Do you think the BFG could be improved?

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

I was inspired by Jimmy's "let's improve Baron's thread", to create this one. I personally see the BFG as a poor weapon to add when dealing with Boss missions, as while it does shred through hordes of medium strength enemies, it makes a complete joke out of any enemy that doesn't have 1.5x the health of a Cyberdemon. That still doesn't mean that it's less than decent, in fact, if it was just half as powerful, I would be fine with it. Or do my complaints seem to be founded on misusage or poor level design I've played through.

[No-Man Baugh]

I personally think a BFG being too overpowerd for a fight is more of a mapping problem than it is a flaw with the weapon itself. Like if you want the player to square up with a cyberdemon and a couple of underlings without it being a meme; there's nothing stopping you as a mapper from giving them just a plasma rifle, a rocket launcher, or even just an SSG and not letting them even catch a whiff of Big Fucking Gun until you made a fight with that you know is fun with one in tow

 

Granted, if you're mapping for a community project, you're designing with continuous play in-mind, a map(s) slotted before yours gives the player a BFG, and you don't wanna/actively can't communicate with the rest of the mappers; then yeah I get the frustration of designing a tough-but-fair fight that you're meant to shotgun-only be totally trounced by a better weapon and I ain't a mapper so I don't really have much advice either than to encourage cell deprivation or just make a level with the expectation that a BFG will be there. but this is a (not unrealistic, but) pretty specific scenario, and in most situations (standalone map, enforced pistol starts, ammo deprivation, more control over a megawad, ect.) I think a mapper can very well work around or work with a BFG and make a difficult map without it turning into slaughter

 

But if we really wanna spitball BFG mods, this is the first thing that comes to my mind; increased ammo cost

 

300, 200, 80 cells or even giving the weapon it's own proprietary ammo I think would greatly reduce the usability of a BFG down to a panic button, almost like how most other games handle a weapon of the BFG's tier (Kinda like how the Doom 4 handles it's BFG). while the BFG still requires more experience and precision aiming than most panic buttons I know of; give it a slight damage buff at 200/600 cell depletion and you got a weapon that could make coincident stop calling the plasma rifle the "forbidden gun"

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

Making the BFG have a higher ammo cost for a more powerful shot is a good idea. I also hate how underrated the plasma gun is, as it's a great for making boss fights easier, but not completely undermining them.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

Also, I'm currently trying to make my first map, so that this will come in handy for the near future.

[Shepardus]

Struggle Antaresian Legacy's BFG is pretty interesting - it adds blast damage to each of the tracers, which makes it even more effective against large crowds of enemies, but also means you can't point-blank boss enemies without killing yourself (not to mention bosses are immune to blast damage anyway).

[Tangra]

It's perfect as it is. Nerfing any of the weapons is a sure way to alienate a lot of players and make them skip your wad. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. If you think the BFG is overpowered, introduce it in the late game with the appropriate challenges for it. Or don't introduce it at all, but make sure its absence doesn't lead to grindy scenarios, unless you like that sort of combat.

 

3 hours ago, No-Man Baugh said:

I personally think a BFG being too overpowerd for a fight is more of a mapping problem than it is a flaw with the weapon itself. Like if you want the player to square up with a cyberdemon and a couple of underlings without it being a meme; there's nothing stopping you as a mapper from giving them just a plasma rifle, a rocket launcher, or even just an SSG and not letting them even catch a whiff of Big Fucking Gun until you made a fight with that you know is fun with one in tow

 

Fighting a Cyberdemon with an SSG, rocket launcher, or plasma gun is not harder, just more tedious if it becomes an occurring thing, like in map packs that treat the cyberdemons as a regural high tier enemy and throw them at you in every map, sometimes in duos and trios (but then again, most of them give you the BFG).

In fact, fighting a cyber with a BFG is harder than with the other weapons mentioned, because you need to take a risk if you want to preserve ammo and attempt a 2-3 shot kill, which requires mastering the precise movement at a close distance. With the rest of the arsenal you can keep a safe distance and grow a beard. At the end, the difficulty of fighting a cyber comes from the layout and the space you have available to avoid his attacks.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Tangra666

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

Tangra666, I wouldn't say it's perfect, but it's still pretty good. I would agree to replace it if you are going to alter its values though. I do still think a high tier enemy last 5 seconds can still dampen its effect though, especially when they were originally boss enemies. Also, while it might be harder, it's still pretty easy in my experience to three shot a cyberdemon, except on maps to be made very highly difficult.

