More "Run and hide" than "stand and fight".

[N00B]

I play the game on maxed out difficulty, with 500% damage to player, 50% damage to demons, minimum resource value, minimum parry window, maximum projectile speed and 150% game speed.
While I do enjoy the combat, there are certain things about it that rub me the wrong way which I would like to address. I have not yet finished the game due to the difficulty I am playing on, so feel free to correct me if these issues are fixed later on in the campaign. So far, I finished part 1 of the invasion.

hit-scan
So far Chaingunners, Arachnatrons and Cyberdemons have hitscan machinegun fire. You cannot dodge it and the trailers and tutorials hint that you should block them with your shield. However, your shield has finite health and as such breaks before you can do anything with it. Force yet, the primary way of dealing with these enemies is said shield, as the Chaingunner's shield needs to be hit with a shield throw to be destroyed, the Arachnatron can only be stunned with the shieldsaw and the Cyberdemon's designed specifically around continued parrying of his melee attacks, as his ranged attacks are certifiably ass.
So, instead of blocking these attacks with your shield, you're forced to cower behind cover.

Personally, I think making it a "damage threshold" type of deal where it reduces damage by a set amount would have been better. It would be worse at blocking singular high damage attacks, but could outright nullify attacks below its threshold. This would force you to block most of the weak attacks and avoid the strong ones.

melee is a trap
Replacing the chainsaw and glory kills, the melee attacks are directly worse as you are completely vulnerable during its duration. They're also very slow, even on 150% speed. More over however is how they work mechanically. The effectively "lock-on" to the nearest enemy in sight and then pull you to them, locking you in place as well as keeping your camera facing one direction.

Making it a proper melee that wouldn't lock-on and would let you move in the desired direction while allowing you to continue moving would make it feel less restrictive. It could open up a lot more room for skill expression too, letting you hit multiple enemies with one melee attack if done correctly, or letting you sneak in melee attacks in your combos when an enemy's open.

Sprint makes you overall slower, not faster
As a boomer shooter, movement and speed are key for staying alive and have been since the first Doom game. Even without 2016's double jump and Eternal's dash, being able to strafe and shoot is what kept you alive. In Dark Ages, the sprint does still alow you to move out of the way, but because its limited to moving forward or forward-adjascent, you can't avoid attacks while facing the enemy. Not only does this mean that you can't deal damage and avoid it at the same time, but when avoiding attacks, you can't see the attacks as they come and have to avoid them by blind faith.

In my opinion, making the sprint omnidirectional would have sufficed. Maybe it could have made it so you can't shoot and sprint at the same time just like you can't block and shoot, with the sprint then replacing your firing action as well.



I do enjoy the game, but these things feel like clear flaws in its design and make it harder to enjoy.

[space]

Originally posted by N00B:

I play the game on maxed out difficulty, with 500% damage to player

and you're surprised that you sometimes have to run away? i swear people complain about everything

"this too easy"

"this too hard"

"this puts me out of my comfort zone"

[Rafael-57]

I'm not quat sure what to do with the "hit-scan" enemies either. Maybe we're supposed to shield charge to get closer to them and stun?

[Dae]

I've noticed hitscan doesn't kill you anyway once you're at 5hp and if it does, it takes a while, more than enough time to kill whatever or regain hp back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r86BBYAky0Y

[N00B]

Originally posted by space:

I never said it was "too easy". Personally, I believe every game should be designed around its highest difficulty. Only at the highest difficulty does the player play the game "correctly". Platinum Games is a perfect example of this philospophy, as the higher difficulties can only be unlocked after beating the game at the lower one. In the case of Dark Ages, I feel as though these mechanics weren't designed with the difficulty scaling in mind and as such break or simply don't function at higher difficulties, which is a shame.

In the previous doom games, even on the highest difficulties the game was moderately "fair", as you could still deal with most encounters. Even the Archvile, which did have hitscan in the form of it setting you on fire if it had line of sight, could be dealt with since the levels were designed to have corners and cover to protect you and the fire would have a second of build up before working.

I prefer "hard but fair" over "screw you, undodgable instant kill hit-scan "

Originally posted by Dae:

Never noticed this. :P
Thank you.

[Dinosaurs_Are_Friends]

Originally posted by N00B:

I play the game on maxed out difficulty, with 500% damage to player, 50% damage to demons, minimum resource value, minimum parry window, maximum projectile speed and 150% game speed.
While I do enjoy the combat, there are certain things about it that rub me the wrong way which I would like to address. I have not yet finished the game due to the difficulty I am playing on, so feel free to correct me if these issues are fixed later on in the campaign. So far, I finished part 1 of the invasion.

hit-scan
So far Chaingunners, Arachnatrons and Cyberdemons have hitscan machinegun fire. You cannot dodge it and the trailers and tutorials hint that you should block them with your shield. However, your shield has finite health and as such breaks before you can do anything with it. Force yet, the primary way of dealing with these enemies is said shield, as the Chaingunner's shield needs to be hit with a shield throw to be destroyed, the Arachnatron can only be stunned with the shieldsaw and the Cyberdemon's designed specifically around continued parrying of his melee attacks, as his ranged attacks are certifiably ass.
So, instead of blocking these attacks with your shield, you're forced to cower behind cover.

