Cool idea for a new boss

My cousin talks a lot of trash about DooM...but one day while I was mapping, he asked me if I was able to make custom monsters. I informed him that I didn't know how to do that yet, but that there are tons of people that do know how.

Anyway...his idea for a final boss was worded like this:

"Dude, what if you weren't the original doom guy in a game? Like, say you were his son or something like that...then at what you think is the end of the game, if you get a high enough score, you are taken to a secret level where you have to go head to head against doom guy's spirit? You know, like he dies and goes to Hell, kills the devil and takes his place as ruler of Hell?"

At first I just kind of chuckled at it...but then I got to thinking...how cool would that be if there was a secret final boss that acted differently for each player each time they played?

Think about it...this DoomDevil could be Doom Guy, slightly transparent, in tattered armor, blood all over him, demonic backmasked laughter...and here's the cool part. His accuracy, movement style, and weapon of choice are determined by data gathered by the game based on your skill and style of play throughout the campaign.

Say at the end of the "last" map, your score is tallied up and you have 92% accuracy, moved around in a tactical fashion (not all over the place), and you used the chaingun throughout most of the game.

In that scenario, your secret final boss would be 92% accurate with the chain gun and use his environment wisely.

On the adverse, say you had 62% accuracy and used a shotgun for most of the game while moving around like a madman looking for his next dose of crank...well, the new boss acts accordingly. Essentially making the true enemy yourself.


I have no idea if this idea is even possible, but just a thought I had.

(Original photo is not mine, I only edited a photo of doomguy I found.)

ACS function GetLevelInfo can give you various level statistics (like number of killed monsters). Knee Deep in ZDoom (famous ZDoom mapset from 2007) even had scripts to calculate spent ammo etc. Accuracy and main weapon can be calculated from these stats. You can store the values as global variables via ACS. Then you can use them on the boss map, either by controlling the boss via ACS according to these stats, or by spawning one of predefined boss types (with high or low accuracy / different weapons) according to the stats. All of this should be possible, but a hard work. I wouldn't want to bother with doing it, it doesn't seem worth the effort. I'd simply spawn a hard boss with unpredictable behaviour. Like was the final boss in DTS-T.wad - an evil marine with Doomguy's weapons.

Meh.

You can make the enemy use a specific weapon and have a specific health and speed. But you can't make him really intelligent even using DECORATE to its fullest potential.

Looks like a former sergent version of a space Marine.

Well...
What if you gave him all your weapons instead of the one you used?

This is the DTS-T final boss:

No, the boss should be a body glued to tank treads.

It's a good idea in theory, but... Doomguy sacrificed a lot to defeat hell and save the world. It seems shitty to suddenly corrupt him and make him the evil king of hell. Maybe it could be all the violence and hate in him has split off and become its own entity, while the goodness was Raptured to Heaven?

Personally though, I hate it when they bring heroes back as corrupted villains for one final appearance. Lancelot in Merlin is the only one I can remember offhand, but it's happened a number of times. It cheapens the character and insults his/her memory, just to get a cheap cameo.

Clonehunter said:

No, the boss should be a body glued to tank treads.

Also already done.