Is Doom 2 Bestiary the most varied bestiary of any fps?

Bravo mon seigneur!
La baguette chaude qui dormait se raidit à la lecture de son propriétaire. Puis-je vous appeler mon amour et partager votre étrange saveur avec vous?

Ok? You don't make that particularly easy with how you post but sure.

What elements are there to consider with the behavior of the enemies? Did you not read what I said earlier? One Imp is fine, two is ok but more than that is superflous. You got plenty of those in the bestiary with tiny twists that don't really make them particularly interesting at all. That's my point. What support role are we talking about if the enemies literally all just fire projectiles at you, you just run around and that tactic NEVER changes. You circle strafe, that's plain and simple. The only tactic with those monsters involved, and that's why it is bland. It should tell you something that people spam loads of these monsters and call it slaughter to provide a challenge to the player, because that's the only way one can really provide a good challenge in this "movement shooter". I invite you to do the "reductionist" approach that "I took" on Duke3D, Quake or Serious Sam enemies. I'd like to prove you wrong. Go ahead.

You see there's a fundemental flaw in the argument of "but it came after Doom"... They INVENTED the technology. They have total control over it. Their creativity is the limit at that point. You see this in Doom 2, what, you mean to tell me Doom 2 was built on fundamentally more advanced technology than Doom had? Is that why Arch-Vile and Pain Elemental could come to be because we had leaps in technology? Come on now. Whoever has total control over their technology DICTATE what it can and cannot do. Sure back then your processors were limited and all, that didn't stop Hexen and Heretic to be what they were. Or Quake, and Quake came in a time where processors were extremely limited and processor companies were directly competing with one another...

The games that were mentioned earlier like Halo or Fear have substantially better AI to make enemies do interesting things other than just bee-lining towards the player like morons though. You realize that right? You need to analyze properly and not crudely like you have otherwise everything is just some pixels on your screen out to harm your monitor...

Also this is the second time you mention the discussion became sterile, I disagree, if more people could objectively discuss this matter it'd be a more entertaining topic as then ideas on how to improve the bestiary with smallest of changes would come to fruition but as I said, I do see the nostalgia goggles on some members here and it's disheartening to say the least.

Curious what kind of background check you did for me. I could answer your questions had you asked directly I do play a wide range of games, you can ask for specifics if you like.

I'll give you a rundown of Duke3D enemies simply because you mentioned that game first. Depending on the further discussions I can elaborate on others too.

1. Lizard Trooper

The cannon fodder enemy, equivalent to Zombieman / Shotgunguy in terms of power and density in levels. These guys will fire a simple projectile. So you can say they are an Imp. But, they will crouch occasionally, fly all over the place on will and play dead occasionally. It has 3 additional quirks that make it more than just a simple projectile enemy. They don't tend to just stick to wherever they are, they can decide to leave their post and directly pursue the player.
The only weak point I'll give to these enemies is the Lizard Captain variant, which I won't categorize as its own enemy. It's a simple palette swap of the Lizard Trooper that can additionally teleport. So in terms of the palette swap department you can say they are similar to a Hell Knight to Baron. However they get a new quirk which is teleporting around, an additional quirk neither the Baron nor the Hellknight get.

2. Pig Cop

Another cannon fodder type enemy, beefed up Shotgunguy basically. Shotgun attack, so a hitscanner. However they'll occasionally crouch to throw you off and they can be placed in maps in this stance as well to surprise players. They can also be placed in "locked and loaded" stance in which as soon as they see you they'll immediately fire, allowing more flexibility and variance in how they behave when spotting a player. This again doesn't exist for any enemy in Doom.

3. Enforcer

This is your chaingunner on steroids. Another hitscan enemy with multiple twists. They will jump to pursue a player directly, randomly decide to take a shit (as funny as it sounds it has gameplay implications of them having random downtimes) or decide to spit on the player that obscures their view. That's 3 twists over your typical hitscan enemy in Doom.

4. Octabrain

Ok, this guy is basically Cacodemon. There is nothing comparably different between the two... If you count an earraping pain sound.

5. Protozoid Slimer

Not really a full on enemy, more like nuisances. They serve to build suspense and atmosphere however as their presence will give you a sense of dread in levels combined with the alien textures. Facehugger enemy trend started here. They do one thing interesting in their AI routine, they will crawl on ceiling and drop down on you.

6. Sentry Drone

Kamikaze enemy. Comparable to Lost Souls in that regard. Not much twist here.

7. Assault Commander

Flying fat enemy that fires rockets. Very similar to imp, it can fire a random amount of rockets at a time. It's melee attack makes it spin around itself to do damage around it, so that's a tiny twist to its melee.

