Doom and HP balance

As much as I love Doom, there is one thing I haven't ever really liked that much about the game: Bullet sponges.

Some enemies such as barons take too much ammo to kill. It's not that big of a problem if you have enough rockets or cells but I have never liked it how it can take forever to kill some enemies because of their high HP. In addition, when it takes very long to kill an enemy a side effect of this is that your weapons don't feel as fun to use because when they kill things slowly it makes your weapons feel like a piece of crap.

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

31 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

I assume you're referring to the original IWADs (or, perhaps, just The Ultimate DooM). I'm not sure the problem is the actual enemy itself, as much as the way it is used. For example, when facing only a Baron in an open area with just a shotgun, the fight might become tedious. But give the player a super shotgun and have him/her face a Baron in cramped quarters, and all of a sudden you have changed the dynamic to one of tension and excitement. Or have the player face a Baron and other enemies (e.g, Cacos) in an open space, where you have to constantly dodge and duck, and using just a shotgun could be challenging and interesting.

Personally, I never had an issue with the ways the enemies were used in the IWADs. Of course, back then I was a novice player, and my focus was survival. Therefore, I was always grateful for a shotgun, even when being pitted against the so-called "bullet sponges".

3 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

As much as I love Doom, there is one thing I haven't ever really liked that much about the game: Bullet sponges.

 

Some enemies such as barons take too much ammo to kill. It's not that big of a problem if you have enough rockets or cells but I have never liked it how it can take forever to kill some enemies because of their high HP. In addition, when it takes very long to kill an enemy a side effect of this is that your weapons don't feel as fun to use because when they kill things slowly it makes your weapons feel like a piece of crap.

 

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

Map design can avoid this by leaning on monsters that have low HP relative to the player's DPS. Single shotgun maps might rely on low-tiers, with sparing mid-tiers; and as the player's arsenal gets more buff, you 'unlock' the option to use beefier monsters and in greater number, while preserving the choice to use low-tiers. (Alternate killing methods such as crushers and monster-on-monster infighting also factors into the DPS calculus.) The 'Rule of Fun' is also very important: fighting a baron with the single shotgun, or hell even a cyberdemon, can be a valid gameplay choice if you make it enjoyable enough.

The problem you are describing is a common symptom of maps that don't uphold these principles. One common form of dull gameplay has you grinding through lots of low-threat mid-tiers with the SSG and few rockets or cells, for example. Maps like these might indeed be more fun alongside a DeHackEd patch that lowers monster HP. But in better maps, this won't be the case, because the action will be tailored in the first place to the specific HP values of any beefy monsters present. 

7 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

No, I don't think doom would be better if everyting had lower HP and more damage to compensate, because there already are quite a few rather "glassy" monsters in the game.

When players have to fight too many mid or high tier monsters without them posing an actual threat (Like singular Barons in wide hallways), thus making gameplay feel "chewy", then it's a mapping issue, and not a balancing issue.

5 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

Quite the opposite, I'd rather have tougher enemies with harder (and more varied) attacks so that less of them need to be used at once.

Since Doom 1 (or Ultimate Doom) is easier due to the monsters available at the moment, Doom 2 was created to compensate that "weakness". I can't imagine having the same monsters a "balanced amount of HP and damage"....it'll break the balance that the game already has. Just check the custom monsters in R667, for example. Some of them has low HP but has ridiculous abilities. 

7 minutes ago, YukiRaven said:

Quite the opposite, I'd rather have tougher enemies with harder (and more varied) attacks so that less of them need to be used at once.

Based on tier and rarity, yeah.

I'm not really sure youre making a good argument here. There's a large contrast between the amount of damage monsters can absorb from weakest to strongest enemy, but the weapons in Doom have a large contrast in the damage they deal.

the strongest weapon works pretty effectively against the strongest monsters as does the weakest weapon with the weakest monsters. I'm not sure what there is to gain to drag everything into the middle.

If there weren't big strong monsters, then what would be the point of the big strong guns?

This is thankfully less of an issue today than back in the 90's where cells and rockets were often very scarce vs the amount of beef in the maps. MM and HR for instance, where you end up with a lot of SSGing Barons even on continuous. I'd like to see more generous rocket placement in general, as it's a very fun weapon to use with some possibility of risk depending on the environment.

I've seen some wads that tried to "fix" monster HP but they always felt wrong and uncool.

6 hours ago, YukiRaven said:

Quite the opposite, I'd rather have tougher enemies with harder (and more varied) attacks so that less of them need to be used at once.

Sounds like Quake. It has a certain downside: when individual monsters are tough to deal with, their combinations quickly become overwhelming = less opportunity for varied encounters.

5 hours ago, 40oz said:

I'm not sure what there is to gain to drag everything into the middle.

And this sounds a lot like Heretic.

11 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

As much as I love Doom, there is one thing I haven't ever really liked that much about the game: Bullet sponges.

 

Some enemies such as barons take too much ammo to kill. It's not that big of a problem if you have enough rockets or cells but I have never liked it how it can take forever to kill some enemies because of their high HP.

