[Mike Norvak]

Which of the enemies from Duke Nukem 3D you hate the most? and in what situations you feel those enemies are more beareable or engaging to fight against?

You can point examples from the original levels or user maps.

Personally I find the mechanical drones engaging to fight when they are in open sections where you can track their movements and they cannot hide, extra points if you have the ripper and jetpack, so the fight becomes 3D. Otherwise I hate them! Specially in confined spaces, if they were not bullet-sponges it would be better. It would be really cool if you could control-remote-detonate them using some kind of item or weapon, maybe you point to the drone with a laser for one second and baam! or an alternative firing mode where any drones in a radious explodes. Maybe something like that can be coded for Alien Armagedon or other mod?

Also in general I don't like pigcops at close range, it is the kind of enemy I like to ambush with a Pipebomb or blow with And RPG, otherwise I use the Shotgun, are they more vulnerable to the Ripper? I don't know? But I hate to fight them with the pistol or boots on the contrary to Liztroops, wich I don't have any problems dealing with if there are no weapons available, really cool to kick them when they are "choking".

On the other hand I HATE to fight Battlelords with the RPG at long range, even worst with the Shrinker, yeah maybe it's counterintuitive but I think using those weapons against Battlelords makes the enemy pointless, it should inspire fear and a sense of danger not a cheap excuse to present those weapons, my ideal scenario is that the environment provides cover spots, like columns or corners to defeat the enemy or that you can avoid them completely by running away through an alternative path and fight them later from other spot/when you have more ammo. I hate when they get stuck in a corner and the only thing you need to do is use pipebombs, the situation is boring, that's why I prefer the Battlelord to be stayput at medium range or that they don't have obstacles in between to freely roam around to chase you, while you still can run around the corner.

I don't have anything against Protector Drones when you have enough ammo and weapon variety, Octabrains and Lizman are ok for me, and I really like to use the RPG on those.

I like to use the Shrinker on Fat Commanders when they come in pairs or more, I love to blow flying Liztroops with the Devastator and looking their limbs fall all over the place.

I have read several times people hate Slimers, and that they were afraid of them on their childhood, I don't know why, Octabrains looks more terrifying in my child mind.

[ck3D]

Expander is the most OP gun against the drones, stunlocks them and drains their HP at a very efficient DPS, to me looks like they're overheating then. Pipebombs are second if there is space around for explosions and maneuvering.

Pigcop is the enemy I mind the hitscan of the least because the telegraphing of the attack is basic enough to keep up with to a degree, Enforcer on the other hand is a lot less predictable at close range. Battlelord hitscan sucks because it's powerful but similarly to the Pigcop you can tell when it's going to shoot so always comes down to not being too hungry, and being patient enough with the hide and seek which can be really cool in settings that match, but paired up with how they're HP tanks can become tedious.

Freezethrower is as good as the RPG against Battlelord Sentries, after a while you integrate the timing well enough that the game with them turns into how accurate can you be with the key press as to freeze one without wasting a single spare shot. Almost insta kills Troopers too but sucks against fast enemies, especially if they're HP tanks because the lack of accuracy will make you miss a bunch.

Octabrains are annoying so it's whatever deletes them off the set as soon as possible, usually the Devastator (which I mostly use against Octas) or RPG, but sometimes those aren't available around the map just yet and I like that because then waves of Octas become way more of an actual wall.

Newbeasts almost always get the ripper or freezer but most guns are good against them, the non stop chasing/dancing also never gets old. Cool to pair up with Commanders (since those are weak to the Shrinker but the Newbeasts aren't vulnerable to it), then throw drones into the equation and you have the perfect 'fast arena' covered from every dimension.

Tripmines (the weapon) and recons are underrated but that is because good settings for them are rarely built. I like it when people play with the tanks, which seems more common (kp1197's maps do it really well).

Some people have slimer trauma because it's an invasive enemy which is relatively rare to see in games, and the execution is rough so I guess may creep some people out. Just like how people can be phased by the same screamer or not.

