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Xfing

If you were to compile another expansion to Doom (or "Doom III")

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Doom 2 did a lot to expand Doom, compared to the first game. A new weapon (an absolutely legendary and revered one), the rather amazing Megasphere, tons of enemies and new textures. 

The vast majority of megawads made up to this day move within the constraints of the existing monsters, weapons and power-ups, though freedom in exploring other aesthetics and textures is notably much bigger, with innumerable texture packs being both created from scratch, adapting other Doom Engine games' own textures, or remaking them. 

But we've also had many talented content creators make tons of new monsters, some new weapons and even power-ups (like the Terrorsphere). These extra, custom assets are used in comparatively few megawads. And frankly, it's for good reason - while a lot of the custom monsters look good to great, the vast majority of them are derivative, modified versions of id's own. It's understandable that it takes less effort to modify existing sprites than to create one's own, especially if they're to fit the aesthetic. Even id themselves are guilty of that with the Hell Knight.

But yeah - after playing so many megawads with all the same monsters, it would feel really fresh to see some added new stuff making regular appearances. In smart, moderate amounts - like a legit expansion to Doom. Eviternity did pretty well in that regard - while it did borrow from the vast libraries of pre-made monsters, the way the new threats worked was fresh and justified - they behaved distinctly differently from existing monsters and required new tactics to fight, rather than just being the same cannon fodder with another paint job on. Unfortunately even Eviternity had to sacrifice some monsters, like the traditional Baron of Hell for instance, to bring in the new ones. On the other hand, other well-received mods such as KDiZD were guilty of using just too many monster types for it to be justified (three types of dark imps? come on!). It led to visual and conceptual clutter with tons of monsters directly resembling each other in how they work and what they do. 

So, if you were to compile an "official" add-on to Doom, a pre-selected number of assets that
- leaves everything that exists as it is
- simply enriches the game even further by adding justified new content that is not clutter 
- would be used as a basis for tons of megawads going forward 

what would you include in it? 

I personally don't have enough knowledge about what is available, but from stuff that I know, here's what I would add, personally:
- the KDiZD rifle OR some version of the Unmaker - both would probably have too much overlap, unless the Rifle was a pickup off Zombiemen and provided an option in between the pistol and the chaingun in terms of firing speed, while the Unmaker could just work as in Doom 64 as an extremely efficient rapid fire option. Both weapons would be supported by canonicity - the sprite for the rifle was in Doom's alpha for instance. 
- It's really hard to talk about textures, simply because of how vast the current library of available custom textures is, but I'd probably throw in some super-essential ones that most people have come to rely on these days (such as Plutonia's obvious blue water waterfall, or the custom-made lava one). I would also merge Doom and Doom II's libraries of textures, so that nothing is left out of Doom 2 - these days disk space is not an issue, obviously.
- hate to indulge in what I just knocked (palette swaps), but I'd actually like to have Nightmare Imps in, as a shout-out to Doom 64. The simplest black Imp sprite would do, and they'd launch those blue/red balls and have doubled health and damage output. I also wouldn't mind having some modified Pinky variation in as well - Eviternity's really changed the dynamics of the fights, since you could no longer down a pinky with a single Super Shotgun blast. I'd use one type only, either the green one from Eviternity, or the pink one modified with cybernetic enhancements (I see it as kinda similar to what what id later did with the Cyber Mancubus), with like 20-something or 30 health to keep things on edge.
- 2 or 3 more non-derivative monster types, not more. Each with different tactics to deal with. One of these being another boss-type monster in the same ballpark as the Mastermind or the Cyberdemon. 300-500 hp, blast damage resistant, same old. It would be nice if this one could fly, maybe have rapid-fire but dodgeable fire with a high damage output? 
- One or two more power-up orbs. Maybe one for haste? Though a Quad Damage-like temporary damage boost could probably also alter mechanics in fun ways.  

So what are your ideas? Has something like this already been attempted? 
 

Edited by Xfing

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I would love to have a multi-level elevator that goes to a certain floor depending on the amount of times you hit the switch. Also, more Wolfenstein enemies for the secret levels, like the Cyberdemon replacing Grosse, why not just have Grosse. And the Pinky demon replacing the Dogs, c'mon! Another boss could be a Cyberspider, a cyberdemon with two rapid rocket launchers with the Spidermastermind's legs. Maybe even getting the soul cube from DOOM 3. Another enemy could be a Cacodemon spectre. This would be an invisible Cacodemon that you can only see from knowing where its attacks originate from. A revenant without the stupid rocket launchers would be nice, and just having plain punching attacks, or have the revenant have the Arch-vile power to flame you up if you don't take cover, minus the resurrection. For power-ups, a perfect one would be a crusher shield for sections with those tricky crushing machines that come from nowhere. Or, a self-damage shield to block rocket damage. A good gun would be a rifle that has a bayonet for long and short-range combat.

