Wirehead Studios

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oVwrpfo_QA

Thorny Imps, Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, and Archvile confirmed.

Hell on Earth confirmed.

Once again, not sure how I feel about some of the stuff they've added, but if I get to skip most of the bits I find distasteful like last time, we should be OK :P

I do like the monster redesigns for the Mancubus and former humans, as well as the classic Plasma Rifle looks.  And... a Gatling shotgun mode?  Remember that you saw it here first!  :doom_love:

Against all the evil that Hell can conjure...
All the wickedness that mankind can produce...
We will send unto them...

...only you.

Doom Eternal - Official Trailer 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkklG9MA0vM)

:doom_love: :doom_love: :doom_love:

Watching some of the latest footage from various folks who essentially got to play a beta test for a few hours had me break my rule of pre-orders a few days ago. It looked so good when watching the right people play it.

At first, I was wary of all the gimmicky movement stuff like monkey bars and the meat hook.. but as time went on, that stuff seemed to take a back seat to the actual action.

My only real nitpicks are the neon green weapons and 1-ups.. I think the Doom 2016 method for weapons would have been fine, and maybe something like a Soulsphere for a 1-up instead of the neon green Slayer helmet. But eh.
Also kind of sucks that the retro skins are tied to purchases of games I already own from ye olden days before digital purchases were a thing. I always rocked the brown marine out of the four original colors, but to play him now (dubbed 'bronze' in Eternal for.. reasons..) I have to buy a game I already own (and not even through Steam, which is just a pita). Meh.. ..at least the oldschool green Doomguy skin looks to be unlockable in Eternal, so there's that.

Now I just need to get off my ass and finish Doom 2016.. which I still have yet to actually do.

(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d3/c3/3c/d3c33ce89513f9807d6d356b148d8104.jpg)

SilEnCe tHe DiScoRd! *splat*

What's the attitude on here regarding the game? I know Doom 2016 got criticized by some old-school fans because of its arena style gameplay loops, whereas Eternal might be heading in a new direction with an emphasis on movement and skill. I think it looks amazing, I never imagined they'd go this far in developing a triple A Doom title.

Speaking only for myself, I'm eagerly awaiting Doom Eternal.  So far it's checking all the right boxes - more classic monster look, greater mobility, classic nods to weapons, including sounds, as well as what looks like a largely expanded battlefield, as well as some new additions to the bestiary, environment, movement, and boomstick department.  I've been avoiding anything more in-depth and sticking to just the official trailers as I don't want to spoil anything major for myself.  My main concern is going to be how my machine handles it.  I'm also looking forward to playing Doom 64 finally without having to use a hacked together emulated version.  I pre-ordered so I get that free, along with the classic weapons pack and DOOT Revenant skin for multiplayer.  Surprisingly I find myself also eagerly anticipating the... dare I use the word... STORY component.  I know that tends to be an oxymoron with a Doom title, but there's so much hinted at for the origin of the Slayer, and the involvement of Heaven, that I want to rip and tear into that as well. 

I am less concerned about the multiplayer as I am the single player overall, but I do like the changes they've made in adding both Invasion mode and Battle Mode in place of the multiplayer that came with Doom 2016.  I tried that during the beta for Doom '16 and I did NOT like it.  I didn't like the loadouts, or the hack modules, or pretty much anything, so I never really pursued it.  There's some people I know that played the Doom multi and loved it, one fellow on my Steam friends list is an absolute master, and I have seen some complaints about the apparent lack of any kind of classic deathmatch-style play.  I'm not really concerned either way personally in that front, but it is something other players have expressed dislike over the lack of.  The single player for Doom '16 was great for me.  I can understand how some people might tire of the wandering followed by locked door mosh pit followed by more wandering overall mechanic, but I didn't find that tiresome.  It felt like the monsters were fairly balanced in terms of placement and difficulty.  If I have one complaint it's that the Possessed civilians are too noisy and tend to drown out everything else when they're wandering around growling.  The lack of a manual save is also a bummer as I'd love to have been able to save a spot and just go back and play Doom Demon Destruction without having to replay the whole level.  I also love the Glory Kill* mechanic, though I know opinion on that was mixed depending on who you talked to.  To me you can never have enough gibs.

As for other gamers... what I find interesting is that there seems to be a schism in the Doom fanbase regarding Doom '16 and Doom 3.  A lot of people that like Doom 3 do not like Doom '16, and vice-versa.  I was VERY critical of Doom 3 when it was first released as a demo, but it's grown on me a lot over the years.  I happen to like both games and I do understand the differences and why people might love one and hate the other.  Doom '16 is an action fest, Doom 3 is much slower paced and horror/atmospheric.  I've seen a few "Old Doom" purists that hate them both, but not many.

*Regarding Glory Kills, I've heard it said by several people that this was ripped off from Brutal Doom.  In fact, there's very early Doom 4 alpha footage from before it was scrapped and restarted that already had Glory Kill mechanics visibly in place.  It was all grey shaded models, but the mechanic was in place.  I would wager that Brutal Doom's gore system was just developed independently.  If it did have any influence it was probably just for Id to just say, "Yeah, people like that in Brutal Doom so that Glory Kill stuff we were planning for Doom 4 - let's keep that in for the rework."  I just wanted to clear that up.

I'll keep it short but I fully credit Doom 2016 (and Titanfall 2) for rekindling my love for FPS games, which waned quite a bit after Doom 3 and fell off completely with Rage. Is it classic Doom? No. However, I absolutely describe the game as "master class," even with its faults.

I also have Eternal preordered, and it was largely to get the Doom 64 port. I do own a Nintendo 64 but I have never played the game on that because that controller can spork off, and while there have been a number of unofficial ports (and they're quite well done!), I'll be happy to finally play it for real.

I'll be honest.. the classic Mancubus look feels a little out of place for me when I see it in Eternal.. and I feel the same for Cyberdemon (called Tyrant?). I'm a little torn on the possessed soldier becoming a zombieman too. ...and if they are indeed going for this 'more classic' look, why did they put Arachnotron's plasmagun on top of his head? The Pain Elemental design hits all the right spots for me though. Retro, yet fresh with the mouth design.

In the end though, minor quibbles. As I said before, watching the right people play the game looked SO good that I broke my rule of pre-orders. I have not watched any of the more expansive plays that came out, like the entire first stage, or the entirety of the Slayer's home base, or anything.. because I'd like at least some things kept for myself to see. So I've only watched a few of those videos where they were allowed to play for three hours but were also only allowed to use 15 minutes of recorded footage from the session.. and none of which was allowed to be the first stage.

As for Doom 2016, I liked it well enough. Did it feel like Doom? Not really.. hoenstly felt more like a Quake game painted up to look something like Doom.. to me anyway. More than a few of the 'combat arenas' felt like they could be put into a Quake multiplayer deathmatch game and no one would be the wiser. But it was still a damn good game. ...still need to get off my ass and finish it at some point too.

Regarding the arachnotron... from a technical standpoint having the gun mounted above makes it more dangerous.  If it were underslung or mounted to the front then all you would need to do is get above it and it couldn't hit you.  Since vertical movement is a big part of Eternal and the terrain is much more varied it only makes more sense.  I mean, face it.  Doom 2 was pretty flat.  Arachnotrons didn't have to do too much vertical aiming, and they were almost always positioned in a fairly wide flat areas - Dead Simple, Factory, Refueling Base, Downtown...

