Ideas for Weapon/Monster Balance Changes

What are some gameplay and quality of life improvements that you think Doom could benefit from? Here's some of my proposed ideas:

1. Pistol: The current one sucks. It's terrible and maps that try to make you use it are generally not very fun. Damage should be doubled and perfectly accurate to make it an effective weapon against weak enemies at all ranges.

2. The regular shotgun: Increase pellet count to 10 and spread proportionately. Right now it's underpowered compared to the SSG and with this change it would be great for consistently one-shotting Imps and two-shotting Demons. The go-to weapon for dealing with moderate amounts of weak enemies.

3. Chaingun: I really liked the Valiant one with double the rate of fire but larger spread. Made it great for most enemy types and actually let you mow down hordes of enemies besides Zombiemen and Shotgunners.

4. Plasma Rifle: Increase its DPS to be higher than the Rocket Launcher for single targets. The go-to weapon for killing lone high-HP enemies.

5. BFG: Dump the awkward tracer cone feature, make the plasma ball hit for a consistent high amount of damage and fire the tracers in all directions from the ball after detonation. Would no longer one-shot and trivialize the Mastermind, making the Plasma Rifle the more effective choice.

Finally, RNG gets the boot and everything hits for a consistent amount of damage. No more wondering whether your 3 rockets will kill that Mancubus or not.

Your ideas would make for an interesting mod. I too thought the shotgun should fire 10 pellets instead of 7 to make the SSG's 20 seem more consistent.

Pinkydaemons should attack faster. Their attack speed is just way to slow. There were a lot of situations, where I was cornered by, say, 15 of them, but still managed to dispatch them without taking damage with only berserked fist. They practically only serve as a beef obstacle that can only slow down your progress, but cannot do damage (unless you just stand still).

Even imps often win in infighting with demons, despite that demons are supposed to be stronger.

Pain Elementals should have a biting melee attack so they aren't completely helpless at super close range.

I like the existing monsters/weapons as is, but it'd be nice to have a much-expanded arsenal, 5x the monsters, 3x the weapons, in a prBoom+-suitable format, most of them filling new niches or complementing existing ones. This would be my dream.

rdwpa said:

I like the existing monsters/weapons as is, but it'd be nice to have a much-expanded arsenal, 5x the monsters, 3x the weapons, in a prBoom+-suitable format, most of them filling new niches or complementing existing ones. This would be my dream.

Let's elaborate.

Monsters:

1.) New projectile monsters. The revenant, mancubus, and arachnotron are quite useful largely because of their attack patterns. It would be nice to add many more monsters like that. Perhaps a lower-tier homing fireball, and a monster that 'misses' (sort of like PI is in effect, but not quite) for greater unpredictability. An inferno monster that fires a shitton of fireballs in a spread effect and doesn't affect other monsters. More projectile types in general, and the monsters that accompany them.

2.) New 'effect' monsters in the vein of the pain elemental and arch-vile. Particularly ones that aren't quite kill-on-sight priority in so many setups but still have some strategic effect.

3.) A few more hitscanners. Not so necessary, but since we're quintupling the bestiary, might as well! One low-tier flying hitscanner, and one hitscanner with about 500-1000 HP, a much more versatile mastermind.

4.) Some of the existing strong monsters from other mapsets. E.g. the afrit, the suicide zombie, the cybruiser, the arachnorb, and so on.

5.) Some more blast damage monsters. Blast damage is a good way to make a simple projectile more threatening, because of the spatial awareness it requires. A lower-tier monster that fires a weak exploding fireball would be a good addition, as would a grenadier.

Weapons:

1.) The big thing with weapons isn't so much filling new combat niches, even though that's possible. It's adding variety, so that stuff like optional paths for optional items actually feel fresh, instead of 'oh, I get an optional blue armor or plasma rifle for the millionth time'. But . . .

2.) The big one: A wider variety of weapons that are useful for heavy duty work in slaughtermaps. The RL, PR, and BFG are cool and all, but let's add some of the Zandronum weapons too (grenade launcher, a version of the railgun that is actually fun to fire, etc.). Ultra-blast damage weapons like remote bombs.

3.) More ammo types. Not so much with the existing weapons, but with the new additions.

4.) Quirky weapons. For example a homing weapon that locks onto its target as long as you get the alignment right while firing, and just goes straight ahead if you don't. Would be cool to blast a drifting caco out of the sky like this.

5.) A variety of other successful weapons, like the minigun.

So yeah, I'd like that!

