Zandronum

Basically since the beginning of shooter games, their have been three major templates in video game weapon balance, selection, and design: Doom style, Counter Strike-style, and Class based.
-*Doom style is set up with each weapon having a specific function and behavior, with the weapons themselves being placed in the maps. Doom style weapons tend to have a mix between classic design (boomstick, ssg) and hi tech weapons. Most modern shooters that are not class based are Doom-styled.
-* Counter Strike-style has several similar acting weapons, usually being selected at the start of the match or game. They tend to have modern weapons with a fixation on small arms. All of the big name shooters are Counter Strike styled.
-* Class based is not based upon the actual weapons, but rather based on player classes that break up roles in the game. These tend to have very strong co-op and team play. These are commonly made into hybrids with the other two.

Now, that aside almost all shooters use the template of weapon selection in Doom. Some have a great deal more weapons, but they basically fall into the weapon categories of Doom. There hasn't been a real fundamental change in weapon balance since Doom.




Now all of that being said, I have a few bones to pick.

Pistols in particular are a massive pet peeve to me. Most games make them in the same fashion of Doom, that is, an immediately obsolete weapon. Anybody familiar with pistols in real life can tell you that pistols are used for their portability and consistency. They may not have the firepower of an assault rifle but they are far from a last ditch weapon. Borderlands uses what I would consider to be the best model for pistol usage: a reliable, accurate weapon to be used in light to moderate firefights. Borderlands even distinguishes significantly from automatics and revolvers.

Shotguns are another thing that irk me in video games. To me a shotgun is a weapon of versatility; I could use a shotgun to accomplish most goals another weapon could. They can't be a rocket launcher or a long range sniper rifle, but anything in between is doable. So it really pisses me off when shotguns are only useful to shoot things three feet from me. (Infinity Ward and Treyarch seem to think you can dodge buckshot by walking backwards) Thankfully, developers are allowing more diverse usage of a shotgun these days. I will, however, not defame the iconic purpose of a shotgun. I only hate that people only think it has that one usage. Fallout: New Vegas has the best usage of shotguns to my knowledge, with Battlefield 3 coming up close behind. (Although I hate to tell you guys, you can't use FRAG 12 rounds in an automatic shotgun in real life. They're blowback operated and the frag rounds don't kick back enough.)

Melee weapons are either hit or miss in most shooters. One shot knife kills on any part of the body isn't realistic or fair for that matter. Not to say it doesn't make for some interesting styles of play, but every knife slash doesn't decapitate in real life. It's also not realistic to survive eighty stab wounds and walk it off. Doom and COD are some of the worst offenders here. Battlefield 3 does it okay, but I have yet to see a game that does melee perfect.

Assault rifles, smgs, and sniper rifles do not have similar ballistics most of the time. LMGs and Sniper rifles do. Hitscan games make it seem like you can walk off a 7.62 from an AUG but not from an M14. It's the same damn bullet. If it hits, you die. COD is definitely the worst offender in all history here. (I wonder if Infinity Ward and Treyarch have even heard of the word ballistics.) This really isn't an issue unless you strive for realism. Then it makes you look retarded. Battlefield 3 (again) tries very hard to make up on this.

Rocket launchers are supposed to kill people; Not wound them. A flak jacket is not going to keep you from being blown apart. (Guess who fucks this up?) The idea that you can take a rocket to the chest with a suit of body armor will not hold up in real life. (Even Doom got that right.) Claiming it helps balance is a half ass argument. If you don't want people to have powerful weapons, don't put them in the game. Don't make a one shot kill survivor vest just so you can help campers. Grenades, similarly, don't go poof just because you have a vest on. Get away from the damn things and you'll live to tell about it.

Peon or Runner classes serve no realistic purpose. They are cannon fodder and are only played by people who like to run away with flags or die a lot. I can stand light classes with mobility, but some classes like the scout from TFC have no real purpose other than to fetch things. Removing them has virtually no effect on balance. Why have them in the first place?


In the future, I hope that people will look to the crappy excuses for weapon design and selection in the past and learn from them. But for the moment, we have to contend with the reality that developers make things suck for balance. Your comments are appreciated. :)

A lot of your gripes here are to do with things not being realistic- while I see where you're coming from, I'd definitely choose fun over realism. Although I agree wholeheartedly with the knives- a rapid, unblockable instakill slice is bullshit. As for rockets, most games make them feel really weak. Doom gets it about right, imo.

