Doom: The Dark Ages

[Maf]

Played up to chapter 5. Think I'm about to ride the dragon

 

So far I quite like it. I'm playing on the easiest difficulty with all the sliders all the way down to try give myself a chance with M&KB. It feels a bit cheap earning achievements like this because I've not been in danger at all so far. But still feel like this is the right choice because when there's lots happening I'm still getting lost with the controls 

 

The biggest improvement to me so far is the level design and how they do secrets. They kind of feel more just off the side to the main path instead of Doom 2016 or Eternal where it was like figuring out a platformer style level puzzle which killed the pace of those games and I never thought was very good. I think it's better here simply because it keeps the pace of the game up. There's no stopping for 15 minutes looking over every ledge or trying to jump on every box to see a bit higher 

 

Although I have to say just like the other games, every time I complete a level and it offers me a chance to select the next one, I do feel exhausted and it takes effort to want to play more.  

 

In terms of the combat, I think playing on easy is not giving me a real sense of it, but I'm doing what I have too to try enjoy the game. I wish this game had a strafe button. Or double tap to the side. Luckily on easy the speed of the green projectiles is very slow but when enemies are shooting them left and right, if this was faster I don't know how you would do it

 

One thing I really like is the story. I don't fully understand what's going on. But just the idea that the Slayer is on a leash and he's getting stronger all the time. It's a bit Incredible Hulk but I like it. 

 

My plan is to play the game like this until I get used to it, and if I get in to it bump it up to normal on a second playthrough. So far I'm liking it but getting a bit tilted with the controls as well (determined not to use the weapon wheel). 

 

This is not a review but just in terms of my enjoyment I would say it's hovering around a 7/10. The shield is cool and I like the sense of power, I think this game is better paced and the story is interesting. It's still kind of exhausting and obviously my own experience is a bit tilted because of the buttons. But it's all right. I definitely like it more than the previous 2 so far. 

[one-armed dwarf]

There's part I like and dislike, I agree that it's a 7/10 but I don't mean it as a huge criticism

 

One thing that's pretty surprising about it to me is that it's more like Eternal than I thought it would. The faltering system in Eternal was the thing where if you deal a load of damage to an enemy, or break a weakpoint off, they stagger a little bit and you can punish that. They have foregrounded this mechanic in Doom Dark Ages, where now there will be a little yellow halo around every enemy's head if they get stunned. There's no weakpoints in this but I think that's cause there's so many enemies on screen that they don't want you to micromanage them as much, outside of the one-to-one ones like the Cyberdemon (Protip: punch it until it dies)

 

One thing that I've started doing a lot now is taking notice of where the shield guys are situated. I don't know if it's cause of an upgrade, or something else, but when you burst their shields it sends a shockwave, and this also falters nearby guys. So if a mancubus is standing beside a plasma guy, best thing isn't to use the big guns on the manc, but use the small plasma gun on the small guy, and then that stuns the manc and you can dash in and punch him once.

 

It's also a really active game I think, you are thinking about shitloads of things so even if the game doesn't look as fast and dynamic as Eternal, I'm finding myself thinking more while playing it. It's also not slow, I think, it's a fast game. Except when you're in a sparring match and then it gets super slow in a very disorientating way. I get the idea with the slowmo, but it messes me up and makes me think I have more frame advantage than I really do

 

On the weapon wheel, one thing I absolutely hate about this game is how they've made it so that every weapon is part of a 'class'. So combat shotgun and super shotgun share the 1 key, swapped with F. You cannot map the guns individually, so you often have to bring out the 'wrong' weapon to get the one you want. Or, go to the weapon wheel and press F to toggle them. So it almost seems designed for consoles, which is fine but at the expense of the keybindings. Nevertheless, I also refuse to use the wheel cause I hate how it slows things down

 

I think even with its issues, and I think this is the worst game of the three, it's really smartly designed in the big area fights. It's not a Dark Knight Rises or Godfather Part III or Spiderman 3, more of a Back to the Future 3 (that one was alright, right?)

