Ode to the pistol.
- Thread starter Coppernerves
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Pfffft! I dual wield everything baby! Dual wield submachine guns, dual wield shotguns, dual wield pistols, dual wield shotgun-pistols, duel wield knives even! When final kill cam time comes around you got to look to the guy diving like a pro off a balcony while firing alternating shots like John Woo! Who cares if your accuracy and effective range gets drastically reduced or that you end up spending twice as much ammo to kill someone? You're holding two guns at the same time! AND IT IS GLORIOUS!SkarKrow said:
The Tac 45 weak? You can clear rooms with that thing on a single clip of ammo! Hell, the B23R is good enough to be used in place of a primary weapon. I've got a class with just the B23R, mobility perks, and double bouncing betties for cruising down to the enemy spawn.
I absolutely love using pistols in games.
In the original Deus Ex, on one playthrough, I put so many skill points & weapon mods onto the standard pistol that it was pretty much a small, one handed insta-kill doom machine.
Oh, and I loved System Shock 2's pistol for some reason. Just the overall appearance of it and the sounds make it way cooler than it actually is.
In the original Deus Ex, on one playthrough, I put so many skill points & weapon mods onto the standard pistol that it was pretty much a small, one handed insta-kill doom machine.
Oh, and I loved System Shock 2's pistol for some reason. Just the overall appearance of it and the sounds make it way cooler than it actually is.
Since nobody mentioned it so far - Pistols in Alpha Protocol. They were insanely overpowered, allowing for stealthy kills and having the best special ability. It basically stopped time and allowed you do line up several shots. If all those shots happened to be on the head of a boss, then terrible terrible damage occured.
Mass Effect always had a happy relationship with handguns. ME1 Pistols were easily the best all-round weapon, viable at all ranges and very precise. ME2 they were awesome against unshielded targets and shredded armor like crazy. Same in ME3.
Most FPS games tend to feature a revolver of some kind as the go-to one-shot-one-kill gun.
Fallout series also loved the handgun. I have plenty of fond memories of my trusty .233 in FO2. FO3 and NV had a wide selection of viable handguns, with easily the best gun in NV being a revolver.
Resident Evil series loves revolvers to bits, though the ammo can be scarce. However, unlockable infinite ammo upgrades can take care of that, though they turn the games into a joke...
Deus Ex: HR can be cleared easily with a silenced pistol and a stealthy approach.
There are plenty of games where pistols and revolvers get plenty of love. Even too much at times, being romanticized and more effective than they should be. But still, there is something personal about a handgun that simply isn't there with a longer firearm...
Mass Effect always had a happy relationship with handguns. ME1 Pistols were easily the best all-round weapon, viable at all ranges and very precise. ME2 they were awesome against unshielded targets and shredded armor like crazy. Same in ME3.
Most FPS games tend to feature a revolver of some kind as the go-to one-shot-one-kill gun.
Fallout series also loved the handgun. I have plenty of fond memories of my trusty .233 in FO2. FO3 and NV had a wide selection of viable handguns, with easily the best gun in NV being a revolver.
Resident Evil series loves revolvers to bits, though the ammo can be scarce. However, unlockable infinite ammo upgrades can take care of that, though they turn the games into a joke...
Deus Ex: HR can be cleared easily with a silenced pistol and a stealthy approach.
There are plenty of games where pistols and revolvers get plenty of love. Even too much at times, being romanticized and more effective than they should be. But still, there is something personal about a handgun that simply isn't there with a longer firearm...
Pffft to beat you all I have to do is stand more than 10 feet away xD. It does help to have some psycho with two smg's running around irritating the other team though.Gottesstrafe said:
Not the Tac 45, just almost every other pistol I've used in COD has been pathetically weak and ineffective, or it's the D.Eagle and can't hit shit with that recoil. I was clearing whole maps with the 45 the other day just because I didn't have time to reload my trusty Type 25....
Except that the Carnifex is in the base game, whereas the Phalanx is accessed via DLC, which I did not buy because paying for 3 weapons is rather silly.voltair27 said:Perhaps in ME3 but in ME2 the Phalanx was the better gun. Better range, better fire rate, more accurate, more damage per clip, and it actually FELT like a magnum. The Carnifex felt like a peashooter in comparison.King of Asgaard said:The Phalanx would take at least half a dozen shots to take down an enemy.voltair27 said:The Carnifex? BAH. The Carnifex was absolutely Terrible compared to the Phalanx. Now THAT was a hell of a gun.King of Asgaard said:Three words:
Carnifex Hand Cannon.
This pistol is pretty much the bane of everything in the Mass Effect universe.
It's even the last weapon Shepard uses in ME3, and is given to you by Mordin Solus.
