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Harry-the-Fox β Quake Mod Enemy Hierarchy
Published: 2010-07-04 13:46:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 5290; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 81
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Description
(Not working on it as a project ATM if anyone was wondering).Also not so much artistic aim as modding advice.
This here is just a basic rough outline of my idea of a full minimum set of enemies for a Quake mod or remake, largely using existing monsters from Quake, Armagon, Q-Zone and Quoth (as they fill in the roles well enough), with a few of my own to fill in any gaps remaining.
My own being the cripple green thing (dubbed Goblin) who fills in for the grunt in Castle levels), the Ork (ditto- more a light ogre, shoots something reasonably harsh), Ghoul is a light Fiend Substitute, inspired by Gremlins (Armagon) and Gekks (Quake 2- the Reckoning). Marines inspired by the Half-Life soldiers, and the Technicals from Quake 4.
Vorelings, BOB Drones, Night Gaunts, Eliminators, Death Lords, Eddies and Gugs are the credit of Necros and Kell's Quoth project.
The rest are id stuff (though the Vomitus would be emulating the nasty snapper mini-boss from Q-Zone).
Further notes:
Human base enemies shown parallel to other monsters are often less durable, but make up their difficulty by higher numbers and ranged attacks.
Ogres bumped further up because normal ones fill a poor role originally- an overly heavy enemy with a toned-down attack filling in a medium before- with an auto-grenade (or flak) and some more HP it neatly fills the higher niche of a Quake 2 Gunner or Iron Maiden (plus, watching a half-tonne brute with a chainsaw lose a fight to a deathknight a third his size is just wrong).
Deathknight now more a mix of id hellknight and Quoth Death Guard.
Original Spawn was over the top- it ricochets around at the speed of light and is simply too difficult to fight unless you spot it before it gets started. Alternatively, a blob monster from Q-zone had an unusal way of moving but was WAY too slow and easy. This thing is a half-way.
Red circle around Sqrag and Night Gaunt implies potential switch of roles (as both are awesome-looking, and both would make as much sense as the other in doing them).
The roles are either unleashing volleys of projectiles, OR firing a beam that traces towards the player.
As stated, Vomitus is not based on the sluggish weak "Vomitus" enemies of Quake mods, but the fast miniboss from Q-Zone codenamed the "Snapper" that chases the player (at roughly the same speed), spewing stuff at you, forcing you to strafe while fleeing the creature- actually a very hard boss indeed!)
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Comments: 13
Funny, every time I think I have seen all your deviations I come across some more when I google for random stuff
Actually, I didΒ a small study on the difficulty of monsters by my own no too long ago and I came up with something rather similar.
I think you can rank every kind of common monster and put it into one of 3 categories: Low-Tier, Mid-Tier and High-Tier
Now, you should understand those "Tiers" more as a spectrum and monsters from the same tier can be different in power. But each tier serves a very specific purpose in gameplay.
Low-Tier: Your usual cannon-fodder. You can normally kill them with weak weapons and they usually appear in groups. Their job is not to do damage, but rather to encourage a player not to let his guard down.
Examples: Grunts, Knights or Rottweilers
Mid-Tier: For a good game, your mid-tier enemies are your bread and butter encounters. If you play on point, you can fight them without taking any damage, but when they come in groups or if you have a bad position that can become very difficult. You can count on receiving a little bit of damage most the time and they put a lot of pressure on the player. However, with the right tools and some experience, they are still very manageable to kill.
Examples: Fiend, Ogre, Death Knight
High-Tier: You know those monsters that just make you say: "Oh fuck". Yeah, they are the kings among all minions. When not playing on point, they WILL deal severe damage and might even just kill you if you are in a bad position. But if you can find their weaknesses you will notice that they are just as killable as every other monster.
Examples: Vores, Shamblers
Actually, there is more to it. I further divide each tier further into 3 sub-categories depending on how likely they are to hit you. Also, there is still another "Boss-Tier" but I think my post is already long enough as it is ^^
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Lol cheers!
