team coordination often take precedence over perfectionism in any one area. Because of this, there was sort of a huge valley for a couple decades where FPS combat was super cheesy and boring most of the time, because they had effectively flattened out a lot of their avenues for differentiation between levels. If you're constantly seconds away from returning to perfect health, and ammo and weapons and dropped plentifully from every low-ranking goon, there are no game-stopping bottlenecks, but there are also no peaks and valleys of tension or memorable contrast. You have a safety net that takes pressure off of level designers, but it also makes the entire game homogenous and overly reliant on narrative exposition and "story beats" to give levels identity.

 

Doom Eternal represents sort of a hybrid between the new and old styles in that it uses a finite health and ammo system like retro games, with a lot of hand-placed health and ammo, but also uses dynamic replenishment. Instead of making replenishment constant and limitless, it ties them to combat and monster placement, which IS handcrafted. So you have the developer benefit of semi-automated player resources but in a way that still retains a sense of dynamism and unique design from fight to fight. Not quite a perfect, best-of-both-worlds system, but a huge step forward away from the kind of "you played the game too hard, now hide behind a rock for five seconds" health systems we've been stuck with for almost 20 years.

 

I think an improved version of this system would retain the developer-friendly automated elements, but double down on more unique level designs that really shake up the feel of combat from area to area. So long as resources are tied to opponents and combat, you can reasonably rely on the player being able to take care of themselves, but still have those peaks and valleys of resource management and a distinctly "authored" feeling to different levels. Think of a Dark Souls-y world with a huge array of areas, hazards and enemies, each with different challenges and rhythms to master, but with a constant baseline of resource replenishing mechanics to ensure the player can never get truly stuck.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Gifty

[hybridial]

I think I would start my thoughts by agreeing with @Gifty about the direction of FPS design. I think AAA games for the most part have become so monotonous and formulaic that I basically don't play them any more, I haven't for a long time now. What I would say of Doom Eternal is that it is a fairly good modern AAA game. It at least adopts an approach, to try and differentiate itself from other games. It does that much better than Doom 2016 which I felt was all over the place. I didn't really know what Doom 2016 was trying to do really. It just did not succeed for me in feeling anything like the old games. Doom Eternal was better off for not trying any of that, and just being its own thing. It certainly delivers on the action, and I can appreciate that; it does reward aggression, and quick thinking. I think the issue is though that after having finished the game, it doesn't really pull me into wanting to play it more. It probably will eventually, but the game itself is rather exhausting. I guess I'm saying I liked it, but I don't really see what else they can do with it. It also still carries the problem for me where it cost millions to make, had to sell millions to make a profit, and it's a good product, but the one guy who made Dusk made a game I think is better than Doom Eternal. Because you don't need any of that to make an enjoyable game.

 

For me, with the FPS genre in particular, is a genre that never really improved from the elegant design of the mid to late 90s games. I would just rather play those, 20 years of development and they've gone nowhere for me. A major thing that helped with that as many of these games having their source codes released. So these games have not remained static; and so many people have used them as platforms to demonstrate the elegance these games had. How level design made all of the difference in terms of the experience. There's also practical things like they don't take up 90 gigs on your hard drive. I wish id luck in making their next game, and making something that at least stands out. 

[whatup876]

I think it's something to do with the "sandbox" of those 7thgen FPS.

Doom existed to be an improvement over Wolfenstein 3D with new features for level design, weapons, ammo types, enemies, items, resources and so on.

It's why Doom and other classics even have modding scenes or maps that are still vanilla, because of the elements that you can use in different ways.

2016 and Eternal have their share of features, with one even having SnapMap and the other having some form of modding. But i also see that this formula could still be room for new ideas, just because its structure may allow it.

 

The kind of FPS that degraded the genre were ver limited and didn't put imagination into the "sandbox". Everything was streamlined and there were no tools to make the game, therefore no tools to play with.

Perhaps it's to do with them trying to be realistic or story driven and not wanting to feel "videogamey".

But i think even slower, "tactical" games can still have interesting features, so it's more like that some games wanted an excuse to skip actual game design.

Part of why i'm on 2 different boths of thinking that the 2016/Eternal formula could still be room for new features but that even D3 could deserve a follow up to explore its aesthetical/tonal/mechanic potential.

 

This could also apply to other franchises like Quake, even with the occasional overlaps, so it depends if id has enough ideas for a Quake 5 that weren't reserved/used for Doom.

But speaking of being on multiple boats at once...

[Koko Ricky]

PROS:

• Large selection of weapons, most of which have two upgrades, making for an impressively-sized and versatile arsenal.
• Large monster roster with a variety of behaviors and attacks.
• Large number of simultaneous monsters, which allows for a lot of improvisation and strategy.
• The player's full move set allows for a great deal of air control which is very satisfying. 
• Weapons and enemies are distinct in appearance and easy to distinguish between.
• Some enemies have exploitable weak spots, allowing you to blow off pieces of their armor or weapons.
• Combat "skate parks" with a lot of verticality and an enjoyable flow.
• Secondary weapons, such as grenades, freeze bombs, and flame throwers, which add an additional strategic element.
• Glory kills are a fun rush because of how effectively they can get players out of fatal situations, while still requiring precision to execute.
• Additional elements, like the chainsaw's fuel hierarchy or the flamethrower's ability to mine armor, are well-integrated.

