Dual wield pistols yes or no?

[Metalsheep]

While it would be neat, it is a balance issue. Halo implemented dual wielding into Halo 2 and in order to balance it, they reduced the damage of both guns while dual wielding, you did more damage than just one pistol, but it was easily eclipsed by the Battle Rifle and other larger weapons. At first people dualed alot, then as the series went on, people realised how useless dual wielding actually was. (Next to) No one Dual Wielded in Halo 3, and now in Reach it is gone.

Dual Wielding is rendered moot by larger weapons or balance factors. Why carry two pistols when you can choose the more powerful Rifle or SMG? Or why, if Dual Wielding doesn't slightly reduce damage, would i want to carry a Rifle or SMG when Dual Wielding is more powerful?

[Ait'al]

Originally Posted by Atheosim

Honestly, I just think it's absurd. I won't be bothered very greatly if it's implemented, but I'd rather they not invest any time or resources implementing and balancing something so blatantly absurd and fashion oriented.

It's not fashion oriented. It's strategic. Like picking one gun over another. Good for indoors and holding small openings... Or outside in the right circumstances. Does the game still have COF. that is how you balance it. The natural disadvantage is potentially aiming. It's for mass fire. You shouldn't need a TR max to do it. More complex strategy would be good(that means options and improvisation) and this is something you could realistically do. The balance is if you do it wrong you get your butt handed to you.

The only thing you do to balance it is make it more realistic. People who can't balance this stuff, like the last guy saying someone reduced damage, those developers are just morons(or they purposely wanted a different unrealistic design). When you produce realistic strategy you just copy reality. if it don't work add more reality. It's that simple. when you get past adding enough reality, and you added enough to cover what is needed for that function, it will work. That is really all you do for realistic designs. Technically it adds a lot more but it's also fluent in coming up with more things. If you aren't easily finding things to add you are very confused. Especially adding realistic technology.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Ait'al

The only thing you do to balance it is make it more realistic.

I think you are using a very odd definition of "balance". Because reality is not balanced.

[Ait'al]

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

I think you are using a very odd definition of "balance". Because reality is not balanced.

By balance I mean add reality till it's acceptable trade offs. Say they have caliber bullets. Make them act liek caliber bullets to a large extent(what does caliber do then think about it multipe times in context to other small details) and have that affect the game more realistically/sudo realisticly as a balance. It shouldn't be hard persay. Make more go into damage than just designating a number to teh gun. simple statistics are annoying to balance because the mind works more fluently on a slightly more complex plane. Leaving up to player actoin, aka shooting the arm not the armor for medium/light armors and using more realities to get the same action would be easier in the end. Not to mention get more the result you want from randomness of number more realisticly. Combat will generate randomness realisticaly. You can count on some things to do it for you. Alot of the things in PS1 are like that if you think about it. They would already exist in an increasingly complex/realistic game environment. Just not as simply. Though they would totally in affect if desired. At least in my opinion.

Eve sort of started doing this by taking out random and using vectors and other player driven choices to determine the outcome. Though they did leave the original shot variance instead of aiming. That is sort of the direction it should go. Add in real armor placement. Ifyou dont hit that spot you don't get the protection. just have to deal with a non number too HP result(preferable somewhat complex) when the bullet hits. But so the exact dimension of the tech do something different. That would balance out more easily because the extra stuff, if enough, would leave more room for error on minor issues. It could be more easily balanced in other ways. Give each part of the armor unique characteristics(realistically. Think the affect of one tech on another bring it to life. Think design of ring male to plate etc. In very real detail. Laser hitting verse bullet etc don't use armor bonuses that use any representation by a single number. Number must exist in affect as ratio/consequence of actoin at some point only never a number.). Really old RPGs used to do this a little more. But do it farther than previous games. Psudo physics. Enough its' not an obvious number but not enough to demand to much proccesing if it's a problem. And so you take into account making up tech.

This would give a more real point to current old PS attributes. Armor penetration would be needed. It would be used more for heavy armor without holes. Normal for light or armor with lots of skin penetration. Would make sniping more fun also. It would be skill based but with some of the attributes superficially on some level like the old game. Just have to shoot different location/aka it sucks on armor locations but not on skin. Then you have an interesting setup. Though a armor piercing sniper shot/rifle could be useful potentially. Depends how much you want. I think adding more depths/realism eases design the more you add to it. You can still get the same balance realities. They are just made in different ways as before because the environment is not as simple.

Those numbers are supposed to represent real things like in DND style like all games still use. Adding more of the guns actual attributes would do the same. It doesn't have to change the game design. Just add to everything simultaneously. Make the barrel matter make the bullet matter. Make the details matter. It should come out the same if your original statistics/simple numbers were correct.