The Carnifex could do it in two, sometimes less if you're good with headshots.
A larger ammo capacity and faster fire rate do not necessarily make the Phalanx a better gun, as the Carnifex easily topples it in terms of sheer bullet-for-bullet power.
Besides, the Carnifex has the best advertisements ever.
So let me clarify: The Carnifex is the best thing ever, in base game.
Pistol balance is hard. Variable "pull out time" can be a tough thing to dice with as with proportional scaling it takes forever to cycle through rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, etcCoppernerves said:
I just have to consider why pistols even exist in the real world.
For a few reasons:
-For one pistol calibres don't need long barrels to get most of the energy out of the cartridge
-they bullets fired are light and slow enough that you don't need a huge mass or shoulder stock for them to be controllable
But it's obvious that a longer barrel does improve bullet power significantly if not supremely, and there is of course the benefit of a stock and larger weight in making it accurate in full auto (accurate as opposed to precise). Hance submachine guns like the MP5. So why pistols?
Well for one, most military forces do NOT bother with pistols! They will buy and make submachine guns and assault rifles by the million but reserve pistols for officers, really pistols are more valuable than rifles, they are certainly rarer, they are considered officers weapons. They are also more expensive, a simple manual operated rifle or blowback operated submachine gun can be made much cheaper than a semi-automatic pistol or a revolver handgun. Handguns having to be small end up needing finely crafted component. For example, you can buy a newly built pump-action shotgun or bolt-action rifle today for around $200. But a decent semi-automatic pistol will go for $500. This isn't a supply/demand mismatch, pistols are just harder to make to spite using less material.
Really if you want to start off with a dirt poor starter weapon, it shouldn't be a pistol, it should be something like a Sten Gun or Slamfire shotgun. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt3NuCbxSQQ]
(*These weapons would be more common if they were not limited by US laws and other civilian firearm laws around the world that are at least as strict (Switzerland being an exception). Sten gun has a short barrel and stock, restricted as a "Short barrel Rifle" and for simplicity fires from an open bolt where essentially the hammer and bolt as one solid block of metal, though this is considered easily converted to a machine gun so is considered a machine gun even if semi-auto. Various slamfire shotguns (to spite usually being single shot) have been hit by technical rulings of being machine guns, on the grounds that what "could be" a machine gun is something that initiates firing from an open breech. But Guerilla armies around the world use them extensively. Established armies less so, seeking a common cartridge to simplify logistics they err towards simply cut-down assault rifles as submachine guns (Colt Commando, AKs-74u) or rifles with extra long barrels for marksmen (M16A4, LSW L86) and belt fed in the same calibre for light machine guns (Minimi, RPD), and so on)
So why would anyone get a pistol when it costs more and is less capable than a rifle or shotgun?
Well it's precisely that convenience of the small size and weight that games don't do enough to translate into gameplay. How do you get the weapons to feel any different without nerfing all the others except the pistol? So weight advantage is irrelevant. Pistol will only appear worse by its lighter weight meaning it is less able to absorb recoil so the inconvenience of single shot fire or totally insane kick in full auto.
The advantage of pistol needs to be in the game controls, not in the handling.
For example, the knife in COD. Many people don't need to make the choice to switch to the knife, it's instant, it's ONE BUTTON to pull out a knife, quickly lunge and stab at the same time, killing instantly. THAT is how you make an "on paper inferior" weapon like a knife worth it against submachine guns and assault rifles. Okay, probably OP but not from the speed it is used, the fact that it kills in a single stab, it should be 2 stabs at least with a stun time)
Pistol needs the same treatment, it needs to be a one button "whoopa!" draw and aim ready to fire then release and it's automatically and instantly holstered again, no fuss. Because that's how modern SWAT and soldiers are trained, that it's an automatic muscle reflex that they don't even think about to draw it, fire then with their arms muscles on automatic finding holster again and putting it away when they no longer have to think about needing the weapon any more.
I'm thinking something like holding down L2 (PS3) or LB (360 or CAPS LOCK (PC) pulls out the pistol and aims it in one fluid movement, can be done at any time and to put away the pistol you simply release the button and it's automatically re-holstered.
This ability could be "unlocked" by obtaining a holster after using a pistol for a while where it had just been tossed loosely in your hammerspace haversack [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerspace].
This ability could then be added to any weapon you find that had a "quick use" item added to it.
For example a ching-sling [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_sling] added to your rifle would allow that to be quickly pulled up from hanging off a shoulder to be aimed and then put down again as soon as no longer needed, when the button is released.
