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

[Silentdarkness12]

So I have now actually given it a try.

I will say that......well.....this game has some balance issues now, going in the other direction. The kamikaze bomber, imo, needs a massive nerfing, or needs to be removed altogether. I've already had several hair-ripping-out scenarios due to a kamikaze bomber appearing dead nuts next to me due to where he was spawned. That's not fun. That's just annoying.

The Soul Harvester's last gasp attack with the homing projectiles can also, quite frankly, go and screw. When you run into these guys on a map with closed quarters, it's impossible to not take damage.

The Dune Warriors are an interesting concept, but honestly, for what passes for, essentially, a common enemy replacement, he's far, far, far too strong. Sovereign slugs, AND surprise TNT? Really?....

Also, if you're going to give zombies Cauterizers, then please either make them ultra-rare, or reduce their health.

[DoomKrakken]

Whoever your weapons dealer is, he's definitely gone two-faced.

Joking aside, I had problems with the TNT, but then I adjusted. However, I just tested the Kamikaze Zombie. I had full health and 200 tank armor.

I was able to kill myself with 3 dynamite bundles from holding onto them for too long. After the second one went off, I was left with 105 health and no armor.

However, when I tried out the Kamikaze Zombie with all of that, the first one blew up leaving me with 126 health and no armor, and then the second one killed me.

My diagnosis is that the Kamikaze Zombie doesn't seem to be dealing "Sovereign Damage" when he blows up (as Cygnis has 70% resistance to "Sovereign" damage. I will investigate further.

I was thinking about making the Soul Harvester only fire those three projectiles in its XDeath state, and the Fury Bruiser will have a random chance of spawning his version of the attack as well. Also, I recently made the Soul Harvester balls fired by the Soul Harvester and Fury Bruiser precise, which means they don't hit the floor at all. I'm thinking I'll make it so that it randomly spawns ones that are precise and ones that aren't.

I had no trouble with the Sovereign slugs, actually. Sure, they packed a powerful punch during gameplay, but I didn't have much of a problem here. Also, notice that I'm making these guys drop a lot more dosh than usual, so that you can go patch yourself up afterward (if necessary). But I do think that the amount they're firing does suck. Plus they throw Dynamite WAAAAAY too often. I'll nerf all of that, but beware of the Dynamite that they will still throw.

I forgot that Zombiemen have much lower health. Yes, this will definitely change.

Thank you for your feedback!

[The Nameless Watcher]

Having gone through standard Doom 2 now with this, I concur with Silentdarkness12.

Kamikaze hits way to hard and his blast radius is much too large. Dune warrior likes tossing TNT a bit too much, and nearly always bombs it on death. In fact it seems to many monsters have on death killaroos. I get the idea is to be careful but what it really forced me to do was run when I spotted them, snipe, and wait...

Which led me to look through the way you have the spawning set. You seem to have kept them grouped by what "family" they were in, rather than what purpose they serve. For instance the Satyr spawns with imps but behaves like a pinky. Remember monsters are not just random death machines, they serve a purpose in their spawning. Pinkys body block, imps harrass, zombies add pressure and/or snipe. Revenants make you want to throw your computer out a window. I am ok with some randomness to keep me on my toes, but random for randomness sake does not sit well with me. Along with this, some of the tougher replacements spawned a lot more than their regular counterparts. For instance on map08. where you first meet Doom 2's Pain Elemental, they all came out as Overlords. All of them. I know luck of the draw, but I would recommend giving that a once over. Along with spawn chance, the plasma zombies drop rate for Cauterizer and its ammo seems to much. I was able to be fully loaded by map05. I also think Mr BFG should only have a change of dropping the gun, not guaranteed.

Also this may just be my opinion but the health of a lot of these new terrors seems much too high. Perhaps we have a different interpretation of challenge, but wailing on a bullet sponge who is absorbing Ironblast + Annihilation is not a challenge, but tedious.

And on a small note, the Catharsi's projectile seems visually weak. His gun is rather large. Check out the way this mod uses the same monster http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=37254

Apologies if I am coming off as negative, not trying to be. You clearly have a lot of excitement and eagerness, just want to help you use it the best it can

[Silentdarkness12]

A monster set like this for Russian Overkill might be acceptable. But not Guncaster. Yeah, some balance changes would be appreciated.

[DoomKrakken]

It's ok. I love the criticism.

I did say that this mod may cause you to change strategies. I made this mod with the intention of making it much harder. This way, you are forced to use some of your items in your inventory. When I play Doom with Guncaster, I can just do an "all-gun-run" and get through the thing with ease. I can collect items and stuff and only use them when I'm bored. With this, I love that I have justification for using the items provided.

I may have Satyrs spawn with Pinkies too... but I liked it when Satyrs spawned with Imps, so I'll keep that there.

I was considering having Overlords spawn in place of certain bosses, as when I played through Back To Saturn X E1 with it, they spawned in places which were much too big for them. Yes, I'm a huge fan of spawning like creatures with like creatures... but in this case, I think I will make an exception.

Yeah, I did notice that they dropped a lot of ammo. I think I'll nerf that too.

I usually have monsters have a chance of dropping their weapon. I realize I haven't done that with the Ironblast/Dreadful Zombies. Will be changed.

You really want the Catharsi to deal more damage? Their projectiles hurt like hell... oh well, I suppose I can entertain this change too, for teh glorious lulz.

I would love to hear your ideas for how I can make boss fights more... interesting... since you're not satisfied with the higher health.

I actually just finished a bunch of changes that SilentDarkness suggested.

