Do people actually hate the DLCs?

43 minutes ago, The Doommer said:

I can agree with the fact that it could have been done better

But since there are a couple mechanics having people learn by themselves can result to way more deaths

That's a huge part of the issue. It's also what makes it so polarizing to discuss: Making it more intuitive could invariably make it "easier" to play in some regards. A lot of fans are particularly protective about maintaining the intended difficulty resulting from current implementations, especially since there's not many other games with the budget and gameplay like Eternal. But there has been some noted dissent with the game's direction; this thread itself is testament to that, so I'm curious how IdSoft will design "challenging gameplay" for their next project.

Ultimately: It's important to note the difference with how games like Dark Souls and Eternal are harder than other mainstream games, not just that they're harder than most. It's also fun to compare the difficulty between the two: Dark Souls is nowhere near as hectic, but it also won't give you a checkpoint in between boss phases.

Whatever Id Software does next, I just hope they do not rely on crunch. As I noted earlier, it is likely that it affected the game's design.

Plus it is Id Software we are talking about: they can afford to take their time and not rush things out.

3 minutes ago, BGrieber said:

Dark Souls is nowhere near as hectic, but it also won't give you a checkpoint in between boss phases.

I had a harder time getting used to Dark Souls than Eternal, personal experience ofc

Soulslikes are all about memorization, it's way different than Eternal. 

Eternal also requires you to memorize weakpoints and weapon combos

Unless you meant something else and I missed it

1 hour ago, The Doommer said:

Eternal also requires you to memorize weakpoints and weapon combos

 

Unless you meant something else and I missed it

When you get down and dirty with it, they're both beating the shit out of you until something 'clicks'.

4 hours ago, The Doommer said:

Eternal also requires you to memorize weakpoints and weapon combos

 

Unless you meant something else and I missed it

I think remembering the type of enemy attacks and when / how long they're vulnerable is key in Soulslike games.

This also applies to Eternal but to a lesser extent. There are other key mechanics required to utilise with constant split second reactions. Although I'd imagine the Gladiator fight in Eternal must feel like a first person soulslike Boss but with guns. I can't really say as I haven't played Darksouls.

One obvious difference between Eternal and Souls games is how one is about the power fantasy and the other makes you an underdog.

It's why one is clearly seen as the notorious Berserk influenced series (besides the setting and designs) but also why i think people got mad at Eternal's difficulty: "I'm the most badass and epic videogame protagonist, why am i dying? Aren't i the mighty Slayer?" you have to earn the fantasy to feel it.

I also think people saying Eternal was too cartoonish or compare it to the MCU correlates with the gameplay criticisms: they think a game this challenging and its "whacky visuals don't mix".

Whereas Souls games combine both a dark setting and challening gameplay style.

Eternal in comparison looks like it's mixing a demanding gameplay format with a rather "safer" visual direction, so maybe people think Eternal can't decide if it's for hardcore gamers or more casual audiences. (sounds like a weird theory, but some stuff is at least done out of feedback)

If Eternal's aesthetic was closer to 2016's tone, maybe people wouldn't feel this contrast/whiplash effect.

Then again, it took Elden Ring to get complaints from actual game devs and industry people and that is why we even know of the term "UX".

On 7/5/2022 at 1:42 PM, The Doommer said:

I do understand your point, I guess the game is done harder than other mainstream games but that's not really a bad thing

Otherwise Dark Souls would be regarded as a bad game rather than a loved one

 

That's true, but there's one thing you're missing - Dark Souls is an RPG, so you can grind like crazy or look up how to make an OP character and save yourself the embarrassment of playing on easy mode to get through it :p

3 hours ago, whatup876 said:

One obvious difference between Eternal and Souls games is how one is about the power fantasy and the other makes you an underdog.

It's why one is clearly seen as the notorious Berserk influenced series (besides the setting and designs) but also why i think people got mad at Eternal's difficulty: "I'm the most badass and epic videogame protagonist, why am i dying? Aren't i the mighty Slayer?" you have to earn the fantasy to feel it.

That is a completely fair point
Then again, I feel like it being a power fantasy game that's easy is gonna be really boring

Even 2016 with the easier gameplay can whoop your ass in the Cyberdemon boss fight (unless you use the BFG exploit)

23 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

Dark Souls is an RPG, so you can grind like crazy or look up how to make an OP character and save yourself the embarrassment of playing on easy mode to get through it :p

While your point is absolutely correct, there shouldn't be any shame on playing on easy mode

6 minutes ago, The Doommer said:

While your point is absolutely correct, there shouldn't be any shame on playing on easy mode

 

I agree, but unfortunately that's not how a lot of players see it, hence the endless complaints about UV difficulties being too hard on idgames.

