Aww man why'd they ruin it?!

[Dirty Hipsters]

We all have weapons in games that we love, and sometimes when those games get sequels the weapons are changed, tweaked, or "rebalanced" and get completely ruined in the process. Either the power of the weapon changes, or the move-set, or the function, or the weapon just doesn't feel quite right, any change, no matter how minor can really affect our enjoyment of these favorite virtual firearms, swords, etc.

So, share a time when a weapon you really liked in a game got ruined in the sequel or patch by a minor change.

For me, I just started playing Dark Souls 2 the other day and today I found one of my favorite weapons from Dark Souls, the longsword. After excitedly grabbing it and trying it out on the nearest hollow I discovered that they're changed the move-set on the weapon. One of its best features from Dark Souls was gone, the one handed thrusting attack. In Dark Souls 1 you could do a thrusting attack one handed with the heavy attack button, and then follow up with a light attack to combo that into an upward slash that went through shields. This made it one of the most versatile weapons in the game. Alas this is no more because you can no longer do a one handed thrusting attack in Dark Souls 2, only a 2 handed one. And so my longsword, which served me so faithfully in Lordran will probably be replaced with something else in the land of Drangleic.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

the sticky jumper in TF2


you used to be able to lay 8 sticky bombs with it and fly off like a maniac, now you can only lay 2, is a real shame and i dont see why they did it, the damn thing is completely harmless, the weapon deals no damage, its only purpose is to practice sticky jumps and fuck around

 

[Keoul]

the sticky jumper in TF2

I feel your pain.

I miss the old equalizer, yeah it was a straight up upgrade from the shovel but you didn't have to literally break it into two different weapons! Now it's either a shashanah(or however you spell that sniper weapon) or a crappy GRU. The least they could of done was not make it mark you for death since now it's pretty useless, you don't deal any extra damage in melee and risk mini-crits and if you try to run you're gunna get shot with mini-crits, and to top it all off you still can't get healed!.

Is sad day.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

the sticky jumper in TF2

I feel your pain.

I miss the old equalizer, yeah it was a straight up upgrade from the shovel but you didn't have to literally break it into two different weapons! Now it's either a shashanah(or however you spell that sniper weapon) or a crappy GRU. The least they could of done was not make it mark you for death since now it's pretty useless, you don't deal any extra damage in melee and risk mini-crits and if you try to run you're gunna get shot with mini-crits, and to top it all off you still can't get healed!.

Is sad day.

i dunno, playing soldier now requires a bit more skill, remember there was a time when the equalizer didnt exist, imagine being a soldier and having to walk around with low health to the next med kit, the old equalizer did away with many of the risks involved with over extending, im not agaisnt the change to be honest

 

[Keoul]

i dunno, playing soldier now requires a bit more skill, remember there was a time when the equalizer didnt exist, imagine being a soldier and having to walk around with low health to the next med kit, the old equalizer did away with many of the risks involved with over extending, im not agaisnt the change to be honest

It's just a little overboard to me, taking away the extra damage was okay but adding the mark of death seemed a bit too much to me since now it's not really viable as a melee weapon. Sure you can still kill people with it but now you're at a severe disadvantage for a weapon that has regular damage and makes you run faster the lower your health is at the cost of taking a lot more damage.

I find it really annoying since most of the time when I'm trying to get to a med kit as soon as possible is either when I'm on fire or under fire, the mark of death just makes it so much harder to survive and doesn't really add to the skill, sure I can strafe around a bit but if I'm already on fire then I'm a goner for sure.

I would rather they remove the mark of death and instead give it an effect similar to the bfb, at full health you run a bit slower with the equalizer out but the lower your health the faster you run.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i dunno, playing soldier now requires a bit more skill, remember there was a time when the equalizer didnt exist, imagine being a soldier and having to walk around with low health to the next med kit, the old equalizer did away with many of the risks involved with over extending, im not agaisnt the change to be honest

It's just a little overboard to me, taking away the extra damage was okay but adding the mark of death seemed a bit too much to me since now it's not really viable as a melee weapon. Sure you can still kill people with it but now you're at a severe disadvantage for a weapon that has regular damage and makes you run faster the lower your health is at the cost of taking a lot more damage.

