Restricting the classic monster roster to 3

[DoctorNuriel]

If you could restrict the classic selection of monsters to a mere three types, for a mapper to craft a map, an episode or even a megaWAD around, which three would you pick and why, keeping in mind the way they work together or affect player behavior? What kind of gameplay would you ideally see emerge from an exclusive reliance on those three?

 

- Lost Souls will not count as an extra monster if one of your three picks is the Pain Elemental

- Pinkies and Spectres count as the same monster type

[1Destro3456]

Interesting question, most probably I'll leave Pinkies and Specters because I like them and how they work as a meat shield for the other monsters in the battlefield and can trap the player if they're not to careful

 

I'm not sure what other monsters I'll pick probably a hitscanner and one other monsters maybe revenants but I'm not sure

 

Some mappers in the 3x3 project kinda already did that with only three monsters available to choose, you can participate on the new one if you're interested were not only the textures and flats are only three you could only use 3 monsters types also, it was interesting playing through this even if I haven't finished the wad

Edited April 6, 2021 by 1Destro3456

[Deadwing]

Revenants, Former Sergeants and Pain Elementals (since you have Lost Souls with them)

[Chainie]

Revenants, Arch-viles and chaingunners of course!

[Yumheart]

Uhm, Cacos because I love 'em, Arachnotrons cuz they usually make for interesting combat scenarios and Archviles for them being a great priority enemy and because they're basically the Doom 2 monster.

[out_of_service]

Chaingunners, Revenants, Mancubus...the Plutonia triple threat.

[MFG38]

1 hour ago, 1Destro3456 said:

Some mappers in the 3x3 project kinda already did that

 

Heh, I was going to drop by with the mention of that project, but it looks as though I've been saved the trouble. I guess this'd be a shoutout of sorts, in which case, I thank you for it.

[DoctorNuriel]

Oh wow I completely missed that thread, so there is an actual CP ongoing for it? Awesome!

[rzh]

Revenants, Archviles and either Cacos or Barons.

[Mr. Freeze]

Revenants, Arch-Viles and Chaingunners. 

[Martin-CAI]

If it's a matter of difficulty, I think that the hardest combo to fight is:
-Revenants in the front line, cornering you quickly
-Archies reviving and burning from behind
-Pain Elementals spawning annoying Lost Souls

 

So I'd keep those.

[Gwarl]

Episode 1 is the best episode and not counting e1m8 it only has four monsters by this ruleset - can we roll zombiemen and sergeants into one pick?

[Omniarch]

Revenants, for their broad utility, Archviles for flavour and Cacos for their ability to fly.

[continuum.mid]

21 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Revenants, Arch-Viles and Chaingunners. 

- Milo Casali, 1996

[omx32x]

revenants, hell knights (or chaingunners) and arch-viles

[baja blast rd.]

This is a fun little exercise. There are tons of combos that could work in a specific map or a shorter mapset, but I'm going to specifically think about how we might approach creating a long mapset (with maps that aren't necessarily tiny) with only three monsters at our disposal the whole way.

So first, for the sake of flexibility, I'd go with flexible monsters, scattered across most of the HP spectrum. Imps generally don't get tiring to fight, so I'd choose those. Revenants, hate 'em or love 'em, are super versatile, and the same is true of archviles. So my choices are the imp, revenant, and archvile -- although the rest of the comments hold with similar trios involving a low-tier, a projectile mid-tier, and a higher-priority mid-tier.  

 

I think if we design gameplay in the typical ways we might with a full bestiary, this would still manage to get stale and repetitive quite easily, and I think these are the main ways we'd try to avoid that:

 

- Mixing up weapon allotments in each map. All three of those monsters can be battled comfortably with just about weapon, from weak weapons like the shotgun and chainsaw against middling numbers of imps, lower numbers of revs and even rarer viles, to strong weapons like the RL and above, and everything in between. 

 

While it's more common in maps for the player's arsenal to be a gradient like "every weapon up to the plasma rifle" with one or two gaps, in this megawad, weapons would be restricted, with the typical map defined by a specific combination of two or three weapons. 

 

There might be a map heavy on berserk and plasma, another focusing on the shotgun and rocket launcher; one might give you rockets and plasma where rockets are scarce and powerful against the chosen monster placements; one might be rockets and plasma where plasma now is rarer and more powerful in the setups designed. 

 

With fewer monsters to work with, a lot of the variety depends on exploring other mechanics more heavily, and it's easy to see how this sort of weapon assignment functions as a source of variety in itself. Doom's arsenal gives you plenty of permutations to work with and there are so many ways to play weapons off one another. 

 

Barrels are a weapon too.

 

- Mixing up gameplay concepts and scenarios extensively. As often as possible, we'd create maps that define their threat from sources other than monsters (damaging floors, crushers, tight terrain) or use their own creative gimmicks (for example "don't kill imps on specific boxes otherwise a vile warps in"). Some maps would be heavier on creative setpieces, some might be heavier on open-ended combat; some maps might focus heavily on one aspect of one monster, like the revenant as a deliberate distractor of viles, or the archvile as a reviver of imps, or imp projectile hell. We'd try not to repeat ourselves too much.

 

Barrels are a threat too. 

