One random Arch-Vile in older maps?

[Powerhouse Willington]

I'm currently going through every DOOM 2 wad that came with Maximum DOOM(currently 220 maps played in alphabetical order) and I'm noticing a pattern: There's always one, and only one Arch-Vile in nearly every map. I'm writing micro reviews of each wad, and I've started making a note of it if there isn't one present. 

 

Was there any community map design choice everyone agreed upon back in the 90's or am I pulling a "Beautiful Mind" here and assuming a pattern? My only guess is that the Arch-Vile was rough on hardware at the time. NUTS.wad wasn't released until 2001 and then, PCs struggled to run that due to the sheer volume of enemies. 

[Thelokk]

My feeling when I was playing those levels back in the late 90s was that the AV was a high tier enemy that you couldn't really spam, but you also kinda had to have at least one of to give your map some 'street cred'. Guessing one and only one was the middle-of-the-road solution. 

I had a fairly average PC back then and don't remember having particular issues to that regard. 

[Powerhouse Willington]

1 hour ago, Thelokk said:

My feeling when I was playing those levels back in the late 90s was that the AV was a high tier enemy that you couldn't really spam, but you also kinda had to have at least one of to give your map some 'street cred'. Guessing one and only one was the middle-of-the-road solution. 

I had a fairly average PC back then and don't remember having particular issues to that regard. 

Makes sense. I'm also noticing the Arch-Viles are often paired with 4 Pinkies. I have no info on who created the maps unless I go out of my way to make them. Starting to wonder if one prolific mapper had something to do with half of the CD. I'm being somewhat hyperbolic here. 

[Thelokk]

7 minutes ago, Powerhouse Willington said:

I'm also noticing the Arch-Viles are often paired with 4 Pinkies. 

 

I think that's just because pinkies are excellent meat shields for AVs.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

I think it's due to majority of players were keyboard only at that time, and the skill of doom play increased dramatically over the decades. 

How's it with cyberdemons in those wads? How rare are they compared to viles? 

[Bep]

AFAIK, the main reason of the weird arch-vile placement in Maximum Doom is the "Doom II-fication" software that were used on Doom I levels, which populates those levels with Doom II enemies. Some levels become utterly broken as a result.

[Uni]

I think it's due to a converter that switched various Doom entities with Doom 2. IIRC Demons became Archviles.

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Uni said:

I think it's due to a converter that switched various Doom entities with Doom 2. IIRC Demons became Archviles.

Wouldn't that result in many archies, not just one?

 

I bet it's because archviles were considered a "mini-boss" at the time. It was a simpler time, when 1 archvile was enough. Now due to the steady march of progress we need at least 2 even in early maps to satiate our ultra-modern appetites :P

[YoshizinGordin]

Old WADS Can Have A Little Archvile...Surprisingly, Older WADS are much better than other User-Made Maps when it comes to the heavy difficulty and challenging encounter with the common archvile. These WADS You're Playing can have a little archvile as a threat.

[Powerhouse Willington]

3 hours ago, Bep said:

AFAIK, the main reason of the weird arch-vile placement in Maximum Doom is the "Doom II-fication" software that were used on Doom I levels, which populates those levels with Doom II enemies. Some levels become utterly broken as a result.

I take it that explains the duplicates and most files ending in 2 which are the functioning wads. The wads without "2" seem to have more monsters, messed up linedefs and sectors, as well as missing textures. 

[Uni]

@magicsofa I meant as a general rule, not as every Demon became an Archvile. One Demon per map was replaced with an Archvile, that' why they are usually surrounded by other Demons.

[Maximum Matt]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:13 PM, Powerhouse Willington said:

I'm currently going through every DOOM 2 wad that came with Maximum DOOM(currently 220 maps played in alphabetical order) and I'm noticing a pattern: There's always one, and only one Arch-Vile in nearly every map. I'm writing micro reviews of each wad, and I've started making a note of it if there isn't one present. 

Okay, first of all, Maximum Doom is a strange fascinating bastard of a thing and it's easy to get addicted to it, so be careful and take breaks from it, for the sake of your sanity.  

I would love to see your micro-reviews, I did a list myself when I went through Max Doom a few years ago, you can really see my mental decline.  

