What is the Doom monster who would benefit the most from the Spectre transparency effect?

[DSC]

Just a question that popped up in my mind. Chaingunners and arch-viles would be absolute hell semi-invisible, people talk about "death from above" and "death from below", well, what about "death from fuck knows where"? Cybies are an interesting case, maybe there's some use they could make of it but unfortunately IMO their sprite is just too big to make them noticeably harder to detect. And there's another problem for them and all other projectile-throwing enemies: you could look at the places said projectiles would spawn from in order to immediately find them. Still, it's totally possible they could get at least a surprise shot on you and deal considerable damage anyways. Pain elementals and lost souls... Just a fucking absolute shitshow.

 

Of course, it kinda depends on the map brightness too. Spectres aren't too hard to spot in brightly-lit environments, but a darker environment surely would help propagate all the pain I mentioned in the previous paragraph. But anyways... What do you personally think?

[Monocled]

Pain elementals and arch-viles probably

[Maximum Matt]

Imagine a mod where the enemies can pick up the sphere items when they walk over them - have a cyberdemon or an arch-vile standing right behind a blur sphere or an invun sphere, that would be a unique challenge

[Austrian Oak]

All! 

[Blast_Brothers]

I think the Lost Soul would be a strong contender. Small hitbox and no wakeup sound would be annoying.

 

Making a Cyber or Mastermind transparent would be pointless, since they have loud walk sounds.

 

Not the strongest option, but a Caco-spectre feels like the most useful addition. Flying, doesn't shoot a ton of projectiles so its position wouldn't be immediately obvious, has a big hitbox to bump into, and a strong bite attack if it gets close.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

An invisible archvile could act as a straight up scanner if the flames were invisible as well, and replaced with a subtler que.

For overall balance, a partially invisible caco, or pain elemental would probably be best.

Edited June 14 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[Shepardus]

The revenant missile.

Spoiler

Dehacked patch for the curious:

Thing 7 (Revenant Fireball)
Bits = 329232

Thing 8 (Fireball Trail)
Bits = 262672

Thing 38 (Bullet Puff)
Bits = 262672

 

 

[Lucius Wooding]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say explosive barrels.

[Dubbag]

None of them but the Specter itself makes sense. Giving that characteristic to any other monster the game wouldn't benefit anything, it would just throw the balance off. The pinky was chosen because it has no ranged attacks. Worrying about dodging projectiles from enemies you can't immediately see while also avoiding other projectiles would be very confusing in the mix and not fun. Also the specter being most effective in dark areas gives the game both the ability to surprise the player or surround them during combat if they don't notice them initially. By the way, if using GZDoom, there is an option to turn the Lost Souls translucent as well. Another melee monster to less.

Edited June 15 by Dubbag

[Mr. Freeze]

Archviles >:)

[Pseudonaut]

Didn't Valiant have a map with lots of invisible monsters, including archviles?

[heliumlamb]

the arch-vile, to assist in their Sneaky Platinum Extraction (by way of catalytic converter)

[fruity lerlups]

3 hours ago, Blast_Brothers said:

I think the Lost Soul would be a strong contender. Small hitbox and no wakeup sound would be annoying.

 

Making a Cyber or Mastermind transparent would be pointless, since they have loud walk sounds.

 

Not the strongest option, but a Caco-spectre feels like the most useful addition. Flying, doesn't shoot a ton of projectiles so its position wouldn't be immediately obvious, has a big hitbox to bump into, and a strong bite attack if it gets close.

theres caco spectres in antaresian legacy and they are... not fun to say the least

[yakfak]

Energy Cell Pack

[plums]

everything!

 

Spoiler

it's too bad you can't apply the fuzz effect to the weapon sprites you see as a player in normal dehacked

 

[idbeholdME]

If by transparency you mean the regular fuzz, then probably Lost Soul. Small, fast and melee only. A clear winner.

[DSC]

4 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

Didn't Valiant have a map with lots of invisible monsters, including archviles?

