So what you think about the items that are given away from the enemies's death?

[Amph]

the items that are given away from the enemies's death?

i'm on the fence for this, i'm not sure if i'll like it or not...

[Deleted_Account]

I like it. Is that okay with you guys?

[Antroid]

Piper Maru said:

I like it. Is that okay with you guys?

No. You aren't allowed in here anymore.

Serioustalk, I kinda hate it. Not because it's new or anything, but because it removes a key component of doom gameplay: staying on your toes and being ready to (and needing to) retreat to grab shit. Hell, just going and picking up that 20-shell box is probably so much more satisfying than just having a steady supply of all resources that actively home in on you like the 1-up mushroom in mario 64... TBH I've always kinda hated items that would scatter about and then automatically fly into you anyways, like what's the fucking point? Making it look more exciting to the kiddies?

[esselfortium]

I'm not a fan. Here's why:

esselfortium said:

One thing that bothers me regarding level design is that using monsters as item pinatas means that map designers (seemingly) lose the freedom to use item placement as part of a level's identity. Things like the feast-and-famine approach from some of Sandy Petersen's maps, or placing items just out of reach to encourage players to cross the threshold into the center of a fight, are lost and things get just a bit more flattened out and homogenized. It's basically a regenerating health/ammo system, just presented a bit differently.

[Buckshot]

totally gives it that smash-and-grab feel.

[Clonehunter]

I agree with essel's points, but at the same time, I don't mind the arcadey feel to it. However, depending on how robust SnapMap is, this may not even be n issue as far as custom maps are, as mappers could very well mimic some of the classic Doom tropes. I know I would at least try. Since weapons themselves still seem to be pickups, they can probably be exploited.

EDIT: And actually, as I recall, SnapMap did feature an Armor pickup. So things like Soul Spheres may still exist too in a way that was mentioned. My final guess is that fixed items will still exist, but monster drops will coincide with this.

[Jaxxoon R]

I recall someone stating that they saw a medkit lying about somewhere in one of the videos.

I'm also hoping they were playing on Babby [sic] Mode considering the guy IGN was interviewing (forget his name) stated that the hell quarry level was being played by a young girl. Most likely not, though.

[HorrorMovieRei]

The pinata enemies is the one thing that's reeeaally bothering me about Doom 4 so far. I can "sort of" see it working, in the same way it did on Powerslave, but frankly, I'd just rather have fixed item spawns.

[Antroid]

Jaxxoon R said:

I recall someone stating that they saw a medkit lying about somewhere in one of the videos.

There are definitely pre-placed medkits in the techbase level. At one point the player grabs like 2 or 3 of them from some boxes. They have a yellow light on them I think. There's also several small green things just casually laid out along some wall that they also pick up and they're apparently armor bonuses.

[Deleted_Account]

I suppose it's because of the fast gameplay the player will want to grab all the pick-ups on the go. Will it work? Only time will tell.

[DooM_RO]

esselfortium said:

I'm not a fan. Here's why:

Basically this, it's the only thing I really dislike about it. It might be more balanced in the final game though.

Antroid said:

There are definitely pre-placed medkits in the techbase level. At one point the player grabs like 2 or 3 of them from some boxes. They have a yellow light on them I think. There's also several small green things just casually laid out along some wall that they also pick up and they're apparently armor bonuses.

I didn't see them and why would they even put them if the player can get everything he needs from monsters?

[Deleted_Account]

Actually I remember in the demo the player picked up boxes of shotgun shells. So yes, there will be pre-placed items ready for your use.

[Antroid]

DooM_RO said:

I didn't see them

I was a bit mistaken. The yellow things are actually ammo. The greens are armor though.
Both things pictured here
Ammo boxes (shells AND bullets... not easily distinguishable, sadly)

Edit: actually, this is something to bring up. Why do the shell and bullet boxes look fucking identical apart from the barely different icons on the sides? (you can see in the video it says what the player picks up, and it's bullets and shells)

[Clonehunter]

Like the SnapMap armor, these pickups, especially the ammo boxes, look really similar to the Quake III pickups. The multiplayer maps they showed also looked very similar to Quake and Unreal (Especially with that Sniper rifle and the teleporters, though yes, Teleporters have always been a part of Doom regardless).

[larrypotter]

I don't like the "Pinyata mechanic", but I think it's there for rewarding the player for doing executions. There has to be some incentive for player to perform them other than just visually looking cool. Also from what I saw from demo, there's really no reason to look around for ammo and resources, because there is also a really low ammo limit, you can only have 20 shotgun shells. When low on ammo, just perform a fatality and you have full ammo and health again.
I am kind of worried about all this, but other than that, the game looks awesome.

