Favorite enemy from the beastiary.

What are some of your favorite beastiary enemies. Any good places you've seen them used by wad authors?
I like the black imp.

The flying wizards, once turned into an arcade-y bossfight.


In an unfinished map of mine, now in the limbo. :(

Personally I can't stand the black imp because it's everywhere. Every wad that has custom monsters seems to have the black imp for no reason and it isn't even well used in those maps, it's just thrown in together with normal imps. :(

I've got to admit I really hate about 90% of the monsters on the beastiary. Most of the ones I like are either Vader's or Eriance's work, such as Vader's Shadow and Eriance's Cybruiser, which are both great, original monsters and great-looking monsters.

edit:

Enjay said:

suicide bomber

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Don't have a favourite but I do like the Imp Trite because it looks so silly.

I like how the Imp Warlord looks even though he's actually not that much fun to fight. In fact, many of these guys could use an overhaul in the decorate department.

Would be nice if the bestiaries monsters were converted to support Eternity as well as Zdoom.

Not sure Eternity supports all the codepointers Beastiary monsters may use. But otherwise, it's a simple matter of having people volunteer their work to write EDF files. I've looked at the format and decided I wouldn't.

I've ported a bunch of them over to EDF for use with a certain project, but of course it's far from all of them. And yes, there are some that use codepointers EE doesn't currently support or have functional equivalents to.

I like the arachnophyte, simply because when I first encountered one, I thought it was a cool design and a tough foe.

Like
Blood Demon (cool Doom interpretation of a D3 monster with great sounds)
Bruiser Demon (just cool, even if a bit tough for common use, and starting to appear a bit too frequently in people's mods)
Cacolich (I just like it :P)
Fallen (very cool appearance)
Hell Rose (looks cool and the way it works is novel)
Satyr (I know a lot of people don't like it, but I think it is very cool)
Shadow (very nice, quite creepy and has a different style of behaviour to most enemies)
Soul Harvester (a nice, disgusting imp variant)
Vulgar (very nice)
Wicked (OK, so it's very close to the Quake Wizard - I'm fine with that)


Dislike
Afrit (quite cool but used so often that I may have to stab myself in the eyes with a pencil if I see it again)
Death Incarnate (ugly IMO)
Hectebus (pale, washed out looks, a tacky recolour, overused)
All the "dark imps" (over used and not very interesting to fight)
Stealth Fighter (ugly sprite)
Thamus (the sprites kill it for me - a greyscaled cybie - bleh!)


The rest, I either haven't tried seriously, or have no strong opinion about one way or another. There are certainly some dull or ugly ones not mentioned but, equally, there are some that are very good too. There are also those that fall somewhere in the middle - eg the suicide bomber. His behaviour is pretty cool (and amusing) and his sprites are OK but his head always looks like its on squint to me.

However, the thread doesn't ask for a list, it asks for a favourite. So...

Favourite
Terminator. Despite the fact that I am not a huge fan of boss enemies, would find it far less useful in mapping terms than a smaller enemy and find it quite awkward to fight I just love this thing. As a general rule, I like the tech/sci-fi end of the Doom map spectrum and I guess that extends to the sprites too. This huge cybernetic creature looks fantastic, sounds most impressive and generally has fantastic presence. My only gripe is that it is based on a baron-like appearance. If it had used "normal" legs, then I would have found more use for it as an enhanced cyber-human-like enemy of some sort. But that really is merely a personal gripe and does not detract from the use of the monster in the context it was meant for.

My two favorite beasties are both modified zombies. There is the former human with the automatic weapon (used in KDiZD), and the former human with the sprites altered so that they look like they are actually firing a pistol, but is otherwise a basic zombieman. It makes sense, given the way that zombiemen attack, rather than looking like they were carrying some sort of assault rifle.

The suicidal rocket zombie was pretty neat too.

Favorite bigger monsters were the bruiser brothers from KDiZD, and the boss thing from the second level of thunderpeak, even if it was a little easy to defeat, it was still a great monster.

esselfortium said:

I've got to admit I really hate about 90% of the monsters on the beastiary. Most of the ones I like are either Vader's or Eriance's work, such as Vader's Shadow and Eriance's Cybruiser, which are both great, original monsters and great-looking monsters.

i stick with the works of these guys too, their creatures blend seamlessly with the standard enemies.

like:

