The DOOM Thread

[Jagosaurus]

Good info on vid tutorial Ziggy. Will bookmark. Just hit E4M2 on the 360 port & was getting worked. I feel like the Thy Flesh Consumed levels definitely have a preferred path & strategy needed. I also don't have them memorized. Most of the original missions I remember what to do once I get going, but not so much TFC.

I also played Doom & Wolf 3D with a mouse back in the day on my 486. It's really only for look/aim L & R. I do think I used left click to shoot. Quake added more mouse options.

[Ziggy]

I rolled the credits on DOOM 2016 a few days ago. I had a blast playing through this game, but there are a few things that bother me about it.

The game play is definitely very energetic and heart pumping. But it mostly feels like you're just jumping from one battle arena to the next with boring passageways in between them. You're in some corridors (or even when you're outside you're usually clearly on a linear path) until you come to a big open area that is CLEARLY gonna be a battle. Once the battle activates, the music ramps up and it's an insane time. Then you know once you killed the last enemy because the music dies down, and then the progression to the next area magically unlocks. Then it's some more mostly boring corridors until you reach the next battle area. After a while, it just feels like this is all you're doing. Just going through some boring hallways until you reach a battle arena.

The other thing that I got sick of was the glory kills. This is a cool visual thing, but I could tell back in 2016 that I would get annoyed by how often it has to occur. They are basically just QTEs, and I hate QTEs. The gameplay is very energetic, but then you press F and the game sort of pauses while you wait for the glory kill cinematic to finish. Then a lot of times, after the glory kill cinematic finished, the camera is pointing you in a direction you don't want to be facing and possibly leaving you open to attacks or a just in a bad position to maneuver away from attacks. Before playing the game, I've heard some people say you could just ignore glory kills, but this is not true. Glory killing is a fundamental part of the gameplay. Least of which is the fact that enemies will flash when they are stunned and vulnerable to glory kills. So even if you wanted to mostly ignore the glory kills, you'd still have to have weirdly flashing enemies all of the time. But then it seems like there are some enemies that just can't be killed with ammo alone, or are at least hard to finish off with just bullets, and you really need to glory kill them. You could always blow someone to pieces with various exploding type weapons, but as far as bullets go, there are some enemies that will start flashing but then you can pump endless bullets into their torso and they just keep on flashing. It's sort of frustrating.

The music was cool, but it was more electronic than metal.

I don't like how the chainsaw and BFG were treated more as limited quick kills than as actual weapons. They don't appear when you're cycling weapons, instead they have a dedicated key and both have very limited ammo. Maybe this was the right choice for the BFG, but I really wish the chainsaw worked like it did in the original game.

E4M2

I think this is one of the toughest maps of classic DOOM. If you can beat this map on UV, then you shouldn't have much trouble with the rest of Thy Flesh Consumed (although E4M6 comes close). Big Mac Davis definitely helped me to get through it for the first time. I probably would have never found out the BFG grab on my own. It's an awesome quote from BMD, "If you don't know to does this, you're gonna be in for a world of hurt, pain, anguish, and suffering."

[RCBH928]

I've beaten Thy Flesh Consumed a few times on UV, but it is my least favorite episode of DOOM (including SIGIL) because of the difficulty.

If you want any help with level tactics, I recommend watching Big Mac Davis. He has a playlist walkthrough for every classic DOOM. Here's Ultimate DOOM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn700Jq ... n3nF26hCe0

It doesn't help that in addition to the difficulty of the action, there is a complex puzzle element to it. I seriously appreciate the "snapshot" save system, the best form of save system for any game IMO.

The Flesh Consumed seem like the "challenge" bonus levels where Romero is challenging your skills and not actually part of the game. In pre-internet era, without a guide, I would never complete this. I saw those $10-20 game guides, I would never buy them.

[Ziggy]

In a way, E4 is a bonus episode. DOOM was originally released as 3 episodes. The first episode was shareware, and the only way to purchase the full game was directly from id (original full copies don't have SKUs on them). After DOOM II came out, they created the fourth episode for the first DOOM and gave it a retail release as The Ultimate DOOM. So it always was a tacked on episode, and so it kind of is a bonus episode to the main (first three episodes) game.

I still love it, but it's not the same leisure experience the rest of the game is for me. There's too many moments where I'm just like, "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."

[Melek-Ric]

I rolled the credits on DOOM 2016 a few days ago. I had a blast playing through this game, but there are a few things that bother me about it.

The game play is definitely very energetic and heart pumping. But it mostly feels like you're just jumping from one battle arena to the next with boring passageways in between them. You're in some corridors (or even when you're outside you're usually clearly on a linear path) until you come to a big open area that is CLEARLY gonna be a battle. Once the battle activates, the music ramps up and it's an insane time. Then you know once you killed the last enemy because the music dies down, and then the progression to the next area magically unlocks. Then it's some more mostly boring corridors until you reach the next battle area. After a while, it just feels like this is all you're doing. Just going through some boring hallways until you reach a battle arena.