[No-Man Baugh]

8 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

it's still pretty easy in my experience to three shot a cyberdemon, except on maps to be made very highly difficult.

are we talking about Doom in general, or specifically under ports that fix the blockmap bug?

 

because trying to 3-shot a cyberdemon with a BFG under DOS or complevel 2; good fucking luck

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

2 minutes ago, No-Man Baugh said:

are we talking about Doom in general, or specifically under ports that fix the blockmap bug?

 

because trying to 3-shot a cyberdemon with a BFG under DOS or complevel 2; good fucking luck

Only in ports without the blockmap bug, I'm not Zero master.

[Shepardus]

27 minutes ago, No-Man Baugh said:

are we talking about Doom in general, or specifically under ports that fix the blockmap bug?

 

because trying to 3-shot a cyberdemon with a BFG under DOS or complevel 2; good fucking luck

The BFG can consistently two-shot cyberdemons with or without the blockmap bug.

[xdarkmasterx]

No way. Doom's bosses are not interesting or difficult enough to be worth having a prolonged battle with, and besides 2 shotting a cyberdemon is much harder (despite taking less time) than doing it the "honest" way :p

[LadyMistDragon]

Try adding in more Cyberdemons, like we'll just say 4 and see if you're still saying the same thing. Of course, I'm someone who regularly takes around 4-5 shots to kill a Cyberdemon so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. p:)

[Cilian]

5 hours ago, No-Man Baugh said:

I personally think a BFG being too overpowerd for a fight is more of a mapping problem than it is a flaw with the weapon itself. Like if you want the player to square up with a cyberdemon and a couple of underlings without it being a meme; there's nothing stopping you as a mapper from giving them just a plasma rifle, a rocket launcher, or even just an SSG and not letting them even catch a whiff of Big Fucking Gun until you made a fight with that you know is fun with one in tow

 

Granted, if you're mapping for a community project, you're designing with continuous play in-mind, a map(s) slotted before yours gives the player a BFG, and you don't wanna/actively can't communicate with the rest of the mappers; then yeah I get the frustration of designing a tough-but-fair fight that you're meant to shotgun-only be totally trounced by a better weapon and I ain't a mapper so I don't really have much advice either than to encourage cell deprivation or just make a level with the expectation that a BFG will be there. but this is a (not unrealistic, but) pretty specific scenario, and in most situations (standalone map, enforced pistol starts, ammo deprivation, more control over a megawad, ect.) I think a mapper can very well work around or work with a BFG and make a difficult map without it turning into slaughter

 

But if we really wanna spitball BFG mods, this is the first thing that comes to my mind; increased ammo cost

 

300, 200, 80 cells or even giving the weapon it's own proprietary ammo I think would greatly reduce the usability of a BFG down to a panic button, almost like how most other games handle a weapon of the BFG's tier (Kinda like how the Doom 4 handles it's BFG). while the BFG still requires more experience and precision aiming than most panic buttons I know of; give it a slight damage buff at 200/600 cell depletion and you got a weapon that could make coincident stop calling the plasma rifle the "forbidden gun"

Yeah I have no problem with weapons having different strength, it's the map's responsibility to be balanced around the weapons it gives

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

5 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

No way. Doom's bosses are not interesting or difficult enough to be worth having a prolonged battle with, and besides 2 shotting a cyberdemon is much harder (despite taking less time) than doing it the "honest" way :p

I know that the cyberdemon is kind of mediocre mechanics wise for a boss but killing it quicker than you would a Baron or hell knight is kind of lame. That's why I would want it to be toned down slightly, nobody wants to spend 5 minutes trying to kill a cyberdemon halfway through the level.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

2 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Try adding in more Cyberdemons, like we'll just say 4 and see if you're still saying the same thing. Of course, I'm someone who regularly takes around 4-5 shots to kill a Cyberdemon so I'm probably the wrong person to ask. p:)

I had good map and enemy design in mind; if I wanted to die 5 times a minute, I would pull up a realm667 abomination.

[banjiepixel]

3 hours ago, Tangra666 said:

It's perfect as it is. Nerfing any of the weapons is a sure way to alienate a lot of players and make them skip your wad. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. If you think the BFG is overpowered, introduce it in the late game with the appropriate challenges for it. Or don't introduce it at all, but make sure its absence doesn't lead to grindy scenarios, unless you like that sort of combat.

