Constructive criticism of Doom 3.

[Roland Deschain]

Firstly, this, by no means, is a thread to diminish such a great great game as Doom 3 (hell, I will be posting the same thread for HL2), so I don't want some crazy fan flaming me. I love the game, but it has it's problems and, well, I got time to waste and I'm curious if people feel the same way.

Problem Numero Uno:
Biggest one of all, less than average A.I. Monsters are both stupid and psychic at the same time: before the spawn, I hide behind a corner and they come running at me, even though they can't see me (do monsters have X-Ray visions). Plus, with the exceptions of marines, all monsters behave the same: ie come running at you.

Suggestion #2:
Monster just run (or fly). I was hoping that some monsters could do some neat tricks. Sometimes an imp side rolls, but I was expecting more. I wanted an imp to start climbing the side of the wall and come crawling at you like that, that would have been neat.

Suggestion #3:
I don't know about you guys, but when you make a game with such great weapons, shouldn't you give them two firing modes. I don't know if ID wanted to keep true to the original, but two firing modes could have added a little bit of stratagy and variety (just a pint, you would still be shooting like crazy all the time).

Suggestion #4:
Put more survivors in the game (ie: more human scietists hiding in dark corners). It would add another touch to the game, at least for me (but still give us the option of disposing of those survivors with the chainsaw).

Suggestion #5:
What's with all those spawn/teleportation points. I was expecting monsters to be sliding down pipes to kill me, but what I get is secret walls opening to reveal monsters and spawn points (and the occasional imp waiting behind a door, which got tiring after the third time).


As you can see, besides the first one, none of these are major issues, and my point is, Doom 3 is great (if I had done a post with the good things of Doom 3 it would have been longer. much longer).

Anyways, these are the things I hope get fixed for the expension pack, which I am awaiting .

Now, flame me, if you see fit, I will stand and bear it like a man.

 

[ShadowFox]

Sounds more like personal preference than problems.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Sounds more like personal preference than problems.

Besides the A.I., I would agree, but than again, enough people with personal preference problems and you got a real problem

 

[Prince of China]

I would suggest that id Software would pack some new pairs of pants.

Secondly, there are only 12 weapons.
Doom III is supposed to be their greatest game for the time being.(*Gasp* What if they make an expansion pack?:O)

They could've added more and had a better weapon switching system.

And id could've learned from People Can Fly's Painkiller.
The game had incredible graphics but mid-end PC's could get about 55+ FPS even when using 1600x1200 and high details.
I know my computer did.

 

[ShinRa]

I thought it'd be more scarier like enemies creeping in shadows and stuff, if its all portals and just the enemies running @ you, im not too excited about playing now.

 

[lePobz]

That's true, definately about the lack of multiple firing modes. If I remember correctly, even the plasma rifle on the original doom had a secondary firing mode, fired out a constant 'beam' of plasma that was a very effective short-range killer.

Doom3 is definately lacking in this department, although I think the animation of the baddies is OK, the zombies are programmed to waddle out of the shadows and everything else is programmed to jump at you as fast as possible to scare you out of your skin... pretty effective too

In my opinion, Doom3 = a great game, more than worthy of the Doom title (and that's saying something)

Now, Half-Life 2 is long overdue, don't you think?

 

[RogueShadow]

If I remember correctly, even the plasma rifle on the original doom had a secondary firing mode, fired out a constant 'beam' of plasma that was a very effective short-range killer.

Are you talking about Doom or Unreal Tournament?

 

[KiMcH33]

good criticism

 

[gulo]

doom weapons didn't have secondary firing mode. and thanks for that !
I myself prefer one-mode only weapons...it's all about preference.
I got enough trouble mapping out all those keys as it is

 

[A.I.]

I would agree with the second poster who said this is more personal preference.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Suggestion #2:
Monster just run (or fly). I was hoping that some monsters could do some neat tricks. Sometimes an imp side rolls, but I was expecting more. I wanted an imp to start climbing the side of the wall and come crawling at you like that, that would have been neat.
[...]
Suggestion #5:
What's with all those spawn/teleportation points. I was expecting monsters to be sliding down pipes to kill me, but what I get is secret walls opening to reveal monsters and spawn points (and the occasional imp waiting behind a door, which got tiring after the third time).

