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.

[Wiesshund]

Автор сообщения: SuperFly

It really isn't.
There is a steep learning curve, and players need to get the baseline tempo & cooldown management down in order to play.

And that is absolutely false.
I never put much thought into it, you learn enough as you go, without paying much attention, to do just fine.

If you want to be Herr Doom Meister sure you can learn lots of little things, but none of them are needed to blow stuff up and make things die.

You would like it to be impossibly difficult to play
But it isn't

[Wiesshund]

Автор сообщения: zargo_zore

I agree with op. I would like more demon killing in this Mario Brothers platformer

Well, you are in luck, cause it's mosre blow stuff up make things die, than it is parkour.

Which is a good thing because i am terrible at parkour.

[SuperFly]

Автор сообщения: Ace

Автор сообщения: zargo_zore

I agree with op. I would like more demon killing in this Mario Brothers platformer

You're in luck! there's 11 levels of demon killing.

Which is completely devalued by all the erroneous crap like Mario Bros. jump puzzling & a tempo-based """combat loop" backbone in place of a shooter challenge.

It's sad, really, and the reason posts like OP exist.
Cope and seethe about it, but D:E let players down as a DOOM game.

[Grampire]

Автор сообщения: SuperFly

Which is completely devalued by all the erroneous crap like Mario Bros. jump puzzling & a tempo-based """combat loop" backbone in place of a shooter challenge.

It's not, and the very premise you made previously in this thread proves it for anyone willing to explore the notion further.

If you think otherwise, pick any challenging arena and use the heavy cannon primary fire only, and every other tool at your disposal.

Then play it again with all your guns.

If what you said were true, the latter would be just as hard as the former.

[AlphaZeroX96]

If you want a more classic experience with the stuff from the reboots, there's D4D Death Foretold and the upcoming Kar En Tuk. These are Doom 4 and Doom Eternal mods respectively for Classic Doom.

[Wiesshund]

Автор сообщения: BubonicDuck

It's pretty clear that some Doom players have only played the shareware on Hurt Me Plenty, and never played Doom properly.
People complaining about the platforming in DE would have a nervous breakdown playing Perfect Hatred or The Chasm.
People complain about weapon switching, like it's not an essential Doom skill to juggle your ammo supplies and have all your weapons on hotkeys.

Doom 1 and Doom 2, we always used weapon switching.
both were a blast to play in co-op, with every difficulty tweak and arg maxed out.
Ammo Armor Health were not just spewing in an unlimited cornucopia like that, you had to switch, use what was most economical at times to save the heavy stuff for what was coming.

Even solo you should do that if you aren't playing the easy difficulties.

Doom 1/2 had weapon hotkeys to quickly switch to specific weapons for a reason.

And i dont know where people get the idea that doom 1 and doom 2 are just
Start at point A
Pick your favorite weapon
Run to point B shooting everything
Punch exit button.

Many levels are much more complex than that, and do have platforming, in as much as
the game engine could do.
It even invented the 1st rocket jump.

[Jordan_Peterson]

So we reached page 66! ;)
Still a good game but bad Doom no matter how big the outrcy might be.

Also mentioning some abysmal unknown games nobody ever heard of is not helping. It is just another distraction.
Fans who defend a game with a bad story will always say the game does not need one.
A game with that kind of detailed graphics and animation-quality like DE can not come without a story, that is just a fact.
It's like saying a movie does not need a plot! It's just nonsense when you dont know what else to say anymore. But I dont anticipate fans having that kind of high standards when it comes to their beloved game.

I also think that we can all agree that, of all the Doom games, DE (Doom Eternal) has the most tedious parkour elements. No questions asked.
They act as fillers and artificial stretchers, not as examples of good innovative game design.

[Ace]

Автор сообщения: SuperFly

Which is completely devalued by all the erroneous crap like Mario Bros. jump puzzling & a tempo-based """combat loop" backbone in place of a shooter challenge.

