There's a mobile Doom Eternal spin-off called Mighty Doom

Played the first 10 levels or so, kinda fun but probably get a bit boring after a while

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bethsoft.ubu&hl=en&gl=nz

Apparently, today/yesterday, the game had an update and on Youtube, there's a lot more videos and an official trailer.

Not sure if it's still NZ/Canada only.

one screenshot also reveals Deag Nilox as a boss fight, apparently.

Wow, this looks exactly like that Generic Tomb Raider Mobile game they're trying to push out, like the same game just-reskinnned.

I was going to post once I completed Nekravol but there has been two updates since then, so I'll post all the new things now instead.

New things screenshots:

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New layout / enemy screenshots (Stages 1-10 for Earth and Exultia)
 

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There has been a lot of monetization-related changes this past update. You can now spend $100+ on crystals (in an Early Access game). You can now spend crystals to regain energy, boost VEGA, and revive during gameplay. If you cannot afford crystals, the game will now offer the ability to purchase them from wherever you are (previously, a button would be greyed out if you tried to purchase something you couldn't afford). You can also now view ads (a 15-30 seconds video followed by an image) to collect coins, boost VEGA, and revive during gameplay as well.

Coin-crystal economy has changed as well. Previously, you could spend 80 crystals for 16,000 coins or 200 crystals for 48,000 coins. Now, you can spend 40 crystals for 800 coins, 160 crystals for 4000 coins, or 350 crystals for 10,000 coins. You can also view an ad for 800 coins, but this appears to be a one-time offer.

The energy changes are also substantial. Instead of a maximum of 10 Energy with 1 Energy spent for every run, there is now a maximum of 20 Energy with 5 Energy spent for every run. Previously, you could start a new run at 0 Energy after 5 minutes of waiting - but now you can start a new run at 0 Energy after 20 minutes of waiting.

There is another new menu mechanic: VEGA mining. Over time, you accumulate coins and account experience. You then can claim the gains once an hour. You can also "boost" the rate at which VEGA mining acquires resources for a time by watching an ad or spending crystals.

All of the above are pretty bad changes. The game wants you to purchase crystals badly. It also reduced the value of coins you'd receive from crystals to further increase the grind. The Energy changes and VEGA mining mechanic are a typical mobile-game way to encourage players to return after some time by introducing arbitrarily long cooldowns. There's really no purpose in putting a one-hour cooldown on collecting VEGA mining resources, it's not like it enables any exploits or shortcuts. It exists just to pad time. The idea of having resource gains over time isn't a bad idea since it's effectively the same thing as daily rewards, but the current implementation is questionable. The previous Energy system and Coin-Crystal rates were probably too good to be true (16,000 coins for 80 crystals would let you acquire several Talent upgrades instantly), but the new changes are probably overkill. It's also pretty terrible that you can spend $100+ on a single currency purchase in an Early Access mobile game, but that's not an entirely uncommon thing either. If mobile gaming is the only way for someone to experience Doom, then they're better off buying the Unity ports of Classic Doom and saving themselves from this expensive and grindy waiting simulator.

Another terrible change is the revive mechanic during gameplay. Previously, "the Slayer's rage lets him revive once per mission", effectively giving you one free resurrection per run. Now, you have 5 seconds to choose to watch an ad or spend crystals to resurrect. If you don't pick within 5 seconds, you remain dead. I guess the Slayer's rage has been abated.

Yet another questionable change is the apparent nerf to end-of-mission victories. The first victory screenshot on the previous page was for Exultia (as it was the first location, its equivalent is actually Earth now). I compared both anyways. Previously, the Exultia victory would reward you with: 405 XP, 2000 coins, 5 helmet materials, 5 chest materials, 5 assault rifle materials, 5 rocket launcher materials, and 1 helmet. Now, Earth rewards you with: 165 XP, 419 coins, 10 rocket launcher materials, and 1 rocket launcher. Exultia now rewards you with: 290 XP, 975 coins, 7 shotgun materials, 7 rocket launcher materials, 7 assault rifle materials, and 7 chest materials. While the number of materials has gone up, the number of coins has gone down. It is possible that the first time victory before is just a bonus for first-time completion and not the normal value with every successful run. I didn't test that previously so I can't really say. Considering they nerfed the Coin-Crystal conversion, I wouldn't be surprised if they did intentionally nerf the Coins gained form end-of-mission victories as well.

One "minor" change is the addition of some sort of account leveling, similar to Doom Levels from Doom Eternal. Playing the game grants experience and you level up, unlocking rewards. As you cannot view upcoming rewards, I have no idea what the maximum is. It's fine as it is as a side addition to overall progression. Currently, there doesn't seem to be any monetization / padding out with this system yet, but that could change in the future.

