Limited Ammo

[Sirisian]

Okay this is going to sound odd, but do you guys like having a lot of ammo in games where it's not a problem or do you prefer where every shot counts and ammo is a tactical resource.

To put this in perspective pretend in PS2 if you chose an MA rifle for your loadout it gave you the option of 0 to 4 extra magazines. You could grab a pistol and get 0 to 5 extra magazines etc.

Ignore realism for a second and imagine a game where you're playing with artificial limitations on ammo capacity to control how players use weapons.

This opens up the idea of ammo sharing on the battlefield. That is the ability to "throw" magazines to your friendlies if they say "I'm out of ammo".

The bigger picture is the ability to force someone that is fighting for a while to switch weapons and tactics. The "I only have 20 rounds left in my rifle so I'll use my pistol for a bit" kind of thinking". Do you think this kind of thinking should be in the game?

(Also I get that some people want fast TTKs, fast movement, fast respawns so you might be thinking "I won't ever need more than a few bullets before I die", but pretend that players stay alive for more than a minute and that these kinds of tactical ideas are possible).

Any thoughts on this? (Snipers I believe felt the limited ammo sometimes depending on their inventory in PS1, but I'd be suggesting making that a more universal "feature").

(Also there would still be a limitation to the total items. Say each item had a cost. You could hold 4 magazines for cost of 8 and 2 out of 5 fragment grenades for a cost of 4 or something where there would be a maximum load out cost. Some people would try to use a weight system, but a cost system helps to describe gameplay limitations also if there are special rules about not having something if you have another item. Like if a medkit was 1 cost for support items and a magazine was 2 cost for ammo items, a grenade is 1 cost for explosive items etc. It could be fairly complicated).

[Bags]

I like a good balance. I don't like infinite ammo, but I don't like running out of ammo after a clip or two. I think Planetside hit the balance fairly well.

But I definitely don't want to have to use a pistol. I find them boring.

[Krowe]

Nah

[Sirisian]

But I definitely don't want to have to use a pistol. I find them boring.
Why are they boring? Is it because they're not MA/HA or is it because of their implementation in PS1 or something else?
Nah
Could you explain why you like having enough ammo? Is it for less reliance on other players? I'm normally against forced teamwork by the way so I can understand your feelings if you feel that way.

One reason for this would be adding ammo drops by engineers. Like a deployable ammo dispenser. (Explained by nanite generation or something). Snipers and engineers would travel in packs and having an engineer around in a long fight would be invaluable.

[Krowe]

The system that was in place did very well. The only thing I might want is the option to give ammo to another player without dropping it on the ground.

But forcing limitations on people isn't really all that great.

[Logit]

I like a good balance. I don't like infinite ammo, but I don't like running out of ammo after a clip or two. I think Planetside hit the balance fairly well.

But I definitely don't want to have to use a pistol. I find them boring.

This.

Planetside provided you the space to carry a sufficient amount of ammo so that you weren't at a terminal every 2 minutes. This is why I liked the inventory system so much. If you desired enough ammo to run and gun for awhile you could do that. If you wanted a mix, you could do that as well.

All this premade nonsense makes me nerdrage a bit.

[EASyEightyEight]

I don't want unlimited ammo (though an idiot running and spamming rounds is just begging to get shot) but I don't want a situation where I spend 60 rounds and I realize I have no more magazines on my belt. I like having ample amounts of ammunition. If we're capable of somehow scavenging for ammo in the field, or there just happens to be a class that tosses infinite numbers of packs of ammo (on a cooldown of some sort) then we can get away with a lower total.

I'd say I'm happiest with 4-5 spare magazines, with 6 being the upper limit. Beyond that number, I don't feel too compelled to make my shots count.

[Graywolves]

Unlimited ammo is silly for a large scale massive warfare game. If you are doing something like a Gen hold it is a key factor. One time a friend and I were just zerging up a hill and we kept rezzing eachother and I eventually ran low on ammo so we had to loot enemies. I love that feeling in the game of getting low, it makes me feel like I was alive forever and that I'm awesome.


Unlimited ammo is too much of a convenience (in the lazy way) and leads to avoidable situations just by limiting ammo. A Skyguard and other vehicles need ammo eventually.



And I liked the current inventory system for this as well, I noticed I was running out of cycler ammo much sooner compared to my sweeper (I actually never run out on my sweeper) so I replaced some of my sweeper ammo with cycler ammo.

[NewSith]

I'm still unsure. I mean if it's to be [sniper rifle+pistol] (of which I'm totally against), then I say more ammo for the sniper rifle.

If it's going to be [sniper rifle+secondary primary weapon of some sort (SMG for instance)] then I say sniper ammo should be cut. It has everything to do with the balancing. Making snipers "Go there, sit, shoot, snipe, look around, kill close range, snipe again" 'till the second bending is not a good way to bring the class into game.

[Sirisian]

Guys I never mentioned unlimited ammo. I was simply comparing Planetside's "I pretty much never run out of ammo" approach to an "if I fight for a while I will run out of ammo after 4 to 6 clips and will require a restock from somewhere (use your imagination, ammo drops from the sky, engineer deployables, AMS, galaxies and countless other ideas).

