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[Aki]

Instead of continuing to talk about this in the small questions thread, I thought this might deserve it's own topic:

I said we need more melee bases. The only normal melee base is the knife. For pistols, only one is the pistol. Shotgun has 3 different bases, and chainfire has 2.

And I see more Shotgun/Chainfire random specials than pistol or melee.

Technically unarmed is a melee base too, since Sunrise Iron Fist.
But personally I wouldn't mind having a better non-unique/exotic melee weapon that's a step up from the combat knife. Maybe like a...sword or something.

* White Rider tries to imagine a Doomguy with a sword and gothic armor

I suppose this discussion could be extended to pistols somewhat, although they seem fine to me.

What do you think?

[2birds1stone]

I would be very happy and laugh very hard if swords were introduced as an exotic.

Would chainsword then change to a sword assembly, and would a knife assembly/knives get buffed?

What about, I dunno, a hook-chain-type-weapon which pulls enemies in from a distance? High initial damage but you're then restricted to using fists until you kill them?

[Aki]

I would be very happy and laugh very hard if swords were introduced as an exotic.

Would chainsword then change to a sword assembly, and would a knife assembly/knives get buffed?

What about, I dunno, a hook-chain-type-weapon which pulls enemies in from a distance? High initial damage but you're then restricted to using fists until you kill them?

Not bad ideas, the hook-chain might be hard to impliment, but how would you balance it?

[thelaptop]

By its centre of mass.

I'm moving towards no more melee "base" weapons.  If there's anything to add though, it would be knuckledusters -- small boost to fist-only and still believable in the Doom-verse.

[LuckyDee]

Have a look at the WH40K weapons list: swords, hammers, axes, power fists...

I must say I like the hook+chain idea, too.

[Aki]

By its centre of mass.

I'm moving towards no more melee "base" weapons.  If there's anything to add though, it would be knuckledusters -- small boost to fist-only and still believable in the Doom-verse.

This would be a great idea. If I remember correctly the punching sprite from Doom actually had brass knuckles or something similar on it, if that's what you're referring to.

@Lucky: Those are all cool, but they'd be hard to balance which is the real issue here. Perhaps some of them, like say, the power sword or the chainfist could be implimented as uniques. Something perhaps like the power sword, which could start out as 5d5 and then be altfired or altreloaded at the cost of 20-30 plasma cells to increase damage to 7d7 or something. But that might take focus away from the Longinus/Scythe or Dragonslayer.

[White Rider]

I only mentioned swords in my original post because I remembered that Sword of the Stars: The Pit has three different melee skill stats that can be leveled: melee, knives, and blades. The difference is that knives attack directly adjacent to your character (which, in the case of SotS:TP, is limited to the cardinal directions--none of that diagonal movement/attacking stuff), while blades attack a row in front of you.

I do like the idea of a Doomguy using some brass knuckles. Just got an interesting image of a gentlemanly Doomguy squaring off with the hordes of Hell with some good ol' fisticuffs. May or may not be complete with a top hat and a monocle. :|

[Aki]

I only mentioned swords in my original post because I remembered that Sword of the Stars: The Pit has three different melee skill stats that can be leveled: melee, knives, and blades. The difference is that knives attack directly adjacent to your character (which, in the case of SotS:TP, is limited to the cardinal directions--none of that diagonal movement/attacking stuff), while blades attack a row in front of you.

I do like the idea of a Doomguy using some brass knuckles. Just got an interesting image of a gentlemanly Doomguy squaring off with the hordes of Hell with some good ol' fisticuffs. May or may not be complete with a top hat and a monocle. :|

Perhaps it could be a 1d4 base with a low weight, like the ammochain or something, with only the piercing assembly possible. (Or no assemblies? Just moddable). Or perhaps appear in place of the chainsaw in the chained courts if all kills up to that point are fist only. The only thing I can really see this breaking is perhaps the Strongman Diamond badge, but all that will really do is cut down time (Because unless you have a cybernano cybernetic armor or something you'll still be needing to kite things. And I don't even know how to kite anything that's not the Angel of Death.)

[White Rider]

Obviously if you have knuckledusters equipped while trying to get a Sunrise Iron Fist-related badge then it wouldn't count. The wording would change to "clear no weapons equipped".

[2birds1stone]

If knuckledusters have such low damage and don't count for Iron Fist relatives, then what's the point in them?

The only possibilities I see is either changing a Strongman badge to knuckledusters-only (not sure I like that), or to have knuckledusters not take up an equipment slot (which could actually make some degree of sense, though it would also mean that there'd be no reason not to equip them).