 

I agree, nerfing player weapons isn't a good way to fix things. But BFG being perfect, no too sure about that. Generally it is still better to keep it as it is because rebalancing BFG would require changes to the monsters and that can easily make things very complicated when also trying to keep things balanced and compatible with the expected default variables.

 

Also it does seem like the concept of gameplay mod is foreign to you. Tweaking the basic Doom gameplay is actually pretty fun and has alot of room for experimentation in general. More people should be doing it here.

[Tangra]

5 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

Also it does seem like the concept of gameplay mod is foreign to you. Tweaking the basic Doom gameplay is actually pretty fun and has alot of room for experimentation in general. More people should be doing it here.

 

And how did you came to that conclusion? Based on me having an opinion about Doom's arsenal and gameplay? I've been playing video game mods for some measly 15 years, but i guess that's not enough.

Sure, you can nerf, or boost Doom's weapon power and rebalance the enemy roster to go with it, but that will no longer be original Doom gameplay, it will be modded Doom. Maybe i misunderstood the point of this thread, but what i'm getting here, is that the author considers the BFG to be overpowered against the vanilla gameplay and monsters, which is something that i simply disagree with, that's all. 

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

17 minutes ago, banjiepixel said:

 

I agree, nerfing player weapons isn't a good way to fix things. But BFG being perfect, no too sure about that. Generally it is still better to keep it as it is because rebalancing BFG would require changes to the monsters and that can easily make things very complicated when also trying to keep things balanced and compatible with the expected default variables.

 

Also it does seem like the concept of gameplay mod is foreign to you. Tweaking the basic Doom gameplay is actually pretty fun and has alot of room for experimentation in general. More people should be doing it here.

What changes would need occur? My suggestion was making the BFG to not a theoretical one shot against every monster in Vanilla doom, and that seems more balanced to me. I will admit I'm ignorant on this subject, considering I know jack shit when it comes to Doom wadding, let alone modding.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

Infact, I'm currently struggling figuring out how to implement doors into Slade 3.2.1:(

[Fairen]

Personally, just as a hypothetical, not something I've tested or anything...

 

Split the BFG damage between direct impact damage, the tracers (at reduced damage) and a huge blast damage at the point of impact. Maybe make the player immune to said blast damage, maybe not—depends on if you want them to spam the BFG at point-blank crowds. Cybers and Masterminds would be immune to the blast damage just as they're immune to rocket blast damage, so it wouldn't be a cheap anti-boss weapon.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

12 minutes ago, Tangra666 said:

 

And how did you came to that conclusion? Based on me having an opinion about Doom's arsenal and gameplay? I've been playing video game mods for some measly 15 years, but i guess that's not enough.

Sure, you can nerf, or boost Doom's weapon power and rebalance the enemy roster to go with it, but that will no longer be original Doom gameplay, it will be modded Doom. Maybe i misunderstood the point of this thread, but what i'm getting here, is that the author considers the BFG to be overpowered against the vanilla gameplay and monsters, which is something that i simply disagree with, that's all. 

You seem to be a tad bit of a pure vanilla elitist, not to insult you or your claim. I'm discussing both implementation in vanilla and in wads, as I believe when using the standard monster roster, the BFG tends to be over powered.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

2 minutes ago, Fairen said:

Personally, just as a hypothetical, not something I've tested or anything...

 

Split the BFG damage between direct impact damage, the tracers (at reduced damage) and a huge blast damage at the point of impact. Maybe make the player immune to said blast damage, maybe not—depends on if you want them to spam the BFG at point-blank crowds. Cybers and Masterminds would be immune to the blast damage just as they're immune to rocket blast damage, so it wouldn't be a cheap anti-boss weapon.

Not a bad solution, especially if the maximum damage output of all values would be around 3000 or so.

[Tangra]

46 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

You seem to be a tad bit of a pure vanilla elitist, not to insult you or your claim. I'm discussing both implementation in vanilla and in wads, as I believe when using the standard monster roster, the BFG tends to be over powered.

 

I'm not a vanilla elitist, don't throw out such terms at people like you think you know them. Even if you don't mean to insult, it doesn't come across very friendly. I play and enjoy dehacked stuff and total conversions from time to time. Right now i have Jamal Jones next on my list, and i know i'll have a blast with it. 

