Nerf Ammo Capacity

[notionphil]

TL;DR - There are other ways to balance weapons than DPS and TTK. Factors like ammo cap should be considered to make less numerically powerful weapons have more flexibility and ease-of-use than more powerful ones in the same tier.

 

FAQ - Frequently Angry Queries ;)

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

 

Any of you who are familiar with my posts know that my ideas are large-scale concepts to be taken in as general a sense as possible, and any numbers therein are for example purposes only. I leave numerical balance to the guys w the spreadsheets like got_faust and volt_cruelerz.

 

Beyond the numbers, there are a number of overall points which keep coming up, and they are fair points.

 

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Poster: Running out of ammo is not fun. This system would remove fun from the game, by making us run out of ammo.

 

Phil: Right now, the top x% of weapons in the game are more powerful than all of the actual abilities in the game. The same way that someone might propose a cooldown for the most powerful ults, I am essentially proposing a cooldown for the most powerful weapons. I relate it to a cooldown because I also propose you can stop and regen ammo quickly with a single restore.

 

So, I can certainly agree that a cooldown is less fun than no cooldown. But I also believe cooldown is important because it challenges you to work with all of your tools, not just the best one.

 

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Poster: But if we can regen 100% of ammo by popping a team restore, then your OP is moot!

 

Phil: A cooldown of sorts is a small offset, I agree. However some people will certainly prefer to use an ammo mod, or a mutation mod so that they don't have to have any cooldown at all.

 

My goal isn't to make the uber weapons useless; its to give the non-uber weapons an advantage in flexibility, which can be replicated by the uber weapons at the cost of a mod slot.

 

 

 

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Poster: But it sounds like you want to nerf gameplay to a crawl, phil!

 

Phil: My lack of detail in the OP, and drastic title have betrayed me.

 

As I have stated a few times in the thread, I only find about 10 or so weapons above the power curve for their tier. I think there are many more weapons which are below the power curve for their tier, and would get ammo buffs.

 

Yes, I do believe that for those weapons which are very powerful for their tier, a 'cooldown' of sorts is reasonable, unless the user wants to apply an ammo mod, which would bring their weapon closer to their tier's power.

 

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Poster: Phil, I normally enjoy/love your posts, but this one kinda/f$**$g stinks.

 

Phil: Restrictions and nerfs are always unpopular - I wouldn't 'enjoy' this idea either.

There are SOOO many other, better ways to make all weapons of a similar tier viable, which I'd prefer over this. Consider this a bandaid, or a hail mary.

 

However, the majority of the time, DE chooses to widely ignore those methods and we end up with everyone (who has access) using the same 10 weapons 90% of the time. Thus I am suggesting a simple method which can be applied pro-actively and retro-actively, and more importantly - get the convo going about weapon balance not just being DPS.

 

It's really a shame, and I honestly feel like the monotony and lack of choice is going to eventually bore you far more than simply having to think about ammo for 10 weapons.

 

One far better way is to build unique quirks into weapons, which DE has been doing somewhat. Phage, Stug and Castanas are all far above their power for their tier....but they come with very clever built in limitations which mitigate that pure power. I'd prefer that over this. However, that post is not going to get a conversation going.

 

 

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Poster: Well, the one thing I DO agree with is that ammo needs a rework in general and things like the Penta....

 

Phil: Yes, we're on the same page - ammo needs a rework in general. Twin Vipers(+)? Penta(-)? Supra(+)? Gorgon(+) Ogris(-) I'm looking @ you.

 

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Poster: So if you don't even 'like' this idea yourself, why post it?

 

Phil: Because this community, and DE need to have a conversation about weapon balance, and understand that balance is MORE than just the DPS and TTK of a weapon. It's the weapon's ease of use, it's flexibility, how often it can be brought to bear etc. The meta of balance are more interesting and more important to balance on than the hard DPS numbers.

 

If every weapon did the same DPS, the game would be even more monotonous than if we all used 10 weapons!

 

A handful of posters in this thread understand the point (and why I kept the thread intentionally vague), while many others have the knee jerk reaction that 'this idea is not fun'. So, this probably could have been done more successfully, but then, it's likely no one would have read it :)

 

 

 

Powerful weapons like the Soma, clantech like the Penta, Phage and Stug, and direct upgrade Primes like the Boltor and Latron dominate the entire landscape of Warframe by simply being better at killing than their competition.

 

The solution is not making all weapons equally good at killing. The obvious answer has been staring at us forever. Make weaker weapons 'easier' to use, and strong weapons harder. But how?