Fun fact:  The Pain Elemental sprites from Doom 2 are hacked together from 4 monsters - the body is obviously Cacodemon, the arms are from the pinky demon, the open mouth is a lost soul (obviously), and the horns are from the Cyberdemon.

Can confirm, new arachno is ANNOYING..

Also Dopefish LIVES!

Carry on.

Agree on the arachnotrons.  I did find a way to inhibit their dodging the plasma rifle.  If you aim in one spot they'll dance to the side and you'll waste ammo, but of you spray left and right in an arc towards the arachno it confuses the AI and it soaks up your shots instead trying to dodge them.  I've gotten pretty good at taking out their turret gun with the shotgun grenades.  Thing fires just like the Earth Soldiers' mortar.

I did have to cackle the first time I encountered a tentacle.  I thought, "Wait... Am I playing Legendary?"  :smirk:

As a fan of Arachnotron.. this new one is a... yea, we'll go with 'annoying' to keep it pc.
Slow-mo rune and sticky bombs have been my go-to for them.

That said.. Meatshield Mancubus is kind of annoying too, but not nearly as much so. Accidentally getting close to one while running around an area though.. that ground aoe burst thing they do HURTS.

Anyway.. that covers my two favorite classic demons.

Also, don't underestimate Cacodemons.. and whatever you do, don't let one get close enough to bite you.

On the whole though, my problem is remembering to use my grenades and flamethrower. I started playing on Ultra-Violence, because why not.. I figured I might be a little rusty, but should still be ok. Made it through the first stage well enough. Then the second stage kicked my ass so hard, I went down to Hurt Me Plenty and was still struggling with some fights on the third stage.

As for tentacles.. despite knowing of their existence and seeing them in various videos, I guess I brainfarted and forgot because the first one made me jump pretty good.

"The thing fires like the Earth Soldier's Mortar" explains why I took to aiming them so quickly lmao

I've only had time to play through the first mission but so far it seems like it's exactly what I wanted, which is basically more of Doom 2016 with subtle tweaks.

I got a hearty chuckle when I noticed Cacodemons sometimes gib into what almost looks like a pile of fireblu.

I'm sticking with Ultra-Violence here.  I ended up losing all my extra lives in the Cultist Base, mainly because those serpent enemies were hard to deal with at first and I kept failing one of the Secret battles.  I didn't realize it was on a timer.  Once I got the rocket launcher I just ice bombed the serpents and hit them with rockets - very effective.  They're also more dangerous on flat terrain.  The more you use height and distance the less they can hit you.  If you're in the air You're pretty safe from them.  The slow-mo rune is a lifesaver for certain.  I've found that if I jump in the air just before zooming with the Heavy Cannon I can pick off the guns from a Revenant, Mancubus, or Arachnotron.  I also learned you can replay missions and farm the extra lives.  Use the cheat codes and go to town.

I've gotten a better feel for the combat as well.  I've started doing combos on weaker demons with the flame burst.  If I'm going to chainsaw, I set them on fire first.  If I see weaker demons, I'll torch them, stagger with the shotgun or a few shots to the knee from the Heavy Cannon, then glory kill.  This ensures I get armor as often as possible when sawing or glory killing.  In Doom '16 I'd save up gas cans and use the saw on bigger demons like the Hell Knight, Baron, or Mancubus to take them out of the picture.  In Eternal it's just more practical to saw the smaller demons to ammo farm since ammo is scarce and you can't carry as much until you can start upgrading and since you regenerate 1 unit of fuel.

I'm very glad that a mistimed jump just teleports you to safety with a little damage rather than being insta-death and a checkpoint load, considering how much falling you're going to do.  I do wish the platforming sections didn't feel so contrived.  That's probably the only negative right now for me.  I don't mind platforming elements.  What I don't like is the "player goes this way" design.  In the Hell portion of the Sentinel Prime area the floating rocket platforms with the spinning fire chain felt straight out of Super Mario Brothers.  The Terrordrome section is especially bad for the pathing.  I would have done a lot of things differently, making the grab bars and grabble wall sections feel like more natural parts of a structure.  I'm kind of on the fence with the arcade-like nature of some of it.  It's immersion breaking to a point, though it does add some variety to the game as well.  Hopefully it doesn't become absurdly difficult with the platforming later in.

... So.. There's a challenge to glory-kill an Archvile from the left-hand side later in the game. Let's just say it crashed so I didn't have to rage quit..

The Cultist Base has made this game go from exactly what I wanted to incredibly un-fun in record time. Some of these encounters are what I'd describe as completely unfair, and it really feels like they're leaning into the extra lives system as an excuse for that.

@Angst:  I haven't gotten far enough to meet an Archvile, but if it's a ragequit-worthy encounter then that kind of challenge I'd just replay the mission with cheat codes to get it.  I missed a secret on the Terrordrome and replayed it with IDDQD active.  I didn't die once, found the secret, and stocked up on extra lives as well.  It was also nice to kick the Doom Hunters' collective asses on UV while feeling pretty invincible.

@Makou:  I've found that the way to stay alive on UV is to DASH YOUR ASS OFF.  Get as much distance from the heavy hitters as you can, then snipe or shotgun bomb their weak points - Mancubus being the primary threat, and Revenants as I'm able.  Slow-mo really helps with that.  Stock up on health, ammo, and armor by doing "drive-by" attacks on the soldiers and zombies, and as you're working a circuit around the battle arena, take out the imps and gargoyles since they like to cheap shot you with fireballs and acid.  Don't kill every zombie immediately either.  Leave a few roaming around for resource grabs.  I tend to use Shotgun and Heavy Cannon when running the perimeter so I don't one-shot the resource zombies, imps, and gargoyles, use the rocket launcher for chasers, and switch to plasma on the heavies.  Pinkies I just SSG in the ass and it's a one-shot kill.  They're not even a threat so far.

Whittle down the Arachnotrons and Mancubus while keeping a respectable distance and use cover and height against them.  This is where the "destructable demons" feature really helps.  You can tell which ones are the most beat up and concentrate your attacks on which one you want to pop first.  Once one goes into stagger, grapple over to it, roast and glory kill, then GTFO.  The snakes, Hell Knights, and Stalkers are on my "kill it first" list since they chase and teleport in the case of Stalkers.  I tend to freeze them and rocket or SSG to finish.  I also save those "bowling ball" guys to knock into snakes and Mancubus as much as possible.

Also, do not forget about the Blood Punch!  If you get pinned it sends the demons flying and gives you a way out.  It pulps the smaller ones and does massive damage to the bigger ones.

One other thing not directly related to combat but certainly helps... Not to make anyone feel newbish but did you set your FOV to something other than 90?  That's where it defaults, which would be fine on a CRT, but if you're on a widescreen (and who isn't now) then make sure it's not sitting at default.  I use 105 which is the equivalent of 90 scaled to 16:9.  It gives me enough side view without the high FOV distortion or rendering too much to drop my framerate.  If you're getting pegged a lot by stuff you can't see you might tweak the FOV a bit.