 

[shinymcshine]

5 hours ago, Maf said:

Played up to chapter 5. Think I'm about to ride the dragon

 

Do we need to call an intervention or councillor ?!?!

[one-armed dwarf]

Now that I know how the combat looks in this game, I remain baffled by how poorly they showed it off in marketing. I sorta suspected it would be a lot better than their trailers, but I never get why the trailers always make it look so bog standard and slow

 

It's a super fast game, outside of the melee/parry slowdown effect. I would bet they put that effect on a slider soon, baffling it's not on one already tbh

 

It's closer to Eternal's combat than 2016 imo, to the point I really wonder if Eternal detractors would still be annoyed by it. That said, while it carries forward stuff from Eternal, the fact that the flamethrower is an intrinsic property to a shotgun rather than a cooldown maybe fixes the issue for lots of people. I think it makes the game a bit harder though, because you don't have these handy comeback mechanics on cooldown. In fact, the main mechanic that's meant to save your ass gets broken very easily and you can lose momentum even faster than in Eternal

 

Not that this is a flaw necessarily, but it's a very different game to how it looked in the trailers. But please, give me that slider to tune down the slowdown on parry. It looks so dumb later in the game where you're constantly faltering enemies and it's constantly going all weird and laggy. It turns its violent ballet of murder into a halting jankfest

[Maf]

I just did the first 'open' level Siege 1 - fuck that. No more of that, please, that's boring as shit 

[one-armed dwarf]

Someone on the soundtrack likes Master of Puppets (chapter 10, not really spoilers)

Spoiler

This is like, the first good combat track. Not as good as Mick Gordon but makes you want to rip and tear. All of these fights where you get a +1 to your health or whatever, the combat encounters are so fun to figure out and optimise. The fight looks easy when you know where the important baddies are and move fast, the whole 'stand your ground' thing is a load of bunk this is a running around game (except when fighting the cyberdemon)

 

Beginning to feel they knocked this one out the park, though it has been a while since the last terrible dragon or mech section

 

I am feeling a bit of a power creep though, I figured very early on that the standard melee option would be the way to go as opposed to the mace with the armour damage and shockwaves, the one that's optimised for single targets. Because you have so many other ways of breaking armour anyway. With upgrades to the fist, it gets shock and a power up in the last combo and extra punches.

 

The siege level I didn't mind, I figured out a lot of the combat basics on that level, just roaming around. I generally like how they let you pick which objective to do first, reminds me of Call of Duty 2

[one-armed dwarf]

I had been ignoring the skull gun, seemed stupid, but found out with upgrades it's a very nice run-away-and-heal-while-pretending-to-be-badass kinda weapon

 

Cause it charges up when you kill lots of small guys (including with melee), and the charge makes the gun and you go faster, and so you can hoover up body armour lying around the place while mowing down the fodder. So it makes great use of those little fuckers walking around

 

I'm finding that I'm just sticking with one gun in each class, even ignoring the Super Shotgun (which apparently breaks the game) cause of the stupid key binding thing. I don't feel though like my arsenal is missing something, cause if you lack something in a weapon you're not using, you can make up for that with choosing a different melee option instead

[Maf]

I've set the class swap button to both F and G so I can't miss lol 

[one-armed dwarf]

I mean for what it's worth, the F key is kinda pointless. If you just press the class of the gun a second time it swaps anyway. 1 for combat shotgun, 1 again for super.

 

Might as well unassign the F key or switch it to something else, thinking about it. Really feels like MKB was an afterthought here

[Maf]

But F/G is easier to hit then the number keys, which are so far away I have to take my hand off WASD to get them. I don't bother with the skull gun, simply because I can't hit 4 to save my life

 

I recently found you can swap weapons with the mouse key. But the wheel is too sensitive and I can't get to where I want

 

I've had to put the throw shield button on M5 as well. Because every time I go for it the mace comes out 

 

