The Doom 3 Monster Discussion Thread Just for the hell of it.

Well, I haven't seen one ever, so lets talk about 'em.

Out of all the new guys that were introduced, I like the Wraith. It teleports. It stabs and slashes. And just looks awsome. Also, the Hell Knight and Caco reverbs are pretty cool too (Even though the Caco could be a bit tougher.).

So...

I like the Wraith. And in ROE, I like the Vulgar a lot (for some reason, tails win me over). The Hell Guardian is also pretty sweet. The renditions of the Demons have their ups and downs. I like the intimidating factor of the HK, the creepiness of the Imp, and the 'oh-shit' of the CyberDemon. Despite what I like, the alien looks of the demons (with the exception of a few who still have a demon-vibe) just seem too generic and make me miss the old 'classic' demon feel.

The wraith is very lame because you can take it out with your fists safely...

Rundown:

ZOMBIE: it's a bit lame that they all look the same, but they're fairly effective actually, because they pack quite a punch, and you're often tempted to take them out by melee.

Z-SEC: lame because they look like generic SWAT despite being on Mars in the future, you'd hope at least they'd use old Doom helmets... The pistol guys at least have the decency to look like the Doom 1 sergeants. They're decent as enemies, but the shotgun guy seems out of balance, because he's both deadly accurate and fast-firing (uncharacteristic to player's shotgun). You'd easily lose 40% health from one of these left alive, while a submachinegun bullet would only cause you 2%.

IMP: I like the imps, I think they're better than their classic counterparts. Their attacks have splash damage, they're more durable and know more tricks. They're a bit over-used, but so are the classic imps.

COMMANDO: very tenacious soldiers to kill you. The tentacle monsters can be countered by you crouching, but beware not to get in their kicking range. The chaingunners are more annoying, because they die with difficulty and fire a lot. I think they were underused in the original levels (the chaingunners...)

PINKY DEMON: I think this is their official name, not just "demon" like in Doom 1. Their attack and speed are much better than before, just like in -fast Doom, but their roaring habit doesn't help them at all, because it just causes them to stand there and be dead ducks. It would have been better if roars made them heal. Also, why the fuck no spectres in Doom 3? It would have been dead easy for id to make a refractive texture material for a demon skin.

MAGGOT: they're very easy to destroy, but are quite agile and can catch and land you a hit before you terminate them. I kinda like them.

WRAITH: as said, lame. Their teleporting is useless, they just warp three meters forward, in your gun's muzzle, and they give you ample time of everything. Even their attack is easily dodgeable. Other monsters hit you near instantly (even the thin zombies have an instant blow in their repertoire), but it takes this guy a couple of seconds to land his claw on you. You can fist it to death.

TRITE/TICK: everyone likes them, but I find them trivial, and spiders don't scare me, so it fails. Three submachinegun blasts, and they're gone. Otherwise, they resort to regular Doom 3 tactics: go melee, try to jump on, try to dodge.

LOST SOUL: these things are small and low on hit points, but they're far far nastier than in Doom 1. Have four of these on your tail, and you're already fucked up. They're less dumb and more agile than their large older counterparts...

CHERUB: more durable and agile than trites, these babies are more dangerous, and often their waves never seem to end.

CACODEMON: LAME. Having half the health of old cacos and TWO eyes, they're nothing on the old beholder myth. At least they try to bite the player which thankfully is still dangerous... but even their fireballs are destroyable. Dumb.

MANCUBUS: Not very deadly, they only fire one missile at a time... their actual property is durability, they really eat your ammo.

REVENANT: Much slower moving than the old revenants, otherwise they're fairly similar. Their rockets do less damage and are destructible, but are fired much more often and are always homing.

ARCH-VILE: Lame. Their summoning ability is required, because they don't have bodies to raise any more, but it could have been faster, because generally I kill AVs fast enough not to let them do it. They have far too few HP and their attack is underwhelming. Note that a classic instant attack is still implemented in the script! But I believe it isn't normally happening, except in mods. I saw it in one of Kaiser's maps.

HELL KNIGHT: Well, they're the Kings, and they deserve being placed on the Doom 3 cover. Their attacks are actually deadly, they always do huge damage to the player, with a splash damage like the Cyberdemons in Doom 1. They're actually something to be careful when encountering.

VAGARY: Cool idea, but appears too rarely, and has too many hitpoints not to be a boss. The telekinesis is quite an unique attack, ahead of its time -- it took until the expansion for the Grabber to appear.

GUARDIAN OF HELL: Lame, it looks too much like a stupid console platforming-shootemup boss. And its attack style looks half-assed. Kill its beacons, shoot its vulnerable point, repeat until dead. The model is OK, however, good for modding I guess.

SARGE: It's a solid boss actually, who shoots you with a BFG(!) or tries to claw you doing massive damage. But is sometimes unfair and impossible to beat without cheating (I'm talking about custom maps here). One of the few id boss who rely on brute force, not puzzles, to be beaten.

CYBERDEMON: Looks awesome but has an underwhelming attack. Its rockets don't do as much damage as yours, and are quite slow... But its interesting characteristic is that it moves faster than you if you get tired [in custom maps], and you become a dead duck. Definite plus over the Doom 1 cyber, this part.

I have to say the Spidermom is cool. Her animations are great. One day I was just looking around how the monsters look, how much polygons they got, etc. So I was god, noclip and notarget, but seemed like notarget worked a bit weird.

Anyway, I was at the second last map where there's two of them. First I let both of them try to attack me. Two of them were a bit much to concentrate, so I hid behind a wall so that one of them forgets me. Then I flied back to the large chamber and floated in the air, just a little out of her reach. Then she looked like a little child trying to reach something obsessively, run and spin around, jump up and slash with arms and screamed in agony of not being able to hit me.

