[3.4!] FINAL DOOMER +

[Yholl]

Now i'm just throwing it to the wind, but I feel like that maybe a tighter spread over a longer distance would help at least make this weapon usefull for long distance enemies.
it could use a buff of some kind. (two extra pellets, or a more consistent damage amount closer to the high damage to go with the theme of precision this shotgun has?)

It's interesting to note how other shotguns have gone trough what it seems this shotgun theme is, accuracy/consistency. The Scope Shotgun from Plutonia seems to have more clustered pellets but as the description says is no sniper rifle. And the Ancient Aliens "Ancient Shotgun" has an accurate slug.

The middle shot from the shotgun is actually stronger than the others. I'd rather nerf the burst shotgun than buff the tac shotgun, as you have increased shell counts in TNT.

[VicBorAng]

The middle shot from the shotgun is actually stronger than the others. I'd rather nerf the burst shotgun than buff the tac shotgun, as you have increased shell counts in TNT.

Oh really. huh. Well alright then.
As much as i loved the Burst Shotgun, I can see that giving it a bit of a nerf would certainly make the other weapons in its weaponset shine more.

[VicBorAng]

So... So... So... So..

I've at last reached the end of what was my initial plan. And finished every weaponset with their respective mapsets. (Well, except for Doom 2 but i'm not doing that. I already did a playtrough of Thy Flesh consumed for it.)

After a small break, going trough TFC with the Doom 2 weaponset. I returned to Plutonia.
And Well, From what i gathered the rebalancing of the Doom2 weapons seems to be a buff in general.
Though i think this one has the most "eh" fist tier weapon. Damage is fine, but animation isn't as impactful as later fisticuffs would be.

Well. Plutonia huh. Hardest commercialized release so they say.
Not gonna lie. It kinda is. I think it's the hardest of the ones i played yet.
Alien Vandetta i think came close, but due to large numbers of enemies. While Plutonia had fewer enemies.
But the enemy placement and level design was just... evil. I knew of some traps beforehand.
And copious amounts of Quicksaving mitigated a lot of the frustrations.
But i think the most surprising thing was the level design. It still was very abstract. But the extra textures and theming of each level and architecture were neat. Using liquid textures to complete the color coordination was a good touch, even if it left rules a bit fast and loose.

I was doing two playtroughs of each map, the first on HMP, Then On UV. Map 6 was the one i stopped doing that and did the rest all on UV after acquiring some confidence.
Map07: Not Dead-Simple was a funny story.
You know. As i struggled to kill Revenants while running in circles. As the Grenade Launcher turned on me. I acquired the need to see how other sets would work here. Of course, my belief was that AV Phased-Tachyon Cannon would make the job easier. But i'm not sure. Me myself, kinda have to stop in place to use it well. And That could mean death.
The Hellbound C4 really was useful here.

This mapset took me quite a while to get to the point i just wanted to get it over with. I think it was somewhere near the late red sky hellish levels. Where i started to get impatient waiting for the flesh sky devil-hive portion.

SO.
Weapons huh.

Power Saw: Poor Poor Power Saw. Put in the unkind position of being the last of the Chainsaw tier weapons to be experienced. Also, not sure if Plutonia is conductive to uh, close quarters. I'm trying to not compare them to other sets too much. But man, so far it seems that the Halderman Device would have been a lot more used and appreciated if i had it now.
Similar to the Chainsaw, in that it is a melee weapon that deals damage very quickly.
But i didn't use it very often. Because... uh... i don't think Plutonia was very conductive to Meelee Attacks.

Melee: As i went trough the first Plutonia Maps i wrote this "Yeah. I'm not sure if the Plutonia Map set is conductive to punching. Let's wait and see." And well. I was right.
There weren't that many situations where i felt safe to punch things out, and the Berserk Packs were scarce.

See, this reinforces my idea to do a playtrough of all mapsets on a randomly generated Oblidge mapset. Placing all the weapon sets on an equally unfamiliar ground. That is a bit more gentle will definitely allow for some things to shine.

Revolver: It's called the Ol' Reliable because it IS. It's my favorite of the initially released pistol tier weapons. Powerful, precise and with a quick reload. Damage is good, killing a zombieman on a single shot (as rare as they are in this mapset), and blowing up barrels with a single shot too.

Scoped Shotgun: Yeah, i'm just going to say. A lot of Plutonia weapons are really "The standard weapons, but better", much more precise then then standard shotgun. And does it job well at dealing decent damage to long range enemies until you get something better.

Super Shotgun: More pellets, but bigger spread. It's fine, i don't tend to use the Super Shotgun for far away enemies. Great for point blank shots. Great for Archviles too.