As for the arch-vile thing, this also confused the hell out of me and took me some research to work out what was going on: amateur-made Doom PWADs were not playable on Doom II, so special conversion software would make D2 versions of these levels, and would change around certain items and enemies - which is understandable for putting the super shotgun (swapped with a regular one) and the megasphere (swapped with a soul sphere) into the level.  However, for whatever reason, it would also seemingly randomly change D1 enemies to their D2 counterparts - shotgunner to a chaingunner, cacodemon to a pain elemental, baron to a hell knight, and of course, demon to a friggin' archie.  This of course completely destroys the intended difficulty balance of the original level, and is the reason you have seen so many archies in with groups of demons, or archies right at the start of levels.  

I have no idea why it's only ONE archie per level, or how random the conversion process is (you'll see multiple versions of the same level with different enemy types in the same places for example).  I'm also unsure if the revenants/mancubus/aracnotrons are part of this process too, or if they had to be manually put in by a map author (although you'll be seeing a lot of aracnos stuck in walls, leading me to believe they were converted from enemies with a smaller hitbox).

You should check out Kes Gaming's Max Doom series, as well as Piece Of Pie Software's one (in his various vids he refers to archies as 'the trend'), to help you comprehend what you're getting into.  

Good luck on your endeavour, sir

[Powerhouse Willington]

6 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Okay, first of all, Maximum Doom is a strange fascinating bastard of a thing and it's easy to get addicted to it, so be careful and take breaks from it, for the sake of your sanity.  

I would love to see your micro-reviews, I did a list myself when I went through Max Doom a few years ago, you can really see my mental decline.  

As for the arch-vile thing, this also confused the hell out of me and took me some research to work out what was going on: amateur-made Doom PWADs were not playable on Doom II, so special conversion software would make D2 versions of these levels, and would change around certain items and enemies - which is understandable for putting the super shotgun (swapped with a regular one) and the megasphere (swapped with a soul sphere) into the level.  However, for whatever reason, it would also seemingly randomly change D1 enemies to their D2 counterparts - shotgunner to a chaingunner, cacodemon to a pain elemental, baron to a hell knight, and of course, demon to a friggin' archie.  This of course completely destroys the intended difficulty balance of the original level, and is the reason you have seen so many archies in with groups of demons, or archies right at the start of levels.  

I have no idea why it's only ONE archie per level, or how random the conversion process is (you'll see multiple versions of the same level with different enemy types in the same places for example).  I'm also unsure if the revenants/mancubus/aracnotrons are part of this process too, or if they had to be manually put in by a map author (although you'll be seeing a lot of aracnos stuck in walls, leading me to believe they were converted from enemies with a smaller hitbox).

You should check out Kes Gaming's Max Doom series, as well as Piece Of Pie Software's one (in his various vids he refers to archies as 'the trend'), to help you comprehend what you're getting into.  

Good luck on your endeavour, sir

Gonna try to respond to this as it falls into place.

 

Max Doom is indeed a beast of its own kind. 

 

My micro-reviews are in a text file in this format: NameOfWad.wad(score/5: Notes, observations and critiques, post-wad mental state optional). My bast2.wad review looked like this, which is where I began to suspect there was conversion/porting going on. It makes going through these maps really fast.

Quote

bast2.wad(2.5/5. Very simple. Low enemy count. Arch-Vile was the hardest enemy. Textures were terrible)
----bast.wad(Same as Bast2.wad with missing textures. Beginning to think these maps are ported from DOOM 1)

This review is a prime example of how often breaks are needed. Two scores for one map between a full day break. 

Quote

base66-2.wad(3/5. Played again and figured out the map, forgetting I made a comment. Kind of mazy and confusing, but was fair and very DOOM2-like.---0/5. Didn't finish. Too big and labyrinth-y. Fuck these maps, man. This shit is wearing me down lol)

 

Touching on the Arch-Viles, they really started standing out when they were always surrounded by Pinkies or somewhere just past a big door down a long hallway. I'm really glad I made this thread because I couldn't ignore the near uniformity of their placement and spawn rate per map. I've also noticed the Arachnotrons stuck in the walls, which I'm cool with because there's typically 1-2 more that aren't stuck and they're almost always facing you when you enter a room. 

