Now here is the big post about special level adjustments to account for the new enemies added.
First I want to state that I think the EXP multiplier in Nightmare should be lowered to x1.1. A big part of why later N! loses a lot of bite is that you get so much EXP between the boosted multiplier, even greater enemy density than UV, and special levels having stronger enemies with greater EXP yields, so the difficulty gets somewhat compromised by how much stronger the player gets. Currently, killing everything and clearing the special levels will have you regularly entering Deimos at level 9 and you'll soar past level 12 by the halfway point, while enemies with even greater EXP yields are going to be added to special levels and a new special level pair is going to be added in Phobos, which will make the player's level on N! soar to even greater extents if the EXP multiplier is not toned down to compensate. You could justify going with reducing it farther to the standard x1.0 EXP multiplier, but I think we should test the x1.1 multiplier first, especially since the Enraged Timer does add some more difficulty back to N! after its changes, and a x1.0 multiplier may overly punish players that skip most of the special levels, as well as make early A100 unreasonably difficult on N!.
Now onto the special levels:
Hell's Arena Fine as is on UV, and I seen Kornel has plans to modify it below UV, which will be interesting to see. Nightmare is where it's in dire need of adjustment currently though, and how to modify it depends on what is done to address the ordeal that is trying to get everything dead at once while lacking the means for proper corpse disposal this early, when the corpse stacking strategy has been rendered mostly unviable by patrolling AI and the Enraged Timer.
*If it's adjusted so you just need to kill every unique enemy once rather than having everything dead at once, then Hell's Arena enemy force is probably fine as is, considering how much more difficulty respawning adds to the level (maybe you could replace the Lost Souls with their Nightmare counterparts to spice things up a bit and add a couple of them to the second wave too). Also when clearing the final wave, not only disable respawning, but have every remaining respawned enemy drop dead too (especially now that the Enraged Timer could run out as you try running across the arena to pick up your rewards).
*If it's adjusted to disable respawning entirely, then the enemy force will need to be buffed considerably. How to is uncertain though, you certainly can't just replace Pinkies and Cacodemons with their Nightmare counterparts this early as it would probably make the level near impossible for most runs. You could replace the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls though and add some to the second wave, as well as perhaps throw in extra Cacos and Pinkies, and then for the final wave, maybe you could throw some Nightmare Imps in to assist the Barons?
New floor 4 special levels These aren't in the game yet, but I'm just going to throw it now that they'll certainly need the clear condition on N! to be killing every enemy once rather than having everything dead at once, as even if you beat Hell's Arena earlier to get the Rocket Launcher, you likely won't have enough rockets to destroy every corpse here and in the next special level, nevermind using those rockets to destroy corpses on the standard floors inbetween.
The Chained Court Fine as is on UV and below. As for Nightmare, it's too a level that would greatly appreciate changing the clear condition to killing everything once, or even disabling respawning, as otherwise you have to do a ton of door camping to get everything dead (that you can no longer do with the Enraged Timer), when you'll still probably lack any means of corpse disposing weapons (especially as accessing this version of Chained Court means you didn't clear Hell's Arena and thus didn't get the guaranteed Rocket Launcher). Whatever is done, I think the Former Humans should be replaced with Sergeants on N!, as currently its enemy force is the same as UV, and whichever method is implemented to make clearing less tedious, the level would probably be easier than UV if the enemies aren't altered, considering you'll come in a level or two higher and the berserks will last twice as long.
The Unchained Court The enemy force is fine as is for UV and below. On N!, similar to its normal counterpart, destroying all corpses isn't viable here without door camping that you can no longer do, even with the guaranteed Rocket Launcher since your rockets will be limited, so changing the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning would be greatly appreciated. Beyond that, again replace the Former Humans with Sergeants to buff up the enemy force to compensate for N!'s double extended Berserks.
