How is it a no fun feature?

It allows you to hold a melee weapon in the main hand so you get to do both melee and ranged at the same time.

because crossbow / shield would massivly increase your survivability? Carrying two different weapons with completly different attack pattern is not usable 90% of the fights. The only thing that counts is raw dps and defense.

What do you mean? Theres tons of times where having both a melee and ranged weapon would be helpful. The casters like Warlock get those with Dirk+Books.

You and I have very different ideas of fun, throwing a shield on is not a "fun option."

Not saying it is a horrible idea to allow it, just saying I don't see how it counts as a "no fun allowed" situation.

I feel similarly about dual wielding 1H and daggers. There exists an entire item that says "these are dual daggers" instead of letting you put one dagger in each hand. You can't put a 1H sword in each hand. I think it's a limit of their system that wants to give different skills based on different weapons. If someone wants to put a one handed crossbow in one hand and shield in the other, let them -- doesn't impact your fun.

Ok, after starting my first lvl 1 ranger with the offhand crossbow I understand why I am not allowed to dual wield them. They are kinda powerful :D Still would like to combine them with a shield. I only use the dagger in my mainhand to parry.

duel wield hand crossbows would be epic, maybe a legendary mainhand crossbow you gotta find in higher NG+++++ this would be epic

I hated ranger until I got a crossbow. It is so much better than the stupid bows, it does more damage AND pierces through enemies, with the only downside being slightly lower range and no charge attack which I didn't like anyway. Since it's offhand only, I make my mainhand a dagger for the extra parry chance.

I REALLY wanted crossbow and shield. I was able to do something with Wizard, with Wand plus Shield. I don't get why Hand Crossbow got forced into offhand, disallowing a shield... shields really help with defense a lot. Technically you could try a Wand + Hand Crossbow but that has its own major issues... they use two different stats for their damage, and you won';t really be firing any faster, unless I'm wrong and their animations can play simultaneously.

Even then I'd rather have the ranged weapon + shield for survivability, there is no good reason hand crossbow is offhand only other than they just didn't want you capable of having a shield with one.