Video Game / Complex Doom

Doesn't seem as Complex now.

"KNEEL BEFORE ME!"

— The Legendary Cardinal

Complex Doom is a Doom mod focused on randomization and player progression, which has spawned many addons that may count as entirely different, if derived, mods.

Its main addons and derivatives are:

- LCA (short for Legendary Complex Addon), an addon that adds the Legendary monsters, meant for co-op mode but sometimes flat-out unbeatable.

- Complex Doom Invasion, a map pack of sorts for LCA entirely designed around cooperative play.

- Various add-ons for LCA

- CF (short for Complex Clusterfuck), essentially a mod pack consisting of all the better of said myriad add-ons, notably of high quality for a common multiplayer mod.

- LSD (short for Li$ter's Simple Doom), a fork of Complex Doom with LCA included, which radically alters the gameplay to be Nintendo Hard and more similar to Monster Hunter, but presents few aesthetic changes and is infamous for various cross-community reasons.

- Project Complexity, an attempt to polish and give an Updated Re-release of most Complex Doom addons' content while parodying both Complex Doom and Project Brutality; made for singleplayer rather than coop and incompatible with Zandronum.

- God Complex, a fork of Clusterfuck that, among other things, drastically retools the mod's progression, adding new items, weapons, enemies, and tiers of the Legendary enemies, as well as having separate builds for both Zandronum and GZDoom.

The mod has been noted for being one of the most played ever on Doom multiplayer, on par with if not more popular than Quake Champions: Doom Edition.

The main mod can be downloaded here.

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Complex Doom provides examples of the following tropes:

