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Memfis

Arachnotron never attacks arch-vile?

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Nothing will ever get mad at an archvile. Although, you can get an archvile mad at another monster.

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Archviles and Pain Elementals are monsters which will never be insulted in infighting, unless you're standing in the right direction in which the other monster wants to attack you (or another target) and accidentally hits them. Even if the Archie is attacking the monster that hurt it, response will never arrive, because the Archvile's attack is the only one which can't be arranged into either type of attacks (hitscan or projectyle), and is, therefore, unable to be retaliated in monster infight.

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The archies will never be "infought" because there's code just for them. In the monster's targeting function, there is basically "if target type is archvile, then look for something else instead".

Painies won't ever be attacked either because their projectile is a monster. As a result, the monster will think it's the lost soul that's responsible for the case of "fiendly fire" and it'll infight the lost soul. The pain elemental will be left alone.

Cell said:

because the Archvile's attack is the only one which can't be arranged into either type of attacks (hitscan or projectyle), and is, therefore, unable to be retaliated in monster infight.

Nah, this isn't the explanation. As long as damage can be traced, infight can happen. There are also other types of attack, notably melee (it's not hitscan, just a distance check) and radius blast.

You can make a dehacked swap between archviles and another monster (swap all the states, flags and attributes between it and, say, the imp) and you'll get imps that can't be targeted by infighters (because their type for the code will be archvile) and archviles that can (because they won't count as archviles but as imps).

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Meh... thanks for the endarkenment.

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If you open the text for Archvile or the Pain Elemental in Zdoom data as the DECORATE form. You would find the NOTARGET, this is used only for Zdoom, removing it will make them able to be targeted.

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I'm not sure how teh Pain Elemental can be made into a target. Maybe some Soulies would explain Mr. Baron of Hell "Excuse me, that friggin' Floating Brown Ball just spit me out and I knocked you!" Hahaha!

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As I believe, looking at the Pain Elemental text, I saw that when someone is killed by a lost soul who got out from the first time, it says "o% has been spooked by a lost soul". I understand from this that the launch from the first time COUNTS as a Pain Elemental attack.

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First, don't assume that stuff from ZDoom necessarily applies to vanilla. Sure, it's generally the case for basic actor logic, but there are still a lot of differences. It's better to look at the original source code. In this case, what ZDoom does with the NOTARGET flag, vanilla Doom does with a hardcoded check for the monster type. (That's why I suggested a DeHackEd switcheroo instead of a DECORATE patch.)

Secondly, ZDoom or not ZDoom, the first attack by a lost soul spitted by a pain elemental still counts as an attack by a lost soul. Nothing ever counts as a pain elemental attack. Nothing.

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I didn't say that the NOTARGET for Zdoom is used with vanilla, everybody knows that. I said this in case if he wants to experience the infighting in Zdoom.

Then I was wrong about the pain elemental :P

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Closely related to this thread:

The Pain Elemental has clean hands? was a thread I started long ago debating the technical impossibility -or possibility- of the Pain Elemental to be targeted as a "mischief cause" by other monsters and be deliberately attacked in infighting.

It was an interesting debate, since while the Archie cheats its way out of retaliation (with special code that trumps normal behavior), the Pain Elemental does not have any code prohibiting infighting, but it's, de-facto, technically impossible for it to be held accountable for an attack on other monsters due to the way it attacks.

HOWEVER, there was an -albeit very forced- way to get the PE to be attacked in retaliation: have it telefrag a barrel, setting it off, and have it hurt other monsters by the explosion. If done right, the hurt monsters would then turn against the PE (there's a demo map on that thread illustrating just that).

The catch is that it only works on MAP30 on vanilla doom, since normally telefragging of mobjs by monsters is forbidden in all maps but MAP30.

Edit: even if the barrel telefragging works -eventually- in vanilla, the "accountability" for the explosion due to telefragging is broken. It is only valid in certain source ports, notably ZDoom and prboom, and then only under specific versions

Similarly, there was another map that illustrated how in some source ports it was possible to get Archviles to get targetted by having them kill a PE by barrel chain reaction, and then the spawned Lost Souls would target the Archvile normally. However this also only worked on particular versions of prboom and ZDoom, while it induced strange avoidant behavior in others, and has since been fixed.

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On the gameplay side, they aren't that durable and they will, by their very nature, generally be surrounded by monsters of other species. Which means it would be exceedingly easy to get them killed through infighting; first they get hit by accident, then they blow an enemy up, and if said enemy survives it goes in full infight mode. They'd be less of a challenge.

