Chaos Cube

Name: Chaos Cube
Difficulty: Medium
Connection: None
Summon: ChaosCube
Melee: No
Distance: Projectile
Type: Mechanical, Magical
Brightmaps: Yes

Submitted: DoomedArchvileDemon
Decorate: DoomedArchvileDemon, Eriance
GLDEFs: DoomedArchvileDemon
Sounds: RavenSoftware
Sprites: Neoworm
Idea Base: Guardian Cube and Neoworm's sprite sheet of this enemy

Description: These large cubes were created by powerful wizards who sought out to create magical bombs by storing massive amount of magical energies inside. While they did not create the weapon they were attempting to make, they did create something more unique. With the amount of energy stored inside these cubes are unstable, have erratic movements, and can fire a variety of magical projectiles. With such behavior they have earned the name Chaos Cubes.


Chaos Cube

[strike]Note: Currently having an issue with killing this monster with the Mage's Ice attack. When it dies it doesn't enter its death state and continues to attack like normal, though it will now no longer have a hit box and cannot be removed from the stage. I have +NoIceDeath and I thought that might solve the issue but it hasn't. Any help with this would be appreciated.[/strike]

Ha ha, finally figured the ice issue out. The state name "Ice" is reserved for a monster's ice death state. However, you're using it as the name of an attack. So, in other words, when you kill it with ice damage, it's jumping to what's intended to be an attack instead of actually dying, causing it to go screwy. Try using names like "Attack.Ice", etc. and you should be fine.

Also, I hate to be that guy, but you spelled "psychic" wrong.

I think the damage rating of most attacks is rather high too...FireShot, for example, does 12 - 96. The monster just doesn't register as that much of a threat. Oh, and I kind of feel like they should be able to "look" in 360 degrees when idle, due to their magical nature and lack of discernible "eyes". If you agree, you can add the flag "LOOKALLAROUND", or use A_LookEx with a 360 FOV.

I have updated the Chaos Cube to fix the ice death issue now. I didn't know that Ice was some kind of state. I figured an Ice Death state would be called IceDeath and not just Ice lol. Also thank you for spotting that spelling error. ;

I have also lowered the damage amounts for all attacks, though I did raise the Poison Damage a bit because I felt that the poison effects did not last long enough to be that much of a threat. I actually did not realize the formula that went into the damage of an actor lol. The highest damaging projectile is the Psychic attack, which deals a max amount of 40 damage. I figured that attack would be the strongest since it's basically pure magical energy.

Additionally, I have also added the LOOKALLAROUND flag. It did make sense to include that since it really doesn't have a front or back.

I like this one overall, but I find the psychic attack a little too powerful. The attack does the most damage of all attacks, the projectile is almost non-dodgeable, and the whole random darting the monster does before attacking (which is rather annoying) completely throws the player off. I don't know, but it feels unfair.

There's one bug I found: the psychic attack's sounds don't play.

I have lowered the damage of the psychic attack and will deal a maximum of 32 damage instead of 40. I have also lowered the threshold of the projectile's seeking capabilities so it is much easier to avoid. Oh, and the sounds work now. I failed to update the spelling of the word psychic in the SFX info lol.

Additionally, I have made the psychic telegraphing much less spastic. It still jitters a lot but stays in a pretty small space. I also updated the poison's telegraphing because I didn't like it as it felt pretty stale and lifeless compared to the others.

On a side note, not sure if your comment about the darting was meant specifically for the psychic attack or just in general. If in general then I would say I don't want to remove them since part of the reason for them darting around is to throw the player off a bit as well as give them something to study and keep an eye out for. With movements like these the player can study the monster and remember its attack patterns and better prepare themselves for avoid an attack. Now if they are moving a bit too much I am completely fine with tweaking them a bit to make it a bit more fair.

If you feel others need to be tweaked a bit please let me know... or if you have any suggestions to make these movements fit more with their attacks that would be lovely. The whole reason why the psychic attack has such a spastic movement pattern is because it's suppose to visually portray the projectile's nature itself, being pure unstable magical energy that can't be tamed. I tried to think of other movements to represent the other projectiles but eh... nothing really came to mind.

Wow, this is a really good, unique concept for a monster - just an idea, but since it was originally meant to be a bomb, you could make it explode upon death, and the death explosion could be random too - sometimes poison, sometimes fire - with different explosion types, ranges, and damages, the Chaos Cube could chaotic even upon death,

That's actually a pretty good idea. I'll add that function in the next update.

The darting is annoying but not that much here, since unlike the Afrit or the player bosses in Hexen, it only does it when attacking. So it can stay as is, but I'd suggest lowering the damage and seeking aggressiveness of the projectile, which by the sounds of it you have already done.

Updated the Chaos Cube. Now upon death it will fire out four projectiles in four directions. The type of projectile it will shoot out upon death is random.

I like this monster as well. Pretty solid overall.