Doom 2016's unbalanced multiplayer guns!

Doom Multiplayer, is it good or bad?

Truth be told it’s good but has balancing issues throughout the multiplayer portion of the game. The game is fun and works well but when it comes down to the demons, guns, and equipment.

In this article I will discuss the guns.

There is a total of 11 guns and 6 equipment.

The guns aren’t all very good and some just should not be used. Even with playing I find some guns are never used by other payers and some a rarely used.

The Chaingun is what most people call a minigun. It shots fast and carries a fair amount of ammo, but there is a few problems with it. Its low damage output of 6dmg per bullet and 9 for criticals, makes it hard to get the kill on someone with full life when they come at you with a shotgun, lightning gun, or even a plasma rifle. The alternate fire for the gun gets the barrel rotating to max speed in a second and a half. Once it’s at max speed you move and turn slower, this a problem. When you are playing domination and you are holding down a position with your Chaingun at full rotation speed and try to shoot the enemy they can easily jump and strafe out of the way and you would lose this fire fight. When you are shooting someone who is basically point blank you will deal critical damage but because the initial slow rate of fire or the alt fire slow turning still makes it hard to get the kill unless they have low health. The gun does have good firing speed but the damage output makes it a second class weapon, also with poor accuracy at long range and the further part of medium range makes it hard to use. It is still useable but I don’t see many players using it, so you will have to practice with this gun.

The Heavy Assault Rifle is not the best but it does the job fine. Its rate of fire isn’t bad and the damage output may be a touch low (by maybe 2 - 5 DMG per shot). The alt fire button zooms in for long range attacks instead of another shooting function. The base damage is 9 and criticals are 13. The gun does kill fairly well but is best at medium range. The damage is pitiful for long distance, and close range you will lose to shotguns and the lightening gun, although it is possible to win a fire fight at close range. The zoom also helps when chasing or shooting someone at medium range. The accuracy on this gun is also pretty good so that helps when you have to shoot someone at medium range. The zoom and accuracy help you get the critical hits on the head, which is nice. I feel this gun isn’t the best but should be used more, it does do a good job and I have had success with it.

The Plasma Rifle is a decent gun which I have had some good success with. The alternate fire shoots a ball of energy that splatters on the ground and damages you and the enemy if standing on it over time. The rifle doesn’t have the best accuracy due to slower projectiles than bullets but it is do able, the normal damage output is decent at 6 due to its higher than average rate of fire, but if you pair it with the alt fire it can be good. At long range this gun is completely useless and at close quarters it may be best to quickly switch to a shot gun or use an equipment with it. You get to deal critical damage of 9 with consecutive shots (it doesn’t stack) and headshots which is nice but due to the poor accuracy and bullet speed this can be a challenge at times. For on the run and gun people this is a good gun to use.

The Rocket launcher really is lack luster. For a rocket you think it would deal a lot of damage but it doesn’t, even the splash damage isn’t all that good, mixed with slow rate of fire meaning you will get gunned down before you get the kill. A direct hit deals critical damage of 55. If you hit them with splash damage you will deal between 10 and 40. Starting life is 100. So even on a crit your still at a disadvantage, slow moving projectile mixed with slow rate of fire can be dangerous for you to have. Even the splash damage dissipates really quickly for a small area of effect. I feel this is kind of a downfall for this gun because you can be gunned down too quickly. I feel like the damage should be higher and the splash damage and radius should improve as well for this to be useful.

Right now I will cover both the combat and super shotguns. The combat shotgun is a single barrel, pump action shot gun dealing 45dmg. The super shotgun is a double barrel, cracking shotgun (you snap the barrels forward to put in the shells then close to shoot) dealing 80dmg. The alt fire for the super shotgun is to zoom in a bit and tighten the buck shot spread helping to deal all 80dmg. The combat shot gun alt fire is that you fire a mortar shell dealing 40 with a critical of 50. Both guns are good at close range but I prefer the combat shot gun because the rate of fire is quicker meaning you can deal more damage quicker than you could with the super shot gun. The super shot gun also needs to be paired with the alt fire to get the full power of it which could be tricky to master. The big down side for the combat shot gun is that it takes to long for the alt fire to be ready to be shot. But both are a good pick for close quarter combat and short range fire fights.