A Skyguard and other vehicles need ammo eventually.
I was going to leave vehicles out of this since I discussed the effects of balancing vehicles via the limited ammo idea in another thread.

And I liked the current inventory system for this as well, I noticed I was running out of cycler ammo much sooner compared to my sweeper (I actually never run out on my sweeper) so I replaced some of my sweeper ammo with cycler ammo.
The idea would be that under extended use you'd run out of ammo after a few clips. (With the faster TTK I'm not sure how to calculate how many kills that is. In the original it was along the line of 1.5 ish per clip so that might skew perceptions).

I'm still unsure. I mean if it's to be [sniper rifle+pistol] (of which I'm totally against), then I say more ammo for the sniper rifle.

If it's going to be [sniper rifle+secondary primary weapon of some sort (SMG for instance)] then I say sniper ammo should be cut. It has everything to do with the balancing. Making snipers "Go there, sit, shoot, snipe, look around, kill close range, snipe again" 'till the second bending is not a good way to bring the class into game.
I think that might be another conversation entirely on balancing.

Regarding a sniper I'd limit it to a decent number of rounds, but enough so that a player runs out after a few minutes. An engineer supporting a group of snipers by deploying an ammo dispenser would be ideal.

Basically if a single sniper is by himself he couldn't trap people inside and a person using MA couldn't spray and pray at a door. You'd end up with people making each round count.
But forcing limitations on people isn't really all that great.
So you want unlimited ammo? I'm basically thinking if you had a weapon and never really ran out of ammo then you essentially had unlimited ammo for all intents and purposes.

I could be wrong that making the scenario where you run out of primary ammo on an HA/MA weapon more common is a good thing. Some people probably enjoy having a lot of ammo. Just imagine the game with a more limited ammo system and how you would see scenarios. Describe them if you see horrible situations arising.

I'm imagining spawning then fighting for a while with a Punisher (if it exists. haven't paid much attention) and lining up a shot on someone and firing a few times. After killing 6 people with my 5 clips (just a guess) I notice I need ammo and either find an engineer that's dropped ammo, call in an ammo pod (is this lame?), or switch to a side arm.

(Also side thing that isn't important really, but camping would become difficult without a way to resupply. Though camping out really only happened in the generator as a valid tactic).

[Mezorin]

Provided that there are ways to 'ammo up' other players via class abilities, I figure having 3 or 4 spare clips of gauss rifle ammunition is reasonable. You have enough rounds to make some kills, but can't just mindlessly piss away ammunition forever. MAXes, AV troopers, or machine gunners requiring some sort of engineer resupply ability would also limit their OPness as they'd constantly be low on ammo if they were not being 'fed'. Engineer resupplies, stealing enemy weapons, or even some sort of 'scavanger' infantry ability could be put in, depending on how the devs want to balance out the game.

[krnasaur]

one of the fun parts of planetside was the balance of ammo VS utility. I could carry a REK or 50 extra bullets, a CUD or 50 extra bullets. i could lose 16 JH ammo for more gauss ammo, you had the choice to choose what you wanted for that situation.

I feel like planetside 1's inv system was special. It did slow down combat, but it made combat that much more enjoyable.

Now for planetside 2, You sould be able to choose how much ammo as a trade-off. maybe like the SOE game "Infantry" (that game was an absolute gem btw) not an actual "inventory" but every item, guns, ammo, and utility items all took up weight, and you had to balance your weight

[Krowe]

So you want unlimited ammo?

No, I just don't want that 5 clips max idea. If people want to carry ammo over something more situational, let them.

[Zulthus]

I'd really want something like Battlefield-style ammo. If you reload with 15/30 bullets left in your clip, you lose 15 bullets. It'll have people conserve ammo and make their shots count.

[CutterJohn]

Now for planetside 2, You sould be able to choose how much ammo as a trade-off. maybe like the SOE game "Infantry" (that game was an absolute gem btw) not an actual "inventory" but every item, guns, ammo, and utility items all took up weight, and you had to balance your weight

This, pretty much. Just have a slider that adjusts how much ammo you want of a particular variety.


Hypothetical medic loadout:

Grenades: 2lbs/grenade
Pistol: 20 rounds/lb
Med app: 50 units/lb
MA Rifle: 15 rounds/lb

Now lets pretend its a 20lb ammo limit.

So you might carry 2 grenades, 40 rounds pistol ammo, 300 units heal goo, 120 rounds of MA. Or just go with 100 units of heal goo and take an extra grenade and 30 more rounds of MA ammo.

Allows for some variation in ammo you can carry, but keeps the inventory from being used for spare tools/weapons, and no jigsawing.

[Wrath]

planetside was perfect in my opinion, your entering a warzone so you needed a moderately large ammo supply to keep you stocked.

its a balancing act planetside because different situation require different things when your making the first push to a base trying to break the defences you need a larger ammo supply and less utility because you'll be pumping out a lot more rounds at a lot of different targets.

once inside the base you dont need so much ammo but more utlity stuff grenades and the like.

that set having the abilty to rearm squads in the field would be good, I play a lot of TF2 at the moment and having engineers in PS2 with simlair abiltys to the TF2 one would be great for setting up forward fire bases.

