RogueSix wrote on May 15, 2025, 20:04:

Pepe wrote on May 15, 2025, 18:03:
As a Wow player I get adds for it all the time in Battle.net so it's at least also on there, but I did not check any others

OK, but I'm sure we can safely assume that there aren't thousands of players who bought it on Battle.net instead of Steam, right? Besides, Battle.net is also advertising GamePass so the few souls who were made aware of the game on Battle.net are more likely playing it through GamePass which brings us back to the original point of the comparison: Clair and Oblivion Remastered are also on there.

The relevant key stores are also all selling Steam keys. When we consider the relatively high price of the game then I find it very unlikely that a significant amount of gamers opted to dish out the full price on the Battle.net store when there are other options. If we're being generous then we can maybe add, what, another 1K more players to the peak from actual Battle.net purchases?

It doesn't really matter. Doom TDA 30K launch day peak vs. the other mentioned games vs. a direct comparison to Doom Eternal which still had ~105K players on launch speaks for itself. This one's a flop.

They seem to be doing just fine https://tinyurl.com/2vfpjdxh

Mr. Tact wrote on May 20, 2025, 09:36:
Gotta agree with Beamer there, sounds like typical DOOM game play to me.

Yeah? That's kinda why I bought it sight unseen.ohhh Doom, running on that IdTech, sum of a bitch I'm in. My only complaint is the lack of straight up multiplayer. Like they figured that shit out with POTS and MODEMS 30 years ago, Id didn't need to maintain expensive ass servers on AWS or Azure back in the day. IT's the reoccurring expensive ass SaaS that's fucking gaming up... Shit cost to much....

Beamer wrote on May 20, 2025, 08:54:

RogueSix wrote on May 20, 2025, 08:25:
If I wanted to play a ping-pong game then I woulda bought a fucking ping-pong game but I bought frickin' DOOOOOOM! :o

I'm also no huge fan of the secret hunting stuff. It ruins the pacing of a run and gun game when you are more or less "forced" to check your map often for nearby secrets. It is also annoying that if you don't then you can get cut off from previous secrets in a level and you would have to replay it to 100% it. Yawn.

Dude, you bought DOOOOOOOOOM! Of course there's secret hunting stuff. That's a Doom hallmark.

Yeah, I know that as someone who played the original DOOOOOM 1 back when it was released but I already wasn't a fan of the super-simpleton gameplay back then (except Friday nights before going out and hotseating it while getting drunk with a buddy of mine ) and not a fan of secret hunting either.

It just breaks the flow of a run and gun game. The backtracking once you have found a secret key is also boring as fuck in some of Doom TDA levels because of their size. And you really need the map because in modern games there is so much clutter and shit that you have to check the map often for secret passages.

It's just boring and breaks the pacing which is probably supposed to be fast but it really isn't when you constantly have to stop to check the map and backtrack across barren, long since cleared wastelands.

Sure, might just be me (not likely looking at the low player numbers) but the concept is just old and tired. This might very well be my last DOOOOOM. Not a fan of the gamey stuff and the meta secret BS.

Gimme a more engaging shooter any time of the day. Something like Far Cry (yes, I even liked 5 and 6), The Division, Dishonored, Ghost Recon, Metro, F.E.A.R, whatever... this one-dimensionial gamey boom-boom is no longer for me tho. Next one will be a €4.99 on sale purchase (if that).

Mr. Tact wrote on May 20, 2025, 09:36:
Gotta agree with Beamer there, sounds like typical DOOM game play to me.

I'm confident I hit space on every single wall in E1L1 at least a dozen times.

Gotta agree with Beamer there, sounds like typical DOOM game play to me.

RogueSix wrote on May 20, 2025, 08:25:
If I wanted to play a ping-pong game then I woulda bought a fucking ping-pong game but I bought frickin' DOOOOOOM! :o

I'm also no huge fan of the secret hunting stuff. It ruins the pacing of a run and gun game when you are more or less "forced" to check your map often for nearby secrets. It is also annoying that if you don't then you can get cut off from previous secrets in a level and you would have to replay it to 100% it. Yawn.

