Monsters that you feel are undervalued

[Sotenga]

Sometimes I think, perhaps too much, about how Doom's seventeen regular monsters are utilized in all the maps I've ever played. These enemies, which are now almost thirty years old, have been positioned in enough ways to create original challenges in wads throughout the years despite mostly remaining the same. Of course, there are wads that either A: Change behaviors or B: Add in custom monsters, but aside from those, the Doom community has mostly been working with the same enemy kit for this long and I'm impressed at how they still haven't grown old somehow.

 

But that little prelude aside, I want to know about what monsters anyone thinks are either A: Not used enough or B: Not used appropriately enough in their opinion. I was talking with a friend lately and they felt the Former Human Zombie, the basest of all Doom enemies, don't get nearly enough attention in most wads they've played. I can understand that since it seems like a more appealing option to use the Sergeants and Commandos instead, but I wonder what suggestions there are to make regular Zombies feel like they're better used instead of being discarded as too-weak fodder. I can't think of anything for now, unfortunately.

 

Of course, I and many others feel the Spider Mastermind is very difficult to use properly without either making it too much of a chump or too much of a threat without much balance in between. The only suggestion I have is to give fair cover against them and hopefully make it more engaging than just a peekaboo match. I'm just a fan, not a mapper!

 

But yes, if anyone has any monsters they feel are undervalued, discuss here. I guess if anyone wants to mention the SS Trooper and even Commander Keen, you could do that here, but I really have no idea what to say about them. I might have to disqualify the Icon of Sin, however. I feel like talking about the IoS is a topic unto itself. 

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

I think most of the guys in map making bussiness used all of the vanila monsters effectively in one way or another. For example @skillsaw in Valiant used the former human soldiers in map Screems arent a crime.... yet rather effectively in large groups where they shine the most.

 

As for Spidermastermind it´s kinda difficult to use such lackluster enemy, the one role she had in OG DOOM as big mobile turret, has been replaced by chaingunners, who feel more sattisfying to dispatch, not to mention her own brood is more dangerous than she is (yikes).

[BaileyTW]

Only played the 4 vanilla wads, but in all of em, lost souls seem a bit undervalued, and by that I lost souls placed already not by a pain elemental.

[Rytrik]

Arch-viles, Chaingunners, and Revenants. Nobody values them enough.

[Doom-X-Machina]

Me

[TheHoodieGuy02]

Spider Mastermind, due to the fact that I wasn't doing pistol start until recently, and one-shot BFG on her consistently in E3M8. Not to mention having 1000 HP less, having larger hitbox, and less aggresive (reaction time wise) than the glutenous Cybie. She won't fire again until few seconds passed, while Cybie won't hesitate to triple rocket his target again in less than 35 tics. Undervalued, but not underrated.

 

As for undervalued and underrated, I would put shotgunners into the spot. Especially if they come in groups. Chaingunners can shoot on their target's corpse and able to snipe Doomguy from distance, but shotgunners can pump their shotguns very fast and immediately fire the next shell in close range encounters.

[dei_eldren]

Easy answer: Lost Souls!  No one appreciates them, but they always spice things up - love them or hate them, the game wouldn't be the same without them, and often they make the difference between life and death.

[Samz707]

The various Zombie soldiers seem to be at best ignored or at most hated in my (admittingly not large) experience with people talking about them. 

 

I personally like how they function as a unique threat, as "glass cannon" enemies kinda, sure they don't hit hard but they're simultaneously important/not important targets, they don't hit hard but you also can't really dodge their attacks unless you take cover behind a wall. (Granted, I have very limited experience with Doom 2 so maybe the Chain gunners are a big pain.)

 

I also like how they drop ammo as I think that somewhat adds an incentive to take them out even when low on ammo since you'll get some bullets back.

 

[Capellan]

46 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

The various Zombie soldiers seem to be at best ignored or at most hated in my (admittingly not large) experience with people talking about them. 

 

To be honest, Sergeants are one of, if not the most, dangerous monsters in OG Doom.  They deserve love and respect.

 

Not as much love as the cacodemon ("who's a squishy tomato full of hate?  you are!"), but that's an impossible bar to clear :)

 

I use troopers and sergeants a lot for roaming monsters.  Their small hit box means they can wind through most corridors, and their hitscan attack can be a nasty surprise.

 

 

See E1M2 of "Deadly Standards", my ASS33 map "Vindicator" or pretty much the whole of SPECTRUM for me indulging my love of zombies.

 

[roadworx]

2 minutes ago, Capellan said:

To be honest, Sergeants are one of, if not the most, dangerous monsters in OG Doom.  They deserve love and respect.

