How can I make a good, fun and tough spiderdemon showdown?

I'm looking for suggestions on how to design a final spiderdemon battle, with just ONE spider mastermind, that'll also look impressive and deadly. And to be fun too.
And how would you think better to put accompanying Cyberdemons, Barons, Archviles etc. without allowing monsters infights.

I've already done a type of arena - four pillars with barons, on a slime yard, but I'd like to see other ideas too. Why I've written all this? Because I'm planning some big maps (some of you may know my first map released recently - e_ambush. It kinda sucked, but that was just an experiment. I'm expanding it.)

perhaps an often teleporting end room... or have something like 4 seperate large rooms where the player gets locked in where there are 4 spidermasterminds in each -- in a way that they cannot hurt each other, but you are almost always under pressure as a player.
look at wads that use spidermasterminds.... Hell Revealed has some effective traps with them. Usually they are quite easy... 3 barons can be harder.

Actually yeah, 3 arachnotrons are enough to overwhelm a mastermind. That's why I assume the player only has weak weapons.

Also, original Dis (from pistol start) makes a wonderful spiderdemon finale. If you just try to kill the spider in front, you will lose.
but there is a side tactic to defeat it.

As for HR levels, I confirm they have good spiderdemon fights. Underground Base especially.

One piece of advice:

Make sure the player doesn't have a BFG9000. Otherwise it degrades to a worthless joke.

I agree with the above as well as not allowing him to have a plasma rifle. That just makes it way too easy.

If you have to fight it close-up, then the plasma rifle doesn't make it too easy. Even a BFG isn't a foregone conclusion if it is set up so you have very little health by the time you encounter the spider, especially with -fast monsters.

Overall though, I think it is difficult to make a good genuine spider battle. Putting other monsters around it just leads to infighting, while it just isn't powerful enough in a fair one-on-one fight against a well armed marine. You'd need to give it some strategic advantages, such as bars that would get in the way of rockets or plasma, and perhaps rig it up so that the best places to attack the spider expose the player to added danger.

Of course, you could do a shub-niggurath, and have the spider in a place where you can see it but can't hit it, and you kill it by a telefrag. It's not really a spider showdown then though.

Thanks Grazza! The telefrag is the key. Don't ask why, I know how to plan it. Even the BFG will be powerless this time!

Use your imagination. Think of what would look and feel cool and play good.

Having the spiderdemon randomly teleport onto different platforms by using ACS or some well-placed linedefs would be kinda neat. You never know where he'll pop up and start blasting you. Also maybe have some platforms you need to stand on to shoot him from. Giving him some extra attacks using zDoom Decorate would be kinda neat, too. If you like kinky stuff like that. Also only give the player the SSG, and don't throw around health/ammo like confetti.

Speed up his chaingun, give him more health and be sure to lessen his chance of a pain stance. For some reason it reminds me when I once used a Gameshark with PSX Doom and one of the codes was a superfast chaingun. It sounded like the spider's and was just as effective.

Or... give it a BFG? The spiderdemon already has trouble getting along with other monsters, and the BFG makes that certain.

Heh, I did that the other day, giving the Spiderdemon 1 BFG blast per attack (as opposed to an endless cycling shotgun-like attack,) and was messing around with the respawn parameter enabled and making the spider and the Cyberdemon play with each other in Map20 as movement practice after I modified my mouse and keyboard configuration.

Normally, atop those platforms (with the unmodified spider) they are somewhat even with the Cyb a bit on top, but if you give the Spiderdemon a BFG it will have the advantage, but can still lose from a clean start. The BFG is very much more powerful from a hand-to-hand range, but at long ranges it's actually worse than the Chaingun; some monsters on the ledges weren't even getting hit by the energy afterblast.

Rather use both bfg and chaingun.