 

- Using revenants and archviles efficiently when we don't *need* many of them. If we use three archviles, we'd ask "can this be two?" We'd try to avoid wearing out our welcome especially in the earlygame, so that we reserve the ability to use higher numbers of revenants and archviles later without the player having been already exhausted. 

 

Barre

 

- Creating "super monsters." This is a fun idea I just thought of. A "super monster" is my coinage that refers to a highly specific combination of either multiple monsters, or monsters and map mechanics, that behaves in a very specific, easily identifiable way such that it might very well be a new monster. It's not quite the way simple behaviors chain into more complex ones in a game like Factorio, but it has that same spirit. 

 

For example, a perched imp always on a FIREBLU box that you don't want to kill because it gets replaced by a warping-in archvile upon death, might be one such "super monster." A huge group of revenants in a flashing cage that is finished off by a crusher activated by a specific switch texture in the map, so they produce lots of projectiles but you don't have to grind them down yourself, and you also know on sight that you don't have to, might be another. An archvile that circle-strafes due to scrolling floors around the perimeter of an arena, and forces you to stay moving even when you're taking cover, could be another. 

 

The intended difference between this type of usage, and just regular smart and clever monster use, is a very stable sort of conveyance and reliability of behavior. Once the player is taught of such a mechanic, they know how it will act every other subsequent usage, and can learn tactics and strategies for handling it the way they might a proper monster.

 

So you start being able to treat it like a novel gameplay element. You can build on it in sophisticated ways and design around the player's familiarity. 

 

With that imp-archvile-fireblu mechanic understood, for example, you might create a complex encounter where the player has to avoid revenant rockets hitting those imps, or avoid accidentally killing them with rocket splash while targeting a crowd of "normal" roaming imps. And the player would get this immediately upon seeing the encounter without needing to pay for the "research" in the form of dying once or twice.  

 

This way, even though you only have three monsters on paper, you have functionally more tools at your disposal. 

[Maes]

LA Worlds have made tons of maps focusing exclusively on the Archvile and Cyberdemon.

[Juza]

Revenant, Mancubus and Archvile. Three most versatile enemies imo.

[Final Verdict]

 

Pain Elemental, Revenant and Mancubus. Why? Simple, pure chaos. I feel like everyone will take the Archvile as a pick so why not.

 

In all honesty though I could see a map with 3 enemies types being fun, but an entire WAD with that trick would get tedious I think. Variety is the spice of life after all.

[_bruce_]

Shotgunner, Imp and Pinkie - maps would have to be survival oriented where the only source of weapons/ammo are the seargants and no health/powerups was added.

[yakfak]

a trio of imp, archvile and revenant would be lovely for berserking maps :3 they're so fun to punch, have small diameters so they can walk around windy cave maps and they tend to flinch when you hit them so the feedback's there, plus if an archvile gets loose and you find yrself retreating to get out of its line of sight then having the vile resurrect a lot of low hp monsters is what I prefer! I would spice up areas of the map with added Barons, though - they add a certain amount of attrition and close routes when yr fist only and without armor! as much as people complain "Door with health" etc, a Baron in a tight spot is one of the scariest monsters possible.

 

also if you get to a milestone in the level and grab a BFG, those three monsters feel great to cut down in swathes, and they pack in tight so the BFG lights up the screen like crazy.

 

imp is such a workhorse, I think every map I've ever made is majority imps and that's the way I like it. substitute shotgunner for the imp if the map's meant to be more arcadey, less grindy.

[magicsofa]

Pinkie, Lost Soul, and Pain Elemental

Because MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH, PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH

[ax34]

No, just 3 of them will be boring, especially if it's megawad.

Edit: maybe zombies, pigs and  one big Cyberdemon...

[printz]

5 hours ago, _bruce_ said:

Shotgunner, Imp and Pinkie - maps would have to be survival oriented where the only source of weapons/ammo are the seargants and no health/powerups was added.

That sounds a hell a lot like E4M1: Hell Beneath.

 

My picks are demons, archviles and spider masterminds. Demons and archviles make deadly teams, and spider masterminds are funny.

[purist]

Chaingunners are a lock. I would probably also go with imps (versatile) and cacos (can't do without a floating option).

 

Revenants and arch vile are tempting alternatives for their dynamism. I reckon a decent megawad could be made with just those 5.

[Rytrik]

12 hours ago, Chainie said:

Revenants, Arch-viles and chaingunners of course!

 

I like how you think. 

[StrangerRanger]

20 hours ago, Chainie said:

Revenants, Arch-viles and chaingunners of course!

That's just plutonia

[DoomPlayer00]

21 hours ago, Chainie said:

Revenants, Arch-viles and chaingunners of course!

Please no.

[Helm]

Imps are the most fun monster to fight in Doom so I'll keep them. Pinkies play well with imps and are crucial in delaying movement progress so as to cascade enemy encounters... and not deathly boring like barons or knights. Cacos fly and they're cute, so that's a good one, or potentially revenants instead because they open up map making. Revenants can also take the place of pinkies so it could be imps, revenants and cacos, or imps, revenants and chaingunners for more pushback. The complicator is what arsenal is available to the player, if there's a rocket launcher it's a different game, if there's only a minigun it's a different game, etc. With varied weapon options these monsters are enough for an infinite amount of variation, as long as the terrain is interesting. 

[StrangerRanger]

Imps, Shotgun Guys and Barons of Hell