Doom’s marauder and other QTE-esq enemies

Still wanting to work on my Doom-Metroidvania and can’t at the moment, so I was reflecting on some elements of my enemy list and would love some feedback.

I know that Doom’s marauder is fairly hated and I’m worried that some of my enemy designs are sharing some of its design.

Briefly, the issue that people seem to have with the marauder is that the enemy essentially boils down to a QTE, breaking the flow of the game.

They are pretty much invincible except the brief moment that his eyes flash and you have a tiny window where it won’t dodge an attack.

Some of my enemies have elements similar to this and I wanted to list them and see if you all feel it does enough to avoid breaking flow.

The combat experience I’m angling for is making players prioritize enemies, while balancing ammo conservation, and keeping back the horde.

In addition I’m working on having a “shock and awe” mechanic that encourages “push forward” combat, as well as an AI director similar to the one in L4D, rewarding the players for aggression while punishing doddling.

Here are a brief descriptions of some enemies I’m concerned about, tell me what you think.

“flea” - a tiny enemy that comes in large numbers and leaps relentlessly at the player. They have literally 1 HP, but the jumpy movement, small frame, and large numbers make them difficult. This also makes them extremely weapon specific. So a sniper rifle is a poor choice for them, but are immediately wiped out with a flame thrower. Which forces the player to swap weapons.

“swarmer” - like a flea, but airborn.

“Scamper” - a small ground enemy, similar to a head crab. They come in large numbers, attempt to flank the player in zigzagging movements, then give out a shriek and attack the player in unison by charging then leaping in the air. While in the air their mouth is exposed, allowing for a critical hit. Hitting them in the back will take a few shots. Hitting them in the mouth is an instant kill.

“Sand Scamper” - almost exactly like a scamper, but will borrow under sand, giving them much more armor while under the sand. When they attack it gives the player a moment to shoot them in the mouth, but after landing gives the player a second to shoot them without the armor of the sand. Basically forcing the player to lean harder into requiring crits than the regular scamper.

“Sand worm” - as close to a Tremors worm as I can get without being sued. This enemy moves through the sand slowly, then sends out tentacle(s) that attempt to grab the player. If they grab the player, the worm leaps out of the sand and drags the player towards them. While being dragged the player is stuck and can not move, but they can fire at the tentacle to free themselves, or at the worm to kill it. If the worm gets the player to its mouth it’s pretty much instant death. Other enemies can absolutely attack the player while this is happening. The worms face is covered in plates making damage difficult. If the player destroys the tentacle(s), the worms ai changes and will start making leaps at the player. And at any time the player can have the worm swallow grenades or rockets for massive damage.

“Assassin” - Humanoid enemy similar to the assassins from HL1. They blink in and out of space, turning invisible briefly after blinking, and make feign attacks at the player. When the player attacks they do various dodges, but are not invincible (unlike the marauder). They are meant to be hard to hit, but not impossible, while doing high burst damage.

“Specter” - I’m still a little up in the air as to the mechanics on this one (see my thread about invisible enemies). But mainly it’s an invisible enemy that gives off a bark when doing a melee attack and becomes visible briefly. Other than that, they have high health and tend to scramble, attack, scramble, attack, repeat.

“Shield Baron” - Huge brutes that have a hand held energy shield that covers most of them and allows them to attack at the same time. As the player attacks the shield will weaken and break, making them completely vulnerable while the shield recharges. Later the player will upgrade their melee and be able to do various things to “blue energy” that will be part of the map unlock of the game, but it will also allow the player to rush them and break the shield in one melee attack.

Of these enemies listed, what sounds like a chore?

What sounds like it will break the game flow?

What changes would you make?

And most of all, what makes you groan at the thought of?

Thanks in advance.

 

Since I already have a large swath of my enemy list I’ll go ahead and post my complete list. It’s not pertinent to the thread, so feel free to skip over them.

Spoiler

“Scientist Zombie” - cannon fodder of the game. Minimal threat. Minimal damage. Just there to die.

*it should be mentioned at this point that I do have a system in place to keep hit scans fair

“Shotgun Zombie” - Humanoid that rushes and attempt to shotgun the player.

“Assault Zombie” - Humanoid that keeps a medium range with the player, firing burst of an assault rifle.

“Sniper Zombie” - Keeps back and digs in, shooting at the player.

*Really, any zombie can carry any player weapon as well as throw grenades for flanking. They will also have modifiers: elite (more aggressive AI), Armored (takes less damage that falls off as damage is increased), captain (turns all the zombies in the area into elites and effects AI).

Obligatory zombies out of the way…

“Fire bug” - tank enemy that rapidly covers the ground in fire. The idea, making them a medium priority. Take care of the immediate threats, but don’t let them eat up all your ground.

“Charger” - Tanky enemy that does straight dashes at the player. The idea being chip away at them when you can, but dodge them when you need to and keep an eye on them.

“Imp” - yeah, pretty much a doom imp. The idea being they are low priority, but force the player to dodge their slow moving shots while handling higher priorities.

“dog” - fast moving melee enemy that requires immediate attention. Not an actual dog.

