How To "Fix" The Spider Mastermind?

[DSC]

As we all know, the SMM is definitely the most niche and overall least versatile monster in Doom's bestiary, and mappers struggle much trying to find good scenarios where they can put one. So, I had the idea of trying to come up with ways to make them more usable and worthy of a spot on the roster. I myself thought about doing those two things:

-reduce their hitbox size;

-reduce their pain chance.

I'm not a good mapper however, so my perspective might be a little skewed. To all the people who are much more skilled than me, I therefore ask: what would be your personal changes to implement in this case?

[Stupid Bunny]

I use the big spood disproportionately often I think…I find them cool and also a devastatingly effective pressure/area denial enemy in the right circumstances.

 

The hitbox size is easily their greatest tactical weakness. Doom has a counterintuitive logic of making being bigger a detriment for a creature with no clear upside apart from blocking the way. Once targeted by other monsters, even slow-moving projectiles from far away are likely to make contact. Coupled with an attack that sprays hitscans indiscriminately and the whole blockmap paralysis thing they are practically engineered to pick fights with every other monster in the room and lose.

 

Truthfully though, I kind of like their weaknesses, which make up for their formidable attack and HP and make fighting them a little less tedious. It’s also fun to be able to SSG them at a distance and still watch every pellet hit. I also like making spacious maps so I often find places to work then in (another challenge I’ve heard people express.) I’m really not sure what I’d change. 
 

If I had to change something, maybe make them impervious to hitscans, or at least other spider hitscans. But that would break at least one combat scenario I’ve made so maybe nvm

[Jayextee]

Upgrade to 9000HP and put her on a moving platform. Boosh.

[Novaseer]

I just finished up a map for the How Much Health? CP that makes disproportionate use of one, but that's not exactly my usual fayre. I think that their main two problems are hitbox size and the irregularity of their attack.

 

Fitting a 256x256 turret is hard enough, and the space for a roaming SMM is even harder to build. In my WIP Depths 2 I've shrunk them to 192x192 and they work a little bit better, but still not great.

 

As for the other problem, I feel it especially with SMMs that their target acquisition seems to be more inconsistent than other enemies. Sometimes I'll be in the open for fifteen seconds straight and they won't even start their attack. I'm not deep enough into the workings of Doom monster states to offer a fix to that problem, but if the SMM could be made more aggressive (Cyberdemons, for example, attack an awful lot more) it would boost its threat level by an ample amount.

[Xyzzу]

I only just thought of this but Doom 3's cyberdemon has a sort of "stomp" attack that instakills when anything gets too close to it. Giving the lamest monster in the game a call to A_Explode or something during their walk cycle would probably help it tremendously, at least when intermingling it with other monsters.

[ViolentBeetle]

I did mod a monster that is a complete mimic of mastermind but the size of a baron, and it was an absolute terror. Size, that prevents it from navigating most playable spaces is the mastermind's main hindrance. If it could actually turn around cover, oh god.

[Dynamo]

I've thought about it and I think the best way might be to make the spider mastermind fire small and fast moving projectiles in a semi-random pattern. The hitscan is just brutal, even compared to a chaingunner, and makes the monster impractical to use in open arenas, while its massive size makes it impractical to use it in congested parts of a level. I think Supercharge does something similar (or at the very least Ar Luminae did), and the spider mastermind feels better in that mod I think.

[deepthaw]

It's real hard to beef up a hitscanner's difficulty without making them just unfun to battle. Maybe she splits into smaller masterminds every so often?

[Jayextee]

Actually, I have a serious answer here.

SMM should fly. Sure, it would require different sprite art. But the DOOM bestiary doesn't have any flying hitscanners and is short on airborne enemy types in general. Also I solved one of the SMM's size issues right there; she can move pretty much anywhere she can fit now.

[jaeden]

I would make SMM either immune or very resistant to BFG. I do not like that a (final) boss enemy can be just simply one-shotted like that.

[DoomGappy]

51 minutes ago, ViolentBeetle said:

I did mod a monster that is a complete mimic of mastermind but the size of a baron, and it was an absolute terror. Size, that prevents it from navigating most playable spaces is the mastermind's main hindrance. If it could actually turn around cover, oh god.

Which would make this thing the most OP enemy, then?

[prfunky]

3 hours ago, DSC said:

-reduce their hitbox size;

 

 

what would be your personal changes to implement in this case?

 

2 hours ago, Stupid Bunny said:

The hitbox size is easily their greatest tactical weakness. Doom has a counterintuitive logic of making being bigger a detriment for a creature with no clear upside apart from blocking the way. Once targeted by other monsters, even slow-moving projectiles from far away are likely to make contact. Coupled with an attack that sprays hitscans indiscriminately and the whole blockmap paralysis thing they are practically engineered to pick fights with every other monster in the room and lose.

