What are your thoughts on DOOM: The Dark Ages?

[Geara_Doga_Flakes]

I've seen quite the discourse over this game so I'm interested in seeing how exactly people feel about it, and why they feel that way.

Personally I think that while DOOM 2016 and Eternal are better in some ways, this game is still quite good, and the difficulty sliders are probably the franchise's best addition, however the $70 price tag is absolutely dreadful.

So how do y'all feel about it? Please try to be calm as possible as I've already seen quite a few threads here break out into ugly fights and name-calling lmao

[Juice]

I like this game more than 2016 and Eternal. Since it reminds me a bit of Quake. I think if this was a quake game, it would be better received.

[Micromelo]

I fortunately got it for free. The gameplay is fun but different, The fundamentals are there but fights don't play the same, you are incentivised to parry and play around your shield and movement can feel a little slower at times.

I also really enjoy the world building and cutscenes, it actually makes me want a spin off where you're just Dave Doomfriend fighting the hordes alongside the Slayer and other grunts (like Doom 3).

My issues are with the map sizes, dragon/mech sequences (Christ what a bore) and obviously the price tag.

I can not justify £70 for this at all and am so glad I got it for free.

I haven't experienced any bugs **yet** and am enjoying it so far.

[Nekros]

It struck a balance between 2016's freedom of choice in weapons with run and gun and Eternal's need to engage with mechanics and be selective in target priority. Everyone gets what they want but the problem is also everyone gets what they want. There's a saying: when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

So now 2016 fans will still gripe on mechanics being an integral part of the game and Eternal fans will complain of being able to play the entire game with a single weapon and that the mechanics were pulled back. They tried to account for this with the custom difficulty sliders but seemingly no one at large has used them to find you can near perfectly tailor the game without the need for mods.

Both will dislike the removal of glory kills in the traditional sense of spam E on the flashing enemy. Let's be real though, glory kills are just like the parry but even worse. Parrying slows down the game play briefly but a glory kill outright stops it for 1-2 seconds. After a bit people stopped doing them anyways even with double kill speed animation runes because you can only see the same kill so many times before it's boring. You can still consistently activate glory kill adjacent take downs by sprinting into a jump then shield bashing when going in for the kill.

On it's own though TDA is a solid enough entry into the series that tried to be a little more dynamic in game play options. Ultimately you get out what you put into it. If you choose not to use the weapons simply because you don't have to then you're only hurting your own experience. You can sprint around and ignore the parry mechanic by stepping between green attacks but then you're gonna have a really bad time when you encounter the marauder equivalent of a skill check enemy where you need to parry.

[Geara_Doga_Flakes]

Origineel geplaatst door Grampire II:

I feel like they came really close to something amazing with TDA, but they made a few decisions that really hamstring the experience for me.

I think the game is way too slow, and thats not just a matter of upping the gamespeed. The actions you can take within a window of time are reduced compared to the last 2 games. They clearly meant this to reduce the mental stack the player has to contend with, but it makes the game feel streamlined and more like you have less control.

Related to that, it feels like aggression is actually punished. It feels like you need to hit and run more in this game due to the way restocking works, and fighting in melee range is actually suboptimal. As the slayer it is much harder to control the tempo of fights because youre reliant on parries for some of your most powerful tools, and those only come when the game decides they should.

It seems much, much harder to dominate an arena and use offense to remove targets before they can pose a threat. By virtue of the way your tools work, they will often have a more dangerous presence you will have to deal with. That can be a positive for some people and this was probably by design, but it feels like a reduction in player control.

The overemphasis of the parry mechanics can make the game feel very one-dimensional. I am not personally sipping the parry-mechanic kool-aid that is gripping the industry right now and I think this game goes way too far with this mechanic. Take it away and what's left is a fairly basic shooter.

I HATE the flat arenas. They are large, boring, and make the levels feel extremely indistinct. Every level feels and looks the same. People whining about the colorful levels in Eternal - this feels like a be careful what you wish for moment. I miss Cultist Base, super Gore Nest, Break, all of them. What we have now feels very generic and Im not into it.

Secret hunting is annoying. I think single tokens is a better solution for upgrade currency than collecting micropickups and just feels like tedious busy work. Exploration just isnt a functional part of NuDoom and whatever they tried to do with this game isnt working.

You can generally pick 3 weapons you like and ignore the rest of your arsenal. Im using the chainshot, Impaler and SSG. It's all I need. Several of the guns - like the Reaver - are confusing and IMO really stupid in design, form and function, and just feel like fluff to pad out your arsenal. I have never encountered a fight where I've felt like that gun was a viable or even fun solution.

