Doom 2 – Why Demons Fight Themselves and the Protagonist

doom-2

In Doom 2's second chapter, in a level, when I was in Los Angeles, there were two massive demons, one that looked like a robotic spider with a colossal brain, the other looked like a pink bulky demon who shot green laser balls at you, and they were fighting each other.

As well as some of the other demons, I thought they were trying to kill you but they were fighting themselves as well.

Why?

Best Answer

Nearly all enemies who accidentally hit each other when trying to hit the player will start fighting each other. The legions of hell don't all play nice together!

This is a known feature that the player can sometimes exploit.

Related Solutions

When are the melee attacks worth using in Doom II

Use your fists exclusively against hordes of pinkie demons, chainsaw if you can get them in a choke point. Use chainsaw against former humans (pistol zombies) because the damage they deal you is negligible compared to wasting ammo on them, and any time you get imps in a straight line use the chainsaw on them. Use a chainsaw on the cacodemon as it stunlocks indefinitely when you do this. Use your fists or chainsaw on a Pain Elemental. Use fists on Arch-Viles if you can round a corner well. Use fists and chainsaw on lost souls almost exclusively.

Why fists and not a chainsaw, and why melee against things like demons?

Demons have a "wind up" animation to their bite. If you ever notice they have a hard time damaging other monsters during infighting, it's because they are moving - press attack before you are within range, close the distance with a quick sprint forward to connect your punch, and back up again. The Demon's own bite will trigger and miss every single time. Demons are laughably easy to dodge unless they are grouped together in massive numbers - they are more dangerous when you are speedrunning or running away from a bad situation because they are almost impossible to maneuver around, and trying could cause their slow but highly damaging attack to actually hit you. If you ARE fighting a large group and you want to melee, if you cannot get them into a corner, you should circle-strafe and punch constantly. The chainsaw also locks YOU down, making it difficult to escape.
Using fists vs. chainsaw on an Arch-Vile is the same principle. The attack only damages on the last frames of animation and thus if you can round a corner easily you should be able to punch an Arch-Vile to death, but chainsawing it could lock you down too long and let you take damage.
Pain Elementals shoot Lost Souls as their attack. When you close in on melee range, the lost soul spawns inside your player model, and the lost soul dies. Pain elementals cannot damage you at melee range.
Pistol zombies, imps, demons, lost souls, cacodemons, pain elementals are all laughably easy to stunlock with a chainsaw.

Shotgun zombies, Chaingunners, hell knights and barons, mancubus, revenants, and of course the Spider Mastermind and Cyberdemon are all too dangerous to close in on melee without extreme dedication and patience. The Icon of Sin is impossible to kill without rockets in vanilla Doom 2.

Another chainsawing tip: do the same thing as with fists if you need to. Get a feel for how the chainsaw locks you in and how much damage you can do in a burst before you can back away again. The wind up is instant unlike the punch, but the damage holds you in place longer than the punch would. The timing is different.

Rereading my comment I decided it probably sounds ridiculous to melee an Arch-Vile: I've done it, but I usually don't do it. There are very few situations where an Arch-Vile will be close enough to a corner for you to round it quickly at melee range, without the AV rounding the corner itself and chasing you down. You can probably get a few hits in and kill it for laughs, but I still just use a shotgun and lots of cover. Sorry if I made it sound really easy.

What are the differences between the difficulty levels in Doom and Doom 2

The difficulty jumps quite often rely on the map you are playing on and vary quite a bit between maps. Here is a general guideline of the difficulty levels you should expect. The information is taken from the Doom wiki. For difficult level on individual maps, it's best to consult their corresponding wikia pages.

Skill Level             Monster numbers   Ammo amount   Other
I'm too young to die    Least             Double        Player takes half damage
Hey, not too rough      Least             Normal
Hurt me plenty          Default number    Normal
Ultra-Violence          Most              Normal
Nightmare!              Most              Double        Monsters respawn, faster attacks, no cheats allowed

Source: Doom wiki.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

When are the melee attacks worth using in Doom II

What are the differences between the difficulty levels in Doom and Doom 2

Related Topic