DharmaForOne

When I was a kid and played through the episodes for the first time, E2M6 (Halls of the Damned) seemed really scary. The main points I remember are the part where there is a completely black room with monsters attacking you. When they fire the sprite lights up and it is hard to tell exactly how many there are and where. So that put me on edge. But then the bigger scare was the baron of hell. Back then a baron was still a tough, boss like encounter. So it was like a jumpscare when I heard that loud howl from the baron, I think I stood up or jumped out of my seat. When I picked up doom again in 2017 or 2018, I played through the original series. I got a great moment of nostalgia when I reached that pitch dark segment of E2M6. I had totally forgotten it but immediately remembered the impression it had left on my first play through. And, I actually did get a jumpscare again when I ran into that baron!

The worst game using the Doom engine is that racing game. It was the first game by the guy who made the Raw Thrills arcade machine franchise, maybe aldo the first in a series of racing games he made. I'll see if I can find it. It's really terrible and difficult to believe it was released as a commercial product.

I dislike the violent/gore aspect of Doom, or at least for the humanoid enemies. The chaingunner death animation is my least favorite. I never blinked when I played as a kid. It never bothered me when I would gib an enemy in Quake and its head would fly off with a stream of blood. But now, revisiting the game 20+ years later it just bugs me. I'm looking to replace the zombie/sergeant/HWD with different, non human looking sprites and sounds.

I learned that the placement of essential items (keys) is different on easier difficulty levels in Doom and Doom II. Yesterday I was mindlessly crapping around trying to speedrun Doom 2, exclusively using the chainsaw you get on MAP01. I'm not a skilled speedrunner and wasn't in a serious mood, so I played on "I'm Too Young To Die". I hadn't played in anything besides UV and NM in probably 20 years. I was surprised that there was a difference besides thr type and number of monsters, and thr amount of ammunition.

Secrets that leave you worse off than when you found them. Many games before and around the time of Doom had a scoring system, and so did early versions of Doom. In those games, a secret area always meant you earned some extra points, and often the most valuable items were only found in secret areas. Now Doom doesn't have scoring, but I feel like ID's levels do follow this idea somewhat. You get access to the weapons earlier, soulspheres, blue armors. Not every secret can be as good as that, but you get the idea. So my mindset is that you should benefit from finding the secrets, and not just be motivated by getting 100% on the end of level. But on some WADs, the monster encounters are disproportionately tough versus the reward you get. It bugs me when you enter a secret area, then get torched by a dual chaingunner ambush only find a stimpack and a few clips as the payoff. Your armor is gone, and you have a net loss of 15% health. But at least you picked up some clips. No thanks.

The spider boss is too easy for a few reasons: The relatively high pain chance means you can just spam it with plasma rifle and not have to worry much about getting hit. When I came back to Doom recently, this is the strategy I used and it made for a super underwhelming fight. Another issue is the spider's chaingun weapon. It does tons of damage, but fans out and becomes less efficient at far range. That means the BFG is easy to win with at a distance. Finally, because of these issues, it's a much weaker opponent than a cyberdemon, but has fewer hitpoints. Changing all three of these would probably make the encounter too hard. So I would change just one. Reduce the interrupt chance; give it a plasma weapon like Arachnotron or reduce the spread of its shots, or give it 2x, 3x or even 4x the hitpoints it currently has. You want it to be an epic fight. Imagine emptying all the ammo in your inventory to take down a 12,000 hit point final boss.

You're transparent about the sources. I think it's okay.

Well, you aren't wrong. It's my first try at making a level. So the reason why is this: I am making a 'prison break' style level where there is a large open yard guarded by a strong monster high up on a wall. The exit won't open until the guard is dead. The guard is facing into the yard and away from the player in the push-off situation I"m trying to make. Fighting the guard head-on wlll be a hard fight because the player won't really have the resources. Instead, I want to have the player throw a switch elsewhere in the level that opens all the cells and releases 25 or 50 or whatever weaker monsters. If the guard was pushed into the courtyard, you can then start a fight between him and the inmates. Some weapons, like chaingun and rocket launcher (and fist? Maybe all of them?) give a push when they hit a monster. Ideally, the player would fire one rocket at a distance or a short chaingun spray at close range to do the push. I'm having difficulty getting it to work 100% of the time, though. It seems that the push only happens when the monster is not moving. Specifically, either idle or engaging in an attack. One rocket doesn't seem to be enough. So, one way is to stand at point black range and run into the monster while firing - You block it from regaining forward progress while pushing back with weapon. It's easy for the player to botch the point-black attack, because you have to come at the right angle, not also fall off, not die, etc. I only succeed about 50% of the time in my tests and I don't think someone trying to figure out the challenge would be able to do it. Another way that works is when the monster is standing on a tiny flagpole-like column and can't really move in any direction. With this setup it does fall after one rocket hit from long range. I don't want to do the flagpole setup because it becomes easy to fight head-on.

When and how can you push a monster off a ledge? I want to make pushing a monster off a ledge a critical step to finish a level. How can I design the sprite placement and floor shape so that a monster can be pushed reliably off a cliff, but still move toward the player after being attacked if it doesn't fall? It's not a modding question but does relate to mechanics of the game so I felt it fit here.