My reflexes might not be what they used to be these days. As I said, the second stage was kicking my ass on UV so I toned it down to HMP and was still struggling through the rest of it.. and Cultist Base after.
Speaking of Cultist Base.. that one was a pain even on HMP. The 'combat arenas' felt overly claustrophobic.. which wasn't fun when they were tossing Hell Knights, Revenants, Arachnotrons, and Mancubus at you all at the same time. I think a Whiplash or two as well. ..and that's not counting the Soldiers, Imps, and zombies.

And I know exactly what secret encounter you're talking about.. because it took me like 5 tries to do it... on HMP. I think I even lost a life or two there because that TINY area gets crammed quick. My ammo count wasn't fairing well either after like the second attempt. I decided to finish the stage and then fast traveled back to it to see if I could 'grind it out'.

That said.. the stage after that was a lot easier. The Doom Hunter Base or something. I only died once there, and it was because of an error on my part.. but I did get dropped pretty low a few times, so I'm not sure how it would have went on UV.
The platforming was getting a bit more annoying though.. with those falling coffin-like structures you have to cling to while scanning around for where to jump next. It became easier after getting the auto map, but before that... I felt kinda cheated once or twice.

I wasn't using my grenades nearly enough until I rebound it to something I'm more familiar with. Left ctrl or Mouse3 was alien to me.. so I switched it to Q, which was something I used for grenades back in my QWTF days. And go figure I used them more in the Doom Hunter Base. Swapping them, however.. I still have bound to the default G.. which is.. kind of ugly.. and as such, I often don't think to swap when one of them is on cooldown.

I sticky bomb weak points when I can with the aid of slo-mo.. since I don't have the sniper upgrade for the heavy cannon. Although, I kind of ignore the Revenant weak points.. he seems like a bit of a non-issue compaed to other demons, oddly enough. After knocking them off, I switch to micro-missiles, plasma, lock-on rockets, or full-auto shotgun.. though it's usually all four. If I find myself with 3 notches of chainsaw fuel, I'll take out a heavy regardless if I need ammo or not right at the start of a fight. 1 notch will recharge in the interim, which is enough for the fodder to restock ammo.
For plasma, I started with the microwave beam.. but I'm finding myself using the heat blast recently and liking it more.

Pinkies.. total non-issue. I forget where I read it in-game, but Blood Punch is an insta-kill on them, even from the front, so I've just been doing that instead of doing the whole 'ole' routine.
However, I think the next stage has a challenge to glory kill them 3 different ways.. so I'll have to temporarily depart from that strategy.

As for FOV.. yea, I'm on 90. It's weird, but I don't even consider I'm on widescreen. I'm just so used to it being '90' from the old days that seeing that number has me thinking it's correct, even when it's not.

EDIT: Honestly, what bugs me the most so far in the game isn't even the platforming (so far). It's the floating, neon weapons and keys. In 2016, they were more creative with those.. ripping them off corpses and such, or in the case of keys.. sometimes you took whole arms or torsos. Here in Eternal, the weapons and keys look fresh out of Q3 in how they float there and spin with a neon glow around them.

The Neon Green is Quake Champions influence.  I do hate that as well.  I also hate it in Champions.  I know what a freaking gun looks like, but when you paint them ALL neon green it's hard to tell WHAT gun I'm looking at!

Answering the important questions: DooM plays DooM. I am happies.  :doom_love:

So we've been focusing on the gripes a bit, so I thought I'd post some things I really like about Eternal:

Visuals are stunning.  Environments, monsters... it all looks fantastic.  They got the Hell look better this time so far - lava pools, more red, more color overall instead of being the same grey stone with yellow sky everywhere (Looking at you, Kadingir Sanctum).  I have no complaints in that department, though it does come with a cost - I had to drop resolution and reduce some features to keep the FPS up where I want it, even on a GTX 980.

The weapons work so far, and they feel beefy enough for doing damage.  I have the classic sound pack enabled and it's retro goodness.  I'll do another play through with regular sounds.

Fast Travel feature on the maps - I love it.  Miss one secret?  Go back instead of having to replay the entire mission.  I am glad you can replay missions with the "cheat code" options to farm extra lives and get a better feel for the enemies on a given level, and the Ripatorium is a nice feature for getting some combat practice in without risking anything in the campaign.

Destructible demons - I've been wanting to see this kind of damage feedback on enemies again since Quake 2's damage skins on the Strogg.  Knowing how much you've damage an enemy really helps you control the fight.

Classic monster looks - The soldiers and mancubus feel more DOOM to me than they did in 2016.  Haven't run into the Pain Elemental or Archvile yet, but in the menus they look fantastic.

Zombies don't sound so incredibly loud like they did in 2016.

I love the blood punch.  I'm hoping there's a full berserk powerup later on as I've not seen one yet, just Quad and Haste, but the blood punch is nice.

The Fortress of Doom.  Techno-gothic space station for a secret lair?  Sure beats the hell out of a basement in a hotel.  Slayer's workshop is epic hall of Easter eggs.

Falling isn't insta-death.

Setting things on fire.  Phoenix will always like this.

Demonic Slayer Skin - I don't love it because it's evil.  I love it because it's fire.

Those are just a few things I'm really happy with so far.

Haven't had the time to play the last few days, so my progress is still only at four stages complete.. and the one day I did have time, I opted to finish SS3:BFE instead because I was right at the end and put it off for like a month and a half. I'd have rather played Eternal, but I'm glad SS3 is over now.

Anyway.. the environments are gorgeous. The variation is also nice. In 2016 it was all tech bases on Mars and a few trips to Hell. Monsters are equally fantastic. Mancubus doesn't bother me as much in his classic style on my own PC as it did seeing him in videos.
My settings are all amped up as high as they can go except for... texture pool size, which is at Nightmare instead of UN. Not bad for a PC I bought like 5 years ago at this point. Only thing I upgraded on it was the video card, which is a GTX 1060. Haven't turned on the FPS counter to see what I get, but I haven't noticed any slowdown at all when playing. My monitor limits me to 1080p.. but whatever. Good enough for me.

The weapons all feel great... but honestly, I think the shotgun sound in 2016 was better than this new one. The full-auto mod is insane, but countered by the lack of ammo.. which I guess is understandable. Thing is though, despite having it for over a stage now.. I think I only used the SSG twice so far. And yea, I know that's probably not optimal with some sort of 'alpha rotation' or whatever that speedrunners used in 2016.. but the full-auto mod is fun for me.

Blood punch is great when I remember to use it.

Fast travel is truly fantastic for anal completionists like myself. ...however, it's also the same reason I haven't used the feature to replay a mission, cheat codes or not.
Ripatorium is interesting to just waste some time fighting monsters with no risk.. but it also works for helping to grind out a weapon mod. I noticed the mastery for micro-missiles got a few ticks the last time I was in the Ripatorium. Sadly, no Arachnotrons were there so I didn't get any for the sticky bombs.

I'm using the classic brown marine skin. I said in an earlier post they wanted you to buy games you already own, and not on Steam, to get classic variants saying it was a pita. Kinda forgot I already had a bethesda.net account for the SlayersClub.. and in early March all the old Doom games were on a dirt cheap sale pretty much across the entire internet, so I plunked down a dollar fifty for Doom2 from the bethesda store and got the brown marine. Had to load it up once through the bethesda launcher to link it, but after that everything was uninstalled/deleted. Eh.. feels worth it to me when a cutscene happens.. and when I look at the main menu.

