Ideas for complimentary custom monsters

Maes said:

I'm not sure if any monster -other than a pinky- can actually miss a melee attack once the animation has started. The pinky's damaging attack frame is quite delayed, that's why it often ends up biting uselessly at the air, but everything else is instantaneous, despite of how the attack animation may look.

Of course that yes! That's how you keep the Revenant in his melee state without getting damaged: You get closer than 60 units to him to make him start a punch, step back when the damage is about to be dealt, then immediately step forward to be within his 60 unit melee range again when he calls standard chase codepointer. This way, if you time it precisely and flawlessly, you can keep him from firing a missile theoretically forever, even if you shoot him (inflict him pain) during the process.

Not sure if anyone has suggested it yet but someone should put the Q2 Berserker in Doom 2. Melee enemies are always awesome, it has a pattern of attack that doesn't quite resemble anything else already in Doom, and having a slight Z-axis lift on its uppercut (like the archvile attack) would open many interesting possibilities. So who's going to turn screenshots of the model into sprites and code it? ;)

scifista42 said:

Of course that yes! That's how you keep the Revenant in his melee state without getting damaged: You get closer than 60 units to him to make him start a punch, step back when the damage is about to be dealt, then immediately step forward to be within his 60 unit melee range again when he calls standard chase codepointer. This way, if you time it precisely and flawlessly, you can keep him from firing a missile theoretically forever, even if you shoot him (inflict him pain) during the process.

i wish i was half as good a player as the average doomworlder, whenever i try any tricks i just end up a dead marine

if this where to become an actual project it would be very cool if the new monsters used new custom made sprites, that where free and open content, wink wink, nudge nudge

I once had an idea for a monster that drains armor only, unless the player has no armor left and then it will hurt you, I don't think it would work out that well though.

Avoozl said:

I once had an idea for a monster that drains armor only unless the player has no armor left, I don't think it would work out that well though.

There's just no threat to that. Its not going to kill you and if it does, then its like every other monster... but I guess it would be a complimentary enemy.

You can also have the enemy dearmor the player as long as the creature is near the player. Kill it or run away and your armor is restored.

Playing RPGs is good for finding complimentary enemies.

I'm happy to see this thread still alive. I've been using ideas.

what about an enemy that if it hits you switches out your weapon or makes you drop it
what about enemies that get strengenthed by certain weapons, for example a monster could have its health restored and its attack become more powerful if bfg'd but could be vulnerable to bulet weapons wich would be super effective against it

raymoohawk said:

what about an enemy that if it hits you switches out your weapon or makes you drop it
what about enemies that get strengenthed by certain weapons, for example a monster could have its health restored and its attack become more powerful if bfg'd but could be vulnerable to bulet weapons wich would be super effective against it

What about the gremlin from Quake's SoA who steals your weapon and then attempts to use it against you?

Well, ok serious idea. I've been wanting to experiment with the Terminator to treat him as a Battlelord like mini-boss for Doom.

What would be interesting to have IMO are monsters that attack preferentially or alter their behavior when the player is more vulnerable -this can take several forms:

• Increased chance of attack the more damaged a player is.
  
• Attacking immediately if the player is switching weapons
  
• Attacking immediately or moving faster if the player has his back turned (careful not to make it feel like a cheap 80s platformer with "don't turn your back at me" monsters, though.
  
• Performing some other action while the player is not looking at them (e.g. teleporting, resurrecting etc.), in order to force the player to make a choice between staying in a hazardous battle zone, or leaving it and allowing monsters to grow stronger/draw closer.
  

Monsters further away compliment those that are closer to the player. Complimenting legs increases their speed. Complimenting arms increases their throwing ability.

Maes said:

• Attacking immediately or moving faster if the player has his back turned
  

I was under impression that vanilla monstars redouble their efforts when you spurn them by turning your back on them at close range. Isn't there anything in the code to justify the perception of increased damage from behind?

Nope, monsters never even check their target's angle, and damage amount is based on simply taking a random number.

Hmm.
Are there any ports\mods where the monsters are noticeably more clever and, for example, sometimes aim not directly at you but at the place where you might be in 2 seconds (I think there is some word for this)? Could be interesting.

Some ideas:

Something derived from the Arachnotron which can be used to transport smaller monsters like zombies or imp.

Something in the spirit of the renevant: the "reanimated" version of zombies or imp or demons... just bones with some flesh on it. Even without rockets: think about killing an imp, then seeing it coming back to life as something different.

Related to the idea above: an Archvile that respawn new version of the killed monsters, and the more you hurt him the stronger are the new versions of the respawned monsters.

Mini Archviles which give health to other monsters. Or special ammo, like rockets to the zombies.