 

39 minutes ago, Dynamo said:

I've thought about it and I think the best way might be to make the spider mastermind fire small and fast moving projectiles in a semi-random pattern. The hitscan is just brutal, even compared to a chaingunner, and makes the monster impractical to use in open arenas, while its massive size makes it impractical to use it in congested parts of a level. I think Supercharge does something similar (or at the very least Ar Luminae did), and the spider mastermind feels better in that mod I think.

 

It's funny that this comes up as a topic now. I just released a map which features a DECORATEd SMM. In the process

of making her, I considered exactly, that hitscan box hugeness. I decided against modifying the default dimensions

however, due to trying to not face off with the laws of unintended consequences. I really, really, really just wanted

to release what I'd done and couldn't fathom any more variables in testing that creation. Anyhow, oversized hitscan

box became very apparent in this map where I was already replacing the hitscan-ness everyone rails against so much.

As you can see from my screenshots, the chaingunner's new rocket-derived shots detonate quite a distance from the

actual body of the SMM. I supposed original creators wanted something to happen if one was shooting at her legs and

therefore the large hitscan box. The room I deployed her in is sized accordingly to screw with her maneuverability in

that space to allow for player to have at least some place to dodge her attack.

 

 

14 minutes ago, deepthaw said:

It's real hard to beef up a hitscanner's difficulty without making them just unfun to battle. Maybe she splits into smaller masterminds every so often?

 

@deepthaw ... you task me... heh-heh-heh. Ever play the gridbug screen of the arcade original Tron?

 

 

 

[Rudolph]

Maybe you could replace its chaingun with a plasma rifle with a large spread.

[Caffeine]

Sure, the spider mastermind is a bit rough around the edges, but it is not exactly a bad monster when used correctly.

 

They do well in big open areas with lots of other monsters because they infight easily and are not too much of an ammo sponge in that situation. They can also do well as an occasional sniper in an arena.

 

In the original id maps they are barely used at all and are not a problem. In modern maps I think we understand the roles of various monsters better than in the 1990s and do a much better job choosing the right tool (monster) for the job at hand.

 

Overall I think it would have been nicer if the spider mastermind were around 25% smaller and had another thousand health, but I also do not believe it matters enough to do the work to make that happen.

[bofu]

Spider Masterminds have a few big, glaring weaknesses:

• They can get stuck/paralyzed by melee enemies, especially if said enemies have started infighting them.
• They're BFG ray magnets, making it trivial to one- or two-shot them, but increasing their HP to overcome this just makes them unfun and repetitive to play against. This also makes them unbalanced counterplay-wise because the rocket launcher is an inefficient choice against them, getting out damaged by the SSG in close range due to the lack of splash damage.
• The hitscan attack isn't very accurate and is prone to hitting just about everything but its target at range, but making it more accurate just means that the player gets sniped.
• They don't shoot enough at range (without fast monsters), meaning that they're a limited threat and more of a nuisance.

Now, if you want to fine-tune the Spider Mastermind without going about and making it behave a lot differently, there are a few things we can do through the magic of DEHACKED, especially if using MBF (or even better, MBF21) codepointers.

 

• To prevent the Spider Mastermind from getting paralyzed, add an A_JumpIfTargetInSight to the end of its pain state, optionally with an A_RandomJump, and give it a chance to jump right into its firing states without even needing a countdown after it gets hit with the pain state. This should prevent melee monsters from having too easy of a time stunlocking it, especially if they're the Spider Mastermind's target (or if they're in the way of its actual target). This wlll also punish players who rush it too quickly.
• You could also artificially increase its aggression by doing the A_JumpIfTargetInSight and A_RandomJump combo to make it fire more often, with perhaps even a A_JumpIfTargetCloser in there for good measure to only make it do that if the target is less than a certain distance away.
• Speaking of A_JumpIfTargetCloser, you could tighten the spread of its ranged attack, but only if it's more than a certain distance away, by using it along with A_MonsterBulletAttack with some different parameters. (Just remember to use A_PlaySound along with it to play the firing sound.)

I would also decrease its radius to a more manageable value.

[fruity lerlups]

the answer is simple..

give them bfg;

Pros of BFGMasterMind;

-A hitscan menace similar to the Archville where you have to break line of sight before its projectile hits something or you can take an instagib at close range, or significant hit to stack at far range.

-Deadly projectile which will very certainlt instakill in most cases if youre still in line ot sight when it lands.

-Cool new dance where youre weaving in and out of cover to mess up the spidermummy, trying to avoid both its projectile AND stay out of los before it hits something

-BFG 1-tapping the mastermind goes from making the Mastermind seen pathetic fo being a super high execution move where you rely on great timing, infighting, etc. to get it off and theres always the risk of it 1-tapping you with its BFG

-BFG's tracers landing and demolishing a horde of demons makes for awesome spectacle and cool infighting scenarios. When a mob tries to fight the spiderdemon back, theyll very likely be killed quickly. Leads to a kinda cool "its you and me doomboy" drama in every fight.