Dude, you bought DOOOOOOOOOM! Of course there's secret hunting stuff. That's a Doom hallmark.

VaranDragon wrote on May 19, 2025, 06:42:

Ant wrote on May 18, 2025, 14:41:
I still need to play DOOM 2016! My last DOOM game was #3. I wonder if I will like 2016.

Oh man, Doom 2016 is definitely something you should play. It's a return to form for id software, in all the right ways. It's basically Doom 2 on sterioids, and with more arena based encounter combat. Great weapons all rounds, all the classic monsters re-imagined and even a smattering of a story. I even liked the glory kills, and I hate QTEs, they are just cool, and done in a way not to bee too intrusive. Way better than Doom 3, and much better than Eternal or this new turd.

Well, to each their own but glory kills and the like are gamey as fuck imo and therefore kinda lame.

Doom TDA is full of this stuff. The game has tons of gamey mechanics that you need to adhere to for progress or to get max rewards (e.g. the challenges for every level/mission). For example, you always need to reflect the green stuff (hell surges) back at some enemies to stun or kill them.

Yawn. Dude. If I wanted to play a ping-pong game then I woulda bought a fucking ping-pong game but I bought frickin' DOOOOOOM!

Just one example but the game is full of this stuff... and I'm not a huge fan of it. I enjoy more freeform gameplay where you have options but ultimately YOU can choose from a variety of approaches to kill/progress in the game etc.
In Doom TDA you have to adhere to the game's playbook and ruleset most of the time.

I'm also no huge fan of the secret hunting stuff. It ruins the pacing of a run and gun game when you are more or less "forced" to check your map often for nearby secrets. It is also annoying that if you don't then you can get cut off from previous secrets in a level and you would have to replay it to 100% it. Yawn.

I'm at ~chapter 10 after 10 hours and I'll be glad when it's over. Don't intend to 100% anything. The game has its moments but overall it is just so simple and gamey that I'm longing for other games with more depth and substance (like finishing my COE33 playthrough ASAP after finishing Doom TDA).

Ant wrote on May 18, 2025, 14:41:
I still need to play DOOM 2016! My last DOOM game was #3. I wonder if I will like 2016.

Oh man, Doom 2016 is definitely something you should play. It's a return to form for id software, in all the right ways. It's basically Doom 2 on sterioids, and with more arena based encounter combat. Great weapons all rounds, all the classic monsters re-imagined and even a smattering of a story. I even liked the glory kills, and I hate QTEs, they are just cool, and done in a way not to bee too intrusive. Way better than Doom 3, and much better than Eternal or this new turd.

I still need to play DOOM 2016! My last DOOM game was #3. I wonder if I will like 2016.

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on May 16, 2025, 19:45:

Prez wrote on May 16, 2025, 14:43:
@Xeth

I'm not dismissing what he is saying because of who he is. As biased and skewed as his opinions are, he CAN debate reasonably well, and it's pretty easy to tell when he is just trolling versus trying to make an actual point. I'm dismissing it because being solely focused on who happens to be playing right at this moment is just a dumb metric by which to gauge popularity of an offline game. (It IS offline, right?) Old school-style, blink-once-and your-dead shooters aren't going to sell like Minecraft or GTA, and are not going to command weekend-long gaming marathons like those games. What are we even comparing anymore?

My reply wasn't directed at you specifically, just in general BTW. He used two other single player games for comparison, not the huge titles you mention. I don't think using that data is, "dumb" rather it's another piece of info to explain things. I think it's actually selling quite a bit less than I expected, given that the previous games had more players. I'm sure it cost a lot more to make as well and one could safely say it's, "under performing".

in all fairness, Doom Eternal was released on March 20th 2020, you know after everyone was told to stay the fuck home for the Covid-19. Wasn't 2020 a banner year for video game sales?