New alternative special level to Chained Court Not in the game yet and may not make it in to 0.9.9.9, but in case it does, the Chained Court alt will definitely need to have its clear condition also be killing every enemy once for the reasons stated with Chained Court.
Military Base The enemy force is fine as is on all difficulties, I'll just retract my previous proposal to remove the Tracking Map on UV and N!, as with the new Enraged timer making any prolonged camping unviable, the Tracking Map is rather necessary to handle the exit room, otherwise there's a lot of luck involved in clearing it without Intuition 2. However, clearing all the Former corpses here on N! is a tedious affair (not to mention possibly being impossible to do without running out the Enraged timer), and beating the level fast enough before anything revives is a flatout impossible task when there's so many enemies and the level makes you go all over the place, so again another special level that the clear condition should be changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning. If the latter is done, you wouldn't need to buff the enemy force here, as the main threat of the level, the Elite Formers, couldn't respawn anyway.
Phobos Lab Fine as is on all difficulties, just again another level on N! that should have killing everything once being the clear requirement or disabling respawning, so you don't need to lure every Former and Imp on the level over doors or near acid to destroy their corpse to get everything dead at once (especially again when like Military Base, this is a level with a ton of enemies and requires going all over the map, making frequent respawning inevitable and perhaps not even feasible to get everything dead at once without running out the Enraged Timer).
Phobos Anomaly Fine as is on UV and below (as long as the infighting adjustments I mentioned in the previous post get implemented). As for N!, after the huge buff the Nightmare Cacodemons got, I think they're too strong to have in the ambush; the N! Anomaly ambush already bordered on insanity previously, being largely luck-based to get past without rocket jumping, and now the Nightmare Cacos hit about as hard as the Bruisers do... but faster with plasma damage and more accurately, not to mention that they're a lot harder to kill now too with their buffed HP and insane energy resistances. So perhaps each Nightmare Caco should be replaced with double or thrice the amount of Nightmare Souls. If this is done, space would need to be made for those extra Nightmare Souls in the ambush walls... which may need to be filled up with stuff on lower difficulties to keep the player from inadvertently phasing into one of the empty wall spots and getting softlocked if you can't turn those spots into no phase zones (you could just fill them up with normal Lost Souls on lower difficulties, 4 or 8 more of them shouldn't be too much). Alternatively, the Nightmare Cacos could be toned down a bit (regardless at the very least, they should have their 50% fire and acid resistances removed that don't make much sense on them, keep the 50% plasma resistance though, I like giving rapid builds a reason to not entirely ditch bullet weapons for plasma).
As for the clear condition, it's not too relevant, as clearing Phobos Anomaly isn't required for Conqueror, and Gatekeeper Platinum requires just making it past Anomaly on N! without damage, while Gatekeeper Diamond requires UV and so respawning isn't a factor. For the technical clear condition though, in case a Gatekeepr Angelic badge is added in the future that requires clearing Anomaly on N! instead of just passing it, or in case a player goes for Gatekeeper Diamond on N! or in Angel Of Darkness for some reason, it should be killing every enemy once rather than having everything dead at once, so you don't need to needlessly fuss with destroying corpses or having to put down a respawned Bruiser or Nightmare enemies down again when you lack the firepower to kill them quickly this early in the game.
Hell's Armory Fine as is on UV and below, especially now that patrolling AI + Enraged Timer means you can no longer just camp in the starting north building to safely kill everything before the Shambler, making the level not the complete breather it was previously. As for N!, another level that it would be nice to change the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning as you're still not quite at the point that you can easily corpse dispose and the tight corridors of the level makes it not so easy to blow up corpses without hurting yourself. For the enemy force on N!, it's the same as UV except the Shambler has more HP and is more aggressive, which could be considered enough, but if you want to add some oomph on N!, you could replace the Imps here with their Nightmare counterparts (or with a mixture of Revenants and Arachnotrons), as well as replace a couple of the Cacos with their Nightmare versions as well (though certainly not many of them, again given how strong and durable they now are).
