Realism vs. balance for the sake of variety

Would you rather have a hyper realistic game, where only a couple of practical weapons are viable or a non-realistic game where a wide variety of weapons throughout history, space and time were evenly balanced and equally viable

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>implying every weapon in a game can be viable

who the fuck cares about realism in video games. Graphics fags?

video games are supposed to be fun, not simulations

Unless the fun is from being a simulation

>who the fuck cares about realism in video games
Some build can be so ridiculous and gimmicky that it looks stupid, strip away any semblance of realism, and takes away the fun

I disagree. First thing that comes to mind is incredibly high acrobatics skill in TES, that nonsense is FUN.
Double dark souls shields is goofy but fun
I do just love silly shit in general, though.

Hyper realistic game with more situations than "1v1 me bro" so a wide variety of weapons are still useful.

...

dumb animeposter

I see no downsides with the latter.

I just want the balance meme to end. Some weapons are more viable than others. Who fucking cares. But then you have people who just

>"WAAAAAHHHH, EVERYONE IS USING X!"
>"WAAAH, WHY DO PEOPLE ONLY USE X? NO SKILL! TOO OP! WAAAAAHHHH!"

and then the developer goes and fucks their game to pieces trying to appease the crybaby niggerboys.

If that's what you want then everywhing melee would be just spear fights, as spear has been historically the most practical weapon of war

Most of historical manuals on melee combat. 80% of the time focuses on spear, and spearmen formation with swords, 2 handed swords, maces, etc receiving very little attention

Any pre-gunpowder army could beat any other pre-gunpowder army in a battle, provided conditions and tactics were favorable.

Those that whine about realism really tend to not know anything about realism.

We already in a simulation, might as well make video games fun

All i care about in video game is fun, they don't have to be realistic and i don't care about realism at all.

>Any pre-gunpowder army could beat any other pre-gunpowder army in a battle, provided conditions and tactics were favorable.

But individually some weapons are just better than others. A Zulu stick from 10,000 BC would realistically be inferior from 17th century Swiss halberd

Ayo, das racis

Zulu dick can beat your ass.

Then the dev should allow for spears to be broken.

Realism fags need to fuck off back to 2008 Sony/Microsoft threads. That shit is cancer. The point of video games is to be fun. Not to be realistic. Not to be movies. To be fun. And realism isn't fun.

Imagine if Street Fighter didn't have any special abilities. No tornado kicks, no bicycle kicks, no energy blasts, not shoryukens, no nothing besides regular punching and kicking. It would be the most boring game in existence.

>t. Azazel player
>t. Brawl Meta Knight player
>t. League of Legends player
Yeah, nah, fuck off. Balance should always be the primary concern. It's okay if a couple of things are underpowered, but there should never be only a couple of things that are overpowered.

Yeah, I'm sure the skill of the people involved would play no role whatsoever. Nope, so long as they're told where to go properly then they're unstoppable.

I mean literally broken. Spears were almost always wooden and most instances of sword use in the battlefield were anti-spear warfare.

What kind of statement is that
I could beat a million men with my raging hardon, provided conditions and tactics are favorable

Your smell would kill them long before you could flop your tiny dick around at them

Considering these are weapons that people actually used, realism wouldn't be too far off from being balanced. Imagine if one weapon was OBJECTIVELY better than another in every situation - that other weapon would have been phased from existence

With realism, all you have are tools that are better at doing some things than others. Real armies primarily used spears because spears work well in group combat. Does that mean spears are OP? No, because if you were an swordman taking on a lone spearman you would have a better chance of winning. With realism, you need to consider in what situations each weapon will excel in. Then it comes down to weapon selection due to terrain and circumstance, rather than ''''''balance''''' (aka making every weapon basically the same in every situation)

>I mean literally broken. Spears were almost always wooden and most instances of sword use in the battlefield were anti-spear warfare.

You don't know what you're talking about aren't you? Spears and pole weapons are primary weapons, think about them as assault rifles. Swords are secondary weapons, backup think of them as handguns. If you find yourself fighting a spearmen with swords, you already dun goofed because you lost your primary weapon, equivalent to fighting someone with an assault rifle with just handgun.