Machinegun: Not much different from the Chaingun. I think the damage is a bit higher and it fires faster. But an all around good, reliable dps. I tried using the chaingun tier weapon a bit more this time. Since i have a tendency to forget about them. And whenever i did i tended to use it for quite a while. Great for putting enemies in a pain state. Revenants, Mancubi, Pain Elementals and Cacodemons. Human soldiers and Imps too. All can be reliably killed with it.

Grenade Launcher: Learning that it isn't affected by gravity until it hit a wall was a game changer. If the C4 was good for setting traps for enemies you knew were coming, Then The Grenades are great for trick shots. Hitting enemies around corners, and up stairways, without exposing yourself. And as another plus it deals a lot of damage. Witch i think it's mostly splash damage. At the same time, the bouncing shots were often my own undoing. This is a weapon the requires skill in order to be reliable. If you miss a shot, you better know it's going to land near the enemy. Because it could go right back to you. I often use the rocket tier weapons to damage enemies i couldn't hit reliably by hitting the wall behind them and taking advantage of the splash damage. But this one strategy is way harder to do here. And at the same time. I was still causing a lot of damage to enemies without getting in their field of view. An acceptable trade-off i say.

Heavy Machinegun: When i tested the weapons for the first time. I liked the Heavy Machinegun. As i played the mapsets, the Heavy Machinegun stayed on my mind. The sound, the damage, the utility all combine to make this weapon is really fun, gibbing all enemies that can be turned into gibs with a few well placed shots. And also quite a lot of damage. Also very accurate if you know how to use it. This weapon was always going to end up as one of my favorites i think.

Quantum Accelerator: So, it seems that this BFG replacement is meant to be the Prototype Accelerator from the Plutonia story right! It's name, description, and pickup line all point to that. Tying the story with the weaponset.
I like that. It's very cool.
This one is a powerful one, and unleashes an area of death wherever you point and fire it at. As always a good Archvile deleting tool, and also very good at dealing with large mobs. Not powerful enough to kill a Cyberdemon right away, but a few uses of this will whittle it's health to manageable levels.

I can say for certain that this weaponset changed the way i would approach encounters. The Grenades weren't as conductive to being fired at will For example, but using it to deal damage , and the Heavy Machinegun made some encounters play very differently then from what i saw was with the plasma rifle.


And so... This journey i started... a year ago, i think. Has finally come to a close...

But we aren't done yet.
There's still a bonus round.
9 weaponsets, 9 weapons each, against the same randomly generated oblidge mapset. Cages and hallways and 3D floors and open spaces oh my.

[Syrion]

As someone who is mainly interested in total conversion mods for Doom, Final Doomer is really almost all I could ever wish for, turning all these megawads into proper TC's for me, with the exception of monsters (Final Doomer Monster Pack, that would be something!). Coupled with Beautiful Doom this is, for me, Doom at its best. So, thank you for it! (Note: BD mostly works well with FD and the wads. Ancient Aliens requires a few tweaks 3saster thankfully put together in a patch here, m8f's patch makes some FD weapons cause special death animations and BTSX seems to require older versions of BD to run. I'm using 6.3.2 with it). I also had no issue running it in the latest version of GZDoom.


I have only one suggestion: Being able to switch weapons during reload. I didn't have an issue with this before, but Hellboundguy's revolvers and the shotgun, despite otherwise being very fun to use, feel somewhat uncomfortable when you are defenseless and out of control during their reload time. I think the balancing of this would actually be fine and it's alright that you have to use them strategically, taking that short time of vulnerability into account. I just think it doesn't feel so good. That said, I have no idea how hard that actually is to implement or if it's worth the trouble.

Also, I have something to say about the Nanocore! I think it's fine

[edit]
On the topic of Hellboundguy's shotgun, I would also like to suggest manual pumping. I'm a fan of the other weapons' manual options, especially the katana sheathing. In the case of the shotgun it could allow for more control over when to shoot and when to "reload", and would include a "fix" to my problem with the reload time, as it would be in the player's control. Just an idea, it's cool either way!

[ThrashfanBert1994]

speaking of hellbound, how about new player classes like 64 and alpha along 2016 eternal?

[Solaela]

speaking of hellbound, how about new player classes like 64 and alpha along 2016 eternal?

Dunno what he could do for eternal that stuff like Embers of Armageddon/D4V don't do.

And I dunno if he's still working on this or not.

[Yholl]

I have only one suggestion: Being able to switch weapons during reload. I didn't have an issue with this before, but Hellboundguy's revolvers and the shotgun, despite otherwise being very fun to use, feel somewhat uncomfortable when you are defenseless and out of control during their reload time. I think the balancing of this would actually be fine and it's alright that you have to use them strategically, taking that short time of vulnerability into account. I just think it doesn't feel so good. That said, I have no idea how hard that actually is to implement or if it's worth the trouble.

