Nerf Ammo Capacity

[Axterix13]

I agree that ammo is often a trivial right now.  At the start, I'd change to my secondary at times for ammo reasons.  Now, not so much.  That said, the proposed changes seem... ill thought out.

 

Take the Soma for example.  Good weapon, and one that does chew up ammo faster already.  It just often isn't evident because of current damage scaling thanks to the mod system.  That mod system means Soma becomes perfectly ammo efficient, since it'll rapidly kill most content with ease.  Don't allow damage to be multiplied as much though and suddenly Soma will have ammo problems.  Fixing the damage scaling will also allow for weapons to have a higher base damage (good for newbies, non-catalysted weapons) and help combat the idea that "endless" modes are what the game should be balanced around, since going endless will that be much harder.  It is the damage scaling from mods that breaks the Soma, not its ammo capacity.

 

Furthermore, the Soma is a Mastery 6 weapon, which is about as high as they go currently, and therefore should be one of the best weapons in the game.  This is another thing that needs to be fixed.  Mastery needs to be applied consistently and in a meaningful way, or else scrapped entirely.  But as it stands, higher mastery should translate to higher power.

 

So, short version: there's underlying balance issues that need fixing before anything like this should be considered.

[oololz]

If that were true, you'd see a lot more Twin Vipers Wraith around because it has higher DPS than many secondary guns (not shotties/or stugs).

 

However, ppl don't overuse it like the Soma/Penta because it has a built in flexibility restriction - lack of ammo cap.

 

That's it, there are a lot of options for good damage with better ammo efficient. Take Marelok/Tysis(referred as 'it') as an example. It kills in less shots but recover the same amount per pickup. Picking up 20 ammo for it is way better than for the Vipers. It can sustain high DPS without burning away the whole ammo reserve.

[Nkomo-Sama]

I will say this... I am irreversibly against the nerfing of anything if it makes the game easier in any way shape or form. This idea does not fall into that category. Sooo there is that going for you. That being said once melee 2.0 is released I feel ammo consumption will be an after thought for me at least.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Nkomo-Sama

[GrosslyIncandescent1709]

bump because this is important

[Thrymm]

Honestly, this is a game about shooting things.  For the fun of the game, I come in and shoot things.  It is the centerpiece to everything in the game.  We mod to shoot things.  We get weapons to shoot things.  We shoot things so that they drop ammo so that we can shoot things.

 

No, I'm not interested in going into battle with a mere three clips.  It doesn't even make sense.  When I leave a survival or defense I want it to be because things are getting too hairy, not because I'm just plain out of ammo because my battle hardened Tenno with over a hundred thousand kills decided to get cocky and not even bring ammo.

 

I'm all for balance, but kindly stay away from my ammo.

[notionphil]

Honestly, this is a game about shooting things. For the fun of the game, I come in and shoot things. It is the centerpiece to everything in the game. We mod to shoot things. We get weapons to shoot things. We shoot things so that they drop ammo so that we can shoot things.

No, I'm not interested in going into battle with a mere three clips. It doesn't even make sense. When I leave a survival or defense I want it to be because things are getting too hairy, not because I'm just plain out of ammo because my battle hardened Tenno with over a hundred thousand kills decided to get cocky and not even bring ammo.

I'm all for balance, but kindly stay away from my ammo.

How would you feel about a weapon that had 50k DPS (say, 15k per shot) but only 3 clips of 20 bullets?

Like a 'last resort' gun? That is an extreme example of what I'm proposing. As a gun goes farther outside of that power curve, it gets offset by other factors. Ammo is just one example.

Currently if DE made such a gun (with standard ammo) you would ONLY see that gun, bc the only balance factors are dps and TTk. I am suggesting we add another balance factor. So that you choose between huge dps and less flexibility, or a more balance weapon.

You say you are all for balance, what does that mean? That you want every gun to have the same DPS? Well geez that is boring. Have some vanilla with that vanilla.

I propose instead some weapons can be hugely powerful, but get offset in other ways. If you want to use them you deal with the offset via mods or playstyle or gear (ammo restore).

Edited March 15, 2014 by notionphil

[Thrymm]

How would you feel about a weapon that had 50k DPS (say, 15k per shot) but only 3 clips of 20 bullets?

