So last week, Mechadon, The Doom Freak and I were discussing the weapons I had come up with in the design documents. After discussing some of their concerns over the weapons, as well as listening to their ideas, I began to think about what makes for a good FPS weapon. After all, with so many ideas, how can one tell if they’re any good or not without implementing them all and trying them out (which would be very time consuming)?
Here’s what I came up with for what makes a good FPS weapon:
- Simple. This eliminates confusion. When weapons have multiple attacks, and work differently in different situations and against different monsters, that creates a lot of confusion for the player. If a player is confused, they don’t feel in control because they don’t know what the weapon is going to do, and nothing is more frustrating than the feeling of not being in control of your environment.
- Balanced. If a weapon is completely dominant in all situations, there’s no variety, and more importantly, there’s less skill involved. If all you have to do to win is “grab the best weapon and start shooting”… that’s pretty boring. Not mention that there’s not as much skill involved in that as getting multiple weapons and picking the right weapon for whatever situation you’re in. So, to be balanced, the weapon should be dominant in specific situations… not *all* situations.
- Great aesthetics. Great looks and sounds. Come on – this one’s a no brainer!
- Based in reality. This goes back to the whole theme of people enjoying skill-building when playing games. If the weapon is completely out there and completely defies the laws of physics, you’re not going to feel like you’re developing any skills. It’ll just feel silly, and like a big waste of time!
If you look at a lot of Doom’s weapons, which I think have largely been successful, they fit almost all of these criteria. Take the SSG for instance. It’s simple, balanced (slow-burning, mid-range, “default” weapon), looks great and feels great to shoot, and has some basis in reality.
So what do you think? Do you have anything to add to the list? Did I completely blow it? Let us know what you think!
first post
And good stuff
I think that’s pretty spot on
What makes a great FPS weapon?
Why, anything that mek thinks of, of course!
But seriously, I think that’s an excellent set of criteria to follow. I think the real hurtle to overcome is to inject some form of originality while keeping with all of these rules. From the run-of-the-mill weapons that your expected to see (pistol, shotgun, machinegun, etc), if you can, thematically speaking, mix it up a bit while not completely alienating the player from the reality of the weapon it’s based on, then that’s a plus. Unfortunately this is easier said than done from what weapon digging I’ve done
To make a good weapon you need to make one that only have a specific use.. Like that people needs to manage what they have on them.. The post is pretty much accurate ^^
Looking foward to play Project Vega! ^^
Pistol:
Damage 25%
Range Medium
duration 15
Shotgun:
Damage 75%
Range Close
duration 25
Machinegun:
Damage 12%
Range Medium
duration 5
Minigun:
Damage 30%
Range Medium
duration 2
Rifle:
Damage 45%
Range Far
duration 10
semi automatic
Rocket Launcher
Damage 400%
Projectile
duration 20
Plasma spiker
Damage 20%
fast Projectile
duration 4
Knife
Damage 100%
Range extremely close duration 10
The classic weapon set everyone will love!
1. How it looks
Honestly if a weapon doesnt look good people wont tend to use it often, like me, sometimes I use a pistol instead of a Machine-Gun because the pistol looks cool.
2.How it sounds
If it doesnt sound right, people are going to wonder “Wtf kind of gun is this?” and this doesnt happen too often but on multiplayer people will tend to stay away from you.
3.How much damage it does
If a weapon does alot of damage, people will use it up in no time unless it carries only a small amount of ammo or ammo for it is hard to find. Also, if it does too much, people on multiplayer will make the whole game a bloody mess if it does too much.
If a weapon does too little damage then people will use for a secondary weapon or wont use it during certain situations.
Also, people who make maps will place them in a good bit of places on maps sp the player can’t just take out a minigun and eliminate every monster/player/enemy in the area.
4.How long it takes to reload
Weapons that reload slowly are a DEATH TRAP so people wont use weapons like that very often (trust me, I know) so make the weapon reload time match to how much damage it does (i.e BFG Damage = 1000 Reload Time = 15 Seconds)
5.How it looks while firing
I dont evven need to give a discription, just make the firing look and sound life-like.
Yeah sound is huge in my oppinion. Doom 3 is a prime example. The guns looked ok, the way they fired wasn’t terrible, but in my oppinion every single one of them lacked any real kick. I wanna feel like I’m firing a SHOTGUN for crying out loud, not a cap gun. And yeah looks is important too, though dont go over the top. Make it look like its capable of doing whatever its supposed to do. Snipers will be sleek and streamlined, shotguns will be wide-bore and sturdy looking, pistols compact but technical. I hope that makes sense.
Well, that list is pretty good, but you do want SOME unrealistic weapon types. You don’t want all actual weapons (Some are necessary, like a pistol and a shotgun), then it’d just feel like another run-of-the-mill FPS, but you don’t want weapons that make no sense, then it wouldn’t feel like an FPS. Like, take Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun for example. It could never happen in real life, but it still fits in a realistic environment, and that’s why people love it.
Also, multi-use weapons aren’t all bad, as you could have puzzles where you need to use certain weapons.
depend of the history of this mod
if you want realistic weapons, use conventional weapons with smooth frame animation and various functions like secundary fire, melee, reload, aim position (centred view like call of duty),etc,etc…
You guys are lame. The guns will be big, they will have a lot of bang, and they will all deliver some nice kick. No need for melee or ironsighting, the game is too fast-paced for that.
What I mean is, you guys think too much about it.
Point received and well taken, when I disagree its not a reason to argue. No problem at all.