Yeah it did, and I completely forgot about it somehow. It was this one, MAP 32:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKBRU1SEhjQ&list=PLTmV4zpWzC8nkM0kgxoG5hzCwRKPb43S5&index=17

 

Someone else also mentioned Struggle-Antaresian Legacy, which did feature caco spectres as well.

[Beginner]

Sentient barrels. Like ones from the Blessed Engine or Marsdoom.

[Amaruψ]

None of the monsters except the spectre are designed for invisibility. It'll just screw over the entire balance. I fail to see any benefit from invisible monsters apart from something that'd reside in a terry wad.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

The former human.
As daft as this sounds think about it. The weakest enemy suddenly now much harder to see?

[SPG]

Whichever enemies from Doom Eternal that could be spectral and also show up in classic Doom.

 

Also, Doom 64's Nightmare Imps are similar to spectres, and they seem a fine addition.

[LadyMistDragon]

Hell Knights I guess. 

 

All the rest would have to have their numbers constrained and placement highly considered in order to keep the game from being a cheap dodge fest 

[DiavoJinx]

I would say imps.

 

They're lower-level like demons, so having a spectre-version of them wouldn't be a massive PITA just to start out the concept.
Then smart use of them would be interesting.  The fireballs would still be normal (and with GZDoom's lighting jazz they glow, love it) so the challenge wouldn't be getting slaughtered by what you can't see (you can still dodge very visible fireballs) but in finding & dealing with them.

Actually... hmmmm... might need to make some spectre-imps for my new maps. =)

[xdarkmasterx]

Icon of Sin. Good luck finding that hole now, sucker!

[Gez]

Why stop at spectre fuzz? Let's go all the way to stealth monsters, everyone's absolute most favoritest custom monsters from the late 1990.

 

For bonus points, improved stealth monsters, instead of becoming visible, they become fuzzy.

[Gravepicker]

Deadliest Dem(o(li)tio)n has fuzzy, low-health revivable archviles and I loved them. Their sounds are unchanged, so if you have any experience with regular archviles you'll be on the lookout (hearout?) for them, and they're squishy enough that a few chaingun bullets or a single shotgun shell can take care of them, so they're not as dangerous as you may initially think. On the other hand, the fuzz effect makes them easier to loose track of in crowds, and since they can revive each other and be revived by regular archies as well, you really have to hunt them down or else.

 

I think they're pretty much a more "extreme" archvile in that you have to prioritize them even more, especially if there's more that two of them and they have access to open space/large rooms, but once found they're pretty easy to deal with most of the time.

 

For those who played the wad, I had quite a lot of trouble with the "archvile archive", but it was fun to struggle on it nonetheless: cramped fights with time pressure are quick to finish (either by beating them or dying to them) so saving before it made it a lot more fun for me. Had I tried to do a saveless run of that map on UV, my opinion would probably be a lot more salty heheheh.

[tomas7777]

19 hours ago, Maximum Matt said:

Imagine a mod where the enemies can pick up the sphere items when they walk over them - have a cyberdemon or an arch-vile standing right behind a blur sphere or an invun sphere, that would be a unique challenge

Don't give me ideas...

[DankMetal]

1 hour ago, DiavoJinx said:

I would say imps.

 

They're lower-level like demons, so having a spectre-version of them wouldn't be a massive PITA just to start out the concept.
Then smart use of them would be interesting.  The fireballs would still be normal (and with GZDoom's lighting jazz they glow, love it) so the challenge wouldn't be getting slaughtered by what you can't see (you can still dodge very visible fireballs) but in finding & dealing with them.

Actually... hmmmm... might need to make some spectre-imps for my new maps. =)

Doom 64 For Doom 2 already have them, but they shoot cacodemon fireballs. There's also a "Nightmare Cacodemon" which also uses the fuzz effect, shoots three fireballs and doesn't get easily stunlocked like its counterpart.

[DiavoJinx]

Oh dang!

[Noiser]

The Chaingunner I think. An invisible Arch-vile is also vile (lol), but you would still have some time to react and fight back.