On the topic of Hellboundguy's shotgun, I would also like to suggest manual pumping. I'm a fan of the other weapons' manual options, especially the katana sheathing. In the case of the shotgun it could allow for more control over when to shoot and when to "reload", and would include a "fix" to my problem with the reload time, as it would be in the player's control. Just an idea, it's cool either way!

The inability to do this is how they are balanced. Things like the length of the reload on the revolvers, or the triple pump on the Hellbound shotgun are entirely intentional and are there to make them not the most powerful and ridiculous weapons.
Use single or double shots with the shotgun more often, as triple shots will lock up the gun until it is fully pumped.

[VicBorAng]

I wrote this over time, and since i wrote about all the classes one at a time, it ended up a little big, so spoiled to save space:

Bonus Play trough, toughs, notes, and the like.

---

it's going to take a while for me to get a handle on making a balanced Oblidge level. But honestly, sometimes the lack of balance can be it's own blessing. And illustrate some things that would otherwise not be noticed.

The first go is with the Classic Doom 2 Weapons to get a lay of the land.
Limited Ammo, and a lot of enemies. Especially Pinkies. And the first weapons are a Shotgun and Rocket Launcher.
Later, BFG is a main weapon. Having a lot of BFG Ammo also shows some things up.
The classic BFG is a midpoint between dealing with large hordes of enemies and dealing big damage.
The fist isn't as flashy or impactfull, but very much still reliable. Coming fast and dealing decent damage. Reliable enough you can use it to count.

Next up is TNT.
The Faster Rockets allowed for some better use of said rockets. The increased ammo and increased amount you get per ammo does come in handy when said ammo is limited.
The dual machine pistols are good for keeping crowds stunned if you are close enough, but not as good at killing said crowds, could be slightly stronger, very good at stunning with pain states though.
But the main crowd cleaner is the Maser, witch quite literally melts trough enemies.
Burst Shotgun is good at dealing damage, but doesn't stun an Archvile as well as the Super Shotgun does.
The Incursion Anhilator is very good at cleaning out rooms if you have the ammo. But not as good with dealing "big damage" fast enough.
The Fists are very much impactfull, have a nice rhythm of left right. If you start hitting with the left fist, the second and third hit are done with the same hand. Landing the third hit is a decent way of saving ammo if you need to. Also very good at killing pinkes.
The Halderman Device was used to great effect, mostly to just dash trough some enemies i had no way of dealing with. And to save myself from some hurt floors.

Plutonia
The revolver proved to be a good weapon at the start it's increased damaged allowed to hold back a few more enemies in moments of crisis.
The fists finally examined, proved to be also good, It's strong, and can even gib zombieman even without Berserk sometimes. The first punch is always with the left hand, like the Doom 2 fists.
Shotgun is good and reliable, Super Shotgun is powerful and an useful damage dealing tool.
Grenade Launcher makes for a dangerous but powerful weapon. It's splash damage is very good at taking out hordes.
Machine gun, 100 extra ammo compared to the chaingun.
To enemies immune to Splash Damage like the Spider-Mastermind and Cyberdemon, the Plutonia Shotgun seems to deal better damage then the Grenade Launcher.
The additional ammo for some weapons, and power managed to let me kill far more enemies without running out. Witch i didn't do with the other ones.
However I'd say that the Quantum Accelerator and the Heavy Machine Gun while powerful, are more focused on dealing damage. And aren't as good as the Maser and Incursion Anihilator at cutting a path trough waves.
The Quantum Accelerator is good for clustered enemies and powerful targets. Though the abundant ammo supply allowed me to notice that there is an actual beam coming out the Quantum Accelerator that leads to the area of death. Witch can deal a lot of damage by itself.
Additional Testing has allowed me to compare a few things. The Power Saw seems to deal smaller amounts of damage faster then the Chainsaw, witch deals larger sums of damage over a slightly lower time. The Power Saw horizontal movement makes it hard to keep a target on aim sometimes, but that's offset by it's additional range

Ancient Aliens
When limited in ammo, The pistol is a powerful emergency weapon. Killing a Zombieman in one shot.
The fist replacement while able to deal some quick damage wasn't as good when surrounded and without armor. Though i remember it well that i was able to clean a few rooms in the AA wad when i got a berserk.
The increased safety of the Photon Scepter lead to some more deliberate use of the rocket tier weapons.
The Illuminator is capable of both big damage, and room cleaning. But you have to focus on what you want. You can't just wave it arround and expect to kill everything. The long firing time makes it necessary to think about using it, since you can't just walk in a room and start killing.

