Poll: Enough with this 2-weapon limit bullcrap

[Treblaine]

Boo hoo, you want all your weapons with you so you don't have to make any decisions.

Nice try, but none of us are psychic. I don't know when I run over the next corner I find a massive tank that is only weak to rockets.

"Hmm, oh yeah I remember seeing a rocket launcher. I was about a mile back the other way" It is NOT dramatic and interesting to have your showdown with a tank interrupted by a fetch quest or face the inane bullshit of trying to kill a tank with a sniper rifle and a shotgun! It was to leave Meryl to Sniper Wolf but to do that for every second boss fight?!?

This happened several times playing Halo ODST, a tank would roll up an there would be nothing - I mean nothing - to kill it with. And the tank was a coward too, it wouldn't come close to kill me where I could sneak up and have a chance of flanking it. It hanged back over open ground blasting my if I even came close.

In the end I just did a kamikaze run taking implausible amount of damage before RAMMING A HAND GRENADE THROUGH IT'S FRONT ARMOUR! Yeah, SoOoOoOo much more realistic than just having a 2kg rocket launcher in a backpack. (/sarc)

 

[webby]

They want to make it realistic.
You carry a weapon into combat, because you're a specialist(most of the time).
You're either a rifleman, or a specialist. A specialist can be a sniper, a specialist can be an anti-tank soldier walking around with a rocket lancher on his shoulder, a specialist can be a machine gun crew operating.... a machine gun.
The secondary weapons are usually personal and reflect your tast, just like in the army and poilce here you have a secondary pistol that is usually hidden, to defend yourself when the weapon jams, runs out of ammunition or other bad situations happen.
But this doesn't happen. You always have ammunition in these games, the weapons never jam or break. Therefore you do have a point, but in the other hand the more weapons you have the less time you will use each of the individualy.
Most importantly, in todays multiplayer games you simulate the military - each has its own speciality, whether you are carrying a sniper rifle, a machine gun (do they still do this?), a medical kit, a rocket lancher and so on.
In addition to that, you don't have training in every single f**king gun there is on the planet.
You might know how to handle a rifle and a sub-machine gun, but perhaps your hands are too shakey and you haven't gone through the necessary training to hit an apple 800 meters away.

You say they limit the weapon option to make it realistic as everyone goes into warfare as a "specialist" with their own unique ability but these are generally games where the main character is a perfect sniper, well versed in all explosives and also uses a variety of missile launchers. You can pick up any type of weapon at any point in the level and use it to perfection rendering the idea of "specialisation" useless. When this happens you inevitably stop using your "specialist" weapon and change to whatever the enemy is using so you maintain ammo levels.

All it means is that you have to run to the well placed rocket launcher/sniper rifle/whatever, use it in the situation that necessitates it and then run back to get the gun you traded for it in the first place. All it does is add 2 needless steps to the process. Honestly, in games like CoD, Bad Company, Brothers in Arms, etc etc, who really carries a rocket launcher around with them to use against infantry? Or who keeps one "just in case"? You know there's no point because they hand you what you need on a platter.

I'm not saying there is no place for specialisation of characters, squad based shooters where you can control the entire squad are perfect for this kind of limitation. Games like CoD however simply use it as a needless addition to stop the "Santa Sack" type jokes about weapon storage.

Basically what I'm saying is that claiming the 2 weapon system is to imply realism through specialisation is nonsense as your character is a master of everything. In some instances I am for this system, but claiming it makes things more realistic is foolish.

EDIT - duronat wIN, Seems like Charlie Sheen has got into the captcha generating machine again.

 

[Jedamethis]

Boo hoo, you want all your weapons with you so you don't have to make any decisions.

So if I somehow don't come across a certain kind of weapon in my travels I get fucked over and have to start again? Sounds fun.
If I have all the weapons I need, then that can't happen.

 

[spartan231490]

I've had it with this crap, Halo started this "genius idea" back in 2001 now it's everywhere, even in Duke Nukem.

Duke Nukem.

What is it with this obsession? Games back in the 90's with far fewer buttons on each controller had HUGE weapon inventories and functioned absolutely fine, Ocarina of Time being most notable it worked damn near perfect.

Yet today games publishers treat us like idiots, seemingly incapable of keeping track of more than 2 weapons at a time. When we encounter a tank that needs a rocket launcher we basically have to depend on the god-like game designer to save us by implausibly placing a rocket launcher lying around for us to pick up.

Why can't I carry more than 2 guns at a time? Adding grenades as well to their own button is not enough to balance this out as there are more than just 2 weapons for 2 scenarios:

-melee weapon: silent, insta-kill, favours the bold flanking and closing to kill
-close quarters: shotgun or machine pistol would be best
-General purpose close-medium-long: assault rifle, SMG, bow (jack of all trades, master of none)
-Shit-hit-the-fan weapon: heavy machine-gun, flame thrower, BFG-9000 area effect for enemy swarms
-Long range: sniper rifle, crossbow,
-Heavy boss gun: rocket launcher, grenade launcher, super-laser

-Special: gravity gun, portal gun, grappling hook, shield, laser-designator, freeze ray, etc

This 2 weapon stifles innovation so much. If Half Life had felt it had to bent to the will of the status quo and enforce a 2-weapon limit then it's very likely the Gravity gun would never have made the final cut as one item would reduce your weapons options by 10%.

