Print

Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Jovian]

Just a thread for your vague ideas regarding the legions of Hell. Now really, DoomRL has just about every enemy in the Doom series, baring what? Spider Mastermind? Doom 3's Zombie Security? It might ruin the game if things outside of Doom were added...

But it's fun, so let's have at it!

Crazy
A human enemy one stage before becoming a former human, they'd behave erratically and have the ability to talk, though they'd only babel and tell you they're sorry for firing on you. They may randomly fire on the demon scum or even themselves. They rise as former humans shortly after death if they're intact.

Incubator
Appears as a former human, but releases an imp or two upon death.

Former Dog
Quicker than other formers, with the ability to latch onto the player, which slows them down. Very, very weak, the poor mutt's body just can't handle demonic possession.

Barghest
The fabled black dog of England, that brings deep fog with it and has a red gaze that brings death. Basically, the creature causes a fog of war effect wherever it goes, and fires some kind of weak death ray at the player. I can imagine people wildly firing into the fog without any knowledge of where it is. It wouldn't be too tough, but coupled with more powerful enemies it could cause serious problems.

Hell Hound
Massive fire spitting dogs that can howl, alerting every enemy to the player's presence. Where they die would become a temporary lava tile.

Hell Mount
Equally massive horse or perhaps camel-like beasts, they would be fast and capable of trampling over the player. Rather than straight up charging, they'd use hit and run tactics. In an ideal world Hell Knights would be able to ride these babies around and players could attempt to ride them, but they would only get so far before they bucked them off. Ah, maybe they're more like bulls?

Hell's Ivy
Some kind of growing enemy, which would begin one tile, or letter, wide, then proceed to slowly grow outwards, the "growths" can be destroyed easily, but to kill it you have to cut it back to the original tile then blast it away. It would be poisonous to the player, but if consumed by a demon, it replenishes their health.

Psychopomp
A guide to the damned. They hunt for lost souls, which they transform into pain elements (or something new) upon contact. They themselves would be spirits than can travel through walls.

Charon
An avatar of Death, he would be creepily neutral to the player unless fired upon, just hovering away from them in the distance, as if drawing them further into Hell. Once attacked he'd be the master of movement, speedy with the ability to teleport and pass through walls.

Vagarite
A scary bitch on par with a hell knight. She'd be all about patience, lying stealthily in wait rather than hunting the player. If they do get close she'll spray webbing at them and drag them back into her lair!

Vagary
The mother of all that creeps and crawls. A demon based on the boss of the same name in Doom 3. Much more active than her cousins, she'd also have a telepathic ability to throw junk at the player.

Antediluvian
The tainted souls of those killed during the mythical deluge, they'd be intelligent item user that work in packs. I'm not thinking advanced A.I, but maybe they could attempt to surround you and use corners for cover. They might even talk, and mostly just mock your efforts to survive the forces of Hell.

Shadow
I was thinking of a "bot" that copies your movements to a point and carries a similar batch of equipment, nothing more fun that fragging someone using the same weapons as you. Something about travelling to the depths of Hell screams "battle against your own dark side".

Martian Automation
An ancient robot once used by the Martians to fend off the legions of Hell, it continues it's efforts even if those it's defending are dead. It would just be a fun encounter to see it exchanging fire with some demon. Unfortunately it aims for the player too, since they're an invading alien as far as it cares.

Monolith
Tall black statues that have the ability to move, though very slowly indeed. They would be extremely tough and for all purposes considered a wall. Several in one place could act like living mazes, confusing the player and causes them to change the route they were about to take.

[Sambojin]

Just becaused you mentioned it, so don't take these too seriously....

Other ranks of formers. A rocket launching former (3-4 rockets ammo?) , a combat shotgun former (no 30 shell sergeant ammo, just 5 in the gun), a group of berserker formers (knife and chainsaw varieties), sniper formers (HP pistol with good accuracy), elite assault  formers (assault rifle). With some more armour and life they should all make it a little more varied for human style enemies as well as giving a few more chances at ammo types in late game. Not to mention more chances of losing your armour and medikits to the bastards.

For the other enemy types, maybe these. A spider mastermind (with a hyperblaster, maybe only in the spiders lair), a stealthed daemon (you can only see them 4 squares away), stealthed imps, bruiser brothers sometimes appearing lv 20 onwards (dukes of hell?), acid spitters (with regenerating acid spitters), lava spitters (with napalm throwers) and all kinds of other random stuff. None of these should drop a weapon, or make the weapon unusable like in AoB, but they would make for more variety in your enemies. Body part names for all the daemon type weapons perhaps, dark red icons, just for extra-gibbyness in the game.

Blood for the blood god. And heads, arms, legs, throats, skulls, genitals and anything else that doesn't get completely kaboomed. Armok can take his pick.

To tell you the truth, to add a lot more variety to the game, you could simply make it so all enemies have a slightly randomized amount of hit points. Up to +- 20% would make the game fairly freaky indeed.

Or add in a team based system. Doomguy on one team, formers on another, daemons/imps/knights/barons on another and arachnotrons/mancubi/revenants/archviles/bosses on another. Each team has four morale scores (with half points for their own teams hits). Who ever hit them most recently (say, last 6 seconds) gets fired on by that team.

Welcome back to the friendly fire of the original doom.

[Jovian]

Nice ideas Sambojin!

I agree with you on formers, even if they appeared sparingly (on the understanding that the more badass the marine, the deeper he'd make it) they could add a much needed level of variety to the game. I'm not sure about the randomised health though, I think knowing what it takes to kill an enemy is part of DoomRL's tactical nature.

Rather than random health, I wonder if a particular kind of mini-boss could have a random "element", say a choice of acid, fire, lava, ice, plasma, poisonous smog or sticky slug breath? This could be done with any enemy really, but it might seem a little Diablo if we end up with ice imps and acidic shadow hell knights. :D

As for team based stuff, I wouldn't mind the formers being considered lesser by higher demons, meaning if they accidentally fire upon them, they'll just eat 'em. Some other demons might have rivalries, but I think most of the demons should avoid hitting each other, or else many players will resort to tricking demons into killing each other.

Right, I figure I'll have a look around the forum then make up some more ghoulies.

[Sambojin]

I really like the idea of mini-bosses. A simple procedurally generated boss (yes, just like diablo) with a boosted amount of health, armour, speed, resistances and elements of attack. A little procedural name, or even a generic one, would be cool. You could spawn them as singles, with cohorts or as boss packs.

More as a level event though.

"You feel as though there's something really evil here." would work well enough. And be easy enough to miss at the start the level as you run off trying to find your nice, new, unique :)

[raekuul]

Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.