I feel like if the beta BFG's damage was doubled and it had the vertical auto aim, it'd probaly be on par with the regular/cool BFG. liek a side-grade rather then a direct upgrade. That, or giving it infinet punch through.
Games used to be less than a full kilobyte. Now game can be upwards of 150 GIGABYTES. Programmers Need to relearn how to compress their files. There's tons of old tricks that they don't use anymore that only existed to save space.
I was going to suggest that you could probably modify the beta BFG sprite to be a flamethrower and change the particles sprites to the Archvile's flame but then I thought about how effective using a flamethrower on demons of hell would be like shooting them with a supersoaker
Great video, I always thought the Beta BFG was cool as like an idea, but seeing it in action I’m thinking otherwise now lol. There’s a Doom mod called DAKKA that utilizes the old Beta BFG attack, it belches green plasma everywhere, but does way more damage, and it has an altfire where it concentrates the belch all into one enemy and homes in on it.
Even if the damage from the B_BFG was good it would still function too similar to the plasma gun with its projectile spam based design. Compared to the release BFG that's in its own category compared to the plasma
I’d love to see mappers use beta versions of monsters as variants in addition to the monsters in the final game. It would be a simple way to add more enemy variety without changing Doom’s gamefeel too much. Edit: it just occurred to me that I know very little about Beta Doom 1 and the other monsters/monster iterations that were scrapped by release day. That would make an excellent future Analysis video imo
The only other enemy which barely got past the concept phase was an enemy that would "slide along walls" spawning Lost Souls, sort of like a Pain Elemental. For numerous reasons this enemy had a sprite or 2 made, they realized it wasn't practical, and it was scrapped.
I kind of love the insanity of additional beta content with those Lost Souls. They'd completely change the dynamic of certain fights which rely on the infighting carnage created by Pain Elementals. Imagine even going through Plutonia's Pain Elemental count with beta souls. They'd be higher priority than the Archies.
None of the maps in doom we know and love would exist, or if they did exist , they would be heavily altered and scarcely recognizable. Imagine troll maps with fake wall, and these little bastards hiding behind them.
Making their damage 1-4 with a longer cooldown between attacks as well as a brighter and larger telltale warning before the attack happens would definitely help here. That way they won’t melt you in a flash in open areas. Also no zero reaction time in Nightmare. That’d be too ridiculous even for that difficulty. Just half it instead.
@@pekirt the only range it has is the maximum range in which a monster can _start_ an attack. once it starts its attack animation, the only way to stop it is to make the lost soul flinch. when it calls its attack, the only calculations are "can this take damage?", "is it already dead?", and the damage itself even if that wasn't the case, though, it'd still be less computation than literally every hitscanner in the final game, so ...
The more I watch decino tell the lore, the more I appreciate this pioneer gem of fps gaming. The more I die in Doom, the deeper I dwelve into the beauty of it. The risk/reward ratio in DooM is still unparalleled. It is insanely frustrating, outright intimidating depending on the wad, but the feeling of achievement once you finally beat a map that seemed unbeatable before is just so satisfying. That being said, I am glad we got the cool bfg in the end :D
Exactly. My first experience with a difficult DOOM map was... E1M1 on UV... with HDoom. Among other things it replaces all "former" enemies with imps so you get much less ammo and no shotgun. It would have been infuriating if not that ammo crate in the secret tunnel.
Well then it seems to me that the beta bfg just required better balancing. But they trashed it before that point because it was a resource hog, on a machine with usually a maximum of 4 megabytes of RAM. The way I would balance it would have been to increase its damage, reduce its cell cost, and cause knockback equal to a target being hit by a rocket. So, if it dealt say 8 to 64 damage per projectile, had a cost of 20 cells, and knocked back, it could conceivably have a max damage of 5120. But as you are unlikely to hit a ton of foes with it, that would seem balanced to me. The added knockback, would allow you to push back foes that you don't one-hit kill as well, giving you more of a breathing room.
Almost exactly what I thought. Balance the damage to the cost, and add a twist so it's not just a big plasma gun. At first I thought of making the red projectiles cause flinching on contact, but that's too OP lol. Your suggestion is more balanced. Complex Doom uses bouncing mechanics too, but also on walls, not only ceilings and floors. That could also be a buff to this BFG.
@@huzzah3234 Yeah. This way it would make the beta BFG act kinda like a hybrid of shotgun, plasma rifle and rocket launcher, while still allowing each of those weapons to be useful for their own specific circumstances.
@@Insulted25 Well the knockback would make it so that you'd have breathing room, and as the projectiles bounce until they hit a wall, it wouldn't matter if it pushed them back. You'd have to adapt your gameplay strategy for sure though, as it would require different tactics and different situations to sue the weapon in.
Heck I wonder if you could do something interesting with the bouncing projectiles that miss, perhaps lower the damage but cause them to bounce in the direction of the nearest enemy... might not be possible though...
I don't think slaughtermaps are at all a fair metric to test the beta BFG by. For the simple fact that those slaughtermaps were built and balanced with the BFG we got in mind. Of course the beta BFG wouldn't work; hell at the time of its creation most of those high-tier slaughtermap monsters didn't even _exist_ since they showed up in Doom 2. You'd be better off testing it strictly in Doom 1, and probably the easier vanilla levels. Harder fan creations would, again, have naturally been balanced for the final version. Meanwhile at least some of the vanilla levels existed while the beta BFG was still in place. If I had to guess, the beta BFG wasn't built to tunnel your way out of thick monster crowds. It was supposed to be high burst damage; I suppose kind of like a less-accurate-more-powerful version of the plasma gun much like how the SSG would later function to the normal shotgun. I think it was meant more for single high-tier target takedowns rather than hordes.
did you know: if you combine the doom bfg, beta bfg, _and_ quake 2 bfg in such a way that the bfg ball not only vomits beta bfg projectiles at targets it passes by, but you also get a whole beta bfg barrage when the ball detonates _alongside_ the standard tracers, ... it still ends up being most practical to just use the bfg as normal because the fly-by projectiles don't end up accomplishing much and the barrage mostly just ends up giving you a massive blindspot for over a second
@@vjspectron I have always felt like ID wanted to do BFG in doom 1 like it was in quake 2 but they could not find a proper way to code it. Sure doom 1 tracers are a cool mechanic but them being shot after firing the weapon AND after the main projectile detonated AND being invisible just feels grossly coutnerintuitive...