CONS:

• The core gameplay loop consists of an exploratory section, followed by a locked down combat arena. This can make combat predictable and restrictive.
• One example of this restriction is that, unlike the OG Dooms, the player cannot choose how aggressive they want to be. They are forced to kill nearly every enemy rather than choose based on preferred play style.
• Early maps have a nice dynamism in terms of enemy placement, but later maps just spam everybody in over and over and there isn't much of a sense of escalation, or playing with different enemy setups.
• Combat is very complex overall and this can lead to some glitches, such as the player not connecting with a punch, a Blood punch being used when not intended, the chainsaw being selected when not intended, or the BFG being selected when not intended.
• Combat can be exhausting at times due to this complexity, and leave both casual and hardcore players fatigued.
• Mastering enemies like the marauder, Blood Makyr, and the riot soldier is of course possible, but their behavior can severely disrupt the flow of combat at times.
• Combat is a little too upfront in Doom Eternal, making the game feel like the devs neglected some of the earlier games' more subtle ideas.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Koko Ricky

[Kute]

On 2/7/2023 at 1:17 PM, Koko Ricky said:

PROS:

• Large selection of weapons, most of which have two upgrades, making for an impressively-sized and versatile arsenal.
• Large monster roster with a variety of behaviors and attacks.
• Large number of simultaneous monsters, which allows for a lot of improvisation and strategy.
• The player's full move set allows for a great deal of air control which is very satisfying. 
• Weapons and enemies are distinct in appearance and easy to distinguish between.
• Some enemies have exploitable weak spots, allowing you to blow off pieces of their armor or weapons.
• Combat "skate parks" with a lot of verticality and an enjoyable flow.
• Secondary weapons, such as grenades, freeze bombs, and flame throwers, which add an additional strategic element.
• Glory kills are a fun rush because of how effectively they can get players out of fatal situations, while still requiring precision to execute.
• Additional elements, like the chainsaw's fuel hierarchy or the flamethrower's ability to mine armor, are well-integrated.

CONS:

• The core gameplay loop consists of an exploratory section, followed by a locked down combat arena. This can make combat predictable and restrictive.
• One example of this restriction is that, unlike the OG Dooms, the player cannot choose how aggressive they want to be. They are forced to kill nearly every enemy rather than choose based on preferred play style.
• Early maps have a nice dynamism in terms of enemy placement, but later maps just spam everybody in over and over and there isn't much of a sense of escalation, or playing with different enemy setups.
• Combat is very complex overall and this can lead to some glitches, such as the player not connecting with a punch, a Blood punch being used when not intended, the chainsaw being selected when not intended, or the BFG being selected when not intended.
• Combat can be exhausting at times due to this complexity, and leave both casual and hardcore players fatigued.
• Mastering enemies like the marauder, Blood Makyr, and the riot soldier is of course possible, but their behavior can severely disrupt the flow of combat at times.
• Combat is a little too upfront in Doom Eternal, making the game feel like the devs neglected some of the earlier games' more subtle ideas.

 

I agree, Doom Eternal isn't a stealthshooter. You have to fite the monsters and that can be bothersome. 

[Murdoch]

9 hours ago, Kute said:

Doom Eternal isn't a stealthshooter

 

Going into a Doom expecting you might be able to use some form of stealth is like going to an orgy and hoping not to see any naked people.

[MrHofmann]

On 12/26/2022 at 7:31 PM, TheFocus said:

but if you mean actual core design, i'd say no. 2016 and Eternal kind of created an entire micro genre of FPS.

 

Metroid Prime? 

[Dreamskull]

They did most everything well except the enclosed areas. Ill be clear, there are many well made enclosed areas, but i fundamentally disagree with its framing. Its the worst aspect of the game. By itself, this is called arena style or setpeice design. Its honestly fine if you do this as the idea is to make the fights themselves memorable, but there was no overlay amongst, to or from any of the arena or setpieces. This "modes" everything. The actual travel to and from the arena or setpeices becomes secondary and somewhat trivialized by default. Exploration for collectables is not what its about, but because thats what they did it, thats all it can ever really be. This also changes how fights work in the arena as they have to spawn the monsters in to fight you, meaning the fights are hardcap, scaling is exacting and everything is artificial. They might claim complexity in the form of tuning or effort to force it into place, but in all actuality, its a simplified form of what it could have been.

 

The setpeice is supposed to offer you stronger position to want to fight the enemies in location. Travel to and from is supposed to offer real exploration.

 

They included the full doom beastiary and they created a strong arsenal kit. They did well enough. Theyve benchmarked the franchise with this entry.

 

Doom 2016 didnt.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Dreamskull