Pistol in Doom - its usefulness

[Hisymak]

Hello. Recently I was thinking about the usefulness of Pistol in Doom (which is the default weapon you get when you start the game). It turns out that I never use it again when I get any "higher" weapon. That means, speaking about vanilla Doom 2, I only use it in the first level until I get a shotgun, and mayyybe a few times in the second level if I run out of shells for a short time, then never again for the rest of the game.

But honestly, it's pretty obvious and expectable and I believe this applies to 99% Doom players. Pistol is the weakest long-range weapon in the game and can be effectively used only against the weakest monsters (zombieman, shotgun guy, imp). Once you get chaingun (which uses the same ammo), the pistol is definitely superseded by it.
I also played number of megawads and custom levels/level packs, and in majority of them you get a better weapon (a shotgun for the most cases) either immediately when you start the game, or very early in the first level.

So. Pistol is basically useless weapon. The only important use (except the first level) is probably when you play a "pistol-start" game - I mean you start each level with clean inventory (holding only pistol with 50 shots) to have better challenge, but even in this case you get any better weapon early in each level. Sometimes you may use it when you need to trigger some action special, but mostly I use chainsaw for it in order to save ammo.

But let's look at some other games and their default weapons. For example Heretic. There you have Elven wand, which is about same as Doom pistol. It's a weak hitscan weapon and you get an ammo for it everywhare. But for some reason, I still occasionally use it in later levels even if I have much better weapons. It's a cheap and precise hitscan weapon and there are less hitscan weapons in Heretic and it does not share ammo with any better weapon. Sometimes I use it to sniper enemies at very long distance, or when I am hidden behind decoration things which projectiles cannot shoot through. I remember once I killed Iron lich only with elven wand. And finally there is Tome of Power, giving this weapon new possibilities.
And now about Hexen. There you have only 4 weapons, one of them being the default one which consumes no ammo and it is still quite strong (fighter's fist) or is long-ranged (mage's wand). That gives them sense to still use them during all the game (especially against constantly spawning ettins).

So. What are you thoughts?

[raymoohawk]

i use the pistol for switches that need to be shot

[Ixnatifual]

It's a shit weapon.

[Hellser]

If I need to use bullets, I'll switch to the chaingun. The pistol is only really good for when the player just started. You've mentioned about the Elven Wand in Heretic, I've noticed. The ammo pickup for them is separate from any other weapon. Only the wand can use its own ammo, the other weapons can't. Not to mention when it's tomed up, it's a very good shotgun-like weapon.

Also having been playing Quake recently, the player's starting weapon - the Shotgun - can be switched back to, to act as a medium-long range weapon as the Double Barrel has too wide of a spread to be considered useful for such a long range use. So yes. The Doom Pistol is indeed useless beyond using it as a starting weapon.

[raymoohawk]

i still think it's useful to not waste unnecesary ammo when you have to hit switches that require shots

[Gez]

Yes, "shootable switches that can't be punched" is the entire niche of the pistol once you've picked up the chaingun.

Given how that means you'll save on average 0.0001 bullet per map (because most maps don't feature shootable switches, let alone out-of-reach ones), it's not a very important niche.

[Nevander]

Like others have said, once you get the Chaingun the Pistol is immediately useless. Only reason to even use the pistol is out of reach shootable switches (as mentioned). Even then I'd just use the Chaingun and use an extra bullet. Pistol is meant to be useless really, just your starting weapon before you get something better, which doesn't take long. You run into Sergeants pretty much right away in all the IWADs, let alone finding a Rocket Launcher in MAP01 of Doom II.

[shotfan]

Vanilla Pistol is not even useless, it is worthless. Its maximum rate of fire is way too slow for a semiautomatic weapon. Of course, it would not help it too much in comparison to Chaingun, but if it could fire at least five times faster it could be viable for much more time. And it is WEAK! The fist has pretty much the same damage over time! No wonder that players tend to avoid it like a burning coal, switching to Shotgun at first opportunity. It cannot be salvaged without heavy modifications.
In this context, I really like revamped Pistol from Project Brutality. First: it is a proper semi-auto now, so you can take on Lost Souls or Pinkies with it comfortably. Second: it can be dual-wielded, and even Hell Knights can be taken down reasonably quickly with them. And lastly - and most importantly - it got a suppressor, from the start! It is very useful, allowing you to kill a select few enemies on your way in levels were there are many enemies that could be alerted with a single normal gunshot (or Vanilla Doom's fist punch ). This way you can get through to more powerful weapons without having to fight everything from the start (it seems to me that there are plenty of situations like this in 'slaughter' maps). Very useful gun, indeed.
EDIT: I remembered about another emergency weapon from id game similar to Doom's Pistol. I mean the Quake 2's Blaster. I used to loathe the gun, but I reconsidered it in comparison to its predecessor, and I must say it is miles better. Yes, it is still slow and weak, but other than that it has numerous advantages: looks much more interesting; has much better firing sound; has infinite ammo, so you can at least always whip it out to kill some Guards or scan walls to break into secret areas; and its projectile is bright, allowing to use Blaster as a makeshift flashlight. Seems that id learned from their mistakes. (and then forgot about them and made piss-poor Doom 3's Pistol... what they were thinking?!)

[4thcharacter]

Without modification the pistol is really useless which is a shame because it was supposed to be a starter weapon where you can use it as a fallback when you lose all your ammo. But the solution is probably simpler than I thought. When it had infinite ammo like in Samsara I found myself picking off imps and even demons with it. I think the alternative solutions are making it use a different ammo type of it's own and at the same time make it accurate (seriously, the pistol's inaccuracy is stupid. The pistol isn't even a Deagle) and/or give it a fast rate of fire and nothing else, since it's a starter weapon and that means it could have no outstanding qualities but you could definitely use it when something goes wrong.

[DoomRater]

I remember making tweaks to make the pistol bring out its shot faster than any other hitscan weapon which lets it do okay in one hit kill matches and giving it far superior accuracy to the chaingun I replaced as well, but the chaingun got a pain chance upgrade and a slight damage boost (4 hitscans of 3 instead of 2 hitscans of 5). It's still not as good as most other weapons but it finally has a role of sniper weapon.

Actually, Samsara gives it infinite ammo to bring it into line with Parias having a long range infinite mana weapon. That worked out pretty well.

[SamVision]

I always thought that making the pistol not have any spread would increase it's importance in your arsenal.

[MetroidJunkie]

The pistol has to be the single most useless weapon in the game once you've found pretty much anything else. Even the fist can come in handy if you happen to find a Berserk Pack and can get enemies behind corners or something.

[zrrion the insect]

I've seen quite a few FPSs and some mods as well that give the pistol infinite ammo and let the player charge the pistol for a stronger shot, and it seems to work pretty well.

Removing the chaingun's ability to snipe actually gives the pistol something that it can do that none of the other weapons can, but even then it isn't very good.

[MetroidJunkie]

You just described Doom 2016.

[DoomRater]

#MakePistolsGreatAgain