 

As for the BFG being overpowered? Well, that is kind of the point of that weapon, it's named Big Fucking Gun for a reason, it is the game changer, a late game weapon, your panic button for the toughest of challenges, surprises and traps. If you cut its damage in half, you kill the whole point of the BFG and i'm sure you will end up in big trouble when, for example, you play a custom wad that you're not familiar with, and you find yourself ambushed by two archviles in a room with no cover... and believe me, there are much worse scenarios than that. Again, just because it can one shot a Baron or an Archvile, that doesn't mean it makes the whole game a cakewalk, does it? With well balanced ammo, item placement and well thoughtout combat design, you can keep the gameplay challenging with and without the BFG, like so many wonderful wads have done it in the past 30 years. Something that is my goal as well, as i try to learn and improve as a mapper. 

 

At the end of the day, you can do whatever you like, mod the game to your heart's content. You don't need my opinion if you disagree with me, but since you asked, i'm giving it to you. I never said you have to 100% agree with me, like an elitist would say. :D If you want to make your own set of maps with modded gameplay, someone already suggested a great idea. Just remove the BFG and replace it with a new weapon that behaves similarly, but is balanced to your liking. Maybe even keep the real BFG in as well, but introduce it at a much later stage in your project. If we're talking about just one or few maps, then don't have it at all, it's not like it's mandatory. 

 

On a side note, what are your favorite custom wads? And, are you playing them on UV?

[Maribo]

I think you'd do much better to shift your focus to Doom's lackluster cast of "boss" monsters than the BFG, to be honest. Doing something as severe as halving the damage potential is a heavy-handed solution that doesn't really change the fact that it would still melt through boss monsters when used properly, albeit in a couple more shots than before. Solely neutering the BFG's damage output mostly just serves to punish players who have an understanding of how it works and how to use it most efficiently. If you're so disgruntled with its damage output, I think it would be better to take some inspiration from something like Struggle, as Shepardus said, and make a completely different weapon that plays differently than the BFG. The reality is that tangoing with vanilla "boss" monsters in Doom is incredibly easy in a vacuum, to make them effective you have to get creative with your fight design, which can come down to getting creative with scripting via voodoo dolls, tweaking your layout/geometry, introducing more monsters, or ultimately giving up on their status as a "boss" monster and start viewing them as just another tool in Doom's diverse box of Stuff To Construct Cool Things With.

[banjiepixel]

29 minutes ago, Tangra666 said:

And how did you came to that conclusion? Based on me having an opinion about Doom's arsenal and gameplay? I've been playing video game mods for some measly 15 years, but i guess that's not enough.

 

Relax, I didn't mean it literally. It was not meant to be anything serious or personal. I just happen to gameplay modder that feel like the gameplay modding is heavily underutilized idea here in general and you gave me a good opportunity to remind people about that not everybody is or wants to become a mapper and that gameplay modding also does exist.

 

29 minutes ago, Tangra666 said:

Sure, you can nerf, or boost Doom's weapon power and rebalance the enemy roster to go with it, but that will no longer be original Doom gameplay, it will be modded Doom.

 

This to me seems something highly irrelevant for a thread like this. And I do agree with you here. But what's wrong with modded Doom? It is completely valid way to experience the game. And discussion related to modded Doom is a great way to potentially find design decisions from the original games that might had been flawed. 

 

46 minutes ago, Tangra666 said:

Maybe i misunderstood the point of this thread, but what i'm getting here, is that the author considers the BFG to be overpowered against the vanilla gameplay and monsters, which is something that i simply disagree with, that's all. 

 

Perfectly valid angle to go for in thread like this. I do generally agree with you, no changes are needed so bad that other things would be worth rebalancing just to "fix" the BFG. 

 

1 hour ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

What changes would need occur? My suggestion was making the BFG to not a theoretical one shot against every monster in Vanilla doom, and that seems more balanced to me. I will admit I'm ignorant on this subject, considering I know jack shit when it comes to Doom wadding, let alone modding.

 

Without nerfing some part of BFG's default functionality, technically your only option would be to increase the amount of the health that monsters have. But the default monsters are pretty close to being bulletspongy already and you would need to do something to fix ammo balance issues. You would probably need to make every weapon but the BFG more powerful to create something balanced.

 

Making BFG weaker directly is much easier but players in general always prefer making everything else stronger to fix balance issues. But also altering the damage scale for almost everything would also mean sacrificing vanilla compatibility and would require more advanced modding tools.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

47 minutes ago, Tangra666 said:

 

I'm not a vanilla elitist, don't throw out such terms at people like you think you know them. Even if you don't mean to insult, it doesn't come across very friendly. I play and enjoy dehacked stuff and total conversions from time to time. Right now i have Jamal Jones next on my list, and i know i'll have a blast with it. 

