How would you rework the Arch-Vile?

[Big Ol Billy]

58 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I want an Arch Vile and Revenant combo. The Arch-Revenant.

 

Heh.

 

[Linguica]

Remove the archvile blast attack, have the archvile summon damaging flames randomly around a target instead of directly on top so it restricts your movement, and make it go partial-invis while not attacking. Makes it more of a "support" demon that makes your life harder but isn't directly deadly, and make it harder to pick out of a crowd to go after first.

[DooM_RO]

Don't break that which does not need fixing.

[Loud Silence]

1.Invisible like spectre.

2.Ability to resurrect ANY monster (including Cyberdemon, Mastermind, invisible/normal AV and any custom monster).

3.Flying ability.

4.Double her speed, damage and HP.

5.Immunity to monsters' attacks.

6.Give her NOCLIP.

7.She can have kids during battle (they have same specs as normal AV, just are very tiny in size).

OR don't think about changing her.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I like how Contra Doom handled the Archvile, basically replacing the hitscan attack with a flame trail projectile that can be dodged.

 

I also think there should have been a "lesser" variant of the Archvile ("Vile"?) that focuses mostly on resurrecting dead monsters. If I knew how to make such monster myself, I would probably use Eriance's excellent Hellion sprites.

[Boondorl]

Awesome thread so far. Some ideas I've gathered:

 

1. People like the line of sight attack, but there are some possible tweaks that could be made

    1a. Remove the blinding effect (not surprising)

    1b. Have breaking line of sight completely break the attack link between the Arch-vile and its target. Make the cast time shorter to compensate

    1c. Make the flames deal damage

    1d. Have the flame swap targets when the Arch-vile does (more of a quality of life change)

2. Other attack ideas

    2a. Attack similar to Maulotaur's from Heretic

    2b. Spawn pillars of flame around target to manipulate movement

    2c. Some kind of melee attack to make them more lethal at close range

3. People aren't a fan of the quick retaliation and would rather it work like normal

    3a. Allow demons to aggro onto Arch-viles

4. Up the pain chance a little

5. Subtypes of demons based off the Arch-vile

    5a. Resurrecting only

    5b. Line of sight attack only but enhanced

 

Here's a more stat-based question: currently the SSG has about a 55% chance to cause pain when hitting an Arch-vile at point blank (I'm assuming each pellet rolls its own chance to cause pain here; someone correct me if I'm wrong). Does this number seem fair enough (given you can get two SSG shots in during the casting animation for about an 80% chance to stun) or should it be higher/lower?

 

Another question: should Arch-viles still be able to kill themselves/other Arch-viles? It can't be done directly, but they aren't resistant to the blast damage from their flame attack.

 

And a final question since I haven't seen it brought up: Arch-viles have a limited attack range. Beyond that range the only way they can attack is via retaliation (e.g. the player shooting them). Do you guys think this should be tweaked or is it fine as is? Current max range is 896 map units (16x the height of the player)

Edited December 27, 2018 by Boondorl

[Cruduxy Pegg]

12 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Give it a slightly higher pain chance, have the flames do tick damage, keep the explosion the same, and dump the damn instantaneous target switching if you happen to hit it while it's attacking something else.

 

Technically makes it more dangerous if you can't get out of its line of sight, but also a bit more fun to fight. 

 

unless the damage is re-balanced (and nerfed) it'll just end up with overpowered archviles; Take impossible to avoid chip damage -possibly- several times since you have to run out of the vile's sight. Bonus if the vile encounters you on low hp and finishes you off without even needing to score a blast on you. If the vile hits you with a blast chance is it is game over since viles usually manage to start an attack shortly afterward. 

 

Also the flame dealing the tick damage would be even more bs than only ticking while in sight of the vile, run away and still lose a nice chunk of your health. (For reference, All the above pretty much comes off as PTSD from upgraded viles in many mods like complex doom and hard doom)

 

[SaladBadger]

I don't really like the idea of flame tick damage. It's kinda like the Shambler in quake, but you don't get the warning that the shambler has. I guess it would be possible to make it delay, but it still seems annoying.

