Be Excellent To Each Other

Made more progress on NIGHTMARE last night. It's brutally difficult, but also completely fair, you're never in any doubt as to what killed you, what you did wrong, and what needs to be done differently next time.

I had to try one arena section about ten times, in fact I'll say easily ten times, but I enjoyed every single attempt, and each time my moves and kill priorities were getting honed and more effective, and the sense of satisfaction when I nailed it was off the charts.

Headphones at max volume are definitely the way to go. I actually swore at one point without even realising I'd done it, and when I removed myself from the DOOM ZONE, was admonished by my daughter for using a naughty word.

It needs ammo.

This game defeated me on NIGHTMARE, I hit an arena section that I simply couldn't get past. And I don't mean I tried it a few times and then gave up, I spent two evenings on it, and then gave up, and dropped down to ULTRA VIOLENCE.

I came irritatingly close a few times but never quite managed to complete it. The game is brutally difficult on NIGHTMARE and you really need to be cycling through the various replenishment options (health, armour, ammo) on a regular basis, and swapping mods on weapons mid-combat. (So you're having to make sure you use your flame thrower thing, and do glory kills, and use the chainsaw when it's off cooldown, use blood punch when available, constantly dashing and jumping around (because you absolutely cannot stay still), switching guns and switching mods, it's a lot to juggle, all whilst an army of demons are actively hunting you down and trying to kill you.)

Ammo is irritatingly limited, I get that the chainsaw constantly refilling one charge is designed to replace plentiful ammo, but it still starts to get a bit trying.

The game also seems to expect you to get hit more than in DOOM 2016 as there's stuff that'd kill you on NIGHTMARE in that game, but doesn't in DOOM ETERNAL, almost like they know they've made the combat quite a bit fiddlier and compensated things in that regard.

Annoyingly, once I dropped down to ULTRA VIOLENCE I completed the section relatively easily, but I've decided to leave the game on ULTRA VIOLENCE for this playthrough, I might return for a full NIGHTMARE playthrough at a later date.

I like this thread. It's fun to read about a series when someone like Hearthly knows it in such detail.

This really isn't as good as DOOM 2016, not by a long chalk.

I've knocked it down to HURT-ME-PLENTY now just to get through it, as the combat loop isn't immensely satisfying, just too many mechanics to juggle.

WHAT WILL MAKE THE DOOM GUY FEEL REALLY BAD ASS?

I know, let's have him constantly running out of ammo, that feels good.

Oh yeah, and lets introduce a load of extra buttons you have to press for no good reason, that'll be fun.

OH AND PLATFORMING, nothing screams DOOM more than fiddly fucking platform sections. And monkey bars, people have been screaming out for monkey bars.

Yes and let's have the player getting hit all the time, even on NIGHTMARE setting that won't be lethal, because we're tacitly admitting we've made combat fiddly compared to DOOM 2016.

And we'll throw in a boring story no one gives a fuck about.

PUZZLES, PEOPLE LOVE IRRITATING PUZZLES IN A DOOM GAME, LET'S DO THOSE.

I'd say DOOM 2016 is one of the best videogames of all time, and I made a case in its thread that it may just be THE best videogame of all time.

DOOM ETERNAL is 8/10 stuff IMO. When it fires on all cylinders it's still great, but it doesn't do so nearly often enough.

The Phobos level is the highlight of the entire game.I have a feeling it was done when Eternal was in its early stages. It has a sense of place the other levels lack, the BFG 10,000 firing in the background for most of it, the "that's a weapon not a teleporter" bit... it feels a bit more 2016-ish than the rest of the game.

Yes I would agree with the above. I get that games aren't made by one person, Manic Miner style, and haven't been for decades, but holy crap Doom Eternal really feels like a game made by lots of different people in a way that 2016 never did.

2016 felt like it had a coherent design philosophy right the way through, and whilst there were only really two locations, they worked together and the story ran through them in a logical fashion.

Half the time I have no real idea where I am in Eternal or indeed why I'm there, or how the location is supposed to fit in with the story, which is weird since Eternal makes a big point of story, but I don't care about the story so I'm basically ignoring it.

That said, the levels I was doing last night were fantastic, a minimum of stupid platforming, lots of killing demons, and some decent fighting arenas to really go nuts in.

I've got the Super Shotgun fully upgraded and unlocked its mastery ability too, so that's a pretty devastating weapon now, even if the game doesn't want me to have enough ammo for it.

When this game works, it's amazing, but there's too much fluff and baggage in there for it to soar to the heights that 2016 did.

Custom PC pretty much nailing this game in their review IMO.

8/10 feels right to me.

That is totally the right way up on my PC.

If Doom 2016 was a 9, I'd give Eternal a 7.

Rootkit shenanigans abound though, users not happy, more at ten, over to the weather.

Well yes it's a kernel level driver but then again so is a lot of stuff. The shit bit is that it's being added after launch and it's only for anti-cheat in multiplayer, but the single player stops working if you don't install the fucker.

Did anyone finish this game?