 

Not as much love as the cacodemon ("who's a squishy tomato full of hate?  you are!"), but that's an impossible bar to clear :)

 

I use troopers and sergeants a lot for roaming monsters.  Their small hit box means they can wind through most corridors, and their hitscan attack can be a nasty surprise.

yes, absolutely this!! sergeants are a great enemy. not only is it fun to let them wander around so they can shoot players in the back, but it's also great to have them be in ambushes. they're one of the best lower-tier enemies to use for that, because they can kill a player VERY quickly if they're not paying attention

 

i personally love putting them around corners to keep people on their toes :p

[Stupid Bunny]

I posted in another thread how I love the zombiemen for their softness; it's so fun to chaingun or chainsaw through a mob of them, or mow them down with the shotties by the dozens.  I never used to use them for the same reasons that everybody never uses them but they're great fun when they're in large numbers.  Not to mention how they can be gibbed by basically anything.  There's also a strategic element to using them, too, that's overlooked, where each one is pretty wimpy alone but if you keep encountering them in open spaces or run into a sea of green hair then they'll whittle you down faster than one might guess.  In one map I had a bunch of them patrolling a wall above the player thinking "lol killing these will be a nice respite from the actual hard stuff" and then actually found that they make pretty effective and annoying snipers when you're distracted by other, meaner things that seem higher-priority.

 

I think part of the problem is that they're often used the way they were early in E1, patrolling hallways in small numbers where they're too easy to pick off before they've done any damage.  People think of them as "early-level" or "training" enemies to ease the player in and don't think that they could play any part in more serious combat scenarios--that's what sergeants and commandos and revvies and stuff are for!  Give them a chance to snipe or surround the player in mobs though and they'll put paid to that.  I've tried it and it's great fun.

 

There's no getting around how goofy and out of place the SS men feel in Doom maps but all the same I wish more mappers would step outside the box and use them anyway.  Not every Doom map has to be SRS BZNS all the time and they can make for a different combat experience than the former humans that they're most similar to.

 

Commander Keen (non-deHackEd obviously) is a puzzle piece.  Not much more to say about Billy, gameplaywise has more in common with switches than other enemies.

 

The Spider Mastermind is another enemy I like to find excuses to use, their high HP mean they're a more persistent threat than the chaingunner and they can control an open-area map section pretty devastatingly if you don't use your cover right--although their comical propensity to start infights with every other monster on the map make up for that, and it's fucking tragic/hilarious when the spood falls victim of the hitbox bug and she gets mauled to death by a lone imp who got lucky.

Edited April 16, 2021 by StupidBunny

[Biodegradable]

So far in my experience in playing countless community WADs this past year, I'd say the Arachnotron is the demon that seems to show up the least in combat scenarios. That little brainiac deserves some more love, I reckon. 

[pcorf]

It has to be Arch Viles. There will be quiet a few of them in my upcoming Doom 2 megawad.

[KeaganDunn]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

So far in my experience in playing countless community WADs this past year, I'd say the Arachnotron is the demon that seems to show up the least in combat scenarios. That little brainiac deserves some more love, I reckon. 

Indeed! I would be using them more often for my maps if it weren't for their large size - I think that's why they don't get used often. They can melt a player pretty quickly if they aren't paying attention, and make great snipers (despite their relatively-low health) along with Archviles. :D

[Arbys550]

Personally I say barons. People like to crap on them but they can be used in some fun ways if the player has the means to de-grind them

[SiMpLeToNiUm]

On 4/14/2021 at 12:06 PM, Sotenga said:

I wonder what suggestions there are to make regular Zombies feel like they're better used instead of being discarded as too-weak fodder. I can't think of anything for now, unfortunately.

The Zombieman, in my opinion, really is an under-utilized enemy in the Doom roster. This might be due to my inexperience in playing a large amount of WADs, but out of the ones I have played, I would agree that they probably don't "get enough love", so to speak. There's obvious reasons for this, mainly being his tiny health pool and ineffectiveness in large numbers or within other enemy types due to infighting, but I've always had an odd fascination for taking the crappiest enemies/characters/underdogs and working with them on purpose. There's a few good examples of fun and effective ways to use him, of course, such as Dragonfly's Panic Button map in Team Rocket 2 where huge crowds of zombies were used and the player was equipped only with a rocket launcher. I'm sure there's many more still that I haven't seen.