Anyway, here's what struggling on easiest difficulty looks like 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Eventually, you develop a muscle memory/routine where your hand will keep a finger held on the current WASD button while the others reach to the number inputs. Like with your pinky or ring finger or whatever. It kinda happens naturally with practice, so it's not something you can just tell someone how to do cause I dont know how i do it, ive just stuck with MKB long enough that it occurs without thinking about it. Its like how when you start gaming as a kid with a controller you learn to not look at the buttons when pressing them

 

What I do with Eternal is map guns to 1234xcv, and the last gun is on the middle mouse click. Took a long while to get used to xcv tho but its easier than 567 which are too far away (well, 5 isn't far away but its very easy to confuse with 4 i find)

 

Like as an example, I could never hit the q key while playing Eternal, it felt so weird and fucked up while using WASD. But now I can, for some reason. No clue why

[Maf]

Yeah, I could try remapping more. One other thing I dislike about the controls is if you want to melee once or twice to weaken an enemy and save a punch just in case, the distance needed to retreat before gun button stops being punch button is shit. I back up, try to use the shot gun, click and I'm punching again. Well great

 

I also don't know if I'm taking damage while punching. I assume I am but it's so loud and violent I can't parse anything else happening. Punching something is like standing in front of a big gong and then someone asking "now at the same time listen to this" 

 

I think I'm done with this game anyway. I just got to another one of those big levels and losing the will to live. This is the worst thing they could have possibly done for this game. I think this puts it below Doom 2016 for me. 

 

I also just can't get a handle on the combat at all. There are too many moving pieces. Lucky on easy I'm basically invincible because anything else I would never get past a single fight. 

 

I dunno. Demoralised. De-mon-oralised? I don’t want to play this anymore 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The punch and gun buttons don't overlap so that doesn't make sense but I've done useless punches a lot cause of how long the input acceptance for it is (I blame the slowmo). So now I've begun pressing the melee button slower. It does sometimes feel like there's a traffic jam in combat inputs in close range with all the melee, I think the melee is a part where they went too far

 

This has become my go to weapon now, the skull gun. Useful for running around and running away.

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

This is a super expensive looking game, the variety isn't what I'm used to seeing in modern games. It sort of reminds me of a 360 era AAA game, like Gears of War II or something like that. Or a PS2 game maybe

 

I've started to not mind the dragon sections cause the combat on them is fast and it does make the world feel really large.

[one-armed dwarf]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/doom-the-dark-ages-feels-like-a-console-game-first-and-pc-game-second/

 

This is what I've been feeling. With the keybinding stuff I was moaning about, but also the melee options and the way it slows things down

 

Like it undeniably gets things from MKB that give it a unique flavour, like being able to instantly snap around 180 degrees and rip and tear the fuckers behind you. But at the same time it's very largely meant to be a charging forward kinda game so being able to turn like that isn't as huge a thing as in Eternal.

 

Also as mentioned, no weak points, big meaty hitboxes on guns. The precison bolt is conspicuous by its absence and I really miss the ballista, loved jumping in the air with that and shooting off a spider turret and using the recoil to move in another direction

 

Also this is a bit OT but I think these recent DOOMs are a bit much to learn how to play M&KB on. Titanfall 2 is an excellent game to learn it as it's got a very uncomplicated layout but is also a fast, exciting game so you don't necessarily need to feel like you have to play on easy mode. That's what I used to get used to keyboard in shooters (I already was used to it in RPGs but that's a whole different pace)

 

edit and if you have a high tolerance for toxicity, Marvel Rivals. That game made me improve a bit at aiming I feel like

[spatular]

i've been plying this, enjoying it, haven't really got any in depth thoughts on it just running around shooting stuff, it's good fun. i didn't play a huge amount of the previous 2 but from what i remember this handles the aiming better on a pad than the older ones, ice skating around really quick with pad controls doesn't make it easy to hit stuff so the auto aim here is a good addition. i like all the different actions you can do too, makes it a bit more interesting, although remembering them all can be tricky, and having to pick a specific gun from the wheel to shoot the energy shield guys is a bit crap - maybe i'm missing a shortcut on the d-pad or something? 

[one-armed dwarf]

Some of the Lovecraft world levels are a bit boring, just lots of spooky green things and tentacles. Some of the new enemies are interesting though.