[Baneblade]

From a lore standpoint there is no reason to limit ammo in PS, since we could in theory just make it on demand from the environment.

[DviddLeff]

For me PS didn't have enough ammo, with Rexo and MA/AV combo I never had enough shots for my Pulsar if I got into an extended fight where I had the chance to take down multiple people.

However with PS2's class system and lower TTK this should be less of a problem.

Now with regards to resupply, I think you should allow engineers to set up resupply points around the map, pretty much just an equipment terminal that allows you to restock ammo (or perhaps weapons as well) but not change armour.

[Crator]

I don't see how in theory we can just magically make equipment appear from the environment. Anyways. Guess what guys, there is this ability in PS1. It's called an Aegis Shield Generator that you can charge with your glue gun. It provides all the ammo needed, same as a regular term.

[CutterJohn]

For me PS didn't have enough ammo, with Rexo and MA/AV combo I never had enough shots for my Pulsar if I got into an extended fight where I had the chance to take down multiple people.

However with PS2's class system and lower TTK this should be less of a problem.

Now with regards to resupply, I think you should allow engineers to set up resupply points around the map, pretty much just an equipment terminal that allows you to restock ammo (or perhaps weapons as well) but not change armour.

Looting may be out, but I wouldn't mind just getting a bit of resupply from dead people, like 1/4 of your total ammo or something. Not too worried if its arbitrary.

[Sirisian]

This, pretty much. Just have a slider that adjusts how much ammo you want of a particular variety.
I'd prefer to work with a cost system since it tends to be more flexible. I'd also prefer grouping for choices on loudouts. Like Reinforced has 8 ammo pouches then each weapon you hold has special magazine and adds to the limitation of the number of magazines you can carry of that type.

So if you carry a pulsar and pistol and saw a limit of 6 ammo pouches on the armor type you could grab 0 to 5 pulsar "magazines", 0 to 5 pistol ammo. You'd see most people grabbing say 5 pulsar magazines then 1 pistol ammo. That's around 240 bullets. Depend on the TTK that's still a ton of kills without resupplying.

(Not saying weight can't work though).
For me PS didn't have enough ammo, with Rexo and MA/AV combo I never had enough shots for my Pulsar if I got into an extended fight where I had the chance to take down multiple people.

However with PS2's class system and lower TTK this should be less of a problem.

Now with regards to resupply, I think you should allow engineers to set up resupply points around the map, pretty much just an equipment terminal that allows you to restock ammo (or perhaps weapons as well) but not change armour.
Yeah I'm more for ammo only with engineer deployables. Also what did you feel like when you ran out of ammo? I always felt like I should have a side arm or something else with me if I was fighting for an extended amount of time or be forced to find a way to get more ammo.

From a lore standpoint there is no reason to limit ammo in PS, since we could in theory just make it on demand from the environment.
Exactly. That's the idea behind having an arbitrary limitation. The idea would be to have a few ways to get extra ammo. Ammo dispensers, ammo drop pods, looting ammo from corpses (friendly or enemy), AMS, regular terms, galaxy?, etc.
I don't see how in theory we can just magically make equipment appear from the environment. Anyways. Guess what guys, there is this ability in PS1. It's called an Aegis Shield Generator that you can charge with your glue gun. It provides all the ammo needed, same as a regular term.
Yeah I didn't want to mention the aegis shield generator. I never liked how much work it took to maintain. I'd prefer just a stand alone ammo dispenser deployable with no maintenance. It would give the engineers a logical way to be a team player along with their other non-direct combat abilities.
Looting may be out, but I wouldn't mind just getting a bit of resupply from dead people, like 1/4 of your total ammo or something. Not too worried if its arbitrary.
Yeah that would be nice to press g on a body and see at least the magazines the person is carrying. I think these kinds of things would make the idea of limiting magazine counts a lot more acceptable.
I'd really want something like Battlefield-style ammo. If you reload with 15/30 bullets left in your clip, you lose 15 bullets. It'll have people conserve ammo and make their shots count.
I too prefer this type of system. I've never liked the "ammo pool" idea. Working in terms of magazines is nice. I'm not even saying this for the realism aspect. It just seems nice since it gets rid of that shoot 2 bullets then reload mentality which is prevalent in PS.

[Malorn]

Ammo needs to be limited. One of the bigger design failures IMO was when they changed AV weaponry. They increased vehicle armor by 2x but increased ammo capacity for AV by 3x. The net effect of this was AV weaponry became spam weaponry.

The ammo capacity was so high that you could just shoot at anything and everything with them because you had more ammo than you needed and didn't care. It was detrimental to MAX outdoors especially. It also led to mass spam of AV like seeing no less than 30 strikers in the air at any given moment over a TR base, or vehicles not being able to approach a NC base without getting railed by half a dozen phoenix.

