Time to put the Two-Weapon Limit Out of its Misery

[Shamus Young]

Time to put the Two-Weapon Limit Out of its Misery

When playing on a console, being forced to carry only two weapons in a shooter seems a bit archaic. Shamus looks at the issue and possible objections to getting rid of the limit.

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[COMaestro]

The Resistance series of games was pretty good at bucking the two-weapon limit, and the game also gave you even more options with secondary fire abilities for most if not all of the weapons.

 

[Barbas]

I think saying that Halo ruined FPS games is a bit like blaming the current mostly-bad state of DLC releases on the first company to embrace the method. I think Unreal II: The Awakening got it right with its generous loadout and secondary-fire modes, as well as the ever-expanding variety of grenades for the launcher: fragmentation, incendiary, smoke, concussion, EMP and gas. That's six weapons in one already. I also agree with Wolfenstein: The New Order. What Battlefield 4 had -- judiciously-placed crates where you could equip yourself with any weapon you'd discovered before that point -- was an odd compromise that didn't make a great deal of sense contextually. Rage did a great job with things like bottle rockets for the shotgun - which, incidentally, is the most ravishing-looking boomstick I ever did see.

Gosh, I miss the cerebral bore and the laptop gun.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I think if designers are really going to insist on having this kind of a weapon limit they could at least take a leaf out of Metro's book and make it a 3 weapon limit.

 

[mind-screwed]

Since shooters will want to be made on consoles, I think a weapon select wheel will be the best choice for controllers.

 

[Rad Party God]

Play Shadow Warrior '13 Shamus. You won't be dissapointed.

Another solution might be what Hard Reset did (made by the same devs as Shadow Warrior '13, wich they are in fact ex-People Can Fly devs, they know their stuff), it has exactly 2 weapons... but with tons of different upgrades that basically turn them into the equivalent of 10 weapons.

 

[kajinking]

Yes, just yes. As someone who loves video games with lots highly diffrent weapons I gotta agree with all this, why put all these guns here if I'm only gonna use two of them at any time?

One this that wasn't mentioned in this article is the fact that these systems lead to one of my most hated gaming sins: useless weapons. These are weapons that would be great to have and could be used for all sorts of fun things if you could only take them without crippling your firepower or even making a level impossible to beat.

"Hey I can take this grenade that deploys in mid air and shoots a beam of death below it for 30 seconds allowing for great traps in hallways! But darn it I need the shotgun for close quaters and I can't drop the assualt rifle because of that one single enemy on this map that is NOT POSSIBLE to kill at close range because it's on a inacessable balcony."

"Hey this gun shoots explosive discs onto the floor that roll forward towards the enemy like Jihad roombas! Well there's a section with 5 flying enemies coming up so you can't come."

"This gun has sub-par stats but holds lots of ammo so I can use it to save rocket launcher ammo until the boss!...Oh wait then I can't carry the launcher. Well then this gun may as well not even exist!"

The two weapon system makes it so that you can't take less conventinal weapons with you since your are always going to want the more general use stuff.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

The Resistance series of games was pretty good at bucking the two-weapon limit, and the game also gave you even more options with secondary fire abilities for most if not all of the weapons.

I was thinking the same thing; you had plenty of monsters that had optimum strategies, but most could also be handled with lots of bullets from something else.

OT: I was actually having this discussion recently regarding tabletop games and the value of Encumbrance rules. In a lot of games, like a "revolutionaries in the city" or "Big Damn Heroes saving the galaxy" encumbrance is nothing more that bean-counting that slows you down at best and messes with the game's flavour at worst ("Oh, sorry, Steve, your paladin isn't strong enough to carry both the sword of his father and the Magic Sword of the Gods"). On the other hand, in some games it can be vital; the key part of many dungeon crawls is trying to find out whether you need to bring cold iron, silver, or blessed weapons for different monsters, how many rations you should pack, ways to transport the loot or an injured comrade, etc. There, encumbrance adds depth to the sort of choices you make and ironically increasing the options in play by forcing you to abide by certain rules.

So I'd argue that 2 weapon limits aren't bad necessarily, just often misused. In CoD AW where every level has you deploying from a base with all your high tech gear? Load up on every kind of weapon and go nuts. In another game like Halo ODST, where you're supposed to be alone and isolated, two weapons creates a tension that comes from a lack of flexibility.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Hmm, no one else, yet?
Then I suggest checking out Myth Busters' 'Doom' / 'Video games' special!

It shows that a fit man *can* carry all ten of those weapons and not be slowed by them.
So it's not too far fetched! *I* would want to have all those options you mention, anyway!
Normally you have a UNIT with a dedicated sniper, a RPG guy, a heavy MG guy in it... when it's just you, you either lose the IRL needed diversity of options, or you... ya know, carry it all on your one person!

And others already pointed to the myriad of modern game options with lots of weapons you seem to be unaware off, Shamus...

