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

[ZZoMBiE13]

Halo may have only let the player have two guns, but you were never limited to two weapons. From guns to vehicles to melee attacks to the easy access to grenade tossing by putting it on it's own button, in Halo the offensive options never felt limited to me.

Of course I'm an admitted Halo fanboy so my opinion will always skew in favor of those games (except MCC obviously).

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The only "strategy" the two-weapon system ever introduced in single-player was carrying one medium/long range weapon (typically an assault rifle) and one medium/short range weapon (typically a submachine gun or shotgun) until you came upon a specialized weapon, picking it up for exactly long enough to use it in the one fight it's required for, then going back to get the weapon you dropped.

I will credit the original Halo for its health/shield system. The regenerating shield meant you weren't completely boned because of a single mistake, but careful players (or those with the patience to backtrack for health pickups) had a much more comfortable cushion for the next encounter.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Regarding 90s shooters, let us not forget level design. Level design, please! Also the importance of resource management.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Eh, having a lot of weapons to choose from wasn't all it's cracked up to be. It's easy to point at the huge arsenal and say it's a win but when you actually recount how those weapons were often used it was almost always nearly as limiting as having only 2 at a time. Some weapons were clearly better than others in older shooters, some were clearly more useful for the majority of situations you encountered and, perhaps most importantly, nearly all had their use governed by ammo availability anyway. Is being given barely any rocket launcher ammo before that really tough room in your old school shooter really all that different than the game giving you a rocket launcher to accompany your preferred main weapon before that really tough room? Is having half of your 10 weapon arsenal either be clearly outclassed by another choice or empty of ammo really that different than only being able to carry 2 weapons, a variety of grenades and a really useful melee attack?

I'm not saying that having a huge arsenal on you at all times is worse than having limited weapon carrying capacity (though I do personally prefer the limit even though I grew up in the 90s shooter hey day), I'm just saying that it's at best a situational choice. Neither should be the default. Oh, and the whole discussion gives me a very "grass is greener" vibe.

 

[shiajun]

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.

I'd like to point out that what you propose strongly implies that you'll have to play over and over until you develop a strategy already knowing the game. You mention maps, but it's not always multiplayer. Single games also have this two-weapon limit and I'm certainly not going to replay an entire campaign just to get to that level and choose the appropriate weapons for the encounters contained within it. In your suggestion most people will find the first (second, and probably third) playthrough frustrating and maybe unfair. That right there is, to me, terrible design. If that's the objective of the game (like Dark Souls), by all means, go ahead. If it wasn't, then your game has failed at being fun without "getting good".

 

[burningdragoon]

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.

Okay... but Chess has 6 types of pieces, so clearly more than 2 is still better

 

[Caffiene]

Okay... but Chess has 6 types of pieces, so clearly more than 2 is still better

Humour aside, its essentially an accurate point - chess with a more limited number of options for playing pieces is essentially draughts/checkers, which is generally considered a less strategic game than chess.

 

[K12]

I find the most annoying thing about the 2 weapon system is that whenever you get into a situation that needs one particular weapon it's always just lying there in front.

Edge of a cliff, oh good there's a sniper rifle there.

Area with lots of vehicles, handily there's an RPG right by the entrance.

What is the difference here, gameplay-wise, with putting the ammo for those guns in those areas whilst being scarce everywhere else? Limiting ammo for each individual weapon can force you to switch up your tactics and try different techniques with what you have available better than limiting weapons. It also means you don't have to walk past a whole bunch of useful ammo for other guns lying everywhere when they could be useful later on.

I'm totally on board with one of each weapon type. One shotgun, one pistol, one rapid fire, one long range, one explosive. Or maybe a Dark Souls style approach, one have no limit of number of weapons but can only switch quickly between two you have equipped.

