Another weapon in doom?

[Foodles]

I think that all the weapons in Doom are good because they each serve a specific purpose, but what if id had added another weapon to the game, what gun would you have liked to have been in the original Doom/Doom2?

For me, probably some kind of sniper rifle or railgun where you could zoom in and take out enemies from afar, I know that some people snipe with the chaingun but this takes forever and it wasn't what the chaingun was designed for. Theres no real way to take out enemies from long distances other than running close to them. I know that we've all had experiences where after blasting a cacodemon with a rocket they go flying off to the other side of the map, well thats when a long range gun would really come in handy.

Although a grenade launcher allowing you to bounce grenades around corners would have also been handy, meaning you could gain an advantage to fights and to fire grenades over ledges to hit enemies below you that would otherwise be impossible to hit.

I can think of more but want to hear what other people think

[Mr. Freeze]

None. Doom's weapon balance is perfect...nothing feels out of place or needlessly undrpowered. Adding an additional weapon (like Skulltag's Railgun) just complicates the equation more, unless we're talking about custom levels. At that point, anything goes.

[Gez]

Foodles said:

Although a grenade launcher allowing you to bounce grenades around corners would have also been handy, meaning you could gain an advantage to fights and to fire grenades over ledges to hit enemies below you that would otherwise be impossible to hit.

A grenade launcher would be very frustrating without mouse aim IMO.

Maybe a flamethrower or a sniper rifle; but neither are really useful.

[Sigvatr]

The pistol is useless once you get a chaingun and, aside from berserk packs, the fists are pretty much useless after you get a chainsaw.

I think it would be interesting to make them more useful somehow.

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

The grenade launcher is somehow useless since there's already a rocket launcher. I don't think I may have any good suggestion for another weapon in doom. For sniper, I wonder if the aim-look screen will be seen or not. For flamethrower, I don't know what to say, but I think it's also useless. So same as Mr. Freeze, I will think a Railgun is better. Or even some doom 3 weapons can be used in doom or doom 2.

[Maes]

Sigvatr said:

The pistol is useless once you get a chaingun

HELL NO IT'S NOT YOU FUCKING NOOB WHAT IF YOU ARE PLAYING A JODWIN MAP AND YOU NEED TO USE AN ODD AMOUNT OF BULLETS WHILE THE CHAINGUN FORCES YOU TO WASTE ONE EXTRA BULLET PER TARGET?!!!? SIEG HEIL!!!

[purist]

Quad shotgun. Or a powerful melee weapon that uses ammo like a plasma chainsaw.

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

purist said:

Quad shotgun. Or a powerful melee weapon that uses ammo like a plasma chainsaw.

I wonder what the power of Quad shotgun is, maybe 1 shot can kill a hell knight lol.

So what about if new weapons used in Deus Vult 2 also used in other doom wads?

[Mr. Freeze]

purist said:

Quad shotgun.

Too redundant. We already have 2 shotguns.

purist said:

Or a powerful melee weapon that uses ammo like a plasma chainsaw.

Gimmicky and useless beyond a melee weapon's applicability. Sorry, but I'm not seeing these.

[Phml]

I can't think of a single weapon I would have wanted to be added to Doom2. Railguns, grenade launchers I've never found enjoyable in any game. I occasionally like sniper rifles in modern games, but find them very ackward in old shooters and generally counterproductive to fast-paced gameplay. Gimmicky weapons are, well, gimmicky, and the BFG sort of fits that niche already - while also being actually fun to use and extremely efficient if used well.

I guess I would have liked a different enough chaingun to the point that it would have been new. In so many games, the chaingun equivalent (machinegun, assault rifle, you know what I mean, gun that shoots bullets fast) is the main weapon and it feels right. In Doom it's just a cheap underpowered thingy I bring out to snipe stuff or if I'm out of ammo for the real weapons.

[Foodles]

Daiyu_Xiaoxiang said:

The grenade launcher is somehow useless since there's already a rocket launcher.

I meant it as more of a tactical weapon, after all quake had grenade and rocket launchers.

What about remote mines, or proximity mines? ideal for luring enemies into traps

[40oz]

I wish there was a quicker way to expel all 400 of my bullets. Maybe a super chaingun that's as innaccurate as the super shotgun.

[DeathevokatioN]

purist said:

Quad shotgun.

Well there is one, featured in that hideous zdoom piece of shit that really didn't deserve a cacoward, called Legacy of Suffering.

Personally, I never felt the need for another gun in Doom 2, the guns are perfect as they are..

