Monster infighting

Monster infighting is a phenomenon in the Doom games, Heretic, and Hexen, where enemy monsters will deliberately attack each other instead of the player.

Background
Monster infighting results when one monster ends up attacking another monster, usually through unintentional friendly fire. Since a monster does not have the intelligence to cease fire in the event that a fellow monster blocks their line of sight, it will attack in revenge without regard. The damaged monster may then target the attacker, thus causing the two parties to engage in a battle of attrition against each other until one participant either dies or is distracted by a third party's attacks.

Monsters capable of causing infighting
Monsters that launch hitscan attacks (Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys, Heavy Weapon Dudes, Wolfenstein SS officers, and Spiderdemons) are very prone to quickly cause infighting.

Other monsters that fires projectiles (Imps, Cacodemons, Revenants, Hell Knights, Mancubi, Arachnotrons, Barons of Hell, and Cyberdemons) can also be maneuvered into doing this.

Monsters capable of infighting amongst themselves
All former humans (Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys and Chaingunners) can and frequently will damage and kill each other due to the hitscan nature of their attacks and the ease at which they can be made to accidentally hit each other.

Lost Souls, being projectiles themselves, are prone to attacking other Lost Souls if one of them stands in the other's line of attack.

Spiderdemons, like former humans, rely on hitscan attacks from their chaingun. Thus they are prone to attacking another Spiderdemon if they are caught within each other's crossfire.

Monsters unable to cause infighting
Monsters damaged by an Arch-vile's attack will never retaliate because there is an exception in the source code that prevents other monsters from targeting them. However, this does not stop Arch-viles themselves from targeting and damaging other monsters. Arch-viles, in particular, are easy to distract, as, unlike other monsters, their lack of a targeting threshold means they will always switch target when hit.

Pain Elementals, whose attack is carried by proxy monsters, cannot provoke other monsters, but will still turn on attackers if provoked. The Lost Souls released during its infighting attack will be the ones causing the damage to the Pain Elemental's intended target and will be subsequently attacked by it rather than the Pain Elemental, but since Lost Souls aren't the ones who turned on the monster in the first place, they will still target and attack the player (however, the infighting target may not attack the Lost Souls spat out right away even if damaged, and the Lost Soul will only attack the Pain Elemental's target upon it attacking the Lost Soul itself). However, if a Pain Elemental is too close to its target, the Lost Souls will explode harmlessly, causing no damage at all.

Hanged Commander Keens can't attack at all, so they can neither provoke other monsters nor retaliate when they are damaged by projectiles.

In Heretic and Hexen, no monster will retaliate against "boss" opponents who accidentally strike them outside of the mass infighting detailed below. Code-wise, this is handled by a flag, NoTarget actor flag in decorate, attached to the boss mobjs.

It should be noted that monsters in the SNES port of Doom are incapable of infighting. This is due to the fact that, due to coding limitations, the enemies within it lack the ability to turn away from the player and are always targeting them (this, combined with the slower and often delayed controls, and the lacking of a save feature, can make this port severely difficult), basically like the bosses in classic Wolfenstein 3-D. However, enemies can hurt each other with friendly fire, even ones of the same species.

Melee monsters and infighting
Monsters that are only restricted to melee cannot unintentionally initiate monster infighting. This applies to Doom 's Demons and Spectres; Heretic 's Gargoyles, Golems, and Sabreclaws; Hexen 's Ettins, Centaurs, and Stalkers; and so on. The source code reveals that melee attacks are impossible to misdirect; the damage is directly inflicted on the target if it is within range. Aiming is not involved and therefore hitting another target by mistake is impossible. To get them involved in infighting, the player must bait a projectile-based enemy to launch their attack before maneuvering in such a way that the projectile hits the melee monster.

However, Richard H. Hank Leukart, III's Official Doom FAQ states that misdirected melee attacks do happen and can trigger infighting. Before v1.5 of the engine, A_SargAttack (the demon attack codepointer) used a short-range hitscan attack. This also applies to the Jaguar, PlayStation,and Saturn ports. As a result these versions permit Demons and/or Spectres to be provoked into damaging each other if a group of them is approached by a partially-invisible player. From v1.5 onward, the hitscan routine is replaced by a simple distance check, making this tactic ineffective.

In some maps such as the Tenements, being on a lower level than a group of melee monsters could provoke monster infighting. Going up and down stairs can allow the attacking Demons to turn and can hit another if it gets in the way, resulting in fighting each other. This was discovered in the PlayStation port.