I really enjoyed The Ancient Gods. Except those bloody swamps.

I don't hate it but the biggest issue for me was the lore and how it seemed to contradict itself with each game.  Should of really stuck with the 2016 mysteries and atmosphere in my opinion. 

Other than that, TAG2 was rushed to make the 1 year window.  Should of polished it more and if anyone bitched, Force Majeure.

Although I dislike the story direction id Software took in TAG 1+2, I wonder how they could have done better?

• After the end of Doom 2016 everybody wanted to know Olivia's boss.
• After the end of Eternal another mysterious protagonist was known - the father. But the dark lord has not been revealed. 

By revealing them (in TAG 1+2) as persons the story almost looked like Greek mythology, combined heavy metal, mixed with biblical names.

Maybe TAG 1+2 should not have solved the mystery between the original dark lord, the father and so on? Maybe it should have focused on the "dark lord of the 4th age" vs. Vega?

What do you think? 

15 minutes ago, igg said:

Maybe TAG 1+2 should not have solved the mystery between the original dark lord, the father and so on? Maybe it should have focused on the "dark lord of the 4th age" vs. Vega?

It is always a double edged sword when adding lore

You add too little, it becomes like fnaf where no one has a perfect explanation

You add too much, it becomes boring

I think an issue with the DL being evil Doomguy was mostly:

* Probably how Doomguy's face in Eternal could have been a closer transition to 3D from the classic sprite after what we got in QC.

* The fact that the DL, if i recall, always looked like Doomguy, making Doomguy the clone and more special than he needed to be. (though i think Hugo even said something about why Doomguy and the DL look alike)

* Gameplay-wise, you'd expect a character with almost the exact same set of weapons or at least a deep enough arsenal to have potential to be a playable character. (it's like a golden rule with copycat/mirror/rival characters in games)

* And because the Icon of Sin (both as a large Titan and giant cybernetic mastermind) was the original "big bad of Doom", so some people had higher expectations.

* Immora in general is a red high tech city, which hints a supposed civilization of humans seperated from the expected evil nature of Hell.

* "Hell tech" in general almost makes Hell on a similar level to Sentinel/UAC soldiers, when the original games had stuff like fleshy walls with pipes and a giant skull computer switch: basically, potential for weird/surreal cyber flesh stuff that is not taken anywhere.

I also remember when the art book was leaked and people saw these loyal demons that look like weird monsters.

I think a way to describe TAG2's direction is how it wanted to be "nerdier", at least if interviews are something to go with and considering the media influences/comparions.

In a way, this kinda proves why horror in Doom is good: because it means crazy design and weird art direction not bound to "rules". specially without having gameplay slowed down like in D3 or very dark corridors.

And like i said, the scarier or weirder Hell is, the more impressive Doomguy's feats are.

Like, just look at some horror media to create weird monsters but still have Doomguy rip them aport somehow.

I still see 2016 as a start of some stuff since the minute they made the UAC responsible for some demons (even if partially because of the cult plot) and the overall art direction where demons have the recurring chittin theme. (this also means Eternal and D3 go for more varied enemy designs even if for opposite reasons)

Also thought that because of the comic book influences, a cel-shaded comic book art style could have helped to make Doom both cartoony/stylish and gritty. (maybe even pick ups could nail both feedback and environment)

Whatever how people think the story should have gone, i think it'd be easier for a game to just do things its own ways and have its own canon just for the sake of experimentation at least.

Like, not even a "it's okay we fix it way" just have things being different like how some comic book series have alternate versions of settings or how even Twisted Metal has different takes on the characters.

On 7/5/2022 at 6:43 PM, map11has2names said:

a little late, but from what i've heard, half the fanbase hated TAG 1 for being too hard, and the other half hates TAG 2 for being too easy. i loved TAG 1, and liked TAG 2. the Dark Lord is, IMHO, the single worst thing ID Software has ever done in their history.

Dark Lord was a big letdown. When I first got there and understood it's just like a beefed up Marauder I was disappointed the first time with the game. TAG2 was way too easy and I completed it on Ultranightmare in the first go after a Nightmare playthrough. Dark Lord took me way too long to finish the first time because it managed to steal its health back multiple times. 

I played it again a few weeks ago and now it took me like 5-10 minutes to do. There was potential for so much more, and the lore got really bad in TAG2 too basically reversing everything that they led you to believe in the main campaign and TAG1 which were both really cool. Blood Swamps is my favourite map from all the maps btw, and the difficulty in TAG1 was the sweet spot for me on Nightmare.