When I was a kid I modded UT2004 sounds into Quake2. Made it sound much meatier. I put the Redeemer explosion as BFG charge sound, and pulse rifle combo explosion as BFG ball burst. It was awesome to use that gun just because of the sounds it made.
The Beta “Beta BFG” VS the Alpha “Actual BFG (you know, the cool one)”. Good video! That beta BFG was not only Christmassy, but it just wasted so many balls.. Such a good thing they changed it. The final BFG is iconic! I wonder how the Beta BFG would perform with auto aim and a *much* smaller projectile spread? Still would suck compared to the final I’m sure.
The first time I saw this weapon was in a mod that had it called "party BFG" it does more damage and bounces off walls. You can open a door shoot a couple of times and after some screams enter the room full of dead enemies and party lights everywhere, it is really fun and effective to use. All it needed was a proper buff.
_In theory_ it looks neat and "super powered" but this video proves its awfulness. Can you imagine what all of these modern map packs would look like with this Christmas gun? They would probably keep it as-is to maintain the retro feel. The BFG became a huge pop-culture reference so I don't want to know that alternate Beta FG timeline.
The closest weapon to the beta BFG has to be the Firemace from Heretic... and that weapon is notoriously weak in singleplayer. I think the only weapon that can match the retail BFG's prowess is Wraithverge from Hexen. The beta assets are also included in Woof for demonstration purposes as well, since it started as a WinMBF port.
The problem with the Firemace, I feel, is too much knockback (like every bloody weapon in the game) and total lack of aiming the larger splitting balls. But it is a good stunlocker and suppressor when you do NOT want the opponent firing back.
I maintain to this day that the Wraithverge is the most overpowered and skill-less weapon in any FPS. Don't get me wrong I love it, but when all you have to do is shoot it into the right room (and maybe not even that) it's a bit much.
@@micuu1 I feel the wrairhverge attack wpuld have made a good one-off powerup, instead. Or something that recharges and u use like a nuDoom equipment piece.
I was waiting for this one. Glad you posted it. By the way, the beta bfg, the way it functions, reminded me of the firemace in Heretic. It fired a large number of small spheres with a random spread that do bounce a little before exploding. Upon powering it up, it would fire a large sphere which would bounce multiple times. Any enemy it hit would instantly die (except bosses). Either way, I'm glad we got the bfg that we have now. It is both a legend amongst guns and an excellent topic to explain rng and reality.
@@alexandermarkov300 Couldn't agree more. Believe it or not, the sand wand (equivalent of Doom's pistol) is more useful, especially when dealing with flying enemies.
The big weapon, item, and enemy overhaul Metadoom adds an alt fire to all the guns, with the BFG9000's alt fire being near identical to the beta BFG burst. Due to tweaks to the primary fire ball and its hitscan blast turning into a proper AoE explosion, there's actually use cases for the beta style firing mode instead of being a total downgrade (in my experience this is mainly spraying cyberdemons and spider masterminds with dozens of little energy balls due to their massive hitbox being able to take all the hits)
Honestly, the beta BFG kind of like the automatic shotgun that has the ricochet shells modification from Wolfenstein the new order, except it shoots at a alarming high fire rate comparable to a minigun.
My favourite thing about this video is how well you're able to demonstrate the impact of a small gameplay mod after all your experience with vanilla Would love to see more like this, perhaps going over some of the community's custom monsters and weapons?
I still have always thought the real BFG's behaviour is kind of weird and unintuitive. As a kid, I always through it fired out traces from the projectile's point of impact (like a rocket) and that the tracers were just line-of-sight checks to enemies in the sector(s); essentially a blast radius. I probably made a lot of bad BFG shots firing the projectile then hiding behind a wall before it hit.
Weird that you think that. For me (and most players, I asked around in the past) the mechanics of it are unusual and not self-explanatory, but they become second nature quickly.
me too, i always thought that was what they were trying to do and they didn't get it working in time or w/e, in quake 2 the 'tracers' come out of the projectile so i think that might speak to intent there
@@DinnerForkTongue I never realized it worked the way it did until the Decino videos. I assumed it worked like a rocket where you can fire and forget. I guess in all my early play throughs, I was just fortunate that I'd been firing it in areas with little cover. Even Doom 2016 made the BFG work more how I expected, but with tracers hitting nearby enemies when it travelled, as opposed to when it hit.
The retail BFG is janky as hell, there's no two ways about it. Is it a FUN hackjob? Sure. But that doesn't mean it isn't an obvious hackjob. As a kid, I thought the big green ball did explosion damage. I didn't think it had tracers at all. Why would anyone think that? And I know I'm not alone, because there was an entire FAQ dedicated to JUST the BFG from 1995. And they wrote it due to a track record of nonsensical behavior and frustration. To quote the BFG FAQ: " We began writing this FAQ out of necessity. We were frustrated at the apparent inconsistencies in the way the weapon seemed to behave during game play, especially during deathmatches. There were times when we would get killed by the weapon when we thought we were completely safe. Conversely, there were times when we thought we had used the weapon correctly against an opponent, but they walked away unscathed. Our intent is to provide players with enough information to attack effectively with the BFG, and to correctly defend against it in a deathmatch. Our hope is that this information will give players a new attitude toward the weapon. We want to transform it from "The weapon we love to hate" into "The thinking man's weapon"."
To me, the beta BFG is like Gemini Laser from Mega Man 3. It's fun to use, flashy, and can surprise you, but there's better weapons available, and missing it costs you greatly.
Gemini Laser is the best Mega Buster stand-in 3 has to offer. That's not saying much, it's up against Spark Shot (can't switch weapons when an enemy is stunned), Shadow Blade (aimable, with limited range) and Needle Cannon (autofire, but resisted by more enemies than the Buster), but the rest of the weapons he gets there are super situational. Now, if you wanna compare it to every weapon he's ever picked up, then things get interesting. And by 'interesting,' I mean 'Metal Blade.'
