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invictius

most powerful custom enemy?

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Grain of Salt said:

You can make unkillable monsters in dehacked.

Done.

That might actually be an interesting mechanic to implement legitimately into a wad - kind of like what Dead Space 2 did.

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schwerpunk said:

That (unkillable monsters) might actually be an interesting mechanic to implement legitimately into a wad.


It had better not affect the Kills score, or the screams of a million UV-Max speedrunners will haunt you for decades to come.

Seriously though, it could be a good thing to implement something like this; to have an immortal thing (or several immortal things) stalk you through a map. Take too long getting past everything else, and you're toast.

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I'll quote myself:

The Decompress Daemon from STRAIN. That's a monster they created, and then didn't include in any of the maps. Invisible, moves fast and gibs everything it touches, no questions asked.

glboom-plus strain strain.deh doom2 -warp 32 -skill 4

In terms of hit points, the football in DoomBall is high too, but it's not a very dangerous monster. You'll need to convert the binary deh to plain text though. Edit: Here's one I made years ago:

Patch File for DeHackEd v3.0
# Note: Use the pound sign ('#') to start comment lines.
Doom version = 19
Patch format = 6

Thing 56 (Soul Sphere)
Hit points = 9999
Height = 2621440
Mass = 4
Bits = 541702

Thing 84 (Short Gr. Pillar)
Hit points = 20
Death frame = 809
Death sound = 82
Bits = 524294

Thing 86 (Short Red Pillar)
Hit points = 20
Death frame = 809
Death sound = 82
Bits = 524294

Thing 99 (Technical Column)
Hit points = 9999
Death frame = 809
Death sound = 82
Mass = 600
Bits = 524294
Use it in place of doomball.deh.

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schwerpunk said:

That might actually be an interesting mechanic to implement legitimately into a wad - kind of like what Dead Space 2 did.

I have tried the invincible monsters thing, btw. That's why I mentioned it. The thing is, it's difficult to balance so that it's dangerous enough to push you back without being so dangerous it becomes dull to fight. Basically, you have a choice between giving it rockets, a hitscan weapon, or arachnotron plasma firing at a much higher rate than the arachnotron fires. Rockets work best, but they require an enclosed space, and that makes it too easy to run past. Very powerful hitscan weapons are fun at first, and they let you use open areas without the monster becoming trivial to evade, but they also become annoying very quickly, because a couple of tiny mistakes will kill you. Plasma is pretty good, but has the same problem as rockets (you can run past).

I haven't tried it yet, but probably the best way to use an invincible monster would be to give it a moderate/weak attack, a slow walking speed, and then include dozens of them. But really, if there's going to be a large number, why even make them invincible? It would be more fun to make them weak but incredibly numerous, like romero-style zombies.

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Hmm, I'm suddenly curious about the gameplay opportunities and challenges an immortal monster might present...

A balancing offset to having the immortal might be to give them a very high pain chance, so that players have to keep pelting them with a chaingun or the like while crossing their paths. I'm imagining a long corridor with little bits of cover at intervals, with slow-to-open doors (c'mon! C'mon! OPEN YOU FUCKER!). All the while this immortal thing is closing the distance behind you. Throw in some pesky E1 enemies camping your hiding spots from the immortal enemy and you might have a pretty tense little map.

One possible resolution to this type of enemy might be a switch at the end that kills all immortals.

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schwerpunk said:

One possible resolution to this type of enemy might be a switch at the end that kills all immortals.

Were you intending to do this in zdoom then? For ending this level in complevel 2, I would just warp all the invincible monsters out of the map at a certain point.

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Torm's City of the Damned 2: Apocalypse has invincible, invisible, instagibbing monsters roaming the streets. They're only active at certain times, though, and you hear a blaring siren before this happens, giving you a little time to reach a shelter and close a door to be safe.

The idea has some merit, but I think it didn't work well there because the map takes too long to explore and finish. The first two or three times you have to scramble to a shelter, it's kinda exciting and it adds tension. But afterwards it just becomes something that interrupts gameplay and makes it boring; you aren't scared of the monsters anymore, just annoyed that you had to stop whatever you were doing and wait idly until you can actually play again.

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schwerpunk said:

A balancing offset to having the immortal might be to give them a very high pain chance, so that players have to keep pelting them with a chaingun or the like while crossing their paths.


Or... a very low painchance, but they could fade out temporarily (for around 5 to 10 seconds) during painstates, allowing you to run past them if need be.

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BaronOfStuff said:

Or... a very low painchance, but they could fade out temporarily (for around 5 to 10 seconds) during painstates, allowing you to run past them if need be.

Hmm, I like that even better. I'm not well versed in DECORATE stuff, but could you give the immortal a really long pain state animation frame, where they drop to one knee, or something?

That would be so cool...

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That should be a piece of cake. As far as I can remember, there's even a property for a minimal damage value that has to be inflicted for the enemy to even consider going into the pain state. It would be possible to make an enemy that would be brought down temporarily by a rocket or a bfg blast (and maybe a SSG blast, it may count as a single instance of damage if it's all done at the same moment, I'm not sure).

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schwerpunk said:

That might actually be an interesting mechanic to implement legitimately into a wad - kind of like what Dead Space 2 did.

Thank you for the wonderful idea.

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BaronOfStuff said:

they could fade out temporarily (for around 5 to 10 seconds) during painstates, allowing you to run past them if need be.


Like Spear of Destiny's ghosts... Kill them, they'll just come back a bit later. But at least they aren't blocking the way anymore for a few seconds and you can get away temporarily.

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Yes, exactly like Spear Of Destiny's ghosts/spectres!

I've just been toying around with this sort of thing, and I think an immortal enemy would probably work best in a maze-like section of a level, with switches and backtracking and all that nonsense; anything of a more conventional design could work too, but the frequent and sharp corners of your standard labyrinth could add a hell of a lot of tension.

And probably scare the bejeesus out of anyone who just rushes around mindlessly, only to suddenly explode. Everyone wins!

schwerpunk said:

I'm not well versed in DECORATE stuff, but could you give the immortal a really long pain state animation frame, where they drop to one knee, or something?


Yep, this would be very, very simple to do. Just a few sprite names and frame durations, nothing complex at all. Making the sprites, however... well I'm useless at that.

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