DoomRL > Discussion

Call for Uniques/Exotics

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Kornel Kisielewicz:
Okay, here's an open call for exotic/unique item ideas. Before we all go crazy (like many did in the submission thread), here are a couple things to take into account to increase the chances of the weapon making it in:


* items that are references to anime shows, or games/shows/movies that are unrelated in style to Doom (basically joke items like Trigun, Cleaver, GCB, Anti-Freak Jackal) are more or less off the list - there's enough of those already. Items relating to Doom-like games however, are welcome
* if the item would require complex new mechanics (e.g. flamer), or a new sprite (e.g. a sword) it's also off the list
* adding at least a partial code definition for the item is a big plus, don't worry about the exact numbers, I'll tweak them
* in general I'm looking for weapons, possibly other items, that would fit the Doom theme
I hope people here are still alive, and not just waiting for JH :P

Malek Deneith:

--- Quote from: Kornel Kisielewicz on April 02, 2016, 08:48 ---I hope people here are still alive, and not just waiting for JH :P

--- End quote ---

Evilpotatoe:
We're still a few alive, and I guess many will awake, with some JH (or DoomRL) significant news.
(I must say I'm quite surprised to see this question on the DoomRL topic.  I thought JH was taking most, if not all, of your time)

Anyway,
I don't have a precise idea for a weapon right now, but before adding new stuff, I'd rather like to see the useless things improved.
Here are some of my biggest complaints about the current weapon set :


* I'd like some more useful melee weapons in the game.  Currently, except in Ao100, only BC is useful, and melee assemblies are useless too since you basically get them roughly... when reaching UC.
I was really happy about subtle knife and Mjollnir when 0.9.9.7 was released... I've just been disappointed to notice that both were, in the end, useless since you get better weapons on every run (which is, of course, the real problem).
While I hate melee anyway because of red screen, I'm really sad about this free chainsaw at dlvl5.  Seriously, except for some specific challenges (purity anyone ? ^^), missing CC and the free zerk packs never looked like a consistent choice.  UC is even worse, since anyone (even non-melee) with sufficient speed can do it damageless.
I don't want to digress into balance and other issues, but I think it's important not to reproduce this in JH (Inferno mod had a better approach : chainsaw is in a real melee challenge level, and pointless if you don't go melee).  One suggestion about DoomRL would be to improve Mjollnir and Subtle knife so that they become comparable to BC in term of potential (I'd also advocate chainsaw removal from CC but... few would follow me, I guess :)


* I'd like some useful bullets weapons.  Maybe a snipe rifle ?  Hmm.. I'm afraid it would require a new sprite though.  Maybe a dummy-weapon object like "Night visions" then, which would give you +2/+4 sight range when used ? (Both graphisms and code should be easy to recycle from light amp/MCE)

* In the same idea, more findable useful pistols would be good (as a comparison, you get 2 great melee weapons, 2 missile launchers and BFG, but NO combat pistol or blaster !).  I think the main problem here is that pistol build is not well balanced, with terribly weak weapons balanced by insane skills, but I'm going to speak balance again, so I won't developp.  In short, better (or more frequent) pistols, please !  (The assault shotty from mortuary could also be replaced with some ego pistol, since it's completely useless right now)
A few ideas :

* Magnum (yup, firing 10mm xD.  And why not with the "railgun" perk, like in Goldeneye64 ?  It's already in the code base, and would create a funny / different item.  That's "emerging", I love it.)

* Any semi-auto with large clip. Might be close to combat pistol, but burst fire might be cool, and more pistols would imply more chances to drop them.

* Peashooter : crappy damage, like 1d4, but unlimited shots without needing any reload.  I would see it as a "UAC experimental prototype for hardly supplyable zones, which was dropped out because of high costs and questionnable efficiency".

* Overall, "dual reload" should be a Doomguy command (usable only with pistols), not a gun alternate fire.  This is another gun limit, which should ideally be removed (not taking in account the complexity).

