Are there any new shooter weapon ideas that wouldn't feel redundant?

[isaac4]

A couple of months ago I was trying to work on a really ambitious thread for a new main weapon concept but decided to put it off for later.
I recently got reminded of it because of @OnePotWonder most recent thread and that led me thinking about how many shooter weapons we currently have and if it would be possible for a new one to still have its own unique identity.
I personally can't think of anything but I also don't play shooters so maybe there's something I'm missing.

 

[DzNutsKong]

In general there aren't many backline Shooters. Jet Squelcher is the only one and while there's definitely room for some competition there, it gets a lot tougher with Nintendo's idea of keeping Shooters flexible. All of them have decent painting, good mobility, and good ink efficiency except for the Squeezer which only really has the mobility because Nintendo realized they overtuned that thing like crazy a bit too late. How do you fit all three of those things while also having good variety? Giving a backline bad accuracy too just doesn't sound like a great idea even if it's something they haven't really done. Maybe the answer is to just give it even more range, but a really bad fire rate and mediocre kill time or something, but even then that'd be difficult to balance in a way that isn't just paintbot.

Also, semi-automatics. All three of those are midlines so I'm sure there's room for something else in there. Maybe that's how you make a new and unique backline Shooter? I doubt Nintendo wants too many of these though and it'd be a hard sell for Nintendo to say "here's your new Shooter" and every Shooter player hates it because like 99% of people who play those don't play semi-autos.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I'm normally able to come up with something, but creating a new shooter that feels unique at this point is probably impossible.
Even looking at the new shooters we did get in Splatoon 2 and 3, Squeezer is extremely similar to Splattershot Pro, and Splattershot Nova isn't exactly a shining example of weapon design even if it does fill a unique niche of range + fire rate combo.

The only idea for a new shooter I can see possibly working is a new burst-fire with two-shot bursts, but it would be tricky to implement stat-wise without trodding on the toes of anything else, especially the Nozzlenoses. Maybe a two-shot splat with Aerospray range? That could easily get annoying, though.

And no, we absolutely should not have any more backline shooters. Jet Squelcher is already a premium example of how finicky they are to balance and how easily they can become paint bots. The only Jet Squelcher people ever liked had a combo sub and a melee transformation special to force it to play actively.

 

[OnePotWonder]

This got me thinking, now I have to come up with a list of new main weapon concepts.

 

[Catloafman]

One weapon idea I had a while ago is a shooter with reverse damage falloff so the further away you are from the weapon the more damage it deals per-shot
It would have to have decent range and good strafe speed like nova

 

[DzNutsKong]

we absolutely should not have any more backline shooters. Jet Squelcher is already a premium example of how finicky they are to balance and how easily they can become paint bots. The only Jet Squelcher people ever liked had a combo sub and a melee transformation special to force it to play actively.

I don't think one example by itself is a good enough sample size especially since a few tweaks could easily make it a lot more manageable for this. Really the paint is the big issue and there's definitely a sweet spot to be hit where the paint is alright, but not going to encourage any overly passive playstyle. This would especially be the case if it's a semi-automatic since those have been allowed to have less same-y stats compared to other Shooters and in particular a backline semi-auto would probably have both worse fire rate and painting than H-3 does right now.

How would you balance the rest of it? Unsure, but the idea's there and there's a lot more you can play around with for it.

 

[solz]

I have an idea. It’s a shooter that when first firing fires at the rate of the gal but has 3pixels more range than the n-zap. As you fire over the course of 3 seconds the fire rate gets faster up to the point of the splattershot while the range goes down to 5 pixels less than the splattershot. As you shoot the acuricy drops heavily. What do y’all think is this a fun or to complicated.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I have an idea. It’s a shooter that when first firing fires at the rate of the gal but has 3pixels more range than the n-zap. As you fire over the course of 3 seconds the fire rate gets faster up to the point of the splattershot while the range goes down to 5 pixels less than the splattershot. As you shoot the acuricy drops heavily. What do y’all think is this a fun or to complicated.

Scaling stats the longer it's fired is definitely an interesting concept. Fire rate wouldn't work, but range definitely could.
A+ for creativity. Might polish this up in a later thread and give you credit for inspiration.

 

[Azure ST]

Scaling stats the longer it's fired is definitely an interesting concept. Fire rate wouldn't work, but range definitely could.
A+ for creativity. Might polish this up in a later thread and give you credit for inspiration.

I had the idea a long time ago for a shooter that would exchange fire rate for range as you continued to hold down the fire button. That might encroach on Ballpoint or Squeezer's territory a little, and I'm sure there are more creative shooter ideas, but there may be potential. Perhaps even scaling bullet size as well could angle it towards some sort of identity as a cleanup/routing weapon. This idea may not play out in practice though .I'm just putting out thoughts.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I had the idea a long time ago for a shooter that would exchange fire rate for range as you continued to hold down the fire button. That might encroach on Ballpoint or Squeezer's territory a little, and I'm sure there are more creative shooter ideas, but there may be potential. Perhaps even scaling bullet size as well could angle it towards some sort of identity as a cleanup/routing weapon. This idea may not play out in practice though .I'm just putting out thoughts.

