History GameBreaker / FirstPersonShooter

** In the Halo: Reach Beta, so far, the rocket launcher combined with stealth and camping makes you totally untouchable. Also, the alien sniper rifle is easy to be a real bitch with. And that's not all, the shotgun's range is now almost as far as the assault rifle's. Hopefully it'll be ironed out by launch.
*** The gravity hammer! You can lunge with it from ten feet away at a speed that you can't reach with the scout.
** The homing plasma grenade launcher. IT EVEN LOCKS ON TO PEOPLE. It also has rapid fire.
Why you can't always go at the speed of lunging will not be explained, says Bungie.

** While were at it, the Wavebuster. While it easily eats up your missile reserves, it sends a rope-like beam at the enemy and effectively drains their health in seconds. It's useful in boss fights since it can attach to the boss's weak point, and it can easily bring down Meta Ridley if you have enough missiles. It was toned down significantly for the PAL release and later editions.

** While were at it, the Wavebuster. While it easily eats up your missile reserves, it sends a rope-like beam at the enemy and effectively drains their health in seconds. It's useful in boss fights since it can attach to the boss's weak point, and it can easily bring down Meta Ridley if you have enough missiles.
* Prime 2 generally averts this by giving the beams limited ammo, but I vaguely remember a beam that combined the light and dark beams into one concentrated package of destruction. While the light beam turned the zones lethal to to dark enemies, the addition of dark energy now lures them ''into the zones'', effectively turning it into a FRIGGIN DEATH TRAP. Warrior Ing? Dead. [[DemonicSpiders Hunter Ing?]] Dead. Yep, it practically destroys any dark enemy.

* ''Metroid Prime'' (the first one) has the Plasma Beam. Rapid fire, high power, high speed, and fire elemental. Its only weakness (besides being [[ElementalRockPaperScissors fire elemental]]) is its low range--which doesn't mean much because the game is a ''shooter'' to begin with so InstantDeathRadius is a minor problem at most. (All beams have infinite ammo in Metroid Prime.) Of course, it is available for only the last quarter of the game (short of SequenceBreaking), so at least only that is broken apart.

** Spiritual successors {{Timesplitters}} brought the idea back with The Monkey.... and then with character attributes, made it worse. Half-height character with normal HP and maximum speed? Good luck hitting that.

*** Also: INSTANT DEATH. Oh, you have a shield? Fine, the first shot will just instantly destroy it. Hope you can get across the whole level before your opponent shoots again!

* The pistol in the original ''{{Halo}}'' allows for instant-kill headshots. Many players learned to eschew the other weapons (which otherwise are more damaging) in favor of [[ImprobableAimingSkills leet pistol skillz]]. Also, the pistol can take out hunters in one hit as well, plus, the pistol has a zoom. It was basically a designated marksman's rifle disguised as a handgun.

** When the pistol was weakened in ''Halo 2'', ''RedVsBlue'' correctly predicted the fan outcry with the following exchange:

** ''Halo 2' Had some other issues that became more apparent in large scale objective based gametypes, the first was the rocket launcher's lock on ability which effectively made all vehicles death traps, the banshee could avoid the rocket by rolling but only if the pilot knew he was being fired at, knew from which direction, was facing the right direction and timed the roll totally perfectly. The sniper rifle was also a complete beast, even if you didn't make the headshot it's rate of fire was so high you could easily do double body shots. Teams spent entire matches just fighting for possession of these weapons simply because once a team had them all the outcome of the game was usually a foregone conclusion since the other team could no longer use vehicles nor walk anywhere and invariably got bottled up and slaughtered and the issue was only compounded by the utter worthlessness of the smg spawning weapon at any range greater than ten feet. Notice how the rocket lock on never returned in the later games, and how Bungie went out of their was to make maps hilly and filled with gullies in Halo 3 onward to break up sniper sight lines. Then when that wasn't enough they gave the sniper significant recoil in Reach.
** A level in ''Halo 3'' becomes idiotically easy if you hand the Fuel Rod Gun to a Marine. Remember, these guys have good aim and limitless ammo. "Crazy Rod" would go nuts on the Covenant with that weapon--even causing an event to be averted by ''taking out a troop ship before it landed''.

** As though the radiation grenades weren't broken.
** There's also a very easy-to-do glitch that changes the firerate of that goddamn rocket launcher from one per 5 seconds to roughly 6 per second. Remember, AREA OF EFFECT INSTANT DEATH.

** The flying tank VTOLs in Crysis multiplayer, that can destroy enemy helicopter by ramming them.

** Apart from the other broken scoped rifle, of course. The [=FG42=] in the original game was ridiculous; a selectable semi / fullauto high-damage weapon with an extremely accurate scope, it was a true do-everything gun with no meaningful weaknesses whatsoever.
* [[ModernWarfare Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare]] has the horribly broken grenade launcher. It's an attachment that can be used with any of the Assault Rifle-class weapons, is perfectly accurate, arcs over obstructions (which also handily lets it ignore the effects of cover,) requires about ten seconds of practice to master, is an instant kill if you're anywhere near the impact, ''and you spawn with two rounds.'' There is no downside to using the "Noob Tube," and you essentially get not one but two free kills after every spawn.