One nice change was the addition of new music tracks for the non-Exultia locations. I don't normally play with earphones on, so I don't know if these are a recent change or from a while ago, but Earth, Nekravol, and the bosses seem to have different tracks now instead of just repeating Exultia's Meathook rendition. I can't seem to recognize what these new tracks are. They might be original. The opening to Earth's track reminded me of the opening to Reclaimed Earth from TAG2, so maybe it's supposed to be a recreation of that track. I might try to upload the music tracks since music can't really be described accurately through text.

One change I was excited for from the patch notes were the "improvements" to layouts, enemy behavior, and difficulty balancing. I've attached screenshots of the first 10 floors of Earth and Exultia for comparison. The layouts aren't as drastically different as I had hoped. They're still limited by this vertical box level design. At the least, it's nice that they're aware of the layout issues and are trying to fix that. Enemy behavior didn't seem too different, with a few exceptions: Soldiers now seem to be less accurate and Whiplashes move/attack faster. Previously, the Soldiers would have 100% accuracy (they would always shoot at your location). This would become quite overwhelming on floors with a lot of spawns, including Soldiers in the back and out-of-sight. The Whiplashes previously were quite slow and avoidable. Their new speed better fits with their gameplay from Doom Eternal. Both of these changes are good.

The first two locations seem to be significantly easier than I remembered. Or maybe it's because of the Talent upgrades. This is noteworthy because Nekravol has become ridiculously overtuned this update.

First, Nekravol is a unique location. Instead of the usual 50 floors, it is comprised of 20 floors. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily shorter, they just stuff more into those floors. Enemies don't spawn in as you enter each floor, they only spawn once you pass an invisible point on the floor. Enemies also spawn in timed waves, a bit more similar to the arena design of Doom 2016 / Eternal. The Earth and Exultia fights previously were just comprised of a single-wave of enemies. I much prefer this Nekravol approach to the combat encounters. However, I don't like how there are no boxes in the Nekravol level. There's just some small puddle of blue energy, just one per floor. The levels feel much more barebones because of this. Since there are fewer stages, you collect much more ability experience per floor completed, Sentinels are found on even-numbered floors (2, 4, 6, etc.) and bosses are found on every fifth floor (5, 10, 15, etc.).

While the difficulty rebalancing has (seems to have) made Earth and Exultia easier, Nekravol has become absurdly overtuned. Previously, I could reach upwards to floor 15 of Nekravol, and I wasn't even dedicating time to playing / completing it seriously. Just some steady progress as I unlocked more and more Talents. With this new update, I can't even come close to completing the first floor of Nekravol. The enemy health and damage values are way too high after the final floors of Exultia. You fight way more enemies than before. There is no boxes for you to take cover from or create chokepoints with.

One "new" enemy I didn't cover last time are "wandering " Lost Souls. The "wandering" Lost Soul moves in a predetermined path across the room, bouncing off of walls. It damages you if you pass through, and the Slayer annoyingly maintains target and misses a lot of shots as the Lost Soul traverses the space. If the boss is damaged enough, it splits into mini wandering Lost Souls. This continues two or three more times. The "regular" wandering Lost Souls don't split but they still follow predetermined paths. They don't appear visually different from regular Lost Souls, its just that their AI is different.

Another "new" enemy seem to be "quick" Pinkies and Zombies. First introduced as back-up for that monster's respective boss fight, the quick Pinkies and Zombies are just the regular enemies but faster. Again, there are no visual differences here. For the wandering Lost Souls and quick enemies, it would be nice if they recolored them to make them more unique, like they did with the blue-silver Imps earlier on.

The final boss of Earth is now a Hell Priest. The Hell Priest has two attacks: an explosion that surrounds the Hell Priest and the ability to call down several meteors. The explosion seems to activate randomly, even if you are not near the Hell Priest, making it ineffective. You just need to dodge the meteor trajectories before they land. The Hell Priest does not (seem to) become a normal enemy later on, like the Baron boss.

While playing previously, I made significant progress by using the daily rewards, the original Coin-Crystal conversion, and Talents. You could unlock several talents by acquiring a two days' worth of Crystals from daily logins. Upgrading talents seemed to provide much better power than just upgrading your inventory / equipment. That's how I completed Exultia and was able to reach floor 15 of Nekravol. However, after all those Talent upgrades I already unclocked and the new difficulty rebalancing, the inability for me to even finish the first Nekravol stage now is pretty demoralizing. With the coin acquisition now even grindier and the talents already becoming more expensive with each upgrade, these mean I would need to upgrade significantly more than what I am already to even stand a chance to the new Nekravol floor 1. And there's like an entire Doom Hunter Base after that.