One of the main things that pisses me off, though: sniper rifles. Usually high powered and a one-hit-kill (or close to that), most people immediately ignore the fact that it's a long range weapon and sprint around getting cheap kills because of its high damage (this is particularly bad in CoD at times).

I hate when the game has all kinds of weapons and suddenly there is a machinegun that shoots rockets and has a sniper scope. So why did I get all the other useless weapons -since the new weapon is stronger than them in their own specialty fields.

Also I hate when snipers shoot very fast, instakill and pierce through a thousand walls.. shouldn't they be the hardest to use weapons that only top tier players will consider picking?

I hate when I shoot the SSG, hit people with 90% of it's shots, and they live.

I hate when people just wont die when you're pumping them with so much ammo from a weapon they're some how killing you with in a few simple shots.

Spottswoode wrote: Pistols in particular are a massive pet peeve to me. Most games make them in the same fashion of Doom, that is, an immediately obsolete weapon.

What's even worse is when you start with your pistol, and then get a machinegun that by all appearances should by way better, but it turns out that it's actually worse than your pistol in all respects. And the only way you'd ever know, short of opening the data files, is by extensive testing.

Synert wrote: A lot of your gripes here are to do with things not being realistic- while I see where you're coming from, I'd definitely choose fun over realism. Although I agree wholeheartedly with the knives- a rapid, unblockable instakill slice is bullshit. As for rockets, most games make them feel really weak. Doom gets it about right, imo.

One of the main things that pisses me off, though: sniper rifles. Usually high powered and a one-hit-kill (or close to that), most people immediately ignore the fact that it's a long range weapon and sprint around getting cheap kills because of its high damage (this is particularly bad in CoD at times).

Realism is only of concern to me when the game strives for realism. But even in games like Borderlands and Skyrim the rules of the game have to make some sense. Some games just throw realism to the wind and are fun because of it. It's the balance between the two that I look for in games.
With sniper rifles, I tend to take a neutral viewpoint. I believe for balance's sake, that firing a sniper rifle from the hip should be inaccurate and do less damage. That much I let slide for gameplay's sake. (so Halo mp never happens again.) Only because the weapon is not supposed to be a standard combat weapon. (And COD is definitely the worst offender with sniper rifles as well.) Some games go a little too far trying to regulate them though. I can see limiting the magazine size or taking a minute to stabilize the rifle sway, but making headshots with large round two shot kills just ruins the purpose of the gun. It's difficult to make a satisfactory midpoint with sniper rifles. At the very least, headshots should be kills.

I hate when I shoot the SSG, hit people with 90% of it's shots, and they live.

Ah..the pain of cqb shotgun failure. I know it well. Cqb is a gamble in most games though. I could make a 5 page rant about the failure of shotguns in many games.

I hate when the game has all kinds of weapons and suddenly there is a machinegun that shoots rockets and has a sniper scope. So why did I get all the other useless weapons -since the new weapon is stronger than them in their own specialty fields.

Megaweapons really kill the game if they come out at the end. They should be introduced midway through. They can do well in many games, provided they are balanced and are not the only weapon you need/use. A game ending gun can be fun provided you don't have infinite ammo for it.



As for rockets, in general I view a rocket launcher as a power weapon. As such, it should have the potential to kill in 1 shot, either in mp or sp. I can also deal with it being most useful against vehicles or armored opponents. It just kills me when a foot soldier takes 3 rockets to the head. And then one sniper shot kills him.

It's all mainly about expectations from weapons. I expect a sword to have decent damage on it compared to a knife. Damage scale needs to be believable at minimum. Busting peoples head open with your fist while your body is using a shotgun really leaves the impression of badassery on you. If your buddy gets more kills with an assault rifle at point blank than you do with a shotgun it's disheartening.

Spottswoode wrote:I believe for balance's sake, that firing a sniper rifle from the hip should be inaccurate and do less damage.

It shouldn't spray around in a 90 X/Y degree cone, however.

Not that I'm saying it should be 100% spot-on, but it shouldn't be 0% either.

I figure 25% accuracy and 60% damage is enough. The point would be to make it necessary to get point blank or switch to another weapon.

Nah, make 'em completely accurate and do the same amount of damage. Just make the guy hold 'em at an angle where it'd miss guys point blank unless you're facing an extremely precise angel away from them. :V

Actually, having ADS do more damage or just plain adding a scope to a weapon (see: World at War) bugs me. It makes sense in TF2 where there's an obvious gameplay mechanic that affects the damage, but there's no reason I have to look down the scope when some guy comes charging at me with a knife.