JCP.
Now if there's one thing that must be understood is that while the Katana makes for one of the best melee in the current set, with both range, damage, and able to deal damage to multiple enemies (Plus the strategic values of the extra damage from the laido stance and the projectile cutting) What really completes the set is the beam katana (+berserk). Those three combined are what really make you able to mostly main the melee. (If i could merge the Katana laido with a chargeable modifier, ala BTSX power fist, i'd probably use that a lot.).
The Neutron Pulser and the Neutron Cascader make for very good shotgun tier weapons, mostly enforcing the close to mid range role of the shotgun with a very satisfying to use weapon. Gibbing for days.
This Weapon-set/Class doesn't have much tools to deal with large crowds, At least not in a direct confrontation.
The Burst Needler can work, but is much more suited to smaller amounts of enemies, as having to spread the debuff over large crowds can take time. Speaking of, the debuff works wonders with the rest of the weapons.
An encounter with a cyberdemon confirmed that the Prism Cannon actually does deal some damage on impact, and isn't entirely limited to the damage over time. Though despite being less harmful, i used it less then the other rocket launchers thus far. Nothing against it, i just like big numbers on a rocket launcher i guess.
The Ofuda Caster, despite being weaker then the other Plasma Rifles, has some great damage consistence. It can kill weaker enemies fast, but it's strength grows as the enemies get stronger. Now, it doesn't follow an ever growing graph, there's a peak somewhere and then a decrease in effectiveness. At some point it's necessary to use other weapons alongside it, and the Cyberdemon seems to be immune.
The Omayu Destroyer is a great balance of damage, area of effect, firing speed, and acquisition of ammo, and can clear out a good number of foes.

BTSX
It's incredible how different weapons can shine when put under unusual situations, and more chaotic mapsets.
Yeah so, Oh man the Power Fist is actually really good huh. And so is the pistol, being one of the two pistols that i'm pretty certain do not spend any ammo, even if the option to use it is on.
The lack of self damage on the Pulse Canon is also a blessing, and man, the splash damage might have reduced ranged in this one but it is still deadly to enemies clustered together. It is so satisfying to both shoot and to hit with the Pulse Canon, and watch dead enemies fly away due to the very solid hit. (The Sound design in this one is incredible, it really does convey the power of the weapon, and sounds like energy is being compressed, launched, and then once it hits something all that compacted energy is expanding violently. it's amazing, and i love it ).
Also the Arc Blaster isn't as weak as i felt initially, I just relied too much on the rebound shot. It can very much kill the lowe tier enemies in a single shot, and even gib Zombieman on a lucky hit.
The Pulse Rifle is reliable, and if you can get into the flow, the reliable increased damage can help a lot.
And it alongside the ridiculous damage of the Matchreaper, can help save a decent amount of ammo.
The Plasma Vulcan, when given enough ammo is incredibly powerful, and very good at dealing with mobs. Though as it's description says, it's effectiveness drops with the distance due to the low accuracy.
Now, The X-Spark. It's incredibly strong, capable of dealing vast damage to it's area of death. However, with it's long firing time and low ammo count (with a high requirement of ammo for one unit of BFG charge) make it not as suited for expanses of enemies. No. Where it really and truly shines is in smaller locations where a large enemy force will spawn in over time. Or really big targets.
When it's all put together, you can clear out a large number of enemy forces if you are methodical and careful.
Oh yeah and the Nanocharge, using it with no idea of what's ahead is one thing, can make one use it at the start and play way too safe. But knowing things in advance can completely change how one uses this very strategic buff.

Going trough the same map makes It kinda hard to remember that each weapon-set/Class is balanced around itself, and not the other ones.
Case in point, just look at the Pulse Rifle. If compared to the chainguns that came before it, it kinda comes out shorthanded. Even with the damage boost after pumping, it being projectile based and dealing the damage it does leads to a lower dps.
And i didn't expect the chaingun being one of the strongest of the original 3 weaponsets.
With the Plutonia Machinegun being balanced around being faster but weaker.
However when looked at how it works with the other weapons of it's own weponset, the Pulse Rifle reveals itself to be just as good as the others. Especially when it's pistol will never spend it's ammo.