I always find these threads fun. Personally, if the SG was slightly faster, I think FFA balance would be perfect. A little plasma and rocket speed boost would be nice, however it can get a little OP on small scale maps.

I wish the revenant missiles always homed in. It's harder to avoid homing missiles, but it's also more predictable. I find myself dying a lot from trying to avoid the homing missiles only to be hit by a stray non-homing missile that was going in a random direction unrelated to the homing ones. The damage of those could be tonned down too. They do more damage than the freakin Baron of Hell's fireball.
Speaking of the Baron, it would be nice if he was more than just an "imp with 1000hp". Maybe making him fire in volleys of 3, or maybe charge you.
Oh, and ofcourse, nerfing the Lost Soul's health.
(I probably said this all before, but I can't remember because I'm dumb.)

These kind of threads always make me wanna make the proposed changes into an actual mod, but I'd probably have to spend a lot of time reflecting on how the changes would affect the existing maps and mechanics, and that sounds complicated :p

ChekaAgent said:

Pinkydaemons should attack faster. Their attack speed is just way to slow. There were a lot of situations, where I was cornered by, say, 15 of them, but still managed to dispatch them without taking damage with only berserked fist. They practically only serve as a beef obstacle that can only slow down your progress, but cannot do damage (unless you just stand still).

They're terrifying with -fast behavior, they just need a movement increase.

Cyanosis said:

They're terrifying with -fast behavior, they just need a movement increase.

I agree, but they should attack faster even without -fast behaviour.

Some other changes I'd like to see:

1) Barons should have stronger/faster attacks and maybe faster movement (without -fast), otherwise they're just hell knights with health boost.

2) Spiderdemons should have partial immunity to BFG, otherwise episode 3 finale is too easy. Maybe a health increase wouldn't hurt too (too make them as powerful as cybers).

3) Spiderdemons and arachnotrons shouldn't infight. They're relatives, y'know.... This can be done by making spiderdemons immune to arachnotrons' plasma, and making arachnotrons not retaliate, if they're hit by spiderdemons.

4) Other monsters shouldn't retaliate, if they're attacked by a spectre. Because other monsters can't see spectres. (EDIT: or they should attack and miss...)

5) Lost souls should count as monsters (in the monster percentage at the end of level), but only if they're placed in the map beforehand. If they're spawned by pains, they shouldn't count.

6) And overall, all monsters should have more attack variety. And all monsters should have their own unique attacks, otherwise some of them are boring (as said before, hellknights are just overpowered imps, while barons are overpowered knights, and that's boring).

1. pistol get's 50% damage increase.
2. plasma rifle had it's own ammo, or at least find a way once you get the bfg that it isn't obsolete.
3. make zombie trooper more acurate.
4. decrease lost souls hp from 100 to 80.
5. Pain elemental gains a bite attack.
6. add a flying boss.

1. Pistol: The current one sucks. It's terrible and maps that try to make you use it are generally not very fun. Damage should be doubled and perfectly accurate to make it an effective weapon against weak enemies at all ranges.

3. Chaingun: I really liked the Valiant one with double the rate of fire but larger spread. Made it great for most enemy types and actually let you mow down hordes of enemies besides Zombiemen and Shotgunners.

Then I have your Salvation, The Machine Gun! (Or Assault Rifle) the Chaingun becomes the spewing minigun, the pistol stays somewhat the same but is perfectly accurate, but the Machine Gun (or an AR) Fires at 3/4 of the chaingun's original fire rate, and deals x2 the pistol damage. The AR would just be deadly Accurate with half of the Shotguns damage in 1 spread, making it a Ep 2 weapon.

Weapon balance changes:

Chainsaw: Gets the same Berzerk power-up

Fist: Does not alert monsters unless you punch them with it

Pistol: Boost power

Shotgun: Increase pellet count

SSG: Decrease damage slightly to make it 2 times or 2.5 times stronger than the shotgun instead of 3 times.

Chaingun: Increase rate of fire

BFG: Make it have it's own ammo and reduce max. shot count from 15 to 14.


Monster Balance Changes:

Demon: Moves faster.

Hell Knight: Give it a charge attack like the lost soul.
Hopefully without the shoot to have it slowly and helplessly float backwards until it touches something gimmick.

Baron: Same Charge attack as the Hell Knight

Lost soul: Remove the aforementioned gimmick and reduce HP.

Revanant: Decrease damage of homing missiles.

