So exactly how does the Pinky fit in?

I love the Doom 64 version of the Demon/Pinky most, they aren't as hunchbacked as the original was however.

EvilNed said:

Demons started out as the "toughies" of Knee Deep in the Dead, and I think we all have childhood memories of how scary they were back then when all you had was a peashooter or maybe a shotgun. But yeah, now they're way too slow and their attack way to easy to predict to be much of a challenge.

They should come in hordes!

EvilNed pretty much said what I wanted to mention. We must work on the fact that they originate from Doom 1. And from the time when Doom was considered a scary game and players were afraid of every enemy and even some architecture. Demons used to cause terror feelings, as they look scary and don't fall down as easy as imps or zombies. They have their place in Doom 1, I can see it clearly. Demons were created for encounters like those in Knee Deep, chasing the player in tighter space and forcing him.

Today, we may consider them a "hangover" from D1. Because since Doom 2, we have enemies actually designed to be threatening and challenging to fight. Challenging more, I mean. Challenging even in large open areas, typical for D2 more than for D1. Pinky quite lost his position and therefore we can see him now as "too weak".

Of course, there still remained a way to make demons challenging - placing a horde of them. You can notice that Petersen did that in some D2 maps already. It's not that bad utilization of them, specially if people back then didn't know the bottlenecking trick - that you can make demons harmless if you go close to them and then go back when he's about to attack, and repeat this process infinitely.

We modern gamers can hardly realize that back then, FPSs were new and from our point of view, people sucked at them. Significant portion of players might have even played without running. Most players didn't know the tricks we commonly know nowadays. What is trivial for an average gamer today, for an average 90's gamer was a bigger challenge. If we take this into account, then we can understand that: Even if demons aren't highly effective foes - in a 90's videogame they still have their place. Because in the times of Doom, people didn't give the efficiency and similar stuff so much a thought as we modern players do. "Shoot the bad guys and have fun" is enough of a philosophy.

People in the 90s were so frightened and clueless that they complained about Doom being too easy, prompting Id to add the "nightmare!" skill; and that they created the "Doom Honorific Titles" which involved sending demos proving you could beat any level from pistol start with certain conditions (one of them being to use only slot 1 and 2 weapons).

not all of them

Gez said:

People in the 90s were so frightened and clueless that they complained about Doom being too easy, prompting Id to add the "nightmare!" skill; and that they created the "Doom Honorific Titles" which involved sending demos proving you could beat any level from pistol start with certain conditions (one of them being to use only slot 1 and 2 weapons).

Come on Gez, you can't mean this piece of sarcasm seriously. Too many people on these forums are describing their first experience with Doom as something scary, and how a hard time they had in various parts of E1. You also can't claim that majority of players knew all tricks and went for self-imposed challenges. I know you didn't say this exactly, I'm only reacting to the general impression and attitude of your post, which doesn't seem right to me either as sarcasm or not.

It would be nice to have a 'higher tier' Pinky that moves like the Fiend in Quake but still had the same appearance. Then if you mixed the two together, you wouldn't know which ones were going to suddenly leap at you. Would make things a little more interesting.

From personal experience, I always considered the pinkies just chainsaw fodder, even in Doom 1. Once you got the chainsaw, it was over -you had to slaughter them all in this way whenever you encountered them. It was funnier and more ammo-efficient. Even with Doom 1's relatively scant monster encounters and closed areas, once you got the chainsaw pinkies got reduced to a meat obstacle that you had to patiently grind away at -quite literally.

Doom 1 PWADs tended to use them more as hordes-for-slaughter, but even the Doom II IWAD isn't immune from the "obligatory fresh chainsaw meat scene" effect.

Demons (and by association, Spectres) are one of the most difficult monsters to place effectively on a map, perhaps even moreso than Spider Masterminds. Demons were more dangerous/effective when their bite was a short-ranged hitscan attack that was 'fired' regardless of distance between them and the target, and not the generally ineffective boolean range check they received in v1.5.

Not to mention they could start some infighting back then too.