In the early days when ammo capacity was low (but more effective against vehicles) you had to make those shots count, and missing was painful - you might not have enough to kill a tank.

Secondly, ammo scarcity encourages teamwork for classes that can supply ammo. This is obvious in the Battlefield games where one class has ammo boxes and the other classes rely on that class. Engineer being a great example. They only have ~4 shots, which is a lot of vehicle kills if they count, but not enough that they can just spam shots (unless sitting on an ammo box). And AV rounds also burned through ammo boxes a lot faster.

Ammo is a fundamental balance aspect to the game. It must absolutely be limited, and the more scarce the better. Customization options should exist to enhance ammo capacity and it makes for a good tradeoff. BFBC2 did this and it was quite good.

Ammo scarcity goes hand-in-hand with lethality. The more lethal/effective the weaponry, the smaller the ammo capacity (generally speaking). Otherwise suppressive fire increases and you have more stagnation. Ammo will already favor defenders if there are deployables that can re-arm.


For the issue of running out of ammo, I like the idea of picking up kits from dead soldiers. It's a good way to do it and you're stuck with whatever customizations that player had whom you looted, so it has a natural tradeoff.

[CutterJohn]

I'd prefer to work with a cost system since it tends to be more flexible. I'd also prefer grouping for choices on loudouts. Like Reinforced has 8 ammo pouches then each weapon you hold has special magazine and adds to the limitation of the number of magazines you can carry of that type.

So if you carry a pulsar and pistol and saw a limit of 6 ammo pouches on the armor type you could grab 0 to 5 pulsar "magazines", 0 to 5 pistol ammo. You'd see most people grabbing say 5 pulsar magazines then 1 pistol ammo. That's around 240 bullets. Depend on the TTK that's still a ton of kills without resupplying.

(Not saying weight can't work though).

Nah, cost would be better, since it can be entirely arbitrary. I'm not sure if I agree with a max count or not though.

I too prefer this type of system. I've never liked the "ammo pool" idea. Working in terms of magazines is nice. I'm not even saying this for the realism aspect. It just seems nice since it gets rid of that shoot 2 bullets then reload mentality which is prevalent in PS.

Working with mags makes you waste a lot of ammo. If theres not enough left to have a chance of killing a dude it gets reloaded. Then the mag poofs, along with the ammo inside it. No way to scavenge that ammo and load it into another mag.

My preference is for ammo pool. :)

[Zulthus]

Working with mags makes you waste a lot of ammo. If theres not enough left to have a chance of killing a dude it gets reloaded. Then the mag poofs, along with the ammo inside it. No way to scavenge that ammo and load it into another mag.

My preference is for ammo pool. :)

Uh... place your shots right and this won't be a problem. If you run out of mags, get some more ammo? :confused:

[Furret]

I liked the amount of ammo in PS1.

If you were in a standard base fight with standard base fighting gear, you would generally die before you ran out of ammo, assuming you werent a pussy bitch who hopped out when nobody was there, sprayed their clip down an empty hallway, and jumped back to cover sweating bullets.

The only times I ever noticed myself run out of ammo were the following times:

- I was fighting a bunch of retards who didn't know how to aim.

- I was sniping and staying alive for a very long period of time, after which point the game became even more fun, not only did we have to take out the snipers with limited amounts of ammo, we had to fight our way to their corpses to steal their ammo.

- I was in my pilot suit with medkits, glue, glue gun, CUD, REK, and only room for one box of gauss ammo. In that case, you really are sacrificing ammo capacity for the ability to carry all the support necessities of battle, which was fine with me; If I'm stuck in my pilot suit, I ought to be at the back of the battle rezzing people and taking a few shots if the enemy gets too bold.

The system was really great, the only reasons you should run out of ammo was if you were playing really well (in which case there ought to be plenty of corpses around), you could be playing in an environment you didn't belong in (pilot in an infantry fight), or you weren't aiming (you deserve it baddie!).

[CutterJohn]

Uh... place your shots right and this won't be a problem. If you run out of mags, get some more ammo? :confused:

And where does the ammo in the clip poof off to when I remove it?

[Zulthus]

And where does the ammo in the clip poof off to when I remove it?

Uhm.. it stays in the spent clip..? Why do you ask such a silly question? Is your soldier going to manually move the bullets from the old clip into the new one?

[Sirisian]

Working with mags makes you waste a lot of ammo. If theres not enough left to have a chance of killing a dude it gets reloaded. Then the mag poofs, along with the ammo inside it. No way to scavenge that ammo and load it into another mag.
Yeah it's mostly a preference thing for me. I like seeing "5 magazines left" instead of "125 rounds left". It really changes how some people play having a magazine system. The normal routine is to kill a person then reload so you make sure you have a as many contiguous rounds as possible. Using the magazine system it forces people to make a tough choice. Reload and hope you don't need the rest of the ammo or move on.
And where does the ammo in the clip poof off to when I remove it?
Everyone will have their own thoughts on this. Some might prefer it to drop on the ground and let the nanites dissolve it like a vehicle. Others prefer to cycle magazines. That is you can see all your magazines when you press r and hitting it more than once cycles the magazines so you never just "throw away a magazine". I prefer to cycle a fixed amount of magazines sorted by the amount of ammo replacing the emptiest magazine when you resupply.

