In an interview with GamesIndustry, id Software’s Hugo Martin revealed that Doom Eternal’s main focus is to increase player engagement. And while this may be a cool way to improve the game’s single-player experience, I am a bit worried about its MP mode. Oh, and let’s not forget that the game will feature microtransactions.
As Martin
told GamesIndustry:
“That was pretty much the primary goal of every decision we’ve made; how we get people engaged from beginning to end. Not even just the beginning of the level to the end of the level or the combat, but the entire game — that the third act of the single-player campaign is just as compelling if not more so than the first act was. It was challenging because people loved the last game so much. We really couldn’t use the same exact tricks as last time to engage the player. It’s like old hat to them at this point.”
Again, this is a good thing for the single-player campaign
Martin continued:
“We wanted to make sure the level design and the combat really gave you something to have to master. You master and conquer the levels just as much as you conquer the combat and encounters. And that’s what feels really empowering to the player, something that is earned. It’s very easy for us to make it, ‘Here’s a super powerful gun and some hallways; just walk down them and slaughter everything.’ That’s not a $60 game in my opinion. So I think engagement was our overriding theme for this game.”
Player engagement is something that most companies focus these days via different methods. One of them is via microtransactions and Doom Eternal will feature them. From what we know, the microtransactions will offer “boosts” and/or “powerups”. There might also be cosmetics.
Perhaps what’s more worrying here is the reason why the game won’t feature the classic deathmatch mode. According to the developers, deathmatch discourages those that are not good in the game. And since the team wants to increase player engagement, it has come up with another way to keep them happy.
“So if we come up on each other [in a Doom 2016 multiplayer match] and all the game is relying on from a design perspective is aiming and shooting, well there are going to be people who aim and shoot better than you and there’s pretty much nothing you can do about that. That made death a frustrating experience because it meant you were just better than me. In this game, I can overcome your incredible twitch skills with teamwork and strategy, which gives me a chance. Then it allows the game to have what 2016 had none of: metas. There’s some real depth to this experience.”
Seriously, this is so wrong on so many levels. But hey, at least you now know why the game will not feature its classic deathmatch modes. Apparently, it’s more important to keep players happy and increase player engagement than to get good. In a competitive game. Now I wouldn’t really mind this if the game actually had its traditional MP modes alongside its Battle Mode.
id Software’s Marty Stratton stated in that same interview that id Software wants to lead, and not to follow. However, we’ve already seen this mode in other games. Sure thing, there might some tweaks and variations, but it’s nothing new. To be honest, id Software is not bringing anything new to the table with Battle Mode. So yeah, it appears that it’s not leading as its developers want to believe.
Doom Eternal releases on November 22nd.
www.dsogaming.com
