I'm crushed. Doom Eternal is probably the most disappointed I've ever been in a game

[Deleted member 3017]

enough people have commented that the game gets a lot better after the first few hours... so I'm going to play a few games in my backlog, then give the game another chance in a month or two.

Really appreciate all the great discussion in this thread!

 

[thatmustbyogurt]

Doom 2016 is my fav FPS of this generation. I really want to get doom eternal but I hear such mixed things that I will wait for deep deep sale!

 

[mogwai00]

It's that the levels are bigger, not that the movement speed is slower. It's perception. You run as fast as before relative to enemy size.

Click to shrink...

Let's take two levels in interior, where running speed is easily comparable:



And I'm not even taking some good skill level gameplay, like the notorius Nvidia video.

DOOM 2016 is faster (and it has faster weapons switch), deal with it.

And while Eternal is an improvement in alot of ways, in my opinion it doesn't make 2016 obsolete. They are tweaked and balanced in different, not mutually exclusive, ways.

Can't really choose my fav and can't say which one has the worst gameplay flaws (Eternal could be my dream sequel, but the resource management is a joke, it's basically a legalized cheat that kills alot of depth and challenge).

 

[flypaper808]

2016 was great but 2/3rds of the way through it started becoming a bit of a slog. Something about Eternal clicked in a way that made me want to immediately replay the campaign, then try an extra life run after that. Even grew to love the Marauders when I found the right rhythm fighting them.

Probably my favorite FPS campaign.

 

[Shroki]

I don't know man. 2016 felt like an incredibly basic game that wore on my patience within an hour and never got me back.

Eternal feels like a fleshed out video-game in a way 2016 never was.

 

[gravitationsfeld]

I mean, here it might look like it's a 50/50 thing, but Steam is more like 90/10. There is probably a vocal minority disliking the game?

Both games are fun to me, I agree with some the criticism on Eternal, but 2016 had flaws too.

 

[Ruddles]

I initially struggled with Eternal and preferred 2016, but about one third in I switched and started really loving Eternal. I got the flow down and even actually ENJOYED killing the Maurauders.

Then the final third of Eternal showed up and pooped on everything. Horrible platforming, the same encounters on repeat with very little new, and two final bosses that sucked. Seriously, I 100% get both sides of the debate, but I struggle to understand how even fans of Eternal could have enjoyed the last two bosses. The last one is an annoying rocket sponge (do loops of arena, rocket, repeat) and the one before that is "floor is lava plus pull of snipe headshots for ammo" wankery.

See, I meant to make a reasoned and well balanced post, but remembering the last two levels of Eternal just brings the irritability and resentment back...

 

[JudgmentJay]

I agree with your first two points, but it's not that big of a deal to me. I definitely prefer the more atmospheric/story-focused approach of 2016 compared to what Eternal is trying to do, but it's still a damn good game. Personally I'd rate it slightly below 2016 (8.5/10 instead of 9/10).

 

[Dr. Doom]

The presentation and polish in Doom 2016 was unmatched and frankly Doom Eternal, while still a great game, just feels disjointed. The platforming is also awful in Eternal. It really hampers replayability. I also thought the manner the story was delivered was better in the first game.

Doom 2016 was a defacto 10/10 FPS game. It did everything right. The atmosphere, visuals and art direction were also better than Eternal. The music in 2016 was also much more memorable.

I've completed Doom Eternal twice and I don't think I'll ever touch the game again. However, I'm itching to repost Doom 2016 again, despite 3 playthroughs.

Gameplay wise, Doom 2016 was simplicity in perfection.

 

[Heid]

I hope DOOM 666 has co-op built into the core and you can switch between 2016 doomguy and eternal doom guy by walking up to each other and swapping shotguns lol

 

[AlternateAir]

Hot take: Doom 3 is a better Doom game than Doom Eternal.

Doom 3, at the very least, feels more like a classic DOOM game than Eternal's platforming, and resource juggling. Hell, it has a more coherent story too!

 

[Sordid Plebeian]

enough people have commented that the game gets a lot better after the first few hours... so I'm going to play a few games in my backlog, then give the game another chance in a month or two.

Really appreciate all the great discussion in this thread!

Click to shrink...