I find it really annoying since most of the time when I'm trying to get to a med kit as soon as possible is either when I'm on fire or under fire, the mark of death just makes it so much harder to survive and doesn't really add to the skill, sure I can strafe around a bit but if I'm already on fire then I'm a goner for sure.

I would rather they remove the mark of death and instead give it an effect similar to the bfb, at full health you run a bit slower with the equalizer out but the lower your health the faster you run.

but heres the thing, as a soldier you almost never have to use your melee, your rockets and shotgun both deal more damage than your melee, and if they removed the mark of death you could easily put out the escape plan/equalizer and run away with no downside whatsoever, with the mark of death you now have to think when you pull out the melee and plan your attacks acordingly, be more aware of how far you can go or how much health you can lose before you have absolutely no way to escape

an equalizer like you described would have functionally no disadvange whatsoever, because like i said, as a soldier you pretty much have no reason to use your melee for killing, specially at full health when you can just shoot your own rockets at your feet to kill the enemy

 

[Elijin]

Rail gun between Red Faction 1 and 2.

In one it heat the old red/orange heat signature scope with a decent (for a scope) field of view. In 2 it replaces it with a tiny field of view, awful green textures and a dumb 'pulse' rather than actual player outlines.

Way to drain the fun out of it! That said, Red Faction 1 to Red Faction 2 was a let down all round. Went from actual free destruction mode to 'you can hurt these certain panels, to a preset limit'. The first game was all about deciding you had too much rocket ammo so burning a hole through that winding maze of hallways, or playing a deathmatch with friends and seeing what elaborate things you could mine out.

Oh well.

 

[Doom972]

the sticky jumper in TF2

I feel your pain.

I miss the old equalizer, yeah it was a straight up upgrade from the shovel but you didn't have to literally break it into two different weapons! Now it's either a shashanah(or however you spell that sniper weapon) or a crappy GRU. The least they could of done was not make it mark you for death since now it's pretty useless, you don't deal any extra damage in melee and risk mini-crits and if you try to run you're gunna get shot with mini-crits, and to top it all off you still can't get healed!.

Is sad day.

I felt the same way when they changed the Sandvich so you could no longer throw it and pick it up yourself for a quick 50% heal instead of watching the animation for a 100% heal. I learned how to play without it though, and I think that it made me a better player.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

The original unreal tournament rocket launcher could load up to 6 shots at once. That felt awesome, although normally pointless. BUT I DON'T CARE!

Then, they reduced it to a maximum of 3. Dafuq.

Worst.Decision.Ever.

 

[Inazuma1]

Back in the day in Final Fantasy Tactics you could use the Calculator class with White, Black, and Time Magic skills to bust spells out instantly and with unlimited range. Later White and Black magic spells like Flare and Holy are stupidly powerful but normally have some of the highest casting times, which the Calculator completely negates with the right math skills. The most lulzworthy lategame tactic is to take a Calculator with Holy, someone with Haste, and the rest be a team of Knights with the Excalibur weapon. Haste the Calculator (or have Ramza Yell at him constantly,) and have him spam Insta-Holy on the field after you get your Knights in position. Excalibur absorbs Holy, so your Knights will be healed when they get caught in Holy's AOE. This makes your team unkillable as the Knights will be healed by the Holy spam and your enemies will fall like wet paper.

The Calculator has never been seen in the sequels.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Phoenix Wright's invincible assists while in Turnabout Mode in UMVC3 way way back on launch. It was the ONLY thing that made him even half viable and even then still not really. His Press the Witness assist would just fly in and cover your main character instantly and unpunishably and don't you dare tell me that sounds OP until you've seen all of PW's moves.

No they nerf the worst character in the game and buff Chris' flamethrower or whatever.

