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Goosepants

Which shotgun in the classic doom games do you prefer?

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The regular shotgun is prettier. Also I don't like using the SSG to kill one single zombieman, sergeant, or imp. Chaingunners can go either way because a single shotgun shot will not always kill them, so I often use the SSG with them just to make sure they die immediately. Demon and anything, it'll be SSG, with sometime the SG or CG as a finisher (a Hell knight who took three point-blank SSG blasts in the horns isn't supposed to be still standing).

There's also a question of range. SSG is only ever for point blank or close quarter combat. Pump action shotgun can go up to midrange. Beyond mid range, it's chainguntown. Or rocketlauncherville, either/or.

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Ok, so I played Doom 2 recently with Doom Retro wich has a one nasty feature - you have to save the game often, or it will always load your last saved game no matter what if you die with the exception if you didn't saved at all. And I thought, hmm the game is too easy! why they put an ssg on a second level and give it on every level since that? so, I played and finally died on map09 I believe. And this was HELL because there is no ssg from that level to map16 onwards with the exception of map12 wich I hated to pistol start and had to run through, missing the ssg. Oh god, it was painful, I had to pistol start almost every level fron map09 to map15 just because of loosing my ssg since I still didn't want to save. and it was only on map31 where I found my old frend, and it was an amazing moment and I still didn't died at all since map31

so, my verdict - ssg is your frend

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When I feel powerful and hungry for blood, the SSG is my first choice.
Its not ideal for easy killing, but it is fun to watch it action, and addictive to some cases (why do I keep charging Mancubi with a SSG?)

But for strategy, the SG. Its fast, efficient and trustworthy. Not to mention just as cool.

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Voros said:

why do I keep charging Mancubi with a SSG?


Because mancubi are fat and it feels oh so rewarding when you see that all the SSG pellets hit their target :D

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Thue super shotgun excels against strong enemies or crownds, but it uses double the ammo so the normal shotgun is better against single or pairs of weak enemies, or if your shotgun ammo is low. But yeah, I think in Doom 2 or others where the SSG is available I use it more than the normal one.

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LkMax said:

I think in Doom 2 or others where the SSG is available I use it more than the normal one.

This - that's why I prefer it. It's too powerful not to use, with 3x more damage per shot than normal shotgun while taking only 2x more ammo and reloading only 1.3x slower, and being so perfect for a default weapon to hold when entering an unknown area. Although normal shotgun still has its usefulness against lone weak enemies, weakened mid-tier enemies, medium distant enemies, or enemies on raised ledges, it doesn't beat the SSG's general usefulness for fast-paced close-range combat.

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Whilst there are so many reasons the SSG is superior to the shotgun, I just find it so insatiably satisfying to use. The sound it makes both firing and reloading and the damage it does makes me feel like such a badass, as well as the ability to have such a high chance of stunning targets

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They both have their uses and are better at specific tasks. You can't simply use one as a drop-in replacement for the other, as it's often implied. E.g. you cannot replicate "shotgun sniping" with the SSG, unless you are OK with 1 pellet out of 20 hitting each time.

But truth be said, the normal shotty has been marginalized by the Final Doom/HR/slaughtermap game style, in which the SSG is pretty much the entry-level and all-around weapon, simply because most enemies are too strong and would take too long to kill and soak more ammo with the regular shotty, a luxury players cannot afford. It also forces players to fight at CQ, if they cannot use the RL from a distance (again, the shotty would be too slow and lack "punch" e.g. vs a bunch of revenants or archviles).

The shotty is more suited to a "classic" Doom gameplay and in situations where you need a good combination of precision, range and damage, esp. when firing from a covered position or against stategically placed monsters from a distance, which is getting kinda rare.

It's simply a victim of things getting "bigger, harder, meaner". And that's without even considering DM and the one-shot kills the SSG allows, which are pretty much the "standard".

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I find SSG very boring to use, mainly because I end up using it so much. It seems to get more use than any of the other weapons, because when maps have a lot of higher HP monsters it is often the most effective choice, and shotgun ammo is usually in plentiful supply after a few maps played continuously. But its slow loading between shots makes fighting very slow and repetitive, almost turn based. Its usually a breath of fresh air when someone designs a map without it, either focusing more on lower tier monsters or using rocket launcher as SSG replacement.

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scifista42 said:

and being so perfect for a default weapon to hold when entering an unknown area.

If you want to be perforated by chaingunner and revenant ambushes, sure. I prefer having the chaingun or, even safer, the plasma gun (the panic weapon) ready when entering uncharted territory.

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LkMax said:

Thue super shotgun excels against strong enemies or crowds, but it uses double the ammo

Not to mention that it takes a little while to reload compared to the regular shotgun.
That doesn't stop me from using it though!

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There is only one boomstick. Perfect for blowing away zombie men all the way up to wearing down the cyberdemon. Something about its pain state after a shotgun blast feels so right.