The Beta BFG could have a place as an economical weapon with some tuning. Drain 20 cells for 40 projectiles, each causing the same damage that a Plasma would. All 40 shots fire at the same time and spread out across the same tracer pattern as a normal BFG, and also obey vertical autoaim. Increase the firing delay by 50% to offset the damage output to not overshadow the Plasma gun. I would also just ditch the red projectiles and make them all green. You would get this BFG when you pick up the normal BFG, acting as a secondary fire, sharing the 7 slot. Similar to the Expander attachment on the Shrinker in Duke3D.
If one was to buff the damage and add vertical aim (and perhaps some splash damage to spice things up), I'd say it would be a pretty good complement to the standard BFG. The BFG9000 works well with large groups, while the "BFG8000" could be better to overwhelm big and/or isolated targets.
Oh how I love these analysis videos, I never fail to learn something new. Some where out there is an alternative reality where Doom was a failure thanks to this BFG8999 and tin man lost souls. Good job we live in this one! Thanks decino, another great video. 🙂💛
The DPS is also substantially lower, it cycles every 50 tics instead of the 40, that combined with the lower overall damage makes crowd clearing a lot slower
It's a testament to the effect that Doom/Doom2 had on the community that today, in 2022, we're still interested in this level of a technical deep-dive on its mechanics. Also, great job as always Decino, for putting these together. Fascinating stuff.
Huh, maybe they could have reworked the weapon and made a flamethrower. - Just change the plasma sprites to fire and remove the bounce and you got yourself a flamethrower that fires in bursts.
The only weapon I know of that uses an attack similar to the beta BFG is the "power cube" in Russian Overkill. Except in that mod, it is overkill and you can't harm yourself with the projectiles. Though, in that mod it also adds in rocket projectiles into the mix for added carnage.
I actually kinda like the old bfg, like it could of been its own weapon with a reskin, with less projectiles a little closer together, call it a plasma shotgun. I just think the effects look cool when it shoots.
this is how I feel using the current BFG. I accidentally go behind a pillar as the projectile is hitting or something like that and then have to wait 25 years to be able to try again. At least the old BFG is fast, so if a bunch of enemies are around you, and you're frantically trying to not get hit, you dont have to worry about scan lines and shit. They could have just tweaked it to make it do a little better and still had the projectiles. I think everyones autistic playstyle would have just adjusted to that and if the current one was the experimental BFG, they would say it sucks. "See those guys right there? Didn't even get hit. So you just have to stand there completely exposed while you wait for this grandpa projectile to hit them, and it's still not over."
I still like the beta one, its kinda cool seeing how it bounces, but i think the only way to "fix" it or make it decent could've been giving the proyectiles 2 extra points of damage, making them able to bounce up to i dunno 5+ times off walls and adding 2 bigger energy balls (red and green) wich deal up to 320 each, it would still be lower damage than the Cool one but since they now bounce of walls it makes it harder for the proyectiles to "miss" anything
Another comment here makes a huge point though: testing the gun in slaughter maps designed around how to current BFG works is doing the gun a disservice. Now while it's still inferior from a mechanical and mathematical standpoint, it wouldn't be that bad at all in the vanilla Doom experience.
Thanks for this, it's hard to find ANY data on the Beta BFG beyond regurgitation of developer commentary, let alone a full blown tactical analysis and comparison.
I'd probably buff the old BFG to be more like the current one by doing 3 things: 1. increase the damage from 4-32 to 16-48, making it's damage more comparable to the Final BFG. 2. It shoots more projectile per game-tick, 4 per tick instead of 2, meaning you spend less time vulnerable. 3. Increase the projectiles' speed to 1024 Units per second, and decrease the spread angle to 6 degrees both vertically and horizontally, making it more accurate.
There's a mod that COMBINES the release BFG with the Beta BFG. It fires an explosive projectile that spews smaller projectiles in 4 directions, absolutely clearing any room you shoot it in
5:11 That "psyche damage" stuff reminds me of Yantar from STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. If you go too far into that town without a special helmet, your character takes massive psyche damage and becomes "Zombified" just like all the other zombie Stalkers in that area.
I mean, we have an idea of how this would work in practice: Heretic's Firemace works very similarly, though with a more controlled blast. There it's extremely underwhelming for a slot 7 weapon, though because it's in Heretic, it still has plenty of situations where it's useful. Samsara makes it Corvus's SSG replacement, which seems a better fit.
nice flamethrower you got there. in fact i theorize this would have been a good inspiration to not make shooter flamethrowers suck had it been tweaked a bit. issue might be the role since it is a very close archetype to the plasma gun.
One thing I think could be said but rarely is - The final BFG kinda sucks compared to the beta bfg from a specific perspective. That is, from the perspective of a new player that doesn't actually know how it works. The final BFG's is just kind of arcane and has an issue with the level of feedback it gives you. For all of it's faults, the beta BFG *does* give you instant feedback on what it's actually doing. Just some food for thought.
I would actually like the Beta BFG in place of the Plasma Gun. Its basically a Plasma Gun on steroids and that's cool so long as I still keep the Cool BFG
I think Romero's line of it, "looking like christmas" is way overblown. It would be a trivial matter to just change the red projectiles to another color like blue, which is exactly how it is at 6:30. The color of the projectiles wasn't the reason why the BFG was changed, it was changed because the effect lagged old PCs at the time. I actually think the old BFG is way cooler than the regular one. I remember as a kid being excited to see how the BFG worked, and being incredibly disappointed with it. Looking back, the regular BFG is far better balanced, but I prefer the effect of the old one, it just needs better balancing, which would be easy to do. I think a cool idea would be to make the old BFG be an alternate fire mode. I agree with someone else's idea to make it do more damage, use less energy and cause knock back.
Honestly, another reason why I'm glad they didn't use the beta BFG is that it's just the plasma rifle but more. It'd be an even bigger case of "why use cells on the plasma rifle when i have the BFG" since the beta one is basically a stronger version of the plasma rifle.
It was a good idea and it actually returns in doom eternal as the unmaykr "that basically works as a mod for the bfg for those who don't know" and its fun as hell even though not as efficient as the bfg in killing multiple enemies it can be used for dessimating single targets with minimum ammo
Hey dude, been watching your videos before even ever playing the original Doom games. These quality videos actually got me playing them which play amazingly well even today. Just wanna say thanks to all the great content, hope it continues.
