How would you rebalance the weapon skills in System Shock 2?

[674360a0060e6Djant]

As many fans might know, System Shock 2 has unbalanced weapon skills, where investing in Standard Weapons makes the character a demigod even on Impossible difficulty, whereas Energy Weapons are good mostly only against half mechanical and mechanical enemies, and the weapon in it with the highest requirements only damages those types of enemies. In Exotic Weapons, a lot of cyber modules need to be put into researching the weapons to use them in the first place, and then it turns out that they break easily and they are effective against a lot of enemies, but have full effectiveness only against two enemies: the spiders (both normal and huge) and the PSI Reavers. Heavy Weapons gives the most versatile weapon in its class pretty early, and it has one mid level weapon that's only useful for multiplayer in most cases. The final weapon is powerful and can be more efficient than the first weapon, but is nowhere as versatile as the first one, particularly since it would be doing a lot of damage with the points spent into the weapons skill to get it.

So the question is, how would you fix these issues and make the weapons feel more rewarding, while still making sure that they can't be used willy nilly and there are drawbacks? I'm particularly interested in knowing what Join usss! and voodoo47 have to say about it.

[674360a0062dfvoodoo47]

SCP already nerfs the pistol and rifle, and beefs up the fusion cannon. stasis field generator is also more useful, as it can now freeze any enemy.

[674360a00643fKolya]

These are good changes. I would also like to get exotic weapons like the worm launcher and viral proliferator earlier in the game.
Then again weapon rebalancing should probably be a separate mod lest the pure strains pop a fuse.

[674360a006531voodoo47]

proliferator is available on rec1, that is soon enough. it's also been beefed up btw (ADaoB). worm launcher is pretty much just a fun thing for the last level, showing rumblers and reavers how things are done.

[674360a0067b0Olfred]

SCP does a good job on rebalancing the weapons. What I would like to do is a PSI rebalance mod. But I'm way too clumsy with ShockEd to do it.

[674360a006a9bThiefsieFool]

Check out Secmod for some pretty bold rebalancing of both weapons and Psi, new guns and psi powers were added.

[674360a006c53xdiesp]

But even if you balanced the weapons, you would still have to balance the players: how would you prevent them to just flow to the next point of lesser resistance, and stock up on the next OP weapon? Maybe they would all pick up on grenade launcher skills, and you'd be back at square one. There will always be a cookie cutter build that works best. And people all using the wrench, plus another balanced weapon of choice, isn't much different than playing COD with the weapon limit.

And is balance such a good thing? This isn't horse races where we have to handicap stronger runners, so everyone has a chance: in combat, there are wise and unwise options. At this point, you are deliberately nerfing weapons to favor others, which is basically like taking them out of the game: delete the assault rifle and I bet people won't use it. Or worse, you are making a crutch mod to sustain your poorly built character.

You already can specialize in any weapon you want, and make it into an effective build. Do it because you enjoy it, not because it's enfored. My first specc was Energy and PSI, but my favorite has always been pure PSI and some pragmatic wrenching: not because they're powerful, but because I love them.

[674360a00707aJoin2]

But even if you balanced the weapons, you would still have to balance the players: how would you prevent them to just flow to the next point of lesser resistance, and stock up on the next OP weapon?

With balance there would be no next OP weapon.

And is balance such a good thing?

Yes. Running around with super OP weapons would negatively impact the challenge, engaging strategy & tense atmosphere of the game.

[674360a0071d0Olfred]

Balancing weapons is not making it so that it doesn't matter which weapon you pick up you still have the same outcome.
Balancing weapons is about making weapons have it worth and usefullness. And thats where the original SS2 is a bit off.
If you don't go only on one weapon category but decide to get other weapon types as well and then you finally managed to scrape enough cyber modules together to be able to use another type you get severly disappointed that it just pales in comparision and for all the situations the standard weapons just seem the better option. So you ended up wasting your precious cybermodules.

[674360a0072f7ThiefsieFool]

Bad balance for a game doesn't have a very large effect at first, but in its golden years its image will suffer quite a bit from players saying "just use X, just do Y, don't even bother with Z" in large numbers like with SS2.
Not that Bioshock learned its lesson with its sploicer one-two punch, 8 years later.

[674360a00761bZylonBane]

SCP does a good job on rebalancing the weapons.

SCP really does very little rebalancing. Mostly just a slight nerf to the pistol and assault rifle, and whatever grenade stuff we inherited from ADaOB.