 

Nerf Ammo Capacity on Weapons [that are Above the Power Curve for their Tier]

 

Ammo capacity needs a major reduction on many high DPS or TTK weapons which are above the power curve for their tier*. And boost ammo cap for weapons below the power curve for their tier.

Some illustrative sample numbers: Boltor Prime, max ammo 180. Boltor, max ammo 700. Soma, max ammo 360, Supra 1000.*

 

*

Wha? Why would the Supra have more ammo than the Boltor?!?!

 

Weapons that are above the power curve for a particular tier would have less ammo, those below the power curve for that tier would have more ammo than usual. The Supra's already mitigating factors (reload, spinup, recoil, and high cost of obtaining) give it a low value for its tier, so it gets extra ammo to increase its flexibility of use.

 

Tier would loosely be defined as the combination of difficulty of obtaining (market? drop? prime? RNG detron/brakk farm?) and mastery rank.

 

Why does the Boltor Prime that I just farmed for (yes, i did) have such a tiny ammo cap!?!

 

Because it's a moderately easy to obtain weapon, with mastery 0, but it's the most powerful rifle in the game.

 

 

This change would allow ammo to be a mitigating balance factor, making those more powerful weapons require more skill or maintenance to use. A user could rely on accuracy, and not waste shots. Or, a user who wants more ease of use could equip ammo mods (which would now need a buff) which mitigates DPS as well.

 

An amended version of my quote from another thread:

 

Why? Because all power has a price.

Weapons above their tier power curve are for experts. And experts don't fire shots into the walls, or into dead enemies. If you can handle the 50% damage boost of a weapon, with corresponding ammo efficiency, you can handle learning how to aim.

Or mod your weapon for ammo capacity/mutation.
 

 

Ammo Needs an Overhaul

 

First, lets all acknowledge: ammo cap mods are nearly useless because current ammo pools and drop rates are too generous. If you're running out of ammo, you're doing something wrong.

 

High level content should drop LESS ammo than currently, low level the same.

 

If ammo pools were significantly reduced, we'd need to greatly increase max ammo cap mods, up to +200% at rank 6. This makes an ammo pool mod a viable option, compared to a mutator mod, or both in the cases of very low ammo cap weapons or high level missions.

 

*Note that no weapon would be reduced more than 200% of current, so a single ammo mod would bring it back to standard cap, or above.

 

Team Ammo restore also needs to restore a 20% of ammo cap per tick - thus it also scales with the cap of your weapon and how you've chosen to offset it.

 

Why Nerf Ammo Cap? Because it Makes Choice A Thing

 

Right now, there is literally no reason to not bring your highest DPS weapon into every situation. It's always the best choice.

 

With my proposed changes, weapon choice is meaningful. Weaker weapons in a tier now have a role; they are more flexible and dependable. Your Supra with the 1000 ammo cap is all-of-a-sudden is viable compared to the same-tier Soma with the 360 cap.

 

You now choose, do I want to melt faces and stop for ammo re-ups every once in a while (with the new 100% ammo restore), or do I want to mod for ammo? Or do I want to run through guns blazing, with slightly lower DPS but never have to stop?

Edited March 14, 2014 by notionphil

[bejuizb]

Prepare your Flame Repellant Phil.

 

I agree with you btw.

[AcholSucks]

pretty sure people will get mad about this :T i mean what happened to play for fun? i use burston in high levels for FUN 

[notionphil]

Prepare your Flame Repellant Phil.

 

I agree with you btw.

 

Flame Repellant probably needs a buff for this one :D

[Calayne]

I actually liked the two threads related to this that notion posted much earlier.

 

The problem, though, is that I believe this would be far more effective after they balance the damage and difficulty of the game. While this suggestion would go a long way in weapon variety, ultimately, I think that weapon balance must first be achieved; Somas almost never run out of ammo with 360 ammo cap anyways, until much, much later, where the firepower is more important than the ammo cap. 

 

The only way I see the weaker weapons with higher ammo capacity being used is for extended fire-fights in low level missions, where level, perhaps, won't scale up as Defence and Survival would. Mobile Defence, then, would be a prime mission to use it on, but nothing else. 

 

Granted ammo drops are now more scarce. But still, very few would trade off their damage for a higher ammo capacity. This suggestion, I feel, is contingent on the change in weapons/damage models to be truly enjoyable.

 

Good write-up, though.

[_Absolom_]

No. Get out.

[-HAKUNA-YOUR-TATAS-]

Boltor Prime 180 Ammo?  lol.

 

450, 400 even...  but 180?

 

So what is it like a shotgun now?

