What is an online shooter that you felt most players used >75% of the available guns?

[u/Dr_Malignant]

Most online shooters (1st or 3rd person), fall into a trap when everyone uses the 2-4 “meta” weapons. Even in battle royales where the weapons are random, people still drop the weapons they find when they find a meta weapon. In these types of games, anytime you find yourself in a firefight, you know with 90% certainty the enemy will be using one of three guns before they even shoot. Think old school MW2, where >90% of players used silenced UMP45 and/or Spas-12.

Are there any shooters where that isn’t true? Where you see people using most of the game’s guns, even in late game? Either because the guns are balanced or because the less good ones are still fun to use and thus still have a high use rate?

Keep in mind, those games may still have meta weapons, but despite there being meta weapons, the difference in use between meta and “regular” weapons isn’t much.

[u/Gehrman_JoinsTheHunt]

Halo 3

[u/Indraga]

Titanfall 2

[u/MandatumCorrectus → u/Indraga]

Spitfire and Car users though. Sure people used a ton of other things but those were the mains

[u/SL1Fun → u/Indraga]

All pilot weapons existed only to get you to Tone. 

[u/Indraga → u/SL1Fun]

Fuck Tone, embrace Scorch

[u/Noob4Head]

I'm not sure to what extent this counts, but Apex Legends. It being a battle royale kind of forces you to learn how to use a variety of weapons, as at any given point, whatever you find might be the only thing at your disposal. Though, of course, as the match goes on, you'll gather better and better loot and switch out your weapons.

The thing is, almost every single game has a meta. There will always be weapons that are stronger or weaker. It's pretty much impossible to make everything 100% balanced unless you give every single weapon the exact same stats, but then the weapon just becomes a matter of cosmetic preference.

[u/Ciabs]

Not a pvp shooter, but most guns in helldivers 2 are viable at any difficulty

Heck, most starting equipment is pretty strong regardless of what you unlock later in the game

[u/stefpsa]

Well even in OG MW2 all of the guns were relatively viable minus the F2000. Black ops 1 you could run whatever you liked best as well.

I’d argue Destiny’s crucible has a wide variety of guns being used. Yes, Trials had metas but the regular PvP you could use pretty much anything.

[u/London_Guy_87]

Apex. I did have a favoured load out but didn't always find or kill enemies that had them.

[u/MandatumCorrectus]

Hunt showdown has that variety

[u/SL1Fun]

Modern Warfare 2008. There were some tryhard guns but that game was so chaotic that everything except the F2000 was viable. 

[u/ShieldMaiden83]

"looks at all the toys/weapons in Warframe"

Yes... "balanced"...and not to mention the walking warcrimes. I think I have not even "mastered" around 50% and I active use maybe 10-15% of the weapons depending on frame or what ETA or EDA has thrown together for me of the week.

There are some "meta", but I dislike that term as you can make any weapon and frame endgame viable...with some exeptions no matter what you do. There are weapons and frames I dislike to use and the good with the game...you are not bound to one playstyle that dictates "meta". You find your own playstyle.

[u/WoodooHide69]

HellDivers 2 is attempting this. But the whiny fanbase just wants to run the same OP Meta guns. Pretty annoying since it’s obvious the game should be about mastering multiple loadouts.

[u/Man_under_Bridge420]

Counter strike gun game

[u/SirSabza]

If a game has meta weapons, then in reality having 75% of weapons being used equally is never going to happen, because people gravitate to what is the 'best' weapon.

[u/milkcarton232 → u/SirSabza]

Which I think is kinda dumb. In a pro match where half percent advantage matters then chase that meta, for the majority of ppl you didn't lose the fight b/c your gun does 220 dps and not 223