Doom Eternal - Good Game, Bad Doom?

[DM Science]

I'm an old school gamer. Was around to play original Doom (and Wolfenstein before that). I generally try to be positive and try to separate my personal feelings about games, movies, music, etc from the work in and of itself.

I tried Doom Eternal for the second time recently. Doom 2016 was the most fun I had in a long time on a computer game with high intensity. I like most types of games. I started on Atari and Pong, so can appreciate the bounty of modern gaming. I usually enjoy depth and story, but occasionally, I want a game that I can jump and tear stuff up at 100 mph without thinking too much. It's like music. Sometimes I want Pink Floyd, with its complex arrangements and layered lyrics giving me pause to reflect on the human condition. Other times, I want Ministry- can't understand most of the lyrics, but it makes me feel like moving fast and breaking stuff.

Now imagine you were feeling aggressive. Had a long week and you don't want to think about anything, just let off some steam. You pick up a newly released Ministry album, only to find they have branched off from industrial speed metal to a slower, more clean sound. The vocals are clearer and they are taking distortion out of the guitar.
It may be brilliant and beautiful- a work of musical art. But you're still angry. Why? You bought a Ministry album, you expect Ministry. If they wanted to experiment under a different name, you would be fine. But don't say it's Ministry, if it's mellow.

This is the problem with Doom Eternal, and why I have multiple completions of Doom 2016 and have given up on Doom Eternal twice now when I realized I wasn't having fun.

Doom Eternal is a polished, well-thought-out, creative, and visually gorgeous video game. So why the complaint? It doesn't feel like DOOM. It's complicated. The problem is that I think developers sometimes confuse complexity with creativity. You see, the enemies require more planning and precision to kill. You need to use the right weapons and hit the right weak points. The weapon mods and runes and points and whatever else they throw in, requires planning and customization, secrets abound that you are encouraged to look for, and finally there is the challenging platforming aspect- always fun in a FPS. (They only managed to get climbing ladders in FPS a less monitor-smashing exercise a few years ago). While they emphasize "keep moving" to keep the action looking frenetic, the reality is that my mind is constantly engaged in trying to keep track if I need health, so I need to hit E and glory kill, or do I need ammo, so I hit c to chainsaw, or armor so I got to hit r for my flamer, then kill the enemy, but which weapon do I have, which mod is set on it, what enemies are here, what are their weaknesses, does it match my weapon mod, and where do I need to go on this map, can't stop to look what's over the edge because KEEP MOVING, and so on... My mind is definitely engaged- Which is what is WRONG!

As I described above, when I sit down and decide to play Doom, it is because I am in a certain "mood"- a DOOMMOOD if you will. The DOOMMOOD hits when I'm stressed, been doing lots of problem solving, bummed out, etc... I play Doom because I want to kill stuff fast. So when I sat down to play Doom Eternal, that's what I wanted to do. I was just on stage 2, Exultia when I realized I had not really fought that much. But I had spent hours trying to execute dashes and jumps to hard to reach secrets and dying in that stupid ********* lava. It wasn't scratching my Doom itch. And because I was already in a DOOMMOOD, this changed to anger and made me begin to resent and hate the game.

As I reflect now, I think if I had bought a game called The Sentinels, that was described as a challenging platformer, with a story spanning divine and infernal realms, a mysterious hub where you can refine your tools and techniques, and enemies that you dominate by precision application of force combined with knowledge of their weakness, and then played this, I would give it an A+. I would have been in a Portal type mood, or maybe an Ori type mood. But it was called Doom. So I was disappointed. And while I may try to reframe the game in my brain as "The Sentinels" and play it again in another mood, my conclusion will stand that this is a really good Game, but a really disappointing DOOM.

[Sar]

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

引用自 Sar：

Did you play them on UV? What about Plutonia?

I honestly couldn't say.

Plutonia on UV isn’t something that you can forget easily…

[Erwin_Von_Braun]

引用自 furbleburble：

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

Sorry chaps but I really must be going - domestic chores await.

You mean like working on a farm? Domestic livestock? Or do you mean house chores?

No insults. Just asking for clarification. I've always been curious about working on a farm.

If you have to ask that question then you don't deserve an answer.

[Erwin_Von_Braun]

引用自 Sar：

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

I honestly couldn't say.

Plutonia on UV isn’t something that you can forget easily…

With a rapidly deteriorating 50+ year old memory, yes I can.
I mean seriously, I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning...

[furbleburble]

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

引用自 furbleburble：

You mean like working on a farm? Domestic livestock? Or do you mean house chores?

No insults. Just asking for clarification. I've always been curious about working on a farm.

If you have to ask that question then you don't deserve an answer.

Wut? That's incredibly rude.

[Erwin_Von_Braun]

引用自 furbleburble：

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

If you have to ask that question then you don't deserve an answer.

Wut? That's incredibly rude.

As was your question.

[furbleburble]

引用自 furbleburble：

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

Sorry chaps but I really must be going - domestic chores await.

You mean like working on a farm? Domestic livestock? Or do you mean house chores?

No insults. Just asking for clarification. I've always been curious about working on a farm.

引用自 Erwin_Von_Braun：

引用自 furbleburble：

Wut? That's incredibly rude.

As was your question.

How? I explicitly stated, "No insults. Just asking for clarification. I've always been curious about working on a farm. " I'm not sure how asking for your clarification of your use of
"domestic" can be considered rude when you examine my explicit statements.

[SuperFly]

引用自 furbleburble：

引用自 SuperFly：

It is, objectively, a bad DOOM entry.

Willful ignorance doesn't change the meaning of words.

