DOOM4/nuDoom/Brutal Halo/Call of Doomy/Brutal Quake 4 Thread

[Lord Satori]

Yeah, from what I've seen, certain weapons seem to lack that satisfying "oomph" when it comes to sound. I think the Plasma Rifle is one of those.

edit: Ugh, new page.

[Ed Oscuro]

the enemies don't contrast with the surroundings very much.

They move, while the surrounding do not. The eye is naturally drawn to movement. It's really not that hard to understand.

But somehow you conveniently ignored my comment about eyestrain, oh L.SAT, so...

Maybe it's a complaint that could equally be levelled against the original Quake. I dunno. It's true there are not many games on the market that look just like DOOM - could that be called the Trent Reznorian aesthetic? - and of course it doesn't have to be fully faithful to the originals or DOOM III. But, if you ask me, there does seem like a missed opportunity in that one isolated section of design. But yeah, I'd have to look at it in context, so I might as well go and spoil the entire game just to please L.SAT's grumping about somebody not being fully grabbed by a new DOOM screenshot. Well, props to iD for not being in eye candy advertising mode all the time, I suppose.

[Lord Satori]

Your comment was in regards to the enemies being hard to notice and having to strain your eyes to look for them, yes? Not sure how me pointing out that they're easier to notice in motion doesn't address it. Here you are having no idea what gameplay actually looks like aside from a few screenshots here and there and somehow I'M the badguy here? Seems legit. While you're at it, why don't you start critiquing movies using the same technique. I'm sure that'll go well.

By the way, the solo campaign is 16 fucking hours long. It'll take a great amount of effort to get spoiled by something like that. It's like not wanting to read the summary on the back of the book for the same reason.

[Austin]

Yeah, 16 easy on my first playthrough via Ultra Violence. Maybe 15 if I'm being generous. My second playthrough (Nightmare) was about 12. Just ran through UV again in two sittings, totaling about eight (that was avoiding most secrets and all but two rune trials). I could see someone storming through it without abusing glitches in five or six hours, but that would have to be a literal perfect run, skipping all secrets and rune trials, not focusing on leveling the guns, and not dying at all. This game is chock-full of content for a single player old-school styled experience if you ask me.

In regards to enemies being difficult to see, as it's been said, you need to see it in motion. I've never had trouble spotting a foe. Also, the game has a wide variety of brightness settings. Crank it up to make life easier if that's what you want.

[Durandal]

the enemies don't contrast with the surroundings very much.

They move, while the surrounding do not. The eye is naturally drawn to movement. It's really not that hard to understand.

But somehow you conveniently ignored my comment about eyestrain, oh L.SAT, so...

Maybe it's a complaint that could equally be levelled against the original Quake. I dunno. It's true there are not many games on the market that look just like DOOM - could that be called the Trent Reznorian aesthetic? - and of course it doesn't have to be fully faithful to the originals or DOOM III. But, if you ask me, there does seem like a missed opportunity in that one isolated section of design. But yeah, I'd have to look at it in context, so I might as well go and spoil the entire game just to please L.SAT's grumping about somebody not being fully grabbed by a new DOOM screenshot. Well, props to iD for not being in eye candy advertising mode all the time, I suppose.

To be fair, I should've posted this comparison with different colors instead, with the vanilla screenshot being in the top left, the original screenshot without the sepia filter in the top right, and manual recolors in the bottom:

Spoiler

Yea, you can tell it apart from the background as long as it moves, but then there'd be little reason to bother with colors in the first place if movement and silhouette is all you are going to rely on for visual aid. Quake may not be the most colorful game compared to Doom, but the colors for each enemy type are sufficiently distinct that you can tell them apart from the other at a quick glance. Something like post-processing filters and colored lighting don't really help.

[Squire Grooktook]

Would be cool if someone modded that in.

