How would you fix the Doom 1 boss fights?

[MattFright]

I don't think anyone would disagree that all of the "boss fights" from The Ultimate Doom/Doom 1 are extremely disappointing (at least not frustrating/obnoxious, isn't that right Icon of Sin?), but lately i've been wondering: How would you even fix those boss fights? Both from a point of view of changing the enemies themselves (barons and masterminds seem to be universally hated/underused) and the levels they take place in.

 

I couldn't think of anything for E2M8 or E3M8, but for E1M8 i thought it'd be as simple as giving the map a longer buildup to the fight (since, let's be honest, that map is way too short, and making barons even more of a bullet sponge wouldn't ever be a good idea) and make that harder in itself, like a last stand against the demon horde at Phobos before facing the bruiser brothers. As for the boss fight itself i think it'd be simple enough to make the barons shoot 2 or 3 projectiles in quick succession (to further discourage standing still), and maybe replace the barrels and specters with something similar to Heretic's ever respawning explosive pods to make it so you also can't hug the walls or you'd get blown up. Given the size of the arena, the tombs usable as cover and (ironically enough) the health of the barons, it'd still not be too hard for an episode 1 finale.

 

I also wanted to make this thread as discussion to ask you all, how else do you think those boss fights could've been done differently to make for a much more fitting episode finale in a way that doesn't sound unrealistic for the limitations of the time (1993)?

[I Drink Lava]

Keep the enemies the same, just change the levels they're set in to actual levels. E1M8 is fondly remembered because of the long build-up. E2M8 has that small room full of dead Barons, which is okay I guess, and E3M8 just has that long hallway that only serves to sync up the music to the appearance of the Spider Mastermind. A level that's a little shorter than a normal level but much harder, sort of like E4M8, would've been an ideal design choice.

[bfredric]

IMHO Doom came out in 1993. Most of the games you could even compare it to were arcade games where the only objective is to collect

 a high score (Wolf 3D released 13 months before). I think Doom struck gold with its game play and atmosphere, not necessarily its level design (looking at you, episodes 2-3). E1M8 and E2M8 were alright considering the time period and circumstances. I'm face palming on E3M8 so I'll stop here...

[MundyC]

Personally, I'm not too opposed to somewhat short boss levels as long as they're fun, memorable, and/or difficult enough to justify it. Because of this, my personal changes aren't going to boil down to 'just make it a big level like E4M8 lol' three times in a row.

 

• Phobos Anomaly: I'd increase the attack and movement speed of the Barons so that they're A) harder to fight and B) more distinguishable from a Hell Knight. To give E1M8 more substance, I'd re-add the cut 0.5 alpha side caverns and throw in more enemies in the long hallway and outside area. Maybe even keycard the hallway/boss room off and hide the key in said caverns...

 

• Tower of Babel: I'd improve this level two-fold; first, by replacing some of the lost souls with cacodemons to make the Cyberdemon's cronies more of a threat. Second, I'd add a short(ish) beginning segment where you climb said tower and have to fight off imps, demons, and other funny creatures to access a teleporter that takes you to the roof/Cybie fun zone. 

 

• Dis: First off, I'm buffing the Mastermind to hell and back, pun absolutely intended. I'd give her 4000 HP, a halved pain chance, and have her do that unused psychic attack whenever she enters her pain state. Maybe a flurry of projectiles like a smaller version of the scrapped BFG blast? (Oh, yes, and shrink her massive hitbox.)
  • As for Dis itself, I'd give it a bit of an overhaul. Four switches are present in the map, one in every corner of the 'clover'. Using any of them will lower a layer of wall surrounding the central chamber (which is where the Spiderdemon now lives). Obviously, you have to lower all four to unleash her. However, each lowered layer will spring an ambush of 10 or so enemies teleporting into the area where the switch/player are. The ambushes can be made up of any combination of foes, as long as there aren't too many Barons or Cacos. Oh, right, and add more weapons, ammo, health, and whatever around the map to make it more fair.

 

• Unto the Cruel: I'd remove some of the end-area enemies to lower the chance of Spiderdemon infighting, and maybe get rid of the secret BFG. That's about it, though - I don't have many gripes with Episode 4's final level, and I am certainly not going to downgrade it to the same size as the others.

[MattFright]

4 hours ago, MundyC said:

I'd give her 4000 HP, a halved pain chance, and have her do that unused psychic attack whenever she enters her pain state. Maybe a flurry of projectiles like a smaller version of the scrapped BFG blast? (Oh, yes, and shrink her massive hitbox.)