So I can fire say 20 rounds then cycle magazines to a full one and go back to the near empty one if I choose to. (Providing suppressive fire with a group for instance).

Then again I am a fan of complexity in games (as stated in my previous ammo threads (http://www.planetside-universe.com/forums/showthread.php?p=574896)).

[FIREk]

It's a good thing that Matt Higby most likely wants to make PS2 approachable for new players, not overcomplicated... ;)

The most important aspect of ammo management is having to reload, at is may cost you your life if you sprayed-and-prayed, or tried to reload in an unsafe place. Anything else, like total ammo count, is only decoration. If you run out of ammo, it either mans that you're doing good, or you're a really bad shot. :P

[Zulthus]

That is you can see all your magazines when you press r and hitting it more than once cycles the magazines so you never just "throw away a magazine". I prefer to cycle a fixed amount of magazines sorted by the amount of ammo replacing the emptiest magazine when you resupply.

So I can fire say 20 rounds then cycle magazines to a full one and go back to the near empty one if I choose to. (Providing suppressive fire with a group for instance).


That's actually a good idea. However, I don't see any way to make a good interface for selecting your clip/seeing how much ammo is in each one.

I really just hate the "ammo pool" weapon style. It's boring and doesn't matter whether you spray or what not. I'd like to have players conserve their ammo to cut down on all the spam. (Thumpers ESPECIALLY)

[Crator]

That's actually a good idea. However, I don't see any way to make a good interface for selecting your clip/seeing how much ammo is in each one.

Ctrl or Alt + Middle Mouse button to open special menu. One of the option on the menu is clip management. Make the initial menu a round circle that has a fixed selector on it. The selector moves around the circle as you move your mouse around.

[CutterJohn]

Uhm.. it stays in the spent clip..? Why do you ask such a silly question? Is your soldier going to manually move the bullets from the old clip into the new one?

Be nice to have that option rather than throwing them away.


But I just prefer the simplicity of an ammo pool. I'm one of those people that loves reloading.

[FastAndFree]

There was a game (Red Orchestra maybe?) where I think you had to "juggle" partially expended magazines as described, but you could also take the time to take the bullets from one magazine and top up another, so if you had the time you could combine partially spent magazines into a full one (and leftovers)

Of course realistic this might be, it slows the combat down which is precidely what they are not doing with Planetside 2, so I doubt we will see individual magazines being tracked

I won't complain if we have a simple ammo pool like we have in PS1

[Erendil]

RE: keeping track of different mags.... Yuck. No thank you. Give me an ammo pool any day please. I'm all for including bits of realism into the game, but IMO that just over-complicates inventory management and breaks up the flow of battle, which is not what SOE wants.

I think I'd find it distracting and frustrating to have to constantly monitor the remaining rounds in each mag, esp if I'm carrying up to 3 weapons (e.g. - AI, AV, pistol). That could be potentially 10-15 different mags I'd have to keep track of. And it'd piss me off if I died because I had plenty of total ammo but had inadvertently chosen a partial mag that was 1 bullet short of the number I needed to kill.

And I sure as hell don't want any remaining ammo in my mag to just disappear into thin air if I reload. If I've had a good streak out in the field and am running low on ammo you'd better believe that I'd spend the time to combine partial mags to get myself 1 full mag. :cool:

But then, a FastAndFree pointed out, that would slow down the flow of battle significantly. :p Instead of people falling back after every encounter to heal/rep, you'd have people falling back to bean count their mags and/or combine them.

Sorry I just don't see it working without it slowing things down and becoming a chore.

[Sirisian]

It's a good thing that Matt Higby most likely wants to make PS2 approachable for new players, not overcomplicated... ;)
(Don't put words into his mouth. If you have an opinion, state it). Keeping the game at the same complexity of a normal FPS game is where I think I disagree with some people. I'm not calling for random complexity, just more gameplay control over weapons that was left out of the original.
That's actually a good idea. However, I don't see any way to make a good interface for selecting your clip/seeing how much ammo is in each one.
Ctrl or Alt + Middle Mouse button to open special menu. One of the option on the menu is clip management. Make the initial menu a round circle that has a fixed selector on it. The selector moves around the circle as you move your mouse around.
I too am a fan of radial menus. You can put so much information into them. Using them for managing the magazines of the current weapon is a good use-case.

The alternative to that is holding r then pressing a number corresponding to a magazine but that requires moving one's hands from the wasd keys which is a bad idea.
But I just prefer the simplicity of an ammo pool. I'm one of those people that loves reloading.
Same, and I agree it is simple. Too simple. It does have a disadvantage of going through the reload cycle. For weapons with a lot of ammo like the MCG this is invaluable since they rarely go through their whole clip and choose to reload prematurely often. The magazine system removes that obvious reload decision and replaces it with a gameplay altering choice. Reload or wait.
And I sure as hell don't want any remaining ammo in my mag to just disappear into thin air if I reload. If I've had a good streak out in the field and am running low on ammo you'd better believe that I'd spend the time to combine partial mags to get myself 1 full mag. :cool:
I'm with you on that. I hate seeing ammo go away. However, I don't like that ammo magically collects into a pool either and loads into magazines I then pull out. I meant to write last time that a player could hold the reload button to pull ammo from the most depleted magazine into the most full magazine in the sorted list. This operation would take a few moments and wouldn't be something a person could finish in the middle of battle.

