[Add-On] DoomKrakken's Monster Randomizer (V4) FINALLY.

[Silentdarkness12]

O...o........Old............Dreadful?...........are you kidding?

[DoomKrakken]

Read the description, if you don't believe me...

[Silentdarkness12]

That's........I................................sigh. It's like you want me to hate you.

[DoomKrakken]

Listen, those balls move slower than Congress. You can outrun them just fine, and kill the commandos from afar with your awesome weaponry. But beware the Tiberium-Enhanced Cyberdemons, who also shoot those balls, and are also practically immune to Tiberium.

[Redead-ITA]

That's........I................................sigh. It's like you want me to hate you.

[This is offtopic please ignore(hey were you the guy that sees RavenCrow if you asking me who am i you just need to see my name)

Great mod for the mod btw is cool and is "COMEDY"

[dljosef]

The heights and widths of some of the hexen monsters don't quite mesh well with their Doom counterparts, letting them get stuck as a result in certain places. (I.E. Monster Closets and teleportation closets)

[Zhs2]

I gave this a try today. It's not too bad aside from the whole "randomization could get you unfairly vaporized by a monster lucky enough to spawn behind you at the beginning of a map" thing, which is probably more likely a sign of bad maps plus RNGesus feeding you cauterizer bolts, and on that subject I feel like all of your monsters are not anywhere near as deadly as the ones to be found copy-pasted from Realm667 (read: Tormentor's Favorite Monsterfest) unless you're first ignorant of their position and second stupid of how to avoid them. Furthermore:

- Dreadful Zombies have the tendency to fire at you once, then kill everything else in the room because their BFGSpray aggroed everything else and thus they keep firing Dreadful shots until everything but them is eliminated. Great at parties! If you stay out of the imaginary cone projected by their firing sequences, which is pretty much everything in their line of sight plus some distance from the resulting ball explosion, they're just funny.
- The Hexen bosses feel like jokes - it's no joke that they could do a lot of fatal damage if they weren't dumb, but they tend to strafe into pits and become easy fodder. Menelkir is the most common one of them all and his fireballs are more limited than a Revenant's.
- Pain Elementals spit all of the Lost Soul replacements. That's also kind of silly.
- I like how the money your monsters drop are like, 5 Rubies instead of 2 Emeralds or 4 Emeralds instead of one Diamond. I guess it's all variable, but I feel like monsters dropping variable amounts of many colors of different gems (and random chances for successive ones of each color) would make these drops more flavorful, just as Pillow did for small gold piles and bags. Not nearly enough of your monsters make use of Amber in this regard.
- The Catharsi bombs dropped on death are probably monsters (thanks Realm667 guys!) and as such are targetted by Lord LeClerc Autokill the Merciless III (er, I mean the Ironblast strat). You can technically kick them around in this regard, but you could also consider making them shootable (don't wave that shotgun everywhere!), turn them into something else so they aren't targeted, etc.
- Maybe it's purposeful that your monsters can't be raised by Archviles, but if you'd like this to feel more like an extension of Guncaster (or perhaps you feel like being really evil in some cases) the CanRaise DECORATE frame flag is a thing. Just a thought for your v4 update.
- Also for that v4 update, consider making monsters drop the weapongivers (found in Decorate/Doom/Weapongiver.txt) because all of the default weapon pickup noises are now Cygnis' laugh and the weapongivers use the Doom-only pickup noise.
- Some sprite names seem to conflict with one another, causing very strange effects with, say, TNT explosions, tomed Frostbite, etcetera...

Conclusively, nicely done with a monster pack that makes me use Sovereign and Cauterizer more often (and maybe even break out dual Pulverizers from time to time), which never happens unless I want to deal with large crowds or single annoyances at a distance. One more nitpick, at the first post: I don't know whether Pillow "allowed" you to release this mod, but it seems kind of silly to mention that too when it's fully within your rights to have done that all by yourself.

[baddude1337]

One thing to alleviate a bit of the randomness would be to check out Project Brutality's code. In that mod higher tier enemies spawn on later maps progressively. So for the first few maps it the low tier and weaker units only, to being a mix of low and medium tier, until by the final few maps it is almost all high tier enemies.

Perhaps something worth considering for a future version?

This is still permanently in my Guncaster installs autoload, it's always nice having even more enemies, especiallyy bosses.

[DoomKrakken]

I gave this a try today. It's not too bad aside from the whole "randomization could get you unfairly vaporized by a monster lucky enough to spawn behind you at the beginning of a map" thing, which is probably more likely a sign of bad maps plus RNGesus feeding you cauterizer bolts, and on that subject I feel like all of your monsters are not anywhere near as deadly as the ones to be found copy-pasted from Realm667 (read: Tormentor's Favorite Monsterfest) unless you're first ignorant of their position and second stupid of how to avoid them.

I figured these monsters would be more deadly, since they have your weapons. Many of them can kill you in one shot. I'd like to hear why you say the contrary...

Furthermore:

Alright, here we go...