Despite all this whining above, the game is a lot of fun otherwise. Im glad its different from Eternal in some core ways but I really feel like the decision to slow it down, remove verticality and streamline mechanics are the greatest weaknesses the game has.

The uselessness of most of the weapons is probably what bothers me the most.

The Impaler, grenade launcher, and the gun that shreds skulls for ammo were hyped up to be so much fun to use, but they output so little damage and are so laughably unfun to use that I just sat in my seat and cried. Most guns are made entirely irrelevant by a select few top three that you unlock at various points throughout the game.

Compare that to even DOOM Eternal, which I'd argue is even more of a sandbox than 2016 was, since you can get so much utility out of each and every gun with their various upgrades, and for the most part play the game exactly how you want to play it.

I didn't even notice the castrated arenas when I played it but yeah thanks for pointing it out, I always had a feeling something was super off about them. And yeah, aggression is punished hard when it really shouldn't be. It was never like that even in the original games.

[Energist]

If it would stop freezing on me, I'd let you know. The further in I get, the worse it gets. I'm 3 mins shy of my return window. Strongly considering returning it if I don't see a hotfix in the next few days. Going to stop playing it in the mean time.

Gameplay is picking up. First impression is that it's subpar compared to Eternal. Bugs not helping.

[NegativeZero]

So this game isn't for me. I couldn't do 2016 because it was too slow-paced and boring for me and this one feels more like that, although a bit better maybe.

First of all, the price is egregious given the lack of quality in this game. Everything just feels so jenky, especially coming from such a good game Expedition 33. The writing - trash I literally keep finding myself zoning out during cutscenes. The animations - trash, nothing feels natural to me, it all feels jenky and half-assed. THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MUSIC DOES NOT HIT AT ALL ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell - pisses me off every time I'm sitting there listening to bland ass noise. And why the ♥♥♥♥ is the same couple of voice lines being repeated so much by the trash NPCs? For the extra purchase price, need to include some gd extra lines or something.

And yeah, other complaints. Not happy at all. I only played $12 to rent it through Game Pass and yet I STILL feel ripped off.

[Jordan_Peterson]

10xtimes better than DE. Ok no wait. 100xtimes.

[Roma Invicta]

I am playing on ps 5,in short: music bad , levels bland enemies sucks it is a disappointment in every way

[xenon]

Great gameplay, completely overpriced and barebones package.

[Jordan_Peterson]

overpriced maybe, good gameplay, better than DE. better story than DE. better cutscenes than DE. Better levels than DE. better graphics than DE.
I am at 20/22 now. Still 2 more levels to go. So this observation might change in time.

[Nitronumber9]

Very mediocre, I'm going to completely ignore the story stuff and talk about gameplay. weapon balancing is non existent, you have absolutely too much ammo, you have no reason to experiment with weapons because you have too much ammo, weapon swap speed is extremely slow, possibly the slowest in the entire series, half the weapons are redundant. There's absolutely no challenge. No exploration because the game basically tells you where secrets are.

It feels like a game that caters for everyone who felt like Doom Eternal was too restrictive by going completely the opposite direction

[MaxxGold]

Having a blast. Better than 2016 and Eternal for me.

[Wheat]

Absolute banger game

[LadiesMan2417]

Origineel geplaatst door Geara_Doga_Flakes:

I've seen quite the discourse over this game so I'm interested in seeing how exactly people feel about it, and why they feel that way.

Personally I think that while DOOM 2016 and Eternal are better in some ways, this game is still quite good, and the difficulty sliders are probably the franchise's best addition, however the $70 price tag is absolutely dreadful.

So how do y'all feel about it? Please try to be calm as possible as I've already seen quite a few threads here break out into ugly fights and name-calling lmao

nah i watched some game play, mostly the executions so not to spoil and twas not impressed. story is worth a solid 40 bucks

[LadiesMan2417]

Origineel geplaatst door Nitronumber9:

Very mediocre, I'm going to completely ignore the story stuff and talk about gameplay. weapon balancing is non existent, you have absolutely too much ammo, you have no reason to experiment with weapons because you have too much ammo, weapon swap speed is extremely slow, possibly the slowest in the entire series, half the weapons are redundant. There's absolutely no challenge. No exploration because the game basically tells you where secrets are.

It feels like a game that caters for everyone who felt like Doom Eternal was too restrictive by going completely the opposite direction

yeah i grinded 2016 and felt like i was literally in hell. watching gameplay of dark age is unimpressive at best and lacking in so many ways, in my opinion saying its better than 2016 is complete heresy maybe it was just too hard for them