Pain Elemental: Give it a fast moving projectile attack as opposed to just spawning Lost Souls. It gets annoying.

Monster adds:

Sentry: A low HP hitscanner that fires like the chaingunner but does considerably less damage. Fires on sight and doesn't stop until it looses sight of the target or is destroyed. Incapable of movement.

More flying Monsters

Bomber Lost Soul: Attacks like the Lost Soul but It explodes like a barrel 5 seconds after death. Can be easily pushed back with weapons in this phase.

Giga Imp: Imp with a lot more HP. Shots super fast projectiles.

Hell Warrior: Like the Baron of Hell. Has 2 attacks. Fires 5 projectiles at a time in a cone. Fires exploding fire balls (Cyber demon rockets with a re-design).

ChekaAgent said:

Pinkydaemons should attack faster. Their attack speed is just way to slow.

Well, that's what the -fast command is for...

RUSH said:

Pain Elementals should have a biting melee attack so they aren't completely helpless at super close range.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the same thing.

I really just wish id had designed the pistol differently. I'm more than happy with the other weapons, I just have better things to do than stand there for seconds at a time (for the weakest enemies) with an inaccurate, low rate of fire pea shooter until the mapper gives me a shotgun. E1M1 on UV is about how long I want to wait to get the shotgun. I think the wealth of wads with changes to the pistol is a testament to this being at least somewhat widely felt.

Arms:
Fist - Is silent when used, damages 3x more, a little faster, berserk damage is kept the same.

Chainsaw - Damaged 3x more, wakes up monsters when selected.

Pistol - Now a perfectly accurate rifle that shoots 2 pellets per shot, wastes 2x more ammo per shot.

Shotgun - A tad faster pump action, fires 10 pellets per shot.

Super shotgun - No changes, it's a perfect weapon.

Chaingun - Same from valliant.

Rocket launcher - Faster rockets, 3x less self damage.

Plasma Rifle - Faster plasma bolts, wastes 2 cells per shot, needs to cool down for 3 seconds after shooting 35 plasma bolts in a row.

BFG9000 - Wastes 50 cells per shot, slower stronger bolts, needs to cool down for 5 seconds after each shot.

Monsters:

Zombieman - Same as your rifle. Fires more consistenly, moves faster.

Shotgunner - Same as your shotgun.

Chaingunner - Weaker shots, has 10 more HP.

Imp - No pain chances, can jump into low places.

Demon - Moves faster, will hop into your direction when it tries to bite, can also hop into low places.

Spectre - 10 less HP, can hop into low places, more hidden.

Lost soul - 50 HP less, charges faster, doesn't float back when shot.

Cacodemon - 200 HP less, doesn't float back when shot.

Pain Elemental - 200 HP less, summons 2 lost souls upon death instead of 3, slower lost soul attack, melee bite attack.

Hell Knight - Faster balls, moves faster, less pain chances, can jump onto high places.

Revenant - Faster melee attack, less damage from homing rockets by a half.

Arch Vile - A melee scratch from close, faster attack, less damage, slower move.

Mancubus - Faster charge, slightly faster movement, 200 less HP.

Arachnotron - A little more delay between each attack, melee kick attack, less pain chance.

Baron of Hell - 3 balls per attack (one of the balls is faster than the other 3), faster attack charge, 2000 less HP.

Spider mastermind - Quick harmful melee kick to prevent 1 shot deaths, less pain chances.

Cyberdemon - Same as Spider mastermind but to prevents 2 shot deaths, Also faster move.

SS nazi - Moves faster, less HP.

Commander keen - HP to be 1%.

Romero's head on a stick - HP to be 1%.

I recommend scoping out Eon Weapons. Although the chainsaw is probably OP for single-player, it is one of the best/most balanced weapon packs I've played with so far.

rdwpa said:

Let's elaborate.

[stuff]

These sound really wonderful! Not gonna happen in prBoom+ anytime soon but these are great ideas and I would love to (or for someone else to) turn this into a real ZDoom mod :D Actually what did you mean by "prBoom+-suitable format"?

Zulk-RS said:

Weapon balance changes:

Chainsaw: Gets the same Berzerk power-up

Fist: Does not alert monsters unless you punch them with it

Pistol: Boost power

Shotgun: Increase pellet count

SSG: Decrease damage slightly to make it 2 times or 2.5 times stronger than the shotgun instead of 3 times.

Chaingun: Increase rate of fire

BFG: Make it have it's own ammo and reduce max. shot count from 15 to 14.


