How should I balance my weaker weapons from my stronger weapons in my game

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#1

You can write your topic however you want, but you need to answer these questions:

What do you want to achieve? Keep it simple and clear!
For context, I am making a round based PvP game where you have to defeat other players in a round using various weapons (firearms, melees, etc). There will be starter weapons which will be weaker and grindy weapons which will deal more damage.

I want grinding for stronger weapons to be useful for the round while not completely dominating over the starter weapons, which are typically weaker

What is the issue? Include enough details if possible!
I cannot find a good way to balance weapons of different levels currently

What solutions have you thought of so far?
I’ve thought of giving stronger weapons big weaknesses that weaker weapons wouldn’t have to counteract for their strong power although that wouldn’t give them much of a reason to grind for them.

Another idea I thought of is to make an in-round ‘cash’ system (like in tower defense games) where every player starts which the same amount of cash and players could get cash by defeating other players in battle. With that system, weaker weapons cost a lower amount of cash to use whereas stronger weapons cost more cash to use so that the higher level players cannot completely dominate the lower level players with stronger weapons as they wouldn’t have enough money to get their best weapons in the beginning.

However it would be hard to balance this system as it isn’t typically used in PvP games.

Conclusion
Thank you for reading this (if you did) and please provide a suggestion for balancing stronger/weaker weapon in the replies below, preferably using my suggestions above. If your suggestion stems from another game, reference the game and the name of its mechanic

2 Likes
#2

make starter weapons basic and weak and as you progress introduce different kinds of weapons

for example starter weapon can be pistol and then you can introduce shotgun and then sniper and assault rifle

then keep introducing new stuff

and make specific weapons have strengths and weaknesses for example:

Damage
Fire Rate
Range
Accuracy

assault rifle can have decent accuracy decent damage decent range and good fire rate. a sniper has the best damage best range and best accuracy but bad fire rate

shotgun has really good damage decent fire rate but no range

#3

Add to that difference weapons and classes of them have different ammo capacity and bullet fire rates

#4

ammo capacity is a good one but i already said fire rate

#5

That’s a decent idea, should the more grindier weapons be more harder to use in exchange for having a greater damage potential? So basically you’re grinding for playstyle variety and hard to use weapons instead of grindy weapons being ‘better’ right?

1 Like
#6

no just make the weapons better and make them unique from the others

#7

better in what way?

also wouldn’t that cause a ‘best’ weapon to show up which would be the best to use in a round

#8

better fire rate damage capacity accuracy etc

#9

like having a better damaging value (more DPS, etc)?

so instead of trying to make them balanced, you’re saying the difference in the weapons’ mechanics gives the player a reason to grind for them, right?

#10

how are you weapons, gotten by players? are they on the map, randomly, … you are saying grind, so I assume not… how are you defining your grind? playtime, kills? levels…

if you are just doing grind, then the new players are going to get slaughtered by the grinders…

#11

how are you defining your grind? playtime, kills? levels…

wins/kills will be the method of grinding

if you are just doing grind, then the new players are going to get slaughtered by the grinders…

Thats the reason why I wrote this post in the first place, to find a way for new players to not get slaughtered by the grinders while giving them a reason to grind

#12

hmm, maybe there are different areas on the map, for starters where they can do low grinding, then other areas that have different levels of grinding, then maybe in the middle is a free for all zone where anyone can battle it out

#13

not a bad idea, i might implement that (as well as stronger weapons being more difficult to use typically and being different)

though this topic is still open for other suggestions

#14

maybe too, have limited random drops of better weapons, that only last for so long, so that noobies can check them out and want to grind to get them to keep. or even have a demo range area…

#15

i was thinking of modes that would limit every player to the same 3 weapons, regardless whether they have grinded for them or not, finding it similar to your idea

Edit: Closing this thread because of no replies within 4 days though there are good ideas here
nvm i cant