Like a 'last resort' gun? That is an extreme example of what I'm proposing. As a gun goes farther outside of that power curve, it gets offset by other factors. Ammo is just one example.

Currently if DE made such a gun (with standard ammo) you would ONLY see that gun, bc the only balance factors are dps and TTk. I am suggesting we add another balance factor. So that you choose between huge dps and less flexibility, or a more balance weapon.

You say you are all for balance, what does that mean? That you want every gun to have the same DPS? Well geez that is boring. Have some vanilla with that vanilla.

I propose instead some weapons can be hugely powerful, but get offset in other ways. If you want to use them you deal with the offset via mods or playstyle or gear (ammo restore).

There are a huge number of factors in what goes into balance.

 

If a weapon does 15k per shot and fires one shot per second, but comes with 60 rounds, why not have it just come with 75, call it a sniper rifle, and...it'll be one?  They have those in the game already.

 

If you're suggesting that a weapon with the rate of fire, accuracy, and effective range of an assault rifle come with that package...frankly, I'm not interested.  There would be more wasted rounds than used.

 

Which brings up a bit of the point with plenty of the weaponry.  My Boltor(according to my statistics, my most used weapon) is sitting at a snipertastic 35% accuracy.  Its replacement, the Boltor Prime, is sitting at 30%.

 

In other words, I already only use 180 of the bullets I get.  If I only got 180, I'd only get to use the 60 in your extreme example.

 

This thing seems to be a bit extreme for me.  I actually have all of the assault rifles and LMG's, and average around 50% accuracy with them.  Even there it means I'm only utilizing half the ammo I start with.

 

 

There are hundreds of ways to install balance via DPS, and there are a ton of variables in the game beyond that point.  My Boltor, as I pointed out, is using one shot in three towards the kill.  If the thing is even pushing 15k dps I'm apparently only using 5k of it in the first place(less, I'm rounding).  My Grinlok has a 74% accuracy(and to be fair, I tested Heavy Caliber with it so it's probably higher).  I'm using three out of four bullets, so 3/4 of the DPS.

 

Even if the two guns had exactly the same DPS, their play would be completely different.  One is a semi-auto with a lower rate of fire, a higher accuracy, hitscan, and a recoil.  The other has a high rate of fire, falloff at range(the projectile, not damage) and modestly lower accuracy, and little to no recoil.  One has a drastically higher ammo accuracy than the other.

 

Are they balanced right now?  Of course not, but making a person run out of ammo with the Boltor Prime and use their high ammo efficiency secondary wouldn't make them that way---balancing weapons by forcing the use of different weapons isn't an answer.  Making the Grinlok do as much DPS as the Boltor Prime, on the other hand, would pretty much do exactly that.  At current I can not only fire 13.0 rounds in the time of 2.2 with the Grinlok, but they do as much or more per shot.  A logical balance would be that I land many low damage rounds comparative to the drastically higher damage per round from the semi-auto.  In this instance, I see no reason the semi-autos and sniper rifles shouldn't do drastically more damage than they do, per round.

 

A drastic decrease in ammo capacity creates the "vanilla with some vanilla" scenario.  The logical choice to carry with my Boltor Prime would be a Marelok or something along those lines because, quite simply, I'd have to carry a long duration, large damage per shot secondary to offset the fact that for some unfathomable reason balancing my primary means not using it.  Or, I'd have to switch to an ultra high ammo efficiency primary.

 

Everyone would use the same because we'd all carry an ultra high DPS crowd clearer and a fallback that lasts long enough to reacquire ammo for it.  There really wouldn't be any other logical way to approach the missions. 

 

I do follow the concept.  If a person where allowed to carry, say, 500,000 damage worth of ammunition it would certainly give some level of balance and on some weapons it'd be thousands of rounds, others only several dozen.  I'm just saying that it wouldn't be fun and wouldn't create variety. 

 

An actual DPS balancing would go much farther because if, in the example I use above, the Grinlok actually delivered the same killing potential as the Boltor Prime I could decide between the two weapons based upon playstyle preference.  Right now, that isn't the case and even if the Boltor only carried 180 rounds it would continue to not be the case.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Thrymm