** Much whined about also is the PK-74 rifle rocket attachment and its traditional partner, the Voss light assault rifle. The distinctive 'broop' sound of the rocket firing has lead to Voss / PK users being nicknamed 'broop troops,' and the rocket's large splash area, rapid fire and ability to consistently kill in two hits has caused even more complaining than RDX. The even ''more'' powerful anti-infantry grenade launcher carried by the APC tends to cause similar amounts of complaints on infantry-heavy maps.

** The worst offences however, were many times introduced through patches meant to balance things out... In the original release, Blackhawk's were overpowered for a number of reasons, first the minigun was absurdly accurate and could destroy anything that wasn't a tank, second, passengers inside the Blackhawk had access to their tools, so they could repair the Blackhawk ''while still inside it'', and finally, extra people contribute to capturing flags, so a fully loaded chopper could fly in, clear a place out, and capture it within the space of a several seconds. The only thing that could really stop so called "blackhawk squads" was with a jet, and you had to get it on the first pass, otherwise, the engineers on board would just repair all damage, and the imbalance was most apparent on maps without jets. They were however, were nerfed into uselessness and obscurity.

*** For anyone asking, the reason it was impossible to do this for the other helo was it was much slower, less armoured, a bigger target, it's guns were crappy machine guns that could barely hurt an infantryman and only 1 player had a position to do in-flight repairs (compared to 2 for the blackhawk).
** Another example was the PKM, which over the course of one patch, went from being a slow firing, but high damaging suppression weapon, to a fast firing sniper rifle with a lot of ammo, requiring another patch to undue the damage done. Finally, there was the issue with AA missiles. Both Stingers and AA missiles on jets were quite inaccurate, then a patch upped the accuracy of missiles to extreme levels, pilots complained and the stinger missiles were toned down, however jet AA missiles were left alone, turning dog fights from trying to ambush the unsuspecting with the vulcan gun, into a long game of out turning your opponent (which the chinese jet always won).

*** The Sniper class gets Claymores. They're basically anti-infantry landmines that have a sizable 180-degree blast radious. They're for covering your backside while you snipe. In theory. In reality, most Snipers just spawn with them, toss then in a well-traveled area, and proceed to run off and spam grenades. Couple in the fact that the ONLY WAY to get rid of claymores is to set them off and you can see why more snipers get their kills from Claymores and Hand Grenades than legitimate sniping...

*** In addition, jets demolish the maps. Tanks are slow and have no defence against them, so it's all too common to be driving along, and being hit with bombs (one salvo is a kill) before you even heard the jet over your tank's roar. APCs suffer the same problem. Mobile AA can kill a jet fast...but only if the jet is distracted, because, as mentioned above, they'll be targeted easily. Jeeps and FAV (Fast attack vehicles) can almost outrun a jet...if you're lucky. And if you're in a fully loaded transport copter, thats six easy kills for a pilot, because those are flying tanks without the armour. Basically, jets are way too overpowered, because they can blow away any vehicle in a single bomb salvo, and any copter, transport or attack, can easily be cut down.
* A common FPS game breaker well-known in the earlier entries of the aforementioned ''Battlefield'' series is ''Dolphin Diving'', a game-exploiting version of the traditional bunnyhopping tactic. This consists of jumping and then hitting the prone key; while the game shows an animation, in reality the player's hitboxes often flatten ''instantly'', making them very difficult to shoot since an opponent must aim for an invisible, lying-down opponent, not what's actually there. Moreover, this often grants the accuracy bonus for being prone, leading to the ridiculous sight of realistic-looking soldiers bouncing around while laid on their chests, firing off perfectly accurate shots. Efforts to destroy this stupidity have met with much resistance from its practitioners, who claim it requires skill, but most modern online FPS games include mechanisms designed to prevent it like sights taking time to 'settle' after changing stance rather than an instant accuracy bonus, or disallowing the player from changing stance while airbourne.
** Battlefield 2, as Mentioned above, is one of the more egregious examples of this. Not only does the hitbox instantly change you to "Prone" while you're in midair, but it also INSTANTLY changes your accuracy to "Prone" while you're in midair. If you were in a dead run and hit the prone key, your accuracy immediately becomes the same as if you'd been prone and aiming for several seconds. Add in the fact that the Support weapons, Heavy Machine Guns that are only accurate from a prone position, are hugely damaging from even long ranges, and you have a serious problem. Users of the PKM, the most powerful and accurate Support weapon, can simply run along until they see an enemy, when they immediately tap the prone key and blast away. They're almost more effective than snipers!