- afrit. should have been in doom2 or final doom.
- arachnophyte: floating arachnotron on jets. looks evil.
- blood demon: cyborg pinkie
- blood fiend: hellish pinkie. perfect in demon eclipse.
- bruiser demon. burning baron, reminds me of diablo.
- cybruiser. i always wanted a mini-cyber enemy.
- diabolist, hellion. archie's offspring.
- hell rose, core tentacle: plants for some variety.
- lord of heresy - classic winged devil figure
- shadow, vulgar and wicked: for quake-themed maps.
- supreme fiend. a floating, legless mastermind. if it just didn't spam homing mines.
- terminator: great original sprite, since it isn't using parts from id sprites.



don't like:

- simple recolored sprites - bland, mortal kombat syndrome. planet of the imps.
- all those hexen/heretic cultist types if they appear in doom, where they don't fit into imo.
- catharsi: a stiff moving quake3 klesk
- cyber mastermind: interesting to fight, but doesn't look quite serious to me.
- illus, stealth fighter - plain blobs.
- imp trite. a crawling imp head, ffs.
- all lost soul modifications. because lost souls are annoying.


other:

annihilator: could be visually more different from a standard cyber than just having 2 launchers, and more dangerous. for example wider, armored, firing rocket volles from one gun and bullets from the other, to fill the cyber mastermind's role.

thamuz: interesting idea to have a phasing "spirit cyber" shooting plasma or bfg's, but the sprite looks washed-out.

satyr: looks a bit too bright to me so it sticks out, but i don't see what's essentially wrong with the goat for some.

hectebus: again, a good idea (a mancu-boss), but visually not appealing. good enemies blend with the originals, they don't stick out like pale blobs. aside from this, it's not very different from the mancubus. i thought of a legless mancubus hovering with a jetpack, something disgusting like baron harkonnen from lynch's dune.

esselfortium said:

and Eriance's Cybruiser, which are both great, original monsters

Original? Hardly so. It's just a baron with Cyberdemon parts ("guns of arms") and is probably based on the Doom 1 box art.

Not bad a monster, good work, probably a bit unfair; never tried it tho.

I think you got the Cyber-Baron and the Cybruiser confused.

Like:

-Shadow
-Satyr
-Bruiser Demon
-Hellion
-Wicked
-Cybruiser
-Archon Of Hell
-Blood Demon (the best Pinky variant IMO)
-Cacolich (/me <3 it)
-Ethereal Soul

Dislike:

-Stealth Fighter (sprites suck bad)
-Catharsi (i hate it because of its overuse in Stronghold)
-Source Guardian (DECORATE is nice, but sprites could have used some editing)
-Super Imp (useless)
-Dune Warrior (it's really annoying)
-Nailborg (sprites suck)

Favourite monster:

-Terminator (excellent addition to the Beastiary)

I hate a lot of the Beastiary monsters because many of them have weird behavior that is not similar to that of any of the monsters in doom. That irritates me because it's way too easy to identify DECORATE monsters from the traditional doom ones.

I'm not too familiar with any monsters except what was in KDIZD, CChest1, and Zpack, but I liked most of them. Unfortunately I'm terrible with names, so..

One of my favorites, in regards to how it was used/introduced, is the chainsaw zombies in KDIZM - you've never seen them before, are going down a dark, quiet mine shaft, and when it hits the bottom there are suddenly 3 of them, right behind you, chainsawing you to shreds. Now THAT is a perfect way to introduce a monster (by making you piss your pants while dying suddenly).

One monster I find very annoying, but think is good (makes a good fight) are those gray impish-things who throw slow homing fireballs.

I tend to like any of the small-fry zombie-ish monsters, especially the rocket-retards and kamikaze bombers. Now if only they had (deadly) snipers..

One of my most loathed enemies would be the (returned?) black skeletons (featured in Zpack's Fanboy) that DON'T FUCKING STAY DEAD and hurt you just by glaring. If I had a nightmare about Doom, it would have them in it. A good enemy, but only when not overused.

I like fast, aggressive, close-range attack monsters, especially the fast red demons (that DON'T puke at you) and spiders that run up and bite you, and even satyrs. Also the giant spider-boss at the end of Zpack was appropriately fast and deadly, and has my respect for that.

Diabolists are insane - I like them and hate them, but at least they're not boring.

Flying things are cool, as well as the winged (walking) baron.

I also like the robot-ish monsters, from regular arachnotrons to cybruisers to the Terminator (and whatever else has mechanical body parts).

Also the marines (SSG and plasma) are awesome and almost seem more fun to fight than "demons", at least if it's in a techbase (reminds me of starwars, and deathmatch).