 

[Kajin]

Can't say I agree. Having every weapon on your person doesn't make the game better, strategically. If you always have the weapon you need on hand, I think it actually limits your strategic capabilities. Cluster of enemies? Rocket launcher. Tight corridors? Shotgun. Enemies at long range? Sniper rifle. Why would I not use the best weapon for the job in front of me? No point in not doing it.

 

[Norix596]

Game pausing (or slowing) weapon wheels are my preferred solution to this problem.

 

[TinmanX]

Regarding 90s shooters, let us not forget level design. Level design, please! Also the importance of resource management.

This.

Take Doom for example. The level designers went to great lengths to design maps with hidden access corridors and spaces where powerups, health and ammo could be scavenged. If you ignored the loot hunt and just went in rocket launcher/minigun blazing on anything that moved, you would eventually run out of ammo and, by that extension, health.

Greater equippable weapon diversity encourages more interesting level design within which to manage resources. Two-weapon limit games destroy this aspect of FPS gameplay, consistently funneling you AT enemies or crates that have the same ammo/weapons you are using. It's brain-dead resource management and it is as boring as hell.

 

[Callate]

This was one of the things that annoyed me about Bioshock Infinite. I think it was intended to encourage the player to use Vigors, but frankly, that never worked very well. That the game started throwing largely superfluous and redundant weapons into the mix down the line didn't help. If you found out the new weapon you picked up just didn't work all that well, you'd just end up using whatever your opponents dropped, over and over. And marveling at the "coincidence" when a sniper rifle happened to show up when you were suddenly faced with approaching a building front chock-a-block with snipers.

All too often, the whole thing just emphasizes the "theme park ride" nature of many games, pulling the player out of any sense of immersion they might have. "You will blast your way through this fight with the sub-machine gun and the shotgun, just like every other player who comes before and after you. How dare you try to impose any sort of personal play-style on our finely honed experience."

 

[StreamerDarkly]

I disagree with quite a few of the author's claims, particularly with regards to Halo and the deficiencies of a two weapon system.

Does Halo promote a hide, peek and shoot type of game rather than run and gun? Absolutely not. The fact that you have a recharging shield and can take considerable damage before dying promotes aggressive run and gun. You're not overly concerned with always getting first shot if you have confidence in your rifle. Compare this to Call of Duty or Battlefield where, if you get caught out, the engagement is over before you even have a chance to respond (~1 second), the end result being a timid style of gameplay if not outright camping.

I wager that the two weapon system was developed in the interest of simplicity. On a console, you need only press a button to switch guns quickly rather than navigating a 'weapon wheel' with the stick. This is useful in multiplayer where you don't have time to fart around. Consider also the possibility that not having a weapon for every season in your arsenal might actually be beneficial for gameplay. As an example, in Halo the specialized weapons such as rockets, sniper, and shotgun have known spawn time and locations - these are hotly contested by both teams which promotes map movement and map control. If you know every player on the map is already loaded to the gills, there's less incentive to move or establish control.

It's true that spawning with a water gun when everyone else has a bullet hose is poor balance. Think default Halo 2 when you spawned with an SMG. However, the settings for competitive Halo always featured spawning with a utility weapon (rifle or pistol) which is serviceable at close, medium and long range. You have reasonable chances even if power weapons are controlled by the other team.

 

[Bad Jim]

Can't say I agree. Having every weapon on your person doesn't make the game better, strategically. If you always have the weapon you need on hand, I think it actually limits your strategic capabilities. Cluster of enemies? Rocket launcher. Tight corridors? Shotgun. Enemies at long range? Sniper rifle. Why would I not use the best weapon for the job in front of me? No point in not doing it.

The best weapon for the job wasn't necessarily obvious. In Metal Gear Solid, for instance, a fight against Sniper Wolf is set up as a sniper duel, but it's actually a lot easier to hide in a corner and use the remote controlled Nikita missiles to kill her. And you are advised to use Nikita missiles against Vulcan Raven, but he tends to shoot them down, and it's actually a lot easier to use mines.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I don't think as a whole that it's much of a problem, unless there's games where the situation does not fit. Like in CoD, the enemies aren't too varied, and they wanted to keep some 'loose' sense of realism towards modern military combat, so the loadouts reflect as such. In games like Doom, or Painkiller, it's so far out set in a fantasy world that having the unlimited walking armory makes sense. Similarly with recent Far Cry games, the only reason you can carry more than two I think is because of the size of the maps, and being prepared is hard enough as it is.