I plan to get back into it soon- study is finally over and I've been itching to get the pen out again!
As a matter of fact I've been thinking about Tiers since playing the new DOOM game; and realized the game lacks "Medium light" enemies; instead, bar the imps, security guards and outright cannon-fodder, every monster is an "easy-moderate" level enemy with the hitpoints of a "hard" enemy. I also realized Quake 1 suffered a similar problem (to be fair, it was made for keyboard-look players)
Thus I came to very similar conclusions as you did:
Low Tier: Cannon fodder to bulk up the forces. Easy to hit, easy to kill. Individually their attacks aren't devastating, but in numbers can overwhelm the player- or make encounters with other monsters far harder. These should always be present throughout the game.
Best examples: Grunts, Knights, Dogs, Rotfish. Also headcrabs.
Medium Tier: As tricky as a large group of low-tier enemies. These should force the player to take cover and force them to move around. Have a decent amount of hitpoints- or slightly maneuverable. Their attacks could be potentially disastrous but are easy to avoid- or moderately bad and extremely hard to avoid.
Best examples: Quake 2's Gunner, Berserker, Icarus and Iron Maiden. Half-Life's Marines. Quoth's Defenders, Deathguards,
High-Tier. These enemies unleash attacks that are difficult to avoid and do extreme amounts of damage. They may have a lot of hitpoints, travel in groups, or are insanely acrobatic- making them very hard to kill. Require some fancy techniques and you're constantly moving just to stay out of their way.
Best examples. DOOM's Baron of Hell. Quake's Vores and Shamblers. Quoth's Droles, Deathlords, Eddies and Eliminators. Half-Life's assassins (if they did a little more damage).
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Interesting, that you say that about DOOM. Maybe you are right. I think a big problem with the game was that it is far too easy to avoid enemy damage. In Doom 2 your mids really posed a threat.
Revanants: Well, they are basically Doom-Vores with less health.
Mancubi: They just spam you with big-sized projectiles, so you can't dodge them easily.
Arachnotron: Once they started firing, they denied half of the map with their streams of plasma.
The new Revanant was a big let down and personally I hated that they did not bring back the Arch-Vile. And no, the Summoner is no Arch-Vile.
The Arch-Vile was a nasty high-Tier enemy. It was basically's Doom 2's Shambler, with less health, higher speed and the ability to resurrect dead demons. It was an Arch-Enemy of sorts and DOOM really lacks that.
I think the original Cyberdemon was more difficult too. However, I do like what they did with the Spider Mastermind.
Imo Quake 4 did a terrific job of translating the Q2 Stroggs into the modern (well, 2005 "modern") era. Berserkers and Iron Maiden were really amazing mids that could put out a lot of hurt. And then units like the Heavy Hover Tank really deserved to be among the High-Tier.
I was just looking for the document I wrote, but sadly I think I have it at my home PC and I am currently in Finland for half a year xD
In this document I wrote a lot about the theory behind monster-tiers and also talked about weapon-tiers as well. Moreover, I made a map for all Quake and Doom games (as well as some build engine games) and associated every enemy with a particular tier.
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Not bad!
YES; agree entirely about Doom2 vs Doom2016 foes.
The Mancubus was the biggest example of being the exact opposite- obscene amount of hitpoints- yet they only shot two projectiles in the same direction- stepping two feet to the right was all it took to avoid being hit.
What shocked me was they got it SOOOOO right for the Multiplayer demons- the Revenant shot big rockets that alone were hard to dodge- the Mancubus blasted a massive area around itself- THIS is what the single-player counterparts should have been like!
The Summoner was pretty cool, but it REALLY should have resurrected dead demons (I understand this might be too much data for the game engine to handle). Summoning them was pretty silly because they were regularly summoned into each fight anyway. It would be as pointless as putting a boss that spawned monsters in a Serious Sam game (which, regrettably did also happen).