I love that you used the "oops I accidentally started making the FF7 boss theme" version of Go 2 It. (And yes, Bucket confirmed that it was unintended but once he noticed how it was turning out he leaned into it. Best custom DOOM track ever, fight me.)
@@wadmodderschalton5763 Normally yes, but Plutonia was fully rescored by fans, and with that came an absolutely sublime remix of Nobody Told Me About Id for Go 2 It. While decino is playing that level in the footage, he plays the associated track. Bucket was originally trying to do a more upbeat version of NTMAI, and mixed in They're Going To Get You, but when it started resembling FF7's boss theme while he was composing it, he decided to keep that direction up. I know I'm not being subtle about how much I love that track but... :P
as a kid, before i knew the actual mechanics of the bfg, it felt like the plasma ball made a HUGE explosion which you were invulnerable to. so very very satisfying
They should bring this weapon back and call it the BFG 8k. And with the blue and green colors instead of green and red. And of course balance it a bit better.
Here's a thought: what if the Beta BFG also had a tracer effect? Say 1 tracer per projectile...since the default BFG has 40 tracers it might make more sense for this hypothetical Beta BFG to only shoot 40 projectiles instead, or could just be that only the red BFG balls give off a tracer...
0:15 - Well, RIP Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. And I guess the entire Doom modding community. And this channel? Oh and of course, the best game ever made: RAGE. A timeline without RAGE is truly the darkest timeline. ...🤣 Nah just kidding, I bet nobody even remembered RAGE until I said it.
Background song now available on Bandcamp:
decino.bandcamp.com/album/pumpkin-beats-to-analyse-to
I feel like if the beta BFG's damage was doubled and it had the vertical auto aim, it'd probaly be on par with the regular/cool BFG. liek a side-grade rather then a direct upgrade. That, or giving it infinet punch through.
Shows that sometimes limitations can spur innovation. If beta BFG didn't slow down old comps so much might we have got the current BFG?
that's a terrifying thought. The cool BFG is part of Doom's identity and part of why it's still in the public conscious.
Nah, I doubt they'd had kept it cuz it's practically useless, which couldn't had been missed in testing regardless of the slowdown.
Christmas Beam was a definite huge turnoff.
@Mosquito among us
Games used to be less than a full kilobyte. Now game can be upwards of 150 GIGABYTES. Programmers Need to relearn how to compress their files. There's tons of old tricks that they don't use anymore that only existed to save space.
I was going to suggest that you could probably modify the beta BFG sprite to be a flamethrower and change the particles sprites to the Archvile's flame but then I thought about how effective using a flamethrower on demons of hell would be like shooting them with a supersoaker
hey, it'd be a good joke weapon for a weapon-focused mod
Why not make it a supersoaker? Then it would be like shooting them with a flamethrower!
@@calsalitra4689Imagine if instead of a space marine, we got a space chaplain with a squirt gun they blessed to spray holy water.
(laughs in doom eternal)
*_laughs in brutal doom_*
Great video, I always thought the Beta BFG was cool as like an idea, but seeing it in action I’m thinking otherwise now lol. There’s a Doom mod called DAKKA that utilizes the old Beta BFG attack, it belches green plasma everywhere, but does way more damage, and it has an altfire where it concentrates the belch all into one enemy and homes in on it.
how you commenting 20 hours ago in a video from 10 minutes ago
Even if the damage from the B_BFG was good it would still function too similar to the plasma gun with its projectile spam based design. Compared to the release BFG that's in its own category compared to the plasma
Yep, Dakka weapons are awesome and they actually made the beta bfg useable.
The altfire sounds like the microwave beam from Eternal
@@0DRONZER I give $1 to daddy decino for the early vid and his discord server.
I’d love to see mappers use beta versions of monsters as variants in addition to the monsters in the final game. It would be a simple way to add more enemy variety without changing Doom’s gamefeel too much. Edit: it just occurred to me that I know very little about Beta Doom 1 and the other monsters/monster iterations that were scrapped by release day. That would make an excellent future Analysis video imo
Most enemies were exactly the same, save for having different sprites. It's only the Lost Souls that were different not just in looks.
The only other enemy which barely got past the concept phase was an enemy that would "slide along walls" spawning Lost Souls, sort of like a Pain Elemental. For numerous reasons this enemy had a sprite or 2 made, they realized it wasn't practical, and it was scrapped.
Doom wads need monsters not reskins... but monsters that aren't low res photoshops.
Doom Delta mod it's what do you want. Pretty cool beta mod
nice pdp
I kind of love the insanity of additional beta content with those Lost Souls. They'd completely change the dynamic of certain fights which rely on the infighting carnage created by Pain Elementals. Imagine even going through Plutonia's Pain Elemental count with beta souls. They'd be higher priority than the Archies.
None of the maps in doom we know and love would exist, or if they did exist , they would be heavily altered and scarcely recognizable. Imagine troll maps with fake wall, and these little bastards hiding behind them.
Archie’s are only tough if they see you they are pretty weak tbh
They have perfect accuracy right?
Making their damage 1-4 with a longer cooldown between attacks as well as a brighter and larger telltale warning before the attack happens would definitely help here. That way they won’t melt you in a flash in open areas. Also no zero reaction time in Nightmare. That’d be too ridiculous even for that difficulty. Just half it instead.
@@pekirt the only range it has is the maximum range in which a monster can _start_ an attack. once it starts its attack animation, the only way to stop it is to make the lost soul flinch. when it calls its attack, the only calculations are "can this take damage?", "is it already dead?", and the damage itself
even if that wasn't the case, though, it'd still be less computation than literally every hitscanner in the final game, so ...
The more I watch decino tell the lore, the more I appreciate this pioneer gem of fps gaming. The more I die in Doom, the deeper I dwelve into the beauty of it. The risk/reward ratio in DooM is still unparalleled. It is insanely frustrating, outright intimidating depending on the wad, but the feeling of achievement once you finally beat a map that seemed unbeatable before is just so satisfying.
That being said, I am glad we got the cool bfg in the end :D
Not lore, mechanics.
