Weapon Upgrades

Some of the starting weapons in MiniDoom2 can be upgraded to a new weapon if you find the corresponding powerup. It’s not just cool, it was necessary.

I was halfway through designing the levels, and there is a difficulty spike when entering the hell levels. There are new enemies and they are tougher, so I planned to introduce the super shot-gun there and increase the player’s damage output as well.

The design philosophy here is that no single enemy is supposed to be too hard to kill (except for bosses of course). Enemies are meant to be killed in large quantities, with the challenge not being in taking them down but in not receiving too much damage in the process. I think I will do another post detailing more about where we want to focus the challenge in MiniDoom2 and why I opted for including small ammo and stat collectible upgrades.

Anyway I noticed that I didn’t use grenades, the shotgun or the pistol after a while. Because these weapons were the first in the game I realized that they did have a lower power level, and I couldn’t change that without making the game easier. BUT I WANTED ALL WEAPONS TO BE EQUAL. So a solution was to include an upgrade for the weapon later in the game to raise their power to that of the other guns.

Super-Shotgun

The necessary double-barreled partner you need to go into hell. When you get this upgrade, the shotgun has become a lot mostly outclassed by the gauss canon and minigun. But then it gets elevated to god-tier. At the cost of a higher ammo consumption and reload time, a well-placed super-shotgun blast should dispose of most of hell’s minions in one shot. You’ll fall in love with the shotgun all over again.

Double the barrels, double the fun

Fragmentation Grenades

Grenades are very useful in the start of the game, but slowly become irrelevant. With plasma and gauss as better alternatives to aiming and rockets as a more devastating use of your ammo, halfway into the game grenades seemed to have been forgotten.

The fragmentation upgrade increased the damage area and makes each grenade fire a blast of 16 shrapnel fragments in a short radius. This weapon is very powerful against big enemies since they tend to catch much more of the shrapnel. The grenades become really useful against single powerful enemies rather than area weapons since there are better options for that (like the BFG), it’s a really nice switch in utility. And the shrapnel can bounce of walls too!

Those fat cacos are a good target

EMG Pistol

Its Doom2016’s Energy-Matter-Gel Pistol. This upgrade increases the size of the pistol projectiles a lot, making it easier to hit small enemies like lost souls. The damage is also increased enough to one-shot them. However you CAN NOT charge up the damage of the shot like in Doom2016, this mechanic would promote passive playing and reward waiting. I don’t think this would be a good addition to MiniDoom. It may have worked in Doom because they have other mechanics that encourage engaging enemies (like glory kills).

So right now the EMG is just a damage upgrade, I’m still thinking if it should add some extra utility to the pistol. Tell me what you guys think.

Feedback is welcome

3 thoughts on “Weapon Upgrades”

  1. I quess it’s really interesting mechaincs (with doubl-barrel and granade) and up’s after challenges (still hope to see Slayer suit after some of them as achievement). But with pistol i was sad that now no charge. Maybe possible to create a little charge with red shots (now after click, if you still hold button – red shot)? I think it’s good idea cuz it’s not slow down gameplay but give more variativity for this weapon.

    BTW – there will be vampire grenades? I think a little help in high lvl can’t spoil game cuz there is many enemys with danger attacks that hard to avoid plus with BIG dm (if soulcube is making damage and generate ammo to be at rush – why not make very less damagable granade that help you survive?).

    1. I still don’t know about the charge… You know how in the later classic megaman games (9 and 10) they removed the megabuster? I think it was because of this issue… Of course the pistol here is much less used so it might not be such a big deal. Perhaps it would be best to add a small charge to be faithful to the original design.
      About vampire grenades: I might add a healing function to the soul cube, but it would be a temporary upgrade. Otherwise it would change the game balance too much. I’m thinking adding this for healing only during the final boss fight.

      1. iI think at last missions heal granades can’t broke balance cuz s*** will be serious. And this type of weapon are nice so… maybe u can add them (or at planned DLC)?

        Plus…. hm… soulcube healing…. at final boss… CYBERDEMON!?

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