Weapon Balance... What Is It Good For?

[Davey Woo]

I don't mind balance in a game, what I don't like is balance in FPS's that verge on the side of "realism" this usually means you have to hit 3 or 4 times in the chest to get a kill with most weapons and in some cases twice in the head, which is stupid, a headshot is a headshot, I highly doubt many people survive a bullet from an assault rifle when it's gone straight through their face...

Anyway, balance is to make the game "fair" but in most cases it just makes some players/weapons/tactics much less effective and results in a whole game-play style being left unused.

 

[Netrigan]

Unbalanced is ok, but do it like Quake III Arena (and yes I know this isn't the only game like this, there are tons). Everyone starts off with the guns, and you have to find more. You don't get them from ranking up or any of that crap. Plus the extremely overpowered guns (BFG) seemed to lack ammo and be hard to find/get to. I still haven't figured out how to get one of them in one map...

It only sucks when the default weapon is complete ass. There's this game called Blood which I absolutely adore, but the deafult weapon is a pitchfork. It's only useful in SP to conserve ammo. Can't imagine going into MP with it against people who can unleash akimbo napalm cannons on you.

I know a lot of people take my original rant as a rant against game balance, but there's a hell of a lot more to game balance than weapon balance. One of the brilliant things about Doom was a shotgun blast was a force of nature against lower level baddies. It was brilliant having that sort of power at your fingertips and the game knew to let you run wild every so often. Some of the toughest games I've ever played had those totally joyful moments where you were allowed to open up a imported can of whoop-ass on baddies who were completely outmatched by you.

Then the game would turn around and stomp you in the mud to remind you that what they giveth, they can taketh away with an arena filled with boss monsters.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

With a little more time available, I would craft a reasonably lenghty counter-argument, but I'm tired, so I won't.

But the main point in favour of balance is variety. If some weapons/characters/whatever are grossly over-powered compared to others, they're the only ones you'll see used. And when everyone is doing exactly the same things in a game, it becomes boring fast.
E.G. the One Man army/grenade launcher combo in MW2, or Ryu in street fighter. It takes a fair chunk of the decision process of conflict away if you know exactly what is going to be thrown at you...

 

[Anarchemitis]

Which is not to say that Halo should add these sorts of things, because, obviously, a lot of their fans enjoy its balance... but, goddamnit, lack of balance isn't necessarily a flaw. Sometimes having an oddly over-powered pistol with an illogical zooming device on it is just frakkin' fun and you should just run with it.

You have to admit though that Heavy weapons guy exclaiming Boom Headshot would make you laugh.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

I love having a variety of weapons, and 3 million weapons which are all the same but have a different model bores me, I don't care if it's unbalanced.

Edit: unless access to weapons is restricted. and in regards to the OP, none of the weapons in Halo are balanced really...

 

[Netrigan]

Which is not to say that Halo should add these sorts of things, because, obviously, a lot of their fans enjoy its balance... but, goddamnit, lack of balance isn't necessarily a flaw. Sometimes having an oddly over-powered pistol with an illogical zooming device on it is just frakkin' fun and you should just run with it.

You have to admit though that Heavy weapons guy exclaiming Boom Headshot would make you laugh.

There should be a special headshot power-up just for that. Activate it and for 30 seconds you get headshots... just so he would say that.

Haven't played TF2, partially because I tend to give MP a pass, but also because I gave up on PC gaming. Does look like an amazing amount of fun though.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Well its fine when it's single player. Having a weapon that's horribly OP that you have to make some serious effort to get is a great reward. In multiplayer though OP weapons are a bad idea. Who's gonna choose anything but the horribly overpowered weapon of death? Nobody. So essentially everyone's gonna be running around with the same weapon. Blah, so boring.

So no, I like a decent balance to my games. Otherwise its just turns into doing the same thing over and over again.

 

[starkiller212]

Not me, there's nothing worse than a multiplayer match that boils down to, "he got the death weapon first, he wins, we're screwed, might as well just give up now." In single player poorly balanced weapons discourage you from using other weapons. Why bother thinking your weapon choices through when you can just pick the murder everything one that allows you to breeze through even the hardest difficulty?

You're discounting ammo scarcity. A game like Doom chews up a *lot* of ammo and it's always a good policy to save ammo for later encounters. Such as the Plasma Gun was basically a more powerful version of the Chaingun and all things being equal, I'd use the Plasma Gun in most encounters... but there were certain bad guys that I wanted dead faster than fast, so I rationed my Plasma Gun usage knowing that before long, I'd be facing off against something I'd need a Plasma Gun for.