But pistol would be best for this. Because another attribute of the pistol is with no stock planted in the shoulder, and being light enough to point with one hand (though need two hands to absorb recoil) there is no movement penalty for sighting in, this can be drawn and still dart left and right, dive behind cover or prone or leap up over an obstacle, all to make you a harder target while getting shots off.
It's more than speed, it's the purity, the simplicity of how automatic muscle memory can draw and line up sights with point of aim, no mental fuss, and move.
Gottesstrafe said:
Well aren't pistols supposed to be weak?SkarKrow said:
Even the venerable magnums and Desert Eagles, those are only strong... for pistols. AK47 round is fired at twice the power of the .44 magnum.
The only "handgun" you can get approaching the power of typical long guns are things like sawn off 12-gauge shotguns, you know the double barrel type. Because shotguns loose insignificant muzzle velocity cut down to even a 12-inch barrel. But then you've only really got 2 shots.
I think COD has gone in a silly direction.
For one, they have made the Submachine guns more powerful but with hard to control recoil, like assault rifles should be. And they have made the assault rifles, weak but with low recoil, like submachine guns should be. And the light machine guns firing the same cartridges from the same barrel length of a heavier weapon do more damage yet have more recoil, when they should have least recoil and same high power as assault rifles.
HUH?!?
Pistols killing in two hits where it take 4 hits with an assault rifle smacks of poor balancing.
I see what they were doing with Tac-45 and its like, they realised how with stopping power in COD4, WaW and MW2, all the pistols were 2 hit kills at close range. But when they did that the submachine guns were also usually 2-hit kills at close range. I mean why don't they load whatever they load in the pistols which is so powerful yet with such low recoil into their submachine guns? Or a 9mm like B23R being as powerful per shot as most assault rifles...
Yet they lose power so quick it's as if each bullet has a parachute behind it.
I think the way to balance pistols is with headshots. They are used at close range right? The head hitbox appears as large as large on screen when close as the torso is at medium distance. Slap on a 2x headshot bonus and a "stun effect" with a headshot then full auto is a liability and aim shots count. A 9mm submachine gun might just aim for centre mass and let loose, but with a pistol in close quarters it's worth going for the head. I think that makes for a more interesting game mechanic
I like using pistols, especially when I'm going through small rooms where a rifle might actually get me killed instead of saving me. I also find them useful for when I don't want to use ammo for some of my bigger guns but still don't want to get too close to the enemy.
I actually have one of these. Mine is blued though (never liked the matte finish). Fantastic pistol, best I've handled.theamazingbean said:
Actually on topic:
Weirdly enough, I actually only use the revolver in Blacklight Retribution and score fairly well. I only use my rifle if I can't reload my revolver fast enough.
exactly what I was thinking.Waffle_Man said:
larger caliber alone does not mean it will hit harder, speed is a massive factor in kinetic energy
Check out the Brutal Doom mod [www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTWP3wvAUuQ] which fixes this.demoman_chaos said:
And then some.
Okay, it's no longer a pistol but a semi-automatic rifle, that really makes more sense as you get the ammo off soldiers firing rifles and it shares ammo with the chaingun, that uses rifle ammo usually.
This mod... it's so good. Basically my favourite FPS game of 2012.
(sorry, no longer and ode to pistols)
Well with regards to real life I suppose a pistol could have more stopping power at close range compared an assault rifle. With assault rifles there is a greater chance of over-penetration at close range, and when that happens the kinetic energy in the bullet doesn't get entirely transferred to the body it hits.Ralen-Sharr said:
Over-penetration is under-rated.Zetatrain said:
That means exit wounds, that kinetic energy isn't "wasted", it is used. Even when a rifle round does overpenetrate, usually it deposits more energy than a pistol. See energy "dump" isn't enough, energy is an indication of the potential for destruction, simply dumping kinetic energy isn't enough if it just goes into shaking things about.
Opevpenetration may account for a similarity in destructive power between rifles and pistols to spite 4x difference in energy, but when it comes to vital hits the rifle has clear advantage. Many people have taken a 9mm to the skull and literally walked into hospital and prescribed bed-rest. Take the bullet from an AK47 round to the skull, even the thickest part of the skull - the maxillofacial stuctures - it'll spit your cranium open.
Anyway, most rifle rounds at close range will do more than just push through, they will fragment and with the increased surface area accelerating further fragmentation, the round appears to explode inside the body.
Ak round is a relatively slow and heavy round, it doesn't fragment reliably unless special bullets banned by the geneva conventions are used. But hitting bone it does immense damage.
Have no doubt, full power rifle rounds are much more powerful than pistol rounds. Pistol rounds usually are only a few millimetres wider than rifle rounds, hardly significant. But being 3x faster makes a huge difference.