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If you ever wondered why the SSG feels so balanced, it's because its speed is about 65% of the regular shotty, while the damage of the regular shotty is about 35% that of the SSG. Balancing each other out perfectly, and being quite close to the inverse and complement of the inverse of the Golden Ratio (1/1.618...=0.618...) too.

Interestingly, if you apply the same ratios for each additional barrel (in a hypothetical "nSSG" with n>=3), you'll find that the tradeoff/balance would still be quite acceptable.

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Before yesterday I hadn't really played Doom in years and years. I grew up on it, but I wasn't really old enough at the time to get into modding and all that other kind of stuff. I saw Achievement Hunter playing Romero's new level and I shit you not - it was the satisfaction of watching the simpler enemies go down with a well placed standard shotgun blast that made me look up ways that I could play Doom engine games on my Macbook.

Up until a little while ago when I started playing some of the custom WADs that I had never had the chance to experience before, I had almost entirely forgotten about the SSG. While it has excellent utility, I do enjoy the feeling of shooting and then pumping the standard a lot.

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Well, the classic shotty had its memorable moments in Doom e.g. turkey-shooting the Pinkies in E2M1 before lowering the marble ledge ;-)

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Gez said:

The regular shotgun is prettier.


Probably because they used an actual model to digitize as opposed to the SSG which I think is entirely drawn? The brown shading always looked ugly to me.

Gez said:

Demon and anything, it'll be SSG, with sometime the SG or CG as a finisher


Or the pistol, which I like to use it for, since it gives it some love now and again to cap off a stubborn Hellspawn. I do the same thing in ROTT against the Lightning Guards when they surrender.

mouldy said:

Its usually a breath of fresh air when someone designs a map without it, either focusing more on lower tier monsters or using rocket launcher as SSG replacement.


It's weird, the SSG is basically a RL without the splash damage and reduced range, as it kills the tougher/est monsters in about the same amount of hits that the RL requires (2-5). Except the RL is faster, and deals splash damage, so it's actually more effective at putting something out.

printz said:

the plasma gun (the panic weapon)


Heh.

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I prefer PSX Final Doom's SSG. It's sleek and cold, an unfeeling instrument of destruction. One moment a flurry of fire and lead, and the next as still and silent as a funeral mask. Or something.

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Yeah, the PSX Final Doom SSG is really nice, will load that one up whenever I'm feeling the PSX mood in my Doom (which means PSX SFX and the music).

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SSG except on lone former humans and/or imps. It feels very satisfying to kill anything with the SSG, especially the Arachnotron. And mowing down groups of baddies with a couple shots is even more satisfying. I just don't like killing one zombieman, or one imp with it, it feels like overkill and unnecessary. I leave that to job to the regular SG.

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SSG all the way! It feels so powerful and also reload animation and sound is super cool.

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Maes said:

If you ever wondered why the SSG feels so balanced, it's because its speed is about 65% of the regular shotty, while the damage of the regular shotty is about 35% that of the SSG. Balancing each other out perfectly, and being quite close to the inverse and complement of the inverse of the Golden Ratio (1/1.618...=0.618...) too.

Interestingly, if you apply the same ratios for each additional barrel (in a hypothetical "nSSG" with n>=3), you'll find that the tradeoff/balance would still be quite acceptable.

Maybe it's not due to Golden Ratio in particular, but the fact that SSG and SG have roughly identical ratio of "damage per reload time per ammo consumption per shot":

( Damage / reload time / ammo consumption ) per shot

SSG  =  200 / 51 / 2  ~  1.96
SG   =   70 / 37 / 1  ~  1.90
However, while this "damage per reload time per ammo consumption per shot" might feel good for our subconsciousness, it doesn't mean that the weapons have equal usefulness.

Consider their "damage per reload time":
( Damage / reload time ) per shot

SSG  =  200 / 51  ~  3.92
SG   =   70 / 37  ~  1.90
This means that when you want to cause as much damage to your enemies as fast as possible, the SSG is more than twice as better choice than the SG.

And consider their "damage per ammo consumption", too:
( Damage / ammo consumption ) per shot

SSG  =  200 / 2  =  100
SG   =   70 / 1  =  70
This means that when you want to cause as much damage to your enemies while consuming as little ammo as possible, the SSG is 1.3-times better choice than the SG.

In both cases, whether we want to save ammo or kill enemies quickly, the SSG is objectively more useful than the SG, regardless of how it feels balanced.

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One good thing with the SSG is that it rewards you for staying close to the enemies and even rushing towards them momentarily. Or trying to line them up to get the maximum effect.

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VGA said:

Or trying to line them up to get the maximum effect.


One of my favorite things to do with groups of lowly minions! Why use a bunch of rounds from the chaingun when all you need is a couple shells?

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VGA said:

One good thing with the SSG is that it rewards you for staying close to the enemies and even rushing towards them momentarily.

Really? I thought that was what the berserk fists were for.

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HavoX said:

Really? I thought that was what the berserk fists were for.

Berserk, SSG, and BFG are the three weapons meant to be used point-blank.

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