I think the problem I have with weapon balancing is that some devs seem to use a damage per second model. So instead of the main advantage of the shotgun over the rocket launcher being that you can carry more shotgun ammo (and it's more readily found in the level), you get this anemic rocket launcher that can't kill a cannon fodder enemy with anything but a direct hit. It's a rocket launcher, I want to be able to aim one in the middle of a group of half dozen soldiers and see their pieces flying in every conceivable direction. It's a rocket launcher, it's *supposed* to be over-powered.

I really like the point you made there, but as long as you only had 1 or 2 shots with that rocket launcher then i wouldn't really call it overpowered. Weapons do need to be balanced, but like you suggest they should have more variety.
I think the original Gears of War did this pretty well. For example, the standard assault rifle and shotgun were relatively low-risk, low-reward weapons, while the chainsaw and Torque bow were significantly harder to use but were (awesomely over-the-top) once-shot kills. I think that type of gameplay is probably harder to balance effectively, so it's not usually done in mainstream multiplayer games.

 

[Netrigan]

I see what you are trying to say I really do. But say you had for example 10 weapons in a shooter. Eight of which killed you in three shots one killed you in two shots and the remaining gun killed you in one shot. Which gun would you choose.

Balance does is not simply there for balance sake it is also there to add variety.

FPS rely heavily on a fairly small group of weapon types. All of which are modeled after real world weapons. Sure, you might have a rail gun instead of a sniper rifle, but it's the same basic principle. Extremely powerful, long-range weapon capable of one-hit kills. But since they're all modeled after real weapons, they all function in pretty predictable ways. The balance in the video game weapons is much the same as they are in the real world. Long-rage versus short-range, ammo clips versus one-shot, accuracy versus splash damage.

A shotgun is pretty much a one-hit kill at close range. Sniper rifles are a one-hit kill weapon at pretty much any distance but their rate of fire makes them useless in fire fights. Assault rifles are a good all-around weapon, but aren't as lethal. The balance really comes from situational use and they're not a million miles away from how the weapons work in the real world. Shotguns are brutal up-close, M-16 are considered a wounding rifle, and a good sniper rifle is pretty much going to blow off whatever body part it hits... meaning if they ain't dead, they're certainly out.

As long as you stick reasonably close to this, you will be swapping out weapons quite a lot in the single player campaign (although I notice in the two-weapon games that are all the rage, I get real conservative in my weapon choices, usually opting for whatever has the most ammo laying around). MP is sort of where the rules of logic get tossed out of the window. Most games descend into a fast-paced, close-range fracas, especially in today's world of recharging health where hitting someone at a distance with an assault rifle is akin to shooting spitballs at them.

Seriously, I don't want the rules that govern that mess altering any part of the single player campaign.

 

[Ekit]

Unbalanced weapons in a multiplayer game is never a good thing. Rather you should strive for varied weapons that appeals to different play styles.

But in single player I see no problem with it.

 

[Smooth Operator]

That is just stupid, if you make weapons unbalanced then everyone will simply use that one single weapon and complain about lack of diversity, when one weapon is too powerful the rest does not even appear to exist

How would you like to play games featuring a single weapon?
Well I'm sure most of the casual market wouldn't even complain, but some of us like good game design.

 

[Ithos]

If one weapon is superior to absolutly everything else, a game is reduced to "push buttan a lots" (see fable2-3 magics).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

One unbalanced weapon ruined about half of all Scout players, it can have a huge impact if you do it wrong.

Apart from the Shortstop is a bloody awful weapon at range, and just isn't as good in close.

Medium range, it kicks the ass of the Shottie/FaN - but FaN is far better PB, and Shottie has more ammo for strafing.

Overall, the vanilla shotgun is best unless you're Milkmanning.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Yeah, no. Keep multiplayer balanced. Let the ultra amazing, super special awesome weapons live in the realm of singleplayer mode. I don't want to have to play a game where everyone uses the same weapons, the same tactics and the get on the receiving end of the same style of death consecutively. I want my deaths to be varied and because of different reasons dammit!

So... Listen to this guy. He has a better, longer answer that I agree with.

Spoiler

No, balance is very important.

It is true that sometimes by making stuff more balanced you can make the game less fun (No Items. Fox Only. Final Destination), and I would bet a lot of money on the fact that if you removed the super-powerful items like the Blue Shell or Bullet Bill from Mario Kart it would be significantly less popular. However, that's a particularly slap-dash approach to balancing - it works for the competitive scene (like how in Left 4 Dead 2 competitive lots of things are removed - Med Packs, Defibs, Grenade Launcher etc.) but real balancing isn't about removing features, it's about tweaking them. You can have a balanced game and a fun game.

Point is, if you don't balance the weapons the game becomes stale and repetitive. When there's no reason to use anything other than one particular gun, it removes variety from the game; in Black Ops, there are 32 different primary weapons, and of those 32, maybe 8 or 9 are used regularly. Think how much better the Call of Duty series would be if all the weapons, killstreaks and perks were equally useful, you'd have an endless amount of combinations to try out and be able to do equally well.