Benefits on utilizing monster infighting
Monster infighting is generally accomplished in multiple ways by the player. The most basic way is for the player to quickly position themselves to let the second enemy be in the line of fire from the first enemy.

Due to the unusually high player-versus-monsters speed ratio in games that utilize the Doom engine, the player is often given high mobility to maneuver around groups of monsters with more ease than in other first person shooter games. This makes monster infighting a convenient and even a recommended tactic on occasions. It can greatly assist the player to save on resources when ammunition is very scarce (often seen in Alien Vendetta), maintain quick progress when recording speedruns (i.e. UV Tyson), and ensure survival when enemy forces can easily overwhelm the player.

Arguably two of the most prominent examples of this strategy can occur in Doom II MAP20: Gotcha! and MAP08: Tricks and Traps. The first level features two of the most powerful enemies in the game (a Spiderdemon and a Cyberdemon) in the same room. With quick maneuvering, the player can cause one of the monsters to accidentally hit the other, starting a lengthy and entertaining fight that inevitably results in one killing the other, but not before being severely injured. In the second level, the player will encounter the Cyberdemon surrounded by a large pack of very powerful demons, the Barons of Hell. Upon sight of the player, the Cyberdemon will engage fire, inevitably aggro-ing the lesser Barons as they get caught in the crossfire. The Barons will hurdle up in attempt to destroy the larger monster, but not without taking heavy casualties.

Even when the player encounters a large number of mixed monsters, running in circle several times will likely initiate an infight due to stray projectiles being hurled in multiple directions. MAP16: Suburbs and MAP18: The Courtyard, which feature a diverse cast of enemies as well as a large open area where the player can freely move around, can make this an effective strategy.

Another advantage is that causing infighting will not alert peacefully waiting monsters like using a weapon does. For example, it may be wise to wake up a demon-spitter as late as possible.





Difficulties


The strategy of provoking monster infighting is complicated by a few factors.

Demonic monsters of most species are immune to their own kind's projectile attack. This makes monster infighting virtually useless when fighting against a large group of monsters like the Imp or Cacodemon, and holds especially true with Hell Knights and Barons of Hell, as their projectiles are coded onto their mobj IDs, and thus cannot harm one another with their green fireballs (although this does not apply in PlayStation/Saturn Doom and Doom 64).

Utilizing on the explosive barrel, however, can override the rule on the same species not harming each other; if one demon sets off a barrel and damages another of their kind, it will cause both monsters to retaliate against each other. This is especially seen in MAP23: Barrels O' Fun of Doom II.

Arch-viles are subject to peripheral blast damage from the attacks of other Arch-viles on nearby monsters, but do not retaliate because they cannot be targeted by any monster. This rule is less strict in Heretic, where monsters of the same species but different abilities, including Gargoyles vs. Fire Gargoyles, and Golems vs. Nitrogolems, can still infight and kill each other.

Additional factors that lessen monster infighting have to do with some characteristics of the Doom engine's monster AI. Monsters resurrected by Arch-viles or spawned by the final boss immediately target the player, not their creator's target. In addition, Lost Souls damaged by other monsters forget their targets after a single counterattack (whether successful or not) and then turn back to the player, although the monster that the Lost Soul had damaged does not forget the flaming skull's offense. Certain source ports include various AI options, and allow the user to decide how monsters should behave in respect to monster infighting.

There is another AI related showstopper for monster infighting: sometimes, one of the monsters that can be tricked into infighting is located on another height level. For example, if a Hell Knight on the street is hit by an Imp behind a first-floor window. In this case, projectile attacks may only be successful from far away. Unfortunately, monsters often first walk up toward the opponent, making it impossible to ever reach the other party. Sometimes, the player can help them by moving into their way.

Doom 3
In Doom 3, the monsters maintain a two-level hierarchy: An "upper" class (Hell Knights, Revenants) and a "lower" class (Imps, Zombies). Monsters in the upper class will attack monsters in the lower class in retaliation if the latter accidentally attacks the former. However, the lower-class monster will never retaliate, thus only leaving a one-sided engagement from the upper-class monster.

Reason why this is implemented is unknown, but a video log mentions the demons possess a form of rudimentary intelligence and social structure, which can partly explain this hierarchy system the monsters maintain.

Thus, Doom 3 does not contain true infighting (at least without mods), but rather only, an on-the-spot "execution". Furthermore, such "executions" do not happen very often, because of the significantly smaller monster numbers, the lack of sufficient space where the player could lure the monsters into each others line of fire, and the reduced speed of the player.