I agree so far.

11 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

In addition, when it takes very long to kill an enemy a side effect of this is that your weapons don't feel as fun to use because when they kill things slowly it makes your weapons feel like a piece of crap.

This can be solved by mixing high-HP enemies with low-HP ones. Both threaten the player with their attacks, but the high-HP ones additionally threaten him by not dying easily, while the low-HP ones die easily enough to keep the pace feel fast. This setup is also good to force the player to act strategically: Which enemies to kill first? It may depend on the specific monster types, their amount, placement, map architecture, and probably more.

11 hours ago, hardcore_gamer said:

Do you think Doom would have been better if enemy HP had been lower and enemy attack damage increased to balance things out?

Not really. Yes, low-HP enemies are generally more efficient at providing fast paced challenge. However, high-HP enemies have their place in fast paced challenges too, including (but not limited to) support for low-HP enemies, fights in tight space, or "doors with health" preventing the player from escaping another danger. Low-HP enemies that just do high damage are often less appropriate for those purposes than high-HP ones, precisely because they die too fast. This can't always be corrected by throwing in hordes of these enemies, firstly because some challenges only work good if the player doesn't get overwhelmed, secondly because it increases chances that the player will "randomly" be hit and suffer high damage, which can be annoying if it happens too frequently.

What bullet sponge monsters beside the baron -a mini-boss by design-? The arch-vile? Miniboss as well. If anything the baron is too weak to compete with the other mini-boss and should've been buffed with deadly attacks when they made Doom 2, They made the hell knight after all since barons everywhere isn't fun.

The first thing that pops into my head when I saw this thread... Lost Souls. 100 HP is too much for me; lower their HP to 60 and you can take them out without a problem.

4 hours ago, Memfis said:

I've seen some wads that tried to "fix" monster HP but they always felt wrong and uncool.

They must be doing it wrong, then. ;)

6 hours ago, Pegg said:

What bullet sponge monsters beside the baron?

Well to be honest 90% of the time I am annoyed because of HP being too high for a monster it's because of the baron lol. But still, there are some other less but noteworthy examples of some monsters having a bit too much health:

-The lost soul should not be able to take more than 1 close range shotgun blast.

-The pinky demon should not be able to take more than about 2. After that shooting them starts to feel tedious.

So yea, that's pretty much what I would change. Somewhat lower the health for the baron, soul and pinky and I'm good. Though to be frank I think it would have been best if the baron were simply replaced with a new monster since lowering his hp too much would just make him another hellknight.

5 hours ago, HavoX said:

The first thing that pops into my head when I saw this thread... Lost Souls. 100 HP is too much for me; lower their HP to 60 and you can take them out without a problem.

In the PSX version, their HP is reduced to the amount that you said...more or less

On 8/6/2017 at 9:50 PM, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Well to be honest 90% of the time I am annoyed because of HP being too high for a monster it's because of the baron lol. But still, there are some other less but noteworthy examples of some monsters having a bit too much health:

 

-The lost soul should not be able to take more than 1 close range shotgun blast.

-The pinky demon should not be able to take more than about 2. After that shooting them starts to feel tedious.

 

So yea, that's pretty much what I would change. Somewhat lower the health for the baron, soul and pinky and I'm good. Though to be frank I think it would have been best if the baron were simply replaced with a new monster since lowering his hp too much would just make him another hellknight.

Then use the SSG instead of its smaller sibling. Lost souls have that much hp from the lack of re-balancing between the transition to Doom 2 -for whatever reason ID used- and being mid-tier with cacos in Doom 1 (as funny as it sounds).

If I take the lost soul for an example, in Doom 64, their HP is reduced but they attacks a lot. They are freaking relentless...

30 minutes ago, Pegg said:

Then use the SSG instead of its smaller sibling.

There is no SSG in the original Doom so your point isn't really valid. And frankly even with the SSG fighting barons feels like a chore.

You still should have options for them, though. I've noted before that on pistol starts plasma and rockets seems pretty limited in the original doom, but there's usually enough to deal with any barons that come your way. I suspect the more well known Doom 1 levelsets do the same if they want you fighting lots of barons.

Barons are definitely a chore though and they are my least favorite monster in the game. The immense creativity of the Doom community means they're not without merit entirely, and people have put them to use in interesting situations, but the amount of uses for them is pretty limited.

Funny thing about that term bullet sponge... are you fighting it with a pistol or a super shotgun? Crazy right? It was a big complaint about Borderlands. Mega Man bosses are quite the bullet sponges.

Maybe if the enemies reacted to getting shot.

As for attack damage increased and enemy defenses lowered.... nope. Not at all. A living enemy is a threat. A living enemy gives the game more time. Shmups throw a few thousand enemies at you and people expect to kill them pretty quick. Shmups tend to last 30 - 60 minutes. Same with Contra. Plus if its so easy to die... people complain or it would become legendary for being "Doom hard."

With that said the Super Shotgun is great and helpful to keep the game moving.

