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Reaper978

Doom 2 monster annoyances

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I was playing Alien Vendetta on hurt me plenty (I know it's a difficult wad). Am I the only one that thinks the demon projectiles are pretty damn brutal? It seems like you make one wrong move, and half your hp is gone.

The manucubus fires two fast, huge projectiles that do massive damage upon landing, and they're awkward to dodge because of the angles. Hellknight fireballs also cause a major hit. But I think the monster that pisses me off the most is the revenant. Large, powerful, homing rockets? And they will occasionally fire a "super rocket" that, correct me if I am wrong, seems to be faster, stronger, and more accurate? Their rockets can even follow you around corners.

The zombie chaingunners seem to have pinpoint accuracy at even the most insane distances, and up close they do a ton of damage very fast. Zombie shotgun guys can similarly rip you apart especially when they magically appear in your face around a corner.

I like all the monsters from Ultimate Doom, and I actually like the Archvile because his attack doesn't consist of spewing a barrage of projectiles at you. The Cyberdemon, Spider Mastermind, and Baron are fine since they are convincingly very powerful opponents. But I am constantly coming toe to toe with mancubi and revenants, both of which seem to be designed to piss you off with their ridiculous noises and devastating attacks (why not have the mancubus projectile homing, too?)

I don't know... all these mancubi and revenants are pissing me off.

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The monsters can do very brutal damage.

If I'm not mistaken, sergeants can hit up to 45 damage if all the shots connect.

One chaingunner can kill you in a matter of seconds.
Each revenant shot has the potential of doing 80 damage. etc.

Then again, if the monsters only did light damage, DOOM would be too easy, wouldn't it?

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You've got to practice more movement, particularly with strafing moves. Those two monsters (revenant and mancubus) are the ones that demand the most of your movement skills.

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Strafing is a must. Especially when dealing with Cyberdemons, Barons, Fatsos, Revs, and Hell Knights. There are plenty of levels where monsters are aplenty and health and ammo are limited.

Circle Strafing is also important. Especially for arachnotrons and Cybies.

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You're not keyboarding, are you? Use mouse and WASD, and then throw yourself into difficult wads (without the use of saves) or online deathmatches. You'll learn movement skills the hard way.

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Creaphis said:

You're not keyboarding, are you? Use mouse and WASD, and then throw yourself into difficult wads (without the use of saves) or online deathmatches. You'll learn movement skills the hard way.

No, I'm using mouse and keyboard. I think I'm just in the habit of stopping, waiting for the projectiles, and then moving out of the way. I'm not sure how I got into that habit since it is clearly not as effective as constant strafing.

Thanks for the responses.

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The only thing I find annoying are certain attacks in co-op servers, even with a normal amount of lag. Namely Revenant homing rockets whose spites won't follow you, but you'll still take damage if you don't outmanoeuvre them, and the Arch-Vile's attack, which sometimes can be tricky to keep track of unless you're keeping your eye on his animations.

Sometimes there'll be a slight delay in the Mancubus' fireballs, or sometimes they'll manage to clip through openings that are normally too small to pass through, but those don't happen enough to really find annoying.

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Reaper978 said:

I think the monster that pisses me off the most is the revenant. Large, powerful, homing rockets? And they will occasionally fire a "super rocket" that, correct me if I am wrong, seems to be faster, stronger, and more accurate? Their rockets can even follow you around corners.


Revenants can indeed fire two different kinds of projectiles, but they both have the same speed and power. The difference is that one just flies in a straight line, while the other follows the player's movements. The guided shots can be identified by the smoke trails they leave behind.

More monster projectiles means more possibilities for infighting. But if you need a break, you could try Doom 3! The power of the Revenant rockets in that game is somewhere between a mosquito bite and a paper cut.

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Reaper978 said:

The manucubus fires two fast, huge projectiles that do massive damage upon landing, and they're awkward to dodge because of the angles.


When you fight these guys, they shoot in bursts of 3, 2 projectiles each burst. The first shot will have one projectile coming directly toward you, and one to the right of you, so strafe left to get to the left of both projectiles. The second burst will be similar, one directly toward you, and one more to the left of you. Since you moved left for the first burst, move more to the right of both projectiles. The last burst will be two fireballs fired at angles. Move to the right to get in between both of them. It's a little tough to get the hang of, it's kinda like playing guitar hero.

Reaper978 said:

The zombie chaingunners seem to have pinpoint accuracy at even the most insane distances, and up close they do a ton of damage very fast. Zombie shotgun guys can similarly rip you apart especially when they magically appear in your face around a corner.


These monsters actually miss a hell of a lot. If you stand with your back turned while a chaingun guy is shooting you, you'll see more than 90% of the projectiles hitting walls and other monsters. It's because the chaingun is relatively fast that at least 3 or 4 projectiles are bound to hit you. Shotgun guys irritate me quite a bit, I try to use chaingun when these guys are around, because if you use a shotgun, they'll nab you while you pump the damn thing.