I disagree about the Cyberdemon- I found the original Cyberdemon a cakewalk to beat (keyboard look probably made it harder than it really was). That big bastard in DOOM killed me three times before I managed to beat it- and I'm pretty damn good at these games! Sadly so too about Quake 4. Aside from those orange-coloured "elite" soldiers and those white spider bosses, every enemy was fairly easy to take down. (I used the machinegun and kept taking headshots, while slowly walking backward or sideways).
I'd love to see this document when you find it- it'll be interesting to see your theories.
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I never had a big Problem with the Cyberdemon in DOOM ^^. Granted, he often kills me one time after he got resurrected but I just never got the impression that he did as much damage. Β
I just feel the D2 Cyberdemon is more unforgiving. Sure, it's easy to dodge but if you got hit you lost 100+ HP. But I see what you mean, in a way, the 1993 Cyberdemon was not a "real boss" but rather just an elevated high-tier enemy. I still play Doom 2 regularly and I've had some amazing battles with Cyberdemon(s) and a horde of other mid-tier demons.
I guess, it is more the way how Cyberdemons are used rather than how they are designed. Imagine fighting 2 DOOM Cyberdemons at once in a big city-like map. Or a Cyberdemon in a jungle with some Cacodemons above the trees. Now that would truely be epic.
This is actually another feeling I miss from DOOM, the "feeling of size". Huge maps with many demons at once. Where you got 20 imps on one side, some pain elementals in the air and a couple of pinkies on the other side. And perhaps even an Arch-Vile that joins later in the fight and can resurrect everything you just killed. In some places, DOOM felt a bit too much like an arena game. Nonetheless, I really like DOOM for what it is, I had a lot of fun playing it, despite everything.
Speaking of the Arch-Vile, I think they could have easily implemented the "resurrection" mechanic by letting demons "drop their souls" when they died in the vicinity of an Arch-Vile, allowing to be brought back by it.
The problem I see with the summoner is that it features a "macro mechanic". It's not a big threat by itself, but it comes more dangerous the longer you keep it alive. But in DOOM's fast paced gameplay, you have more than enough time and tools to kill it early on (Gauss Cannon, Super Shotgun, Rocket Launcher).
On the other side, the Arch-Vile was an immediate threat. Much to it was thanks to its primary hellfire attack which forced you to hide, giving the Arch-Vile more time to do its job. Speaking of its "job", Arch-Viles resurrected enemies a hell lot faster than Summoners too.
Did you play Quake 4 on the highest difficulty? ^^ Most the time I was scarce on ammo and in some encounters where there were 2+ Heavy Hover tanks I had to abuse save/load to stand a chance.
Btw. you should check out "False Dawn" for Quake 4: www.moddb.com/mods/false-dawn Quake with Stroggs really doesnt get better than this.
Side Note: I must say there are many mods and maps for Doom 2 that are really amazing (and new ones keep getting released). In terms of gameplay and level design I think some of them are even superior to DOOM, like "Back to Saturn X 2".
I absolutely adore "Back To Saturn X 2" because it provides you with a sense of adventure and the atmosphere is spot on. It is hard to find a game/mod with so much polishing in it. And the music... I totally love its original score: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTjjRUβ¦ or www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f0ptBβ¦
Btw: How is Hellworld still a thing? ^^
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I think it boils down to immediate risk for the Cyberdemon's attacks. With Mouselook, I could take D2's version down without a scratch with some simple strafing as he only had one attack that he didn't use too often, while the later version wouldn't stop unleashing attacks specifically designed to counter popular strafing techniques (especially that killer Gauss gun/laser attack). They'd often hit and whittle my HP down to nothing pretty fast.
TBH, aside from displacing low-and-medium tier enemies resulting in meat-shield monsters, my only gripe was the "Arena" style combat that really could have been expanded to be much better.
