Ancient Gods 1: Nerfed?

Okay, so I confess, I wasn't super excited about Ancient Gods 2.  After all, to be completely honest, I got stuck in Ancient Gods 1 and just kinda gave up.  You see, there's a Slayer Gate in the Holt that was proving to be impossibly difficult.  THREE Archviles, Several Blood Maykrs, a couple of Doom Hunters, and finally, a friggin' possessed Marauder!  Just utterly insane, and I didn't want to skip the Slayer Gate, so for months I would load it up, give it a few dozen tries, give up, and then go back to just not touching the game.  Well today, I decided I'd fire up Doom Eternal and give it the old college try, in honor of Ancient Gods 2 coming out.  What did I discover?  Two Archviles instead of 3, only 2 Blood Maykrs, and the possessed Marauder? He gets dizzy now when you get a good hit on him!  Like, literally, you see little cartoon stars over his head as he tries to regain his composure.  It still took me a few tries, but for once, the Slayer Gate didn't feel over-the-top impossible.  I had made it as far as the possessed Marauder before, but never had I reached him without feeling completely physically and emotionally drained... And combined with the cartoon dizziness, I actually defeated the bastard and completed the Slayer Gate.  Still a long way away from actually beating Ancient Gods Part 1, but (a) I'm glad to be done with that impossible challenge, but (b) apparently the folks at Bethesda noticed how impossible the gate was, and deliberately nerfed the difficulty there.  Wonder if they made changes anywhere else? 

EDIT: Should probably specify that I always play on Ultra-Violent, in case anyone was wondering, and no, I didn't change the difficulty settings.

Yes they specifically nerfed that Slayer Gate but also they tweaked the balance across TAG1 overall. The stars you see when you hit marauders when they are vulnerable I think is just a new signal for when you falter a demon. I recall Hugo saying something in a livestream about how they should help players understand this mechanic a bit better, or communicate it better to the player or something to that effect. But it's possible they also tweaked the mechanic, I don't really know if they made faltering more effective or if it just is easier to tell when it's happening and for how long.

So let me get this straight - they shat up the Holt Slayer Gate with the most obnoxious amount of shitfuckery they could possibly muster after people complained that it was too easy only to nerf it again?

I had beaten the original Gate across PC and Xbox, only to discover the updated one on PS4 during a playthrough at a mate's house which took 6 lives from me, not counting the two I retrieved (so 8, basically). Truly one of the most bullshit pieces of encounter design I have ever come across in any game. The possessed Marauder wasn't even the problem - it was the several dozen Carcass forcefields hampering my ability to play the game at all move. Not even the final boss of the DLC gave me that much of a migraine.

Not that I'm not welcoming of a rebalance (I might actually be inclined to replay it), but fuck me if that wasn't 20+ minutes of anti-fun.

I didn't like the step-back in terms of difficulty that they did with TAG2, so I don't like either the lowering in TAG1.

They could've properly rebalanced the encounters depending on the difficulty level that you choose, without curtailing the challenges in the highest difficulty. 

The nerfs are absolute bullshit, id really needs to decide who they're gonna lean towards and not try to please both sides - neither will in the end.
First they used to defend TAG1's difficulty, but now they're backtracking on that:
 

Quote

"-DLC: made for everyone who understands (and enjoys) Eternal’s combat loop.
-MASTER LEVELS: made exclusively for players who’ve mastered the combat loop and want the ultimate challenge.
DLC’s are not Master Levels, never were intended to be. As hard as the final levels of Eternals base campaign are, TAG1 is harder and the SGN Master Level makes both of them look like tutorials.
Rest assured we have more master levels in the works that will challenge the very best of our community but we cant make DLC’s like that guys."

Then, like, why make TAG1 the way it was back then in the first place, lmao?

9 hours ago, Vic Vos said:

Then, like, why make TAG1 the way it was back then in the first place, lmao?

