Alright, so here's what bothers me with this game.

As stated, the level design in this game is really really fucking good. It's a return to form, something I thought I'd never see again from a AAA FPS. Levels are huge, interconnected, full of secrets and some are non-linear. All of that is awesome, but the game mechanics undermine all of that. Why, you ask?

The game is clearly tailored towards always staying in combat with a pi�ata system that restores health and ammunition (with glory kills and with the chainsaw), making health items and ammunition boxes somewhat redundant. And they are, especially on higher difficulties like UV or Nightmare. Monsters hit so hard on Nightmare and health kits scattered around give so little health that you are encouraged to always use glory kills to get health. This leaves the player with no real incentive to scour for health items, something TB said in his video and his conclusion I hugely disagree with, stating that this system is better and doesn't break the flow of the game, unlike scouring for items. I find this conclusion really simplistic and false; if anything retreating with low health and managing resources is one aspect that makes games such as Doom really exciting to play. A stray fireball or a lost bullet before you reach a precious kit can be your end if you don't manage your resources. With health kits and ammunition to be found in monsters upon death, this whole aspect is lost. Also, and this is down to preference, but the glory kills are really boring and they DO break the flow of the game. You are not in control. Not for very long, thank Satan, but still. UV and Nightmare really make their use almost mandatory if you want to stay alive.

But, there are secrets to be found, and indeed, there's lotsa secrets. The problem is that they're not filled with precious items such as Mega Armors or Soulspheres, but with collectibles or small items. Items scattered in secrets like this were made to reward an observant player and help them considerably in the fight. Now they're mostly (not always) here to increase your collection of collectibles and whatnot. I find this quite disconcerting. The level design clearly isn't at fault here; the game design is.

I've seen some people compare the automaps to Doom 3 levels and I cannot disagree more. The levels in that game were as small, as linear and as narrow as they come, with little to no exploration. They gave Half-Life 2's levels a run for their money. Doom 4 has the balls to provide big interconnected levels in a world of dreary AAA FPS titles filled with dull linear maps so the average dumbfuck gamer cannot get lost. I'll take Doom 4's sprawling levels over Doom 3's tiny linear levels any day of the week. This level design, however, is further undermined by the absolute abundance of arenas in which you're locked in. Now, closed arenas are not an issue when used sporadically. I used them in my Quake maps, the gold key arena in my Jam 2 map being a prime example, but the game constantly throws these at you and they become quite boring. Now the level design is clever enough not to be corridor-arena-corridor, and that's a very good thing, but these arenas are still much too prevalent to my taste. I want to move around the map at my leisure and collect items.

Another thing with arenas is that they never evolve, at least not the ones I've seen. You trigger the arena, waves come in and that's about it. No moving walls to expand the arena, make it more interesting or reveal cool shit. You kill monsters and then you can proceed to the next static arena.

Now, does that make it a bad game? Hell no, it's a pretty good game and it's much better than what I was expecting, it's more worthy of the Doom title than Doom 3. But this clash of schools of game design end up being detrimental to the amount of awesome work put in the level design. Were this pi�ata system not there at all and the maps filled to the brim with items and ammo to find, the game would've been even better. Still, the level design clearly is going in the right direction and is extremely refreshing. 

So it turns out that the aspect of the game that everyone least expected to be done right (level design) was actually done right. 

Can you believe that more years have passed between Doom 3 and Doom 4 (12) than between Doom 2 and Doom 3 (9)?

Wow that makes me feel like an old fart. 

I took the day off to play doom yet I somehow found myself driving my wife up to an orchid festival in miami. Now I'm surrounded by blue-hairs and men with fanny packs instead of imps and hell knights. 

That TB video has made me doubt his input on... every video I've watched of his on a game I haven't played. I knew he was wrong on some, because I knew the games, but... He made very specific game mechanic statements in this one.

"I find this conclusion really simplistic and false; if anything retreating with low health and managing resources is one aspect that makes games such as Doom really exciting to play. A stray fireball or a lost bullet before you reach a precious kit can be your end if you don't manage your resources. With health kits and ammunition to be found in monsters upon death, this whole aspect is lost."
It also devalues spatial awareness and recollection, and favors linear level design. You don't need to note that health pickup you don't need right now, because you won't really need to go back and get it - and thus the general space around you right now stops having any value in your performance. Out of sight, out of mind, and thus the area you are in is a decoration for the current fight.