1 hour ago, Kristian Nebula said:

 

Dark Lord was a big letdown. When I first got there and understood it's just like a beefed up Marauder I was disappointed the first time with the game. TAG2 was way too easy and I completed it on Ultranightmare in the first go after a Nightmare playthrough. Dark Lord took me way too long to finish the first time because it managed to steal its health back multiple times. 

I played it again a few weeks ago and now it took me like 5-10 minutes to do. There was potential for so much more, and the lore got really bad in TAG2 too basically reversing everything that they led you to believe in the main campaign and TAG1 which were both really cool. Blood Swamps is my favourite map from all the maps btw, and the difficulty in TAG1 was the sweet spot for me on Nightmare.

the Dark Lord boss fight was the first time i got angry, not at the game, but the developers. i legit thought "you thought this was a good idea?"

Doom Eternal is one of the best games ever made, i adore it, but that is a permanent black mark on that game.

(btw, Mars Core is my favorite level in the game)

On 7/4/2022 at 6:19 PM, igg said:

 

• TAG 1 forced you to kill Vega. This was a major disappointment. 

the sphere that the slayer broke in it was only the body of father, the mind itself was not destroyed the very consciousness of vega  until the events of 2016 and eternal events controlled urdak in the lumenarium until his samur / samuel Hayden took it away it was also written in the codex of og campaign in 12 level and tag 1.

Just here to say the idea you can't criticize a game for being too difficult is horse shit. "It's just not designed for you," well, why'd they make a Doom game that isn't designed for actual Doom fans then?

This is not to say that I think DE is, in general, too hard. Only parts of it where it goes over the top and those are generally confined to optional portions like the World Spear Master Level and parts of Horde Mode. But Nightmare skill is, in general, a complete faff. It can get fucked as far as I'm concerned and all the cosmetic guff that's locked behind it is just a lost cause for more than a tiny handful of twitch streamers who have nothing else to do in their life but "practice" the game for months on end.

But, I can criticize a work for choosing its audience too narrowly as much as I want. All that "git gud" shit from Dark Souls was not a part of the Doom community before Eternal hit.

20 minutes ago, Wad overdose said:

the sphere that the slayer broke in it was only the body of father, the mind itself was not destroyed 

This was obvious because he still talked to you. Nevertheless it was a major disappointment - you were forced to make him disabled. 

11 minutes ago, igg said:

 

11 minutes ago, igg said:

 

Ok sorry didn't understand what you meant    idk how deleted this two quotes sections damn.

3 hours ago, map11has2names said:

the Dark Lord boss fight was the first time i got angry, not at the game, but the developers. i legit thought "you thought this was a good idea?"

Doom Eternal is one of the best games ever made, i adore it, but that is a permanent black mark on that game.

(btw, Mars Core is my favorite level in the game)

Yeah, more so indeed developers because there was potential for so much more. I meant that's the only time I felt disappointed with the otherwise brilliant game that it is. Good thing they made the Dark Lord fight into a separate level, probably learning from the end of TAG1. The Samur fight was a learning curve for sure and I must have died like at least 10 times on it on UN before getting through.

13 hours ago, Quasar said:

Just here to say the idea you can't criticize a game for being too difficult is horse shit. "It's just not designed for you," well, why'd they make a Doom game that isn't designed for actual Doom fans then?

 

This is not to say that I think DE is, in general, too hard. Only parts of it where it goes over the top and those are generally confined to optional portions like the World Spear Master Level and parts of Horde Mode. But Nightmare skill is, in general, a complete faff. It can get fucked as far as I'm concerned and all the cosmetic guff that's locked behind it is just a lost cause for more than a tiny handful of twitch streamers who have nothing else to do in their life but "practice" the game for months on end.

 

But, I can criticize a work for choosing its audience too narrowly as much as I want. All that "git gud" shit from Dark Souls was not a part of the Doom community before Eternal hit.

Doom Eternal was designed for people who wanted an evolution of 2016. oh, and the "actual Dooms fans" remark is horse shit. i swear, people on Doomworld have this burning hatred of this game, for whatever reason. don't care for it? then stop writing walls of text about it. if Eternal chose it's audience to narrowly, then why did it make half a billion dollars? if Souls games aren't accessible enough, why the fuck did Elden Ring sell 12 million units in it's first 2 weeks?