I am starting to belive that it was actually Marty's decision to change it and to make TAG 2 easy, these outrageous nerfs are completely against Hugo's "git gud" mentality (and I love his way of thinking, that is what made eternal so great). 

Probably I am smoothbrain but maybe someone can explain to me Why can't Id just nerf easy, normal, hard and leave nightmare as it was? Only top 5% players play on nightmare anyway (including me) and we want the HARDEST difficulty to be hard and very challenging like TAG 1 so why the fuck nightmare nerf instead of nerfing only IMTYTD, HMP and UV? As a nightmare and ultra-nightmare player I am so so disappointed Id...

Marty, Hugo hardworking devs at Id if you read this please consider reversing all these nerfs but only on nightmare so casual players can enjoy TAG 1 on lower difficulties and hardcore players can enjoy it too on nightmare, that way everyone is happy.

It looks like Hugo's doing a sort of a poll on the Doom Facebook group, asking people to replay TAG1 and post their opinions there.

I just played through Atlantica tonight and noticed several monsters were just flat out gone. I bitched about the changes to the Holt Gate because it felt like a knee-jerk reaction. I wasn't asking for the entire missionpack to be toned down. I haven't done the Swamps or the Holt yet, but even as an average-decent player, I'm already finding TAG1 less engaging.

Be careful what you wish for, I guess...

Yeah, it is, I just checked. I didn't even like TAG1 at all, but this seems like a mistake. Leave the challenge for players who want it.

I believe in game design that should be adaptable to different players, so easy settings should be EASY and hard settings should be HARD. I strongly disagree with "one size fits all" design philosophy, or put in simpler terms, I think difficulty settings and other tweaks are a GOOD thing. For Ultra Nightmare they should make it as insanely impossible as you can imagine. They shouldn't nerf anything. Ultra Nightmare should be so difficult that most players cannot beat the levels. However, on easy settings, it shouldn't be that difficult. Give us options!

They've also added the Looney Tunes swirling stars into the main game with the Marauder, as well. I realllllyyyy hope we have an opportunity to turn that off in the settings.

From what I noticed, the Slayer Gate in The Holt actually contains the same monsters as pre-patch, except from an extra Marauder at the end that got removed, which was supposed to spawn if you took too long dealing with the possessed one. The difference with the monsters is now that they're a lot more lenient with the spawns. For example, there's still 3 Archviles, but only 2 spawn at the start, with the third spawning if you kill one, I think. Same with the Blood Maykrs.

The nerfing of the rest of the maps was tragic, though. I replayed TAG1 on Extra Life mode yesterday, and I could not contain my disappointment seeing the possessed Baron replaced with a Hell Knight.

Also, are Blood Maykrs easier to kill now or something? They're not giving me as much trouble as they did before. I feel like their headshot hitboxes are larger, or they charge their attacks more slowly or something of the like.

4 hours ago, hfc2x said:

The nerfing of the rest of the maps was tragic, though. I replayed TAG1 on Extra Life mode yesterday, and I could not contain my disappointment seeing the possessed Baron replaced with a Hell Knight.

 

Also, are Blood Maykrs easier to kill now or something? They're not giving me as much trouble as they did before. I feel like their headshot hitboxes are larger, or they charge their attacks more slowly or something of the like.

- i think, that nerfing is based more by collected online data from players, how they die and when, than fan complainings on forums. The gate was terribly painful, though i learn more how to play in it, than from rest of whole game. Since countless attempts to beat the gate, i played whole later levels with ease. Even AG1 Marauders duo and both shield fragment retrieval battles at end of Swamps. So in one of those, there is no more posessed Barons? I used unmaykr on him anyways.

- Seems to me that blood maykrs before AG2 was released had "real head" hit area bit over visible head. Shoot to chin didnt count, while shoot bit over counts. Looks like they fixed it.