That said.. I also like the cutscenes. For as much as 2016 liked to pretend it didn't push its story on you, you got locked in an area twice and couldn't do anything but listen to Samuel Hayden go on and on and on. The second of which was probably 5 minutes or more in his office. So far, there hasn't been any of that in Eternal.. and all of the cutscenes that did happen have been skippable for those who don't want to see them.

Opposite Pho.. the ice bomb is more my thing, and I've been spending points on that to improve it instead of the normal grenades. Always loved the classical element of water type stuff.. including ice.

Oh I do use the Ice Bomb a lot.  It's certainly not my element, but it does what the Plasma Rifle's Stun Bomb in 2016 did and since these are demons I don't feel the least bit dirty for doing so.  I primarily use it to paralyze the Whiplash demons and then rain rockets on them.  :doom_thumb:

Well right.. likewise, I use the flamethrower a lot too. Kinda have to for armor. But it's not the same level of joy as freezing a group of enemies solid with a well placed ice bomb.

Fire, punch, plasma, punch, punch, chainsaw, shotgun

I have found the berzerk once.. ONCE.. It was glorious.

I found it once too - AFTER I killed all the big demons in the fight zone.  I ended up berserking on a bunch of mooks.  :wall:

Minor rant follows.

So I decided to start over completely and stick to UV difficulty. Honestly, things went a lot smoother than I thought they would through those first four stages I had previously already completed. I even got that cramped secret encounter in Cultist Base on the first try somehow.. and without dying.

The Super Gore Nest, though... those secret encounters were a thing. The first one, ok.. but that one over and in the acid.. yo, that wasn't right. First time I had to skip an encounter entirely.
Anyway, gave me an excuse to go back and make use of the mission select at the ol' home base. Turned all the cheats on and re-entered for those secret encounters, some exploration bits I missed because I didn't notice the fast travel prompt, and the 3 glory kills on pinkies. And I gotta say.. blasting through with cheats is a lot more fun than it has any right to be. ..and I still didn't get the 3 glory kill pinkies because the silver bullet cheat ended up killing them when they got staggered thanks to my heavy trigger finger.
In my first run without the cheats, I dunno what happened.. they were just kinda dying. I know I blood punched one of them before remembering I needed to glory kill them. I got 2 in the slayer gate, which counted, but the others were just dying instead of staggering. Probably because I was thinking the single shotgun would be fine.. and it was just killing them. Did the heavy cannon thing when I went back with cheats, hence the heavy trigger finger.
I could just skip it and continue on, but it bugs me. ...Gonna have to try again with that silver bullet cheat turned off.

I think it was a great game over all, i have a few gripes that i can easily live with but i just want to say for everyone, because i know we all feel this way its just the rest of your are too kind to say it, but the people responsible for the awful platforming need to have their dicks cut off and fed to them.

Yeah... I don't mind platforming where platforming makes sense - like the broken up space station around Mars, but movement mechanics should enhance gameplay, not just funnel you into a path.  Oh, conveniently placed grab wall - because there's no other way to go.  Swing bar here - because there's no other way to go.  Punch this brick... because it's the only way up.  It's the same gripe I had with Portal 2.  Portal was about solving puzzles.  Portal 2 was "find the one spot I can stick a portal on to move forward".  Doom '16 was about killing demons with guns.  Doom Eternal feels like...  well see next paragraph.

That's what I loved about older games.  It was simpler, but you had more freedom.  You need red key card to open this door.  Go find the damned thing yourself.  We don't care what you do along the way, but here's some monsters and items and guns and figure it out.  Doom '16 was largely the same way.  Sure, the battles took place in locked arenas, but you fought how you wanted with what you wanted.  Eternal feels like they want you to fight a specific way with specific guns against specific monsters, especially on the harder difficulties.  Yeah it's great I can lob a bomb into a caco's mouth to stagger it, but if I DON'T do that I'll run out of freaking ammo trying to kill it any other way, so yeah, lemme stop and switch guns in the middle of fighting this Whiplash, Hell Knight, and Marauder JUST to lob a bomb into Mr. Caco's maw so I don't get my face eaten while I'm being pummeled by the other 3 demons that are trying to swarm me.  Oh great, I left it on the Auto Shotgun so lemme switch weapon mods... well, there goes an extra life...  I really need some shotgun shells to use the SSG on Mr. Marauder since he's a cheap ass bitch... Oh, I can use the Ballista!  SPORK, I'm out of cells too?  WTF, no zombies around, no ammo boxes, and I got ONE gas can and HOW THE HELL DO I GET AMMO WITH ONLY MAJOR DEMONS?!?  Great, there goes ANOTHER extra life...  etc.

So yeah, there's some definite rantable stuff in an otherwise good game.  As for cutting off dicks... well, you'll be able to rip them off people in Succubus when it releases.  I'll just imagine the victims as the devs that came up with the platforming sections for you during those scenes.  ;)

I felt like the way they limited the ammo was a cheap way to pad the difficulty, i get that they didn't want people to just use the same few weapons over and over, and that worked but there were a few times where i died because i ran out of ammo and there were no chainsawable enemies to replenish it. Thats just shitty design.

Classic Doom and even 2016 absolutely let you run out of ammo, but generally speaking if that happens it's probably your fault in some way. In Eternal, it's because you didn't stick to the combat loop and tried to kill a Caco with the heavy cannon instead of immediately going the sticky bomb -> glory kill route and forgot to leave a zombie around for your one regenerating chainsaw charge.

I still haven't had nearly as much time with the game as I'd have liked, but I'm honestly at a point where I almost want to sit out for a bit and see if they make adjustments to the campaign. My choices at the moment feel like drop the difficulty -- I'm already on HMP because I try to play everything on "normal" on my first playthrough -- or be frustrated for however many hours it takes to figure out the puzzle that is seemingly every locked room in the game.

I've seen people praising Eternal's combat because "it's like old Doom because it gives me a reason to use all of the weapons." Old Doom gives you the choice, because outside of the pistol and closed areas restricting the rocket launcher, at no point in old Doom is any single weapon completely inviable; maybe not optimal, but if you absolutely have to you can get out room of Pinkies or handle a pair of Mancubi with the single shotgun. Eternal gives you the Heavy Cannon and then immediately tells you Arachnotrons and Cacodemons take too many hits and try to dodge too much for you to use it effectively.

The game does so many things right for me... except for the combat. And in an FPS, even if it says "Id Software" on the box, that's a dealbreaker. I am not a fan right now.

Upgrading the ammo in your suit helps a lot, but it takes a while to do it, and you still max out at 22 shells.  I have everything set to help ammo count - barrel pinatas, auto-shotgun mastered, and it's still too easy to run out of shotgun shells.