Personally, I think making it a "damage threshold" type of deal where it reduces damage by a set amount would have been better. It would be worse at blocking singular high damage attacks, but could outright nullify attacks below its threshold. This would force you to block most of the weak attacks and avoid the strong ones.

melee is a trap
Replacing the chainsaw and glory kills, the melee attacks are directly worse as you are completely vulnerable during its duration. They're also very slow, even on 150% speed. More over however is how they work mechanically. The effectively "lock-on" to the nearest enemy in sight and then pull you to them, locking you in place as well as keeping your camera facing one direction.

Making it a proper melee that wouldn't lock-on and would let you move in the desired direction while allowing you to continue moving would make it feel less restrictive. It could open up a lot more room for skill expression too, letting you hit multiple enemies with one melee attack if done correctly, or letting you sneak in melee attacks in your combos when an enemy's open.

Sprint makes you overall slower, not faster
As a boomer shooter, movement and speed are key for staying alive and have been since the first Doom game. Even without 2016's double jump and Eternal's dash, being able to strafe and shoot is what kept you alive. In Dark Ages, the sprint does still alow you to move out of the way, but because its limited to moving forward or forward-adjascent, you can't avoid attacks while facing the enemy. Not only does this mean that you can't deal damage and avoid it at the same time, but when avoiding attacks, you can't see the attacks as they come and have to avoid them by blind faith.

In my opinion, making the sprint omnidirectional would have sufficed. Maybe it could have made it so you can't shoot and sprint at the same time just like you can't block and shoot, with the sprint then replacing your firing action as well.



I do enjoy the game, but these things feel like clear flaws in its design and make it harder to enjoy.

> I play the game with the options deliberately tweaked to a completely artificial Omega Nightmare difficulty, and I am frustrated that I cannot brute force it.

There are some legitimate gripes with this game. The hitscan shield guards are just a mistake, for example, the Life Sigil implementation is terribad and they should have just been removed after everyone hated them in Eternal, and fodder enemies do way too much damage if you're going to be so slow moving when moving laterally as you note. But what you're describing is exactly what I'd expect if you deliberately engage with the completely optional difficulty menu to the extent you have.

If anything, what you're describing is that giving the player the option to distort the intended experience beyond recognition is a mistake because people will succumb to silly temptations and ruin the experience for themselves, and from that standpoint, I agree.

[N00B]

Originally posted by Dinosaurs_Are_Friends:

...

Here's the issue.
If I turn up projectile speed, I have to suffer through using sprint, but if I don't, I don't use sprint at all.
If I turn up the damage, I have to rely on the fragile shield for protection, but if I don't, there's no reason to block attacks.

If its useless when its too easy and useless when its too hard, when is it useful?

[SH41TAN]

Originally posted by Rafael-57:

I'm not quat sure what to do with the "hit-scan" enemies either. Maybe we're supposed to shield charge to get closer to them and stun?

Shielded gunners get a free damage on you no matter what. Its not much but still stupid.

[Dinosaurs_Are_Friends]

Originally posted by N00B:

Originally posted by Dinosaurs_Are_Friends:

...

Here's the issue.
If I turn up projectile speed, I have to suffer through using sprint, but if I don't, I don't use sprint at all.
If I turn up the damage, I have to rely on the fragile shield for protection, but if I don't, there's no reason to block attacks.

If its useless when its too easy and useless when its too hard, when is it useful?

Hmmm... I haven't experienced precisely what you're describing, but I still think it sounds like that (at least part of) your problem is that you need to do a bunch of optimization on difficulty, as you have yet to find the sweet spot. But searching for that sweet spot sounds like a tremendous chore. Or IDK maybe you're exactly right and I'm too noob to have encountered the particular problem you're describing, since I couldn't be bothered to mess around with those settings and just elected for Ultra Violence.

In either case, I thought the myriad toggleable and individually targetable difficulty settings sounded like a terrible idea when I first heard of them, especially since they effectively absolve the developers of balancing their experience properly, and even if I'm wrong in your particular case, I feel that way more strongly than ever.

[N00B]

I think the shield breaking should have been a deliberate design choice. It makes parrying feel like a risk since normal attacks will damage your shield, getting rid of shield bash, shield throw and parry, which are your primary defensive options.

Against chaingun attacks, making those parry-able would have worked better. Being able to reflect the gunfire back at the chaingunner's shield, then blow them up during the brief pause between bursts would feel more naturally as "parry then attack" is already how the Imp Stalker and Hellknight are designed.

On that note, there is one distinct opportunity not taken advantage of: The parry should redirect projectiles to where you're aiming.
This is already tested and awesome by TF2's vortex shield, tf2's airblast and Ultrakill's punch. Being able to redirect projectiles at the desired enemy would make parrying even more useful and skill based and could even open up room for something like Eternal's weakpoints by having enemies who's attacks need to be redirected towards a weakpoint. Redirecting a Chaingunner's machine gun fire at his shield, a Pinky Rider's arrow at the Pinky's legs (temporarily pinning them), redirecting environmental projectiles at destructable environments (such as parrying a helltank projectile at a wall to open it) for puzzle purposes...
They already had it take the place of the ADS. They could have made us actually aim the parry.