In the promo videos I've seen, the imps crawled around on walls awesomely.
Is that not actually in the game?

I'd be sad if it was just scripted.

 

[FoB_Ed]

I agree with the original poster. Especially on his suggestion #5. Too many demons came out of closed compartments in the walls. I mean, how many secret closets do they have like that on mars?


Another thing is, I didn't like how everything burned up after you killed it. I missed being able to pump a zomie with my shotgun and watch it ragdoll, instead somehow all the flesh came off it's bones and then it's skeleton evaporated. Oh well, guess I can just wait for that in HL2

In the promo videos I've seen, the imps crawled around on walls awesomely.
Is that not actually in the game?

When you actually encounter imps, they don't crawl on walls towards you. They just run normally and throw fireballs. The only time I've seen imps crawl on the walls is when I'm looking at one through a window and it climbs on the window and screams at you and then crawls into the shadows where you can't see it.

 

[Letters]

Another thing is, I didn't like how everything burned up after you killed it. I missed being able to pump a zomie with my shotgun and watch it ragdoll, instead somehow all the flesh came off it's bones and then it's skeleton evaporated. Oh well, guess I can just wait for that in HL2

They don't always burn up... and I actually like it when they do... makes me feel safer knowing they won't be getting back up.

 

[Element Alpha]

I can't understand why anyone would play a game of this magnitude with such a negative and biased attitude.

To all those "constructive criticizers" (constructed what anyway?) :

did the game just scare you so shitless you feel the need to retaliate by mocking it and spoiling it for others (while the lights're on)?

or did you just go through this game with all gamma set to extra super bright, the music/sound off and your mom holding your hand, godmode on and all other cheats you could find enabled?

OF COURSE THE GAME WILL BE CRAP IF YOU PLAY LIKE THIS !

You have to give the game a CHANCE by playing it how the makers want you to play it.

I'm just wasting my time, ain't I?

bah nevermind. I'm out. Cya

 

[-TaNaKa-]

this is doom people. think simple. Monsters come after you, who cares about his AI. They come for you, and you kick there motherf8cking asses.

 

[disruptioN_]

I think the AI is alright. They're mindless evil monsters so they should be coming at you.
And yeah I was also hoping that monsters will come out at you in other ways than appearing from trap doors in the walls or teleportation. Oh well.
More survivors would make the game more interesting. I get bored sometimes when I go for a long time with no AI buddy to talk to or kill for more ammo.

 

[Black-Falcon]

Heh, dude two posts up with atom thingie...you cant turn up the gama and see...it truely is BLACK where its supposed to be. I personally would have like a little more variety with the monsters but all in all the game was great. Got some good scares too! Heheheh I jumped when I saw a shadow move now thats sayin somthin :thumbs:

 

[OCybrManO]

I can't understand why anyone would play a game of this magnitude with such a negative and biased attitude.

To all those "constructive criticizers" (constructed what anyway?) :

did the game just scare you so shitless you feel the need to retaliate by mocking it and spoiling it for others (while the lights're on)?

or did you just go through this game with all gamma set to extra super bright, the music/sound off and your mom holding your hand, godmode on and all other cheats you could find enabled?

OF COURSE THE GAME WILL BE CRAP IF YOU PLAY LIKE THIS !

You have to give the game a CHANCE by playing it how the makers want you to play it.

You need to understand that every game has something wrong with it. Apart from the alternate fire for weapons suggestion, all of them would have made Doom 3 a better game.

What's scarier? A monster creeping out of the shadows or teleporting in (giving its position away and letting you almost kill it before it can respond)? How do the monsters know to hide in the little secret holes in the walls that have no other purpose until you get there? Why are the secret hiding spaces there in the first place?

What is more interesting? Mindlessly blasting a stream of monsters running straight at you or having to deal with some that are on the ground, some that fly, some that climb on the walls, some that can walk through walls, etc? Almost all of the monsters do pretty much the same thing, they just look different.

