Doom: The Dark Ages |OT| Mod City

MagiusNecros said:
Dusk and Ion Fury is more arcade like. Selaco has a more Half-Life kind of feel or progression. Which I prefer those. And Selaco can be hard and requires you to be more tactical and make decisions on whether to be defensive or aggressive and react to enemy types accordingly.

For me Selaco just destroys those games in every way. If you want weapons with OOMPH then Selaco is a good one.

Oh and let me tell you I was getting the good Doom 3 vibes from this game. One of the main reasons I fell in love with it.





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Went to go buy it based on this but alas, it's in Early Access. Whenever it's finished, I'll get on it.
 
Kacho said:
Fear and Blood. Two legendary FPS from Monolith. RIP

The Fear shotgun is ok. Not an all-time great IMO. It does feel good gibbing dudes in slow-mo tho.

The super shotty in Blood is indeed great. Everything about Blood is great.

I adore the punchy shotgun in Duke Nukem. Easy top 3.



Trying to think of other great shotguns in games that have it all (feel, sound, animation).
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Thats essentially the doom shotgun... even uses the same demons
 
MacReady13 said:
I'm playing The Dark Ages and it doesn't FORCE any weapons on you against the enemies in the game. And I'm 10 chapters in. So no, I'm not clutching at straws. Eternal was not great. Simple as that.
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In Dark Ages, you still have incentive to use certain weapons like the plasma cutting through enemies with shields a lot quicker that require to be heated. Using the shield and parrying is also literally a forced mechanic. Try play the game without using it and see how far you get. My point is, there is still some level of forced mechanics in the game. Chainsaw has basically been swapped out for shield and instead of having to target enemy weak points in Eternal, you now have to parry. The issue is not with Eternal, you just don't like it because it wasn't fun for you and that's fine, but that doesn't make it a shit game.
 
About half way through now collecting everything as well, and there are times where its a bit samey and/or boring? I dunno I cannot put my finger on it, its not a typical GP thing as I bought the PS5 version, still enjoying it in short bursts though

As for the Art and Gameplay, why bother with the DOOM title and not just make this a QUAKE reboot? Its pretty fucking similar
 
SCB3 said:
About half way through now collecting everything as well, and there are times where its a bit samey and/or boring? I dunno I cannot put my finger on it, its not a typical GP thing as I bought the PS5 version, still enjoying it in short bursts though

As for the Art and Gameplay, why bother with the DOOM title and not just make this a QUAKE reboot? Its pretty fucking similar
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I think people associate quake with multiplayer. This is essentially Quake considering there are 5 weapons from quake and a lot of enemies.
 
SCB3 said:
I mean it was the first big Arena shooter so I get that (doesn't help that 3 was MP only) but the first 2 games had a great SP as well
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I agree. I was hoping for a quake reboot as well, and I'm pretty certain we got it. I'm not sure what else they could have changed other than the main character and the name. The Cosmic realm, nailguns, gauntlet, setting, color scheme etc all scream quake. It's obvious where the intent was here. Doom and Doom Eternal were very vibrant and high tech, where as this game seems ancient but with high tech weapons. I'm loving it.
 


Fantastic video to really showcase how much better enemies look in this game and the added animation.

I think ultimately the issue on why we perceive dark ages as not being better looking perhaps boil down to:
-Muted color palette and lack of color saturation
-Enemies eyes not glowing as focal points so you notice them immediately as what they are
-Blur/resolution causing the player to not notice these details unless up close and slowed down

I personally redact my statement that eternal looks better- it doesn't but it's far easier to be wowed by eternal due to its color usage.
 
Arsic said:


Fantastic video to really showcase how much better enemies look in this game and the added animation.

I think ultimately the issue on why we perceive dark ages as not being better looking perhaps boil down to:
-Muted color palette and lack of color saturation
-Enemies eyes not glowing as focal points so you notice them immediately as what they are
-Blur/resolution causing the player to not notice these details unless up close and slowed down

I personally redact my statement that eternal looks better- it doesn't but it's far easier to be wowed by eternal due to its color usage.
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From what I've heard TDA has up to 5-8 times the details/polygons than Eternal in Levels.
 