No, you bring up an excellent point. Anything with two distinct firing modes will have to be handled carefully to avoid any Squeezer clones. I'll have to keep that in mind if I flesh out any ideas.

 

[Algae]

For Nova, I'd make its precision (and some range) increase and its firerate increase from 6 to 5 frames if it's fired continuously, an inverse of the accuracy-loss mechanic of most other shooters. For Squeezer, I think its long-range mode should have a 10-frame firerate and its painting/short-range mode should have 6 frames, bolstering its identity of using different fire modes.

 

[Grushi]

I think there's some gimmick ideas that could be done. @OnePotWonder had some ideas about a limited ammo shooter I really liked but instead of running out of ammo completely, maybe you'd get an ultra powerful fire, like a high fire rate accurate good painting 3-shot, that gets a big fire rate/range nerf after firing for one second, or a buffed .52 gal with perfect accuracy, slightly better range and better paint, that also gets slower after one second. But you'd be able to recharge your high firing mode by not firing for one second.
Hell, in a way this could be a better alternative to shooter rng, since it follows a similar ruleset. I actually think it could make for a more fun .52 rework on both sides.
I don't like messing with damage numbers though, inconsistent damage isn't that fun to play around.

I'd also like to see a spray shooter with a perfect accuracy jump mode, a horribly inaccurate ground mode, that immediately starts as inaccurate, and a high fire rate, but mid ink efficiency (Chara has NEVER talked about this for aerospray I promise). It'd honestly be a really cool short range shooter support alternative, since you'd get even better paint, but you'd be more vulnerable to getting rushed down since you have to jump to defend yourself. But the jump mode would still give you a way to defend yourself better than poor little spray shooters over there.
I think it'd need the jump mode to be some kind of longer ranged splash, to make sure it's worth being aggressive with. It needs to be worth using so the weapon doesn't just play for paint spam.
You know what, make it heavyweight, just to make sure it can feel like a powerhouse, make it a high skill support weapon.

I can think of a few ideas to be done with new gimmicks, but it's true that it's hard to imagine a new 'straightforward' shooter. You could mess with lag, besides .96 there isn't many shooters with noticeable lag. I'm also curious to know what a shooter with a bigger hitbox would give us, that's kind of unexplored. But it's inevitable for it to be compared to preexisting ones really.

And to be honest, I would not be opposed to the two ideas I mentioned to just be some kind of .52 and Aerospray rework.

 

[McSquid82]

I personally think the burst fire weapons like the Nozzlenoses and Squeezer should really become their own class in the next game. If OPW's idea was implemented there would be four of them and that would be enough to make a class. Considering there were weapon classes at the start of S3 with only two weapons I don't think that should be an issue. In addition, I think the semi-automatic nature of burst fire weapons is distinct enough to make a new weapon class out of.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

I have an idea. It’s a shooter that when first firing fires at the rate of the gal but has 3pixels more range than the n-zap. As you fire over the course of 3 seconds the fire rate gets faster up to the point of the splattershot while the range goes down to 5 pixels less than the splattershot. As you shoot the acuricy drops heavily. What do y’all think is this a fun or to complicated.

I was also thinking in terms of a changing fire rate.
I could imagine a short range shooter/blaster that fires arched explosher projectiles, with a faster rate of fire if held on automatic continuously.
But that is more blaster/slosher than shooter. Or Explosher x sploosh.

If you want to have more shooters, then perhaps focus on the bullets type being fired?
I am sure that is how Nintendo created the blaster idea, and combined it into the shooter class weapons in spl2.

You could change the width of the bullets to change how a weapon plays (I think 96 gal has a slightly larger bullet size than other shooters, to strike the hitbox more effectively.)

Imagine rapidly firing blaster projectiles that do not burst or explode, and cannot sputter into the ground/wall. ((That can play proactively, unlike clash.)
Or a shooter that has a charged delay to change the range, like a charger or splatling.

There are ideas, but you would have to change the mechanism, which would make it not the same as the current shooter class.

 

[SAMICOM]

A couple of months ago I was trying to work on a really ambitious thread for a new main weapon concept but decided to put it off for later.
I recently got reminded of it because of @OnePotWonder most recent thread and that led me thinking about how many shooter weapons we currently have and if it would be possible for a new one to still have its own unique identity.
I personally can't think of anything but I also don't play shooters so maybe there's something I'm missing.

p

A couple of months ago I was trying to work on a really ambitious thread for a new main weapon concept but decided to put it off for later.
I recently got reminded of it because of @OnePotWonder most recent thread and that led me thinking about how many shooter weapons we currently have and if it would be possible for a new one to still have its own unique identity.
I personally can't think of anything but I also don't play shooters so maybe there's something I'm missing.

Pyroglo Gun: large, quick projectile fired slowly that shrinks as it moves and deals less damage. Has really good paint trails.

Splat Bomb and Ink Storm