• 1-Up: The Salvation Sphere present in some addons and derivatives, as well as its Legendary version. You may only carry one at a time.
• Action Bomb: The Suicide Bomber zombies, which are pretty much What It Says On The Tin: they run towards you and try to explode in your face. And they have Legendary versions, as well as Enraged, Nemesis and Vexed Nemesis versions in Clusterfuck.
• Art Evolution: The base mod adds and improves effects from the original Doom, making it look far more modern.
• Artificial Brilliance: Many enemies have varied and intelligent movesets; especially from LCA and derived addons/derivatives. Some of LSD's monster AI is enriched by the usage of ACS scripting, which gives them special behaviour on reaction to certain player habits.
• Artificial Stupidity: All enemies retain issues proper of how Doom's monster AI works, and at times this must be exploited to kill the stronger ones.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: Legendary versions of stronger enemies are stronger than Legendary versions of weaker enemies; this is the same for most tiers.
• Badass Boast: Some of the enemies talk and taunt you with this.
• BFG: There are so many of them it would be an impossible endeavour to list them across all addons and derivatives, but as a rule of thumb most weapons in slot number 7 and higher are this, as well as the Legendary slot 5 ones.
• Black Speech: Some of the demons, particularly in LCA and further derivatives, speak in this.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Complex Doom has new and more splatterrific blood and gore effects, and Project Complexity has the Nashgore mod included for fancier gore.
• Blown Across the Room: The strongest attacks may do this to you as well as kill you. Weapons like the Hexa-Shotgun also possess this effect.
• Bottomless Magazines: In LCA you can get a Legendary Ammo Sphere that makes your ammo infinite.
• Chainsaw Good: The Chainsaw in base Complex Doom is similar to the one in Doom 64. LCA introduced a Legendary Chainsaw, and CF has an Enraged Legendary Chainsaw.
• Cool Sword: The Legendary and the Sublimation swords in CF.
• Crisis Crossover: LSD's Nightmarerus Extra map, where Wolfenstein 3-D meets Doom.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Some so many enemies do this that it would be insane to actually go and try listing them. As a rule of thumb, most Legendary and above enemies explode.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Pretty much every time you kill a Legendary monster or an otherwise powerful boss.
• Difficult, but Awesome: LSD pretty much runs on this, as you'll have to employ very specific tactics, study your enemy and risk death often to win.
• Disc-One Nuke: With CF randomizing map pickups as well as enemies, this happens very often in it.
• Easter Egg: There are so many in each addon or derivative that it is pretty much a suicide mission to try and list all of them.
• Eldritch Abomination: Many of the more powerful monsters give off this vibe. LSD's Forgotten Warrior has sprites resembling Cthulhu.
• Eldritch Location: The Nemesis Macrocosm, a special, exclusive level available in CF by gathering ten Nemesis Fragments.
• Enemy Summoner: Listing all of the occurrences throughout the addons and derivatives would cost a crazy amount of time and effort, but notable cases include the True Legendary monsters, who summon most of the Legendary enemies at once.
• Exclusive Enemy Equipment: Present in most versions, with the notable exceptions of CF and PC, the former due to map-placed pickups being randomized as well, the latter due to having a condensed arsenal.
• Exploding Barrels: There are now randomized along with the monsters. There are also Legendary barrels.
• Final Boss:
  • The True Legendary Cardinal in Complex Doom Invasion, who is promoted to this role from LCA where he is simply the strongest monster with no specific encounter.
  • The Nemesis Patriarch in CF, who you can fight in his own level after gathering ten of the Nemesis Crystal that Randomly Drops from Vexed Nemesis bosses.
  • Whichever boss you fight last in LSD's Nightmarerus Extra.
• Flunky Boss: Pretty much every boss whenever they are not encountered alone, as well as the Enemy Summoner ones.
• Gatling Good: There are quite a lot of chainguns and miniguns, especially in Clusterfuck and LSD.
• Harder Than Hard: Each version has its own.
  • Senseless Masochism in normal Complex Doom.
  • "Blia. Oktooda ve lezete!?" in LSD, peculiar in that it also replaces the enemy spawn settings.
  • Spooky's House of Fun-Death in PC.
• Hitscan: Unlike most modern Doom mods, this one plays it straight whenever the case.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: While add-ons rarely change them from Complex Doom, which is this trope, LSD and PC have their own (respectively a scale from the author's most hated mods to his own and two of what are seemingly Russian memes and slight parodies or variations of Complex Doom's own).
• Impossible Item Drop: Happens often, including egregious cases such as the True Legendary Cyberdemon dropping multiple weapons for no reason, or the Legendary Flying Imp in LSD dropping a Legendary BFG 10k.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: A staple of this mod and its addons. The most egregious examples from each major derivative:
  • The original mod has the Demon Tech Devastator. Thought the Demon Tech BFG 10k, that ridiculosuly huge gun, was cool? This one is even bigger, even stronger, and shoots red plasma balls.
  • The Legendary BFG in LCA: a gigantic, extremely powerful gun with an overdetailed sprite. By killing certain True Legendary enemies, you can unlock its Infinity +1 Sword form, that is able to ignore the Like Cannot Cut Like rule and harm Legendaries.
  • The Nuke Launcher in LSD. Exactly What It Says on the Tin. An unwary player can be Hoist by His Own Petard.
  • The Nemesis in CF. An Unmaker-like weapon the attacks of which are Cast from Hit Points and is very, very powerful.
• Invulnerable Attack: Legendary and on par bosses have invulnerability frames, sometimes at seemingly random. PC is getting rid of it, while LSD is known for putting clever spins on this mechanic.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: Legendary weapons cannot harm Legendary monsters, Nemesis weapons cannot harm Nemesis monsters... there are a few exceptions to this, such as the True Legendary upgrades for the former and the Nemesis BFG for the latter.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Complex Doom's arsenal is destructive enough that this happens quite often.
• Mana Potion: A variation; there is an ammo satchel item that replenishes some of most of your ammo types.
• Marathon Boss: Many an LSD bosses, particularly the special non-Legendary ones such as Terminator. The final bosses of Complex Doom Invasion and CF, respectively the True Legendary Cardinal and the Nemesis Patriarch, are also this.
• Multiplayer Difficulty Spike: Can be completely averted or played entirely straight depending on what mapset is being played, but Complex Doom Invasion inverts this — the more players, the easier to conquer the level.
• No OSHA Compliance: Seen very clearly in LSD's Nightmarerus Extra. ''Vy ja, ve have giant crusher in ze middle ov our base!''
• One-Hit Kill: Many of the strongest enemies have a sort of this, and some of them pierce through invincibility and cheats, such as the Legendary Cardinal in LCA.
• Play as a Boss: Varies between versions.
  • Complex Doom Invasion has several demon transformation runes, similarly to Doom (2016), as well as the Legendary Revenant Rune.
  • CF has that same Legendary Revenant Rune, as well as the Hellfire Scroll that turns you into the mighty Hellfire Cyberdemon.
  • LSD has a "monsters VS marines" mode in the works, naturaly including this trope.
• Powered Armor: Complex Doom Invasion features a few examples of this.
• Power-Up: There is such a mole of them across the various versions, addons and derivatives that attempting an exhaustive list of them would be futile work.
• Quick Melee: LSD has a kick key that works on lighter weapons. PC's is for all weapons.
• Rare Random Drop: The entire appeal of LCA and derivatives, with the powerful, permanent Runes being the most sought-after.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: There are more enemies with this trope than would be sane to list, but notably the standard Arch-Vile (now Exile) gains these.
• Secondary Fire: Almost every weapon that doesn't need to reload possesses one. Some of LSD's upgrades give an alternate fire mode to weapons that reload.
• Serial Escalation: Legendaries have become easy prey? Meet the True Legendaries. What, you want more? There, Enraged Legendaries. Not enough? Say hello to the Nemesis gang. Really, even that is too easy for you? Here's the Vexed Nemesis. WHAT, it's not enough yet again? There, have a final boss.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Most of the shotguns play this trope straight, some downplay it.
• Shout-Out: It would be fairly impossible to list all of them throughout the various versions, derivatives and add-ons.
• Taken for Granite: Inverted for the Stone Imp, who in LSD can break out of his stone skin as if it was a shell.
• Tank Goodness: One of the vehicles in Invasion is a tank.
• The Turret Master: In LSD, being able to place various types of turrets is one of the keys to the player's survival.
• Use Item: Many items function similarly to those in Heretic, which can be used to heal, as powerups, and much more.
• Villain Teleportation: Most of the stronger monsters, especially in LSD, are capable of this, even if it makes little sense such as in the case of Terminator.