With such a crappy melee range, in most cases Demons/Spectres have become borderline joke enemies with no real offensive purpose to speak of. They're just fleshy mobile barricades that almost invariably get slaughtered in the player-Hellspawn crossfire; unless a mapper sets them up in a very specific way so that they're an immediate problem (such as a certain Chillax map), there's really nothing to fear from the Demon itself. They're usually more irritating than threatening, like a really crap barbed-wire fence with legs that serves only to waste time and ammo.

tl;dr -- Demons are generally set up as meatshields and/or target practice, whether or not it's the mapper's intention.

I'm sure one of you has a technical answer to this question, so I'll ask. Why is it that the demon's/spectre's melee attack is so ineffective? The HK/BoH and imps are more effective at hitting you. I can only imagine there's a delay between the demon/spectre attack animation and the actual connection of damage, never mind that they actually have to stop first to perform this attack.

Simply put, it's because it's the only attack they have. And it's slow. Imps/Hellknights/Barons all have a 'comboattack' meaning that running in, landing a slap and running back is no guarantee of safety; you're getting a fireball lobbed at your head for it too. This also leads to possible melee damage if you time your own attack badly -- these three can potentially be in the middle of trying to hurl a fireball down your neck while you try to rush in swinging your fist. Demons have no such option, only being able to attack once you're within bite range, at which point they just stand there and generally take a bite of nothing (or eat a load of buckshot, whatever).

Of course, the high painchance and large hitbox goes against them too. All that running speed's worthless when they have difficulty moving around and jig about the moment they're fired at.

BaronOfStuff said:

Stuff

Fair point. Sacrilege, how dare I, blah, blah, but I think that id should have patched this (or improved them for Doom2). Even in a horde, they're little more than a nuisance.

I'd actually say the biggest problem is that they simply take so long to deliver the damage. When even a zombieman can avoid damage by simply shuffling away from the demon you can see the problem. I suspect having them deliver instant damage on impact with their target (use those big horns!) and then following that up with the lengthy bite attack would be a lot more effective. Revenants don't have a combo attack but do swing their punches a lot quicker, so they're more likely to be effective in melee against an unsuspecting target even if they don't bother firing a shot. Likewise Lost Souls with their charge are the most effective melee enemy because they only need to touch their opponent as soon as they start their attack cycle.

If Demons either had a shorter melee cycle (as seen in -fast and Nightmare) or a leap attack as somebody else mentioned earlier, they'd be alright for getting a hit in when their enemy won't stay still.

Gez said:
People in the 90s were so frightened and clueless that they complained about Doom being too easy, prompting Id to add the "nightmare!" skill; and that they created the "Doom Honorific Titles" which involved sending demos proving you could beat any level from pistol start with certain conditions (one of them being to use only slot 1 and 2 weapons).

Perhaps it says more about how multi-slot save-gaming (and an availability of cheat codes) can wreck the challenge in a game. I'm guessing from the progressive and slow improvements in demo uploads through the years that only a few actually felt the game was easy from beating it without "meta" features.

Maes said:
From personal experience, I always considered the pinkies just chainsaw fodder, even in Doom 1.

Playing slow and conservative, but if you start to speed up they begin to be a bit of an ammo drain. Later you may find yourself lacking some shells or energy, saying "oh, and I wasted it going past those demons".

I can't count how many times a pack of pinkies killed me. They surround you so you can't move and it's usually the one behind you that takes the finishing bit out of you.

I think it's map04 of AV that utilizes a key room surrounded by four revs and a pack of specters will teleport in after you've tripped a line def somewhere. That's an effective way to use pinkies. You got to get across the room to the exit but your constantly bumping into specters. And if you didn't have enough ammo to kill the revs before triggering the specters, you're probably fucked.

Great room.

Gez said:

Mostly, though, they're dumb and their only tactical value is in their ability to impede the player's movement by surrounding him. This is why Doom II started using them in big hordes instead of having just a handful here and there like Doom "1" did.

In saying that, "back in the day" there were enough pinkys/spectres in that area by the indoor nukage pool (with the secret that goes outside to the soul sphere) to surround me and regularly give me difficulties. LOL

...and the spectre ambush near the end of E1M6 as well now that I think about it.

BaronOfStuff said:

Demons were more dangerous/effective when their bite was a short-ranged hitscan attack that was 'fired' regardless of distance between them and the target, and not the generally ineffective boolean range check they received in v1.5.