I just sort of...... stopped, about halfway through. It wasn't a conscious decision at that point, y'know, I didn't think 'That's me done with this game', I finished a session on it one evening and simply didn't go back the day after, or the day after that, and now I haven't loaded it in since April 29th, according to Steam. Technically speaking of course I could pick it up again where I left off, but I never find myself in the headspace to do so.

Nope. About four hours I gave it, before returning to Fallout 3 for another playthrough. I did complete Metro Exodus though, so there is that.

I bought a spangly new curved high refresh screen too ! I must try harder to get into this properly.

I thought I’d give this a go. I’d read about the new mechanics of using one move to get ammo, one to get health and one to get armour so I knew what to expect with the gameplay loop.

Turns out, I’m not enjoying it so much. I’m constantly running out of lead and slugs. Like, I knew what the games going for, but it’s like it’s too restrictive. I can only carry 16 slugs? Give me double that for starters.

Plus, I was missing everything. I couldn’t hit shit for shit. I’m not a huge fan of the Xbox pad in any event but the options were almost designed to piss me off. Aim acceleration, that can get fucked, aim assist, that’s not sodding working, sensitivity, I can’t get that in a sweet spot and no option to alter the dead zone on the pad? It feels like my minor adjustments aren’t being read.

It just doesn’t feel good and I’m not having so much fun. I might have to bump the difficulty down like a spod just to give me some kind of power fantasy that I walk through in a few hours.

And yes, I hate the cut scenes and the setting isn’t doing anything for me. Doom 2016’s Mars was just corridors and metal platforms and was entirely unimaginative but even that felt better than generic jutting platforms. And why is Doom guy scaling walls? I didn’t ask for that. Tch.

Still not played this since April.

TBH if I really found myself in a DOOM place I think I'd do another playthrough of 2016 rather than pick Eternal up again.

Yeah, I picked up 2016 for a bit, and enjoyed it far more than Eternal.

Well I played some more and then it suddenly dawned on me...I just don’t give a fuck.

Priests, sentinels, pick up this, that, this power core, this whatchamacallit, this do dad. I don’t give a shit. I’d managed to accumulate 3 weapons but I’d been picking up mods, skills, and fuck knows how many skill trees or power ups, or whatever the fuck.

There’s too much going on and it’s not interesting enough. For a game about shooting, only 3 weapons and a ton of fucking gizmos wasn’t doing shit for me. Give me more guns not sodding mods and crap until later. And I don’t care about the Bloody Fist Punch or whatever it was on about either. Just give me some interesting basics - some guns that make enemies go night night. Introduce some other shit later. Or don’t, because I certainly don’t find it enjoyable to be juggling about 6 fucking cool down timers in a fucking FPS. I spent more time looking at the corners of the screen...hmm, what do I need now? Health, bullets? How bout some armour? Oh look I’m dead again. I dropped the difficultly down like a pleb to see whether it would satisfy that power fantasy but, no, it felt like a chore.

And when I had to sit through a cutscene in a castle where a hologram talked about some mcguffin, I’d had enough. I just turned it off and uninstalled it. What a disappointment.

I finally admitted I'm never going to play this again and uninstalled it.

Holy crap this game has pissed me off again.

As per the Wongawatch thread I've had a new PC for a couple of months, and I was aware that Doom Eternal got an update last year to add ray tracing, so I decided to install it on my new PC and try out the new shinies. So yes, I can run it at native 4K and max everything out completely, including all the ray tracing stuff, and it looks incredible, truly jaw dropping.

The game however, remains the same. All the stuff documented in this thread still holds true, and even at its very best when it's giving you an intense arena battle, all the fiddly crap you have to contend with spoils it.

Constantly running out of ammo, constantly having to juggle tiresome cooldowns to micromanage your resources, it ruins the combat, which is the best bit of the game.

And oh my god all the other shite, the fucking, FUCKING platforming sections, the AWFUL TEDIOUS BORING STORY THAT NO ONE GIVES A SINGLE FLYING FUCK ABOUT, and PUZZLE SECTIONS for the love of Christ. Oh yes and runes and upgrades and other nonsense, and endless tutorials for all the fiddly shite they've put in that no one asked for, super fist punch, because that's what we were all after.

I absolutely cannot get my head around how they fucked up the DOOM 2016 sequel so badly, it's mind-boggling. I've persevered with it for a few hours on this playthrough but I hit a wall with it last night, dropped back to desktop and installed DOOM 2016.

I will say though, that the ray tracing stuff is luscious, but certainly not worth playing through the game for.

Like, in DOOM 2016, if anything starts warbling on or giving you exposition, Doomguy literally just punches it.

YOU HAD IT RIGHT FIRST TIME FOLKS.

Hearthly is IGN.

Also, I thought it was pretty great

Doom Eternal was a bigger disappointment than Cyberpunk 2077 for me. Cyberpunk 2077 was pretty much what I wanted, just really badly implemented. Doom Eternal wasn't what I wanted at all.

You know how the music in Doom Eternal just wasn't 'right' in the way that the incredible soundstage in Doom 2016 was? So it turns out there's a reason for that.

Shame on id for treating Mick Gordon like this.

Yeah, can't imagine Marty Stratton has got long left with Microsoft as the ultimate employer, way too much damage to all the brands.

I'd like to think "because he's a cunt" but let's face it.