Hellbound, Oh Hellbound.
This is a powerful weponset that is based on a mapset that (from what i read) can be a bit standard in it's encounters. So how does it fare against a less structured map?
Quite well i think. Already knowing what will come does influence my play-style a bit, but all in all i think the Hellbound weaponset can deal with scarcity of ammo quite well.
The fists are relatively powerful, and can combo nicely into the kick witch makes for some decent Pinky killing, doubly so with berserk.
The Dual Magnums really shine as an ammo saving tool for an ammo limited weaponset, being able to kill a lot of different types of enemies with different amounts of shots. And unloading the 12 shots is almost enough for the stronger ones.
The Brigand and Borsal shotguns are great, with strategical value in both, damage being exchanged for reload time and the pushback can be incredibly useful for pushing enemies (even cyberdemons, off ledges).
But the really funny thing is the TNT, i mean the C4. It has a low enough ammo count that multiple times i ended up with full ammo, with plenty of pickups to go around. Witch of course wont continue to be the case, as the rocket ammo will greatly drop in quantity further on. Witch, i think, will also greatly change how i use the C4. With this one being so powerful, and so limited in ammo, it will definitely become a invaluable resource that must be used wisely.
Of course this set is really good at crowds and big enemies alike.
The C4 can clean a large room of enemies, and the Zaiger Rifle is incredibly strong.
The Totenheim also wasn't as incredibly broken as i was expecting it to be, sure it can deal massive damage to crowds and big enemies alike. But it also takes some time to get a charge, even with a lot of BFG ammo around. Might still be my favorite BFG of this mod thus far though.
And the Aerosalyer minigun? Also very fun, but in order to use it you gotta focus on what you want to die. Even if spray and pray can be effective sometimes.

The two miniguns of this mod thus far seem to be quite well balanced between each other, it's fun.

Alien Vendetta.
Takes a while to adapt to it's play-style.
But i found out some interesting quirks of this set's melee. At first i tough it was a combo attack right? That you need to do two jabs before a punch, even if you only punch the air. And it gets a slower start if you do it against a wall/enemy?. But... no. You can actually play with it. punch twice, and then have that stronger straight "stored" for later. Of course it resets if you change weapons. This is very nice. The jabs aren't that strong (even with a berserk) and the straight is where all that power goes, so being able control it somewhat is very good.
The Mini-Missile launcher goes on the oposite direction of the C4, i think it works more like a plasma rifle then as a rocket launcher.
One thing i noticed about this set, is that it's very much directed towards controlled ammo use. Not spending more ammo then needed. The increased ammo, firing speed, and reduced damage output of the rocket launcher.
Alongside the over time damage of the Shattergun all lead to an idea of efficiency. Since with the Shattergun if you kill an enemy at the start of the salvo, then the rest could kill the ones behind them.
The Shotgun is quite powerful, on top of being the fastest to fire, and is able to kill weaker enemies in quick succession, though it's spread can lead to decreased effectiveness past mid range.
The Grav-Staff can be a very useful weapon because it's extended range means you can stay outside the enemies melee range. I think this set is one that really comes alive once it's complete. Because, while the shotguns can deal some considerable damage, The Phased-Tachyon Cannon is able to take on a cyberdemon much faster, and that's the kind of firepower that is needed. Huh... funny how the rocket launcher and plasma rifle kinda switched roles in this set. The Vendetta machine is an all around good BFG, it's high ammo count, rapid fire, and the unique properties of the projectiles make for a good push forward weapon, a good room cleaner, and it can also take on the stronger type of enemies as well.

Whitemare, the weapon-set that can awaken the pyromaniac in anyone, filled with weapons hotter then hell itself.
Yeah yeah, this one was fun indeed. An even footing, and knowledge of what lies ahead can definitely highlight some things that wouldn't have been noticed before.
This set seems to have the biggest ammo count yet. Like, only the shotgun is at 100 while everything else is at 500.
The massive amounts of ammo have allowed me to gain new insight on the Firegrasp. This one is good for ammo control. Since you don't need to waste ammo shooting something too powerful on weaker targets. The fully charged shot is great for clearing out crowds and killing beffier enemies.
The melee option, the Blazeblade is alright, it's fast, it's deadly, and with a Berserk it gets better, still weird it doesn't burn enemies since it's a super-heated knife.
The Flare Buster is one of the most pistol tier weapons around. It's sprite, projectiles, and firing animations are big.
Both Shotguns are projectile based, and pretty good.
The Gatling Fury is alright, one of the few hitscan weapons in this set, and a serviceable chaingun tier weapon, and one i like a lot. The heat buildup mechanic is very fun and quite useful.
The Thermocoat is brilliant because it really incentives to make use of the burning mechanics of this set.
It's kinda funny how the Flametrhower seems to be the least technologically advanced gun in this set, when the Plasma Rifle slot is usually filled with the sci-fi weapons.
The Sol's Fury was a BFG tier weapon i had some trouble grasping during my play trough of WhiteMare. But i think i get it now. This is a weapon that works in two parts, first it generate a powerful explosion where you are looking then spews out a cone of fiery death. It is very good at killing low tier enemies with a glance, but stronger enemies might need more attention if you don't catch them on the initial explosion. Also interesting is how you can hold the firing button, and keep it primed and charged for later.
The Flare Buster seems to be the only weapons that i can get most enemies to reach the blue fire tier with, since i end up killing them with the other weapons before i can ignite them enough. Is this intentional?