Deimos Lab Enemy layout is fine as is on UV and below, I'll just note that if it's made available on ITYTD, then you must remove one of the Shamblers on that difficulty, as the dual Shambler will certainly slaughter any newbie even with ITYTD advantages (and you could justify removing one of them on HNTR too with how difficult the fight is, while the lower HP the Shamblers have in HNTR gets counterbalanced by the player being at a lower level). Additionally, the Formers near the teleport destinations should be moved away, as due to you no longer being able to safely camp them until they get teleported into the teleport room, there's a high random chance that stepping into the teleporter will drop you right in view of a Captain, or much worse a Commando, where they will then get a full burst on you with no chance to dodge (and because teleporting takes extra time, they might even get a double attack, which with a Commando could mean instant death from full health if you're unlucky).
As for N!, once more a level that should have the clear condition changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning, especially so when unlike Hell's Armory, you don't got a stash of rockets around except for the dozen rockets you get from the Revenants, and when you don't exactly want to be destroying your cover when you got the dual Shamblers to fight. For the enemy force, it's the same as UV... except for a single extra Cacodemon. You could keep the enemy layout the same as UV though as the buffed HP and extra aggression for the Shamblers is a big deal in this fight, but if you want to add extra spice to it, like with Armory you could replace a couple of the Cacos here with their Nightmare versions.
The Wall Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, I think this is one of the few special levels you can keep having everything dead at once being the clear requirement, given Archviles are a big part of this level's challenge on N! and UV (while you also get the Missile Launcher and a big stash of rockets to easily dispose the corpses here). With the enemy force, it's the same as UV, which definitely has to be buffed as that currently makes The Wall a special level that is actually easier on N! for this point of the game. Simply replacing half the Barons with the new Nightmare Knights on N! should be sufficient and fitting.
Containment Area Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, like The Wall it's fine forcing everything to be dead at once to count as clearing it (just maybe add some extra rockets on N! since you only got the single Rocket Box and the 4 rockets in the Missile Launcher). Unlike The Wall, I wouldn't add Nightmare Knights to the Backpack ambush, N! adding a second Archvile to it already makes it very difficult, and Nightmare Knights would probably make it impossible for most builds to survive without a Homing Phase. You could replace all the Imps and Pinkies here with their Nightmare counterparts however to make the pre-ambush part of the level no longer a breeze.
City of Skulls Fine as is on HMP and below, but maybe the Agony Elemental should be added to ITYTD, it's weird that City of Skulls lacks it but Abyssal Plains has it. On UV, I was thinking this level could be buffed as I always found it very easy unless I was playing AoMr, but the Elemental AI changes and summoned enemies activating faster does make things a bit more hairy. N! definitely needs a big buff however, as currently the only difference with it is the Agony Elemental having more HP, while respawning isn't even a factor here when no enemy here can respawn. Replacing all the preset Lost Souls in the first wave with Nightmare Souls is obvious, and for the second wave, I say replace 3 or 4 of the Pain Elementals with Nightmare Elementals (more than that though in conjunction with the Agony Elemental would probably get too insane and consume way too much ammo).
Abyssal Plains Firstly, if City Of Skulls not having the Agony Elemental on ITYTD is kept, then Abyssal Plains shouldn't have it either, especially if the reasoning is that it's too hard for newbies when Abyssal Plains features a more difficult fight with it. Secondly, I think Abyssal Plains may be a bit too hard on HMP; all the Imps being replaced with Hell Knights makes the opening ambush nasty, enough that I think Abyssal Plains could be the hardest special level on HMP outside of Mortuary/Limbo and Deimos Lab, while the jump to UV isn't significant (just two of the Lost Souls get replaced with Pain Elementals and the Agony Elemental gets extra HP, which is negated by you coming in a level or two higher). For adjusting HMP and UV:
*On HMP, keep the 8 Imps from HNTR intact instead of replacing them with Hell Knights. Enough changes are made elsewhere (5 of the Cacos getting replaced with Arachnotrons and extra Lost Souls + Pain Elementals being added to the trap) that replacing the Imps with Hell Knights is excessive.