Monster Balance Changes:

Demon: Moves faster.

Hell Knight: Give it a charge attack like the lost soul.
Hopefully without the shoot to have it slowly and helplessly float backwards until it touches something gimmick.

Baron: Same Charge attack as the Hell Knight

Lost soul: Remove the aforementioned gimmick and reduce HP.

Revanant: Decrease damage of homing missiles.

Pain Elemental: Give it a fast moving projectile attack as opposed to just spawning Lost Souls. It gets annoying.

Monster adds:

Sentry: A low HP hitscanner that fires like the chaingunner but does considerably less damage. Fires on sight and doesn't stop until it looses sight of the target or is destroyed. Incapable of movement.

More flying Monsters

Bomber Lost Soul: Attacks like the Lost Soul but It explodes like a barrel 5 seconds after death. Can be easily pushed back with weapons in this phase.

Giga Imp: Imp with a lot more HP. Shots super fast projectiles.

Hell Warrior: Like the Baron of Hell. Has 2 attacks. Fires 5 projectiles at a time in a cone. Fires exploding fire balls (Cyber demon rockets with a re-design).

I think a Toxic Soul and a Black Soul would be cool additions, Toxic Soul would do toxic damage over time, Black Soul would BE EXTREMELY FAST, you'd really have to be on your toes with it. Think Doom 64 Lost Soul but recoloured black and it's fucking fast!

Oh and Giga Imp?

I was thinking of a Giant Imp (the size of a Cyberdemon) that would shoot imps out of its hands that would in turn shoot fireballs at you, it could also vary between the fireballs, spawning Imps, and charging at you or stomping on the ground.

As for the Hell Warrior? What about a Hell Assassin? A stealthy fella no bigger than the Imp, that teleports a lot, and looks like a cross between a Baron of Hell and an Imp, it would use a sword to kill you and could shoot out explosive fireballs out of its sword.

=3

Oh and as for guns? I'd probably want the pistol's damage doubled, and the shotgun's pellet spread increased to 10 to better balance with the Super Shotgun.

Speaking of which what if the BFG9000 had tracers that were actually effective, and even if you didn't make a direct hit, it would still damage the enemies around?

Would make for a much better balance and flow in gameplay IMHO. As a last-resort weapon for sure. =) (Or panic weapon.)

Tango said:

These sound really wonderful! Not gonna happen in prBoom+ anytime soon but these are great ideas and I would love to (or for someone else to) turn this into a real ZDoom mod :D Actually what did you mean by "prBoom+-suitable format"?

Thanks. I'm imagining an eventual version of prBoom+ having a new complevel with a new and very extended DeHackEd format that could support all of this, preferably developed by prBoom+'s maintainer or with his blessing. I imagine a lot of that stuff is possible with DECORATE already.

ZDoom's changes to movement and lack of demo compat make it not so ideal for my preferences, unfortunately, but if an awesome-enough mod + level set is developed for it I'll certainly play it.

Hitscanners: Enemy bullets are now very fast projectiles that can be dodged by a skilled player from long range. Good change in BD/Project Brutality.

Chaingunner: Has to rev up his gun for a fraction of a second with a clear warning sound. I really liked that change in Brutal Doom and felt like it made the enemy more fun and less annoying by adding some counterplay.

Revenant: Homing missiles lose altitude over time and eventually hit the ground. The altitude loss is caused by the missile changing direction.

Cacodemon/Pain Elemental/Afrit: No more flying half-way across the map after eating a rocket or some plasma. Especially annoying with the Afrit in Scythe 2 with his yuge HP and tendency to spam his shit from far away and not feel like getting closer so you can actually make some good shots at him.

Cyberdemon: Make the damn rockets clearly visible and have a big glow like the Revenant ones. I hate it when I'm lighting one up with a plasma stream and can't see shit flying at me. Dump the splash immunity and make rockets a viable weapon against one and the Mastermind. 45 rockets is an obscene amount.

I think brutal doom does a lot of the things you're suggesting, and is a great mod for gameplay. The fists are much more useful, and the jump kick ability is cool because it does a lot of damage and pushes monsters away (and you can kick hell knights/barons of hell in the balls).

The pistol is replaced by the assault rifle, which is more accurate and fires faster, but is balanced by a low clip size.

The shotgun does more damage and is more accurate at long range. I actually prefer it over the SSG a large percentage of the time, because while the SSG is more powerful at close range, the damage drop off is significant over distance.

Being able to fire one shell at a time with the SSG makes it more versatile and fun.