 

[jabrwock]

What always annoyed me was that one of those two weapons could be a pistol. Seriously? A pistol? I can carry a ship-destroying rocket launcher, AND an enormous laser cannon gattling gun, but god forbid I try to pick up a pistol. Then all off a sudden my arms are full?

I can't remember what game it was, but they allowed you to carry one of each type. A melee weapon, a pistol, a shotgun (close quarters weapon category I guess?), a rifle (smg, assault or sniper), an explosive or exotic weapon, and I think 2 types of grenades. So you could customize your load to give you some flexibility in your approach to the mission, but still had some restrictions.

 

[Grimh]

Can't you just do the Half-Life thing but for consoles and say press the D-pad in any direction sequentially to cycle through weapons and the pressing the trigger to choose it. 2 weapons per direction and you have 8 weapons pretty easily available.

The Last of Us did a pretty neat thing if you want to aim for a more pseudo-not really actually but what do you want from me, you're never happy!-realistic weapon switching.

I do agree with you that 2 weapons really sucks the fun out of it.

captcha: hear hear
Hey look at that, captcha's doesn't like it either.

 

[jabrwock]

I should add, some games, role warfare is important. Battlefront and Battlefield comes to mind. There's a reason you're not given everything in those games. Thats not a bad thing, but they generally do it properly where other games with a two weapon limit fail to because the emphasis is heavily on teamwork

Yes, it makes sense in games like that, or in X-Com, where you have a squad or teammates who can carry the "other" weapons you cannot.

Co-op Halo was actually fun for that. One person would be the up close bruiser (usually a sword and shotgun, or sword and needler), and the other the long-range (sniper & assault, or sniper and rockets). Then the 2-weapon limit makes sense, because you are expecting a team of players. But when it's just you, with no team-mates, then the restriction makes no sense, as there is no-one else to be your X specialist.

captcha: follow me!

 

[rodneyy]

point two really bit me in the arse while playing bioshock infinite. not knowing what was coming up entered the bank with a terrible setup of weapons for the task. wasnt too bad at the start but by the time i got to the end of that section i was in a terrible state ended up using basically all of my money i had got from the bank buying more ammo for my guns and getting revived. next time i played i knew what was coming up took the right weapons for the fight and didnt die once.

ive also found that the weapon limit leads to game devs needing to signpost what is coming up enemy wise with what guns they leave laying around. yeah in the past a big pile of med kits was a sure sign that a boss fight was coming up, now a big pile of shotguns means its close quarter time.

 

[medv4380]

2. Having only two weapons makes the game more strategic!

I would think that a situation where you have more options is the one where you have "more strategy". Strategy is about making decisions. With many options,

No strategy is about working within a confined box.

Lets take Chess as an example. If I said you can have 8 pawns, or 8 of any piece you want you'd pick 8 queens. Anyone who says otherwise isn't thinking clearly. What's the strategy in having the most advantages weapon for the situation? It's certainly a strategy, but one mostly employed by cheaters who like to give themselves unlimited rockets. It has less to do with strategy, and more to do with brute force.

If this is your first time through the game, then you don't know what challenges are ahead of you. So you have no information to guide your decision.

Yea the first time learning the strategy for anything can be a bit of a steep learning curve if not developed correctly. Still doesn't mean they should be just handed queens in favor of them never developing a strategy for knights.

Choosing a weapon for an unknown future engagement isn't a strategy game. It's a guessing game.

No it means you're new, and need to learn the maps, and your preferred strategies. It's a lot of trial and error. No one started playing chess at a masters level, and arguably that's the most strategic game there is.

The two weapon restriction has two ways of forcing strategy. First by limiting what weapons are available by restricting access, or limiting ammo. You can have a unlimited pawns, or you can have a couple of knights a la assault riffle, or sniper riffle. The second is by making it so that a choice can't be easily reversed forcing the player to develop a strategy for what they have, and not what they'd like to have. Oh my opponent changed up his strategy after he figured out I was a sniper, and now I'd just love to have that rocket because it'd make my strategy a whole lot simpler.

 

[ritchards]

I like how the Ghostbusters kickstarter link actually links to the Hong Kong Shadowrun game...

 

[Robyrt]

I actually love having limited weapons. Improvising with mismatched weapons is just as fun and exciting as pulling out a giant menu with all the perfect weapons on it. It also makes you feel less invincible and more like a lone operative who has to scrounge for whatever they can get, which fits modern FPS design better.

The scenario you describe, where you take 2 long-range weapons into a story mission that's full of tight corridors, is a mistake I only made once. After that, I'd make sure to take notice of the weapons lying around at the start of the mission, and pick one of them up. Competent FPS designers always give you the tools you need, you just have to give up that precious sniper rifle.

 

[bificommander]

I seem to remember FEAR having a 3 weapon limit, which translated into a one-weapon limit: The assault rifle and shotgun were basically mandatory, as both were lethal, practical, and most importantly, ammo was plentyful. The third slot was more or less picked from a rotating list of powerful weapons. By the time you ran out of ammo, you had hopefully found a new weapon pickup that you still had ammo for.

Yeah, not much strategy there.