*On UV, rather than replace the 8 Imps with Hell Knights, do what N! does and replace them with Nightmare Imps instead. Always felt UV should have Nightmare Imps somewhere aside from Limbo and the rare lategame vault with them, and it's more unique than the 14 Hell Knights that are currently here, while being a more natural evolution from HMP. I think you could additionally replace the 15 preset Lost Souls here with Nightmare Souls too, since the preset Souls don't really do much at this point in UV.
As for N!, the main setpiece (the Agony Elemental trap) isn't affected by respawning, but since you do got lots of enemies around that do respawn and in a level that will naturally take a long time as you have to make a complete circle, as well as have to deal with the aforementioned Agony Elemental, changing the clear condition to be killing every enemy once should be done here. For enemy adjustments, alongside keeping the changes of UV, I would say replace the two Pain Elementals wandering outside the trap area with their Nightmare versions, but probably not more than that to keep City Of Skulls' extra Nightmare Elementals and Nightmare Souls a unique hazard to it (plus N! already does add a ton more Pain Elementals to the Abyssal Plains trap, so the trap doesn't need more done to it).
Halls of Carnage Fine as is on all difficulties. Respawning isn't even a issue on N! as the lava flood will destroy the corpses anyway, and it floods so fast that you will never be able to activate the Enraged Timer here without deliberately doing so by camping on the stairs or with lava-immune boots. Maybe you could just change the requirement to killing everything once though, so if something does respawn after you killed everything, you can just exit the level instead of waiting for the flood to take them out or having to kill them again. The only thing I will note is that there is currently no special clear message for Halls of Carnage, so having one would be nice.
Spider's Lair Fine as is on UV and below. Making the clear condition on N! being kill everything once should be done, but the main issue with the level is that it is the same as UV, which results in it being one of the easiest special levels on N!, especially when compared to how brutal its counterpart Halls Of Carnage gets on N!. Just simply replacing the 8 outer Arachnotrons here with Nightmare Arachnotrons should give this an appropriately big bump in difficulty (but certainly not all, as that would almost certainly make the level get unreasonably difficult with how deadly just a single Nightmare Arachnotron can be). Also, maybe you can do what Hell's Arena does and disable respawning once you clear it, since a bunch of rewards get spawned all over the level and trying to get them without disposing of all corpses first is hazardous as a result.
The Vaults Fine as is on HMP and below. For UV, I mentioned the error previously with the missing Barons in the right vault and how an extra Red Armor should be added there in conjunction with the two missing Barons. As for N!, I will first say this is a level where it's fine to require having everything dead at once to clear the level since Archviles are a big part of the challenge here (but you could disable respawning to have it consistent with House Of Pain and since respawning isn't a serious issue here either way). For the enemy adjustment, as we got a proper Nightmare versions of the Barons now, you can replace them with the Nightmare Knights. Just if you do that, you really have to do something to prevent the Nightmare enemies from teleporting out of the center vault, as otherwise it would make getting the Scavenger Platinum and Diamond badges (as well as the proposed Angelic) much simpler.
House of Pain Aside from the proposal to make the Arena Master's Staff required to access the Large Health Globes (and perhaps removing two of them entirely, getting four full heals is pretty excessive, I rarely ever have to use any medkits here), and maybe a clear message once you beat the final fight, the enemy loadout could use some changes.
*Fine as is on HNTR.
*For HMP, I'm thinking the Nightmare Archvile should get some help, as a player skilled enough for HMP probably knows to dispose of the corpses in the first room ahead of time, and a single Nightmare Archvile isn't too scary of a fight at this point in the game. To fit with how this fight will evolve on harder difficulties, I first thought of 4 Hell Knights to help him, but since they can steal the prize armors, that's probably too harsh for HMP, so 4 Nightmare Imps backing him up should be fine enough.