Perhaps I'm supposed to be acquiring new items. I find it really weird I haven't acquired any new items at all recently, just some crafting materials. I unlocked the shotgun but apparently it shares the Heavy Assault Rifle slot, and I'm not swapping that out. Any new "duplicate" item with a higher base power than my original equipment's base power doesn't feel worth upgrading because you would need to spend a lot of resources in the first place to get this new item upgraded past the original item's power value. There's also several equipment slots still empty for me. And I literally only have three weapons: the starting Heavy Assault Rifle, the Rocket Launcher, and now the Shotgun. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but it seems item / gear progression is just really slow and the drop rates are very low. I haven't even able to use to the Fusing mechanic, which seems to combine three of the same items (because I don't have three of the same items apparently).

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In conclusion, many of the changes seem pretty bad for the game's appeal. It's become more grindy and there's a lot more waiting around involved. Nekravol has become ridiculously overtuned, which may or may not be intentional in relation to the grindy changes. The VEGA mining and account leveling aren't big deals and are mostly just a passive form of progression, like daily rewards. I appreciate their attempts to try to improve map layouts, enemy behavior, and difficulty rebalancing. There could be more done here but it's mostly on the right track so far (except for whatever happened to Nekravol). I also like the new Hell Priest enemy, the different-AI variants of existing enemies, and the addition of new music tracks for the other levels. I do like the wave-based combat of Nekravol but I wish there were more boxes around, since the floors seem even emptier than usual. The core gameplay is fine, it's still fun to avoid enemy attacks and prioritize targets and steadily progress through the maps. My opinions on this haven't changed from last time. It's just a shame that most of the updates seem to really be about monetization and making things grindier / slower. They don't even cover these changes on the patch notes because they know these are bad and not for the player's benefit or enjoyment. And until they nerf Nekravol, I don't see myself progressing any further into the game since I already unlocked a lot of Talents to push to floor 15 but now can't make any real improvement to Nekravol's first floor. Combined with the pre-existing poor performance (which could just be a personal phone thing) along with the padding out / nerfed coin economy, Mighty Doom is a whole lot less appealing to play.

Guess the monetization part really kills the game.

Then again, that should be expected.

Mighty Doom is also partially why i wish there was an official horde mode or even a full blown game with that concept.

It looked kind of promising at first, but now it looks like it's falling prey to the same rot that seems to be utterly plaguing the mobile gaming industry in general. What a terrible shame, and a missed opportunity to do something different for once.

There seriously needs to be a mobile gaming equivalent of the Video Game Crash, but unfortunately there seem to be enough "whales" in the population to keep them going for the foreseeable.

On dimanche 25 avril 2021 at 6:37 PM, AtimZarr1 said:

VEGA mining mechanic. You acquire resources over time which you can claim once an hour.

Hahaha, the Mighty Doom Slayer turning VEGA into a bitcoin mining rig.

Everything about this reads like a parody.

Oh yeah, you remember the Slayer's Rage? Fuck you, the Doom Slayer was never angry, give us MONEY!

Seems like Kinsie recently played it.

https://mobile.twitter.com/kinsie/status/1579736343475019776

Seems that Mighty Doom has been quietly released worldwide now as well, not sure when that happened (if anyone here could verify, that would be appreciated). Will be interesting to see what other people's thoughts are on the game. For myself, it's been a decent-ish game to play on the side with standard mobile-style monetization and practices that suffers from general repetitiveness.

The most recent app update (October 3) just had some campaign re-balancing and general polishing. Notably, they still haven't brought back the Mars Core stages, missing the last two Talent upgrades (Suit Boost and Timed Rewards), and promotional images still feature the Arachnotron and Dread Knight despite not appearing in the game.

In regards to issues brought up during early testing, they addressed some of them. They have added the ability to shoot and move at the same time, attempted to increase the variety of room layouts and enemy compositions, and have reduced the number of floors per stage from 50 to 40. Issues with monetization (i.e. $100+ currency purchases and cash-only outfits with unique effects), mobile practices (i.e. watching ads to revive), and nerfed reward gains have (unsurprisingly) remained unaddressed. They have even added additional sales bundles since last time, so that's something to keep in mind.

I made an updated review post a while back on the Console Doom subforum, so you can read that if you're interested in learning more. Otherwise, you can try out the game yourself now.