[illuknisaa]

enemies already drop ammo in older dooms so why is this an issue now? new doom is an fps, in an fps you shoot stuff and in this new doom you get rewarded for successfully shooting stuff. This is especially important if enemies are projectile based because there is literally no reason to kill projectile enemies.

What annoying is that there is a massive hud icons for the dropped goods. Using the hud to tell where important stuff is insanely lazy visual design (like glowing objects, arrows etc.). If the player can't tell on a glance what is important and what is not, then you fucked up.

[DemonSphere]

I don't mind that they drop items and stuff but it kind of looks like they drop to much health/ammo. Also I don't like the way everything it outlined and highlighted or whatever.

[Fulgrim]

I would want the health and ammo you get from killing demons to be a secondary source while pickups are still the primary source.

[doom_is_great]

If the health and ammo pinyata effect is balanced out, it could work. What I don't like are the ridiculously low ammo caps. That pretty much makes it mandatory that your perform executions to get more ammo.

[gamul312]

It works for fast-paced linear action, I'm sure, but like esselfortium said, it changes a lot of things about level design, such as deciding whether to go into the fray and risk things to get a weapon or more ammo, etc. -- how many times have we all been close to death only to get a healthpack or megahealth or something right before we were about to die surrounded by enemies and then get out? At the same time though you could imagine situations like that where you see an enemy that you know has extra goodies inside and burst him open as you strafe to avoid some other guys that can take you out quick. It depends on whether some enemies offer better goodies than others.

Actually it reminded me of some old 16-bit shooters like MUSHA, Coryoon and Twinbee, the way you shoot enemies to get powerups and stuff that drops. Or the way it sucks toward you reminded me of Ratchet & Clank. (Actually God of War and Devil May Cry, too, with the orbs - and Ninja Gaiden? (Xbox)).

[Kaskaum]

I prefer regenerating health to monsters that drop health (it is cheesy). Some monsters, however, coul drop ammunition but following logic:

Possessed marines drop either pistol, shotgun or SMG ammo;
Arachnotron and Manchubus could give plasma cells;
Spider Mastermind could give ammo belt for the stronger SMG;
Revenant could give rockets;
Cyberdemon could dive BGF cells.

[Annunakitty]

I wasn't paying that close attention, but were enemies dropping health? I figured it was just ammo they were dropping which we've had that to an extent in Doom from the beginning.

[Kaskaum]

BombChel said:

I wasn't paying that close attention, but were enemies dropping health? I figured it was just ammo they were dropping which we've had that to an extent in Doom from the beginning.

They dropped health and ammunition (even monsters that don't carry any weapon).

[printz]

More evidence that the player is not a human but some kind of vampire, angel or greater being.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Undecided on it. Has its flaws, but it's certainly a better idea than regenerating health. I don't think it's a bad concept, hopefully that was an easy mode shown and health drops will be stingier (maybe even nonexistent) on higher difficulties.

[DoomUK]

Is it THAT different from enemies dropping clips, shotguns and chainguns?

I'm guessing the answer is a resounding "yes", but personally I'm okay with it, as I am with all the other controversial things in the Doom 4 demo. The whole package seems pretty sweet to me.

[Amph]

Piper Maru said:

I like it. Is that okay with you guys?

so you will feel good, if a mancubus will give to you soul sphere? lol


how they will manage megasphere and other special items?

also the enviroment look so empty in this way, and the secrets would be worthless, so for now i'm more toward "i hate it" than "i like it"

[40oz]

DoomUK said:

Is it THAT different from enemies dropping clips, shotguns and chainguns?

Did you even read essels post? If you play through knee deep in the dead, you'll have trouble having anything less than max ammo almost the entire time. But if you play Sandy Petersens maps, such E3M1 Hell Keep MAP13 Downtown or MAP16 Suburbs, where there are no shotgun guys or zombiemen, ammo management and conservation becomes important adding an element of strategy to the game. Ammo depravation can be an exciting way to coax the player into developing their own strategies, like running away from or past a cyberdemon or causing it to fight with other monsters, instead of killing it on the spot, like in MAP20 Gotcha.

A level designer wont seem to have that sort of control. As long as there are monsters to kill, and isn't just shooting at walls, the player will always have the required ammo to kill them, which sounds good on paper, but it can limit variety in gameplay styles across different maps.

You learn this stuff when mapping for Doom, and its why in most pwads you play, we don't give you a super shotgun, megaarmor and ten shellboxes at the start of every map.

[DoomUK]

40oz said:

...

I get it. Abundant pickups are bad.

Like I've said though, the whole package looks good to me, so maybe I'm able to overlook minor/major potential gameplay issues. Especially as we've only seen a demo, and Id have another year to make changes to things. And who knows, maybe the whole thing will be rebooted again.

[Naitguolf]

Totally I dislike it. Only for humans, and not using that blue-ey-this-you-can-pick-it!!!