Great weapons great fun.

Second, a weapon tier list.

---

Note: These are all based on personal preference, not on "functionality" or on how good they are.

Slot 1: THE MELEE.
Beam Katana Tier: Beam Katana
A Tier: Katana, Power Fist.
B Tier: TNT Melee, Hellbound Melee,, Blazeblade.
C Tier: AV Melee, Plutonia Melee,
D (for Doom 2) Tier: Doom Melee.
E Tier: Trench Knife

Slot2: THE GOODIES.
S Tier: Hammerite, NRG Katana, Grav Staff (probably if fast monsters is on).
A Tier: Stasis Bow, Grav Staff (Fast monsters not on).
B (Better have the whole set) Tier: NanoCore (pure BTSX set), Thermocoat (pure WhiteMare Set)
C Tier: Halderman Device
D (For Doom 2): Chainsaw, Power Saw.

Slot3: THE PISTOLS.
S Tier: Silenced Pistol, Charge Pistol, Dual Magnums?, Flare Buster,
A Tier: Dual Magnums?, Revolver?
B Tier: Revolver?, Ancient Pistol?
C Tier: Ancient Pistol
D (For Doom 2): D2 Pistol, Prototype Pistol
E Tier: Precision Pistol.

Slot4-1: THE SHOTGUNS.
S Tier: Neutron Pulser, Borstal Shotgun
A Tier: Drum Shotgun, Scoped Shotgun, Drake Knight Shotgun
B Tier: Arc Blaster
C Tier: Ancient Shotgun
D (For Doom 2) Tier: Shotgun, Tactical Shotgun,

Slot4-2: THE SUPER SHOTGUNS.
Machreaper Tier: Machreaper
A Tier: Brigand SSG
B Tier: Plutonia Super Shotgun, Burst Shotgun
C Tier: Ancient Shotgun, Neutron Cascader, Shattergun, Dragon King Shotgun
D (For Doom 2)Tier: Super Shotgun

Slot5: THE CHAINGUNS.
S Tier: Zaiger Rifle
A Tier: Gatling Fury
B Tier: Burst Needler, Pulse Rifle
C Tier: Tornado Battery
D (For Doom 2) Tier: Chaingun, Machinegun, Ancient AK
E Tier: Dual Machine Pistols

Slot6: THE ROCKET LAUNCHERS
S Tier: Pulse Cannon, C4 Charges.
A Tier: Grenade Launcher, Firegrasp.
B Tier: Photon Scepter
C Tier: Missile Launcher
D (For Doom 2) Tier: Rocket Launcher, Prism Cannon, Mini-Missile Launcher?

Slot7: The PLASMA RIFLES TIERS
S Tier: Heavy Machinegun
A Tier: Maser, Plasma Vulcan, Aeroslayer Minigun, Flamethrower?
B Tier: Alien Elite Weapon, Ofuda Caster, Phased-Tachyon Cannon
C Tier: Mini-Missile Launcher, i mean... Flamethrower?,
D (For Doom 2) Tier: Plasma Rifle.

Slot8: THE BIG FUCKING GUNS
S Tier: Totenheim (The TotenTier).
A Tor: Quantum Accelerator, Illuminator
B Tor: Incursion Annihilator, Onmyou Devastator
C Tier: X-Spark Cannon, The Vendetta Machine
D (For Doom 2) Tier: BFG 9000, Sol's Wrath

Third, I'm so glad FD Customizer is a thing that is real and exists.

---

So, since Final Doomer Customizer is a thing, i've been thinking on what my layout would be. And now that i have finished the full bonus round, i think i have all the information i would need.

Now, this first load out is me trying to build a weaponset where i use all of the weapon slots in an equal amount.
So the only rule is "what i think will make me use the weapons the most"

Chainsaw Slot: Hammerite, or Statis Bow. ( Or NRG Katana. Depends)
Melee Slot: Katana
Pistol: Silenced Pistol, or Charge Pistol, or Dual Magnums, or Flare Buster. (depends)
Shotgun: Neutron Pulser (will very mutch enforce the close to mid range role of the shotgun), or the Borsal Shotgun
Super Shotguns: Either the Matchreaper, or the Brigand SSG (depends on what i pick for the others)
Chaingun: Either the Zaiger Rifle, or the Gatling Fury (depend on what i pick up as a pistol)
Rocket Launcher: Either the Pulse Cannon or C4 Charges.
Plasma Rifle: It was always going to be the Heavy Machinegun. (Could be the Ofuda Caster, or Maser too though)
BFG: The T.O.T.E.N.H.E.I.M.

Funny how i end up with a lot of projectiles, then go with two rapid fire hitscans.


