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kb1

Ideas for complimentary custom monsters

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Recently, I was reading Linguica's Doom II monster analysis, and it got me thinking: What are some other ways to compliment Doom II's bestiary?

To me, the most fun maps to play are maps where the fights have been custom-tailored to the room's architecture, and the monsters are carefully chosen and placed, based on their capabilities. These are fights where the map author imagined the player running into the room, accessing the danger, trying to find some cover, and trying to calculate the best way to navigate and clear the room.

In these maps, if you hide behind a pillar, trooper fireballs from far-away towers hit you. If you run in like a crazy man, chaingunners from cages get you. If you circle-strafe, pinkies surround you.

These maps are the most fun for me to play, and they work, for 2 reasons: 1) The map author is good, and he chose and placed the monsters carefully. And, 2) Doom II's monsters have complimentary capabilities.

So, my questions is, if you were tasked with adding 3 custom monsters to Doom II's lineup, what capabilities would each monster have? (Please, no 5,000 hp, quad rocket-launcher tanks)

Now, I know that Tormentor has collected a vast number of custom Doom monsters in his Doom Bestiary, which is really cool. But, many of those monsters either have capabilities similar to Doom II, or they are too overpowered for general use, in my opinion.

I'm looking for ideas for general-use, low-to-medium powered non-boss monsters. Less hps than barons, with reasonable weaponry. Monsters where you can comfortably add a handful of them in the room, and practically expect them to be killable, using standard Doom weapons.

Please think in terms of complimentary capabilities. In other words, your monster should work extra well in situations when it is joined by some other Doom monster. This suggests that your custom monster's capability should not tend to induce monster infighting (no exploding BFG mushroom monsters :)

So, please describe your monster ideas, their weapons, and how they might compliment other Doom II monsters, or fill in a gap that's missing in the Doom II lineup.

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The main gap in the beastary is floating monsters so I would start there. Something more threatening than a caco like the oft used Afrit.

I quite like the arachnatrons attack but they are awkward to place due to their size so maybe a plasma zombie would fit that niche nicely.

Lastly I think the cybruiser works well where you want a instant kill threat but not the HP tank of the cyb.

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kb1 said:

how they might compliment other Doom II monsters


By patting each other on their backs whenever they kill a Doom Marine? *grin*

I like the idea of "complimentary" custom monsters though. E.g. do well enough in a map, and win an exclusive, complimentary monster of your own. Maybe if there was a Doom collectible action figure/cards game?

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I made a similar thread a while back. I also shared related ideas here. This is a summary to fit your request of adding 3 monsters:

-Fast but weak melee-only monster.
-Weak monster who throws fast projectiles, moderately rapidly. (and/or homing and/or spread projectiles, maybe)
-Medium-to-highly durable monster that moves fast and has strong and dangerous attack.

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Nice tangent Maes. :P

There is quite a hefty gulf between second and third strongest monster, so possibly some that fit in the middle? A miniboss, if you will. Things like the Lord of Heresy or Cybruiser work well for this.

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How about environmental trap enemies akin to the Barnacles from Half-Life? Since many Doom II monsters tend to make the player look for cover, you could booby-trap those spots. Like the role of the Doom II monster is to make the player seek cover where the trap enemy is waiting.

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A weak hitscan monster that is highly mobile, to make them more threatening than the traditional zombies but still easily dispatched if you aim right.

Segway zombies, in other words. :p

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A berserker revenant would be pretty cool. Freed of his rocket launchers, he would be able to charge the player quickly for a regular punch or two-handed hammer fist. I'd also think a smaller, faster juvenile caco that has 2/3 the hitpoints of a regular cacodemon would be interesting.

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Ceilings don't get utilised much in Doom. A relatively fast monster that crawls along ceilings and spits green acid at you might be interesting.

That said, with infinite height actors there's probably a reason why ceiling monsters weren't in the game to begin with.

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I always thought there should of been a scary and invisible version of the lost soul. And of course more invisible monsters to begin with.

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scifista42 said:

^
The Mancubus/PE crossover can be also approached vice versa. (source: Project Uber by Darsycho/Jack101)

That doesn't really work though. The Pain Elemental requires time awareness because it produces Lost Souls; it is essential to deal with it quickly to stop it from creating more of them.

In gameplay terms, a PE that fires Mancubus fireballs is not really a crossover.

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^^For invisible monsters, try out Xaser's map "Dead Wire" from the recent Doomja-vu contest. I've found them partly interesting but mostly annoying to be honest.

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Going from Ling's diagram, how about an Archvile/Revenant hybrid - for example, a "Mage" Revenant that can also raise monsters from the dead. Then you'd have something that fit in the center of the diagram.

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fraggle said:

Then you'd have something that fit in the center of the diagram.

That's a place for ManCybeRevenanTronGunnElementVile.

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No that I think of it, a sick part of me would like another wad with Sjas from Ghoul Forests 2 (but not in another Ghoul Forests game). I swear, the first time I played that game with out knowing what it was... I jumped three feet out and behind my chair.

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scifista42 said:

^
The Mancubus/PE crossover can be also approached vice versa. (source: Project Uber by Darsycho/Jack101)

Wow, Project Uber has some neat looking monsters! I love frankensteined monsters, even the cheesy ones.

By the way, lots of great responses by everyone in this thread, as well as in Scifista42's previous thread.

fraggle said:

Going from Ling's diagram, how about an Archvile/Revenant hybrid - for example, a "Mage" Revenant that can also raise monsters from the dead. Then you'd have something that fit in the center of the diagram.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking of - ways to fill in the gaps in the current lineup. Of course, it's up to the map author to recognize how best to mix and match, to get the most out of them.