1 hour ago, map11has2names said:

Doom Eternal was designed for people who wanted an evolution of 2016. oh, and the "actual Dooms fans" remark is horse shit. i swear, people on Doomworld have this burning hatred of this game, for whatever reason. don't care for it? then stop writing walls of text about it. if Eternal chose it's audience to narrowly, then why did it make half a billion dollars? if Souls games aren't accessible enough, why the fuck did Elden Ring sell 12 million units in it's first 2 weeks?

I don't hate the game, I'm actually fairly positive about it on the whole, but I can certainly see why some people were very unhappy with it. It's not an evolution of 2016, it's just its own thing and the thing that it is requires hypervigilance over half a dozen cooldown timers and pressing chords of buttons on the keyboard to fire off every attack as soon as it's available; it requires crack shots with extremely narrow timing windows to break weakpoints or in some cases to even damage enemies at all. It requires knowledge about a large matrix of enemy weaknesses versus specific weapons which preclude someone from just casually walking into the game.

Some of these things I don't find particularly enjoyable and I think the game could be better than it is if it were more relaxed or at least varied them more by skill level (for example making timing windows wider on low skills). The duty of the much-maligned game journalists covering the game was to play it like an average person would and then report on how their experience fared. That most of them didn't gel with the game means it clearly didn't meet that median threshold. How much the game sold is not a very good argument for anything, really, when probably 99% of the sales were pre-orders based on reputation of the series, especially because of how well received Doom '16 was.

I'm sorry you feel my remark is out of line but it wasn't previously required to like Fromsoft-style "hard game" stuff to be a Doom fan. People who weren't expecting that to be part of Eternal and don't want it as part of the series in the future have the right to be disappointed by it and speak criticism against it.

2 minutes ago, Quasar said:

I don't hate the game, I'm actually fairly positive about it on the whole, but I can certainly see why some people were very unhappy with it. It's not an evolution of 2016, it's just its own thing and the thing that it is requires hypervigilance over half a dozen cooldown timers and pressing chords of buttons on the keyboard to fire off every attack as soon as it's available; it requires crack shots with extremely narrow timing windows to break weakpoints or in some cases to even damage enemies at all. It requires knowledge about a large matrix of enemy weaknesses versus specific weapons which preclude someone from just casually walking into the game.

 

Some of these things I don't find particularly enjoyable and I think the game could be better than it is if it were more relaxed or at least varied them more by skill level (for example making timing windows wider on low skills). The duty of the much-maligned game journalists covering the game was to play it like an average person would and then report on how their experience fared. That most of them didn't gel with the game means it clearly didn't meet that median threshold. How much the game sold is not a very good argument for anything, really, when probably 99% of the sales were pre-orders based on reputation of the series, especially because of how well received Doom '16 was.

 

I'm sorry you feel my remark is out of line but it wasn't previously required to like Fromsoft-style "hard game" stuff to be a Doom fan. People who weren't expecting that to be part of Eternal and don't want it as part of the series in the future have the right to be disappointed by it and speak criticism against it.

idk, man. i think people should put more thought into the games they play, versus "casually walking into a game", expecting it to immediately hold their hand the whole time, get frustrated, then give a 2/10 on Metacritic or something. people go into this game from the wrong perspective. they die over and over, and don't see that as a learning experience to get better and improve. or, dear god, they jump in on Ultra-Violence their first time through, and complain it's too difficult. and then won't turn it down to HMP or lower. and answer me this: is it so hard to just accept that a game isn't for you? regardless of the franchise it's in, or the sequel it's to?

1 minute ago, map11has2names said:

is it so hard to just accept that a game isn't for you? regardless of the franchise it's in, or the sequel it's to?

Earlier you said it was designed for Doom fans. If somebody can't levy criticism against it because of its higher skill cap while being a Doom fan, who bought it because it said "Doom" on it, that seems like a contradiction to me. If you're trying to say you can't be a Doom fan without liking Eternal, that's just gatekeeping. I know so many Doom fans who like it a lot less than I do and won't ever play it again, while I have over 200 hours in it but feel that qualifies me to talk about its weaknesses, not just heap praise on it unconditionally.

I play on ITYTD normally just because it's the most enjoyable to me. I have finished HMP without much problems, but UV was not even doable for me without farming extra lives through replays and that point it seemed like "what's the point?". I tried Nightmare for the hell of it because I do like to challenge myself, up to a point. I got to Cultist Base without dying once, and then burned 20 lives in a row on a single encounter where I just kept getting sniped out of the air by imps from all the way across the map. No amount of "learning experiences" are going to make me better at this game at this point, so that's my POV on it. It requires teenager reflexes to become that proficient and I'm 42, not 14. However at least id Software sees fit to provide these skill levels, which is what sets them apart from the competition. Otherwise I wouldn't have the overall positive opinion I do have of the game.