Now I will talk about both the Hellshot and the Burst rifle. Personally I’m not a fan of either gun, both guns have a low rate of fire. The Hellshot is a semi-automatic that deals 20 DMG per shot. The Burst Rifle is a 3 round burst gun that deals 10 dmg per bullet. Both get criticals for head shots: 15dmg for the burst and 35 for each Hellshot bullet. The alt fire for both really isn’t useful either, the Hellshot shoots a round that burns the enemy over time but the recharge rate is to long for this to be worthwhile especially if you miss the first shot. The Burst Rifle zooms in to shoot magnum rounds that do 16 dmg each, but the rate of fire slows down even further. Both have a long delay between shots/bursts, meaning you don’t deal damage quick enough. For long range weapons these guns are pitiful. They don’t deal the damage needed to for long range weapons, meaning that the enemy can run away quickly. At medium range both weapons fall short to Plasma Rifle, Heavy Assault Rifle, and Chaingun. Both weapons need to have a higher damage output and a quicker rate of fire with the Hellshot. Otherwise these guns aren’t going to kill quickly enough and are not very useful. I also see many people don’t often use these guns.

The Vortex Rifle is the best long range weapon to use, in my opinion. It is a semi-automatic rifle with an alt fire to zoom in. While zoomed in the rifle charges up to shoot at 84 dmg, but gives off a laser to help balance it because the enemy can see it. Normal, unpowered up shots deal 30 dmg and 45 for crits to the head. When someone is shot with a full power shot it deals 84 dmg and crits when you shot them in the head for 126. This is the only substantial weapon for long range because it has the most potential to kill with one hit. At medium range if you can hit them for 30 then switch your other weapon and finish them off quickly, then this gun works alright to deal the initial damage. This is a pretty powerful gun because unlike the other long range weapons you have the ability to take down your target in 1 shot without them running away.

The Lightning gun is a close range weapon that shoots a stream of lightning like the Link gun in Unreal tournament 3. This is a very powerful gun at close range. It deals 8 dmg with a very high rate of fire. It crits the enemy for 10 when you are close and with consecutive hits. Facing an enemy with full health and some armor or even multiple this gun may not always win. But it is a formidable weapon that can damage very quickly. The alt fire will damage more enemies at once and make the area of which someone gets hit larger, but loses some of the damage, base damage is 5 with a crit of 7. I feel the alt fire is not as good but can still be useful to attack many enemies or the ones that are hard to hit. This is a highly used gun and for a good reason. This gun is only good up close so this helps with the run and gun feel of Doom.

The last gun is the Static rifle. This is a badly designed gun. Its rate of fire is horrible, it’s slow like the vortex rifle. It’s a long range weapon like the Vortex Rifle. It charges like the Vortex Rifle. Its alt fire is a zoom in like the vortex rifle. Its full charge deals 60 like the Vortex Rifle. Its uncharged damage is 20. You’re going to die in close range battles. How does it charge? By moving. If you keep moving it will charge. The moment you stop or you jump into a wall and can’t move then the charge lowers. I find it really counterproductive that you have to snipe someone while moving. It becomes so hard to hit anyone and if you miss or you are trying to stay in one area because you need to hold a position, you have to constantly be moving. If you are going to use the uncharged attack you may as well use the Hellshot or Burst Rifle. The only good thing this gun is for is running into someone and hopefully being able to shoot them for 60 dmg or a critical of 79dmg and switch to a different weapon to finish them off. This was the only good thing that the gun was good for. I like the idea of charging while moving in games, this fights against camping. But a sniper rifle is the wrong gun. They should have made a SMG or Assault Rifle that deals base 5 dmg and when moving it deals 8-10 with a crit of 15 to the head. The alt fire could be a shotgun blast emptying the charge completely. At full charge this alt fire would deal 50 dmg. For each normal bullet shot the charge would drop a bit, the gun is using the charge energy for each shot. I feel like this would be the best for the “Static” style of a gun.

Over all the multiplayer is fun but the guns need some balancing. You can do fine with each gun, but some are obviously better than others. I hope in future updates the guns get a better balance.

In the campaign the weapons used in the campaign are perfect and feel good but they tried to make it balanced for the multiplayer but fell short.

Even the loadout section is lack luster.

A load out is picking 2 guns and 1 equipment.

This is lackluster if these are the only decisions. In the campaign most guns have two weapon mods and I would have liked the ability to pick which mods to have on the gun in the load out instead of having just the gun and the mod picked for me. I know they said they are trying to make it on an even playing field but the decision should be left to the player to decide and give a bit of variety to how the game is played out. The mods can always be balanced like the guns were.

All in all when it comes to the guns of multiplayer I am a bit sad at some of the decisions that were made for the guns and their balancing. The multiplayer is fun but you will find certain guns are used way more than others.

I hope you all have a wonderful day/evening.

I will be back soon with another article about Doom soon enough bye.

#Design #Mulitplayer #Doom #PS4 #PlayStation4 #Balancing