[Xyga]

Spoiler

Bottom left looks great/doomiest.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yea, you can tell it apart from the background as long as it moves, but then there'd be little reason to bother with colors in the first place if movement and silhouette is all you are going to rely on for visual aid.

Indeed! The same was true of TF2 - silhouettes were carefully studied in that game's development, and the result is actually a game with a fair amount of flexibility, even if it's not needed. Apart from any artistic issues, the high visibility choices in TF2 help make it a better competitive game. Austin gave a good response too. @ L. Satire: I'm really not sure what you're trying to achieve with this argumentative style and yelping at me with demands and imaginary rebuttals..? Please learn from Obscura, who was polite even though I was much more pointed in my Necrovision critique.

I'm not saying that even bad designs can always cause eyestrain (DOOM: Not Even Once Edition) and iD certainly can have its artistic license which I didn't set out to criticize. Then again, lots of people don't suffer from epilepsy. Does that mean that strobing high contrast colors across the screen is a sane choice now? I'm sure the Banned Pokemon Episode guys were really proud of their creation...for a while. Users can choose too. Professionals in art, computer UX, movies, who design the Cheetos bag you're holding, and other industries find interesting ways of presenting art and information without putting user happiness and comfort at risk, and in 2016 iD/Bethesda can damn well afford the cost of looking at color and contrast. I don't think they did.

If you want to argue my major point - lack of contrast is a source of eyestrain - I'd be happy to discuss. I thought about this a little more, and tried to find some research - not a lot of good stuff is quickly available on the 'net to link to, references to '80s UX work and other stuff, but I did find this:

What you really want, to prevent eye strain and fatigue, is overall low intensity, medium/high contrast. Low intensity means your eyes won't get burnt out from staring at a lamp, and medium/high contrast means that your eyes don't have to strain to see the difference between the text and the background.

Low contrast (both in color and shade) is also fatiguing (again: sometimes), and looking around the net, the new DOOM seems to have a lot of relatively limited contrast, low intensity scenes, and probably many other scenes with more of one or the other. (It may be true that some high contrast color combinations can be bad for eye fatigue as well.) Perception and eye mechanics should affect this in other ways; people with total color blindness due to hunting genes shouldn't miss losing color contrast, but then there's still shade contrast. So why does this matter? Given just the right problem - a badly set up monitor, or weak GPU hardware, or a monitor that just can't handle low-contrast scenes well (especially an issue with grays), or just playing for a long time - users are already more likely to experience eyestrain, or at least sub-par visuals, and designing areas like this invites it to happen sooner.

I'm glad that everybody (that has commented so far) is playing the game and not having any eye strain - and I just took a moment to adjust my own monitor for height and brightness - but I expect it will be an issue for some; it's impossible to prove a negative in any case.

But since you asked, boy some of this DOOM stuff is piss ugly. Deus Ex: HR had that supposedly infamous yellow filter, but still manages to look nice almost all the time due to design - and at no obvious cost to playability.

Spoiler

Bottom left looks great/doomiest.

I don't think that really works for the style they were going for, but really, how long should we play in a cloud of sulfur? Interestingly, it's the lowest contrast choice, yet the dark spaces in the far cliffs seem more visible to me due to the red fog.

[drunkninja24]

Just finished the campaign today, and loved every second of it. Easily the most fun I've had with an FPS campaign in years. Everything feels fast and fluid, weapons feel great to use for the most part (I agree with the general sentiment of the Plasma Rifle though) and the little throwback touches here and there are great.

I think nitpicking over palette choices is kinda dumb, everything in game is quite easy to see and I never had trouble picking out enemies from the background or which enemies were what. Also the actual game definitely has more color than that screenshot posted above seems to imply.

Overall, it was well worth my $60, and I'll likely do more runs and check out all the classic maps I've unlocked as well.

