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Gnam
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Pho I agree with what you're getting at. I have imagined for a number of years that the ultimate evolution of Doom 1 level design would be a Metroid/Igavania structure where each "episode" setting is actually one giant interconnected map with a procedurally-generated monster "ecosystem" similar to STALKER's. There could be multiple branching paths to make it through the episode, yet even if you needed to backtrack to a previous "level" as in Quake 2, it wouldn't carry the boredom of returning to a previously-beaten empty area, as new monsters may have wandered into the location. It would also add a lot of replay value, as enemy positions could not simply be memorized and instead you'd always have to be on the guard for chance encounters.
This kind of structure could be bring varied co-op play, as certain parts may be better handled together or by splitting up. As someone who pretty much only plays games these days if my girlfriend can join in, I am always a proponent of co-op design.
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Phoenix
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Stalker: Shadow of Phobos? That sounds like a pretty interesting concept! 
Something else I thought might be kind of fun was if someone did a Starcraft-style game with Id monsters and characters. You'd have the Doom bestiary, Quake's monsters, and Quake 2's Strogg, against the player types from each of the original games. It could be played in various ways: All marines vs all monsters, marines vs monsters but the monsters are also vs each other, monsters vs marines but the marines are against each other, or a 6-way game of every faction for itself. Monster and marine spawns would be adjusted based on game type, and each faction would have its own teleportation devices for reinforcements, upgrading such would allow it to spawn in bigger monsters or smaller ones more frequently depending on the upgrade. Upgrades for marine bases would result in more marines spawning in, or marines with heavier weapons and armor spawning in. Bases could be strengthened by the addition of key-operated barriers where someone attacking the base would have to acquire the appropriate colored key to advance past that barrier, while "friendlies" could advance through it at will. Teleportation pads could also be built so that forward positions could more rapidly be reinforced. It would be "last team standing". Once someone's primary portal was shut down they could no longer reinforce, and unless their remaining troops pull off some kind of miracle win, that team is defeated.
This idea kind of popped into my mind when someone posted a pic of Starcraft on Planetquake and there were a bunch of fiends, grunts, ogres, and a shambler attacking the Terrans, and there was a bubble over one Terran's head that said, "Where the hell did THESE guys come from?!?" If Id ever made something like that I'd probably play it.
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  I fly into the night, on wings of fire burning bright...
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Gnam
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Muliplayer hands-on from Quake Con: http://www.windowscentral.com/quakecon-doom-multiplayer-impressionsArsenal is limited to two weapons plus grenades, based on loadouts you pick before spawning. Since you can choose the RL to spawn with, they nerfed it, and allegedly it "will not kill in only 1-2 hits". The game's sniper weapon is a "static cannon" which is charged by sprinting. While I'm not sure the multiplayer needed to be a perfectly-faithful replica of Quake-style deathmatch play, I'm not really sold on these new mechanics either. Having experimented a lot with overhauling weapon balance in the Halo games, I think quality DM play is still possible under a two gun + grenade limitation, as long as players still need to pick up better guns off the map. However, spawn people with whatever two weapons they choose and its pretty much "Call of Doom" all over again. |
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Phoenix
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I think a lot of that will depend on game mode. For a team-based game, it's not as much of a big deal. For FFA I'm not quite as sure. Rocket Arena worked well by spawning players with all the weapons, and Fully Loaded in Gen can be fun. Limiting it to spawning with two weapons of choice... I'm not so sure about that. Some weapons will be ignored completely. That's how it worked in Rocket Arena. In RA2, primarily you'd use Rocket Launcher and Railgun. Occasionally someone might use the Grenade Launcher, but the other weapons - Super Shotgun, Shotgun, Machinegun, Hyperblaster, and Blaster were ignored for the bulk of play. Occasionally one of them might be used as a finishing weapon or fallback if you ran out of ammo. The Chaingun was frowned upon for the most part when I played. It was just kind of an "honor" thing not to use it.
If they keep this scheme for Doom, some weapons won't get used and other weapons will be used a lot, which will lead to bitching about weapon balance, which will lead to nerfs, then more complaints... etc, etc, ad nauseum. The alternative is to make a points system where using a less powerful gun gives more points, but then you can have someone soften 3 players up with a rocket, get killed, then have someone else pepper the room with a light machinegun and get 3 lucky kills and get more points for it - despite someone else having done the work for you. You can make a convoluted "points per hit with weapon" system, but then you reward people for damage done but not frags. I'm not to keen in gimmicky points systems like this.
