Gameplay: Ammunition

Bing · 2012-01-16, 11:06 PM

This is just one of those things that I always approve of whenever I see it:

You reload your hand held guns from a stack of clips instead of a stack of bullets.

I enjoy deciding to waste the 10 shots left in my clip for a full mag. Just in case.

Anyway, I'm curious about what anybody else thinks of "magazine based" reloading for guns instead of taking from a pile of bullets in your backpack.

(For an example, see Battlefield 2142)

Zulthus · 2012-01-17, 01:01 AM

I agree with this. I suggested it a while back but it's apparently too hardcore for people.

Sirisian · 2012-01-17, 01:15 AM

Limitted Ammo thread went into this a bit.

Huge fan of magazines (also remember clips are different than magazines). As you mentioned I like having the decision of reloading and having a penalty for it if I choose to reload with say 15 bullets left in the mag.

Also this opens up the option for throwing magazines to friendlies. That would be sweet to see since it doesn't happen in MP games much.

Also in that limited ammo thread I, along with others, discussed ways to cycle ammo between magazines if players wanted that option. For instance, by sorting magazines by ammo such that pressing R reloaded the most full one. Tapping R cycled down the available magazines and holding R would unload the bullets of the most empty mag into the most full magazine to top it off continuing down the list. A progress bar would indicate the progress. This allows a rather seamless system for managing magazines. If you get a new magazine, for instance from looting, it would just go to the top of the queue. There might be a maximum number of magazines a class can hold.

(Much more sane than my previous ammo ideas).

// I will point out it appears the others vets are very stuck in their ways. So they might feel threatened with such changes. Gotta be careful with how you word things.

Erendil · 2012-01-17, 01:28 AM

Never gonna happen. If the Devs think the PS1 freeform inventory is too complex or unwieldy I can't imagine they'd ever go for making us fumble around with keeping track of bullet inventories in multiple mags. And it'd piss people off to no end if they had plenty of bullets in their inventory but died because their fullest mag at the time was 1 or 2 bullets shy of full capacity and they had no time to combine mags.

And I wouldn't necessarily call it "too hardcore." Too tedious, maybe.

More daka daka, less bean counting...

EDIT: LOL Sirisian, I see u and I both jumped all over this topic again as soon as it resurfaced...

SKYeXile · 2012-01-17, 01:30 AM

Yea...too far.

Sirisian · 2012-01-17, 01:37 AM

Originally Posted by Erendil

If the Devs think the PS1 freeform inventory is too complex or unwieldy I can't imagine they'd ever go for making us fumble around with keeping track of bullet inventories in multiple mags.

I don't think the developers ever said why they switched away from the inventory system? It wasn't that great of a system especially when it circumvented the whole concept of weapon/utility slots. The idea that an agile could go from a HA to a deci by right clicking it in their inventory was ridiculous. I digress though. It would be nice to see their reasoning.

SKYeXile · 2012-01-17, 01:39 AM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I don't think the developers ever said why they switched away from the inventory system? It wasn't that great of a system especially when it circumvented the whole concept of weapon/utility slots. The idea that an agile could go from a HA to a deci by right clicking it in their inventory was ridiculous. I digress though. It would be nice to see their reasoning.

PS2 going mainstream, no time for inventory tetris, gotta go with what the flock knows.

Erendil · 2012-01-17, 01:48 AM

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Also this opens up the option for throwing magazines to friendlies. That would be sweet to see since it doesn't happen in MP games much.

Hmm I hadn't thought about that. That's a very interesting idea. Although in PS1 you already have something similar w/ dropping ammo boxes. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to toss them instead.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Also in that limited ammo thread I, along with others, discussed ways to cycle ammo between magazines if players wanted that option. For instance, by sorting magazines by ammo such that pressing R reloaded the most full one. Tapping R cycled down the available magazines and holding R would unload the bullets of the most empty mag into the most full magazine to top it off continuing down the list. A progress bar would indicate the progress. This allows a rather seamless system for managing magazines. If you get a new magazine, for instance from looting, it would just go to the top of the queue. There might be a maximum number of magazines a class can hold.

