Shotgun / Flak Cannon problem

I'm still working on my Doom Metroidvania and I think I've got my design down pretty solid.

Basically I want have the player to almost immediately have a handful of weapons available.

-Combat Knife
-Pistol
-Shotgun
-Sniper Rifle

As the game goes on you gain 8 more weapons, 4 of which replace these starter weapons.

Since they are being replaced, I need to make sure that they are objectively better versions.

The replacements are
-Plasma Sword (Like Halo)
-Assault Rifle
-Flak Cannon (Like Unreal)
-Railgun

-Plasma Sword attacks just as fast, but has more range, does more damage, and allows you to fly to the target with alt fire.

-Assault Rifle is fully automatic, has a larger clip, and does more damage.

-Railgun can hit multiple targets, doesn't reload, and treats all hits as critical.

-Shotgun is where things get iffy, and this is where I'm stuck.

The Shotgun (as it stands) does raycast projectiles (instant) and has iron sights as an alt fire.

The Flak Cannon (as it stands) shoots moving projectiles that bounce off of surfaces and alt fire throws contact grenades.

So 1) you permanently lose iron sights and 2) the shots are projectiles are not instant.

So I need to bring these together in a way that the Flak Cannon doesn't lose anything at all.

Option 1) I was thinking that I can make the Flak Cannon instant, but still bounce one time if the angle is not too steep (which would avoid shooting yourself, for better or worse). But then the iron sites are permanently lost.

Option 2) The other option is to start off as the Flak Cannon to begin with, and then get a better version that also lobs grenades. But then it doesn't feel like a large enough jump in value AND I feel like people will be bummed out without a "super shotgun".

Option 3) I can do a shotgun and a super shotgun, then just ditch the flak cannon altogether, and instead contact grenades as an alt fire to Assault Rifle. Of course that means that then the Assault Rifle doesn't have iron sites.

Option 4) I can separate Flak Cannon from Shotgun altogether. But then I need to remove another weapon. Possibly Combat Knife and Plasma Sword and just make melee it's own dedicated button. But then Flak Cannon and Shotgun seem redundant.



What would you do and what am I not thinking of?

 

Do you need to take the starter weapons away? That's where I'd address this. Being objectively better is not the same as being a good replacement.

Assuming that these are weapons 1 - 4 and selected with the relevant keyboard number key, why not have 1 toggle between Pistol and Assault Rifle, 2 toggle between Shotty and Flak Cannon, and so on?

Personally, while an Assault Rifle may be "objectively better" than a Pistol it doesn't feel the same to use, so I wouldn't want you insisting that I use one over the other. Similarly, I love the sound of a solid, deep video game shotgun in a way that Flak Cannon sounds just don't satisfy, so even if it's mechanically superior I might still want to bust out the Shotty from time to time.

Another thought is, do you need to replace them or can you upgrade them? Say, by adding a "mode" to each? The new Wolfenstein games do that, with one being their assault rifle switching between hitscan bullets which are great at one thing and physics projectiles which are great at another. That said, if you're giving players a choice then you should give them a reason to use each option, and that sounds like scope creep to me if the orignal intent was "same thing, more damage".

Oh, also... could you just slow down the speed of the base shotgun's projectiles? It doesn't need to be hitscan.

 

I have had this thought, but I'm against it for a couple reasons.

1) It's messy. I don't want players double clicking. I want the controls to be zippy and fun.

2) There are 8 directions on a D-Pad.

3) The point of the game that I was going for was that it starts off with an emphasis on critical hits and iron sites, but as you get more weapons the combat naturally mutates from military shooter to quake esq shooter.

I will say that one consideration I've had was that you can add weapons to an arsenal, then pick only 4 weapons between check points.

True.

And I'm currently trying to do a greatest play-lists of weapons.

Limiting myself to:
-Combat Knife
-Plasma Sword
-Pistol
-Assault Rifle
-Shotgun
-Flak Cannon
-Sniper Rifle
-Railgun
-Flame Thrower
-Rocket Launcher / Grenade Launcher
-Plasma Cannon / BFG
-Lightning Gun / Plus a new mechanic

But this list is missing some favorites:
-Magnum
-Super Shotgun
-Crossbow
-Needler

I'm not wanting that complicated of a system. Both for my players, and for me to make.