I hope they do an iOS version soon

Depending on what the game's future is, something i'm curious about is if anyone will rip the assets.

Obviously from a game asset preservation/documentation aspect, but also to see what could be made with the stuff for the fun of it.

Maybe the models won't interest some people that much because most of them are based off Eternal's collectables.

Depends on who'd ever get neutral on the game.

Not sure if i didn't already said this but Mighty Doom could have been a minigame inside a major game, like Turbo Turkey Puncher and so on.

Specially in case the mobile game does die and id recreates it in as a minigame inside the next Doom 6 or something: an almost faithfull recreation with the models, mechanics and so on but minus the actual mobile game-ish elements and maybe with more refined controlls or new features caused by it being on console/PC.

I also once said "imagine if id follows up the Fortress of Doom ports of D1/2 by porting other games/expansions and even Quake or Heretic in later Doom games" but i don't think i've mentioned the idea of it applying to mobile games as well.

Like if even the id RPG games or somehow Resurrection were brought back as an easter egg or unlockable thing in a major Doom.

Mighty Doom seems awesome man!

Welp, Mighty Doom is no more.

It’s actually a shame because I’ve enjoyed it immensely.

I was wondering if anyone there at least thought of a "post mortem" plan to make a version of the game with all its content and available off-line.

Basically, what it should've been, besides as a minigame inside another, bigger "main" entry of the series.

Maybe someone will figure out an unofficial version or at least rip its models.

Regardless, there's stuff to be learn from such a game.

Mighty Doom being sunset sucks but it's not entirely unexpected. It's had a rocky and unclear development cycle. Heck, I only covered it on here and subsequently would upload gameplay clips because I figured it would get shutdown someday. It's a shame too because while the game had its issues with repetition and monetization, I actually began to enjoy it in small doses after the run-and-shoot/events update. The developers did listen to most feedback from what I could tell, since many of their beta updates addressed issues like room variety and enemy placements, and even a request on Reddit to add a randomized skins option was added the very next update.

However, Mighty Doom's issues were with its core gameplay loop, monetization, and more apparently post-launch, a lack of long-term gameplay. While I did come to enjoy playing the daily events, I still couldn't shake the boredom that would come from playing the actual campaign for long periods of time. While they certainly improved from the beta days, the room-to-room gameplay still felt overall repetitive especially for something like 40 rooms to go through in a single level. The monetization was what one would expect from a modern mobile game, although the placement of ads as ways to resurrect or collect crystals (premium currency) was rather unsavory. It also didn't give much value even if you did spend on lootboxes, there would be posts on r/mightydoom about people being disappointed about their 10-pulls. That's not really going to be a successful model to convince people to continue spending if that's the kind of game they want to make.

Perhaps the most interesting issue was the post-launch lack of endgame/updates. This was evident halfway through the beta period actually, when they stopped updating the game for months (or was it a year? I can't remember) only to randomly announce its release date out of nowhere. While they managed to release a few new levels and features (i.e. difficulty variants), there actually wasn't all that much to do in the endgame. This will probably be a strange criticism for someone who plays regular Doom games, but these kinds of mobile games are generally "infinite" in the sense that players won't ever reach their goal because there's just too much to grind for and the pace of updates means there's always something new to look out. Mighty Doom was awkward in the sense that you could actually "finish" the game after a few months of grinding - way too long for a regular Doomer but way too short for a mobile gamer. You could even make it through free-to-play because the endgame wasn't all too difficult either. I would like to say I do like that I can "beat" the game without issue compared to other mobile games but if they want to make the kind of mobile game that Mighty Doom is aiming to be, this approach isn't really a recipe for longevity. As the final nail in the coffin, the writing was on the wall for the past few months due to a lack of new levels and the 2-3 most recent events lacked event-exclusive enemies (the Fallout event levels are effectively a reskin of the Winter event earlier).

That being said, I would rate my time with Mighty Doom as being more positive than negative really and I wish they'd keep the game running. It sucks whenever an always-online game (didn't even have multiplayer either to pretend to justify that) gets shutdown. Some games do get a second-life with community support preserving the game, so I hope Mighty Doom goes into that camp at some point. We already have too much lost media from the mobile Doom titles. And ever since I found out about the existence of Megaman X Dive Offline, I wish more studios would invest in an offline versions of their sunset games, but that's probably just idealistic daydreaming. As an aside, I've had bad luck with some of these games lol - Darkspore, Onimusha Soul, Yu-Gi-Oh Cross Duel, and now Mighty Doom are all games that got shutdown. It is kind of intriguing though that they had an in-game survey for Mighty Doom asking about extra gameplay modes (including a level editor?) some months ago, but it seems nothing will come of that. Or the fact that the CG cinematic features a Cyberdemon, which has not (and likely will not) appear in the game either.