The Glory Kill system seems like a sickly stepchild of Ryse's execution systems (which also used the environment, and could handle two targets, I will say) which was used to demonstrate your character's leadership role in the story, but also had input tests to determine how beneficial the reward was (and you set the reward type). The thing is, it was mechanically similar to the core gameplay loop of rhythmic employment of blocking and striking. This is pressing a button once when they flash.

"Levels are huge, interconnected, full of secrets and some are non-linear.
...
This level design, however, is further undermined by the absolute abundance of arenas in which you're locked in."
I've watched a lot now, and I've only seen two levels that weren't corridor-arena-corridor in design, and both of those still had some degree of gating based upon killing every enemy. Sure they had little bits here and there, but I haven't seen a proper sized non-mandatory area, like we saw with the blinking tech area in e1m2, or the database room leading to the soulsphere secret in e1m3 - or much of e1m4 as a whole... Maybe I've been very unlucky in my watching?

Yeah a lot of it is better than standard AAA level design - but that is hardly a goal to shoot for... And, an aside, this is one of the first big studios to make a multiplatform game that didn't support the 360/PS3, that also hasn't done primarily just that, so they don't have that culture ingrained just from previous works to a heavy degree. When people talk about recent AAA games, they're talking about recent multiplatform games which 98% of the time supported the 360/PS3. Rather old, fixed hardware, but with a playerbase that expects improving visuals between releases. How do you do that when you run out of optimization tricks? You unload everything behind the player, which means locking off access, which means the level designs available without sacrificing minimum visual fidelity for the player base is... Forward.

We might see more involved level designs again in AAA, and I'm sure some will credit Doom 4 on that, but, they do have room to stretch their legs again, for the first time in many, many years. And then the cycle will repeat and their range of choices in design will become curtailed in the same way. The real X factor is if they can break out of their own molds long enough to appreciate the current standard of visuals for the fixed hardware's capability, before that standard encroaches their choice again.

Okay that was a big "aside". Might be worth a blog post.

Anyways, nothing I've seen makes me lament my old machine yet. My desire to tinker with UE4 drives my need for a new video card thousands of times more than what I've seen of Doom 4 so far (especially not that Cyberdemon fight, ugh...).

I think I'll enjoy more spending my gaming time on checking out the major Doom releases from the past two years, actually finishing Arcane Dimensions, and getting to know Trenchbroom until my wife needs me to help with something.

Doesn't mean I won't refresh this thread regularly though, I'm a sucker for player data and impressions of mechanics. 

Since my girlfriend came over last night, I haven't been able to play the game any more since my last post (which makes me sad, because I'm really enjoying it), but I do want to respond to a couple of criticisms from Skacky and Scar3crow.

1. The health packs are kinda useless.
To some extent, I agree, but I actually like the glory kill system. In order to perform a glory kill, you have to get an enemy to very low health, which is not so difficult on weaker enemy, but they don't give you a ton of health back, and during a glory kill you are still vulnerable to attack (I think... it feels that way), so if I'm about to die in a firefight I target the larger enemies because they give a lot of health. To me, this is preferable to suddenly backing out of a fight to look for health because there is quite a lot of risk doing that, and it feels exiting. I've literally clawed my way back from 1% health doing this. There are also health stations, which do give a lot of health, though they are shown on the map.

Also, although the number of animations in the glory kill system is limited, it doesn't annoy me so much, as there are still multiple ways to glory kill each enemy, plus you also have the chain saw and berserk power ups to add to this.

Scar3crow: I kind of agree with you point about spatial awareness being somewhat devalued by the health system. I still prefer the health system here though.

2. The secrets don't contain anything that can change the way you play the map.
Yes they do. They aren't always stocked full of ammo, but I found the plasma rifle and super shotgun in secrets quite a while before I found them in the regular map areas. There is often armor and you sometimes come across supply crates. On top of that, the tokens you get from the elite guards that allow you to upgrade your gear are mostly found in secrets.

3. There is no need to revisit areas you have been to.
Well, this seems to be mostly true so far. The foundry level is incredibly open, and I passed through the same hub areas many times before I finished. The following level also had a main hub I kept ending up back in, but other than that, the only reason to revisit areas was to find secrets. Still, the automap really encourages you to look for secrets, so I've been doing a lot of backtracking personally.