Prez wrote on May 16, 2025, 14:43:
@Xeth

I'm not dismissing what he is saying because of who he is. As biased and skewed as his opinions are, he CAN debate reasonably well, and it's pretty easy to tell when he is just trolling versus trying to make an actual point. I'm dismissing it because being solely focused on who happens to be playing right at this moment is just a dumb metric by which to gauge popularity of an offline game. (It IS offline, right?) Old school-style, blink-once-and your-dead shooters aren't going to sell like Minecraft or GTA, and are not going to command weekend-long gaming marathons like those games. What are we even comparing anymore?

My reply wasn't directed at you specifically, just in general BTW. He used two other single player games for comparison, not the huge titles you mention. I don't think using that data is, "dumb" rather it's another piece of info to explain things. I think it's actually selling quite a bit less than I expected, given that the previous games had more players. I'm sure it cost a lot more to make as well and one could safely say it's, "under performing".

OhLordNick wrote on May 16, 2025, 13:49:

The Flying Penguin wrote on May 15, 2025, 18:29:
As someone who loved Doom 2016 (on my fifth play through) and hated Doom Eternal, this game rocks.

There are a lot of customization settings so you can play the game how you like. I have it setup to recapture the feel of 2016.

I love throwing the shield, and the shield charge is awesome.

Just curious, what settings did you tweak and to what values?

So when you start a campaign, or when starting an existing campaign by hitting the "Difficulty Modifiers" button at the bottom of the screen, when selecting your chapter. This is also available during play in Settings > Difficulty. In there are some things you can adjust in there for your style of play. I'm still experimenting but right off the bat I did this (I'm playing on Hurt Me Plenty to start with):
- Enhanced targeting = off {no thank you, I take pride in my mouse aiming skillz)
- Empowered attacks = on (This makes for a bit more of a casual game - less having to time and coordinate you attacks and parries if I understand it)

In gameplay I am still tweaking the camera shake. I generally have a problem with it, but in this game it's important so you want some.

I also started out with 10% World Desaturation to highlight the things it's important to be aware of, but turned it off after a few chapters as I find it distracting and takes away from the look of the game, but it's good to use it to start with until you learn what you're looking at.

I THINK that's all I've played with so far.

@Xeth

I'm not dismissing what he is saying because of who he is. As biased and skewed as his opinions are, he CAN debate reasonably well, and it's pretty easy to tell when he is just trolling versus trying to make an actual point. I'm dismissing it because being solely focused on who happens to be playing right at this moment is just a dumb metric by which to gauge popularity of an offline game. (It IS offline, right?) Old school-style, blink-once-and your-dead shooters aren't going to sell like Minecraft or GTA, and are not going to command weekend-long gaming marathons like those games. What are we even comparing anymore?

This comment was edited on May 16, 2025, 14:53.

The Flying Penguin wrote on May 15, 2025, 18:29:
As someone who loved Doom 2016 (on my fifth play through) and hated Doom Eternal, this game rocks.

There are a lot of customization settings so you can play the game how you like. I have it setup to recapture the feel of 2016.

I love throwing the shield, and the shield charge is awesome.

Just curious, what settings did you tweak and to what values?

Doom: Beat Saber

I usually turn the music off in games, but yeah the music in this game rocks.

tHE Music BANGS on the JBL studio monitors and sub!!! #TurnItUP!! Footsteps sound like the poem BOOTS, 70-80 FPS on this antique I9 7960x,64 Gig's, 72 terrorbytes divided over four 10,000 rpm drive's configured as a RAID-0; the soon to be illegal 4090... Ultra nightmare settings! 4096k texture size or whatever. TAA on; DLSS and frame gen off, sharpening X4.... The only issue is the tutorial goals up in the left-hand corner of the screen.... 43" is just too big of a monitor to notice shit in the corners, even at 120hz . Yeah,yeah. 1/3 hits for this or that shit #payAttention. RIP AND TEAR!!! This is the fucking shit...

The little bit of platforming has not been out of control as I felt the last doom to be. While I liked to glory kills in the past, there are not as many now, which speed up the gameplay nicely. Also, the repetition of them is less noticeable, as every other kill seemed to be a 3 second animation with the last doom. The shield works less like aim, and more like a grappling hook in other games (High on Life, Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy), but with violence of action and Gibbs. It also makes the game feel fast as fuck! #keepMoving. Shield bash plus glory kill feels good... The control Schemm is simplified, more like Doom2 with mouse look; press E for melee attack, and space for jump. I am always low on health...... I need to push forward, this shit show of a circus, forward it is the only way, I MUST PUSH ON! The Music!!!!