Wish I extracted the audio from the events, some of them were actually pretty nice. Most of the uploads on YouTube are just from the launch and don't include them it seems. The Mars Core track is probably my favorite. And it's neat that they had a lot of homages to Classic tracks. The Quake event with new weapon models was sweet as well. The event-specific boss skins were amusing too, like the Hotdogcubus skin (Mancubus variant) from Doom Eternal being an actual boss in the summer event. Plus experimenting with gameplay modes in events was cool, like the larger "scrolling" rooms, survival gameplay, time-attack, boss rush, etc. Amusingly yet another Doom game with Doomguy skins but none for the Doom 3 marine (I'm still salty from Doom Eternal). Anyways, here's hoping people find a way to continue playing past the shutdown in August.

Now into id's next game, whatever it might be...

2 hours ago, AtimZarr1 said:

It is kind of intriguing though that they had an in-game survey for Mighty Doom asking about extra gameplay modes (including a level editor?) some months ago, but it seems nothing will come of that. Or the fact that the CG cinematic features a Cyberdemon, which has not (and likely will not) appear in the game either.

It's not the developers' decision to shut down the game; Microsoft just decided to close down Alpha Dog Studios who were making it.

Also closing are Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall) and Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush). And Roundhouse is getting folded into Zenimax Online Studios and disappearing as well.

12 minutes ago, Gez said:

Also closing are Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall) and Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush). And Roundhouse is getting folded into Zenimax Online Studios and disappearing as well. 

The closing of Tango Gameworks despite the acclaim Hi-Fi Rush received is a prime example of why publicly-traded companies that chase short-term profits are a cancer to creative industries.

This studio still had loads of potential. Shinji Mikami may have departed over a year prior but that's because he wanted to leave the company as an environment for young and aspiring creators. After all, even before his departure his creative involvement at Tango post-TEW1 was minimal, but they still put out some fantastic games and to many Hi-Fi Rush was when the studio really hit their stride.

And then some greedy fucks running a multi-trillion dollar company squandered all that.

1 hour ago, chemo said:

The closing of Tango Gameworks despite the acclaim Hi-Fi Rush received is a prime example of why publicly-traded companies that chase short-term profits are a cancer to creative industries.

This also ensures that not even id Software is safe from the possible fate of being sacrificed on the throne of Call of Duty.

3 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

 

This also ensures that not even id Software is safe from the possible fate of being sacrificed on the throne of Call of Duty.

Yeah, I'm worried about that, too. Granted, DOOM is still very much a mainstream IP that's way more recognizable and profitable than anything Tango or Arkane has put out, but when companies like Microsoft are going through such extreme lengths to squeeze out a couple extra pennies, who knows if they will be willing to continue investing in id Software in the future considering that anything less than Fallout's absurd numbers may not be good enough for them.

At this point, I'm expecting MachineGames to be next on the chopping block, since Wolfenstein is a much more niche IP by comparison and I'm not confident that their Indiana Jones game will do satisfactory numbers considering how much of a catastrophic flop Dial of Destiny was. I'd love to be proven wrong, I want them to be given the opportunity to properly conclude their Wolfenstein series, but goddammit man I can't help but expect the worst.

Besides the obvious legacy of innovation and history, Doom had one of the best franchise revivals in years and there's still Quakecon coming.

But i also expect bad news for other stuff like maybe SnapMap being shut down or even Quake Champions.

The idea of id being pushed to the COD mines has a certain dark irony behind it, after years of Doom fans saying COD ruined the genre.

I mean sure, the best modding scene and all still exists etc, but id had a special place in the modern gaming industry.

And that place is also why stuff like the Denuvo and Mick Gordon stories broke some people' hearts.

Even then, during DE coming out, i was worried Doom would have its equivalent to Disney type fans.

But at that point, i'm like "fuck it, go ahead and spend more if it means id has a chance to remain a little longer".

The mere idea of id Software dying or have a fate just as bad (COD mines) feels like something that should start a riot.

Like, fuck all the "gamers rise up" memes, when that happens, might as well be for real.

17 hours ago, whatup876 said:

The mere idea of id Software dying or have a fate just as bad (COD mines) feels like something that should start a riot.

Like, fuck all the "gamers rise up" memes, when that happens, might as well be for real.

I felt like pointing out a certain movement that happened about a decade ago as a "good" example of this, until I remembered it turned out to be nothing more than a reactionary (Western) right-wing movement rife of harassment.

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