It really is a great game... but with more creativity it could have been an incredible or amazing game. If they are going to make an expansion or another game similar to Doom 3 we should tell them in the hope that they will rectify these minor problems that can make the difference between a great game and a classic.

 

[EYEconfide]

Problem Numero Uno:
Biggest one of all, less than average A.I. Monsters are both stupid and psychic at the same time: before the spawn, I hide behind a corner and they come running at me, even though they can't see me (do monsters have X-Ray visions). Plus, with the exceptions of marines, all monsters behave the same: ie come running at you.

I fear the day that actual demons create tactics and kill us all, because after all, they only actually have one purpose, and that's to kill you. They aren't going to sit around thinking "omgrofl mauybe if i flaank him he'l neva see!!1!!!", they will be thinking "mmm... flesh...".

Therefore AI = Useless in Doom 3 Which I personally like. If I want tactics i'll play Rogue Spear.

 

[^Ben]

A couple of things i don't like about the game.

Monsters jumping at you when you open a door is only jumpworthy 3 times.

There are an awful lot of box room that zombies are hiding in(you know the 4x4 rooms) that just happen to open when you pick something up.

So predictable, you walk into a room and there is a dark corner an inclove and pillars that you can't see past. There will always be zombies behind one of those objects.

The physics engine does not seem to calculate mass properly on objects like boxes etc, sometimes zombies fly back when you hit them with the pistol in the leg, sometimes characters legs get stuck in the floor.

A.I. i will reserve judgment for because they are zombies, but the path finding in some sections of the game is terrible. You stand in an elevator and the zombies won't know how to get to you so they just lurch around just out side.

Corridors. Nuff said.

Things i will give them credit for.

When you shoot zombies with the pistol and it is physicaly simulated and they whip back it's so satisfying!

Lighting system really good and able to run well on low end machines.
(Notice i didnt say engine here i don't think as a whole the doom 3 engine is that impressive because of bugs with the physics system)

Did anyone notice they actually did a unreal engine 3 and had moving projected soft shadows that you could interact with (im not talking about fans and static objects like that)

Overall doom 3 left me with a "meh" feeling. The first 2 hours where amazing but then it just got old and repetive.

(from another post of mine)

 

[CrazyHarij]

I don't like the gibs for one, they f*cking suck. I want the corpses to stay and allow you to riddle 'em with bullets or shoot off limbs.
I'd like more squad friends in areas, more scenes with the spider-robots maybe.

The AI is absolutely alright, it's even very good. Once when I was battling this demon with a pistol, he went in a position where I could shoot him and he could not shoot me. having experience of these situations in games like Jedi Knight 2, I thought "well this'll be a piece of cake", but I only managed to get a single shot at him before he noticed my position and strafed a tiny bit to the right to get a shot at me.

There are lots of situations I've noticed that the AI does what it's supposed to do, and it really rocks.

 

[Sparta]

In the promo videos I've seen, the imps crawled around on walls awesomely.
Is that not actually in the game?

I'd be sad if it was just scripted.

Yes that can happen, however i've only seen it happen twice. Once when i was descending down an elevator shaft in the elevator, the imps crawled down the wall almost as fast as i descended and then once again after i picked up some health, there was an imp crawling on the ceiling coming for me.

However i totally agree with laz about monster hiding in secret walls, its really lame. But i'm still having fun with Doom 3, its just that with all the hype that surrounded the game i was expecting it to be, at the very least, on par with Half-Life (in terms of action and scripted sequences, i mean come on, Half-Life's action is fairly basic, but its hella fun)

 

[^Ben]

One thing i didn't paticulary like was the reuse of the silver wall textures (I know its a base but still)

 

[poseyjmac]

One thing i didn't paticulary like was the reuse of the silver wall textures (I know its a base but still)

maybe you should be the UAC interior designer, then you can make walls with pretty colors on them. :dork:

 

[DarkStar]

How do the monsters know to hide in the little secret holes in the walls that have no other purpose until you get there? Why are the secret hiding spaces there in the first place?

