{"id":96685,"date":"2019-07-16T06:53:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T06:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/346231"},"modified":"2019-07-16T06:53:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T06:53:00","slug":"the-aggressive-resource-management-of-doom-eternal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/07\/16\/the-aggressive-resource-management-of-doom-eternal\/","title":{"rendered":"The aggressive resource management of Doom Eternal"},"content":{"rendered":"

2016\u2019s Doom<\/em> remains one of the most satisfying first-person shooters in recent years. Designed with \u201cpush forward combat\u201d in mind, players were rewarded for proactive, aggressive demon-slaying.<\/p>\n

The upcoming Doom Eternal<\/em> will unsurprisingly also forego passivity in favor of aggression. This time around id Software is turning up the aggression in surprising \u2013 and fun \u2013 ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solution to all the problems is to be aggressive,\u201d said creative director Hugo Martin in a recent interview. \u201cI think that\u2019s at the core of all our design ethos \u2013 you just take what you need when you need it. So, aggressively managing your resources is kind of a new feature in the game<\/strong>, and working hard to make sure that everything in the game really counts, really means something to the player.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how it works in Doom Eternal<\/em>: if you find you need ammo, chainsaw a demon; if you need health, glory-kill (this is a special melee move); if you need armor, set a demon on fire with your \u201cflame belch\u201d; if you want the more powerful \u201cblood punch\u201d melee, glory kill more demons.<\/p>\n

This \u201caggressive resource management\u201d is a significant change from Doom<\/em>, and judging from a short play session, it works. It keeps you on your toes and makes regular enemy encounters more interesting.<\/p>\n

Martin said every gun, upgrade, and demon is meant to have a purpose. \u201cThey push the game forward, [they] keep you thinking, and the main thing is that you\u2019re constantly engaged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One recurring theme brought up by both Martin and executive producer Marty Stratton was the idea of teaching players through death. Players will learn fast, thanks to the fast pace of Doom Eternal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll probably die. Death is an ok thing, it\u2019s how you learn<\/strong>,\u201d said Stratton. \u201cBut you\u2019ll realize \u2018I\u2019m low on ammo, I\u2019m low on health, I\u2019m low on armor,\u2019 and you\u2019ll know there\u2019s a demon right there from which I can absolutely get what I need\u2026As long as there are demons on the battlefield, you\u2019ve got the resources you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other notable new designs in Doom Eternal<\/em>. A climbing mechanic gives levels more verticality, and weak spots on bigger enemies lets players pick apart demons by the chunk, which offers up satisfying, frequent feedback when playing.<\/p>\n

But combat is still at the heart of the game. Along with new weapons and new resource management, Martin and Stratton said the Doom Eternal <\/em>team worked on tighter, more balanced AI and combat encounters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs [Stratton] said, \u2018the guns are the tool and the AI is the problem\u2019<\/strong>, and you gotta bring the right tools to the right situation,\u201d said Martin. \u201cEach AI will push you in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained how one character called the \u201ccarcass\u201d can spawn shields in front of the player, blocking them from \u201cglory-killing\u201d other enemies, or just in general blocking players\u2019 paths. This essentially is the AI\u2019s attempt to cut players off from resources, as other demons provide health, ammo, etc.<\/p>\n

This AI behavior is also meant to force the player to choose the right tool for the job. Carcass enemies are in-your-face and their shields are close to players. That proximity limits the use of a powerful rocket launcher, because the blast would highly damage or kill the player. So, in this example, a player may instead choose to use a shotgun to kill the carcass first, as that enemy protects other AI and prevents players from using a more powerful weapon \u2013 the rocket launcher. With the carcass out of the way, players can finish the area with the rocket launcher.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say this is \u2018combat chess\u2019 so much as \u2018speed chess,\u2019 because this is all happening super fast,\u201d said Martin. \u201cIt\u2019s those types of metas, those types of split-second decisions, that keep the player engaged. It\u2019s an over-used word for us, but that\u2019s what we\u2019re obsessed with; keeping the player engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said this is important for a game like Doom Eternal<\/em>, which has a long campaign. \u201cWhen you\u2019re bored, you\u2019re not thinking,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re thinking, you\u2019re engaged.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Playtesting has been an important part of iterating that engagement. Measuring such nebulous concepts as \u201cengagement\u201d and \u201cfun\u201d is difficult, but Martin said as a game developer, you can just tell if someone\u2019s not having a great time with a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to make sure people are really into it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they\u2019re dying, and you can tell if they\u2019re learning from their deaths \u2013 that every time they die, it\u2019s not the game that screwed them over, it\u2019s something they did wrong \u2013 you can just tell that they want to get back into it. You can just tell as a developer when people are having fun, or when they\u2019re bored, or when they\u2019re frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin and Stratton agreed that teaching, learning, and reward are at the core of the Doom Eternal<\/em> power fantasy. You can see this through playing games like Doom<\/em>: teaching happens through enemy behavior, learning typically comes through death, reward is the satisfaction in taking what you learned and overcoming previously insurmountable obstacles.<\/p>\n

Stratton said he played the E3 demo (which lasts about an hour) 30 times and was still having fun with it. \u201cYou\u2019ve practiced, you learned, now you can go out and dominate,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s so rewarding, because I took the journey to get there. The game didn\u2019t give it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat second half or third act of the game should just be an expression of your mastery of the game<\/strong>,\u201d said Martin.<\/p>\n

\u201c[A game with many combat options] is not the type of game we\u2019re making,\u201d said Martin. \u201cThere are many different tools at your disposal, many different ways to kill demons. Within our narrow path to success, there are opportunities for players to make choices. But the key thing is that the solution to every problem is to be aggressive, and there\u2019s no way around that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, if players are playing \u201cpeek-a-boo\u201d with an arachnotron instead of engaging combat, the AI will eventually move in and try to finish you off, because you\u2019re refusing to be aggressive.<\/p>\n

\u201c[That happens] because you\u2019re not playing the game the right way<\/strong>,\u201d said Martin. \u201cEach time [something like] that happens, you learn a lesson, learn a lesson, and you find that if you hang with the game, it\u2019s like, \u2018yeah, I have to be more aggressive than the demons, and that\u2019s how I win.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2016\u2019s Doom remains one of the most satisfying first-person shooters in recent years. Designed with \u201cpush forward combat\u201d in mind, players were rewarded for proactive, aggressive demon-slaying. The upcoming Doom Eternal will unsurprisingly also forego passivity in favor of aggression. This time around id Software is turning up the aggression in surprising \u2013 and fun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}