Idea: Make Ammo Pickups Give A % Of The Current Magazine Size Based On The Weapon Being Used

[Unknown924]

The problem:

One issue Warframe has right now is low damage, high ROF weapons versus high damage, slow ROF. Specifically, the slower weapons have a large advantage with the current system. One ammo pickup can give the slower weapons multiple kills while only giving high speed weapons a single kill or less.

Adjusting maximum ammo would not have a large impact since the rate of ammo recovery is the same. Hopefully this idea provides a balanced solution.

The idea:

Give each weapon a % ammo recovery stat. Each ammo pickup will restore that % of the current magazine size. Slower ROF weapons can have a much higher % since they tend to have smaller magazines.

Examples:

Lex - 400% ammo pickup: The Lex gets four reloads for every ammo pickup

Gorgon: 50% ammo pickup: The Gorgon gets half a magazine for every ammo pickup.

This also has the side effect of making magazine size mods much more valuable since they now increase ammo pickup.

Any thoughts or problems with the idea?

Edited May 16, 2013 by Unknown924

[Tabtree]

I think this would be a great idea! Currently the reason why i hate playing rifles is that i run outa ammo too much and i have to wait till higher levels to equip my  serration and hellfire before the damage per bullet offsets the amount of ammo i can pickup

[BearlyKoalified]

"This also has the side effect of making magazine size mods much more valuable since they now increase ammo pickup."

 

Mods don't increase ammo pickup only Magazine Size and Max Ammo, Artifacts do. Also, 400% (even as an example) is a lot.

 

Just get Maximum Ammo and Magazine Capacity maxed or near maxed out and you should be fine, and having the ammo pickups as they are now are more 'realistic' and more atuned to a space ninja. Basically with your idea the two mods I previously mentioned would be a waste since you could just run around and get all your ammo back in just a few kills.

 

And you do have a secondary weapon and melee weapon, so you if you're running out of ammo too quickly you should think about switching weapons more often.

[Pizzapie]

I agree with this. 20 Lex bullets can do a lot more damage than 20 Twin Viper bullets. Also make scavenger artifacts increase percentage of ammo dropped instead of making it drop more maybe?

[Lumireaver]

-snip-

 

You just used "realistic" and "space ninja" in the same sentence. I hope you're not serious.

 

I agree, but rather than give the Lex four clips per drop, it ammo boxes should only give it one bullet. That ought to be enough to kill three Grineer, or one Jackal, by my measure.

[BadAimbot]

I dunno. Ammo efficiency is a balancing factor right now; this could render the super ammo efficient weapons kinda useless (although at higher end content I suppose this is already the case). I get that being able to use your favorite weapon more is a good thing, but rebalancing would have to occur, and ideally everything could be balanced around this, but having another differentiation between weapons adds more variety to the game.

[Dipstick]

I Like the idea but i think that you are looking at it wrong.

 

The ammo pick up should be based on the mag size some what, but for the most part the max ammo pools are silly.

 

The Latron gets 500? the Lex gets 210? the grakata and the vipers get that same pool? Thats silly.

 

The latron should get somewhere around 150 IMO and the lex about half that (it is a side arm). 

 

Same goes with Shotguns. The hek and the strun have the same amount of ammo as the boar?? How does that make sense.

 

Idk if they just want us to spend more money on ammo boxes or what.

[Unknown924]

"This also has the side effect of making magazine size mods much more valuable since they now increase ammo pickup."

Mods don't increase ammo pickup only Magazine Size and Max Ammo, Artifacts do. Also, 400% (even as an example) is a lot.

Just get Maximum Ammo and Magazine Capacity maxed or near maxed out and you should be fine, and having the ammo pickups as they are now are more 'realistic' and more atuned to a space ninja. Basically with your idea the two mods I previously mentioned would be a waste since you could just run around and get all your ammo back in just a few kills.

And you do have a secondary weapon and melee weapon, so you if you're running out of ammo too quickly you should think about switching weapons more often.

With this idea the magazine capacity mod would increase ammo pickup since it would be a % of the current magazine.

Also, the Lex already gets over 300% of its base magazine size back from ammo pickups(6 base, 20 per pickup). 400% pickup was a bit much perhaps but I didn't want people complaining about the Lex getting less ammo.

Also, in the case of the Lex you can get all your ammo used back in a few kills. That is true for just about all slow firing, high damage weapons. The purpose of this idea was to give high ROF weapons the ability to compete with weapons like the Lex. You can go through an entire level only using a weapon like the Lex while with Gorgon you would eventually run into ammo problems in large fights.

Example situation:

Gun A fires once a second for 20 damage.

Gun B fires four times a second for 5 damage.

Each gun get 10 ammo from a pickup.

Gun A is the clear winner because it goes through less ammo than gun B for the same damage. If gun B got four times the ammo from a pickup then they would be even.

Lets look at some base weapon stats from the game.

Lex: Damage:70, ROF: 1.1, Magazine: 6

Viper: Damage:16, ROF: 14.4, Magazine: 14

With a base pistol ammo pickup of 20, the Lex gets 1400 damage, while the Viper has 280. Given this difference in damage, I see no reason to use the Viper when the Lex will out sustain it in every situation.

Sure the Viper fires almost 14 times as fast, but that just means needing more ammo 14 times sooner. Magazine and Max ammo mods would not impact the sustainability in a single fight since unless the Viper has 14 times the ammo of the Lex(It doesn't), it will always run out faster and do less damage. Sure you can hold more, but since the rate you get ammo is the same you will always run out much faster and do less damage with the Viper than the Lex. Ammo artifacts apply to both weapons equally leaving the Lex still the best choice for sustainability.

[Eldorian]

Amount of ammo per pick up should be dependent on the weapon, with a function of rate of fire and magazine size.  Something like

 

(magazine size + 3*fire rate)/2.

 

Alternatively, the ammo pick ups could be a function of damage, accuracy, and recoil, tho I don't have good numbers on that, so I can't speculate, other than k*recoil/damage/accuracy. for some constant k.

 

Currently, the game is biased towards the higher damage end of the spectrum because of ammo conservation.  It's almost impossible to run out of ammo with a latron, kraken, bronco or lex, but the gorgon, braton, and godforbid afuris and twin vipers can blow thru ammo.

[Zectifin]

I also think they need to change the extra ammo. The lex does not need 210 extra. In contrast the afuris needs a boost.

[Gearb0x]

This thread seems to be rehashing the ideas laid out in my own ammo issues thread (https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/37885-the-ammunition-system-needs-work-as-of-7105-and-before/).

 

While I was going to come in here and point out that a raw magazine based system would simply change the best weapons from the Lex to the Afuris, due to the later's large magazine, the idea put forth is a variation on the solution hammered out in the other thread.

 

Fiat. Gun A gets X bullets.  Gun B gets Y.  How X and Y are determined is formulaic.  Impacted by Mods, Artifacts, Magazine size and other sundry, but based primarily on a weapon reliant constant.  A Lex gets a base of 12 bullets per pickup, or 24, or 18, or 3, because the devs say so.

 

Ammunition reserve may also be worth revisiting on a weapon by weapon basis.

 

Thank you, Unknown924 for bringing this problem up independently.  Hopefully this issue will be addressed by the Devs soon.  Either in update 8 (possible, but unlikely) or in a weekly Hot topics list (likely if we keep the conversation going) or in a livestream (which depends on the whims of the Lotus).