Doom Roguelike Enemy Analysis: Former Commando

HP: 20

Protection: 2

Ranged Accuracy: +3

Melee Accuracy: +1

Ranged Damage: 1d7*6 Plasma

Melee Damage: 1d3 (+2) Melee

Speed: 100%

Inventory: Their Plasma Rifle

Experience: 167

Danger: 7

Minimum floor: 12/9/6

Maximum floor: 21

Experience per Danger: 23.85~

Can open doors, equip Armor, and pick up and use Medpacks, Phase Devices, and Homing Phase Devices.

Evasion: Base of 30%, +3% per tile of distance, making for a maximum of 54%

Attack chance: 75%

Former Commandos are one of the rougher parts of Doom Roguelike's design.

First of all, they're designed to really screw with a player's understanding of how enemy drops work. I commented with Former Humans that them reloading does in fact eat ammo from their stockpile, reducing how much 10mm ammo they drop when killed; this is pretty broadly true of enemies that have to stop to reload. Now, you might notice that I haven't listed any Power Cells in the Former Commando's inventory: the only Power Cells they grant are in fact the ones inside their Plasma Rifle at the time they die. I imagine many players, armed with this fact, intuitively assume Former Commandos are unable to reload their Plasma Rifle and so can be starved out of their ranged attack...

... but this is not so. Enemies that reload do pull ammo out of a stock, but if they reach into their metaphorical backpack and find nothing is there? They shrug, and just enough ammo appears to fully reload their weapon anyway. That most such enemies have an ammo stock to deplete is this weird bit of fakery, where a Former Sergeant firing 31 times does in fact mean he won't drop any Shells when he dies but doesn't actually need any of that ammo to reload. This isn't obvious with most such enemies, because they have so much ammo you're very unlikely to ever deplete them of it...

... but with a Former Commando, a sufficiently durable Doomguy can pretty easily end up seeing them empty their Plasma Rifle and then reload anyway, even though Former Commandos never drop Power Cells and so clearly don't have ammo in their backpack. Noticing this in turn makes it easy to think that enemies just... don't use the ammo in their inventory, especially since there are various enemies that drop ammo but very obviously don't deplete it with their attacks. But nope! Enemies just... have a very weird, opaque system that doesn't make realistic sense and is pretty strange from a game design standpoint, where some enemies being allowed to fire a lot is punished not only by them doing damage to Doomguy (And usually his Armor) but also by reducing the ammo payout when they do die, while other enemies that drop ammo just... don't have this weird double-punishment mechanic? 

Second, Former Commandos are a big break from the other zombies in design. The other zombies are distinguished primarily by what they're carrying, plus the easily-overlooked Speed variation... but the point is that they're all at the same HP and Protection and all, such that an attack reliably splattering a Former Human is just as reliable at splattering the more dangerous Former Sergeants and Former Captains. And then Former Commandos have twice the HP and 2 points of Protection, making them way tougher.

Less nasty but still part of this is that their melee is notably better than the other zombies: instead of doing 1 damage 66% of the time and 2 damage 33% of the time, Former Commandos do 3-5 damage, making them quite a bit more lethal in melee. It's still worth getting in their face to shut off their incredibly deadly Plasma Rifle, but if Doomguy is down in the 3-5 HP range (so 6%-10% displayed HP by default for Scouts and Technicians), then what would be completely safe against a lone Former Human/Sergeant/Captain is, with a Former Commando, very likely to still result in Doomguy dying, where it may make more sense to use a Large Medpack and then step into melee range.

Third is the point that Former Commandos share their wandering monster noises with the other zombies. I'd say that overall a Former Commando is generally a bit less worrying than a Baron of Hell, but this comes with the giant asterisk that Barons of Hell have a unique cry (Albeit it's a variation on the Hell Knight cry) and so usually you'll have warning that there's a Baron of Hell about and can behave appropriately. With a Former Commando, you're pretty likely to just figure you're hearing an Imp or a basic zombie, and have no idea caution is warranted up until you step forward and lose half your HP in a single volley. This isn't an exaggeration: a Former Commando that hits every shot and rolls max on every shot does 42 damage, which is more than 80% of a baseline Scout or Technician's HP. They don't have to have a particularly above-average performance to rip off over half Doomguy's HP.

Especially since they diverge from the basic zombies in another way: see that +3 Ranged Accuracy? That's on top of the +2 Accuracy a Plasma Rifle has built in. A Former Captain firing at line of sight expects to land 50% of their shots. A Former Commando is using just as accurate a weapon, but expects to land 83.79% of their shots! So their volley of 6 shots expects to land 4-5 hits most of the time -and if you're up on Ultraviolence, they expect to hit about 95% of the time at line of sight!

Exacerbating all this is that Former Commandos are weirdly rare. They're not used by very many Special Levels (Especially when looking at lower difficulties) and they don't spawn very often through regular floor generation. Back in 0.9.9.7, if you were playing on I'm Too Young To Die, they had only five floors they could naturally spawn in, because back then their deepest floor was 17, not 21. Even in 0.9.9.8, that's still only 9 floors, and in a standard run one of those floors is the Tower of Babel, so really it's just 8 floors.

But even on Ultraviolence, it's not actually shocking to just... never see a Former Commando. Among other points, even though they are used by the monster group system like the basic zombies, this isn't used to keep them in rotation forever: they're in exactly one monster group, and it cuts off at floor 21, just like 0.9.9.8 Commandos themselves do.