As is, like I said, those defense numbers are supposed to represent the defense of the armor including based on it's physical dementions and coverage. That is why fictionally it should be less/aka it has a smaller defense number. if you actually add it it should act the same way. Taking out any random number to the extent you added reality. This just allows skill and personal ability to be added onto it besides just the ability to aim at a hit box persay. The details should make the game unless the original number of PS1 weren't thought out well. If they properly represented what they meant to represent there should be no problem. If not mold it so it does act like the old game but in a new way. Those are the considerations to do so though.

Basiclaly if you used standard non armor piercing ammo. And you sprayed at a normal armor It woudl hit varying spots. That if correct would/should get the same basic armor as the original. The guns will have aiming issues being automatics or shotguns(that also means non random generated random spreay. Use something a little more complex based on the environment. Heck you could get weather and temp affects and everything else you can think of on that to help make it. It woud just replicate in the end PS1 to be the same.) etc(this would also bring out more the strategic use of each gun type but to the design of PS1s design.). If you have heavier armor you just want armor penetration etc with some more complex consequences besides sucking an hp bar dry. That is the real detail to add(unless to complex). If the original numbers are right and you go just far enough in depth you should get the same affect on average outside of skill. Which you can't and shouldn't avoid. In the end all that matters is if the overal gameplay is set to the numbers of PS1 or whatever they should be. It's just ratios basically. Not how you generate them.

The more complexity the game per individual thing , the more means you have to balance it also. The tiny details can be modded. in a simpler game you only have a few options to change making it harder. Simpler games represent the overall point(PS1 most games up till now). More complex games fill in the blanks(what I'm referring to and would love to see in PS2).

GAme developers try this and fail becuase they only do it to like one level over the current game. You need to do it to like 10 levels to get the affect(not exact but saying in that direction) It depends on the exact detail of the items in the game. Each should reflect the item realistically in a way that can interact with everything in the game in the way it needs to in the way it needs to to each item(this can mean multiple things per item(aka armor flesh). PS1 was good because that is basically what they were already doing. I'm saying take it further.

So for caliber affect say it makes a bigger whole. Make something that splits the HP bar down to several more things. That way things have multiple affect. Not sure on the specifics on the HP bar. That can be tricky. Might need to remove it for cripple affects etc. But for each thing in the game make it into several more to make what it was supposed to represent(In some case breaking other things down may cover it). That may vary per item though. Depends what it represented. Take each thing it represented and give it more life basically. So the thing it's split into acts like the thing it was represnted by. This should combine into things that may reach over multiple areas some times makes unique characteristics. depends.

Say with the armor argument. You hit the arm. You don't want to have it kill him without a bleeding affect having a simulated affect on the player(replicates and/or replaces HP or extends the complexity of the number and how to affect it if you can't totally remove it). It may work like the original game(maybe not totally realistic but giving the illusion to all sides) there should be consequences on top of consequences to get the same result(more than I'm specifically mentioning.. That also gives more variation and less stale play to the game. ( That is what I mean by psudo physics. It's maybe more accurate to say Psudo environtment affects. Those if taken far enough would morph into physics at some point. the inbetween lets say.)

Think of all the things you would need in real life to realisticly simplify somoene down to an HP bar in a real combat zone. It wouldn't be easy. Add those things in! All of them.

And overall strategically life is balanced. It's just based on choices to a large extent. Hence choice based gameplay. All of those little things are defined in strategy. That is the point of a game like this to bring them out and use them in gameplay. 8)

Think about normal vs armor pen bullets. Why does it do it. Don't just say it does make it do it! Make it be different realistically to the extent needed in the game to do it and cover it's affect with all other things in the game. It penetrates armor because it..... Is round at tip and that does what to armor or type of armor. You also get more interesting armor. Remember these guys are designing tech to fight multiple techs. that is technically very interesting... Let the fiction be the guide. And see how much the fiction holds out 8) Do the stated techs really do what they say they should. Does the mag and bullet really penetrate the VS armor. Or can you make it so while upholding the fictions integrity.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Ait'al

By balance I mean add reality till it's acceptable trade offs. Say they have caliber bullets. Make them act liek caliber bullets to a large extent(what does caliber do then think about it multipe times in context to other small details) and have that affect the game more realistically/sudo realisticly as a balance. It shouldn't be hard persay. Make more go into damage than just designating a number to teh gun. simple statistics are annoying to balance because the mind works more fluently on a slightly more complex plane. Leaving up to player actoin, aka shooting the arm not the armor for medium/light armors and using more realities to get the same action would be easier in the end. Not to mention get more the result you want from randomness of number more realisticly. Combat will generate randomness realisticaly. You can count on some things to do it for you. Alot of the things in PS1 are like that if you think about it. They would already exist in an increasingly complex/realistic game environment. Just not as simply. Though they would totally in affect if desired. At least in my opinion.

