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[Kornel Kisielewicz]

I need to do a rewrite of the monster randomization code, and hence I would need to find a way to judge monster difficulty. Please help! Either do a list of monsters with some kind of danger level value assigned, or
at least some sentences that judge the difficulties relatively (one demon is three times as dangerous as a lost soul, two barons are as dangerous as a arch-vile). We're assuming one-on-one here without a challenge mode on a non-nightmare difficulty level.

Blade, DaEezT and other hardcore players -- I especialy count on you!

[Potman]

Humm, I'll give this a shot...

Former Human - 1
Former Sergeant - 3
Imp - 2
Demon - 4
Lost Soul - 3
Former Captain - 3
Cacodemon - Over 9,000!! Just kidding... 7
Hell Knight - 9
Former Commando - 12
Baron of Hell - 10
Arachnotron - 14
Arch-Vile - 17
Pain Elemental - 6
Mancubus - 11
Cyberdemon - 18
AoD - 30 (15 on AoB, with a few large health packs and sufficiently good armor)
JC - 25

Don't count on me, tho, I suck in this game.

[Fingerzam]

I propose that there should be a way to calculate a danger level from a monsters abilities directly.

So, there should be a point value for 1 HP, and each level of armor should modify it. The avarage damage should have a point value and it should probably also take into account wether it's a smaller damage several times or a single stack of damage, as armor has a different importance depending on those.

Special abilities would need values of their own added to the previous.

After that speed would have to be taken into account, pretty much as a direct multiplier, so that a monster that moves twice in a basic turn(1000 energy if my memory serves right) gets their danger value doubled.

Doing it this way inside the game would allow to make some alterations to the values depending on the level layout. For example melee monsters are a lot more dangerous in a tight cornered maze of rooms than they are on an open area.

Now someone just has to come up with an algorith that gives good results (/me hides, well I'll try to come up with something).

The other way would be to just assign some danger level to each monster by hand. You could take former humans as the base level and make them level 1 or 10 and use that as a base. Former humans are a good base value, because they pose pretty much the same level of (or lack of) threat regardless of the distance.

[Malek Deneith]

My list would probably be more or less as follows (from weakest to strongest, JC skipped, beacuse I never met him):

Former Human (cannon fodder)
Imp (can be nasty at some occasions, but still easy to dispatch)
Former Captain (they CAN deal more damage than sergenats, but since they are not guarranteed to hit, they're less of a threat in the end)
Former Sergeant (autohit attack and tendency to shoot you just as you pass that one barell in the room means PAIN... actually I'd put them higher if it wouldn't be for their low HP... if you plan on diffrentiating generatin lists for diffrent challenges they should get even higher for AoB)
Demon (strong, and decently fast but once you get combat shotty or chaingun they are quite easy to get rid of)
Lost Soul (more dangerous than demons, thanks to higher speed and tendency to run in packs)
Pain Elemental (quite easy to kill, but if you don't have a shotgun handy they are likely to swarm you with spawned souls)
Cacodemon (almost as strong as HellKnight but ranked lower beacuese they can't use medkits and armor)
Hell Knight (see above... will probably increase in threat level, now that thye won't pickup weapons)
Former Commando (plasma is nasty, but with their limited ammo they are less of a threat than arachs)
Arachnotron (as I said plasma is deadly :P)
Baron of Hell (HellKnight++)
Mancubus (they aren't THAT much of a threat if you have space to fight them, but on enclosed spaces they are dreadfull... plus they seem to have a lot of hp)
Arch-Vile (auto-hit attack and ressurection - 'nuff said)

[Kjoery]

Generally, monsters like former fhumans, regular demons, souls, captains, and sergants do not pose any threat whatsoever after the chaingun. The only time demons or imps can be dangerous is when they're paired with a hell knights or above, but it usually doesn't matter. Otherwise I haven't really fought enough to be able to rate them effectively.


On an unrelated note:
Hell knights and hell barons sometimes are completely harmless if you're lucky, as they'll simply move while you pund them full of bullets. You might want to consider changing that.

[Blade]

I agree with Potman at many points.

I was counting that, for example, 1 Cacodemon is not as powerful as 1 Demon and 1 Imp that are attacking you at once, but he is as powerful as 1 monster that is composed of 1 Demon and 1 Imp.

Former Human - 1
Former Sergeant - 2(they are dangerous only in 3 cases: if you are near a barrels, if you are carrying poor weapon, or if you are AoB)
Imp - 2
Demon - 4(as 2 imps)
Lost Soul - 3(less dangerous than demon because have less hp and armor. Could be killed with 2 bullets from pistol)
Former Captain - 3(i become really happy when i see this guys. They are only dangerous if you are using an unmodded pistol. In other cases they are just source of blessed ammo)
Cacodemon - 6(as 2 Captains. Or 1 Demon + 1 Imp)
Hell Knight - 6(if he didn't picked up an armor and meds, he is as difficult as Caco)
Former Commando - 7(Former Captain + Demon)
Baron of Hell - 10(not as powerful as 2 HKs. But as powerful as HK and Demon)
Arachnotron - 9(slightly more powerful than Former Commando.)
Arch-Vile - 14(BoH + demon)
Pain Elemental - 6(Caco)
Mancubus - 12(more than BoH. Less than AV. 2 Cacos)
Cyberdemon - 30(he is as powerfull as 3 BoHs at once)
AoD - 40(because you can't use weapons in UC, he's tougher that CD)
JC - 50(less than 2 Cybies. More than AoD)

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Blade, your list seems very reliable. Now then -- new monster generation will add new monsters to a level until it reaches a fixed tally. I need to come up with some numbers now -- that is: level's danger level sum, per level and per difficulty. Any idea with what to start? O.o

[Potman]

Make it slightly random, and so that it's theoretically possible, yet extremely unlikely, to generate Cyberdemon or AoD outside their fixed locations. That'd be awesome.

[RickVoid]

Make it slightly random, and so that it's theoretically possible, yet extremely unlikely, to generate Cyberdemon or AoD outside their fixed locations. That'd be awesome.

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