 

=/

 

P.S.  I usually carry about 100 medium ammo restores with me...  You wanna nerf those too?

Edited March 13, 2014 by sushidubya

[Hawk_of_the_Reborn]

Absolutely not. With weapons like the Soma, we'd run out of ammo in 10 seconds flat with it's incredible fire rate(worse if modded right) and thus render them wasteful and useless.

It's like me wanting the military to nerf the ammo capacity of this


How is it supposed to do what it's supposed to do with only a clip size of 30 instead of like 200 or something?


Also why 180 for Boltor PRIME and 700 for normal Boltor? Do you realize that Primes aren't that much better than their non-primed counterparts? I think you need to seriously rethink your proposal.

Edited March 13, 2014 by HawktheHeavy

[Mir.]

Oh yes I stand in full favor of OP's suggestion.

 

I can't concentrate whenever i notch an arrow from my Paris bow. The quiver kills my role playing experience, ninjas should not be wearing quivers. Hence, nerf Paris's ammo capacity, I need only 1 arrow to kill the horde of grinner rushing to me angrily.

[Hawk_of_the_Reborn]

Oh yes I stand in full favor of OP's suggestion.

 

I can't concentrate whenever i notch an arrow from my Paris bow. The quiver kills my role playing experience, ninjas should not be wearing quivers. Hence, nerf Paris's ammo capacity, I need only 1 arrow to kill the horde of grinner rushing to me angrily.

[notionphil]

I actually liked the two threads related to this that notion posted much earlier.

 

The problem, though, is that I believe this would be far more effective after they balance the damage and difficulty of the game. While this suggestion would go a long way in weapon variety, ultimately, I think that weapon balance must first be achieved; Somas almost never run out of ammo with 360 ammo cap anyways, until much, much later, where the firepower is more important than the ammo cap. 

 

The only way I see the weaker weapons with higher ammo capacity being used is for extended fire-fights in low level missions, where level, perhaps, won't scale up as Defence and Survival would. Mobile Defence, then, would be a prime mission to use it on, but nothing else. 

 

Granted ammo drops are now more scarce. But still, very few would trade off their damage for a higher ammo capacity. This suggestion, I feel, is contingent on the change in weapons/damage models to be truly enjoyable.

 

Good write-up, though.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Agreed, the actual weapon choice might not change specifically in the endless missions, but modding would now cause you to make a choice.

 

With % based team restore, having an additional 200% cap means the difference between running out of ammo after 2 clips or lasting through each round. Or you might go the mutation route. Or new ammo mods might come out for ammo regen, energy to ammo conversion etc.. 

 

Choices!

 

And here's the thread you referred to

 

balancing dual/prime/wraith/vandal weapons - All Power Has a Price.

[Varzy]

I see what you're saying, but this is putting the cart before the horse. Balance out weapons to have similar viability at higher levels first, then see the impact and changes needed for the ammo system.

 

Nerfing ammo like this before addressing deeper issues will just suck the fun out of the game. People shouldn't be punished for using powerful weapons in a teamwork based game.

[notionphil]

Boltor Prime 180 Ammo?  lol.

 

450, 400 even...  but 180?

 

So what is it like a shotgun now?

 

=/

 

P.S.  I usually carry about 100 medium ammo restores with me...  You wanna nerf those too?

 

Use restores, mutation or put a new +200% ammo cap mod on it. Your call.

 

Also, I want to buff restores, making them restore 100% of your capacity in 5 ticks.

Edited March 13, 2014 by notionphil

[5stareraser]

New stupid idea. Shut up. Play more. Bye.

[Guest khk6]

I like this idea, but only after melee 2.0 is released.

[notionphil]

 People shouldn't be punished for using powerful weapons in a teamwork based game.

 

Should they be punished for using 'weak' weapons?

 

Then why do they exist? This proposal creates a tradeoff. Trade strength for reliability. Or, add one mod for ammo.

[Boondorl]

I agree with this, not because it's an actual solution to the balance issues, but the band-aid fix we need until DE can completely overhaul the balance in this game. At this point, DE's gonna need to spend a lot of time balancing since they've neglected it for so long. This game's balancing issues could be worthy of a whole update (the last one already was, Damage 2.0).

[LukeAura]

pretty sure people will get mad about this :T i mean what happened to play for fun? i use burston in high levels for FUN 

The min/maxers arrived. And found Warframe to be a very min/maxy place. 

Though a weapon of the Burston's caliber would probably have a more lenient ammo pool.

Something needs to be done about high dps weaponry being king. 

