Summary
A new balancing update has dropped forDoom: The Dark Ages, adjusting a variety of weapon variables and introducing some minor quality-of-life tweaks as well.Doom: The Dark Ageshas seen a variety of balancing updates like this one over the past week, with the development team behind the game eager to perfect the feel of the game’s combat flow as soon as possible following the game’s official launch.
As was the case withDoom Eternalafter it was released back in 2020, the team behindDoom: The Dark Ageshave been keeping a close eye on player dataand feedback over the first couple of weeks post-launch. Although a few small changes have been delivered to improve the game’s balancing across all difficulties, players may have noticed that these tweaks were pushed without the need for them to download any patches via the internet. This is thanks to the “tunables” system implemented inDoom: The Dark Ages, which allows the dev team to update many of the game’s difficulty, weapon, and enemy values. These variable adjustments are checked and applied automatically by the game as long as it’s connected to the internet.
A new batch of tunable updates recently went live forDoom: The Dark Ages, with the official update notes beingshared on the official Slayer’s Club website. One of the biggest changes made was thanks to an update to player forgiveness mechanics, with lethal enemy attacks made on players from behind now occurring less frequently on higher difficulties where the damage to player slider is set to either 250% or 500%. Killing blows made from outside the field of view has proven to be a persistent issue for players since the game’s launch, largely due toDoom: The Dark Ages' considerable enemy density, as well as the fact that reinforcement demons spawning in from behind can be tricky to notice during a heated fight.
A rather controversial change brought in the latest balance update, though, is a nerf to the legendary Super Shotgun. It’s not the firstgun to be nerfed inDoom: The Dark Ages, and although nothing too major, the Super Shotgun now deals reduced damage to certain enemy types' armor, and also less damage to Hell Knights specifically. On the bright side, both the Plasma Accelerator and Plasma Cycler guns have received a blanket increase to ammo capacity, and the Accelerator now rewards more ammo when players kill demons with its heat blast function.
An issue that caused certain Whiplash attacks to parry incorrectly has also been solved, which stood out as a pretty noticeable inconvenience before. As the developers at id Software continue to work on future balance changes, it’s important to keep in mind that the team can’t fix any major code or content-related issues via tunables. The team is aware of several commonly reported issues, including a bug affectingDoom: The Dark Ages' Berserker achievement, and is working to resolve these problems in a future downloadable patch.