*For UV, just like HMP, the final fight with the two Nightmare Archviles should get backup, as I've repeatedly found the fight to be overly easy once you know to dispose of the corpses ahead of time. Replacing the 4 Nightmare Imps with Hell Knights that can steal the prize armors should be the appropriate big bump.
*For N!, the Pinkies in the starting room should be replaced with Nightmare Demons. Then the final fight could keep the Barons backing up the Nightmare Archviles, but you could also replace them with Nightmare Knights if you really want to amp up the final fight (maybe you would want to keep the Nightmare Knights exclusive to The Vaults in this level pair though). This level already disables respawning to prevent soft locks, but you could have the technical clear condition be having everything dead at once, since the VMR room and the final battle both make significant usage of Archviles.
Unholy Cathedral If you were to make Unholy Cathedral actually challenging for lategame melee builds, it would make it nearly or even outright impossible for non-melee builds, so that wouldn't be ideal (melee investment or getting lucky with a nuke + Invuln shouldn't be necessary for Conqueror runs). Despite that, I was proposing to buff up the enemy force here with how easy the outspeed strat made the level before, however, the newly implemented Enraged mode is a big wrinkle to the outspeeding strat, as it can take long enough to run out the Enraged Timer before you kill the AoD if you don't got sufficient Brute, EE, and/or a strong enough Chainsaw (especially as the AoD gets extra HP on higher difficulties). As such, the enemy loadout can remain as is on UV and N!, with the only suggested change being to make it more apparent to newbies what Cathedral's gimmick is upon entering (this could be done by having a lone Lost Soul in view at the start, which would allow newbies to immediately see that they can't shoot any guns on the level without aggroing a bunch of enemies on them, while basically not changing the level for those that do know). Also respawning isn't an issue on this level, but the technical clear condition can be killing every enemy once, so if a random Pinky respawns while you fight the AoD, you don't need to waste any time hunting it down.
The Mortuary Aside from what I mentioned in my previous post about how ammo pickups should be added to compensate for respawns no longer dropping ammo, Mortuary's enemy loadout is fine as is on all difficulties; Mortuary should even keep the clear condition being having everything dead at once, since killing all the respawns is so central to its challenge and theming (while the player has more than enough levels and tools at this point to get every corpse destroyed even on N! before triggering the Enraged Timer, especially with the aid of the Nuclear BFG here). If the disabled infighting flag is added, Mortuary should definitely have infighting disabled however, to maximize the challenge of the level.
Limbo Like Mortuary, it should have ammo picksup added, disabled infighting, and should retain the clear condition of everything being dead at once. It could use some adjustments to the enemy loadout though:
*On HNTR, add Nightmare Imps to the corpse pool, while also removing Nightmare Demons and Revenants. Having Nightmare Demons on HNTR made more sense back when Limbo had lava and Nightmare Demons had no lava immunity so they just inevitably killed themselves in it shortly after being resurrected, but now when that is no longer an issue here, the Nightmare Demons are far more threatening than the Nightmare Imps are and so can be rather much for a HNTR player to deal with. I would remove Revenants on HNTR too, as with them being fast and their undodgeable projectile that inflicts a lot of knockback, they are the most often source of knocking the player multiple tiles deep into fluids, and with Limbo now having blood instead of lava, that can be a swift death sentence for an unprepared player.
*On HMP, add Nightmare Demons and Revenants back to the corpse pool. Unlike currently how there's barely a difficulty bump in Limbo on HMP, you'll really notice the bump with this adjustment.
*On UV, add Nightmare Cacodemons to the mix as is done currently.
*On N!, add Nightmare Arachnotrons as is done currently, as well as add the new Nightmare Knight to the corpse mix. You could alternatively have the Nightmare Knights appear on UV, but I think they're nasty enough of enemies to not have them appear here until N!, especially as they can steal the Red Armors and Large Medkits on the map.