Sometimes they do botch it up horribly, such as Duke Nukem Forever, where the 2 weapon limit simply does NOT MAKE SENSE. But in tactical shooters like Rainbow 6, and in spectacle/sci-fi shooters like Shadow Warrior, I think it's very applicable. Some games could do with just one extra weapon slot, such as Gears of War, because you can't really go anywhere without your assault rifle, you just wouldn't have enough ammo from the dead guys to cope otherwise. And they give you lots of toys to play with, and it's a shame that you always end up with AR/shottie or AR/Longshot combo.

 

[Darkness665]

Borderlands both. Four active slots 72 slots in backpack. Plus grenades/mods, shield type, class mod.
Dark Souls both. Four slots to actively switch between, two left and two right. And one equipped from list of 5 that is immediately deployable.

Both are much more fun than the two weapon limit FPS solutions that I find boring.

While we are at it, how about locked content? I buy a game (any type) and have to perform some stupid list of annoying actions that serve little purpose once out of the tutorial. No, I want to drive to Liberty City NOW! I want to race on that track with this car, not some wheezing ricer with no tires, torque or fun. I have many games that never got finished because the game bored me with stupid limitations like that. Fine, bagged it. Never buy from them again. Or only on sale/used.

 

[Darkness665]

I disagree with quite a few of the author's claims, particularly with regards to Halo and the deficiencies of a two weapon system.
-- cut --
I wager that the two weapon system was developed in the interest of simplicity.

The limits were likely developed because of the limitations of the designers abilities or the gaming system itself. Quite possibly both.

Halo on console requires accepting the limitations of the Xbox. No memory, slow processor, slow system, slow (often missing) HDD and a pathetic DVD solution all tied to encryption to prevent piracy. Result. Slow system. How to speed up a slow system? Simplify, reduce, remove.

 

[Ieyke]

You could just say "fuck everything about Halo" and you'd basically have the right answer.
Those games are really....dumb.

 

[Bad Jim]

As an example, in Halo the specialized weapons such as rockets, sniper, and shotgun have known spawn time and locations - these are hotly contested by both teams which promotes map movement and map control. If you know every player on the map is already loaded to the gills, there's less incentive to move or establish control.

In the days of Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament the item spawn points were just as heavily contested in any team game with half decent players. It's just that the weapons were largely balanced in UT and Quake 3, so teams focused on the quad damage, health/armour pickups, and whatever OP weapon did exist (BFG in Q3, Redeemer in UT).

Also, if you can carry every weapon on the map, you have more incentive to move around it, because you are making yourself more powerful each time you pick one up. With a two weapon limit, you can pick up two weapons and then you are only moving around to deny your opponent weapons.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah, being limited to only 2 weapons kinda sucks. Going from BioShock 1/2 to BioShock Infinite is a pretty big change. In the former games, I used every weapon in the game to some extent, and I used quite a few of them a lot, but in Infinite, I cannot remember ever using some weapons in the game as I tended to stick with my revolver and my SMG because they were useful in a lot of situations whereas some of the more exotic weapons were very situational, and thus never got used.

I used to play a lot of Halo, and as much fun as it is being showered in power weapons, if you run around with two of them, you end up severely limiting yourself because they are generally very situational and have very low ammo capacities, but if you were in the same situation in a game like Unreal Tournament, you would just pick it up and add it to your invisible backpack of deadly weapons.

I wish it would go away, but because controllers have very few buttons, and because consoles are very popular platforms, I highly doubt it will be going any time soon, at least with multiplatform games, anyway.