Weapon Design & Forced Diversification

Weapon Designs rooted in constantly changing how the player plays

Weapon Design

Written by Josh Hirshfield, published 03/11/2023, updated 07/11/2023

Logic and Process

Each weapon in Godwalker aims to make the player play a little bit differently. The first weapons I ever made were the DMR, Carbine, and Shotgun. Each of them incentivized different kinds of movement, with the DMR encouraging long range play, the Carbine incentivizing fast movement in different directions, and the Shotgun requiring close range play.

This was seen through playtesting. Players would modify their behavior on the fly depending on which weapon they had out in front of them. Weapons in Godwalker also do not regenerate ammo until you have put them away, so you are forced to switch between them. Once I had a build in which each individual weapon was directly and purposefully affecting player movement, I began building different types of weapons and experimenting in wide varieties of ways. One of the first new weapons I build was the Plasma Rifle. While the DMR, Carbine, and Shotgun each use projectiles, their projectiles are extremely fast. The Plasma Rifle was my attempt at making a weapon that fired projectiles far more slowly, at nearly half the speed. When I first built it I knew I would have to balance it to ensure it was still usable. By making the shots of the weapon move more slowly, players would have to predict their shots. While the original three weapons changed movement patterns (far, medium, and close distance) the Plasma Rifle started messing with how the player aimed.

From there I made more and more weird weapons. Next was the Blast Pistol, which fired three slow-moving close-range high-damaging shots, and had a very low fire rate. This caused players to get close to and ring around enemies as they waited for the next shot to fire. I then made the Auto Pistol, which is an automatic weapon that fires extremely quickly, has shots which travel very far, but is very weak. This weapon is a fairly interesting one, because players will move differently based on which enemy they want to fight with it. More than that, I wanted to make a weapon that was simply fun to use. The auto pistol is simply a weapon you pickup, shoot for less than a second, think “wow that’s pretty good,” and then continue play.

The goal of each weapon is to incentivize a different kind of play. Exploring these kinds of play is going to be key here. Whether they change the way they move, jump, aim, or act, there are hundreds of different ways to get the player to move and interact with the world, and making them both different and interesting is going to be key to keeping the player engaged and interested.

Archetypes, Hierarchy, and Tiers

Within Godwalker there are specific weapon archetypes which many weapons are based around. For instance, the Shotgun archetype contains one weapon in each tier. From weakest to strongest, they are:

Tier 1: Double Barreled Shotgun. Has a two shot magazine and is the lowest damaging Shotgun in the game.

Tier 2: Shotgun. This is the normal variant of the Shotgun. It has a larger magazine, does better damage, and has a slightly longer range.

Tier 3: Super Shotgun. This shotgun has a longer range, slightly larger magazine, and deals more damage.

Tier 4: Heavy Shotgun. Of all the shotguns, this one has a fully automatic fire rate, features an extremely long range, and deals an extremely high amount of damage. The flavor text for this weapon is “Are you even playing the game anymore?”

My goal for this game is to explore different weapon archetypes throughout different Tiers of weapons to make progression both more effective and more meaningful. However, progression will not operate on a basis of archetypal utilization. If players were able to unlock every Shotgun in the Shotgun tree one after another, they may specialize in that, and only use that one weapon type. Since one of the major design pillars of Godwalker is forced diversification of play, it feels antithetical to allow the player to do this.

Instead, weapons of each Tier will be locked behind their entire Tier. This means that in order to encounter Tier 2 weaponry, you must complete all of Tier 1. When you unlock every Tier 1 weapon, you can then begin unlocking Tier 2 weapons. This is not perfect information, but due to how the system is structured, players will be forced to use every weapon in the game at least once.

Forced Diversification of Weapons

In testing, players rarely pickup new weapons without a good reason to. This reason can range from disliking your current weapon, or simply being intrigued by a new one. The section above showcases how the progression systems will reinforce the widespread diversification of play, but within runs players need a reason to pickup a new weapon. Because after all, a diverse array of playstyles cannot happen if players simply use the same weapons for their entire playtime.

The reason players have for picking up new weapons is a mechanic I am calling Hotness. It is perfect-purposefully-misinformed-information which dictates how much God Juice weapons generate. As you bring a weapon through more and more rooms, its Hotness level decreases. In the UI display, Hotness begins at 2.00x and lowers by 0.20x after each combat encounter. So if you pickup a weapon and go through 5 encounters, that weapon will now display 1.00x Hotness. However, in reality Hotness begins at 1.00x and lowers by 0.10x after each combat. One methodology of balancing is going to be making some weapons lose Hotness faster than others. A weapon losing 0.30x of real Hotness translates to a display of losing 0.60x Hotness - a pretty devastating hit.