On the in-universe side, all demons instinctively know that arch-viles should be protected, and that even if they're killed the archie will revive them. Bobby Prince said that the arch-vile's death scream is "why?" because it just doesn't understand how anything could wish to kill it.

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Gez said:

On the gameplay side, they aren't that durable and they will, by their very nature, generally be surrounded by monsters of other species. Which means it would be exceedingly easy to get them killed through infighting;


Heh. Coming to think of it, with their splash damage attack (to which they aren't even self-immune, unlike Cybers and Spiders) and their extremely delayed attack, even a pack of 2-3 provoked demons or even lowly imps could make short work of them in no time, and higher tier monsters would just rip them to shreds in 5 seconds (think of a Knight angrily slashing at it). It would also be embarassing for it to resurrect stuff it just killed during an ongoing melee.

In crowded situations, their attacking one monster would anger others as well and make the mob fuck them up really quickly too. OK, Cybers and Spiders suffer from the same problem to some degree, but they have the brute force to deal with it (especially Cybers).

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Gez said:

On the in-universe side, all demons instinctively know that arch-viles should be protected, and that even if they're killed the archie will revive them. Bobby Prince said that the arch-vile's death scream is "why?" because it just doesn't understand how anything could wish to kill it.



Well to be honest, it is pretty universal that the medic is your best friend and they usualy aknowledge that aswell.



Eitherway, if Archviles would take part on infighting, they really would be a joke instead of a threat as it would really harm their resurrection if they just get bounded by enemies that they helped in the beginning and constantly get into an in fight after retaliation to one enemy cause another got agroed.
If the Archvile attack wasn't splash, then the problem wouldn't be so big. But then again, it is honestly better that they have the ignore from other monsters, keeps the challenge up.

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I wish the same code was used with the Spidermastermind, that'd make this monster a lot more useful in maps.

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If they did that then the zombies would not attack each other. Because they are hit scanners just as the Spider Mastermind.

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However, I was wondering. I read that the splash damage from the Archvile's fire can harm the attacker Vile. Is this even possible? Or can it harm another one? (But of course no infighting due to the hard code)

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A "don't target MT_VILE and don't target MT_SPIDER" code would not affect zombie infight except in so far that they wouldn't attack archviles or spider masterminds.

And yes it is completely possible (though unlikely in most cases) for an arch-vile to kill itself with its splash damage. Nothing is immune to its own splash damage, just try point-blank shooting at walls or demons with a rocket launcher, you'll see.

Cyberdemons aren't immune to their own rockets, they're immune to splash damage in general -- this include their own rockets, but also the rockets or other cyberdemons, those from players (still get the projectile damage though), exploding barrels, etc. Spidermasterminds are also immune to splash damage.

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C30N9 said:

However, I was wondering. I read that the splash damage from the Archvile's fire can harm the attacker Vile. Is this even possible? Or can it harm another one? (But of course no infighting due to the hard code)

Yes and yes. Are you surprised when you take splash damage from explosion of you own rocket?

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C30N9 said:

However, I was wondering. I read that the splash damage from the Archvile's fire can harm the attacker Vile. Is this even possible? Or can it harm another one? (But of course no infighting due to the hard code)


I think it can, I remember a map where I was taking down an arch-vile solo with the ssg while directly next to it. ssg didn't stun, I ate the explosion, and the vile appeared to spontaneously combust (no sign of monsters nearby).

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C30N9 said:

Well I never saw him dying from himself. Is it impossible in Zdoom?

Yes, probably ZDoom brokenness. You should use a compatible port.

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C30N9 said:

Well I never saw him dying from himself. Is it impossible in Zdoom?

It is rather unlikely to happen, since you need to be watching the vile blasting several times an enemy (possibly you) that's just next to it.

Without a contrived map designed just for this to happen reliably, it may simply never happen; or only happen in slaughter gameplay where it's hard to notice that it killed itself rather than got killed by some errant projectile.

tempun said:

Yes, probably ZDoom brokenness. You should use a compatible port.

lolfud

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tempun said:

No, the result of an experiment on MAP11.


My Arch-Vile suicide must have happened while playing Obituary on PrBoom. I did pretty much what I'm assuming you did and wasn't able to get him killed or even elicit a pain stun in fifty or so explosions while the Imps he was resurrecting certainly suffered from my self splash.

Not trying to stir shit up, I mean I pretty much exclusively play in Zdoom when I can VOV

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