The thing about old Doom was if you ran out of ammo you could still fight with your fists, or the chainsaw, and the chainsaw was damned effective on zombies, imps, pinkies, specters, lost souls, and cacos.  The only enemies to avoid were Barons or bosses.  I won't discuss the Doom 2 monsters for brevity, but suffice it to say you could still fight.  Even in 2016 you could fall back on the pistol.  Eternal flat out curb stomps you if you're out of ammo and nobody to chainsaw.  You can't use your fist effectively without a Blood Punch (try beating up a zombie sometime).  So yeah, running out of ammo sucks.  Grenades are still there, but odds are if you're in a fight where your bullets are gone you're already on the cooldown timer.  I know resource management is a thing, but it's awfully tight, especially on UV.  I'm not even going to attempt Nightmare.  I like a challenge, but I'm not masochistic.

Once I finish the main campaign I'm going to run through the missions again on Easy mode and cheat codes for infinite ammo, and just unleash pain and fury.  I think that will be rewarding.

I actually managed to forget that the pistol was a thing in 2016, and now that you've brought it up I realize just how many minor enemies I killed with it to conserve ammo instead of switching to a lesser weapon that uses the same ammo that a power weapon does.

It would take absolutely forever but if a fallback weapon existed, at least you could in theory play keepaway and plink at stronger monsters to eventually kill them. If the punishment for "poor resource management" is a fight taking forever, I'd take that over it being outright impossible any day. If the monsters can't catch me, then rewarding me for that, even if it's slow, is plenty valid.

And this might actually be a thing thing that they change. The pistol is in the game's code as a finished weapon, and can be accessed using something like cheatengine. They removed it only because someone decided it didn't fit the combat loop... which is kind of telling, now that we know what the combat loop is.

I've always felt that with the exception of classic doom games the weapons in ID shooters were poorly balanced particularly in the quake games. I played so many matches where people just used rocket launchers because of the ease of use while other weapons that were good but had a high skill requirement were more or less ignored.  I've been playing some of the original Unreal in the last month or so and i was amazed by how well balanced the weapons were, none of them were worthless and i never felt disadvantaged by having to use any of them, in classic UT multiplayer i never felt like i had to run in fear from any particular weapon. I thinking limiting the ammo in doom eternal was a mistake because the weapon balance was good enough that all the weapons were useful, you didn't actually have to force anyone to use them. I think anyone whos played a generations game with a slipgate rocket whore knows what I'm talking about. ( thats not a dig on the mod, i know thats how it worked in quake I )

The formula for winning any Quakeworld game is "Camp the RL and Red Armor".  The Dark Zone is notorious for that setup since the RL and Red Armor are in the same room and whoever spawns there at the map start is guaranteed a huge advantage with 200 armor.  With the armor pickup cut in half in Gen it kind of mitigates that a bit since you can counter by grabbing the Megahealth.

Quake 2 did a much better job of balancing the weapons over Quake 1 and Doom, but looking back at UT... I do have to agree on balance.  The only weapon I thought was overpowered was the Flak Gun, but that also depended on the map a bit.  I tended to go for some of the lesser favored weapons like the Ripper and the Bio Rifle where most people I played against favored the Rocket Launcher, Shock Rifle, and Flak Gun.  I'd dual wield pistols whenever I could as well.  People underestimated that gun a lot.  I'd grab the Sniper Rifle as well even if I lagged too much to really hit with it.  Good times either way.  :doom_thumb:

Came across some issues with cheats and using mission select. I redid Super Gore Nest to do those secret encounters and had cheats enabled, right? When I went to the next mission, Arc Complex, I didn't think anything of it because I was progressing as normal and not redoing the mission... however, because I still had cheats turned on in the mission select hub the key for the slayer gate did not show up in my first run of the stage. I looked around for at least half an hour or so for the stupid key before giving in and looking it up online. I KNEW it had to be in that otherwise pointless area with seemingly nothing in it, and it should have been.. but wasn't.
So I had to redo part of the stage with cheats turned off to get the slayer gate. Annoying that it wasn't there the first time.

Then I went in again with all the cheats turned on to do a secret encounter. I had all the cheats on, including the weapon cheat I essentially collected in that very stage earlier. Figured I'd make use of the mobile turret for the chaingun since it was already mastered via the cheat and also had infinite ammo going. Finished and went back to the hub area... oddly still had the mobile turret mod equipped on the weapon. Instead of testing to see if it worked, I swapped back to the shield mod I actually owned... ...however, it kind of broke. Using alt-fire with the shield mod equipped did not produce a shield and instead acted like it wanted to use the mobile turret, which I don't think it did and just fired normally. Found that out when I paid a visit to the ripatorium.
Used some batteries to get myself the mobile turret mod and it fixed itself when I swapped mods a few times.. but yea..

I ran into the same issues with the cheat codes.  Before resuming the normal campaign you have to turn them all off from the Mission Select screen or the Slayer Gate key is missing.  Even after knowing this I forgot to turn one off before proceeding.  I was unhappy about that.

I had the sticky bomb break on me.  Fix was to turn on the weapon mastery cheat to replay a level, hold down alt fire, swap mods, release alt fire, then swap back and it worked again.

DO NOT try to complete a mastery challenge with the Weapon Mastery cheat enabled.  You'll unlock the mastery perk but it will screw you out of the milestone.  The only way to get the milestone if this happens is to start a new slot from scratch.  I found this out the hard way.  Better to just replay an earlier mission or visit the Ripatorum.

Not cheat-code related, but did anyone else find the Cyberdemon/Tyrant to be underwhelming?  It felt like his lack of speed and lack of "one-shot kill" rockets made him just a big meat target.  The Crucible could one-shot him and you could freeze him with ice bombs.  What used to be Doom's most dangerous enemy felt like he was stuffed in the back of the closet in favor of their shiny new Marauder and Doom Hunter.

The only Tyrants I've fought have been in slayer gates so far... and they've honestly been non-issues. I remember a duo warped in, and that was mostly intimidation factor more than anything because I'm not even sure if they hit me at all or not. I'm pretty sure everything else in the arena did.. not sure on the Tyrants.
Sooo yea.. so far, kinda underwhelming. I say 'kinda' because I'm one of those who, outside of custom WADs, viewed the Cyberdemon as more than a bit overrated.

Doom Hunter.. bit of a thing when first met, but quickly becomes only a minor threat after like the third time it shows up. Marauder steals the show, though. Requires way more focus than any other enemy.. but honestly, not as terrible as people were making him out to be.
The first one you meet had me intimidated before the fight even started because I heard the noise... and he went down with little-to-no issue. He didn't even summon the dog I heard horror stories about. And that lead me into a false sense of security because then the next one in the slayer gate kicked my behind all over that arena. From there, it's been kind of a learning curve.. so eh.. annoying but tolerable so far. Depending on what type of demon combos they come up with for the last few stages, my opinion may or may not change.

Once I learned the Marauder's pattern he became less of an issue.  The dog is annoying but you can one-shot it with the SSG.

I lost all my extra lives due to a glitched Archvile near the end.  I had staggered him but somehow he didn't actually die and became immune to damage.  More and heavier demons kept spawning in, and yes, Archies can spawn Marauders.  After I respawned at the checkpoint he was gone and all the demons he had summoned in.  I'm not sure what exactly happened, but that was so far the most frustrating thing I've run into.

You'll need extra lives for the last boss.  I won't spoil anything, but I'll give you a helpful hint:  The Blood Punch gauntlet powerups respawn, and the things that power the sword respawn.  Armor and health also respawn.  BFG ammo does NOT respawn, so use that wisely.