C'mon guys! This is Doom. Monsters coming out of secret-hidey-holes are a Doom staple!

 

[Sparta]

Yeah i know, i realised that the first few times it happened but Doom was a real run and gun game compared to Doom 3, plus Doom can be clocked in 20-50 minutes, the secret wall trick in Doom, at the time, was cool, but now its lame

 

[^Ben]

Location Location location darling!

I would of put a dab of magnolia on those walls it mixes perfect with human blood to create an piece of art!

And all of those dirty pipes sticking out i would put some lovely flowers on them to brighten up the place.

With my interior decorating tips for the UAC none of this would of happend, and the zombies could and deamons could help tend the flowers!

 

[poseyjmac]

just thought of a piece of constructive criticism. id like to see janitors in doom3. tehre werent any janitors in halflife were there? janitors would be cool because itd be funny to see their reactions to all the chaos happening, could make for some funny moments.

 

[Sparta]

Barney the janitor

 

[The Dark Elf]

Those who said "well this is Doom" have it spot on, its Doom, anyone who remembers and loved the original will be glad id didn't try to make this into something else. It's Doom, monsters come at you, you blow them away. They've just taken the original, added a pretty deep storyline to it. The AI is just fine.

As for comments on closets with zombies in, well if you pay attention to the story itself, that all makes sense. When the sh*t hit the fan, people hid but were still turned into zombies.

@ Poseyjmac
Janitors, well there's engineers down there, the ones with the chainsaws, and some of those are just downright scary, the animation on them is amazing as they run at you lugging a large heavy chainsaw powering it up to tear you to shreds, and the expression on they're faces. As someone else said, makes Leatherface look tame.

Scripted events. Yeah its got a lot but you play through the whole game, you'll have forgotton most of them from before and it still gives you a fright because your concentrating on the bigger ones happening, forgetting all about some Imp or zombie thats coming up behind. Very well done.

AI I think as I say is fine, the different creatures act differently, Archviles will avoid when they can taking you on from close range, prefering to make your life difficult hiding behind area's so you can't get to them easily while they summon more creatures. Imps will run at you when close or try take you out from a distance while taking cover because well Imp's always did. The AI works nicely.

Yeah it would be nice if dead bodies didn't dissolve away, but tbh keeping them around and things would begin to crawl when so many build up.

It's doom, and for those who remember it before, they'll be glad of the similarities, cacodemons appearing from vents high up, Imp's appearing at the worst possible moments. Pinky demons being a pain in the ass when cornered by one. Even some of the area's are similar to the original. A small section in hell is almost an exact replica, complete with collect weapon to make walls move for more secrets. Which I thought was really neat. The game is really well done and I love it

 

[h00dlum]

In the promo videos I've seen, the imps crawled around on walls awesomely.
Is that not actually in the game?

I'd be sad if it was just scripted.

They do climb around like that a couple of times in the game...but not always..

 

[Lanthanide]

I think I'm about 1/2 way through so far, just fought the Mancubus' for the first time, and I'm on the monorail level. Should be getting to Delta labs and then Hell very shortly. And I can tell the Soul Cube is making an appearance too, a lot of emails are talking about artifacts they've found. Can anyone whose finished it tell me roughly how far I am through?

So far, I've liked it. The first couple of hours were the best, because it's all new then. After that it's a bit repeditive, but I'm still playing it and somewhat having fun.

The Cacodemons look dumb, IMO, though. And the way they die is stupid - they spin out of the air (at odd angles) and fall down like an inflated beach ball (in terms of speed).