Reaper978 said:

I like all the monsters from Ultimate Doom, and I actually like the Archvile because his attack doesn't consist of spewing a barrage of projectiles at you. The Cyberdemon, Spider Mastermind, and Baron are fine since they are convincingly very powerful opponents. But I am constantly coming toe to toe with mancubi and revenants, both of which seem to be designed to piss you off with their ridiculous noises and devastating attacks (why not have the mancubus projectile homing, too?)

I don't know... all these mancubi and revenants are pissing me off.


I'd like archviles more if I could see when they attack you, but aside from that I agree with you there. I'm fairly certain that Doom made Revenants, Arch Viles, Arachnatrons, Pain Elementals, and Mancubi to be really hard on purpose to keep people playing. If we were stuck with the original Doom monsters I don't think I'd like Doom quite as much. It's the difficulty that really makes you feel like you've achieved something.

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I thought Mancs shoot 3 fireball the third time..

I also especially hate how manc (and sometimes barons/hellknights) fireballs tend to clip through walls way too much - happens all the time on Dead Simple. I really think they should've fixed things like that by now, but then again I'm not a programmer, so I don't know exactly what would be involved.

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JohnnyRancid said:


These monsters actually miss a hell of a lot. If you stand with your back turned while a chaingun guy is shooting you, you'll see more than 90% of the projectiles hitting walls and other monsters. It's because the chaingun is relatively fast that at least 3 or 4 projectiles are bound to hit you. Shotgun guys irritate me quite a bit, I try to use chaingun when these guys are around, because if you use a shotgun, they'll nab you while you pump the damn thing.


if you run into a sergeant during the last frames of the pumping animation, chances are he'll shoot immediately. i agree that's some irritating behavior, since they just walk towards you in a zig-zag pattern, stopping occasionally to shoot, but that particular animation is like a "shoot" signal to them.

I'd like archviles more if I could see when they attack you, but aside from that I agree with you there. I'm fairly certain that Doom made Revenants, Arch Viles, Arachnatrons, Pain Elementals, and Mancubi to be really hard on purpose to keep people playing. If we were stuck with the original Doom monsters I don't think I'd like Doom quite as much. It's the difficulty that really makes you feel like you've achieved something.


id must have known at that point that the original doom monsters weren't as much of a challenge as thought. didn't romero for example consider beating the game on NM plain impossible? ultimate doom should have brought 3 new episodes instead of just one, and a few new original monsters.

i like how doom2 enemies were made harder using really simple ideas: most people strafed first to the right, so the mancubus fires first right, you run into the shot. pain elementals stay behind because they're plain slow while you waste your ammo on faster pinkies. today's game would require elaborate AI calculations :p

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Reaper978 said:

But I think the monster that pisses me off the most is the revenant. Large, powerful, homing rockets? And they will occasionally fire a "super rocket" that, correct me if I am wrong, seems to be faster, stronger, and more accurate? Their rockets can even follow you around corners.


For me dodging the Revenant's guided missiles is fun. Stay in motion and you can escape them. Or lure the rocket right into another monster's face. Or take cover behind a corner and let the rocket explode on the wall. It can practically follow you arround corners, but only in a wide curve, so when you run to a corner and take a sharp 90 degrees turn, it can't hit you.

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Reaper978 said:

But I think the monster that pisses me off the most is the revenant. Large, powerful, homing rockets? And they will occasionally fire a "super rocket" that, correct me if I am wrong, seems to be faster, stronger, and more accurate? Their rockets can even follow you around corners.

That's just your imagination. Homing missiles are constrained in their turning rate, which gives them the habit of curving around obstacles. You just need to start thinking on a higher level than direct line of sight and adjust your tactics accordingly. Try watching the projectiles in the minimap sometime with the double iddt cheat active.

Projectile damage I believe is randomized from some range between a fraction of its base damage to up to twice its base damage. I don't know the mechanics exactly, but I've observed that for quite a while in-game so I'm fairly certain that's what's really going on.

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It's 3-15 (1-5 x 3) per bullet or pellet. The player, on the other hand, inflicts 5-15 (1-3 x 5) per bullet or pellet.

TheeXile said:
Projectile damage I believe is randomized from some range between a fraction of its base damage to up to twice its base damage. I don't know the mechanics exactly, but I've observed that for quite a while in-game so I'm fairly certain that's what's really going on.

It's 1-8 points multiplied by the projectile's damage value. In the case of revenant missiles, 10 (10-80).

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It is my understanding that the bad guys formula is :((P_Random() % 5) + 1) * 3;

This means the highest value a bad guy hitscan can get is (5+1)x3 =18 and the lowest (0+1)x3 =3. Hence 3-18.

While the players is 5 * (P_Random() % 3 + 1); meaning they can do between 5x(3+1) =20 and 5x(0+1) =5. Hence 5-20.

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I'm actually getting really sick of Revenant's actually. They always have the habit of dodging all my rockets and super shotgun blasts, but have impeccable accuracy when they return fire.

I think a change of tactics are in order.