I really like the idea of an area-denial monster. I messed around with an MBF patch and made the archvile spawn a series of little fire explosions, one after another, based on your location, so they explode wherever you just were a few moments ago rather than where you actually are. each explosion is quick though, so in large/open areas it's not quite as effective for denying space. didn't experiment with it a whole ton, I imagine with proper usage and possible some timing adjustments it could make a really nice addition

Linguica said:

http://i.imgur.com/ip5KsJB.jpg

please no. that kind of enemy is fucking annoying.

check the valiant threads (development and dwmc), the consensus was that valiant has excellent new enemies, which fit the maps, have dangerous attacks and don't take forever to kill.

Tango said:

I really like the idea of an area-denial monster. I messed around with an MBF patch and made the archvile spawn a series of little fire explosions, one after another, based on your location, so they explode wherever you just were a few moments ago rather than where you actually are. each explosion is quick though, so in large/open areas it's not quite as effective for denying space. didn't experiment with it a whole ton, I imagine with proper usage and possible some timing adjustments it could make a really nice addition

You could spawn a fire from the explosion that lingers for a while that damages the player on touch for an addition area-denial effect. =P

how about an enemie that switches place with you, it tries to get in the direction of shots or melee enemies and then teleports you there, there could be a weak variant that kills itself via telefrag when it puts you in its place, and a strong annoying version that switcheswhere you where and continues changing you of place once you take care of the other baddies

To add to that, it can be done via a projectile rather than just automatically so the player has a chance to avoid it.

I made an Archvile once that could only be hurt when he healed fallen monsters. It worked quite nicely for a boss fight. I put him in a medium sized room with 4 pillars in each corner for cover and 2 imps. The strategy is that you'd have to kill the imps(or hell knights depending on the difficulty) and wait for the Archvile to heal them, and that was the only time he was vulnerable. It sounds cheap, but was pretty fun fighting him actually, shame I never got to use that idea in anything :<

SMM = Double chaingun mancubus.
BOH = A mancubus esque fire, hell knight health.
Chaingunner = A rapid shooting fireball imp.
PE = A floating portal summoning imps.
Revenant = Fireballs will dissapear within 20 secs.
Nazi = MR.X

if this becomes a project i may be interested in spriting the new baddies (if they arent that many) i could repurpose some of the monsters im working on, such as the fat guy and the ganesha

joe-ilya said:

SMM = Double chaingun mancubus.

Wouldn't that just cause easy infighting among more than one of those?

raymoohawk said:

if this becomes a project i may be interested in spriting the new baddies (if they arent that many) i could repurpose some of the monsters im working on, such as the fat guy and the ganesha

Please make weapon-less zombiemen with smooth (at least 3-state) fisting attack.

i think it would be a good idea to have small enemies, like heretic has the flying thing and the wolf/rat from wolfenstein (but a monster instead of animal)

it would also be cool to have a plasma (bfg) using boss and a flying boss

Glaice said:

Wouldn't that just cause easy infighting among more than one of those?

That gave me a weird idea of a hierarchy system where the demons are ranked based on their health/damage potential and, if a demon that's considered higher up hits a demon lower on the food chain, the lower one doesn't fight back because they know they'll get creamed. For instance, if a Cyberdemon's stray shot hits a Baron of Hell, it'll ignore it because the Cyberdemon is way too tough for it but, if the reverse happens, the Cyberdemon retaliates.

raymoohawk said:

if this becomes a project i may be interested in spriting the new baddies (if they arent that many) i could repurpose some of the monsters im working on, such as the fat guy and the ganesha

I would write actor definition code in every language known to man, if you would build some badass custom monster sprites!

scifista42 said:

Please make weapon-less zombiemen with smooth (at least 3-state) fisting attack.

This.
It surprises me that after 20 years of mods and stuff no one has made a simple melee zombieman. Sure there are plenty of "former scientist" sprites, but they usually wield tools like scalpels and axes to attack you. I always wanted to see a classic zombie, that walks slowly and uses his bare hands to carve your skull and eat your brains.

Yeah, my most wanted enemy addition is definitely the "Former Human Civilian".

- Fewer HP than zombieman
- Drops no ammo
- Moves very slowly
- Melee attack with low damage

They would function like pinkies, except that they would be used in much greater numbers and therefore take up more space, and would have an even lower incentive for killing them. So generally they are going to be a waste of ammo and the player will tend to ignore them, but they will still create a low-level pressure and potentially temporarily deny an area to a player who needs to move fast.

Also I like to see the early game/low powered scenarios explored more. Levels that start with SSG's and revenants and archviles are not my favorite. I've been playing DTWID quite a bit.

Something similar to an imp, but with an unpredictable projectile, would be good. Maybe something that always deviates as when the player is invisible. Or something along the lines of the wendigo from hexen.