 

As for the BFG being overpowered? Well, that is kind of the point of that weapon, it's named Big Fucking Gun for a reason, it is the game changer, a late game weapon, your panic button for the toughest of challenges, surprises and traps. If you cut its damage in half, you kill the whole point of the BFG and i'm sure you will end up in big trouble when, for example, you play a custom wad that you're not familiar with, and you find yourself ambushed by two archviles in a room with no cover... and believe me, there are much worse scenarios than that. Again, just because it can one shot a Baron or an Archvile, that doesn't mean it makes the whole game a cakewalk, does it? With well balanced ammo, item placement and well thoughtout combat design, you can keep the gameplay challenging with and without the BFG, like so many wonderful wads have done it in the past 30 years. Something that is my goal as well, as i try to learn and improve as a mapper. 

 

At the end of the day, you can do whatever you like, mod the game to your heart's content. You don't need my opinion if you disagree with me, but since you asked, i'm giving it to you. I never said you have to 100% agree with me, like an elitist would say. :D If you want to make your own set of maps with modded gameplay, someone already suggested a great idea. Just remove the BFG and replace it with a new weapon that behaves similarly, but is balanced to your liking. Maybe even keep the real BFG in as well, but introduce it at a much later stage in your project. If we're talking about just one or few maps, then don't have it at all, it's not like it's mandatory. 

 

On a side note, what are your favorite custom wads? And, are you playing them on UV?

You're right, and sorry for the elitist bit if it seemed too far. So far Gorehound.wad is my favorite, as it reminds me of a series of dreams I explained on another Thread "Dream wads that don't exist". It's a bit hard though so I'm not playing on ultraviolent just yet.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

14 minutes ago, Maribo said:

I think you'd do much better to shift your focus to Doom's lackluster cast of "boss" monsters than the BFG, to be honest. Doing something as severe as halving the damage potential is a heavy-handed solution that doesn't really change the fact that it would still melt through boss monsters when used properly, albeit in a couple more shots than before. Solely neutering the BFG's damage output mostly just serves to punish players who have an understanding of how it works and how to use it most efficiently. If you're so disgruntled with its damage output, I think it would be better to take some inspiration from something like Struggle, as Shepardus said, and make a completely different weapon that plays differently than the BFG. The reality is that tangoing with vanilla "boss" monsters in Doom is incredibly easy in a vacuum, to make them effective you have to get creative with your fight design, which can come down to getting creative with scripting via voodoo dolls, tweaking your layout/geometry, introducing more monsters, or ultimately giving up on their status as a "boss" monster and start viewing them as just another tool in Doom's diverse box of Stuff To Construct Cool Things With.

I am more critical of Doom's "boss" monsters, but I was kind of bored, so I made this thread exploring a kind of opposite solution.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

I personally prefer Wads with boss demons that take more than a few hits from the BFG. Sadly, I haven't really found any wads like that, besides hell forge, and the aesthetic wasn't really my favorite.

[Dimon12321]

BFG is a peculiar weapon with a unique set of rules. I don't recall similar weapons in more modern games

 

When you did the first BFG shot, what did you expect from it? That's, what I think, is a point for improvement.

I personally expected it to be a more powerful rocket launcher, judging by the size of the ball/projectile coming out of it. Brutal Doom, btw, takes this into account by giving a BFG ball splash damage. It's a trap for vanilla Doom players, who prefer doing point blank shots to get maximum impact, but according to common sense, a giant energy ball can definitely do some backfire at a close range.

 

Now, to the rays which kill enemies. 

As we know, when a BFG ball comes out, the game records the direction you are facing, and when it hits something, 40 rays are generated from the position of the shooter in a 22.5-degree spectre to the left and to the right from the direction recorded by the game. That's a cool feature. It makes you stay close to the crowd, so all the rays would do damage. But it also contradicts the common sense, because if you hide behind the wall, rays don't do anything.

It would be good to attach the rays to the ball itself. Say, these 40 rays would spread in a 360-degree spectre around the hit spot, ignoring the shooter, of course. Or let the spectre be 180-degree to keep the weapon more crowd-cleaning.

[MFG38]

26 minutes ago, Dimon12321 said:

It would be good to attach the rays to the ball itself. Say, these 40 rays would spread in a 360-degree spectre around the hit spot, ignoring the shooter, of course. 

 

This is basically what I was going to say.