[Durandal]

Low contrast (both in color and shade) is also fatiguing (again: sometimes), and looking around the net, the new DOOM seems to have a lot of relatively limited contrast, low intensity scenes, and probably many other scenes with more of one or the other. (It may be true that some high contrast color combinations can be bad for eye fatigue as well.) Perception and eye mechanics should affect this in other ways; people with total color blindness due to hunting genes shouldn't miss losing color contrast, but then there's still shade contrast. So why does this matter? Given just the right problem - a badly set up monitor, or weak GPU hardware, or a monitor that just can't handle low-contrast scenes well (especially an issue with grays), or just playing for a long time - users are already more likely to experience eyestrain, or at least sub-par visuals, and designing areas like this invites it to happen sooner.

I had to regularly take breaks when playing Gears of War 2 because my eyes were that strained over the course over an hour or two. I never had the issue with playing Vanquish on the same television, let alone any other game during extended play sessions. Vanquish is largely white and bright in tone, as opposed to Gears of War's gritty gray style, so maybe that had something to do with it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oops, the DOOM car just crashed out of the Indy 500...

[SuperDeadite]

So this thread has gotten me back into Doom mode. Just replayed No Rest for the Living again today. An absolutely fantastic wad. A must play for all.

[szycag]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... 016-Review

Even he likes it!

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

So, I'm still playing this. One of the best current gen games around. The campaign that keeps on giving.

How people are beating Doom on Ultra-Nightmare without dying

[hearto]

At first I disliked the idea from the game for the early halo like multiplayer.
But after looking at the single player is a nice reboot, isn't doom 1 or 2, but is more doom than scary jumps 3.
For Metroid Prime fans the platforming feels so similar, so I could say Doom 4 is the child from doom and metroid prime, which on my book is a good direction.

[Udderdude]

FYI there is now an 8 GB demo available on steam. I tried it out, and it's definitely better than I expected. I don't know if I want to buy it without the DLC included, though, or I'll end up spending hundreds on this one game ..

[Ji-L87]

I checked out the demo yesterday together with a friend (basically started playing at the same time and then screaming impressions back and forth). That was a fun little ride. Not very long, but fun! I really quite liked the cyberpunk-ish aesthetics early on (and the weapons so far looks really good. Love how the pistol lights up in the darkness).

Also loved how the room lightning changed completely after destroying the organic portal thing in the first arena-like encounter.

I'm rocking a used GTX 780 since last summer so I wasn't sure my aging machine would be up to the task, but not only did it look good (save for excessive motion blur which I had to turn down) but also ran well.
Will very likely pick this up sometime soon...

[Udderdude]

I turned down the AA settings, disabled chromatic whateveration, lens flares (lol photoshop) and motion blur, and it ran fine on my GTX 680.

[qmish]

sure it's a good game

just srtrict fans of classic fps of 90s are disappointed as newdoom is more like what came after serioussam/painkiller

[Durandal]

sure it's a good game

just srtrict fans of classic fps of 90s are disappointed as newdoom is more like what came after serioussam/painkiller

I actually started playing Painkiller recently, and was surprised that it's even a step down from Serious Sam by making enemy variety, level design, and your weapon arsenal even more redundant. People call Doom and Serious Sam mindless, but in fact its Painkiller which deserves to be called mindless. I've only played the first two chapters, and I only had to use the shotgun as everyone died in one/two shots or the stake gun when enemies were teleported ten feet away from me, something even NewDoom did better. Maybe it gets better later on? At least I can bunnyhop. Honestly, just play Doom 1, Serious Sam, and Painkiller afterwards on a drink-fueled marathon and you'll see what people are upset about.

[qmish]

I rarely dislike games that i play, but Painkiller didnt click for me. I'm gonna give it a 2nd chance, but i loved kiss psycho circus much better.

[Squire Grooktook]

I tried playing Painkiller recently. Seconding the meh.

Comparatively slow movement speed, "lock you in an arena" level design or lackthereof, low enemy variety and weak design (too much "rush at you and melee" stuff, not enough telegraphed projectile dodging). A few cool setpieces and areas (was genuinely enjoying myself in the cathedral), but overall it feels lifeless to me compared to Doom.