Anyway... changes completed so far (but unreleased):

- Apparently, Kamikazes did not do "Sovereign" damage, as I had previously intended, so you'll take the full brunt of the blast that the Kamikaze gives you. I was able to fix that finally, so that the Kamikaze spawns the explosion (see "DynamiteTooLate"), and have the explosion deal "Sovereign" damage (plus, now their explosions act like your own Dynamite, finally). Now it should take only five or 6 hits from them to kill you (and they don't spawn that often...) if you had just picked up a Megasphere.

- Took away the SMF_Precise flag from the Soulballs fired by Soul Harvesters and Fury Bruisers. Also made it so that Soul Harvesters spawn three Soulballs only in their XDeath state or when Gumpopped. However, Soul Harvesters and Fury Bruisers attack a little more frequently now.

- Dune Warriors fire slugs much less often, and whenever they do, they only fire one (instead of two) before jumping back to their See state. Also, they toss TNT much less often. However, they're more likely to toss a Remote Bomb rather than TNT. They also drop a Remote Bomb upon death (but no more lit TNT... YAAY). Severely decreased their chance of dropping a backpack.

- Cauterizer and Sovereign zombies now have 60 health each.

- Remote Bomb speed increased severely.

- Overlord will now spawn three Hades Elementals upon death and randomly spawns in place of Spider Masterminds.

I will make further changes, and hopefully release the update soon.

[Somagu]

You really want the Catharsi to deal more damage? Their projectiles hurt like hell... oh well, I suppose I can entertain this change too, for teh glorious lulz.

I haven't had the chance to try this, but he didn't say it needs to do more damage, he said that the projectile visually looks underwhelming. As in appearance.

[DoomKrakken]

OH...

Ok... I didn't get it before... thanks for clarifying.

The current Catharsi projectiles seem fine to me. What do you guys suggest I use instead, if the current one isn't working out for you?

[baddude1337]

Thanks for the great work, the more monsters the better!

I will agree some do need to be nerfed. Most of the new monsters could also do with some health reductions for sure. Although it is hard to blanance against a gameplay mod and any level wad's, some of them do hit too hard and have too much health compared to their spawning chances.

Other than that, fantastic work!

[The Nameless Watcher]

I made this mod with the intention of making it much harder. This way, you are forced to use some of your items in your inventory. When I play Doom with Guncaster, I can just do an "all-gun-run" and get through the thing with ease. I can collect items and stuff and only use them when I'm bored. With this, I love that I have justification for using the items provided.

This is the exact information I needed. I was used to playing with the I am an awesome Dragon melt before me mindset, but now that I get where you are coming from, it makes a bit more sense. I still hold fast that challenge does not equal bullet sponge monsters however. I think what you have done with some of the tougher bosses still works for a new challenge even with their health lowered. I played through plutonia with this and map 6 or 7, where you fight a cyberdemon in an enclosed space, I ended up with the Old Dreadful guy. Very tough in enclosed space. I modified his health before playing but I still had to adapt. I ended up dual wielding sovereign (a weapon I rarely use) as that kept him (and his baby) locked down enough for me to survive. Otherwise I was aced in seconds. I also moved kamikaze to the hell knight slot, worked better for me but I will try your new way once you have it ready. Same thing for Dune Warrior, currently have him limited to the chain-gunner slot.

I also realized with my critique I failed to mention the positives. The randomness definitely adds replay and switching your arsenal. I also found myself flying around a lot more than with standard GC. Air was filled with projectiles and sometimes I don't know how I survived. I took the time with some new monsters to find ways to deal with them and their tricks in more ways than shoot magic/bullets at them.

And like was said above, I was indeed referring to the projectile graphic, not the damage (which I agree is fine) Play the mod I linked long enough to find the same sprite, he shoots a much meaner looking bolt which I felt was more appropriate.

Solid stuff is happening, I realize I am nitpicking, but you know what they say, Those who can't create, critique

[DoomKrakken]

I gotcha. I know you weren't trying to be negative. Thanks.

Anyway... now I've got my work cut out for me...

I just discovered the ScoreDoom monster packs. I was looking for some of the Demon Eclipse monsters to use in this mod, and I found this thing.

300+ monsters.

Most likely not going to use all of them, but I will definitely use a bunch of them.

Coming... sometime... not soon. Still gotta do Hexen/Heretic monsters like I originally promised.

[baddude1337]

By Heretic/Hexen, do you mean move the monsters of those games into Doom, or are you making a monster pack for those games?

How goes the update for the Doom V2 mod? I am enjoying it but am finding a lot of the enemies pretty difficult, so waiting for that patch to nerf some of the enemies to come along before I play through a WAD proper.

[DoomKrakken]

I'm going to move those monsters to this mod. Eventually I will probably create monster packs for Hexen and Heretic, but that's waaaaaay out there.

Plus, I'm working on a couple of other projects... including Brutal Guncaster and my personal Ultimate Compilation Mod, and small but somewhat complicated personal edits to Trailblazer. I will also be working on a Trailblazer monster mod with some monsters exclusive to that mod only. I also have college to tend to and art to draw. But I'll manage.

The fix update will come sooner than you know...

EDIT: Bumpity, bump bump bumpity, bump bump... fixes have been applied. Enjoy!

[baddude1337]

Are you also going to make the patch for the normal version? I still quite like fighting regular Doom monsters alongside the new ones.

[DoomKrakken]

What do you mean...?

There's already a vanilla version, if you look in the OP. Unless you're talking about the future one with the Hexen/Heretic monsters applied...?

[baddude1337]

Sorry, I should have been specific.

In the downloads part of V2, only the Guncaster Monster Pack V2 (New Monsters Only Patch) seems to have been updated. Guncaster Monster Pack (V2 Main) Still shows as updated 4 weeks ago?