 

Probably the most interesting rework of the spidermind I've heard, honestly. I kind of wish someone would recreate that in DECORATE (or even dehacked if possible) now so i could play around with it :x

[Deadwing]

E1M8 and E2M8 are fine. For E3M8, add a death exit in the previous map and change it so the SMM randomly teleports at differents spots in the map.

[Liberation]

The only boss fight in UD that is poor is the SMM, even back in the day that sucked. 

I would buff the health and lower the pain chance (as previously mentioned) and also reduce it's radius making it a bit more nimble. 

[Doomkid]

Just gonna echo the point that, despite being super easy now, E1M8 and E2M8 were perfectly passable, and E2M8 was one of the only good DM maps in Doom 1.

 

In addition to Deadwing and Liberation’s ideas, I’d also make E3M8 have a cool but small hellish map leading up to the final battle. E4M8 is a little better but even it is a bit too easy and easy to exit quickly.

[StrangerRanger]

In my opinion Doom bosses are way too weak, they're not very dangerous on their own.

 

In my Doom 1 WAD I'm working on, I buffed Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind, I wanted them to be much more challenging and not disappointing in the final level. Cyberdemon has 12k health, moves twice as fast, shoots his rockets much faster (I also increased rocket projectile speed), and has a quicker reaction time. I'm still working on the Spider Mastermind buff, so far it has 20k health, and walks twice as fast. I want it to have both hitscan and projectile attack.

[Stabbey]

I'd probably fix the enemies. Barons should have a more interesting attack or a more difficult attack pattern.

 

I'd probably give the Spider Mastermind a secondary attack of a slow-moving homing projectile which can follow a player around corners but stops existing after a short time (10-15 seconds?) so that it is not so easily cheesed by taking cover.

[DooM Bear]

I wouldn’t do anything.

 

I honestly think DooM is pretty great the way it is :-D

 

if you really twisted my arm I would say I’d make the Cyber Demon the big bad rather than the Spider Mastermind and make them a little tankier (especially the Spider Mastermind so you can’t just 1 shot her) :-)

[Doom-X-Machina]

Nothing.

[D4NUK1]

My only change would be on E3M8.

Spawn the SMM in a higher position, like in the Top of a spiral. So the player can't shoots rockets or BFG because it's will hit the wall. So the player must go up, or maybe drop the SMM down with a switch. In the meantime, the SMM could snipe us and hit us while the player trie to make the objective forward to be able to damage the SMM, then do the BFG or the plasma that i like.

 

[Helm]

I wouldn't change the enemies in any significant way, just design levels to complement their lethality and up the stakes. Two barons, that's it for a boss fight? Well, it'd feel different if you don't have a lot of space to dodge them and you are beset with adds on a few sides that you have to keep back as you try to get through the barons. 

[Smite of Disrespect]

19 hours ago, MattFright said:

I don't think anyone would disagree that all of the "boss fights" from The Ultimate Doom/Doom 1 are extremely disappointing

That's quite an assumption. I disagree. They were scary as hell at the time. First person shooters as we know them today didn't exist, so what seems easy now was not easy at the time.

 

You're not "fixing" anything.

[leodoom85]

5 hours ago, Deadwing said:

E1M8 and E2M8 are fine. For E3M8, add a death exit in the previous map and change it so the SMM randomly teleports at differents spots in the map.

I agree with the death exit in E3M8, like something similar to what happens in the first episode of Base Ganymede.

The other option is to make the mom spider BFG-resistant.

[Archanhell]

I would honestly like to make bosses more unique and with different gimmicks, that add dfferent strategies to the game, even if it ends up being a bit too modernish.

 

For example, with the first Baron of Hell fight, I would make both be able to sync up their attacks, and be able to either stomp for a short stun, or shoot a barrage of three quick green fireballs, just something to make them different from Hell Knights aside being recolours

 

The Cyberdemon would be, guaraanted, to have a stomp attack, which would "shoot" a shockwave frontwards, and have the ability to destroy his arm cannon, which will make him go berserk with more brutal attacks.

 

Lastly, the Spider Demon should be able to command enemies, and overall use psychic attacks, her chaingun would instead be some projectile-based plasma weapon, just to make it less dumb.

Smaller hitbox, more HP and such things, I guess.

[Nevander]

3 hours ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

Nothing.

Agreed. For some reason my post was removed but I don't see anything wrong with the bosses really.