<rant+dream>
It really is a shame that stealing states from other mobjs via DeHacked is the only vanilla-like way to get custom monsters into Doom. I'd love to see a DECORATE standard that encapsulates all idTech1 action function pointers, or even just Doom II action functions, and could be used in the less-aggressively-editable ports, such as PrBoom and friends. I think a Doom+ exe hack could even offset the info.c/states table to, say, the end of the .exe, with a huge empty space for dumping a new states table. There could even be a DECORATE version of DeHacked that would write these states to a new Doom+ .exe, or a smaller table right into original Doom v1.9. Of course, it could also generate the DECORATE lump, for source ports. Custom action functions would be a port-specific extension, known to require source port support. These would be marked as such in the DECORATE tool, and, maybe the DECORATE text could also be marked "CUSTOM" where custom action functions are used.

It's an unrealistic dream, but, wouldn't it be nice to have a standard, even vanilla way to add custom things to your mapset? A way that would be supported by most source ports?
</rant+dream>

Anyway, I really like the ceiling/wall crawler idea - I wonder if Doom can handle it without too much difficulty. More floating monsters, and environmental trap monsters are also interesting.

Here's a few of my ideas:
* How about a melee-only, low-hp floating monster with really low mass, so it flys back when you hit it?

* A multi-mobj worm, with segments that are connected together? It slivers down stairs like a snake, and can be cut into pieces.

* A new archvile that resurrects actual ghosts. Multiple ghosts can be made out of the same corpse. The ghosts are translucent, and they float, are invincible to attack, yet they die after, say, 15 seconds. They attack by flying through the player.

* Monsters that have no attack, they simply block the player until killed.

* Quake-like zombies that have to be killed more than once

* Monsters that split into two or more smaller monsters when they are killed.

* Floor slime attack - slows the player when they walk through it.

* Smoke generators that obstruct your view

* Monsters that grab you and slam you against the wall/throw you over a cliff

Some of these are pretty far-fetched, but are either massively annoying, or a lot of fun.

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kb1 said:

* Monsters that have no attack, they simply block the player until killed.


So basically standard demons? I get straight-up embarrassed whenever those things manage to actually damage me :D



As for additional monsters that would complement the existing bestiary, I think the afrit and evil marine fill good niches. Also I agree with a couple of scifista's descriptions. here's my list:

- an enemy with with less health than a boss monster, but ability to do more damage. (basically perfectly filled by the afrit)
- faster/weaker/smaller melee enemy. (maybe if a lost soul had less health and moved quicker?)
- faster projectile enemy. (basically perfectly filled by the evil plasma marines)
- a silent/stealthy projectile enemy. (zdoomy invisible monsters are garbage, but maybe something like the roach/shadow/whatever-it's-called from realm667 that was used prominently in unloved, would be cool)

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I think it would be neat to see an area denial monster, e.g., one that spawned little hell portals on the ground around you that persisted for 10 seconds or so and dealt heavy damage if you touched them.

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I once edited Realm 667's "Lord of Heresy" monster to spawn up to 3 of the "Squire" monsters to fight alongside it. As well as making the Lord a more powerful monster with multi-shot attacks and more HP. It worked quite well, essentially a cross between a Baron of Hell and a Pain Elemental.

I feel it provided a better gap-bridge between the Baron and the Boss monsters.

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Linguica said:

I think it would be neat to see an area denial monster, e.g., one that spawned little hell portals on the ground around you that persisted for 10 seconds or so and dealt heavy damage if you touched them.


How about a cybernetic demon that drops proximity explosives?

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kb1 said:

* Smoke generators that obstruct your view


I remember someone talking about a similar idea( I think it was Linguica actually) where they used DeHackEd to make a support monster: instead of attacking you it would blind you by using the Arch-Vile's flame summoning ability to obstruct your vision, although I think it used a replacement set of graphics.

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Maes said:

By patting each other on their backs whenever they kill a Doom Marine? *grin*


How does Lost Soul fit into that scenario?

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Linguica said:

I think it would be neat to see an area denial monster, e.g., one that spawned little hell portals on the ground around you that persisted for 10 seconds or so and dealt heavy damage if you touched them.

Nice. The perfect foil to Doom guy's 25 mph sprint. Similarly, more area of effect attacks would make things challenging. Heretic's Maulotaur comes to mind.

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For area denial I have something in VOH that is a static, unkillable evil eye that has the vile line of sight flame attack. It's more like an obstacle than a monster though as it cannot be killed.

I also like using spectral imps. They don't really fill a gap in the beastairy but they are an alternative low tier monster that gives the player something a bit different to think about.

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Maes said:

By patting each other on their backs whenever they kill a Doom Marine? *grin*

I wonder if this guy has a brother?

geo said:

How does Lost Soul fit into that scenario?

By knocking a revenant's head off and taking its place. ;)

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Linguica said:

I tried making the archvile into more of an area denial monster. It's... weird...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fjvmxgx3k2ohq25/vildenil.deh?dl=0

That's a neat concept, but if we're converting the archvile, wouldn't it make more sense to deny the area the player was just in?

Done in DECORATE, so it needs a ZDoom derivative, although something similar could probably be done in DEHACKED. Either way, this seems to make a solo archvile out in the open pretty harmless but it seriously compacts the safe spots. Given something else to dodge, or a cramped area, it could probably be extremely deadly. Although as a whole this could probably be executed better, but this was mostly an experiment anyway.

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I wonder what would happen if a Hell Knight/Baron tried patting another monster on the back though. Those hands.....

Imp: Have at you, damn Doom Marine! Eat my fireballs!
Baron: Well, done, impie, well done *pat pat*
Imp: Aaaaaargh you damn fool, you burned my back!
Baron: ...sorry dude, I just want to compliment you for...
Imp: Just leave me alone!
Baron: :'(

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