- Dreadful Zombies have the tendency to fire at you once, then kill everything else in the room because their BFGSpray aggroed everything else and thus they keep firing Dreadful shots until everything but them is eliminated. Great at parties! If you stay out of the imaginary cone projected by their firing sequences, which is pretty much everything in their line of sight plus some distance from the resulting ball explosion, they're just funny.

This is pretty funny. I remember a specific time that had happened in CC4 Map 20, where the Dreadball went down a corridor. It felt awesome. It was almost like waiting for a train at the metro...

Let's get back on topic... is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

- The Hexen bosses feel like jokes - it's no joke that they could do a lot of fatal damage if they weren't dumb, but they tend to strafe into pits and become easy fodder. Menelkir is the most common one of them all and his fireballs are more limited than a Revenant's.

Because of Guncaster, they pretty much are jokes. However, I do have plans to give them their other three weapons, so that may make them a little more deadly...

I haven't updated it yet, but I noticed that Menelkir spawns way too frequently. So he's a bit of a rarer sight, now. I don't see how his fireballs are more limited than those of a Revenant, though... they always home, making sharper turns than Rev rockets, and they deal assloads of damage.

If any of them are truly a joke, I'd say Zedek is.

- Pain Elementals spit all of the Lost Soul replacements. That's also kind of silly.

This was actually intentional. I liked the idea of Pain Elementals spitting all sorts of random crap from their mouths.

If it bothers you guys too much, then I can change it.

- I like how the money your monsters drop are like, 5 Rubies instead of 2 Emeralds or 4 Emeralds instead of one Diamond. I guess it's all variable, but I feel like monsters dropping variable amounts of many colors of different gems (and random chances for successive ones of each color) would make these drops more flavorful, just as Pillow did for small gold piles and bags. Not nearly enough of your monsters make use of Amber in this regard.

I like this too. I wanted to keep things consistent with drops, as I felt it'd be kinda stupid to switch it up too much. But now, I think it'd be cool to switch things up a little more.

- The Catharsi bombs dropped on death are probably monsters (thanks Realm667 guys!) and as such are targetted by Lord LeClerc Autokill the Merciless III (er, I mean the Ironblast strat). You can technically kick them around in this regard, but you could also consider making them shootable (don't wave that shotgun everywhere!), turn them into something else so they aren't targeted, etc.

GREAT IDEA! I will implement this in the next version!

I was able to push them into wall using stuff like Thunderstruck and Scourgebreath. But I think it'd make more sense if you could do this with any weapon.

- Maybe it's purposeful that your monsters can't be raised by Archviles, but if you'd like this to feel more like an extension of Guncaster (or perhaps you feel like being really evil in some cases) the CanRaise DECORATE frame flag is a thing. Just a thought for your v4 update.

Some of the monsters do not make sense to resurrect, such as the Soul Harvester, or the Inferno Bruiser, as those guys lose all their flesh. I didn't want to implement "CanRaise" with the Heretic/Hexen monsters because they're not the same monsters as the ones from Doom, as I feel that Arch-Viles can only resurrect most other Dystopians (the name I call the Doom monsters), as they run off of the stuff that the Arch-Viles give... the same stuff that composes Hades Spheres, Hades Elementals, and the Overlord... the same stuff that powers Cygnis's Scourgebreath and Corpseblast. Hadeium.

- Also for that v4 update, consider making monsters drop the weapongivers (found in Decorate/Doom/Weapongiver.txt) because all of the default weapon pickup noises are now Cygnis' laugh and the weapongivers use the Doom-only pickup noise.

I'll consider this.[/quote]

- Some sprite names seem to conflict with one another, causing very strange effects with, say, TNT explosions, tomed Frostbite, etcetera...

I noticed. I have fixed some of them already. Man, it's been such a long time... I forgot what the TNT explosion conflicted with...

Conclusively, nicely done with a monster pack that makes me use Sovereign and Cauterizer more often (and maybe even break out dual Pulverizers from time to time), which never happens unless I want to deal with large crowds or single annoyances at a distance.

That was the point! To utilize the stuff you have that you rarely ever use!

One more nitpick, at the first post: I don't know whether Pillow "allowed" you to release this mod, but it seems kind of silly to mention that too when it's fully within your rights to have done that all by yourself.

He granted me permission to release it. I wouldn't have released it at all unless I got the ok.

One thing to alleviate a bit of the randomness would be to check out Project Brutality's code. In that mod higher tier enemies spawn on later maps progressively. So for the first few maps it the low tier and weaker units only, to being a mix of low and medium tier, until by the final few maps it is almost all high tier enemies.

Perhaps something worth considering for a future version?

I considered this many months ago, with my mod compilation project. I looked at Project Brutality's code to see how the spawning is done, but it was a huge mess. I couldn't find the actual spawn code anywhere... not to mention, every monster had a "replaces" keyword in its definition (i.e. ACTOR SuicideBomber : Zombieman_1 replaces Zombieman_1). I ran out of patience really fast. If you can find me how exactly the spawning works, then I will consider using it in my mod.