If they spork up multiplayer weapon balance, hopefully it will be modable so we modders can fix it and make it awesome again. Maybe during the Beta phase they'll change their minds on how this will work?
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Kajet
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Gnam... that is so incredibly depressing to hear...
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Gnam
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I agree that Rocket Arena itself is not so bad, but indeed, it's a big advantage that with all weapons at your disposal, the weaker ones can be situationally useful in some niche role. This two weapon-only business seems to carry the limitation in competitive fast action that typically comes with console games, without even any of the advantage in immersion or "realism" that sometimes come when these limitations are used in tactical shooters...worse of both worlds scenario. Fortunately, at least there are some indie titles in the works like Reflex, Toxikk, and Wickland which seem to provide more interesting variations on the deathmatch formula: http://store.steampowered.com/app/328070/http://store.steampowered.com/app/324810/http://store.steampowered.com/app/321260 |
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Gnam
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My girlfriend and I have played several hours of Toxikk so far and it's definitely the most polished. It combines the UT2004 dodge-jump manuever with UT3 gravity, for a less floaty feel (which is what I always hated about the UT2k games). The weaponry is sort of an interesting remix of what we're used to, it's got a traditional shotgun with double-barrel altfire...a plasma gun and railgun are combined into one weapon, etc. Reflex is pretty much a clone of CPMA, and while the lighting effects are nice, the majority of the maps (all user made) are untextured, and most of the weapons aren't modeled yet. One thing I like is their reworking of the CPMA BFG into a "stake gun", which is essentially a projectile-based alternative to the Railgun. The stake travels around 2000ups with a gravity arc and 100 damage (which differs from the RG's 70 or 80 damage). I'm sure it will look nice when its finished, but until then, it does feel a bit redundant. In Doom 4 news, some people at Doomworld have spotted the Baron of Hell as separate from the Hell Knight:   The original Baron also appears in some statues in the environment:  They also snapped a better look at the Spectre:  |
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Gnam
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Steam has a page for the new Doom up ( http://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/), which allows you to preorder and features some new in-game footage, including a detail shot of the player being stomped by a Baron of Hell. It looks totally unlike the Doom 3 Hell Knights and much more faithful to the original Doom Baron designs. Nice to see they didn't screw that part up! You also get to see a full body shot of the marine armor:  |
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Gnam
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Found some better pictures than the one I poorly screencapped:  Game Informer's Doom hub sports a blown up piece of Baron concept art:  The Lost Soul has also been revealed:  It also seems Id listened to fans' criticism of the early caco screens and punched up the color:  The pink appears up close and personal in the first video on Steam, but I couldn't get a good screencap. It looks decent and definitely more faithful to the original Doom than Doom 3, but it still doesn't look as good as Greg Punchatz' Doom 64 model:   Best level shot so far:  |
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« Last Edit: 2016-02-06, 06:53 by Gnam »
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Gnam
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I'm wondering if they changed the chaingun or if they are two different weapons?
It must be part of the upgrade/progression system they have in place...the same one that allows you to put three shot bursts or "grenades" in the shotgun. I supposed you start with a single chaingun and an upgrade allows you to add extra ones...I agree it's ridiculous though. The thing that's dispelled a lot of my cynicism is recent mentions article have made of non-linearity and exploration in the new Doom. http://wccftech.com/doom-difficulty-dial...d-nonlinear-exploration-confirmed-story/When you think about DOOM and DOOM 2, particularly the further you got into the game, there’s a lot of getting lost. It’s just these mazes that you can get lost in, in a good way as you’re searching around for secrets, keycards, pickups and all the goodies. There is definitely that aspect to it. I wouldn’t say that we focused on making sure that people got lost, there’s a way out to get to that next combat, which is really what the focus of the game is, getting to that next horde of demons that you can take out. But the exploration is really fun, there’s a pretty good sense of that non-linear exploration. http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/a...ur-hands-on-session.aspx?PostPageIndex=3Doom isn’t all about combat. When the demon legion isn’t trying to sever your head from torso, exploration takes center stage. The UAC environments are densely populated with high technology and containers in various states of disarray.