I'm the same camp as those who are pissed about the nerf. It honestly sucks because Blood swamps was so fun because of its challenge, it was at that perfect difficulty for me where I could blast through it yet still sweat a little. Well rip to that I guess.

It doesn't make sense to me, because id software is supposed to be all about "sticking to their guns" but then now they're nerfing everything? Doesn't make any sense. There's difficulty levels for people who want it easier, anyway. TAG 2 was a disappointment, way too easy, even the escalation encounters were almost nothing. I was pretty much untouched the entire campaign until the final boss, which was a good difficulty for me.

50 minutes ago, Arbys550 said:

I'm the same camp as those who are pissed about the nerf. It honestly sucks because Blood swamps was so fun because of its challenge, it was at that perfect difficulty for me where I could blast through it yet still sweat a little. Well rip to that I guess.

 

It doesn't make sense to me, because id software is supposed to be all about "sticking to their guns" but then now they're nerfing everything? Doesn't make any sense. There's difficulty levels for people who want it easier, anyway. TAG 2 was a disappointment, way too easy, even the escalation encounters were almost nothing. I was pretty much untouched the entire campaign until the final boss, which was a good difficulty for me.

I am only seeing that there was no Balance from the Beginning.

The first DLC felt like it needed much more Polish.

For me it was something between: "Should this fight be challanging?", up to: " Why is this so annoying?".

It felt often like they're just throwing in Enemies.

(i am often refering to Customers that came into a Shop 5 minutes before Closer).

Seems as they can't find a right Balance between the Difficulties.

Both DLCs feel exactly how third Party Expansions felt in the 90s and early 2000s.

1 hour ago, Arbys550 said:

I'm the same camp as those who are pissed about the nerf. It honestly sucks because Blood swamps was so fun because of its challenge, it was at that perfect difficulty for me where I could blast through it yet still sweat a little. Well rip to that I guess.

 

It doesn't make sense to me, because id software is supposed to be all about "sticking to their guns" but then now they're nerfing everything? Doesn't make any sense. There's difficulty levels for people who want it easier, anyway. TAG 2 was a disappointment, way too easy, even the escalation encounters were almost nothing. I was pretty much untouched the entire campaign until the final boss, which was a good difficulty for me.

Blood Swamps was also my favourite map of the whole Doom Eternal campaign+ DLC1&2. Too bad if they ruined it now. Maybe loud enough noise will make them balance only the lower skill levels, and leave NM/UN as they were.

The fact that they did lower the difficulty at all, means they do atleast listen to complaints in balance issues.

The nerf does not bother me assuming we get Master Levels are on a regular basis.  I just hope we get a FULL Master Level Campaign Mode.

On 3/20/2021 at 3:39 AM, LVENdead said:

Yes they specifically nerfed that Slayer Gate but also they tweaked the balance across TAG1 overall. The stars you see when you hit marauders when they are vulnerable I think is just a new signal for when you falter a demon. I recall Hugo saying something in a livestream about how they should help players understand this mechanic a bit better, or communicate it better to the player or something to that effect. But it's possible they also tweaked the mechanic, I don't really know if they made faltering more effective or if it just is easier to tell when it's happening and for how long.

I think the faltering window on marauders is longer now, which sucks. They should really just nerf lower difficulties if they have to and leave NM/UN as they were before TAG2, it is not that hard to implement. I don't care about the stars/birds, but the nerf has to be reverted. I don't even care about master levels.

I'm OK with removing the second marauder from The Holt Slayer Gate though. Can anyone confirm if they changed the base game as well?

As someone who completed TAG1 on nightmare just before the release of TAG2 (mostly because I postponed finishing The Holt for a longass time), I am fine with the reduced difficulty. Look, some parts may have been nerfed a bit too much, sure (like the introduction to the spirit in the Blood Swamps, 2 barons down to 1 imp and hell knight?) - however, as far as I'm aware, give or take a couple of monsters, the big arenas are the exact same. Take the final fight of UAC Atlantica, for example: same monster composition, and I'm sure that's enough of a challenge for most people. I'll take the improved flow and better accessibility, thanks.