In reality cutting pole weapons are actually incredibly hard.
youtube.com/watch?v=LQjJavcsNjA
Not even nippon katana folded 1000000 times can cut pole weapon clean in 1 cut. The test is even an an exaggeration because unless the sword user managed to wedge the pole weapon onto the ground, breaking a pole weapon mid air is near impossible because most of the impact would be absorbed by the spear user's hand. Cutting/damaging spear were never a viable strategy ever.

You didn't word this good at all.

There are plenty of games that go for more realism but have a ton of weapons. Then there are tons of games that aren't realistic but have only a few practical weapons.

Shit thread man. You need to rethink this.

>what are builds

>Imagine if one weapon was OBJECTIVELY better than another in every situation - that other weapon would have been phased from existence

But unfortunately that's not the case. People abandon realism pretty quickly in video games. For example the persistence of Japanese katanas, folded 100000 times meme. In reality, Japanese katanas were literally phased out in favor of European style military sabres because the European sabre were simply faster, lighter and better, and also have hand guard like any sane swordman would have.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guntō
>In the following era (Meiji Period 1868-1912) samurai armour, weapons and ideals were gradually replaced with western influenced uniforms, weapons and tactics. Japan developed a conscription military in 1872 and the samurai lost the status they held for hundreds of years as the protectors of Japan.[1] Mass-produced guntō swords became standard equipment in the new military, taking the place of the swords worn by the samurai class during the feudal era.

Unfortunately in Japanese vidya, the existence of gunto/Japanese sabres have been almost completely wiped out in favor of the inferior katana design

Realism can be fun. It just isn't fun for most genres in gaymen.

Well, obviously there exists capacity for objectively preferable upgrades for design and materials, but I'm talking more about in a broad general sense of weapons being balanced against each other.

>hurr durr everything even slightly silly is bad
>posts anime
Neck yourself

I enjoy realism but also enjoy allowing for creative freedom and diverse gameplay through suspension of disbelief. You can give me swords, axes, polearms, and hammers, but don't make them all so balanced that using one over the other is moot or so realistic that there's only one weapon type you SHOULD use; give them different damage classes, strengths and weaknesses, and situational hazards so that they have viable uses and risks but stay balanced relative to the other uses and risks of other weapon classes. Also, give me a realistic lineup of weapon variations within those classes (ie mace/warhammer/warpick/club/etc for hammers) for variety and to allow for different situational uses, such as a warpick being a faster and reliable smashing weapon, where as a warhammer is much stronger, but slower to use and can't be used in tight hallways. And if you want to go for extra realism, make the combat "realistic" and high-skill.

Tl;dr - Mix the two together and be smart with the game design, and allow for suspension of disbelief to take place in order for more creative freedom and gameplay diversity.

>what are weapon characteristics
>what are counters
>what is a meta

Realism can be fun. You just need to pick the right things.

DF combat is fun. Being able to attack lungs, guts, left thumb or right eye individually with the flat, edge, point or pommel or your sword is cool

CDDA's temperature and morale mechanics are cool as are the gun mechanics and crafting

It's not like you can't enjoy both realistic and super goofy action games

But that's not true

The vast majority of historical combat manuals focused on swords. We see this reflected in HEMA, which is also primarily focused on swords because that's what most sources are focused on.

Historically speaking, every weapon usually had a good, pragmatic reason to exist. The supposedly huge advantage of teach with the spear falls apart rather rapidly in many situations, for example when the opponent has a large shield and/or high armour coverage, or when the quarters are too tight.

Let's not forget who preferred to throw their spears and fight with swords...

Fun > Realism every single day

That paragraph doesn't really say that it's better, just that it's easier to mass-produce.

>has a large shield and/or high armour coverage
weren't the heavy mass and leverage of most polearms supposed to handle those

Nope.
The reason we know this, is that the pollaxes used by dismounted knights were far shorter than your average halberd or so. This tells us that not only could they close in, but they were in fact supposed to.