8. Battlelord

Similar in function to a Spider Mastermind. However it's got a second attack which it lobs a mortar at you, that it properly aims to hit you! This is a rare sight for old school fps games (something even Quake did not do until modders did)

9. Pig Flier (Recon Patrol Vehicle)

This enemy has plenty of potential despite being very simplistic. It will fly through a predetermined path by the mapper at all times, patrolling it. Occasionally it will stop to fire at the player with projectile attacks. Once destroyed, upon crashing with a surface will spawn a Pigcop. So dying is comparable to a Pain Elemental. It itself is comparable to a Cacodemon but allows more flexibility in its function by providing tools to the mapper.

10. Protector Drone

The ultimate melee enemy in Duke. It will rush towards player really fast and try to melee. After each melee it gets angry and stands still for a bit, growling, so you can get some shots in. It's actually pretty fast that it can throw your aim off. It will occasionally fire a Shrinker projectile at you that will shrink you. If you enlarge after it runs out near a monster you insta-die. If you use Steroids you enlarge immediately and you gain immunity to this attack during the Steroid. It can also accidently shrink other enemies for you. It however is immune to shrinker so you need other weapons to take it down. One of the more complicated enemies in how you can fight it optimally, for sure. They have additional rushing behavior underwater.

11. Pig Tank

This enemy is rarely used in the game, but it has 3 different attacks that it will combo you with depending on how far off you are. If you are really far it'll fire a burst of lasers then finish the combo with a grenade attack. If you're close it'll fire hitscan attacks. It's a pretty strong enemy to take down but it's got a twist. You can walk up to its back and press use on the self destruct button there. It will explode on death so it can hurt you. The pigcop in it will randomly survive this too. Doom hardly has any enemy that has 2 different projectile attacks, 3 is unseen. And this enemy is smart about how it picks its attacks.

12. Turret

I... don't really want to consider this a full fledged enemy either. Something on the protozoid tier.

13. Overlord

Boss of E2. It's pretty much a more threatening Cyberdemon. It fires rockets in a burst from left and right shoulders one at a time. IIRC it can keep firing indefinitely or until you hurt it. I'm not very sure but it by itself isn't very complicated.

14. Cycloid Emperor

This boss has two attacks. The first is a randomized spread of rockets. Think of Mancubus, but more randomized. The other attack is the attack of Octabrain in a wide spread in front of it. The deadliest boss to fight in the game and you can easily mess up if you don't pay attention even if you circle strafe. It's arena doesn't do it justice IMO however. It's absolute nightmare to fight it in tight areas.

15. Queen

This boss is pretty interesting. You fight her in underwater caves and she can electrocute the water to damage you wherever you are in the level. It will randomly spawn Protector Drones as it moves. So you are in a time rush to kill her too.

I'm not going to count the recently released World Tour expansion enemies, I think they don't really matter much and are poorly designed. If you look at the breakdown above you can see Duke has significantly less enemies than Doom 2 roster. It's got 4 boss monsters that only one of them can be used as a regular enemy in the game unlike Doom where all bosses can be used as a regular enemy except IoS. Despite this though almost all enemies have interesting behaviors to them that they are more than just a variation of Imp or a hitscan enemy. They do more things that'll put pressure on you than "throw projectile" or "fire gun", unlike Doom.

Now if we were to talk about how jank Build Engine is it adds a whole other dimension into issues fighting the enemies, or advantages. However I don't think it's relevant to this particular discussion.

Agreed. Nicely done indeed. I must confess that even tho i'm playing Duke3D for almost two decades now, i still didn't played E4, i mean at all - so when i saw "Protector Drones", "Pig Tanks, "Queen" on the list i had to check online to see wtf he was talking about lol. But yeah, i'm gonna check out E4 later today. The way ivanbro described the enemies got me really curious.



It's remarkable even considering that among the holy trinity of build-engine classics, Duke3D is the one that most borrowed elements from Doom - i think we can agree on that, right?




lol just the usual fap material silly

Off course i would ask you directly in case i find nothing, but i found some juicy stuff. And in fact confirmed that you're balls deep into gameplay mods, which explains everything really. Only a filthy modder from the GZ mafia would dare to poison Doom with such arrogant elitist claims. Shame on you sir. But wait.. sorry it's too soon, you did make good progress yes, but please go on - we still 2 games short from the list. chop chop.

GZ mafia? Just because I mod doesn't mean I automatically despise vanilla Doom. I have made maps for Boom compat, and a map in Vanilla Compat for a DBP here. I don't find it particularly entertaining, in fact it's pretty boring low challenge tier. But I'll play it sometimes. I don't think my claims are elitist either. They are objective and unbiased in the analysis. It's pretty funny how many people will cling to their "favorite game Doom" and defend it vehemently with incorrect arguments. Unlike those people I'm capable of objectively arguing about my favorite games and can acknowledge their shortcomings. On another note, you should give gameplay mods a try, they might enhance your otherwise bland gameplay loop in Doom with new experiences

Anyhow, Serious Sam has far too many enemy types for me to go over here with most of them doing similar things to each other. I'll give you a rundown of Quake though.