[printz]

I would have said grenades too -- following Quake's model, have a rocket-firing weapon that trades range for a parabolic trajectory. But Doom is 2.5d and it would work poorly with software mode distorted aiming, let alone distorted nonzero pitch velocity.

[DuckReconMajor]

As for long range weapon, I just wish that limit on how far away it will autoaim wasn't there. I mean, even if you did have a sniper rifle, you still couldn't look up or down.

[Gez]

printz said:

I would have said grenades too -- following Quake's model, have a rocket-firing weapon that trades range for a parabolic trajectory. But Doom is 2.5d and it would work poorly with software mode distorted aiming, let alone distorted nonzero pitch velocity.

And let alone fixed horizontal viewpoint with no way to look up and down, since the thread is about the hypothetical scenario of Id having added another weapon to the original Doom.

There were some ideas in the Doom Bible but none of them were really all that interesting IMO.

[_bruce_]

No thx. Perfect as it could be.

Though if someone altered the whole package a new weapon could be fun.

[Coopersville]

The Gatling gun in Skulltag.

[hex11]

Gez said:

A grenade launcher would be very frustrating without mouse aim IMO.

Not necessarily. The grenade launcher in Hired Guns (Amiga "sorta FPS/RPG") worked pretty well without real 3D physics or mouse aim/look. The length of time you held down the fire button determined the range. When you had the launcher and pressed fire, a circular HUD popped up with four quadrants, so you didn't have to even guess at the range you were selecting. You just waited until it cycled to the desired quadrant (close, medium, far, very far) before releasing. Anyway, it worked really well, especially when firing down steps or towards lower grounds where a bunch of monsters were swarming around. It was pretty useful for clearing out a small room too.

I can't remember if firing up steps or above obstacles was possible though, but even if it wasn't in Hired Guns that doesn't mean it couldn't have been been in Doom. It would probably require calculating (roughly) the trajectory based on selected range. But even with mouse aiming that would be necessary.

Hired Guns also had other neat stuff like auto-sentry guns, movable crates (which you could use to trap or even crush monsters), 4-way split screen where 1 to 4 players could control the team. It was pretty advanced for its time (Wolf3D era).

[Death Egg]

The Gatling Gun from Skulltag, as said before. Really the only thing I sometimes miss playing through Doom.

[lupinx-Kassman]

The unmaker.

[EarthQuake]

Deployable [proximity] mines.

[Archfile]

Sigvatr said:

The pistol is useless once you get a chaingun and, aside from berserk packs, the fists are pretty much useless after you get a chainsaw.

I think it would be interesting to make them more useful somehow.

On vanilla, you lose fist when you get Chainsaw. Once you get Berserk, you can use both fist and Chainsaw again.

Also, I don't think Doom needs new weapons. Expect SSG is everything on competitive.

[Maes]

If anything, having some kind of placeable barrel/shootable explosive trap would be cool.

[Koko Ricky]

Only things I would have done different with the original Doom's weapons are:

1) Make the pistol more like Duke Nukem's. In Doom, it's pretty weak and you rarely go back to it once you get other weapons.

2) Make the chaingun more like it was in Doom 64. It fired faster and shook the screen, which was cool.

I think something akin to the Unmaker/laser in Doom 64 would have been cool, but I don't think there's any way the original Doom could have handled it.

[Maes]

Then there's always the Beta BFG...it could have had its niche uses compared to the final one.

[Koko Ricky]

Maes said:

Then there's always the Beta BFG...it could have had its niche uses compared to the final one.

If I recall correctly, did they abandon that version because it was too computationally expensive? Like a shit ton of BFG sprites going everywhere?

[Brewtal_Legend]

I would have liked to see the unmaker or some sort of demonic weapon added. Maybe some sort of long range weapon with a spread. Maybe the weapon could use ammo based on how many enemies you kill with other weapons besides the demonic one. Or you have to equip it and charge it. You would get an amount of ammo relevant to the amount of dead enemies in the area when you charge it.

Or maybe some sort of buzzsaw launching weapon.

[Maes]

GoatLord said:

If I recall correctly, did they abandon that version because it was too computationally expensive? Like a shit ton of BFG sprites going everywhere?

Well yeah. You can picture it working roughly like a plasma shotgun shooting 40 (or 60?) balls of plasma with a random spread and in quick succession with just one button press. Obviously, with a visualizatble sprite limit of just 128, bumping the count by 40 or 60 each time for several dozens of frames would be quite disrupting, and would "look like Christmas" according to Romero.

[DuckReconMajor]

Why was that such a bad thing? Old man Romero crapping on our Christmas spirit :(