kill the sargeant to get the shotgun

Wait, what? Hurtfloors are a great part of Doom. I love the predictability of the damage ticks. When I've been playing a bunch and get into a flow state I don't even have to put thought into working around the rhythm which is incredibly satisfying. It's one of many things that make understanding the games deeper mechanics more fun, like the BFG tracers. I have played tons of maps with poor execution in their use but that again comes down to implementation not the specific mechanic. 

I guess, as often happens with you, you were expecting a echo chamber or something? How quaint, leaving the stage when others happen to to disagree with you. Can't decide if it's more entitled, or childish. Probably both.

The only thing i hate is when a mapset starts with a "pistol only" level, with no berserk, not even a chainsaw, and then throws 50 imps, former humans and sometimes even pinkies at me. When that happens, i'll be begging for a shotgunner to pistol, so i can get my weapon. So many mapsets do this bullshit, some even claiming to be Knee-Deep in the Dead remakes, and it makes me wonder, has anyone of these creators played E1M1 on ultra violence? Romero showed how it's done 31 years ago.

Can also rocket hordes of imps, berserk punch pinkies, two tap a cyber with a bfg etc and have done all these things countless times. Some people will have subjective opinions on all those things but I wouldn't say any is objectively bad. Romero used e1m1 to introduce some core elements for at least his vision of the game so I do think it's fair to use as an example. Shouldn't be the 'be all end all' for the discussion though. My intention was to be a bit light hearted when I brought it up since I'm not a Romero worshiper despite thinking his maps are generally solid. I think a more interesting map for this discussion would actually be e3m1. No dependence on a shotgunguy for a drop but you still end up having to pistol quite a bit. I always pistol all the imps and shotgun the cacos/pinkies. It doesn't bother me but I won't argue that pistoling all the imps is a little tedious. That tedium doesn't come from how Sandy gave the player the shotgun though. It came from the limited shells he provided. I think the issue lies more with resources and progression. If you want to make a case against forced use of the pistol for a prolonged time I could certainly entertain that. I've played plenty of maps that did that poorly. It can be done well but often isn't.

I think there are compelling arguments for things to consider when using shotgunners as the only source of the weapon though. Autoswithing being a big one. I've played many maps where I wouldn't get the shotgun until I already had the ssg then either accidentally or had to grab a dropped one forcing an autoswitch at an inopportune time. I think it's good practice to either give out a shotgun well before an ssg or to only have only one or the other in a map. There is also the matter of doors nuking items from existence. I have ran into maps where I was stuck with a pistol longer than I would have liked due to this. The level of annoyance from this varied but it was always a non-zero level.

Suck my big (content removed) (content removed) to get the cum

Love the pistol start. Sometimes I don't even switch immediately from pistol even when I get my first shotgun. I like to waste few bullets even on imps before I decide to. Wish to play some maps where you are desperate for some weapon and takes time.

Early pistol play against a lot of early low-tier setups is fun. The initial skirmish, or even tactical slowplay, to yoink the first shotgun from wherever it is is welcome. But when it comes to killing imps with pistol over and over again, at some point very quickly I always want the single shotgun instead - I'd rather fight two+ imps in a slightly more intricate setup than compared to a lesser amount of imps with pistol only. And a single click per kill is smoother in my opinion if you aren't going for hyper methodical gameplay.

Though even when you have the shotgun, likewise, once you get to scenarios of even "Pinky/Revenant vs Shotgun only" combat, that also gets a little slow and you'd rather just SSG|Rocket|Plasma stuff instead. The goalpost moves even here.

I feel some overlap with the "Doors with Health" criticism w.r.t. Barons of Hell too. Nothing wrong with Barons, per se, but there are gameplay consequences to them besides "look, cool pink demi-boss monster oooooh".

Also, shoutouts to Green Armor. I've played enough Ironmans to realize the first map is often the hardest in this context, because, pertaining to this thread, you don't start with much resources and die pretty fast with 100hp|0arm before you get yourself situated.

I'm not limiting creativity, youre limiting creativity. Youre countering my thread topic to tell people "dont waste your time thinking about ways to innovate your gameplay beyond what the first room in E1M1 does because thats perfect so just copy that." When you do the gimmick, you force your player to get their shotgun this way which takes away player autonomy. When the map has a shotgun and you pick it up; your pistol doesnt dissappear. you can still plink your shotgun guys with your little beretta if you so choose. More power to you. If thats the way you like your Doom, go wild. I don't.




Literally making my argument for me and framing it like a counterargument. Where was your elven wand in this situation? In your fucken inventory, collecting dust i bet. The monsters dont drop ethereal crossbows in this game, brave adventurer. The mapper has to place em on the map.

If you run back and forth from cover between each shot you'll never get shot unless you play on Nightmare.
Safe doomin'.

How is he "countering your thread" by sharing his opinion in a respectful and effortful post? Better yet, why do you think that someone sharing their preferences somehow limits the creativity of other people? I thought his post was great and didn't take it as him literally telling anyone to do anything (other than what they want to do).

For me, whether or not I enjoy killing the sergeant to get the shotgun depends on whether the mapper made it fun or not... just like rocketing some revenants, like other people said. It's low enough on my list of peeves that I never even really thought about it. If anything, it's just the beginning of the typical Doom power ladder. Why skip a step? Should we just skip the shotgun and give the player a chaingun? I also enjoy using the pistol a little bit so I share the same opinion as the others here. The weapon was designed for the task of killing minor enemies, so I don't mind doing that. I can understand not liking the sprite/sound, but that's easily fixed via cosmetic mods. From a gameplay prespective, I think it's fine.

As the DW Megawad Club showed during CC3 even a placed shotgun can be easily missed! Map01 got a bunch of 'em again by simply having a gun out of sight in another room a few feet away. I also got the 'where's the chaingun??' chorus, without anyone noticing that both placed weapons in the map (shotgun and chainsaw) have a little 'display' where the weapons are located. Obviously a chaingun would need it's own little display or prominent spot, and there wasn't really anywhere suitable for it. Plink those cliffside imps! Or run an engine with better RNG!