...A game where you could point your gun forward and people get stuck on it would be fun, actually.

Qent wrote:

Spottswoode wrote: Pistols in particular are a massive pet peeve to me. Most games make them in the same fashion of Doom, that is, an immediately obsolete weapon.

What's even worse is when you start with your pistol, and then get a machinegun that by all appearances should by way better, but it turns out that it's actually worse than your pistol in all respects. And the only way you'd ever know, short of opening the data files, is by extensive testing.

First time I saw this post:
"Oh god the Klobb"

Klobb...that's that shitty machine pistol in Goldeneye 007 isn't it?

Mr. Chris wrote: Klobb...that's that shitty machine pistol in Goldeneye 007 isn't it?

I dunno.

Anyway, the biggest peeve with guns in vidya is how shotguns have a magical short range of 4 feet and somehow the military has never heard of a barrel choke.

Also, when games that aim for realism get their gun names and classifications wrong, as well as when they use completely retarded sound effects for them. Basically, not doing their research past a glance-over of a Wikipedia article.

I'm looking at you, Cawadoody.

Spottswoode wrote:The idea that you can take a rocket to the chest with a suit of body armor will not hold up in real life. (Even Doom got that right.)

Doom got it right? How come I can survive a direct hit from a rocket when I'm wearing a blue-painted piece of armour that only appears to cover my upper torso and shoulders? :P Surely my arms, legs and head would be blown off, right?

EDIT: inb4magical sci-fi explanation

Voltlock...direct hit kills without soulsphere. Been killed enough by the Cyberdemon to know.

Nah, make 'em completely accurate and do the same amount of damage. Just make the guy hold 'em at an angle where it'd miss guys point blank unless you're facing an extremely precise angel away from them. :V

The idea was to do heavy damage and finish them off with a sidearm. I would take very extreme measures to keep people from that COD .50 sniper bullshit. Making it possible to one shot people from the hip makes it Halo. We have enough stupid mp.
A feasible compromise would be to make it have one accurate shot with a very huge reduction in accuracy for follow up shots. That way you could still one shot from the hip but you can't run around and do it actively.

You guys really think pistols suck? Did you ever played Silent Hill, where most of weapons are things like steel pipes or knives? Pistols in those games are true blessing, even if they are slow, not accurate and weak shits.

CloudFlash wrote: You guys really think pistols suck? Did you ever played Silent Hill, where most of weapons are things like steel pipes or knives? Pistols in those games are true blessing, even if they are slow, not accurate and weak shits.

I've never really played Silent Hill, but i'm assuming that a firearm in such a game would be the equivalent of a rocket launcher in most FPSs - a power weapon that's used to deal large amounts of damage compared to the other weapons in the game.
I'm sure there's probably a weapon in any of the Silent Hill games that's completely useless - that's what we're talking about pistols that are considered weapons that only serve to be used until you've got something even slightly more effective, rather than weapons you can actually rely on.

Well yeah, in Silent Hill 2 your first weapon is wooden plank, in Silent Hill: Downpour you often must kill enemies with rocks or bricks lying nearby (in that game you can practically pick up your weapons from ground - you got place only for one close combat weapon/pistol and shotgun) and in Silent Hill 4: The Room you begin with empty bottle of vine, which sucks even after it breaks and is sharp... BTW, almost every sucking weapon is your first one :P

Silent Hill is a very ....off kind of game when it comes to weapons. It's fun as hell, don't get me wrong, but weapons are more melee oriented as opposed to Resident Evil. (Its long standing counterpart in the survival horror genre.) Guns in games where you need them to survive boss battles are a blessing if you can make efficient use out of them. (Dead Rising on the other hand....)

Anyway....my peeve with pistols has to do with building obsolete weapons into the game. It's fine if you upgrade on a linear path, but many games (like Doom 3 and most other shooters) give you a shotgun 10 minutes into the game and you immediately have the pistol outclassed for almost any reason or use thereafter. I don't think the pistol should be a power weapon or in the middle in terms of power (unless it's a heavy pistol like a large caliber magnum) but throwing it in there as the weakest weapon makes it useless most of the time. (Some games balance it out with headshots like Resident Evil 4.) Might as well go Quake and start you off with a moderately useful weapon.

(Edit: Also why are there no good survival/puzzle games? e.g. get stranded on an island and have to gather weapons and supplies to make it off.)

_Cold wrote: I hate when I shoot the SSG, hit people with 90% of it's shots, and they live.

OMG happens to me all the time. Some how the enemy manage to get a instant kill off you tho... smh