 

I've seen those DOOMTubers occasionally when I'm seeing if anyone else is experiencing the levels of bullshit that are these maps. They seem to share the same sentiments which is very validating lol

 

EDIT: I'm playing all of these wads on Ultra-Violence, the gentleman's way to play. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Powerhouse Willington

[RjY]

I am certain the aforementioned special conversion software is DM2CONV (DM2CNV32), used with its default example configuration, shown below. It turns some of the barons into spiders stuck in walls, troopers into various kinds of health items, and exactly four randomly chosen monsters into one each of a megasphere, an archvile, a berserk box, and a super shotgun.

[THINGS]
2001=82                 ;Shotgun = SuperShotgun
;at least 1 of: megasphere, archvile, berserk, supershotgun
9,3001,3002,3003,3004,3005,3006=83@1,64@1,2023@1,82@1
3001=65@20%             ;Imp = Chaingundude
3005=71@10%             ;Cacodemon = Pain Elemental
3003=68@10%,66@10%,69@30% ;Baron = Arachnotron,Revenant,Hell Knight
;Trooper = Chaingundude,Medikit,Stimpack,Health Bonus
3004=65@10%,2012@5%,2011@10%,2014@20%

[Powerhouse Willington]

15 hours ago, RjY said:

I am certain the aforementioned special conversion software is DM2CONV (DM2CNV32), used with its default example configuration, shown below. It turns some of the barons into spiders stuck in walls, troopers into various kinds of health items, and exactly four randomly chosen monsters into one each of a megasphere, an archvile, a berserk box, and a super shotgun.

 

[THINGS]
2001=82                 ;Shotgun = SuperShotgun
;at least 1 of: megasphere, archvile, berserk, supershotgun
9,3001,3002,3003,3004,3005,3006=83@1,64@1,2023@1,82@1
3001=65@20%             ;Imp = Chaingundude
3005=71@10%             ;Cacodemon = Pain Elemental
3003=68@10%,66@10%,69@30% ;Baron = Arachnotron,Revenant,Hell Knight
;Trooper = Chaingundude,Medikit,Stimpack,Health Bonus
3004=65@10%,2012@5%,2011@10%,2014@20%

 

Fantastic insight on this.

[Powerhouse Willington]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:40 AM, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

How's it with cyberdemons in those wads? How rare are they compared to viles? 

I don't know how I missed this, but the Cyberdemons are fairly absent from most of the levels. I'm up to 255 wads as of now, and very few have had more than 2 in one area. I've found their placement a lot less spammy, but the rooms are quite tiny and ultimately inadequate for beginner players. 

[Maximum Matt]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:02 AM, Powerhouse Willington said:

I've found their placement a lot less spammy

Check out URMEAT2.wad then

[Powerhouse Willington]

On 10/12/2022 at 9:24 AM, Maximum Matt said:

Check out URMEAT2.wad then

I started playing and was like "yeah, these hallways were kinda crowded, but nothing too bad. I wonder what Maximum Matt was referring to", and then I got to the end. After 20 tries, I managed to grab the red key and ping off of different invulns back out of that area. Then I realized the red door was in the red key hallway lol

[Maximum Matt]

It's levels like that which, in my opinion, make Maximum Doom worth going through.  Utter glorious insanity.

[Powerhouse Willington]

1 hour ago, Maximum Matt said:

It's levels like that which, in my opinion, make Maximum Doom worth going through.  Utter glorious insanity.

There certainly are some gems in MaxDOOM, but the more I play user-created content, the expectation of quality goes up, too. I know we didn't have "No Rest for the Living" styles back in the 90's, but I consider it a milestone that is admirable to aspire to, especially these days. I think a lot of MaxDOOM's wads are going to be "baby's first map" content, which I expect, but am somewhat harsh on. People were getting jobs at id for their skills, too, so I tend to expect/want a quality wad once in a while. I like to think I'm keeping an open mind by consistently playing these levels. To demand 5-Star maps from every wad is like expecting every person on the planet to be a member of MENSA. MaxDOOM might have its geniuses, but not everyone can be a Good Will Hunting.