I honestly believe that overtuning the DLC is a flat out wrong move: we have master levels for that (and Super Gore Nest is amazing) - bear in mind that, just on Steam, the Icon of Sin achievement is sitting at slightly above 35% and UAC Atlantica at 10%. I don't think Id wants to put their hearts and soul into something just to be ignored by over 2 thirds of their players; that's not to say they should just cater to the "casuals", but I think a bit of a reality check is in order for the elitists.

With that said, let me reiterate, I think some nerfs were a tad too much - that and TAG2 felt a lot easier and, especially in the final segments, rushed (I blame the year 1 pass deadline + pandemic). Nothing that a patch with community feedback (and Id is always listening to that) can't fix, really.

5 hours ago, ArchCrusader said:

however, as far as I'm aware, give or take a couple of monsters, the big arenas are the exact same.

I actually agree with any "pacing adjustments" that they made, or at least the intent behind it. Might need to be tweaked a bit, or they should consider accommodating Nightmare differently than the lower difficulties.  But the nerfs don't actually extend to just the monster composition in the DLC, they actually nerfed specific monsters. The Arachnatron's turrent now fires slower and possibly less accurately (and they also might be less aggressive in general?), Marauders can now be stunned with PB, and something about the Blood Makyr hitbox or vulnerability window has been made much easier to deal with. I don't really feel like any of that was particularly necessary.

5 hours ago, ArchCrusader said:

however, as far as I'm aware, give or take a couple of monsters, the big arenas are the exact same.

No, they are not, the AIs have been nerferd so arachnotron is now pathethic, spirit takes longer to possess etc. Just reverse all this changes on nightmare and nerf only UV and below ok Id?

20 minutes ago, LVENdead said:

 

I actually agree with any "pacing adjustments" that they made, or at least the intent behind it. Might need to be tweaked a bit, or they should consider accommodating Nightmare differently than the lower difficulties.  But the nerfs don't actually extend to just the monster composition in the DLC, they actually nerfed specific monsters. The Arachnatron's turrent now fires slower and possibly less accurately (and they also might be less aggressive in general?), Marauders can now be stunned with PB, and something about the Blood Makyr hitbox or vulnerability window has been made much easier to deal with. I don't really feel like any of that was particularly necessary.

Like I said, some nerfs may have been a tad too much but, in all honesty, most seem really minor. PB can falter Marauder? I mean, sure, it's not like we didn't have at least half of the arsenal available to do that. I can see more of a difference with Blood Maykrs and their vulnerability window, at least, and arachnotrons are a bit less aggressive and/or accurate, but honestly that hasn't changed my playstyle in any meaningful way: I still headshot BMs as soon as possible, I still blow up the turret on arachnotrons.

11 minutes ago, Stoltzmann said:

 

 

No, they are not, the AIs have been nerferd so arachnotron is now pathethic, spirit takes longer to possess etc. Just reverse all this changes on nightmare and nerf only UV and below ok Id?

Hardly anything that makes it too easy. If anything, I'm perfectly fine with spirits taking longer to possess, the fact that they force you to use the microwave beam, standing still for several second while possibly getting swarmed is already annoying enough (yes, frost bomb, I use it, the point remains). Could they tweak the stats better? Sure, but that's beside the point.

Also I don't think changing difficulty levels like that is consistent with how the game works. It's fine in DOOM I and II because the stats don't change (unless you play nightmare/UV-fast), but here they already scale in damage (and possibly behaviour). It would also be incredibly jarring to have the game stay the same everywhere else EXCEPT the first DLC.

Look, I'm not saying everything deserved a nerf. I just know that I play the game the same way and still have fun in equal measure. I do like a challenge, which is why I enjoy master levels, but the overall reaction to these changes just seems a tad overblown to me.

