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Monsters
Thought I'd start a thread on this, it could have gone in Gameplay Potential, but this is more specific.

What are the favoured special abilities for monsters to have?

Shield
Homing shots
poison
wall / ceiling climbing
leaping
explosive death
ressurection
cannabalism
spawning / cloning
Teleportation
Dodging

That's off the top of my head, anyone have any other cool ideas or concepts?

And what new abilties could the old monsters have - like Scrags that change to swimming if they enter water (thanks text_fish) or an Ogre that pisses on the player after killing them (thanks Romero).
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As Fiend Has No Eyes... 
... they don have fins... so I'd rather prefer to see a new monster: a swimming-fiend ;) 
Raghr 
I don't see how z-aware ogres are an enhancement to Quake's simple and pattern-based gameplay. Look at Zelda, those Octorok monsters can only shoot in 90� angles. Would you see it as an enhancement if they would shoot in all angles? It would overcomplicate gameplay and frustrate players because evading is much harder.

It's an important gameplay element. Easy to learn and handy to use. If this "flaw" of the ogre is too apparent in a map, well then the mapper has placed him badly. You wouldn't place a knight on top of a pillar 20 feet away either, would you?

Why not also add "headshots" where the player dies instantly if the enemy hits his upper body (fiend on top, hello). I mean, it's only realistic and totally enhances the game!!! 
 
Maybe I'm just seeing things, but after playing nsoe, it appears as if the z-aware ogres can shoot grenades with such velocity/range that the player would never be able to replicate, which is cheating, sort of.

Do correct me if I'm wrong.. 
The Point Is 
that the mapper placed the first ogre in his e2m5 rmx VERY WELL, so an interesting new gameplay twist was introduced WITHOUT being unfair to the player.

Z-aware ogres simply require a slight shift in approach. Instant-kill headshots would require game-breaking use of god-mode. 
Nope 
They would just require a slight shift in approach and being introduced WITHOUT being unfair to the player. 
Z-awareness 
I don't see how z-aware ogres are an enhancement to Quake's simple and pattern-based gameplay

- more caution/challenge/skill/planning etc., which some players might enjoy (after 12 years...)

- it's 2008, nearly everyone uses mouselook, why not grant the same to them poor Ogres ? I find it always silly to see an Ogre frantically throwing grenades above my head.

Easy to learn and handy to use.

always the same pattern - boring / unpredictable monsters - surprise, excitement

Why not also add "headshots"

nice try to generalise, coming soon to the slipgate near you though 
Z-aware 
I'm not sure, but i think the non-z-awareness of ogres actually helps them being more dangerous - i can ALWAYS dodge their apples (if there's room), but it's v. hard to keep track of the ones you didn't dodge... 
I Take It 
the mapper placed them right, so they're above me and behind me is wall so them apples bounce back to me and hit me from behind. 
Z-aware Fiends 
would be nice.

And to blast all of them with a bfg and a rail gun :) 
Swimming Fiends 
Is stupid. What I meant before is that monsters should know what liquid is from a purely mechanical POV - drown in water, burn in slime or lava, etc. Depending on the monster type - so fiends would be immune to lava damage but drown if completely submerged in any liquid for long enough. Fiends do have eyes, and I think they need to breathe as well.

Enforcers immune to slime damage?

Z-aware fiends is an interesting idea, so they can leap up onto a 64 unit high ledge, for example.

Look at Zelda, those Octorok monsters can only shoot in 90� angles. Would you see it as an enhancement if they would shoot in all angles?

No, because the player can only move in 90% angles. You can spaz it a bit to get nearly diagonal movement, but that's about it. Quake on the other hand has a fully three-dimensional environment with 360 degree movement in all three axis. It's true that the Ogre can now fire much further than before, so a cap to his maximum distance is probably a good idea. 
Z-Aware.. 
shouldn't it be Y-aware instead?

I like the idea of enforcers being immune to slime damage, but then again one rarely sees them (or any enemy period) submerged in slime, if ever.

Death Knights should be lava immune, though, knowing fire magic et al. 
Careful 
RE: monsters affected by liquids.

Careful here. I always considered quake's monsters as unearthly entities that aren't bound by the normal rules. I think it adds to their appeal. I can't remember who said it, but the best example i heard was someone's description of a deathknight (and i can't remember the exact words) as "waiting behind the door motionless for thousands of years, but ever ready to spring instantly into action with his sword, should anyone disturb him".

I think it makes them a lot creepier to know that they are somehow immune to drowning, lava etc. 
Kinn 
http://celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60049&start=10&end=10

What you say is very true, but some monsters are more unearthly than certain others. Shamblers burning in lava may be wrong, but Ogres and Knights taking the fire damage is something I'd find appropiate. 
Sure 
And I agree that a Deathknight being immune to lava damage makes perfect (twisted, arcane) sense.

But the current behaviour in liquids has two things that prompt me to mess with it.

1. Monsters treat liquid exactly the same as air in terms of gravity / whatever. This just looks dumb.

2. They don't die if they fall in, and if the player can't reach them (eg. lava) then they get lost from the killcount, apart from grenade spamming. 
The 
Obvious solution is 'build the map better' eg. put a trigger_hurt at the bottom of pools the player can't enter. But its a waste of an entity and won't affect other maps running under the mod in question - the original maps for example. 
#183 
good call, that's the one :) 
Might As Well Mention It 
If i recall (it's been a long time since I looked) SoA's gremlins had an ugly bodge which did a check for lava at a certain point in their run cycle, and gibbed them if it returned true. 
An Alternative To Monster Death From Liquids 
Would be damaging the monsters a bit, and hurling them out of the liquid (most likely back into the player) to make them appear scalded.

It would be pretty annoying to code and the effect would end up somewhat cartoony, but what the hell :p 
Ya I Been Thinking 
of monsters being able to drown and be burnt

hvent gotten round to figuing it out

somthing with limiting there aair like the player and wutnot 
Monsters In Liquid 
Re: ijed

Number 1 is fixed by Gyrofying them. Liquids have movement resistance. You can even give them buoyancy.

Number two, I agree, they should drown or burn. This shouldn't be so hard to do. Monsters should just remove self when inh2o= lava.

// Gollum :-P 
Party Hard2 
http://shub-hub.com/files/images/ogreb.gif

Maybe in the crowd for Madfox' band ;) 
Ijed 
I'd love to see such an ogre in Quake :D 
Remake Quake 
 
 
z-aware monsters, monsters taking liquid damage etc can be found in the DarkPlacesMod. Monsters also do a bit more damage, do some leading... but not perfectly. However LordHavoc also made one-hit kills from monsters deadly. They can only bring you down to 1 in a single hit, after that, its your priority to get the hell out of Dodge (for which he provided health regen and offhand grapple). I enjoy DPmod, its a good way to replay any map due to the presence of the grapple with the more aggressive monsters. 
Fiends 
Here's a bug that needs to be fixed:
fiends getting stuck. I know it's part of the "gamePLAY" to use stairs or little doorways as a way of defusing fiends so you can plug away at them safely, but it just seems like an exploit.

I wonder if the lookspring code could be adapted to alter fiend jump velocity to get them up stairs? Or maybe just lift them 16 units off the ground when they jump so that they clear whatever stair they're butting against - wonder how obvious that would look. 
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