[lllllllllllllll]

I hate pig tanks and do not consider them part of the game.
Fighting them isn't fun. Their sprite looks retarded. Their having a morter diminishes the image of the battlelord. The instant kill button on their back makes for some stupid play and a big range of ammo unbalance. Their self-destruct radius is terribly disproportionate to what you see.
I hate them.
The two likeable things are the sight of the tracer rounds and the hull of the tank, the latter being ruined by the pigcop's face jutting out and the treads making it too boxlike.

Pigcops don't annoy me in any circumstance on the stock maps. When a map is good all locations of pigcops become forgivable. It is only in usermaps where being thrown into close quarters with them aggrivates me because more often than not it is the fault of scale and not the mapper trying to be a prick. Enforcers are the same way but instead of closed spaces it is the lack of health pickups.

[Mike Norvak]

lllllllllllllll, on 26 February 2024 - 05:26 PM, said:

I hate pig tanks and do not consider them part of the game.
Fighting them isn't fun. Their sprite looks retarded. Their having a morter diminishes the image of the battlelord. The instant kill button on their back makes for some stupid play and a big range of ammo unbalance. Their self-destruct radius is terribly disproportionate to what you see.
I hate them.
The two likeable things are the sight of the tracer rounds and the hull of the tank, the latter being ruined by the pigcop's face jutting out and the treads making it too boxlike.

Pigcops don't annoy me in any circumstance on the stock maps. When a map is good all locations of pigcops become forgivable. It is only in usermaps where being thrown into close quarters with them aggrivates me because more often than not it is the fault of scale and not the mapper trying to be a prick. Enforcers are the same way but instead of closed spaces it is the lack of health pickups.

I agree about tanks! Forgot to mention them, maybe they are okay in open spaces but the auto-destruct button at the back makes them a bit pointless in my book. I prefer Recon Patrols.

[Radar]

Things I hate:

Octabrains with no devastator

Battlelords with no shrinker

Sentry drones with no hitscan weapon

Flying pig cops at a distance... as a constant moving target, they can be hard to track

Far away turrets when hitscan isn't working on them for whatever reason... I have to waste an RPG on them if that happens

Hordes of newbeasts... they are bullet sponges and no weapon appears to act as a magic bullet against them


Things I like:

Sentry Drones behind doors. Just close the door after they awake and let them suicide.

Pig cop tanks in a wide open area. Their projectiles can't reach you at a distance and they have a large hitbox for the RPG.

These days it seems the easiest bosses are the Overlord and Cycloid Emperor. The Overlord's rockets are very slow and can be easily dodged with small movements right in front of it. The Cyloid Emperor's main rocket attack has a spread that favors the far sides, so you're the safest just standing in the center and dodging the occasional rocket that might head towards you.

[Quacken]

Pig Cop Jets (or Recon Patrol Vehicles) can go to hell. Garbage hitbox that's extremely misleading, they often fly above your vertical mouselook range which makes projectiles largely unusable, can't be shrunk by the Shrinker, they attack fast with Trooper projectiles and the jet has more health than the Pig Cop itself. Also, it's guaranteed to spawn a Pig Cop on death, and that usually just results in you taking guaranteed damage unless you get out of the way while the jet spirals to the ground.

I have also seen exactly one good use of Sentry Drones in my time playing this game. Every other time they are small, fast, blend in with skyboxes too easily, are much bulkier than they have any right to be and explode on touch for like 60 damage, with very little you can actually do to play around it besides standing around at doors all the time waiting for them to blow themselves up. They also sidestep rockets and can't be shrunk, which just means you have no way to kill them that feels any good. The Expander works for sure, but that's a rare weapon to be given ammo for. And also, considering you can only hold 50 Expander ammo, it honestly feels like a bit of a waste to use it.

[NNC]

Sentry Drones are cool. I expanded the number of them in my own hacking of XXX Stacy, and it made the level much more interesting. They create suspense and have a surprisingly good AI as how they snipe the player.

