Weapons are great! In games, that is. In my game there are two weapons for now: an MG and a Rocket Launcher

The most important issue that comes up here is balancing. Balancing can make or break your game. Why would you ever wanna use the MG when the rocket launcher shoots homing rockets?

You see, when I first made the prototype, the rockets were useless. They had to physically hit the other player to make damage. Now they explode and do damage in a radius - yes, you can even damage yourself if you’re an idiot like me. It was also very difficult to aim them. The rockets used to be slow and flimsy. If you launched one, more often than not your enemy would have already been gone at the time your rocket landed and thus be useless. So I decided to make them home in on your enemy.

This is great but why would you go for the MG, then? This is what I’m currently working on. The rocket launcher works just like I want, now I need to make the MG more appealing.

How am I doing that?

The MG has a way higher fire rate than the rocket launcher - about 5/s. It’s shots land IMMEDIATELY, so if you aim correctly you will hit your enemy instantly. It also has unlimited ammo, unlike the rocket launcher which has 5 rockets - I’ll see if that’s the right amount. The range is also a bit bigger and you can’t damage yourself by using it.

It doesn’t sound so bad now, does it? This balancing forces the player to make a calculated decision about which weapon he wants to use. If you have the flag, you might wanna go for the mg, because it’s easier to aim and you can’t fuck yourself over with a poorly placed explosion. Whereas being the hunter - you don’t have the flag - you might wanna use the rocket launcher because it forces the other player to do evasive maneuvers and gives you time to steal the flag.

The weapons are strategically placed around the map for the players to pick them up, in case you wondered.

So now both weapons have their own advantages and disadvantages, which is exactly what I want. I don’t want the players to use only one weapon for every situation.

What to remember: You are beter off having few weapons/powers/pick-ups but balancing them correctly. Imagine having 30 weapons, but your player only uses two of them, because those are the best ones in the game.