One of the things i eventually tend to do is tha i stop using the pistol tier weapons. Witch i want to avoid. So i tried to find the pistols i'd like to use the most.
I found the ones that in the end are kinda balanced out in terms of pros and cons: Silenced Pistol vs Charge Pistol vs. Dual Magnums vs. Flare Buster.

---

Silenced Pistol
Pros:
--> Silent
--> Accurate
--> I'd always use it whenever there is a chance for stealth.
--> Being hitscan, I could use it to reliably activate switches that need to be shot without wasting ammo.
Cons:
--> I'd end up with a lot of JCP weapons. Also, it's not that strong.

Charge Pistol:
Pros:
--> Charge functionality can make it pretty strong, and even gib out some enemies.
--> If one was to care about this stuff, this one has a logical reason as to why it has infinite ammo.
--> No need to reload.
Cons:
--> Enemies can move away from Projectiles, and projectiles can sometimes be too big to hit shootable switches

Dual Magnums:
Pros:
--> Maybe when outside the rest of the powerful Hellbound weapons, this one could shine well.
--> Being hitscan, I could use it to reliably activate switches that need to be shot without wasting ammo.

Flare Buster:
Pros:
--> The ignition mechanic will make this weapon always useful against single stronger enemies.
--> Great at providing illumination too.
--> If one was to care about this stuff, this one has a logical reason as to why it has infinite ammo.
Cons:
--> Can be a bit too big sometimes.

_________________________________________________________________
Second set, has different rules.
We have 9 weapon slots. We have 9 weapon classes. Thus, only one weapon per class.

Slot1: Katana (Or some other Melee of whatever is left) (JCP)
Slot2: Statis Bow (Or Hammerite, Or Grav Staff) (AA (/AV/HB)
Slot3: "Depends" (will also shape or be shaped by rest)
Slot4: Arc Blaster (Or Borsal Shotgun, Or Neutron Pulser) (BTSX)
Slot5: Burst Shotgun (TNT)
Slot6: Gatling Fury (WM)
Slot7: Rocket Launcher (D2)
Slot8: Heavy Machinegun (Plut)
Slot9: The Vendetta Machine (AV)

Or something like that.

Finally, the end.

---

So. I Wanted a big finish to tell myself it's over.
So i decided to finish by completing the two secret maps of Plutonia to close my commercially released (sans master levels, and no rest for the living) WADs.
The original idea was to play it with my finalized custom combo. But i opted to do it with just Plutonia.
Funnily enough, Cyberden did give some opportunity to test the melee.
And now...
I did it. I've done it.
It's over.

[Syrion]

The inability to do this is how they are balanced. Things like the length of the reload on the revolvers, or the triple pump on the Hellbound shotgun are entirely intentional and are there to make them not the most powerful and ridiculous weapons.

I fully agree with this What I ment was not making it a disadvantage that I "commited to reloading" the revolvers, maybe accidently. I can fire the 12 bullets and switch to another weapon right away just fine as it is right now. When I want to use them again, I still first have to reload them. But, when I hold the fire button down and don't keep track of how many bullets were fired, I start reloading the revolvers automatically, I'm locked in the reload animation and have no more choice to switch to another gun until it's finished, no matter if I want to keep on using them or not. That's why I suggested being able to abort the reload and switch to another weapon right away: The revolvers would still need to be reloaded before being usable again, just as it is now. It would even be a disadvantage, as you wasted some reload time. But, you would have more control over what you want to do. I imagine it would just feel better to use them and the balancing, if I'm not missing anything, would be unchanged.

Another idea would be an option to disable automatic reloading of the pistols, but seeing as that's probably almost entirely unhelpful for any other weapon set I suppose that's even less worth implementing.

Alternatively I'll just start counting the bullets, that should work


As for the shotgun, I understand that manual reload would change the balancing quite a bit. I'm actually very fond of your style of fleshing out these guns and balancing them without overcomplicating their usage and think the Hellbound-shotgun is a great example of that. An option would just be a variant akin to the manual reload of the TNT-shotgun.

[Solaela]

So...Wasn't expecting 'double ammo' + alien vendetta weapons = pistol turns into a minigun.... But I love how silly it is. XD

[cncz]

This mod seems to have a fatal failure with god knows what (at least on arch linux nvidia drivers) that causes the gpu to completely freeze up needing you to unplug the pc, can't provide any logs unfortunately due to the severity of the crash

[terminator44]

I noticed a strange HUD bug when this is loaded with the Doom Spritefix Project. When you play Plutguy or TNTguy the numbers 2, 5, and 8 display in the original red Doom font on the HUD. Only those numbers have that issue, and only on those two modes; the bug doesn't occur on any of the other weapon sets.