* Overall, I would increase ego pistols drop rate. Anyway, if you don't use them, they won't bother you, and else, it will make SoG runs more variated; less boring.  Another alternative could be to make SoG increase those items weight, but I doubt it's the best approach, and it continues in the direction of making that skill balance the whole build's weaknesses.
Note : if you don't drop it in the first few levels, finding a combat pistol will never make you choose to go the pistol way.  Looks like it'd a really interresting aspect (which I find in some other games, like Isaac or FTL), but is missing in DoomRL : you start your game thinking "I'll play a <insert mastery name here>" build, or "I'll hunt <insert badge/medal name here>".  You don't make your choices gradually, depending on the stuff you find / enemies you face / kind of area you explore.
 

* I got no idea for any acid weapon, but it could be another funny stuff.  Hard to find doomish explanation for that, though.  Buffing Acid spitter so that it becomes useful (e.g. improve magazine size) could be great.  Adding a lava equivalent might be nice too, since I doubt lava set would be better than Malek's anyway (btw, doesn't everyone think this one should be nerfed ?)

* Or maybe some "grenade".  Oh yeah, stacks of grenades, like "Throwable bareels" !!  I love this idea, and they might be useful for angels of something.  What about this idea ? (Damnnnnnn... probably needs a sprite :'(  )

* I'm afraid weapons like Charch's pointer, tristar blaster or combat translocator are all useless.  The first mandatory buff seems to reduce their ammo consumtion, but they may remain useless if they add nothing the doomguy can need.  Translocator could have potential, I guess.  Can AoPc even use them ?  They should !

* In the same idea, I don't see any use to Revenant's launcher (1.4sec reload ?!), or even railgun (too specific).  I think such rare items should have more potential.  I don't want overpowered items (like a nuclear plasma rifle), but they should be worth using, at least

* Mega buster could have a nice potential too... if you could switch mode manually.  Having it deal acid vs group of barons, or fire vs revenants, and so on makes it really questionnable.  Does anyone find a use to this ?

Tormuse:
I'm alive!  :D

My opinions of specials that need buffs:

Revenant's Launcher:  In theory, it's a potentially useful weapon for its ability to target specific spots, especially useful in Nightmare! for getting rid of that corpse in the middle of the room you would be otherwise unable to reach, but in practice, I find I never use it.  As Evilpotatoe said, it takes too long to reload and I'd rather have a rocket launcher which I can mod.

Acid-Spitter:  I think I'd like this weapon better if it didn't have to be completely full to fire and didn't discharge all of its ammo at once, like if it used one ammo at a time with smaller acid splashes.  That would make it more versatile.  As it is, situations where its useful are too rare for it to be worth the inventory slot.

Medical Powerarmor:  I've said it before, but I'll say it again:  If my health is below 25% and I have no other way to heal, I'm probably about to die anyway.  Also, if you've taken enough of a beating to be that low on health, it's unlikely that your armour will be in good enough shape to use its durability to heal you and the only way around that would be to switch to this armour only when you're low on health, but who's going to switch in the middle of a fire fight?  There's just no situation where this armour is useful, in my opinion.  I think it should, at the very least, heal you up to 50%.  (All of this applies to the regular medical armour too)

Megabuster:  As it is, there's too much randomness to make this a reliable weapon.  I like Evilpotatoe's idea of making firing mode manually changeable.  (It fits better with the theme of Megaman's gun too)  Another possible idea for your consideration:  What if you could switch ammo types that it uses too?  A weapon that could fire all four ammo types could be very interesting, though it would probably be overpowered unless it has reduced efficiency or something.  Maybe you could make it a kind of "Jack of all trades, master of none" kind of weapon, a good back-up to have in case you run out of your preferred ammo type.  (Side note:  I don't particularly mind the Megabuster being overpowered, since Megaman is basically one of my all time favourite games ever)  :D

Charch's Null Pointer:  What does this weapon even do?!?  :|  I've read the description on the Wiki and it sounds like it's supposed to slow enemies down for one second?  (Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding this)  But in practice, even with sustained fire at a single enemy, they keep coming at me, seemingly at the same speed.  (From the description on the Wiki, I would've thought that sustained fire would completely stop them from moving)  I get that this weapon was thrown in as a programming joke, ("The Demon crashes" is a funny line)  :)  but it would be nice if it had some usefulness too like maybe it could permanently reduce an enemy's speed, or at least use less ammo?  (p.s.  who is Charch, anyway?)