Also helps if you treat the game as its own thing and try to appreciate what the devs were going for despite personal expectations

 

[Tenrius]

Which difficulty level did you play Doom 2016 on? I played both on Nightmare and found that the experience was generally similar (re: ammo etc)

From what I've seen, some people are saying that Eternal puts a bigger emphasis on resource management, but 2016 on Nightmare was always about that. So I think they might have rebalanced the difficulty levels to bring it closer to the nightmare experience

 

[NotLiquid]

On the topic of game speed, Doom 2016's base movement speed is faster than Eternal's but it really doesn't feel that way in practice if you ask me, partially because mechanics like the dash and the more dense encounter design makes for a much more speed emphasized game, as you're juggling far more tasks on average that require you to be fast.

It's kinda like comparing Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Despite the marketing buzzwords, the max speed at which the characters in those games run (assuming flat terrain/no powerups etc.) aren't really that different from one another. That being said, Sonic naturally feels faster mostly because his games generally utilize the speed as a means of obstacle clearance; i.e you need to build up speed to shoot through loops and scale the very curvatured level design, and Sonic obviously has moves explicitly designed to grant him momentum in short bursts that exceed way beyond his basic run.

The Doom 2016 / Eternal comparison feels much the same way for me. The numbers in 2016 are technically higher, but Eternal's design means it generally demands quicker thinking as you're cycling through far more actions per encounter compared to 2016 which left you feeling pretty comfortable most of the time. If Eternal was as fast as 2016 in terms of raw speed, I have to imagine it'd be a little more cumbersome of a game.

 

[XaosWolf]

I agree with OP. In no specific order:

- I hated the nerf to the basic melee attack and its replacement with the world's most unnecessary knife.
- I hated the resource cull and the overcomplication of resource management.
- I hated the tonal shift into ridiculous lore text dumps that references the "HUGE GUTS" memes too much and uses actual cartoon noises throughout.
- I hated starting the game in a space castle and wondering how I've somehow missed an entire game.
- I hate the Marauder for not meshing with the playstyle of any of the DOOM games.
- I hated being railroaded into a very specific "fun zone" because I was playing DOOM "wrong".

This is one of the very few games that made me so disappointed in the direction it took that it soured me to not just the game series but the developers as well.

 

[Axiology]

So, what was it about the platforming that people hated? I keep hearing it mentioned, but most just leave it at "it was frustrating". I don't get it. I feel like every time I failed or missed it was my fault, and the mechanics are pretty forgiving, even more so than something like Metroid Prime. I loved how much verticality and complexity it brought to the levels. The only platforming I really remembered having an issue with were the Exultia lava rooms. And occasionally snapping to monkey bars when I didn't want to.

 

[Fallout-NL]

I agree with OP. In no specific order:

- I hated the nerf to the basic melee attack and its replacement with the world's most unnecessary knife.
- I hated the resource cull and the overcomplication of resource management.
- I hated the tonal shift into ridiculous lore text dumps that references the "HUGE GUTS" memes too much and uses actual cartoon noises throughout.
- I hated starting the game in a space castle and wondering how I've somehow missed an entire game.
- I hate the Marauder for not meshing with the playstyle of any of the DOOM games.
- I hated being railroaded into a very specific "fun zone" because I was playing DOOM "wrong".

This is one of the very few games that made me so disappointed in the direction it too that it soured me to not just the game series but the developers as well.

Click to shrink...

Well said.

I stopped playing it due to these grievances. Shame.

 

[Deleted member 12323]

i had a blast with it

 

[mogwai00]

If Eternal was as fast as 2016 in terms of raw speed, I have to imagine it'd be a little more cumbersome of a game.

Click to shrink...

While I'm fine with the Eternal's default speed, replaying levels with the Overdrive cheat makes things much moooooore interesting:


:D

 

[Wetwork]

Watching MOONMOON play it was by far an amazing and exhilarating experience that it made me replay the 2016. The game is just so freaking cool on a cosmic god gamer level

 

[RedSwirl]

I enjoyed both but looking back, I feel a greater urge to go through 2016 again, at least one more time. Whether you think it's good or not, Eternal is very different from 2016, even though it doesn't appear so at face value.

The briefest way I can describe it is, Doom 2016 felt like a new Quake game -- it felt like a classic PC FPS, whereas Doom Eternal felt sort of like God of War on the PS2 --- a western attempt at a Japanese action adventure game. 2016 gave you more freedom to mess around in combat scenarios whereas Eternal feels like it's more about being a "skilled gamer". Some say it's more prescriptivist. Maybe the levels are more linear too but I feel like I might be wrong there.