I saved BFG ammo by using the forward corners and the plasma/heat discharge, then looping down to take out more dangerous demons, reload the sword, and saw a few squishies. The second phase was arguably easier because I had more room to get some distance, so I was able to more freely switch weapons.

Loving the hell out of this game, still have to defeat the final boss. I've been playing on Ultra-Violence, I'll take advantage of the mission select feature to skim through levels to see if I missed any secrets, codexes or hidden areas. After that when they add invasion mode, I'll replay the game on Nightmare.

I'll be honest.. the platforming was no big deal to me. People were kind of blowing it out of proportion, I thought.
Then Urdak happened and I almost quit at a few points. It was even affecting my ability to fight properly in the arenas, which only lead to more frustration. I had to take a moment and just stop at one point after being something like four lives down after an arena. Got a drink, had a snack, just kind of cleared my head a little.. came back fresh and it was relatively fine from there on. But my-- uhh.. Zod.. that stage was insanely annoying platforming-wise.

I need to go back to Doom Eternal soon. I walked away from it out of frustration and to see if they were going to adjust anything, then got distracted by other games in the meantime. Did you know I'd never actually completed all four episodes of Ultimate Doom? That's fixed, now.

also hey pho the unmaker (Unmaykr?) is in a mainline Doom game now and they gave him a railgun weapon in 2016 when are those getting added to generations arena :doomed:

I figured someone had to get that out of the way eventually, lol :slippy_love:

Oh you went there!  Well, in that case, Toucan play that game!   :doom_thumb:

*ahem*

[rant mode] First, as you well know, we're out of weapon slots.  I can't add additional weapons without breaking compatibility between the engine and normal Q3A (and other Q3A mods), which I don't want to do.  Second, even if I could, someone would have to make the additional models and effects, and I'm already in the process of animating the player models.  Unless someone wants to volunteer to do that, it's not going to get done.  In addition, none of those weapons were in the PC version of Doom and Doom 2, which is what Generations Arena's Doom Warriors is based around.  I mean, might as well implement Glory Kills, grenades, and double-jump mechanics if we were going to go there.

Besides that, we already have weapons that kind of fill those spots.  Both the Heavy Chaingun and Ion Gun for Team Arena fire a 3-shot spread, so that's kind of like the Unma(y)ker?  As for the Gauss Cannon, yeah, Doom doesn't need that kind of long-range pinpoint weapon.  The complaints would be endless about balance.  Doom really WOULD be overpowered at that point. [/rant mode]

Saw that coming, didn't you?  :D

Sure did! :chainsaw:

So when's the RAGE class being added, anyway?

... :omfg:

If I'm being honest, any "modern" versions of these games would warrant a class all their own, anyway. 2014 Wolfenstein and 2016 Doom are wildly different from their classic counterparts, and unique enough that trying to blend them together would get real ugly, real unwieldy, and real unbalanced real quick, and that's before any discussion of all the work and engine-breaking needed to jam Yet More Stuff in.

I know more than enough about the behind-the-scenes parts of this mess to be fully aware that even at the height of development activity, that never would have been realistic for Generations Arena. Truthfully, it's better for it anyway. More is not always more. :slippy_love:

Something just made me think today that part (but not all) of the rationale years ago for not including the Unmaykr was that it wasn't part of a "real" commercial version of Doom, and I was like, hey, that's not quite true anymore...

*I* am the RAGE class!  I become that class any time someone asks for features.  Everyone knows that.  :doom_thumb:

Doing a "modern" set of classes would certainly be a coding nightmare.  Wolf would dual-wield everything, and dual-wielding alternate guns.  Doom Slayer would have weapon mods and, depending if you're talking about Eternal or Doom '16, super speedy dash and very low ammo counts.  Q2 guy would have to be based on Q4, and we wouldn't even have a Quakeguy since Id refuses to make an updated Quake 1.

Overall, I think DOOM Eternal is a great follow-up to DOOM 4 / DOOM 2016.  It's easily one of the best games in the series.  In fact, I'd go as far as saying it's one of the best first person shooters ever made.  That said, it's also over-designed and horribly frustrating.

I love the core combat loop: glory kill for health, flame belch / meat hook for armor, chainsaw for ammo.

I like how DOOM Eternal requires you to use the chainsaw more.  DOOM 4 had copious amounts of ammo, and the chainsaw functioned more as a panic weapon than anything else.

What I don't like is DOOM Eternal now has the opposite problem.  Ammo is so scarce that you'll spend a large amount of your time trying to scrounge up resources.  Fighting a boss or super heavy?  Be prepared to micro-manage even more.

The justification for the ammo shortage seems to be that id wanted players to use all of the weapons and not just a few.  But here's the thing, DOOM Eternal already encourages you to do this because enemies now have weak points or take extra damage from certain weapon / mod combinations.  Not to mention that there's mission challenges, event challenges, and weapon mastery challenges that all ask you to do the same thing.

Speaking of forcing certain playstyles, DOOM Eternal does this kind of thing far too much.  Fighting a Cacodemon without shotgun ammo?  Too bad, go get some.  Suck at making headshots?  Welcome to Urdak, here's your Sentinel armor.  Saving your super weapon for a super heavy?  Boy, have I got a demon for you!

And that demon gets his own section.  The Marauder.  He's a divisive piece of s*** that you'll either love or hate. 

Here's the good:

He combines a lot of lessons the game has been teaching you, he telegraphs when he's most vulnerable, and he's unique in that he tries to actively zone you.

Here's the bad:

The in-game tutorial is both misleading and uninformative.  Trying to stay at a medium distance will get you killed.  Shooting his shield will also get you killed.  (That's what causes him to summon his spirit wolf.)  It's also in your best interest to swap between weapons and lob grenades when attacking him.

His shield is OP.  DOOM Eternal features three other enemies which use shields and you can either destroy or temporarily disable them.  Not so with the Marauder!  His shield blocks all incoming damage, even from super weapons, and he will immediately draw the shield should you try to attack him when he's not attacking you.

Moreover, the window in which you can damage him is extremely small.  You can stagger him more than once but good luck if you're on console!  Also, don't bother using super weapons!  They either don't work or aren't fast enough to do damage.  (It's absolutely bonkers that I can kill everything else with the Crucible but not this guy.  I'm literally swinging my sword through his face.)

Oh yeah, and you have to kill him in 30 seconds in one level to complete the game.  (Do what I did.  Just run away until the game unloads him from memory and force-kills him.)

Venting complete, let's move on to something else I love about this game.  The platforming.  No seriously, I do actually love it!  It reminds me of Metroid Prime and that's nothing but a good thing in my eyes.  I know it can be annoying at times, especially in Urdak, but DOOM Eternal is way more forgiving about falling to your death than most games.  Also, I'm pretty sure the Seek and Destroy rune allows you to cling to walls from further away.

Speaking of runes, it's time to vent again!  I'm kind of baffled as to why id chose to remove rune mastery.  In my mind, it was one of DOOM 4's best features, and it proved essential on higher difficulties and end-game content.  DOOM Eternal's solution to this feels incomplete.  You can obtain extra lives but they're not tied in to the checkpoint system so you're screwed if you hit a wall, difficulty-wise.  There are more suit upgrades but most of them relate to the new features introduced in Eternal.  Really, the closest facsimile we have are the Sentinel crystal abitilies and even then, most of them are Flame Belch related.  (Plus, when do you ever have max health or armor in this game!?)