The enemy sucks most is the Battlelord. I think their hitscan gun is too strong and unlike other bosses it doesn't help the player to improve their dodging maneuvers. From this point of view, Doom works much better. Tanks are interesting because of the self-destruction angle as your job is to push it without getting hurt.

[ck3D]

I think the tanks aren't without flaws but are cool when used well (spawn point + surroundings), they create this insecurity where for a brief moment you'll assess ammo count and devise this or that strategy in approach. I think that plurality is pretty cool per se and almost adds a statistician's perspective to the ongoing combat all the while you're figuring what to decide. In a funny sense, that would make them the closest to an RPG enemy encounter in Duke 3D (as in role playing game, not the weapon), which I agree from an angle sort of clashes but isn't bad as punctuation. There's a reason why I didn't include the possibility to cheese the Blast Radius Scorpion Tanks like that though (and most prominently used those throughout the levels), head-on resonates with the action spirit of the game a lot more at least as far as the general tone is concerned. The ability to break away from the traditional pattern for a short stint is cool.

Their main problem is in the execution, trying to get to the button is a mess with the Tank starting to rotate in unpredictable directions in panic, sometimes clearly catching the perfect frame doesn't even work (I think it was High Treason who once suggested they might as well be pure RNG with zero misleading indication at all), and you're exposed to high DPS for as long as the game decides, so in practice the option really isn't very viable. Running away from the explosion eventually becomes fun, but only after one has figured out the implicit rule that is if there is a wall or sector drawn between you and the Tank when it explodes, regardless of distance (which otherwise does matter, in a challenging way I like) you're generally safe.

Drones are another victim of fantastic idea, bad execution in that you can tell from both the enemy's capabilities and the linear but interconnected designs of E2 levels that they were meant to be more threatening 'walls' that would chase Duke around the hallways and open all the doors, except in their base state they just get stuck around corners and crash into Duke from strange angles. Not surprised adding more to XXX Stacy really works with how that level is laid out, respects the structural logic for ideal drone vehicling all the while offering some larger spaces to better accomodate their given AI.

[Ninety-Six]

I don't really hate any of them... I guess I'd say slimers just because of how utterly broken the hit detection is with them. With or without autoaim.

[Forge]

Slimers are lonely and misunderstood. They just want to give you a hug and make friends.

[Mike Norvak]

Forge, on 27 February 2024 - 09:22 AM, said:

Slimers are lonely and misunderstood. They just want to give you a hug and make friends.

Unfortunately their happines drain your health...

[High Treason]

ck3D, on 27 February 2024 - 06:53 AM, said:

Their main problem is in the execution, trying to get to the button is a mess with the Tank starting to rotate in unpredictable directions in panic, sometimes clearly catching the perfect frame doesn't even work (I think it was High Treason who once suggested they might as well be pure RNG with zero misleading indication at all), and you're exposed to high DPS for as long as the game decides, so in practice the option really isn't very viable. Running away from the explosion eventually becomes fun, but only after one has figured out the implicit rule that is if there is a wall or sector drawn between you and the Tank when it explodes, regardless of distance (which otherwise does matter, in a challenging way I like) you're generally safe.

I did say I'd look at how the mechanic works. It turns out that you can hit the button at any time and it doesn't wait for a specific action, but it's all rather clunky. There's the obvious thing of whether the player is facing the tank, whether they're hitting space and whether they're within 1280 units. the only other check is if the player's angle is within 512 units (about 90 degrees either way).

  ifpdistl 1280
    ifhitspace
      ifp pfacing
        ifangdiffl 512
          action ATANKDESTRUCT

My suspicion is that people tend to mash the space bar so quickly the branch doesn't complete. You can stand at the side of the tank and hold space, you can even be holding space already as you walk up to it, and it'll blow up after a delay. I have to also think it feels unresponsive because of that delay. The tank destruction sequence happens immediately when the branch is successful, but there's a 16T delay (16/30 of a second, just over 1/2 a second, because of 30tps game logic) before the sound effect plays and the action looks the same as the regular roaming action. It seems more responsive if you were to rig it to, say, turn red as soon as it went into the self-destruct branch.