On 8/6/2017 at 10:39 PM, hardcore_gamer said:

There is no SSG in the original Doom so your point isn't really valid. And frankly even with the SSG fighting barons feels like a chore.

Did you read the second half of what I wrote? No you did not.

All the enemies having too low HP is a big problem in Duke Nukem3D. Everything dying in 1-2 shotgun shots takes away a lot of variety and fun from the game and noone besides bosses can survive a single shot from the RPG (only assault commander sometimes can).

19 hours ago, Pegg said:

Then use the SSG instead of its smaller sibling. Lost souls have that much hp from the lack of re-balancing between the transition to Doom 2 -for whatever reason ID used- and being mid-tier with cacos in Doom 1 (as funny as it sounds).

Classifying Lost Souls as a mid tier monster has to be one of the funniest jokes I've heard in a long time.

And why is it such a problem that it can survive a shotgun shot anyway? I see this thing come up all the time on Doomworld and can't get my head around it. It is the same as saying that a mancubus shouldn't be able to survive 3 rockets. Completely pointless.

About the whole "Baron affair". It is actually nice to have a monster that can take a beating. Is he mostly harmless in most situations? Yes. Does he harm you in any other way besides HP? Yes. He takes a lot of ammo to kill and is harder to one shot with a BFG than a spider mastermind. That is his place in the game. That and him being a target you can't quickly get rid of.

I'd rather remove the spider mastermind than Baron of Hell if I had to choose between the two.

On 8/7/2017 at 5:54 PM, idbeholdME said:

 

Classifying Lost Souls as a mid tier monster has to be one of the funniest jokes I've heard in a long time.

 

In the context of Doom 1 where barons of hell are high threat and the biggest threat in the game beside bossees is the environment? In Doom 2 they are low tier because real threats fill the role instead of just cacos and nothing else with them.

14 hours ago, Pegg said:

In the context of Doom 1 where barons of hell are high threat and the biggest threat in the game beside bossees is the environment? In Doom 2 they are low tier because real threats fill the role instead of just cacos and nothing else with them.

True, it is very close in Doom 1, but I still wouldn't say they are medium tier. Again, 100 HP is very close, but just not enough and still goes down relatively fast and easy. If they had 125, then I would definitely give them the mid tier status. I'd rather put Demons and Spectres there that can somewhat regularly survive 2 shotgun shots.

But due to the limited roster in Doom 1, I can definitely see how they could seem like a mid tier monster.

I may also be conditioned by Doom 2 too much....

On 7/8/2017 at 11:54 AM, idbeholdME said:

He takes a lot of ammo to kill and is harder to one shot with a BFG than a spider mastermind.

You don't need to hug a Baron to one shot him successfully, and it's easy to dodge his fireball in case he shoots you before. The other one is much harder because you need her not to start shooting at you the moment she sees you, plus one shots not always work due to the blockmap bug (except in modern ports), so you risk to loose another (probably important) 40 cells or your life.

17 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

You don't need to hug a Baron to one shot him successfully, and it's easy to dodge his fireball in case he shoots you before. The other one is much harder because you need her not to start shooting at you the moment she sees you, plus one shots not always work due to the blockmap bug (except in modern ports), so you risk to loose another (probably important) 40 cells or your life.

The small size of the Baron requires you to be at or very near facehugging distance to down him reliably. It happens more often that not, that he survives a shot if you are any further away (depends mostly on the damage roll of the shot itself, not the tracers). Simply put, you cannot guarantee his death in one shot once too many tracers start to miss. And it is this uncertainty that is dangerous. Yes, he might die in one shot, but there is a good chance he will survive it. It is definitely more of a gamble, at least for me, to try to one shot a Baron than a SMM. And believe me, on -fast, getting to a reliable one shotting distance of a Baron without getting hit is not as easy as it might seem, especially in confined spaces.

The spider on the other hand is so huge, that most of the tracers hit it anyway and yes, I play with the blockmap bug removed, so unlike the Baron, one shotting SMM is reliable.

I play with the valiant monsters on most maps these days for this very reason. Less sponges, but still a bigger challenge.

The only time I feel like the "sponginess" is an issue in the iWads is at points in E4 of Ultimate Doom, particularly the Baron usage in M1 and M2. It genuinely feels like the team were desperate for a Hell Knight or other mid-tier monster coming off of designing for Doom 2, as their placement feels like the intended obstacle far more than the amount of ammo and time it takes to defeat them (in some pretty tight spots).

On 8/7/2017 at 10:54 AM, idbeholdME said:

About the whole "Baron affair". It is actually nice to have a monster that can take a beating. Is he mostly harmless in most situations? Yes. Does he harm you in any other way besides HP? Yes. He takes a lot of ammo to kill and is harder to one shot with a BFG than a spider mastermind.

This is a crazy assertion. It's lunacy with conventional mechanics, but it's wrong even in -fast. A fully healthy mastermind dies to a point-blank BFG shot ~3% at an arbitrary position with the classical blockmap, and ~31% in ZDoom, which is already a big obstacle. Couple that with it, like, firing at you, and it's a lot more dangerous.