DRL > Requests For Features
Alternative Fire modes for weapons
tisiphone:
Warning: Big post.
Ok, firstly, this might not be Doom-ish feature (strictly speaking) but is definitely done in shoot-‘em-ups so theme-wise I think it could go quite well. Secondly, this seems to me like quite an obvious idea, so I did a little bit of searching and I don’t find anyone suggested it before. Meaning this could be my genius idea that is so simple none dared to think it or something everyone dismissed after a seconds thought as a stupid idea. My apologies if it is the latter.
My idea is to give every (or nearly every) weapon in the game an alternative firing mode (sort of like the overload with the plasma rifle and the BFG but with out the weapon being destroyed). This would inevitably make weapons more versatile (for better or worse) which should be considered when thinking about specific ideas. Hopefully it would mean that a player has a larger wealth of tactical choices to make and would make otherwise very similar weapons differ subtly.
Here are some specific ideas on weapons alternative fires:
Fists –
Fists could be used to perform an enraging deathblow to send Doomguy in to berserk as long as the hit kills that enemy and weapons are not changed afterwards. It should take longer to perform then the usual punching with the fists. I think it will not be too unbalancing to have an unarmed marine go berserk after each kill (if used wisely) since as far as I know fists are only used by Angels of Berserk in the first level (or so) this will make the levels just a bit easer without effecting the rest of the game and giving a bit of variety in possibilities.
Combat Knife –
I think this was already discussed but in terms of a trait, if I remember correctly. I think it could work to allow you to throw the knife at an enemy with the price of not having it equipped after the throw (obviously). The damage should be a bit more then a normal stab with a knife to make it a bit more worthwhile. I think it would be especially good for Angel of Berserk because it would make sense to carry other things then armour and med-packs and would offer more tactical possibilities then currently available.
I’m letting someone else argue over wherever the knife should be recyclable or not after the throw.
Chainsaw –
This idea was also discussed as a trait. A chainsaw could be used to inflict a grievous wound causing the enemy to bleed. The attack should take slightly more time then a normal attack and should be balanced so that it makes sense to use this attack on high health enemies. The bleeding should drain more health then you would have taken off by simply attacking if the enemy survives after a certain time fresh-hold. There is a possibility of abuse if you can run in – attack – and run away, but that’s why I suggest longer time to attack as the enemy (if melee) can retaliate before you move away or (if not melee) shoot after you moved away.
All this assumes that you can gain experience from enemies that bleed to death.
Pistol –
I can’t really think of what would be appropriate for the pistol... I thought of some kind of gangster mode where you would shoot more recklessly to shoot faster but it wouldn’t really be at all any different form just shooting normally except it would use more ammo. Also had an idea of some kind of automatic mode where the pistol would fire bursts like the Chaingun but that would make it too much like a Chaingun in my opinion. Something would be good though as an addition to Angel of Marksmanship...
Shotgun –
An alternative attack could be a form of pistol-wiping (except with a butt of a shotgun) to knock back enemies one space or so. This should do minimal damage but be quite quick to do. I imagine it being used to keep melee opponents at bay to give you some more time to reload. Obviously it shouldn’t stop melee attacks from being effective; it should just give you a bit more room to manoeuvre.
Combat Shotgun –
I imagine a combat shotgun could be set to automatic where you would empty the whole lot of 5 shells at one specific target. It should have reduced damage and take less time to do then to empty the shells one by one. The purpose of this is to allow greater damage output to more enduring enemies at the cost of ammunition.
Double Shotgun –
Another weapon I can’t really think of anything that would be cool and practical to use. I suppose you could have the same thing as you have with the normal shotgun but it would not be nearly as an impressive of an upgrade as with the combat shotgun.
Chaingun –
The chaingun could have an alternative action that will accelerate the spin of the barrels and add one more shoot to the burst of standard 5. This should be caped at 3 extra bursts to guaranty that the plasma rifle will remain a better weapon regardless of the situation. The extra shoots will be lost if any action other then firing or using alternative action will be taken. I see this being useful for situations where you know you aren’t going to stop shooting for a while and could use some extra fire power. The down sides of this action is that you could have (perhaps) better spent the time shooting at enemies if there isn’t that many of then and that it will inevitably use more ammo.
Rocket Launcher –
Yup, don’t really have any good ideas here either. I was thinking of something along the lines of a heat seeking missile but that would not have much of a gameplay effect as (in my experience) rocket launchers don’t miss that often. Another possibility would be to have something along the lines of a grenade mode (where missiles would bounce of the walls) or a mode where you could shoot at the ground but I think something along those lines was already suggested and rejected. I also thought of an idea of a small explosion missile mode where the splash damage area would be smaller but I think that sort of ruins the idea of the rocket launcher.
Plasma Rifle –
An alternative fire for this weapon would be to make a piercing ray of plasma (yes, I know plasma isn’t a laser but that’s really not here or there) to cut through all the enemies in the path. Would be good in corridors as the ray would just travel through one enemy in a straight line and hit who ever is behind and keep on going until it hits a wall or travels a certain distance. Should have reduced damage compared to the normal fire (and if possible minimum knock-back).
BFG 9000 –
I think you and me know this is just begging for some kind of ass-kicking supper-cool fire option.
The alternative fire / effect could be activated by pressing “F” (as in the capital of [f]ire) or if that’s a bit confusing then by pressing “a” for [a]alternative fire / effect (I don’t think the letter “a” is used for anything yet). The alternative effect could be shown as:
Plasma Rifle (1d8)×8 / (XdY)×Z [40/40]
... I think I blabbed enough, I guess I need to know what you people think now.
