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rawmeat

Any wad that makes the spider mastermind harder to fight?

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like, where she isnt easy to kill with a BFG with maybe 1 extra attack or like they built the arena in a certain way to make it harder?

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Judgment buffs its HP and makes it attack with rockets/BFG blasts once its pain state is triggered, which successfully prevents killing it easily.

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I haven't done it yet, but via the use of some Dehacked (particularly with the use of MBF codepointers), you might be able to circumvent a lot of the longstanding issues. You know how Spider Masterminds can get stunlocked by melee enemies? Make it so that the pain state of the Spider Mastermind uses the A_RandomJump function in MBF to give it a significant chance to jump right away to its attack state. You can increase its aggression by also adding in a few 0 tic A_RandomJump functions during its walk cycle to do the same thing, though that'll give it the effect of firing at the player even when there's no line of sight (which could be avoided in MBF21 by using the A_JumpIfTargetInSight function as a prerequisite; go back to the next frame in the walk cycle if there is no line of sight to the target).

 

None of these would fundamentally change the mechanics of the Spider Mastermind, but they would make it a much more aggressive enemy and prevent it from getting into a state where it can't fire because it can't take enough steps to trigger a shooting check.

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while it's not a gampleay modification and instead a boss a the end of a megawad, there's always going down's final boss

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Honestly, most of the issues come from the fact that she's so damn huge. Gets stuck very easily, and not many places to put her. Also though, with the blockmap fixed like in ZDoom, she can go down in a single BFG shot. So maybe a health buff too. In her current state she's probably best used as a stationary turret.

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2 hours ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

Demolisher.png

 

I think you'll want to fight this guy! 

 

On Brutal Doom Platinum, it can climb on ceiling, spread devastating bombs.... and so on. On Realism mode, it's a complete nightmare!

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1 minute ago, Yousuf Anik said:

On Brutal Doom Platinum, it can climb on ceiling, spread devastating bombs.... and so on. On Realism mode, it's a complete nightmare!

What? My version of Brutal Doom doesn't do that.

 

If platinum some new special version?

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For vanilla SMMs, probably the only way is to limit the amount of players' resources/placing SMM in an extremely uncomfortable spot.

 

image.png

Here's an example in No Chance. There are enemies around her, you probably don't have enough cells to deal with her. The distance makes it so that BFG is almost useless, and there's no thing for her to infight. Now get this guy to harass you for the first 30 mins of the map on a thin walkway.

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Here's a map I made earlier on that subject:

 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2319479

 

The SMM needs to be exposed before you can even deal damage to it with a long ranged BFG shot or two. And you better be quick about it, too.

 

I'll concede that you don't really fight the SMM head-on in this map of mine, since it was built around idea that the SMM is more like a controlling unit instead of a fighting one, but I do think it takes a bit of effort to actually win this one...

 

Requires Ultimate doom as the IWAD, and needs the resources from the respective project OP:
 

 

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I had some in mind. Luckily, there's years of community wisdom to write my post for me:

  • Whitemare 2, coming from a community who always favored mood and atmosphere, contains a number of exciting mastermind fights. Check MAP07, MAP08, MAP15, MAP32, and MAP18 for examples. If you want some quick analysis of each use, check Demon of the Well's assorted write ups (MAP07, MAP08MAP15, MAP32, MAP18)
  • Nootrac4571's Spiderfight has an interesting setup. Not Jabba review.
  • BTSX E1 MAP07 is themed around using the Mastermind well. It's been a while since my last play, but I remember that the Spiders were used more in an ambient, incidental sense.
  • Tarnsman has a Spider map in this set. The one level I haven't played, but it's Tarnsman.

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I think it would be really neat if there was an enhancement that made the Mastermind leap around like Peter from Lisa: The Painful

 

Peter_b01f3d_6917206.gif.2779f15ffd7478fe655d5699f19bd9aa.gif

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6 hours ago, Chezza said:

What? My version of Brutal Doom doesn't do that.

 

If platinum some new special version?

In Brutal Doom Platinum 3.0 (yeah, I think that's the updated version so far) it's not a Demolisher though but it has new attacks. It can attack while climbing on ceiling and then return to floor, causes bumping which also deals huge damage everything around it. The spreading bombs are also very deadly like sometimes they can be found at ground like mines, if you accidentally step on them you blow up yourself. Quite a deadly guy in higher difficulties! I had a hard time beating it on my No Rest For The Living playthroughs (watch here: https://youtu.be/gJ-WLmdzHCs). I can't imagine fighting it on a tight spaces but I think in Doom E3M8 it will be good fight.