I'll give an example of how weapon balance can really make a difference. In Left 4 Dead, the Autoshotgun was easily the best Tier 2 weapon. There was no reason to pick the M16 or Hunting Rifle over it, so every time you played Versus everyone just picked the Autoshotgun and it became very stale. Fast forward to Left 4 Dead 2 where Valve did some significant weapon tuning, now all the Tier 2 guns are very well balanced - the Hunting Rifle was now useful, and the Autoshotgun was nerfed to the point in no longer dominated. Now if I play Versus I can pick whichever gun I feel like using, because I know that each of them are just as viable, and have their own strengths and weaknesses.

And the last thing is that whilst it's fun to dominate other people with cheap tactics, it's frustrating for the people on the receiving end. You can't just take into account one group of players, you've got to take into account people on both sides of the situation. I might have fun gunning down 20 people in my Chopper Gunner, but I've been equally frustrated when I've died over and over and over to a killstreak I didn't give away.

Tl;dr - Less balanced =/= more fun. Yes, you can make a game more balanced and less fun at the same time, but they're not mutally exclusive. Unbalanced games remove variety and add frustration, and you don't want that.

Super Smash bros fans never stop bitching about character balancing

But they made Marth soooooooo lame now!!!

 

[Mr. Doe]

STOP HAVING FUN GUYS.

Being overpowered/using overpowered weapons isnt fun, the balance is there to give everyone a chance and it doesnt devolve into everyone having the same weapon set-up and using the same tactics, it adds some much needed variation to the games. Its like in TF2 when Engies would glitch through the ground and build invulnerable turrets there; or in Gears of War 1 where everyone would just do the shotgun roll, its just not fun when its the same thing over and over; The red dot sight M16 noob tube BS is why I stopped playing CoD:MW, the "Block the path with bullshit" strategy is why I dont play L4D, I stopped playing PvP in WoW because of the overpowered moves. The reason weapon balancing is good is because it doesnt seek to make it a series of numbers or kill/death stats, it makes it fun to be able to go around a corner and not get killed by a guy who glitched to the highest point with a sniper rifle, its the same reason Botting is bad, it just drains all the fun, and Prototype sucked

 

[Netrigan]

That is just stupid, if you make weapons unbalanced then everyone will simply use that one single weapon and complain about lack of diversity, when one weapon is too powerful the rest does not even appear to exist

How would you like to play games featuring a single weapon?
Well I'm sure most of the casual market wouldn't even complain, but some of us like good game design.

Again, this is what we have ammo scarcity for. I'm currently playing Alan Wake and the flare gun and flash grenades are pretty much all powerful weapons that are pretty much a I WIN button in the middle of a fight... but there's not a ton of ammo around. You either use them when you're backed in a wall or when you know the end of the level is coming up and you might as well enjoy them before you mysterious give up all your cool gear before the next episode starts.

I elbowed punched my way through Double Dragon and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Mind you, that's a pretty serious balance problem which the devs probably weren't aware of and they made sure it wasn't that hardcore in the second one... but it was always great to know when your back was pushed against the wall and all your fancy Kung Fu shit was getting you killed... elbow punch your way to victory.

I'm a pretty big fan of Duke Nukem 3D, a game which tossed out a lot of weapons that were fun to use. Hell, using the Shrink Ray was a pretty good way of getting yourself killed because of the stomping animation... but you still did it even though there were more powerful weapons in your arsenal.

Then there's Blood, which had this really badass weapon. It was a Voodoo Doll and the alt-fire was insanely powerful... which was good, because you usually used it against some of the toughest boss fights in FPS history. But it was unbalanced in MP so it got nerfed... and then the weapon sucked ass. Course, now you had to figure out another way to wear down those bosses... hope you like dying a lot

I think people like cheap tactics. It's like they figured out a way to get one over... even if everyone else is using it, too. I personally thing Sub-Zero is the most beloved character in Mortal Kombat because of his unbalanced attack in the first game. While he may never again be as much fun to play, you still remember that godlike thrill.

The original post is a bit tongue in cheek. I understand the need for game balance... but I think unbalanced cheap tactics are part of that game balance, because they're fun. I enjoyed the hell out of Prototype, even though there's only a few spots that are sincerely difficult. But it is so much fun toying with the military, stealing their choppers, destroying their bases, smashing their tanks. It certainly needs more challenges worthy of your insane power levels, but being able to cast yourself as a vengeful god is probably 90% of the game's appeal.

If you use the same attack over and over again in Fable III, it's because none of the attacks are really that interesting (oooh, red swirls instead of blue ones). It's less a failure of balance, but a failure of coolness. Give me other spells that *make* me want to use them. Give me other weapons that *make* me want to use them. If it's unbalanced, make damn sure it ten types of cool.