I could keep going on but I'm not trying to make people hate the game or give the impression that I do.  DOOM Eternal does so many things right that the stuff it does wrong is glaring.  It's also kind of like Final DOOM in that the highs are really high and the lows are really low.

@Phoenix

I wasn't aware of that weapon mastery bug.  I just finished the game yesterday, and I discovered I'm also affected by it. :(  Here's hoping id fixes it in their first patch!  I'm not really willing to do another playthrough just to unlock a skin for my chaingun.

Also, regarding the Slayer gate bug, there's a work-around.  You have to return to the Fortress of DOOM, use Mission Select to load into a level without cheats enabled, and then quit back out and resume the story mission.  I ran into that issue three times myself.

@Phoenix @Makou

In order to make a truly authentic RAGE player class, you have to first ensure it's completely unplayable for Windows XP and ATI users. :p

One rant I have about both Doom '16 and Eternal is the chainsaw.  They have the chain on backwards.  Here, take a look at the Doom saws:

(https://doomwiki.org/w/images/d/d5/Codex_chainsaw.bimage.png)

(https://i.redd.it/ojduhbym8op41.jpg)



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Now look at a real chainsaw, and a diagram:



(https://chainsawgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/close-up-worn-chainsaw-chain.jpg)

(http://chainsawgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/cg-chainsaw-chain-direction-diagram.jpg)

As you can see on the real chainsaw the raker is ahead of the cutting tooth, and the cutting wedge angles down toward the chain bar.  The raker clears debris from the cutting path.  On the Doom saws, the cutting tooth is ahead of the raker, and the tooth has the highest part to the back.  That's exactly what happens if the chain is on backwards.  Maybe that's why they take some much freaking gas.

It is wild to think that the only game modern Id doesn't seem to want to make a modern version of is Quake the First. They really had me when they first announced Quake Champions, considering it started out with a modern render of the Ranger and then transitioned into El Oh El, Class-based Arena Shooter. :wall:

And Kain, not for nothing, but I'm struggling to reconcile "is a great follow-up" with the lows being as low as they are in your thoughts, there. I agree that the game in and of itself is fantastic. But it doesn't feel like a follow-up to 2016 in so many ways; it's more like 2016 was an inspiration, but they went in a very different direction from it.

Phoenix, I never would have realized the chain was on backwards!  That's kind of hilarious, especially since someone took the time to update the texture and possibly the model for Eternal.  Maybe that's why it went from a Painsaw to a Dopesaw? :p

Also, I'd offer to share my gas with you, but I'm out of ammo.  :x

Makou, I'm also perplexed by the lack of a true Quake sequel.  The DOOM 3 engine would have been perfect for such a game.  I also felt like DOOM 4 was giving off some serious Quake vibes in the latter Hell levels.  (Even the Hell barge in Eternal feels very Quake-y.)  Lastly, even if you wanted to do a multiplayer-centric title, why would you choose to compete directly with Overwatch?  Blizzard has never not been the market leader.  Do you not follow the industry, bro?

Regarding my thoughts on DOOM Eternal, I'm struggling to reconcile them myself.  I genuinely think the combat is better.  It does feel like an extension of what was in DOOM 4.  The art style is different, but I see that as being more of a throwback to DOOM and DOOM II.  I also think that was a good decision given the lore and just how violent this game is.  Speaking of the story, it's kind of all-over-the-place.  I could easily see the merit in arguing that it diverges from DOOM 4's too much.  But I still give the game a free pass because DOOM has never had that much of a story, and Eternal does some really cool things with it.  And I guess I'm making that same concession for all of the bad parts in the game.

I love the DOOM series, and I consider it something of a minor miracle that DOOM 4 turned out as good as it did.  (It's in my top 3.)  I see DOOM Eternal as more of that same goodness.  But if it wasn't a DOOM game?  I probably wouldn't recommend it.  It's over-designed, inflexible, and way, WAY too damn hard.

I feel like idTech 4 lent itself better to a Quake 2 sequel, personally, which is what happened, for better or worse. I still haven't played that game at all. I bought a physical copy on the cheap some years ago and have no idea what I did with it, and I'm not sure I'm up to paying $20 for it on Steam.

idTech whatever-we're-on now (I think it's 6) absolutely suits Quake more. I think it was YouTuber Civvie-11 who I first heard state that he feels 2016 feels more like an evolution of Quake's gameplay than of Doom's, and largely I agree. It's fast and punchy, and I think they could do a true Quake 1 sequel or reboot more than enough justice with it.

As for your last statement there, I more than agree with it. Opinions on Doom 3 have been coming around in the last several years, and that's largely because of the name attachment on it. If Doom Eternal didn't say "Doom," then largely I don't think it would have gotten nearly as much positivity as it's received; nor would people like myself be so passionate about what we see wrong with the game and its direction.

Short of doing a full-page review, here's a few thoughts from me.

Pros:

The weapons are solid.  There really aren't any BAD weapons, though some upgrades are arguably more useful than others.
The level design is interesting, if linear.  The environments look different from one world to the next.  HELL also looks a lot better than in '16.  '16 had no fire and brimstone, and it was all grey rock and yellow sky and kind of boring-ish visually.
All the monsters work well, except the Marauder, which is its own topic.
Doomguy can finally swim.
The story does lead into very interesting level flow.
You can get every resource you need from killing stuff.
Falling isn't instant-death.

Cons:

The combat loop.  As Metallica wrote, "You can do it your own way - if it's done just how I say."  Use the "wrong" gun on a monster and you're gonna have a bad time.  Don't chainsaw often enough, or use flame belch, and you're gonna have a bad time.  The game gives you a lot of movement freedom in the combat arenas and especially with the dash mechanic, but with the exception of the fodder enemies you're pigeon-holed into using this gun on this monster and sniping weak points. 

Ammo shortage.  They took it way too far.  Marty Stratton said "Doom is demons and shotguns".  Well, they need to double the shotgun ammo.  When I saw the footage of the auto-shotgun I was very hyped up.  When I saw how fast you run out of ammo without using it on fodder demons AFTER mastering it...  that was severely disappointing.  Not being able to chainsaw super-heavies flat-out sucks.  This plus the combat loop also made item placement rather lazy for the designers.  2 shots with the BFG?  Yeah, screw up a BFG shot and you're gonna have a bad time, which is really nice when you run out of Chaingun ammo and it auto-switches.

The Unmayker.  Do I hate the weapon?  NO!  It's freaking awesome in concept and execution.  What I hate is that it shares ammo with the BFG, which you hardly get any for anyways, which effectively makes it USELESS.  You go through 6 Slayer Gates to get the thing, then find out that using it robs you of your most precious and rare resource.  It should have shared plasma ammo.  Unless you have the infinite ammo cheat on, it just collects dust on the wall.  It's fan service with a stick in the eye.

