How To "Fix" The Spider Mastermind?

[TVdinnermasterchef]

Make it so it ressurects when killed by enemy fire. That way you can still use it for infighting, but you have to kill it yourself for it to finally die. 

 

The enemies would stop targeting it once it dies until it hits them again, meaning some intricately planned fights can be choreographed whereby certain monster populations need culling at specific intervals in order to prevent you becoming swarmed. 

[Captain D!psh¡t]

On 5/15/2024 at 3:12 AM, Captain D!psh¡t said:

Hmm 

Maybe she shoots a voley of revenant rockets when she flinches 

 

 

Tried it

Was an good idea on paper 

But in execution, the rockets are a bit too slow and even with the 20/256 painchance, its kind of abusable to keep her in place and evade the slow tracking rockets

[Captain D!psh¡t]

I think making the rev rockets faster would be good for the spider mastermind, but absolutely DREADFUL on the revenant 

 

So, i think this would be work for mbf21 shenanigans *sad whacked4 not having mbf21 support yet noises*

[Captain D!psh¡t]

9 hours ago, Captain D!psh¡t said:

Tried it

Was an good idea on paper 

But in execution, the rockets are a bit too slow and even with the 20/256 painchance, its kind of abusable to keep her in place and evade the slow tracking rockets

Update 

It might actually work with the power of mbf's RandomJump function 

 

Either by having an chance to shooting them when flinching, or it being an attack she can do 40% of the time instead of her normal chaingun one

[Captain D!psh¡t]

On 5/14/2024 at 3:26 AM, Captain D!psh¡t said:

One idea i have is to make her basically a personafied version of plutonia

 

Forgot to explain 

 

Basically 

 

Imagine the spider mastermind being the mix of the chaingunner, revenant and archvile, all fused with the fury of the casalis into one monster 

Edited May 25 by Captain D!psh¡t

[Captain D!psh¡t]

On 5/25/2024 at 3:53 AM, Captain D!psh¡t said:

Update 

It might actually work with the power of mbf's RandomJump function 

 

Either by having an chance to shooting them when flinching, or it being an attack she can do 40% of the time instead of her normal chaingun one

Well

It works wonders!

[kalensar]

As an aside simply because I understand this specific boss subject pretty well,

 

If you want to know how weak or strong your Custom SpiderMom is then do a pistol start on E3M8. That may come across as somewhat brain-dead advice, but it will teach you how to adjust your stats on her or your custom weapons depending on how you are orchestrating the gameplay balance. 

 

and by the somewhat silly off chance that you have never pistol started DIS then enjoy the pain of a automatic chain-fed shotgun with only barely enough ammo to kill her. 

[Captain D!psh¡t]

1 minute ago, kalensar said:

As an aside simply because I understand this specific boss subject pretty well,

 

If you want to know how weak or strong your Custom SpiderMom is then do a pistol start on E3M8. That may come across as somewhat brain-dead advice, but it will teach you how to adjust your stats on her or your custom weapons depending on how you are orchestrating the gameplay balance. 

 

and by the somewhat silly off chance that you have never pistol started DIS then enjoy the pain of a automatic chain-fed shotgun with only barely enough ammo to kill her. 

Already did the pistol start of e3m8 with my mod 

Significantly harder than the og mastermind

 

Also, i don't remember pistol starting e3m8 i vanilla, but i still know how to reliably cheese her

 

Mainly, make her infight with the caco and baron while picking up the ammo, go to the central tower and pick the stuff there, and then plasmaspam the hell out of spidermomma while she is infighting 

[Captain D!psh¡t]

And when testing the dehacked spider mastermind,i often either go to e3m8, map 13, or map 20

[Captain D!psh¡t]

Hmm

Should the spider mastermind have two attacks?

Or only just one?

Im curious 

[Stabbey]

20 hours ago, Captain D!psh¡t said:

Hmm

Should the spider mastermind have two attacks?

Or only just one?

Im curious 

 

Two, although I do not like the changes you made to the Arachnotron. It's now far too deadly, regardless of the reduced HP.

[Amaruq Wulfe]

The easiest solution that I came up with was to give her an arena that heavily restricts the player's movement. Then, with the help of DeHackEd, I ended up reducing their pain chance, increasing her health, reducing her hitbox's size, and finally removed that whole one second she takes before attacking. She is rather effective there. You can check it out if you want to over here.