@@butitsureisfun460 Aren't those the same thing in Sci-Fi?
Exactly. My first experience with a difficult DOOM map was... E1M1 on UV... with HDoom. Among other things it replaces all "former" enemies with imps so you get much less ammo and no shotgun. It would have been infuriating if not that ammo crate in the secret tunnel.
@@samlay9588 No, projectile speed in map units and the engine's random number generator has nothing to do with lore.
Well then it seems to me that the beta bfg just required better balancing. But they trashed it before that point because it was a resource hog, on a machine with usually a maximum of 4 megabytes of RAM. The way I would balance it would have been to increase its damage, reduce its cell cost, and cause knockback equal to a target being hit by a rocket. So, if it dealt say 8 to 64 damage per projectile, had a cost of 20 cells, and knocked back, it could conceivably have a max damage of 5120. But as you are unlikely to hit a ton of foes with it, that would seem balanced to me. The added knockback, would allow you to push back foes that you don't one-hit kill as well, giving you more of a breathing room.
Almost exactly what I thought.
Balance the damage to the cost, and add a twist so it's not just a big plasma gun. At first I thought of making the red projectiles cause flinching on contact, but that's too OP lol. Your suggestion is more balanced.
Complex Doom uses bouncing mechanics too, but also on walls, not only ceilings and floors. That could also be a buff to this BFG.
@@huzzah3234 Yeah. This way it would make the beta BFG act kinda like a hybrid of shotgun, plasma rifle and rocket launcher, while still allowing each of those weapons to be useful for their own specific circumstances.
IMO the knockback would make it even worse, the first projectile to hit would knock the monster away from subsequent shots.
@@Insulted25 Well the knockback would make it so that you'd have breathing room, and as the projectiles bounce until they hit a wall, it wouldn't matter if it pushed them back. You'd have to adapt your gameplay strategy for sure though, as it would require different tactics and different situations to sue the weapon in.
Heck I wonder if you could do something interesting with the bouncing projectiles that miss, perhaps lower the damage but cause them to bounce in the direction of the nearest enemy... might not be possible though...
I don't think slaughtermaps are at all a fair metric to test the beta BFG by. For the simple fact that those slaughtermaps were built and balanced with the BFG we got in mind. Of course the beta BFG wouldn't work; hell at the time of its creation most of those high-tier slaughtermap monsters didn't even _exist_ since they showed up in Doom 2. You'd be better off testing it strictly in Doom 1, and probably the easier vanilla levels. Harder fan creations would, again, have naturally been balanced for the final version. Meanwhile at least some of the vanilla levels existed while the beta BFG was still in place.
If I had to guess, the beta BFG wasn't built to tunnel your way out of thick monster crowds. It was supposed to be high burst damage; I suppose kind of like a less-accurate-more-powerful version of the plasma gun much like how the SSG would later function to the normal shotgun. I think it was meant more for single high-tier target takedowns rather than hordes.
Huh... I never considered that slaughtermaps are balanced around the BFG. No _wonder_ I hate them, I hate the gun I'm meant to use in them.
I think it would have its niche as an altmode for sure
BFG according to Google means
BIG F*CKING GUN
@@sharp_object2148 well done genius.
@@sharp_object2148 *fucking
This would have been perfect in a Christmas themed Doom WAD. Awesome video, decino. :)
I agree with you there.
seeing BMD in comment section is always a good thing
did you know: if you combine the doom bfg, beta bfg, _and_ quake 2 bfg in such a way that the bfg ball not only vomits beta bfg projectiles at targets it passes by, but you also get a whole beta bfg barrage when the ball detonates _alongside_ the standard tracers,
... it still ends up being most practical to just use the bfg as normal because the fly-by projectiles don't end up accomplishing much and the barrage mostly just ends up giving you a massive blindspot for over a second
So like the Complex doom's Demon Tech Devastator?
That line-of-sight laser in Quake 2 put BFG fear in your enemies!
@@vjspectron I have always felt like ID wanted to do BFG in doom 1 like it was in quake 2 but they could not find a proper way to code it. Sure doom 1 tracers are a cool mechanic but them being shot after firing the weapon AND after the main projectile detonated AND being invisible just feels grossly coutnerintuitive...
When I was a kid I modded UT2004 sounds into Quake2. Made it sound much meatier. I put the Redeemer explosion as BFG charge sound, and pulse rifle combo explosion as BFG ball burst. It was awesome to use that gun just because of the sounds it made.
And you know this because you've tried it and recorded the video and posted it online, right?
The world needs to know
The Beta “Beta BFG” VS the Alpha “Actual BFG (you know, the cool one)”.
Good video! That beta BFG was not only Christmassy, but it just wasted so many balls.. Such a good thing they changed it. The final BFG is iconic!
I wonder how the Beta BFG would perform with auto aim and a *much* smaller projectile spread? Still would suck compared to the final I’m sure.
Lol 22h ago lol lol
Well, it might work if AND ONLY IF the plasma gun was re-tooled to not overlap with it.
What I want to know is how the beta BFG performs in deathmatch.
wait that doesn't make sense, alpha comes before beta
@@dmas7749 So ...
*"Beta BFG" vs "Chad" BFG? :D?
The first time I saw this weapon was in a mod that had it called "party BFG" it does more damage and bounces off walls. You can open a door shoot a couple of times and after some screams enter the room full of dead enemies and party lights everywhere, it is really fun and effective to use. All it needed was a proper buff.
_In theory_ it looks neat and "super powered" but this video proves its awfulness. Can you imagine what all of these modern map packs would look like with this Christmas gun? They would probably keep it as-is to maintain the retro feel. The BFG became a huge pop-culture reference so I don't want to know that alternate Beta FG timeline.
This.
I'd say that the BetaFG timeline is essentially how almost all of the AAA industry is now.
It's not like they kept it long enough to tweak it. you're assuming things would have stayed the same the whole time.
@@ViddyOJames Sure. On the other hand, it's hypothetical so who gives a shit?
@Samm Salvey I think it would be neat as a berserk type of power-up. Like 10 seconds or so to fire bouncy balls down a corridor then it's gone.
I do feel there's something to be said about the sheer scale and intensity of the beta BFG. It's a lights show that really does the BFG justice.
