Why so few wads utilize new monsters?

Hello.

So, I was lately playing Awakening. Most probably agree it's a great wad, quite unexpectedly hard too. (I play on UV)

It also includes a slew of new monsters. I've played a ton of different wads, and custom monsters are rare to see in them. Now, most certainly, new monsters does not a wad good make. However, I personally am of the type, that new monsters (graphics/sounds/etc if they are any good) make the wad much more interesting to me than it would be otherwise.

I'd like to ask the community why they are used so little. Certainly I can think of some reasons;

a) balance issues - naturally you can't just replace monsters from a wad with new ones. However, surely, if you design a wad from scratch no matter what the monster is like you can balance it.

b) dislike of new monsters in general - yes, some certainly suck duck but I do think many are a real good fit to doom. Also points for variety - would it really hurt if you had, among your normal imps, say, a few examples of variant imps? Or one of those fast-firing zombies among normal zombiemen. They wouldn't need to be used in great numbers, and probably wouldn't change the fight feeling all that much, like say those chainsaw zombies sure might.

c) purism; if it wasn't in Doom I won't use it - this is certainly a valid viewpoint. I however disagree myself with it, and can that explain all of the lack of new monstars?

What else?

Many times, the default monsters are enough to do the job. Often if you can use new monsters, you're using a port that doesn't give you any bounds. So you're tempted to hoard LOTS of monsters because of this, weapons and special effects whatnot, creating a mishmash. And gone is the coherency, and the motivation to design something interesting.

Tl;dr: it's difficult to map something with new monsters.

Unless the monster does something really different and fills a different niche in the monster ecology, it's pretty redundant and not worth adding.

Effort. Even grabbing and implementing a pre-made monster from realm 667 or wherever is more effort than using the defaults (which takes zero effort) so it gets a pass from me. I like to choose the path of least resistance.

I wouldn't say there are "so few" levels using new monsters. There are plenty.

However, you have basically two ways to have new monsters in a mod. The first is the old dehacked, and it's complicated and limited. The other is to use a port that allows to define custom content, and then there's no universal standard for Doom ports so you're going to limit your options in terms of target ports.

So in the example of Awakening, since it targets ZDoom, it uses DECORATE to add its new enemies. You can't play that mod correctly with PrBoom+, Doomsday, Eternity or whatever other port you'd like.

Also, yes, new monsters have a bad reputation. Some of the arguments against them make little sense, but those that are pertinent are that they can too easily be poorly balanced or ill-adapted to the level.

The cast of Doom II covers most of the bases. It's hard to think of a good monster that would add gameplay value, and even harder to manage to make one successfully.

udderdude said:

Unless the monster does something really different and fills a different niche in the monster ecology, it's pretty redundant and not worth adding.

This certainly is a valid viewpoint - I respect it. I however fail to understand why "variety" is "redundancy". Surely, the alternate version of genus impus is not very different, but it is a bit different - it adds variety to the horde of brown impse's.

Phml said:

The cast of Doom II covers most of the bases. It's hard to think of a good monster that would add gameplay value, and even harder to manage to make one successfully.

Actually, there may be some:

- stealth, silent, ethereal, scary monsters: Doom and Doom 2 are devoid of them vanilla. Bestiary example: the KDIZD nightmare. You can go further, have some guts, and design an ethereal monster that doesn't even have active sounds.

- unpredictable attack volley monsters. It totally puts the player into an extra level of alert or panic. Example is the mere heresy lord. In contrast, mancubi are predictable.

- new episode bosses. That's a sure bet, to design an all new episode boss that appears only once or twice, just like how the spiderdemon did in Doom 1.

- special ability monsters. I don't mean having more random attacks per monsters, that's weak. I mean monsters that can do something unique to their species (for instance sensing others of their kin, and doing something about it), usually helped by global scripting.

@Porrima: the problem I'm encountering with richening the monsters species is that there's a detail that might not be easily noticed: unless the port is ZDoom, or a trickery with variables is employed, the different species of genus impus will attack each other to death, defeating the point of variety.

printz said:

Many times, the default monsters are enough to do the job. Often if you can use new monsters, you're using a port that doesn't give you any bounds. So you're tempted to hoard LOTS of monsters because of this, weapons and special effects whatnot, creating a mishmash. And gone is the coherency, and the motivation to design something interesting.

Tl;dr: it's difficult to map something with new monsters.

Not really, all it takes is analysing their attacks, health, speed etc. compared to the default monsters and using it to plan their usage. And there's no limit to the number of times you can do this per wad. It does help if they're not all thrown together in the same room etc. but the same can be said for the default monsters as far as mishmashing goes.

The same applies to weapons...compare attack type, firing rate, damage, ammo usage etc. to the default ones and plan accordingly. It's not related at all to map design, a good mapper will always get that bit right. Coherency is just a comparison against the default resources and "interesting" is a matter of opinion. (I for one think that new mobs etc. provide interest, as otherwise it's just more of the same)

The real reason ppl think that new mobs are unneccesary etc. is the classic human fear of change...they're too used to the default mobset to consider venturing outside of it.

Gez said:

The first is the old dehacked, and it's complicated and limited.