Would this slow down combat? No. By the time that such an operation was necessary the player would have fired off a few magazines of ammo. You'd find most people looting ammo from a corpse or getting it from a dispenser. It merely changes how a person manages ammo.

I will point out that this was just a side thought about limited ammo and not the main idea. The main idea is still to limit soldiers to a smaller amount of ammunition to make it a more tactical resource.

[Baneblade]

Working with mags makes you waste a lot of ammo. If theres not enough left to have a chance of killing a dude it gets reloaded. Then the mag poofs, along with the ammo inside it. No way to scavenge that ammo and load it into another mag.

My preference is for ammo pool. :)

Well the realistic way of handling that is to consolidate your mags manually.



I think the way PS had TTKs setup was a big part of the problem. You have 100 rounds in the MCG (which should be belt fed...), but it takes almost 10 to kill one person.

[Sirisian]

Since someone asked on IRC why I felt it was more immersive to use magazines. Other than the more obvious answer of preferring it I was imagining the war had been going on for a long time with factories destroyed forcing an ammo shortage. So you'd get to the terminal and your empire has just the basic amounts of ammo at spawn. You'd need resources after that limit to reimburse the empire.

This also brings up the idea that you should only be able to ammo loot from enemies. Another change would be a small resource charge for crafting magazines at an engineer's ammo dispenser. This might seem game changing though for resources to be used this way though?

[Talek Krell]

I think charging for bullets is probably overdoing it. Depends somewhat on resources, but I can't see much sense in creating a situation where someone might not be able to afford to fight. Even just as a hypothetical possibility.

[Graywolves]

There are no factories on Auraxis, everything we need comes from Nanites, even we are made of nanites. And we gain nanites from loading up our ANTs at warpgates, which are always filled with nanites.

[Mirror]

If you have to hold a base for x amount of minutes (lets say 15 like in PS 1) then you are going to have to be able to restock ammo easily.

If any of you here have been able to hold with very small numbers against a much larger force then you will know that looting at the right time was very important.

They will have to put looting or something in the game as it will simply be unfair on defenders who have no access to spawns or terminals.

[FastAndFree]

There are no factories on Auraxis, everything we need comes from Nanites, even we are made of nanites. And we gain nanites from loading up our ANTs at warpgates, which are always filled with nanites.

Do they? I wonder.

We know that Planetside 2 is a reimagining of Planetside. It is not impossible that they ditched nanites, or made them less omnipresent so now vehicles are assembled conventionally

That would certainly explain the worn-down vehicle textures we have seen

[Sirisian]

I think charging for bullets is probably overdoing it. Depends somewhat on resources, but I can't see much sense in creating a situation where someone might not be able to afford to fight. Even just as a hypothetical possibility.
Not suggesting a situation where someone can't fight. I was just creating a hypothetical scenario for having limited ammo for certain weapons rather than being able to grab 8 magazines/300 bullets for every weapon separate from a cost/weight system on the loudout. Say Pistol ammo is very inexpensive to produce by the empire and MA is more expensive. Then you get to HA rounds which are harder to come by. So a person that goes to grab ammo at spawn might see they can only grab one or two magazines of HA (depending the weapon). I know what you're thinking, "but TR and NC just use regular bullets", but pretend that HA type weapons use a special ammo that's empire specific.

That's basically how I've always wanted it. Getting more of a rarer ammo type passed a certain limit would cost a player resources from their pool. (If I understand the resource system, and I don't doubt I do).

There are no factories on Auraxis, everything we need comes from Nanites, even we are made of nanites. And we gain nanites from loading up our ANTs at warpgates, which are always filled with nanites.
Me thinks ANTs are gone. And I'm still with you that there are nanites everywhere I'm just saying they require resources to create things in PS2. Or at least I hope so. If it takes resources to pull vehicles then pulling luxury things should probably cost also.

[Erendil]

EDIT: Apologies for the long response. I hope I don't derail this thread too much with all this talk of mag management..:doh: the more I think of it tho the more I don't want to have to keep track of each mag so I must say my piece... :p

Maybe a separate thread might be good for further discussion? :cool:

(Don't put words into his mouth. If you have an opinion, state it). Keeping the game at the same complexity of a normal FPS game is where I think I disagree with some people. I'm not calling for random complexity, just more gameplay control over weapons that was left out of the original.

I'm fine with added complexity so lose as it adds something clearly positive to the game. For you, dealing with separate mags adds a level of immersion, so for you it's good. For me, it adds a bean counting chore that I really don't want to deal with. So for me, it's not good.