(Much more sane than my previous ammo ideas).

Yeah, this is streamlined enough now that I think I might actually not hate the idea.

Not sure how it'd go over with other people who might be against it but I think it's nimble enough to not cause too much frustration.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

// I will point out it appears the others vets are very stuck in their ways. So they might feel threatened with such changes. Gotta be careful with how you word things.

It has very little to do with people "stuck in their ways" and much more to do with details/realism/immersion vs pacing/action/contest-of-skills gameplay. Much like leaning, ironsights, freeform inventories, sprinting, AP ammo, etc, what one person sees as adding realism and increasing immersion in the game, another finds too detailed, cumbersome, and detrimental to the pacing or excitement factor.

The trick is of course to find the right balance. And your mag suggestions are getting closer to that balance, IMO.

Bing · 2012-01-17, 07:27 PM

Sorry about the repeat topic. Just plain old missed the other one. On topic though, it probably could be complicated, but I think it could be made simple too... so both ways on that argument.

CutterJohn · 2012-01-17, 08:46 PM

I prefer pooled ammo. Clips are like wing icing. Fine for some simulator, but no place in a fast action shooter.

acosmo · 2012-01-17, 09:22 PM

i think losing bullets for changing unemptied magazines in a game with planetside-ish ttk is nightmare mode.

Talek Krell · 2012-01-18, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by acosmo

i think losing bullets for changing unemptied magazines in a game with planetside-ish ttk is nightmare mode.

You could just change clips, rather than actually throw the partial away. I'm pretty ambivalent about how they do the ammo pool, but the refined system from the old limited ammo thread is sounding eminently reasonable. I think the ability to hunker down for a few seconds and consolidate mags is actually rather brilliant.

Zulthus · 2012-01-18, 01:13 PM

Maybe if you double tap reload it would put a new clip in and throw away the unused bullets, but the reload would be significantly quicker. If a firefight just ended and there's a pause in the action you could hit reload once and it would refill your clip from your ammo pool, but take significantly longer.

CutterJohn · 2012-01-18, 10:02 PM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Maybe if you double tap reload it would put a new clip in and throw away the unused bullets, but the reload would be significantly quicker. If a firefight just ended and there's a pause in the action you could hit reload once and it would refill your clip from your ammo pool, but take significantly longer.

That would in fact be a pretty awesome compromise.

Plus we could spend like 20 pages arguing over what "significantly longer" means.

Erendil · 2012-01-19, 03:14 AM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Maybe if you double tap reload it would put a new clip in and throw away the unused bullets, but the reload would be significantly quicker. If a firefight just ended and there's a pause in the action you could hit reload once and it would refill your clip from your ammo pool, but take significantly longer.

I'm a little apprehensive about using a double tap as a separate command since there's the issue of timing - i.e. whether or not the game recognized your key presses as a double-tap or two separate single taps.

Plus, given that I've been using a single key press to reload my weapons in FPSes for about... oh, 17 years or so now I think I'd rather keep the "swap out for a full mag" command (the closest thing to the ammo-pool-style reload I'm used to) as a single key press since it'd be hard to unlearn that muscle memory. And I wouldn't want to throw away any of my bullets thankyouverymuch!

I think you're on the right track. But I prefer something similar to Sirisian's above-mentioned approach.

And I'm still not sure if I'd actually want this in the game or not. But if I did, here's how I'd picture it:

Single key tap = Reload. Swap out current mag (if not already full) for the fullest mag in your inventory. The swap is as fast as your typical FPS "reload" command. If your current mag is full the single tap is ignored.
Hold key down = Combine ammo. After a split-second delay (to ensure you meant to hold it down and not do a single tap), you pull ammo out of your lightest mag and put it into the mag currently in your weapon until that mag is full, then it starts putting ammo into your next fullest "non-full" mag and keeps going down the line until you release the key or all possible mags are full. They could even make an animation of you holding both mags in one hand and pulling ammo out of one and pressing it into the other.

Thoughts?