The problem is each kind of game appeals to a different audience. Some of the changes Eternal made might be more likely to piss off long-time Doom fans.

 

[Froz3n]

Problem 1 is that you're playing on console which will never be fun.

Problem 2 is that you need to always use chainsaw, ice grenade, and flame belch as soon as they're off cool down every time to keep armour and ammo supplies up. That's why there's loads of weak ass zombies spawned everywhere that keep respawning on their own. I see far too many people playing the game and wasting time by not having these abilities on cool down, while simultaneously complaining they don't have any ammo. YOU NEED TO OPTIMISE YOUR COOLDOWNS.

 

[Aprikurt]

Problem 1 is that you're playing on console which will never be fun.

Click to shrink...

It's 2020 can we just not with this garbage please

Nothing the OP has a problem with can be linked back to playing on console

 

[Combichristoffersen]

But 90s metallica isnt great!
Doom 2016 is like Slayer and Eternal is like Dream Theater. Also Dream Theater sucks.

Click to shrink...

90s Metallica is great though :p St. Anger and Lulu are their only really bad albums tbh. And Slayer is eh. Some great songs, but Kerry King has never been very good at solos, and their image has always been too tryhard edgelord-y imo.

Hot take: Doom 3 is a better Doom game than Doom Eternal.

Doom 3, at the very least, feels more like a classic DOOM game than Eternal's platforming, and resource juggling. Hell, it has a more coherent story too!

Click to shrink...

In hindsight, I probably enjoyed Doom 3 more than I enjoyed Eternal, yeah.

This is one of the very few games that made me so disappointed in the direction it too that it soured me to not just the game series but the developers as well.

Click to shrink...

Yep. If they're doubling down on the Eternal direction, the next Doom has gone from a day 1 purchase to getting it used for ~$10.

So, what was it about the platforming that people hated? I keep hearing it mentioned, but most just leave it at "it was frustrating".

Click to shrink...

I simply felt it didn't control very well, and just made the game frustrating and cumbersome. And that one part on Urdak where you had to jump, air dash and shoot a button at the same time was just straight up terrible level design, and really didn't play very well with a controller IMO.

Problem 1 is that you're playing on console which will never be fun.

Click to shrink...

Fuck, so I've been not having fun gaming on consoles for the last 30 years? I've been duped!

 

[lazygecko]

Every now and then you get a sequel to a long running series that end up deceptively different because of how balance changes make you play in a completely different way, which is really hard to gauge until you really experience it for yourself and that can be really alienating to a significant portion of fans.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia was one such game for me. I flat out did not like this game. In the Igavania games I was perfectly content with just romping around and whipping/slashing everything without worrying too much about any sort of minmaxing mentality. If you wanted to play through an entire game using just one particular weapon that was totally fine. This was no longer the case in OoC, as enemies and bosses were now much more explicitly designed around hard counters, essentially forcing you to constantly juggle between different loadouts resorting to things like lightning spells. I see a lot of parallels between OoC and Eternal in how both games are now suddenly funneling you down into a very specific playstyle with some misguided assumption that this is how the game will teach you how to "have fun" on their terms.

 

[Dever]

It's gameplay perfection but arguably other aspects have suffered. Loved it but most of my time in Doom 2016 was spent in the Arcade mode. It's like they took how you have to play that mode on Nightmare and made that the whole game. Maybe the next game could go for a balance between the two.

 

[Axiology]

I simply felt it didn't control very well, and just made the game frustrating and cumbersome. And that one part on Urdak where you had to jump, air dash and shoot a button at the same time was just straight up terrible level design, and really didn't play very well with a controller IMO.

Click to shrink...

Ok, that makes sense. I do see how the "shoot the button in midair" segments could be annoying for some people.

 

[Deleted member 45414]

The latest twisted metal was probably the most disappointed I've been in a game ever.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Ok, that makes sense. I do see how the "shoot the button in midair" segments could be annoying for some people.

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Yeah, that specific part really felt like it was designed around the speed and precision of m+kb, and not with controllers in mind.

 

[NotLiquid]

The latest twisted metal was probably the most disappointed I've been in a game ever.

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Well, the online certainly was disappointing

 

[laxu]

enough people have commented that the game gets a lot better after the first few hours... so I'm going to play a few games in my backlog, then give the game another chance in a month or two.