My problem is I believe developers have come to see the Halo-weapon system as the status quo and are too afraid to change it. Afraid that "people won't get it" that is will be something for the critics to ding their game for in an age when critics won't knock of anything for being derivative and lazy. The fact that Gearbox has caved on this just shows how bad it has gotten, a game that is ALL ABOUT old-skool charm compromising in this way... I don't know.

My point is when you have such a limited inventory you can't make any of your weapons too unique, every one of them must function "well enough" in all circumstances as you only ever have one alternative.

I like the two weapon system. It forces you to choose which weapons you want to carry. On the other hand, you can't use this in a game where there are enemies that can only be killed by the most powerful weapon in the game. If you want to have an enemy that requires rockets to kill, you can't have a 2 weapon limit. but in games like halo when you can take out even vehicles with normal weapons if you have the time and put in the effort, I think it should be standard. It makes you choose between the shotgun and the sniper rifle or the assault rifle. It makes the game a little more strategic and a little more customizable.

 

[sharpe95th]

I like the two weapon system because it means games have a more diverse selections of specialised weapons to suite situations/playstyles. I'd prefer to only be able to carry two out of a selection of multiple assault rifles/submachineguns/shotguns/pistols/support weapons, than carry one generic version of each. That said it suits the military shooters that I prefer to play rather than the sci-fi shooters with outlandish weapons. Crysis stuck an alright balance I thought, but it would've been cool to carry all my sweet-ass guns. Generally the industry seems to be getting it right, I can't remember many times when only being able to carry two weapons at a time has felt particularly annoying, and there's a fair few games that still let you carry round every weapons you could ever want, like Borderlands or Bioshock.

 

[II2]

I dunno, isn't it kinda a case by case thing factoring the tone and pacing of the game?

Your Halos, Battlefields, CoDs, Armas, etc - 2 Weapons + sidearm = alright

Your Painkillers, Serious Sams, Grand Theft Autos / Saints Rows, DUKE NUKEMs, - No limit

Your Fallouts / Deus Exs / Elder Scrolls / Sys|Bioshocks / - Limit by weight or inventory grid along with willing suspension of disbelief regarding encumbrance?

[sub]Heh, I was gonna choose other, but I realized my answer kinda lined up with the first poll slot[/sub]

 

[Mr. 47]

Completely agree. There has to be some middle ground between the Half Life human packmule model and the typical FPS model of the little dainty man who refuses to carry more then 5 pounds of gear. I think that game developers should follow Insomniac example with Resistance 3 and going back to carrying more weapons.

 

[Thaius]

I am sick and tired of people making blanket statements about game mechanics.

I agree, the two-weapon limit does not belong in Duke Nukem. It's a game that would do best to play off its old-school heritage, and if there's a focus on really fun weapons it should not require you to trade a reliable weapon for one that might be fun to use. I agree on that.

But that simply does not translate to "two-weapon limit is bad." I know there were complaints back in the day about how impossible it was for the character to hold 20 different weapons at once. It just doesn't make sense. For the sake of realism (not that the cardinal goal of every shooter should be realism), and also because it makes you really consider your strategy and gameplay style before getting a new weapon, it is not a bad mechanic. It simply belongs in some games and not in others; that does not make it universally bad.

Game design is far too dynamic and artistic to paint any one mechanic as universally, objectively bad. Don't do it, it makes you look whiny.

 

[Treblaine]

I like how it forces players to adapt their inventory and combat syle to fit different situations and forces them to budget ammo and always have different scenarios in mind.

That I like, what I don't like is every time you want do that it involves a fugging fetch quest all over the battlefield juggling weapons and then hunting around for ammo and you are always limited by what you can find and your patience for back-tracking.

So after fighting in an open field you finally have a close range load-out for tunnel stalking, you enter the tunnel, walk 20 feet and you come out of the tunnel into another open field...

See that's the thing, YOU DO NOT KNOW what is around every corner! And that's the way it is supposed to be. You don't know what you are walking into till you are in it, and it is REALLY sucky that you found this kick ass sniper rifle but going into a sewer system you know you have to discard it to make way for a better close range combo.

The result of a 2-weapon-system is too many weapons are generic jack-of-all-trades weapon, but master of none.

There NEEDS to be a way of ferrying your arsenal around. If that involves teleporting item chests, NPCs playing packmules, "breaking down" weapons or whatever mechanic. The tyranny of such compromises must end.

 

[GiantRaven]

There are games where it works and games where it doesn't.

I think the best example of it working (although it is not a perfect example) is in the Stalker games. You can only have two weapons that you can quickly pull out, but you can carry more around in your inventory if you wish.