The chaingun fires faster but uses more ammo. Makes it heaps of fun, especially because in brutal doom you can dismember enemies.

The rocket launcher fires faster and the rockets move faster, but it has to reload.

I actually think the plasma gun in brutal could be better. I think the cooldown between shots when you take your finger off fire is too long.

The BFG is more powerful.

As well as this, the monsters move faster but tend to die quicker. The hitscanners projectiles can now be dodged so they're not as annoying. The attack animations for the hitscanners makes it easier to know when they're going to shoot so you can use more tactics against them. The cacodemons dodge and move more etc.

TLDR: brutal doom is great.

RUSH said:

Pain Elementals should have a biting melee attack so they aren't completely helpless at super close range.

The Doom 64 variant, if you're up close to it, causes the spawned Lost Soul to explode in your face. Would that be sufficient? XD

I'm going to guess that the Lost Soul smashes into your face from the momentum and bursts into shards of inflamed bone.

Brutal doom is extremely unbalanced, it makes you so over powered it;s unreal. It's seems like a few of you in here are big brutal fans, and there is nothing wrong with that. I like most of the weapons in doom as is. I enjoy dooms weapons over quakes. plasma rifle overpowered? does it still have the flame thrower ability, because if so saying its underpowered is a joke.

Brutal Doom is okay in small bursts but the charm wears off very quickly. I'm not the kind of guy to be particularly interested in high octane gore just for the sake of it. Obviously, I don't refrain from it but that's not going to make a game better for me. It's just one of those things that it's either there or it's not. It's basically trying to be Mortal Kombat which doesn't appeal to me.

A couple of new monsters I'd like to add:

1) Super pain elemental: a pain elemental with a size of a mancubus. Spawns regular pain elementals, who in turn spawn lost souls.

2) Mega pain elemental: a pain elemental with the size of a cyberdemon. Spawns super pain elementals, who spawn regular pain elementals, who spawn lost souls.

3) Giga pain elemental: a pain elemental with a size of a small building. Spawns mega pain elementals, who in turn spawn super elementals, who in turn spawn regular pain elementals, who in turn spawn lost souls.

On more serious note, I'd like to add Pinkinator from Doom II RPG. It's a huge worm that spawns pinkydemons.

MetroidJunkie said:

Brutal Doom is okay in small bursts but the charm wears off very quickly. I'm not the kind of guy to be particularly interested in high octane gore just for the sake of it. Obviously, I don't refrain from it but that's not going to make a game better for me. It's just one of those things that it's either there or it's not. It's basically trying to be Mortal Kombat which doesn't appeal to me.

Yeah.... my gripe with Brutal Doom isn't the gore. It's the fatalities and the monster dying states, as well as the over-powered new monster attacks, and the fact that you have to reload.

Brutal Doom is like Communism. It sounds good in theory, but when applied it's just horrible...

Unless someone can make a GORE-ONLY mod and not modify the gameplay whatsoever.... then there is no way to make a truly good gore mod for Doom.

Doom isn't Mortal Kombat nor will it ever be.

Doom is Doom. Plain and simple. =P

Sorry, I just have some gripes with Brutal Doom... I've been enjoying Beautiful Doom a lot lately... really fun mod and I recommend it a lot.

I don't understand the either/or mentality. Brutal doom is not a replacement for doom, but an alternative. Doom is doom, and always will be. Brutal doom is brutal doom and always will be. The way some people are talking it's as if you can only choose one.

I'd like to see zombies equipped with armor. The player can wear green/blue armor vests, it would be nice to occasionally encounter zombies wearing them too, who take a few more shots to take down. If they'd designed it carefully the id guys could have used the same palette swapping used for the player sprites in order to achieve it.

Give the lost souls simple swarm AI so that they float around together like packs of birds. This would make them significantly more dangerous if they attack together. Lost souls should have way less hit points though.

This is more of a level design thing, but I think they should have included more berserk packs. Or maybe just made the fists more powerful?

The BFG behaviour doesnt make any sense at all (I talked about this before).

Swinging the fist should be silent and activating the chainsaw shouldn't be.

The Icon of Sin should have been thought through better.

Yeah the 'zerk pack is awesome. It's probably the case that most levels should have one unless some degree of health/ammo restriction is important to their balance. It's just fun to punch stuff.

Default fists should probably be 2x as strong as they are currently. And should have a much narrower damage range. 2-20 is kind of silly and can make berserk maxes a big RNGfest.