What I really don't like, as others have said, are all the little cubby-holes that suddenly open up when you're standing next to them, for no apparent reason other than you just happened to pick up the health that was next to them. It's just so lame - no mars base would have hundreds of little tiny rooms that are invisible from the outside like this base does. It just doesn't make any real sense. Also some of the machinery, the way it's constructed is very silly - big moving parts going at head-height over walkways and such. Would never happen IRL - clearly only there as a game contrivence and it's a bit silly IMO. This also forces you into pretty much carrying the shotgun as your primary weapon - it's powerfuly enough to kill most things (esp imps and zombies) in 1 hit if at very close range. So this means if something jumps out next to you, you just have to click at it and it dies. If you try and use any of the machine-gun type weapons (machine gun, chaingun, plasma rifle) you simply can't kill the monster fast enough to prevent it from hurting you. Luckily shotgun shells seem to be the most prevelant ammo in the game.

These aspects annoy me - Half Life always tried to be sensible in its level design and item placement, and I liked that. Doom 3 just has rediculous room contrivances and heaps of health/armor scattered around for no reason.

Also, imps crawling on walls is a scripted sequence only, much with the spiders crawling up ledges in some places. Which is a great pity. Half Life 2 should remedy this with it's modular AI design, where the spider ducking under the bridge isn't specifically a scripted event (it could duck under -any- bridge, for example). Imps not being able to crawl on walls leads to several situations where you can strafe side-to-side and kill them with pistol shots because they can't reach you (on a ledge above or across a gap they can't walk over). Spiders can walk up stairs though, and that's fun to watch with their multiple legs clicking up the rungs.

Generally the enemies are too weak, I'm playing on Normal (marine) difficulty and so far I've only had problems 3 or 4 times total, and that's just recently after having encountered Revenants and Commando zombies. The first part of the game, up until the encounter with Trites (spiders) was not hard at all. The enemies simply don't do enough damage to really be much of a threat. Compared to Far Cry where enemies could kill you in 1 or 2 hits. Hopefully HL 2 will fall in between these two extreams.

I think the game needs -more- scripted/scary events, or at least some different flavours. So far I've found the lights blinking out with demonic laughter the scariest, and also when objects and corpses start flying around the room with laughter going on. Very creepy, but only happens sporadically - could happen more often. I also liked the part with the hallway that is suddenly bathed in glowing demonic runes - stuff like that needs to happen more often. AvP was such a terrfying game when playing as a Marine beacuse the aliens could kill you very quickly if you got caught off guard, and the aliens kept respawning over the whole level - so any area you'd been to before and cleared, was still a threat. And if you lingered anywhere, you were also a target. Heh, someone should port AvP over to the Doom3 engine, be ****ing scary with shadows etc

I can envision great opportunities for a mod team to go through Doom 3 and make Doom 3+ or something, adding in lots of scripted sequences and changing some of them to make them much scarier. Also throwing in more monster variety early on - lost souls hardly turn up at all (so far), and I reckon they should have been in it from near the beginning since they're pretty easy to kill, so by the time they appear they aren't really a threat.

 

[^Ben]

Not being able to cook your grenades is annoying

And also they bounce around manically :O

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I've never liked the grenade control in any of iD's games. They just don't move right.

Well back to Doom 3. This PDA messages are getting pretty cool. That one from Dr Raleigh was great.

 

[NeonSpyder]

sounds like DoomIII was rushed.

poor AI, lack of scripted scenes, not a great a game as it should be... generally "unpolished"

kinda disheartening, but it won't stop me from buying the game.

/me shrugs and continues looking at screenshots

 

[^Ben]

I just realised.

There is a part in the game (early on) when you find a PDA and it has got emails for martianbuddy.com and it has a storage container with the martianbuddy logo that you couldn't open. The code is 0508 i wonder what happens.

 

[Sparta]

You get a chaingun and 2 ammo belts

 

[Warbie]

I personally think Doom 3 should have been a whole lot scarier. There was little tension and apprehension for me (even after making the game so dark I could hardly see the bad guys) It quickly became a case of - walk into a room, kill what's there, and move on * 100 (which was fine for the original, and games like Painkiller/Serious Sam, because enough bad guys were thrown at you to stop the experience becoming boring. Doom 3 doesn't) The fighting is average at best and rather uninspired. tbh i've found myself bored at times.