The closest weapon to the beta BFG has to be the Firemace from Heretic... and that weapon is notoriously weak in singleplayer. I think the only weapon that can match the retail BFG's prowess is Wraithverge from Hexen.
The beta assets are also included in Woof for demonstration purposes as well, since it started as a WinMBF port.
The Ring of Ra in PowerSlave is very similary
The problem with the Firemace, I feel, is too much knockback (like every bloody weapon in the game) and total lack of aiming the larger splitting balls. But it is a good stunlocker and suppressor when you do NOT want the opponent firing back.
I maintain to this day that the Wraithverge is the most overpowered and skill-less weapon in any FPS. Don't get me wrong I love it, but when all you have to do is shoot it into the right room (and maybe not even that) it's a bit much.
Are you another account of decino?
@@micuu1 I feel the wrairhverge attack wpuld have made a good one-off powerup, instead. Or something that recharges and u use like a nuDoom equipment piece.
I was waiting for this one. Glad you posted it. By the way, the beta bfg, the way it functions, reminded me of the firemace in Heretic. It fired a large number of small spheres with a random spread that do bounce a little before exploding. Upon powering it up, it would fire a large sphere which would bounce multiple times. Any enemy it hit would instantly die (except bosses).
Either way, I'm glad we got the bfg that we have now. It is both a legend amongst guns and an excellent topic to explain rng and reality.
Firemace is shit, the worst weapon in the game.
@@alexandermarkov300 Couldn't agree more. Believe it or not, the sand wand (equivalent of Doom's pistol) is more useful, especially when dealing with flying enemies.
Powered up firemace is basically Half Life 2 AR2 but worse
I like to think of a parallel universe where the beta BFG looked like Halloween
3:50 Surprised to see Symphony X here.
Severely underrated band.
The big weapon, item, and enemy overhaul Metadoom adds an alt fire to all the guns, with the BFG9000's alt fire being near identical to the beta BFG burst. Due to tweaks to the primary fire ball and its hitscan blast turning into a proper AoE explosion, there's actually use cases for the beta style firing mode instead of being a total downgrade (in my experience this is mainly spraying cyberdemons and spider masterminds with dozens of little energy balls due to their massive hitbox being able to take all the hits)
I love MetaDoom. It combines 25+ years of Doom into one mod.
Imagine both ideas combined: the chirstmas bfg combined with tracers. Imagine how OP that would be lol.
Honestly, the beta BFG kind of like the automatic shotgun that has the ricochet shells modification from Wolfenstein the new order, except it shoots at a alarming high fire rate comparable to a minigun.
My favourite thing about this video is how well you're able to demonstrate the impact of a small gameplay mod after all your experience with vanilla
Would love to see more like this, perhaps going over some of the community's custom monsters and weapons?
I still have always thought the real BFG's behaviour is kind of weird and unintuitive. As a kid, I always through it fired out traces from the projectile's point of impact (like a rocket) and that the tracers were just line-of-sight checks to enemies in the sector(s); essentially a blast radius. I probably made a lot of bad BFG shots firing the projectile then hiding behind a wall before it hit.
Weird that you think that. For me (and most players, I asked around in the past) the mechanics of it are unusual and not self-explanatory, but they become second nature quickly.
me too, i always thought that was what they were trying to do and they didn't get it working in time or w/e, in quake 2 the 'tracers' come out of the projectile so i think that might speak to intent there
@@DinnerForkTongue I never realized it worked the way it did until the Decino videos. I assumed it worked like a rocket where you can fire and forget. I guess in all my early play throughs, I was just fortunate that I'd been firing it in areas with little cover.
Even Doom 2016 made the BFG work more how I expected, but with tracers hitting nearby enemies when it travelled, as opposed to when it hit.
The retail BFG is janky as hell, there's no two ways about it. Is it a FUN hackjob? Sure. But that doesn't mean it isn't an obvious hackjob.
As a kid, I thought the big green ball did explosion damage. I didn't think it had tracers at all. Why would anyone think that? And I know I'm not alone, because there was an entire FAQ dedicated to JUST the BFG from 1995. And they wrote it due to a track record of nonsensical behavior and frustration.
To quote the BFG FAQ:
" We began writing this FAQ out of necessity. We were frustrated at the apparent inconsistencies in the way the weapon seemed to behave during game play, especially during deathmatches. There were times when we would get killed by the weapon when we thought we were completely safe. Conversely, there were times when we thought we had used the weapon correctly against an opponent, but they walked away unscathed.
Our intent is to provide players with enough information to attack effectively with the BFG, and to correctly defend against it in a deathmatch. Our hope is that this information will give players a new attitude toward the weapon. We want to transform it from "The weapon we love to hate" into "The thinking man's weapon"."
@@soviut303
Like I said, it's unusual and not self-explanatory. But after you learn, it becomes pretty natural.
1:43
“Max damage: 1776”
*screeches in American*
what?
To me, the beta BFG is like Gemini Laser from Mega Man 3. It's fun to use, flashy, and can surprise you, but there's better weapons available, and missing it costs you greatly.
Gemini Laser is the best Mega Buster stand-in 3 has to offer. That's not saying much, it's up against Spark Shot (can't switch weapons when an enemy is stunned), Shadow Blade (aimable, with limited range) and Needle Cannon (autofire, but resisted by more enemies than the Buster), but the rest of the weapons he gets there are super situational.
Now, if you wanna compare it to every weapon he's ever picked up, then things get interesting. And by 'interesting,' I mean 'Metal Blade.'
Dude, they way you pronounced "HOT AND JUICE throbbing nose???" with the all caps and the confused question mark at the end was pure gold.
The Beta BFG could have a place as an economical weapon with some tuning. Drain 20 cells for 40 projectiles, each causing the same damage that a Plasma would. All 40 shots fire at the same time and spread out across the same tracer pattern as a normal BFG, and also obey vertical autoaim. Increase the firing delay by 50% to offset the damage output to not overshadow the Plasma gun. I would also just ditch the red projectiles and make them all green.
You would get this BFG when you pick up the normal BFG, acting as a secondary fire, sharing the 7 slot. Similar to the Expander attachment on the Shrinker in Duke3D.