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11 minutes ago, User Name said:

I would just bundle Alien Vendetta and Requiem like TNT And Plutonia and title it Supreme Doom.

or UAC Military Nightmare and Imp Encounter (SE) and title it Gay DOOM

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I would like a brand new megawad taking place in hell with monsters like the Nightmare Spectre and Nightmare Imp but with new additions such as a Cerberus style boss and Sword-wielding Oni that rushdown the player. New weapons would include a Flamethrower and a Rifle. they could bring over haste and quad damage from the new games as powerups.

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This is basically what Ye Olde Skulltag was to many Doomers for years. About half of what it added was great, stuff heavily inspired by Quake.

 

There was a grenade launcher, a railgun, some sweet new orbs like the turbosphere which of course made you faster, and the doomsphere that I think doubled the damage that all of your weapons did. The grenades were a little too "floaty" but other than that, I loved these parts of Skulltag.

 

There was a bunch of other stuff, some of it bad and some of it awesome. Pretty much every weapon and monster was given a new, more buffed counterpart. Not to mention it came with about 20 player skins which was fun for deathmach and co-op.

 

If you're curious about it, you can load this in the latest Zandronum: https://doomshack.org/wads/skulltag_content-3.0-beta01.pk3

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A few Doom Bible weapons (the Unmaker was meant to be in the commercial sequel by Tom Hall), at least 2 new boss-type enemies and a more challenging final boss in place of IoS, new colored (less brown/gray) textures, a few weak-tier enemies, and at least one mini-game akin to Keen Dreams/Catacomb 3D (the automap was going to have a hidden Asteroids minigame).

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Just give me a .wad with all of the exclusive console levels and the two pre-Sigil Romero maps edited into one complete episode:

Tower of Babel/Hell Gate (Jaguar family)

Hell Keep (Jaguar family)

Twilight Descends (PS1 family)

Threshold of Pain (PS1 family)

Redemption Denied (PS1 family)

The Marshes (PS1 family)

The Mansion (PS1 family)

Club Doom (PS1 family)

Sewers (Xbox)

Betray (Xbox)
Extra Map (the finished version of the unfinished mystery map from the 3DO port)

Tech Gone Bad (Romero)
Phobos Mission Control (Romero)

 

I think that would make an awesome add-on for the modern Doom Unity ports.

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As far as content goes, to me, the monsters and weapons of Valiant always felt to me like a very natural and well-implemented progression of Doom 2. I'd love to see another megawad using them as a base actually/

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My best idea is some kind of prequel add-on, which deals with stuff from the Doom Bible and Doomguy's relation to the Blazkowicz family.

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3 hours ago, LiT_gam3r said:

I would love to have a multi-level elevator that goes to a certain floor

 

Tangentially related, but you should play Going Down.

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6 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Also I want to add that I really enjoyed Xaser's Lost Episode and consider it like the Sigil before Sigil.


True, I liked the crap outta that one as well. 

Though this thread is more about assets, not maps really. If it were about maps, I'd be knocking myself for finding out about No End in Sight so late. Now that shit's right up my alley!

Oh, and btw, thanks for showing me the stuff, everyone! I'll check it all out.

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7 hours ago, 3saster said:

As far as content goes, to me, the monsters and weapons of Valiant always felt to me like a very natural and well-implemented progression of Doom 2. I'd love to see another megawad using them as a base actually/


Well, the problem with Valiant is that it replaces other things with its new monsters, rather than adding them with leaving the original roster intact, just like Eviternity. I wonder if that's the only way to go about things? Otherwise you'd need an add-on WAD for the new content or what?

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I suppose it would be pretty neat to have a story with it all where it begins as the Doom universe as we know it, and then something happens, converting all monsters in to a new mutation aside from already being regular hell spawn.

eg, it would start out as the norm and then suddenly there's a huge nuclear explosion where the mutations begin and as the game progresses the original monsters slowly become more and more mutated to the point where we could hardly compare them to the originals.

Not to mention as the levels progress; the maps start to change in appearance also.

 

The original monsters could be kept, as not all of them were effected, non effected ones derive from what looks to be un-infected areas.

Maybe there could even be a few cut scenes where we'd get to see some of the monsters actually mutate in front of us.

For example, we have an imp, then suddenly its skin bubbles, then abnormal eyeball sizes, then wings pop out of it and we have flying freak'n imps.. of course this is just an example, but you get the idea. And we'd also still have our old imps roaming about in our un-infected map areas.