Neither does hyper-literally focusing on singular words in a statement rob that discussion of its proper context.

There is nothing willful or ignorant of my observation, here -- it's been proven with math according to cited firm, SuperData:

If D:E sold over 3 million digital copies in Month1,
and D16 under 1 million copies in Month1;
and D16 holds a 1k player average after 7.5 years,
and D:E holds a 1k player average after 4 years...

That means D:E objectively failed to meet the demands of players by a very, very wide margin.

DOOM:Eternal is a decent game for what it is.
It is absolute garbage as a DOOM game, in the end.

[Ace]

引用自 SuperFly：

If D:E sold over 3 million digital copies in Month1,
and D16 under 1 million copies in Month1;
and D16 holds a 1k player average after 7.5 years,
and D:E holds a 1k player average after 4 years...

That means D:E objectively failed to meet the demands of players by a very, very wide margin.

DOOM:Eternal is a decent game for what it is.
It is absolute garbage as a DOOM game, in the end.

Just to correct you on some misinformation.

https://steamcharts.com/app/379720 - DOOM 2016

https://steamcharts.com/app/782330 - DOOM Eternal

Eternal has held more players in 4 years than 2016 has in 8.

Eternal was & still is objectively a commercial success. DEAL WITH IT

Be better.

[Sar]

2016 didn’t have 1k average since December 2022 (Christmas sale).

[Grampire]

引用自 SuperFly：

引用自 furbleburble：

Willful ignorance doesn't change the meaning of words.

Neither does hyper-literally focusing on singular words in a statement rob that discussion of its proper context.

There is nothing willful or ignorant of my observation, here -- it's been proven with math according to cited firm, SuperData:

If D:E sold over 3 million digital copies in Month1,
and D16 under 1 million copies in Month1;
and D16 holds a 1k player average after 7.5 years,
and D:E holds a 1k player average after 4 years...

That means D:E objectively failed to meet the demands of players by a very, very wide margin.

DOOM:Eternal is a decent game for what it is.
It is absolute garbage as a DOOM game, in the end.

Sigh.

There is nothing objective about that whatsoever and it most certainly doesn't support whatever argument you think you're making. It's not even a good premise for one.

[furbleburble]

引用自 SuperFly：

引用自 furbleburble：

Willful ignorance doesn't change the meaning of words.

Neither does hyper-literally focusing on singular words in a statement rob that discussion of its proper context.

There is nothing willful or ignorant of my observation, here -- it's been proven with math according to cited firm, SuperData:

If D:E sold over 3 million digital copies in Month1,
and D16 under 1 million copies in Month1;
and D16 holds a 1k player average after 7.5 years,
and D:E holds a 1k player average after 4 years...

That means D:E objectively failed to meet the demands of players by a very, very wide margin.

It's interesting, and telling, that you presume to know the demands of players. You keep doing this. It's extremely arrogant.

The numbers that you've presented here tell you numbers. They do not tell you anything about demands. You're inferring information in a manner to comply with your biases.

引用自 SuperFly：

DOOM:Eternal is a decent game for what it is.
It is absolute garbage as a DOOM game, in the end.

So Eternal is a decent game as a garbage Doom game?

[Sar]

I'm curious how can Eternal be a "decent game" when it's nothing but endless unskippable scripted sequences where you mash buttons to a rhythm like some kind of trained monkey.

Seems like the worst game ever!

[SuperFly]

引用自 Wiesshund：

引用自 SuperFly：

If D:E sold over 3 million digital copies in Month1,
and D16 under 1 million copies in Month1;
and D16 holds a 1k player average after 7.5 years,
and D:E holds a 1k player average after 4 years...

Both games have sold around 5 million copies each, if reports are correct.

Doom 2016 peaked (on steam only) at around 12k on release day
Not shocking, Doom 2016 was an unknown quantity, no trust in the reborn franchise yet

Doom Eternal spiked at 85k on release day
Actually a little surprising, maybe over hyped, got down more towards reality through march.

Once it normalized, both games have pretty consistent showings.
Eternal has always had the higher playercount, but both games have remained consistent.
They even appear to closely follow the same ebb and flow

Your average numbers above are not right
not quite sure how you arrived at them?

Those are quick but close-enough numbers.
D16 sold 957k copies in Month1, for example -- hence stating "under", above.

Break down the numbers any way you like from here, as it's been done in other threads --
after 4 years span, there is a distinct margin of 2/3rds against D:E because it sold
3mil vs. 1mil at Month 1 -- since both sales totals are now seemingly capped at 5mil.

It's easy to extrapolate which game style players prefer -- the "better DOOM game'.
The margin is so wide against D:E, that it can well be cited as "NOT a good DOOM game."

The player averages are almost matched by D16, right now. Does that make D16 the better game, or D:E the lesser? D:E can only be objectively successful, when compared to D16's longevity, if it sells a few million more units in the next 3.5 years.

It is very unlikely to do any more business above the current 5mil.

[SuperFly]

引用自 Wiesshund：

引用自 SuperFly：

The only way D:E can objectively be successful, when compared to D16, is if it sells a few million more units in the next 3.5 years.

Yea, that is not how it works.
It is already objectively successful
that word does not mean what you seem think it does.

It is the appropriate word, since "that's" exactly how it works:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/782330/discussions/0/5291222824589079691/?ctp=7#c3881597253355552611

[SuperFly]

引用自 Wiesshund：

引用自 SuperFly：

...how it works:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/782330/discussions/0/5291222824589079691/?ctp=7#c3881597253355552611

No, but you appear to be incapable of comprehending
or simply refusal

You're free to attempt to disprove it, since it can only work one way.