“evil eye” - floating enemy that has a clear tell when it’s firing an instant beam attack. Will always hit, so player is forced to take cover or kill it.

“boomer” - obligatory walking explosive barrel.

“watcher” - floating imp. Basically a cacodemon.

“slinger” - enemy that swings on surfaces towards the player. When within range of the player it latches on to them and flings forward for a melee attack.

“arch angel” - floating tank that shoots rapid fire bursts of fast projectiles. Periodically it will unleash a barrage of homing missiles in all directions, forcing the player to hide.

“Blare” - need to play test, but basically it’s a tanky melee enemy that looks like a distortion of space. If the player is looking right at it the screen starts to shake and slows the players movement. This increases as the player gets closer to the enemy and looks more directly at them. Think of it as a sort of “Slenderman” enemy, that you can kill.

“Mimic” - an enemy that will appear as an in game object while looking at it. If the player looks away it will move towards the player. Once in range it will attack for high burst damage. Once hit it will remain in its normal form. Debating on this one, since I don’t want the player shooting every crate. Maybe give it an audio tell when it’s around so players don’t always have to be on the ready.

“Barron” - a big tanky imp that hits like a truck.

“Gaurdian” - a big tanky enemy that moves slightly faster than the player at top speed, but is easily slowed when shots.

“queen” - big tanky enemy that makes other enemies.

“shadow” - enemy that zips around attempting to ambush the player, and can become a shadow on a wall, but still take damage. Play testing needed. Probably will cut.

“bruiser” - high hp, but not tanky melee enemy. Like a pinky.

“Mass” - probably the most difficult to make enemy and completely pie in the sky, but here goes. A mass of gore that eats up dead bodies to grow larger. It’s all limbs and blood. The enemy consists of different sphere hit boxes. As the spheres take damage the spheres shrink. If they the spheres die it pops off chunks of its self, that become additional masses. The smaller the mass, the faster it moves. So basically as you attack it, the thing gets more frantic to fight. And since it eats dead bodies, this makes it a high priority. Naturally explosives does a lot of damage, but creates a lot of smaller masses.

 

Is this theory or practice discussion?

Theory is for gamers who imagine much but don't produce anything.

Practice? I think you could achieve those same game design goals with slow moving zombies. One model, one animation. Where you place the swarms drives player decision process, as well as how much ammo they have and where to get more.

Nail the game design there, then maaaaaybe consider hard-to-produce enemies like described if you are finding the work to be laughably easy.

You mean to produce? All of them. Each one, if you want it to look and play decent, is a full time job for an experienced programmer, animator, rigger, modeler...

That's my groan.

 

I’m perfectly fine doing “good enough” models and animations.

I’m far more interested in systems than graphics.

Worked perfectly fine for Dusk.

The point of this post was to ask advice on making enemies that weren’t a hassle to play against.

 

Alrighty, just first thing I think about is what is feasible to create. But nevermind that...

Personally I don't like enemies that require precision aim to kill in a fast paced game.

Deadlier enemies should force you to change positions to avoid strong attacks. This coupled with the ever swarming hordes which threaten to surround you is probably all the strategy needed for an individual enemy. In other words, player decision goes something like this:

>managing the hordes, I move to position where i can funnel them

>here comes elite, he sends powerful attacks that force me to move. now where should i go and do i focus on clean up the horde first or get rid of the elite? now there is two balls to juggle


All the ones that burrow, hide, turn invisible, teleport, I'd scrap. They'd be harder to create too so I'd call that win-win decision.

Also consider readability of design. Ideally player looks at an enemy and knows right away how they will act.

How many balls player has to juggle would be my main consideration. Each enemy, do they force you to be defensive, proactive, mobile, stationary, etc.

It's too many variables to theorize effectively I think. I'd choose two and start with that. Much easier to work with paint on the canvas. One hundred hours of playtest will go a lot further than untested opinions.

 

QTE's are generally frowned upon in fast paced games. If I had it my way they would never be in games again. Doom esq games are all about flow. Sure a headshot should do a little more damage, but it is all about moving around the map utilizing terrain to not get hit while shooting with reckless abandon. If I had to be super precise to kill an enemy it would ruin the flow that the genre is known for. I think the greatest design feature that can differentiate other then a solid movement system is weapon type / upgrade systems.

 

I don't got time to read all your enemies. But ill say this about the marauder. it's not that you can only hit it when it's eyes flash red. But you have to keep a certain distance from it. get to close it slashes you. Get to far away does this axe throw move. can only hit it in medium range. and need to pay deep attention to it. With the rest of doom, full of enemies explosions and everything there is nothing more limiting then the marauder. it pretty much limits your gameplay and forces you to dance with it until you kill it and just takes away from the flow of the game that was established. in later and harder levels they will throw a marauder at you as well as all the other stuff.

Just don't have an established gameplay and then an enemy you encounter forces you to play a limiting playstyle

 

Yeah, I had to look up the Marauder as I haven't played the game, but I don't understand the QTE equivalence.

What I do understand is that in a game that's largely about flow and movement it's an enemy which dramatically changes how you need to move, in a way that's pretty restrictive and also difficult to explore and experiment with.