This is still permanently in my Guncaster installs autoload, it's always nice having even more enemies, especially bosses.

Glad to hear.

[Zhs2]

I'm saying first and foremost that the monsters you actually edited yourself are the most balanced. Sure, they do lots of damage if you don't deal with them fast, but one kick to the face and they're history, which is something you can't say about assholes like the Pyro Bruiser and other supergraphicalframe1337Eriance creations that pretty much wreck your face in with a single projectile, have tons of health (which is something that can also be said about the liberal use of Hexen bosses who were meant to be fought in their own chambers and not everywhere else for sprinklings of *challenge*, grrr) and also fucking explode when they die even if it's not at all obvious that they explode then they die. I forgot to mention how much Pillow and I, who ended up multiplayering this for some extra fun, were ragging hard on any monster who isn't the suicide guy and pretty much releases a nova of unavoidable explosions that murder you if the last thing they were killed by was something close range, like a punch, which is a stupid melee nerf. This definitely seems to only be a problem with Baron-quality enemies, for instance.

I was saying that the Old Dreadful zombies, while pretty much balanced just as you would expect them to be as I outlined above, also do your job for you if inspired with one glimpse of your face. I'll leave it up to you to determine whether or not that's a good or bad thing, although it's most likely good if that meets your expectations and is what you definitely expect from a BFG-wielding monster.

Menelkir is absolutely a joke if you have a Berserk giver (PROTIP! ). Zedek has no resistances/weaknesses and still needs to be drained of all his health to become dealt with, heh. Plus, I know the mage balls follow well on the horizontal plane, but they don't do so well in the vertical due to their faster movement speed and tendency not to climb all the way out of pits... And they can be exploited to easily kill other things, something that's more difficult to do with Zedek's projectiles.

To the gems part: when I say "I like" and then follow it with a bunch of what should have been taken logically as a complaint, it was sarcastically-inclined. The bottom line here is that it seems silly for a monster to drop a color-coded 6 Rubies or 12 Emeralds because they're red or green or something, which is something we noticed more often than not. If the monster is tough, they should drop a well-rounded treasure trove! If not, well maybe a couple middle denomination gems would suffice instead of a bunch of low ones, or you get the idea. Additionally:
Pillow: Two diamonds from this one annihilator cyberdemon
Pillow: and two from a crappy baron replacement
Pillow: meh

I wasn't sure if your zombies could be resurrected (ed: apparently I noticed this wasn't a thing for le Strucker guys at the very beginning of Plutonia), although I guess I don't know if I took a look at them specifically; it makes gameplay sense, however - at least in Doom's perspective - for small monsters to be raise-able, although that is entirely up to you (resurrection is a dosh/ammo exploit anyway). The reason I took a look into the file was because I couldn't figure out which certain corpseblasted monsters of yours was still dealing damage... I'll have to investigate that a little more thoroughly.

[DoomKrakken]

- Wow... really? Thanks! Yeah... I'm trying to figure out a way to balance out those bullet sponges, but I can't think of other things to make them tougher to face them off against Cygnis. Should I try the glass cannon approach? And, as for the other monsters that like to blow up in your face upon death, I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed by them too. So, in the next version, I'm probably going to give them a chance of blowing up in your face, instead of them always being able to do that. I am very flattered and nearly speechless that you and PB decided to use this in multiplayer, too.

- Yeah, I definitely expected Old Dreadful Zombies to wreck everything in their path. Although, I'm usually in their path as well, so I usually try to wreck them before they can do anything.

- Ah, then that was it! I never even attempted to fight Menelkir with Berserk! He strafes so fast, and I don't wanna take any hits from those nasty fireballs. Gotta try that!

- I can never read sarcasm unless its explicitly explained to be sarcasm. Yes, I'm still trying to figure out better balanced dosh-drops. Some of them really don't make sense right now. XD

- I'm sure I made it so that almost all Doom-styled monsters were resurrectable. All the zombies should be. I'll give it another look.

[dljosef]

There's still the matter of certain monsters getting stuck with other monsters for their class. (For instance, ettins with pinkies among others.) Map08's where this little issue comes up often. (Personally, I also think the chaos serpents fit a little better as revenant-class enemies.)

[DoomKrakken]

I need to edit that. I'm going to look at the actor heights of those monsters, and compare them with those of the Doom monsters, and then determine which ones will go where. I'm not sure when I want to work on this, as I have a bunch of changes to implement.

[baddude1337]

Not sure if you mind suggestions, but how about a zombie tank as an alternative in the Mancubus slot?

http://www.realm667.com/index.php/en/be ... ombie-tank

http://www.realm667.com/index.php/en/be ... lasma-tank

I think the sprites for it are pretty good. Mods I have played with it in previously basically have a zombieman spawn when the tank explodes. Would be a good addition IMO.

[DoomKrakken]

IMO they actually look a little silly. But I'll think about it.

Right now, I'm focusing on adding a bunch of Demon Eclipse monsters.