-The Cyberdemon's second arena COULD have been a ring-shaped arena (Tower of Babel) that he chases you around... his attacks getting more accurate and far-reaching as you try to put distance between him and you. Being trapped in an identically-shaped rectangular room was a little silly IMO.
-Because you are basically locked in a room that monsters gradually spawn into and you have to kill them all before being allowed to leave, the novelty of a monster that spawns other monsters in one of these rooms felt really pointless.
Your idea about the "lingering souls" for the Archvile is absolutely awesome! I'd have loved to see that!
TBH I hated Quake 4. So I only played it once through. XD
Hellworld.... now THAT is something I should jump back to first (the graphic quality from a few touchups has substantially improved it I might mention)!
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I know that I am a minority that likes Q4 xD
But I also liked Doom 3, which was not a favourite in the series as well
But I have to wonder, why exactly is it that you hate Q4? Do you dislike the Stroggs in general or do you think that Q4 was not done the right way?
Recently I actually just played Q2 for the first time and I must say I don't really like Q2 that much. Everything feels so unimaginative and generic. I liked that they kind of tried to make it a mission based game and the combat has its moments, but ultimatively it's very forgettable.
Regarding Hellworld, have you ever heard of a game named "Tormentum"?
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I hated it for three big reasons (note I also LOVED Quake 2... and Doom 3 and Prey).
1-
The Gameplay was really bland (engine limitations a big part of the reason to be fair). That said, they made it even worse by the rail-shooter parts and 'shoot-down-the-homing-missile' parts. The guns were toned-down versions of previous game counterparts (Railgun that needs an upgrade to pierce enemies). The monsters were really easy to fight because they were encountered in tiny, vacant rooms. I knew from my first playthrough to simply step backwards while facing the Berserkers knowing they'd die *just in time* before they'd reach me, and I knew the first time an Iron Maiden "vanished" she'd re-appear right behind me- so I didn't move, then decided in a second I would turn around and shoot the air- it worked.
2-
I LOVED Quake 2's atmosphere; even playing it now, I really feel like I'm marooned on a scorched, over-industrialized and polluted alien planet, and the awesome rockin' soundtrack really gets the blood pumping. It even manages to capture a StarWars-style sense of "otherworldlyness". While Doom3 and Prey made up for the 'corridor shooter' problem by providing an outlandish and terrifying visual design, creepy atmosphere and awesome story-telling elements (I actually cared about what happened to the characters in either game), and Prey gave crazy weapons, abilities, puzzle mechanics and physics anomalies; Quake 4's atmosphere felt flat, and I didn't care about any of the team of Red-Shirts in my team. I was even kinda bored in the stroggification scene (ironically I was eating chicken drumsticks at the time lol).
3
I hated what they did with the strogg! Even on the primitive Quake 2 engine, the blocky monsters with smudgy textures REEKED of personality. Angry, shabbily-assembled makeshift utilitarian cyborgs with extreme bloodlust. It gave the impression that the Strogg are massive assholes, and feel that because it's good at killing stuff, a cyborg whose right arm and lower-torso being removed for snack purposes and replaced with a bulky fixed cannon and awkward low-budget chicken legs- with a few metal plates for chest armour and wedging a pair of scissors into his remaining hand is somehow acceptable- it gets the job done so who cares? In Quake 4, they felt stiff and even kind of silly. The Q4 gladiator looked like the Strogg had a change of heart, took pity on their old Gladiators and gave them a makeover.
That said, I too replayed Quake 2 recently and it truly has dated a fair bit now.
I haven't heard of Tormentum- but I have noticed similar settings appearing in Doom 3 and Scorn- so I'm planning on-hop-to-ing back into finishing it!
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oh god the vores
i just fucking run away when i see one
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Lol- same. Probably one of the nastiest enemies.
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the mines are the only things that bother me
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Problem is you have to avoid eye contact with the vore and each of its projectiles too (luckily a pillar and a bit of distance seems to solve both problems)
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