Really appreciate all the great discussion in this thread!

Click to shrink...

Good. I actually felt the same as you about the gameplay at first but by the end of the game I loved it. The game should have more generous ammo counts and it took a while to get used to chainsawing trash mobs to get it. I understand why the game is built around that concept but you shouldn't have to do it quite so often. The game wants you to use your different weapons but in the beginning you have so few that it would be nicer to just have higher ammo counts. The upgrades for these are sprinkled a little too far between as it is.

I actually really loved the game except the Taras Nabad level and the Marauder enemy. Both are just bad designs.

Bethesda.net can go fuck itself though, why do I need that to play singleplayer?

 

[Kittenz]

Played 2016 endlessly. Couldn't bother to finish Eternal. Found it tedious and oddly boring.

 

[Aurc]

that one part on Urdak where you had to jump, air dash and shoot a button at the same time was just straight up terrible level design, and really didn't play very well with a controller IMO

Click to shrink...

This is why we need to normalize mapping jumping and dashing to shoulder buttons (or even better: back buttons / paddles). People scoff at, or are bewildered by the notion of jump being mapped to anything but a face button, but in mobility shooters like Destiny, Titanfall 2, or Doom Eternal, it makes all the difference.

 

[Deleted member 55807]

BTW the way you're expected to use endlessly respawning, non-threatening fodder for ammo replenishment doesn't do the "push forward combat" any good. It's more "run to the side to get free ammo" combat at times :P.

 

[No Depth]

enough people have commented that the game gets a lot better after the first few hours... so I'm going to play a few games in my backlog, then give the game another chance in a month or two.

Really appreciate all the great discussion in this thread!

Click to shrink...

I too had the same impression as you at launch and argued vehemently(among many others) in the OT of disappointment.

After a few levels you get the flamehook which is a double-edged sword. It both is exhilarating to use and warmed me up to the game dramatically, and it also felt like the only real tool I needed. My arsenal shrank as I often found myself switching guns for handling only few enemy weaknesses just to go back to that life-giving and stealing flamehook which carried me efficiently through the majority of the game on Ultraviolent.

Other aspects of the game still never improved, like the lore and world. It's a beautiful game and I didn't end up disliking it at its end to the extent I felt at its beginning, the exhilaration and satisfaction of getting through some tough arena battles is unquestionable harrowing and heroic feeling. Though I revisited 2016 after and despite the lack of new features, I still came away enjoying that one more. Many argue its impossible to return to that dated classic after Eternal. I feel it's just nonsense designed to uplift their preferred game by lowering another.

 

[Brauni]

BTW the way you're expected to use endlessly respawning, non-threatening fodder for ammo replenishment doesn't do the "push forward combat" any good. It's more "run to the side to get free ammo" combat at times :P.

Click to shrink...

This is wrong, and let me explain why:

Obviously they are not really just standing to the side, all the time, even the zombies fuck you up in mere seconds if you blindly run into them, and the imps are some of the more agile enemies in the game.

But more importantly, they are an *movement option* to zip around in the arena because of
1) the "magnetic" chainsaw, 2) the meethook(a hook which helps you meet friendly demons in your area), and 3) the rune which makes your glory kills "magnetic" as well. And therefore they support push forward-or lets say, stay moving-gameplay.

 

[teruterubozu]

Eternal was the only Doom game I never finished.

 

[Deleted member 4452]

Doom 2016 was my favorite FPS until Eternal surpassed it. There's room for both.

 

[Rex Dart: Eskimo Spy]

Been waiting for the consensus shift for a while.

I too played the shit out of 2016 on ps4 and again on PC, and I can't even finish Doom Eternal.

Bloated upgrade system, byzantine platforming sections and level design with huge patches of zero action; any 'flow' you build up is constantly being interrupted. This is the biggest disconnect between 'universal praise' and actual experience I've had in years.

I really, really wanted to like it.