Also every single patch in the world for League. Most recently they outright murdered Soraka and dumped her body in a ditch somewhere 'til they "rework" her. Infuse has a mana cost now? Boom, if you ever wondered how to ruin Soraka there it is.

 

[Neverhoodian]

The human pistol from the Halo series.

I loved the pistol in the first game. What would normally be considered a sidearm in other titles suddenly took center stage as the best all-around weapon. It's like the developers were deliberately messing with people's expectations. The craptastic Assault Rifle may have been plastered on all the promotional material, but to me the pistol was the true "mascot weapon."

Then Halo 2 came along and ruined my fun. The accuracy, the stopping power, the ammo capacity, all of it got nerfed to hell. In one fell swoop Bungie turned my beloved "Snipey Hand Cannon of Doom" into "Useless Generic Crappy Sidearm." They even removed its stylish chrome finish in favor of bland dark grey. Bleh.

Yes, I understand the reasoning behind it. I know the original pistol was OP in multiplayer matches. Yes, I'm aware the Battle Rifle performed pretty much the same function. I don't care. I'm one of those rare freaks of nature that played the Halo series just for the single player/co-op modes, so I didn't give a rat's ass about multiplayer balance. As for the Battle Rifle...eh, it wasn't quite the same. I never felt I had the same degree of precision with its three round burst, and it burned through ammo much faster.

Apparently I wasn't the only one, as the pistol was partially re-buffed in ODST and Reach. While appreciated, it still doesn't quite compare to the original. It will likely never fully regain its former glory, but it was one hell of a ride while it lasted.

 

[momijirabbit]

In FFX-2 international they nerfed the item Cat Nip so it would be less completely OP.
Originally it made it so when you were low on HP all of your attacks would do 9999 damage every time, combine this with trigger happy which gets a hit everytime you hit R1 and you can do hundreds of thousands of damage in seconds.
Now when you are low on health you become Berserk and Slow which makes the item kind of useless.

 

[Angelowl]

The STA-52 assault rifle in Killzone 2. I really enjoyed it as despite being difficult to handle it was a really effective weapon to use. Large iron sights that obscured a fair bit of your vision when aiming down them, but still accurate enough to get head shots at medium distances. A serious recoil, one salvo of 4-5 shots and your aim is above the enemy. When burst firing into the enemy torso this usually mean 3-4 hits and a 50-50 chance of getting a headshot. Good damage, good rate of fire and a large magazine.

It probably was the rarest weapon in multiplayer due to the M82 assault rifle available one the same classes and a lot easier to use. Green dot sight and pretty darn good accuracy when firing single shot. Less ammo and accuracy when bursting though.

Then Killzone 3 was released. Suddenly the STA-52 had no recoil what so ever, a red dot sight and you could praxctically hold down the firing button whenever you wanted something dead. Took out the fun of it and everyone used it as it became what the M82 was in the previous game.

 

[Crises^]

The human pistol from the Halo series.

I loved the pistol in the first game. What would normally be considered a sidearm in other titles suddenly took center stage as the best all-around weapon. It's like the developers were deliberately messing with people's expectations. The craptastic Assault Rifle may have been plastered on all the promotional material, but to me the pistol was the true "mascot weapon."

Then Halo 2 came along and ruined my fun. The accuracy, the stopping power, the ammo capacity, all of it got nerfed to hell. In one fell swoop Bungie turned my beloved "Snipey Hand Cannon of Doom" into "Useless Generic Crappy Sidearm." They even removed its stylish chrome finish in favor of bland dark grey. Bleh.

Yes, I understand the reasoning behind it. I know the original pistol was OP in multiplayer matches. Yes, I'm aware the Battle Rifle performed pretty much the same function. I don't care. I'm one of those rare freaks of nature that played the Halo series just for the single player/co-op modes, so I didn't give a rat's ass about multiplayer balance. As for the Battle Rifle...eh, it wasn't quite the same. I never felt I had the same degree of precision with its three round burst, and it burned through ammo much faster.

