What's your least favorite weapon? (Besides the melee and pistol)
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I am excluding pistol, fist and chainsaw because they're obvious choices.
For me it's the plasma gun: It has an irritating sound, it obstructs your view when you fire it, making killing with it unsatisfying, it's a very underwhelming new weapon to get in The Shores of Hell compared to the rocket launcher, the BFG and SSG.
If I could replace the plasma gun, I'd replace it with a rocket launcher variant that uses 5 rockets per shot to deploy a mega rocket that makes a trail of explosions as it flies by.
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Your replacement sounds like it could be a Rise of the Triad weapon.
I personally don't really enjoy using the BFG much because it can easily become very inconsistent, but I wouldn't replace it, the mechanics it creates are way too interesting to get rid of it even if it gets a little painful. -
I have to agree with the plasma rifle being bad, sadly. But not for the same reasons;
For me the plasma rifle is an emergency push through weapon for low and mid tier monsters. I do agree that the rocket launcher is superior in the sense that it requires tactical awareness. You can't use the RL as a push through weapon for example. And as a push through, the BFG is far superior.
But this "emergency push through" use of the plasma rifle highlights its major problems. It's slow. The projectiles take time to reach their target which at long ranges means you're likely to miss. Even at medium range with revenants you can miss. The projectiles are also wide which can get them caught around corners and sometimes I wonder if I'm actually hitting the target or just the ledge/corner next to the target. These two issues I think diminish the value of the plasma rifle.
The chaingun, if only it had a higher fire rate (I mean six barrels! It should go brrr) it would make not only a good push through but medium range beamer and long range sniper.
To fix the plasma... I dunno. Perhaps change the projectile to a tracer and up the damage? Then the plasma rifle becomes a SSG type weapon where its single shot, packs a real punch, shoots through targets (because tracer) and long range (because tracer). Thus the SSG is the short range, corner cover, room clearer weapon and the plasma rifle becomes the long range caco/pain elemental killer. Because those two monsters have a nasty habit of being pushed way way away and then all your rockets miss. In this role I think the plasma would become very valuable.
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I honestly would say the plasma rifle as well. I feel like Antaresian Reliquary makes it absolutely wonderful to use: punchier sound, more powerful looking projectile, slower but more powerful and plasma efficient, even gibs zombiemen and shotgunners sometimes. I kinda wish more wads did away with a plasma modification along those lines.
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@MattFright Fixes my issues with the plasma gun as well with its less obnoxious sound and less obstructive projectiles, but it's still just a weapon that shoots a basic projectile, which is a pretty bland unlock after the more interesting rocket launcher and even the very similar chaingun (or dual Uzi's in this wad's case).
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I'm actually not a fan of the chaingun really. It feels weak compared to the SSG, rockets, and plasma. A faster firing chaingun would be really nice. Plasma could probably benefit from a small blast radius and perhaps a faster projectile?
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@segfault I've had this balance idea between the pistol and the chaingun :
Make the pistol shoot a bit slower than the default chaingun.
Make the chaingun shoot a bit faster than the default chaingun and give it a cooldown when it stops firing. -
@joe-ilya I've actually sort of done this in my upcoming wad Antiquity. The pistol, pump-action shotgun, and machine gun (chaingun replacement) all fire faster. The pistol's much faster, pump action slightly so.
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Chaingun for me. The pistol sound is just so monotonous and after a while really starts to grate on me.
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@Gibbon The bullet sounds are much better in its original higher quality.
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@Dusk-Iv said in What's your least favorite weapon? (Besides the melee and pistol):
I personally don't really enjoy using the BFG much because it can easily become very inconsistent, but I wouldn't replace it, the mechanics it creates are way too interesting to get rid of it even if it gets a little painful.
I'd argue the BFG is as inconsistent as any other weapon, as randomized damage and buggy blockmap collision applies to any arm.
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I dislike the BFG, not only for being over the top and a I Win button in classic gameplay, but also for the slaughtermap trope of 'BFG these hordes or die' which makes me roll my eyes.
Its funny, because when I was young I loved the sheer power of the BFG, and hated the 'pointless' plasma rifle. Now its fully reversed.
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@Devalaous said in What's your least favorite weapon? (Besides the melee and pistol):
I dislike the BFG, not only for being over the top and a I Win button in classic gameplay, but also for the slaughtermap trope of 'BFG these hordes or die' which makes me roll my eyes.
Its funny, because when I was young I loved the sheer power of the BFG, and hated the 'pointless' plasma rifle. Now its fully reversed.
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brokentrue connoisseur and expert of the BFG and BFG oriented gameplay. My favorite weapon is the BFG >:D. Though it makes balance kinda weird amongst other weapons. Just giving a BFG in a secret somewhere blows balance out of the water.Least favorite? I suppose the chainsaw. Only because it gets in the way sometimes, especially if there's a berserk pack in the mapset. It's useful against pinkies and imps, but sometimes I'd rather just non-berserk punch them instead.
If that doesn't count, then probably the chaingun. I used to like it a lot as a kid in the 90's, and it's good for stun-locking, but it's kinda slow-to-kill and more boring than the punchy other weapons. I almost never pull it out unless I need to manage ammo. Juggling arachnotrons and using it to keep space can be fun with it, though. In general, plasma gun feels more satisfying to use by miles though (and I also enjoy the plasma sound, especially over the pathetic chaingun "popcorn" sound, sorry).
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I'm gonna have to go with the chaingun. It's a shame because it's really fun to use. But it has a very big shortcoming.
Compared to the shotgun, let alone the SSG or the more powerful stuff, the chaingun has an absolutely pitiful max ammo capacity, in terms of how much damage you can inflict with it -- see Fun Numbers below. It doesn't help that enemies drop very small amounts of ammo too, compared to the shotgun guy and his 4 shells. If the max bullet capacity was 400 (800 with backpack) it would've been a lot more useful. Basically, you can't do a lot with the chaingun before you're forced to go find more ammo. In my opinion this is the biggest flaw of Doom's weapon arsenal.
What's amazing is that Hacx makes this even worse -- its Uzi can be used maybe twice per level.Fun Numbers:
Shotgun -- 50 shells × 7 pellets each × ~10 damage each on average = ~3500 damage
Super shotgun -- 50 shells ÷ 2 shells per shot × 20 pellets each × ~10 = ~5000 damage
Chaingun/Pistol -- 200 bullets × ~10 = ~2000 damage
Rocket launcher -- 50 rockets × (~218) = ~10900 damage (~4500 w/o blast damage)
Plasma gun -- 300 cells × ~22,5 = ~6750 damage
BFG -- 7 shots [300 cells] × (~450 + 40 × ~68) = 3150 [balls] + 19040 [tracers] = ~22190 damage -
Chaingun, easy. It's DPS is low, ammo capacity is low, and to me it's always been an odd choice to give a marine a chaingun over a battle rifle. Maybe because T2 came out a couple of years before Doom was released? IDK The only reason I use it is sniping or a low shotgun ammo situation. It and the pistol need better DPS options, like dual wielding pistols, and a high RoF less accurate SMG and similar RoF but more accurate Carbine as replacements in the 4 slot. But yea, finding a freakin' chaingun and then realizing it's only capable of ever so slightly more damage per second than a pump shotgun, while that shotgun gives you way more damage from a full ammo pool, that's a real letdown moment.
Edited because I don't proofread well.