    ifaction ATANKDESTRUCT
  {
    ifactioncount 64
      action ATANKDEAD
    else
      ifactioncount 56
   	sound LASERTRIP_ARMING
 	else
   	ifactioncount 48
     	sound LASERTRIP_ARMING
 	else
   	ifactioncount 32
     	sound LASERTRIP_ARMING
 	else
   	ifactioncount 16
     	sound LASERTRIP_ARMING
 	break
  }

If you were to approach the tank already holding space and start trying to walk around it, you'd be hard pressed to miss the button even if you didn't see it. Try it.
You can even stand in front of the tank facing away from it sometimes due to what I assume is dodgy interpolation shenanigans, though this isn't reliable.

The explosion is mean because it does the same damage right up to the outer edge of its radius (TOUGH is defined as 20), which is about the width of the street in E1L2 in all directions. If you're outside of that it won't hurt at all, but they sure liked putting those tanks in confined spaces. I remember the first time I ever encountered one, it was in a building and I just thought "No! That's not fair! They shouldn't be allowed to drive that in here!", as if they'd care about the perceived rudeness of operating an ICE powered vehicle inside a grocery store. Would make for one heck of a mobility scooter, though.

    ifaction ATANKDEAD
  {
    addkills 1
    hitradius 6144 TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH
    sound LASERTRIP_EXPLODE
    debris SCRAP1 15
    spawn EXPLOSION2
    ifrnd 128 spawn PIGCOP
    killit
  }

[Danukem]

I hate it when liztroops or octabrains fly up into the sky way above the player and park there. Liztroop are especially annoying as they can sometimes get ridiculously high and shoot down at you even though due to Duke's stiff neck he can't aim all the way up to hit them. It would have been a little tricky to mitigate this in the old script that the game shipped with since you do want to allow enemies to stay above the player and there is no way to check how much higher than the player an enemy is. I guess I would have made them randomly start to float down after X amount of count and if the player is not higher and if the floor distance is not less than some large number.

EDIT: It's been a while since I looked at their original code. Wow, it doesn't even consider the case where they are jetpacking and the player is not in sight. It just allows them to drift upward forever. If you do get seen, it will enter the kill state which makes them start to drift down, but that could take a long long time (and it might be impossible to see the player if they get high enough).

state troopjetpackstate
  ifaction ATROOPJETPACKILL
  {
    ifcansee
      ifactioncount 2
    {
      resetactioncount
      sound PRED_ATTACK
      shoot FIRELASER
    }

    ifp phigher
      ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifinwater
        ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifcount 26
        iffloordistl 32
          ai AITROOPSEEKPLAYER
  }
  else
    ifcount 48
      ifcansee
  {
    action ATROOPJETPACKILL
    move TROOPJETPACKILLVELS
    seekplayer
  }
ends

[ck3D]

Danukem, on 28 February 2024 - 12:08 PM, said:

I hate it when liztroops or octabrains fly up into the sky way above the player and park there. Liztroop are especially annoying as they can sometimes get ridiculously high and shoot down at you even though due to Duke's stiff neck he can't aim all the way up to hit them.

Something potentially interesting The Watchtower taught me during Blast Radius testing that I now use all the time: stayput Liztroops will never use the jetpack (didn't look at the code but tried and true from my practical experience). So can just make any Liztroop you never want to use the jetpack stayput and adapt its positioning accordingly (e.g.. so it doesn't get stuck against odd sector edges and look broken).

Assault Captains too play an entirely different game when stayput, because Captains can only reappear (after teleporting) when the player is inside their sector (or maybe is proximity but in practice really feels sectnum based). That means after teleporting they will disappear for as long as it takes Duke to reenter the sector again (and they basically teleport on sight) so can use that for a lot of cool ambushes, to the point I basically don't see much point in using non-stayput Captains anymore.