 

Pursuant to the actual question of ways to use a zombie in particular, I would say that a Zombieman is best used in close-quarters. This hinders the player's mobility, their greatest asset, and tightens the cone of fire of the zombieman, making him much deadlier despite his inherent weaknesses. He's fairly inaccurate, so pressuring the player by using him in tight spaces is perhaps the best way to go. His hitscan attack can be frustrating to deal with when used in this way, but think about how often we mow through this guy en masse as it is...surely it's high time he got a chance to beat us up a bit. To complete my full circle of misery using this enemy, I would say restricting the player's kit to the pistol and single-barrel shotty or deliberately giving them a heavy-hitting, risky weapon such as the rocket launcher with its self-damage potential in CQC scenarios is a great way of indirectly squeezing as much mileage as possible out of this enemy type, especially when used in close proximity. Also, minimizing player access to armor and health for added stress, and other ways to make sure the enemy gets as much chance as possible to dish out pain such as strategically placing them in ambush positions can maximize the usages for what is probably the natural pariah of the Doom bestiary.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

I also tend to think of the Zombieman as underused. I started to wonder if it might be (in part) due to maps hardly ever forcing the player to use the pistol for any serious length of time, nowadays. The Zombieman health pool almost seems perfectly tuned for pistol combat (not exactly a pushover, but still not as grindy as the Imp or Lost Soul). It's just a shame that I don't really consider the pistol fun to use... so, a map focused entirely (or mostly) around combat with it doesn't seem very appealing to me :P 

[Endless]

The zombiemen seem to be the most undervalued enemy in the Doom saga. Granted, it is weak, slow and lame-looking, but still I always like it. In Ultimate Doom it's quite fun and works as the perfect introductory enemy. Plus, on more advanced maps, difficulty wise, they're incredibly satisfying cannon fodder to kill. Have you killed a bunch of zombies with a missile? You know what I'm saying.

[Pegleg]

25 minutes ago, SiMpLeToNiUm said:

Pursuant to the actual question of ways to use a zombie in particular, I would say that a Zombieman is best used in close-quarters. This hinders the player's mobility, their greatest asset, and tightens the cone of fire of the zombieman, making him much deadlier despite his inherent weaknesses. He's fairly inaccurate, so pressuring the player by using him in tight spaces is perhaps the best way to go. His hitscan attack can be frustrating to deal with when used in this way, but think about how often we mow through this guy en masse as it is...surely it's high time he got a chance to beat us up a bit. To complete my full circle of misery using this enemy, I would say restricting the player's kit to the pistol and single-barrel shotty or deliberately giving them a heavy-hitting, risky weapon such as the rocket launcher with its self-damage potential in CQC scenarios is a great way of indirectly squeezing as much mileage as possible out of this enemy type, especially when used in close proximity. Also, minimizing player access to armor and health for added stress, and other ways to make sure the enemy gets as much chance as possible to dish out pain such as strategically placing them in ambush positions can maximize the usages for what is probably the natural pariah of the Doom bestiary.

 

The zombieman is generally used as little more than fodder, to either give the player something to shoot at (whether as part of a power fantasy is a different matter) or to force the player to use ammo. This is a perfectly acceptable way to use the zombieman. Of the members of the bestiary that can move, the Zombieman and the Mancubus move the most slowly. Coupled with the time it takes for the zombieman to aim and their relative inaccuracy, most mappers just slot them in to one of those two slots and leave it at that. There are much more lethal members of the bestiary (even though the zombieman is capable of delivering a 15% damage shot, and always seems to do it at the most inopportune times). You could always make the zombieman more dangerous by just putting them in large numbers (look at the beginning of World Orifice). In large numbers, it's likely that their hitscan attacks will do some damage, but they're also likely to kill each other due to infighting at a much higher rate than you would kill them.

 

In my opinion, if you want to make the zombieman deadly, you combine close quarters and movement restrictions with enemies located at multiple angles. If you look at the opening of E1M1 of Base Ganymede, it's a pretty good combination of this. Obviously, you start with just the pistol, and there's damaging nukage, so you can't move as freely as you normally might. Still, with this, if all you had was a few zombiemen in a clump directly in front of you, they still wouldn't be that much of a threat. But that's not what happens. The zombiemen are arranged at different angles, so they can all shoot at the player, while the player can only engage one at a time (unless you move around).

 

2 minutes ago, RonnieJamesDiner said:

The Zombieman health pool almost seems perfectly tuned for pistol combat

 

I've made two pistol-only maps and, yes, they do focus fairly heavily on zombiemen. One comment I received on the first one was that zombiemen are much more dangerous when you're on (relatively) even footing with them. Maybe you'd like the Valiant or Eviternity pistol better (although that might make a zombieman-heavy, pistol-only map easier).

 

6 hours ago, Capellan said:

Sergeants are one of, if not the most, dangerous monsters in OG Doom.  They deserve love and respect.

 

Absolutely, especially when they're in groups (even small groups)! Especially given their penchant for hitting you with a hitscan attack for somewhere between 20% and 40% damage (the first sergeant in Brotherhood of Ruin Map 01 seemed to have a soft spot for hitting me in the face for 39% damage). And the sergeant room in E3M3 of Spectrum brought a decent run to a grinding halt very quickly the first time I played it.

