SSG Addicts Anonymous.

[banjiepixel]

So here is something that I noticed today. It does seem like we could had gotten slighty slower firing SSG in Doom 2. It's pretty common knowledge that Doom 2 has a "bug" that causes the muzzle flash frames last longer than the actual firing frame. Muzzle flash animation lasts 9 tics while firing animation lasts 7 tics and it is so strange that these do not match like they do for normal shotgun. Too long SSG muzzle flash animation does actually make it very likely that at some point SSG firing frame was supposed to last 9 tics but for some reason it was changed to lasting just 7 tics, same amount as normal shotgun.

 

Not sure how many people could had avoided the addiction if SSG had 2 tics slower firing rate, but it definitely would had been good decision from the developers, now we are stuck with overpowered SSG that has broken animation.

[Shepardus]

I doubt 2 tics out of around 60 would have made a meaningful difference in the super shotgun's efficacy. You can always try it out for yourself with DeHackEd.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Shepardus

[Jannak]

The one good reason to be addicted to the SSG is because of the Evil Dead films since it's literally the Boomstick well especially the sequels. Both the first Evil Dead and the original Doom only had single barrel shotguns so it fits perfectly with that pattern.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Jannak

[SolaireFan]

The SSG ruined my life. Every waking moment of my day, I crave the sound of the SSG. My life feels empty without my beloved SSG. I have a SSG body pillow, SSG sheets, SSG blankets. I wear SSG clothes and eat pancakes in the shape of the SSG. My life is nothing but SSG.

[banjiepixel]

8 hours ago, Shepardus said:

You can always try it out for yourself with DeHackEd.

 

That is how I noticed it, while making some tweaks to the weapons. My most used tweak is to remove 2 tics from the pistol refire to make accurate tap firing more pleasant to use and giving extra 2 tics to the SSG seems like a good way to rebalance things. Another little tweak that I came up was to remove 1 tic of delay before firing from the shotgun and giving it to SSG so shotgun has 2 tic delay and is 1 tic faster overall while SSG has 4 tic delay and is 1 tic slower overall or 3 tics slower if combined with those 2 tics from the pistol tweak.

 

Probably too minimal changes to actually matter, but based on my own testing, I really like these changes. Of course another little dehacked tweak is to remove SSG from the game unless you use cheats and have every SSG in the game be replaced by a shotgun.

[BGreener]

17 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

So here is something that I noticed today. It does seem like we could had gotten slighty slower firing SSG in Doom 2. It's pretty common knowledge that Doom 2 has a "bug" that causes the muzzle flash frames last longer than the actual firing frame. Muzzle flash animation lasts 9 tics while firing animation lasts 7 tics and it is so strange that these do not match like they do for normal shotgun. Too long SSG muzzle flash animation does actually make it very likely that at some point SSG firing frame was supposed to last 9 tics but for some reason it was changed to lasting just 7 tics, same amount as normal shotgun.

 

Not sure how many people could had avoided the addiction if SSG had 2 tics slower firing rate, but it definitely would had been good decision from the developers, now we are stuck with overpowered SSG that has broken animation.

For the longest time I was under the idea that the SSG’s time to reload was twice as slow as the single barrel, “shoots twice as slow, hits three times as hard”. In reality it’s closer to 1.5 times slower, revealing a wider gap between the super and regular shotgun that I wasn’t aware of.

[wallabra]

So what do you guys say about making the SSG a bit less relied upon in level progression? Put it in optional areas? Areas where using the SSG could be dangerous (like enemies closing in on you so you have to do splash damage, or high DPS like the Plasma)?

[Lucius Wooding]

10 minutes ago, wallabra said:

So what do you guys say about making the SSG a bit less relied upon in level progression? Put it in optional areas? Areas where using the SSG could be dangerous (like enemies closing in on you so you have to do splash damage, or high DPS like the Plasma)?

 

-You can simply restrict shells a bit, although a fair number of people will scream if your map doesn't have tons of shells.

 

-Buff the chaingun using Valiant's super chaingun or similar modifications.

 

-Be fairly generous with bullets and other ammo types, and also you can make good use of priority enemies at long range, like chaingunners and sniping revenants or arachnotrons. It's a choice between sniping safely from behind cover with rockets or chaingun, or making long risky runs at their positions for the SSG to be useful.

 

-Extra rockets are great and satisfying to use, and can sometimes be balanced by tricky arenas making them risky. 

 

-Try to place enemies with partial cover in some cases such as high ground or a window so that pellets are wasted to the vertical spread, making them awkward and wasteful to kill unless another weapon is used. 