I too am a fan of radial menus. You can put so much information into them. Using them for managing the magazines of the current weapon is a good use-case.

I'm not a fan of having to pull up menus while I'm in the middle of combat. If mag tracking was implemented I'd want key bindings as well as a radial menu for managing my mags.

The alternative to that is holding r then pressing a number corresponding to a magazine but that requires moving one's hands from the wasd keys which is a bad idea.

I'd prefer a simpler convention, like a key that would automatically select and swap out your current mag for either a full mag if you had one, or the mag that has the most bullets in it.

Same, and I agree it is simple. Too simple. It does have a disadvantage of going through the reload cycle. For weapons with a lot of ammo like the MCG this is invaluable since they rarely go through their whole clip and choose to reload prematurely often. The magazine system removes that obvious reload decision and replaces it with a gameplay altering choice. Reload or wait.

The "reload or wait" decision is already present when you use a common ammo pool. Weapons like the MCG/HA in PS1 have a long reload time (4 secs) which will get you killed if you reload too habitually and do so at the wrong time.

I'm with you on that. I hate seeing ammo go away. However, I don't like that ammo magically collects into a pool either and loads into magazines I then pull out. I meant to write last time that a player could hold the reload button to pull ammo from the most depleted magazine into the most full magazine in the sorted list. This operation would take a few moments and wouldn't be something a person could finish in the middle of battle.

Holding down the reload key to auto-combine mags would be a good feature and would make things a little less annoying. But you're deluding yourself if you think that players wouldn't withdraw from firefights to combine mags in mid-battle. They already do this to heal/rep and that certainly takes a few rather long moments. :D

Would this slow down combat? No. By the time that such an operation was necessary the player would have fired off a few magazines of ammo. You'd find most people looting ammo from a corpse or getting it from a dispenser. It merely changes how a person manages ammo.

Yes, it absolutely will slow down combat. I think you underestimate the playerbase's desire to squeeze every last ounce of advantage they might have over their opponents. :p People won't manage their mags only when they have to. They will do so whenever they feel their current mag status puts them at the slightest disadvantage. Which is to say, it will happen a lot. Every second you have to fiddle with your inventory is a second you're not shooting at the enemy, and most people will take cover or withdraw every time they feel they have to manage their mags. Hell, people do that now when they're just reloading.

I will point out that this was just a side thought about limited ammo and not the main idea. The main idea is still to limit soldiers to a smaller amount of ammunition to make it a more tactical resource.

True. Mag management certainly merits discussion though since you and I obviously don't see eye-to-eye on the subject at all. ;)

Since someone asked on IRC why I felt it was more immersive to use magazines. Other than the more obvious answer of preferring it I was imagining the war had been going on for a long time with factories destroyed forcing an ammo shortage. So you'd get to the terminal and your empire has just the basic amounts of ammo at spawn. You'd need resources after that limit to reimburse the empire.

This also brings up the idea that you should only be able to ammo loot from enemies. Another change would be a small resource charge for crafting magazines at an engineer's ammo dispenser. This might seem game changing though for resources to be used this way though?

Again, yuck. NO resource costs for base-level ammo, please. If you want to pull specialized ammo that you've unlocked through the cert system (subsonic, hollow point, match grade, etc) then okay, incurring a cost would make sense. But not for base-level AI/AP ammo, for any weapon.

We know that Planetside 2 is a reimagining of Planetside. It is not impossible that they ditched nanites, or made them less omnipresent so now vehicles are assembled conventionally

That would certainly explain the worn-down vehicle textures we have seen

PS1 has "worn-down" vehicle textures as well. Armour textures too. They are all riddled with cracks, dents, bullet damage, cracked/chipped paint, etc. I figure it just meant that whatever original equipment they scanned for their "template" already had that damage, so every subsequent nanite-created "copy" would show the exact same damage, in perfect replication... :cool:

Not suggesting a situation where someone can't fight. I was just creating a hypothetical scenario for having limited ammo for certain weapons rather than being able to grab 8 magazines/300 bullets for every weapon separate from a cost/weight system on the loudout. Say Pistol ammo is very inexpensive to produce by the empire and MA is more expensive. Then you get to HA rounds which are harder to come by. So a person that goes to grab ammo at spawn might see they can only grab one or two magazines of HA (depending the weapon). I know what you're thinking, "but TR and NC just use regular bullets", but pretend that HA type weapons use a special ammo that's empire specific.

That's basically how I've always wanted it. Getting more of a rarer ammo type passed a certain limit would cost a player resources from their pool. (If I understand the resource system, and I don't doubt I do).

Like I said, IMO base-level ammo should be free for all weapons. Only cert-unlocked ammo types should cost resources to produce, just like only customized weapons will cost resources..

Me thinks ANTs are gone. And I'm still with you that there are nanites everywhere I'm just saying they require resources to create things in PS2. Or at least I hope so. If it takes resources to pull vehicles then pulling luxury things should probably cost also.


I don't consider base-level ammo to be a "luxury." Only ammo upgrades. :p

.

[Crator]

EDIT: Apologies for the long response.