The default run speed is too fast (why rush through such great looking levels? we need time to soak up the atmosphere) A slower pace would have been more suitbale - creatures stalking you in the shadows, peering through vent shafts, always in your peripheral vision. It would make the action, when it does happen, seem all the more exciting.

The enemy are dumb, offer little challenge, and also charge around like headless chickens. That isn't scary (that's Quake 1). Having a zombie hidden under a desk, scapel ready. Now that's scary.

I also expected a better use of sound - footsteps behind that stop when you turn to investigate, more groans in the dark (first one, then two - then suddenly they're all around you, getting closer aaaarrgggh), hearing some loony sharpening his knife and muttering what he's gonna do with it /o\ Basically more psychological freakiness, a journey into madness \o/ Instead we get shock treatmement. Which works rather well at the start, but, on its own, loses impact greatly as the game continues. Cheap, clumsy scares that stop being scary all too quick.

Doom 3 should have been more like the movie Alien (imo) Instead it's more like 28 Days Later (minus the scary bits).

(don't get me wrong, there were some tense parts in the game, and a few times I 'jumped' a little With this engine, and the atmosphere it can provide, Doom 3 could have been absolutely terrifying. I think that's what we were promised and were id have failed to deliver. Maybe that isn't true. If Doom 3 was just an attempt to bring Doom into the present day, then it failed there too. Doom 3 doesn't fell like the original, either) I stand by my statement that Doom 3 is Quake 2 (albiet highly polished, with excellent gfx and some neat scripted sequences) in the dark)

7/10 Could do better

//ends grumble

Pretty gfx, though.

 

[Lanthanide]

Ben - you can cook them. In fact, that's the only way to properly -throw- them. If you just click it, then he 'tosses' it and it bounces a little. If you hold it for a second, then let go, he throws it. But it bounces around so unpredictably that it's pretty hard to use them. Note, they do explode on contact with enemies (good for pinkies, until you get something better).

Neon - Doom3 has heaps of scripted sequences (practically every enemy that appears is scripted, very few seem to populate levels from the beginning). I just wish there were more spooky ones - they're a little sparse, I feel.

 

[babywax]

I like how dark it was, however I wish there were more spaces that were light. It would be cool if the demons came in and then tried to break the lights themselves.
The teleporting is getting quite annoying, I'm only on the monorail level, and it's already annoying. Too many "hidden" compartments in the walls in hallways too. Put them in storage cabinets, put them in marked closets, no one makes a closet where you put stuff in it and then forget where it is! That way you have to decide, there are 4 possibilities with the closet, there's a monster in it, there's health/ammo in it, there's both, or nothing in it at all. You have to gauge whether or not you want to take the risk for the possible reward.

I love the way the little spiders come at you, with the clicking, and the way they actually crawl out of places instead of teleporting in like the fireball guys.
I also like the dead bodies groaning and shaking their heads then getting up. I haven't been hit by one yet (except for screenshots) but it is really cool anyway. The zombie marines aren't bad, I like their AI and how they take cover, but I wish they wouldn't rush after you quite so fast. As soon as you go behind a wall they rush in after you, which gets kind of repetitive. Overall their AI is good though.


Another thing I don't like is how few times I get allies, I wish their were more marines on my side, and more people who didn't get zombified. It just makes it that much scarier when you have to think about whether or not the person you just spotted was an enemy or not.

Opening sequence, after the cutscene (I hate cutscenes in any game) was great, better than HL1 IMHO, but that is also because of the cool tech. Was anyone else so impressed with the VGUI menus and stuff? I loved it, they really felt real and looked pretty slick at the same time.

I really wish I could have met up with the commander and a bunch of marines behind make-shift barracades. Then going in and getting ammo at the armory and THEN leaving to

Spoiler

get the comm card thingy

with a squad of marines. Then after you leave the outpost/barracades the squad quickly dies off. Of course, I still haven't finished the game, there's still time for them to fit it in!

So far I really like this game, and to anyone who is trying to decide whether or not to buy it I would really recommend it, and remember that I'm just pointing out the worst parts of the game.

P.S.
Again, I'm on the monorail level, can anyone tell me how far in I am?