The Marauder... I've read every criticism, and I'll say this.  He works as a one-time boss encounter.  He should NOT be a repeat enemy.  Yes, you can own him with tactics, I can get rid of him fairly easily, but with the super-shield-of-invincibility that he can instantly deploy combined with the ammo shortage the average player - AVERAGE, mind you, none of that "git gud" stuff here - is going to have an un-enjoyable experience.

Platforming - as I've said before, I don't mind if it it's not contrived, but there's too much of the latter.

Doom Eternal is a great game that could be even better with a few minor adjustments.  Here's what I would do to fix it:

1 - Double the shell count.  Seriously, that's the only real fix to the ammo shortage needed.
2 - No Marauder mook encounters.  Keep him a unique boss.
3 - More chainsaw fuel pips, and let fuel regenerate to that pip instead of just the last pip, so you can saw a mook but still save fuel up for a bigger monster.  Make it part of the ammo upgrade system.
4 - Unmayker uses plasma ammo.
5 - Cut back on the forced air-monkey platforming sections.  Make the flow more natural.
6 - Make the normal punch do some damage!

I think if they did that the game would be even better.  My opinion of course, YMMV.

@Makou

Despite not getting a Quake sequel, I am happy we got one for Quake II.  I enjoyed the game quite a bit.  It had some great wow moments, and I really enjoyed the vehicle sequences and the weapon upgrade system.  Lastly, Quake IV's nail gun is the best nail gun in the series.  Prove me wrong. :p

As for DOOM 3, I'm kind of a weirdo in that I've always liked the game.  I don't think it's flawless but I appreciate what id was trying to do, and I think Nerve really nailed the formula in Resurrection of Evil.

Going back to Quake, I would still love to see a sequel.  id Tech 7 has really impressed me with what it's capable of.

@Phoenix

You make a good point about the lack of BFG / Unmaykr ammo.  The last few levels have pick-ups but you are kind of screwed if you use either weapon elsewhere.  (Or miss the shot like you said.)  I think a good solution would be to have super heavies drop one thing of Argent ammo if you chainsaw them.

As for your other points:

1.) Shotgun ammo should definitely be increased.  Alternatively, maybe the flaming meat hook could make enemies drop ammo as well?

2.) I don't mind the mook encounters, but something definitely needs to change.  The immunity to super weapons is completely arbitrary, and there really needs to be some other way of dealing with his shield.  I think an easy solution would be to just make his shield like the Doom Hunter's.  You can still keep the wolf summon to try to dissuade players from going that route.

3.) Am I wrong or is it actually detrimental to collect a can of fuel while you're still recovering the first pip?  I'm pretty sure it just replaces the first pip instead of adding one.  Also, I find it very odd that you can cleave a super heavy in half with the Crucible yet have to stagger them to chainsaw.

4.) I have mixed feelings about this suggestion. 

The Unmaykr / Unmaker used cell ammo in DOOM 64, and it rendered the plasma rifle useless.  Eternal's plasma rifle is more versatile thanks to weapon mods but not by much.  The Heat Blast requires you to build up charge, and you can probably do more DPS with the Unmaykr in the same time-frame.  As for the Microwave beam, well... I love it but it takes damn long to be useful. 

There's also the matter of the Ballista.  It uses the same ammo type, and both mods eat through cells pretty quickly.  I feel like you'd have to increase the maximum number of cells you can carry to accomodate all three weapons.

5.) I disagree but I understand your viewpoint.  It does feel very game-y.  I like it because it helps break up the monotony of combat for me.

6.) I've mentioned this before but I feel like both the "Health for Blood" and "Armor for Blood" abilities go to waste because players rarely have full health or armor.  (That and you only have one blood punch charge for most of the game.)  It would make more sense for those two to simply increase damage output.

Lastly, there are two other changes I'd like to see that I'm curious to know your thoughts on.

1.) Extra lives should be tied in to checkpoint saves.  If I go into a fight with an extra life, and I lose both of my lives, I should still have that extra life when I reload my save.  Why would you punish someone who is already struggling?  Also, I understand changing this will make unlocking the Phobos skin easier but honestly, who cares?  I think gating off content for less skillful players is dumb.

2.) The types and number of enemies you fight in each encounter should change between difficulties.  Now I could be wrong.  DOOM Eternal could already be doing this.  But I have had to lower the difficulty on occasion, and I've noticed no difference between ITYTD, HMP, or UV.  Hell, the enemies even seem to have the same amount of health.  I was stuck on that 30 second Marauder challenge for quite a while, and the only change I really noticed is that armor seemed to actually do something I could take more damage.

Doom Eternal's first major update includes Denuvo Anti-Cheat, which installs and uses a Ring 0 / kernal-level driver to operate. Maybe I won't be trying to push through the game any time in the near future, if ever, after all.

PC Gamer story (https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-eternals-first-update-includes-denuvo-anti-cheat/)

Ars Technica story (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/doom-eternal-anti-cheat-kernel-driver-is-safer-than-others-denuvo-says/)

There's been a lot of discussion on this, and a lot of it is of questionable merit.  I won't attack or defend Denuvo as there's already enough of that going on, especially in the Steam forums, but a few facts just to help clarify the situation a bit:

Denuvo Anti-Cheat is not running at any more heightened a privilege than any other program that requires a permissions request from the UAC (User Account Control, not Union Aerospace Corporation).

Several other anti-cheats such as Punkbuster run at the same level, so if you've had Q3A, RTCW, and several other games you've already been running this level of access on an anti-cheat.

The trust level for the program is equal to the trust level granted to system drivers and a number of other programs.  If you look at your task manager any process that has a user name of "SYSTEM" has Kernel mode access, along with any Service that says Log On As "Local System".

As one fellow I know also pointed out, any user-mode level program can do a full memory dump, so it's not like the Anti-Cheat is really getting more access to the system than any other program.

Just something to consider before giving up on the game.  I've been playing it since the update without encountering any problems on Windows 7.  Some people have had problems starting the program, but is that because of Denuvo, or some other underlying problem?  There's not enough hard data to go on.

I'm not sure what was changed on the console end of things but whatever id did broke match-making on Xbox One.  (Kind of hard to complete the new event when 3 of the 8 challenges are multiplayer-related.)  In other news, the weapon mastery milestones are still broken and now I can't load into the Ripatorium either.

Well that sucks.  How did they break the Ripatorium?

User feedback has led Id to the decision to remove Denuvo Anti-Cheat in PC-only patch 1.1 and to reconsider their approach to anticheat integration, writes executive producer Marty Stratton on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/gnjlo7/latest_information_on_update_1_anticheat/).

The patch will also include some bug fixes, and they hope to roll it out within a week.

I'm glad id reconsidered.  I also appreciate the candid response on Reddit.  I can understand why id wanted an anti-cheat solution in place for the planned Invasion mode but I don't feel like Denuvo was the right choice.

On a slightly different note, matchmaking is working again on Xbox One.  Also, the new Biker Mullet Slayer player skin is now live (https://slayersclub.bethesda.net/en/article/5VCT6ASmPL5DXLpxcfgWVB/mullet-slayer-twitch-prime).  (But dear Khan, did they have to include the skin with the US flag on it?  I live in Alabama, people.  I see that **** enough, already! :D)

'Cause he comes from Alabama with a shotgun on his knee?  :doom_?: