Unlimited Ammo Outside The Mag

[DeadlyNerd]

With so many 1shot weapons, low damage high rof automatics get left behind, due to limited ammo, more and more. Why should I use a grakata, when boltor prime can get the job done with 10x fewer bullets spent. 

Eliminating the ammo limitation can let developers focus on balancing more through rof and magazine size, than strictly damage. I'd actually consider putting a magazine warp on, say, ignis, if I wasn't concerned with ammo. Magazine size is what dictates weapon's sustained dps, and it's been barely utilized as a balancing factor because ammo limitation keeps it a very temporary advantage.

 

Aside from the weapon potential/balance point of view, it's really a fun killer. Shooting with a gorgon is fun. Running out of bullets to reload, within half a minute, while doing so, is not.

 

 

[Archistopheles]

Ammo drum should be twice as expensive, and grant unlimited ammo at max rank.

[vasRayya]

Oh no now I will have to use my melee weapon

[Krotalon]

Dex Furis are probably the worst case in terms of ammo efficiency. ):

[Detheroc]

Dex Furis are probably the worst case in terms of ammo efficiency. ):

No its not.. Grakata does less dmg per bullet. And no, the argument that rifles have a bigger ammo pool than pistols doesnt count.

[Bobsplosion]

Dex Furis are probably the worst case in terms of ammo efficiency. ):

Worse than Wraith Twin Vipers?

[DeadlyNerd]

Oh no now I will have to use my melee weapon

To my knowledge, and probably also the knowledge of the St. Gaben, giving players a choice between play styles, that are all equally awesome, is key to having a fun game.

Now I ask you, would you consider it fun(or equally tolerable) if you were forced to dig with your hands after your shovel broke?

[Archistopheles]

Worse than Wraith Twin Vipers?

 

14 dmg vs 15 dmg

 

IIRC

[Bobsplosion]

14 dmg vs 15 dmg

 

IIRC

RoF?

[Archistopheles]

RoF?

 

Weapon Ammo economy directly reflects damage per bullet. Rate of fire is almost never an issue since it will still take X many bullets to kill something.

 

If you want to "drain the lizard" as it were, then you would also factor in rate of fire, reload, and total ammo.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Archistopheles

[SableSonata]

I don't know about infinite, but weapons should have individual ammo counts, which can be used for balance. For instance, weapons like the Soma can be balanced by having (relatively) low ammo compared to a weaker primary that is more ammo-efficient. Now the overpowered weapon needs something like rifle ammo mutation that a less powerful weapon can take a damage mod instead.

 

Never really made sense to me that the Penta and Ogris use the rifle ammo pool. They should be high-power, low ammo weapons.

 

 

And with individual ammo counts on weapons, you can consolidate ammo into one drop, and each drop is worth x% of the weapon's total ammo, rather than a fixed amount.

[Marthrym]

I don't know about infinite, but weapons should have individual ammo counts, which can be used for balance. For instance, weapons like the Soma can be balanced by having (relatively) low ammo compared to a weaker primary that is more ammo-efficient. Now the overpowered weapon needs something like rifle ammo mutation that a less powerful weapon can take a damage mod instead.

Seriously? The Soma is one of the most ammo inefficient weapons already, and you want to make it worse? Soma hater much?^^'

Less ammo for ammo-eaters and more ammo for ammo-efficient weapons is you solution? The Soma is only good because it has big crit damage (and still falls hard past a certain level damage-wise), and is already quite limited because it can't keep up with other weapons for the simple reason that it eats ammo very fast. That's not a good way to balance anything. Instead of nerfing "good" guns, buff the "bad" ones.

[Tali]

Ammo drum should be twice as expensive, and grant unlimited ammo at max rank.

ya :3 or make it regenerate ammo

Edited March 29, 2014 by Aeon66

[SableSonata]

Seriously? The Soma is one of the most ammo inefficient weapons already, and you want to make it worse? Soma hater much?^^'

Less ammo for ammo-eaters and more ammo for ammo-efficient weapons is you solution? The Soma is only good because it has big crit damage (and still falls hard past a certain level damage-wise), and is already quite limited because it can't keep up with other weapons for the simple reason that it eats ammo very fast. That's not a good way to balance anything. Instead of nerfing "good" guns, buff the "bad" ones.

I did say relative to weaker weapons. I didn't say anything about nerfing it. I was just saying that being an ammo-eater is one of its few drawbacks, and giving it infinite ammo would be dumb. 

 

A better example probably would have been the Viper. It does 14 damage, and has a magazine of 14. But it's still restricted to 210 extra ammo like all pistols. 2940 damage. Compare that to something like the Vasto, which does 49 damage per shot and a magazine of 6, but still has 210 extra ammo. 10290 damage. And yet the Vasto is more accurate, more powerful, has a higher DPS, etc. I'm not saying nerf the Vasto, but weapons that are essentially bullet hoses are largely useless because they burn through ammo much faster, but don't actually see any benefits over a more damaging weapon. 

 

Compared to other low-damage weapons though, the Soma would not need an increase, due to its huge crit chance/multiplier. 

[Gaslightingway]

How about "this idea is completely $&*&*#(%&" instead of exploring options to make it work? This kills the need for ammo conservation and making sure you have enough ammo to last a mission. I have NEVER had a problem with the lack of ammo outside of an extended defense/survival mission with a loadout that is purposely over the top with fire rate. If you just waste ammo to waste ammo, guess what, you are wasting a finite resource. That is in pretty much every single game in existence.

[Revel72]

Ammo drum should be twice as expensive, and grant unlimited ammo at max rank.

 

It could be fun but just no please... I couldn't stand the sight of seeing people running around Somas on their hands again.

[Frostmire]

It's just stupid how they make hard hitting guns have equal or more ammo than low damage fast firing gun , i guess DE are too lazy to take max ammo into consideration when it comes to weapon balance

[Basilisk1991]

I will agree that some of the weapons have a ridiculously low ammo count even with a fully maxed out Ammo Drum mod attached, with some weapons it's justified IMO. For example Bows top of at just under 100 arrows BUT those all have the potential for MULTIPLE kills each so if you're taking time to line up your shots they're really efficent in terms of ammo. The problem comes up with a lot of the SMG type weapons which have large clips BUT do very low damage per shot so they end up being really inefficent, I wouldn't mind seeing them get a bigger reserve pool to compensate. Also the Penta gets like 200 grenades with a topped off Ammo Drum mod, like that's fair.

[Grayle]

The Ogris get 545 rockets right off the bat. It's pretty craycray.

[DoomFruit]

I will agree that some of the weapons have a ridiculously low ammo count even with a fully maxed out Ammo Drum mod attached, with some weapons it's justified IMO. For example Bows top of at just under 100 arrows BUT those all have the potential for MULTIPLE kills each so if you're taking time to line up your shots they're really efficent in terms of ammo. The problem comes up with a lot of the SMG type weapons which have large clips BUT do very low damage per shot so they end up being really inefficent, I wouldn't mind seeing them get a bigger reserve pool to compensate. Also the Penta gets like 200 grenades with a topped off Ammo Drum mod, like that's fair.

Not just a bigger reserve pool, they need to get more ammo per pickup.

[notionphil]

Aside from the weapon potential/balance point of view,

 

Yea, but we can't really ignore that point of view.

 

How about instead, ammo capacity is used more flexibly as a balance factor?

 

A lower DPS grakata could probably stand to have more ammo than a higher DPS boltor prime.

 

That's your point right? So wouldn't it make sense to just give specific guns more, instead of giving all guns unlimited ammo?

[[DE]Momaw]

In the case of Soma and Grakata, you can't look at their incredibly low listed damage as their actual damage. These weapons benefit enormously from critical hits and achieve a higher rate of crits than any other automatic. 10 damage per bullet is terrible, but a 70% chance that any given bullet will do 45 damage instead is pretty significant. Especially when critical hits to the head benefit so much.

[genclaymore]

Not really a problem if you happen to have the mods for shotgun,pistol etc which convert unused ammo into the type that the weapon your holding uses. You could try to get one from a trade, but I doubt any one will trade off theirs.

[Methanoid]

in your example you would use the grakata over a boltor prime because the grakata is easily accessible and the boltor prime is not, once you have your boltor prime then ofc you would switch.