Warp Rifle

Hit-scan weapon that incentivizes the player to shoot from behind cover for extra damage.

This weapon was an idea I had for years while playing Doom Eternal, before being fully fleshed out in a design document as part of the application process to id Software. The weapon is a high damage precision hit-scan weapon akin to the Ballista in Doom Eternal with the limited ability to fire through walls. The intent is to have players be more cognizant of map geometry in relation to enemies.

Normally in arena shooters players use the map in a reactive way to hide from enemies when their health is low and they need respite. With this weapon I wanted to promote a more proactive thought process when it came to geometry. The weapon by default can fire through 2 pieces of geometry before stopping at the 3rd. What creates a proactive playstyle is the upgrades. The first upgrade makes enemies highlight briefly when fully charged, making it easier to hit targets behind cover. The second upgrade is the more important one: the damage of the weapon increases by 100% every time it passes through something.

This makes an arena's geometry an additional tool for players to efficiently kill enemies. By finding the spots on a map with a few pieces of geometry (maybe a raised platform with a box on it, or a tunnel on the side of an arena that also has a big platform in the middle), a player can one-shot even high health enemies (and stay safe behind cover while doing so).

In addition, the mastery for this weapon would allow it to shoot through enemies in addition to geometry. Making this the mastery (which would require time to unlock) allows the player to learn how the weapon works and get accustomed to its quirks before expanding the options the weapon allows.

Overall I'm happy with this design and there's nothing particular I'd change about it. There is the potential for the weapon to create opportunities for players to skip puzzles if the weapon works on shootable switches, but this isn't inherently a negative (and if it is, it can always be fixed so that shots only hit switches if they don't hit something else first). 

This weapon design also came with a complimentary alternative weapon mod that allowed the player to swap positions with enemies, which pairs well with the Warp Rifle by setting enemies in positions with lots of geometry between them and the player. I have not created an implementation of that mod yet, but I may do so to see how the interaction would work with this weapon.