7:45 Oh, the lengths people are willing to go with their patron names to have you read them out loud. xD
If one was to buff the damage and add vertical aim (and perhaps some splash damage to spice things up), I'd say it would be a pretty good complement to the standard BFG. The BFG9000 works well with large groups, while the "BFG8000" could be better to overwhelm big and/or isolated targets.
On a decino binge watch and nothing has given me more joy than the way he says “bum bum” at 4:47
Oh how I love these analysis videos, I never fail to learn something new.
Some where out there is an alternative reality where Doom was a failure thanks to this BFG8999 and tin man lost souls. Good job we live in this one! Thanks decino, another great video. 🙂💛
The DPS is also substantially lower, it cycles every 50 tics instead of the 40, that combined with the lower overall damage makes crowd clearing a lot slower
It's a testament to the effect that Doom/Doom2 had on the community that today, in 2022, we're still interested in this level of a technical deep-dive on its mechanics. Also, great job as always Decino, for putting these together. Fascinating stuff.
Mmm... The Christmas gun...
I could see that being useful for decorating the tree in times square!
Huh, maybe they could have reworked the weapon and made a flamethrower. - Just change the plasma sprites to fire and remove the bounce and you got yourself a flamethrower that fires in bursts.
Could explain that in the manual with needing to re-pressurise the fuel tank after each burst.
So, basically the BFG was basically a minigun that shot laser pellets
The only weapon I know of that uses an attack similar to the beta BFG is the "power cube" in Russian Overkill. Except in that mod, it is overkill and you can't harm yourself with the projectiles. Though, in that mod it also adds in rocket projectiles into the mix for added carnage.
I actually kinda like the old bfg, like it could of been its own weapon with a reskin, with less projectiles a little closer together, call it a plasma shotgun. I just think the effects look cool when it shoots.
Never knew about the beta BFG, so glad it was changed to what we know today! Another great video 👍
this is how I feel using the current BFG. I accidentally go behind a pillar as the projectile is hitting or something like that and then have to wait 25 years to be able to try again. At least the old BFG is fast, so if a bunch of enemies are around you, and you're frantically trying to not get hit, you dont have to worry about scan lines and shit. They could have just tweaked it to make it do a little better and still had the projectiles. I think everyones autistic playstyle would have just adjusted to that and if the current one was the experimental BFG, they would say it sucks. "See those guys right there? Didn't even get hit. So you just have to stand there completely exposed while you wait for this grandpa projectile to hit them, and it's still not over."
Should have been named the POS 9000
Lol. I see what you did there.
It would be cool to have a mod where this was an alternate firing mode for the BFG. LMB = regular mode we all know and love, RMB = beta version.
I’m glad we got the big shot BFG instead of the Santa Pisser 9000 mostly because I can see the destruction caused by the BFG
The Santa Pisser 9000 is 95% of the way to being a flamethrower, though. Just needs a change of projectile graphics.
@@Roxor128 Yah but a flamethrower is cool, Santa Pisser 9000 replacing the BFG is not cool
That face in the thumbnail says *"DEAR GOD THEY GAVE ME THE WRONG ONE!"*
4:30 I just have this video playing in the background while doing somethings and then I hear "god machine" and get ptsd flashbacks from uvmaxing it.
The idea of a huge spray of projectiles seems cool on paper, but I suppose it doesn't work as well in execution. Cool analysis as always, Decino!
Barfing Fire Gun
I still like the beta one, its kinda cool seeing how it bounces, but i think the only way to "fix" it or make it decent could've been giving the proyectiles 2 extra points of damage, making them able to bounce up to i dunno 5+ times off walls and adding 2 bigger energy balls (red and green) wich deal up to 320 each, it would still be lower damage than the Cool one but since they now bounce of walls it makes it harder for the proyectiles to "miss" anything
Another comment here makes a huge point though: testing the gun in slaughter maps designed around how to current BFG works is doing the gun a disservice. Now while it's still inferior from a mechanical and mathematical standpoint, it wouldn't be that bad at all in the vanilla Doom experience.
i watched all these before but i can always rewatch because you explain things like its the first time im hearing of it and i love that
1:11 missed opportunity, should've named Sigma BFG
lol
Video thumbnail:Decino furious about the lack of beta Dooom features in Doom
I wonder if it'd surpass the current BFG if the projectiles bounced off walls as well; not just floor/ceilings.
Thanks for this, it's hard to find ANY data on the Beta BFG beyond regurgitation of developer commentary, let alone a full blown tactical analysis and comparison.
If the spread was tighter it could penetrate enemies and it was fullauto instead of burst
I think it might be a fun weapon
1:08 I love how you used Comic Sans for the Beta BFG's name lol
I'd probably buff the old BFG to be more like the current one by doing 3 things:
1. increase the damage from 4-32 to 16-48, making it's damage more comparable to the Final BFG.
2. It shoots more projectile per game-tick, 4 per tick instead of 2, meaning you spend less time vulnerable.
3. Increase the projectiles' speed to 1024 Units per second, and decrease the spread angle to 6 degrees both vertically and horizontally, making it more accurate.
the Christmas Cannon is an ineffective deterrent of meatballs, Noted.
There's a mod that COMBINES the release BFG with the Beta BFG. It fires an explosive projectile that spews smaller projectiles in 4 directions, absolutely clearing any room you shoot it in
Send the link
@@milesium-487 I have no idea which mod it was, I have like 20 of them. I'll do some checks
@@ProtoBlueGaming soooo you find it?
@@potolog101It MIGHT be Typhon
It's like the BFG9000 sneezes instead of shooting
Or vomiting blood lol
1:12 Should have gone with Beta BFG and *Sigma BFG*
5:11 That "psyche damage" stuff reminds me of Yantar from STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. If you go too far into that town without a special helmet, your character takes massive psyche damage and becomes "Zombified" just like all the other zombie Stalkers in that area.
1:44 thats Okuplok!
Someone at Id said "We need a Better, Fancier Gun" and that's how we got the name.
