Thoughts on Doom Multiplayer Open Beta

[NOTE: I was gonna put pictures in this one, but whenever I tried screencapping the game, the screencap would glitch out and the game didn't let me record with either FRAPS or Shadowplay for whatever reason. Therefore, in protest, I'm only attaching the cover of the original Doom and the Internet Explorer logo.]

First thought: if you are going to release an open beta for the multiplayer, try to make sure your servers aren't down more often than they're up for a region with a high consumer base. Second thought: if you are going to release an open beta for the multiplayer, do try to make matchmaking take less than fifteen minutes to give players a match. To be fair to Bethesda though, once I was connected to a game, I managed to play for an hour and a half straight with no hiccups of any sort. The connection was smooth, only a couple of players with Russian letters in their Steam names glitched around a bit and there was never more than two minutes wait between matches. But then, when I tried logging in the next day, I only got the "Dedicated servers aren't available at this time" message which is like someone inviting you to taste a sample of their murder cake and then saying "Oh, sorry, I've run out of murder cake, but I assure you it was lovely."

Playing this open beta has really reminded me of Quake 3 and the original Unreal Tournament, both in good and bad ways. Movement is amazing - you run at the speed of a high-end mobility scooter, you can double-jump and your space marine grabs any ledges you're facing. This makes for a run'n'gun rather than a hide'n'snipe style of gameplay which remains fun even when you're not doing very well. There are jump pads and portals that can transport you around the map even quicker and for just over 90 minutes, the two available maps didn't get boring. Most of the weapons have a second firing function rather than an iron-sight, with a couple of long-range exceptions - the sniper and assault rifles. The gunplay feels inconsistent and thanks to the damage numbers popping up I have no idea how to successfully hit someone with a rocket. See, the description promised an AOE but unless I hit someone directly or detonated the rocket mid-air near them, no numbers would fly above their heads. The maps are littered with health and ammo pickups, some armour pickups are around and there are two or three super-weapons and demon tokens which brings me nicely onto 'new things'.

As much as it's Doom of old, it's Doom of today and we're all doomed to fit into arbitrary classes with limited loadouts and 'well done' bonuses and Team matches with no real rewards or punishments for winning. The beta is everything I hate about modern multiplayer shooters. The two available game modes are Team Deathmatch and Warpath. Warpath is an interesting spin on Domination, where you score points by being in control of a territory, except in Doom the territory is mobile. The trouble with all that is the fact I just didn't care whether I won or lost. Because it doesn't matter, does it? As long as you as an individual do well, you will level up and get more fun toys to play with. Win or lose, it doesn't affect your KDR, it won't level you down, you won't be punished for not helping your weaker teammates. There is no team spirit either, although the games I played were a lot more organised and coherent than some of the ones I've seen and the headless chicken tactic was in the minority. Regardless, how well I did, or anyone else for that matter, seem to largely depend on luck.

My second best game occurred when I happened upon the demon token and became a Revenant demon able to fly and shoot rockets at will. Cool for me, not so much for anyone in my path. The previous eight or so matches I was killed time and again by these bastards so it was fun to try it out and I must admit that it's an interesting concept but it needs some work. The demon token can really swing the momentum of a match and my favourite moment so far was during a Warpath match when my team was down 230-120 with 250 being the winning score and one of my teammates got the token and started obliterating the enemy. The token only lasts a set amount of time and if the demon is killed it becomes a token exclusively for the opposing team before greying out and being anyone's pickup again. So my entire team crowded around our demon and protected him while he waged mayhem and we ended up winning 250-230 in the end and as the demon's top bodyguard, I somehow amassed the most points.

So yes, the game can be fun, but the other six or eight matches I played weren't interesting at all, if anything they were frustrating as I was trying to figure out how I was dying. It's easy to get swarmed and it's easy to miss shots and even melee attacks and it's easy to die several times in quick succession and stop caring altogether. Although it is almost as easy to grab a few decent pickups, obliterate several enemies in a row and feel like the king of multiplayer. Seconds before someone blows your dome off with the SUPER SHOTGUN.

The trouble I had coming into the game is that I quickly realised several of the players had extensive experience with the maps and the guns, beyond what numbers like 11 or 15 might suggest (although, to reach a level 15 in an open beta that's been running for about a week you've got to be pretty obsessive, I guess) and whenever the "demon token in..." message popped up, players were already there. I could barely turn a corner without a shotgun or a sniper shot heading my way. I randomly blew up in one evening more times than I've farted all year.

If anyone wants to coach me or knows an actually fun multiplayer shooter, let me know. For now, I remain sceptical and Doom is doing nothing to alleviate my scepticism.