The other thing that I got sick of was the glory kills. This is a cool visual thing, but I could tell back in 2016 that I would get annoyed by how often it has to occur. They are basically just QTEs, and I hate QTEs. The gameplay is very energetic, but then you press F and the game sort of pauses while you wait for the glory kill cinematic to finish. Then a lot of times, after the glory kill cinematic finished, the camera is pointing you in a direction you don't want to be facing and possibly leaving you open to attacks or a just in a bad position to maneuver away from attacks. Before playing the game, I've heard some people say you could just ignore glory kills, but this is not true. Glory killing is a fundamental part of the gameplay. Least of which is the fact that enemies will flash when they are stunned and vulnerable to glory kills. So even if you wanted to mostly ignore the glory kills, you'd still have to have weirdly flashing enemies all of the time. But then it seems like there are some enemies that just can't be killed with ammo alone, or are at least hard to finish off with just bullets, and you really need to glory kill them. You could always blow someone to pieces with various exploding type weapons, but as far as bullets go, there are some enemies that will start flashing but then you can pump endless bullets into their torso and they just keep on flashing. It's sort of frustrating.

The music was cool, but it was more electronic than metal.

I don't like how the chainsaw and BFG were treated more as limited quick kills than as actual weapons. They don't appear when you're cycling weapons, instead they have a dedicated key and both have very limited ammo. Maybe this was the right choice for the BFG, but I really wish the chainsaw worked like it did in the original game.

E4M2

I think this is one of the toughest maps of classic DOOM. If you can beat this map on UV, then you shouldn't have much trouble with the rest of Thy Flesh Consumed (although E4M6 comes close). Big Mac Davis definitely helped me to get through it for the first time. I probably would have never found out the BFG grab on my own. It's an awesome quote from BMD, "If you don't know to does this, you're gonna be in for a world of hurt, pain, anguish, and suffering."

DOOM Eternal moves the gameplay even further into "Use chainsaw and glory kill" or you're dead. Still a good game but I liked 2016 more.

[RCBH928]

In a way, E4 is a bonus episode. DOOM was originally released as 3 episodes. The first episode was shareware, and the only way to purchase the full game was directly from id (original full copies don't have SKUs on them)

A great salute to all the people who went through so much trouble to pay for the original game legally instead of getting a pirated copy from any where.

I still love it, but it's not the same leisure experience the rest of the game is for me. There's too many moments where I'm just like, "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."

tell me about it

After a hectic e4m2 trying to complete it, at the end of the level where I see the exit door there stands a cyberdemon shooting rockets at you...the most difficult enemy of the game and 4-5 Cacodemons come out of the door

[Ziggy]

DOOM Eternal moves the gameplay even further into "Use chainsaw and glory kill" or you're dead. Still a good game but I liked 2016 more.

Good to know, now I'm in less of a hurry to pick up Eternal. It took me 4 years to get to play DOOM 2016, so I figure I can wait, but also I'm really not a big fan of the mandatory Bethesda account needed just to play the game.

After a hectic e4m2 trying to complete it, at the end of the level where I see the exit door there stands a cyberdemon shooting rockets at you...the most difficult enemy of the game and 4-5 Cacodemons come out of the door

You can telefrag that Cyberdemon, or just avoid him. Yes, the last room has a ton of Cacodemons. If you grab the BFG you can just spam it in the last room and it's pretty easy to avoid the Cyberdemon's rockets (he can't move out of that one spot). There's also plenty of plasma in the last room.

[MrPopo]

DOOM Eternal moves the gameplay even further into "Use chainsaw and glory kill" or you're dead. Still a good game but I liked 2016 more.

Good to know, now I'm in less of a hurry to pick up Eternal. It took me 4 years to get to play DOOM 2016, so I figure I can wait, but also I'm really not a big fan of the mandatory Bethesda account needed just to play the game.

So to break things down a bit for you, glory kills are the same, you tear open enemies to get the tasty health inside. Ammo reserves are low; your chainsaw is used to refill your ammo. You can store up to three charges of chainsaw fuel, and the last charge refills over time, so it will always be available within 30 seconds or so. You have a flamethrower that causes enemies to drop armor shards which is on a cooldown. So the gameplay is cycling between all three to keep doing something to keep yourself topped off in your various resources while shooting demons in the face.

[RCBH928]

Starting Doom II after finishing The Flesh Consumed feels like playing a proof of concept level.

The Flesh Consumed became easier later on though, due to the power of multiple saves anywhere and accumulation weapons.

[emwearz]

I am now 26 levels into Doom 64, I played it back in the day on a rental and hated how dark it was, I played the EX port and it corrupted around half way through.

Really enjoying it, but man they relay on time related switch and switches that open stuff off in the distance far too much. Every level you end up doing a lap of the map to see what I switch did.