The goal of this warped perception of Hotness is to make players feel as if they are taking advantage of a new-weapon bonus, rather than simply holding on to something which is going to get worse overtime. If players received a weapon with 1.00x Hotness which quickly went down to 0.70x hotness by the time they replaced it, they would feel as if they are always carrying things which will get worse, until their entire load out is just walking garbage. By making weapons appear to have a higher Hotness than they actually do, Players find more value in picking up new weapons to maintain a perceived bonus.

This system of Hotness and the perception of it reinforces the idea to the player that: Picking up new weapons gives one more power, and is a good thing. By picking up new weapons every change they get, players can consistently easily reach Godwalker. However, there is another form of play at the meta-level where players will simply not use Godwalker, and fight enemies using their skill. If a player can manage to dodge and weave between all enemies and get hit extremely infrequently, this will result in them never switching out their weapons for new ones. The only time they will swap weapons, is when they either find a new one or their weapon Hotness reaches 0.00x.

What makes Forced Diversification fun?

Discovery

At the core of what makes combat interesting is a cross section between interesting interactions and challenge. Obtaining fun new weapons and fighting crazy enemies is the core crux of what makes this game interesting. Those two elements presented to the player create tiny set pieces which display lots of fun moments.

My goal behind making all these different weapons is to rekindle the magical feeling I had playing Halo growing up. As I would playthrough the campaigns I would discover fun and interesting weapons which would all have different effects. In Halo 3 the Particle Beam Rifle was such an interesting weapon to me. It was just like the sniper rifle, but when the game first came out no one new about it. I felt so weird and special using it on my friends for the first time - their exasperation of shock and awe was the cherry on top.

Reconciliation

It is these kinds of fun and random interactions with weapons that I want to rekindle. This sense of constant discovery as you move through the world and mess around with new things, which all leads to the reconciliation of those feelings - you know which weapons you like. There’s an extremely satisfying aura around getting the Gravity Hammer in any scenario. You’ve got this jet powered war hammer in your hands, and it feels unstoppable. Sure the first time is great - you pick it up, you bash some heads in, and then it runs out of juice and you drop it.

Going forward you’re going to know what the Gravity Hammer is. Everything you’ve experienced with it leads to this new and exciting moment when you pick it up. The more you use it, the better you get. Maybe you learn the optimal melee distance and start abusing the mini-dash that comes with precise timing. Maybe you’ll learn to jump off of tall buildings to descend on other players, launching yourself back up into the air to safety. While the first encounter gave you the thrill of discovery, all future encounters give you the thrill of reconciliation.

Contempt

In contrast to my last two points, there cannot exist peaks and valleys without the plains to contrast them. Obtaining the Gravity Hammer feels as good as it does because you contextually only have access to the default Assault Rifle. In games such as Griff Ball every player automatically always has a Gravity Hammer, ergo making it less special to have.

Godwalker’s current progression is entirely based on adding new items to the spawnable weapons pool. As you add more and more powerful weapons, you are simply diluting the mixture. You’ll not always get the most amazing items, but that is by design. Each gun is designed to be interesting to use, but due to their wide differences, players will absolutely favor some weapons over others. In playtesting thus far, many players will despise two or three weapon archetypes while falling madly in love with another few, while feeling indifferent to the rest.

It is the excitement around finally finding something you love after feeling entirely indifferent throughout play. Seeing the Heavy Shotgun as an option and immediately picking it up without hesitation, because your previous experience has reinforced how badass that thing is.

Without contempt for weapons in the game, there can be no discovery or reconciliation. The lows of the game need to exist to accompany the highs. This will no doubt require an immense level of balancing and design to get right. No weapon should be uninteresting in its own right, but each hierarchy should feel different. The blast pistol is a very weird weapon compared to something like the plasma rifle - and the plasma rifle is almost the opposite of the DMR.

This will be a strong balancing act, and will require lots of testing. No weapon in the game should be wholly unviable (aside from the few starter weapons which are purposefully less-viable), as to encourage diversification. Borderlands 2’s weapon systems are setup in a way which bring this feeling I call anti-contempt. When you kill a boss and they drop a weapon within a hierarchy you don’t like, you still begrudgingly accept this new item. It’s not what you wanted, but you’ll take it, because it’s stronger.