[Boondorl]

I'm not a big fan of the DoT either, but I could see it being reworked into a new attack. Use a Maulotaur-esque flame attack that, when it hits the player, knocks them up dealing a decent chunk of damage and applies a DoT. It divides the total damage the Arch-vile normally has among the actual impact and a slow burn that gives the player time to find some health (or use an item if you have some kind of mod that has those). Would be pretty neat on a new enemy, especially if you have different armor types to play round with like in Blood.

[TollyCastle]

The only thing I would change about the archvile would be that I would make it able to heal alive demons as well was resurrecting dead ones, since it was conceived as a medic.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, Pegg said:

 

unless the damage is re-balanced (and nerfed) it'll just end up with overpowered archviles; Take impossible to avoid chip damage -possibly- several times since you have to run out of the vile's sight. Bonus if the vile encounters you on low hp and finishes you off without even needing to score a blast on you. If the vile hits you with a blast chance is it is game over since viles usually manage to start an attack shortly afterward. 

 

Also the flame dealing the tick damage would be even more bs than only ticking while in sight of the vile, run away and still lose a nice chunk of your health. (For reference, All the above pretty much comes off as PTSD from upgraded viles in many mods like complex doom and hard doom)

 

The tick damage would be pretty slight - 1-2 HP per tick with a sane number of ticks (maybe twice a second), because you have to account for "Yeah, some mapper might just throw a dozen at him." Enough to incentivize you getting out of line of sight and lots of dodge-and-shoot gameplay - like you're supposed to do with an Archvile. That and taking pain tends to make a player prioritize whatever's hurting them pretty fast, and I'd say that anytime an Archie is around, you should be prioritizing it over literally anything and everything else, even if Mr. Cyberdemon is also stomping around and pumping out rockets at you.

 

But yeah, it wouldn't deal tick once you're out of line of sight - if the flames aren't on you, the burning stops, so the damage stops. I'm not trying to model skin burn damage here, and fire is a very momentary thing - it's not something that sticks on you, like slime or toxins or whatever. Once you're out of the fire, you're no longer burning, so the damage stops.

 

Naturally it'd need to retarget you as well. Hate how if you went back too early, and at just the "right" time, you'd eat a full explosion. This would actually incentivize slightly faster dodge-and-shoot gameplay (you no longer have to time your popout to avoid the explosion), but the tradeoff is that you will suffer chip damage, to make them still somewhat of a threat even if you got good cover. It's amazing how harmless Archies become if they can't get to you and you have cover due to only the explosion being anything you have to worry about.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

The Arch-vile already has one of the strongest attacks in the entire game (+83 damage through any kind of object obstacles).  The slow cast time (Almost 3 seconds) is the only weakness the monster has.. If the vile is utterly unable to use its attack chance is it can block the player's attacks with resurrected monsters anyway. The tiny 6 damage is already almost 50% of the player's remaining health by then.. and let's face it anything below 11 hp is practically 1 hit death unless you get lucky. 

 

Arch-viles are already TOP priority in most fights that are remotely abusing their abilities. They should never be balanced around 1vs1 with the player. They have resurrection and that just has amazing synergy with their attack. And who exactly prioritizes a cyber over arch-viles unless the map scenario needs that? Dead players. If the arch-vile is completely harmless and unable to fight back that's just the mapper letting the player vent their rage on the vile.

[DJVCardMaster]

Removing it from the game.

[Woolie Wool]

18 hours ago, Alfonzo said:

Have the fire animation swap over to the new target if the arch-vile redirects its attack.

 

Yeah, that's it. She'll be right.

Fire animation switches target and the countdown timer restarts. That's 99% of bullshit archvile deaths solved with two tiny changes that do not affect the archvile's combat role or threat level. Everything else should be left as it is.