If you want to modify the behavior then you have several options, if not, my suggestion is to put the spider alone (no other monsters) and give the player spread little ammo for each weapon, no health, all weapons but the bfg, and put the spider in some way that can see you when you enter the arena, still add some cover so the player can take a rest (but not much) and not just run picking up ammo and attacking the beast. Yeah, something like E3M8, probably the cover in a diferent way, and only the spider. That'd make a good fight.

Who says that you have to teleport the spider demon? Who says you cant just teleport it around and the player around? that way the player has to be on his or hers toes .... I dont know... probably a dumb sugestion... oh well... thats my 2c

Well whatever you do do not give out the Rocket Launcher, Plasma, or BFG, because the damn thing is so big that by taking cover with a random wall, it will always be trying to slowly get a fire line towards you and with those weapons it is just too easy to shoot at the legs while it cannot reach you, and defeat it.

Why don't you try to make a place with some moving platforms or little cover, or small platforms? Hmm, I do not know what to do, but I know what to avoid there. A good start is making the spider faster (Which I did) and also lowering the pain chance. If you put another enemy it can make the battle easier (In the first Doom the easiest thing is to get the baron to fight the spider, and then the other enemies to join in, you probably won't have to fire one shot to win, I've done it)

All in all, the spider mastermind is just like any enemy, excepting when you are in a zone without cover, it's über chaingun becoming extremely cheap.

I'm working on something myself, so I am going to have to put some of my ideas to practice relatively soon, heh.

Hope I helped.

a big circle room with a ring outside for the player with a window with supports here and there for minimal cover. Or use acs or whatever and give it a laser chaingun. that would look cool if you could get it to work

Remember the 'sniper' zombie from the zdoom monster resource wads? Imagine a spider mastermind shooting a hail of those little bullet projectiles. THAT would be pretty fricking cool.

I personally, would make use of varied footing when facing the spider. Don't use PILLARS to hide behind. try variations in the terrain, like trenches and foxholes, maybe a ridge. Those would be better and more interesting for a spider battle. and yeah, no energy weapons.

Make a big, long arena area, with you at one end, and the SM at the other, and do one or more of the following:

1. Have a few (very few) little short pillars pop up from the ground randomly at designated spots all over the place, making you constantly run across the no-man's-land for cover as they keep lowering back as soon as they raise.

2. Make very far shootable switches that pop up small bits of cover for a relatively short period, then reset (or have them only as one-time uses).

3. Put a decent weapon (or the only weapon that would make for a good, even fight) right in front of the SM.

4. Put linedef triggers randomly on the ground that put up entire barriers around some parts of the arena, or make the SM teleport up close to you and force you to evade.

5. And so on.

Also, try dehacking the SM and making it more powerful. It's way too underpowered as is.

Hmm I myself am going to need to do some Dehacking onto the SM for a map, but I am facing a little dilemma, this is, should I make it somewhat less resistant so it can be used more often (Like one would use a Baron of Hell), or should I make it much stronger? For now, all I have done, is making the sloppy thing faster.

But, what do you think should be changed in it? I'm still new at this, so I am not sure what Doom players would like to see

Martens said:

Hmm I myself am going to need to do some Dehacking onto the SM for a map, but I am facing a little dilemma, this is, should I make it somewhat less resistant so it can be used more often (Like one would use a Baron of Hell), or should I make it much stronger? For now, all I have done, is making the sloppy thing faster.

But, what do you think should be changed in it? I'm still new at this, so I am not sure what Doom players would like to see

Weaker SM for higher numbers: I don't think the SM could ever be weaker without becoming a different (and difficult) version of the Arachnotron.
Tip: E4M8-style battles could start like the mancubus battle from MAP07.

Stronger one: could be good for boss battles. I'm thinking of using 10000 health (all that a telefrag is able to destroy!) and MORE IMPORTANTLY: improving its AI (if it's possible...)

Or what about a "Running from Evil" MAP01?? Where you're chased by a Spiderdemon with SS Nazis popping in your way? How'bouddit?

That idea about the Running from Evil thing is actually good, I ought to use it, I just have to make the thing faster.