Why is the spider-demon the final boss?

[dsm]

AbhinandAnilDoomguy said:

How many of you have used cheats to kill the spiderdemon/cyberdemon?(no offence)

Only to check out the artwork of each sprite frame (before I learned of the existence of wad editors and how to use them).

And one reason I didn't use cheat codes to beat the game before doing it legit was that I didn't know the cheat codes back then (had no internets) and didn't subscribe to gaming mags.

[Zed]

If you play with -fast (or Nightmare!) the SMM is actually quite challenging. But still, I think a little more health (like maybe 500-800 hp) could make it a little more "respectable".

[Impie]

RUSH said:

It seems logical that the Spider Mastermind would be the final boss. Huge brain that orchestrated the whole invasion. It needed more health though. At least the same (if not more) than the Cyberdemon. No idea why it has less.

That fight is a nightmare from pistol start. Probably made her weaker so you wouldn't struggle so long.

I'm not sure I ever beat that fight from pistol start.

[Maes]

Impie said:

That fight is a nightmare from pistol start. Probably made her weaker so you wouldn't struggle so long.

I'm not sure I ever beat that fight from pistol start.

Not so hard if you get her to infight with the cacos and the baron, which will weaken and distract her. In fact, it might be easier on UV (due to the additional Baron) and on NM (due to respawning) because you can get others to do the dirty work for you.

A good strategy is not to just sit and watch the infighting, but use it to deliver extra damage with the RL and PL while she's focused on attacking the other monsters (taking care not to damage her too much in a row, otherwise she'll switch targets).

[VGamingJunkie]

rdwpa said:

a laser beam signaled by the mastermind's eyes lighting up with a very powerful glare

You would have to have a ton of particles lined up to get a convincing laser-like effect which would have killed computers back then.

[Voros]

An SM like Doom 2016's SM.

Now that would be pretty cool.
-fast and mobile
-plasma gun
-laser/high hitscan attacks.

[VGamingJunkie]

Too bad there wasn't a Classic DIS with a toned down Mastermind.

[Impie]

Maes said:

Not so hard if you get her to infight with the cacos and the baron, which will weaken and distract her. In fact, it might be easier on UV (due to the additional Baron) and on NM (due to respawning) because you can get others to do the dirty work for you.

A good strategy is not to just sit and watch the infighting, but use it to deliver extra damage with the RL and PL while she's focused on attacking the other monsters (taking care not to damage her too much in a row, otherwise she'll switch targets).

Yeah, fair enough. Still got my ass kicked though...

It's hard to tell if I'm subconsciously keeping myself from getting so good at Doom that I get tired of it, or if I'm just not a great player. I dunno.

[Maes]

here's an old post I made on the subject.

It was suggested many times, and not just by me, that the order of E2-E3 is all wrong, and that the original intention might have been to have them swapped, at least for what regards the final boss fights, but also for some of the levels.

Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that by swapping them a lot of incongruencies in the storyline are fixed: The Marine "dies" at the end of E1 (or takes a traumatic teleporter to the actual Hell dimension, as in Doom 3). He is then traumatically "born again" in Hell (Inferno) (why would he be rising from a womb-like fleshy hole in the ground otherwise?), fights through it and back, returns to his own dimension which however has been corrupted by Hell, and fights his way to battle the true powerhouse of Hell, the Cyberdemon, which also takes place in a much more demonic arena than the Spiderdemon fight.

This interpretation of events also matches those adopted by Doom 3 years later (UAC base -> actual Hell -> corrupted UAC base -> Cyberdemon battle).

[Blastfrog]

The Doom Bible has a base, hell, corrupted base setup.

The press release beta also has the levels swapped (at least, those that were included).

[drygnfyre]

Maes said:

here's an old post I made on the subject.

It was suggested many times, and not just by me, that the order of E2-E3 is all wrong, and that the original intention might have been to have them swapped, at least for what regards the final boss fights, but also for some of the levels.

Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that by swapping them a lot of incongruencies in the storyline are fixed: The Marine "dies" at the end of E1 (or takes a traumatic teleporter to the actual Hell dimension, as in Doom 3). He is then traumatically "born again" in Hell (Inferno) (why would he be rising from a womb-like fleshy hole in the ground otherwise?), fights through it and back, returns to his own dimension which however has been corrupted by Hell, and fights his way to battle the true powerhouse of Hell, the Cyberdemon, which also takes place in a much more demonic arena than the Spiderdemon fight.

This interpretation of events also matches those adopted by Doom 3 years later (UAC base -> actual Hell -> corrupted UAC base -> Cyberdemon battle).

I've never thought about it like this, but that actually does make a lot of sense. Granted, I can understand the actual order from a linear progression sense ("Earth," near-Hell, Hell), and E3 is generally tougher than E2, but I really like looking at the plot from this perspective.

[VGamingJunkie]

I feel like the Icon of Sin was underutilized. Wasn't he more or less the true mastermind behind Hell, the closest thing to a Satan? His death basically lead to Hell's downfall in Doom II, anyway.