[VanaheimRanger]

All I would change is it's painchance so that it could be more consistently stunned by a point blank SSG shot to take it out of it's attack pose.

[TakenStew22]

Make it so other monsters can infight it.

[Soundblock]

9 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

 

Heh.

 

Hey, if that thing could only ressurrect 300 hp or less per go, i’d use it

[nrofl]

I think the archvile can be a pain in the ass but I still wouldnt change it.

[geo]

To not exist.

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, DJVCardMaster said:

Removing it from the game.

 

BURN HIM !!! Burn this heretic.

[Jimmy]

 

12 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

 

Heh.

 

 

Nice bobblehead action going on there :D

[Blind Joe Death]

My comment won't add anything new to the mix, but when I first played Doom 2 I remember thinking that you were being dealt damage during the fire animation (I guess being engulfed in flames does not hurt you?). So I could definitely change those flames to a different indicator that you're about to be hit.

[Soundblock]

28 minutes ago, Blind Joe Death said:

when I first played Doom 2 I remember thinking that you were being dealt damage during the fire animation

Perhsps a 1:0-2 second/damage tic wouldn’t have ruined Archvile’s already demanding balance

[Tango]

13 hours ago, Linguica said:

Remove the archvile blast attack, have the archvile summon damaging flames randomly around a target instead of directly on top so it restricts your movement, and make it go partial-invis while not attacking. Makes it more of a "support" demon that makes your life harder but isn't directly deadly, and make it harder to pick out of a crowd to go after first.

 

it doesn't have any partial-invis, but I do have a modified version of the Diabolist whose attack is sort of what you describe here, though not random. it summons 4 plumes of fire along whatever path you walked while it was targeting you, which all simultaneously explode for a second-ish to deny space.

 

here is a gif demo.

 

I think the attack (and what you describe) is distinct enough from the original archvile though to deserve its own slot in the bestiary, rather than replace the archvile. I quite like the original archvile attack (though some of the QOL changes suggested in this thread would be very welcome) and the archvile's place in the bestiary, and think it actually pairs pretty well with what is pictured here/described by Linguica. if the player is up against an archvile and this diabolist, the player has to be a lot more careful about choosing cover from the archvile, because the diabolist could just blow you up while you hide behind said cover.

 

(the diabolist in the gif here is also doable in MBF-format, I'm quite certain, for anyone who would actually want to replace the archvile with something like it)

[wolfmcbeard]

Reduce the frequency of that damned flame attack in exchange for a reasonably powerful projectile, like a 50-50 chance to do one or the other.
I'd leave the ability to resurrect enemies though.

[OliveTree]

I like the archvile but if I had to change it, these are my first impressions.

 

I think I'd make it slower. If you ask me its whizzing around makes it far more obnoxious to try and lose line of sight, especially with dooms classic control scheme. If it were like a healer/tank type monster that'd be interesting imo.

 

The fact that it zips around means its pretty hard to nail a shot and it's not particularly fun imo to successfully land a shot and still have about twenty to go. At the very least, I wish shooting it would cause it to stagger for a little bit to give a chance for the player to run out of its line of sight or even attack some more.

 

I'd also change the flame animation to be wrapped around the edges of the screen instead of smack in the center.

[traversd]

17 hours ago, Xaser said:

 

And now for the coup de grace: upon dying, it resurrects itself.

 

And in coop it resurrects dead players into evil marines with the last weapon they had selected.

[RightField]

21 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

 

Heh.

 

 

The ultimate annoying demon: a revenant with both homing rocket attack, arch-vile flames, resurrection plus he can throw his head at you to create lost souls.

[OliveTree]

14 minutes ago, RightField said:

 

The ultimate annoying demon: a revenant with both homing rocket attack, arch-vile flames, resurrection plus he can throw his head at you to create lost souls.

And somehow, chaingunners are involved.

[RightField]

Could have a chaingunner sitting on his shoulders