Eve sort of started doing this by taking out random and using vectors and other player driven choices to determine the outcome. Though they did leave the original shot variance instead of aiming. That is sort of the direction it should go. Add in real armor placement. Ifyou dont hit that spot you don't get the protection. just have to deal with a non number too HP result(preferable somewhat complex) when the bullet hits. But so the exact dimension of the tech do something different. That would balance out more easily because the extra stuff, if enough, would leave more room for error on minor issues. It could be more easily balanced in other ways. Give each part of the armor unique characteristics(realistically. Think the affect of one tech on another bring it to life. Think design of ring male to plate etc. In very real detail. Laser hitting verse bullet etc don't use armor bonuses that use any representation by a single number. Number must exist in affect as ratio/consequence of actoin at some point only never a number.). Really old RPGs used to do this a little more. But do it farther than previous games. Psudo physics. Enough its' not an obvious number but not enough to demand to much proccesing if it's a problem. And so you take into account making up tech.

This would give a more real point to current old PS attributes. Armor penetration would be needed. It would be used more for heavy armor without holes. Normal for light or armor with lots of skin penetration. Would make sniping more fun also. It would be skill based but with some of the attributes superficially on some level like the old game. Just have to shoot different location/aka it sucks on armor locations but not on skin. Then you have an interesting setup. Though a armor piercing sniper shot/rifle could be useful potentially. Depends how much you want. I think adding more depths/realism eases design the more you add to it. You can still get the same balance realities. They are just made in different ways as before because the environment is not as simple.

Those numbers are supposed to represent real things like in DND style like all games still use. Adding more of the guns actual attributes would do the same. It doesn't have to change the game design. Just add to everything simultaneously. Make the barrel matter make the bullet matter. Make the details matter. It should come out the same if your original statistics/simple numbers were correct.

As is, like I said, those defense numbers are supposed to represent the defense of the armor including based on it's physical dementions and coverage. That is why fictionally it should be less/aka it has a smaller defense number. if you actually add it it should act the same way. Taking out any random number to the extent you added reality. This just allows skill and personal ability to be added onto it besides just the ability to aim at a hit box persay. The details should make the game unless the original number of PS1 weren't thought out well. If they properly represented what they meant to represent there should be no problem. If not mold it so it does act like the old game but in a new way. Those are the considerations to do so though.

Basiclaly if you used standard non armor piercing ammo. And you sprayed at a normal armor It woudl hit varying spots. That if correct would/should get the same basic armor as the original. The guns will have aiming issues being automatics or shotguns(that also means non random generated random spreay. Use something a little more complex based on the environment. Heck you could get weather and temp affects and everything else you can think of on that to help make it. It woud just replicate in the end PS1 to be the same.) etc(this would also bring out more the strategic use of each gun type but to the design of PS1s design.). If you have heavier armor you just want armor penetration etc with some more complex consequences besides sucking an hp bar dry. That is the real detail to add(unless to complex). If the original numbers are right and you go just far enough in depth you should get the same affect on average outside of skill. Which you can't and shouldn't avoid. In the end all that matters is if the overal gameplay is set to the numbers of PS1 or whatever they should be. It's just ratios basically. Not how you generate them.

The more complexity the game per individual thing , the more means you have to balance it also. The tiny details can be modded. in a simpler game you only have a few options to change making it harder. Simpler games represent the overall point(PS1 most games up till now). More complex games fill in the blanks(what I'm referring to and would love to see in PS2).

GAme developers try this and fail becuase they only do it to like one level over the current game. You need to do it to like 10 levels to get the affect(not exact but saying in that direction) It depends on the exact detail of the items in the game. Each should reflect the item realistically in a way that can interact with everything in the game in the way it needs to in the way it needs to to each item(this can mean multiple things per item(aka armor flesh). PS1 was good because that is basically what they were already doing. I'm saying take it further.

So for caliber affect say it makes a bigger whole. Make something that splits the HP bar down to several more things. That way things have multiple affect. Not sure on the specifics on the HP bar. That can be tricky. Might need to remove it for cripple affects etc. But for each thing in the game make it into several more to make what it was supposed to represent(In some case breaking other things down may cover it). That may vary per item though. Depends what it represented. Take each thing it represented and give it more life basically. So the thing it's split into acts like the thing it was represnted by. This should combine into things that may reach over multiple areas some times makes unique characteristics. depends.

Say with the armor argument. You hit the arm. You don't want to have it kill him without a bleeding affect having a simulated affect on the player(replicates and/or replaces HP or extends the complexity of the number and how to affect it if you can't totally remove it). It may work like the original game(maybe not totally realistic but giving the illusion to all sides) there should be consequences on top of consequences to get the same result(more than I'm specifically mentioning.. That also gives more variation and less stale play to the game. ( That is what I mean by psudo physics. It's maybe more accurate to say Psudo environtment affects. Those if taken far enough would morph into physics at some point. the inbetween lets say.)