Mjollnir:  I like the idea of a melee weapon that you have unlimited ability to throw, (one of my favourite weapons to use in Nethack)  :)  but this one definitely needs a buff.  As it is, it does less damage than a bulk-modded combat knife, so I'd like the damage increased.  (with maybe a message like "Lightning strikes the Demon!")  :D  The current throwing range could be increased too; as it is, generally speaking, if you're using a melee build, and your target is 5 tiles away, you might as well just run over there and for any other build, you'd be better off just shooting them with a regular weapon.

Frag Shotgun:  Please reduce the firing time.  This could be a useful weapon if it didn't fire so slowly.  As it is, I'd much rather use a chaingun for my bullets, so the only situation I would use this weapon is if I was playing Angel of Shotgunnery, and even then, only if I was truly desperate and somehow completely ran out of shells, because having a weapon that fires so slowly is very dangerous.  The slow firing time completely kills any usefulness of this weapon.

Plasma Shotgun:  Just a reminder that you probably want to fix the full reload bug.  (As much fun as it is to exploit)  :D

Combat Translocator:  Only mentioning this one because Evilpotatoe brought it up.  There have been a couple of occasions that I've put it to use, like sending away a Cyberdemon I didn't want to deal with yet in Angel of 100, but it's true that it's very situational and in most cases, I'd rather use that inventory slot for something else.  I like the idea of a weapon that isn't "actually a weapon," (probably could do with some more, actually) but I'm not sure how this could be altered to make it fit in better.  (Come to think of it, it would be really nice to find this in an Angel of Humanity game to help me isolate troublesome enemies)  :)  I'd be tempted to just leave this weapon as it is.

As for new unique/exotic suggestions...  I've had the idea rattling around in my brain for a while of having "Boots of Butt-kicking."  (Doesn't actually have to be called that)  :P  Boots that double your melee damage for fists only and no other melee weapons.  (Doesn't have to be doubled; maybe just increased a little)  It makes sense to me that if Doomguy has some hardy boots on, he would probably be kicking his enemies rather than punching them.  (this doesn't mean I'm suggesting dialogue changes; "you hit the demon" still works fine and it would probably be too much trouble to change it to "you kick the demon")  I imagine this could work well as an exotic item to complement your arsenal, or as a unique, in which case it could possibly have a small speed boost too?  (10%?)  And when you pick them up, it could say something like, "You feel like kicking ass," or "It's time to kick ass!"  :)  (And if you want to call them the "Tormuse boots," I have no objection)  :D

Thomas:
I also live. I agree with basically all of your opinions on specials, don't even know why I'm here posti


--- Quote from: Tormuse on April 04, 2016, 05:42 ---Medical Powerarmor:  I've said it before, but I'll say it again: it stinks
and medical armor sucks too >:(

--- End quote ---

oooh what the
where have you said this, I'm gonna fight ya

Your argument boils down to "what kind of lunatic is going to go down to critical HP without dying, finish the fight without using their HP pack(s) in their inventory as though nothing is wrong and then elect to heal themselves back up to 26% as though that's enough for ANYTHING?"

You see Thomas (Pointing to self with thumbs, almost dead)

Medical armor is fantastic, especially if it shows up early, and I'll hear no complaints - it has good stats for the early game (-5% movespeed compared to blue, but waayy better resistances) and heavily rewards my moronic playstyle. Squeezing out that extra 7 HP before I use the small medpack to put me back on 60% is so good.

But I do agree on medical powerarmor. I use it anyway because I can't help who I am, but it's just not as good. It shows up later when critical HP scenarios are harder to set up, and it has no resistances so it doesn't compare well to basic armor. It's a unique, and being on low HP is great, so instead of bumping the threshold up to 50% it should double down on the critical gimmick. When I put it on (or have it on already) and I'm on 20% HP it should do something nuts.

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