No super shotgun = Barons have too much health?

Vermil said:

I think he's suggesting that if you don't like the Barron's health, you can change it with Dehacked, Decorate, Ded, etc.

correct

Vermil said:

I think he's suggesting that if you don't like the Barron's health, you can change it with Dehacked, Decorate, Ded, etc.

It would take less time than fighting them, and us real Doomers wouldn't have to listen to endless whinging.

Not atall, as 40oz said, they're bosses. I know that there's alot of them in later episodes, but you have the Rocket launcher, Plasma Gun, BFG, and plentiful ammo for at least the Rocket Launcher.

I've never had a problem with them (excluding my younger days, but that's another story...). I'm not gonna go out there and say they're "easy," but as long as you stay on your toes (or fingers), you should be fine.

PRIMEVAL said:

Ages...if you're doing a speed run. It takes all of 15-20 seconds to kill a Baron with a shotgun. If you don't have that sort of time to spare, you may want to loosen up your schedule.

15-20 seconds of almost completely standing still, taking a few steps left or right to dodge the occasional missile that's aimed straight at your current position. But whatever, I've come to accept the fact that I have generally higher standards for fast paced action in computer games than the great majority of Earth's populace. :P

Jodwin said:

15-20 seconds of almost completely standing still, taking a few steps left or right to dodge the occasional missile that's aimed straight at your current position. But whatever, I've come to accept the fact that I have generally higher standards for fast paced action in computer games than the great majority of Earth's populace. :P

For as fast paced as Doom is, I would consider that standing still.

They go dead pretty fast with plasmagun too.

An old favorite of mine: bnbeyond.wad (Barons & Beyond). There are 73 of the suckers in there, along with all their friends. :D It's a bit rough in spots, but still pretty good for 1994.

sym said:
It seems like Ep.4 is full of these semi-annoying gameplay lulls because I have to stop and take my sweet time to kill them. They aren't that much of an issue in Doom 2, because the super shotgun makes quick work of them.

So do weapons 5-7, all present in DOOM. Thy Flesh Consumed has a rocket launcher starting from level 1, and the plasma gun and BFG9000 from level 2, with enough ammo to go with them. I'm guessing people that get slogged down by barons in E4 have bad weapon usage habits. If you're very conservative with ammo and end up killing practically everything with bullets and shells, it's not the game's fault.

Jodwin said:

Imagine if back in time the two barons in E1 were arch-viles...now that would have been epic.

Imagine that Hadephobia MAP22: Prime Mover (built by NoneeLlama) actually represents this concept at one point!

They don't have much health when up against the stronger weapons.

Rocket Launcher - Fires like three times faster than a SSG, and splash damage hurts nearby monsters.

Plasma Rifle - Why not?

BFG 9000 - People typically seem to conserve BFG ammo too much. If anything, cell rounds should be saved exclusively for the BFG.

I can't believe so many people are complaining essentially about poor monster AI in a 1993/94 game. Everything just stupidly walks towards you and fires, waits, fires, waits. Demons, they run up to you and bite. The Spiders just stop dead and fire, and so on. There's not much going on there. The way Doom presents challenge is due to level design, monster placement, and item placement. More modern games will have enemies dashing and weaving everywhere, but they're still never as fun as Doom was. Barons are fine.

bimlanders said:

I can't believe so many people are complaining essentially about poor monster AI in a 1993/94 game. Everything just stupidly walks towards you and fires, waits, fires, waits. Demons, they run up to you and bite. The Spiders just stop dead and fire, and so on. There's not much going on there. The way Doom presents challenge is due to level design, monster placement, and item placement. More modern games will have enemies dashing and weaving everywhere, but they're still never as fun as Doom was. Barons are fine.

indeed.

I think the enemies also zig zag when they come at you, and when you least expect it, they sneak behind you.

One option that might be fun is something that lets you undeafen all the monsters and prop open all the non-keyed doors in any given map. Just a way to get different gameplay out of existing maps...

Wow.. A long time since I posted here, and by far least time lurked.

But on to the topic: I find the Baron just fine even with out Super Shotgun. I like a challenge of hand to hand combat with 1 or chainsaw one after another, pretty reckless and thats how I am.
But looking at health of the monsters listed for Doom 2... Archviles may have alittle much HP compared to Mancubus, since those fat slugs should have more health but Viles having the high pain tolerance.

Mithral_Demon said:

since those fat slugs should have more health but Viles having the high pain tolerance.

flattes the overpowerd curves alot

barons are good chasers if weapon placement allows so, if you want a swarm of blunts barons will do the job well, if you want the player dead just throw in a cyberdemon :)

BTW. Due to the SSG costing double ammo, but firing almost triple pellets compared to the normal SG, it is more "economical" to take off them Barons by SSG (5 or 6 shots that mean 10-12 shells) rather than wasting 13-16 on them. Unless you don't have SSG and/or weapons 5-7.

Cell said:

BTW. Due to the SSG costing double ammo, but firing almost triple pellets compared to the normal SG, it is more "economical" to take off them Barons by SSG.

That goes for any monster, save for "groups" of 1-3 zombies.

Complaining about barons taking so many hits with shotgun / chaingun ammo yet at the same time refusing to use your bigger weapons on them just defies logic.. in most scenarios it's usually better to use 2 HKs though.

DeathevokatioN said:

Complaining about barons taking so many hits with shotgun / chaingun ammo yet at the same time refusing to use your bigger weapons on them just defies logic..

Well I don't know about you, but I don't play with IDFA all the time.

Jodwin said:

Well I don't know about you, but I don't play with IDFA all the time.

Really? You'd think given your amazing 'high standards of fast action games' would preclude you from the annoying process of collecting weapons.

Jodwin said:

Well I don't know about you, but I don't play with IDFA all the time.

Neither do I. And I'm also annoyed with shotgunning barons to death, and thats why I'm prepared to use a bfg charge on them. I'd rather have the extra 20 seconds extra of my life that I can use to do something else rather than conserve ammo and end a level with 600 cell ammo. :P

I think he's referring to maps in which BFGs, plasma rifles and rockets + their corresponding ammo aren't readily available (which in my experience isn't very often)

The only way a baron could be a menace is if he could predict where you're dodging and throw a fireball in your way. I was always disappointed that the barons didn't do this.

Else they're just tanks, as sigvatr said.

I found two cool ways to use barons in DDVU, I don't know what others think of them as I haven't really got any detailed feedback/backlash, but here they are:

The first I call "Turret Baron", see picture of E2M5, closets opened for clarity:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2e3q42p.jpg
The Baron(s) are largely immobile but pester you with plasma bolts and negatively affect your aiming at the imps behind them. You can either kill the Barons right away to get a clear shot at the rest of the enemies, but you'll have to dodge all of the projectiles flung at you. Or you can kill the low-HP imps first to make killing the Barons child's play, but you'll be vulnerable to the Barons' bolts if you go up close.

The second kind of Baron, a "Stalker Baron", see picture of E2M6:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2ebvcq8.jpg
Most of the other monsters in the wooden maze aren't deaf, so they'll be riled up and probably dead by the time you get to the Baron. Then, he awakens and hunts for you in the dark labyrinth, and all you can see are glimpses of its profile when it crosses the torchlight. There aren't many other monsters alive by now, but for me the cramped space and limited visibility have always guaranteed that this baron isn't boring to kill.