 

https://gamebanana.com/mods/499046

 

These fixes however, only contribute so much. She poses a challenge now only if you don't have a BFG. While she can't be immediately stunlocked with the chaingun or the plasma rifle anymore, the BFG still poses as a risk to easily taking her out only because of how large she is. She's a tracer magnet. Only if there's a way to prevent the player from getting too close to her, it'll be swell. Maybe she can crush the players if they run into her, I don't know.

[Captain D!psh¡t]

1 hour ago, Amaruψ said:

Only if there's a way to prevent the player from getting too close to her, it'll be swell. Maybe she can crush the players if they run into her, I don't know.

Well

One thing i tried, is making her call a_chase every 2 tics, with an delay when her legs step on the ground 

Set her speed from 12 to 22 (yes, that much)

 

And made her call a_explode every time one of her legs stomps the ground during her walking animation 

[Captain D!psh¡t]

2 hours ago, Stabbey said:

 

Two, although I do not like the changes you made to the Arachnotron. It's now far too deadly, regardless of the reduced HP.

How so?

Feedback is more than welcome for me :D

 

Also, so far, the spider mastermind's second attack that i gave her, is a voley of revenant rockets that she can rarely use instead of her Vulcan gun

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Hello @Captain D!psh¡t

Is the spidermastermind too strong with this mod? (needs Zscript so something like GZDoom).

SuperMM.zip

 

[Stabbey]

7 hours ago, Captain D!psh¡t said:

How so?

Feedback is more than welcome for me :D

 

Also, so far, the spider mastermind's second attack that i gave her, is a voley of revenant rockets that she can rarely use instead of her Vulcan gun

 

It does too much damage. The faster projectile is far harder to avoid than before and you take an unreasonable amount of damage. This isn't so bad with a boss, which you'd naturally avoid and keep a distance from, but on the Arachnotron, it's a just too much. I did notice the lower HP of the Arachnotron, but the damage is just too high even with the lower HP.

[Captain D!psh¡t]

Well

I only gave em that projectile due to the limitations of doom dehacked

 

I mainly changed the projectile for the spider mastermind 

 

I could try to alter yet another projectile to act like the vanilla arachnotron's plasma, but no idea which i should alter, and which other demon should be altered too.

 

(And also, the arachnotron still has its massive painchance, so concentrated chaingun or plasma gun fire helps)

[Captain D!psh¡t]

On 7/15/2024 at 7:19 PM, Amaruψ said:

The easiest solution that I came up with was to give her an arena that heavily restricts the player's movement. Then, with the help of DeHackEd, I ended up reducing their pain chance, increasing her health, reducing her hitbox's size, and finally removed that whole one second she takes before attacking. She is rather effective there. You can check it out if you want to over here.

 

https://gamebanana.com/mods/499046

 

These fixes however, only contribute so much. She poses a challenge now only if you don't have a BFG. While she can't be immediately stunlocked with the chaingun or the plasma rifle anymore, the BFG still poses as a risk to easily taking her out only because of how large she is. She's a tracer magnet. Only if there's a way to prevent the player from getting too close to her, it'll be swell. Maybe she can crush the players if they run into her, I don't know.

Well, i did tried it, and although good, it has the problem of turning the spider mastermind into an immovable turret and such

[Captain D!psh¡t]

On 7/16/2024 at 4:22 AM, Stabbey said:

 

It does too much damage. The faster projectile is far harder to avoid than before and you take an unreasonable amount of damage. This isn't so bad with a boss, which you'd naturally avoid and keep a distance from, but on the Arachnotron, it's a just too much. I did notice the lower HP of the Arachnotron, but the damage is just too high even with the lower HP.

Ok

I changed the projectile speed from 55 to 35

[Reisal]

Let's see..
 

• Reduction of hitbox as mentioned multiple times in this thread.
• Lower pain chance (maybe 30/256)?
• Increased health (4000)?
• Decreased reaction time.
• More accurate burst fire from longer distance and moving more between them.
• Lower super chaingun windup attack.
• Unguided micromissiles in a randomized pattern towards attacker that is weaker than Imp fireball.
• Going full auto if you get close up and personal but having a big enough range so you cannot cheese it like you can with melee attacks (64 units).
• Psychic melee knockback attack. Far enough to keep two Masterminds from having a whacking contest but not too far that it knocks them off platforms (IE MAP20)

 

Or is that too OP?

[Captain D!psh¡t]

Well, no idea 

We need to actually test it in action 

[Cruduxy Pegg]

1 hour ago, Captain D!psh¡t said:

Well, no idea 

We need to actually test it in action 

Was the mastermind I uploaded earlier too weak?