Each new area or bulkhead brings up exploration options. You’ll stumble upon locked doors requiring key cards (just like the old Dooms), and if you are thorough in your investigation, you'll find hidden areas tucked off to the side or occupying vertical spaces. I found a series of crates I could ascend, leading to a full armor pickup. Another series of vertical maneuvers gives way to the plasma rifle, which can also be obtained later in the game, but can be added now for eagle-eyed players. Marty Stratton, Doom’s game director and executive producer, says secrets like this are in great abundance and should give players plenty of reason to veer off the critical path to explore. This calms my concerns with early statements that Doom 4 would be "non-stop action, always moving forward" to the point of feeling on rails. Sure, it might not fit the Metroidvania structure I'm wishing for, but if the exploration and puzzles aren't completely forgotten then I can't knock it too hard and the game should at least be playable. |
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Kajet
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I suppose I should state for the record that I was in the Doom 4 Multiplayer beta and... it's just two gun halo style shit...
I still hope that the regular single player isn't so crippled but I doubt it.
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Kajet
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I know... It's fairly hard to say if it is the same in the single player considering they ruined Quake 3 Live with the two gun thing, and that's how DNF ended up... But I heard that some videos have shown the new Doom with multiple weapons in single player.
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Thomas Mink
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Yea.. every video I saw on single player was a 'carry all weapons' ordeal.
Also remember it being mentioned that you don't need to use the wheel and could hot-swap between guns without slowing time.. so that's nice too.
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Gnam
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I have mixed feelings about this new multiplayer trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFUAH3V1U4In some ways, the demon gameplay looks kinda cool. The "first person horns" of the Baron gameplay are a funny yet somehow appropriate touch. The imp seems fast enough to compensate for what is probably a pretty squishy character. ...but that execution animation on the Baron is really bad. It's the second most iconic boss monster in the Doom franchise, and but you kill it sitting on his chest like an overly-friendly cat? It's just not visually convincing the way the Baron is miraculously toppled by a marine that's literally half his size. All I can think of this:  Yep, that's how to kill a 12ft tall Baron of Hell with your bare hands. Other than that, I feel like the 2 weapon carry limitation is not nearly so bad as actually spawning with two guns of your choice and having no weapons on the map. If you could only spawn with a pistol (or even a choice of weakened sidearms) and went about picking up any two guns off the map, it'd be 10x better. I believe it's claimed that players will be able to create there own gametypes which could get around these issues, but if you can't actually find anyone playing those custom gametypes it still defeats the purpose of having a brand new popular deathmatch MP shooter. Lastly, it seems to me like Bethesda missed the obvious point that if you're going to slow down player movement so much, then you need an emphasis on location damage (re: headshots) to keep things challenging. Even Doom 3 MP at least figured that part out... |
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Gnam
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Just FYI, the non-NDA beta for Doom multiplayer started yesterday, so there are now a ton of Let's Plays on youtube. The damage values are all nerfed to compensate for the fact that you choose weapons to spawn with... direct rocket hit does 55, plasma does 6 or on a rare occasion, 9. The SSG seems to top off at around 65 damage.
There are at least two different sniper weapons to spawn with capable of doing more damage than the rocket launcher, plus an additional "power weapon" sniper that always one-shots. Basically the only projectiles are rockets, plasma, demon projectiles, and the rare BFG no one has seen yet.
Movement looks like UT3, if you took out dodging and wall dodging (in other words, the double jump is the only movement technique). The maps look slightly less claustrophobic than Doom 3 MP.
All in all, unless someone makes really heavy alterations via modding, it doesn't look very engaging. In all honesty, since Halo 5 added boost dodging and cleaned up some other issues, it looks potentially more engaging than Doom 4 MP, and that is sad. For that matter, even Doom 3 MP seems like it could be better.
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Tekhead
Elite
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what's up y'all! Doom 4 is awesome. I love it. I am okay with MP weapons not being one hit kills under normal circumstances. It makes it especially rewarding and beneficial to hunt in packs, mopping up rambos left and right. Glory kills are fun, over the top forms of cherry-tapping. Feels good man, especially on demons. Ledge grabbing/climbing is a mechanic that both makes sense and adds depth to traversing levels. Same with double-jump. The two superweapons are ridiculously strong but don't feel overpowered, mostly because of having very limited ammo. That, and dying to them is kinda awesome in its own way. There are headshots; hitting the head is a guaranteed crit which deals increased damage. Custom armor pieces to showcase look awesome, especially during the game recap where the top 3 scorers are displayed (similar to Quake 3 DM). During the game it is hard to see since colors are assigned to the classic blue/red teams but it stands out before and after games. The animations are fantastic! Especially the taunts  Lastly, the secondary items are all different types of grenades, though the wall-making one is the most fun - got a kill the other day by throwing up a wall at just the right time and making someone eat their own rocket  (oh ya, single player is neat too. Still haven't finished it yet) Cheers! |
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