** ''Halo 2' Had some other issues that became more apparent in large scale objective based gametypes, the first was the rocket launcher's lock on ability which effectively made all vehicles death traps, the banshee could avoid the rocket by rolling but only if the pilot knew he was being fired at, knew from which direction, was facing the right direction and timed the roll totally perfectly. The sniper rifle was also a complete beast, even if you didn't make the headshot it's rate of fire was so high you could easily do double body shots. Teams spent entire matches just fighting for possession of these weapons simply because once a team had them all the outcome of the game was usually a foregone conclusion since the other team could no longer use vehicles nor walk anywhere and invariably got bottled up and slaughtered and the issue was only compounded by the utter worthlessness of the smg spawning weapon at any range greater than ten feet. Notice how the rocket lock on never returned in the later games, and how bungie went out of their was to make maps hilly and filled with gullys in Halo 3 onward to break up sniper sight lines. Then when that wasn't enough they gave the sniper significant recoil in Reach.
** A level in ''Halo 3'' becomes idiotically easy if you hand the Fuel Rod Gun to a Marine. Remember, these guys have good aim and limitless ammo. This troper's small gaming community began referring to said Marine as "Crazy Rod", because he would go nuts on the Covenant with that weapon--even causing an event to be averted by ''taking out a troop ship before it landed''.

** In the Halo: Reach Beta, so far, the rocket launcher combined with stealth and camping makes you totally untouchable. Also, the alien sniper rifle is easy to be a real bitch with. And that's not all, the shotgun's range is now almost as far as the assault rifle's.Hopefully it'll be ironed out by launch.
*** And how did I forget, the gravity hammer! You can lunge with it from ten feet away at a speed that you can't reach with the scout.

* Another Bungie game, {{Marathon}}, has it so the rocket launcher is the only weapon you can easily get kills with.

* Don't forget TheConduit. In addition to the SPAS-12 + punch instant kill combo, there's also the SMAW rocket launcher. Area of effect instant death, and you can two-hit KO with a melee attack if you miss. Camp near an ammo box and you can do all of the above AND spam normal grenades.

* Before it was [[{{Nerf}} patched to be weaker]], the fully upgraded dispersion pistol in ''{{Unreal}}'', when used with the power amplifier, could kill any standard enemy in a single shot (the end boss required only a few more). Even without the power amplifier it was easily one of the most powerful weapons, though it was hard to land hits on rapidly moving targets.

* BulletTime in ''{{FEAR}}''. Completing the game without it earns you the Real Time achievement.

* Any general that can cast Recovery Prayer with level 1 SP in ''Spectral Force Genesis'' can be rendered virtually immortal because the spell is normally level 2, and heal half the squad back.

** A better TF2 example is the double-medic "Chain Uber" combo. After one medic builds ubercharge, they charge into battle and deploy the ubercharge, the second medic going melee-happy with the Ubersaw. This charges his ubercharge ''in only four hits'', more than doable during the invincibility period. Then as the ubercharge almost runs out, he switches back to his medigun and ubers the first medic... you see where this is going, right? Even the Scout's Bonk is completely useless -- he may not take damage, but a successful "miss" still gives the full 25% charge. A quick-footed Pyro can sometimes separate the invincible medics with an airblast, but the only reliable way to stop it is to hide from them, as they have to successfully hit opponents to keep the chain going.

** A better TF2 example is the double-medic "Chain Uber" combo. After one medic builds ubercharge, they charge into battle and deploy the ubercharge, the second medic going melee-happy with the Ubersaw. This charges his ubercharge /in only four hits/, more than doable during the invincibility period. Then as the ubercharge almost runs out, he switches back to his medigun and ubers the first medic... you see where this is going, right? Even the Scout's Bonk is completely useless -- he may not take damage, but a successful "miss" still gives the full 25% charge. A quick-footed Pyro can sometimes separate the invincible medics with an airblast, but the only reliable way to stop it is to hide from them, as they have to successfully hit opponents to keep the chain going.

*** The reason is that the stun leaves the victim ''completely unable to do anything'' and gives the Scout free reign to kill them up close (especially if equipped with the Force-A-Nature) without consequence, eliminating the Scout's sole weakness (up-close combat). At high-level play, two Sandman-equipped Scouts can get a guranteed stun and easily dominate an opposing team. Further, the stun went against a number of Valve's previous stated design philosophies: the inability for a stunned character to do anything violated Valve's view that [[http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2477 a player should be at least aware of, if not able to actively fight, the person who killed them]], and the Sandman's now-removed ability to stun ubered players nullified the uber's intended use of breaking stalemates and get through chokepoints (a major problem in both public and high-level play) which unnecessarily extended stalemates and created more draw matches.
**** With the War update, the Sandman has been modified ''again''. It no longer stuns other players, but it does put them in a "fleeing" state, which disables their weapon... [[GameBreakingBug or so it should]].

**Actually, the SPAS-12 has more range than the 1887s now. Which is actually fairly balanced considering they're pump action. Plus, this is really more of a glitch than a game breaker, since FMJ isn't supposed to increase range.

** Last stand too is a very ridiculous perk, giving the user various frames where they are immune to being shot, but can still shoot. It may also cause the opponent to run out of ammo if using a weapon like the Scar-H or F2000, leaving them almost completely defenceless. And after all that, the user can kill themselves with a grenage or otehr such equipment and thus not give the other team (or player) the points for essentially killing them (as normally, the last stand player will bleed out).
*** Pro version also lets you knife, so you can lunge towards people, kill them, and then suicide with equipment. Yes, you can lunge at someone while laying on the ground; I'm not sure how that works.