Also, with the blood making Limbo much more difficult, more difficult than Mortuary in my testing, it may no longer be necessary to have it spawn extra Archviles compared to Mortuary, but perhaps we can leave the Archvile amount as is and tone it down later if we get too many complains about the new Limbo being too much harder than Mortuary.
The Lava Pits Fine as is on HNTR and below (well, the combat looks really light on ITYTD, but I'm not fussed about trying to make things harder on ITYTD). For HMP, all the preset Lost Souls could be replaced with Nightmare Souls, I think there should be somewhere that you can encounter Nightmare Souls on HMP in the standard game and individual Lost Souls are generally very unthreatening this late in the game. For UV, alongside keeping the Nightmare Souls, maybe you could replace a couple of the Pain Elementals with Nightmare Elementals if you want to have somewhere to fight them on UV but I'm fine without, the main challenge of Lava Pits is the resource attrition rather than the combat. On N!, I think it's about time that Nightmare Revenants get utilized by replacing all the Revenants with them here, and about half the Pain Elementals should be replaced with Nightmare Elementals too. This would be a big bump in the enemy force, but respawning is basically a complete nonfactor on this level, and currently N! Lava Pits really isn't any harder than it is on UV (there's also the proposal to remove the last radsuit, which could be done in conjunction with this, but the radsuit could be kept if you want to exhibit some mercy here). As just mentioned, respawning is a nonfactor, but the technical clear condition should be killing everything once, so if you did kill a Nightmare Revenant on land, you won't need to seek it out if it respawns later.
Mt. Erebus Lots to do here, Mt. Erebus is supposed to be the combat-centric alternative to Lava Pits but is a complete pushover on harder difficulties.
*First, add two more enemies into the innermost mountain (to make room for them, just move the two rocket stacks there into the outer ring), it is weird that only a single enemy is released with the final lever, while adding two more would also have inner mountain enemies be equivalent in number to the outer mountain enemies.
*Mostly fine as is on ITYTD, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Hell Knights being added inside the innermost mountain).
*Mostly fine as is on HNTR, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Mancubi being added inside the innermost mountain).
*On HMP, replace all the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls for the same reason as in Lava Pits, but especially so here in the combat-cenetric counterpart level. The aforementioned change should additionally result in two Revenants being added inside the innermost mountain.
*On UV, keep the Nightmare Souls, but do not replace the Cacodemons with Pain Elementals, replace half of them with Nightmare Cacodemons instead (aside from Nightmare Cacodemons being a much bigger threat here and adding diversity in damage types, it differentiates this level more from Lava Pits, and is more faithful to the original Mt. Erebus in Doom, where it was the official Doom level with the most Cacodemons in it). Additionally, have the Mancubi back on the outside of the mountain (unlike the current version that has them inside), while replacing the 7 Revenants inside the mountain with their Nightmare versions (for this level this late into the game, I think UV can handle it, and it will make that lone radsuit a more stringent resource if you do not have very strong fire resistance on hand).
*On N!, in addition to keeping the Nightmare Souls and replacing all Cacodemons with their Nightmare counterparts, swap the Nightmare Revenants to the outside of the mountain, and then replace the 7 Mancubi inside the mountain with Nightmare Mancubi, introducing the last of the Nightmare enemies, who will eat away at the amount of safe land you have here with their acid splashing. I would also definitely remove the last radsuit here to really hammer in the threat of the Nightmare Mancubi and the subsequent battle with the Lava Elemental. As for the clear condition, most enemies will die over lava or have their corpses gibbed in the usual combat of the level, but like with Lava Pits I would make the clear condition be killing every enemy once, so you don't need to fuss with corpse disposal here nor seek out a random enemy that respawned when you're on your way back to the exit.
I mentioned previously, in the original proposal post about buffing the difficulty of Erebus a while ago, about how potentially Erebus could end in fighting two Lava Elementals, but with these big enemy buffs, perhaps that won't be necessary.
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