Apparently I wasn't the only one, as the pistol was partially re-buffed in ODST and Reach. While appreciated, it still doesn't quite compare to the original. It will likely never fully regain its former glory, but it was one hell of a ride while it lasted.

Shooting Brutes in the back with that pistol was so satisfying. Also Pistols are my favourite weapon in most games so I loved Halo 1 for it.

When they removed true quick scoping in CSS that ruined the AWP for me, strictly speaking clan matches here as AK was my favourite weapon in that.

 

[shrekfan246]

As for the Battle Rifle...eh, it wasn't quite the same. I never felt I had the same degree of precision with its three round burst, and it burned through ammo much faster.

It's probably because Halo 2 was the first game in the series I actually played, but the Battle Rifle has always been my favorite weapon of the entire franchise. I'm not all that fond of sidearm weapons in heavy action games; I usually run with a combination of assault/sniper rifles and shotguns whenever I can. Stealth games are where pistols come into play, for me.

OT: Kingdom Hearts, most of the keyblades which were carried over from the first game to the second. Admittedly, it's partially because of how they changed the stat system and abilities around, but in the first game Oathkeeper and Oblivion remained relatively viable even as end-game weapons. In II, Oathkeeper is only really good for leveling up the drive forms and Oblivion is best to equip to one of the drive forms as the second weapon.

 

[Joey Banana]

The Phalanx from Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3. Such a beautifully designed, perfectly balanced pistol that worked incredibly well with a power-based character. Not to forget the gorgeous blue lasersight. It wasn't terribly ineffective either and the slow but heavy fire modus gave me very satisfying kills. My favorite space gun of any game i've ever played.

I realize they made changes to the core gameplay in the sequel and also had to support their bloody microtransaction system for the multiplayer, but it was really unnecessary to transform a genuinely badass gun into a weapon that was innefficient and due to its mechanic (potentially high fire rate yet only half-automatic) simply tedious to use. Worst of all was the removal of the lasersight, though. That broke my heart.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The ink grenade in Gears of War 3.

As a grenade it was fairly useless. The ink did pitiful damage and it was easy to avoid. The sole redeeming feature of the weapon was that it stunned you if you were in close proximity when it exploded. You could set up a nice shotgun or chainsaw kill by using it. At some point they nerfed it, removing the stun which made it effectively useless.

 

[L. Declis]

Well, I don't play enough shooters to be able to make this a video game based discussion, BUT...

In the Dark Heresy system, they have been waging a war on the Flamer in every iteration. Don't get me wrong, it was bloody amazing in the original package and even more so when properly buffed, but even a basic character can get deadly with it.

Originally, it didn't require a "To Hit" roll as it effectively auto-hit, the penalty to Dodge it for the majority of enemies was less than 10% (doing a fair bit of damage), THEN the enemy would catch fire 90%+ of the time, dealing a further damage every turn which ignored armour. It also had a spread, so you could realistically get two or three enemies with it.

Also, the original Autogun. You didn't have to be good, just could just ambush someone at full-auto and you'd potentially get 8 or so hits each round; throw in "Critical Hits" (they call it Righteous Fury) and you could just single shot an Ork with a bit of luck. Even if they dodge, they'd still be hit by 6 or 7 bullets.

Finally, grenades. You don't need to be good (a common theme), but between the spread and the high damage, you could seriously injure 4 or 5 enemies who were clumped together.

Combine the above and you have Level 1 characters (literally just above the guy on the street) who can fuck up anything short of a Space Marine in a single turn, and RUINED hordes.

But every edition they've been making the above weaker and weaker until they're now "balanced", and by "balanced", they mean so weak that no-one would ever take them. Although new weapons have become the business. For example, in Only War, Sniper Rifles take the piss.

EDIT: God, now I've thought about it, I want to restart a Dark Heresy campaign. Maybe when the new ruleset comes out.

 

[Nathan Josephs]

any fighting game sequel ever =p

on a more serious note smg sirens from borderlands 1 not really existing in borderlands 2.

there not god tier anymore without the insanely fast reload speeds ammo regen and large damage bonuses they had and this makes me sad.