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Arsic said:


Fantastic video to really showcase how much better enemies look in this game and the added animation.

I think ultimately the issue on why we perceive dark ages as not being better looking perhaps boil down to:
-Muted color palette and lack of color saturation
-Enemies eyes not glowing as focal points so you notice them immediately as what they are
-Blur/resolution causing the player to not notice these details unless up close and slowed down

I personally redact my statement that eternal looks better- it doesn't but it's far easier to be wowed by eternal due to its color usage.
Click to expand...

Eternal did a great job of nailing the colors and getting the colors/vibes of the original. It was pretty damn vibrant, but it worked nicely.
 
Justin9mm said:
The issue is not with Eternal, you just don't like it because it wasn't fun for you and that's fine, but that doesn't make it a shit game.
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It makes it an overrated game in my opinion. And I love the chatter now about how unbelievably great Eternal was and that's why we don't like Dark Ages! What a crock of shit.
 
ResilientBanana said:
I agree. I was hoping for a quake reboot as well, and I'm pretty certain we got it. I'm not sure what else they could have changed other than the main character and the name. The Cosmic realm, nailguns, gauntlet, setting, color scheme etc all scream quake. It's obvious where the intent was here. Doom and Doom Eternal were very vibrant and high tech, where as this game seems ancient but with high tech weapons. I'm loving it.
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A few more hours in and I still think this had to be a new Quake game they got cold feet on and repurposed to be DOOM, I just fought Eldritch monsters ffs, that is pure Quake
 
SCB3 said:
A few more hours in and I still think this had to be a new Quake game they got cold feet on and repurposed to be DOOM, I just fought Eldritch monsters ffs, that is pure Quake
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There were a TON of rumors that they were working on a Quake game after Eternal. So it makes you wonder if they really were, or if the art just always resembled Quake. OR, if it WAS going to be Quake then they hard shifted to it being DOOM again, lol.
 
Arsic said:
I think ultimately the issue on why we perceive dark ages as not being better looking perhaps boil down to:
-Muted color palette and lack of color saturation
-Enemies eyes not glowing as focal points so you notice them immediately as what they are
-Blur/resolution causing the player to not notice these details unless up close and slowed down
Click to expand...

Yep I made a similar observation earlier in the thread, especially when it comes to enemies. The way enemies are showed in the video you posted it's not the way they appear during gameplay, most of the time. All the fine details load up only when you're really close to an enemy, but by that time the dude is already dust, so yea. That, plus the heat of the moment, the pace of the action, a lot of the nice stuff showcased in the video gets lost. There is a very fine shine on those models in the video, that gets completely obliterated by the blurry presentation and other post process effects like chromatic aberration. But that shine is very important when it comes to perception, to things looking good, be it related to metal, be it related to the loads of subcutaneous tissue these enemies have on them.

Take this guy for example, does he look 2025 id Tech raytraced goodness to you? To me he doesn't, he's dull, having a sort of "matte" look. Bones, skin tissue, it all looks the same material.

pDwyZWJ.jpeg



Zero shine on all that exposed subcutaneus tissue. Also the model LOD looks not fully loaded even if the fella is 3m away from you. I have also noticed that when it rains, enemies don't get wet?

There is something off about all this, and I am afraid that all these reflective material properties are going to magically materialize once Path Tracing drops, in typical Nvidia fashion. Kneecap the base presentation, removing even the most basic stuff so that PT can shine. Same happened with contact and self shadows in Indiana Jones. We're so evil man, I love it.
 
First run done. I would have preferred walls of text for the story than the drivel they put together for this, but the cutscenes are skippable so the only thing that really irks me about it is what they could have spent that money on instead. I don't think multiplayer would have worked with these movement mechanics, but maybe it would have been worth it just to have Impaler duels..

The Atlan, How to Train Your Dragon, and turret shit is awful and stops this from getting into 9-10/10 territory. Like.. the basic flight controls for the dragon feel good but the gameplay loop is like something out of a mobile game. It's tedius as fuck. Hopefully the DLC doesn't contain any of them.

The music is serviceable and I can see what they were going for. It works well in certain encounters and bits of it are reminiscent of classic Doom, but it doesn't have enough bite or character. I think it's fine but it's not memorable.

