Enjoy this short gameplay sizzle of DOOM: The Dark Ages featured in Developer_Direct 2025! Developed by id Software, DOOM: The Dark Ages is the prequel to t...
Someday I’d like to hope our game design sensibilities evolve enough that we can stop deflecting every negative review with “git gud”. There are absolutely things that hard games can design badly that don’t add to the overall enjoyment of the game.
Except they’re not. Most people like them and agree that they do add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, I loved that part in the DLC when you fight two of them. It’s literally just a couple of people who are mad about them. So, yeah, git gud.
And here’s the thing with the Marauders, too. They were just in the wrong game.
If having to play silly distance and timing games with solitary enemies were Doom’s jam – If this were ever Doom’s jam – it would be one thing. But it’s not, and it never has been. The fuckers would fit right in the Dark Souls universe and nobody would even notice. But that’s just not how the rest of the game is structured.
The telltale heart thumping under the floorboard here is that the game feels the need to literally give you a popup that pauses the action the first time you encounter one for the explicit purpose of teaching you how to work the fight. If your mechanics are so non-discoverable that this is necessary, maybe that’s a clue that a stop and rethink is in order.
Doom Eternal was actually really bad at that across the board. You will recall that almost every new mechanic was preceded by an action stopping popup and in some cases an incongruous teleportation to a tutorial room to force-feed you the correct course of action (and the only correct course of action, which is my other gripe) for that monster or situation. Very few of its mechanics beyond stick-shotgun-down-monster’s-throat-pull-trigger are organically discoverable, and even the ones that could have been aren’t because of the tutorial popups.
I guess at least you can turn them off… If you know about them in advance.
I maintain it was more an issue with basing their fight around spacing, than teaching via popups. I didn’t even mind the many enemies that had unintuitive concepts like feeding them grenades. Once you attune to them, they’re simple enough.
Even after they teach you all that about Marauders, it’s not just a matter of how to shoot them, and when - but when NOT to. Plus hoping for their AI to act reliably as described.
Yeah, it also puts off people like me who are crap at games but still want to enjoy them. I am in my 50s and missed a couple decades of gaming. Recently got a steam deck and been trying to catch up. Recently finished bioshock! And I’m about halfway through doom 2016, enjoying it a lot. But I know I’m shit, I’m playing on little bitch difficulty and I still got stuck on a boss for two frustrating weeks.
My point is that some of their market is going to be people like me who don’t have time to put hundreds of hours into learning the mechanics but just want to have fun for an hour here or there and blow up some monsters.
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They did learn a lot from Eternal. Mainly that people loved it and people complaining about the Marauders just need to git gud.
I already have a job, thanks.
Congratulations?
Thank you
Someday I’d like to hope our game design sensibilities evolve enough that we can stop deflecting every negative review with “git gud”. There are absolutely things that hard games can design badly that don’t add to the overall enjoyment of the game.
Marauders were one of those things.
Except they’re not. Most people like them and agree that they do add to the overall enjoyment of the game. Hell, I loved that part in the DLC when you fight two of them. It’s literally just a couple of people who are mad about them. So, yeah, git gud.
And here’s the thing with the Marauders, too. They were just in the wrong game.
If having to play silly distance and timing games with solitary enemies were Doom’s jam – If this were ever Doom’s jam – it would be one thing. But it’s not, and it never has been. The fuckers would fit right in the Dark Souls universe and nobody would even notice. But that’s just not how the rest of the game is structured.
The telltale heart thumping under the floorboard here is that the game feels the need to literally give you a popup that pauses the action the first time you encounter one for the explicit purpose of teaching you how to work the fight. If your mechanics are so non-discoverable that this is necessary, maybe that’s a clue that a stop and rethink is in order.
Doom Eternal was actually really bad at that across the board. You will recall that almost every new mechanic was preceded by an action stopping popup and in some cases an incongruous teleportation to a tutorial room to force-feed you the correct course of action (and the only correct course of action, which is my other gripe) for that monster or situation. Very few of its mechanics beyond stick-shotgun-down-monster’s-throat-pull-trigger are organically discoverable, and even the ones that could have been aren’t because of the tutorial popups.
I guess at least you can turn them off… If you know about them in advance.
I maintain it was more an issue with basing their fight around spacing, than teaching via popups. I didn’t even mind the many enemies that had unintuitive concepts like feeding them grenades. Once you attune to them, they’re simple enough.
Even after they teach you all that about Marauders, it’s not just a matter of how to shoot them, and when - but when NOT to. Plus hoping for their AI to act reliably as described.
“git gud” is honestly never a good defense against any given criticism. Saying this as someone who’s reasonably gud
Yeah, it also puts off people like me who are crap at games but still want to enjoy them. I am in my 50s and missed a couple decades of gaming. Recently got a steam deck and been trying to catch up. Recently finished bioshock! And I’m about halfway through doom 2016, enjoying it a lot. But I know I’m shit, I’m playing on little bitch difficulty and I still got stuck on a boss for two frustrating weeks.
My point is that some of their market is going to be people like me who don’t have time to put hundreds of hours into learning the mechanics but just want to have fun for an hour here or there and blow up some monsters.
Absolutely, I can relate. How well does Doom 2016 run on the steam deck ?
I’ve not played it on another platform for comparison but it seems to run great.
I’m not really trying to defend anything, though
That’s right, forgive my french
I can beat the Marauders no problem, and I can even cheese them with the shotgun trick. That doesn’t magically make them good game design.
Nope. The fact that everyone but like 4 people loves them makes them good game design.