0:25 damn that's a lot of per-ticles
I mean, we have an idea of how this would work in practice: Heretic's Firemace works very similarly, though with a more controlled blast. There it's extremely underwhelming for a slot 7 weapon, though because it's in Heretic, it still has plenty of situations where it's useful. Samsara makes it Corvus's SSG replacement, which seems a better fit.
nice flamethrower you got there.
in fact i theorize this would have been a good inspiration to not make shooter flamethrowers suck had it been tweaked a bit. issue might be the role since it is a very close archetype to the plasma gun.
Considering how many weapon mods give the plasma gun a flamethrower altfire, you're not wrong.
With Multiverse Theory in mind, I feel sorry for the universes that got fast PCs in the 90s compared to ours.
I wonder if the weapon would he more viable if the damage for each particle was doubled and it had a much larger spread and longer firing duration.
5:30 I can see why they went with streamlining the Lost Souls' attack patterns in the final release.
I wonder if making all the beta bfg projectiles into the cool bfg's projectile and it's inital non tracer damage would help at all
I feel like the beta version of the BFG is what inspired the Unmyker from DOOM 64 and DOOM ETERNAL.
I think if there were a few changes (ie more projectiles, less ammo usage, etc), it would probably work. But it reminds me more of the Plasma weapon.
This thing seems to have quite a lot in common with Doom Eternals Unmaykr.
One thing I think could be said but rarely is -
The final BFG kinda sucks compared to the beta bfg from a specific perspective. That is, from the perspective of a new player that doesn't actually know how it works. The final BFG's is just kind of arcane and has an issue with the level of feedback it gives you.
For all of it's faults, the beta BFG *does* give you instant feedback on what it's actually doing.
Just some food for thought.
@@poleve5409 I would guess it's because the frame rate would have tanked on the machines of the era.
Introducing the BCG9000 (Big Confetti Gun 9000)
I would actually like the Beta BFG in place of the Plasma Gun. Its basically a Plasma Gun on steroids and that's cool so long as I still keep the Cool BFG
An upgrade weapon, similar to super shotgun. It'd be a great "super plasmagun".
I ran the old doom on an old 386 and the mere act of firing the BFG stalled the computer.
I think Romero's line of it, "looking like christmas" is way overblown. It would be a trivial matter to just change the red projectiles to another color like blue, which is exactly how it is at 6:30. The color of the projectiles wasn't the reason why the BFG was changed, it was changed because the effect lagged old PCs at the time.
I actually think the old BFG is way cooler than the regular one. I remember as a kid being excited to see how the BFG worked, and being incredibly disappointed with it. Looking back, the regular BFG is far better balanced, but I prefer the effect of the old one, it just needs better balancing, which would be easy to do. I think a cool idea would be to make the old BFG be an alternate fire mode. I agree with someone else's idea to make it do more damage, use less energy and cause knock back.
the old bfg would annihilate pcs
Honestly, another reason why I'm glad they didn't use the beta BFG is that it's just the plasma rifle but more. It'd be an even bigger case of "why use cells on the plasma rifle when i have the BFG" since the beta one is basically a stronger version of the plasma rifle.
Beta BFG vs Sigma BFG
the beta "big festive gun" versus the sigma "big fucking gun"
It was a good idea and it actually returns in doom eternal as the unmaykr "that basically works as a mod for the bfg for those who don't know" and its fun as hell even though not as efficient as the bfg in killing multiple enemies it can be used for dessimating single targets with minimum ammo
Hey dude, been watching your videos before even ever playing the original Doom games. These quality videos actually got me playing them which play amazingly well even today. Just wanna say thanks to all the great content, hope it continues.
1:36 I see what you did there
What did he do?
@@G-Man_918 He highlighted the 69
6:45 the beta lost soul left a corpse? I wonder how would they combine with the other on-sight blaster Archvile.
so the beta bfg is kinda like the unmakyr but bad?
It is the unmaykr
I wish they put the beta BFG as an unlockable in the Doom 1 + 2 and have it use its own ammo instead of cells.
Were it to be more accurate, and maybe have the shots be homing, this could make for a solid alternative firing mode for the current BFG
Then it would be even worse for crowd control.
@@decino true, but maybe it could be an interesting concept for another weapon
I love that you used the "oops I accidentally started making the FF7 boss theme" version of Go 2 It.
(And yes, Bucket confirmed that it was unintended but once he noticed how it was turning out he leaned into it. Best custom DOOM track ever, fight me.)
More like Midi version of popular metal songs from the 1960s up until the 2000s no longer compatible with TH-cam content ID. (3:52)
@@wadmodderschalton5763 Normally yes, but Plutonia was fully rescored by fans, and with that came an absolutely sublime remix of Nobody Told Me About Id for Go 2 It. While decino is playing that level in the footage, he plays the associated track.
Bucket was originally trying to do a more upbeat version of NTMAI, and mixed in They're Going To Get You, but when it started resembling FF7's boss theme while he was composing it, he decided to keep that direction up. I know I'm not being subtle about how much I love that track but... :P
At least changing the weapon justified that "F" in BFG. Before that, it was just _fancy_ or _fairy_
Festive
Big Fchristmas Gun.
@@Leo___________ Good one. Need to be less sleepy when writing comments, yours is more appropriate
as a kid, before i knew the actual mechanics of the bfg, it felt like the plasma ball made a HUGE explosion which you were invulnerable to. so very very satisfying
It would be awesome if you could do some sort of analysis video on doom 64
They should bring this weapon back and call it the BFG 8k. And with the blue and green colors instead of green and red.
And of course balance it a bit better.
A flamethrower?
If I see a yellow background in a TH-cam video preview, I click. decino never disappoints.
Here's a thought: what if the Beta BFG also had a tracer effect? Say 1 tracer per projectile...since the default BFG has 40 tracers it might make more sense for this hypothetical Beta BFG to only shoot 40 projectiles instead, or could just be that only the red BFG balls give off a tracer...
🔥
🖥️
I called this gun the BFG 8000 or the Super Plasma Rifle instead
0:15 - Well, RIP Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. And I guess the entire Doom modding community. And this channel?
Oh and of course, the best game ever made: RAGE. A timeline without RAGE is truly the darkest timeline. ...🤣 Nah just kidding, I bet nobody even remembered RAGE until I said it.
apart from slowdown, a good reason to change the bfg was probably because its just too similar to the plasma gun