The art, level design, combat loop, enemy variety, and *most* of the weapons are fantastic though. It's imperfect, but it's fucking fun and it's clear that they spent a lot of time looking at the original games and community created content for both Doom and Quake for inspiration.

It's a solid reimagining of the more open level design of the first two games, that definitely isn't without issues, but ultimately is more faithful to the early games than the last pair of entries. There's a lot to love here in terms of traversal, map flow, secrets, and aesthetic's.

The weapons feel like a nod to both Quake and Hexen. The melee weapons (and the Reaver) could be transposed as is straight into a new Hetertic/Hexen game, as could the parry system, some of the environments, and a bunch of the enemies (like the Komodo and Aggadon Hunter). Take that stuff and lean heavily into player build opportunities making it more RPG/souls-like to replace fixed character class choices. People would eat it up. Some of the one of one duels in TDA were incredible. I'm a little disappointed there isn't some sort of boss rush or pit fighting mode or something..

But the paired weapons by ammo type is reminiscent of Quake (and Doom save for the rocket launcher), some of the environments look and feel a bit like Quake 1, and the Cosmic Realm enemies (Cacadmon Hybrid, Cosmic Baron, and Acolyte… even the Battle Knight… wouldn't be out of place in a future Quake game.

They said there are still stories to tell in this time period so I expect the DLC will be about the The Betrayer, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see a the next Doom game keep this setting. I also wouldn't be surprised if TDA becomes a branching point that leads to separate Quake an and Hexen (Hecatomb: Beyond Hexen?) games… and after playing The Dark Ages I think I'd actually be alright with that.

I'd really like to know what Hugo's contributions have been since Eternal though. Like… is he actually helping develop the gameplay systems or if his focus on world building and lore? Because the story, characters, mechs, and dragon shit is all dogshit and whoever is responsible for it should be binned. I still think Bethesda pressured them to expand the lore to build out licensing and merchandising opportunities but Hugo isn't blameless 😂

I don't really know how I feel about the modifiers yet. I didn't touch anything on my Nightmare run so I might experiment with them before going into UN.

Weird game. Don't know whether it warrants an $80 price tag given the relative lack of content, but I'm glad it exists.
 
amigastar said:
Yeah, i don't know which chapter but i think its the first time you fly with the dragon, the ambient music was awesome.
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Replaying it to get back to where I was when it deleted my save, but this time I followed the advice from the Digital Foundry video and ramped the music volume up to max.

Makes a huge difference! I barely remember there being any music the first time round, but now it's blasting out at an appropriate volume and it fits the action really well. The default mix is all wrong.
 
So I decided to redownload Eternal to have a direct, fresh comparison to TDA. Memory can often be deceiving and playing these games back-to-back is the clearest way to distinguish them. I'll preface this by saying I never played the PS5 version which came later so now I have the benefit of full ray tracing etc. Thoughts after the first couple of missions:

- constantly running out of ammo in Eternal

- TDA looks *way* better, in a previous post I said I wasn't seeing much difference

- glory kills are indeed god-tier with an insane amount of unique animations

- chainsaw 💯💯💯 but indeed forced due to constant low ammo

- Eternal immediately has more of a "cool factor". Early example is the Slayer ripping off the hell priest's head then adjusting the crown which begins to slide down, badass

- prefer Eternal's weapon mod system which essentially gives you 3 guns in 1

- TDA is a faster game and not even by a little bit

- nobody can fuck with Mick Gordon's soundtrack. TDA maybe had *2* tracks that I'd call good, Eternal comes in heavy off the rip, once those guitar riffs kick in tough as *fuck*, your head starts bobbing, stank face: on, you are *in it*

- Eternal is much more challenging, frequently low on health

- TDA creates a smoother combat "flow state" with your parries, shield throws, dashes, melee and various firearms all chaining together in a beautiful way

- if you care about lore/story TDA is more interesting though Eternal seems to have more Codex entries

- TDA has better environments

I think I'll do another full playthrough of Eternal, PS5 has it's own trophy list as a bonus lol. Will be interesting to see how my thoughts change/evolve the deeper I get but this is what I'm feeling as of right now.
 
