Best Way To Balance The Shotgun?

[A Nobody]

The shotgun in Doom 3 is terrible. I'm trying to make it better by changing the spread and damage. What do you think is the best combination to balance the gun?

[Azuris]

It kills mostly every normal Enemy with one Shot.

It only forces you to go near them and this seems to be itentionally because it plays with your Fear and in Terms of Balance.

 

Edit: Wouldn't change it, it is my Imp Killer ;)

Edited January 10, 2021 by Azuris

[Lippeth]

The best way to balance the shotgun is to think of it as a melee weapon. Because of the level design in Doom 3 it works out brilliantly. Similar to how the new Doom games require you to get up close with fists and chainsaw if you want health and ammo, Doom 3 asks you to get close and personal with the shotgun. Sure it's not how an actual shotgun works, but I've never gotten ammo while cutting down a tree, either. It was designed that way from a pure game mechanic standpoint. You risk taking damage up close in exchange for a possible one hit kill, depending on the enemy. Even taking on a hell knight with the shotgun is a lot of fun because of how it switches between its melee and projectile attacks depending on your distance to it.

 

If the levels were more open and long range, the shotgun wouldn't be as viable, but neither would the slower movement and stamina. And if the shotgun was more like a rifle, then the other weapons wouldn't be as viable at longer distances. All that being said, it's easy to change the spread and damage, but I don't think anyone has ever agreed on the best numbers. Making the spread about 6 seems to make the most people happy, and changing the damage to about 10 seems to somewhat balance it out. But if you do that, what's the point of the machine gun?

[Tetzlaff]

I agree with @Azuris and @Lippeth, when you use the Doom 3 shotgun upclose it works excellent and the resulting gameplay mechanic, courageously confronting the demons instead of backing up, works great when you get the hang of it.

 

The thing is, you kind of expect it to work like the Doom 1 shotgun with it's mid-range sniping abilities, because the whole design of the weapon resembles the Doom 1 shotgun.

 

Maybe it would have worked better if they gave the shotgun in Doom 3 a distinctively different look, something resembling a sawed-off double shotgun, to visually communicate to the player that this is a an "almost melee" weapon. Maybe a design similar to Marathon's shotgun.

 

In my personal mod I use

 

spread 6

damage 12

SHOTGUN_NUMPROJECTILES    11

 

And reduced the number of pellets to balance it out, but I can't find the line for this right now.

Though I think I will reduce the damage. It now kills a pinky with two shots, just like in classic Doom. But the Doom 3 Pinky is a much more powerful creature than it's classic counterpart, so it feels a bit overpowered.

 

edit: thanks for the info, Lippeth!

Edited January 11, 2021 by Tetzlaff

[Azuris]

 

 

@Tetzlaff

Yep, that would be a good Indication.

When we are at Topic, does anybody know if they changed the Damage of the Shotgun in the BFG-Edition?
It feels like it doesn't do as much as in the original.
But maybe it is just that i'm playing the BFG-Edition on Console with a Controller for the3D-Effect :P

[snapshot]

The shotgun in Doom 3 is fantastic, works well with the levels of the game if you rush to your enemies and 1 shot-kill them, I wouldn't change it

 

....but you can probably use the multiplayer spread value and lessen its damage if you really want to, but you'll just end up turning it into just yet another long range weapon, at that point you might aswell just use the machine gun.

Edited January 11, 2021 by sluggard

[Lippeth]

The shotgun's pellets can be found in the first group of definitions in weapon_shotgun.script in the scripts folder. Default is 13 pellets.

 

If you do that, make sure to take the script from pak006.pk4 or you may get an error about missing "WEAPON_NETFIRING" if using 1.3.1.

 

Also note that almost any changes to a script will ruin your quicksave and start you at the beginning of the level with the default difficulty setting. So it's best to start a new game and warp back to that level after changing a script.

[A Nobody]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:20 AM, Tetzlaff said:

I agree with @Azuris and @Lippeth, when you use the Doom 3 shotgun upclose it works excellent and the resulting gameplay mechanic, courageously confronting the demons instead of backing up, works great when you get the hang of it.

 

The thing is, you kind of expect it to work like the Doom 1 shotgun with it's mid-range sniping abilities, because the whole design of the weapon resembles the Doom 1 shotgun.

 

Maybe it would have worked better if they gave the shotgun in Doom 3 a distinctively different look, something resembling a sawed-off double shotgun, to visually communicate to the player that this is a an "almost melee" weapon. Maybe a design similar to Marathon's shotgun.

 

In my personal mod I use

 

spread 6

damage 12

SHOTGUN_NUMPROJECTILES    11

 

And reduced the number of pellets to balance it out, but I can't find the line for this right now.

Though I think I will reduce the damage. It now kills a pinky with two shots, just like in classic Doom. But the Doom 3 Pinky is a much more powerful creature than it's classic counterpart, so it feels a bit overpowered.

 

edit: thanks for the info, Lippeth!

Where do I find the pellet part?

[Lippeth]

Doom 3 base folder - pak006.pk4 - script folder - weapon_shotgun.script - the fourth definition:

 

#define    SHOTGUN_NUMPROJECTILES    13

[lol no-guy]

Considering how fun the Imp dance with it is, I wouldn't change a thing about it, maybe aside from lowering the damage and increasing the pellet count for higher consistency, but then again you wouldn't normally use it in cases where that would help much so what's the point.

[Azuris]

4 hours ago, lol no-guy said:

Considering how fun the Imp dance

 

Oh i like it, how should we call it?

Shotgun Tango or Imp Salsa?

[lol no-guy]

8 hours ago, Azuris said:

 

Oh i like it, how should we call it?

Shotgun Tango or Imp Salsa?

Both work!

[Tetzlaff]

This might be interesting for comparison. The Quake 4 shotgun, which works more similar to the classic Doom single shotgun, has:

 

spread 7

damage 14

 

...and 7 pellets (I counted the impact holes on the wall since scripts are handeled differently in Q4 and it seems you can't just open them with a text editor).

 

This is a point-blank damage of 98.

 

Doom 3 shotgun (original values):

 

spread 22

damage 14

SHOTGUN_NUMPROJECTILES    13

 

Point-blank damage: 182.