[yakfak]

you would first have to recreate the entire universe etc

 

I'd put the Spider Mastermind fight at the end of the E3M7 teleporter exit

and then have a new E3M8 with several more spiderdemon's yr in the crossfire of, and you have to trick them into infighting while scrambling for ammo to fight the one that lives. like the iconic thing about the Mastermind to me is that they fight each other, use that!

[Shino1]

The problem is the monsters are just bad bosses. They are designed primarily as enemies, and as bosses secondarily. Every good boss needs an interesting attack pattern, and all bosses in Doom 1 have only one possible attack. I mean, look at how bosses actually work in games like Castlevania series or Mega Man series, all have interesting varied attack patterns that force player to be on the move and not just repeat the same strategy. In addition, Spider Mastermind fight is bad because bossfights against hitscanners are hard to do well - that's why FPS games stopped having bossfights when the genre moved towards all enemies being hitscanners, it's just not fun to pop in and out of cover to shoot at a bullet sponge for 5 minutes.

 

So first, Cyberdemon. The 'correct' way is to first kill all/most Lost Souls so they won't get in your way. What if this was impossible? What if Cyberdemon had these possible attacks:

- summon three Lost Souls, space 100 mu apart, that immediately target the player

- shoot a rocket (like in vanilla)

- shoot a much weaker in damage (30-40 dmg?) homing rocket (like Revenant) that is colored visually differently (blue color and green jet flame?)

- pause for a bit, let out a scream and pause for 5 seconds to warn the player - then unleash a volley of normal rockets in all directions (this attack is only performed when Cyberdemon is under 40% health)

That would require player to adapt and move on the fly, and you couldn't simply circlestrafe around the Cybie, because each of his attack requires you to move differently (dodge normal rockets by strafing, dodge Lost Souls by killing them or running away, run away from the homing rocket trying to lead it into a wall, run the f away and hide before the volley)

 

For Barons, again, lack of variety. The optimal strategy is just to use your hoarded rocket launcher ammo (that there is never a good reason to use in Episode 1) and hide behind the two monster closets. So how about:

- you're dropped into the arena from above with Barons already there, no closets to use as cover

- when one Baron dies and other still lives, a countdown starts. If you don't kill the other within 15 seconds, the dead Baron resurrects with 50% health.

- each Baron has different attacks. One, colored pink, has projectile attacks - a regular projectile, and a spam of 6 projectiles a'la Mancubus

- second Baron, blue, has a tough projectile, but if you get close, he has a dash-charge like Maulotaur from Heretic

 

For Spider Mastermind, the problem is the hitscan nature of the bossfight and the balancing.

- first, the chaingun doesn't actually shoot hitscan bullets, but a constant stream of energy projectiles, like Arachnotron

- second, you get BFG at the start of the fight and you're expected to use it, and boss HP (huge!) is balanced against that. This way, you don't have to conundrum of how much health to give the boss

- Spider Mastermind can teleport to various points around the arena, which are marked with Deathmatch Player Start entity.

- there is a hitscan attack, a long powerful burst that can easily kill the player outright, but the Spiderdemon will stand still and wind up for 5 seconds with a distinct loud noise before it happens, giving player some time to get into cover.

[Aaron Blain]

I bet the community could make a bitchin Boss Rush megawad, where you just alternately fight Barons, Cyberdemons and Masterminds in a variety of interesting and complicated scenarios. What if there are catwalks that restrict the player's movement? What if light is limited somehow? What if the player is given oddly restricted weapons and resources? What if there are monster teleport lines that make the boss jump around? What if there are moving (or interactive) pillars that the player can hide behind?

 

The Doomier way, I think, is to do it with creative level design. Generally, I do not like boss fights in FPS games. However, I think giving the Doom bosses more complicated behavior would work. They only have one attack pattern. Give them two or three more that demand a different reaction from the player. Maybe give them 2-3 phases as their HP goes down.

[deleted.]

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Edited June 12, 2022 by a.a.i.

[Eric Claus]

Honestly I think Jimmy did a good job in Deathless of making the boss fight levels more memorable, Each one felt trickier and the Spider Mastermind had beefed up health.  Also there was more than one on the map and the E1M8 fight was pretty epic on UV.  While obviously not making the originals better directly I think the substitutions done were a good example of what could be done.

[insertwackynamehere]

E1M8 was such a cool map and it was very hard back in the age of everyone being newbies. I remember it felt like an accomplishment to beat it after tons of attempts and the lowering walls and empty plaza and final exit all just felt so dreamlike and grim

Edited March 29, 2021 by insertwackynamehere