[qmish]

wel, 10 years ago it impressed people with "1000% power" and "huge bosses", latter is especially rare in pc games area (or western developers in general).

Hm, and what about weapons? Though i prefer wacky ones from Armed & Dangerous instead.

[Durandal]

wel, 10 years ago it impressed people with "1000% power" and "huge bosses", latter is especially rare in pc games area (or western developers in general).

Hm, and what about weapons? Though i prefer wacky ones from Armed & Dangerous instead.

The visual designs of the Painkiller weapons are really great, though in terms of function it's like they just mashed two weapons together in one, alternative fire modes being limited by seperate ammo pools is probably an indication of that too. Functionally the Painkiller weapons aren't really that special either compared to any shooter, nor are they really balanced. The grenade arc of the stake/grenade launcher is fucking atrocious too.

[Obscura]

The visual designs of the Painkiller weapons are really great, though in terms of function it's like they just mashed two weapons together in one

This isn't true, though -- the alt fires and the primary fires interact on literally every non-expansion weapon.

Comparatively slow movement speed

Learn 2 Bunnyhop.

Also, Painkiller's level design is far better than Serious Sam's. Yes, they're both built around lock-ins, but the Z-axis layered, X/Y tight design of Painkillers arenas is far more interesting than Serious Sam's big open fields.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, Bunnyhopping is a thing I noticed, and while it does give the game some personality of its own, it still doesn't feel good to me. I guess I feel the same way about these kinds of games as I do Street Fighters: slower movement = dropped.

[Durandal]

The visual designs of the Painkiller weapons are really great, though in terms of function it's like they just mashed two weapons together in one

This isn't true, though -- the alt fires and the primary fires interact on literally every non-expansion weapon.

Yea, I've noticed some combo attacks on the Painkiller and Shuriken-Lightning gun, though I don't really see why'd you ever need to use the Painkiller combo attack aside from screwing around with cannon fodder. The balance is all over the place here. Why would I ever use the Stake Gun for long-range combat once I get my hands on the Rocket-Chaingun? The latter has no parabolic arc, faster projectile speed, deals AoE damage and more damage in general, and usually rocket ammo placement becomes plentiful once you get it. It'd be more fitting if the stake gun could penetrate through multiple enemies, yet that's what the Shuriken-Lightning Gun's combo attack does. The shuriken-lightning gun seems to have the same role in battle as the chaingun, as I've rarely used the former.

What weapons you will use (at the start of the levels) seem to be mostly determined by what kind of ammo is lying around, as opposed to giving you ammo for everything and a more situational arsenal which has you determine the best suited weapon for the situation. In Painkiller I usually use whatever I feel like, or what ammo there is at hand. Of course larger packs of enemies require rockets, close-up I won't use anything explosive, and for medium-range combat I'll use anything but the shotgun, though that's as far as weapon priorities extend.

I've also read that the Stake Gun-Grenade Launcher also lets you fire a grenade and then shoot it with the stake for massive damage, similarly to the Shock Rifle Combo of Unreal Tournament. Except the Shock Rifle Combo had a bigger AoE and was more useful for dealing damage behind cover, whereas the Stake/Grenade gun Combo Attack is painfully hard to execute with a stake projectile and grenade compared to a near-instant straight beam and a linear-traveling shock orb, and often pointless to use when you are usually fighting in larger environments where enemies don't hide behind cover. This combo attack does kind of justify the terrible arc for the grenade launcher, but I do not see its use in singleplayer at all.

Also, Painkiller's level design is far better than Serious Sam's. Yes, they're both built around lock-ins, but the Z-axis layered, X/Y tight design of Painkillers arenas is far more interesting than Serious Sam's big open fields.