[674360a0079d0Djant]

My first specc was Energy and PSI, but my favorite has always been pure PSI and some pragmatic wrenching: not because they're powerful, but because I love them.

Ironically, Energy and PSI are a good combination actually. This is because Energy is very good at killing off half mechanical and mechanical enemies, which give a lot of trouble to PSI based characters. At the same time, PSI powers help Energy weapon based builds, especially things like Electron Cascade and Adrenaline. They also provide a way for Energy builds to fight back against the organic enemies, although generally a pistol and shotgun is better for such things (again, a drawback of Standard Weapons being so overpowered).

Anyway, my point is that there should be a decent payoff for choosing different weapons and developing different builds for them accordingly, not that all weapon classes should have similar effects or similar strengths and weaknesses.

[674360a007d13Join2]

Balancing weapons is not making it so that it doesn't matter which weapon you pick up you still have the same outcome.
Balancing weapons is about making weapons have it worth and usefullness. And thats where the original SS2 is a bit off.
If you don't go only on one weapon category but decide to get other weapon types as well and then you finally managed to scrape enough cyber modules together to be able to use another type you get severly disappointed that it just pales in comparision and for all the situations the standard weapons just seem the better option. So you ended up wasting your precious cybermodules.

I agree, but it isn't just about making sure they are useful and worth the cost. They shouldn't be super OP either. That doesn't mean one type of weapon cannot have high damage output, but if it does it should have a combination of/at least one of the following: steep requirements, scarce and expensive ammo, other downsides such as low clip size and so on. Depends on the context.

As an extreme example, obviously the experience would suffer a lot if the weapons featured infinite ammo by default. They wouldn't be balanced to the experience as a whole.

[674360a007de3Olfred]

Of course. Just take a look at melee weapons. That's quite balanced in my opinon.

[674360a007ee4Djant]

Hah. Obviously they are, because they have a very limited range, and there's quite some stuff in the end game you don't want to fight up close. But imagine say a Viral Proliferator having infinite worms.

[674360a00806aJoin2]

Yeah, melee needs no extra work in terms of balance...I think. Someone with the values to hand would have a better-informed viewpoint. As far as I know, wrench is a good all-rounder, but weakest in base damage as it is the starting weapon. Rapier is a step up from the wrench and destroys all things mechanical, but requires some investment and isn't too good vs rumblers and the like. The shard is statistically superior, but requires both exotic & research investment, as well as being acquired latest in the game. If any balancing is needed, it'd be very minor stat tweaks. As for their balance vs all the systems/the game as a whole, limited range is the trade-off for unlimited use/ammo and no repair required, and they aren't viable at all vs some enemy types such as Rick laser turrets unless combined with some other tools.

I'm just stating blatantly obvious stuff really, but hey. It easily highlights that the devs did care and balance in all its forms is important.

[674360a0081e3voodoo47]

at the moment, the SCP weapons should be pretty ok - the worm launcher is still not really worth the investment because it's available so late, but not much can be done about that, as the weapon is pretty much a (side)quest item, bound by the story.

as mentioned, fusion cannon is now worth considering, the ammo is plentiful and the damage output is good enough to rip through all but the toughest annelids with ease. AR is still a good weapon, but definitely not godlike anymore. SFG is a bit more useful less useless, as it can freeze anything now, including turrets and cameras (there will also be a SCP minimod that will allow it to deploy stasis traps in the secondary mode, hopefully adding some more utility to the weapon).

[674360a008577RocketMan]

I always go back to starcraft 1 as a model for balance.  It's one of those games that has a ton of replay value because it no longer matters (after many patches) which race you pick or which map you play on.  Two evenly matched players always have a fun match against each other.  Every strategy has a reasonably good counter-strategy and most everything gets used.

SS2 needs to be balanced because players want to enjoy everything the game has to offer but at the same time they want to win.  If winning is best achieved by investing all your CMs in standard weapons skills and just toting around an AR, then the player will never enjoy 95% of the other weapons and features.  If they force themselves to use everything else in the game, it feels hollow, because they end up making non-intuitive choices to solve problems in the game world, just because "I haven't used that widget or weapon in a while".  It's less immersive because the choice doesn't come naturally.  A player should get to sample a good chunk of the game's features by necessity rather than by arbitrary choice.

[674360a008918ZylonBane]

Irrational fundamentally effed up when it came to weapon balancing, because in a game with a damage type vulnerability system, they implemented both specialized-damage ammo and specialized-damage weapons. This is a problem, because it then makes no sense to level up in both anti-robot and anti-organic weapons, when you could just master a single weapon that works great against everything.