-Plasma theme makes it more of a mummy to the arachnotrons.

Possible cons:

-Extremely deadly to the point of frustrating, the dance of tracers and projectiles might become too chaotic in certain scenarios.

-Quite liable to inducing too much aggro from other demons and just having a horde waste it.. however it might just end up with it wasting all the mobs as mentioned

-Might limit certain fight scenarios as it would become an infighting goddess.. but is this so bad?

 

BFG Mastermind.

 

Edit: also leads to a funny contrast between the archville and mastermind, archville is a LoS menace that brings back mobs to fight you, Mastermind is a LoS menace that will clear out mobs until its one on one with you. It would be interesting to possibly give it immunity to infighting? Might be a lil too crazy then, but cmon, its the final boss, let her slay.

Edited December 21, 2023 by fruity lerlups

[galileo31dos01]

The SMM in The Quinary Conundrum is a good example of an improved version of the original plus some additional magical tricks. It's in MBF21, but other than a certain behavior related to switching targets, most changes can perfectly be achieved in dehacked.

 

I agree with the two changes in the OP because they do mark a significant difference, and faster reaction time should spark more awareness from players, but it's very rare that someone adds those to their wad (like, probably one in a thousand?). Most people rather think of a full replacement that's not defective courtesy of the engine, or not use at all, which is fair since there isn't that much "richness" you can squeeze from a massive healthy hitscanner next to most of the roster (I say this and put SMMs in almost all my maps).

[nicolas monti]

I've tried myself reducing their hitbox, increasing their speed and raising their health with dehacked, they became an interesting enemy, the sprites actually allow for a hitbox reduction of about 33%, allowing them to work in narrower spaces.

[lokbustam257]

I agree with the OP, SMM should have their hitbox reduced to allow more maneuverability in more cramped areas and also allows her to dodge more BFG trails. Set the health to about 5000 or 6000. The chaingun should just be replaced with a faster firing (compared to Arachnotron's) plasma rifle, the hitscan chaingun is just a bit too much, plus it looks cooler. I think the unimplemented magical attack from the beta can be implemented for more variety. Maybe it summons more demons, or spawns a projectile that paralyze you if you get hit? These are just ideas that appear in my head. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by lokbustam257

[Li'l devil]

Give it automatic rocket launcher. Would make it a truly dangerous final boss of Doom 1 and the champion of infighting, while also not too imbalanced if there's enough cover. SMM already has splash damage immunity too.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Li'l devil

[Fonze]

Put the SMM up on a ledge and surround the player in demons so the SMM has ample time to do its thing 😋 Maybe also use a monster waiting to tp as a trigger mechanism to deploy more monsters when the SMM dies. 

[boris]

16 hours ago, Jayextee said:

SMM should fly. Sure, it would require different sprite art.

 

There's a flying (weaker) SMM on R667. It's called the Arachnophyte.

 

 

[Naarok0fkor]

I haven't got to the point of changing the masterspidermind's sprite graphics but I love cyberspiders...

https://www.moddb.com/mods/guntoberfest/downloads/naarok0fkors-winter-slayride-2023

[whatup876]

17 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Actually, I have a serious answer here.

SMM should fly. Sure, it would require different sprite art. But the DOOM bestiary doesn't have any flying hitscanners and is short on airborne enemy types in general. Also I solved one of the SMM's size issues right there; she can move pretty much anywhere she can fit now.

But then she wouldn't be a spider.

How about have her jump to the ceiling and/or drop spider webs (that can affect movement)?

[Stupid Bunny]

4 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

But then she wouldn't be a spider.

 The bee mastermind

[magicsofa]

I've already experimented with reducing the hitbox and liked the result, although it is a little jarring to be able to shoot through the legs after so many years of dooming.

 

It can be interesting to put the SMM in large hallways that are just big enough to walk through, so that the player cannot pass. The problem is that Doom AI tends to do silly 180 degree turns in hallways at the worst times... still, I find her much more intimidating when bouldering down a hallway, than in a giant arena where I have all the control as the player.

[rzh]

Trust me, you don't want to make it faster and smaller.

[Jayextee]

1 hour ago, whatup876 said:

But then she wouldn't be a spider.

As a four-legged cybernetic monstrosity, she already isn't. Eight legs is a basic characteristic of arachnida, so I'm taking the 'spider' part of the nomenclature as loosely as it deserves.

So anyway. She should fly.

[magicsofa]

Well to test these theories we obviously need to start the Oops All Masterminds project

[Herr Dethnout]

13 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

Which would make this thing the most OP enemy, then?

I will be honest...

That thing looks so cute, I want to pet it...