You can have a level on par with Aye Mak Sicur in terms of layout complexity and size, but I'd rather have a straight wide line filled with a hundred Hunters instead of Aye Mak Sicur filled with nothing but boring pistol BoBs. There's more to level design than just the architecture and layout. The big open fields in Serious Sam work because of the strong enemy variety, weapon arsenal, and the tower defense-ish dynamic. Try playing Serious Sam in Painkiller levels or any kind of small tight level and it'd fall flat on its face. SS levels do not amount much in terms of layout, but otherwise SS wouldn't really work out with its massive amount of enemies.

Meanwhile levels in Painkiller are filled with either enemies who charge at you mindlessly or hitscan enemies behind the main ranks who mostly deal minimal damage. Had they fired projectiles which dealt more damage like the Ogres in Quake or almost any other enemy in Marathon, they could have spiced up the monotone combat through interesting vertical enemy placement. If Painkiller had an actually decent variety of enemies (not just in looks) to place around and used multiple enemy types at a time, then it'd elevate the level design above mediocrity. Painkiller would be worse off with Serious Sam levels however, it really just needs better enemy variety. Even Doom 2016 has a better enemy variety than what I've experienced with Painkiller. It's like a car battery that's an engineering marvel, and then using it to power a fan.

Learn 2 Bunnyhop.

The fixed jump arcs don't really sit well with me, this ain't Classicvania.

[Austin]

Painkiller (the original stock game and maybe a few levels of the BooH expansion, not the followups or the H&D remake) is one of my favorite oldschool first person shooters outside of classic DOOM. I personally put it higher than Serious Sam (as much as I like that game, it's brutal as all hell to the point of not being fun). The movement is slower, yes, but it doesn't need to be faster--the enemy movement is set in a way to work naturally with the default player movement speed. Of course, if you want to play faster, then there's bunny hopping as it's already been said. It takes practice but once you get it down it feels buttery smooth.

The big difference that sets Painkiller apart from other run 'n guns is the Tarot card system. I find it satisfying trying to meet the card unlock goals. After you've run through the game once, I highly recommend going through it again and trying to get as many as you can. Some goals will force you to use a specific weapon throughout a stage, or defeat a boss under a pretty strict timelimit which makes you attack the levels with a different strategy (in the case of boss goals, it encourages utilizing unlocked cards to achieve the goal). The cards themselves can range from mostly useless to critical, such as permanent effect cards like doubling the ammo in ammo boxes and increasing your max health cap, to one-use-per-level cards that enables double damage, faster firing rate, and more offensive traits that can be combined together for ultimate damage. Playing by the card system also gets you to approach the game differently, and I find myself juggling enemies as much as possible on the early levels with the Painkiller's alternate fire. Doing so drops nice chunky gold pieces which gives you the money to place better cards earlier on provided you have unlocked them.

I do recommend playing all the way through the game before really judging it. Painkiller eases the player in much slower than something like Serious Sam, but it will eventually pick up in difficulty. You will also find that the weapon system is actually pretty balanced and you will find a use for everything, especially from late Chapter 2 and on. I also recommend playing through it again on Trauma without the crutch of the soul health drops and the occasional invincible demon mode (or whatever it's called). You also get an alternate ending and a restructured progression of the last few stages by playing it on the hardest mode.

[Mischief Maker]

Learn 2 Bunnyhop.

The fixed jump arcs don't really sit well with me, this ain't Classicvania.

Just to be clear, when you get the timing right, bunnyhopping in Painkiller causes you to accelerate faster and faster until you're screaming across the level like a freight train.

[Durandal]

Learn 2 Bunnyhop.

The fixed jump arcs don't really sit well with me, this ain't Classicvania.

Just to be clear, when you get the timing right, bunnyhopping in Painkiller causes you to accelerate faster and faster until you're screaming across the level like a freight train.

I'm capable of bunnyhopping just fine, but it seems rather impossible to strafe mid-air. Can you really go Dark Engine levels of speed through bunnyhopping? To me it feels as if there is a limit to how fast you can move through bunnyhopping in Painkiller.