The animations just were so fluid and realistic, unless it for some reason did the same action twice or more in a row...

Taking printz's approach...

ZOMBIE: They're sweet for automatically making just about any section of a map more creepy. You can fill a tight corridor section with some to force a timid player to cautiously look around with his flashlight, but they can also be the silent killers that'll sneak up on someone unnoticed after a gunfight with the greater monsters.

Z-SEC: I think they're too fast and accurate compared to the classic zombiemen.

IMP: I love the redesign, and their fireballs flying down hallways looks great with the lighting system. I just wish the AI acted more varied, with more Imps crawling on walls and ceilings.

COMMANDO: Perhaps my favourite new monster. Their speed, difficult to dodge attacks, and unrelenting nature can really spice up what's usually a pretty slow-paced game.

PINKY DEMON: They pretty much stole the Cacodemon's thunder to become the most iconic Doom 3 monster. I like them for pretty much the same reasons I like the Commando, and I just wish they were used more (Doom 3 co-op on the Xbox uses a lot thankfully).

MAGGOT: These are cool, because even though they're noisy, they still seem to get the drop on me since they run low to the ground and below my usual line of sight. I hear they have a fifth arm, but they move around too fast for me to ever see it.

WRAITH: Kind of dumb. You can kill them before they even get a chance to attack you and they turn invisible too much, turning into a big waste of time.

TRITE/TICK: Still scare the crap out of me. That section where you have to fight in a nest of them until the ladder comes down always tenses me up, and once the ladder finally does fall, I NOPE my way to the exit with my back turned to the new wave that begins spawning.

LOST SOUL: I like the new design. Nuff said.

CHERUB: Good, not great.

CACODEMON: Totally lame compared to the classic Caco. For one, it looks like a big root, which isn't nearly as cool as a big cherry. When you shoot them, they don't bounce around the room like they should. Their attacking behaviour is lazy, only launching a lightning ball every once in a while, which can be shot down. They're hardly a threat.

MANCUBUS: Don't look as frightening and soak up too much damage. I guess eating up ammo is their main purpose, but other than that, I'm glad there are only a few of them.

REVENANT: Pretty much the same as they are in Doom 2. I guess I'm glad they mostly stuck to some of the classic designs.

ARCH-VILE: I'd say they're about as menacing as the classic ones, just for different reasons.

HELL KNIGHT: Way better than the classic one, imo. Very intimidating at times.

VAGARY: At first I was disappointed that she basically replaced the Spiderdemon. Over time, I think she's probably my favourite boss to fight. It's just satisfying dumping bullets into her while avoiding her psychokinetic attacks.

GUARDIAN OF HELL: Second favourite boss. It would have been first if it was just a regular monster and not a puzzle.

SARGE: Kind of meh. Not bad, but he seems more like a Quake II monster and is kind of easy for something you'd fight that late in the game.

CYBERDEMON: I think the fight was a let down for everybody, but at least its design is cool.

I should've taken Printz approach at first...

Zombie: While easy to kill, I like the variety of them and their animations. I wish they were used more often than they were, since, they are without a doubt the scariest enemy in the game, or at least the one that you are actually afraid of. After a while of Demon slaying, they just weren't scary. Zombies though just had a strange creepy factor though that always made them scary.

Burning Zombie: A cool concept, my only beef is that they were waaaay underused. They appeared exactly Three times I believe. Twice in Mars City, and once in Delta Labs 2.

Z-Sec: While each has problems, each has a different strategy to take down. The Pistol zombie is way to easy. While he can dodge shots, you can still kill him by poppin' him in the head a few times, and also his pistol deals hardly any damage at all. Strategy here isto walk up to him and shoot 'til dead. The Shotgun guy is to hard to kill, and his gun is retarded in that while, his Shotgun is the same as yours, but his spread is smaller. Also, he shoots the thing without ever pumping the damn thing. Strategy though is to run back, and wait behind corners, and shoot at Point-blank. Machine Gun zombie though is perhaps the best. A couple of these and you, in a hallway, with crates, will create a neat western style shootout. Toop bad that never happened. THe sheild zombie is interesting in that he is a pistol zombie, with a sheild. Run him over with chainsaw or explosives. Once again though, he is unfortunatly underused.

Imp: The new design and enemy all together is awsome. Much more dangerous than the old Imp. Much better.

Pinky: The only thing I don't like is the first encounter, where as your stuck in a tiny room, and he mauls you in two seconds. Other than that, he's pretty cool. Fighting him though is fun, except when he stops to roar. This makes a sitting duck, and thus easy to kill. This could've been improved by letting the monster roar, but rather than all together stop, just slow down a bit.

Maggot: Good when in groups, repetitive and borung when alone and when they come from behind. Hum-Drum.

Wraith: OKay, so they are easy to kill, but their look and concept is great. 'Nuff said.

Lost Soul: More dangerous than before, so cool. They look kinda wierd, and horryfying, but, the old look was better I say. Their scream is interesting.

Commando: Tentacle guys are pretty kick ass, and make worthy opponents. Chaingun guys are kinda anooying though. Since the guys are practically the same, I find it odd one has more health than the other.

Arch-Vile: Dangerous in their own right. They move a bit slow compared to the original. Also, their a bit easy to kill. Three PB shotgun blasts and bam! Their down.

Don't have much to say about anyone else yet.

I thought most of the Doom 3 monsters were kind of irritating, and the designs lacklustre. On the other hand, I would like to see the Bruiser, Trite and Wraith make a return in Doom 4.

Oh, I just beat the CYberdemon, and wow... What a rip. It was ridicuosly easy to kill. The Maggots and Imps were all to easy to kill in my opinion, thus making the SoulCube even easier to charge. I was playing on hard too.