Known monster ranks
The Upper and Lower classes mentioned above have been confirmed by in-game experience to consist of the following monsters:

Upper class: Hell Knights, Revenants, Arch-viles, Cacodemons, Mancubi.

Lower class: Imps, Z-Secs, Commandos, Demons, Zombies, Maggots, Wraiths, Ticks, Trites, Cherubs.

Note: It seems strange that Commandos, who are considered quite powerful opponents, would be relegated to the Lower class. This could be due to them being formerly human.

In Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, the Grabber, which is able to grab and hurl demons' projectiles, can be used to provoke infights by hitting one demon with the projectile of another species of demon. In this case, the hit demon apparently thinks the second one bounced his projectile off the player and will proceed to attack the second demon rather than the player.

Doom (2016)
The Doom reboot of 2016 brings back infighting in its traditional sense, and it can now be provoked using methods from previous games. They are still more difficult to trigger than in classic Doom, since projectile-firing or -throwing enemies tend to be more deliberate with their attacks, and also because the reboots are true 3-D unlike the classic game. They occur more often in the more difficult skill levels such as Nightmare, where the monsters are more aggressive and have a higher chance of hitting each other accidentally, and at the same time, because of their higher hitpoints, are less likely to stun or kill each other before an infight can actually start. As in classic Doom, monsters that have inaccurate, repeating, or blast-damage projectile attacks are particularly likely to cause infighting, which in the reboot include examples such as Possessed Soldiers and Hell Razers. At the same time, very large, bulky monsters that provide bigger targets for stray projectiles, such as Hell Knights or Mancubi, are most likely to get triggered into starting an infight. Naturally, monsters with both characteristics, particularly the Baron of Hell, are most likely to end up in infights. Powerful monsters such as Barons are also particularly likely to accidentally kill other monsters during a fight, which the player can also use under certain circumstances (as, for example, briefly standing next to another monster when a Baron starts his rush and ground-pound attack, and then rushing away, causing the Baron to miss and kill the other monster). Infighting is certainly more useful on the Nightmare difficulty as well as more likely, as the player will use much more ammunition than on the easier difficulties and it is a way to ease the strain on the player's resources, as well as to provide a brief respite from the particular enemies involved.

Infights are also scripted; at various parts throughout the game, the player will often come across enemies attacking each other. The first instance of a scripted infight occurs in the Foundry, between a Possessed Soldier and three Possessed Workers. The Kadingir Sanctum has a few infights near the end, including when the Baron of Hell is first encountered.

In the SnapMap mode, players can assign demons to different teams to change their allegiances. Demons under different teams would fight each other and players under the same team as the demons would be friendly to each other.

Doom Eternal
Unfortunately, infights in Doom Eternal are nerfed so that monsters' projectiles cannot actually harm each other, although they can serve a purpose of keeping enemies distracted from attacking the player. There are certain limited exceptions such as charging Pinkies and Spectres, who are apparently treated as blunt-force ambient objects like the Crushers in Nekravol.

Heretic and Hexen
Raven Software added a feature to Heretic and Hexen which causes all monsters within sight of the player to begin attacking randomly chosen targets when the player dies in a single-player game. Monsters will fight with any living thing within their sight when this happens, including members of their own species and normally ignored creatures such as bosses (i.e anything shootable, including Voodoo dolls, in which case the player's screen will, despite being dead, still flash red each time the doll is struck). However, monsters remain unable to hurt other monsters of their own type with their projectiles even in this case, as can be viewed in p_map.c line 331, where there is no check as to whether or not the player is dead or alive when rejecting same-species projectile hits.

Besides this phenomenon, infighting occurs in Heretic and Hexen exactly as it does in Doom, as the games use the Doom engine.

Quake and Quake II
Monster infighting occurs in Quake and Quake II just as it does in Doom, despite using a more advanced engine. It happens less often, and is more difficult to provoke, than in the Classic Doom-engine games, but more often than in Doom 3. Quake involves extradimensional monsters similar to those in Doom, making the rationale the same. Quake II, by contrast, involves an intelligent alien race called the Strogg, but apparently, the Strogg troops have very foul tempers.

Trivia

 * Monster infighting has become a unique aspect of Doom and its progeny. Due to differing design choices and better AI advancements from other gaming developers over the years, most games do not give the enemies the ability to hurt each other, much less the ability to retaliate, as enemies are either intelligent enough not to fire if a fellow enemy is in the way, or otherwise share the same goal in defeating the player. Some games, however, such as Postal 2, incorporates enemy infighting into the atmosphere of the story.