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Vermil said:

It is my understanding that the bad guys formula is :((P_Random() % 5) + 1) * 3;

This means the highest value a bad guy hitscan can get is (5+1)x3 =18 and the lowest (0+1)x3 =3. Hence 3-18.

While the players is 5 * (P_Random() % 3 + 1); meaning they can do between 5x(3+1) =20 and 5x(0+1) =5. Hence 5-20.

NO. Just experiment with it. It's 3-15 and 5-15. Fists and Chainsaws do 2-20 damage, indeed. More average damage than the pistol!

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Vermil said:

It is my understanding that the bad guys formula is :((P_Random() % 5) + 1) * 3;

This means the highest value a bad guy hitscan can get is (5+1)x3 =18 and the lowest (0+1)x3 =3. Hence 3-18.

The result of "X % Y" ranges between 0 and Y-1, not 0 and Y. Therefor "(P_Random() % 5) + 1) * 3" means that highest damage is (4+1)x3 =15.

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The min-max damage argument is amply covered in the wiki, especially regarding player-inflicted damage.

However yeah, certain monsters can punish pretty badly, and the (1~8)x10 potential damage from a single revenant shot can really be the bane of unarmored players. Even a measly imp can inflict more than 20 pts of damage, and with the "right" combination of RNG and lack of armor you can go down very, very quickly.

I recall a certain map where due to the lack of armor, any health value below 85% was pretty much equivalent to instant death on the next mistake, due to the abundance of knights, revenants and constrained fights. One hit and you were done for.

Armor heavily masks this effect, so when playing without it it seems that Doomguy is as frail as a weeaboo emo.

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Reevys said:

I'm actually getting really sick of Revenant's actually. They always have the habit of dodging all my rockets and super shotgun blasts, but have impeccable accuracy when they return fire.

I think a change of tactics are in order.

I normally don't waste rockets on revenants unless I can catch them in confined quarters - like a corridor or cage.

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Maes said:

Armor heavily masks this effect, so when playing without it it seems that Doomguy is as frail as a weeaboo emo.

So it seems that id's description of the armor in the manual, "Keep an eye on it, because when it goes, you might, too." did make sense, they weren't overacting.

Blue armor is especially fantastic, combined with 200% health it turns you into a walking Cacodemon.

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What I really hate about revenants is that they have a quicker response time than most other monsters. It's not very obvious from dehacked, but they can fire rockets under 10 tics, and punch in 18 tics but with the hit connecting much before, perhaps on the 7th or 13th tic.

This gives them an edge even vs theoretically equipotent monsters: I've seen then punch Knights and Cacos to death and disproportionately maiming Barons just because their hits connected before their opponents', and with an abundance of induced pain states. It's absolutely ridicolous vs mancubi, who just take the punches and moan all the time.

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Maes said:

What I really hate about revenants is that they have a quicker response time than most other monsters. It's not very obvious from dehacked, but they can fire rockets under 10 tics, and punch in 18 tics but with the hit connecting much before, perhaps on the 7th or 13th tic.

This gives them an edge even vs theoretically equipotent monsters: I've seen then punch Knights and Cacos to death and disproportionately maiming Barons just because their hits connected before their opponents', and with an abundance of induced pain states. It's absolutely ridicolous vs mancubi, who just take the punches and moan all the time.

Absolutely hilarious, too.


I like Revenants. They're probably one of the most versatile monsters in the Doom lineup. They cover close range (punching), medium range (fast movement), and long range (homing missiles) equally well. Plus they make battle tactics a blast when you can get creative with homing missiles and in-fighting.

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I find people who have difficulty with revs amusing. They're one of the easiest monsters to defeat. Learn strafing and break out your SSG; even in a confined space you can induce them to punch and then get away for a quick blast. They're a breeze. If a whole circle of em teleports around you, then you can complain: map design error.

By the way, what's with people complaining that you can't tell when arch vile attacks you? Am I imagining the flames on my screen signaling me to get behind a wall within 2-3 seconds?

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Airman266 said:
I find people who have difficulty with revs amusing. They're one of the easiest monsters to defeat. Learn strafing and break out your SSG; even in a confined space you can induce them to punch and then get away for a quick blast. They're a breeze. If a whole circle of em teleports around you, then you can complain: map design error.

As a mod I suggest you might want to quit the trolling tone; you had it also in your earlier DOOM 4 post, deriding people who didn't like DOOM 3 much.

In any situation with more than a few enemies are going at the player, revenant missiles become particularly dangerous, even hitting you surprisingly from an angle outside your view, or following you when you aren't expecting it.

How many revenants to place, and how to place them (including possibly a swarm teleporting around you) depends on the expected player skill. Testing is the main way to define good gameplay, not general assumptions.

As for arch-viles, again, in a more complex melee you might miss which of the two arch-viles blasting at something might be aiming at you. You might hide in the wrong place then, or use the BFG against the wrong target, for example. Otherwise, the arch-vile may simply not be immediately visible, such as on a ledge, or cage, making you try to hide in vain.

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