Think of all the things you would need in real life to realisticly simplify somoene down to an HP bar in a real combat zone. It wouldn't be easy. Add those things in! All of them.

And overall strategically life is balanced. It's just based on choices to a large extent. Hence choice based gameplay. All of those little things are defined in strategy. That is the point of a game like this to bring them out and use them in gameplay. 8)

I think this is a bit much just to add something that will be overshadowed by other weapons anyway.

[Ait'al]

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

I think this is a bit much just to add something that will be overshadowed by other weapons anyway.

Oh yea, the point of that was that doing so with all weapons would justify the use of duel weapons and remove the inbalance. Just make it an option. Give the man some arm strength. If he can't hold it you loose accuracy. If they are all the same then whatever. I'm saying that as a game design would leave more options and remove the initial problem at some point as you go further. And was already technically the point of PS1 and all other games to be frank.

If you made it so it mattered to some extent you held it with two hands and balanced it. If you picked up two guns it would balance itself out if the physics/psudo physics/environment were complex enough. since to some extent it simulates holding it or whatever. Just enough little things like that everywhere.

I'm pretty sure the inbalance people don't like can be argued practically as being the result of the simplicity of the environment. Making it more complex would/could eventually remove the complexities(or loosen the issue) of the so called inbalance or the root of the complaint and give more room for it to be feasible. It just requires more aspects to exist per gun and every other item in the game to an extent that those thing on the current weapon are not as big of an issue or it is readjusted by the change to work in a manner that meats all sides of the argument and can be.

To make a stupid analogy from TBBT. Go from rock paper scissors to rock paper scissors, something, spock. Whatever that game was called and keep going! Oversimplified possibly but that is the gist.

[Knocky]

Shoot, I would give up all firearms for a 1-shot kill knife.

[Hypevosa]

Agreed - I'd love to try and blaze through an entire squad with an infiltrator using only a melee weapon.

[Purple]

i dont want anything to 1hit

[Hoodlum]

Originally Posted by Purple

i dont want anything to 1hit

Agreed !!!!!

[Hypevosa]

I think a sniper who accounts for bullet drop and leading who gets a headshot on someone from a mile away deserves the kill - anything requiring that much skill and patience deserves to be a 1hit.

The infiltrator with a 1hit kill knife may sound OP at first, but realize that all the players being in constant communication, and the infiltrator not having any other weapons, means he'll be found out soon enough and can be taken care of from a safe distance. The balance here is how utterly boned the infiltrator is once the *** is up, and I'd assume that the 1 hit kill knife would also require a few seconds to execute leaving you highly exposed.

[Talek Krell]

I don't generally favor 1 hit kills in games. The way I see it being able to one shot someone is only fun for the guy who can do so. Snipers I'm giving a pass to for now, but knives I think is a stupid idea. Being behind someone isn't that difficult.

[Destroyeron]

I just wouldn't like it due to the part of me that knows that one gun in 2 hands is going to be more accurate and more deadly than 1 per hand. Could it be done? Yes. Do I think they should spend time on it? No. I also think that pistols are going to be so underused that it won't really matter, except for infils but even then I think they'd want more accuracy of one gun than the speed of 2.

I think it works in L4D because its just that type of game, half the time your bullets don't do anything to the zombie anyways lol. It works in COD because COD (after 4) is crap.

[Hypevosa]

Originally Posted by Destroyeron

I just wouldn't like it due to the part of me that knows that one gun in 2 hands is going to be more accurate and more deadly than 1 per hand.

Except when facing a target that requires you take down its armor/shielding before you can get a kill shot. Shielding doesn't care if you hit them in the toe or the face, the energy cost to deflect is the same per bullet. Using 2 guns to drop a shield and switching to one for taking a kill shot would be a viable and effective tactic in the planetside universe for that reason.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Hypevosa

I think a sniper who accounts for bullet drop and leading who gets a headshot on someone from a mile away deserves the kill - anything requiring that much skill and patience deserves to be a 1hit.

Sadly the game can't tell the difference between getting a headshot through skill and getting one through sheer luck. On the receiving end you're instagibbed either way. This is the main worry for me in any game that allows one shot kills, hordes of mediocre snipers who land only 10% of their shots ruining the game by instagibbing people with that 10%.

Most shooters get away with it because of the way the matches are designed. Small maps with a limited number of players, where a sniper heavy team can easily be steamrolled by one with a more diverse set of classes. In a game with three sides, hundreds of players each, fighting over a large area... I'm not too optimistic. But I guess we'll see soon enough.