TheDarkPhantom said:
So I decided to redownload Eternal to have a direct, fresh comparison to TDA. Memory can often be deceiving and playing these games back-to-back is the clearest way to distinguish them. I'll preface this by saying I never played the PS5 version which came later so now I have the benefit of full ray tracing etc. Thoughts after the first couple of missions:

- constantly running out of ammo in Eternal

- TDA looks *way* better, in a previous post I said I wasn't seeing much difference

- glory kills are indeed god-tier with an insane amount of unique animations

- chainsaw 💯💯💯 but indeed forced due to constant low ammo

- Eternal immediately has more of a "cool factor". Early example is the Slayer ripping off the hell priest's head then adjusting the crown which begins to slide down, badass

- prefer Eternal's weapon mod system which essentially gives you 3 guns in 1

- TDA is a faster game and not even by a little bit

- nobody can fuck with Mick Gordon's soundtrack. TDA maybe had *2* tracks that I'd call good, Eternal comes in heavy off the rip, once those guitar riffs kick in tough as *fuck*, your head starts bobbing, stank face: on, you are *in it*

- Eternal is much more challenging, frequently low on health

- TDA creates a smoother combat "flow state" with your parries, shield throws, dashes, melee and various firearms all chaining together in a beautiful way

- if you care about lore/story TDA is more interesting though Eternal seems to have more Codex entries

- TDA has better environments

I think I'll do another full playthrough of Eternal, PS5 has it's own trophy list as a bonus lol. Will be interesting to see how my thoughts change/evolve the deeper I get but this is what I'm feeling as of right now.
Click to expand...

Do 2016 next
 
MacReady13 said:
It makes it an overrated game in my opinion. And I love the chatter now about how unbelievably great Eternal was and that's why we don't like Dark Ages! What a crock of shit.
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Never seen anyone specifically say in a post, I love Eternal, but I don't like Dark Ages, that's definitely not the majority of opinion. I like Dark Ages, is it better than Eternal? Well I can't really compare because they are so different.

My problems with Dark Ages is not the gameplay or design but the graphical presentation. HDR is completely broken, at least on console, I had to turn off HDR. And this is subjective, but, I personally think the image quality/graphics are not as sharp/good as Eternal. There is more detail in Dark Ages compared to Eternal but it looks like a blurry mess on console and I'm disappointed because it should look a step up from Eternal and it simply doesn't.

Any real OG Doom fan should like all 3 games of the rebooted franchise. All 3 are fantastic shooters IMO. Eternal is an example of what a good arena shooter should be. I'm an 80s gamer and to be honest, I've been around gaming longer than some and people who don't like Eternal really don't understand what makes a good designed FPS. 'Maybe' they could have done away with some of the platforming in Eternal, but seriously, I dare any other studio other than id to pull off a better fleshed out FPS.
 
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TerribleAtThisGame said:
Went to go buy it based on this but alas, it's in Early Access. Whenever it's finished, I'll get on it.
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I'll go to bat for Selaco anytime it comes up. The early access campaign took me 24 hours to get through and I didn't even find all of the secrets.

They did say they are adding voice acting at some point so it might be worth waiting but it was my favorite game last year by a mile.
 
FeastYoEyes said:
I'll go to bat for Selaco anytime it comes up. The early access campaign took me 24 hours to get through and I didn't even find all of the secrets.

They did say they are adding voice acting at some point so it might be worth waiting but it was my favorite game last year by a mile.
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Nothing against this dev to be clear just I don't do EA. I'm not interested in game dev or seeing how the sausage is made so to speak so the concept is over my head. Also bought a couple EA games early on and was pissed every time when the finished game hit like four years later and I gave zero fucks lol.
 
Not sure why but I keep thinking about this game somehow being the best "He Man and the Masters of the Universe" I've ever played. I think it's the characters having that 80's action figure physique that does it.

A fun no nonsense game though - it didn't overstay its welcome like Eternal did for me, and it felt like it stuck the landing when the game wrapped up. Might go back and revisit trophies and challenges later.
 


The gameplay showcase in the middle of this I think really drives home how much better eternal is.

