Well, I disagree... If you''re talking about balancing weapons then you''re talking about some sort of rock-paper-scissors relationship where one weapon is always better than another in a certain situation, which is why I''d assign the handgun a higher damage than the machine gun, or at least give it higher accuracy or range.

As for the ammo, I definitely agree with you Kohai.

P

I think you can afford to have most handguns be crap - maybe have a magnum or similar with slow refire, but major damage.

The key place to balance your weapons is at the high end of the spectrum. You can afford to have several rubbish weapons that no-one uses (or only to show off their supreme skills) but you can''t afford to have one superweapon that causes whoever gets it to have the clear advantage.

Looking at the list:

Snipers and melee weapons are pretty specialist.

Machine guns and bazookas are probably the default weapons of choice for the average player.

Grenades and shotguns are moderately specialist weapons, though not to the extent of snipers/melee.

Handguns are generally the weapon of last resort (though the average player may well prefer them to melee and possibly also sniper)

Preventing the player from carrying all weapons at all times can be good or bad, depending on how meaningful the choices are - both the situation where a given weapon is clearly superior and the situation where you need given weapons for given situations (whether you have to guess what''s coming up, or it''s made abundantly clear) are bad - in both cases, you don''t really have a choice of weapon - in the first, you have no real decision to make, and in the second, it becomes a lock and key puzzle where you can''t carry all the keys at once... If, on the other hand, weapon choice influences style of play (and vice versa) then limiting the number of weapons you can carry makes sense by making the choice change your path through the game.

I think you should also have SMG and assault rifle on that list of categories, for instance an SMG like an MP5 has far less armor-penetrating power than a machine gun like an M249 but is easier to control.

On your list you''ve only got damage, range and rate of fire. The more variables/features you have which define each weapon, the more differentiated they can become and the more "levers" you have to tweak the balance, though obviously there''s a limit before the player''s brain turn to mush trying to figure out how the gun will behave before choosing it.

Clip size was mentioned by Kohai, here are some other things which could affect the player''s choice:
Reload time - can offset guns with large clips or box magazines
Accuracy
Ammo types weapon can use - 5.56mm, 7.62mm, power cell etc.
Cost
Weight
Reliability - e.g. Plasma weapons are devestating but overheat after 3-4 shots
Recoil
Damage type - AP, HP, explosive, stun etc.
Add-on equipment - silencers prevent the enemy learning your location but only work on pistols and SMGs

A good way to make pistols more useful is to make it faster to aim and fire the first shot with a pistol. E.g. guy with a pistol walks round a corner and surprises an enemy with an assault rifle - the pistol guy has enough time to fire or duck back round the corner before the rifle guy has got his gun aimed at the pistol guy. Unless the rifle guy was covering that corner (and wasn''t surprised) in which case the pistol guy gets shot before he can do anything. Things like that can help break the game out of the rock-paper-scissors relationship because different weapons are more or less effective depending on what the player does.

Another thing about pistols is that you have your other hand free for throwing grenades and stuff while still being able to use the pistol. A guy with an SMG takes out a grenade with his off-hand and if he needs to fire the SMG before throwing the grenade he can''t aim it well and the recoil affects burst shots much worse.

For inventory, I think it depends a lot on the type of game. In arcade-y games like Quake you don''t want to worry about encumbrance or a limited set of weapons, in an RPG it matters more because of all the loot you have to lug around as well as your great sword and elven crossbow/dual SMGs and sniper rifle [delete as appropriate] and longer term choices as to which weapons your character will be skilled at using.

I think you need a fair number of weapons in each category for if it''s a single player game with a progression as against a multiplayer game like Counterstrike where everything''s available at once. Variety keeps the game interesting over a longer time between learning the controls and mastering the game.

Golan Trevize

I think a 'small' list of balanced weapons is good, but that doesn't mean just 1 from each category. IMO, there should be _AT LEAST_ two weapons in each category so players have a choice to make once they pick the role they want to play. Not only should there be more than one in each category, but they should actually be different. For example, maybe one sniper rifle does 90 damage and can fire once every 10 seconds because it has to cool down and another does 50 damage but can be shot every second. Maybe one machine gun goes through its 100 bullet clip in a second and the other takes 20 seconds to go through its belt of 350 bullets, etc. Its nice to have some choice. I feel the mod FireArms for half-life did a fairly good job of that. They could have dropped a few of the weapons and still been ok, but they had several weapons in each category and each weapon actually had a different feel to it.

Edit: Damage and rate of fire are not all that should be different. Accurracy, reload times, ammo availability, ammo capacity, and any other parameters you have should also differ some to make the players choose weapons to fit their style and not because one is better in most cases.

[edited by - Extrarius on February 18, 2003 11:54:47 AM]

Extrarius makes a compelling point. Having just a few weapons or (much worse!) having a handful of weapons in the same "category" with nearly identical properties leads to shallow gameplay. Especially in an RPG, there should be unlimited opportunities to customize style and method.

If the Steyr AUG is the same as the M16 is the same as the G36 is the same as the FA-MAS, then we aren''t even pretending to have fun. On the other hand, if the AUG totally owns the M16, then everything starts to suck again. From an action standpoint, little things like capacity, rate of fire, and recoil are the most important things. For an RPG, there should be skill levels for each weapon. Get a guy who''s hell on wheels with an M4, and throw him into battle with a Kalashnikov, with which he has no training or experience. That''s an awkward moment for everyone. In an action game, you can assume that every character is awesome at everything, but other genres don''t facilitate such smooth transitions.

So, for action games, have a bunch of comperable but distinct weapons, and for an RPG, have a bunch of neutrally balanced weapons and let player attributes and statistics determine their battlefield effectiveness.

And of course, if you''re using weapons that exist in the real world, for God''s sake make them true to life. Caliber, rate of fire, capacity, weight, etc. And make sure you know the difference between a clip and a magazine. Nothing pisses off a gun nut more than hearing about how to get hi-cap clips for a Glock. When Commander Badass slaps a fresh clip into his AK-47, we all wince.