 

-Make a map that rewards sniping, or even encourages it through well placed explosive barrels and positions at the same heights as key monsters to easily line up shots without auto aim. 

 

-Make fights that have interesting pacifist strats, like using stealth, infighting, or triggering crushers or telefrags. 

 

-Don't necessarily let the player get close to high monster placements unless you're sure you want to. This blocks out a common tactic against many sniping enemies (especially archviles with their lack of melee) where you hide by hugging the wall beneath them and can back up slightly to blast them at intervals; if you make a blocked space where they can't approach closely, the SSG falls well out of favor. This can be done with hurtfloors or just making a pit or inaccessible space.

 

-Close range combat could be done with cell weapons or with lower HP enemies, and trying to surround the player or force them to deal with multiple spawns is much scarier when you have an SSG out. Similarly, using hitscan in an area without good choke points and not in a single crowd can bring out the chaingun for defensive purposes.

 

Other than that, I think either overwhelming the player where the DPS of the SSG can't keep up with the monster spam isn't the ideal way to accomplish it but it is effective. But you're replacing the SSG with the BFG as the player's pacifier at that point.

[baja blast rd.]

You can normalize gameplay around any weapon. Plenty of Nicolas Monti maps (Mano Laikas especially), some Ozonia, maps like Nova 3 m10, don't rely on SSG and instead give you the RL with abundant rockets instead, and aren't slaughtermaps (Ozonia m02 does this with like 70 monsters), don't do anything special like making you fight at very close-quarters, and aren't trivialized by having lots of rockets like some people might imagine, and you don't even miss the SSG. Can do that with PR too.

 

I think sometimes people think SSG is necessary because they learn inflexible abstractions about monster use. But there's not really a trick to it.

[InfernalMonsoon]

When you learn the SSG is a small piece of your arsenal, like every other weapon, and that your rocket launcher and plasma gun can really help with that heavy lifting, and that the single shotty and chaingun will always have your back against the weaker fiends - only then will you finally be on the path towards enlightenment :)

[wallabra]

On 12/10/2022 at 1:37 AM, Lucius Wooding said:

-Try to place enemies with partial cover in some cases such as high ground or a window so that pellets are wasted to the vertical spread, making them awkward and wasteful to kill unless another weapon is used. 

 

-Make a map that rewards sniping, or even encourages it through well placed explosive barrels and positions at the same heights as key monsters to easily line up shots without auto aim.

 

But I am concerned that too much window dressing could ruin the pacing and flow, and make the cleanup tedious.

[Lucius Wooding]

8 hours ago, wallabra said:

 

But I am concerned that too much window dressing could ruin the pacing and flow, and make the cleanup tedious.

 

I think if the player wants to clean up in the first place, that's their choice. Window dressing is an overused buzzword so don't let it scare you; first of all it only applies to people going for all kills, and second of all it's totally fine unless you use it to excess. You can point to monsters in almost any popular wad that can be considered window dressing, it only becomes a problem if a significant portion of the map length becomes about seeking and chasing down snipers with no dangerous elements left. Even when Dean of Doom uses this term, he's often talking about an additional 80 enemies in a 500 enemy map, where it takes a significant portion of time to clean up on top of already being something that drags.

 

Other options would be, if you're placing sniping enemies in a tough position where they have partial cover, you can always allow access to their location at some point so the player can blast them up close; it would only be tricky to kill them if you do so early but they'd have the option to snipe them out which many players will take. Believe me, more maps do this kind of thing to some extent than you might realize. The entire map doesn't need to be careful creeping either, you can always vary the style in different sections to keep it fresh. You can also save a lot of tedium by making the snipers lightweights, like revenants and below, placing them in groups so they become food for rockets, and definitely place barrels if you want them to be fun to eliminate.

 

I tried to list every option I could think of, so some of them may be incompatible with one another or with your mapping style; in the end it's your choice to find what works. Keep in mind, the player that complains about monster window dressing is often going to be the same one that wants to SSG everything in sight. It's OK to tell them to go kick rocks, experiment with some different ways of accomplishing your goal and see what you find interesting. 

[Decay]

I love the SSG so much I bought 2 of them IRL along with 3 other side by side shotguns.

[Thelokk]

15 minutes ago, Decay said:

I love the SSG so much I bought 2 of them IRL along with 3 other side by side shotguns.

 

[TheHambourgeois]

i think a big part of my recent draw to heretic, aside from nostalgia, is no ssg or bfg. time for plasma and rocket (or their heretic equivalents) play, baby!