I'm not sure why it bothers you that much if somebody has a negative opinion of it, though. It surely can't detract from your own enjoyment; it seems like there's this false idea that everybody has to agree something is good or else it's ruined for everybody.

ugh, well, first off I'll just make a point on my favourite game series ever, Dark Souls.

I finished Dark Souls 1 and 2, and my experience with the difficulty of them is incredibly uneven. These are games that simply don't offer a straightforward difficulty curve... or frankly one that makes any sense at all. They can be as pointlessly easy as they can be frustratingly difficult. But I think trying to tie a game's quality to the challenge it offers is a very nebulous thing to try and do anyway and it's certainly not why I heavily disliked those games and FROM's whole ethos.

It has nothing to do with Doom Eternal though and I'm mostly just making that point to the people who brought Dark Souls up as a comparison. I played Doom Eternal on HMP, I feel those people who think UV and Nightmare need to be more accessible are very much in that boat of complaining about the hard modes being hard. If they can't play on a lower difficulty level that better suits their capability to enjoy their time with the game, I place the blame squarely on them, it's their own ego that is the problem. 

In regards to people who struggle with the game still even on easy mode, there could be different reasons for that. But an important point is this; why do we play games at all? Is it just to complete them, to feel we ticked off a box? If the point is to enjoy the act of playing it, then it comes down to engagement. You might have the capacity to improve at the game if you keep playing it just because playing it is fun. But if all you see is the frustration, then maybe there's no enjoyment to be had.

1 hour ago, Quasar said:

It's not an evolution of 2016

I couldn't disagree with a statement more, in fact I'll go one further. Doom Eternal is the game Doom 2016 is a half finished prototype for. Doom 2016 is the one on reflection I don't really like. I found it shockingly dull, it took me a calendar year to even finish the thing. And I really was left wondering why I felt this way because up front it seems like an amazing modern interpretation of Doom. But it's not. I think Doom 2016 is a massive departure from classic Doom, but one with only half realised ideas for new mechanics, and I think more egregiously, an extremely wishy washy approach to level design, where sometimes things were more open but it felt a bit pointless, most of the time it was linear. 

Doom Eternal is a lot more comfortable with what it is and I liked it so much more for that. But the DLC... eh, the story direction is pretty terrible, that aspect whilst not that important does take away from the attraction of them. Making tougher DLC for people who have finished the game however is logical and I don't see why changing that decision would make a difference to the people who feel Doom Eternal as is is too difficult already. I don't think the new additions made were that great personally but I get the position Id were in to try and add new gameplay aspects. 

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

I played Doom Eternal on HMP, I feel those people who think UV and Nightmare need to be more accessible are very much in that boat of complaining about the hard modes being hard.

Lowering the difficulty isn't going to magically make some of the game mechanics more obvious or intuitive for less attuned players. It's just as likely that the lower skill setting will provide them a level of difficulty where they can comfortably ignore in-depth inquiries into enemy and player mechanics. It's not about making harder difficulties more accessible, these mechanics exist across all difficulties.

3 hours ago, hybridial said:

If the point is to enjoy the act of playing it, then it comes down to engagement. You might have the capacity to improve at the game if you keep playing it just because playing it is fun. But if all you see is the frustration, then maybe there's no enjoyment to be had. 

That is effectively highlighting what I feel is the crux of the issue since Eternal's release, people being frustrated at an entry in a game series they've otherwise enjoyed playing. This can be particularly painful for them if they enjoyed the previous entry.

39 minutes ago, BGrieber said:

Lowering the difficulty isn't going to magically make some of the game mechanics more obvious or intuitive for less attuned players. It's just as likely that the lower skill setting will provide them a level of difficulty where they can comfortably ignore in-depth inquiries into enemy and player mechanics. It's not about making harder difficulties more accessible, these mechanics exist across all difficulties.

Yes, I intentionally differentiated on the groups involved, because there absolutely are people who will complain solely about the difficulty of specific levels because they have to feel they are succeeding at the highest level. The people you speak of are not that group. 

That is a different thing from the game's actual design. At least compared to Doom 2016, I genuinely feel Eternal is better designed. I feel the additions it makes over 2016 which do increase its complexity, enhance the purpose of all mechanics being there in the first place. I get other people don't care for it but what else can id do but look at the reactions and make their choice. Not everybody who likes classic Doom likes Nu-Doom, and I still generally prefer classic myself, I did mostly judge the new games as their own thing because I don't think they resemble the originals that much whatsoever.