My biggest regret was that all the new monsters are so strong.

Because players are so used to "normal" monsters, because they knows very well how to own them, because players are so experimented now... all these may explain why new monsters are so strong, and why this create a real new challenge for players...

And it does not prevent mappers from using "normal" monster for weakest player in easy skill ;) 

Because not everybody is as skilled as the next one. Even seasoned players. A map should be balanced for everyone, and not punish "weaker" or casual players (admittedly, I made that mistake myself for a while).

All things considered, the Quoth monsters have to seen as supplements, like the occasional fiend or shambler for instance, not replacements for the regular enemies. But in quite a few maps, they are used predominantely in favor of the old ones, which, in the end, just makes the maps very hard and not fun. It's bad design, in my view.

Happens in other games, too. See the ZDoom bestiary, for example. Many of those monsters are terribly unbalanced and, as such, their often great potential is ruined. 

I agree with your instincts on which monsters could be better balanced, but I think some of the fixes need to be different.

Knight melee attack range (should be when it hit the player, not from miles away).

I assume this is for the death guard. The slow overhead swing has quite a long range, but the regular attack has the same range as normal quake knights/death knights. I feel the latter attack is the problem, and so something else makes them harder to fight in melee than death knights. There will be a tweak to the thing I blame in the upcoming patch. Fans of the existing balance will find nightmare unchanged.

Drole melee attack range (ditto)

I think the problem is that the attack is often unavoidable even when you have space to manoeuvre. Droles have a shorter reach than shamblers, so I think monster run speed is to blame. I have an idea on how to give players an "out" without changing either run speed or melee range, but I need to test it first(it might not even be technically feasible).

Enforcer shotgun was tweaked in Quoth 2 to be a bit less dangerous, it was a known issue that we couldn't find a happy solution for. I have had one thought inspired by the death guard business, but again it needs some testing.

We already made a replacement bob model - it's called a sentinel : -P 

We already made a replacement bob model - it's called a sentinel : -P

Yeah... except Bobs are fast, mobile and rapidly firing, and Sentinels are pretty much floating spikeshooters. 

I suspect its the damage being caused too early in the animation of their melee as opposed to the actual range of it.

Playing against them I tend to think I've got a few frames before they'll hit me since the mesh isn't at the extent of its sword swing yet - but then get hit.

Don't mind the Drole though. You let that thing get close to you it's your own fault.

For the shotgun it'd help to telegraph it a bit more - playing a sound a bit earlier would add some very good 'oh shit!' moments and allow player to try and scramble out of the way, taking more damage.

As to enemy balance in general, it's a tricky one. Everyone likes shiny new stuff, especially when they're demons and monsters, shiny with slipgater blood.

So its hard not to get carried away and go too far. On an incremental mod like Qouth you can get stuck and be unable to tweak gameplay because of earlier maps without pissing people off... personally I'd just stomp all previous maps and deal with the backlash... imagine all the glorious map reworks!

In all seriousness though, making the monsters better balanced isn't going to hurt balance as much as you'd suspect. Typically this only breaks things when you make monsters tougher or weapons weaker - essentially the same thing.

Monster are made to die, not to kill the player. 

And B0b... I'm not a massive fan of the mesh either. Maybe removing the eyes would help.

I really liked the 40's robot in Rubicon2 and that didn't feel out of place.

Completely subjective though, and you can't please everyone. 

How much "balance" would be broken if their shotgun blast was split into, say, 6 consecutive shots, and the pre-attack wind-up was made longer?

This would effectively make them chaingun Enforcers... which sounds pretty badass. 

Sentinels are not replacement bobs - bobs are fun to fight, sentinels are not. 

They are okay. Unless they come in groups and without cover. 

 

haha, well, it's funny because the complaints about bob are basically exactly what bob is supposed to be.

He is supposed to be a hard to hit medium threat monster designed to slow down the player and force them to pick their shots. 

Defenders are fine when you are aware of them. Should more be a note to mappers to not be dicks and constantly place them in close surprise ambush positions. In close range with open ground circle strafing works fine.

Bob: "They're annoying to fight" err no, mobile enemies are awesome fun to fight and their death is great. The screechy sound is annoying though :(

I suggest adding:

> A 'non-boss' gug that doesn't have the earth quake attack, because A: unavoidable damage is super fucking lame and B: it makes health balance difficult. Could perhaps have reduced splash radius on it's projectiles, but I otherwise like the gug a lot. The earthquake just makes it too difficult to use as much as Shamblers or Droles :(

> Ammo pack item that doubles shell, nail and Cell capacity (not rockets though, 100 is fine there :p ). Keeping with Quoth's design, it would be a useful item for mappers that make levels with large monster counts but can be happily ignored by those who don't.

> Another item that upgrades the lightning gun making it pierce enemies. With that I think it would be more of a proper super weapon. As it is it's just another tier of nailgun which mappers never use.

> Extra shotgun would balance out the health of most of the new monsters being higher in places where quoth monsters are used more. But again apart from the Voreling I don't see much of an issue with that. You just need more shells :E

> A flashlight with unlimited battery :p 

I suggest all this shit as extra items that could be added so as to not affect any maps already using Quoth too :E 

is a cool attack except that it still damages you when you are swimming. Did he shake the water too? 

Add RMQ. And Zer. And Shrak. 

I think I understand the decision of not releasing the source, now... 

Surely you should conclude the opposite? (: 

now how fun would a modular class system like Unreal's be. 

I like the Gug. He is ridiculously overpowered, but that just means he should be saved for proper crescendo moments. A weaker version would simply dilute the psychological effect of the stronger version.

Re: Flying Base enemies, I think my design preference would be to add another type of enforcer or grunt but give them a jetpack and a hyperblaster or laserbeam attack.

Ultimately, I think what we can all agree on judging by the renewed interest in this thread lately is that Quoth 3 is well overdue. :P 

haha, well, it's funny because the complaints about bob are basically exactly what bob is supposed to be.

He is supposed to be a hard to hit medium threat monster designed to slow down the player and force them to pick their shots.

Fighting bob and the sentinel is ok, but both models suck, look out of place.... Maybe just rip-off or mod Rubicon2 flying platformers, which are ace. 

does anyone have a copy or know where to get the quoth fgd? my backup hdd died a few months ago, and doing a google search for it gives me no results, except for this page and the link is dead :( 

I can't find the Quoth2 fgd anywhere on the net.
Should be the right one but I may have modified something.
file date is 6/14/09
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?goczizd2h3b8ix3

If it's correct I'll send it to quaketastic

Why FGD & DEF files are not included with the official Quoth dev files? why!
=====================================
BTW does anyone use that scorpion enemy?
and Leave bob alone, he's ok. If anything give me a weaker version of the vorling. One shot kill (there supposed to be bugs right?). How bout a skin and spawn flag for weak vorling and I'll drop 50 of them on the player. 

That would be a horrible design decision. Players wouldn't know which kind of voreling they were fighting, which would be incredibly frustrating. 

:) 

...would probably function about the same as necros zombies, and everybody loved those. To really work though you'd probably need a new skin, new sound set, and maybe even a new model possibly scaled down (which in turn would probably make them look like the terrorbites from time crisis. ehhh....)

Centroids have a few prominent appearances in dom3m1 and the other dom3 maps as well.