[Danukem]

ck3D, on 28 February 2024 - 12:27 PM, said:

Something potentially interesting The Watchtower taught me during Blast Radius testing that I now use all the time: stayput Liztroops will never use the jetpack (didn't look at the code but tried and true from my practical experience). So can just make any Liztroop you never want to use the jetpack stayput and adapt its positioning accordingly (e.g.. so it doesn't get stuck against odd sector edges and look broken).

Well if you want to "fix" the issue I was mentioning, you could use the modified state I have pasted below (I added an "else ifcount 300" clause). It just makes them start to move down after 10 seconds if they can't see the player and if the player is not above them and if they are close to the ceiling.

state troopjetpackstate
  ifaction ATROOPJETPACKILL
  {
    ifcansee
      ifactioncount 2
    {
      resetactioncount
      sound PRED_ATTACK
      shoot FIRELASER
    }

    ifp phigher
      ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifinwater
        ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifcount 26
        iffloordistl 32
          ai AITROOPSEEKPLAYER
  }
  else
    ifcount 48
      ifcansee
  {
    action ATROOPJETPACKILL
    move TROOPJETPACKILLVELS
    seekplayer
  }
else
  ifcount 300
{
  ifp phigher nullop
  else
  ifceilingdistl 64
  {
    action ATROOPJETPACKILL
    move TROOPJETPACKILLVELS
    seekplayer
  }
}
ends

[NNC]

Danukem, on 28 February 2024 - 12:08 PM, said:

I hate it when liztroops or octabrains fly up into the sky way above the player and park there. Liztroop are especially annoying as they can sometimes get ridiculously high and shoot down at you even though due to Duke's stiff neck he can't aim all the way up to hit them. It would have been a little tricky to mitigate this in the old script that the game shipped with since you do want to allow enemies to stay above the player and there is no way to check how much higher than the player an enemy is. I guess I would have made them randomly start to float down after X amount of count and if the player is not higher and if the floor distance is not less than some large number.

EDIT: It's been a while since I looked at their original code. Wow, it doesn't even consider the case where they are jetpacking and the player is not in sight. It just allows them to drift upward forever. If you do get seen, it will enter the kill state which makes them start to drift down, but that could take a long long time (and it might be impossible to see the player if they get high enough).

state troopjetpackstate
  ifaction ATROOPJETPACKILL
  {
    ifcansee
      ifactioncount 2
    {
      resetactioncount
      sound PRED_ATTACK
      shoot FIRELASER
    }

    ifp phigher
      ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifinwater
        ai AITROOPJETPACK
    else
      ifcount 26
        iffloordistl 32
          ai AITROOPSEEKPLAYER
  }
  else
    ifcount 48
      ifcansee
  {
    action ATROOPJETPACKILL
    move TROOPJETPACKILLVELS
    seekplayer
  }
ends

Commanders and drones meanwhile happen to fly down, that can be equally annoying at times, when there is a pit between you and the enemies. Like when you are encountering them at a building window..

[ck3D]

Danukem, on 28 February 2024 - 01:48 PM, said:

Well if you want to "fix" the issue I was mentioning, you could use the modified state I have pasted below (I added an "else ifcount 300" clause). It just makes them start to move down after 10 seconds if they can't see the player and if the player is not above them and if they are close to the ceiling.

Oh yeah, I guess I mostly was speaking from a pure mapper's point of view in case someone would want to avoid editing code. But I really like that you're posting all those code snippets given how many .con beginners are frequently redirected to this forum and these threads when looking for help or specific workarounds they couldn't get from the EDuke Wiki. Just earlier I noticed someone recently asked for .con help on Reddit out of all places. I hope they grow to be a modding warrior nonetheless.

One more problem with drones is they will bury themselves into slopes (so below ground and become invisible, IIRC also applies in reverse to sloped ceilings), I suppose this depends on first wall/actual sector floor/ceiing z but still practically happens all the time because there are only so many possible scenarios one is able to look for, it's basically a risk they take map wide as soon as they introduce the enemy if the level uses big slopes anywhere that's accessible. The behavior then is they will stay down (but remain capable of resurfacing to hit you out of nowhere), until they depart from the sector again which I imagine runs a newer z check that isn't done until then (and then they just pop back into sight out of nowhere too). That really is my most disliked flaw of theirs in practice.

