Pistol in Doom - its usefulness

[shotfan]

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.

It does not have to be very good. I am against obsolete weapons, so I prefer that any weapon can perform something exceptionally well, even if only one thing. (why code and sprite something that nobody ever uses?) A perfect accuracy for pistol is enough, frankly, even if underwhelming a bit.

[NantoCodd]

Half-Life instance of pistol is a great example of useful pistol until late game. Little to no spread at all, rate of fire is how quick you click and headshot bonus. Even with more high tech weapon found later, I found myself keep using pistol to take out smaller or humanoid enemies.

[Athel]

We need a megawad that forces the player to use only the pistol the entire game, and any attempts to cheat will result in the other weapons also being the same exact pistol.

Then we'll be a jerk and pit you against a cyberdemon

[shotfan]

That would inevitably backfire, since I bet that most players would prefer to utilize infighting or even fists than to endure the pain of using Pistol the entire time.

[wildweasel]

That would inevitably backfire, since I bet that most players would prefer to utilize infighting or even fists than to endure the pain of using Pistol the entire time.

Wasn't that the entire concept of CyberDreams?

[Athel]

No, CyberDreams was "kill the cyberdemon by telefragging."

I'm talking about "kill everyone with your pistol."

[Gez]

I'm talking about "kill everyone with your pistol."

That can only be one of three things:
- boring
- tedious
- impossible

Shooting low-health monsters with a weak gun is boring, circlestrafing a cyberdemon while plinking away at it with a pea-shooter is tedious, and if you aren't given enough room to dodge projectiles and find cover while you do something boring or tedious and your weapon is too weak to get rid of the opposition quickly enough it can become impossible.

One thing it absolutely cannot be, however, is fun.

[Athel]

Obviously it isn't meant to be taken seriously, ofc. Unless every enemy's HP was lowered to 1 or something, it'd get really boring really quickly.

I will admit though, the pistol really isn't meant for use except for the first 2-3 levels or as a fallback.I personally use it to snipe any enemy about to attack me, but that's about as useful as it gets.

The Heretic's Elven Wand feels to me as if it does more damage. I don't know why, but it feels more impactful than the pistol.

If were on the subject of useless weapons, why don't we talk about Strife's Electric Bolt Crossbow. That's useless.

[MetroidJunkie]

Potential way to make the pistol more useful, make you move faster while you're holding it. Essentially, because you're holding a lighter weapon so you can move around more easily.

[DoomRater]

"You wanna go for a jog?"
"What's with the knife?"

[Ethril]

The Heretic's Elven Wand feels to me as if it does more damage. I don't know why, but it feels more impactful than the pistol.

It kind of does; Damage is about the same, with the Pistol dealing 1d3*5 (5-15) and the Wand 1d8+6 (7-14), but the Wand fires noticeably faster than the Pistol.
Also most of Heretic's monsters seem to have less health than their Doom counterparts.

It also helps that the Wand has a much cooler sound and puff than the pistol. This doesn't actually change anything gameplay-wise, but it makes it feel stronger.

[Matt]

I used to think that at least the pistol could be used for one-shot sniping at great distances without wasting a second bullet, but the problem is that there's this long lag between hitting fire and the shot going off that, depending on how good you are at timing to shoot relative to the monster's A_Chase frames, you're probably using even more bullets because you can't reliably hit a moving target.

The chaingun, by contrast, is a near guaranteed hit since the reaction time is instant. It's basically "spend 2 ammo to hit further" rather than the silly and tedious gamble of the pistol.

It could be useful if you could very rapidly switch to and from it, much faster than the chaingun or shotguns, so you could dispatch or distract smaller baddies quickly.

(The big contrast I see is with the Quake shotgun: piddling damage and no stunlock, but instant switch, accurate even at max ROF.)

[Hisymak]

Let's look at Rise of the Triad. There you have 4 weapon slots: one pistol, dual pistol, machine gun, and super-weapon.
And you get an extra pistol immediately after you start the game! So there is absolutely no reason to use single pistol for the whole single game!
Then you get machine gun very early too, and since it has infinite ammo and shoots much faster you have practically no reason to go back to dual pistol.
That's a great example of uselessness of two of four weapon slots in a game!

(In that game you have lives and after you die you lose one and restart the level with just a single pistol. But who would die and replay with no weapons when you can save and load your game at any time? Another example of uselessness of Lives system).

[MetroidJunkie]

That logic makes no sense, anyway. Oh, did you just die fully equipped? We'll restart and only give you the weakest weapon in the game, I'm sure you'll do much better this time. The only way this could possibly help you is if you were on the verge of death when you started the level.

[shotfan]

I always thought that respawning only with a pistol was supposed to be a punishment. So better for you to prepare and make saves to fall back to, rather than relying on that piece of crap of a weapon.