Not bad ideas, the hook-chain might be hard to impliment, but how would you balance it?

Once you've used it, you would be chained to the enemy; movement would be heavily slowed, and you'd be subject to melee attacks from them until they were killed. You probably couldn't use it against knockback-immune enemies; also, the speed at which the enemy is dragged towards you should be fast but finite (so hitting an enemy at edge of LOS could actually subject you a round of attacks or two)

[Aki]

If knuckledusters have such low damage and don't count for Iron Fist relatives, then what's the point in them?

That's pretty much what I was thinking - it'd just be wasted development time.

The only possibilities I see is either changing a Strongman badge to knuckledusters-only (not sure I like that), or to have knuckledusters not take up an equipment slot (which could actually make some degree of sense, though it would also mean that there'd be no reason not to equip them).

Unless it was noticably better (like 2d3 or something) then it'd probably still have to be equipped - the flavour text doesn't really have to be changed ("fists only").

Once you've used it, you would be chained to the enemy; movement would be heavily slowed, and you'd be subject to melee attacks from them until they were killed. You probably couldn't use it against knockback-immune enemies; also, the speed at which the enemy is dragged towards you should be fast but finite (so hitting an enemy at edge of LOS could actually subject you a round of attacks or two)

What kind of initial damage are you thinking then?

[raekuul]

Um.

The main thing that sets DoomRL apart from other Roguelikes is DoomRL's emphasis on ranged combat. I would presume that the lack of low-level regular melee weapons is more a design decision than anything else.

That being said, I would like to see another regular melee weapon and another regular "pistol" type weapon.

[2birds1stone]

What kind of initial damage are you thinking then?

I wasn't really thinking at that level of specificicity, but here are my quick thoughts:

3d5 damage is enough to kill a former a little under half the time (42%). This is a low enough chance that you can't use it and expect to not be burdened in the thick of combat, but the average damage of nine means that you should brutalise individual formers. With Bru2, this would now be true of Imps. Demons would still fuck you up, and anything tankier would require a melee specialist character to take on.

if it dealt less damage than that, it probably wouldn't be very useful without mechanics like bleed damage, or the ability to quickly ungrapple and weapon-switch (which would probably be overpowered given the double shotgun).

EDIT: I really like the idea of a new basic pistol too, but I'm not convinced it's feasible. I don't feel there are enough alternate mechanics to explore in the pistol family for a new basic pistol to not be either a treat to balance or just worse than existing pistols, unless anyone has any thoughts to the contrary.

[thelaptop]

Obviously if you have knuckledusters equipped while trying to get a Sunrise Iron Fist-related badge then it wouldn't count. The wording would change to "clear no weapons equipped".

We have planned for some rather odd but interesting medals in 0.9.9.8 up for testing with regards to weapon-challenges: there is something even more dastardly than Sunrise Iron Fist up for grabs.  Also, for non-weapon specific challenges we also have medals prepared for those who decide to voluntarily restrict their weapon choice of death -- might end up being a little more difficult than regular weapon-restrictions because you don't get much of a boon from the get-go.  On the plus side, we're only counting kills with a weapon class, so...

Knuckledusters won't add random damage -- I think they should give a flat damage rate equivalent to one level of Bru.  It'll be silly if the combat knife doesn't outclass the knuckleduster, right?

And yes, you can probably mod knuckledusters.  I don't see why not.  Maybe a master assembly can give perma-zerk or something outlandish, but still limited up to the damage given by one level of Bru (so the DS doesn't get outclassed).

Edit: Mixed up the ordering of the nouns.

[Aki]

Stop teasing about 0.9.9.8 stuff! It's so exciting! Release the beta already >_<!

As for knuckledusters, i'm not sure what can be done with the engine but perhaps they could work like the backpack and simply add 3/2 to your melee damage and melee tohit. I was thinking perhaps when you use a mod you check for whether or not you have the knuckleduster powerup so you can "mod" the powerup or base time of your fists or something, but I have no experience with the code or anything.

The combat knife outclassing the knuckleduster isn't something that's really silly. In real life for instance, a knife will rip and tear guts much better then even a heavyweight boxer's punch. In video games, the progression seems to be from fists to blades to bigger blades anyway.

Although that did give me an idea - perhaps weapons with damage similar to enemy melee attacks could be introduced (Like a (1d6+1)x4 chaingun). Perhaps this could even be used to improve something like MSc - rename it something else and have it enhance the effects of certain modpacks - P mods on rapidfire weapons now add 1 damage similar to SoB instead of adding one side to the die, as an example.

In regards to pistols - I don't really think there's much you can do with them as a *base*. Pistols are pretty "boring" as a weapon.