But perfectly acceptable it seems...when was the last time ppl dissed a wad because it used dehacked mobs as opposed to decorate?

printz said:

Actually, there may be some:

- stealth, silent, ethereal, scary monsters: Doom and Doom 2 are devoid of them vanilla. Bestiary example: the KDIZD nightmare. You can go further, have some guts, and design an ethereal monster that doesn't even have active sounds.

- unpredictable attack volley monsters. It totally puts the player into an extra level of alert or panic. Example is the mere heresy lord. In contrast, mancubi are predictable.

- new episode bosses. That's a sure bet, to design an all new episode boss that appears only once or twice, just like how the spiderdemon did in Doom 1.

- special ability monsters. I don't mean having more random attacks per monsters, that's weak. I mean monsters that can do something unique to their species (for instance sensing others of their kin, and doing something about it), usually helped by global scripting.

@Porrima: the problem I'm encountering with richening the monsters species is that there's a detail that might not be easily noticed: unless the port is ZDoom, or a trickery with variables is employed, the different species of genus impus will attack each other to death, defeating the point of variety.

You missed one:

- Zombies with new artillery.

Actually, your last point about infighting goes in the other direction, too. For example, Plasma Rifle Zombies will not infight as they fire projectiles, whereas hitscanners normally infight indiscriminately. I find it does help to mix them up in this case.

The stock monsters tend to be a pretty balanced bunch, a few sensitive annoyances aside.

Moderation is the key.
The first time I've met Decorate monsters is when I played a very good wad called Zaero - Episode One. The wad featured only a few select new monsters, which were very good. I was particularly impressed by the Cacolich, by Vader, but there also were other things like a rapid-fire zombie, a rocket zombie and an Afrit variation.
Those monsters were perfectly integrated to the maps' themes, and to Doom as a whole. It didn't felt out of place at all. I recall that seeing those monsters had me thinking something like : "Wow, this is really the future of Doom. Those monsters bring something new to the game."

Today, I'm not so enthusiastic about new monsters, maybe because I've played too many wads in which they were badly used, or maybe I plainly disliked those monsters. For instance, people are crying when there's too many Revenants, but have they played Realm of Cheogsh ? Those Soul Harvesters are really a plague, I mean, those enhanced tracking projectiles, it's not fun at all. Gimme 1000 Revenants instead of those things... Same goes for the KDiZD Hell Warrior. No, really, this was supposed to be a E1 tribute, why did they want to slow down the gameplay that way ? ... :/
Shadows felt so out of place, too... On another hand I think they really did a good job with the Bruiser Demon, capturing the very idea of what the Baron was back in time and upgrading it to today's player skill standards. I'm eagerly awaiting TSoZD to see what they can come up with as a replacement for the Cacodemon and the Cyberdemon.

I believe Decorate monsters can be a good thing if used well and sparingly. Just don't throw everything you find on Realm667.com at the player, make your selection and make sure it fits in Doom, or in the wad you're making.
When playing Stronghold, sometimes I felt I was in some kind of zoo. It's prolly just me, but I felt it's just too much.

Super Sonic Doom had a very interesting approach concerning new monsters : some of them were recolored to fit the levels' theme.
Eriance is planning something very good for Demon Eclipse as well, with some monsters appearing only in a few select areas.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

[...]when was the last time ppl dissed a wad because it used dehacked mobs as opposed to decorate?

As said above, I think moderation is the key. Dehacked, just because it's hard to use and limited, is actually a good "moderator" in that case. I mean, since you can't add too many things with it, you'll be much more selective about what you'll add. It's somehow a form of quality control to me.

Not saying Dehacked monsters are all good, for example I'm not a big fan of Scythe 2's evil Marine, and I felt UAC Ultra's Haymaker doesn't look too serious with his rollerskate-like animation, but otherwise the added monsters are here to fill important niches ( see Deus Vult II ) and fit well in the game. With Decorate monsters somehow you have the feeling they're added just for the sake of it ( again, see KDiZD and the Dark Imp variants - do each of them bring something new, considering the Soul Harvester was here as well ? ).

I really like new monsters myself (obviously). I think there are various reasons why they aren't used all the time, many of which have been mentioned already. The biggest hurdle I think is simply learning how to add them to a WAD. It took me a long time to figure out how to add them to a .WAD while building Awakening, and involved a lot of forum posting and research. It's easy as 'ell once you know what you're doing, but there's a lot of concepts (lmps, etc) you're basically left figuring out on your own. There's a lot of confusing and misinformation out there about it.

Then there's the compatibility thing and the purist line of thought. But I think new monsters really give the game whole new life. My choice of monsters is always those that are tweaks of the classics. Take the mech demons from Awakening, that are a little faster and bite a bit meaner then the classic pinky. Might seem a bit redundant and unnecessary, but I also gave them a very low pain chance, meaning it's tougher to kill them with a chainsaw without having your head bit off. This little change forces the player to learn something new and adapt his/her play to new strategies.

Another good example is the altered version of a lost soul I've made for future projects, which cannot be shot while charging. They look fairly similar to the original lost soul, so the player has to decide when in the heat of battle if the lost soul charging at him/her can be shot to be stopped or if the player must dodge. I've found when I've thrown them in a mix with regular lost souls I wind up oftentimes dodging normal lost souls I could easily shoot to stop, letting them get close and become more of a threat.

These little changes mix up the game play and keep the player on his/her toes. I'm all for new monsters as long as they offer some new choices for the player to make.

NT