Edited by Yousuf Anik

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13 hours ago, rawmeat said:

like, where she isnt easy to kill with a BFG with maybe 1 extra attack or like they built the arena in a certain way to make it harder?

Well DA2 does that, just I haven't used any yet :P

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10 hours ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

Can i get a hell nah!

 

Is it really harder or more interesting if you can just circle strafe it to death? Maybe I'm missing something.

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This thread inspired me to make my own modification to the Spider Mastermind for GZDoom:
Download link

 

This .WAD increases the Spider Mastermind's health from 3000 to 4500 (500 more than the Cyberdemon), and adds a second phase to the boss, which starts when its health is below 1500. In this second phase, the music changes to un09.mid, its speed is doubled, and its attack is changed so that it shoots plasma balls. I haven't checked if it is beatable from pistol start, but it should be. Of course, this doesn't solve the fact that it can be entirely bypassed with the BFG9000, and this .WAD only makes sense in the context of Doom 1/E3M8, not in levels that use the Spider Mastermind as a normal enemy.

Edited by Individualised

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Not sure what the problem is with it being "easy" and quick to kill with BFG shots, like that's a fair exchange nowadays in my book. I personally wouldn't fancy a big ass hitscanner to endure a lot longer than I can while holding the shoot key... Anyways, on topic: maybe try Foursite, or Solar Struggle boss maps, Malevolence's BFG spiders, Scientist 2 (e.g. map 06), or Relyctum, I recall many russian mapsets with spiderdemons encounters that were concerning. I heard the recent Corruption boosts several monsters attacks, including the speed at which spiderdemons shoot.

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9 hours ago, Ludi said:

 

Is it really harder or more interesting if you can just circle strafe it to death? Maybe I'm missing something.

 

It moves extremely fast so if you try to mindlessly circle strafe it, you will get cut off and killed. In that video there are a handful of moments where I had to actively anticipate and quickly reposition to avoid where it was going, which is already pretty involved and far away from 'circle strafe to win'.

 

The part you are missing though is that it's not a serious monster. :P 

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1 hour ago, baja blast rd. said:

 

It moves extremely fast so if you try to mindlessly circle strafe it, you will get cut off and killed. In that video there are a handful of moments where I had to actively anticipate and quickly reposition to avoid where it was going, which is already pretty involved and far away from 'circle strafe to win'.

 

The part you are missing though is that it's not a serious monster. :P 

 

Ah, well guess you just make it look effortless :p

 

Take that as you will

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I may as well mention Foursite: 

 

Spoiler

It gets rid of the refire check, so once it sees you and begins firing, it will continue to spam forever even if you take cover. It's a pretty cool fight even though I still think it ends up somewhat scripted. The actual balance changes are pretty clever though to force you to use your head.

 

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I built an arena to make the SMM harder to fight in "More Tricks and Traps Than You Require". While it's technically possible to have found either the BFG or Plasma Rifle before meeting the SMM, it's more likely that players won't have that, and will need to rely on the RL.

 

Fight Details:

There were supplies outside the arena so the player should have at least 100 health and 100 green armor before entering. I built the arena so that once the player enters a certain distance, the SMM will see them through small fake wall and teleport behind the player, cutting off their escape. If the player tries to get past, they'll discover that what they thought was a solid wall they could use for cover is actually also fake, and the SMM can shoot through it easily.



 

The arena is divided into two forks separated by a column and a walkway which is slowly lowering. The far end of each fork has a wall which can be used for cover to break line of sight, but those walls are also lowering. If the player just hides, the SMM will advance, and the player will be a dead duck once the walls are lowered, so they need to pop out to pelt the spider with rockets until the walkway has finished lowering, which lets the player and spider move all the way around the column and use that for the cover.

 

Each side of the fork has stairs which go up to a ledge, one has 39% in health bonuses, the other has a bunch of single rockets, and depending on how many they used in the previous fight, they may need those supplies to survive, which means running up there while still in the open to grab them, then retreating. Two additional lowering floors, one each side of the fork have rocket boxes or medikits on top. The middle of the room also has a bunch of stimpaks.

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