So you may complete a run, never see a Former Commando (Or only see them in The Mortuary), and kind of forget to account for them, and have your next run deleted by a Former Commando getting lucky on Accuracy and damage rolls when Doomguy is at a pretty safe 70% HP. Or get unlucky in the form of multiple spawning on a floor and ending up close together -it's rare, but I have had runs sometimes step into view of two Former Commandos at once. One run had three come into view together! (It should not surprise you to learn that this particular run instantly died from full HP, in spite of having a pretty good defensive kit)

Fourth is that Former Commandos are pretty clearly treated by the game as Lesser Arachnotrons, and... they're not? Arachnotrons do have more HP and, importantly, a modest Speed advantage, and are a little less susceptible to Dodge eating their shots... but their volleys are 2 points less accurate, fire 1 less shot, and have 2 less maximum damage per shot, so a lone Arachnotron is actually a lot less likely than a lone Former Commando to unexpectedly rip off a huge chunk of Doomguy's HP in one go. (At line of sight, they expect to land only 62.5% of their shots if difficulty isn't modifying their Accuracy, with a maximum damage of 25 if every shot hits and rolls max. That's about 60% of a Former Commando's best-case scenario, with much worse odds of getting that best-case scenario) Furthermore, they have a huge vulnerability to Melee damage, and very importantly they can't open doors, equip Armor, or use Medpacks and so on. A Former Commando can't be stymied by just closing a door behind Doomguy as you run, and can be unexpectedly almost impossible to kill if they pick up an Energy Shield or something plus some Medpacks. Also, Former Commandos are noticeably more reliable about electing to shoot. (Unless you're on Nightmare! In that case you're looking at a 95% chance to shoot for Former Commandos and a 90% chance to shoot for Arachnotrons)

This is obscured some by the tendency for Arachnotrons to show up in groups, whether through the monster group system or through late-game cave floors reliably spawning nothing but Arachnotrons, but seriously, a lone Arachnotron isn't clearly more dangerous than a lone Former Commando, and Arachnotrons furthermore have a higher Danger cost! Furthermore, Arachnotrons have a completely unique sound bite when wandering around; just like my Baron of Hell comparison, you tend to have warning that an Arachnotron is about, unlike Former Commandos. (Noteworthy exception: Arachnotron caves, which can just spawn you surrounded by Arachnotrons)

A less problematic but still funky aspect of the design is that Former Commandos, up on Ultraviolence and Nightmare!, actually have an earlier minimum floor than the Plasma Rifle they carry. It's thus not unusual for a run's first Plasma Rifle to be pried out of a Former Commando's dead hands on higher difficulties, where on lower difficulties you usually find one on the ground first. Especially since Former Commandos do get added to Special Levels on higher difficulties -I said Former Commandos are uncommon overall in Special Levels, but for example both Deimos Lab and Hell's Armory do in fact have Former Commandos stalking their halls on Ultraviolence. As those are accessed from Deimos 1 (Floor 9 overall), it's not surprising to end up getting your first Plasma Rifle from whichever Special Level got selected. (For one thing, Phobos 8 can't generate a Plasma Rifle in any capacity. As such, on Ultraviolence there's only 3 floors prior to these Special Levels that can actually generate a Former Commando)

This bit of funkiness actually also applies to Shotguns and Chainguns, and is overall more relevant with Chainguns, which have a minimum floor of 6 but on higher difficulties Former Captains can be naturally generated on floor 1. (Though on the other hand Hell's Arena generates a Chaingun and is accessed from floor 2, so in a standard run you'll often get your first Chaingun from Hell's Arena) For Shotguns, this is just plain a funny technicality; in a standard run, you always get your first Shotgun from floor 1, never mind that Shotguns have a minimum floor of 2, by virtue of killing a(t least one) Former Sergeant. For an Angel of 100 or Archangel of 666 run, you will almost always end up doing the same, since you can't do those Challenges on I'm Too Young To Die and so Former Sergeants are always going to be allowed on floor 1.

But this funkiness is a lot more consistently relevant and noticeable for Former Commandos.

Overall, I kind of wish Former Commandos weren't in the game? They're basically the only enemy Doom Roguelike just wholesale invents that isn't a boss, compared to classic Doom, and they seem to be intended to be a kind of 'training wheels Arachnotron', but if that is indeed the intent they don't land that at all well. It's also kind of awkward to fix since a big part of what drives it is that the Plasma Rifle is so good -it would make Former Commandos less reliably nasty if their core stats were reduced (eg if they had no bonus ranged Accuracy, no Protection, and you knocked their HP down to 10), but you'd still fundamentally have the combination of 'their peak damage is higher than an Arachnotron' and 'you get no warning this extra-dangerous enemy is about'. You can't nerf the Plasma Rifle itself, not without that affecting its utility in Doomguy's hands.

So the closest to a 'clean' solution staying within intended design is... further bumping up Arachnotrons? While I'm saying they're not clearly more dangerous than Former Commandos, they absolutely are very, very dangerous. I'd sooner they got a bit of a nerf. (Specifically: reduce their Speed to 100%)

A less jank solution would be to promote Former Commandos and make them pretty cleanly Super Arachnotrons, while reworking them to show up later, changing their Special Level distribution appropriately, upping their Danger cost, etc. I... doubt the devs will actually do this, but it's the only way I see to keep them in the game without fundamentally having the above design jank embedded.

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Next time, we cover those Arachnotrons I was just comparing Former Commandos to.

See you then.