If you were to remove a Doom II enemy...

...which one would it be? Secret level enemies such as the Wolfenstein SS soldiers and Commander Keen don't count. :P

For me, it's a fairly easy decision - the Hell Knight. As much as I hate Pain Elementals, they are at least original in design and gameplay. Whereas the Hell Knight is just a palette swap with less hit points. Don't get me wrong, I do like the HK and enjoy the way it's used in most of Doom II's maps but if someone has to go...

Hell Knight/Baron and Demon/Spectre are boring answers I think (too obvious that a simple variation of another monster has to go first). Would be interesting to hear something else.

I think I used Spider Mastermind in my maps the least. I almost never felt the need to put one somewhere.

Eh, the Hell Knights serve their purpose too, since Barons are kind of a bullet sponge unless you have the Super Shotgun or one of the projectile weapons.

Memfis, while I agree Spiders suck the worst, he said Doom 2 enemies specifically. :P

MetroidJunkie said:

Barons are kind of a bullet sponge unless you have the Super Shotgun or one of the projectile weapons.

I really like the Barons when you meet them in close quarters. It's always an "oh crap" moment.

As much as some monsters may annoy me a little sometimes (Revenant) I don't really think I would remove any of them.

Avoozl said:

As much as some monsters may annoy me a little sometimes (Revenant) I don't really think I would remove any of them.

This is a gun-against-your-head situation where you have to choose though. ;P

Actually the Demon/Spectre couple, even if it's a cheap reuse of another monster, it doesn't actually consume any extra resources (no extra sprites or anything).

While the HK, despite being just a recolor, has a whole bunch of new sprites. I'd rather ID had used a smarter generic color remapping routine for them. Not eliminating them altogether, but eliminating the extra set of sprites. Any memory gain would be beneficial, at the expense of some extra pointer juggling with colormaps.

Oh, so this is about Doom 2 only monsters?

Memfis said:

Oh, so this is about Doom 2 only monsters?

Yes sir

savagegrant said:

This is a gun-against-your-head situation where you have to choose though. ;P

Does the Icon of Sin count? As cool as the concept seemed, I think I'd rather have had a tradition boss like the Cyberdemon that can attack and move around but still spawn monsters. Good example, the Alien Queen from Duke 3D's Atomic Edition.

MetroidJunkie said:

Does the Icon of Sin count?

Computer says no ;)

"Wolfenstein SS soldiers don't count" ...why not? They are legit Doom 2 monsters after all. If we're talking about usage in maps then I'd say this is the candidate for me- without replacing the sounds or the sprites (or making use of Dehacked but then that's a whole different territory) they kinda just...stick out too badly. :P
We already have THREE zambie types all with different uses so...I'd say chuck those fuckers out and replace them with something more interesting!

All of them. Except for the HK and PE, they're cool IMO. HK would fill the gap between Caco and Baron, PE is always a top-priority kill and is also really cute. The Mancubus might stay too, plays the same role as HK.

Arachnotron? AV? Revenant? Chaingunner? WAY too overused, therefore they suck and should be kicked out.

Since the SS Guards don't count, I'll exploit a loophole and say Chaingun Commandos because they're essentially the same exact enemy, just the SS Guards don't have 8-directional sprites for shooting. Replace Commandos with SS Guards and you aren't going to notice a big difference. Well, they drop clips instead of chainguns but that's easy to correct.

Arachnotron and/or Pain Elemental. One sucks for being too large and slow to attack, the other one for having to be dealt with in gimmicky ways and being either harmless or potentially extremely annoying in any case, both for having high health while being easily pain-lockable with even the least powerful weapons. PE is still the worse one for me, as fighting against it feels like playing some abstract random undefinable game instead of FPS-like combat that I enjoy, and Arachnotron placement at least can work well in large open spaces.

My answer is obvious, but the question would be finding a suitable replacement. Turns out Revenants really do help make encounters interesting.....sometimes.

The Pain Elemental can go.