12 minutes ago, ArchCrusader said:

PB can falter Marauder? I mean, sure, it's not like we didn't have at least half of the arsenal available to do that. I can see more of a difference with Blood Maykrs and their vulnerability window, at least, and arachnotrons are a bit less aggressive and/or accurate, but honestly that hasn't changed my playstyle in any meaningful way: I still headshot BMs as soon as possible, I still blow up the turret on arachnotrons.

PB is Blood Punch? The problem is not with our options for faltering the marauder, but the length of faltering window. Maybe these changes don't make much of a difference to you because you don't miss weakpoint skill shots with HAR scope or ballista, but others that are not so skilled maybe want to be punished if they miss in order to prevent encouraging bad habits and ultimately get better at the game.

12 minutes ago, ArchCrusader said:

Also I don't think changing difficulty levels like that is consistent with how the game works. It's fine in DOOM I and II because the stats don't change (unless you play nightmare/UV-fast), but here they already scale in damage (and possibly behaviour). It would also be incredibly jarring to have the game stay the same everywhere else EXCEPT the first DLC.

Why wouldn't it work? If we played that way on nightmare before the TAG2 update and everything worked fine, changing it back to the exact state only on nightmare would still work right? And no, I am not talking about changing back only TAG1 but the entire campaign and both DLCs on Nightmare and Ultra Nightmare, which I think is not that hard to implement because they already have everything in a previous version of the game.

12 minutes ago, ArchCrusader said:

Look, I'm not saying everything deserved a nerf. I just know that I play the game the same way and still have fun in equal measure. I do like a challenge, which is why I enjoy master levels, but the overall reaction to these changes just seems a tad overblown to me.

I understand if people like challenging stuff like Master levels, but to me they are just levels with everything thrown in them at the same time. I don't enjoy that, so for me the best thing would be, like I said, revert only NM and UN, which I think is doable and cheap and everyone would be happy.

I am also concerned about future Id games as Hugo wanted we got gud playing eternal and at this point in my opinion the only solution to make everyone happy, casual and hardcore players, is to rework nightmare completely (in future games of course) just like Doom I and II, buffed enemies more harder demons, I am aware this will take extra work but what else to do? Even if it takes one year longer to make the game, personally I can wait next 5 years instead of 4 for a proper nightmare challange, instead of getting shitty unchallenging campaign and waiting 2 or 3 years for master levels or relaying on proteh and delta to fix the game right after launch lol.

Also Hugo said that we shoudn't complain because master levels yeah but realising shitty campign and dropping master levels months after is not the way to go. Besides that the AIs are nerfed so these master levels are going to be crap anyway. What is beyond my comprehension is why Id can't revert only NM and UN so every would be happy.

1 hour ago, MrHofmann said:

 

PB is Blood Punch?

It is my understanding that PB = Precision Bolt. 

Quote

My main problem with the master level excuse given by Hugo is that master levels are really absurd, too absurd for me. Tag 1 was the perfect difficulty, it was really challenging pushing me to my limits without being overly cruel. Things like the SGN master level I have no interest in. So now if its like that there will be no proper middle ground, I either gotta play the overly easy dlc or the overly hard master levels.

By B. Ekov from YouTube.

Well not overly easy, but easier enough to bother me. If they revert the changes for NM/UN that would be great , and if not, guess I will have to get over it.

For those interested, PowerBall253 on the Doom 2016/Eternal modding Discord has uploaded a mod that restores TAG1 to its original version. You'll need to install and run the eternalmodinjector file first though, which you can read about on the Discord's FAQ and Tools pages.

OriginalTAG1.zip

---

I feel like the TAG1 nerf controversy would've been avoided, or at least toned down, if they: (1) made it difficulty-dependent, (2) mentioned the nerfs in the update 5 notes, and (3) didn't randomly nerf it five months after TAG1's launch.