This wouldn't be a problem if SS2 didn't force you to spend points to learn how to use these specialized weapons. It would just be a bit of redundancy, something the player could fall back on when they run out of the right kind of assault rifle ammo. But no, you have to learn to use these things, and a simple bang-for-the-buck analysis shows that they're not worth it. Assault rifle all the way.

So what would I do IF I were overhauling the weapons? Well, off the top of my head...

I'd reorganize the weapon skills, like so:

Melee
- Wrench
- Laser Rapier
- Crystal Shard

Pistols
- Pistol
- Laser Pistol
- Shotgun

Rifles
- Assault Rifle
- EMP Rifle
- Viral Proliferator

Heavy
- Stasis Field Generator
- Fusion Cannon
- Grenade Launcher
- Worm Launcher

This realigns the weapon skills along play styles rather than vulnerabilites, which as noted above was a terrible way to organize them. So melee players get some sense of progression, as do ranged fighters, etc.

For the two annelid-based ranged weapons, I'd remove weapon degradation, and change the firing modes from anti-human/anti-annelid (which requires players to remember an almost randomly applied distinction) to anti-organic/anti-tech (the same anti-tech effect that's eating all the weapons in the game). For the Viral Proliferator, get rid of the stupid hold-to-detonate feature.

EMP rifle, I'd give the overcharge mode some incendiary damage against organic targets. This makes sense, since intense electromagnetic radiation can mess you up.

The entire Heavy class I'd make cheaper to level up in, since they already have their utility constrained by their specialized uses, limited ammo, and non-weapon skill requirements.

I'd seriously consider having NO minimum weapon skills in the non-melee weapon categories, since after all if you can pick something up, you should be able to pull the trigger. You'd just suck at it if you had low skill.

[674360a008a8bJoin2]

That's pretty good, like Deus Ex's system.

The entire Heavy class I'd make cheaper to level up in, since they already have their utility constrained by their specialized uses, limited ammo, and non-weapon skill requirements.

I'll add that melee should be a cheaper path too, otherwise the majority would just stick to the wrench and use the modules elsewhere.
Of course the shotgun looks a bit out of place in the pistols category, but maybe a change of the naming convention could fix that, or just ignore the discrepancy in the name of a better system.

[674360a008befHikari]

I would argue less that standard weapons are inherently overpowered, and more that the enemy types heavily favor standard weapons.

I like the realigned Melee/Pistols/Rifles/Heavy classifications. How hard would that be to do?

[674360a008eccJoin2]

I would argue less that standard weapons are inherently overpowered, and more that the enemy types heavily favor standard weapons.

It is the multi-purpose use of the AP/HP/Normal ammo of the pistol/rifle, as well as the rifles' supreme damage that makes standard dominant. The grenade launcher isn't that far behind though in its multi-purpose destruction, but at least it is dangerous to use up close. No other weapons are so diverse and so powerful vanilla.

As someone that likes to use Energy for whatever reason (I like the novelty, the aesthetics as well as being able to obtain them all relatively early on) there is no shortage of mechanical enemies. Midwifes and assassins count as half-mech half organic too which is good for energy. Seems an even split to me in terms of enemies vs primary damage types, 

[674360a008ff8ZylonBane]

Perhaps Light and Medium would be better titles than Pistols and Rifles.

[674360a009468xdiesp]

Yes. Running around with super OP weapons would negatively impact the challenge, engaging strategy & tense atmosphere of the game.

I get it that your debating style consists in repeating the same argument over and over, but that's exactly the assumption I rejected. Don't absorb dogma from gaming blogs, they're superficial. A stronger weapon isn't against the rules, nor it will make mama immersiveness cry, for the simple reason that it itself is part of the story.

Because SS2 isn't played over a spreadsheet: and if you plan your character's build over a guide, you've already failed. What you do, is exploring the skills at your disposal and potentially find out that the assault rifle is crazy good: well done, it's time to even the odds. That's a nice story, which in fact you miss on if you did an "Energy + PSI" first playthrough like me.

Do I want to punish my fellow players who took a different route? Why would I, I don't envy their damage output nor I'm sanctimonious enough to try and protect them from themselves (pretending I defend immersiveness). "A powerful weapon exists in System Shock 2, will you find it?".

With balance there would be no next OP weapon.

And then the next, and so on. Eh.