By the way before I forget, thanks for all the Tank research above High Treason, it's really good to know. Might be a game changer against the enemy for a lot of players, I know I indeed always kind of mashed the use key against them. Guess that's the science, just like there's a science to the drone/door technique. I've seen a handful of people on YouTube (not user map streamers from this community) who proclaim their supposed love for it every chance they get in their audio commentary, and then you see them performing it horribly wrong, keeping opening and closing the door which of course lets the drone through, to then seem genuinely surprised that doesn't work.

[Mike Norvak]

NNC, on 28 February 2024 - 04:04 PM, said:

Commanders and drones meanwhile happen to fly down, that can be equally annoying at times, when there is a pit between you and the enemies. Like when you are encountering them at a building window..

Yeah It's really annoying when those enemies fly down, drones are specially annoying.

About Pig Tanks I haven't had any problems in all these years, I just run behind them and press the mininuke button.

[Danukem]

Mike Norvak, on 29 February 2024 - 07:26 PM, said:

Yeah It's really annoying when those enemies fly down, drones are specially annoying.

About Pig Tanks I haven't had any problems in all these years, I just run behind them and press the mininuke button.

It's not uncommon to encounter them like this, though.



That fence cannot be jumped over, but can be shot through.
From ACBSTUDIOS, map by Ancient Coffee Bean

[Mike Norvak]

Danukem, on 01 March 2024 - 01:38 AM, said:

It's not uncommon to encounter them like this, though.



That fence cannot be jumped over, but can be shot through.
From ACBSTUDIOS, map by Ancient Coffee Bean

Yeah this is an scenario where it is balanced differently, since you need to actually shoot them and their morters can't reach you, I remember someone talked about the layout in the past, maybe Ck3d? But I hadn't seen it actually used in a map, thanks for pointing it out Dan. What I was talking is about some people having problems to press the button on the tanks, while I have never encountered the "bug".

Also is really cool to see the code part of the behavior of some enemies, is the behavior of the enemies completely fixed in your mods for example? I know you start from scratch, but haven't actually compared (or I forgot) the enemies actions between the mods and vanilla. Would be cool to play a mod with these kind of fixes and see how the gameplay changes without new weapons or mechanics, just "fixed" enemies.

[Danukem]

Mike Norvak, on 01 March 2024 - 06:45 AM, said:

Also is really cool to see the code part of the behavior of some enemies, is the behavior of the enemies completely fixed in your mods for example? I know you start from scratch, but haven't actually compared (or I forgot) the enemies actions between the mods and vanilla.

I'm not sure I would say that everything is "fixed" but I have tried to address the issues. For example, one thing that wasn't mentioned yet is that when pigcops duck down on standing water (lotag 1 sectors) they can still shoot you but they become almost impossible to see. So I have code to check for lotag 1 sectors on ducking enemies so they don't do that. As you know, my solution to the tank button being too easy is it doesn't work until the tank is down to 1/2 strength (if you try before that it just gives you a little electric shock). When the tank starts to smoke you know the button can be used. So yeah there's a lot of stuff like that. However, many new behaviors have been added too, and I'm sure I have introduced some bugs and jank.

I did not start from scratch on the vanilla enemies. Their timings and the way they transition between states is part of what makes the game feel like Duke 3D so that is preserved for the most part. With the old enemies it's more a ship of Theseus situation. A big overhaul had to be done on them to make them able to fight things that are not the player (e.g. infighting like in Doom, fighting the player's allies, etc.) which required replacing the player-centric combat checks like "ifcansee" "ifpdistl" etc. Since then lots of other changes have been made, but their overall coding structure, speeds, state transitions, etc. are mostly intact.

[Mike Norvak]

Slimers with RPG?

[NNC]

Slimer egg clusters with pipebombs. Technically the best way to destroy them, but if one appears at your face, it can go wrong.