 

Definitely feels like it's hitting a plateau though that Eternal did not hit, where it kept ramping up and up and didn't stop until the end of the first DLC. It needs an enemy that completely changes the fights, like Archvilles and Marauders did in Eternal. They introduced a new armoured guy with more ambigious parries, but I've learned quick enough how to burn them down. They also stole an enemy from Duke Nukem, they call it the Cacodemon in this but it's clearly the Duke Nukem version, it blocks projectiles with electric grids. But it's not as good as Eternal's late game stuff.

 

Really liking the fully upgraded plasma though, it tears through armour if you hold left click down as long as possible. There's some weird jank with the 'release' mechanic though, where when you release it it's supposed to discharge a bit blast. It doesn't always do it though, and I even had a bug where it wouldn't charge at all.

 

The rocket launcher has a great perk in it where if you parry something, self damage with the rocket becomes self heal.

 

Trick with the energy shield guys, it's nice to shoot them when other guys are standing near them cause it will interrupt what they are doing. I use them as red barrels in this game and don't always immediately kill them, just using them as a free stun to get some punches in. The iron shield guys though, they're way more dangerous

[mfnick]

Started. So far I’m enjoying it. It’s definitely missing the adrenaline rush of Eternal for me though and I miss having all the stuff to juggle, glory kills and hitting enemy weak points. I’ve just fought a boss where I really wish it had the side dash too. Weapons doesn’t feel as destructive as I’d like either. They’re missing a bit of punch. 
 

But I am enjoying it more than expected. It feels faster to play than the trailers look. I love how heavy and destructive the Slayer feels & the shield bash ability rules. I need to defend more though. 
 

[one-armed dwarf]

People got really bent out of shape over the weakpoints, which is a shame cause they were a fun gimmick but there were tons of different ways in the game to achieve the same effect. They could have been cool in this game.

 

Especially cause the same basic systems from Eternal exist in this, WRT stunning enemies (now represented by the 'daze' effect), but they've sort of made it less about accuracy and more about knowing what weapons and moves to use when. Which isn't a bad change, I think it's a really interesting compromise they've struck between the two games. I definitely don't think it's as good as Eternal but it's really good in how it tries to bring things from it but in a more 2016 form. 

 

I'm definitely happy to admit being wrong about the game (in some regards at least, I still don't love how parry-focused it is)

[mfnick]

25 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

 

People got really bent out of shape over the weakpoints, which is a shame

 

Yea I'm pretty sure we already talked about that in another thread but they were nowhere near as limiting and essential as people made out. 
 

The same could actually be said of the parry here. It’s so forgiving and easy it’s not an issue at all. You’ll end up doing it when not even trying. & for the majority of enemies it’s not essential at all.

[one-armed dwarf]

It's a really fundamental mechanic in this though, like the central hub off which the spokes of the rest of its combat turn imo. Like with how it does crazy crowd control, creates space, interrupts enemy offense and is required to get near the cyberdemon and buffs certain weapons. Even if the timing window is very large, it can definitely start to feel a bit rigid at times, if you're not doing the parry you will get slapped

 

a thing I want to complain about, while I do like this game and it's surpassed expectations, there are a number of weapons in it which are overwhelmingly the best for the job. The super shotgun, chainball gun thingy, the rocket launcher. The last two in particular get huge damage boosts from a successful parry, and the rocket launcher can heal you with its self damage if you do a successful parry. Which is a really cool idea, but the balance is tipped so much in favour of these guns over the rest, and this imbalance exacerbated by the slow weapon switching. I like using other guns but it starts to feel a bit silly and less enjoyable when there's this huge gulf in usefulness. Eternal's guns felt much more balanced and satisfying to use cause of it. But Dark Ages has definitely designed its guns around the idea of you can just use your favorites, which has both pros and cons when it comes to player expression

 

Nevertheless I'm going to keep seeing how much mileage I can get out of the Accelerator, you can use the energy blast in cool ways, faltering groups of enemies with AOEs and following up with melee/shield bash etc.