5 hours ago, MrHofmann said:

PB is Blood Punch?

As Rytrik wrote, it's Precision Bolt.

5 hours ago, MrHofmann said:

The problem is not with our options for faltering the marauder, but the length of faltering window. Maybe these changes don't make much of a difference to you because you don't miss weakpoint skill shots with HAR scope or ballista, but others that are not so skilled maybe want to be punished if they miss in order to prevent encouraging bad habits and ultimately get better at the game.

As far as I'm aware, Hugo confirmed that the longer falter on the Marauder is (most likely) a bug and is being looked into.

Also, trust me, I still miss weakpoints plenty of times, I did that before, I do that now, the only difference is that the game is just slightly more lenient when I do.

5 hours ago, MrHofmann said:

Why wouldn't it work? If we played that way on nightmare before the TAG2 update and everything worked fine, changing it back to the exact state only on nightmare would still work right? And no, I am not talking about changing back only TAG1 but the entire campaign and both DLCs on Nightmare and Ultra Nightmare, which I think is not that hard to implement because they already have everything in a previous version of the game.

I'm not saying it wouldn't work. I'm saying it wouldn't be consistent with the way difficulty is handled in DOOM... which is not a deal breaker, mind you, but it could get to the point I was talking about, where someone plays through the main campaign and DLCs on a lower difficulty, then ups it and plays through the main campaign having the same monsters and then suddenly more stuff in the DLC. Again, not a big issue, but potentially jarring.

As long as the higher monster count is kept on UV as well, it's the difficulty I like to play on when I want to take it a bit easier (then again this begs the question: won't the jump from one difficulty to another be too much for others? Eh, whatever works really).

Still, I hardly believe some nerfed monsters will make any part of the campaign (or whatever else) "shit" - the whole issue is grossly overblown in my opinion.

2 hours ago, AtimZarr1 said:

For those interested, PowerBall253 on the Doom 2016/Eternal modding Discord has uploaded a mod that restores TAG1 to its original version. You'll need to install and run the eternalmodinjector file first though, which you can read about on the Discord's FAQ and Tools pages.

Not gonna join the Discord, so I gotta ask: does this exclude the changes to the ridiculous Slayer Gate in The Holt tho?

IMO, that's the only thing that was a good change on TAG1.

19 hours ago, ArchCrusader said:

I'm not saying it wouldn't work. I'm saying it wouldn't be consistent with the way difficulty is handled in DOOM... which is not a deal breaker, mind you, but it could get to the point I was talking about, where someone plays through the main campaign and DLCs on a lower difficulty, then ups it and plays through the main campaign having the same monsters and then suddenly more stuff in the DLC. Again, not a big issue, but potentially jarring.

As long as the higher monster count is kept on UV as well, it's the difficulty I like to play on when I want to take it a bit easier (then again this begs the question: won't the jump from one difficulty to another be too much for others? Eh, whatever works really).

Yeah, I guess you're right. Changing back only some of the difficulties would be cheap but could potentially fuck up the differences in neighboring (changed and unchanged) difficulties which could make transition between difficulties a bit rough. On the other hand, fine tuning all the difficulties and making sure transition between difficulties is smooth would be the better approach, but more expensive. But then again we made id software a lot of money so it would be cool if they did that for us.

Here are some videos showing all the differences of TAG1 before and after update:

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzERN2Jc6lM

2 minutes ago, MrHofmann said:

Yeah, I guess you're right. Changing back only some of the difficulties would be cheap but could potentially fuck up the differences in neighboring (changed and unchanged) difficulties which could make transition between difficulties a bit rough. On the other hand, fine tuning all the difficulties and making sure transition between difficulties is smooth would be the better approach, but more expensive. But then again we made id software a lot of money so it would be cool if they did that for us.

I am sure we can expect now that they got the DLC out on time, they'll spend a lot of time fine-tuning. They're probably fine-tuning as we speak.