I had that thought, too. I think it's not a Shotgun unless it's instant.

Seems like the most reasonable choice is to have the player find weapons and then be able to equip four at each save room.

I can just have them appear on the walls as they get unlocked so I don't even need some sloppy menu slowing the game down.

 

I'd rethink that. I've used a lot of gamepads, and as soon as there's even slight wear they don't have 4 reliable directions, let alone 8.

For reference see the Ratchet and Clank games. They allow 8 weapons equipped at a time, but they don't do it via the d-pad. You hold triangle and use the left stick. D-pads just aren't reliable enough for that.

That's a huge change to the design compared to having 8 weapons available at once per the opening post. Note that one of the neat things about new weapons in games like Doom isn't just new ways to shoot things, it's also a bunch more ammo you have access to at any one time. If you limit people to 4 weapons then you're clamping one of their power curves. Not necessarily bad, but don't overlook it.

Another consideration is the d-pad thing, but with a modifier key. Eg: d-pad alone selects between weapons 1-4, hold LB and it selects weapons 5-8. And you can use LB on its own to quick-swap to the previous weapon.

 

Oh, I assure you the buttons are all used up and I’m still shy one.

That said, I have a really good system for the DPad and actually made a point of testing is on a beater controller.

I have a weapon handler script that pays attention to rather or not the Dpad vector is not (0, 0).

If it’s not it goes into a very quick timer of 0.1 seconds.

If at any point it goes back to (0, 0) the timer stops.

If it reaches the end the script looks at the positions it’s in and assigns it the appropriate weapon if it is available.

meanwhile it also tracks the last weapon used for a last weapon button.

AND that 0.1 second is deducted to the weapon swap animation so you don’t lose any time picking a specific weapon, other than the time spent thinking about it.

Very snappy and very accidental selection free.


THAT said, yeah I have considered the ammo. And it’s actually in the “pro” column. One issue I’m facing is I want over powered weapons that are balanced by less max ammo.

So the problem is that the player doesn’t need to ration if he has 8 weapons.

Four, on the other hand, leads to some interesting choices and has players re-deliberate after failing a section.

And of course they can ditch weapons at any point to get other ones as they become available.

 

Might be more fun to let the player customize their own loadout. They get 4 weapon slots and as weapons unlock they can swap out an existing weapon. Maybe the player doesn't like melee weapons and would rather have an additional gun? Maybe they want both the shotgun and the flak cannon at the same time because blow away whatever is right in front of them is their style? Might make for more fun replays of the game letting them choose alternate loadouts.

As far as redundant weapons, old school Doom 2 did just fine with both the plain shotgun and super shotgun. I remember regularly switching between the two as I felt appropriate. Never felt redundant.

 

Yeah, after talking with @angrypenguin thats exactly what I’m doing.

But I think I’m going to have weapons effect walk speed like in Counter Strike to make the small arms viable.

But maybe leave dash the same speed so you aren’t forced to always carry a light weapon.

 

Personally, I'm one for fewer, bigger differences when I'm adding stuff to my game. So to start with I'd go ahead and make weapon size also impact the dash, because it's an obvious difference which will emphasise the strengths and weaknesses of each. Then iterate when you've got player feedback.

I must admit, I think that's good, but largely because of the d-pad thing still. Grabbing an Xbox One controller the d-pad does have a distinct click in each direction, though, so maybe they're not as unreliable as the impression in my head. I'm remembering PS3 and X360 controllers where mixing axes was decidedly inconsistent, so doing anything diagonal was hit and miss.

 

Doom is my jam. The two shotguns in Doom II weren’t redundant, because the super shot gun wasn’t simply a more powerful shotgun, they had completely separate functions in the sandbox. The single barrel was a long range weapon, capable of killing an imp across the map. The super shotgun was only a valid option in close range but delivered as much punch as a rocket.