The idea could still use a little fleshing out, you'd have to compare the appropriate damage increase to mod energy requirements of a damage mod to the new capacity mods effective damage increase, and is rather contingent on balance passes first(Most non damage mods don't at all compare to damage mods, not just ammo capacity. Not to mention balancing every weapon would be a pain atm, totally doable though), but I've only got twenty dollars in my pocket.

Whoops, wrong Macklemore quote. Damn right I support it!  

 

[Wiegraf]

Only thing I can agree with is that I don't see why each weapon doesn't have a unique ammo pool size depending on its type, firerate and damage overall.

 

Weapons with high ammo count and low damage should logically have higher ammo pools than weapons that deal a lot of damage in a single shot. And I do mean unique ammo pools, not just "rifle", "shotgun" and such; they would still need the appropriate pickups to restore ammo (a rifle type would gain ammo from rifle pickups).

 

We know it's doable since one weapon that was bugged on release (then later patched) having the rifle ammo pool while being a shotgun (or was it the other way around?) yet still using the appropriate mods for the weapon. So really, why doesn't the Gorgon have 700-800 total ammo while a weapon like the Karak have around 400-500? Or the Ogris having 50 shots instead of 500? Or the vectis have 40 shots while the semi-auto ones have the current 70?

Edited March 13, 2014 by Wiegraf

[Riccoshot]

aka balancing weapons to really obvious stats that every experienced player know but not DE

 

Weapons need more individual values. Example? Wraith Twin Vipers. Can i kill with them? Yes. How long can i kill with them before i run out of ammo? A single room of mobs. Not even Carrier sucking all the ammo, not even Ammo Mutation, not even extra ammo from Desecrate helps.

On the other side we have extremely efficient weapons like Detron, Marelok, Stug that barely need an Ammo Mutation.

 

Ogris/Penta... who on Earth really thing that they're need 540 total ammo, like seriously.

 

It's not about nerfing, it's about balancing things to the level where it makes sense at least, and most weapons can perform closer to each other.

 

All you "hurrdurrilikepressXtowintheideaisstupid"-guys are funny btw. 

Edited March 13, 2014 by Riccoshot

[notionphil]

It's like me wanting the military to nerf the ammo capacity of this

 

 

But that weapon is already balanced :)

 

-It's slow to bring to bear, so it can't be used in close quarters - you will be shot first

-it's loud as all heck, bringing enemy down on you from wherever

-its accuracy is low because of recoil, unless mounted or kneeling

-it's heavy, meaning your movement speed is reduced when wielding

 

However, in Warframe, that gun would operate like a pistol, except fire 200 .50 cal bullets a second.

[Varzy]

Should they be punished for using 'weak' weapons?

 

Then why do they exist? This proposal creates a tradeoff. Trade strength for reliability. Or, add one mod for ammo.

Reward people for playing 'weak' weapons. Buff that ammo, by all means. But there's no real justification for nerfing strong weapons, at least not with the severity you suggest.

 

(edit) For reference I agree ammo needs a rework and think the flat values of Rifle:550;Shotgun:120, etc, makes for a very imbalanced gameplay.

 

But cutting a strong but hard to get weapon like Boltor Prime's ammo to 180 and telling us to bandaid it with mods is not encouraging skilled use, it's punishing people for using the weapon.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Varzy

[Llyssa]

Er, hate to break it to you, but it wouldn't make "choice a thing". It would mean people would bring the most efficient weapon they own every time, then. So it might change what weapons people rely on, but it wouldn't change the "I'm picking one and sticking with it."

 

That, and team ammo restores are kinda cheap, so this would end up being somewhat irrelevant.

 

The one interesting thought on this, though, is that melee weapons, by default, become the most desirable, as they don't consume ammo at all.

 

I'm not sure how it would affect their damage, if at all, but they're always going to be the most efficient with ammo capacity being irrelevant.

[LukeAura]

Reward people for playing 'weak' weapons. Buff that ammo, by all means. But there's no real justification for nerfing strong weapons, at least not with the severity you suggest.

Well you can give weak weapons infinite ammo but if I'm never in danger of running out of ammo with my Strong Weapons then is the ammo I gave to the weak weapon any balancing factor? 

 

[(PSN)ShinKagemusha]

I still don't get where you're trying to go with this...

 

You think nerfing ammo count will make people use high damage weapons less?  Really?  I mean really?

 

Because a regular braton can totally dominate Lvl 30+ guys, you just need to try it out?  /s.  Really?

 

All this will do is inconvenience players.  I would be VERY surprised if actual use dropped.  And Llyssa ninja'd me.  Tenno skoom.