What's your opinion on the SSG and the classic multiplayer of Doom II?

[Rheap]

Hi all, i want to make a little post to have some opinions regardes the SSG and the classic multiplayer of the game. And i wan to make a little riflession:

I think that Doom need a huge balance patch and for why:
The Pistol is useless, low fire rate, low damage;
The Shotgun is a good weapon, balanced and high damage on point blank;
The SSG, iMO, is one of the most annoying and unbalanced weapon that i ever see in a multiplayer game. Seriously, he need a huge nerf beacause everyone have access from spawn instantly, he make a ridicolous damage and is very annoying, specially in the little maps of Skulltag with 10-15 people (maps good for 2-3 people). You can't play competitive with a weapon that make this damage and the access is avaible from the spawn. (it make more sense if is a weapon that you can find on a specific point of the map but not on the spawn).
The Chaingun same for the Pistol, useless weapon for their low fire of rate and damage;
The Minigun of Skulltag, much better than Chaingun;
Rocket Launcher and Grenade Launcher, i say nothing beacause is a balanced weapon;
Plasma Gun damage ok, but fire rate no, too high fire rate for the damage he do. (and is very annoying if one continuosly spamming).
BFG9000 and BFG10K, powerful weapon and fortunately you find it rarely.
Railgun, the only weapon that require high skill for make a killing spree. (Not the SSG).

This combined with little maps and a lot of people it's like a hell.

What's your opinion of this?

[fr blood]

For people here, SSG is the main weapon, I dunno why, maybe because it's the most useful weapon(without adding Skulltag's one) in most of situations where Shotgun/Chaingun won't be enought.

That weapon is also used a lot in all PvP maps.

I'm also wondering why my SSG never one shot kill when it does for other people, you would say "Because of your aim." and you are probably right but there is also the fact that the spread of bullets is random so even if someone is in the middle of your crosshair he can survive(which happens a lot when I shoot).

[Lollipop]

The SSG is a onehit weapon, which makes it ideal for competetive play with a certain dominance-focused mentality. That is at least how I interpret it, and now everything has been based around the SSG even if that is no longer the mentality, now it's just the meta of how Doom competetive works and you can try all you want but this won't change until the "traditional" competetive players have "died out".

The SSG has pretty much come to stay at this point.

[-Jes-]

Doomguy is the most mobile FPS protagonist around, darting around the world at, what, 40mph?

This penalizes long range accuracy and favors (point blank) killing power, the latter of which the SSG is immensely good at.
Eventually, someone had the brightNOTidea of putting SSG spawns on top of player spawns to 'level' the field.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[Empyre]

The Doom weapons are designed for killing monsters, not other players, so they are not properly balanced to competitive play.

[Marcaek]

That's ridiculous, deathmatch was always a feature of Doom and the hours romero and company spent playing DM they probably had an idea what they were doing.

[SwordGrunt]

That's ridiculous, deathmatch was always a feature of Doom and the hours romero and company spent playing DM they probably had an idea what they were doing.

If you play deathmatch on doom2 maps, you'll find most weapons with the exception of the pistol are pretty useful.

If you play on maps designed for the SSG to be the strongest, it will obviously be the strongest. The same way some maps have stupidly high potential for rocket, plasma and BFG spamming (ever played deathmatch on d2m1?), and others have large open areas that favor the chaingun and shotgun over the SSG.

Over the years, players have preferred the fast-paced, aim-intensive gameplay of the SSG and levels based around that type of fragging; levels that favor projectile spamming are generally frowned upon in the competitive scene, as well as levels that make chaingun sniping feel abusive. The shotgun is arguably the most balanced, all-around fair weapon in Doom, both to play with and against, but it just doesn't provide the hectic gameplay that the super shotgun does and that's why it's dominated the game. For most people, it's simply more fun to have the SSG as the core of competitive Doom.

[Catastrophe]

Seriously, he need a huge nerf beacause everyone have access from spawn instantly, he make a ridicolous damage and is very annoying, specially in the little maps of Skulltag with 10-15 people (maps good for 2-3 people).

First of all, the SSG is not a "he", unless you think it is, which in that case seek some help. Also Skulltag maps aren't meant for 2-3 people, it was ideally meant for 4-8 player deathmatch.

You can't play competitive with a weapon that make this damage and the access is avaible from the spawn. (it make more sense if is a weapon that you can find on a specific point of the map but not on the spawn).

Sounds like that's a problem of the map and not the weapon. Deathmatch is boring to most people if it doesn't have a SSG; having no SSG's would just make it too slow paced.

IMO: Balanced should revolve around the SSG, not the other way around. Go play Eon Weapons to see what that would look like.

[Doomkid]

Slightly related, I typed this in response to a dude who said "all weapons but the SSG are useless". I was kind of annoyed when I typed it (the person was one of those "multiplayer isn't part of Doom" morons) but I still think it's accurate overall:

Chaingun is THE go-to long distance weapon. Single-barrel is a good fallback at range, and when combined with some fancy footwork can sometimes trump an SSG wielder simply due to the faster reload. Rockets are great for mid-range distances - Lob a couple of them in the direction your opponent is traveling and the chances of impact are very high. Plasma is the hallway killer, I laugh at your SSG as I sr50 backpedal away and spam you with the blue stuff. The BFG decimates opponents and can be used in various ways. Newcomers will just spam it, but those who take the time to learn how the BFG works will destroy you with their knowledge of this game's fantastic subtle design choices.

No vertical combat? Sure, there's no rocket-jumping or any of that airy fairy stuff, but try out Judas23 and tell me with a straight face that the map isn't all about vertical combat. I personally don't much care for FPS games where you spend the whole thing floating around, anyway.

Map control points are a fun one. In any well designed maps there are going to be some items scattered around. Knowing where they are and hoarding them before your opponent does is just one more key to winning matches. If your opponent has fantastic footwork and aim but ignores items, that can be their Achilles heel. Know where the soulspheres and armors are, especially with repsawn on and dominate those various spots.

EDIT: I havent ask Rust for permission yet, but at some point I'd love to make a "close as possible" vanilla dehacked version of EonWeps. Improves the SG a tiny bit, makes the chaingun and pistol more viable, makes the saw and fists not useless, etc.

[Watermelon]

Being able to run into an enemy base and completely destroy everything is the only reason I still play this game (well, only recently since the grind of university ended and now I have some minor free time on my hands). Even when I'm rusty and haven't played for a long time, I can sit down and have a good time even when my aim goes to shit.

Also I'll be an echo chamber for what Catastrophe said with respect to the map being broken, he summed up how I feel pretty well.

I'm also wondering why my SSG never one shot kill when it does for other people, you would say "Because of your aim." and you are probably right but there is also the fact that the spread of bullets is random so even if someone is in the middle of your crosshair he can survive(which happens a lot when I shoot).

You need to find the one shot range, and even then there is a luck element that you can't control much. It also depends on the map too. You also don't need to have it on the center of the crosshair, you can be off and still hit due to the 11.5 (or so, the exact number is on the ZDW) degree spread that is built into it. I further find that when you have a higher sensitivity, unless your aim is out of control: you'll discover that you can snap onto someone and negate any juking they do, which allows your accuracy to go through the roof. One way I avoid the dreaded "follow someone with your crosshair and miss" problem is to SR50 everywhere (forcing you to be on an offset angle to whatever you're going to) and just snap onto them quickly and fire. Consider trying this next time you play in pub or in a duel and see how you do.