 

4 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

So far in my experience in playing countless community WADs this past year, I'd say the Arachnotron is the demon that seems to show up the least in combat scenarios. That little brainiac deserves some more love, I reckon. 

 

The problem with arachnotrons is that they require a fair amount of room to move. They're 128 units wide, which is bigger than everything but the SMM. They have as many hit points as the hell knight, and their projectile attack is fairly fast and can do decent damage, particularly if you don't get out of the way. I think they're rather well-suited for area denial. To allow them the ability to roam around, you would need a fairly large area. And if you have that large area, it would afford you the room to put a larger quantity of smaller enemies. But you could always mix them in to that larger area to take advantage of infighting; they're decent for that role.

[Biodegradable]

59 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

The problem with arachnotrons is that they require a fair amount of room to move. They're 128 units wide, which is bigger than everything but the SMM. They have as many hit points as the hell knight, and their projectile attack is fairly fast and can do decent damage, particularly if you don't get out of the way. I think they're rather well-suited for area denial. To allow them the ability to roam around, you would need a fairly large area. And if you have that large area, it would afford you the room to put a larger quantity of smaller enemies. But you could always mix them in to that larger area to take advantage of infighting; they're decent for that role.

 

Yeah, I figured that was unfortunately the Arachno's biggest hurdle to overcome for any mapper, especially with how easy it is for the four-legged idiot to get stuck in a hallway or not act properly as a desired turret from a certain position less you give him enough ample room to shamble about.

[Vermil]

 

14 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Yeah, I figured that was unfortunately the Arachno's biggest hurdle to overcome for any mapper, especially with how easy it is for the four-legged idiot to get stuck in a hallway or not act properly as a desired turret from a certain position less you give him enough ample room to shamble about.

 

I believe, a monster in Doom can only turn or fire, with priority always given to the former.

[VGA]

7 hours ago, pcorf said:

It has to be Arch Viles. There will be quiet a few of them in my upcoming Doom 2 megawad.

Oh shiiiii --

[Gokuma]

23 hours ago, StupidBunny said:

I posted in another thread how I love the zombiemen for their softness; it's so fun to chaingun or chainsaw through a mob of them, or mow them down with the shotties by the dozens.  I never used to use them for the same reasons that everybody never uses them but they're great fun when they're in large numbers.  Not to mention how they can be gibbed by basically anything.  There's also a strategic element to using them, too, that's overlooked, where each one is pretty wimpy alone but if you keep encountering them in open spaces or run into a sea of green hair then they'll whittle you down faster than one might guess.  In one map I had a bunch of them patrolling a wall above the player thinking "lol killing these will be a nice respite from the actual hard stuff" and then actually found that they make pretty effective and annoying snipers when you're distracted by other, meaner things that seem higher-priority.

 

I think part of the problem is that they're often used the way they were early in E1, patrolling hallways in small numbers where they're too easy to pick off before they've done any damage.  People think of them as "early-level" or "training" enemies to ease the player in and don't think that they could play any part in more serious combat scenarios--that's what sergeants and commandos and revvies and stuff are for!  Give them a chance to snipe or surround the player in mobs though and they'll put paid to that.  I've tried it and it's great fun.

 

There's no getting around how goofy and out of place the SS men feel in Doom maps but all the same I wish more mappers would step outside the box and use them anyway.  Not every Doom map has to be SRS BZNS all the time and they can make for a different combat experience than the former humans that they're most similar to.

 

Commander Keen (non-deHackEd obviously) is a puzzle piece.  Not much more to say about Billy, gameplaywise has more in common with switches than other enemies.

 

The Spider Mastermind is another enemy I like to find excuses to use, their high HP mean they're a more persistent threat than the chaingunner and they can control an open-area map section pretty devastatingly if you don't use your cover right--although their comical propensity to start infights with every other monster on the map make up for that, and it's fucking tragic/hilarious when the spood falls victim of the hitbox bug and she gets mauled to death by a lone imp who got lucky.

 

If I was a mod, I would officially upgrade your name to SmartBunny.

 

As far as Wolfensoldiers go, they're prime candidates for simple graphics and sound replacement, even simple dehacked to make them look/sound like marines or zombiemen and then they're perfectly fitting in place.

[Job]

The Mancubus. It makes a great turret enemy and also works well as an obstacle for progression. Very underutilized due to its radius, though. 

[roadworx]

55 minutes ago, Job said:

The Mancubus. It makes a great turret enemy and also works well as an obstacle for progression. Very underutilized due to its radius, though. 

how'd i know you'd say the mancubus

[Gokuma]

I'm too skinny to be a turret.   I mean look at me!

[Job]

5 hours ago, roadworx said:

how'd i know you'd say the mancubus

Just a hunch, I suppose?

[roadworx]

1 hour ago, Job said:

Just a hunch, I suppose?

yeah, probably