The biggest takeaways I had is:
-Nothing looks blurry. It's all crisp. I can make out enemy details, environments, etc. Lighting is so much better it's not even close.
-Dark ages desperately needs a patch giving players the option for a "vibrant" filter to bring back the color. Dark ages is waaaaaay too muted it looks dull as shit.
 
Seriously it pisses me off a little bit when i read that DOOM TDA has mid gameplay.
That's just not true, it differs from Eternal but its not mid.
We must be playing a different game then.
 
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amigastar said:
Seriously it pisses me off a little bit when i read that DOOM TDA has mid gameplay.
That's just not true, it differs from Eternal but its not mid.
We must be playing a different game then.
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Yeah, it's closer to 2016. Eternal was practically a combat platformer, this is not that.

Don't agree with the 'bad' comments personally either.
 
Arsic said:


The gameplay showcase in the middle of this I think really drives home how much better eternal is.

The biggest takeaways I had is:
-Nothing looks blurry. It's all crisp. I can make out enemy details, environments, etc. Lighting is so much better it's not even close.
-Dark ages desperately needs a patch giving players the option for a "vibrant" filter to bring back the color. Dark ages is waaaaaay too muted it looks dull as shit.
Click to expand...

Exactly, let's forget about the actual game/gameplay for a moment. This is possibly the worst executed presentation from iD yet. Like how is it on Day 1, I'm looking on the internet for help as to why I can't see anything only to find out, HDR is broken. Great, so I have to turn that off, wait, not even an option in the game settings on console. I have to physically turn it on and off at console level.. This is retarded. Playing on Pro, it's so fucking blurry, dark ,dull. People are defending that saying it's the theme being Dark Ages.. Bullshit! I actually like Dark Ages but man, they make it hard to like.. I'm really disappointed about the Image Quality. Also, I was reading the latest Patch version is 1.003, but mine is still 1.002 and says it is the latest version? First time ever I've been confused about a games release version. I'm so sick of buying games day 1 and being the guinea pig. I've barely played it to wait for patches.
 
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Just finished up. Took about 20hrs. on Nightmare difficulty. I thought the ending battles were pretty exciting. Overall the game was solid as fuck.

Some screenshots:
8X5D8S2.jpeg
SBmvcpJ.jpeg
kxcM4LM.jpeg

F6nZfrZ.jpeg


The highlights for me were the visceral shield and flail based combat, weapons, environments, and cutscenes. The music was good at times, but overall just serviceable compared to Mick Gordon's iconic OSTs. A few changes that they should make is to have a toggle for the slo-mo/slowdown on melee/parry, a button to change melee weapons on-the-fly, default music volume higher, and maybe some additional checkpoints to load into once a level is complete. Overall really love the game and looking forward to upcoming campaign expansions and hopefully horde mode and some master levels.
 
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CrustyBritches said:
A few changes that they should make is to have a toggle for the slo-mo/slowdown on melee/parry
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I like the slowdown, it lets you know you've parried successfully. Hitting back an enemy projectile is obvious enough, but when they jump in and do a green melee attack I wouldn't know if I'd parried it without the slowdown.
 
On the first Siege mission and my god the difficulty stepped up a notch. Way more enemies and projectiles and it invokes that feeling from Eternal where you absolutely must prioritise specific enemies and balance killing mobs (for armour and health) with bigger, more durable monsters.

On Nightmare I must have died 3 or 4 times trying to close one of the hell portals but it was always down to me not focusing my attacks properly. Once I took down the Mancubus (which throws these lingering acid projectiles that deal damage over time) I was able to kill off a few mobs and take on the Hell Knights and what looked like a Cyberdemon. This is all whilst getting absolutely bamboozled by this cunt riding a pinky demon that you cannot deal damage to until you've defeated the other enemies.

Overcoming these types of challenges invokes an awesome feeling and is what gaming is all about in my opinion. I really like both of the previous Doom titles, but this one for me takes the crown so far. It's just like Eternal with regard to managing resources (melee, shield throwing, shield charging and weapon switching for specific enemies), but it's faster, you feel like way more of a badass and most importantly it's a lot of fucking fun.
 
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