DOOM: The Dark Ages | Active Tunables

Explanation:

Like with DOOM Eternal, we will be updating DOOM: The Dark Ages with occasional balance tweaks as needed based on feedback and observation. Sometimes we make these adjustments in a patch and will provide release notes right here on Slayers Club. We also have a system that allows us to push value updates to existing game data without the need for a patch - we call these “Tunables”. We cannot fix more complex systemic, content or code-related bugs with Tunables - those changes require a patch. This article will be updated with only active Tunables. If you notice a previously listed tunable is no longer listed below, it has most likely been rolled into an official patch and will be included in those release notes as a (*PT) “Previous Tunable”

Update from 5/29/25

• Adjustments to player forgiveness systems to decrease the frequency of "from behind" attacks resulting in death on the highest damage sliders (250% - 500%)
• Reduced effectiveness of the Super Shotgun against the Hell Knight and certain enemy armors
• Increased the ammo count for both Plasma class weapons
• Increased the amount of ammo the player receives from killing demons with the Accelerator Heat Blast
• Fixed a bug where parrying some of the Whiplash's attacks was not providing the intended rewards

Update from 5/23/25

• Adjustments to make the Hell Knight's arms tougher to sever when using the Pulverizer
• Lowered Skullcrusher Ravager damage against Bosses and Komodo
• Reduced how long certain health and armor drops linger in the world in the [spoiler] boss fight
• Reduced how long health drops linger in the world when in the Atlan
• Rebalanced the Atlan final [spoiler] boss fight

Update from 5/22/25

After a week of observing you play and hearing your feedback, we felt the game needed to be a bit harder overall, especially on Nightmare difficulty, so a Tunable pass was made live yesterday More specifically, we:

Buffed damage to certain attacks for the following enemy AI: Agaddon Hunter, Cosmic Baron, Hellknight, Komodo, and Pinky Rider

• We wanted the threat of these enemies to be increased and have higher impact when on the field, especially on certain damage scalers/difficulty settings
• As an example, on 250% damage (Nightmare default), missing a parry on the Agaddon Hunter’s overhead slash will now break your shield instead of simply doing a lot of damage to it

Adjusted certain player forgiveness systems to be less generous across most of the ‘Damage to Player’ sliders (100% - 500%)

• There are systems under the hood that are designed to give players a better chance to survive when near death, and those systems were being too generous
• Players were able to brute force their way through situations that should’ve resulted in costing a Life Sigil or death, and we want to make sure we are keeping the player in check and asking for better tactical decisions
• These changes will have an impact on player survivability and will be more noticeable the higher up the Damage Scale slider you go