/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3336874
>Map starts you with a rocket launcher
>Lost Souls and Pain Elementals everywhere
Though I do enjoy that. I've done that with one of my more open maps before, and another had a plasma rifle in a secret room near the beginning. It's fun to mix up what weapons you have to work with.
>>3336886
Thanks for all the suggestions!
>I treat hell knights as beefier imps.
Yeah, I personally really like hell knights. They're beefier imps/weaker barons, but they have the just-right amount of health and damage for a mid-tier enemy. I like to use two knights in place of a baron, say if it's the different between medium and hard enemy placements. Another set up that I like to think of as a "mini-boss" is a baron with two knights.
I don't often use arachnotrons due to their large hitboxes and how much space they require to operate. They're good as turrets in a large area or as roaming enemies in an open space, but otherwise they're a bit tricky to use properly. Mancubi on the other hand have been pretty easy to work with, I think of them as an upper-mid-tier enemy and they're generally pretty fun to work with either on their own or in small groups.
Another idea I'm toying around with is ammo scarcity and avoiding using the sargents and chaingunners, so that the player either a) gets the shotgun/chaingun later than expected or b) doesn't have as much ammo to work with. I could use regular zombies, imps, cacos, demons, and knights while placing specific amounts of ammo around for the player to work with, kind of a "make every shot count" deal. With item placement between easy/normal/hard, I tend to give more ammo on hard, less HP pickups, and more rewarding secrets, whereas on easy I give more HP pickups and secrets aren't as rewarding.