 

[Guy.brush]

ETERNAL was just way too many arenas with doors closing behind the player for me to enjoy. The only level that had SOME semblance of monsters walking at you in normal corridors was ARC COMPLEX. the rest was just too much Unreal Tournament, circly artificial arenas for me. Everything felt like Slayer gates, just easier.
The speed and frency at which new monsters spawn also takes away from any awe or fear you can feel. In older DOOM games, when a Baron of Hell came out of a "monster closet" it was a big deal, in ETERNAL he hardly registers while you juggle all those plates trying to get the right combination of
jump, double jump, dash, catapult platforms, chainsaw, blood punch, glory kills, shoulder flamethrower, shoulder grenade or ice thrower and the different weapons and their mods.
It felt stressful in a bad way to me as there is almost no player choice how to engage with the next arena. You are thrown into it, the door closes behind you and you better press the right combination of all those tools and weapons or you are fucked.

And yes, the art style totally leaned into the gamey side of things, which is a preference thing, but for me 2016 was moodier.

 

[Waaghals]

I understand the frustration, but I much preferred eternal to 2016. I was bored with 2016 about 2/3 of the way through, but still consider it a good game.

The first quarter of eternal was a bit painful as you have to adjust, but once I mastered the combat system, there was nothing else like it.

The idea here is to think on your feet and ALWAYS use all the tools available. It really is a rush.

However, if I had really liked the 2016 version and wanted more, I would probably be very disappointed by it myself.

 

[skeezx]

ETERNAL was just way too many arenas with doors closing behind the player for me to enjoy. The only level that had SOME semblance of monsters walking at you in normal corridors was ARC COMPLEX. the rest was just too much Unreal Tournament, circly artificial arenas for me. Everything felt like Slayer gates, just easier.
The speed and frency at which new monsters spawn also takes away from any awe or fear you can feel. In older DOOM games, when a Baron of Hell came out of a "monster closet" it was a big deal, in ETERNAL he hardly registers while you juggle all those plates trying to get the right combination of
jump, double jump, dash, catapult platforms, chainsaw, blood punch, glory kills, shoulder flamethrower, shoulder grenade or ice thrower and the different weapons and their mods.
It felt stressful in a bad way to me as there is almost no player choice how to engage with the next arena. You are thrown into it, the door closes behind you and you better press the right combination of all those tools and weapons or you are fucked.

And yes, the art style totally leaned into the gamey side of things, which is a preference thing, but for me 2016 was moodier.

Click to shrink...

well to be fair doom 16 was pretty much this too. and they did go out of the way to string along all the killboxes with "other stuff" (which unfortunately gave us mario in hell sections - though i am warming up to those), and that includes a few lone baron of hells popping out in a corridors and whatnot

 

[UnholySpectacle]

I think I finished the first 3 levels of Eternal and said F it. I loved 2016 but this game was not made for me.

 

[sinny]

I dont know what made my drop the game, if the gameplay changes or the edgy gamey look it has now.
I will finish it one day but for what i played i dont think im going to change my mind.

 

[TioChuck]

For me, what broke the game was the dash, they had to design everything to accommodate the dash and the game became a chore.

The arenas and the platform sections, everything is dull.

Didn't care for the story either.

 

[Proc]

As others have said, once you adjust to the difficulty curve, the fighting arenas are much more involved than the original. I cant remember a single player shooter I played last that had me moving my fingers all over the keyboard like that.

I think they tried making the story and platforming more than it needed to be. Other than that, I thought it was an excellent first person shooter game. I played on pc on my 144 hz ultrawide and it looked incredible.

 

[MythicReclaimer]

You know how people say "______ was a good game, it just wasn't a good ______ game"? That's exactly how I feel about DOOM Eternal. It almost feels like a new genre within an already existing genre if that makes sense with everything Eternal is trying to do, it's gameplay loop sure is frantic (with the traversal, platforming, flamethrowing, melee, etc) and different but I'm not sure I wanted that from this franchise.

 

[FourSerioux]

After loving Doom 2016, I completely fell off Eternal. I understand the approach they took as they wanted people to follow a certain loop, but I just didn't enjoy it. That, plus the Marauder's just killed it. I recognize people are split on them, but I'm firmly in the camp that they are a terrible fit in the series.

 

[NoWayOut]

I agree that 2016 and Eternal are substantially different. I liked the first one, but I had way more fun with the second.

 

[RedSwirl]

You know how people say "______ was a good game, it just wasn't a good ______ game"? That's exactly how I feel about DOOM Eternal. It almost feels like a new genre within an already existing genre if that makes sense with everything Eternal is trying to do, it's gameplay loop sure is frantic (with the traversal, platforming, flamethrowing, melee, etc) and different but I'm not sure I wanted that from this franchise.

Click to shrink...

Basically.