4. Most of the battles are in locked in arenas.
This is something I noticed a lot. There are certainly many areas where you trigger a bunch of demons and can't leave until they are all dead. For the larger fights you usually have quite a large space to move around in though, and there are still plenty of times when you are not locked in. Also, the monsters can relentlessly persue you - try running away from a hell knight for instance. Pretty much everything can climb up or down too, so the combat is far more vertical than in many other games, so the locked doors in many areas didn't bother me so much.

5. The arenas are static and don't evolve
So far this appears to be the case, but the level I was at the end of last night way a giant tower that you have to climb up. It has tons of moving stuff and platforms to jump between. Combat was not really happening whilst it was moving, but it does make me wonder if there will be more of this kind of stuff later on. I'm only 5 hours in, and since I've done so much secret hunting, I can only assume I'm not that far into the game. 

So earlier today I saw hipsters walking around wearing Doom t-shirts.

The game just went from hated, to released, to loved, to totally irrelevant, all in the space of one day.

I joke, of course. But I did see the hipsters. 

Pretty sure you're invulnerable during glory kills, like you are in other canned animations. Also, their snapping you to the target works vertically too. Saw a guy slipping off a cliff by a staggered imp. Bam, back on top, punching said imp. 

pinata is a very bad game play mechanism, having to dodge and conserve your health make combat that much more tense than just clicking to refill your health AND ammo.

people got very pissed off in the other thread when you noticed this.

One thing that also make me a little disappointed is how come the battles in doom 4 are less complex and smaller scale than the best levels and wads from doom 2 onwards? 

and most fights are done serious sam style. 

"and most fights are done serious sam style."

serious sam style is very large outdoor areas with immense amounts of enemies and are usually well designed and interesting fights. With even some elements of territorial control- ie not getting pushed back too much from where the ammo is lying.

Is Doom 4 the same? 

serious sam style is just holding down W and mouse1 for 15 minutes while slowly moving the mouse left. 

No, clearly not. Doom 4 is a lot more arena-based. 

Anyone here playing Doom on consoles? How usable is the editor on a console, can you create singleplayer maps with it and can you somehow export maps created on a console so that PC players can play them and vise-versa? 

I really like it. It's fast, violent, the levels seem awesome, with great flow, and it's got a certain amount of originality with the gameplay that builds on and refines previous Dooms. 

Is it normal for a game this big to be released but have no metacritic reviews yet? (I ignore the user reviews because the vast majority of them at this stage are either "10/10" fake reviews, or "0/10" wanker-with-an-agenda reviews.) 

Unlike most games, no review copies of this game were given out before release so gaming publications have only begun playing the game and making their reviews. Gamespot says that their review will be out "early next week". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlvQcozDAA 

I was forced to pause my 8 hour marathon session. Because apparently, if you have an erection for that long, it's bad for your health and they might have to drain your penis. 

I woke up around 4am needing the loo, but with a super boner that wouldn't go away and had to think really hard about boring things in order to fit it under the toilet seat. That NEVER happens. Normally I don't even wake up in the night. I think it might have had something to do with Doom. I also vagely remember dreaming something Doom-like, but it was too vague.

Anyway, I played a bit more and just got the BFG.

It's weird that of all the enemies I've met so far, the one I seem to have most trouble dealing with is the pinkies. I always seem to get hit by them when I'm trying to get behind them. This is unrelated to the first part about boners.

Will play some more soon. Really want to finish it, but I have a standing desk at home and my knees hurt :/ 

"serious sam style is just holding down W and mouse1 for 15 minutes while slowly moving the mouse left."

not true 

If you're going to be reductive about Serious Sam, at least say S. W is just going to get you destroyed almost immediately... S buys you like, another 30 seconds. Kleer Skeletons, Sirian Werebulls, Headless Kamikazes, Reptiloid homing projectiles, Minor Biomechanoid lasers, the Harpies flight and projectiles, among other things all move faster than you do. So, backpedaling is just a start, you need to move in almost figure eights while periodically making a hard turn to stay in reach of the available resources. And that is just for flat open areas, without considering obstacles, platforms, pits, etc.

Doom 4's arenas are not really like Serious Sam's fights, they're more akin to Painkiller's. 

Going the beat'em up route instead of the traditionnal "A->B in an almost believable environment and killing enemies i soptionnal" is kind of baffling since this is Doom's mark, and that design makes fighting monsters very repetitive. 

and I've been finding it fairly easy so far. Fun, but easy.