It's sad, really, and the reason posts like OP exist.
Cope and seethe about it, but D:E let players down as a DOOM game.

Nah, it adds to it & makes it more engaging & fun, almost like it's a video game. But it's oki just because you're terrible at the most basic of platforming & shooting dosn't make the game bad, it's purely a YOU issue.


Cope and seethe about it, but D:E is the best DOOM game & you can't handle that you're bad at it.

Get good son.

[Damien]

So Doom is about story telling? Funny, I always thought it was about first person demon slaughter with gore. Doom 1 certainly did not have the story in front of it. Mechanics, that's what's it all about. Doom Eternal has the best mechanics of any Doom game, no question, most complex and most fluid systems in place. One can argue against the platforming, but has anyone thought why it's actually there? It's just another training sequence for the player to get his muscle memory conditioned in between demon slaughtering. If you don't like Doom eternal the problem is you, not Doom not being Doom.

[Sar]

Автор сообщения: Jordan Peterson

So we reached page 66! ;)
Still a good game

What’s so good about it? The combat is tedious, the platforming even more, the story is abysmal and the art direction is catering to children. The engine is glossy, sure, but it doesn’t take much effort to make a glossy corridor where even the tiniest object is nailed down. Zero exploration, zero interaction.

[AlphaZeroX96]

While Unreal Tournament 2004 is the greatest first person shooter of all-time, Doom Eternal doesn't seem to be a bad game.

[Grampire]

Автор сообщения: Damien

If you don't like Doom eternal the problem is you, not Doom not being Doom.

You are correct- 1000% correct.

But you have to understand, video games are often not made to force that kind of introspection. They are gratuitous roller-coasters that provide a few fleeting moments of feel-good power fantasy before the thin veil that covers the fact that it's purely transactional castes that pretense to ether.

But - How can something make you feel awesome if it's nothing but a participation trophy? Apparently for some, that's enough.

Doom makes you feel the opposite if you refuse to learn, and withholds that from you. And people will be eager to blame their inability to adapt to that on the game rather than themselves. Despite the fact that Doom Eternal is actually a pretty easy and simple game.

Externalizing culpability makes it much easier to do nothing about it.

[Viddaz]

Автор сообщения: Sar

Автор сообщения: Jordan Peterson

So we reached page 66! ;)
Still a good game

What’s so good about it? The combat is tedious, the platforming even more, the story is abysmal and the art direction is catering to children. The engine is glossy, sure, but it doesn’t take much effort to make a glossy corridor where even the tiniest object is nailed down. Zero exploration, zero interaction.

You not liking the game doesn't make it a bad game. I think the opposite of all that you've just said and it's in my top 10 games ever made, though I don't expect it to make top 10 among the gaming community as a whole. There are gaming "masterpieces" that some people think are trash, it's all a matter of opinion.

Please - and this goes for everyone in this god forsaken thread that has gone on for far too long - let's just accept that our opinions may differ. However, it's not constructive trashing the game when you simply didn't vibe with it or didn't want to put in the time to get better.

DE has something that most other mainstream games don't; a steep learning curve, and I personally love that. As Hugo Martin mentioned, "you need to work yourself up to becoming a black belt", and this is something that most people do not have the time or the motivation for, which I completely understand.

Given that the main critics in this thread have a fetish in comparing DE to Dance Dance Revolution, I'll use it as an example; if I find DDR too challenging on my first playthrough and therefore decide to stop playing because I'm getting frustrated, I would be in the wrong to say the game is bad. I see a similar pattern in DE's discussions here; the game is confident in its design and gameplay choices and it forces the player to adjust and play by its rules, which is something that frustrates a certain demographic.

[Grampire]

^*whispers*

Sar is being sarcastic.

[Viddaz]

Автор сообщения: Grampire

^*whispers*

Sar is being sarcastic.

Didn't catch that.

Hard to figure out who your allies are in this minefield :D