1. Soldier

Zombie shotgunner type enemy. Nothing complicated here.

2. Enforcer

Projectile enemy that fires 2 shots at all times. A beefed up Imp with no Melee. Nothing interesting here either.

3. Knight

Your typical melee enemy. The interesting thing they have for their behavior is that if you're within a certain range of it it'll instead start charging at you while dealing damage, so you can't really risk getting cornered or within a smaller range around it unlike with typical melee enemies.


4. Ogre

Really deadly but slow wind up melee attack. The missile attack is what creates unique encounters though. It fires grenades that bounce around until exploding after staying still a bit. They are usually placed in elevations to limit movement more-so than a regular projectile enemy in Doom would.

5. Hell Knight (or Death Knight whatever you call them)

One of my personal favorite enemies. They have deadly but slow melee attacks, they'll charge at you much faster than regular Knights and they have a fan of projectile attacks. You will feel the pressure of the situation once you see multiple of these guys charging at you.

6. Scrag

The only flying enemy in Quake. They'll strafe sideways when attacking and always fire two projectiles at a time. The strafing element is interesting because it's very subtle but it can make you miss your shots enough to matter.

7. Fiend

Melee only monster that can leap at you. Unlike Duke3D the leap itself can do heavy damage here and you have to do a certain dance to not get hit by one, and even multiple of them at a time.

8. Shambler

Shamblers I find very similar in function to a Chaingunner or an ArchVile (minus resurrection). They'll do a constant stream of 30 (40 in nightmare) damage lightning hitscan for a ranged attack which forces you to cover, as they'll always perfectly aim at you. Melee attack is pretty slow but can absolutely destroy you in 1 or 2 hits. It's far more threatening than a Baron ever can hope to be and hearing the Shambler's unique roam is enough to bring player's full attention...

9. Vore

In function I guess they are similar to Arachnotrons. However they are infinitely more threatening than them as they fire slow moving explosive fireballs that home in on you, almost perfectly. So perfect they can turn corners. These require maximum movement skill from player to break free. You can be extra clever and redirect the fireballs to other enemies, or even the same Vore that fired it.

10. Fish

Fish are nuisance enemies that occupy water areas. They aren't interesting.

11. Zombie

Zombies are a very unique enemy that you don't really see much of in many games, if at all. They can't truly be killed unless you blow them to pieces with explosive weapons. If you kill them with any other weapon they'll drop down, pretend dead, then get up after a bit fully recovered. Other than that, they have a small arcing projectile attack where they throw pieces of their flesh at you. Still, interesting twist none the less. You can also place them dead to later get up to ambush a player as well.

12. Dog

Dogs are much weaker Fiends. That's the best way to sum them up. Not much besides that. Their melee attack frequency is much higher than Fiend's though, but lower damage.

13. Spawn

A lot of people hate these guys. I don't, I actually like them very much. They are also very unique in their function and are hardly ever used properly. They remain stationary until you make eye contact with them for a set amount of time. Once that happens they'll jump up, literally bouncing from every surface they come into contact unpredictably. They'll constantly bump into things for damage. Worst of all is when you kill one, they explode for high damage. You can't afford to have them sneak up on you or else you'll end up killing yourself. Using explosive weapons once it becomes active is a huge risk as well due to this.

14. Chthon

Boss of E1. It's pretty comparable to IoS in that you use things in map to kill it. It will guess and predict your movement trajectory however, so trying to just circle strafe can fail eventually. Other than that, you don't directly fight this boss.

So yea another game with far less distinct enemies but with a wider range of behavior they provide to the table. I'd say expansions bring more kinds of enemies where some of them are interesting, but they are too few to matter IMO. The main takeaway is that melee attacks are the big showstealer here as they are actual threats and are repeated over the animation rather than for just a single frame. You can't get away with doing most things you did in Doom here due to that.


Heretics only problem is poor weapon balance vs enemy health. That's all. Enemies there are for the most part interesting enough to make them stand out on their own. It could use tiny adjustments in behavior for certain enemies IMO but it's way more interesting than Doom simply because projectile weapons are the mainstay weapons of the roster instead of hitscan. The inventory system provides a whole new dimension to the gameplay as well.

I would love to see a community project revolving around either "enhancing" the DOOM 2 beastiary, or just the creation of new monsters in general. I think it would be fun, but the entry barrier might be a little too much compared to mapping. On that same note, I'd also like to see community projects about creating new weapons, textures, decorations, powerups, etc.

Turok 2 has more enemies