DisaffectedBeta:
How about for the pistol you take a bit of time to aim, and automatically hit and do maximum damage? Or maybe automatically cause a bleeding effect? Or all three? Gahha--aaahah! *goes crazy*
knlbr:
--- Quote from: DisaffectedBeta on August 13, 2007, 09:56 ---How about for the pistol you take a bit of time to aim, and automatically hit and do maximum damage? Or maybe automatically cause a bleeding effect? Or all three? Gahha--aaahah! *goes crazy*
--- End quote ---
Pistol: Gangsta mode
shoots with pistols sideways, 1.2x faster and 0.8x as accurate
Chaingun: Mini-gun spin-off
same as pistol: 1.2x faster, 0.8x accurate
Rocket Launcher: Mini rockets
deals half as much damage and has 2 less squares as splash, but takes 3 shots to deplete 1 "rocket".
Plasma Gun: Rail Gun - what OP suggested.
BFG: Weaken Burst
Non-projectile burst that hits every monster the character can see. takes 5 cells and deals much lower damage, but makes enemies slower.
Chainsaw: Mad swipes
Attacks 3 times in one action, with the problem that it's 2x as slower as a normal attack and half as accurate.
LS: Holy Aura
Like a V's blast, weaker than the LS's base attack, around your character. good when you're being mobbed.
tisiphone:
Hope it’s ok if I give some constructive criticisms.
--- Quote from: knlbr ---Pistol: Gangsta mode
shoots with pistols sideways, 1.2x faster and 0.8x as accurate
Chaingun: Mini-gun spin-off
same as pistol: 1.2x faster, 0.8x accurate
--- End quote ---
The problem with increasing the speed and decreasing the accuracy or vice versa, in my humble opinion, is that it has very little implications on the gameplay. Shooting faster increases the damage output, shooting with less accuracy decreases the damage output. So overall it vaguely balances out to be exactly like shooting normally (in your example it actually works out to be a tiny damage decrease). Admittedly there are side effects such as shooting faster would mean you could change your target more often and shooting with less accurately would mean using more ammo for the same damage but I don’t think (in this case) that the advantage will be noticeable as its not often you overkill someone with a pistol and the disadvantage will eventually stack up against you.
--- Quote from: knlbr ---Rocket Launcher: Mini rockets
deals half as much damage and has 2 less squares as splash, but takes 3 shots to deplete 1 "rocket".
--- End quote ---
I have nothing against this. Just to make things neater I would change the amount of rockets a rocket launcher can have loaded to three and increase the rocket stacks by three times so one “mini rocket” will be just one rocket and the “normal” fire being three rockets fired at the same time.
--- Quote from: knlbr ---BFG: Weaken Burst
Non-projectile burst that hits every monster the character can see. takes 5 cells and deals much lower damage, but makes enemies slower.
--- End quote ---
That would be quite cool to have in my opinion, if Kornel doesn’t mind adding extra game mechanics that this would require like slowing enemies down and the like. I would probably also increase the number of power cells that attack would require to about 20 or so as it seems pretty powerful. Anyone got any other ideas that they think would be cool for the BFG?
--- Quote from: knlbr ---Chainsaw: Mad swipes
Attacks 3 times in one action, with the problem that it's 2x as slower as a normal attack and half as accurate.
--- End quote ---
I don’t really understand what you mean by attacks 3 times in one action but twice as slower... probably a game mechanic I haven’t got the grasp of yet. Anyone mind enlightening me?
--- Quote from: knlbr ---LS: Holy Aura
Like a V's blast, weaker than the LS's base attack, around your character. good when you're being mobbed.
--- End quote ---
I really like this idea. It has my vote.
--- Quote from: tisiphone ---Combat Shotgun –
I imagine a combat shotgun could be set to automatic where you would empty the whole lot of 5 shells at one specific target. It should have reduced damage and take less time to do then to empty the shells one by one. The purpose of this is to allow greater damage output to more enduring enemies at the cost of ammunition.
--- End quote ---
I had some second thoughts about this idea. The intention was that you could do more damage providing you have a full magazine, have some shells to spare and could take a beating from whoever can shoot at you for however long it takes to empty out your shells. Firstly it seems a bit too specific and secondly assuming that this attack takes approximately 4 / 3 times more time then a single shot, it would mean you would have to take a huge amount of risk even if you are at full health as in that time you could easily be reduced to nothing and you will not have the opportunity to stop and use a med-pack. So to fix this I would like to change the number of shells shot in a burst to 3 shells so you don’t have to have a fully loaded combat shotgun to use this and it wouldn’t be as risky.
Anyway I would still like to hear wherever people would like this to be added or not to the game. Comments of any sort are welcomed.
knlbr:
--- Quote from: tisiphone on August 15, 2007, 09:42 ---(stuff)
--- Quote from: knlbr ---Chainsaw: Mad swipes
Attacks 3 times in one action, with the problem that it's 2x as slower as a normal attack and half as accurate.
--- End quote ---
I don’t really understand what you mean by attacks 3 times in one action but twice as slower... probably a game mechanic I haven’t got the grasp of yet. Anyone mind enlightening me?
(stuff)
--- End quote ---
One action as in, you press F to do the special attack. that's "an action". it takes several "turns", and is a single "action".
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