what are some fights in wads that require unorthodox movement patterns?

[roadworx]

what i mean by a movement pattern is simple - stuff like moving in a circle, a u-shape, or even a straight line, usually during more setpiece oriented encounters. but i'm wondering, are there any fights that require more elaborate patterns? like a figure 8, or a criss cross, or something even stranger?

[Gifty]

I'm a big fan of balance-beam fights that pressure the player to dodge while walking a narrow bridge, preferably a zig-zaggy one. It takes muscle memory the player has already ingrained ("I've dodged a thousand mancubus shots! How hard could it be!") and sort of turns it on its head.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Gifty

[Lucius Wooding]

See, now this is exactly the kind of topic that can make for interesting discussion. It's open ended and lets people talk about lots of different WADs, and it gets into the intricacies of combat in a way that's easy to understand. Kudos for having an original thought.

 

I think it can be difficult to enforce a single set pattern unless you make a very large scale fight, since that takes a lot of the RNG and unpredictability out of play. Some setups inarguably do it though. Pretty often it's more a matter of figuring out how to survive long enough before you're finally able to manage a circle strafe or other pattern to make the fight completely consistent.

 

Personally I like constricting movement in creative ways, whether by limiting space available or using hurtfloors or some other way to penalize the player. Forcing precise and well timed dodging can really make pretty small threats very concerning. You can make a pair of hell knights scarier than 100 hell knights in a big arena.

 

I guess one slightly dumb example is in E3M3 where that first pinky can trap you at the start. If you're pistol starting it forces you to keep baiting out its melee to buy time for your peashooter to kill it. It's not an elaborate example but it's quite possible for casual players to die in that scenario, especially with fast monsters or no weapons. Of course if you have played the level before, you can "Just Leave".

 

I really like when fights use the property that revenants have where they never fire projectiles if you're at close range. Sometimes you can immobilize the revenant (such as putting it on a platform) and it lets the player keep their back to it safely while dealing with another group of monsters, as long as you stay within a limited range of them yet outside of melee. I've had big rooms of monsters where the sniping revenants actually make a little safe space rather than being the priority target. If you go for them first, the rocket splash damage, retaliatory missiles, and lots of projectiles in your back that you can't see are your punishment.

 

Another good one is in Sunlust Map 14, in the final fight. It's essentially a large figure 8 shaped room. 2 pillars contain a group of hell knights each on your sides, and a larger group of revenants comes out of the center. There isn't really room to rocket them in a straightforward way without exposing yourself to the HKs, it's easy to get cornered from behind, and doing the fight without the BFG is very tricky at times. One strat I found was to lure the revenants out; you hug them and slowly back up so they don't shoot or retaliate at you (and also you don't make noise). They'll tend to infight the hell knights to each side and the HKs won't spill out and block everything if you're slightly more patient. Then once you reach a corner you can use rockets and soon circlestrafe, and the crowd control is a ton better than if you try to just kill things quickly. It's pretty counterintuitive when usually we're taught to kill revenants on sight but doing the lure buys you a decent bit of extra space and compacts the mob of monsters just enough.

[stephyesterday]

I'm a big fan of fights that require, or at least are made easier by, punching directly through crowds rather than corral them via circle strafing or similar movements. Big reason why I enjoy the early stages of macro slaughter fights like what you'd see in Junkfood, as that's often the case. All this to say this leads to a lot of weirder movements required to beat fights, especially when there's little to no room other than for you and the monsters, and to pick out a specific map that does this I'm going to point to... one of my own maps for jf3. lol

 

MAP27 is a fairly weird rng-fest in how the fight actually plays out, as certain monsters always come before others but the variation in when they actually arrive is always different- but more importantly here, all the monsters spill out from the sides into the general center area, which creates soft walls of nonsense that are generally harder to deal with than the center. This forces you to punch through the center of the map for the most part, especially early on, and since each end of the map is circular, this often creates a figure-8 type of movement pattern. This of course requires improvisation as you play, and your exact pattern and flow will have to change depending on what monsters are in the arena, especially when the viles and cybers arrive.

For examples that aren't narcissistic, MAP08 of Scorn by Bri is a great example of using viles to make you move in weird ways, as is the whole rest of the wad, really. MAP08 has a berserk tyson start, however, forcing you to maneuver around tight nooks and crannies while punching out hell knights and pinkies while viles stare you down, forcing you to hide in unconventional ways, as the map often does not give you the courtesy of conventional cover.

[ASD]

Cyberdreams MAP29. It's a track.

[Pechudin]

I have one fight in one of my unreleased maps, where there is a horde of Pinkies coming your way while the player is armed with the RL, so they need to be killed quickly before you get pinned in. At the same time, there are Arachnotrons on your side, but elevated above you, forcing a spiral pattern of movement while approaching and backing away from Pinkies, to make the plasma balls under/overshoot you.

[fruity lerlups]

11 hours ago, roadworx said:

what i mean by a movement pattern is simple - stuff like moving in a circle, a u-shape, or even a straight line, usually during more setpiece oriented encounters. but i'm wondering, are there any fights that require more elaborate patterns? like a figure 8, or a criss cross, or something even stranger?

perfect example: the Cyberdemon hill in NewGothic Movement map05, i display it at 33:04 in this video

 

 

it requeiws a figure 8 movement to safely avoid the cyberdemin rockets. This is also just one of my favourite levels!