[Yholl]

I noticed a strange HUD bug when this is loaded with the Doom Spritefix Project. When you play Plutguy or TNTguy the numbers 2, 5, and 8 display in the original red Doom font on the HUD. Only those numbers have that issue, and only on those two modes; the bug doesn't occur on any of the other weapon sets.

Load it before Final Doomer, not after. This is a simple spritename conflict.

[007Bistromath]

Your mod is basically what got me into Doom. I'd played it years ago of course, but when I saw videos of your mod I instantly fell in love with the tweaks to the core mechanics, and the creativity and aesthetic cohesion of the new weaponsets. I've actually been streaming it off and on, and it made me decide to try to get the whole Doom series into my Youtube channel, to include all the map packs that go with your sets; I basically consider them part of the canon now, looks into other loops Doomguy has been through in the weird eternal reoccurrence thing going on with 2016/Eternal. (No spoilers, have barely scratched Eternal because the gameplay is so different that I have to rethink how I'm going to include it in my series.) I started with Doom's vanilla mechanics, played Doom II with your Doomguy, and played through the other mapsets up to the first episode of Ancient Aliens so far. The third pack didn't exist when I started, so I've been fooling around with them off-stream while I take a break from production. All your weaponsets are amazing, but I'll focus my feedback on the new ones, since that's where you're probably doing the most work.

A caveat: I suck. Like really awful. I only stream because it's a way to hang out with my friend and commit to a creative endeavor. I do usually play on UV, but with the three latter map packs I'm really considering not doing that anymore. Ancient Aliens already tests me pretty hard. So, this is feedback from probably the most trash player that would ever bother actually posting on a Doom board.

I LOVE the Hellbound set. It feels like it starts at the same sort of "Attitude Era" feeling of TNT but goes slightly in a comic book demon hunter sort of direction. All of the weapons are just so CHONK. They're all perfect. If there's anything wrong with them at all, it's that all the weapons are so good that I rarely have a reason to bust out 6 or 7. Maybe I should try to use this set to dip my toe into slaughter wads.

The Alien Vendetta set is really interesting for inverting the usual focus of Doom weapons: pew-pew is good, too! There are a few issues with it, though. One is that the SSG is so good that it replaces the regular shotgun much harder than your other weaponsets, where they both continue to have purposes. It still doesn't do it completely, because that fast pump is great, but I haven't played with the set enough to really work it. The sizes of the chaingun and shotgun ammo pools relative to how fast the weapons use them also makes me lean on the SSG much more, and I think that was probably unintentional given the set's focus on high fire rate. That may be my lack of skill showing, I probably burn more chaingun ammo than I need to. The biggest problem with the AV set is the plasma rifle. It just... doesn't seem to work sometimes. Usually it works. Very splatty. But every now and then a shot will pass right through enemies and do nothing. Not sure what's up with that. Considering its relative lack of speed and limited ammo pool, that means I usually ignore it completely. This is probably the set I've played with the least though, maybe there's some trick to it I'm not seeing.

The Whitemare set is uh... I get it. I LOVE the idea. I definitely want to do the murderous burning dance the thermocoat seems to be telling me is correct. But I always feel helpless with this weaponset. Time to kill is ludicrous. Any mildly crowded room feels like a boss fight, and even one revenant is probably going to kill me on the first try. I'm definitely doing something very wrong. The shotguns especially seem really weedy, like the point of the set was to decrease their importance. Considering how big of a deal shotguns usually are in Doom, maybe it was? I appreciate that as a design choice, but I can't use the set well enough to really feel the other weapons. I think if I were to change anything, I'd make burn damage a little faster, and I'd make the thermocoat provide damage reduction proportional to its energy rather than it just soaking environmental hazards for you. Fluff justification could be that it's basically a plasma shield.

Also, here's my wish list for the next three, if you make another three:
-Inquisitor/religious theme, there's got to be plenty of good map packs where that would fit.
-A set for a difficult map pack where weapons 1-6 come in pairs, i.e., you're somehow rewarded for hitting monsters with one of the pair and then the other. Perhaps one pair could cause big explosions, another pair gives health drain or ammo return, the third... surprise us? Maybe changing movement somehow?
-Chex Quest. No, seriously. The original Chex Quest weapons are too much like the originals. I guess they were supposed to be, since the game is basically a kid-friendly reskin. I've always thought it'd be neat to see them mechanically redesigned to be a little more thematic.

[Princess Viscra Maelstrom]

This mod seems to have a fatal failure with god knows what (at least on arch linux nvidia drivers) that causes the gpu to completely freeze up needing you to unplug the pc, can't provide any logs unfortunately due to the severity of the crash

try going to the FD menu and change the option "item visuals toggle" to generic or fancy generic mode and see if that helps any.