[SpartaKiss]

35 minutes ago, Cruduxy Pegg said:

Was the mastermind I uploaded earlier too weak?

That is a interesting take, just read through it. She acts a tiny bit faster, takes a slightly longer step and is going to keep you pinned down behind cover a lot.  It turns into a peep and shoot contest cuz of the long firing times she finna be blasting at you. I wouldnt say its weaker or stronger than the original version. It would prolong any fight against her. The one map I can think of that would be painful would be the freedoom map phase 1 map that uses 2 of the masterminds as the end boss.

[Captain D!psh¡t]

Btw

Should the spider mastermind be an hitscanner, or a projectile monster?

[Captain D!psh¡t]

I lean towards the latter, but maybe the former could work too

[UserPlayer89]

On 5/3/2024 at 4:03 AM, Artinum said:

The best approach is probably to put her in a nice, open arena, possibly up high - that way, getting close to her is extremely difficult without being shot full of holes (because that hitscan chaingun is a horror at range). Then movement isn't such an issue, and the large hitbox is ameliorated somewhat by distance.

Ultimate Doom II’s version of MAP06: The Crusher did this wonderfully but in more of a midrange arena where the crusher room of the levels namesake now has 4 spider masterminds and the switches to kill them are all in different spots up high and down low so you have to bob and weave behind cover spots to even get to them. 

[UserPlayer89]

On 7/19/2024 at 10:30 AM, Reisal said:

Let's see..
 

• Reduction of hitbox as mentioned multiple times in this thread.
• Lower pain chance (maybe 30/256)?
• Increased health (4000)?
• Decreased reaction time.
• More accurate burst fire from longer distance and moving more between them.
• Lower super chaingun windup attack.
• Unguided micromissiles in a randomized pattern towards attacker that is weaker than Imp fireball.
• Going full auto if you get close up and personal but having a big enough range so you cannot cheese it like you can with melee attacks (64 units).
• Psychic melee knockback attack. Far enough to keep two Masterminds from having a whacking contest but not too far that it knocks them off platforms (IE MAP20)

 

Or is that too OP?

cool for its original appearance as the final boss or in spots where it’s one on one but it’d fall apart in maps that use it as a turret or an enemy in the middle of fights with all the extra attacks, increased health and paralysis prevention 

[pcorf]

Every 30 seconds a hatch at the bottom of the spider mastermind opens, releasing a Blue Revenant or Super Archvile. The mastermind is invincible and cannot infight any monster until you kill the Blue Revenant. The released also cannot infight with any monsters. The Super Archvile is released 1 in 4.

[bfredric]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:03 PM, fruity lerlups said:

the answer is simple..

give them bfg;

Pros of BFGMasterMind;

-A hitscan menace similar to the Archville where you have to break line of sight before its projectile hits something or you can take an instagib at close range, or significant hit to stack at far range.

-Deadly projectile which will very certainlt instakill in most cases if youre still in line ot sight when it lands.

-Cool new dance where youre weaving in and out of cover to mess up the spidermummy, trying to avoid both its projectile AND stay out of los before it hits something

-BFG 1-tapping the mastermind goes from making the Mastermind seen pathetic fo being a super high execution move where you rely on great timing, infighting, etc. to get it off and theres always the risk of it 1-tapping you with its BFG

-BFG's tracers landing and demolishing a horde of demons makes for awesome spectacle and cool infighting scenarios. When a mob tries to fight the spiderdemon back, theyll very likely be killed quickly. Leads to a kinda cool "its you and me doomboy" drama in every fight.

-Plasma theme makes it more of a mummy to the arachnotrons.

Possible cons:

-Extremely deadly to the point of frustrating, the dance of tracers and projectiles might become too chaotic in certain scenarios.

-Quite liable to inducing too much aggro from other demons and just having a horde waste it.. however it might just end up with it wasting all the mobs as mentioned

-Might limit certain fight scenarios as it would become an infighting goddess.. but is this so bad?

 

BFG Mastermind.

 

Edit: also leads to a funny contrast between the archville and mastermind, archville is a LoS menace that brings back mobs to fight you, Mastermind is a LoS menace that will clear out mobs until its one on one with you. It would be interesting to possibly give it immunity to infighting? Might be a lil too crazy then, but cmon, its the final boss, let her slay.

 

 

 

OK I NEED to see that in a map NOW!

[galileo31dos01]

5 hours ago, bfredric said:

OK I NEED to see that in a map NOW!

 

Check this then