Pain Elemental. He's likely the least used enemy of the original rooster as far as I can tell, which leads me to believe that not even seasoned mappers really know what to do with it most of the time. And of course, he spawns lost souls. Anyone who does that deserves the chair imo :p

I'm pretty sure seasoned mappers know its function considering there are several encyclopedia threads on how to use every monster and what it does. Seasoned mappers are pretty seasoned...

Doom II monsters blow I's away which is why everybody maps for II instead of I. If I had to choose to remove a Doom II monster, it would be the hellknight because barons and revenants can kind of make up for it.

Arch-vile. Fuck that monster.

Remove any doom 2 monster eh?

Remove Romero or the monster spawner, whichever one is classified as the monster.
Almost all IoS maps are just terrible

None. Even though the Pain Elemental gets on my nerves sometimes, there's no reason for it to be removed.

Blastfrog said:

Arch-vile. Fuck that monster.

You're not going to like what I have in store for him then... ;)

I guess the Spider Mastermind, of all the Doom monsters this one I almost never use. Probably due to its big radius. Also because its not much of a challenge to kill it, well as long as there is cover.

Also rarely use the Pain Elemental, dunno what to do with this guy :p

Revenants and Cyberdemons, always gives me the "oh fuck" feeling when encountering them.

Archvile. Stylistically they just don't seem to belong in Doom (like the SS Guards don't either). They move unrealistically fast and are far too powerful. One hit from them and you might as well reload your last save. Which is what I do until I clean kill them - I am not playing and enjoying, just getting rid of them. They are thus a failure as a game element.

Definitely Specter. Its mechanics heavily rely on the traditional control scheme, or so it seems with Doom 2 maps. Often they are running around underneath you in acid or lava pits. With modern source ports You can simply look down and shoot them. So their purpose is fairly dated, they aren't even difficult to spot.

I have to say, Brutal Doom does them right.

Archvile or Revenant. They both add something fresh and new at the cost of sanity.

Chaingunner , I hate those relentless fuckers :)

Pain Elemental. They're too annoying and too wonky (with the vanilla limit of 21 lost souls, they can be made harmless; without it they can make the game go to shit with their endless spamming) to be allowed to survive.


I think they should have used coding similar to the pod generators in Heretic: each pod generator has its own counter, so they stop spawning more pods when they reach an individual limit. If some of their pods are destroyed, then the counter is decreased accordingly. That means that generator A will not prevent generator B from spawning more pods; and also having a bunch of pods placed in the map editor will not prevent the generators from spawning more; however none of them will try to fill the entire game world with endless waves of pods.

You can see how similar logic would have made the pain elemental much better all around, by stopping the spam without completely nerfing them.

bzzrak said:

[...]

Arachnotron? AV? Revenant? Chaingunner? WAY too overused, therefore they suck and should be kicked out.

It's a coincidence that you've mentioned all monsters that are absent (save for Wolfenstein enemies) in Doom 64? :)

I would say Arch-Viles. Previously I had more problems with Chaingunners, Revenants and Pain Elementals. Now, thanks to my 'pistol start only' experience they are now piece of cake compared to Arch-Viles. They create rather false tension - coming sometimes out of nowhere, which after I'm afraid whether I have to start the entire level again.

Probably arachnotron. Hitbox is too big, too high pain chance and rarely a threat unless used as a long range turret in an elevated position. Starts infighting like crazy and usually is among the first to die in the chaos due to the size. Also takes them quite a while before they start actually firing. Love the sounds though.

Chezza said:

Definitely Specter. Its mechanics heavily rely on the traditional control scheme, or so it seems with Doom 2 maps. Often they are running around underneath you in acid or lava pits. With modern source ports You can simply look down and shoot them. So their purpose is fairly dated, they aren't even difficult to spot.

I have to say, Brutal Doom does them right.

If you want an example of spectres used right, try 1Monster WAD level 15 "Spook House" on UV with fast monsters. This level alone made me hold spectres in high regard.
Also make sure you use the default invisibility effect, not the translucency.

But I agree, in original Doom 2 they are not used that well at all.