THIS IS FUCKING DOOM bRUH!!!! THIS SHIT FUCKS!!! 007 James Bond SHIT HOLMS!

This comment was edited on May 16, 2025, 00:07.

Pepe wrote on May 15, 2025, 18:03:
As a Wow player I get adds for it all the time in Battle.net so it's at least also on there, but I did not check any others

OK, but I'm sure we can safely assume that there aren't thousands of players who bought it on Battle.net instead of Steam, right? Besides, Battle.net is also advertising GamePass so the few souls who were made aware of the game on Battle.net are more likely playing it through GamePass which brings us back to the original point of the comparison: Clair and Oblivion Remastered are also on there.

The relevant key stores are also all selling Steam keys. When we consider the relatively high price of the game then I find it very unlikely that a significant amount of gamers opted to dish out the full price on the Battle.net store when there are other options. If we're being generous then we can maybe add, what, another 1K more players to the peak from actual Battle.net purchases?

It doesn't really matter. Doom TDA 30K launch day peak vs. the other mentioned games vs. a direct comparison to Doom Eternal which still had ~105K players on launch speaks for itself. This one's a flop.

RogueSix wrote on May 15, 2025, 14:29:
Launch day player numbers are abysmal at only ~30K (peak) by the way. Sure, we won't see the real peak before the weekend but the three weeks old Clair Obscur is still being played by ~80K (peak) and Oblivion Remastered by ~46K (peak).

All three games are on GamePass so that excuse does not fly. Clair Obscur was literally an obscure game up to release. Almost zero marketing. 30 people unknown dev team. Oblivion Remastered shadowdropped with zero marketing (unless you count the "leaks" and rumors as marketing) and is an almost 20 year old game under the hood.
Doom TDA had tons of marketing, is, by far, the most casual-friendly game out of the three, made by one of the most renowned (almost legendary) devs in the history of gaming in a likewise legendary franchise.

As far as I am concerned, this is actually giving me hope for the health of gaming in general when gamers no longer lap up the most marketed casual AAA slop but when a game like Clair Obscur manages to trump a game that should have been a smash hit chartbuster.

It is definitely great news when casual-friendly simpleton one dimensional boom-boom is in less demand than an actual complex narrative-driven turn-based RPG and a slightly less complex 20 year old action RPG. I never thought I would live to see this day. What a time to be alive!

P.S.: Personally, I'm still enjoying the boom-boom for what it is. Sometimes it's just fun to rip & tear and that's cool. I'm just amazed at the general observation of what has happened here in the past few weeks. Plus, even BG3 is still attracting a peak of ~85K players today.
Then I look at the top 10 of 'Most Played' on Steam and soberness-driven depression settles back in but it's still a cool trend to see so many deep(er) games win over a game like Doom TDA which should have usually been a no-brainer chartbuster straight out of the gate according to most publishers' logic where the most accessible, simple, casual-friendly game should naturally sell best.

People will probably dismiss what you said here just because it's you who said it but I think you're right on all points. I only played the original DOOM a bit back in the day as it's not really my style of game. But damn if the marketing doesn't make it look really good to where I am interested in it too. I also think that the gaming market has shifted markedly in the 5 years since the last game in the series was released, accounting for a change in tastes. It's not to the level of hype -> disappointment that Star Wars Outlaws was but it kind of feels that same way.

The hundreds of millions of dollars being lost by multiple large developers, along with the successes of indies and even AA level studios, leaves room for hope that quality over quantity will return to game development just as a cost saving effort. Eventually it'll shift too far back to cranking out low effort, garbage games every year but before that happens hopefully we'll get some winners.

As someone who loved Doom 2016 (on my fifth play through) and hated Doom Eternal, this game rocks.

There are a lot of customization settings so you can play the game how you like. I have it setup to recapture the feel of 2016.

I love throwing the shield, and the shield charge is awesome.