Ha, what's new? :D

[Talek Krell]

Not suggesting a situation where someone can't fight. I was just creating a hypothetical scenario for having limited ammo for certain weapons rather than being able to grab 8 magazines/300 bullets for every weapon separate from a cost/weight system on the loudout.

I think I've figured out what you mean. You were talking about the ammo that someone spawns with and I thought you were saying that any ammo after that would be bought, but if I understand right you're actually talking about charging only for extra ammo over a certain limit. So if you've used up your bullets and you go back for more then no charge, but if you decide that you want to completely fill your "inventory" with shotgun shells then you might have to pay for some of the boxes?

[Sirisian]

I think I've figured out what you mean. You were talking about the ammo that someone spawns with and I thought you were saying that any ammo after that would be bought, but if I understand right you're actually talking about charging only for extra ammo over a certain limit. So if you've used up your bullets and you go back for more then no charge, but if you decide that you want to completely fill your "inventory" with shotgun shells then you might have to pay for some of the boxes?
Exactly.

(Also Erendil can you reformat your post in the proper forum system. That separate text system you did there is awkward).

[Erendil]

I think I've figured out what you mean. You were talking about the ammo that someone spawns with and I thought you were saying that any ammo after that would be bought, but if I understand right you're actually talking about charging only for extra ammo over a certain limit. So if you've used up your bullets and you go back for more then no charge, but if you decide that you want to completely fill your "inventory" with shotgun shells then you might have to pay for some of the boxes?

That's an interesting idea. I think I'd be cool w/ that, so long as we can still loot corpses to get more ammo if we can't afford to buy more. :cool:

It makes it feel like every soldier is issued a set amount of ammo, and if you want to requisition more you have to pay for it since it's not "standard issue."


Exactly.

(Also Erendil can you reformat your post in the proper forum system. That separate text system you did there is awkward).

OK I reformatted my novella for ya. ;) I think it's setup how you want it, but I'm not sure. I don't see how it's any more "proper" than before since that's how I've posted in SOE's forums since PS1 came out, unless it's some PSU-specific thing. But if it makes it easier to read, then I'm happy to oblige. :cool:

Oh, and LOL @Crator! I know I'm terrible..! :doh: I try to cut my posts down in size. I usually fail tho. :p

[Canaris]

I always lol when I hear people say they never run out of ammo in PS..... you are obviously not shooting enough!! ;)

Ammo should be ammo and I should have enough of it in game to satisfy my need to DAKA DAKA DAKA without forcing me back to some supply post or the like every few minutes.

When choosing a faction one of the biggest draws for TR for me was that the guns had lots of ammo and spewed them out.

I'd hate to see

"Everyone advance.... No, everyone stop and go back and resupply... everyone adva....oh hold on resupply again" :doh:

[Sirisian]

I always lol when I hear people say they never run out of ammo in PS..... you are obviously not shooting enough!! ;)
Most people on average don't live long enough to use more than 30 bullets. For the skilled players that actually go through the 200 or so rounds then it can be more possible.

The idea is that ammo would be more precious especially with a faster TTK. It also artificially limits kill streaks which even in PS1 were relatively easy.

I'd hate to see

"Everyone advance.... No, everyone stop and go back and resupply... everyone adva....oh hold on resupply again" :doh:
Indeed and that's not the goal. Even as TR you'd still have enough ammo to kill people. You wouldn't be moving backwards if you had an engineer. It would just be a normal part of the battle that after you kill 5 people you're getting low on ammo and need to resupply.

As a TR player would it hurt that much if your MCG had only 2 magazines aka 200 rounds? (If the normal HA is in the game). How often did you go through that much ammo? Personally I remember killing multiple people without reloading. Isn't it like <20 bullets for each kill anyway so you end up with like 5 kills without reloading?

[Scow2]

Most people on average don't live long enough to use more than 30 bullets. For the skilled players that actually go through the 200 or so rounds then it can be more possible.

The idea is that ammo would be more precious especially with a faster TTK. It also artificially limits kill streaks which even in PS1 were relatively easy.

Indeed and that's not the goal. Even as TR you'd still have enough ammo to kill people. You wouldn't be moving backwards if you had an engineer. It would just be a normal part of the battle that after you kill 5 people you're getting low on ammo and need to resupply.

As a TR player would it hurt that much if your MCG had only 2 magazines aka 200 rounds? (If the normal HA is in the game). How often did you go through that much ammo? Personally I remember killing multiple people without reloading. Isn't it like <20 bullets for each kill anyway so you end up with like 5 kills without reloading?

Assuming you could actually hit with every single bullet. I usually get 1 kill per magazine if I don't die first (2 if I'm lucky/have assistance), or 1-per-6 with the Bolt Driver. 100% Accuracy is a terrible, unrealistic goal to expect from players for balance purposes. Especially with a Fire Cone the size of a Grapefruit on the screen. And asking the Mini-Chaingunner to Burst Fire completely defeats the purpose of a chain-gun, IMO.

I thought the advantage of REXO armor in Planetside was endurance, the inventory moreso than the armor bonus.