It wasn't extremely powerful or broke the game's balancing in any way ( the definition of overpowered).

That shotgun was reliable, you could make an approximate calculation as to how many shots could down an imp ( provided your aim isn't blocked by anything, or the angle was off). To say the classic Doom shotgun is overpowered is a bit of a stretch. I played through Doom 3 recently, and I went from one-shotting a revenant( I had to go in close enough to see his pores) to firing three shots(at close range) to kill an imp. The second chief reason many people don't like the shotgun, is that the RNG is really odd. The massive spread makes it entirely possible to not hit something( or do significant damage) at close range, almost entirely defeating the point of the weapons design. The main problems many many people have with the shotgun, besides the ugly model, is that it is unreliable. This should probably be in the Doom 3 subforum, but I'll bite.ĭoom 3's shotgun was designed for close range encounters, since *most* of the encounters in Doom 3 were fairly claustrophobic, usually confined to one area. But if you do that, what's the point of the machine gun? Making the spread about 6 seems to make the most people happy, and changing the damage to about 10 seems to somewhat balance it out. All that being said, it's easy to change the spread and damage, but I don't think anyone has ever agreed on the best numbers. And if the shotgun was more like a rifle, then the other weapons wouldn't be as viable at longer distances.

If the levels were more open and long range, the shotgun wouldn't be as viable, but neither would the slower movement and stamina. Even taking on a hell knight with the shotgun is a lot of fun because of how it switches between its melee and projectile attacks depending on your distance to it. You risk taking damage up close in exchange for a possible one hit kill, depending on the enemy. It was designed that way from a pure game mechanic standpoint. Sure it's not how an actual shotgun works, but I've never gotten ammo while cutting down a tree, either. Similar to how the new Doom games require you to get up close with fists and chainsaw if you want health and ammo, Doom 3 asks you to get close and personal with the shotgun. Because of the level design in Doom 3 it works out brilliantly. The best way to balance the shotgun is to think of it as a melee weapon.

Doom 3 super shotgun