 

[Dexiro]

Everyone's saying it's for realism, but are any of the games that implement this feature realistic? Duke Nukem, Halo, Uncharted; no more realistic than games like Half Life that don't have that feature.

I don't think it's a bad mechanic but I certainly wouldn't want it in every game. Their are a lot of games out there that give you full access to all weapons but I guess they might not be as popular, you tend to see it in third-person shooters. I was playing Vanquish earlier, that gives you 3 weapons at a time which I think it quite nice :3

Oh I just thought I'd mention that the 2/3-weapon system tends to work better for fast paced games where you're almost always in the action. With games like R&C and Fallout you have plenty of quiet moments where you could be sifting through your weapon collection and such to use them strategically.

 

[Dogstile]

Boo hoo, you want all your weapons with you so you don't have to make any decisions.

This. This right here. Does it even matter? Pick one you like and one that'll save your ass if you need to use it.

Or, you could, I don't know, buy a different game. Christ, I was originally buying duke because I liked the special edition. Now i'm doing it out of SPITE.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Boo hoo, you want all your weapons with you so you don't have to make any decisions.

Nice try, but none of us are psychic. I don't know when I run over the next corner I find a massive tank that is only weak to rockets.

"Hmm, oh yeah I remember seeing a rocket launcher. I was about a mile back the other way" It is NOT dramatic and interesting to have your showdown with a tank interrupted by a fetch quest or face the inane bullshit of trying to kill a tank with a sniper rifle and a shotgun! It was to leave Meryl to Sniper Wolf but to do that for every second boss fight?!?

This happened several times playing Halo ODST, a tank would roll up an there would be nothing - I mean nothing - to kill it with. And the tank was a coward too, it wouldn't come close to kill me where I could sneak up and have a chance of flanking it. It hanged back over open ground blasting my if I even came close.

In the end I just did a kamikaze run taking implausible amount of damage before RAMMING A HAND GRENADE THROUGH IT'S FRONT ARMOUR! Yeah, SoOoOoOo much more realistic than just having a 2kg rocket launcher in a backpack. (/sarc)

Protip: overcharged plasma pistol shots will briefly disable vehicles with their EMP burst, allowing you to easily board and destroy them. About 80% of all Grunts and Jackals carry them, so they're not exactly hard to find.

Yeah it's not realistic, but c'mon, it's Halo. You're traveling on ships capable of FTL travel, fighting aliens and parasite zombies on huge ring worlds that can literally kill all sentient life in the galaxy. I don't think Halo was ever intended to be "realistic."

I don't mind limited weapons as long as it makes sense given the context of the gameplay. Shooters with realistic elements like Red Orchestra and ARMA? Logical. Historical accuracy like Brothers in Arma? Reasonable. Every weapon reasonably balanced like Halo and TF2? Yep.

Ridiculously over-the-top male power fantasy where the player is a wisecracking, womanizing action hero meant to take on the entire world? No.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

Depends on the game. Halo better stick this way, as well as Cod and Battle Field. But Bullet Storm, Metro Half-life, Duke, Resistance needs to have more weapons at once.

 

[Kingpopadopalus]

Point is DN3d was so awesome and we got to carry all our weapons. That's how Duke does it, duke is in no way meant to be realism seeing as Duke himself is a Parody. Give us ability to carry all our weapons in DNF and the bitching will stop. The demo itself kicks you int he ass if you didn't keep the rocket launcher from before.

 

[mightybozz]

If Turok 2 had only allowed you to hold two weapons, you'd never have been able to carry around the cerebral bore, the PM layer, the thing that shot sawblades or the Nuke, simply because you wouldn't be able to carry find enough ammo for your other, practical gun.

Too many people seem supportive of the two-weapon realism thing. Two weapons is limiting but fine in a game like Halo where you come across shiny new toys after every encounter. And it's acceptable if you want your realistic war thing.

But having such limited weaponry capacity discourages interesting weapons and it also means that you'll often never get to try different tactics. There's probably a few weapons and ideas I haven't tried in COD4 simply because I've never had the capacity to carry something impractical which might fail horribly. In Half-Life 2 I could try many different things and still have half a dozen back-ups. Which is more fun for the player?

Keep the 2 weapon thing to hyper-realism. But gaming can be so much more than realism. It can be engaging and fun to experiment in the world. Limiting our interaction with it screws the chance of such fun.

 

[Wintermoot]

I agree I get why "realistic" army shooters have it but Duke Nukem is set in a cartoony world and duke himself looks pretty strong so it,s bullcrap that he can,t carry more then two weapons...or kick the living shit out of aliens.

 

[EvilMaggot]

well... when i was in the military at one point i carried 2x AT4(anti tank weapon) 4x M95(not the barret the M16 lookalike) + 1 (my own)... was i combat effective... nope... but could i carry it ? yes..

so it is realistic somewhat...

and i do hate it tho depnends on the game i think...