Heh almost forgot about that one. It makes me wonder why id decided to make this change: programming convenience, execution efficiency or deliberate rebalancing? It sure neutered pinkies badly...

Maes said:

Heh almost forgot about that one. It makes me wonder why id decided to make this change: programming convenience, execution efficiency or deliberate rebalancing? It sure neutered pinkies badly...

Could be the blockmap bug? It happens at times to the player, with nasty consequences: you blindly miss the chainsaw while the spectre chews you, just because it's protected by a map block boundary. Now imagine yourself just standing there while the demons growl in vain. Maybe they playtested it and saw this bug.

Has anyone made a "greater pinky" using Decorate? One that is, say, 25-50% larger, inflicts more damage and has more hitpoints? Or possibly a boss pinky? If so, I'd be interested in something like that. This thread has given me an idea for a map.

It fits in through a large gap.



Alright, that was a cruddy joke. But they are pretty useless. Maybe if they didn't stop while attacking and did not run in circles for 5 hours, then they could be quite dangerous.

Also, Pinky is best pony.

Phml said:

Edit: actually, this sounded like a fun map idea. So here goes: BMLWINC (Boom compatible).

jesus, this on UV.. I feel like I'm terrible at this game now :p, I could play a megawad of stuff like this though, nice gimmick arenas that test a very specific doom skill. btw i'd recco putting block monster lines around all the teles, unless the nonsense tele chaos was intentional

printz said:

Now imagine yourself just standing there while the demons growl in vain. Maybe they playtested it and saw this bug.

Then they saw them uselessly chasing other monsters and players around, snapping uselessly at the air where their butts used to be, and thought that this was funnier.

For all of its intimidating(?) appearance, fearsome charging and deep growling, the pinky sure got the short end of the stick and made into a joke.

printz said:

Could be the blockmap bug? ... Maybe they playtested it and saw this bug.

Did they fuck, because they'd have fixed the damn thing.

I could play a megawad of stuff like this though, nice gimmick arenas that test a very specific doom skill.

Yeah, with bite-sized individual parts even situations that would be tedious in a middle of a normal map can become interesting. Surprisingly fun to make, too, as there's just one simple idea to execute. Could be a cool group project.

Lack of blocking lines was intended, the idea being if you leave an arena early you get demons spilling everywhere. Fights being triggered by shootable switches I figure it shouldn't put you in an impossible spot (but haven't played UV extensively, given the layout perhaps monsters tend to bunch up at the player TP locations? That would be a problem).

On the other hand, just noticed I made a pretty stupid design mistake in the stairs room (you can camp between the lowering pillar and one of the walls).

Phml: Than wad was fun, I couldn't manage any of the rooms. :p But I think you should have put at least an armor in the secret on UV, because the secret is empty on anything higher than HNTR.

A "training" mapset like this would be interesting indeed.

Job said:

Has anyone made a "greater pinky" using Decorate? One that is, say, 25-50% larger, inflicts more damage and has more hitpoints? Or possibly a boss pinky? If so, I'd be interested in something like that. This thread has given me an idea for a map.

I seem to remember Reelism having a large, unkillable Pinky in it.

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=31490

schwerpunk said:

hisss*snort!*sss...!

Yeah, this thread got me thinking of what a flying Pinky might play like. Turns out it plays like a poor man's caco in the little test map I souped up. Still just cannon fodder.

Still kinda cute, though. :3

Kinda looks like a lost soul

Zed said:

This is one of the main reasons I almost always play with -fast. With "normal" settings they are annoyingly slow.

Agreed. Normal demons are no more than a mobile target practice. The -fast parameter makes them one of the scariest monsters in the game. In fact, it also changes monster balance - demons are now able to win a lot of fights they would most likely lose due to their lack of speed.

Re Flying Pinky:

Doominator2 said:

Kinda looks like a lost soul

Hm, I think you've just given me an idea on how to spice up its Decorate!

Would not change the pinky. It is less dangerous than imp, tougher to kill than imp, and necessary to implement lower difficulty.
There should be a weaker creature like a rat, for the ambiance.
Not everything has got to be equally tough.

D2TWID has some good use of pinkys and specters, I ended surrounded by them many times effectively.

BTW any notable wad with sped up pinkys? both attack and walking.