 

Anyways, throwing it out there. ;)

Edited by Mr.Rocket

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- a thousand new props. trees and plants, futuristic garbage, city obstacles like lampposts, weird new hell fetishes, daggerfall-esque medieval flavour props, abstract stuff like hacx etc

- some of the best community textures which suit the existing Doom themes

- the "green" cybie getting popular in certain map sets that has 1000hp

- a green lost soul with 1hp to go with it

- one ginormous new level as its own expansion to stop everyone going on about megawads lol

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But yeah, to make it simple - if you were to have a Doom III, and imagine all future megawads being made with its contents. Name:
- 1 new weapon
- 5 new monsters

you'd like to see there. Who knows, maybe the community might go ahead and make something like this someday? If it were well thought-out then who knows, it might be a real good move.

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An unofficial Doom IV would be my first choice.

 

Bethesda botched it up real bad with naming it DOOM.

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Doom 2

Add a medium tier flying monster.

Rework/replace the pistol with a stronger one (like revolver/desert eagle that consumes more bullets when shooting to balance things out)

or make it a plasma pistol so you have the choice to use plasma early (that could also help with the pacing when pistol starting).

OFC start with some plasma and balance level around that.

Add x-fall textures like mud, water, lava (I know they are included with plutonia etc. but not in Doom 2), and modern URBAN textures.

Doom 2 has a really few usable city textires IMO. Doing city maps with stock Doom 2 textures is not fun. The city maps in Doom 2 are mostly terrible.

Replace the Icon of Sin with a REAL boss monster.

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also, the harbinger of doom from Wolfenstein RPG that is like the cyberdemon but a bit weaker because he does not have his rockets. An anti-doomguy that has the same amount of health as you and has an unmaker to totally drain your health, and when he dies you can pick up his unmaker. A BFS (Big F**king Soul) which is a lost soul that is extremely slow, but if he hits you, it's a BFG blast. Finally, a pain elemental that has a huge body that shoots out a bunch of lost souls.

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On 4/12/2020 at 10:06 AM, LuciferSam86 said:

I would like to see a proper "tower of Babel" and not a simple arena with a Cybie 


2,5D restrictions, unfortunately :(

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On 4/12/2020 at 3:06 PM, LuciferSam86 said:

I would like to see a proper "tower of Babel" and not a simple arena with a Cybie 

This mod can get you covered.

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On 4/11/2020 at 9:27 AM, 3saster said:

As far as content goes, to me, the monsters and weapons of Valiant always felt to me like a very natural and well-implemented progression of Doom 2. I'd love to see another megawad using them as a base actually/

 

I agree with this. To this day, I firmly believe that Valiant had the best custom monsters.

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IMO doom2's sandbox is rock solid, adding or removing things from it would mess with the balancing (esp. weapons.) a type of enemy I think would enrich the sandbox would be an enemy that throws a 'curveball' projectile in the direction of your circlestrafe; so if your strafing to the left his telegraph-animation would be his right arm raising and his projectile would curve around until it hits you. the only other demon that i think would fit well inside the sandbox would be an enemy thats mostly stationary who fires a projectile that moves through other demons without hitting them or causing infighting. the only type of weapon I can even imagine fitting inside the tightly knit doom2 sandbox is probably a flamethrower, which does low contact and burn damage, but has a higher chance to stun the enemy while they burn. this type of weapon still steps on the toes of the chaingun and plasma a bit, + it would probably have to have its own ammo (plasma is over saturated) but in terms of adding new weapons i think a crowd-control utility would be the best choice.

Edited by tgawt

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On 4/16/2020 at 7:48 AM, LiT_gam3r said:

The ouch face actually works, not a glitch!!!!!!!!!!!!

wrong topic.

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As far as new monsters go, most of Doom II's new monsters were scaled down bosses from OG Doom (Baron -> Hell Knight, Cyberdemon -> Mancubus, Spiderdemon -> Arachnotron), so either a scaled down IoS (stationary enemy that spawns other enemies, but that can be killed in a more direct manor) or even just a general enemy that spawns lesser mofos would be fitting. Another cool new enemy would be one that does area-denial attacks, spawning damaging flames or something that burn for a while in a set area before going out. Imagine fighting an enemy that does that while fighting archviles or revenants - the experience would be totally different! Then of course a couple of new bosses - probably one comparable in health and difficulty to the Spiderdemon and Cyberdemon - HellForged's Behemoth is a good example of what this could be - and then one new boss that's considerably tougher than them.

 

As far as custom enemies that would fit well, I've also found the D3 Wraith, Shadow, and Soul Harvester to feel like pretty natural extensions of the Doom beastiary. The D3 Wraith's ability to teleport is especially interesting.

 

New weapons? An area denial weapon that functions similar to the area denial enemy could be cool. A flamethrower could effectively do that, but so could another type of weapon. Other than that though. . . unless you want a super weapon for dealing with the new boss like D64 has, the traditional armory pretty much has every niche covered.

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