Overall, I don't have a problem with most of the monsters in those wads I mentioned, as long as they are used appropriately and not too insane or too boring.

Favorite:

The black mancubi from Ultimate Simplicity.

Dislike:

The insane monsters from the god-awful Tarkannik megawad.

I don't think I could choose just one because there are a lot of good ones on there. I like monsters with original sprites the most though. The recolored monsters may not look all that interesting but sometimes they are interesting enough to fight.

Well, here's my opinion:

Favorite:

Bruiser Demon. It looks nasty, and is nasty. I tend to think of it as a level 3 or level 4 Baron.

Like:

Terminator
Suicide Bomber
Annihilator
Diabloist
Cyberbaron
Cybruiser
Maxibus
Demolisher

Don't Like As Much:
Thor
Arachnobaron
Nailborg
Thamuz

Other Opinions:

Avatar's attacks are extremely slow, which makes it a lot easier to kill.

well, the terminator is easily getting most votes, and deserves it. although it was rather easy to trick by simply hiding behind pillars, but design-wise it's great.

another boss i liked a lot (not present in the beastiary) was the chaos elemental from agent spork's ultimate simplicity ep.2. i think it's a recolored doom64 pain elemental, reminiscent of an ugly big mouthed dee ocean fish. it gave me a hell of a fight when it started to warp outside the temple and fire a quake3 bfg.

i just played a bit with monsters summoning them and letting them fight against each other. the demolisher pretty much demolished all competition. it could be a bit more different visually from the original, since it looks like an ordinary mastermind before it starts shooting.

i notice that i like the vulgar, shadow and wicked even better. excellent for dark, ancient / decayed themed maps.

to who has seen the remake of "the day the earth stood still", a GORT-like enemy would be neat. a big black cyclops with a glowing red eye shooting lasers from it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VivGnEvugs4&feature=related

@ pure hellspawn: what's that arachnobaron?

I think my favorite is among anything from Eriance, like the Vulgar, Wicked or Cybruiser, wich are all of great quality. I can't choose only one though...

One enemy I also really like is the Catharsi!
Although it may not have very original sprites and besides the fact, that it is based on a Q3A character, I think it works surprisingly good within Doom's enviroment.
Its way of attacking is quite unique (although maybe a little overpowered) and the way it drops the detonator upon death is just cool IMO.
It's so much fun luring demons into soon exploding bombs :D


Btw, feels good to see that my monsters seem to be well accepted :)

Vader said:

One enemy I also really like is the Catharsi!
Although it may not have very original sprites and besides the fact, that it is based on a Q3A character, I think it works surprisingly good within Doom's enviroment.
Its way of attacking is quite unique (although maybe a little overpowered) and the way it drops the detonator upon death is just cool IMO.
It's so much fun luring demons into soon exploding bombs :D

I've got to agree with that! The detonator is the main reason I liked the Catharsi enough to port it over for Vapor :3

It seems that "Terminator" is the one most favourite of the monsters from the beastiary judging from peoples response so far (couldn't a better name have been choosen for it?). I like it too, it is very profesional and cool looking, a shame they author used the baron as a base though 'cos if it wasn't for the shape and legs it would look nothing like the baron and make it more original. I prefer original enemies over Doom-based ones.

Well, although the sprites may be based on the Baron (actually the Cybruiser to be precise), every single pixel has been replaced.
Sure the overall pose of the upper body is mainly the same, but among other things the legs are done completely from scratch!
Just compare it for yourself...

I think the name is quite fitting for this monster... too bad a lot of people will propably automatically associate it with Arnie and the Terminator movies :P

What I don't understand is why Tormentor did such an horrible coloration to Vader's baron of hell (from Rebirth). He really fucked the sprites.

Torr Samaho said:
@ pure hellspawn: what's that arachnobaron?

I remember seeing the arachnobaron in the GZScoreDoom addon pack which was based off of the bestiary. It's a monster that fires a lot of plasma at once.

Vader said:

I think the name is quite fitting for this monster... too bad a lot of people will propably automatically associate it with Arnie and the Terminator movies :P

YES. Terminator is a landmark in the timeline of many of our lives. Don't borrow movie titles for monster names in the future.

Vader said:

I think the name is quite fitting for this monster... too bad a lot of people will propably automatically associate it with Arnie and the Terminator movies :P

I thought that until I saw it. Now, if anything, the name makes me think of something a bit more like these guys:



or maybe even



I still wish that the legs were the "right" way around though. :P

speaking of the bestiary, is is just my internet connection, or has realm667 been shut down? It's saying the location is not found on the server.